on my honor...: Sleepy Sunday

I fell asleep last night while watching the final season of The West Wing. Just so you don't think I'm so old that I fall asleep at 10 PM while watching t.v., or that The West Wing is so boring it puts me to sleep, I'd like to tell you that it was 4:43 AM when I dozed off, and I'm confident I could have made it to the end of the episode if I had been minus the glass of rum and the warm kitty sleeping beside me. The result of this late night/early morning was that I slept in until 9:50 and angered Matilda. She finally roused me by scratching on my great aunt's wicker hamper, causing me to shoot out of bed and clap my hands at her. She jetted out of the bedroom only to return moments later looking quite pleased with herself. Cat mission accomplished.

So, today I worked on an embroidery project and watched several episodes of Simon Schama's History of Britain (one of many movies and television shows I like to have playing while crafting--also Roseanne, Walking With Dinosaurs, and practically all zombie movies--if you've ever received a crafted item from me, chances are good it was made while 28 Days Later played in the background). Matilda joined me on the couch off and on, prompting several pauses for petting sessions, while she threw disgruntled looks in my general direction.

Today's project

Tilds looks like a basking seal here.

After watching History of Britain, I always have the desire to read about a million biographies--the Venerable Bede, Queen Boudicca, Thomas Becket, Edward the Confessor, give 'em to me--of course, I almost never have acted on these desires. This afternoon I made it partway into the plague episode before completing my project. I decided to share the little plague poem Schama chose for this episode--it's by a Welsh poet, Jeuan Gethin, who died in 1349 of the plague.

"We see death coming into our midst like foul smoke, a plague which cuts off the young, a rootless phantom which has no mercy or fair countenance. Woe is me of the shilling in the arm-pit; it is seething, terrible, wherever it may come, a head that gives pain and causes a loud cry, a burden carried under the arms, a painful angry knob, a white lump. It is of the form of an apple, like the head of an onion, a small boil that spares no-one. Great is its seething, like a burning cinder, a grievous thing of an ashy colour. It is an ugly eruption that comes with unseemly haste. They are like a shower of peas, the early ornaments of black death."

I hope that there's not a weird you are what you eat force at work with my crafting program choices...otherwise, you people are in serious trouble. And now for some Christmas pictures.