Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

A Favorite Movie and Newly Favorite Author

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This is what I saw when I let Scout out this morning:

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Five crows hanging out in our dead tree. At first, I thought they might be turkey vultures because I saw one up in the tree the other day. But their noisy calls soon told me they were crows.

We watched It Happened One Night yesterday. It has to be one of my favorite movies ever. It makes me happy. It’s funny and sad and wise and happy and it’s directed by the great Frank Capra, with a cast of wonderful character actors and, of course, Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable (in what I personally think is his best performance ever.) It was the perfect way to end a bit of a tough day. Thank goodness for TCM On Demand. We almost went with Roman Holiday, which was airing live on TCM, but I own that movie and we knew we could see it anytime.

Have you seen It Happened One Night? I have so many favorite scenes, but the scene on the bus with everyone singing “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze” has to be one of them, along with every scene taking place in an ‘Auto Park,’ little groups of cottages where you could spend the night as you journeyed across America in your car. Don and I watch the scene inside the little cottage as the rain falls outside and wish we were back in that time, when traveling in a car was new and exciting and full of adventure.

(I just took a break from writing this because Don got up and we immediately started talking about how much we love that movie.)

In the past week or so, we’ve watched three of our favorite movies: Ball of Fire, His Girl Friday and It Happened One Night. I could watch them again and again.

saturday-morning glory bud

I also just finished a beautifully written mystery by a new author – Invisible City by Julia Dahl. Brilliant! It centers on a reporter who investigates a murder in the enclave in Brooklyn that is home to the Orthodox community of Hasidic Jews. Absolutely riveting, fascinating and so well plotted. I can’t decide whether to officially review it on the book blog or just talk about it. But I will say that I recommend it highly. An absolutely stellar debut novel and the first in what will be a series about reporter Rebekah Roberts. (Yay!) I am not exaggerating one bit when I say I couldn’t put it down.

Now I’m starting The Marco Effect by Jussi Adler-Olsen. I read four of his mysteries in succession earlier this year. He’s a wonderful writer. I’ll write about Adler-Olsen and his books in an upcoming post on Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Happy Saturday.

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Winged Critters

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Pictures today.

Scout’s under the weather, I’m tired (just 3 more days of antibiotics,) it’s cloudy and sort of rainy outside. Not rainy enough, however – we really need a couple of days of non-stop rain.

I’m going to retreat and read today. I need to lose myself in the pages of a book.

thurs - frittilary

A Great Spangled Frittilary. She was moving rather quickly, so this is the only shot I have.

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Hummingbird Moth in action. Those wings move awfully fast.

beetle on butterfly bush

Ah. The dreaded beetle. On my butterfly bush.

The fact is that Scout is hanging in there, but declining, and it’s hard for me to watch and I get very worried. I don’t talk about it very much because she is so deeply embedded in my heart that I simply can’t. I can’t go there. I have to take her with me to Hartford in September and that also worries me.

Send some healing prayers our way, okay?

(New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.)

Happy Friday.

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On a Frightening World

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I’m thinking out loud here.

I don’t know about you, but I find the world rather frightening at the moment.

Ferguson. I have strong feelings about what happened there. I’m not going to share those feelings with you because, no matter what I feel, I still don’t know the whole story. None of us do.

That being said, I am appalled at the level of vitriol about the tragedy that took place there that I see on social media. Once again, some people seem to think hate-filled public discourse is the only path to take. And that anyone who disagrees with them must be called names, labeled a traitor, and dealt with accordingly.

Will we never learn?

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ISIS. I am heartsick at their slaughter of innocents, of anyone with different beliefs than theirs. I am horrified at what this group, a more dangerous entity than Al Quaeda, is carrying out in Syria and Iraq.

And now the latest, the horrific beheading of an American journalist. That act certainly brings this battle home, doesn’t it?

I am a pacifist. I am anti-war.

But I find myself saying, “Kill them. Kill them all.” That in itself is shocking to me. But maybe not so shocking, because that reaction is a visceral one, from my core. It’s some sort of primal thing. There can be no reasoning with this group. They are murderous zealots.

But am I then as bad as them?

Oh, I have so much more I could say. About innocent children being shipped back to countries where they will most certainly be in danger and may lose their lives. And, in fact, have. About the conflict in Israel and Gaza that never seems to end, where more innocent lives have been lost and where images of injured and dead children cannot be erased from my memory.

And on and on it goes.

Whatever one’s political leanings, I think we can agree that the loss of innocent lives is a tragedy that should never be labeled as something that is a regretful, but, unfortunately sometimes necessary, by-product of war. I’ve heard it described that way – very recently, in fact.

The wars and murders that have been perpetrated under the guise of ‘religion’ are legion. And it never seems to stop.

I have no answers but I do know this: We cannot lose our fundamental sense of humanity.

And I absolutely know that God, a Higher Power, Allah, Divine Intelligence, whatever name you prefer, is not the creator and/or cheerleader for any of this.

No, indeed.

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Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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