January - A challenge

I haven't been touching anything jewelry related in a while. I had to look it up, my last piece of jewelry was the pair of tassle earrings more than two months ago!

What's wrong with me, you want to know? I wish I knew. I have a whole list of ideas, but I'm still in the middle of an embroidery project, and while I used to have several projects on the go, it's something I can't seem to do right now.

Of course, it would be the easiest to blame my thumb joint again, but while it is part of it, it is, well, exactly that, part of it, but not everything.
Some of it is probably my overall mood, news-related, which sometimes seems to paralyze me. Some of it is feeling as if I have been chasing my right audience forever and doing that year after year tends to get mentally exhausting time and again. I'm by no means alone in that, I have seen it in other jewelry friends, but of course also in other creatives, no matter what the medium. Some of it might still be hibernation mode.

Usually it takes me a bit to get out of that and then I'm back happily experimenting and playing, but this time it seems to be harder for me to just grab something and give it a go although that is something that has always worked pretty well for me before. Just slap a cab on some backing and start stitching. Just take a wire and my crochet hook and do it.
Weird about it is that my brain is actually creating in theory and waits for my fingers to follow suit.

So I thought a stash tackler would be perfect.
Nothing super experimental, just something to get myself kick started.
I took one of my labradorite cabs, glued it on, picked some colors for the bezel and started stitching. It's amazing how good that felt already although it was not very creative.
Bezel done, I started looking for beads to add and as the lab looked a bit gloomy so far, I went for a sparkly blue, separated by tiny hematite beads which created small open spaces between the crystals which I could fill up with button beads and how about some tiny silver beads on the other side ... yes, it seems the kick start had worked!

That's when it hit me - the January/February challenge at the Jewelry Artisans Community.
What had our challenge mistress written?
Symbols: Snowflakes, icicles, evergreen trees
Colors: White, silver, blue, dark green
Herbs and Flowers: Sage, pine, juniper, snowdrop
Crystals: Garnet, clear quartz, hematite
Themes: Reflection, introspection, purification, new beginnings

I had "ice" from the button beads, I had silver and blue beads, the lab is shimmering in blue and green, I had hematite, and this was my new beginning for jewelry this year - and nothing of it had been planned.
It was downright perfect ... until I cut the edges. Don't ask me how it happened, but snip snip, there went not one, but two important threads. Honestly, am I jinxed? Are my eyes too crooked to see a thread? I didn't know if I should cry or laugh like a madwoman. Crying wouldn't have helped much, though, so I saved what I could meaning I cut it down to the bezel, glued and sewed on another piece of backing and started all over again hoping for the best.
In the end it turned out just a tad different because I didn't remember exactly how I had placed the tiny silver seed beads and the hematite it the first time round, so maybe there is a tiny bit of experimenting in it after all.
It's so shiny and sparkly, the pictures can hardly do it justice, especially because I took them when it was already dark. I just couldn't wait until tomorrow to show that I'm back! Hopefully, that is.

Random Saturday - Am I a psychopath?

I don't remember the exact quote and I don't remember the episode, I'm not even sure which Barnaby said it, but it was something along the lines of a house having no pictures of people at all and isn't that a sign for a psychopath?
For some reason the thought hasn't left me since then. Am I a psychopath?
To explain, the ex and I have always had our walls full of pictures, but we only had one with a person on it, and we didn't even know her. The ex bought it at a fleamarket because he thought it would fit the flair of our hallway with the vintage wardrobe and lighting and the stenciled walls, and she does fit in. He left her hanging there when he left, by the way.

Inside, however, it's animals all over.
Most of them are cat pictures in different mediums by different artists including friends of mine who made portraits of my own cats for me.

Only later, I started working on my fan wall of bead loomed celebrities, and there are the portraits I made of us children for my mother which came back to me after her death.
To be honest, even as a child I didn't quite grasp collections of family photos on walls, mantelpieces, or pianos. Not that I didn't love our old photos even if we didn't have that many, but didn't all old pictures have to be in albums or a shoebox like ours?
Maybe it has to do with myself always having been so picture shy? I can just about deal with the bead loomed portraits because they have an artistic touch, but basically I much prefer my painted animals for my own place. Funny, in museums I love portraits. Is it just the medium photography I have a problem with?
If I am a psychopath, though, I can assure you I will never be a criminal mastermind like some of the Midsomer Murders murderers 😂

Let me show you our first cat painting. We were told it was by Arthur Heyer who was famous for his angora cats. I never believed it because Heyer's angoras have very different faces from this one.
It didn't matter anyway because we wanted the painting not for a name, but because it reminded us so much of our first cat. I never told Dude's story here on the blog, but it's on Ponder's blog (1 and 2) - how an abandoned old cat became a "foreign exchange kitty".

This is Dude. Sadly, these were pre-digital times, so I don't have that many pictures of him.

This is the painting (it's the one, by the way, that der Dekan likes to push when he wants my attention because he knows very well I don't want him to touch it, little devil).
Please ignore the broken frame, we got it like this, but I wouldn't know how to restore it.

Yup, I still prefer it over people pictures.

The Young in Heart

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." on her blog and I said I'd join her if I'd get the chance to watch the movies.
For today she chose "The Young in Heart" from 1938 which happens to be on YouTube, actually several times, so here we go.

Australian poster (public domain
AUS/US via Wikipedia)

Meet the Carleton family.
Anthony "Sahib", the father, a former actor claiming to have served in India. His wife "Marmy". Their son Richard and their daughter George-Anne, both looking for wealthy spouses.

Things don't look too bad at the French Riviera. Richard is engaged to Adela, the daughter of a former American senator. His father has managed to cheat the senator out of $4,500 at poker. George-Ann has a Scottish suitor, Duncan. Sadly he doesn't have any money, though, so he's not eligible.
Unfortunately, the police finds out about this family of con artists, they take the check back, tear it up, and tell the Carletons to leave town if they don't want to get in trouble. The senator even pays for the train to get rid of them
What now?

On the train to London, George-Anne meets an old woman named Miss Fortune and swindles her way into her first class compartment right away. Hearing that she has a big house and money, the family charms her with their stories.
When the train derails, they help Miss Fortune to safety. On saying goodbye, she asks George-Anne if they wouldn't like to be her guests for a while. While the lonely lady is happy to have found friends, George-Anne suggests to the family they should be acting as decent people hoping that they might make it into her will.
So Sahib and Richard head out looking for jobs or rather pretend they are. Meanwhile Duncan, who can't seem to stay away from George-Anne although he doesn't approve of the family and their intentions, sees Sahib's ad in the paper and comes to the house to tell him of a possible position as a car salesman for "The Flying Wombat". To make sure he doesn't mess things up, George-Anne insists on Sahib taking the job.
Richard, too, gets himself a job sorting mail at an engineering firm where he immediately falls for the secretary Leslie. They get along wonderfully until she finds out about the family's plans.

Spending time with Miss Fortune, however, the Carletons grow more and more fond of her, but none of them wants to admit it to the others thinking they are still after the inheritance.
Also Sahib proves to be so good at his job that he's appointed sales manager of his branch making enough money of his own.
Unfortunately, Anstruther, Miss Fortune's lawyer and a friend of her former fiancé who had left her his fortune, has found out what the Carletons are and advises Miss Fortune to get rid of them. She, however, won't hear anything of it, instead she tells him to draw up a new will with them as the beneficiaries. When George-Anne tells the family about it, they don't seem all that happy, but they still don't admit to each other how they are feeling about Miss Fortune by now.
Leslie and Duncan have already noticed a change in them - Richard, for example, has decided to go to engineering school which tells Leslie he may not just want to be an heir after all.
When they go out celebrating with Miss Fortune, she suddenly collapses. The Carletons wait outside her sick room worrying.
Miss Fortune calls on Anstruther to make sure the new will is signed, but he quite smugly informs the family that there won't be any money after all, in fact even the house will be gone if she will survive.
Now Marmy surprises everyone by saying that they don't want any money and Sahib adds that Miss Fortune will never have to worry as long as she lives because they are going to be taking care of her.

The ending shows the young people married and everyone including Miss Fortune living together in the Carletons' new house - happily ever after, no doubt 😉

"The Young in Heart" is based on the originally serialized novel "The Gay Banditti" by I.A.R. Wylie. I had never heard of her before, but over 30 movies were made based on her work in almost 40 years.
The novel, however, did not have a happy ending, Miss Fortune dies. Test audiences didn't react well to that, so Selznick recalled everyone to film the more positive ending. That also explains why it seems to be a bit rushed compared to the rest of the movie.

On YouTube, the movie is both in black/white and in colorized versions. I chose to watch it in black/white myself which I think works better for the atmosphere, but that's just my personal opinion.

It is a cute movie. Miss Fortune is such a sweet old lady opening her house and heart to the Carletons in such faith that those "hard as nails" con artists simply can't help growing to love her and change their ways gradually.
That she doesn't even lose her faith in them upon hearing about their plans, makes you think she's either very naive or she sees something in them that they only just now start to see themselves, but can't even admit to one another.

I really like the performances, too - although I have to admit that Marmy sometimes got on my nerves a bit, but that has more to do with her lines than the performance.
There's only one thing I can't seem to agree on with other viewers, if they mentioned him at all, that is. I absolutely hated the character of Duncan, right from the start, and that didn't just have to do with the terrible Scottish accent (rolling the r is not enough!). When he called Adela "very ugly and very stupid", he had lost me. She may have been a naive young lady, but putting a pair of glasses on a pretty girl doesn't make her very ugly and it doesn't make her plain as I read elsewhere, and I'm not just saying that because I wear glasses myself. I told myself that this was a 1938 stereotype, but he kept being rude and condescending throughout the movie. I think the only scene I thought he was okay was when he apologized to Miss Fortune for getting Richard drunk.
This paragraph being so long, tells you how much I despised him 😂 I wonder if he was the same in the novel and if the two marriages were even mentioned.

I think I liked Miss Fortune best of them all. She really has a few very sweet scences, for example when she cares for the drunk Richard telling him she has been intoxicated herself before and how someone with a little puppy helped her then which makes him go and look for the perfect puppy for her - just to ingratiate himself with her of course, at least he still thinks so himself at the time.

A short word on the Flying Wombat, an amazingly futuristic car which was "played" by the "Phantom Corsair", a prototype automobile which never went into production after the designer died in a car accident in 1939.
The car is now in the National Automobile Museum in Reno.
I don't drive and not that many cars can get me excited, but this is a real beauty.

If you don't know the movie yet and want to watch it, I'm sorry if I told you too much, but it's still worth it, promise!

The next two weeks I won't be able to join in as I don't have a way to watch the chosen movies, but I'll be back the week after that.

Random Saturday - Cookbooks, part 1

I have probably mentioned one or the other time that I'm not much of a cook. That doesn't mean I'm not cooking at all or that I can't cook at all, but I rarely ever had the passion or the patience for elaborate recipes, and to be honest, these days it's even more difficult, also because I can't stand for too long and also don't really see why I should do some big cooking just for myself.

A few days ago, a friend mentioned having many cookbooks, but not using them anymore because of online recipes.
That made me think of my own cookbooks. Yes, I have a bunch of cookbooks, old vintage ones and new vintage ones. No, honestly, that makes sense. I bought vintage cookbooks at fleamarkets or online and I bought new cookbooks so long ago that they are also vintage now 😉 at least most of them.

I remember when we got a new kitchen. The saleslady showed us a hanging cabinet for cookbooks, very uncomfortable for me to use because I would have needed a footstool to open and close it. I said I'd prefer an open shelf and she said that the cookbooks would get greasy that way. She was so surprised when I said that that was absolutely fine for cookbooks in my opinion if they were used. She was even more surprised when she heard I was a librarian, but being used to what textbooks look after long use, a bit of grease can't shock me.
Actually, the cookbooks in my kitchen are not very greasy, but tend to get dusty on top because I hardly use them. Some of them have never been used except for looking at recipes and thinking how nice they looked.
At the moment I don't need the space they are taking up and they add to the kitchen look.

Of course only the "new vintage" and younger are there, not the really old ones.
I thought I could share one of my vintage ones with you every, now and then, something I haven't done often on the blog. I fear it will be completely theoretical, though. While I like the thought of trying out some of the old recipes, I'm very well aware it's probably not going to happen. Gotta stay realistic.

Today I brought you "Die fleischlose Küche für Gesunde und Kranke" by chef Kurt Klein, "The meatless kitchen for healthy and sick people".

You may see from the Fraktur typeface (not something everyone can still read, especially without practice) that this is an old book - and from the mold stains, fortunately the book doesn't smell bad - and although there's no year of publication, an inscription in the front tells us that Walter G. got it from his mother "for perpetual remembrance" in May 1937. I wonder if he was just interested in cooking or if he was or wanted to be a vegetarian and if he moved out from home at the time.

This book would have been a good start because it has 769 recipes including beverages (some longer, some just two or three sentences long, such as the one for lemonade for example)! I even found a few online recommendations for this book from not ten years ago.

Vegetarianism is nothing new.
I have to admit, however, that I hadn't been aware when they started making veggie meat, sausage, and cheese. Now there are so many companies jumping on the trend. When I stopped eating meat in the late 80s, there was nothing like that in sight. It was hard to get something vegetarian in restaurants and sometimes still is, depending on what kind of restaurant it is.
I remember my first visit to the US when in one place the waiter said he could only offer me a shrimp cocktail as vegetarian and was confused because I politely declined and in another place the waiter said they would just whip up a veggie plate for me if I was okay with that, and it was so good it made the others jealous.
In the Klein book there's an ad for "plant meat" by De-Vau-Ge, a company that still exists today. From what I have seen, some of their products are used in the book's recipes, not just veggie meat etc., but also granola and other cereals.

I thought I'd choose a random recipe to share with you. Just a second .... poke .... my finger chose recipe 292 "Kartoffelkruspeln". I didn't even know what that means, but it seems "Kruspeln" is an Austrian word for "cartilage", here used in the sense of "crunchy". If you suspect something now, you may be right. This is a recipe for potato croquettes (from the French "croquer" = "crunch").
- 1 kilo potatoes - peel, wash, boil until soft, and mash
- add 3 egg yolks, 100 g butter, salt and some grated nutmeg
- make little ball or sausage shapes, use egg and breadcrumbs or granola (semolina-like and of course from De-Vau-Ge) to bread them and deep fry them 3 to 4 minutes

Yeah, I also would have wished for something more exotic, but that's random choice for you. Maybe we will have more luck with the next cookbook.

You're a better man than I am ...

Gunga Din!
That's the final line of Rudyard Kipling's poem "Gunga Din" (first published in 1890 in two newspapers and then in 1892 in a collection).
I know poetry has not been a topic on my blog before, but actually this post isn't about the poem, but about the 1939 adventure film of the same name that was inspired by it.
Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." on her blog and as I happen to own the movie (bought some years ago to add to my Cary Grant movies), I figured I'd join her.

When hearing the name Kipling, you can imagine that this will be a bit controversial, after all both the poem and the movie are set in the time of the British Raj.
Also, given the year the movie was made, you know that there will be brownface for the Indian characters and there will be stereotypes, both for the Indian and the British characters.

Gunga Din is an adventure film about three British sergeants in India - Ballantine (Fairbanks jr.), the romantic one, who is about to give up his military career to get married and go into the tea business, MacChesney (McLaglen), the tough one with the soft spot, and Cutter, the Cockney joker (Grant), who befriends the regimental "bhisti" or water-carrier Gunga Din and wants adventure - and treasure.

Public domain via Wikipedia

When the telegraph connection to Tantrapur is cut, the three friends and some Indian camp workers are sent there to repair the lines, but get attacked by a group of locals in the name of the goodess Kali. They barely make it out with some losses, and when reporting back, a weapon identifies the attackers as belonging to the ancient cult of Thuggee. The superiors agree that the return of Thuggee has to be nipped in the bud and decide to send back a larger force, but without Ballantine whose leave from the army is due soon.
To get rid of Higginbotham, the replacement whom they don't like, Cutter and MacChesney spike the punch at Ballantine's "betrothal dance" with elephant elixir. Higginbotham is indeed unable to join them the next morning and Ballantine agrees reluctantly to take his place, but wants the repairs to be done quickly before his enlistment ends. Before they are done, Higginbotham arrives with relief troops and Emmy, Ballantine's fiancée.

Meanwhile, Gunga Din has told Cutter about having found a temple of gold. MacChesney locks Cutter up to keep him from chasing after the gold, but with the help of Annie, the elephant, Din breaks him out and they head to the temple.
There they discover that the temple belongs to the Thugs. Cutter distracts the Thugs and gets himself caught, so Din can escape to get help.
While Higginbotham sends for backup from the regiment, MacChesney and Ballantine leave immediately for the temple with Din to rescue Cutter although Emmy tries to persuade Ballantine not to go. Of course them rushing in like that gets them captured as well.
They manage to take the guru of the tribe hostage and take him to the roof of the temple where they see how many Thugs are waiting for the regiment to arrive. As they don't want to abandon their guru, however, he kills himself, so they will fight the British.
Cutter and Din get wounded, but gathering his last strength, Din climbs to the top of the temple and blows his bugle before getting shot. That alerts the regiment and they can defeat the Thugs.
At Din's funeral the colonel appoints him a corporal of the British army, which had been Din's dream all along, saying "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."

I admit that I struggled putting this together as I didn't want to make it too long, but there is so much happening in the movie I haven't even included, after all it's almost two hours long!
There is action, there is humor, there is drama ... and very little romance. Emmy doesn't stand a chance against the army and Ballantine actually re-enlists for the rescue mission and stays re-enlisted, definitely not what she has dreamt of.

This is a buddy movie. Three lads taking on the world and having adventures. Why does that make me want to slap my thigh and go "Jolly well, old boy, cheerio, pip pip"?
It's probably the "Hollywood Raj" feeling, a term for the English actors living and socializing in Hollywood in the 30s, but also including actors from other countries like Australia, South Africa, and the USA who liked the style. This led to the making of countless "British" movies outside of Great Britain, movies upholding the old stereotypes and values, inspired by British authors. Being strangely Anglophile myself, I get it although I do not condone British imperialism.

Talking about imperialism, the movie was actually banned in parts of India for that reason. I found a post with an article about Gunga Din written for filmindia, and as you can imagine it's not a positive one. It points out all the stereotypes and even remarks on Din's heroic death being exploited to prove that the movie is not Anti-Indian.
However, the comments on the post itself are interesting to read as well as some Indian commenters say that in this day and age, they are able to laugh about it or even enjoy it, but how they understand Indians would feel differently about it back then when India did not have her independence yet.

Obviously, Kipling's poem didn't offer enough content for a whole movie, so they mixed it with some of the stories from his collection Soldiers Three.
In fact, quite a few writers tried their hand at the script and there were several variations until the final result.

Much of the movie was shot at Lone Pine about 200 miles from Los Angeles where they built the regimental site, the village, and the temple, and the director George Stevens took so long that production manager Berman had to set an ultimatum which was funny as he had chosen him over Howard Hawks for being faster.
A lot of the gags, stunts and fight scenes were improvised, something Stevens had learned from being a cinematographer with Hal Roach for Laurel and Hardy comedies.
At nearly 2 million dollars, the movie was by far the most expensive one of its time which was even more unusual given that RKO was not one of the huge studios.

There were also several choices for the cast.
Originally, Grant was supposed to play Ballantine, but he wanted to play Cutter, so Fairbanks jr. was brought in for the role of Ballantine.
For the part of Din, RKO would have liked Sabu, but producer Alexander Korda didn't want to lend Sabu at the time because he prepared for "The Thief of Bagdad", so they tested several actors and decided on Sam Jaffe. Jaffe said that he told himself "Think Sabu" and played the role with his concept of how Sabu would have played it. I admit that I can't see that, but I might be biased by the movies with Sabu that I have seen. Despite playing the man giving the movie his name, Jaffe is only credited in fourth place and he's not even in the film poster!
Joan Fontaine, who played Emmy, was not a star at that time, but she hardly had any screentime, anyway.
Let's not forget Anna May who played Annie, the elephant.

A short word on Thuggee. There are different approaches to the history of Thuggee.
Thuggee - like other words used in English - is derived from a Hindi word, "thagi" in this case which means "deception". Native Indians refer to "Thugs" as "phansigars" meaning "stranglers", you also see the word "thag" used.
A lot of the popular idea of Thuggee (as in Gunga Din and Indiana Jones 2 which has taken a lot from Gunga Din), also as a religious cult, is based on the writings of William H. Sleeman (including "The Thugs or Phansigars of India") who was head of the "Thug Police" in the 1830s.
This is a veritable rabbit hole to dive into - for how long have there been "Thags", was it a hereditary practice within a tribe, was it an orientalist construction to legitimize the British taking over, was there any religious connection at all, was there one "Thug ruler" ... it would be way too long for a post about a movie, but if you are interested in diving into that rabbit hole yourself, I'm going to add some sources.

Now I have talked a lot, but you may want to hear what I think about the movie?
I'm a bit torn and I'm not the only one (even Bertolt Brecht wrote about it!).
The movie is considered a classic and I can understand why, but you can't deny that it is most definitely a product of its time.
If it weren't set in India, with the typical ingredients - the glorifying of the British Empire on one side, elephants, a temple, and murderous cult members in loin cloths on the other - but in a fantasy country, you wouldn't even have to think about it twice.
So yes, there were moments when I rolled my eyes - I have been a professional eye-roller for decades, my eyes muscles are probably the strongest ones I have - but I have to admit that I also couldn't help getting drawn in by this buddy story and enjoy some of it.
You will have to make your own judgement. If you do, let me know!

Sources:
Kipling Society: Gunga Din - the poem and readers's guide
Film historian Rudy Behlmer's commentary on the 2004 DVD (highly recommended!)
Memsaab Story: The Gunga Din tamasha, posted January 31,2010
Kevin Jack Hagopian (New York State Writer Institute): Film Notes - Gunga Din
Gunga Din (film) on English Wikipedia
Back to Golden Days - an old Hollywood blog: Film Friday "Gunga Din", posted December 11, 2016
Park Ridge Classic Film: The Making of Gunga Din, posted January 14, 2014

Selected sources on Thuggee:
Darren Reid: On the Origin of Thuggee: Determining the Existence of Thugs in Pre-British India. In: The Corvette 4, 2017, 1, pp. 75 - 84 (Open Access)
Sagnik Bhattacharya: Monsters in the dark: the discovery of Thuggee and demographic knowledge in colonial India. In: Pallgrave Communications 6, Art.nr. 78(2020) (Open Access)
Kim A. Wagner: The Deconstructed Stranglers. In: Modern Asian Studies 38, 2004, 4, pp. 931 - 963 (Closed Access)

Random Saturday - The new gang member

I can't believe it has been almost exactly nine years ago that I introduced you to a new face on my fan wall of bead loomed portraits - Margarete Steiff.

I had also talked a bit about how my ex and I became collector of Steiff toys, thanks to a fleamarket that took place twice a year on the grounds of the university we both worked at. It was a huge fleamarket and we didn't have any particular interests, we just looked around.
Then we came to a table with a small plush mouse, a bunny, and a guinea pig, all of them Steiff which we were familiar with, but had never owned ourselves in our childhood. We were informed that people collected Steiff, something we had never thought about before.
"Pieps", the mouse, "Manni", the bunny, and "Swinny", the guinea pig, came home with us. We didn't even haggle. We had fallen in love and it was not curable.

Little did we know what those three little animals would start, not only visits of fleamarkets, fairs, auctions, but also meeting new people, and doing a lot of research pre-Internet.
We looked through price guides and catalogs, we learned about different buttons in ears or sometimes feet or tails if there weren't ears, different tags, different kinds of fabrics, glass or plastic eyes, and more.
We visited the Steiff museum in Giengen - still the old small one - and had I been a child, I would probably would have wanted to press my nose against the glass or drool on the floor. We watched the short movie about Steiff shown in a small room within the museum every single time we went there. Afterwards we went to our favorite restaurant and dreamed about owning some of these animals.
I have always been fascinated by collectors and their stories, but I'm afraid I may have bored more than one person with my stories.

One animal we couldn't resist was Pieps (who is named after the sound mice make - best translated as Squeak). Whenever we saw one we liked, we added it to our little gang of mice until they overran the place as mice sometimes tend to do.
They sit on dogs, climb up giraffe necks, play with cats, talk to foxes, sit in teddies' laps, peek out from under deer, and keep goats company.
Once I brought them all together for a reunion.
All the white ones with the red eyes ...

... and all the grey ones with the black eyes ...

... and sometimes if one jumps out at me, I'm fine with it joining the gang.
"Pieps, meet Pieps, this is Pieps and Pieps, oh, and that is Pieps, Pieps, and Pieps. Have you met Pieps yet?" Okay, I think you got the idea.

This week a new squeaker has arrived and after a big hello and introduction, she chose to go ride a boar. She's a tough one 😉
Can you believe she is at least 55 years old?

If you now think I'm crazy, you are probably right, but that's how collecting works - it doesn't matter if it's stamps, bottles, toys, books, clothes, shoes or movies!

The Prisoner of Zenda

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings is doing the "Winter of Fairbanks Jr." on her blog and I said I'd join her if I'd get the chance to watch the movies.
For today she chose "The Prisoner of Zenda". I had heard of the movie so often, but can't remember ever having watched any of the different versions. That doesn't mean much, though, because I'm sure I don't remember every movie from my childhood and this kind of movie would have been very much our TV food from that time.

Public domain via Wikipedia

Lookalikes are a popular trope in books and movies. That can be a "doppelgänger" (also spelled "doppelganger") from the spirit world - from the German "Doppelgänger" which translates as "double goer" - or just someone who looks very similar to another person. From my experience, it is often used in the first way in English, but in German it's more often just a lookalike.
Being very versatile, the doppelgänger trope is used in horror, thrillers, comedies, adventure, and more.

Anthony Hope's "The Prisoner of Zenda" is an adventure novel from 1894 and has inspired more than one adventure film, but also parodies.
This post is about the 1937 version which is regarded to be the best one and also the one with Douglas Fairbanks jr. in it. Actually, he wanted to play the lead, but lost the double role to Ronald Colman, instead he was offered the part of a villain which didn't get as much screen time, but looks as if it had been more fun to play.

So - what's the movie about? That's a bit confusing.

Englishman Rudolf Rassendyll is in the small kingdom of Ruritania (according to the book, in the movie they just show on a map that is somewhere between Vienna and Bucharest) on a fishing trip. Upon entering the country, he's already noticing strange reactions from the people around him, but only when he happens to encounter the soon-to-be king Rudolph in the woods, accompanied by his two of his men, Colonel Sapt and Fritz von Tarlenheim, he understands as he's the spitting image of the king, except for his beard. They discover that they are very distant cousins and Rudolph invites Rassendyll for a night of drinking.

Unfortunately Rudolph's half-brother Michael, who is after the throne, has drugged him to make sure he won't be in time for the coronation, and Sapt persuades Rassendyll to take his place to prevent Michael from becoming King.
Sapt and Fritz take the sleeping Rudolph to a hiding place and instruct Rassendyll for the coronation.
When they come back for Rudolph afterwards, however, they find he has been abducted by Michael's henchman Rupert of Hentzau (played by Fairbanks jr.) who seeks every opportunity to use the situation for his own gain. That means Rassendyll will have to keep on impersonating Rudolph.

Things have become even more complicated by his meeting Princess Flavia at the coronation who is supposed to marry Rudolph. She had never taken a liking to him before, but now she falls in love with Rassendyll - believing it is the King who has changed since she met him last years ago - and he with her.

Michael's mistress Antoinette, who knows that he would have to marry Flavia if he were to take the throne which obviously doesn't make her happy, decides to help the King in exchange for Michael's life and makes a plan to let his men into the castle of Zenda where Rudolph has been taken by now.
However, Michael surprises Rupert trying to seduce Antoinette, they start fighting and Rupert stabs him. Antoinette breaks down over Michael's body and her words alert Rupert about Rassendyll being in the castle.
Rupert confronts him and offers to kill Rudolph, Sapt, and Fritz, so only he and Rassendyll will hold the secret and can rule together, but Rassendyll declines. They end up in a sword fight as is expected from a swashbuckler film, but Rassendyll manages to lower the drawbridge for the King's men which forces Rupert to escape with a daring jump into the moat.

Source: Kevin's Movie Corner

Is there a happy ending? No, sorry. The King takes his rightful place back and Rassendyll returns to England - without Flavia who decides to stay behind with a broken heart, but her eyes on her duty to the country.

I know that many people love this movie, I have read rave reviews with full marks for performance, story, and action.
Now I don't see it on my list of regulars. It was fun, I liked it, but I didn't love it.
Maybe Ronald Colman was a bit too old for my idea of the swashbuckler. Although there is nothing to complain about his performance of both characters, I could see him more as the King than Rassendyll.
However, I might just have been captured by the two younger men, Rupert and Fritz (Fairbanks jr. and Niven), and am therefore a bit unfair to him.
What is it about a lock of hair hanging over the forehead of a good-looking young villain (Rupert) or an impish little smile on the lips (Fritz)? I felt like 13 and pining all over again for a second, and without those two, I might actually have felt a bit bored as there was a lot more talking than action. Maybe I would have liked the movie better if it had been a little shorter and, hm, snappier?

You know, I might just have to watch it again after all sometime, just to see if I will still be feeling the same way about it then.
And forgive me if this post seems a bit rushed, it had been a spontaneous decision to do this one.

Goodbye, Sharon McCone

How do you feel about book series? Are you a loyal fan of a particular series? Have you abandoned series, if so, why? How do you feel about reading the last book in a series?
All of these questions came to me when the last Sharon McCone book by Marcia Muller turned up in my mail.

Who is Sharon McCone and how did she get into my life? To be honest, I don't remember anymore, she has been around for so long. Maybe San Francisco was the start?
You see, when I first met Sharon, probably sometime in the early 90s, she was a private detective in San Francisco. In fact, she is credited with being the first independent female private detective paving the way for so many others, even if I didn't know it then.
I just liked Sharon and I liked that I could follow her around in my mind's eye having visited San Francisco myself not that long before. She was tough, she was smart, she could stand up for herself. She had a social conscience, in fact she had studied sociology and worked her way through college in department store security, then moved on to become the staff investigator at All Souls, a legal co-op a friend of her founded in San Francisco.

People change, however, even in books sometimes. Sharon left All Souls for becoming too business-like, opened her own agency which grew and grew. She fell in and out of love, more and more characters entered the scene, friends and family members with a vast share of problems, the plots got more complicated, the books got thicker, Sharon met Hy, the mysterious pilot, learned how to fly (just like Muller herself), had a ranch in the middle of nowhere (you have to fly that plane somewhere), found out she was adopted and Native American, Hy and his partners with the high profile security agency moved into a big building, along with Sharon's detective agency ... have you forgotten to breathe yet?
'Cos that's a bit what it felt like to me. And Sharon, it seemed, was a bit overwhelmed as well.
I blame Hy. I was never a fan of Hy, even if he was the love of Sharon's life. Everything about him was too professional, too mysterious, too rugged, too good, too much, too large.

I have abandoned book series for one or the other reason, but can also be loyal to a fault.
I stayed by Sharon's side although I often complained (mostly about Hy 😂). When they stopped translating the books into German, I got the English ones (although I hate mixing languages in a series), but have to admit that I sometimes rushed through them, for example skipping details about planes, how to fly them, and about winds.
The later books got thinner again (which I welcomed).
Some I liked better than others, but my re-reads were the older ones when Sharon still seemed to be Sharon to me and if I hadn't that history with her, I'm sure I would have given up before the end.

Now I have the last book lying there on my nightstand, waiting to be opened for the first time, and I have to admit that there is a bit of grief, but it's not overwhelming like in other cases, instead it's mixed with relief.
When I read my last Terry Pratchett book, I actually cried. Reading my last Kinsey Millhone book by Sue Grafton, I didn't cry, but was really sad.
I'm not saying farewell to Sharon as I'm sure I will not stop re-reading my favorites from time to time, but I'm saying goodbye.
Goodbye, Sharon, you have earned your retirement.

10 on the 10th - 2024, remember or forget

That is this month's prompt for the 10 on the 10th by Marsha in the Middle, and it's a difficult one for me.
I could just go the easy way and say I want to remember everything that was good and forget everything that was bad, but it doesn't really work that way, does it?
Another reason is that, the older I get, the blurrier the years seem to get. Was this last week, last month, last year? Whenever I watch "12 Angry Men" and they talk about alibis and not remembering a movie one of them has seen not long ago, I try to remember details of something not that far back and I fail regularly. I would make an absolutely terrible witness in court, and if I were the defendant, I would probably march straight to jail, innocent or not.
Ask me details from one of my vivid dreams, however, or my favorite song lyrics from the 80s, I'm your woman.
Lastly, my life is quite uneventful and quiet, others would probably even say it's boring.  

Let's see what I can still get together from last year, in completely random order.

1. Happy Anniversary to my kidney. In November, we celebrated incredible 21 years together, not something anyone had anticipated after a very rocky start. In the USA it would be allowed to drink legally now 😉 I'm immensely grateful and hope we'll be having a bit more time together.

2. Speaking of health, I would like to forget all the little and big problems some of which have become worse last year, such as my arthritic thumb joint I keep whining about. One spot stops hurting for a bit, but no worries, the next one will be with you in a moment. It can really get exhausting, also mentally, especially if it messes with my creative ventures which are usually my way to escape.
It also means I don't get out much because I tire easily, so don't expect any travel posts from me.

3. Starting a new craft. After two short and bad experiences way in the past, I started embroidering after all. I had been fascinated by pictures of goldwork for quite a while and couldn't resist getting a goldwork kit which is probably a bit of a weird choice for a first piece. I had it lying around forever, too afraid to start, and then two ladies from Instagram convinced me to finally give it a go. I was very proud of my little goldwork fox as I hadn't been too sure it would ever get finished.

4. Online classes and talks. For last year's crafty advent calendar, I had found a few perfect items, but I really struggled to get through the video tutorials which has nothing to do with the quality, I'm just notoriously bad at watching anything on the computer that is longer than five minutes. However, working from home seems to have taught me to get better at it if I'm really, really interested in something.
I very spontaneously bought a self-paced embroidery online course from the Royal School of Needlework. Again, it took me a bit to muster the courage to get started, but then I really enjoyed it, and now I have another course waiting for me to muster the courage to get that one started (there's a lot of counting involved and we all know I even have problems to count to three sometimes 😉). The courses include kits, but unfortunately the RSN stopped shipping to the EU right before the goldwork course I wanted to do so badly finally became available again. I don't know if they are going to pick up shipping again eventually, if so, I will definitely do more.
I also found that there are actually online talks I enjoy.

5. World politics and world matters. I'm not going to go into detail, but there are several things I would quite like to forget, but unfortunately they are our future.

6. Life has thrown me a surprising curveball this year. The outcome of this particular one is not clear yet, it might be a good one, it might be a bad one, but as a natural born pessimist I won't be able not to overthink it until I actually know.

7. Blogging. I hadn't blogged a lot in the last few years, half of my posts were made up for the advent calendars.
A lot of it has to do with the limits I set for myself when I started blogging. My family doesn't want to be put out there which I understand only too well as I don't want to put too much of myself out there. I have been extremely camera-shy since I was a teenager and it hasn't become better with age. Not that many pictures exist of me at all, I hardly have any selfies, and those that I have usually have a cat in there as well, ideally hiding part of me.
This blog is mainly a crafty blog, but I don't do tutorials or instructions. When I craft, I craft and don't write down individual steps or take photos which often means I don't even remember myself how I did something (one reason why I'm not a fan of making earrings).
There has been a time when you wouldn't have found me without fiddling with wire or beads. That's not happening anymore. First Zibbet, where I had my shop, disappeared off the web, then came the pandemic and I couldn't ship stuff overseas anymore for months, then the postal service changed rules about the annual minimum shipping, so now I have to pay the private rates, that (once again) led to the question how much sense it even made to still make and try to sell jewelry. I often say that I have always been a very small fry, but how small do you have to become to finally give up? Anyhow, this and my thumb were not very good for my motivation this year. No crafting, no blogging.
I didn't want to give that up completely, though. Surely there was a way to find something to write about? That reminded me of my nostalgia posts and how I always enjoyed doing the research for them. Also I (very) slowly started connecting with other bloggers and joined in one or the other activity with them like "Comfy Cozy Cinema" and "Comfy Cozy Christmas", well, and the "10 on the 10th". No idea where and how this will be going, but I'm trying to get back on track and maybe surprise myself.

8. New shop. That may sound like something good to remember, but yeah, actually not. I thought I'd give a German platform a try, probably mostly to convince myself to keep going, but after giving it some time, I decided it was not worth for me putting any more money in.

9. The year of dying appliances.
My TV decided it would get rid of the V part. Sound yes, picture no. Thankfully I still had a smaller TV that could jump in because I haven't found a replacement yet. TV is important for me because I like to have background noise when crafting. Audiobooks are not my thing and music doesn't work as well as TV shows because it relaxes me right into sleep which is a tad counterproductive.
My furnace decided it's time for us to say goodbye. It's still working which is a nice move on its part, but only until there will be a new one if I don't wait too long. And it insists on making noises until then to make sure I really won't be waiting too long.
I think both of them have been talking to my fridge, too. It's still in the decision-making process and wants to call its union representative about retirement options.
I told the cats to look for jobs, but they refused and told me that I shouldn't dare cut snack rations or else ...

10. Cats. Of course. Can't do without cats.
Der Dekan hasn't changed much, he's still Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which can be highly entertaining, highly annoying or just downright adorable.
Gundel, on the other hand, has changed a bit over the last year. As she came to me as a stray, I don't know her age, if my vet's estimate is right, she would be around 11 now. After we lost Ponder, shortly before the pandemic started, she became a bit lazy. We were alone, I waited on her paw and foot, and she enjoyed snuggling up and sleeping, watching me work from home - something that was new to her, having the human around all day - and very much becoming the Queen of the house.
After a while, the Queen didn't want to share my pillow anymore, but granted audience graciously when she felt like it, snuggling up against my leg. She also stopped fetching balls, probably that wasn't dignified enough for her.
That was before der Dekan moved in, but with him around she appreciated her own pillow even more and often retreated quickly when he jumped at her. In such a retreat from the top of the wardrobe she hurt her first knee and when that had got better, the lady went and hurt the other knee (both on her hind legs). That one was worse, she limped badly and practically left her pillow only to go the box. Yes, I spoilt her even rottener than before (I know that isn't a word). It took months for it to get really good again although now I'm not so sure anymore if she faked part of it because she enjoyed being pampered.
Just now I can hear her kick a ball around. I remember how surprised I was to hear such a sound at night some time this year. My girl had started playing again! Not with me that much, she prefers play sessions on her own at night. Actually she got more active again in general - the Christmas tree could tell one or the other story about that - and obviously der Dekan taught her not to be quite such a lady anymore because she doesn't just try to stare me awake for breakfast now, instead she pulls on my hair and she's not holding back! She even started talking more again.
The highlight, however, was on Valentine's Day. Gundel is not a lap cat, but on that day, completely out of the blue, she sat on my chest and then lay down on me and stayed for two hours. There are special moments with my animals which I really treasure, and this is one of them. She had never done that in almost seven years.
And guess what, when I had finished this post and shut the laptop, she came up and sat on my chest for 15 minutes to be petted. Think she knew what I had been writing about?

Wow, I really made it to ten.
Sorry that the post is so long, I hadn't thought it would be. Thank you if you made it all the way through!

The ravioli fight

I'm not much of a cook, and today, after my first workday in the new year was over, I definitely had neither the patience nor the motivation to cook. Usually that means a cheese sandwich, I even had fresh potato walnut bread delivered with the groceries, but I wanted something warm, so I went for one of my "emergency foods", in this case a can of vegan ravioli. I rarely buy them and hadn't had them for a while, also they were on sale, I couldn't resist.

Nothing could go wrong, could it? Open the can, heat the ravioli, a piece of bread for the sauce, full belly, done. Maybe a nice nap with kitty snuggling afterwards, taking down some Christmas decorations, hanging up laundry, then a nice evening with a bit of TV and getting ready for the next day.
OR you could prove to be too stupid to open the can and delay that whole plan.
I'm not kidding. I stood there like an idiot, turning and turning the handle of my can opener. The can went round and round and round and round, but nothing got cut and the lid didn't come off.
Now I didn't buy that can opener, it was my ex, and I very much blame him for leaving me with it, so I wouldn't have to get a new one, but curse every time I use it.
Ok, I don't really blame him, I blame myself for hardly ever using it and therefore never bothering to buy a replacement.
(Spoiler: Eventually the miracle happened and the can got so tired of my efforts that it decided to give up.)

That took me back another fight with a ravioli can more than 40 years ago. My boyfriend at the time had a room above a restaurant. One day he had to go work  - "only for a bit" - and I stayed behind with a book. Unfortunately, he took the key with him by accident, and I didn't feel good about leaving with the room being unlocked (I mean, what if someone would have stolen his valuable cassette tapes? No, honestly, I have absolutely no idea why I felt thieves were just waiting to raid this particular room, my only excuse is that I was still quite young, but already an accomplished overthinker).
Then I got hungry because "only for a bit" turned into hours. No problem, I had a can of ravioli and a hot plate. And a tiny US Army P-38 can opener which I had never seen before in my life.

Public domain via Wikipedia

The next hour or so (including a lot of breaks to curse the can - in English, I curse a lot better in English - and the opener, my boyfriend and the key), I tried to get that *insert curse word here* can opened. I'm going to spare you all the methods I used although I knew they wouldn't work. One included a screwdriver without a hammer.
That I didn't cut a finger off with the P-38 was simply a miracle. I can be a terrible klutz sometimes and this thing just screamed Klutzkiller.
Well, other than this time I didn't succeed back then and got so hangry that someone got a big earful when he came back, I can tell you that. Him laughing about my struggle with the P-38 didn't help. Him inviting me for dinner at the restaurant downstairs helped a little. I think the kitchen had run out of food when I was done 😉

Another memory from that time is an old grater that I still own and use today. It's nothing special and there is a small melted spot from the hot plate, but it works and that's all that counts.
Some time ago, my sister and I talked about vintage kitchen utensils and she took a picture for me of her small "collection" from the old days, including a can opener like the one my grandmother also had (which I wasn't very good with, either) and my grandmother's own masher with a very vintage handle pattern. Talk about flashbacks! Who knows, maybe I'm going to tell you the story sometime of how my grandmother and I didn't talk anymore for two weeks when I was a kid - because of green beans! 😂

Do you still have old kitchen utensils that you bought yourself or inherited?

P.S. The nap didn't happen, by the way. Well, not for me, but of course the cats. They really need to get a job or at least start cleaning around here.

The cat

Happy New Year!
This is not a bad day for showing something fresh off the hoop.

The other day I was hanging out on my bed like so often - it's big and the perfect space for the cats and me, tools and supply boxes, books and remote controls.
Der Dekan is one clingy cat, so I usually have some kind of blanket on my legs, thin or thick, summer or winter, so the master can choose to sleep on my legs or on my feet or under the blanket snuggled up against my legs (which can be rather nice if it's cold because he's a veritable little hot-water bottle, just filled with kibbles instead of water, if it's too hot, he luckily stays next to me instead).
In this case, he was on the blanket sleeping like only he can, meaning his weight mysteriously tripled from one second to the next, so I was completely paralyzed. Yes, I know he's a spoilt brat, but I don't make the rules, I just work here.
I have never been a girl scout, but my motto for such situations is "Be prepared" which means that my embroidery box was next to me. I hadn't planned anything in particular, but seeing his cute little face, I grabbed my smallest embroidery hoop, one of my water-soluble pens, and whipped up a quick sketch, as well as I could, I'm not an artist.

That didn't mean I planned to make my kitty look like der Dekan, I'm definitely not there yet with my embroidery skills and don't know if I ever will be, but that doesn't really matter as I just enjoy the process.
Also I'm completely overwhelmed by all the colors cats have even if they are "just" black or tabby cats. Sometimes I find myself staring at my cats in wonder trying to determine which colors I'm seeing at the moment, depending on the light. Der Dekan mostly doesn't mind me poking each color I can see in his fur, going "boop, boop, boop" (if you think that is silly, be glad you don't know more).
I still don't know what base color he is exactly. Sometimes he looks brown, sometimes it's more of a grey.

One of the things I like to do when I start on something without a clear plan is to pick a bunch of colors from what I have around at that moment.
That doesn't mean my whole stash, but what I find in my current project box which is just a nice way to speak of the box I throw beads into because I'm too lazy to put them back right away. To justify that, I take it as a challenge to create with what I have.
Now my embroidery box is organized, but only because I don't have enough stash yet to start a second box, and that means I have a limited amount of colors, more brown than grey which settled the color of my cat.

Whenever der Dekan was sleeping on me again, I took a good look at him for inspiration and went to work on the piece on and off over a week.
As usual I see the flaws and shortcuts very clearly, but this is a journey of which I don't know where it's going to take me to, and at the moment I still embrace my flaws and allow myself shortcuts consciously. My experience is that if I want too much too quickly and fail with that, it can lead to WIPs (works in process) turning into forever UFOs (unfinished objects) - that's my definition - and I didn't want this one to become one of those.
Der Dekan, however, wants you to know that he has a much cuter nose, and I have to agree on that.

What really annoyed me that one spot of the yellow pen stubbornly refused to come out. The last time I used it, I had covered it completely and there was no need to wash it out, but not this time.
The only idea I could come up with was to add a bit of sparkle to the background which I had wanted to do anyway, only not in that particular spot. Don't tell anyone ;-)

I had ordered a few round frames, wooden ones - I used one for my "Guardian of the Woods" - and vintage brass ones. They have a little hole and hook at the bottom which confused me at first, but of course they are meant to be hung up in a row, with family pictures for example. That took me back in time 45 years, to my violin teacher's living room. I can't remember every detail of it, but I remember it feeling cozy and comfortable - even if I had never practiced enough - and a bit old-fashioned and plushy, with elegant wallpaper and miniature portraits. I always wondered if they were ancestors of hers, but never dared to ask.

I don't know if I will make something eventually that will work with the tabby for such a row of portraits.
For now I will have to think of something to make that hole a bit less noticeable. One idea is to paint the linen golden in that spot or glue on a bead or to put a hook in - the original one or a smaller one - and hang a charm on it, not that I would know at the moment what kind of charm could work. What do you think?