Are we warm yet? The temp has been in the mid-90’s and the humidity rises daily. Found this in my E-in-box yesterday – about "True Southern women."
Getting around in the heat – Southern women know their summer weather report:
Humidity
Humidity
Humidity


“Listen these next few days to your friends to get answers you seek.”

That came out of my fortune cookie Monday evening after the DOQ meeting. Amazing how these messages drop in my lap just at the right time - Synchronicity? I was questioning what book to ready next…reading the third Millennium trilogy book is underway and will not last forever. Next? With a chance glance at amazon.com, found that THE book I have been waiting for was recently available on Kendle2. It is now my newest, most favorite book, well for this year.
Michael Holroyd’s A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families.
From Amazon:
Holroyd’s sweeping group biography traces the lives of Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, two stars of the Victorian theatre, and their descendants. Terry was “embodied sunshine,” beloved for her naturalness and grace onstage. In 1878, when she was thirty-one, she began a professional (and perhaps amorous) partnership with Irving, the despotic actor-manager of the Lyceum Theatre, in London, a stutterer “of strange countenance and with crablike gait,” whose power lay in creating an “awful sense of apprehension” in the audience.

This book is not just interesting; it is also funny. The antidotes about Terry and her outrageous behavior is more than a rebellious, wild child. Ellen faked her own drowning so she could leave her parents and move in with E.W. Godwin (at the age of 17, he 15 years older than she). More importantly the book is changing my opinion of Godwin, once the central topic of a masters-paper in my decorative arts graduate studies. Architect, aesthetic and master of the late 19th-century Arts & Crafts movement, his resurrection of medieval decorative motifs and understanding of the trend for “Japonisme” made for a terrific research topic/paper.

Coming to know more about his personal life and the way he treated Terry has convinced me he was the typical Victorian male with attitudes that denigrated women of talent and accomplishment (indeed leaving her destitute with his two children forced her to revive a theater career).

But part of Terry’s fascination is that she knew or met EVERYONE of the age– Whistler painted her as Lady McBeth (above, right), G.B. Shaw corresponded with her for decades, poets wrote sonnets to her, playwrights wrote plays for her, she inspired Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” stories (he photographed her, below) – she was the most celebrated actress of the British stage. She could get away with almost anything and was still loved by her public and the aesthete-elite. Otherwise, her private life was hell.

Lovely to receive a message from Jan Tyler, Seymour Center Director, after advising her we will be ending our term hosting Monday’s dance dates. Jan wrote:
I am sorry to hear that your time at the Seymour Center has come to an end. You have been one of the most loyal and dedicated volunteers we have ever had. We really appreciate all the time that you and your husband dedicated to the program.

DH and I have decided to end our weekly practice session at the Seymour Center after the Labor Day break. For over two years we had Afternoon Ballroom where I prepared a playlist of various dance rhythms so ballroom dancers could dance for fun and fitness. The Great Room is a terrific place for practice and was free to all who came. The downside is that sometimes we had ten couples and sometimes two (?). The attendance during the spring was practically nil; we were away for the month of June while dance teacher Bruce G. hosted only a few people. Upon return in July we’ve had 4-5 couples since but DH is convinced that our dance days must end until the ‘big move’ to Carolina Meadows is determined. Meantime we are seeing Bruce G. on Fridays taking Shag lessons until the Labor Day Dance weekend. One dance at a time.

Yesterday I went to Carolina Meadows Tuesday’s Flexercise class with Noriko. The first few minutes of the class were devoted to collecting feedback about changing the class. The nine participants unanimously declared they wanted it “just as is.” Apparently Michelle, the CM fitness director, is questioning continuing the class and has determined that more residents must participate (?).
My take is that nearly all the women in the class have living spouses; few single widows come regularly suggesting that after being widowed they are just not that interested in keeping fit any longer. All of this underscores the fact that CM’s population is becoming largely older, single females who out number the men by 3:1. That is becoming the definition of a retirement center.

After 2 o’clock today I can pick up ten knives taken to Kitchen Wares for sharpening.
That’s the 1st item for July’s ToDo list accomplished. The second one happens next week when the windows are washed – inside and out. Next on the list will not happen until drier weather, likely August – to shampoo the rugs with the B+D Scum Buster. That will be my workout day for the summer! bb