Elizabeth, I was very sorry to see what happened to the Pheasant Branch Conservancy via your photos today. I know it is one of your favorite places and it's a shame it suffered so much damage. As you know, Placerita Canyon is one of my favorites, and it's main trail is still closed because of fire damage from two years ago. I hope it won't take as long to repair Pheasant Branch.
I wasn't aware of the Dane County rainstorms until I saw your pics and did some Googling, but my goodness : over 11 inches in 24 hours? Holy smokes that's a lot. Out here, we get flash flooding and mudslides after only 4-6 inches overnight, but maybe that's because the L.A. area is a basin surrounded by mountains. If we ever got 11.86 inches, we'd be completely underwater.
I saw that there were some evacuations in what they called West Madison. I don't know if that includes your town, but I hope you guys are okay and suffered no damage to your house or neighborhood. Your weather report says no rain for tomorrow and the next ten days, so hopefully that was the end of it.
Hang in there and post any updates if you are able to, and if you want to. :)
My tooth felt better today, so thank goodness I dodged a major toothache. I've gotta go easy on crunchy stuff like chips and popcorn until I get it fixed.
Tonight I watched Part Three of "The Hollow Crown", the story of Richard III of England as told in the play of the same name by William Shakespeare, our constant companion of late. Part Three, entitled "Richard III" is the best of the trio of plays, which is saying something because the other two are nearly flawless (save for the warned against violence). The actors have all upheld the state of the art English dramatic tradition, but I guess they saved Benedict Cumberbatch for last, as King Richard, because he knocks it way out of the ballpark with his nearly psychotic portrayal of a man driven since childhood by envy of everyone around him living in a normal body. Richard was born with or developed a severe scoliosis or curvature of the spine and had a withered arm as well, but he elicited little sympathy for his condition - according to Shakespeare - because he was so ill-tempered even as a child. I say "according to Shakespeare" because Richard's Wikipedia history is different than what is shown in the movie. I am sticking with our Uncle Will for now, though, because he was historically closer to the scene. He wrote his play within 100 years or so of Richard's death. And Wiki is Wiki., alternately full of facts and baloney depending on who submitted it.
As mean and vengeful as the other Dukes and Nobles were during The War Of The Roses, none of them could hold a candle to miserable Richard is his own quest for the crown, which he was able to wrest from his brother Edward when the latter became ill and died. Edward himself had become King when he and his brothers conspired to murder the peaceful Henry VI, of the first two plays. But now, the usurping brothers are turning on each other. Edward first has his second sibling Clarence jailed in the Tower Of London because of a superstitious prophecy. Then Edward falls ill after a meal and dies, possibly poisoned. This leaves the throne open to only two possible successors; Edward's nine year old son, or his crippled and diabolical brother Richard.
So of course Richard has his nephew murdered to ensure that the kingdom will be his.
Shakespeare portrays him as what we would call today a psychopath. Richard will kill anyone in his way, including women and children. His close associates are not immune either, if his paranoia gets the better of him.
The play "Richard III" takes the War Of The Roses story mostly away from the battlefield, which we saw so much of in the "Henry VI" plays, and focuses tightly on the double dealings that had been going on for decades during the war between the Houses Of York and Lancaster. This unrepentant deceit is finally distilled in the spirit of the hunchbacked Richard, who hates everyone including himself and wants to become King only to have the last laugh. He is a master manipulator and achieves his goal. But then.......ultimately all is lost, when a young relative from the Tudor family returns to England from France to claim the throne for his own.
You might recall a news story from 2013, fairly prominent, in which it was believed that the remains of King Richard III, missing for over 500 years, had finally been located. I myself followed that story even though at the time I had yet to become a fan of Shakespeare and knew nothing of Richard III.
I was fascinated because they were saying that the body of a famous English King had finally been discovered, underneath a paved parking lot in the year 2012.
Those few details alone are enough to get your attention. A King, lying dead 530 years underneath a modern parking lot. The search had to do with the Richard III Historical Society and the estimate of the area where he was killed in that final battle against Henry Tudor's army.
The remains were exhumed and carbon dated, subjected to familial DNA and all that stuff, and they were determined to be the bones of Richard III. The most telling evidence was the spinal scoliosis, which you can see for yourself if you do a Google Image search.
So......you watch this Part Three of "The Hollow Crown" with Benedict Cumberbatch personifying the Evil King Richard as written by Shakespeare, and you read the Wiki history and take that into account for what it may be worth, and then.......you think about King Richard lying undiscovered for 530 years, in ancient batleground that eventually became a parking lot.
He was the guy who uttered one of Shakespeare's most dramatic and famous lines : "My kingdom for a horse"!
But in the long run, maybe because of his karma, he was left to lie unknown for centuries, finally with automobiles parking on top of his skeleton.
I was blown away by this story tonight, especially on top of the Trump news.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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