pomegranatesandpaper

Our International Side

Our lives have been a changed by a foreign visitor this week, the likes of which we've never had in our home.

Sylvia came Wednesday.

All the way from Italy!

We were expecting her, but we weren’t sure what day she would arrive.

When I came home from work Wednesday, there she was!

We were all too tired to do much with her on Wednesday night, but Mr. Pom was entertained by her for  an hour or so until he came up frustrated with communication problems.

Which I was surprised out, considering that he has gone on and on and on about Sylvia – sending me emails – Sylvia’s coming! Sylvia’s email arrived!

I was starting to get a tad jealous.

Then last night, I finally had a few hours to spend. Mystery Man helped translate and Sylvia and the 2 of us were in the kitchen for most of the evening.

We pulled espressos, foamed milk, and then did it all over again for everyone in the family.

Thank god, I remembered to buy decaf espresso!

Sylvia is going to wean us off our Starbucks addiction (at least that’s what we told Mr. Pom tho The Teen and I know we’ll still be driving up there frequently.)

Friday night, I was up with a bad throat and Sylvia lovingly made me foamed milk to put in my Earl Grey. Sigh. She's so nurturing.

This weekend, I’m inviting the sisters over to meet Sylvia.

She’s kind of shy, but here’s a photo of her – Sylvia Rancilio -  isn’t she lovely?

Too bad she doesn’t bake.

The House of Marvels

Darlings, I know I have left you all in suspense about the events of Mother's Day and  our planned visit to the Metropolitan Museum.

Let me assure you it was a most celebratory day!

Mr. Pom insisted that I spend the morning abed, despite my protests. Maid brought in a lovely breakfast tray of coddled eggs and scones with jam mid-morning. After breakfast, I donned my dressing gown and joined Fluffernutter in the morning room where I read the morning papers in her delightful, quiet company.

The sisters arrived for luncheon. We were all so languid after last night's ball, that we were satisfied with cucumber sandwiches and consommes in the summer house. Mummsy insisted that we all rest apres lunch and despite our boredom, it did restore our pallor. Driver dashed us into town for a quick tour of the latest exhibitions and we were home in time for tea.

The children were brought in after tea and performed their recital. Afterwards, Nurse, who had insisted on giving up her afternoon off, gathered them up for their tea in the nursery.  I retired to my boudoir with my needlepoint as I was exhausted from the day.

When it was time to dress for dinner, Mr. Pom popped into my dressing room and surprised me whilst I brushed my hair. He drew a long, slim black case from his pocket and presented it to me with a flourish. I drew in my breath as it contained a diamond necklace (so large as to be almost vulgar, but I daren't tell him and hurt his feelings)!

We enjoyed champagne on the terrace by moonlight. Imagine my surprise when I heard the crunch of gravel as Driver brought the car round. Although I had told Mummsy we were dining alone, Mr. Pom insisted on a romantic dinner a deux at the club. Despite my protests that I was under-dressed to spend the evening out, he declared whatever I had donned, I would be the most beautiful woman in the room, and whisked me off to the club.

We arrived home dreadfully late, but Butler had my bed turned down and a bromide on a tray. I pray that tomorrow shall be quiet as I have much correspondence to attend to, a visit from the vicar (a most tedious, little man), and I must speak to Gardener about the roses for the table for dinner. And I must tell Cook that it is just warm enough for an iced pudding!

Mr. Pom told me that I mustn't fret and I shall not give one more thought to cause a wrinkle in my brow. He withdrew to his bedroom after kissing me good night.

I shall obey his instructions and shut the light forthwith.

But, oh, whatever shall I do if the the roses  have blackspots!

Good night, gentle readers.

More May

Is there a more feminine month than May? This weekend was the perfect confluence of all that is spring.  The lilacs were nodding heavily in lush purple hues; the azaleas were smug in brazen magentas, pinks, and whites; tulips were as perky as Mary Tyler Moore in shade of salmon, pink, and yellows.  Even the cherry trees were hanging on a spell, all frowzy soft pinks like a chenille robe to snuggle in the morning after.

At the hairdresser, snatches of conversation floated above the roar of blowdryers, bringing word of confirmations, college graduations, and Mother’s Day plans. A little girl with an impossibly slender neck sat still for an hour while huge plastic rollers were curled in her hair. She walked over to the blow dryer like a gymnast on a balance beam, with her head heavier than her entire body and her neck stiffened to not wobble. She sat patiently with her mother as their hair dried and she leafed throw an oversize book that took up more of the chair than she did for a style to wear with her communion veil,  which hung like a whisper of saintliness from a glass shelf.

While I was having glop applied to my own hair, I caught her reflection in the mirror just as they placed the veil with a silver tiara on her hair,  which was now arranged in a soft bun atop her head.  I wanted to yell, “Wait!” so I could take the photo, but I didn’ t think they’d take too kindly to a stranger’s insistence on placing a photo of their 7 year old on a blog. You’ll just have to imagine her pale innocence and the catch in my throat as my mind flew back to my own girls’ communions and just as swiftly ahead to their possible wedding days.

All my usual shop windows were stuffed with delights: globes of the world were strung along the scent store window – a hint to send Mom on a trip around the world?  Next door, a mannequin wearing a  vintage tulle dress in the barest whisper of blue and  sashed in white satin was waiting for an invitation to a lawn party.  As I walked, dogwood petals flew like a spring snowstorm and children clutching small shopping bags walked hand in hand with fathers on the sidewalk.  Involuntary smiles broke out on everyone’s faces, even the dog walker who struggled to restrain 2 terriers, a golden retriever, and a wild-eyed poodle as she crossed the street.

That evening, Mr. Pom and I celebrated his few days off from pain with sashimi tuna adorned with a paper thin slice of jalapeno and a dollop of salmon roe.  As we sat in the big front window of the narrow sushi  restaurant, we just sort of stared at each other in disbelief that we were out to dinner, each musing on what miracle had finally occurred. Whatever prayers were answered, they gave us a break to live out of ourselves for the moment and indulge in a 5 year plan to be living on Cape, self-employed,  with The Teen in college, MM and The Princess gainfully employed and settled in their lives, and with a lab or two to keep us company.

Hope springs eternal.

Happy Mother's Day

 

Happy Mother's Day!  Doesn't this display remind you of a cake, a big, beautiful cake?  I love this store and take a lot of photos in there. Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut and it's a few doors away from this place so I'll be sure to go in and see what little goodies they have for Mother's Day.

We went back and forth  many times about what to do for Mother's Day. We're not big on eating in restaurants on that day because it is Sheer. Hell. And we're I'm not big on inviting everyone to my house because How. Is. That. My. Day?  We wanted to round up all the sisters, granddaughters, and grandmothers and go to a tea room, but there were too many in-law issues and we decided to do it on a less crowded day.

So my daughters and I are going with my mother and sister #2 (oh, I haven't told her yet - hope she reads it here in case I forget) to The Metropolitan where we will saunter amidst the European paintings, sit in the Astor Court, have lunch at one of the cafes, and then have tea on the balcony.

I am looking forward to just wandering through the galleries, bringing my sketchbook and if it stops raining, sitting on the front steps and people watching. 

Mr. Pom came home from work for the first time in months without being in agonizing pain. I knew he was feeling better when he walked in and yelled, "Hola!" which is how you know his back doesn't hurt because when it does, he just walks in and throws down his briefcase, opens the freezer for his ice packs and groans his way upstairs.  Considering how much pain he was in yesterday and the groaning I heard as he left for work this morning,  it's pretty remarkable.

So we are just happy go-lucky this evening. I made a turkey meatloaf to which I mixed in chopped up artichokes and mushrooms and tabouli from last night.
It was....horrible. So we ate the smashed potatoes and the edamame salad and considered it a calorie saving.

So how many people think when I get my haircut tomorrow, I should go a little red? I'm considering it. My hairdresser will plotz. He hates everything but one length, classic, blunt cut, one-color hair.  Then again, it's time to get it straightened, so I definitely can't do any weird color or it'll turn green or something when I get it straightened in two weeks.  Keeping my hair straight and colored is a full time job that requires the precision and planning of NASA deciding when the shuttle should go up. It's my cross, I tell ya. But what's the alternative: gray frizz. Yuck.  These are the sacrifices I make for those who must look at me. Especially Mr. Pom who has never bugged me about anything to do with my appearance except that he hates gray hair. So what's a girl to do?

I didn't mean to keep you waiting so long.

I've just been working and coming home and getting some artwork done.

I was unloading groceries in the kitchen after work yesterday when I heard the front door open and Mystery Man appeared. Seems that exams are over, he had Yankee tickets, and decided to bring down a load of his stuff with his friend on the way to the game.

Living up to his name, none of his knew he was coming home for a Yankee game. He comes home for the summer on Sunday, in time for Mother's Day.  He gave himself a Mohawk haircut. Actually it looks more like a Poindexter haircut.

Haircut is truly bizarre, but being the cool mom that I am, I just  said "Have fun! One more year! Then time to graduate! Actually you should be graduating next week! But you took that internship! Now you have another semester! No, two, since you dropped those classes first year! One more year before you're on your own! One more year of giant tuition and rent!  Your father was working a year when he was your age!

Ah, heck, I didn't say any of those things. Just raised my eyebrow at the haircut, kissed and hugged him, hugged his friend, made them both chicken wraps with avocado and pepper cheese to take to the game, and told him I'd wait up for him since they were coming back to crash the night rather than make me crazy that he was driving back to school after a long day.

Summer's coming. Time to load up on the Diet Coke, cold cuts, bread, and frozen pizzas. Clear off the console under the TV to make room for wires and cables to  various electronic games. Do a count of all my glasses and plates so I know how many are in various bedrooms at any given time. Get used to smelling food cooking at 1:00 a.m.  and the shower running at all hours Rush home to get a parking space now that we are a 4-car family. (Silly Teen thinks she's getting a car as soon as she passes her road test in June. As if!)

Yeah, I love it.

Sowing More Than Seeds

The closest I came to going to a nursery was peering at my favorite through my windshield wipers. Not that a little rain would normally stop me, but kids, it was freezing cold.

Also, I do have sort of a rep for buying plants and if I don't put them in the ground the same day, they sit in their little peat pots in the driveway until I found them in mid-July, little fried up hardened peat pots of cement, so I decided to wait until next weekend when I can justify the mountains of flowers, shrubs, and herbs as my Mother's Day gift.

"Seeds?", you ask. No, the only seeds I do are morning glories and Moonvine. In the early years, Mr. Pom and I would rig up the flourescent lights on our back porch and spend hours planting veggie and flower seeds. Heck, I had a friend in Memphis who would collect the impatiens seeds from her plants each year - I didn't even know you could do that - and seed them the following year. The Poms, we'd end up with leggy, moldy seedlings that disappeared into the soil. So we prefer to hand over large sums of cash for plants that we probably have a 50/50 chance of not killing.

So instead, this weekend I'm inside tearing up art paper, washing things with gesso, stamping with big, juicy alphabet stamps, and trying to figure out a way to attach inserts to an accordion book journal.

If you want to see it, though, you'll have to buy the September issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors.

In the current issue, you can read my column, Chasing the Red Balloon ©, where I write about my own journey in discovering how to "teach" art, or learning to lead students to find their own Red Balloon.  I usually shy away from publicizing the column and magazine on my blog and writing about where I am going to be published. And someone I know, much wiser than I in the ways of the world, asked me, "why?" I had no answer except that it seemed pushy and brassy.

The reply was, "You have a website but you don't want to draw attention to your art and writing? And yet you want to be taken seriously as an artist and writer?"

So. Yes. When you put it that way, why aren't I publicizing my art and writing on this blog?

I promise not to go overboard. I do enjoy just chatting with you. But it's a reminder that we always have to keep sight of our goals.

Love to you all this steely gray Sunday.

Uh oh.

Seriously, I know this is the weather in early May. I know it's cold, dark, and wet. How do I know this? I remember my own senior week in college when the fair and the outdoor dance were cancelled, and we all shivered under our cap and gowns on the lawn during the ceremony. I know this because when we drove 4 hours to The Princess's graduation, we had to pull over until the downpours lessened and in all the photos we have crazy hair and our skirts over our heads. (If we wore skirts. OK, The Princess did.)

But still.

You see, I made the mistake of trolling the house design blogs. I really try to stay away from them so I don't get all fired up at 1:00 a.m. to wallpaper the entire downstairs in grasscloth or order a skillsaw to take down walls myself. I have to watch this. I'm not to be trusted with a blog full of photos of outdoor rooms, kitchens with glass tiles, or how to turn your bedroom into a boutique hotel room.

So, it was with full knowledge of my obsessions that I clicked on The Inspired Room, but I didn't expect to see this:

People, people, please put a warning at the top of your post:

   Mrs. Pom Beware: Enter at the risk of your sanity.

See here's the things: the layout of this property is almost exactly like ours. See:

The only difference is that the little paved patio on the upper left? Flip that behind our house and make it crumbled, disgusting concrete.  And we don't have those large trees in the front. In fact, we took down the large maple so it wouldn't crush the chirren as they sleep on the third floor and so that we could put in The Walk.

The only question is - how soon can I get the fence guy over here? He puts in a fine fence, only when you call him "in season", i.e. anytime except when snow is on the ground, he needs about 3 months lead time to answer the call, show up, send estimate, and start walk.

That. Will. Not. Do.

I need it now!

[NOTE:  Mr. Pom is gently whispering in my ear and my pinching my arm to remind me that he's been home for almost a month with his back and probably isn't a good time to spend any money on anything except ....nothing.

I give him a big raspberry. I am not nice.]

Look, look at the entrance from inside:

You know what they titled this photo? "Intimate entry from inside".

Must have intimate entry. Immediately.

The plan today was to run outside at crack of dawn and lay down newspapers along the front of the property line to kill all the grass so I could dig the front borders by next weekend and plant all the plants I am going to buy at the nursery I pass every day on the way to work and now is fully stocked with plants and bushes.

However, I don't think it works if it's raining cause the newspapers will turn to mush before it can kill the grass.  And if I can't afford the fence guy, I wonder what Home Despot has? And could Mystery Man, who comes home next week, put it in? For my Mother's Day gift? Would we need a post hole digger? And can I rent one today? And what color to paint it and should I paint the front door, now red if you are paying attention, to match it? And can we rip out the giant fence we put up in the back and side to keep the dog in, the fence that is TOO white?

Stay tuned!

The Lusty Month of May

We made it, kids. In my mind, winter is officially over tomorrow, the first of May. What month has more beautiful associations than May? May flowers, May weddings, Mother's Day, cherry blossoms,  Maypoles, and May processions.

It is a lusty month. Just this morning I was stopped at a light next to a vivid pink cherry blossom tree in full bloom. This wasn't one of those elegant, Asian cherry trees that look like the ones featured on Japanese screens. I think it was a Kwanzan pink double bloom cherry tree with blossoms as thick and frilly as  those crepe paper flowers we used to make in grade school and poke onto a pipe cleaner to give our moms on Mother's Day.

As I sat waiting for the light to change, I just drank in the spectacle of this showy tree. The tree looks like a lusty dancer waiting to step out onto the stage. It was so over the top and outrageous that if it did take the stage, you'd be sure it was a tree in drag.    It would take a more masterful painter than I  to achieve the drunken,  fulsome bawdiness of these blossoms without losing their frivolity or making them appear garish.

In honor of all things May, I am bringing to you the little bright spots in my ordinary week, sort of a May procession of the small things that keep me frivolous and lusty as I go through the week.

I love my little memo pad with the elegant Parisian cover made by my friend, Terri. It's so classy and funky at the same time and makes me smile when I whip it out to write down a sentence or idea that I have to remember for the novel later. (I think they're available at her site, too.)

Has there ever been a book more suited for the frivolity of late spring?  I saw a Summer of Hummingbirds at the bookstore and it was in my hand without a moment's thought.

I spend most of my work week behind a desk with no view since we are in temporary cubicles and with my back to a window overlooking a parking lot. A girl could go nuts!  So it's important to keep lots of little bits of pretty about for eye candy. I always have a Kate Libby calendar on my desk. Her work is so beautiful and simple and lush and she always inspires me to pare down my art to the simplest images in my life.

A girl can't live by art and books alone - though I sure have tried! This little fridge is the perfect size for my desk and holds my sandwich, a water, some berries, and a piece of cheese for a snack. And I got it for free through a little bonus at work. Supposedly it will plug into a cigarette lighter. Should have used it for my Cape trip.

It's too pretty to eat lunch inside. There's no place around us to sit outside, though, so I move my car to a sunny spot and reach for my "car book". I always have at least one book in the back seat - you never know when you'll be waiting for The Teen after Driver's Ed, or in line at the gas station. Any time is a good time to read. Can I get paid to read? I've really tried.

Now is the time for long walks, which for me are always more fun window shopping than admiring nature. Okay, I do enjoy walking along the ocean more, but for just plain daydreaming, that dawdling kind of walk where you're not interested in bodily exercise as much as wandering, a shop window full of vintage pillows and nosegays and other sweet, feminine things is the best.

Of course, those shop windows can be very enticing and often my feet stray inside the doors and then I am lost for an hour or more, attracted to the beautiful packaging, the colors, and the scents. I am a sucker for anything with lettering. (Hint, hint, la familia, Mother's Day is coming and one of these candles would look smart on someone's  night table.)

Happy May Day! May it bring you warm rays of sunshine, the scent of lilacs, and the confetti of petals across your path.

Let All The Pretty Gardens Grow... Tra La....Tra La...

It's started.

All I did was spend a few hours outside yesterday, raking, weeding, deadheading, and cutting back last year's dead growth. And that was just on the dog.

I made the mistake of surveying the front garden, or what's known commonly to those who attempt to garden in the northeast as the existential spring question:

Where the hell are all the plants we put in last year?

When you plant out a garden in midsummer, you tend to buy all the little pretties that catch your eye at the nursery: Oooo - hydrangeas!  Delphiniums! Aquilegia! 

Being a completely non-delayed gratification chick, I don't get as lathered up over bulbs that I have to plant in the fall for the spring or buying bare root stock for seasons not in bloom.....

And thus, the empty wasteland that is our front bed in the spring.

Nothing that a couple thousand bucks wouldn't cure!

This is how it looked in early summer as we put in a few bushes and plants:

We haven't put anything else in. We were planning to do the "hardscape", i.e. trees and evergreens in the fall, but we got tied up in with the crazy porch and The Teen's bedroom and the garden got kicked to the curb - moneywise, that is.  Lots to do, lots to do. And still lots to do!

So having become proficient ha ha at Photoshop Elements (note all the crazy fonting of the last few posts), I decided to do a "cyber makeover" .

• First off, see all that grass on the left side of the path. Hate it! Want the bed to extend to the walk. Grass is ugly there and invades the bed and the entire garden should have a border. 
• I'm also leaning to fencing it in - but not the ugly split rail fence that we paid MM to take down. No, I'm wanting a cottagey Williamsburg-style  white picket fence, preferably NON-RESIN, since we had to go that route for the dog, , across the front of the lawn and up the left side.

Our property line is dang right up against the left side of the bed and I can't really put anything too big in or it will cast shade, but I've got to figure out a way to screen my neighbor's ugly garage. I'm thinking a couple of tall evergreens that will grow up but not out. A house a few blocks away has some pretty variety that changes to pale green in spring and that looks pretty.

I also must have one of these, which I stole from dear Lesley's blog and I assume is on the front lawn of her gorgeous home.

Note to self:  Begin correspondence course in bird house building and the cultivation of ivy that doesn't take over the entire lawn.

Now, on the other side of the law we have: nada.  A few scraggly evergreens, a dogwood that puts out about 5 blooms, and a crumbling bird bath. 

We I want to extend the little strip in front of the living and pull it all the way down the path and plant out both sides in a nice curvy, organic look. No little marching plops of begonia/impatiens/begonia/impatiens regimen here! Then, we'll take up all the grass and lay pea gravel and put a pretty teak bench there from where I can admire the calla lilies in bloom.

What's that loud noise?

Why, it's Mr. Pom lying on the sofa whilst guffawing loudly as he reminds that whilst I surf garden sites for plants to order, bird baths, trellises, and the like, he is applying his third ice pack of the day. He can't even bend down to pick up his socks, so the likelihood of fence posts or trees being planted this season are dependent on whether we win the lottery and I hire somebody.

This, however, has never stopped me before. I will manage some part of this, I will! I have the fever! The outdoor fire pit/teak bench/Williamsburg fences/cottagey/billowy perennials/lavender & thyme fevah!

Really, how hard was that?

Retreat Day....?

I've lost track of the days I've been at this. Being up for 24 hours midweek has left me scattered. I wasn't able to write a sentence yesterday, but I did a lot of research and read half of a book for my background story.

Sometimes when I do an art project, I do a lot of sketching and thumbnails as I work my way through the issues. An awful lot of what I do ends up in sketchbooks never to be seen or, sadly, in the circular file.  It's so frustrating, but it's necessary for the way I work.

In other words, I rarely know what I'm going to do other than a vague idea. I work out all the problems in process. I've never been a person who can outline anything and work from there, unless it's in my legal work.

For some reason, I never think that my writing is going to go the same route. I convince myself each time that I will go from A to B to C and all will flow smoothly.

Ha!

So it's no wonder that it's Friday and after 3 days of writing, reading, thinking, rewriting - I have a big muddled mess that is much worse off than when the wheels of my car backed out of the driveway on Sunday night.

Mr. Pom went to work this morning. I think partially to get away from me, who is coughing like a madwoman, and flinging pads of paper and books around like a prima donna writer. And to get away from the Fluff who is now crying in the backyard, though she just cried to go outside.

Should I spend the morning in, listening to the dog whimper for no apparent reason, unpack my suitcase which is spilling open in the hallway, do the dishes that no one has done since Mom is "home" for 2 days, and empty all the wastecans, mow the lawn, and do the laundry which I have washed twice now since I forgot it in the basement and it smells funky?

Nah.

I'm putting the Fluff back in the basement, the only place where she's happy, throwing the loads in and out of the machines while I'm down there, and hitting the road. Borders will work today. They've opened their patio so I can sit in and out. I need a little magazine skimming, maybe some first chapter of novels reading.  I'll be home in time to put a chicken on the grill - if there's gas from last year - or in the oven, and steam some artichokes.

What will you do with amidst the daffodils and weeping cherries this one wild and precious mid spring day?

Sometimes you are on the path, hitting your stride and pumping your arms, congratulating yourself on getting out there and Just Doing It.

Then a giant obstacle blocks the way. It is huge, immoveable and there's no way around it.  Everything grinds to a halt as you survey this immense,  seemingly solid, dense object.

And then, you get up close and notice that there is in fact a way through. It is narrow, confining but a definite chink in the armor.

Comfortingly, you also notice that someone has gone before and left a handhold, if you have the motivation and energy to go up and over.  Sometimes, just knowing someone has gone before is all it takes to allow you to take a deep breath and soldier on.

The venue has changed, but The Retreat continues. I have 4 days before I have to return to work. Mr. Pom is more stable after a change in meds that doesn't leave him feeling like he's having a cardiac  episode. He's a long way from recovery in terms of his back, but things are more serene.

In a pique of self pity, I got up at my usual time and dressed for  work. Mr. Pom thought I was crazy and told me to go into my studio and write. No, no, no, the spell is broken, I'm too tired, it's all for naught, and I swept out of the house on the majesty that only self-righteous prig-headedness can bestow.

I got as far as the exit to the office on the parkway when I realized that I had accidentally left my work laptop home. As I double backed to get it, truly annoyed at the world, an idea popped into my head that was the link that would tie together the entire plot of the book.

You know what they say - they are no accidents.

I can be found today at my favorite public library, by the windows at the long, wooden tables with the individual readings lamps. 

But if you love me, you will leave me undiscovered.

We Hate to Interrupt Your Original Programming.

I'm home. Mr. Pom not doing well with complications from the back.

If you are a praying sort, please think of him.

Thank you all for your support and cheers. Someday I'll get to do it again.

Now get out there and live your life!

Day Two

Morning

Midday

Evening

Retreat Day One

Morning.

Evening.

The Teena Alitalia

She's in Rome, happy, tired, excited, exhausted, and full of gelato! She had one great lunch, one "disgusting American" meal at the hotel, and a tour of Rome at night.  This is the group - can you pick out the teachers? I couldn't if I didn't know!  (The man and woman standing on the far right and the woman with the denim jacket kneeling fourth from left.

Of the two good friends that are with her, one has a dad who lives part time in Greece and the girls know him well from his trips to visit the states. He flew to Rome to spend the two days with them. He met them at the hotel and took them to lunch and dinner and squired them all around. I can't tell you how good that made me feel!

I'm so glad she's there and excited and happy, considering we almost gave her a nervous breakdown before she left.  Let's just leave it at this: when mothers are all whipped up from so many things to do in a very short time, mothers should not walk in the door and start whipping the house in shape, lest mothers should clean up all the junk mail and throw it away, including the envelope from the bank with all the euros. Which, of course, mothers didn't notice until 2 hours before the child was to leave and mothers and grandmothers and aunts were at the diner with the child and the mothers had to go flying home and the child was crying but mothers then found the euros under the coffee grounds - pristine!

Believe me, she was happy to be on that bus!

RETREAT!

I dare you.

It's not as easy as it sounds.

You have to use 5 of your precious, hard-earned days off from work.

Money will be spent that could be used on a family trip.

Days gone if illness strikes or a play date is proposed later in the year.

Husbands will be left alone to deal with dogs and meals and loneliness.

And you will face this:

Can I really write a book.  Write it from one end to the other. A first draft, fully realized. A coming together of a million thoughts and words and references and background and research and history and characters and plots and dialogue and meaning and symbolism and fruition of all your dreams.

Oh, good grief. Just get it on with it woman and stop all the aggrandizing and guilt and worry.

Just do it.

I am.

I know you can, too.

Dig your heels in and make it your job. pretend someone is paying you to do it.

Go to the library and find the study carrel that only you know about it, the one by the window on the balcony. Or sit at a wide, wooden table and be silently companionable with all the other keystrokes you hear softly clacking around you.

Punch in and out like a job. Give yourself a lunch  break. make sure you get dressed and brush your teeth.

Bring something totally escapist to watch at night, like Brideshead Revisited.

Make sure you have a non-head occupation to do for a break, like mindless knitting.

Light a scented candle each morning and say a prayer over the water. Walk in the wind and let it scour your doubts away like a million grains of sand.

Don't look back. Don't look ahead. Just stay present with your characters and greet them like long lost friends.

And above all, make sure you know where to get the cappuccinos.

A girl can't live by gumption alone.

Gulp.

Wish me luck!

Arriverdecci The Teena

The Teen:     You're not gonna cry at the bus are you, Mom? No, let me say it this way: You're NOT going to cry at the bus, Mom.

Mom:             Not unless the damn bus leaves a minute later than 4:00 and I have to drive to the Cape in the dark.

The Teen:        Nice, Mom, real nice. Why don't you just leave in the morning if that's all you care.

Mom:                Because you told me I can't.

The Teen:      Daddy will take me.

Mom:                Daddy can barely take himself downstairs.

The Teen:        I'll get The Princess to drive me.

Mom:                    She doesn't get up till 4:00 on Sundays. And you can't guilt me because I've been with you since 9:30 this morning and it's now 9:00 p.m. and we're just pulling into the driveway after going to every surfer/preppy/teen store in the county and all you bought were 2 tops and 2 pairs of shorts.

And let me just say this: If one is old enough to go to Italy, then one ought to be old enough to drive oneself to the stores where one pays for all the stuff with one's own credit card, if one is .....old enough.

The Teen:        Right, Mom. Like when you told me I didn't need to know the pin # to the debit card in American Eagle and you HAD to go Starbucks and didn't answer your phone and they asked me for ID and I have to LEAVE THE STORE and come find you and then you wouldn't come back with me and threw the Amex at me?

Mom:                I did NOT throw the AMEX at you. I may have raised my voice a tad, but it was 2:00 and I was just having the first drop of caffeeine  OF THE DAY pass my lips.  And who let you eat the other half of her English muffin at the diner because you ordered Canadian bacon and realized it was just ham and you hate ham?

The Teen:      Don't try to change the subject.  I'm just scarred for life by holding up 30 other kids WITH THEIR MOTHERS on line buying clothes for spring break and I can never SHOW MY FACE in American Eagle AGAIN and I feel so horrible I'll probably get to Italy and sit in the hot tub with the first Italian dude I see.

Mom:            Wanna go to PF Chang's for dinner?

The Teen:    Sure, it's my last night to have American food.

Mom:            Well, then Chinese it is!

Fractured!

Feeling a little disjointed this week.  Lots of stuff going on in the Pom household with lots of running around during a week when work has ratcheted up the grind to the tenth power. Tends to wear me out and leave me cranky and good-fer-nuttin'.

The Teen and The Pope are leaving for Italy on Sunday. Think they'll be on the same plane? So this week there was an evening parent meeting, a lunch trip for Euros, a bank trip to try out the new debit card, an after work run to Target for suitcase, adapter, underwear, socks, and more shopping tomorrow for pants and sneakers.

Mrs. Pom is not concentrating on the

• plane ride
• gypsies that prey on tourists (or so I'm told)
• regular thieves who have network of stealing pin numbers and debit cards in Europe (or so I'm told)
• the teen possibly getting separated from her group and on her own in some Italian city
• the teacher who took the students to a club in Rome one night last year
• the senior boys on the trip, and
• the Italian boys and men I never even considered until I told someone at work about
• the hot tub on the rooftop of the hotel in Taormino

Mr. Pom is at the freak-out stage of his back attack.

• Mrs. Pom has to talk him in off the ledge and give him an actual script to follow when  speaking with 1)internist, 2) pain specialist, 3) MRI facility, 4) pharmacy, 5) his boss,  and 6) two different surgeons. Medicines get delivered daily. The master bedroom now command central.  No one can call me because  the home phone and all the cell phones are in use for the office. Occasionally,  he clears off the files and the laptop tray from the bed so I can lay down and pretend I'm alone.
  

Picked up The Fluff's meds last night:

• insulin
• needles
• glucosamine
• pain meds for arthritis
• ear flush
• anti-anxiety meds - She. Does. Not. Sleep.

Tomorrow: full examination for ears, plus all her yearly shots

Ka-ching! is the melody of the week.

So midday, I felt like I had imbibed in ten triple venti skim caps (instead of my usual one),  I bagged it at work and drove home in the 80 degree sunshine, letting it rip on the thruway with the music cranked up loud.

I did what I do when everything feels out of control: purge and organize!

• those bags of oversized clothes sitting in the extra bedroom for a month: Salvation Army!
• all the oversized coats, old raincoats, out of style winter jackets, and years of kid Yankee jackets: Salvation Army!
• the box of office stuff carried in my car for 5 months: cleaned out!
• the pots of dead annuals from last year in the front garden: garbage!
• the dead plants in pots all over the backyard: composted!
• my desk drawer of manuals and warranties for appliances we no longer own or don't work: in the trash!
• bathroom chest full of expired meds: down the toilet!
• artwork overdue by a month: on its way to the editor!
• Zappos shoes that were too large/too small: mailed back!
• Teen's 4 month old birthday checks: deposited!

I love a good purge! I feel so much lighter. And it worked. The tightness in the chest and the grip across the forehead loosened up and went away and I could be nice to Mr. Pom and take The Teen for a latte. I even cooked: chicken paillard and roasted potatoes and butternut squash.

Tomorrow is a string of appointments and errands starting at 9:45. 
But Sunday evening, after the bus from the high school takes off for the airport with the Italian class.....I'm going on retreat!

More tomorrow. With actual photos. Maybe. Soon as I get to the mall for a new laptop adaptor (thanks Princess - now mine doesn't work!)

Wednesday The Best Of

Another timeless selection brought to you first in May 2004

Getting dressed for work in the cold-weather months is easy. It's usually just a matter of opening the closet and picking out one of a number of dark-colored suits. Should I wear black, navy blue, or brown today? Yuck and boring. But safe. There's little risk in a two-piece suit and a blouse. Maybe the height of the heels - almost all are black - is the only thing that stumps me at 7:00 a.m. Behind the wall of black wool, I am safe, my figure flaws hidden as much as possible, but more, I am armored, ready to battle.

With spring, comes a softening of the profile. The black grey and brown is tweaked with color. It started this year with a bag, a totebag, in a soft, chalky pink. The fashion mags scream at me this year that pink is the new black for spring. So in March when I saw the bag hanging on a metal rack at a designer discount store, I snatched it up and it's been waiting on my closet shelf for the day to let it bloom. I wasn't sure when that date would be. My sister offered the opinion that it couldn't be worn with a winter coat. Absolutely. And I didn't feel right using it when the predominant fabric clothing the bar was still flannel.

Then my husband broke the logjam by giving me a powder blue bag for Mother's Day. Oh, it's a pretty thing. Very feminine, flirty, light-hearted. In short, as my husband said, like nothing he's ever seen me use before. I transferred the contents out of the black bag I'd been using for six months into the new designer blue. It was kind of heavy, a shoulder bag that didn't quite balance on my shoulder with all I had to cram into it. And I had to carry my files separately; this was no workhorse of a bag, but a dainty, "accessory".

What to wear it with was the problem. It needed the right balance of a lightweight fabric with an understated color so as not to compete. I decided on a black pantsuit with a powder blue shell. When I got to court, I made certain not to fling it under a bench as I would my workhorse bag. I kept it on my shoulder. As I walked over to the courtroom, I noticed a young attorney looking at it, then another stealing a glance at it. Jumbled around the desk, a friend noticed it and complimented me. AFter a day of compliments on the blue bag, I decided I have the bravery to trot out the pink.

The next morning, when I was crowded in front of the calendar, trying to find my cases, I saw an unfamiliar, curvy silhouette in front of me. She was wearing a short black, fitted jacket, with a pink, white, and black flirty skirt. Tucked under her arm was a deep pink leather bag in the shape of a barrel. Oooh, another pink bag. Suddenly, I realized that the curvy shape in front of me was an attorney who usually wore pants, a raincoat, and her hair pulled back into a ponytail every day.

"Nice skirt, Mary, and I LOVE the bag." She turned and blushed a little, then we both laughed at out pink accessories. . "I was buying my mother a Mother's Day bag, and had to get this one for myself." She looked adorable and very unlike her usual all business self. Another friend complimented her and several male attorneys gave her the old lecherous stare down as they walked by. She was having trouble keeping her usual stern demeanor.

"I got a new bag for Mother's Day, too", another attorney piped up. She's about seven months pregnant with her second pregnancy in 30 months. She has deep circles under her eyes which she doesn't try to hide with make up since she has no time to put on in the morning. She took off a cute little designer backpack and proudly displayed it to us. "Ooh, how cute," we all hummed together.

Just then the elevator opened and our judge came out. She didn't have her robes on yet and she was wearing a lightweight, two piece pantsuit. In pink. Beautiful spring pink. We all looked at each other and raised our eyebrows.

When I went into the courtroom on my motion, I plopped my pink totebag onto the counsel table and said "Good morning, your honor," and prepared to tell her what my case was.

The judge looked up."Oh, a pink bag!"" The judge smiled at me and looked at her law clerk. "Pink is everywhere this spring," her law clerk assented, nodding with a smile.

"Anytime you'd like to borrow, it your Honor, just let me know, " I said with a smile, not losing the chance to suck up to a woman who is generally considered as buttoned-up as an eighty-year old nun.

For the second after our exchange finished, the atmosphere in the courtroom had dramatically changed from business to pleasure. The usual harassed atmosphere had the caress of spring, like a window had opened in the air conditioned room and the smell of freesia lilted in on a breeze. We all smiled at one another.

The male attorney shifted uncomfortably next to me. His dark blue suit suddenly looked so stuffy. He was a regular in the courtroom also, but all of a sudden, he wasn't part of the crowd.

I came out of the courtroom with my eyebrows raised. I told my colleagues what had transpired. Our strict, uptight judge who never makes eye contact, had been charmed by a bag. A pink bag. My God, I thought, I've discovered the Old Girls Network! This is what it feels like! And instead of the entry being a golf bag and the box scores, it's the right bag!

[NOTE - So, okay, before I get a ton of emails, let me say that I was a charter subscriber to Ms. and have been accused of being strident many times. But let's face it, Ms is really boring these days. Women are finding their pink inner self and still managing to run companies, drive a hard bargain and prosecute death penalty cases.]

I'm tired of being green in a world of pink. I'm tired of being under the glass ceiling, outside the locker room, and trying to force my way in encased in uniform of black. I'm sheding my layers of wool and faille. I'm taking back my right to wear a navy blue suit with tiny white polka dots and a swirly skirt. (OK, you're right, I never wear a skirt) But maybe I should start wearing a skirt.

So take out the pink, girls. Or the lemon yellow, coral orange, fuschia, magenta, or whatever it is that give a lift to your step. And you guys out there, my faithful male readers, try a pink shirt, or a pink tie. The women will love it! And the men.

Getting dressed for work in the cold-weather months is easy. It's usually just a matter of opening the closet and picking out one of a number of dark-colored suits. Should I wear black, navy blue, or brown today? Yuck and boring. But safe. There's little risk in a two-piece suit and a blouse. Maybe the height of the heels - almost all are black - is the only thing that stumps me at 7:00 a.m. Behind the wall of black wool, I am safe, my figure flaws hidden as much as possible, but more, I am armored, ready to battle.

With spring, comes a softening of the profile. The black grey and brown is tweaked with color. It started this year with a bag, a totebag, in a soft, chalky pink. The fashion mags scream at me this year that pink is the new black for spring. So in March when I saw the bag hanging on a metal rack at a designer discount store, I snatched it up and it's been waiting on my closet shelf for the day to let it bloom. I wasn't sure when that date would be. My sister offered the opinion that it couldn't be worn with a winter coat. Absolutely. And I didn't feel right using it when the predominant fabric clothing the bar was still flannel.

Then my husband broke the logjam by giving me a powder blue bag for Mother's Day. Oh, it's a pretty thing. Very feminine, flirty, light-hearted. In short, as my husband said, like nothing he's ever seen me use before. I transferred the contents out of the black bag I'd been using for six months into the new designer blue. It was kind of heavy, a shoulder bag that didn't quite balance on my shoulder with all I had to cram into it. And I had to carry my files separately; this was no workhorse of a bag, but a dainty, "accessory".

What to wear it with was the problem. It needed the right balance of a lightweight fabric with an understated color so as not to compete. I decided on a black pantsuit with a powder blue shell. When I got to court, I made certain not to fling it under a bench as I would my workhorse bag. I kept it on my shoulder. As I walked over to the courtroom, I noticed a young attorney looking at it, then another stealing a glance at it. Jumbled around the desk, a friend noticed it and complimented me. AFter a day of compliments on the blue bag, I decided I have the bravery to trot out the pink.

The next morning, when I was crowded in front of the calendar, trying to find my cases, I saw an unfamiliar, curvy silhouette in front of me. She was wearing a short black, fitted jacket, with a pink, white, and black flirty skirt. Tucked under her arm was a deep pink leather bag in the shape of a barrel. Oooh, another pink bag. Suddenly, I realized that the curvy shape in front of me was an attorney who usually wore pants, a raincoat, and her hair pulled back into a ponytail every day.

"Nice skirt, Mary, and I LOVE the bag." She turned and blushed a little, then we both laughed at out pink accessories. . "I was buying my mother a Mother's Day bag, and had to get this one for myself." She looked adorable and very unlike her usual all business self. Another friend complimented her and several male attorneys gave her the old lecherous stare down as they walked by. She was having trouble keeping her usual stern demeanor.

"I got a new bag for Mother's Day, too", another attorney piped up. She's about seven months pregnant with her second pregnancy in 30 months. She has deep circles under her eyes which she doesn't try to hide with make up since she has no time to put on in the morning. She took off a cute little designer backpack and proudly displayed it to us. "Ooh, how cute," we all hummed together.

Just then the elevator opened and our judge came out. She didn't have her robes on yet and she was wearing a lightweight, two piece pantsuit. In pink. Beautiful spring pink. We all looked at each other and raised our eyebrows.

When I went into the courtroom on my motion, I plopped my pink totebag onto the counsel table and said "Good morning, your honor," and prepared to tell her what my case was.

The judge looked up."Oh, a pink bag!"" The judge smiled at me and looked at her law clerk. "Pink is everywhere this spring," her law clerk assented, nodding with a smile.

"Anytime you'd like to borrow, it your Honor, just let me know, " I said with a smile, not losing the chance to suck up to a woman who is generally considered as buttoned-up as an eighty-year old nun.

For the second after our exchange finished, the atmosphere in the courtroom had dramatically changed from business to pleasure. The usual harassed atmosphere had the caress of spring, like a window had opened in the air conditioned room and the smell of freesia lilted in on a breeze. We all smiled at one another.

The male attorney shifted uncomfortably next to me. His dark blue suit suddenly looked so stuffy. He was a regular in the courtroom also, but all of a sudden, he wasn't part of the crowd.

I came out of the courtroom with my eyebrows raised. I told my colleagues what had transpired. Our strict, uptight judge who never makes eye contact, had been charmed by a bag. A pink bag. My God, I thought, I've discovered the Old Girls Network! This is what it feels like! And instead of the entry being a golf bag and the box scores, it's the right bag!

[NOTE - So, okay, before I get a ton of emails, let me say that I was a charter subscriber to Ms. and have been accused of being strident many times. But let's face it, Ms is really boring these days. Women are finding their pink inner self and still managing to run companies, drive a hard bargain and prosecute death penalty cases.]

I'm tired of being green in a world of pink. I'm tired of being under the glass ceiling, outside the locker room, and trying to force my way in encased in uniform of black. I'm sheding my layers of wool and faille. I'm taking back my right to wear a navy blue suit with tiny white polka dots and a swirly skirt. (OK, you're right, I never wear a skirt) But maybe I should start wearing a skirt.

So take out the pink, girls. Or the lemon yellow, coral orange, fuschia, magenta, or whatever it is that give a lift to your step. And you guys out there, my faithful male readers, try a pink shirt, or a pink tie. The women will love it! And the men.

The Sun Is Shining But We're Freezing

Weekend Update:

• Fluffernutter is still incontinent, smelly, late for a grooming, and now has an ear infection.  Poor thing. I really could be nicer to her if she didn't decide to bark from for the first two hours every night, causing one of the Poms to rise from their bed and stick her in the basement. But hey, she's a million in human years and I'll be as cranky when I'm her age.

• Speaking of cranky, Mr. Pom hasn't had a moment's relief with his back since we returned from California. Everyone, all together now, send Mr. Pom a little white, healing light and good vibes. How much lying down and dragging to work can one man take?

• Mystery Man: very quiet. 4 weeks left to school year. Classes winding down. Money winding down. Jobs lined up for summer. Romantic entanglements. Details censored.

• The Princess: decided that she does love Physics Boy and can wait for him to finish grad school in the south. Physics Boy worried. The Princess intent on showing that she is patient. Mother bemused. Glad she is not twenty-something. Was she ever?

• The Teen getting read for Italy trip next weekend.   Mother of the Teen getting ready for Teen's trip to Italy. Hit the drugstore for toiletries. Begged The Teen for packing list. Can't find it. Questioned Teen about needing new jeans and sneakers. Maybe is the reply. Suggested journal. Laughed at by Teen . Suggested book for plane ride. More laughing. Agreed to let her parents buy her a digital camera.  Wandered through the room while Teen's father spent hours on the phone checking out various debit cards. Considering going shopping with mother in case she needs something nice than jeans and Abercrombie shirts.

• Mrs. Pom: Brought home giant totebag with work laptop and 2 inches of paperwork. Sunday at 5:30: still not touched from where dropped on floor Friday night. Not. Gonna. Do It. But will bread the tilapia in pistachio panko and fry it up. Has to. Been sitting in fridge for 2 days. Fish. Not Mrs. Pom.   Will confuse family since pork gravy (i.e. tomato sauce) made this morning and family expects pasta but you know what they say about fish and houseguests after 3 days.....

Buona serra!

Itching to Go

Mid-April in the upper reaches of Central Park.

In our temporary offices, all the staff - attorneys and support - have cubicles. This was formerly a claims office and they are set up with an open floor plan. In the beginning, it was sort of fun to all be on top of one another and there was a lot of cubicle volleyball with wads of paper when all the attorneys returned from court in the afternoons.  I don't actually mind not having an office, but it's hard to get used to the no privacy. I'd prefer to make my doctor appointments and discuss homework with The Teen without an audience.

Since we'll be moving again to permanent offices in a few months, few of us have unpacked. The office looks like a Mash unit, particularly my department, which is still piled high with boxes of drop filing and other assorted items that no one knows what to do with. I've instituted the "Friday Filing" rule - all the administrative assistants are to spend Friday morning drop filing, followed by a pizza lunch. My unit is notoriously paper-burdened (the trees! the trees!) but everyone feels they are too busy to stop to file and a mountain of the stuff builds up over a few months and then everyone is squawking like chicken little that the sky is falling before we'll ever get it done.

So the long and the short of it is that we can't afford the time to stop to file and we can't NOT afford the time to stop and file.

I'm trying to apply that principle to my own life. I tend to say tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow when faced with the needs to do my own mental, physical, and spiritual "filing".

• exercise? What? I'd need to join a club/the Y/buy some equipment/my knees/my foot/no time.  Walk a few minutes each day? But it's cold/hot/raining/dark/too tired/too early/too late. 
• money?  Save? We already take such a big hit on taxes and 401(k)s, there's no money to spare! Take-out/movies/books/lattes - could that really make a dent?
• time management: I need to write/paint/organize/sew/create! I need weeks and months off!  Or maybe a portable journal to write it all down/those flashcards I'm always teaching about/and move one stack of paper a day into folders?
• that novel/and the other one/and the one after that!  I need a year, I need six months, a month, a week? Notes at lunch? An hour after work each day?  Print it all out and put it into folders that can be grabbed for a morning, an afternoon, an after dinner perusal?

Yes, it's hard and tiring and not really much fun to do it this way. Oh, how I'd luxuriate in days upon days of free time - y'know like I did when I was home for 7 years. Oh, right, those 3 kids were being raised up, right, and then there was Sunday School and PTA vice president, and chairman of the wrapping paper fundraiser, room mother, field trips, and scouts, and subbing, and Garden Club, and various church committees, and all those wallpapering and upholstering and drape sewing projects.....

I'm home this afternoon, victim to a bout of the worst allergies I've ever had. A good face scrub, some sinus meds, and a cup of Earl Gray has already worked wonders on my head.  I am going to pack up a bunch of journals to send for a submission, then hang up all the clothes that I've strewn around the room all week. Then I'm sitting at my studio desk and working in two journals that are JUST FOR ME! 

The Best Of

Right now, work is sucking the soul out of me, so rather than let the blog lay fallow for so long, I am introducing a new feature: The Best Of. This is where I get to revisit some of my favorite posts from yesteryears. This post is from April 2004 and still remains true to my heart.

*************************************************

I've been thinking a lot lately about image and the word. What is it about an image that is so much more startling or apt than the words that describe that same image? If I tell you that the dogwood trees outside my bedroom window have flowers that look like the hand-painted saucers and miniature teacups that my childhood friend and I played with beneath the azaleas bushes in my yard, I think you will picture the tree studded with delicate flowers in your mind and be able to envision the delicate blossoms and their colorful fragility.

Yet, a painting of those flowers may lead you to greater reveries as you associate them with your own memories, like your trip to New York the spring after college when you were so desperate for a job and the dogwoods in bloom made you homesick for the South. Or they may remind you of the plastic flowers that your cousin gave as tacky wedding favors.

I can describe the face of my new baby to her grandmother in page after page of prose, but a photo in the mail will elicit a gasp and and spread of joy that no words can capture.

When we view a disturbing image, we first respond to it viscerally. We may turn away, or shut our eyes. When we read prose, we usually respond intellectually. We have time to filter our dcomprehension of the sentences through our intellect and it blunts the force of the reaction. We use wordw to describe our visceral reaction to the image. We layer our reaction with filters of experience and intellect. How many millions of words have been written about Mona Lisa's smile? Yet if we never saw it for ourselves, could we understand the ambiguity expressed by critics and historians for centuries?

So too the images of the flag-draped coffins of our dead soldiers. We've all heard the numbers; we've read the accounts of the deaths; we may even have seen interviews with the grieving families. But when we saw the somber image of the rows of caskets lined up for take off in the belly of the plane, the magnitude of the loss became startingly real. Nothing new was revealed in the photograph; everything new was revealed in the photograph.

One picture is worth a thousand words. It's been said before. I don't think the government was being altruistic when they banned photos of coffins. They understood perfectly the power of the image. Protest the government's attempt at censorship. Don't let the government censor our right to know, to see, and to full self-expression.

Right now, work is sucking the soul out of me, so rather than let the blog lay fallow for so long, I am introducing a new feature: The Best Of. This is where I get to revisit some of my favorite posts from yesteryears. This post is from April 2004 and still remains true to my heart.

*************************************************

I've been thinking a lot lately about image and the word. What is it about an image that is so much more startling or apt than the words that describe that same image? If I tell you that the dogwood trees outside my bedroom window have flowers that look like the hand-painted saucers and miniature teacups that my childhood friend and I played with beneath the azaleas bushes in my yard, I think you will picture the tree studded with delicate flowers in your mind and be able to envision the delicate blossoms and their colorful fragility.

Yet, a painting of those flowers may lead you to greater reveries as you associate them with your own memories, like your trip to New York the spring after college when you were so desperate for a job and the dogwoods in bloom made you homesick for the South. Or they may remind you of the plastic flowers that your cousin gave as tacky wedding favors.

I can describe the face of my new baby to her grandmother in page after page of prose, but a photo in the mail will elicit a gasp and and spread of joy that no words can capture.

When we view a disturbing image, we first respond to it viscerally. We may turn away, or shut our eyes. When we read prose, we usually respond intellectually. We have time to filter our dcomprehension of the sentences through our intellect and it blunts the force of the reaction. We use wordw to describe our visceral reaction to the image. We layer our reaction with filters of experience and intellect. How many millions of words have been written about Mona Lisa's smile? Yet if we never saw it for ourselves, could we understand the ambiguity expressed by critics and historians for centuries?

So too the images of the flag-draped coffins of our dead soldiers. We've all heard the numbers; we've read the accounts of the deaths; we may even have seen interviews with the grieving families. But when we saw the somber image of the rows of caskets lined up for take off in the belly of the plane, the magnitude of the loss became startingly real. Nothing new was revealed in the photograph; everything new was revealed in the photograph.

One picture is worth a thousand words. It's been said before. I don't think the government was being altruistic when they banned photos of coffins. They understood perfectly the power of the image. Protest the government's attempt at censorship. Don't let the government censor our right to know, to see, and to full self-expression.

Wherever Two or More of Us Are Gathered, Food Is There!

This weekend was just what I hope all weekends will be. I had such a pleasant, balanced time. Time to get my haircut, do a little clothes shopping, cook, eat with the family,  go to Borders, rearrange the entire downstairs, redo all my "stuff" in the living room, and today I even went to my mother's to have coffee with my uncle and cousin, neither of whom I've seen in a very long time.

It was fabulous! 

Best part of the weekend: The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken. I urge you, if you enjoy my blog because you are attracted to writing about family and food and the spirituality of ancestry and cooking, you will LOVE this book. It is a book I would have written had I been more of a cook than an artist. I am going to send one of those gushy, over the top letters to the author because I've never read a book before that so expresses the longing I feel over family food culture past and present.

So today, it was fitting that I spend several hours at my mother's with her brother and their cousin. Cousin Marie recently sold the house she grew up in and where she'd raised her own family and bought an apartment in the building next to my mother's. When we were little, we spent every summer day with Marie and her kids at the city beach. She was always extra kind to me as I was usually feeling lost between my busy older sisters and little, adorable sisters.  Marie was always brusque, funny, and a character, with her short, short hair, cigarettes, and coffee with crullers every afternoon.    Having my mom, cousin Marie and my mother's youngest brother together for a Sunday afternoon was a rare alignment of the familial constellations.

And of course, as our family gatherings go, the talk eventually turned to food and some of the Sicilian dishes that their mothers and grandmother made. Having just read the ravioli book, I was interested to hear about the ravioli that my mother's family made at the holidays.  Schenone writes about the elegant, bite-sized ravioli that her Genovese family made, but there were none such for my Sicilian clan. All year, my aunt and grandmother would save the cardboard inserts that came from my father's freshly laundered shirts. At ravioli time, they'd cut the cardboard into quarters to use as templates that they would lay upon the pasta dough and cut out huge ravioli, the size of saucers.  Our ravioli always had a  cheese filling, never the braised meats or vegetables that Schenone writes about. 

My mother and cousin Marie also remembered their grandmother using the wooden crates that my grandfather, a fish peddlar, brought home, to make tomato paste. She'd scrub out the box and put it in the sun upside down on barrels. She would saute a huge quantity of tomatoes down to a paste and spread it out on the box, cover it with cheesecloth, and leave it in the sun to dry.

Of course, I think this is terribly romantic. I can see Manana, as we called her, out in the driveway by the side of the house, patiently spreading the rich sauce and carefully covered it with the cheesecloth to protect it from insects, checking on it through the day until she was satisfied that it had dried enough and could be rolled up and saved. I should have asked what they did with afterwards to keep it, as I doubt they froze it. Perhaps it was dried enough to keep well, like fruit leather? It is from my own grandmother that I learned ever to use tomato paste "raw" from the can or tube, but always saute it in a pan before adding it to sauce. 

During a discussion of a particular dish that my uncle didn't remember, my mother brought out a recipe hand-written by her mother on a yellow legal pad. It was for pasta en cacciatta, which is a layered, baked  dish made of spaghettini, shredded beef, chopped eggs, and almonds. The eggs and the almonds are the Sicilian influence. My mother has talked about this enough times that I'm determined to make it for her one day, though I already know it won't taste the same. I'm sure I'm spelling it wrong, but if anyone is familiar with this dish, let me know.

Simple Pleasures

I'm home sick that day and just got the dog settled for the tenth time and am letting the answering machine take the phone calls. As I'm about to drift off, I hear the doorbell ring. Damn!  Oh, wait, I hear a truck loudly idly outside the door and then a clunk as something lands on the front porch floor. Delivery - not anything I have to get up for. Unless.

Yes, it's an Amazon delivery and maybe just what I need is what's in that brown cardboard box. I think I can manage to drag myself down the stairs and get it, although my body creaks and groans at every stair.

Yes, just as I thought: a small brown box heavy with promise.  Inside, three, delicious books that are the only feast I can imbibe in right now. Three fresh books and, hmm, didn't notice that as I ordered them, but look and see:

Amazing how a little blaze of three red books can brighten a day. I piled them on my night table and just gazed at them, really too sick to read, but not too sick to smile at them, pat them a little, and whisper that I'd be ready for them soon. 

I'm afraid I really am a person who will pick a book by its cover.

RANDOMNESS

OK, so I've been home since Sat afternoon with this virus, but returning to work tomorrow. (I was told to cover two court parts that they had no one for but to leave afterwards if I wanted to. That will never happen. My staff is falling apart due to absenteeism, computer issues, and lack of leadership. Thus, I can never get sick. But I digress.)

For three days, I was not able to do more than mumble "Diet Snapple" to any Pom who had the pity to walk into my room (there weren't many), so I had a lot of time to notice random things.

• The Teen is applying for AP Art and had to turn in a large landscape painting; a large colored drawing of a room in 2-point perspective; and a detailed sketch of a bicycle.  She labored long and hard over these. At one point, I remember awakening from a labored sleep, hair plastered to my head, to find her  standing over me asking me for advice as to what to write in response to the questions: Why are you a viable AP candidate?  I hope I was profound.

• Note to self:  school should have recorded calls made to all households with the dates for these deadlines instead of just for when someone has strep throat.

• When you haven't eaten in 3 days, you require the food of your childhood: toast, peanut butter, and crackers with jelly. But even more:

• Liquids:  diet Snapple if my fave, but it was a little harsh; I couldn't stomach tea until today and then chai tea without milk was good. Nestle Pure Life peach flavored water is HORRIFYING. It's like a mouthful of chemical-flavored water.

• Daytime TV is HORRIFYING! Though I did watch the host chat for Regis and Kelly and wondered why Regis is starting to look embalmed and Kelly is starting to look like an insect (all head). Also: what time slot did they move Martha to?? And why, oh why is

• Kathie Lee is coming back to TV. Why? And why is she wearing see- through plastic mules at 10 a.m. on March 31st when it is 30 degrees? Are hooker shoes de riguer for aging former perky celebs?

• Never. Ever. Log onto your work email when you are home sick, or you will feel faint, be drenched in sweat, and have to run to the bathroom once again.

• Learn to LOOK AT YOUR CALLER ID before answering phone at 4:00 to hear that your unit missed a whole page of the calendar for tomorrow's trials.  Meesus iz out/Non parle anglaise.....

• When you are ready to eat real food again, you will have to cook it. Husbands and children will offer faux food, like Chinese or Boston Market,  but real food is necessary. And chicken thighs sprayed with Pam,  dusted with Panko, and baked in oven are AWESOME. As are Boston Market Mashed Potatoes (hey, no way was I standing up and peeling potatoes!)

• Oldest is losing her mind at new job. We may lose our minds listening to her. We are a very vocal family. We find talking in a loud voice about everyone's incompetency but our own VERY therapeutic. Beats eating or beating.

• Mr. Pom is just beginning to turn the corner on his latest L5 S1 episode. Far from over, but good to hear him giving his loud, "!Hola" when he comes home rather than mumbling, "pills, ice, vertical position" and passing out. Two passed out parents is really depressing and causes problems in who gets to sleep in the bed because

• Two sick people should never share a bed. And it's the wife who gets to stay in the bed. Why? I put it in the marriage contract.

• My dog barks to go out. Then barks to come in. Then barks to go out. Then goes in the basement. Then can't get back up the stairs. Then barks and has to  wait till The Teen/Dog Whisperer comes home as I try to figure out how to block sound from traveling from the basement through the vents.

• I have been wildly in love with Anthony Bourdain. But last night, he was in Singapore getting a foot massage. And they did a close up on his toenails. Ze affair is dead.

• Last but not least: Yankees won. Mr. Pom is happy.

• He's still in MM's room until tomorrow night.

I've been in a stupor since Saturday afternoon when I succumbed to a virus that began with a migraine and evolved into an intestinal virus. I can't remember when I've ever been this sick except after surgery. I probably picked it up at the hospital when I went for a check up last week.  This is my second day home from work and I feel a little stronger but I don't dare eat anything more interesting than dry toast and a cup of tea without milk. Hopefully, being drenched head to toe in sweats has ended but my stomach still feels like I've been in a heavyweight bout.

All your comments on my middle aged motherhood post were wonderful. Life is a continuum of experiences and we all benefit from hearing stories from the sliding scale of human experience.

More later, after I sleep the morning away.

What I Never Thought When I Was 30 I Would Write When I Was 50**

**(Adorable baby courtesy of cousin Michele)

I know I'm too old for Mommy Blogging, but I would like to address the legions of Mommy Bloggers and tell them, like Mother of the Future visiting Jacob Marley, that even though you are in the thick of it, folks, you don't know the half of it. And once you know the other half of it, you won't be able to blog about it.

Right now it's all she won't sleep, he's only eaten chicken nuggets for 12 months, the older kid is back to wetting the bed, the mother in law keeps throwing away the Binkies, the husband doesn't do poopy diapers, I haven't had a shower in two weeks, the moms in the playgroup sneer at me because I let my kids eat white bread, we have no money, and I haven't had sex in six months. (The latter two,  those never change.)

The potty training, the nursery schools, the breast pumping in the office bathroom, the food allergies, the Einstein for Babies, the Bugaboo Stroller, the gym in the last trimester (you girls are crazy!), and  the toddlers who haven't slept in their own beds once in their lives  will soon be a distant dream. Hug those babies, smell their heads so much that their little skulls are covered in lipstick (oops, forgot - no time for makeup!), and remember the little "pop" the baby food jar makes when you open the jars of smelly squash because you will be reminded of it someday