A Note from the Queen

Being the Anglophile that I am, the past week has been pretty much non-stop immersion in British media (especially the BBC’s streaming) and soaking up all the history and pageantry that comes with the death of a monarch.

The royal website upon the queen’s death.

I had written the queen a letter—a brief one—at the time of her Platinum Jubilee, just expressing congratulations and thanks for her service. I didn’t think I’d get anything back, since I’d read that the postage allowed to the monarchy offices had been reduced in the last round of government austerity, so I just sent the note without expecting anything. I just wanted to say thanks. (I think it’s important to say thank you to people!)

When I went to my mailbox yesterday, I found this—the card was postmarked the day before she died.

It was a card from the queen thanking me for my note.

The front of the card, with her royal cypher.

Image on the back of the card.

Getting this card, during the time we’re turning the queen’s passing, was very memorable (And a little it eerie, if I’m being honest!). It’s definitely something that I will treasure!

"Thank you, Ma'am"

As you all know, I am an Anglophile, and so I loved the Platinum Jubilee Extravaganza last weekend! (Well actually Thursday-Sunday). So I thought I’d share some of my favorite photos and videos, because we all need some happiness and cute, right?

From the Party at the Palace:

*Paddington and the Queen kicked off the party

* the West End segment! (the WHOLE THING, which we didn’t see here in the US)

There was a CORGI PARADE!

Royal kids stealing the show!

The flypast on Thursday:

Photos:

The Cambridge kids (L-R: George, Louis, and Charlotte) make their carriage debut at Trooping the Colour

Louis was a crack up the entire weekend.

With the queen on the balcony at Buckingham Palace

This is TOO CUTE

Charlotte and George (sandwiched between their parents) at the Party at the Palace on Saturday

The final balcony appearance of the weekend, after the Jubilee Pageant

Seven Quick Takes: Royal Wedding Cake, Patty, and movies!

-1-

OK because I am a Royal Family NUT (I am, if you do not know this about me), I was very happy for Prince William and Katherine as they celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary yesterday!

Look at this adorable video!

But something even better than a video? CAKE.

Namely, the groom’s cake that Prince William had at his wedding reception.

Courtesy of Darren McGrady, one of the queen’s former chefs (he also cooked for Princess Diana and Princes William and Harry at Kensington Palace after her divorce), shows us how to make it, and it’s FOUR INGREDIENTS!

(You will need a 6”x 2” cake ring, though. I’m getting this one.)

Happy anniversary, Your Highnesses, and many more!

-2-

Yesterday was also St. Catherine of Siena’s feast day, and you can read all about her in a post I wrote a few years ago!

-3-

Patty is TEN MONTHS OLD TODAY.

She likes to blow raspberries!

I mean how is this possible she’s so big, she is STANDING UP now!

She likes swings, baths, kolaches, most food, her siblings, and…food. :)

I swear when I see her I will kiss her face off.

-4-

I watched a few movies this week! I used to do movie reviews pretty regularly, so I’ll do a few here for you.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, based on the August Wilson play of the same name, is on Netflix right now, and was nominated for several Oscars, including best actress (Viola Davis as Ma Rainey) and best actor (Chadwick Boseman, in his last role). The play focuses on one day in Chicago in the 1920s, when Ma Rainey and her band are recording an album at the behest of her white manager. I learned, in researching this, that Denzel Washington has a contract with Netflix to produce all of the plays in Wilson’s Century Cycle (also called the Pittsburgh cycle) as movies for Netflix. The first one in the series was Fences, starting Washington and Davis, and was also Oscar-nominated, with Viola Davis winning Best Supporting Actress for her work as Washington’s wife.

Ma Rainey is an intense film, with the tension rising right from the start. Levee, played by Boseman, is a member of Ma’s band, but he doesn’t want to play her music the way it’s always been done—he wants to rearrange it and make it faster and hotter. He has a sort of jittery energy that parlays into deep pain and pathos as the story moves on. The other members of the band are older men, well-seasoned musicians who know what they have to do to get along in a world that’s run by white people. Their interactions make up most of the film and you can tell that the dialogue is adapted from a play, because it’s melodic, dense, and intricate.

Davis, in the movie for less than a half-hour, hits all the right notes (and I’m not trying to make a pun) as the titular band leader. When she arrives late to the session, the energy revs up, and so does the tension.

I don’t want to give away the plot, but the performances are searing. Boseman, in particular, delivered two monologues that are so wide-ranging in color and tone, and so intense, that you have no choice but to watch him. I really felt like I was in theater during those scenes. He really is the highlight of the entire movie.

The film won two Oscars, for costume design and for makeup.

Chadwick Boseman (Levee), front, with the band members (l-r: Glynn Turman [Toledo], Michael Potts [Slow Drag], and Colman Domingo (Cutter).

-5-

The Heiress came out in 1949 and stars Olivia de Havailland (Melanie in Gone With the Wind) in an Oscar winning performance. Based on Henry James’ novel Washington Square, The Heiress tells the story of plain, awkward—but very wealthy—New Yorker Catherine Sloper, who would rather spend time on her embroidery than on polishing her social graces. This continually frustrates her father, Dr. Sloper (Ralph Richardson), who cannot believe that Catherine is the daughter of his ‘perfect’ wife, who died when Catherine was small. (Of course no one can measure up to the picture of his wife that he has in his head). His casual cruelty toward his daughter is like a razor, cutting any self-esteem or confidence she has to shreds.

Things come to a head when, at a party, Catherine meets Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), a young man who takes interest in her in a way no man has before. But her father forbids her to marry Morris, saying that he’s only after her money. Is he? Or has Catherine found true love?

Again, no spoilers here, but De Havilland’s performance is incredible. I wish that it was in color so we could really appreciate Edith Head’s costumes, but they’re also gorgeous in black and white. I love De Havilland in Gone With the Wind, but I’d never seen any of her other movies, so I really wanted to see this one.

Montgomery Clift (Morris) and Olivia de Havilland (Catherine) in The Heiress.

-6-

A Little Chaos (2014). While going through my Netflix queue, I saw that I had this, and thought, eh, what the heck? I am so glad I watched it! Directed by Alan Rickman (who also stars as the French King Louis XIV), the story focuses on the construction of the gardens around the palace of Versailles. He chooses landscape architect Andre Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts) to supervise the planning. Surprisingly, Le Notre chooses Madame Sabine de Barra (Kate Winslet) as one of the designers, assigning her the task of creating an outdoor ballroom, with fountains and landscaping.

This sounds….like an odd premise for a film, right? But in Rickman’s hands it is enchanting. There are so many good actors in even small roles, including Jennifer Ehle, who plays one of the king’s mistresses, Stanley Tucci, who plays Duke Philippe, the king’s brother, and Helen McCrory as Madame Le Notre (McCrory sadly just passed away from cancer—you might know her as Mrs. Malfoy in the Harry Potter films) Watching Winslet and Rickman interact in a scene in the garden, where the mourning king is mistaken for a gardener by Winslet, is one of the best scenes in the film. (I mean, Sense and Sensibility reunion!)

Winslet and Rickman in one of the Versailles gardens.

I’d never seen a film that Rickman directed, and based on this he was delightful director. The film has a delicate storyline, focusing on love, loss, and relationships (with a gorgeous score). Schoenaerts, who I’d never seen before, is a wonderful actor. His scenes with Winslet shine.

(And gosh it made me miss Alan Rickman!)

Sabine de Barra (Kate Winslet) and Madame de Montespan (Jennifer Ehle) at Fontainebleau.

It’s a hidden gem of a film, really lovely to watch and think about.

-7-

And on that note—-have a lovely weekend! Watch some movies and read some books! :)

Seven Quick Takes No. 128

I. 

ICYMI: I wrote other things than the 30 Days series this week! Here's a post on the Four Last Things--in time for Halloween. (Or it was when I posted it!) And part II of my Houston Postcards.

II.

I had clinic on Monday. The X-ray is good, the PFTs are in their normal range, so that's all happy. The biggest happy, though? I got to go off prednisone! Yayyyy!

Prednisone is a steroid that does some nasty things to your body. It keeps inflammation down, and it's widely used in the transplant world. In other types of transplant, people can go off this drug after a few years. In lung transplant, that's much less common. So I knew that there was a good chance my doctors wouldn't let me go off it. But I'm 11 years out, I'm stable....I might as well ask!

"These lungs are basically yours," my doctor told me, so he didn't see a problem with me trying it. I have to go back for lung function tests (PFTs) in December, to make sure that nothing evil is happening in my lungs. But right now, I am off prednisone. 

III. 

I'm not going to lie: the first few days of this have been rough. After only seven days, your body adapts to prednisone and makes changes in a lot of ways. I've been on it for eleven years. Tuesday, Wednesday, and yesterday were a bit tough as my body adjusted to being off it, especially in the muscle/joint department. They liked steroids. I'm hoping that now that I have good lungs that are not full of Evil Bacteria, my joints will be happy without the prednisone. (CF people often have a sort of quasi-arthritis--it's not "real" arthritis, but joint pain, stiffness, etc. happens.) I really didn't miss all that insanity, so I'm hoping that they're going to be happy without the pred. 

IV. 

On Wednesday I got to see one of my favorite singers, Canadian artist Loreena McKennit. If you're not familiar with her music, here's a few tastes: 

She's hard to categorize; sometimes she's labeled "Celtic", sometimes "new age", and sometimes "world", but I just say she's great. She rarely tours, and very rarely tours in the U.S., so when tickets went on sale for her one concert in town, my friend Suellen and I jumped on them.

Our AP English teacher, Mrs. Low, had introduced us to Loreena's Music, with "Lady of Shalott" and "The Highwayman"--so we've been fans for a long time now. (Yikes, 17 years!) Hearing her sing "The Lady of Shalott" in person has vastly added to my lifetime happiness. 

V. 

I'm also doing NaNoWriMo! This is my fifth year. I'm writing a story about a girl who enters a monastery. I've been wanting to write a novel about nuns for awhile, but having seen a lot of recently released novels that paint nuns in a less than flattering light made me move this story forward over other NaNo ideas. It also has a strong ballet component, so I'm writing about two pretty rarefied worlds in one novel. (And no, it's not like the ballet in Trouble With Angels. Ha!) I'm going to hit the 10K mark today. 

(If you're not familiar with NaNo: The objective is to write a 50,000 words novel from start to finish during the month of November.) 

VI. 

As soon as I hit 10K today, I'm watching The Crown on Netflix. Seriously. I love Claire Foy, I love the Royals, I love Netflix....it all works together for pure binge watching enjoyment! (And there's going to be a second season! WOOOOO!) The goal is to have 60 episodes over 6 seasons. So Claire Foy is playing Queen Elizabeth II in the early part of her reign. I'm so excited. Seriously. Royal geek, right here. 

(And Stephen Daldry is directing episodes! He directed one of my favorite movies, The Hours.) 

VII. 

OK, wow, that's enough fan-girling for one post. Sorry guys. :) Have a great weekend! 

Next week--my October reading wrap post. It's long! It's fun!