There they were, perfect pears from Whole Foods. A name I don't remember, red pears I've never before seen. Three came home with me before Christmas but I waited on the perfect vignette to photograph them.
RH ate two. He said they were delicious.
"Don't eat the third one," I said. "I want to get a picture of it."
A few days went by and I finally photographed it, without a pretty vignette.
Then I sliced it open.
Things left too late. The story of my life.
Here's another one.
I snapped up this beautiful book by Rebecca West at the Goodwill called 1900. It was fabulous, all about the year 1900.
Beautiful pictures all through the book. I took dozens of pictures of the pages for a blog post.
I got on a Rebecca West obsession and ordered more. For a Rebecca West blog post.
They were wonderful! I ordered more.
My stomach became a little queasy reading one of them. I tried to excuse it because it was just a product of it's time. One can't hold the books of an earlier time to political correctness but the racial stereotypes and antisemitism bothered me.
I could still make this into a blog post, couldn't I?
But Rebecca West paled on me. I decided to postpone her until after the holidays.
Now I just don't want to write that intended blogpost.
I've been cleaning out my bookcases of books I don't truly love or need.
And Rebecca West just does not make the cut. She's going in the Goodwill bag.
I'm not sure if I left her too late or if she just left a bad taste in my mind.
Whatever.
That red pear is beautiful! I thought it was an apple at first. That's ok that it was rotten inside when you cut it open...at least you got your photo opportunity! ;-) I'm not familiar with Rebecca West, but I can understand why those books went in the donation bag. Speaking of books: I looked online at Abe Books and Thrift Books for Mrs. Daffodil and the prices were outrageous! I don't believe there was a copy under $100. One seller was even asking $275! Needless to say, I won't be ordering that book!
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry that Mrs. Daffodil is so pricey now, Melanie! I know I didn't pay anywhere near that many decades ago. I picked up Gladys Taber books one a month at the Nashville Flea Market for many years where a vendor almost always had a new one put back for me. I'll have to check my Gladys bookshelf and see if any others are as rare.
DeleteI totally get this. It brought back a memory from the 70's when I went back from California to my hometown near Kansas City. I was visiting relatives and have to say I was shocked by the way they talked about certain races in the community. I left KS as a kid of 10 and even though my dad was a cop in Kansas and then for the LAPD in fingerprints department, I never heard a racist statement come out of him. So how shocking to have my family back there talking like that.
ReplyDeleteThat hurts, doesn't it, Sandy? As it should. No place for it.
DeleteYou've done well including a beautiful, but rotten at the core, pear along with books you find unappealing, Dewena. Great analogy here. I'm not familiar with Rebecca West's writings and don't think I'll look her up after this. Now Gladys Taber I can embrace. I have just one of her books - Stillmeadow Calendar - but am always on the lookout for them.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comment, Lorrie, and hope you'll come across more Gladys Taber books. They're certainly a tonic after being exposed to too much reality. Who am I kidding? I rarely expose myself to reality anymore!
Delete'Never judge a book (or pear!) by it's cover' has taken on a whole new meaning, here, hasn't it, Dewena? Like the attractive images of Rebecca West's books, whose pages were unfortunately dotted with racial discrimination, that pretty pear, so appealing from the outside, was rotten, literally, to the core. As ugly as the two models of this post are, the writer/photographer of the post, created something beautifully meaningful out of them.
ReplyDeletePoppy xx