I Know Green Is A Color

I am not complaining.  Really.   Rain is great.  Ask drought riddled California about rain and how terrific it is.

But here in the Middle West,  we are working our way into summer and green has taken over and our yard and garden could be mistaken for a jungle.  Rain daily.   I need color.  The buds are here.  Now. Just. A. Little. Sun. Please.

I know all the design magazines and that 25 pound pile of Restoration Hardware catalogs show gray and beige and brown and beige and cream and Very Seldom Any Color.  Here in our world,  in The Green Envelope as we fondly call our yard, I am ready for the bursting forth of color. Even our beloved  New Mexico desert towns and museums  have bold  color right now-inside and outside.

Even our own light summer antique inventory--infused with color.

Even the petite but special Saint Charles Farmer's Market on Fridays has color...as evidenced by blue sweet peas, micro greens, Illinois  red strawberries and warm yellow lemon scones.

Patience Lady Antique Dealer.  Patience.

A Very Expensive Hat

June 18, 1815 is the two hundred anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.

This is not a story that just falls off the American lips--but details of the battle are emblazoned on the lips of school children in the United Kingdom that is for sure..  The short version----Waterloo, located in present day Belgium,  was the site of a battle between the French Army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Anglo Allied Army under the command of the Duke of Wellington.  Wellington won.  Napoleon earlier in his career was a tactical genius who is responsible for bringing an end to the Holy Roman Empire.

Few pieces of clothing are as iconic as Napoleon's bicorn  that he wore in that distinctive sideways style.  NO ONE wore the bicorn that way--everyone else wore theirs with the points front to back.  But egocentric Bonaparte wanted to be able to be recognized on the battlefield.  He was 5'6"--which actually was not short for the period.

One of Napoleon's hats, one of only 19 known, was sold recently at auction at Bonham's in London for the equivalent of $1,680,000.  It sold to a South Korean food company.  Go figure.

The Little Corporal would be proud.