Table flowers from last night's dinner with our godson and his family: zinnias, blue sage, evening primrose, and a couple of the Bright Lights Cosmos that have resown themselves in containers this year. One of W.'s sisters said she spent the whole evening looking at the flowers because the colors were so pretty. Tea tins with tea lights for atmosphere.
It was a fun time --- W., his parents, two of his teenaged sisters, and his dad's mother, who turned out to know a lot of the same people we knew growing up in Memphis. The surprise hit of the evening, at least for W., was our gooseberry bush. He kept getting up to go out and pick and eat more gooseberries, and we finally gave him a big yogurt container so that he could pick more to eat on the way home.
The non-hit of the evening was Dora, whom we really should have crated upstairs, away from people. She was stressed --- more than I've seen her be in a long time when we've had people over --- and acted rather badly when out of her crate. It wasn't her fault, just a function of being over her threshold and unable to get herself regulated again. I had thought about moving her crate upstairs, but then we didn't, and I wish we had. Next time we will. I really wish we just had another big crate (we do have a smaller one that will do in a pinch --- I often use it in the car) and a good place to put it, out of the way upstairs, because her current crate is hard to move. But it could be carried to the upstairs hall. Next time we have people over, this is what we'll need to do. She needs to be where she doesn't see and hear people at such close range. And I'm just going to have to take the line that she really is a one-family dog and doesn't get comfortable with strangers that easily. She can do, and if it's just a couple of calm people she's okay. But she was not a success last night, and I'm sorry about that. Live and learn.
Here's my favorite study corner in the lovely summer-solstice light:
The last two years, we've been in Norway at Midsummer, which was wonderful (if a little hard to get any sleep). This year, it's kind of nice to be home for the longest day. We don't have particular plans, either. I'm feeling kind of tired and rundown, and there are some bits of housework that need doing: sheets changed on our bed, clean sheets put back on the Artgirl's bed, a little laundry. The good thing about having people over is that the house and porches are relatively clean, and all I really have to do today, besides those minor and ordinary tasks, is relax in the nice atmosphere of order.
I do also need to finish my Gerard Manley Hopkins essay for Monday. It's about 2/3 done, and I think I know where I want to go for the rest of it, so maybe it'll more or less write itself (famous last hopes, but one can hope). And again, it's not like I'm doing much otherwise. If I needed to dive down some unexpected research rabbit hole, I could. I've got the time. I'm not going anywhere else today, except on dog walks. Those will be pretty curtailed, however, as she needs to decompress. Mostly I think we'll hang out in the backyard with the mosquitoes.
Wearing today:
