In my absence:

• DD broke her collar bone, which has mostly healed.  We made a build a bear to cheer her up.


Stuffing the Build A Bear

• I am now reasonably healthy. I won’t be turning cartwheels. But at least I feel up to poking a little fun at myself.
• I watched a few movies, since that was the level of my energy.  And some television.  I usually feel bad when I act like a couch potato.  But I actually felt bad enough already to escape guilt.


Alpaca Silk Scarf (prior to completion)

• I continued my amazingly slow, moderately successful knitting.  Which is to say that I started DH’s hat project attempt three times and have since tossed it to the bottom of the bag.  Finished a scarf that needs blocking, because my first attempt at blocking it seems not to have affected it at all.  And started my own version of the Silk Fountain Hood pattern.  My own version because I have bamboo/silk, not pure silk, and the original pattern is lacy beyond my skills.

I watched Coming Home, with Jane Fonda and Jon Voight.  Mainly I watched it because it occurred to me that it was recent at film time, Americans having pulled out of Vietnam for good in 1974, and the movie being released in 1978.  And I remember my father ranting that Hanoi Jane had no business making a movie about the plight of any veteran.  And that was years later, when the movie came out on video.  He was still totally indignant.

hanoi jane by pineapple palace

It was interesting.  I found it most interesting that Fonda’s character wished most for, if trapped on a desert island, a husband.  And this was considered unremarkable.  I think that would be appalling now.  Her relationship with husband was interesting too, not very intimate and seemingly unsatisfying.

Voight’s character, confined to a wheel chair, begins bitter and develops from there.  It was interesting to see him looking so young.  And also interesting to see Fonda looking relatively the same as she does now, which I find suspicious.

I had thought that the way coming home from Vietnam would be portrayed differently in 1978 than it is now.  But I didn’t find Coming Home to be tremendously different in concept than any other post war film.  So it must be universal, at least on film.

Mark Wahlberg (in black and white) by Lessio

I also saw Fear with Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon.  The thing that I wonder about most with that film is why the producer or writer, or whomever makes such decisions, felt it necessary to make it over-the-top obvious that Wahlberg’s character is a criminal.  I wonder why, because I don’t think having a criminal record is a requirement for being a frightening, abusive person.

I’m looking forward to the new episode of Southland coming out this week.  Though I hope I will get my energy back and be too busy doing things other than watching tv to care much.  I told DH I might do some gardening today.  And he gave me that look that said if I tried it he might have to intervene.  So maybe a couple days before any attempted gardening.

I want to prune some plants that need it badly, and use the prunings to make a bed for tomatoes.  My attempts at organic gardening annoy DH and the neighbors, who prefer to purchase expensive commercial items.  Whereas, my idea of good gardening is to use kitchen refuse for compost and cover it up with pine straw, and use yard refuse like prunings to build beds rather than expensive plastic stuff.

IMG_5924 by Pip_Wilson

Yeah, it looks sort of like a birds nest at first.  But then the twigs settle, and plants grow and just the plants are noticeable.  I do always have to buy topsoil.  Because we just have hard red clay.  And no amount of household compost alone could keep a new plant alive in my yard.

DH made fun.  But we had fresh tomatoes and basil until October last year.  And enough dried lavender to make lavender oil, sachets, and still have some left over.

Related posts:

• Rendition
• Knitting and Other Mishaps

Also, I am out of bath oil.

How to Make Lavender Oil – a simple lavender oil recipe

How to Make Lavender Oil at Home – a basic lavender oil recipe
# This can be prepared by filling a jar with lavender stems with leaves and flowers that have been lightly crushed.

# The high quality almond or olive oil should be poured on top thereafter and this mixture should be allowed to steep for about a month.

# The jar should be gently shaken daily to ensure that the lavender and oil mix well.

# After about a month, the mixture needs to be strained through a strainer and the oil needs to be transferred to a clean covered jar.