Our petunias are still hanging on, amazingly, after blooming all summer. But they're looking a bit spindly and as the temperatures drop, their days are numbered.
Speaking of low temperatures, I can now cross defrosting the freezer off my to-do list. Woo hoo! It's really a terrible job, messy and tedious, and I'm so glad to have it finished. Yesterday morning I stacked the freezer drawers on the counter, one on top of the other to keep the contents as cold as possible, and I put a towel at the base of the freezer unit. I turned off the freezer, opened the door and put pans of warm water on the glacial shelves inside.
And I waited, and waited, and waited, occasionally replacing the pans or picking out chunks of fallen ice, and mopping meltwater from the freezer's interior. It took about three hours before every morsel melted, and now I can pull our freezer drawers in and out quietly and with ease.
I also mowed the lawn. (I know I've shown you this picture a million times but I'm always so proud of how good the lawn looks after I mow!) You can see my poor pathetic dahlias in the pots. Some of them I've already cut back for the year to contain the powdery mildew. In another couple of weeks I'll cut the rest down to the ground and put them all in the shed, and that will be that until next April or May. I'm ready for this dismal dahlia season to be over.
We're already starting to see some autumn color -- in this case on our orange azalea, which unlike many azaleas is deciduous.
I spent the afternoon finishing "The Trip to Echo Springs: On writers and drinking," an excellent book by Olivia Laing. She discusses the careers of six famous writers -- John Cheever, Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver and John Berryman -- and the role that alcoholism played in their writing and their lives. Meanwhile she travels across the USA and visits the former homes and haunts of many of them, from Cheever's New York to Williams's Key West and Carver's Pacific Northwest. (It's interesting that the writers she chose are all white men -- she could just as easily have thrown Dorothy Parker or Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings into the mix, to name two alcoholic women writers off the top of my head. Or James Baldwin, for a person of color.)
Having finished that cautionary tale, I turned right around and made a martini, and Dave and I watched the original "Pink Panther" movie from 1963, as a sort of tribute to the late Claudia Cardinale, who died last week. She plays the princess who owns the fabulous panther diamond. It was hardly her most noteworthy screen role but I didn't feel quite up to tackling a Fellini movie.
Ah, Claudia. One of the last remaining true Golden Era divas. Six years older than my Mum, and just as beautiful.
ReplyDeleteWhen you listed the names of the famous writers in the book my first thought was "they're all white men", then I read your next few sentences. Of course I knew that Williams, Hemingway and Fitzgerald were alcoholics, but am not as familiar with the other three names. Isn't Hemingway THE archetypical alcoholic writer and white man? I've never liked him, to be honest.
Meike, who didn't/don't you like? Hemingway, the person? Hemingway, the writer? As to the latter: He is held up to both journalists and aspiring writers as the epitome of clarity. I could read Hemingway all day. Not because I am interested in, say, "Death in the Afternoon" (bullfighting). I am not. But boy oh boy could he chisel a phrase and keep it simple whilst evocative at the same time.
DeleteOther than that? I can't help smiling every time I remember his "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter, and bleed."
U
Do you leave the dahlias in their pots to overwinter in the shed?
ReplyDeleteCodex: I didn't know parker was an alcoholic. Loved her style and wit. Wasn't she a member of the bloomsbury circle?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like an interesting book except that the older I get the less I like Hemingway.
At least one drama is done
Got interrupted. As a librarian what are your thoughts on the western Canon?
ReplyDeleteWell done for successfully defrosting the freezer. It makes me pretty glad that our freezer is self-defrosting. Why don't you use your hairdryer as an aid in the frustrating task?
ReplyDeleteSteve, I am not one to label others. What makes one who drinks an alcoholic? Careful. I once worked for a woman [in a male dominated sector] who drank like the proverbial fish. Chardonnay - to be precise. Starting at lunch time. Openly. Didn't make a secret of it. She was never drunk. Did a sterling job. Oh, yes, she also managed her sky high stiletto heels - not once falling over. Perk of my job? Other than one of the most wonderful women ever? I got to drive her everywhere. In her white Mercedes.
ReplyDeleteObviously, the days of van Gogh's Absinthe are, luckily, over. Outside Russia you won't find 70% Vol plus; now 40 % Vol alcohol max the norm.
Don't get me wrong. Of course, there are alcoholics [medically speaking]; and then there are those who lubricate their creative juices. Same difference? Maybe. As to Dorothy Parker, and she is clearly a light weight - if a funny one: "I like a Martini. Two at the most. By the third I am under the table. By the fourth I am under the host.". As I said: Lightweight. And never ever use the excuse of being inebriated for any misdemeanour you may commit.
U