The car pix...

A long time ago - in May, to be specific - I posted from Durfort, France, on a day when we'd been enthralled by a fabulous assembly of vintage automobiles, parked for a couple of hours on the main square. I promised pictures, but never delivered.






So - late but better than never - here are the goods. Because the cars were tightly packed together, it was almost impossible to get good individual shots, so I cropped to show details - elaborate lettering, beautiful hood ornaments, unique solutions to everyday car problems (how to carry extra gasoline, for example) and most of all, the love and care lavished on these antique beauties by their owners.


Most of the cars looked as if they had just driven off the showroom floor (or out of the restorer's workshop.) There was one, however, that seemed to have arrived at the rally directly from a trans-Sahara trek.


Once or twice I have ridden in antique cars. Narrow tires and scanty springs make for a rough ride, but the stares and thumbs-up signs from other drivers make it all worthwhile.

And really - what a way to travel!

Ripping yarns

(Not to be confused with "ripping yarn," as in knitting, where the procedure is properly called "frogging." I asked why, and got the obvious answer: "Because you have to rip it rip it rip it." Oh.)

At the moment I have no knitting to rip out, but I do have a yarn to recommend: The Long Ships, by Frans G. Bengtsson. Published in Sweden during WWII, it appeared in an English translation in the 50's, but has been out of print for years. Now New York Review of Books editions has reissued the book, with an enthusiastic and highly readable introduction by Michael Chabon.

The book is "Once upon a time..." for anyone who loves a tale that makes a faraway place and time solidly real. The Long Ships takes place between the years 980 and 1010, and carries its hero, Red Orm, from his home in southern Sweden (in those days part of Denmark) as far south as Moorish Spain, to Ireland, England, and far out into the Atlantic, all in ships propelled by oars and sails.

Orm spends two years as a galley slave, matures into a fierce fighting man and a chieftain, serves the Caliph of Cordoba, turns Christian in order to marry a king's daughter, and has no end of ferocious encounters and hairbreadth escapes before ending his days as the wealthy patriarch of a large family.

Adventure stories are as old as the human race, and they never lose their appeal, especially when told with skill and verve. In his introduction, Michael Chabon celebrates the "deadpan humor" of the book, found on nearly every page. Bengtsson's extensive knowledge of the period illuminates the book, but never gets in the way of the narrative.


Well-written historical novels are a window into the past. While looking through this one, you may well wonder how descendants of these plundering, death-dealing, take-no-prisoners rovers of 10th century Scandinavia became the highly-civilized, forward-looking, peaceable Swedes, Norwegians and Danes of today.

Thanksgiving and after

Snow lasted long enough that we wondered if we'd spend Thanksgiving at home instead of at Vashon. Wind on Monday night brought down trees and major power lines all over the island.

Power came back to the south end Wednesday, about 2 hours before L & D and a friend arrived at the cabin. Roads were still a bit icy, but snow was supposed to start melting Thursday morning. By the time we started off on Thursday, all the main roads were bare and wet. On the island the side roads were covered with bits of fir branches - nature's own traction device!

Cabin holidays are the best - relaxed but festive. Good food, good company, laughter, games, books and conversation. The turkey was one of the freshest we've ever eaten - L & D raised an even dozen this year. Eight survived to become Thanksgiving meals.

Snow surprise

Otherwise known as #snOMG (its Twitter hashtag) or #snopocalypse. It's a given that we're weather wimps here, but when the forecasters predicted cold but dry, most snow to fall elsewhere, we believed it.

Today we got snow. And cold. And wind. And at 10 p.m., when it's supposed to ease off, and the storm warnings are scheduled to be lifted, it's STILL SNOWING.

People have spent hours traversing 20-minute commutes. Those who are lucky enough to live close to town (or at the bottom of long hills) are hosting slumber parties.

Daughter-in-law Zanne is spending the night, happy to walk here after seeing the chaos of chained-up buses blocked by stalled cars on a major arterial. I'm happy to be safe at home.

Earlier, I did take the bus to another neighborhood, mainly to go to the library to snag the last part of Your Face Tomorrow. If it's going to snow and be cold for the next few days, a good book is essential!

(This morning, the snow still looked relatively benign, especially when it was light enough to balance on the Japanese maple leaves.)

Reflections

In Venice I photographed favorite things - gondolas, gondoliers, peeling buildings, canals of all sizes, windows full of masks or marzipan. So many pictures are really about reflection - the way water captures and extends the beauty of boats and buildings.

Tonight there's a full moon here in Seattle, turning the surface of the lake into cold wavy steel. A few flakes of snow fell this afternoon, and more may come tomorrow.

All weather looks more extreme through a window. Late this afternoon I bundled up and went out for a walk in the dry cold. Any winter day you can walk without getting wet is a plus.

Reading: Your Face Tomorrow, a trilogy by Spanish writer Javier Marias. The writing is complex, but compelling (one must admire the work of Marias' translator.) All I will say about plot is that parts of the books feel like James Bond adventures written by Henry James.

Scrapbooks

I've occasionally cut and pasted and labeled scrapbooks of trip pictures, and it can be a messy, unsatisfying job (especially the labels - even my very best printing isn't exactly quality calligraphy.)

So it's a treat to put together a digital photo album, then get back a finished product that looks like a real book! Earlier this year, I made one as celebration of 20 years of partner church history, as a gift for the minister emeritus who was responsible for our becoming a partner congregation at the very beginning of the program.

Inspired by that project, I then made a smaller book with photos from a trip two years ago, as a gift for our Dutch hosts, and took it to them this fall, when Nancy and I again visited Holland.

Later on that same trip, we helped celebrate another friend's 80th birthday, and a book seemed the perfect gift. On the night of the party, I switched off the flash on my small camera, and circulated through the party snapping away, hoping for a good candid shot of every guest.

Nancy and I put together the book soon after coming home, and last week it went off to Dordrecht. Today we got an ecstatic e-mail thank-you, more than enough reward for our effort.

Birthdays should be celebrated!

Falling back

Although I love long light summer evenings, I think Daylight Saving Time begins too soon and ends at least two weeks later than is reasonable.

"Now the afternoons will be short and dark. How can you like that?"

But mornings will be earlier and lighter (for a while.) And long dark evenings are perfect for reading.

Leaves are almost completely off the trees, thanks to yesterday's wind and rain. Sidewalks swept clean are tattooed with dark leaf shapes.

Sparky the cat watches, fascinated, crouched in "attentive hunting cat" position, as big leaves float off the maple tree. Today she dashed out the door to pounce on one that drifted onto the deck. As if it were a bird, she picked it up in her mouth and brought it inside. I think she likes the crackly sound.

One friend is headed into a tribal area somewhere near Bhopal, India. Another spent a recent evening watching stars falling over an island in the South Seas. After three trips in five months, I should be content to be home ...

Avoiding election night gloom

...and blogging to avoid returning to my NaNoWriMo project. My darling daughter-in-law, who successfully finished the draft of a novel in last year's NaNoWriMo, convinced me it's worth a try, so I'm trying to translate one of the stories I've told myself over many wakeful nights. Progress reports to follow.

(So far very little to report. Last night I managed about 710 words. A friend who had been out knocking on doors trying to get out the vote came by to decompress, just in time to rescue me from having to write Chapter 2.)

It's election night, and I am gloomy about results. Here in Washington we have a Senate race that should barely be a contest - and in polls, it's too close to call.

Speeches from early Republican winners trumpet American exceptionalism. When are we going to grow up?

This afternoon Nancy and I worked on a book of pictures from our friend Jan's 80th birthday. His party, in Dordrecht, was one of the highlights of our trip in September.

Another highlight was the sojourn in Venice. Here are some pictures.





(I love gondolas.)