New Painting

Once or twice a year (depending on how long/busy our vacations are), my husband does a watercolor. This year he took two weeks off to relax and spend time with the kids and me. And paint a watercolor. And just for the record, artists are every bit as obsessed and grumpy about their work as writers are. (It's definitely different being on the other side. Now I'm the one rolling my eyes when I hear, "It's horrible. I wish I could start over." Etc.)

Here are some photos. Be warned the quality of my camera is very bad. The painting itself has much deeper colors and the images are much sharper. But here's Calvin's latest painting. It's from our trip to France and it's me visiting the Queen's Hamlet at Versailles.

  

Here is the sketch before the painting begins.

  

Half painted. The color in this photo is more accurate to the painting.

     

Completed. But awaiting a frame.

Eden to Amazon

For as long as I can remember, I’ve made up stories. I’d sit in an airport and make up stories about the people that walked by. As I drove past houses, particularly interesting ones, I’d make up stories about the people who live inside. The most poignant stories were always about the people with neglected gardens.

As I’d drive or walk by a house with a neglected garden, I looked to see whether the bones of an excellent garden where underneath the weeds. I’d look for specimen plants—exotic creatures that take special nurture. I’d spy out meandering foot paths or artfully planted foundation plants. And, of course, if I spied out the bones beneath the neglect, the story I told myself would become tragic. Often, it would run like this. A dear woman (all woman who garden are wise, aesthetic souls) planted and cared for a lovely garden. One day, disease or death struck. And now her husband can’t bear to be out weeding and mulching because it reminds him of her. And now the garden lies in disarray—a physical reminder of love lost. (Yes, my younger daydreams were melodramatic.)

Now that I am older and wiser, I know the truth because my garden has gone from Edenic to Amazonian. (Okay, it was never Edenic, but this is my blog post so I’m allowed a little creative license.) And the cause of the neglect isn’t debilitating disease or death or even a bad case of the flu…it’s writing deadlines. When you’re looking for passive voice, mixed metaphors, etc., there isn’t time to trim the roses or weed the Bermuda. (I tried Roundup, but it must’ve rained before the poison dried. Grumble, grumble.)

In any case, Screwing Up Alexandria is now pubbed, and I’m out in the garden with shears and shovels (yes, some of the weeds are that big). And soon I’ll banish the Amazonian takeover. But, I am a little wistful because I’m wondering how many other writers who drive by my house are going to have their tragic stories ruined. Sorry.

(Okay, so please tell me that I’m not the only one who makes up stories about gardens.)

Yeah, okay, so this isn't my garden. It's one of the gardens at Versailles.
But a girl can dream, right?

Paris Photos

I spend most of this past week at the hospital with a friend, so I'm playing "catch up with life" now.

And because I don't have time today to write a blog post, I'm posting a few "never-before-seen" photos from our Paris trip. I hope you enjoy them.

This is in the Petit Trianon at Versailles. The railing originally had Louis XIV in the medallions. Marie Antoinette had it replace with MA.

 This is a barometer/thermometer. The interesting thing is that the temperature is marked like this "St. Petersburg during the winter," etc.

Every member of our home is strictly forbidden from blowing dandelions. I, on the other had, blew one in Marie Antoinette's garden.

In a French cafe for a late dinner. And for reasons that I don't understand, it looks light outside. But it was at least 10 pm.

The Queen's Hamlet

I love irony. But it’s rare to find poignant irony outside of books. I think because it’s easy to miss in real life—we tend to lack a certain detachment that you need in order to see irony.

However, sometimes it smacks you in the face. Especially when it’s in someone else’s life. Even more so when it’s in Marie Antoinette’s life.

When we visited Versailles, we took a hike to The Queen’s Hamlet. It’s in the far corner of the estate, but worth the walk. MA had a peasant village built to use both as an escape from the palace and as a party playground for her and her coterie of hangers-on.

She had a romantic view of peasant life. And so that’s what she got. The sheep and goats were perfumed. Marie Antoinette dressed as a milkmaid. Though an actual milkmaid did the real milking. I can’t help but wonder how history might have been different had she visited a real village and milked a real goat.

Here are some photos of the “hameau.”

Here's the famous Mill. You can't go inside, but that small water wheel couldn't generate much grinding power.

I grew up with relatives who had dairy farms. None of them had marble mosaic floors or fountains in the walls. 

The Hamlet was gorgeous. Totally pristine. So not a real working village.

This was the entrance to the "farm" part of the village. Apparently, there was a real farm a ways outside of the Hamlet that did provide food for the residents.

Here's where the perfumed sheep and goats roamed. Can't you just see MA and her ladies-in-waiting dressed as peasants, giving the sheep and goats hugs and kisses?


I wonder if they're hiring re-enactors. I'd love to get paid to be MA pretending to be a peasant.

N.B. In all fairness to MA, she did wise up and try to help the poor. But by then, it was too late.

Versailles Needs Feather Dusters

Years ago I did some research on Marie Antoinette, the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, etc., for a novel I was working on. I never finished the novel (though I’d love to go back to it), but the history stayed with me.

So we couldn’t visit Paris without visiting Versailles. It was as amazing as you’d guess. I was disappointed in the fountains—none of them were running and the biggest of the fountains was being restored so it was a maze of construction and dirt.

But here is the Hall of Mirrors.

And a photo of the chapel, from the second story balcony.

And here is Marie Antoinette’s bedchamber.

This is the door she escaped through when the mobs came to Versailles. 

Apparently, the guards feared reprisals from the mobs and when they demanded entry to the palace grounds, the guards opened the gates.

Here’s her bed in Le Grand Trianon, a second smaller palace on the grounds of Versailles.

And here’s her bed in Le Petit Trianon. Apparently, Marie didn’t like the grandeur, pomp, and court intrigue of the main palace or even the much smaller Grand Trianon. So she spent most of her time living in Le Petit Trianon.

Yes, the bed is really tiny. You'd have to curl into a ball to sleep there.

If you go back to the photo of the first bed, note the thick layer of dust on the bedspread--so thick you can't even see the pattern on the fabric. This is one of my few complaints about Paris. The museums and cathedrals have serious dust issues. Cal sneezed a lot. (I took allergy medicine.) I know the French have lots of work maintaining their historical artifacts, so I was thinking that I'd get together a group of dusting friends and we’d dust the museums, churches, etc. (My Dutch immigrant friends have all volunteered—they have a cultural aversion to dust, even a speck.) And the French government wouldn’t have to pay us, just buy us a plane ticket. They wouldn’t even have to get us a hotel room. We’d be happy to bunk out at Versailles.

Any other volunteers want to join us? 

Some Pictures of Paris

As you know, we're in Paris. We're having a wonderful time!

Hopefully, I'll be posting again the middle of next week, but here are some photos in the meantime.

Cal and I in the gardens at Versailles.

One of the rooms in Versailles.

Notre Dame with my friend the gargoyle.

Shakespeare and Company bookstore, right around the corner from our apartment.