pomegranatesandpaper

Cottage Tales

Little by little, Mr. Pom and I are bringing up to the cottage the things we will need. It's a slow process since the cargo area of the car is always full of dogs.  25 years ago, we bought a Sears cartop carrier, affectionately called "The Bubble" and though we have lost all the original straps, a set of bungee cords work well. It's not the sleekest or most fashionable cartop carrier anymore, but very serviceable.

What we have learned is that whatever you can buy off Cape is worth the gas the lug it up there because there's not much choice in shopping venues and the on Cape prices are carazzzy!  So each Thursday night, Mr. Pom hoists the heavy Bubble on top of his car and we fill it with stuff like sheets, pillows, dishes, and cups.

Fortunately, we don't have to buy  much in the way of kitchen essentials. Let's just say that I've never been dish-deprived. Someday I shall do a post just about table settings....yes, I will and just in time for the holidays. 

Our first official dinner. Those potatoes look a little sad, no?  The small container is bluefish pate. The bread is has pecans and cranberries in it - we ate it all week! The lobsters were only $7 each at the Farmer's Market - I love going to a Farmer's Market that features seafood!

Look, there's even a Captain. I don't know where Tenille was, though. He sold us the pate.

A lovely young woman ran this truck. I'm thinking I could be a lobsterwoman. I could haul them out of the water and then lure them into a nice pot of boiling salted water......

An actual dinner cooked in our new home was  lovely and a little strange to be there by ourselves and be using things familiar from home.

(It was also Halloween and anyone who rang our doorbell got lots and lots of candy because they were very brave and committed trick or treaters to do Halloween in a neighborhood where there are NO street lights. Funny  thing is that our attorney told us that her kids trick or treat in our neighborhood because she lives out in the sticks. So everything is relative when it comes to the lengths one will go for candy.)

 

  

I hope The Empress will be tickled to see that her old stoneware plates, which were a wedding anniversary gift from us girls (I think) years ago, now reside in Cape Cod. Such a nice touch to have a link to our childhood home way up here years later.  Everytime we eat off of them we think of Claire Ave and my parents. I dare say they are almost vintage thrift worthy seventies, no?

This is the counter next to the stove. The decoupage plate is from my days as a craft fair maven. I was going to be the next John Derrian.... Even the trivets are sentimental: the one on the left was a gift from one of my oldest friends, the Modica-Snows when they went to San Francisco; the one on the right is from our early marriage when we were deeply obsessed with all things...fowl.  

The chimney sweep got the fireplace in working order and then left us a screen, new basket, andirons, and a set of tools. He said we could have it for a very reasonable price and if we didn't  like it, to give him a call and he'd pick it up.  I waited for the catch, but there wasn't any and then I remembered, right! We're not in New York anymore!

The house has 3 bedrooms. When they were showing us the house, they kept referring to one room as the master bedroom. It was a strange, narrow room and I couldn't imagine fitting a queen size bed and two dressers in it without having wall to wall furniture. I realized that they were referring to it as the master because it had a small bathroom with a shower that was shoehorned into one corner, thereby creating the strange space. Someday we'll rip it out and just enlarge the main bath which is on the other side of the wall.

For now, I think it would make a divine writer's retreat, though those pesky kids will want a room to sleep in . . .And it will be  a bedroom for rental purposes, so we bought a trundle bed that can be pushed against the wall once I find a nice, simple desk. This is how it will look when we are renting it or have a full house. 

I wanted sunny, cheerful, bright furnishings. Does it look too juvenile? I was going for Maine Cottage but may have strayed into Hannah Montana land. The room isn't finished, but you get the idea. The funny thing is that I realized after I bought the bed furnishings for this room and the other smaller bedroom that I was subconsciously furnishing a "girls" and "boys" room. What can I say? Once a mom, always a mom.

This is the view from the dining area into the kitchen. Obviously, someone took down a wall between the kitchen and dining area. We intend to move the china cabinet to another place, remove that small wall, and put in a peninsula counter from the sidewall.

The whole configuration over the stove is going, going, gone. You can't see it clearly in the photos, but the wall is fake stone. I can't get it down fast enough. Our first house had fake bricks in the kitchen. What is up with fake stonefacing in kitchens??  I pried off some of the smaller ones last weekend and all I need to get my hands on a chisel and hammer and I am good. That and a crowbar and the whole set of tacky shelves over the stove is gone, to be replaced by a beadboard wall and a long, stainless steel shelf.

I don't think we'll be there this weekend. Mr. Pom has Knick tickets and I have the need to stay home and be exhausted. Time to hunker down for Thanksgiving and kick the real house into shape!

We Have To Stop (Not) Meeting Like This

All right, I know I've been a lurker blogger. (Yes, it is possible to be a lurker blog reader and a lurker blogger). I have definitely been in the latter category lately and frankly, it probably won't dramatically change any time soon.

But you shouldn't worry about it (as if you don't have other things you worry about, it's just me right??) because my absence from the internet means I am reading and writing more, working on some art for the cottage, going to the cottage with Mr Pom for lovely, weekends alone, and hanging out my kids and the dogs.

It's been crazy, these weekends on the Cape. We don't exactly live within weekend driving distance.  Weekend driving distance being measured by increments of two hours, we are about as twice as far as we should be. Of course, we knew this going in, but chose to believe that somehow, we suddenly lived only 3 hours really from the Cape, which of course even on Mr. Pom's best day of driving is unachievable.

Human nature being what it is, going up is always faster than coming home. By the time we arrive back on Sunday, we vow not to return for several weeks. But as the week rolls by in its dreary grind, the fantasy pull grows stronger and by Friday, we are rushing to throw clothes into a bag and grab bags and bags of stuff that we are slowly moving from one house to the next.

Then the long drive, where I am thankful for my Ipod due to the early dark,  where we don't even stop for dinner or bathroom break and try to keep our spirits up when the unexpected nighttime construction strands us for a half hour of frustration. 

And then we arrive to a sky full of stars scattered like glitter across the inky darkness. Mr. Pom hunts and gathers us drinks and a supper and we turn on the heat and take the milk and juice out of the freezer for morning and fall into bed shivering in the cold sheets.

The dogs are up even earlier, as it takes them awhile to settle down to being there and we almost cry at how tired we are when we hear the youngster's whimpering in the predawn darkness.

Mr. Pom gets up with them on Saturday and I do Sundays. They run outside to do their business in the dark, the only visible sign that they are there is the glint of their eyeballs when the front porch lights hit them. They eat their breakfast, get a bone or a kong to play with and if we are lucky, leave us alone maybe hopefully for an hour to read or gasp! go back to bed for a little while.

But by 7:30 we are always at the beach.

The autumn beach is as fickle as the spring's. One weekend we are layered with parkas and scarves, the next it is 65 degrees and we feel the sun on our backs and the air is rich with summer.

Even the beach itself is as changeable as the wind: one weekend it is built up with sand layered on from storms. The next weekend, we walk in wonder across a broad, flat expanse of sand and cringe as we view the dunes scoured by waves and wind to expose their tender layers.  We walk as if on the landscape of the moon, our minds imagining waves mighty enough to flatten the swells of the beach that we thought impermeable to change.

What never changes is the rolling of the waves. Oh, of course, they vary in intensity:  breakers with thunderous roars, gentle rolling surf that tickles our feet, long, sweeping waves that chase us slowly backwards, powerful crashes with dangerous undertow. All  there it seems, for our delight alone for despite the astonishing display of morning, we are always the only ones on the beach until a few surfers arrive. How is it possible that no one else is so amazed at the miracle of the off season beach that they cannot wait to get there?

Somedays, we forgo the drama of the ocean for the shelter of the bay. If it is low tide, we can walk the dogs out onto the flats and let them forage through the tidal pools, dazed and dazzled by the sparkle of the sun on the shallow pools. They can forage through piles of seaweed wrack, noses deep into briny smells of abandoned gull feathers and ocean weeds. We can examine the variegated layers of exposed dunes and marvel at the long threads of dune grass that stitch together the layers of sand like a great basting stitch.  And just when we think we are alone in the world, we look up and see two giant apostrophes floating across the sky and the ploughed surf kicking up beneath kite-surfers flying across the bay.

But the ocean calls us too strongly to resist more than the occasional foray to the bay. Each morning, we walk the path that use all summer, that little boardwalk laid into the north end of the beach, and a we walk through the deep sand that the autumn storms have laid across the boards, I feel a surge of excitement and give a little dance that we are here, we are here, and pinch myself, or Mr. Pom if he is close enough, and we grab hands and run down the few steps and call to the dogs who are doing their own jack rabbit dance of excitement. How can it be that we've actually done this, the thing that we have fantasized about since Mystery Man was learning to walk and used to fall out of bed at night and remain on the floor of the rental cottage, sound asleep until we deposited him back into his bed.

But we have, and it is wondrous and exhausting and scary and relaxing.

The dogs of course find all of this irrelevant. They are happy if there are shells to crunch, waves to cash, gulls to chase, smelly piles of stuff to stick their noses into, and us, always us, right there to reassure them and pet them, and whistle them back before the next wave crashes. 

But in pursuit of full disclosure, I will not pretend that it is all hand walking across the dunes and soft rays of sun on my cheeks.  I grumble as the dogs round me up each morning, refusing to let me stay in bed even when Mr. Pom is up with them. I am in a terrible temper as I put on my shoes and  sweatshirt and  pout on the way cause I'm tired and won't be happy until I have coffee in my mouth. I am achy and sleepy and want to keep on my slippers and finish my novel. I want Mr. Pom to take them to the beach and bring me back a Sparrow Cappuccino. I want to be let alone to write and snuggle under the throw on the couch.  I want to be anywhere but awake and outside and with the dogs.

But I can't. Because we're all in this together and if I don't go, who will remember to bring the biscuits that lure pups back from the dunes that they are not supposed to climb? And who will point out to Mr. Pom that a pooper scoop is needed right this minute? And if I stay a big old morning grouch and bemoan my fate to be tied into this crazy life where 6:00 a.m. is sleeping in, how will I smell the scent of summer in November? How will I have an entire beach to share with only one other person?  How will my spirit be inflated by the ocean wind and baptized by the spray of waves and my feet sink into a million rocks bored down into a bazillion grains of sand that form the bedrock of this planet?

And who will take the photos?

Q & A Part II

Kelly wants to know:

what # sister are you out of the five, never did pick that up in any old postings?

• I am the middle girl. Doesn't that explain everything. I Am The Glue That Holds Everyone Together

can you walk to the beach/shops from the cottage? 

• You could walk to the beach, but it takes 8 minutes by car so probably would take you about a half hour at least! 
• The shops are closer and you definitely can walk there, especially to the coffee place and that's all I worry about. Plus there's a cute bookstore right on Main Street. What else do I need?

I know your day's are so full, but do you get to spend much time with The Empress, mine is gone 20 years this month and still miss her wish she could have know my girls.

• Funny you should ask - The Empress is sitting to my left on the sofa while we are watching Game 6 of the World Series, and excuse me just a minute -

GO YANKEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now where was I - Yes, I try to see The Empress on Sundays, but it works out to a few times a month. This week would have been my parents' 64th wedding anniversary and Sunday is the 19th anniversary of my Dad's death, so I wanted to be sure to spend time with her and for us all to have dinner together.

when did you start painting/making altered art?

• I started making altered art in Memphis in about 1998. Mr. Pom was living in Portland, Oregon for a year while I tried to sell the house in preparation for us moving there. It was lonely after the kids went to bed and I found myself finally having some time to work on my drawings. Then I discovered a new magazine called Somerset Studios at Michaels and the rest was history.

Badger asks the following:

1. How did you and Mr. Pom meet?

• Mr. Pom and I met when I was 16 and he was 18 and we both worked at a supermarket that was managed by my best friend's father. (She often comments here as Pioneer Spirit - hi Teri!) I was a checker and he was a stockboy and I decided I wanted him to be my first date. And he was. And still is.

2. How many places have you lived since you and Mr. Pom tied the knot? (I mean actual abodes -- apartments, houses, etc. -- and also geographical locations/cities/whatnot.)

• first married: apartment in the city we were born in, a suburb outside NYC.
• after 3 years, we bought a house in upper Westchester County where we lived for 10 years and had 3 kids and lived by a lake and had a Husky named Sparky and just had the best time of our lives with lots of friends with babies and a big old house for entertaining all our relatives.
• in 1992 we moved to Fresno California for a 30 month job transfer due to Mr. Pom's health issues with his back.  Mr. Pom's mom retired and moved with us.  We had a house with a guest house and black bottom pool, a waterfall, and fruit trees and it was quite the Shangri La. It also was the most unfriendly, desolate place I ever lived, until  I met a great bunch of girls at a quilting guild and we traveled everywhere to quilt shows. We hated Fresno but adored living in California and traveling all over the state.
• In 18 months,  he was transferred again, this time  to Memphis TN where we had a 5000 square foot house with a 40 foot pool and a 40 foot kitchen with a fireplace. We lived across the street from our church, there was a woods next to us, we had tons of friends, and I was president of the garden club. We had Friday evening floating cocktail parties in our front yards, neighborhood Halloween parties with a funnel truck and live bands, a Gourmet Supper Club, were very active in our church and  Sunday school,  Mr. Pom became a Catholic for our 15th wedding anniversary, and we just had a grand old time until his company folded and -
• in 1999, we were supposed to move to Portland, Oregon for a new job. We were very excited to be living in such a cool town where we could ski one day and go to the beach the next. It ended up to be the longest year of my life as I was in Memphis with the kids trying to get the house sold and Mr. Pom was in Portland and he'd reinjured his back and became very sick and worked from a furnished apartment for months until after a year, I finally convinced him to quit and come home.
• After that, he had more back surgery, looked and looked for a new job and after we had gone through all our savings and retirement funds and was about to lose the house, he got a job in New York and we moved back
• in 2000 to the city we were born in, and we still live here, within a mile of all 4 of my sisters and my Mom!

Blackbird asks

    1. favorite meal? 

• My very favorite meal of all time? That I can still eat? A dozen raw oysters in Wellfleet and a glass of champagne. When I can't have that? My homemade chicken soup with rice which is just like my mother's and grandmother's which means a little tomato paste is added to the stock and the soup is served with liberal amounts of Parmesan cheese.

    2. does Mr. Pom cook? 

• Mr. Pom grills anything, smokes ribs, and boils lobsters. He also makes a mean apple pie.

    3. how's his back? 

• Oh, we never write how the back is. Evil eye and all . . . but you are sweet to ask

    4. do you have any plans for when you are empty nesters? 

• Run naked through the house and eat all the ice cream

    5. there is no #5

    6. are you any good at arranging cut flowers

• Actually - no. Not a whit of talent in that department. I generally plunk them in a vase and prop it up against the wall so they sort of stand up at attention.

Jo's questions are all food related, which of course is my favorite subject:

is every Sunday at the Pom house filled w/ Sunday Gravy?

• Much to Mr. Pom's dismay....NO. We only do Sunday dinner about once a month. (I need some free time to write and make art).

Are the holidays also structured like my relatives (i.e. Thanksgiving means a pasta course PRECEDES the whole turkey course) or are you of the more reasonable 2nd or 3rd generation tribe?

• Oh, we are the more reasonable group. Everyone is too exhausted to do all that eating at once - o pasta, no chicken soup - I distinctly remember The Empress convincing her mother to cut all that out and we never looked back. We just made up for it by doubling the desserts.

must Sunday gravy INCLUDE things like pork chops, brasciole and large chunks of various meats OR does it just mean a good sauce? 

• Personally, to me gravy is a ragu that must include pork of some kind but I also love a quickly  made marinara. But for that Sunday aroma, you've got to braise pork if you don't have the time to make meatballs, of course. And thanks for reminding me - I've never made brasciole and intend to do so this weekend. And I am going to make some with a hardboiled egg in it like my mother's family and bacon and raisins in the other like my father's.  Mr. Pom will think he died and went to heaven.

Are there ALWAYS 7 fishes on Christmas eve or do you cheat or dare I ask, abstain from the fish fest?

• The Christmas Eve feast at our house was initiated by Mr Pom who is more Italian than I am although he hasn't a drop of olive oil in his blood. I don't know that we've ever done the 7, though we've come close. Over the years, we've  made fried cod, scallop brochettes on the grill, shrimp scampi, seafood fra diavola, fried calamari (even potato chips - don't ask), but always lobsters.  In the last few years we've streamlined the menu and stick to shrimp cocktail, calamari in red sauce over pasta, and lobsters, lobsters, lobsters.

Lastly, sweet Kelly asked

What is your favorite way to relax and rid yourself of stress?

• Writing my blog!

Q & A

Paula asks:

1.) Do you think you'd ever rent out the cottage ? 2.) You lost weight? How much? 3.) Do you ever want to quit the day job? 

• We do intend to rent out the cottage, if we can get it ready this winter.
• I had gastric bypass surgery in 2007 and lost 125 pounds
• You must be a new reader to the blog if you are asking #3. LOL! EVERYDAY!

Little Miss Sunshine States wants to know, Will you do what we did (BOLT out of our house about 3 days after Alli graduated from high school)? Do you think you will enjoy your "empty nest" or will you be sad that there is no one to take care of anymore?

• I would be ready to bolt but my bank account won't be! We do intend to move to CC permanently some day, but I have to say that I think I'd always want to keep at least an apartment here because I'd miss my family and I'd miss NYC. 
• As for empty nest, I've noticed that it is easier and easier to get used to - but those kids keep coming back! LOL!

Dana asks,  1. your new CC kitchen...what's it going to look like, feel like, be for all of you 2. can you talk about your big writing project...does it have anything to do with the long-promised, much-anticipated 'summers on the cape' book? 3. what are the top 5 things you've found while funking/foragine/brocanting 4. what are you looking for NOW while you're doing #3 5. are there any artists that you admire that we might not know?

• The CC kitchen is actually in better shape than my home kitchen, but needs a lot of work. Our first project will be to move a built-in china cabinet, take down some upper cabinets and put in a counter than runs from the wall like a peninsula. It needs new cabinets, new floor, new sink, and a redo of the refrigerator area and pantry.  But first, we'll have to rent it out for a summer to get some money to do it!
• The big writing project - no, can't talk about it except that it involves the kind of writing I love, which is like what I write here and for the magazine. It involves a lot of organization and I am hoping The Princess will help me with that since she is between jobs and studying to take the grad school entrance exams.
• Top 5 funky things I've found while "junking":
• • yards of antique red, white, and blue bunting that I've yet to do anything with
  • an entire service for 8 of silverplate that was just left in a kitchen drawer
  • am oversized Victorian scrapbook with leather covers filled with pasted in cards and handwritten notes
  • my elderly neighbor in Memphis, who knew Elvis and whose husband started one of the first Holiday Inns in the United States, passed away at 88 years old. She left behind a houseful of stuff, including letters from Elvis, that my friend had been helping her organize. I knew I wasn't in the league to get any Elvis letters, but she had a  huge collection of matchbooks spanning 50 years of Memphis history. Unfortunately, a professional estate organizer was running the sale and wouldn't sell any of the matchbooks separately and I couldn't afford the entire set. I did however buy several of her flowered and veiled church hats and a few of her tole trays that I treasure.
  • my funkiest finds have actually come from ebay, where I've managed to buy many very old ledger diaries and Leather embossed Victorian photo albums with bronze clasps. They are waiting for me to do something wonderfully arty with them.
  • Your question about artists we might now know is very intriguing. I can't answer that here without a lot of thought and research, but it has me thinking of a great series of blog posts about artists and I plan to do that in the future.

 Pioneer Spirit asks, "What style(s) do you plan to use in the decor of the CC house? (Love the Star ornament on the door...real Texasy.)

• I have to say that being able to decorate a new house from scratch is great! How many times does someone really get to do that? At this age, I am saddled with twenty five years of decorating mishmash as we have moved four times and inherited a lot of "stuff" and acquired even more than that. So to be able to have a clean slate is just fabulous!  We are going for a Maine Cottage furniture look on a Target/TJ Maxx budget  - painted furniture, cottagey but with clean, more sophisticated lines,  and lots of colorful furnishings in creamy whites, sea greens, all shades of blue, and touches of coral. Albert and Dash style rugs. Dog hair resistant, of course!

*If you could live forever and continue to mature mentally but remain physically young...what are some things you would pursue?

• pretty much what I am doing right now - writing, creating, cooking, gardening, and entertaining my family. Oh, and sitting in the sun and swimming. Why - have you found the font of eternal youth in Texas?? Don't hold out now! 

Part Two of Q & A later in the week.....

Reading Lens

I wish I had a book to give to each and every one of you. Your reading suggestions are so great and  I made a list to share with all my readers. If you are like me, you are always on the look out for books that are recommended by like-minded readers:

• The Crowning Glory of Calla Lilly Ponder. ( I actually have this on my TBR pile)
• The Pickwick Papers, and Little Dorrit (Dickens)
• Daisy Bates in the Desert by Julia Blackburn.
• The Pattern of the Carpet by Margaret Drabble
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson.
• One Thousand White Women:The Journals of Mary Dodd by Jim Fergus
• AHAB'S WIFE, or The Star Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund
•  A Gate at the Stair by Lorrie Moore
• The Other Side of the Dale by Gervase Phinn
• Serena by Ron Rash
• The Shack by Wm Young
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• Winter Vault by Ann Michaels
• The Red Leather Diaries
• The Girl With No Shadow by Joanne Harris
• The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
•  Where Men Win Glory, The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
• Little Bee
•  A Year on Ladybug Farm
• The Space Between Us
• A Cake in Kigali by Gaile Parkin

My own addition to the list is a writer who I had read a very long time ago and had no idea that she had written books. Hollyhocks, Lambs, and Other Passions: A Memoir of Thornhill Farm by Dee Hardie.  It is out of print but there are used copies on Amazon and I managed to buy an autographed copy without even realizing itWhen I was growing up, I remember reading these lovely columns in House Beautiful entitled, The View from Thornhill Farms. Someone recommended that I read her books and I have been inhaling it all weekend. One is just a collection of her essays, starting with an early  newspaper column she wrote for The Baltimore Sun, but her second book is a memoir.

As a writer, I love watching her writing grow from a humorous, brisk approach into a more elegant, thoughtful and moving style.  She has the life I've dreamed about (large family, big old country house, lambs frolicking, writing for a living, and entertaining and decorating). It is really a pleasure to read, especially in the fall when my thoughts are geared up for holiday entertaining and decorating. I don't want to finish it too soon as I'll just have to start it all over again. 

Happy Reading this week!

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION IS:

THE RANDOM GENERATOR PICKED......
#####

4!

ARIANE CAGLE

ARIANE, a copy of The Bolter will be winging its way to you this week. I am sure you will enjoy this oh so English a tale of a woman who defied convention and lived her own life.

Getaway

Mr. Pom and I are headed to here this weekend. It will only be the second time we've stayed at the house. What with one thing or another, we haven't had a free weekend to go.

I hope to even have the chance to take the sales slip off the sofa.

Isn't that little table cute? Maybe I should bring it home here. (I see this as a continuing dilemma: do I buy this for our regular house or the Cape cottage? Or buy two. As if!) You are looking at all the furniture in the entire house except the beds.

We are bringing the pups for their first visit. I expect that little rug in the middle of the bare living room to go flying many times.

I also expect that Mr. Pom will have to be dynamited out of that chair when it is time to leave on Sunday.

More over the weekend, which is supposed to be sunny and in the sixties.

Happy Halloween from Cape Cod!

GIVEAWAY

Oops- forgot to set a deadline for the giveaway - please leave your comments by midnight Friday. Thanks!

GIVEAWAY!

Mr. Pom evinced a desire over the summer to read The Bolter, Frances Osborne's book about her great-grandmother, Lady Idina Sackville, cousin of Vita Sackville-West. Lady Idina was the inspiration for Nancy Mitford's character, The Bolter, who is the mother who abandons the main character in her early childhood. 

I suggested to Mr. Pom that he read Nancy Mitford's novel instead, but alas, somehow I managed to marry a man who does not read fiction. He reads tons and tons, but just not fiction. He adores history and has read his way through all of American history, with a very long period of deep study of the Civil War via Shelby Foote.

So, being the good wife I am and wanting to read this book myself, I quickly ordered it from Amazon, but somehow managed to order two copies.  I guess I have a heavy finger on the keypad.

So my mistake is to your benefit. You can be entered into a raffle to win a copy of The Bolter by leaving me a comment in which you tell me about a wonderful book you can recommend that you have recently read.

Questions? Testing, Testing - Is This Thang On?

Wow, what a public embarassment. Other people got 27 questions.....

I got 1, which was really a pity question to get me to stop stressing out....

Well, I guess it's time to turn this blog off and go to Rio!

LOL!!!!

What Have I (Not) Done

Last week, I came home from work full of vim and vigor and got A Lot of Stuff Done.

This week (I know it's only Monday), not so much. Intended to do some writing but instead spent the evening watching Coccon with Mr. Pom and The Princess, who had never seen it. And found out that The Teen never saw Ghost Busters! Can you believe the movie education I have to give these kids??

So here is my list of things I haven't done that I should have done and that some of you out there even are waiting for me to do.

(Read carefully for surprises!)

THINGS I HAVE NOT DONE

• Brought my sewing machine to the repair place since I broke a needle in it and jammed it up
• Unpacked my art suitcase from Art Is
• Which means I haven't posted the poetry I promised the Art Is-ers that I would email to them
• Nor have I fashioned the Journal Class Poem from all their cool fragments
• found my black bra
• made a hair appointment and the roots are showing
• made a dentist appointment and one little tooth is sort of vaguely achy...
• found a new place to get a flu shot since the damn dr. cancelled my appointment because they ran out
• put away two huge baskets of laundry from the weekend
• put away the rest of my summer clothes and transferred the winter stuff into the closet
• figured out where the hell I am putting the rest of the summer clothes
• returned a bag I ordered from Talbots that looked like a cool rusty orange on the website and turned out to be Construction Worker Orange in person
• returned two books to Amazon that I somehow double-ordered by mistake
• posted a giveaway of said two books since I never returned them
• put away the dry cleaning from the weekend
• returned the comforters to Target that I bought for the CC house but now think they look too little girlish (kelly green polka dots- what?? I'm going for a summer mood!)
• stopped worrying about The Teen getting all of application in for early decision to The Famous Art College in one week
• figured out why the SATs are holding her scores because they said we didn't pay for it but of course we paid for it or she couldn't have taken it!
• Uploaded ANY of the photos from Art Is
• Written posts about Art Is
• Written posts about our last family trip to Baltimore
• Written a post about The Teen's portfolio review and interview
• Called my mother this week! (Sorry, MOM!!)
• quit my job so I could attend to all this

BUT - FOR REAL -  I began work in earnest on a major writing project and now that I have finally figured out how to do it, I realize I can actually get it done in maybe half a year?

Going to bed to try to get more into Lorrie Moore's The Gate At the Stairs, but I gotta tell ya, it's kind of depressing and flat. Too much bleak midwestern midwinter forlorness. Gives me the creeps.

So, in the footsteps of some Great Bloggers (Blackbird, Badger, and Babelbabe), I am asking you to ask me questions, so I don't have to think too hard about what to post and I can cross that off my to-do list. You can ask about anything and I promise I will post a reply - it may not be the reply you want, but I will reply.

O BLA DI O BLA DAH

I have to say that I really am a very shallow person. It takes very little to make me change my mood. The last few weeks we've had cold, rainy weather. Everyone is griping about losing autumn the same way we lost most of the summer. Although I am happy to put on a warm sweater and boots, I am not happy to realize that I will be wearing them for the next nine months.

So here comes yesterday and today: temperatures in the 70's! Sun shining through golden oaks! I get in my car to drive home and roll down the windows to the car. The smell of the air is soft and sweet although the light is too thin for summer. Suddenly my mind is drenched in California and I remember what it was like to live in a state where summer stretches to nine months and how my delight in  warmw eather is directly proportional to how cold it is back East.

California, I miss you like a lover that I lust for but know that I could never marry. Who would think that perfect weather can get . . . so boring. I never realized that half my exultation in hot, sunny climes was dependent on the dark, cozy gloom of a day crashing with thunder and soaking with rain.

 

(It is not unlike needing salty after sweet. How many of you ate fudgesicles in the lunchroom by scraping the sweet icy chocolate with a salty Wise potato chip? If not, try it immediately. Also: pretzels dipped in chocolate.)

 

But back to my rides to and from work. I get to drive on a narrow, two-lane parkway that was designed for Sunday drives in the country. It twists and turns up hills and down, through banks of trees and the rolling greens of golf courses. Occasionally, near the reservoir, I see horses along a bridle path. There is a huge reservoir that acts like a giant mirror to the sky. Going the back way, I pass the small lake that we lived near when we were kids. Turtles bask on the rocks that we climbed on and the maples blaze like matches lit along the shore.

 

In the car, I am listening to The Beatle's White Album (thanks, Mar!) and Sargent Pepper. I am singing along, tapping the steering wheel. I am 13 years old again. Oops! I shouldn't be driving! No,  I am a British chick in my sports car. I have on go-go boots. My long blonde hair blows into my Mary Quant eyeshadow and my mini rides up my thighs.I am driving to Liverpool to join The Magical Mystery Tour.

 

"When I'm 64" is just a silly song about old people. Paul will never be 64!  I  am impossibly too young, even too young to fully understand Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds, but I know it is groovy and about drugs, ergo drugs are groovy. My eyes well up over "When My Guitar Gently Weeps"; oh, Eric you were never as cute as Paul or as cool as George but how I came to love you in my thirties.   I sing at the top of my lungs along with "Back in the USSR". I completely rock out to Sargent Pepper, playing both air guitar and keyboard whilst driving. (Kids, don't try this at home.)

 

I am very grateful that my car does not have 1) a camera, and 2) any kids. Oh, well, everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey.

 

But what am I saying?

 

I am a kid, just a young teen listening to her sisters' albums. When they are not home to ban me from their room or forbid me to touch their stereos. God forbid I put a scratch in that album!  Wait, I'm not a little sister but a gorgeous hippie chick, all frizzed out hair and African dashiki topped with love beads.  I'm a groupie, a bird, a chick with a fringed suede jacket and maharishi tunic. My peace sign hits the steering wheel as I take the curves. Paul is waiting for me. Paul is dead! Paul is dead! Play the album backwards. Paul is dead!

 

I pull into my street and maneuever my car between my older daughter's and my younger's. I switch off the engine. My knees creak as I climb out, dragging my briefcase behind me. I pull in the garbage cans that have been rolling around the sidewalk all day. I pick up the mail, let the dogs out, start dinner, change my clothes.  I'm so tired, I'm feeling so upset. Although I'm so tired I'll have another cigarette

 

As I walk past the dresser mirror, I wonder where about all the lonely people; where do they all belong?   I wonder whether  a  a little white lipstick would go with my black pinstripe suit when I try that case tomorrow.....I walk down the stairs humming, "Dear Prudence".  As I contemplate the mess left for me in the kitchen sink, I think, 'Happiness is a Warm Gun". What this family  needs is a "Revolution."

 

I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind.

 

 

Oh, well, O Bla Di O Bla Da, life goes on, on, la la how the life goes on.

Seasonings

In the front bed, the plants are beginning to show the slow decay of autumn. The hostas are yellowing and their leaves are becoming dessicated. The rudbeckia is almost done and the seed heads will remain as a exclamation points in the snow all winter. The hydrangea are slowly fading away but not before the bush by the front porch turns an absolutely dreamy deep shade of rose and brown,  perfect specimens to dry and keep in my mother's silver chafing dish until spring. 

My favorite thing of all, though, in the late autumn garden are the white asters.  I planted a pink aster and a white one to edge the front of the bed. The pink asters bloom in early September and have already gone to seed. The white ones, however, bloom in late September and right now as beautiful as any Japanese painting. Their delicate heads bob in the wind and they are so improbably white and delicate for a fall flower. They would seem more appropriate flowering in the heady days of May, but their show in the fall seems so contrary that they   never fail to bring a smile to my face as I walk to and from my car each morning and night. 

This is another sure sign that the seasons have changed. The pizza pans are brought out and oiled, the mozzarella diced, and the sweet smell of marinara and oregano perfume the kitchen on Sunday nights when Mr. Pom makes pizza. 

Each household in my family has at least one of these pans. They are all inherited from my grandmother's house. They began life as the tops of fish tins, the fish tins that my grandfather had on his truck as he peddled fish around the city.  The bottom of the tins were quite deep, probably about 6 inches high at least. The bottoms were used for making the lighter-than-air sponge cakes that were layered with apricot jam or macerated strawberries and topped with freshly whipped cream. My favorite part of the cake was the pitcher of strawberry juice that my aunt ladled off the berries and into a pitcher for pouring on the cake.

I don't have the bottoms to my tins. I may have had one once and lost it in a move. I know my youngest sister has one and rightly so since she is the only sister that has taken over the tradition of the sponge cakes. They are as good as my aunt's and never fail to also bring a smile to my face when I see it on her table.  She layers her cakes with chocolate and vanilla pudding but there is always whipped cream.

Our tins are used for all sorts of things, but mainly as cookie or pizza sheets. They are perfect for several rounds of biscuits to bake with sides touching. I can fit two tins side by side on each oven shelf when I make dozens of Christmas cookies.  My cousin bakes taralla cookies on them, an old family recipe brought on the old family tins.  Mr. Pom makes a mean assortment of pizzas on various pizza trays and I swear that none brown up or taste as good as whatever one he makes in the fish tins. 

And didn't I bring one with me to Art Is, to use as my surface as I learned to solder?  The round shape was perfect for me to reach around and the little splashes of solder didn't harm the tin at all.

All cooks understand that the real worth of a pan is in the seasoning.  Once a pan is fully seasoned, it can cook just about anything to perfection. Sometimes those less in the know in my family forget about a seasoned pan and put the pans in the sink to soak. The rust stains the next day are reproachful and I have to swab them with cooking oil and put them in the  oven on low for an hour to reverse the damages.

Yes, it's the season for seasoning, not just pans, but our stories. Get out your stories, take them down off the shelf and air them out for another telling. Polish them up and serve your family the stories that they hunger for, those that can't be sweetened with sugar or spiced up with salt, but are just perfectly delicious on a rainy autumn night.

A Lot On My Head.

 

I have a lot on my head.

That's an expression The Empress uses. Not "a lot on my mind", but "a lot on my head".

It's kinda funny, don't you think?

Nothing really important or earth-shattering going on. Just very busy at work and since I was away three weekends in a row, lots of household and family stuff to catch up on.

We were supposed to go to the Cape last weekend and chickened out when the nor-easters starting coming through. But I got so much done! Mailed out artwork, emailed essays, returned library books, deposited checks, brought back ugly sheets, cooked a twenty-pound turkey (!) and had the whole family over for a pre-Thanksgiving feast, made a pot roast, and cleaned my bedroom. So, pretty good for two days, no?

And that's why I've been so quiet here. Not that I don't love you, but I do find that I can only get so much done at once and something has to give. So lately, it's been the blog.

But I'll get back into the swing of it, don't you worry! I haven't eaten uploaded all the photos of Art Is, which was a blast.

By the way, we are starting a NY Metro area Art Is Artist Group, so if you are in this area and would like to meet with a bunch of crazy women artists for nothing more than fun and lots of eating of desserts and maybe even a little art work and probably plenty of show and tell, let me know your email addy.

Back in a day or so with a give away and some more book reviews.