Cinco de Mayo has rolled around once again

...and according to this article in Wikipedia it is observed "by Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and people of non-Mexican heritage", which is another way of saying "everybody". So if you do not celebrate Cinco de Mayo, or worse yet, are not even aware of Cinco de Mayo, you are definitely the odd man (or woman) out. Wikipedia also tells us that this particular holiday was popularized (British, popularised) in the United States in the 1980s by manufacturers of beer, wine, and tequila, and that more beer is sold every year on May 5th than during the Super Bowl. Judging from the celebratory noises emanating from Mexican restaurants everywhere on this day, I can certainly believe it.

Well, enough about that except to say that Cinco de Mayo has nothing to do with Mexican Independence Day, which occurs in September and celebrates Mexico's independence from Spain. No, dear heart, Cinco de Mayo celebrates the defeat of the French Army in 1862 by a much smaller Mexican army at the First Battle of Puebla, although France turned around later and gained the upper hand at the Second Battle of Puebla, which led to the installation of Maximilian I as Emperor of Mexico by none other than Napoleon III. As I said, enough of that.

But you really should read every last word of that Wikipedia article as well as enjoy the colorful (British, colourful) pictures of dancers in Mexican costume.

Moving right along, yesterday I was walking through our local Kroger supermarket pushing the squeakiest, noisiest grocery cart I have ever pushed (I was intent on completing my grocery shopping and too lazy to turn around and get another grocery cart). Suddenly, in the frozen food aisle, I had a mental picture of scenes from the movie Thoroughly Modern Millie starring Julie Andrews in which the villainess, Beatrice Lillie, gets rid of bodies by concealing them in an ordinary-looking but very squeaky laundry cart. I completed my Kroger experience with a smile on my face and no small bit of consternation in my cerebral cortex. I even mentioned the scene from the movie to an older couple in the dog food aisle.

There is no point to my telling you this except that it happened and I thought you might enjoy hearing about it.

Sometimes I talk to people in grocery stores. For instance, I was behind a woman in the checkout line (different day) whose cart was piled high and overflowing with what must have been five or six hundred dollars worth of purchases, and I could not resist. "I hope you buy groceries just once a month," I said, and the woman replied, "My son is coming home from school for a visit," to which I responded, "And like a good mother you wanted to have one of everything he liked" but I could see it was more than that. For instance, she had a 12-pack of Coca Cola, a 12-pack of Canada Dry Ginger Ale, and a 12-pack of some third kind of soft drink in her cart, along with what looked to be hundreds of boxes of this and that just to be on the safe side. I surmised that either her son's visit was not going to be a short one or she was throwing a welcome-home party for the entire neighborhood and personal friends from far and near, or perhaps her son was bringing home half the school with him. I said nothing. I know when to be quiet.

Speaking of Mexico, our little half-Chihuahua, half-Jack Russell terrier, who sleeps on our bed at night, came and curled up under my left arm when I awoke this morning. I suppose since I received my every-two-months intra-vitreous shots in my eyes yesterday for the macular degeneration that was diagnosed five years ago, one of the first thoughts I had upon awaking was "If my eyesight fails completely, how will the bills get paid online? How will we get food? and so forth because Mrs. RWP no longer has a drivers license (British, licence). One of those 'God-voice' moments happened and my worries were interrupted internally by this thought, "Why can't you be more like your little dog? She relies on you completely for food and shelter. When she goes outdoors, you are always there right by her side and she is happy and safe on her leash because she trusts you and knows you love her. Try to do that with Me. Take no thought for the morrow."

So I'm ending this post with a familiar passage from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chapter 6. Jesus is speaking:

25 "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

That's good advice for every day. Even Cinco de Mayo. Now go back and click on the link to that article.

If you prefer beautiful music to articles from Wikipedia, here's the Mississippi College Choir singing "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need" by isaac Watts (4:42) .

Here are the lyrics:

1. My Shepherd will supply my need:
Jehovah is His Name;
In pastures fresh He makes me feed,
Beside the living stream.
He brings my wandering spirit back
When I forsake His ways,
And leads me, for His mercy's sake,
In paths of truth and grace.

2. When I walk through the shades of death,
Thy presence is my stay;
A word of Thy supporting breath
Drives all my fears away.
Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,
Doth still my table spread;
My cup with blessings overflows,
Thine oil anoints my head.

3. The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days;
O may Thy house be my abode,
And all my work be praise!
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger, nor a guest,
But like a child at home.

With apologies to Beatrice Lillie, Lady Peel

...there are no fairies at the bottom of our garden, none at all. In summer there are blackberries, but today, February 8, 2020, there are -- wait for it -- snowflakes!

Lots and lots of snowflakes.

You may enlarge the photographs below of our back yard (British, garden) and see for yourself.

Our blogger friend Yorkshire Pudding in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England reported today that England has had absolutely no snow this year and it is most 'unwinterly' (a meteorological term he invented for the occasion) to say the least. Well, until today, neither has Georgia, which is why I am positively giddy about being able to post about it to all of you in the wider world.

As luck would have it, it also has been snowing in our front yard today. Here's the view earlier this morning from our front door. You are looking at -- mirabile dictu -- our neighbor's house across the street.

Speaking of Beatrice Lillie, Lady Peel, she was a personage of another era. Here is a photograph of her taken, as it happens, on my seventh birthday (March 18, 1948) by the world-famous photographer Yousuf Karsh, a survivor of the Armenian genocide earlier in the twentieth century. According to what I read, over 20 photos by Karsh appeared on the cover of Life magazine, itself another relic of a bygone era.

Beatrice Lillie, friend of Noel Coward and Cole Porter, is indeed an artifact from days gone by. She was, according to something I read a long time ago, "a comic actress and satirist who parodied the flowery performing style of even earlier decades when arias, declamations, recitations, and poetry readings were all the rage". If she looks the slightest bit familiar to you, maybe you remember seeing her in the role of the villainous Mrs. Meers, laundress and white slaver, in the 1967 technicolor movie Thoroughly Modern Millie, the version that starred Julie Andrews.

I think I remember hearing Bea Lillie perform “I brought my harp to the party, but nobody asked me to play; the others were jolly and hearty, but I wasn’t feeling so gay” way back in the dark ages, but I couldn’t find it on Youtube. (I couldn’t find Helen Hayes reciting “The White Magnolia” either, but that has nothing to do with this post.) So if you have been dying to hear Beatrice Lillie perform, here she is doing -- and this will bring this post full circle -- “There Are Fairies at the Bottom of our Garden” (2:32) on an old 78-rpm vinyl recording.

I know this post will irritate Yorkshire Pudding for several reasons, but it simply can't be helped.

It is still snowing, four hours later, and here's a picture of our patio table to prove it:

Cheerio, ta-ta for now, and other phrases people like Noel Coward, Cole Porter, and Beatrice Lillie were always saying.

It's May Day, and there may be faeries at the bottom of Yorkshire Pudding's garden (he said so himself)

...but something else is at the bottom of mine.

There, just past the rocks. Let's have a closer look, shall we?

Closer.

Yes, there definitely are -- or more accurately, there soon will be...

...BLACKBERRIES at the bottom of our garden!

To commemorate this most auspicious occasion -- also known as spring -- I invite you to watch Beatrice Lillie, Yorkshire Pudding's favorite singer, performing "There Are Faeries At The Bottom Of Our Garden" (4:56) from The Ed Sullivan Show some time during the 1950s.

Happy 90th Birthday, Your Majesty! (April, May, and June)

The 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II occurred a few days ago, but the official celebration won't happen until June, when the weather should be better. In the meantime, what are we to do?

Celebrate for the entire time, of course!

Or we can have a humorous look back in time by watching Beatrice Lillie, Lady Peel, perform "March With Me to the Roll of the Drum" in a video clip from 1957 (the clip was apparently part of a tribute to comedian Ed Wynn emceed by actor Ralph Bellamy) because the final line of the chorus -- "England is proud of you!" -- and the repeated line "April, May, and June" also apply to Her Majesty on this, her 90th birthday.

Click here and enjoy! (4:39)

Ladies All

Lady Wallace, the Scottish author and translator mentioned in my last post, was said by Sir Walter Scott, in an 1825 letter to his son, to be “a very pleasant woman, [who] plays on the harp delightfully.” It should be noted that she was not Lady Wallace at the time, however; she was the baronetess of Newton Don. In 1825 her husband was Sir Alexander Don, sixth baronet of Newton Don. She had two children: Sir William Henry Don, 7th Baronet, the actor; and Alexina Harriet, who married Sir Frederick Acclom Milbank, bart., of Hart and Hartlepool.

Sir Alexander died in 1826, and in 1836 his widow married again, to Sir James Maxwell Wallace, K.H., of Ainderby Hall, near Northallerton, an officer who had served under Wellington at Quatre Bras and Waterloo, was afterwards lieutenant-colonel of the 5th dragoon guards (when Prince Leopold, afterwards king of the Belgians, was colonel), and died on 3 February 1967 as general and colonel of the 176th lancers. Lady Wallace died on 12 March 1878 without issue by her second marriage. So says Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is nothing if not complete. Anything you could possibly want to know about a baronet and baronetess can be found here, including how to address one, the fact that a baronet or baronetess is near the bottom of the ranks of nobility, and the revelation that a Duke and Duchess rank higher than a Prince and Princess, which was news to me.

When all is said and done, all that and $2.49 will buy you a pound of “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” at your local supermarket.

Sir Walter Scott’s mention of his friends’s lady “playing on the harp delightfully” caught my eye, though, and I immediately thought, as I’m sure you probably did also, of Beatrice Lillie, Lady Peel.

What? You didn’t?

Beatrice Lillie, friend of Noel Coward and Cole Porter, is an artifact from days gone by. She was a comic actress and satirist who parodied the flowery performing style of even earlier decades when arias, declamations, recitations, and poetry readings were all the rage. If she looks the slightest bit familiar to you, you may remember her in her role as the villainous Mrs. Meers, laundress and white slaver, in the 1967 technicolor movie Thoroughly Modern Millie.

I think I remember hearing Bea Lillie perform “I brought my harp to the party, but nobody asked me to play; the others were happy and hearty, but I wasn’t feeling so gay” way back in the dark ages, but I couldn’t find it on Youtube. (Neither could I find Helen Hayes reciting “The White Magnolia,” but that has nothing to do with this post.) So if you have been dying to hear Beatrice Lillie perform, you will simply have to be content with hearing her do “There Are Fairies at the Bottom of our Garden” in a clip from the year 1952 on Ed Sullivan’s television program. And please try to remember that there was nothing more boring in the entire twentieth century than listening to Ed Sullivan talk.

If Beatrice Lillie doesn’t float your boat, maybe you would prefer listening to 5 minutes and 34 seconds of harp music, played delightfully by Ji Min.

And if that doesn’t float your boat either, just remember, there’s always Carrie Underwood.