Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
We couldn’t wait. We saw the earlier version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, you know, the one with Alec Guiness, and we couldn’t wait to see this new version, with Gary Oldman playing the Smiley role. He was awesome.
The LeCarre’ books featuring George Smiley are grim and grey, and the opening captures that exactly. The entire movie has a bureaucratic, institutional bleakness, with all the power plays, the petty snobberies, the jockeying for position that these bureaucracies seem to nurture. The only times in the movie when there is color and life is the annual bureau party, once done entirely in Russian, once in French.
The movie is faithful to the book, which I think I need to go back and read once again. It all seems so historical now.
One of the things we noticed was that the theatre was utterly quiet as the movie progressed. A lot of the action is in the mind, figuring things out, and trying not to get caught, so the suspense is of the subtle kind, not the car-crashing and jumping off buildings kind. It was as if the entire theatre were holding its breath; noticeable because of its rarity.
We were oddly jangled as we left the theatre, and over dinner we talked about how we never thought we would be obsolescent, but the Cold War has passed; the soldiers of today weren’t even alive when the Berlin Wall came down and the Iron Curtain parted and the cars flowed east. Life goes on.
There were several quotes, one that made us laugh was spies talking about recruiting other nationalities “You can hire an Arab but you can’t buy ’em.”
Insecure
How can I be this ripe old age and still suffer from insecurity? Thanks be to God, it isn’t often, actually only a couple situations. I always joke that when I visit my Mom, I gain ten pounds on the way, and feel huge as I waddle off the plane. Flying back home, those new pounds miraculously disappear. I know it is all in my imagination, and knowing that doesn’t help.
There is a competition coming up, a quilt show, and I am trying to get a couple entries ready. One design I knew would be a snap, I’ve done all the various parts a hundred times before (well, many times anyway) but this time I am painfully aware if points don’t match up or placement is not perfect. It is costing me time, crucial time for the preparations, as I rip out and re-do, sigh, rip out again and re-do. Just when I think I have it licked, I see something else that needs a re-do.
I know that the problem is that I am looking with a critical eye of the most critical judge. Most of the time my quilts are for babies, or friends, or family, and while they may be flawed, my family and friends love me and love my quilts, and they live happily ever after. It’s only when I know the quilts will be compared to other quilts, other, more painstaking and meticulous quilters, that I start to quail and flounder.
When I teach, I tell my students “this is supposed to be fun! Have fun with it! If you struggle too long, set it aside and come back; a solution will appear.” I teach tricks to cover flaws, I build their self-confidence, I show them how to attain ‘good enough’.
I am my own worst critic. I just have to fight discouragement and defeat at the hands of my inner critic.
(The quilt at the top is not one of the entries; it is a quilt I did for an earlier competition.)
Check Check and Aaaahh
I’m hard on myself. If I’m not, I don’t get anything done. The baby in me would read or quilt or do Sudoko and the house would go to . . . dust bunnies, at the very least.
So I get things done. I have my lists. The really good thing is that today, I had checked off most of my lists. I still have things to do, but I have a plan to do them. Today, I had several hours in a row to myself.
I knew just what to do with them. It’s a sunny day, great light. Everything has come together. I have a quilt I’ve been thinking about, complicated, even problematic, and while the thoughts germinated, somehow, I solved most of the problems. Today, when I had finished my list for today (that’s the ‘check check’ part, as in ‘checking it off’) I sat down and worked on my project. I can’t show you; it’s not finished. I have a deadline, but if I don’t finish it by the deadline, I don’t care that much. Today was one of those days when I just had fun with the process. I got a significant part done. The light is gone; I have time to think about where I would like to go with it next.
Aaaaaaahhhh. 🙂 It’s a great day.
Baby’s Room
Our little grandson is old enough to start spending the night with us. First, AdventureMan had to install a gate, as the Baby room is at the top of stairs, and oh, he loves stairs. We can’t take a chance on him tackling the stairs without one of us present to ‘assist’ (i.e. supervise; make sure he is safe).
Back when I first got to Kuwait, I found these gorgeous turquoise panels at the Kuwait Thursday-Friday market for a song. They are a color I think of as Tuareg Blue; the men of the mountains in Algeria and parts of Morocco wear this gorgeous deep turquoise shade, and the dye rubs off and colors their skin, so some call them The Blue Men.
I’ve carted them around for six years now, waiting for the right use. I thought about parting with them when I left Qatar . . . but didn’t. I thought about parting with then here, as I went through a spree of paring down and packing things out to the Waterfront Mission . . . but I didn’t. All of a sudden, I knew how they were meant to be used, and what a wonderful blast of color they put in ‘Baby’s Room.’
I LOVE the patterns on the panels. Every one is different; I could not find any two panels the same. The vendor was Sudanese; I am tempted to think these might be Sudanese; I have never seen anything like them before or since in the fabric souks of Kuwait or Doha. They aren’t quite enough fabric to be saris, but they might be just enough for a sefsari, the cover worn by the women in Tunisia when we lived there – maybe 4.5 – 5 meters each, sold for less than $3.00 a panel. 🙂
We needed to get black-out curtains up, as the Happy Toddler takes after me, up with first light. It’s better for all of us if he can sleep a little later 🙂 But these panels attatched easily to the under curtains, and now his room is all ready for him – now he sleeps in a big boy bed and the crib has converted to a settee.
After all the wonderful days of family and friends, and eating meals back and forth, I was ready for a quiet projects day. I feel so good getting this project DONE! Don’t you love the color of these panels?
Mary at Christ Church, Pensacola
Today was all about Mary, at Christ Church in Pensacola, about the brave young woman who said “yes” to God and conceived out of wedlock, and had to explain about how God sent a messenger angel and the Holy Spirit impregnated her – and who can help but think, as a parent, how hard some of this would be to believe? Brave little Mary, who said “yes.”
There is an ikon of Mary at the front of Christ Church:
I bet you can guess why I love this ikon, why it makes me smile . . . Mary, and her baby boy, are brown! They look like people really look in the Middle East, not Botticelli blondes with big blue eyes, dressed in Italian silks. I also love the way this Mama snuggles her precious little baby to her cheek; he is a baby, this King of Kings, and I like to think he grew up with a lot of cuddling and snuggling.
Pensacola Nutcracker
AdventureMan and I had a truly wonderful seasonal adventure tonight, as we attended the opening night of the Ballet Pensacola production of The Nutcracker. All over America, ballet companies pay their bills by putting on this annual favorite, but Pensacola has a knack for making it fresh and new every season.
I am sorry, this is the only photo I have that turned out halfway decent, and AdventureMan was poking me and huffing about my rudeness because my little camera will shoot in low light, but I brought the wrong one, and this one doesn’t have an viewfinder, so it’s ‘making too much light’ to quote AdventureMan.
The sets and costuming are wonderful. The sets were lush and colorful; the costumes fresh and delightful. The snowflakes really sparkled, and had sparkly silver hairpieces that looked light, stayed in place, and captured the sparkly lightness of real snowflakes; it was one of the highlights of the ballet for me. I also loved the coffee costumes – sort of Middle East-y if Middle East dancers wore sparkly pinkish scarves and tinkling belly dancer wraps around their hips. The costumes were delightful, and the dancers seemed to be having a lot of fun.
The tiny angels were hilarious, and oh, my stars, the sheep! You must go, you must see the sheep! This is one sweet production, a treasure of the season, and you might still have a chance to buy a ticket for the Saturday night performance at 7 or the Sunday afternoon performance, both at the Saenger Theatre on Palafox. Children are DRESSED; this is the South, and this is The Nutcracker Ballet!
Hardware for Women in Pensacola
Sign along Palafox, a main shopping street in Pensacola:
A little closer:
Yes. It’s a jewelry store. I LOVE their creativity – great advertising 🙂
Christmas Time in Pensacola
Christmas in Pensacola starts just after Thanksgiving, for most people. I saw a very few decorations go up around Veteran’s Day (11 November) but very few. Most started going up around Thanksgiving. Because we are having some work continuing on our house, I couldn’t do the same decorations I did last year, so I did something new; my goal in the week before I left was to get SOME Christmas up, inside and out.
This year, AdventureMan is here, too, and it makes all the difference. Last year, he left for Kuwait just before Christmas, and I was so sad that it was hard to put a lot of effort into decorating. I did it, mostly because I am too proud not to. (No. I will not let adversity get me down!) But mostly, it takes a lot of energy to fight depression, so this year, I am appreciating just how good it is to have a ‘normal’ Christmas, i.e. my husband is on the same continent as me, in the same country, even the same state, same city, and same residence. It’s all good. 🙂
Our tree this year is smaller – and higher – that other years, and all the ornaments on it are unbreakable. Yes. Happy Baby, now Happy Toddler, will be coming by and I want to protect him – and the tree. Over the years we have collected so many wonderful ornaments that I have a lot to work with, and still manage to have a nice tree; the angel on the top is a traditional angel from Nurnberg, and we bought it the first year we were married. It’s nice to have her high on the top of the tree once more.
Under the tree, covering the table, is a special wool sefsari we bought when we lived in Tunisia, bright red with bands of gold trim. These were everywhere when we lived there, especially in the cold winters, but when we visited, I no longer saw them in any stores. Covering the tree stand, I have one of my smaller Damascus tablecloths; I treasure these coverings, and beads, Pensacola parade beads.
“Beads!” we shouted to Happy Toddler as we put them over his head.
“Beads!” the crowd shouted as the floats went by at the Pensacola Christmas Parade last night.
Last year, even as a Happy Baby, the parade was an enthralling event. What baby wouldn’t love a parade that starts with flashing lights, and motorcycles, and a loudly wailing, lights fashing FIRE TRUCK?? What Happy Toddler wouldn’t love the bands with the throbbing drums, and trumpets, and tubas, and trombones? And the dancing girls, and oh yes – the BEADS! Life is sweet at the Pensacola Christmas Parade.
The parade starts at 5:15 and we get there about 5:14. Here is what I love about Pensacola; you can get there at 5:14 and get a place to park only about 1/2 a block from the parade and be there when the spectacle begins. It is a laid back kind of parade, still a community parade, you see your friends there. It is sort of a Christmas parade, you see some Santas, and some reindeer, and snowmen, and there is usually at least one float with angels, but it is also sort of Mardi Gras, with all the Krewes (local social groups focused on Mardi Gras) on floats with their buds throwing beads, coins, toys and candy out into the waiting, dancing crowd.
Technically, I know this isn’t a great photo because you can’t even really tell what it is, but it is the beginning of the parade, and I love the motion of it all:
As it turned out, we were in a pretty good spot for catching beads, and we loaded down the Happy Toddler, put a few on each of us, and shared the bounty with some of the babies standing behind us. There were some people in front of us who caught a LOT of beads, and as soon as they caught them, they stashed them in a bag; they caught LOTS. Maybe they sell them back or something.
Last week, we took Happy Toddler to Boats on the Bayou, where boats decorated with Christmas lights gather near the bridge and then come parading to the park, and people gathered there sing Christmas Carols. Happy Toddler loves going to the park; the boats were interesting for about five seconds, and then he got to swing and play on the playground, which mattered a whole lot more to him:
It was just a really fun, community thing, and it was pretty, too.
Lunch at the Fish House, always a treat, and their tree is BLUE!
The Pensacola Christmas Parade attracts around 50,000 people every year. Imagine! It is so much fun. What I love about it is that there are so many floats, so many bands, so many civic heroes – you know how I feel about giving back to your community. These people are doing it. On one of the coldest nights of the year, they are on the Krewe floats throwing beads, they are patrolling behind the dog clubs, cleaning up, they are making sure the floats make the turn at Wright and Palafox, they are marching with bare legs in the cold, windy night – and it is so much fun.
Who would think that 50,000 people gathered in one place, competing for beads, would keep it all so civil? There is no place for ‘special people;’ we are all Pensacola citizens, there to enjoy a family evening, and it is just that, it is a great Pensacola evening, one of my favorite of the year.
Best of all was watching the Happy Toddler take it all in. The lights! The sirens! The beads, and the scrambling to catch them! The loud music, the pounding drums! It was all so much fun, and that fun was doubled watching him try to figure it all out. I can hardly wait ’till next year. 🙂
The Water Street Hotel in Apalachicola
So after feeding the goats, LOL, we headed out for a very serene, very zen drive from Panama City to Apalachicola, arriving near lunch time. AdventureMan and I are on track in so many ways, one of which is that we like to have a place to stay before we eat, and the last few years, it’s been a piece of cake, no problem, people haven’t been filling the hotels and you can walk in almost anywhere and find a place to stay. Not so, this year.
First, there are a LOT of people in Apalachicola as we come in. And there is a lot of activity going on, Christmas lights going up, merchants decorating their stores, and SANTA is coming on on a BOAT!
We tried the first, obvious place, where the receptionist told us frankly she had a room but we wouldn’t like it and it is her last room, right next to the dining room. We found another likely place, and every room was taken. They told us to try down the street at the Water Street Hotel, which we did.
We got the last room.
“You’re going to love this room,” she said, and oh! We did!
One of the reviewers on TripAdvisor.com said “its like the (Marriott) Residence Inns, only nicer,” and that is exactly what we thought. The suites are all differently configured, and have beautiful finishes. For me, the best part is the view.
We’re still talking about the kind of house we want. We like the house we have, but we would like something a little more open-plan, and with a view of a bayou – or an estuary. The unit at the Water Street had a large screened in porch where I spent an hour watching boats go too and fro, and pelicans, and an entire flock of about 200 birds, and watching the grass wave in the breeze . . . it was heaven.
This was the view straight out from our unit:
And now looking up the channel:
The interior going out to the deck:
The Water Street Golf Cart that takes you on tours of Apalachicola 🙂
There was a huge master bedroom, and another bedroom with a daybed, two full bathrooms.
What we want is a place like this in Pensacola, same finishes, same kind of view where there is always something going on, birds, boats, nature happening. We love the attention to detail they put into this hotel. We’d like something a little bigger; we loved this place.
My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme
I wish I had more self-discipline, and read more heavy weight books, but what I find is that when I read heavy non-fiction these days, it falls over when I fall asleep. Mostly, I read the New Yorker, or catch up with my news online, while listening to NPR.
I don’t know how I got My Life in France, if I ordered it or if I bought it in B&N. I’ve had it for a while. We’ve always loved Julia Child; her programs were a hoot, and she was an accomplished woman who never took herself too seriously. I will never forget one time I saw her on a Martha Stewart Christmas Special; they were doing a tall Croquembouche, and at one point, Julia was not throwing on the caramelized sugar strings the way Martha wanted her to and she grabbed the little thrower-thing out of Julia’s hand to show her how. I gasped! That is like grabbing a spoon from the Queen of England, no! No! You can’t grab a spoon from Julia Childs! You can’t show Julia Childs how to do it, Martha, you BOW to Julia Childs!
Julia Childs, classy woman that she was, just watched Martha with fascination and never showed an ounce of annoyance.
The book is hilarious. While alive, she worked with her grandson, Alex Prud-homme, gathering correspondence – she was a copious letter writer, and people in those days kept their snail mail to refer back to, the way we keep e-mails. They sat in her sunny garden, and he would ask her a few questions, and off she would go, regaling him with stories of people, places, occasions, parties, and especially FOODS.
Julia Childs worked for the OSS in World War II, the forerunner to the CIA. Stationed in India, she met her husband, and after the war ended, they married. Stifled in her California life, and and Paul jumped at a chance to live overseas. Imagine – Paris! She had to adapt to a totally different way of life, totally different living space, a totally different way of shopping for food, and she had to learn to cook. Since she was in Paris, and because she is the woman she is, she signed up for cooking classes at the Cordon Bleu, where she worked hard to master the techniques to successfully produce the sauces and delicate flavors which makes French cuisine so delicious.
She also moves to Marseilles, to post-war Germany, and to Norway, and manages to produce two books, each of which took, literally, years to finalize, because of her attention to detail, and wanting to make sure that women using her books could understand exactly what to do, and when to do it.
This is a really fun book. I would have loved to know this adventurous, courageous woman, who meticulously tested every recipe for Mastering the Art of French Cooking and changed the lives of serious cooks in America. No, I have never cooked from her book. No, I don’t have her book. I have a Larousse Gastronomique, from which she worked to get the ‘true’ Frenchness of French cooking, but I don’t have any cook books by Julia. I have put out a hint, though, and I am hoping to get one for Christmas. 🙂 Not just for me – AdventureMan is making serious inroads into adventurous cooking. He has mastered blackened fish tacos, and seared tuna, woo hoooo! He is working on the ultimate cornbread. Just wait until I get him started on the quintessential French Onion Soup, or even – maybe – French bread!
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