She is Quinceanera

This past weekend I worked a Quinceanera. 

It was exciting and the Quinceanera beautiful. 

Her Damas were lively and very pretty. 

I also worked her older sister's several years ago. There is one more daughter. I hope to see this one to her special day also. 

My daughter was a Dama in her friends Quinceanera. Which when I learned all about this loving, meaningful, beautiful tradition. 

This week enjoy She is Quinceanera. 

Maids in Repose

I arrived at Mother’s for our Monday night dinner. She started talking to me about how her regular maid was on vacation and she had a new maid for the day.

Mother lives in a retirement community and she has a maid. She has had a maid pretty much always except for when I was a teenager and she thought the training in household chores would be a good idea so her maid became me. I did not like nor approve of this training plan.

As mother was going through her mail and reading her paper and the Bible Study for her weekly study class she became very sleepy and so curled up on the couch and fell sound asleep. She awoke about an hour later as her new maid was just finishing the last touches on the kitchen. She started to apologize for waking her. Mother was taken aback at why she would apologize she had not heard her at all.  Mother was actually embarrassed she had been asleep.  What an awkward moment.

                                   The Sleeping Princess  - Sir Edward Burne-Jones

It inspired me to search for paintings of sleeping maids to counterbalance Mother’s embarrassment.

This week enjoy Maids in Repose. 

William Woodward

I was doing some Ghost Hunting Saturday afternoon when I came across Lodia Elmer Dutton my 2^nd Great Uncle, brother to my Great Great Grandmother.

                  

While Lodia is an odd name for a man, which is not what this is about. However the word Lodia loosely translates over to Ship in Russian and that is where we are headed.  

On the 21^st of February 1922 Lodia arrived at the Port of New Orleans on a ship called Atenas 

an American Steam Merchant ship built in Belfast in 1909. She was owned by the United Fruit SS Company in New York part of “The Great White Fleet”. Her normal route was New Orleans to Cristobal, Panama Canal.

In 1921 William Woodward was commissioned to paint a mural of one of the ships at the company headquarters in New Orleans. Woodward and his wife Louisa had been aboard the Atenas for a wonderful trip to Havana Cuba and he incorporated her into the mural for the building and into a painting as well.

                 

                      Old Havana Harbor Scene by William Woodward 

This week enjoy the works of WilliamWoodward. 

Lost Love

Several years ago on a warm May afternoon I was to be married. I was so very happy I had found love. Only he hadn't and he did not tell me this until two weeks before.
                              
                                       Frederick William Elwell - The wedding dress

At this same time my daddy became very ill. He had been ill for many weeks but it had become worse. He knew he was dying as did I. We had talked about it and made plans about it. He even wrote his obituary which my nephew was to insert into an email and send out to daddy's hundreds of contacts the day after he passed. He had an odd sense of humor few understood. He also realized that I had died at my breakup. I had wanted him to know I was taken care of so he could leave us without fear for me. That was not to happen and it killed me. 

                                            My daddy and me.

Dad being daddy asked me who was going on the honeymoon with me now. We laughed and he insisted I go. Alone. What dad?... So I could call it a Howl at the Moon instead? He thought that was brilliant and yes I should go and relax, heal, have fun, be brave. So I did. 

He passed 5 minutes after I told him good-bye over the phone and that I would see him again. It was a quiet flight home for me. 

In the space of three weeks I lost love. 
This week please enjoy Lost Love.