•happy monday•

We could do worse than have a slightly manic one. I'll take mine in Purple Haze. xox

•teeny tiny art•

The one that got away. "Mustard Sally" didn't make it to the teeny-tiny-art exchange on Sunday, on account of some frothy growing glue that got out of hand. But it's nice to have her here, at home. (Note to self: don't test a new glue on an otherwise done project.)

Back in the summer, my friend Julie hatched a plan to get all of her friends to make more art. Inspired by Art-o-Mat, she decided to host a "tiny art" exchange in November, amid cocktails and appetizers and friendship. The art would be palm-ishly sized, and everyone would get to ooh, aah, and bring home treasure at the end of the night. Well, that night was Sunday the 6th. And oh, was there treasure! Gobs upon cookie-swap-gobs of it. Beautiful stuff, all. Fortunately, I only needed to pull one all-nighter to get my tiny pieces ready for the final reveal, because.... everyone in my family, as it turns out, is completely absorbed by art! Penn spent the weekend writing and drawing and stapling and taping, Troy made origami caterpillars out of old maps, and I pasted and cut and pasted and cut. It's not exactly news. We've arted in our house before. Supplies live on the windowsill. Houses and carports and Boba Fetts and snowmen are drawn and finessed and decorated and recreated on a daily basis. But this weekend was different. We couldn't stop making art.

It was fabulous.

It might just be the new house order.

The icing on the teeny, tiny cake: my brother Art was among the participants. Undaunted by the country between us, he sent his box of teeny-tinies in the mail. And I sent his swapped collection back to New York yesterday. Very much looking forward to Skype-ing when he opens it! We would have Skyped on Sunday, but oh, the wicked EST to PST time change. It works much better in the reverse.

More art that came out of the teeny-tiny-splosion:


Penn named this "air heart." It makes a little puff on your cheek, if you squeeze the poof.


An homage to... well, I suppose it doesn't even matter.

Now, for the clean up. I'm not daunted by the task, but I don't exactly want to put the supplies away... xox

Niiiice

I just bought a vacuum cleaner, and I'll say this for the carpeting in my new home--it certainly does hide the dog hair well.

And on the down side, it certainly does hide the dog hair well. Yikes.

More Self Portraits

Last night, prompted by a conversation with a friend about her daughter's Halloween makeup, I felt a sudden need to draw all over my face with eyeliner. I've been thinking for some time about taking self portraits that incorporate some sort of fantastical makeup design, but somehow I never bothered. Because apparently, I was waiting for a really convenient time--like 10:00 at night on a night when I'd had the flu for several days prior. When I had to be up early to go get a U-Haul van so that I could move furniture into my new home. (About which, more later, once it's safely through the "worse before it gets better" stage of moving in chaos. The one in which cardboard features heavily as a decorative device.)

And then, although I hadn't exactly planned to take pictures last night, once I had all that makeup drawn on me, I couldn't very well waste the opportunity.

So here you go, in keeping with my new (but apparently ongoing) obsession with ethereal, fairy-like characters and candlelight in my self portraits. (I have no explanation, really. I was not particularly an ethereal, glitter-and-fairies sort of child. I'd love to think these current ethereal fairy-like creatures have a certain Shakespearean forest creep factor, but it's entirely possible they're just glittery. But whatever. They keep presenting themselves. I think I've decided my job with creative obsessions is simply to play them out to their natural finishing points.)

The last one is hands-down my favorite. I think I now also have an obsession with editing my photos to look like paintings. Yum.

The texture I used on this one can be found here. Honestly,
I wasn't really that into textures until I found this guy's
textures. They're really saturated and painterly and beautiful.

•shh, shh, little kitty•

Well, shame on me. Nothing soothes the soul like actually voicing one's concerns--and having them put to rest. I spoke with the director of Penn's preschool, and not only are those offending un-foods *not* being served, they probably aren't even the property of the school. Ahem. < chagrin! >


This is a developing story... but I wanted to do a teeny post to make up for completely flying off the handle on Friday. So charged, these issues of food in our day and age. So available, these bloggish tools! (So, too, like a double-edged sword.) I am humbled by the kindness of others who, in spite of my hot-headedness, took the time to comment, to take my side, and to subtly tell me to stand down. xox

•poison apple•

They're baa-aack! And just in time for Halloween! To my utter dismay and horror, Otterpops and Skippy Peanut Butter have returned to Penn's preschool. So now, since I'm no longer on Prozac, do the gloves come off? Do I merely protest by making all of Penn's snacks again, or do I pull him from school? Do I get all the parents to sign a petition, entitled For The Love Of Common Sense, Please Don't Feed Our Children Poison And Tell Then It's Snack?

I asked an afternoon teacher today, point-blank: does she feed them Otterpops. Occasionally, she said. I clarified: Instead of snack? I mean, as snack? She hesitated. Yes... as a treat. When it's hot.

We live at the mouth of the Central Valley in California. It's hot. A lot. You're telling me when the temperature spikes, instead of the usual afternoon offering of water, milk, plus green beans or cheese, they're substituting a 25-calorie frozen stick of high fructose corn syrup and chemically-derived food coloring? What about vodka? Would they feed them vodka, if I put that in the snack-donation box?

I'm seriously heartsick over this. I don't know what to do. Are my only options to remove Penn from the school, or alienate him by Penn-only snacks, or take money I don't have and buy all the right snacks, crowding as best I can everyone else out of that damn snack-donation box? Just the idea of having to have another conversation with the director about why this is important, or even why I won't let Penn eat that garbage, makes me want to crawl into bed, cover my head, and sob for my son's future. How on earth is a child to learn healthy habits, if school teaches you that brightly-colored water is food? Unschooling should not be the only sane option. xox

•not your mama's apple•

Photos taken at Full Belly Farm on October 1, 2011.



A half-assed Happy-o-versary to us, to us! And to you lovely readers, thank you. Our first post was also about pomegranates... in a way... :) Thanks for making all of this possible.

Pomegranates. Not my native apple. A seedy, grainy, medieval French pain in your ass? Maybe. (I know a secret for opening these. Think water birth.) When I was growing up in New Hampshire* in the 80s, pomegranates were expensive and misunderstood. Now they grow like weeds on the walk to and from Penn's preschool.

What's weird to a native New Englander is that *apples* don't do well in Northern California. Macintosh at the grocer are bruised beyond recognition, and there are no real tart options beyond Granny Smith, and her tarted-up cousin, the (unbelievably hued, yes) Pink Pearl. Pomegranates, on the other hand, grow magnificently in the Mediterranean clime. They're everywhere, including hedgerows meant as boarders. Throw-aways. In the same way rosemary is grown as a landscape feature, pomegranates are low-maintenance shrubs. They don't like much water. They love sun. And pomegranates are ripest when they split (and look over-ripe). Kinda a cool signal: they flash their ruby jewels to the world. That means you need to live near a tree, for close monitoring. Lest you miss it. (All the poms in the pictures above are still ripening. Note the one with the hexagonal flower opened, vs. the closed-flower orbs...)

Now, a simple recipe:

Maple Pomegranate Cocktail

rum
cognac
pomegranate juice
maple syrup (grade b works)
a lime
a few pomegranate arils, if you have the means

In a shaker, put 3 ice cubes. Cover with one ounce cognac, one ounce rum, about a half-cup of pomegranate juice, and 1-2 teaspoons Grade B maple syrup. Squeeze a quarter of a lime o'er top, and shake the beeejeeezus out of it for at least 7 seconds. Strain into an up-glass, with pomegranate seeds in the bottom. It is worth making one serving at a time, but I'm sure a pitchered approach would work.

Currently in the oven: granola with pomegranate pulp. There's a company based in Sacramento that makes granola using fruit juice in place of oil, and I've wanted to try that at home ever since I sampled the results. Pomegranate juice yeilds a lot of pulp: the chown up bits of aril and seed casings, plus bits of juice. What a perfect reason to stir with oats, maple syrup, vanilla and...?? I don't think I included anything else. Although pecans would have been nice. Stay tuned! Update: that granola was spectacular. Next time, I'll add unsweetened coconut!

xox

30th Street Station

30th Street Station, by Kevin H. on Flickr

In my old city, I liked to sit in the train station. People rushed around, on their way to other neighborhoods, other cities, other states, even other countries. I sat cross-legged on the old wooden benches, their curves polished to glowing by decades of waiting bodies. I’d buy a cup of coffee and gaze at the impossibly high ceilings; the enormous bronze archangel cradling a soldier in his arms; the art deco light fixtures that look as if they’re a normal size, until you see them on the ground, slowly cranked down with winches to be cleaned, to have their bulbs changed. Then they’re shocking in their bigness, and lovely, their glass panes and bronze edges the facets of giant light-emitting jewels.

Often, I was waiting for a train. Sometimes it was late at night, the station more or less empty, announcements of departing and arriving trains echoing off the marble walls and floors. Maybe I’d just left, for the evening, a relationship that I didn’t really want, that was more a clue to something I wanted—something that had nothing to do with relationships. I’d stare around at the soaring space, feeling tiny and exhausted, filled with longing and yet somehow overwhelmed with joy at the way the building’s enormity underscored my own solidity, at the energy of people going places. The wooden bench anchored me; I could have sat there for hours.

But sometimes I would go to the station just to be there, anonymous in the busy crowd, but not alone. If I wanted to, I could buy a ticket, board a train, and be gone. There was freedom just in knowing that. More likely, I would choose a table amid the bakeries and food shops and schedule boards, the coffee stands and travelers and flower stalls, and I would write, just beginning to find my way on the page, just beginning to understand where the clue was leading me.

A soaring space with trains will inevitably leave you wanting to go. I left the city, and the station with it. There is nothing like it in my new city, in my new life, where I usually know what I want, where I am rarely anonymous, rarely tiny and exhausted.

Buying a train ticket doesn’t hold the same possibilities anymore. I crossed a bridge on my way out, and while I didn’t burn it, left unused, it decayed. If I visit, it’s by other routes—everything looks different. I can see a chasm where my bridge used to be, and the city hovers dreamlike on the far side, inaccessible, and I’m amazed that I was ever a part of it. I don’t want to return, really. But sometimes, just for a little while, I’d like to sit in that station, anonymous but not alone, and think of all the places I could go.

Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial
(Angel of the Resurrection), by Sameold2010 on Flickr

30th Street Station, by MShades on Flickr

Why Craiglist Furniture for Sale Listings are an Excellent Source of Entertainment

1) Posts that make me gasp with horror and then burst out laughing the moment they load. Seriously, I'd link to current posts, but it's mean to make fun of people's furniture on the Internet. Also, the links would only expire in a week anyway. (If they didn't, someone would have started a Regretsy-like blog for Craigslistings a long, long time ago.)

2) Posts that describe furniture as "shabby chic." Now, that description isn't really set to win my heart in any case. Having worked as a props designer and beat to crap tastefully distressed my share of stage furniture, I figure if I want something shabby chic, I'm more than capable of scratching at it with a rasp or putting dings in it with a screw driver. Furthermore, on Craigslist, "shabby chic" is often used to describe items that'd be better represented as "shredded by the cat" and/or "cabbage roses from the 1980s."

3) Here's a favorite: Posts that authoritatively describe furniture as "mid-century modern" when in reality it's "mid-'70s wood veneer." (Occasionally, mid-'70s schlock is mistakenly described as shabby chic--if it's been sufficiently shredded by the cat, that is.)

4) Posts that tell me--in great detail--exactly what the piece of furniture will be perfect for, or exactly where in my home it will look just fabulous.

5) Related to number four: Posts that tell me just how beautiful I will find a piece of furniture, or how very, very special and/or set to become an heirloom it is. Or! Posts that tell me how very, very precious the piece is to the family that's selling it, but they have to sell it (by today) because their grandmother got sick and they're moving overseas to take care of her and, and, and... In other words, way TMI.

6) And related to number five: Posts that tell me what a great bargain someone's inflated asking price is and explain that if I look around on the Internet for the same item, I'll see that people are selling it for $200 more.

Okay. Anyone else want to play? I'm sure I'm missing classic Craigslist moves from this and other categories. (Though I could certainly go on at length about the housing category right about now. Sheesh. But I find that far less amusing and more irritating and misleading, at least in this town.)

A Small Confession and a Care Package

The confession is that I never did manage to see the small boy this week, and therefore, I finally just took it upon myself to choose a name for our little blog-o-versary game.

(Don't worry though--I adhered to the highest ethical and technical standards in making my choice.)

(Well, okay. The highest ethical standards.)

And the winner is...Gisele! With whom I've been in touch already. But thank you to all of you who left us comment love! What a lovely group of people this blog has helped to gather around us this year--it's so nice to know you're out there reading.

Off to make a care package! (Not really. Off to get some work done. But soon! Soon, we will make a care package.)