Saturday Gallimaufry

I'm retreating ever further from what passes for the real world - with very good reason, given its state, if you ask me - and finding ever more consolation in taking pictures that keep my mind off the headlines. Herewith, a late-summer iris from August, recalled today, which has seemed like our first real day of Autumn.

Bad Girls, or a Tale of Two Cousins

Even though, alas, I have returned to the grindstone (mostly - I still sneak home for the occasional nap; I'm finding that a wan expression and a faraway look can get me almost anything I want, now that I'm an Established Invalid), I don't want you to think I've given up all the habits of leisure that I enjoyed this spring.  For example, I've just finished doing something I rarely do, reading a recently published book.

What Not to Wear, c. 1935

It takes a special woman to combine a full-length fox-trimmed ermine coat, a feather boa, a two-tone lamé teagown, and about three pounds of bling - and still look dowdy.

Eleanor Roosevelt was that woman. Is it any wonder that Alice was so merciless?