A Midsummer Night's Dream

The second play, of 27, that I read, was A Midsummer Night's Dream. I read it once before, but that was many, many years ago. I had forgotten how, well, how silly it was. It has to be about the silliest play in the world, but I like it anyway.




It is a bit confusing the first time around, but once you've figured out who is who, it is quite enjoyable.

My favorite part hast to be at the very end, when all of the couples are watching a play preformed by a group of amateur actors. The actors are so pathetic, they are the funnest bunch of fellows and provide all kinds of awesome humor all through the play.


But the best thing about the play (the play within the play) is the dry and sarcastic remarks made by the audience.



Best Character: It's hard to say, but I think I'd have to go with Puck. He has great lines all through the book. He messed everything up (That was partly Oberon's fault.) and then fixed everything (At Oberon's direction.)




Worst Character: Demetrius. He was a jerk. In the end he was OK. But, well, he was really, really mean to the (stupid) girl (Helena) that liked him. (She was stupid for liking a guy that kept treating her like a dog.)

Rated: PG13, for sexual references, and language. At least, I think it was language...

(It wasn't that bad, I just thought I'd say.)

In a word: Silly

(But in a good way.)

Crowning Moment: When everything all works out. Titania and Oberon make up. Nick Bottom gets turned back into his old self. Lysander and Hermia are back together. And Demetrius is somehow less of a jerk than he was at the beginning.

Julius Caesar

The first play in my plan to read all of my Shakespeare books, was Julius Caesar. Party because I already knew basically what happens in it, partly because it is in a small book and was thereby less daunting, and partly just because it was on the top of the stack of Shakespeare books.



It was a bit different than I thought it would be, it was a whole lot less dramatic. But still very moving. It was interesting. Very, very interesting.


Best Character: Brutus. He meant well. He deeply and truly felt like he was doing what was right for Rome. He was, well, the noblest Roman of them all.

Worst Character: Quite honestly, Julius Caesar. He was annoying. He was rude to his loving wife. And he was always talking about how great he was...in third person!!!! I just can't like someone like that.


Rated: PG13, for blood and gore, and disturbing images.

(It really, really, wasn't that bad, but if it was a movie, a very exact movie, it would be PG13.)

In a word: Interesting.

Crowning Moment: It didn't seem to have a climax. But the famous oratories by Mark Antony and Brutus were really very amazing.

Something Awesome: The popular line "It's Greek to me" is from this play. I never would have guessed that. The are Romans, of course, and a man said something in Greek. Brutus and Cassius asked their friend what he said, to which their friend replied "...it was Greek to me."



I was amazed at how easy this famous tragedy was to read. It really wasn't that complicated. It was...beautiful.

Shakespeare

Over the years, I have collected many of Shakespeare's plays. Many were given to me, some I bought for myself, either way, I have a lot. Over half of his works, I am sure. I had only read one of them (But I had started roughly three.), and for the great majority of them, I had absolutely no clue what they were about.



Slowly but surely, from somewhere, I got this idea: I would read all of my Shakespeare plays. Then I decided to count them all.

27



I counted them all and learned that I had 27 plays. (Almost all of them are collected together in large books.) I still wanted to read them all. And in less than a year.




So, last week, February 20, 2011, I started. I started with Julius Caesar. It was shockingly easy to read and took me only half a week. The other half, I read A Midsummer Night's Dream. I had already read that one before, so it went very well.

I still plan to read all of his plays. I will do a post on each book and say what I thought of it. I'm really looking forward to it.

Smile

The other day I went on a grand day out with my dear mother. About a hop, skip, and a jump from where we live is one of the loveliest places around. It is a road. It is a lovely road, very wide and very, very straight. On either side for most of it there is a wide strip of grass and then trees. There are never very many cars on it and that is perhaps why I like it so much.

Early that morning, we had gotten a great deal of rain. It was all over by the time we went out, but the most magnificent clouds were left. And this road is about the most glorious place for seeing clouds, it is so very open.

We were driving along and I was adoring the lovely sights. I realized that I had the mist giant grin on my fave. Then it dawned on me: I had absolutely no clue why I was smiling. The more I realized I didn't know why, the more I smiled. At one point I almost laughed. Maybe it was just so lovely seeing the clouds.

Sometimes, just smile. You don't need a reason, you know why? If you smile, almost a soon at is is on your face, you will think of a reason for smiling. If not, you will feel kind of silly in a very happy way. You will still be smiling.



Yours truly,

Julie

A Little Bit About My Little Garden

There we were, alone, in the wilderness. It was either it or me. I had a garden to defend. It was going to be it.

In the end it was kind of both of us. (But I was the one left standing.)

Look at it this way: I would rather have poison ivy on my arms than in my garden.

Actually, at the time, I had no clue the roots I was pulling up were poison ivy. . . Let me rephrase that. I had the feeling the roots I was pulling up might be poison ivy, I just had more of a feeling that they weren't.

They were.

C'est la vie.

I have a little garden, as you may know. For the longest time only half of it was plants, the other half was a sort of patio (I'm flattering it.) made out of boards. I tolerated it for several years. Last year I wanted very much to get rid of it and this year, with the help of my beloved mother, I got rid of it. Now I have twice as much space to garden it. I am very excited about it. I have already planted three coral-bells in the new bed, and hope to plant many more plants.

(A little tip for if you are ever digging: don't think about landmines.)

One of my favorite things about gardening is when my Tiger comes to visit me. I don't know what it is about cats, but they love to come visit people in gardens. Tiger, quite honestly, would have rather I left the boards in, I believe. There is a little wall along part of my garden. Tiger very often sits on it and watches me working, or watches the little birds that land in the myrtle tree.

I love my garden, and when there is more green and growing, I'll post pictures.

Take care.

Hummingbirds

I painted these a few weeks ago.



You can click the pictures for a larger look. They are just photographs. I'd like to see if scanning them would have any better quality, but for now I didn't feel like waiting.



Have an absolutely wonderful day!

Twilight

When I was a little kid living in California there was a radio advertisement for a brand of wine. I always liked those ads. And at one point, the man says in a quiet, soft voice describing eventing time, something to the extent of: "..and the Earth softens a little around the edges." Maybe that would make so sense to some people, but it makes sense to me, and it is one of my favorite things in the whole world. Twilight.

When the sun has set, but it is still kind if light. And the air starts to cool off a bit, but you can feel that everything else is still warm. The Earth softens a little around the edges, and the air has the most fabulous feeling.

It wasn't like that this evening. But it was close. Not even very close, just close. It was the warmest evening there has been in a long time.

I was sitting out on the front porch with my little cat Tiger, just enjoying the nice air. Very nice things happened. I heard a frog again (We've been hearing them off and on the past few days.), I saw a daffodil (Only the second one!), and I saw a bat. It was so small and fast. I didn't like them when I was little: they are so very ugly. But when it is twilight and they are flying up high, and you can't see their hideous little faces, they look rather nice. It was the first one I've seen this year. But where there are bats, there are bugs. I don't like that part.

It was so very nice. But it has always been one of my favorite times, when the Earth softens a little around the edges...

Diamond

My favorite necklace.

Oh My!

It's been so long!!! I didn't mean for this to happen, really I didn't. I will try and make up for not posting for so long by posting a bit more.

First, I should have said several days ago, I guess I was just to excited, but I'll say it now.


Spring is here.


Just think about that for a minuet.

Spring. Is. Here.

Amazing, isn't it!?

No tree leaves, yet, but several plants have come up. And even two of them have had flowers! False crocus and periwinkle.

(Our periwinkle, the second flower this Spring.)

It is so wonderful to see color again! And the weather has been almost unrealistically lovely. The birds have been singing more and the night of the 18th, we heard the first frog! (We like frogs, here.) I have been working in my little garden (When there is more growing, I hope to blog about it here.) and my little cat Tiger comes to visit me every time. (I think he is glad of the nice weather, too.)

It doesn't get better than Spring. It really doesn't.

I hope to be blogging more. Spring is the most inspirational thing in the world, so it shouldn't be hard.

Have an absolutely wonderful day.