missizzy

Went with my mother to a Charlotte Smith conference, to sooth her nerves when the phone didn't work, and figure out where we were when my phone could get enough signal to use the map app, and perform other useful tasks like that. I'd picked up that Charlotte Smith was an 18th century author who'd suffered greatly in life at the hands of an abusive husband who had a legal right to any money she made and she couldn't divorce, but didn't know much about her works. Sitting through two mornings of papers taught me a bit about it, as did listening to a chorale and a live performance of parts of a song cycle made from her poetry. But one can only have so much interest in academic essays about an author one has never read.
Both afternoons I skipped out to go for walks. The conference was held at Chawton House, which passed to one of Jane Austen's brothers, and he let his widowed mother and sisters stay in Chawton Cottage, where Jane lived for the final years of her life, and started getting published, so seeing that and her little writing table was a highlight. Sunday we also went on a trip to the house where she grew up; the current owner, who'd written the chorale, let us see the grounds she'd wandered when young. We also saw another house connected to her, now owned by the National Trust, and the church where she was buried. Monday we went to London, and managed to see a museum exhibit and a play. There was a brief scare Tuesday when we were told our plane had been overbooked, but then we got on it.
Mom now talks of not traveling to another conference for a while. The big annual Jane Austen one started in DC today, and neither of us even feel like going to most of it, though I'll drag myself there for a few hours Saturday. Charlotte Smith was apparently an influence on Jane Austen.

Let's see if I can keep my head on straight after watching that most recent episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. long enough to write this:

( Friday )

Back today from a five-day journey that took me to Canada for the second time in my life, my first visit to Quebec, and the first time since high school I've been in a place where the principle language of the streets wasn't my own. My trip can be divided into two halves: before the Jane Austen convention I was there for really got underway, and after.

( Wednesday )

Will continue my account tomorrow, hopefully.

Watching the results episode pre-show this evening, I was actually taken back to my first taste of Dacning With the Stars, a year before I started watching regularly, when Joey's Jedi tango got linked to on YouTube while I was in the thick of Star Wars fandom. It was fun to see it again with more knowledge of the context. ( Spoilers for the results from five minutes ago... )
Went to a Jane Austen meeting Sunday where mom and I had a bit of a stressful time trying to make sure we went to the right mall in Tyson's Corner, found we'd been to the restaurant before, but not to the back room, where we were packed in so tight noone sitting the middle of a table could get out, and then enjoyed good food and a lecture on obituaries of the era and how dead people are remembered in Austen's work. The speaker on the first, who runs a British magazine on Austen, was entertaining, but told us more about Princess Charlotte than Jane Austen; I felt my parents had better analysis of his subject around the dinner table that evening. The second speaker, who sells Jane Austen-themed books, made it more about the novels, of course, and she was smart, if a little sentimental on occasion. Tommorrow my parents go to where the annual nationwide Jane Austen meeting is being held in New York, though we're not actually attending that this year; my mom submitted a proposal, but didn't make the cut. Instead they're just going to the Fanny Burney meeting, since that takes place alongside. Mom and I hope to go to the Montreal convention in two years instead.
Rainy days where this morning waiting for the bus, one minute the rain was letting up to the point I was considering closing the umbrella, the next it was pounding down so thick my stockings got soaked. Apparently going to get warm again, though. The big synagogue on the bus route has a big Sukkot house built on its front lawn, with a banner of an elephant hanging in the front, and I have spent the bus rides wondering what that banner's there for.