Pot of Gold Fabric --- Day 7/353, 354

Walk: 1. Sal's Upholstery, etc.  2. Calico Fabrics, etc.
Distance: 1. 8 Blocks then bridge  2. 3.6 Blocks, small yoga

So untrained kittens and 20 years have come to mean a new slipcover for Ciwt's couch.  The kittens are now cats who oblige Ciwt by using their scratching posts (mostly), so that's taken care of.  The fabric is another matter.  Twenty years ago gold tones were perfect for Ciwt's back room where the aging couch sits, and they still are.  

But try to find them in today's fabric offerings!  If she wanted Grey or Beige or the omnipresent Greige she'd have trouble carrying all the samples home.  Gold is another matter; a passe matter actually. Every once in a while Ciwt finds a golden candidate, calls the fabric house and is told "That pattern has been discontinued."  So far six are fabrics of the past. As elusive as that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Of course, like all fashions gold will make a comeback (?), and will those fabric houses ever be sorry when it does! As she trudges empty handed from store to store, Ciwt consoles herself with this thought.

No Host Highlights --- Day 7/251, 252

Walk: 1. Hood Monday Errands  2. No, another atmospheric river (ie, rainstorm w/wind)
Distance: 1. 3 miles, small yoga   2. Big Yoga

So, what were Ciwt's positive takeaways from this year's Oscars?

Melissa McCarthy in The Favourite rabbit dress: 

After Ciwt recovered from Glenn Close disappointment, Olivia Colman and her acceptance speech were treasures:

Rami Malek's well-deserved win:

Lady GaGa and Bradley Cooper creating an international swoon:

No Host which kept the attention on the awards:

Nice gowns, handsome men, no particular glitches, worse movies have won Best Picture, so on the whole an enjoyable way for Oscar Buff Ciwt to spend 5+ hours - but still not a show she could possibly recommend to non-Buffs.

Going and Staying --- Days 7/348, 349, 350

Walk: 1. Presidio   2. No, Agenting   3. No, Agenting again and soon The Oscars!
Distance: 1. 6 miles   2. 0, Yoga   3. 0, Yoga

'Communing' with Rembrandt's Nightwatch at the Rijksmuseum

So Ciwt has been playing travel agent again.  She thought it would be nice to return to Paris and, before there, to Amsterdam to commune with the Dutch Master paintings she missed when her knee accident prevented her from going to D.C. for its Old Masters show.  All was well for a while as she considered hotels and flights but then she began encountering more and more articles about the crowds in Amsterdam. The early ones warned about summer and vacation times, but the more recent ones talk about year round throngs of tourists - to the point where Amsterdam is considering restrictive measures.

The days of European art communing seem to be over.  Paris was quite crowded when Ciwt went  two years ago - in January, the month when 'nobody' was supposed to be there.  Then there are the matters of 11 and 12 hour flights, extremely pricey hotels, how fast the French speak their native tongue and how much of her own company Ciwt wants as she stands in lines and eats alone.

So, she's taken off her Travel Agent hat just in time to turn on her TV for the RED carpet. Celebrities will begin walking down it in just a matter of minutes; what will they wear? who will win? how awful will the snafus be?   Check in tomorrow for updates....

Everybody's Nosy Century After Century --- Day 7/347

Walk: AMC Kabuki (Everybody Knows)
Distance: 3 miles

So when Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem make a movie together Ciwt has to go even if the reviews are pretty discouraging.  And off she went to Everybody Knows this afternoon feeling pretty spry. Then over two hours later home she came feeling a bit disspirited.  Things she knows for sure from watching Everybody Knows:  

. Penelope Cruz is just as beautiful from every angle with or without make up as you think she is.

. Javier Bardem is just as manly and such a good actor he actually makes you forget Anton Chighur.

. Every woman in Spain is gorgeous, ultra feminine, and sexy.  The Spanish men are in their male          world and don't seem to notice.

. Ciwt would go stark raving mad if she lived in a picturesque small Spanish village. And so would the villagers because she would be such a terrible fit.

. Everybody Knows is an absorbing, well acted, darkly fascinating social study.

Masked (and Horned) Bandits --- Day 7/346

Walk: Marin Driving Day
Distance: A few blocks, Yoga

With the Oscars on the way this Sunday, Ciwt posts her first video (fingers crossed).  So what will you view in muted colors with little action?  It's a webcam doc of a mother Great Horned Owl sitting on two eggs that are expected to hatch in early March.  And it is all the rage around the San Francisco Presidio and beyond with 100,000 already watching daily.  Now you can be one of them.

There's tension and drama involved in the story as well because the nest in use was actually stolen from a pair of Red Tailed Hawks who hatched two chicks in it last year - as witnessed by over 200,000.  Here's a link to the story and web cam.  It won't win any Oscars but is pretty dear.

My, What a Big Place You Have --- Day 7/345

Walk: Up and Down Stairs, in and out of Town School Clothes Closet and UPS
Distance: 1 mile

 
Before:  Ignore cat, Notice hangers, white air filter, multipiece radio/cd/tape player below tv and cardboard box of cds.

                                          After: speaks for itself.  

Now multiply by every room, floor, closet, shelf in Ciwt's home and you might imagine how free she is feeling after the two professional organizers she hired drove away yesterday in their two filled-to-the-brim SUV's.  Highly recommended.  You will feel like you are living in a mansion no matter how small your space.  At least Ciwt does.

Consider This? --- Day 7/344

Walk: Hood in the cold
Distance: 2 miles, Yoga

Ciwt's bookgroup discussed this one today - along with nearly every book group in the country it seems.  Many people write in reviews this their absolute favorite book e-v-e-r, and the Wall Street Journal devoted a long front page article on it.  In other words it is a phenomenon.  

Ciwt's group only just liked Crawdads.. on the whole but found it led to many interesting discussions.  Like why it is so popular, for one. 

Just reporting in in case you are looking for a book to consider.

Never Too Late... --- Day 7/343

Walk: Hood on a glorious, nippy, sunny day at last! inclucing Mostly British Festival (Elizabeth)
Distance:  4 miles 

For:

Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Shekhar Kapur's 1992 movie

And: The late and missed Roger Ebert's review:

Shekhar Kapur, who directed "The Bandit Queen" (1995) about a fierce modern Indian Robin Hood, here clothes Elizabeth, her court and her architecture in the colors and texture of medieval India. The film is largely set in vast, echoing halls, their pillars reaching up into the shadows. He is attentive to the rustle of dresses and the clank of armor, gives us a barge on the Thames like a houseboat on a lake in Kashmir. Action is glimpsed through iron filigree screens, dresses are rich with embroidery, hairstyles are ornately elaborated, and yet there is the feeling that just out of sight of these riches are the rats in the kitchen and the slop-pots in the halls. This is not the Ye Olde approach, but a society still inventing gentility; sex is so linked with politics that old Sir William demands to inspect Elizabeth's sheets every morning, to keep tabs on possibly alarming developments in her private life.

At the end of the film, Elizabeth announces, "I have become a virgin." And so she remained, ruling over and in some sense creating the England that gave us Shakespeare. Think what a play he might have written about her, if commoners had been allowed to create characters out of reigning monarchs. No doubt he retired in sheer frustration.