Jane at 232

I had a fun day today. I went to a regional meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America in Baltimore with a friend, aptly named Jane. Jane Austen’s 232nd birthday is on December 16th.

We had lunch first, and you sit where you like (no assigned seating). The instant icebreaker when chatting with fellow Janeites you’ve just met is naturally, “which book is your favorite?” (My favorite is Persuasion.) One of our table companions is curator of a museum in Annapolis. Two others were restoring a farmhouse in southern Maryland. My friend Jane told everyone at our table that I had tagged along because I was taking a grad course in Jane Austen and was about to start my research paper. They all liked my representation of sisters idea, so I think that’s a go.

The lecture was on "Five Things a Jane Austen Heroine or Hero Needs to Know." They are: how to run a household, how to dress, how to travel, how to dance, and how to marry. The speaker is also the “editrix” of austenblog.com and has also written a book, The Jane Austen Handbook.

There were a handful of men there, all enthusiasts of Austen’s books. I was probably one of three people under 40. Interestingly, no one seemed to feel awkward about this, and were actually relieved that younger generations still appreciate the only female writer among the top three writers in the English language (the other two being Dickens and Shakespeare).

I also got to see my friend Jane’s house and her cats and her bird. She lives in a rancher built in the 60s that still has some of the original interiors – Formica et al. She has an outdoor tan-and-white cat named Blinky, a tuxedo cat named Elvis, a Siamese cat named Buffy, who has amazing ice-blue eyes and is rather shy, and a colorful bird named Ichabod, who can whistle the theme song from The Andy Griffin Show. I also got to see Jane’s dollhouse. Her father built it for her, as well as some of the furniture for it, and her mom made some of the blankets and rugs for it. It has a boy’s room, a girl’s room, a kitchen, a den, a living room, a library, and a garden. She mentioned that she needs a blanket for one of the beds, so I offered to crochet one for her.

Jane apologized that her garden didn’t look nice in the winter weather. It looked fine to me – “put to bed,” in her words. Just seeing all the countryside and space out where she lives in Eldersburg was scenic enough. She has a patio area away from the house and under trees, a greenhouse, a few sheds, and bird feeders everywhere. She refers to the place as “the Ponderosa,” because of the ranch-style house and the land around it.

Still plugging away on the mid-term essays, this week’s research assignment (roles and rights of women in the 18th century), and the final paper. I can’t complain, though. Austen had to hand-write everything in between near-constant interruptions in the sitting room. I just have to deal with a cat who wants occasional chin scratches.