Plum Tasty

A Mere Dusting

2012-02-11T12:25:00.000-05:00

We awakened this morning to a lovely winter wonderland outside. The scene outside my window looks as if God's pastry chef put some super fine confectioner's sugar in an enormous sugar shaker and finely sprinkled our countryside as delicious baked goods. It is far yummier still than Dean Martin crooning about a wintery Marshmallow World. Thoughts of childhood marshmallow yumminess always greatly exceeds the reality of anything close to marshmallow yumminess. Marshmallows are yummy only as a conceptual construct or as nostalgia. But not so of confectioner's dusted bakery art.

My mind easily wanders to the thought of high quality bakery goods quite naturally. Which quite naturally brings to mind Paris. My daydreaming is often six degrees of separation from Paris. I can easily get there via thoughts of high quality food, wine, art, film, textiles, fashion, needlework and most especially sinful baked goods.

So, here I sit thinking of such things and whether I shall whip up something decadent for upcoming Valentine's Day? Mr. Plum Tasty doesn't have much of a sweet tooth and I don't need such a calorific binge even if it is that time of year so perhaps not. Just thinking about it is lovely enough and with so fewer calories.

Recently, my creative ventures have picked up so I've not had a lot of time to think about this little blog and have been scrolling back to past posts to see if I can poach from my own archive and re-post stuff some of you people may have missed. Consider it leftovers for supper. Anyway, I came across the post where I was thinking about a Ramos Gin Fizz by way of another spate of stream of consciousness delirium. And recalled that I had just seen an article in Garden & Gun magazine about that very libation which they refer to as " a creamy, approachable brunchtime cocktail with enough gin to take the edge off and the velvety mouthfeel of God's own Dreamsicle."

Oh. That just might stand in good stead of the baked goods. At least for now. That Ramos Gin Fizz has been on my to-do list for quite some time. Which all sounds like maybe too much frothy yumminess of a non-bakery sort but perhaps just the right thing heading into Mardi Gras? Which, brings me back to things French once again.

And if that were not quite enough, come this summer, Mr. Plum Tasty and I will be enjoying the rewards of some carefully amassed frequent flier miles and a well-timed invitation of some dear European friends to join them at their favorite place in the south of France. So, ooh la la, Mama's pretty young'uns (or should I say petites charmants?), I reckon I can wait a bit longer to enjoy some luscious bakery goods as they say «á la source». Why settle for marshmallow fluff or donuts when you can wait a bit, bank calories and fat grams so as to later dive headlong into rapturous indulgence with an expertly made éclair...or two... or half dozen? It matters not one whit that my French skills are atrocious (at best) when I possess the universal language of the pâtissierie. Drooling patrons, smiling that stupified sugar-addled grin, pointing and grunting are universally understood in any self-respecting bake shop. Mais oui, bien sûr!

Ooh, all of this synchronicity française is much too much for me. The prized English orange essence has been unearthed from the cupboard (a tad clouded from shelf life and probably too much heat but who cares?) Very soon it shall be decanted from the bottle with the Virgin Queen's dour face upon it straight into a lovely liquid melánge and shaken into a frothy bit of French Quarter frivolity with the "mouthfeel of God's own Dreamsicle". That ought to be enough sacrilege to animate HRH's portrait from a general look of mere Anglo-Saxon disdain to Quelle Horreur!

Then, it shall be poured out into my favorite Theatre Française highball glasses, purchased once upon a time ago in the gift shop at the Louvre. I cannot think of anything plum tastier than sipping such a mirthful, silken libation from a glass imprinted with "Les Comediens Ordinaires du Roi: Tartuffe: Comédie en cinq actes, de Molière". Come to think of it, I cannot think of a jauntier bit of yumminess on a sugar dusted weekend, a mere fortnight avant Fat Tuesday.

No matter what the chill of today or next week brings, there will always be the warm clarity of summertime... and Paris. Even if it resides in your dreams. Vive la vie. Vive tu vie. Vive la France! Salut!

Trash to Treasure

2012-01-31T15:17:00.000-05:00

As was true of most moms back in the day, my mom was a true Tupperware devotee. If you were to ask me to envision myself as a child eating breakfast cereal, it would include a scene of me sitting at a chrome kitchen table with a melamine top and plastic covered chairs. I'd be eating Rice Krispies or Cocoa Puffs from one of the kid-proof Tupperware cereal bowls my mom had in pastel rainbow colors. She had the matching graduated-sized tumblers and a decorative black wire storage carry-all for them too. I remember that thing sitting on top of the fridge until she realized it was more useful as a dust catcher than a smart decorative accessory for the well-appointed early 1960's kitchen. And, more importantly, kids can't make themselves useful by helping themselves when they can't reach the darned thing.

All of those kid-sized tumblers had discreet bite marks around the rims which seemed to foreshadow similar bite-marks which magically appeared in my own orange Tupperware sippy cups that somehow turned up in my kitchen as a young mom. I have always maintained the surest way to suss out when someone got married or had kids is by digging around in their cupboard and finding the Tupperware. Each era had its own color code. Mine was right at a color palette change-over.

While I had a few items that came in handy, usually when opening the cupboard, I'd be met with a waterfall of plastics. Because they lack much weight, plastic storage containers famously do not store themselves very efficiently especially when you put them away on your tippy-toes because you still can't reach very well as you attempt to make yourself useful. It helps to neatly stack them and not sort of half heave them over your head and slam the door shut. The woes of being too short in a too tall world never end, my friend.

One day it all got on my very last nerve and I'd had enough of Tupperware and out it went never to come back. Good riddance. But for decades, Mom had loads of the stuff. She had containers for sandwiches and juice, spices and canisters. She also had some sort of item she called a "cake-taker" that was a large circle platter with a cylindrical lid that snapped down on the platter and locked in freshness to just-baked cake goodness. With the convenient snap of a carrying handle, the contraption took your home-baked coconut cake to your next PTA committee meeting.

It occasionally got used for cake (usually cake didn't last long enough to need special storage around my house) but more often she would invert it and turn it into a gigantic container to store and serve the ginormous amount of fruit salad she made every year at Christmas time. My dad and my Uncle Bob inhaled fruit salad. They ate it plain or used it as a sort of gravy topping for whatever cake or pastry was around. It was a sort of holiday tradition at my house. By the time we were scraping the bottom of that container, the banana slices had always absorbed so much fruit salad juice that they were beginning to get oddly extra yummy tasting but exhibiting a rather unpalatable slimy texture--all at the same time. I never knew if I loved them or hated them. But, so long as you could scoop out a few bright red maraschino cherries in any given serving you were always good. Thank God for cherries.

The one piece of Tupperware my mom had that remains seared in my memory was the graduated mixing bowl/pitcher. She used it to mix and pour out pancake batter. At some point in time someone must have leaned something hot against it because on the lip of the thing there were two tastefully discreet melted slots (that seemed suspiciously the right size for a very hot spoon handle) which could conveniently serve as secondary spouts. I can't think of that mixing bowl without the inadvertent flaws which actually made the thing much better. Just thinking about that bowl makes my mouth salivate for some of my mom's pancakes. She used it so much and for so long that the inside had gotten sort of rough which made it a pain to wash.

Mom would be absolutely appalled that I am admitting to the world that she had ratty kitchen utensils but I think it is completely normal that anyone who actually uses their tools should have items of utility that get dinged up and by all outward appearances to the unknowing pretty crappy looking but are only getting broken in and comfortable. But my mom was a woman of the 1950s when confessionals about your tatty Tupperware would have been considered highly scandalous. We have come a long way to the present day of the mainstreaming of such practices of widespread thrift shopping and dumpster diving.

She still thinks I am crazy for picking up freebie items people set out for the garbage man. That's how I scored a classically shaped Chippendale settee that simply needed a new bottom cushion and a fun slipcover. It had become unsightly and too worn for polite company for some other woman of the 1950s who lives down in our village so she made her daughter drag it to the street for the trash man. She didn't think I was weird when I rang the bell and inquired about it. She said she'd do the same thing if she knew how to sew and she'd not have to listen to her mom going on about that "damned sofa" for one more second.

So, I waited to score a high quality new seat cushion for it from my favorite upholstery fabric merchant on his next super discount New Year's Day sale. (Hey, good upholstery foam gets expensive!) I am planning to wrap that in our down comforter off of our bed which needs replaced anyway and then slip cover the whole shebang. Voila! A down wrapped seat not too different from the good kinds you pay extra for at your local quality furniture shoppe. I will get that all worked up just as soon as I find the perfect fabric--on sale, of course. My idea comes from an awesome version of this I saw in the New York Times style section awhile back. In the meantime, it is a work in progress in the basement. It will be totally awesome in my work area when fully finished. It already works great now with an old blanket on it. Hey, its the basement!

But I digress...

Ratty Tupperware is a pain in the neck to clean. Every bit of staining food particle sticks to it. Even when it gets clean it still looks a bit nasty. But, not wholly unlike a cast iron frying pan, the more it gets seasoned, the better it gets. Perhaps all of that microscopic schmutz adds depth of flavor to pancakes? All I know is that cleaning a scuffed up Tupperware mixing bowl is how I learned the principle behind the idea that when refinishing furniture (something which may have been scored at the thrift shop or the side of the road) one needs to sand the surface so the new paint will stick better. And it all comes full circle, friends! From Tupperware to dumpster diving. Trash to treasure! It appears that Fitzgerald may have been misinformed about Americans and second acts, at least as it has to do with our stuff.

My mom was a late adopter of the whole automatic dishwasher concept as she had two built-in dishwashers. One was the Plum Tasty model and the other a luxury brand called Queen Bee. Although they were both effective, they most certainly were not automatic--usually requiring a bit of coaxing to get the job done, especially as they aged. But unlike the mechanical version we all have come to rely upon, those early models often provided an entertainment feature. Especially those that came factory-installed with the patented Smoke-n-Joke™ feature. It would seem that those old Tupperware cereal bowls were the perfect size for a preschooler's breakfast or as a prop in her budding vaudeville act.

I was wholly unaware that the Tupperware party was still going strong. Turns out, not only is it going strong, it remains a great prop for a lucrative vaudeville of another kind! And isn't "The Greater Tri-State Area"--which includes Lawnguyland--the perfect place for Tupperware to make a popular comeback? Only this time as parody? Leave it to a drag queen channeling Jo Anne Worley to become the current top selling Tupperware distributor in America. "Aunt Barbara" even has her own website and YouTube channel. Who knew?!

Om Nom Nom...

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

What is that munching sound you are hearing? The Plum Tasty sound of yours truly chomping cookies with no less gusto than Cookie Monster. Girl Scout cookies, that is. More specifically, Thin Mints!

I come by the cookie obsession honestly. When I was a little girl my mom was a Girl Scout leader. Once a year the corner of our kitchen became Girl Scout cookie HQ, heaped with boxes of cookies that would get distributed to the girls in her troop. Over a few weeks, the pile would diminish as the sales increased until one day the mound would vanish. No more crawling over boxes at our back door when trying to pull off winter boots and layers! And, of course, we purchased our share of cookies to reduce the pile of yumminess!

Yours truly, Brownie, Brownie, happy elf!

Loads of happy memories come flooding back with one bite of a Thin Mint! Everything from the sublime to the ridiculous: from happy times spent camping or singing silly songs, learning new skills, making new friends to that stupid plastic pouch with the stubborn snap worn on our uniform belt to carry dues money. It all seems rather nerdy now. But, what unparalleled fun it was back then!

Since we went straight to our Scout meetings after school, we'd wear our uniforms to school on meeting days. It never worked out for me that a Scouting day fell on the same day as school photography day, but one year the stars lined up for my sister. So, for all eternity, my sister as a fifth grader will be that kid beaming out at the world sporting Junior Girl Scout regalia (including her beret) wholly because of her school portrait.

My big Sissy (aka The Queen Bee), made an awesome Girl Scout. She earned a whole lot of badges, sold a lot of cookies and participated in a lot of wonderful community projects. I will admit, she was much more serious about it than I. For me, it was all about the fun. None of which got better than being a jolly Brownie! My mom was a pretty awesome leader too! I am sitting here looking at an album which contains newspaper clippings for some of the things the girls in her troop achieved and the lovely poem her girls wrote for her upon her retirement from Scouting. I am proud of her too! It has always been pretty difficult to look hot in a Girl Scout uniform, but after looking at some old photos, I have to say that in her day my mom seriously rocked GS green!

The Queen Bee is the bee's knees getting another badge as Mom reads the citation!

Many years have gone by since I have had any connections with Girl Scouts. My husband was a Boy Scout and we have a son so we became very involved in the Boy Scouts. I am happy to report our man-cub stuck with it to become an Eagle Scout. He also managed not one but two grades enshrined forever as a gap-toothed, grinning Scout in school portraits. Mom and Pop Plum Tasty are enormously proud. We could not be more enthusiastic supporters of all Scouts.

A year does not go by that we don't pick up some Thin Mints for me and Trefoils shortbread for Mr. Plum Tasty. Even if you aren't a cookie addict, why not pick up a few boxes? Nobody says you have to eat them all right now. They freeze well and share well at the office too. Too many of us find it too easy to grumble about "These kids these days..." and moan about what is wrong with the world. With some of the neighbor kids we have around here, I admit I grumble my share too. But, it is too easy to forget how many more good kids there are when they aren't always front and center getting into mischief. Perhaps we should spend more time pondering what is enormously laudable in the younger generation and do our bit to help them begin to make their world a better place. And by making your world a tiny bit better right now with a box of deliciousness. Om nom nom...I am quite certain you will be glad that you did!

Need to find cookies? Get thee to the Great Cookie Finder App.

Funky Town

2012-01-20T15:49:00.001-05:00

Anyone with a pulse who spends any time online has heard about the legislation being considered in the US Congress right now called SOPA. It is essentially an anti-piracy bill aimed at cutting down on copyright infringement. The muscle and money behind it are the folks broadly known in America as "Hollywood" i.e. entertainment moguls. The money and muscle (more brains than brawn, actually) against it? Silicon Valley techies.

I won't get into the nitnoid details of it here but as it is written, it would potentially criminalize what I do on this blog. For referencing videos from YouTube that have copyright issues, one could get five years in the slammer. So, be it known that Mama loves y'all and wishes you many grins and giggles to lighten your load in life but should this thing come close to passing, the Plum Tasty plug will be pulled and the lights will be turned off immediately. Cue the sound of an old school turntable needle violently being dragged across some vinyl. Then the lights will go black. For-evah, dear ones.

Chalk up one more for The Man.

Although, I must confess, if I can't do a better job on the employment front maybe "three hots and a cot" in the Big House doesn't sound so bad...At least they don't use filtering software for culling resumes when filling jobs for the manufacture of license plates.

Rather than seeing open use as a grand opportunity to introduce more people...let's say, "young'uns" to, oh,...let's just say "back catalogue" music, (the kind of stuff that gets referenced a lot on this blog) who will then in turn go to i-tunes and purchase music they previously had no clue existed, the moguls see this as defending their existing pile a la Gollum. Don't even get me started on the short-sightedness of the whole mess. Where has the grand concern about folks getting their intellectual property ripped off lo these many years? I and too many of my artist friends have had plenty of stuff ripped off by moguls. Well before the age of the Internet too. That sort of thing is why I quit doing freelance for ad agencies back in the day. They'd request proposals, which you'd spend hours working on hoping to land a gig. Then, they'd reject them, just to later use one of your very distinctively unique ideas and refuse payment with a "so sue us" laugh. Right. So, now the shoe is on the other foot and it is nothing short of a crisis?! Uh-huh. Sorry, not really feeling your pain, Jack.
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In other nutter news, I have been following the South Carolina Republican Primary race in some vague sense. I have a very dear friend who still resides down there in that fevered swamp (which seriously needs drained or lanced like a boil) and leans more left than right. So right now--as we speak--I am walking her through the crazy season. Every morning we have a little email-Facebook chit-chat in which I supply her with subversive musical chuckles to counteract the swamp fever which rages on all around her. It is not so much partisan as it is a reality check--and a few laughs. And a crisis intervention. And a reminder of "one day at a time".

"Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend knotted oak." Indeed.

It isn't just the heated rhetoric and the sometimes off-the-deep-end craziness of the campaign, it is what gets stirred up beyond the teevee cameras, folks. The down-n-dirty and the loonies who get emboldened by all of the loose trash talking. The campaigners wheel into town like the circus, get up and spout all sorts of dog-whistle nonsense. Then, they pack up their traveling medicine show and move on. But the folks who live there have to cope with what they stirred up.

People who have never lived for any length of time in that place, especially as a non-native, have absolutely no clue just how crazy it gets. If one is so unfortunate to live in a region or a particular town with an active political cohort which loves to play such down-and-dirty little games, it can be quite intolerable. The smart move should one find oneself in that position? Do not under any circumstances utter peep about anything nasty or offensive. You will get beaten into a pulp and you will eventually shut up. Conserve your energy and don't bother to complain.

The thing that strikes one right off the bat is the absolutely mind-blowing level of contempt and resentment for anything deemed "Yankee" (by which South Carolinians mean anyone who hails from anywhere other than an old part of the Confederacy--even those native to places not a part of the old Union) or "the Feds". If you ain't from some Yankee part of the U.S., that means you're a foreigner--and assumed illegal at that. So, for all practical purposes, it is them agin' the world. To someone brought up on Scout's honor, hand-over-heart Pledge of Allegiance, Honest Abe and all of that, it seriously comes off as bordering on subversive and seditious. And pretty damned scary. When the spittle-flecked venom gets spewed about Yankees and all of that, it isn't very comfortable being one of them what has a bit of a funny accent.

The whole world loves good ole Abe. My Irish friends memorized the Gettysburg Address at school as kids, so even the Irish love Lincoln. Not in South Carolina, friend-o. You can very easily find yourself on shaky ground in certain quarters if seen as a blow-in unless you have a moving "conversion experience": a come-to-Jesus-and-Calhoun redemption tale. They love that. "I was a sinner, mired deep in the land of Lincoln. Until I saw the holy light of Truth upon reading the gospel of Secessionist states rights and fell on my knees and wept with joy. Praise the holy trinity of Lee, Jackson and Jeff Davis!"Oooh. They'd lap that up with Mama's monogrammed silver spoon and beg for more.

I come from a long line of Midwestern cloth coat Republicans (as opposed to the fur coat kind). Sunday school teaching 4-Hers. The kind of folks you'd willingly entrust with the welfare of your small children and vulnerable pampered pets. Auntie Em in the Wizard of Oz seems mighty familiar to me. Sturdy, hard-working, sensible and honest as the day is long. People who don't generally have a whole lot of time and energy to expend on purist ideology or theatrics or, well,... bullshit. My people are a practical lot. Fine talk is fine talk but the actual doing of it is the proof. You get the idea...

Well, I entered the state of South Carolina as all of that. Some twenty-five-ish years later I emerged from the state so turned off by the whole GOP enterprise, the whole "conservative" brand, I cannot even begin to explain it. What the hell happened to the party of Eisenhower and Everett Dirksen? Small town conservative 4-H-ing Midwesterners are a far cry from the flaming passions of the progeny of John C. Calhoun, friends.

Anyone of a certain age will remember the episode of Gilligan's Island where the Skipper and L'il Buddy stumbled across the castaway Japanese soldier who in 1967 has not yet learned that World War 2 was over. So he ran all over the island taking pot shots at the castaways. Hilarity ensued. Y'all remember that episode? Well, use that as a template for the many Johnny Rebs in South Carolina still taking pot shots as they don't seem aware that whole state sovereignty thing done been decided since 18-and-65. Goll-dang it.

The really hilarious part is that they all talk about "strict constructionism" as it has to do with the Constitution. (Well, besides the fact I doubt more than a handful of people who wildly brandish that term have a clue what it means other than they done heard Lindsay Graham say it a few times so its got to be right.) Ironically, the Constitution of the U-nited States of America in the land of secessionists is KING and to the faithful in South Carolina there are but two God-breathed sacred texts: The King James Version and the Original Constitution-- As The Framers Intended™, you know, the one that still literally says "All Men are created equal...". And of course that means white men of property, in case you forgot. And it is so unalterable and inalienable even as they constantly threaten to seditiously secede from it over various and sundry matters of minutiae.

But what they advocate (as it has to do with state sovereignty and state's rights) is what was championed in the Articles of Confederation which preceded the US Constitution, which wholly did not work and is why the Holy Framers got together in that damned Yankee city of Philadelphia and worked up the now-sacrosanct Constitution.

They also love to talk a blue streak about every last thing the Feds do which is incompetent and misguided. (I am being polite here.) Okay. We all have plenty of examples of governmental screw ups and idiocy. But, the way they talk, they don't exactly expend much thought or energy on reform or solutions. In the Midwest, practical folks face a conundrum and what do they do? They turn a problem over a few times and launch in, seeking to fix it as they would a busted tractor axle. Time's a'wastin'. Don't got no time to dilly-dally around flapping your gums, mister. Got crops to get in before it rains.

Not in the Palmetto state. They'll speechify about wanting to secede again with flowery language because it is dramatic and can be done with a flourished sword and we all know that worked out so grandly the first time. Or short of that, they seem to advocate some burn, baby, burn scenario. Or for the slightly less flamboyant: to reduce the size of government so as to "drown it in a bathtub". Death by fire or death by water. Either way sounds perilously close to the result of a witch hunt to me, friends. Rather than cherish something enough to fix or reform it, we've now come to that?! Even as the same mob with torches is ready to lynch anyone campaigning without the requisite flag lapel pin or forgetting to put their hand over their heart when saying the pledge? Those are heretical but drowning the physical manifestation of our otherwise sacred Constitution is not? At what point in time did we totally jump the shark, people? And so the practical and logical among us asks this: the alternative to some form of organized and functioning government is exactly what?! Living tribally? As they do in Afghanistan?

South Carolinians will reflexively refuse federal money for various and sundry projects or grants. They don't want that damned Yankee Uncle Sam telling them what to do, how to do it and attaching all of them dad-gum strings. Okay. I am still sort of getting their point...but how come they so blithely refuse federal help for aiding their pockets of chronic, third-world level poverty when they have no plans or funds available to deal with the problem themselves? i.e. To help those whose families have never risen from dire poverty since having the promise of forty acres and a mule reneged as they left slavery and subsequent generations enduring Jim Crow and lives of a combination of extremely hard work for no benefits and poverty wages at the hands of rabid "right-to-work" mill employers? An intergenerational owing of one's soul to the company store, no matter one's race or creed, strikes me as just another form of enforced separate and very unequal if not something bordering on servitude. Shouldn't some help from our government (the embodiment of "we the people") to address the chronic causative factors of acute suffering of real people--our fellow countrymen and neighbors-- be seen as a little bit of heaven-sent manna? A sentient or compassionate person might think that. More so of someone who claims to regard our codified document as sacred text that which asserts all are endowed by the Creator with rights and equality.

But don't you see? They believe in giving "deserving" folks a "hand" not a "hand-out".

Or, upon realizing what they lack versus other states, they will cry foul that the government has not done anything for them. Citing whatever they lack as an example that "the federal gummint gets everything wrong". Well, sure, if when Sam tries to give y'all a little sugar you slap his face and tell him he's a pervert, he just might not come to your aid later, Darlin'. Does the entire state of South Carolina suffer from widespread PMS?!

That federal spending is evil except when it is spending b-b-b-billions on South Carolina military bases, deep water ports, the Savannah River Nuclear facility or widening I-85 for the umpteenth time. And if that isn't enough, the state of South Carolina gets back more in federal dollars than what it sends in to that evil Yankee Sam, technically making the state, (couched in their own lingo), a "food stamp recipient" of a state. This stuff just writes itself...

Rhetoric comes so cheap and easy, does it not? Wouldn't it be great if these jokers spent even half the time they do spewing their nonsense at seriously trying to fix the proverbial tractor axle so the crops might not get left to rot in the field?

Anyway, what is my point here, you ask? Well, since we might not have a lot of time left to dig around in the YouTube vaults and come up with some gems worthy of a few laughs without risking the services of a SOPA-specializing criminal defense attorney, I decided to share some of the musical madness I have been sharing with my good friend Ann. She seems to have enjoyed this past week thanks to yours truly and my penchant for musical spiritedness. Charms that soothe a savage breast and all that...

Tomorrow the knuckleheads in South Carolina will vote and the swamp fever will simmer down a little for the time being. The inflammation and swelling toward Yankees and Uncle Sam will be channeled back into the visceral brother-on-brother hatred between the fans of the Clemson Tigers and the USC Gamecocks, the modern day version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Well, at least so long as basketball season is under way. Then before long summer will arrive and they'll all be busy at Myrtle Beach or playing golf until the crazy rhetoric heats up again for the general election time.

I always found it hilarious that the state that loves its rhetoric about Family Values™, simultaneously has no problem with the popular Gamecock fan bumper sticker which reads: "Hey Clemson: You can't lick our 'cocks". Oh yeah, baby. "I wish I wuz in the land of cotton, old times there are ne'er forgotten, look away, look away, look away, Dixieland." Indeed. Like a bad train wreck. Look away--if you can!

So, sit back and enjoy a few selections from DJ Plum Tasty's playlist I have entitled Take Me to Funky Town.
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1. In South Carolina EVERYTHING takes on its own weird meaning. (For the uninitiated, The Shag is the official dance of the state of South Carolina. No, I am not making this up. Some British people were visiting and saw an advertisement for a shagging contest. Their shocked response? "America has everything---even contests for that!")

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2. It is the inner circle who seem to be responsible for most of the games being played.

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3. South Carolina's state motto is "Smiling Faces. Beautiful Places." Well,... Sometimes. And that's the undisputed truth, brother.

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4. Palmetto state folks love to blow on about "Chicago politics". I know Chicago. I was born and grew up around there. And you, South Carolina? Y'all are more "Chicago" gangsta than even Chicago. And that takes some doin'.

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5. A little wisdom from flat lander rural red state folks like my own peeps who recall that the Dust Bowl was not a BCS game. Get a clue: Midwesterners aren't technically Yankees either.

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6. Telling decent folk who are in dire straits due to no fault of their own to just click their heels thrice and say "There's no place like a wholly unregulated marketplace" is as ridiculous as this:

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7. $12million spent in one party's primary campaign in one tiny state over the course of a couple weeks? Blown on desperate wall-to-wall teevee and radio smash-mouth ads and harassing inundated citizens (who rely on their phone) umpteen times? Sure, that's fiscal conservatism! No doubt ripped straight from Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People too!

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8. No, "Sigmund", it isn't "envy"...but Mister you sure do have big brass ones...

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9. Because "Crazy Train" just seems so freakin' appropriate...

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10. If y'all are anything like me, an erstwhile Dorothy landed in the Land of Ozzy, a daughter of bona fide Auntie Em Heartland™ values, what's the thinking after all of this 'pious baloney' and in-your-face red state insanity? I'll tell ya straight-up, friend-o:

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Best wishes on a brighter future to my friends in South Carolina. Wishing you well but I am so utterly overjoyed that I live elsewhere now, although I do miss good barbecue, shrimp-n-grits and Cheerwine. All of that balmy winter sunshine is small consolation for the cold blooded gators, malarial skeeters and venomous snakes in your swamp. And that ain't no exaggeration, friends.
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ADDENDUM FINALE for Saturday's polling day:
http://youtu.be/4xmckWVPRaI
This is the attached note I sent my dear, sweet, elementary school teacher, community library board, Presbyterian worship committee friend Ann:

"YAY! Woo-Hoo! Today is the last day of your current CRAZY marathon!!! Hope I helped you laugh a bit! Here's an idea for dealing with all of that Angry Man stuff y'all deal with EVERY dang time y'all vote on something. Dress up real weird and out-angry them. If you can't beat 'em, at least you can seriously freak them out. Love ya, your twisted sistah ♡"

And her reply:

Just the tone to end the series! Thanks, twisted sistah! I couldn't have survived the primary without you! :)

Joe Cocker got it spot-on right, friends. We get by with a little help from our friends.

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ADDENDUM #2: The day-after:

Apparently, this whole songfest really struck a chord! I was informed by one faithful Plum Tasty reader that yours truly got at least one very enthusiastic write-in vote in the South Carolina GOP primary. I don't care who you are, that is funny! And, it sounds like a mandate to me!

I was also offered a Day After tune from a heretofore Republican voter in the Palmetto state who is utterly dismayed and appalled. I think it is absolutely perfect choice! Thank you, dear readers!

A very apt encore!

Changes in Latitudes; Changes in Attitudes

2012-01-19T17:40:00.000-05:00

Freshly caught. Fried, boiled, poached and grilled.

What time is it, kids? Snowbird time!

This is the time of year when all of the pasty white people flock to the warm, sunny climes here in America. From the UV deprived Canadians to the overly-enthusiastic Michiganders on a mission from God to return home with proof of their money's worth of sun. A tastefully understated healthy glow of sun exposure isn't quite enough. Oh no! They must baste and roast themselves to either a golden Coppertone tan or third degree burns. All headed to points south, chiefly Florida. Seriously, one of these days Florida will just break off from the mainland from all of that additional weight.

When we lived in South Carolina, it was always a lot of fun to roll down to Charleston for a long weekend in the winter or early springtime. One could take in the beauty of so many wonderful gardens, large and small, take in some concert, eat great seafood and soak in the comic pleasure of chatting up tourists from Michigan. Folks from Michigan love to tell you where exactly they hail from geographically within their proud state by holding up their hand and saying "If Michigan were a mitten, we're right here on the thumb!" Ohhh...Right. (Don't believe me, do you? Check this out.)

Is the middle finger a popular tourism spot?

Mitten geography skills must be prerequisite of citizenship in that state. Along the same lines as their retort "Is that right?!" to just about anything you might tell them. No, buddy. All of what I am saying to you is one lie after another. You betcha.

Now as all readers of this blog will know by now, yours truly is about as pasty white as is humanly possible. And I am a native of the upper Midwest. And despite living in the sunny south for many years, I remained rather pasty white. But I was always in awe of the extra virgin pastiness of upper Midwestern tourists at that time of year. The amazing undertones of blue in their sun-deprived skin and the total willingness to abandon any caution to expose every last inch of that cadaverous flesh.

Now, I say all of this willingly confessing to some of the most horrific sunburns myself but not due to wanting to return home somewhere above the 45th parallel looking like George Hamilton. I get sunburned despite my best efforts to avoid sun exposure with hats, layers of clothing, sunscreen fit for an albino. Which is why places like Florida hold absolutely no attraction to me. If you can get blistering burns from thirty minutes of snorkeling in the Florida Keys in February as I once did, going there in July just does not seem like a good idea.

The tourist adverts don't mention the sunburn cases.

Then, I come across a recent news bit about how Pasco County, Florida recently doubled down on efforts to lure European nudists (chiefly Germans, Dutch and English i.e. hard core pasty folks) to come to Pasco County to enjoy all manner of glorious nakedness in the scorching sun of "off season". Off season does not mean what it means elsewhere, friend. It does not mean wintertime in Florida. It means summertime in Florida. It means the good folks of Pasco County are attempting to lure chronically pasty white tourists from a part of the world who have little grasp on just what that means in terms of heat, humidity, bugs and intensity of scorching UV rays. More importantly, what that might mean on their delicate jiggly bits. There ain't nothin' more miserable than a sunburn on an especially delicate body part. Well, other than mosquito bites and a heavy layer of sweat on top of that burn.

Sure, Americans are fat but this is NOT done here.

So, who thought any of this might be a good idea? Isn't the mere thought of some pallid, paunchy, retired brewer from Hamburg lounging on a south Florida beach in the kind of swim wear Germans often fancy quite enough of a holiday buzz kill? What is it with Europeans and their god-awful swim wear?

Okay. Perhaps I'd not mind catching sight of some ripped Italian Adonis in a skimpy thong, but not Hans and Franz on their 'package tour' to the US. Sorry, guys. We don't want to share the contours of your 'package deal' as you prance around in your weenie bikini Speedo that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. I say this as a pasty white middle aged woman who knows better than turn up in a bikini.

That attitude should not be mistaken for assumed American prudishness but rather a healthy dose of self-knowledge. When near the beach, we reflexively shield our eyes from the unfortunate sight of an acutely sun-deprived, beer soaked Michigander; one of our homegrown tourists--that guy with his metaphorical geographical mitten. So, why on earth would we want to see you similarly attired? We're much less enthusiastic about your anatomical Lower Saxony which has been hanging out in the deep protective shade of your trousers for most of the year. It may be true that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But, unfortunately, what goes on in Florida tends to get recounted a bit too vigorously.

Moral of the story: If you are a dangling Chad, be an übermensch and cover it up. Danke schön.

Superman or Green Lantern Ain't Got Nuthin' On Thee

2012-01-10T10:34:00.002-05:00

Last weekend Mr. Plum Tasty and I did an epic errand and shopping marathon hitting some after- holiday sales in Mr. PT's favorite place to buy his favorite pullover merino wool sweaters when they hit 50% off. While he was digging through the markdown table in Menswear, I strolled across the aisle to the bonzo shoe department to browse-- just for the entertainment value.

This particular department store has high quality merch and they carry a lot of shoes. I often hunt their sale racks and once in a blue moon get lucky. Usually I am a bit hard to fit given my wide width, high instep and utter fixation on not being in pain. Little shoe shopping tip: When all else fails, the hands down best place to find shoes that fit are at the very best shoe store in the universe: Tops for Shoes in Asheville, North Carolina. I have yet to find its equivalent in the New York to Philly metroplex for hard-to-fit feet that don't feature shoes that look as if they should be bought by your granny from her podiatrist.

No joke, friend. And if you should plan a trip to Asheville to shop for shoes, for a nominal fee I will be pleased to accompany you and be your most excellent personal tour guide to that magical city in the mountains. Pardon the digression but side notes about shoes for a hard-to-fit fussbudget are never meaningless digressions. Your wheels deserve better than crappy retreads, Love. Better to own two well made pairs of shoes that really fit and you really love than a whole closetful of crap, stuff you aren't sure why you bought or stuff that will require your next chiropractic metaphorical front end re-alignment in less than a thousand miles. The foundations on your feet are as important as your other sartorial foundations. And that's a fact, Jack!

So, when in this particular department store, I always cruise the high end shoes for entertainment value. I play Guess the Price. The Jimmy Choo display never fails to provide endless entertainment and shock value. This time they had one table devoted solely to shoes embedded with little sparkly gemstones. I hesitate to call them rhinestones as that might reveal my declassé, highly unrefined eye for fashion, so for the sake of discussion and charity towards Mr. Choo if not my pride, let us stipulate that they may actually be tiny Swarovski crystals? I was hovering pretty comfortably in the $500 range (choke) when I hit the jackpot and got the triple bonus points with the model they simply called Salt. Prepare to be amazed. I am thinking that if I came home with Salt, (other than the kind that comes in a package with the little girl with the yellow umbrella and the motto "When it rains, it pours"), Mr. PT would turn me into a pillar of salt. And he would have every right. Salt would not really complement the rest of my Peppery denim and Shetland wool wardrobe anyway.

After Mr. PT's excellent deals on sweaters were acquired, as usual, I brought him over for some shock treatments via shoe therapy. This is my way to remind him how lucky he is and that he could have married the suburban version of Imelda Marcos, Empress of Ruby Slippers instead of Madame Plum Tasty, Marquess of Markdownia in a D width. After he picked his jaw off of the extra plush carpeting, we moved on feeling solidly Middle Class and quite smug about it.

To end the day of running around, we remembered we needed a certain item and that the most convenient place to nip in and get that item from where we were at the time of thinking about it was Walmart, my least favorite store in the universe. It is not because I am too good for Walmart but rather it does not matter which Walmart one enters, they all have a sort of Lowest Common Denominator vibe. It seems to be where the most sad people on the planet drop serious coin on some of the most unnecessary crappy merchandise one could imagine. The place is a four star destination for the chronically depressed. It starts with the unbroken sea of fluorescence which never fails to give me a headache and only ends once one is successfully past the retired rent-a-guard guy in the motorized scooter marking your receipt with a yellow marker upon your exit. Nobody. And I mean nobody in Walmart seems as if they are delighted to be there. I avoid the place at all costs.

If a person wants to experience what it feels like to be put in a whipsaw, go to the high end wing of a regional shopping mall, browse magical shoes which most certainly could carry one straight to Oz or some other fantastically enchanted place such as a New Year's party at the St. Regis Hotel or a standard issue Washington dinner party with all of the most sparkling persons, then go straight to the real life utter disarray and wild rumpus of the seasonal markdown area at your nearest Walmart. Honestly, I'd like to avoid both ends of that spectrum, please.

On our hike to find one of the three open check out lanes in the whole vast sea of the Walmart Superstore where you can "Always" shop for everything from Supersized tires for your pick-em-up truck to Hot Pockets in the Supersaver size to Superhero undies for your young'uns, but not "Always" find a check-out lane shorter than the first hour box office for a Pink Floyd concert, we had to walk right past the boys clothing area. And pulling me in, as if by a irresistible tractor beam, was a large display of what else? Superman undies. Awesome. Now, I confess, am a complete sucker for Superhero briefs. It probably goes back to the days of ogling Adam West in little more than his Fruit of the Looms when in thrall to our weekly fix of the Dynamic Duo back in the day.

So, naturally, we took a side trip over to check it out. Not only did they have the usual heroes, they had Green Lantern underpants! There is no end to what a person could accomplish while inhabiting this vale of tears, this mortal coil, this life of trips to Walmart, while wearing such foundations! By all outward appearances, one could be a complete loser, total nerd and regular victim of the dreaded Wedgie. But underneath those high water, "blue light special" markdown, generic brand, out-of-style jeans your fashion-impaired mom bought you during Midnight Madness; inside, a true master of Truth, Justice and The American Way! Beneath those safety glasses are x-ray vision and the actual ability to see everyone else in their undies--not just imagine it! This fantasy phenomenon is also what makes Victoria's Secret so wildly successful. Some of us walk the land incognito in brown paper wrappings but underneath lies leopard imprinted Catwoman undies all across the fruited plain. Meow. So, y'all better check yo'self because more than a few kitties have claws.

I told Mr. Plum Tasty that you know you are old when you hold up hangars with Superman and Green Lantern boys size 6x undies head high and proudly proclaim "These are rockin' awesome but ya know...Superman or Green Lantern ain't got nuthin' on me, baby!" You also know you are old when you get that joke:

So, after a big weekend out running all over, including within the womb of the largest mall on the eastern US seaboard, the wisdom of Mr. Plum Tasty, Jr. quite pointedly came into focus. Our son claims he absolutely loves Five Guys burgers but he always comes away feeling as if he needs to lie down and sleep it off, ruining the rest of the day. So, his rule on eating at Five Guys is that he won't allow himself another visit until he cannot specifically recall the last time he ate one of their burgers. Once the memory is vague enough to merely say something such as "Yeah, I think I was over there last summer sometime--can't remember exactly-- but I seem to think it must have been summer because I think I spilled my fries on my flip-flops--or was that the previous summer?!" he will allow himself another visit.

Which seems to me a great metric for not only Five Guys but shopping at places which offer overpriced Jimmy Choo shoes covered in millions of sparkles or simply shopping at Walmart. And the same might apply to making quirky jokes where Donovan lyrics are even marginally involved. But surely, friends, you won't apply that to visits to Plum Tasty? Gotta keep y'all running back for more...via my magical tractor beam of high spirits...

...Any trick in the book and now baby, ooh, that I can find. Everybody's hustlin' just to have a little scene. When I said we'd be cooool, I think that ya know what I mean...When you've made your mind up forever to be mine, Mmmmmmm: I'll pick up your hand and slowly blow your little mind.

Go ahead and dance around to psychedelia in your Underoos. Nobody's watching. In your own little world, you are Wavy Gravy, Groovy Cubed and totally All That, baby! All y'all! Every. Last. One!

Happy 2012!

Put a Phish on it

2012-01-06T14:17:00.000-05:00

Not going to swear on it or anything but I don't think I have laughed quite so heartily in quite some time as watching the first season of the IFC series Portlandia. One might say my inner goddess was quite possibly glowing. (That, my friend, is a joke.) The show satirizes hipster culture quite brilliantly. Portlandia is an outgrowth of Saturday Night Live regular Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's comedy sketch website.

Anyone who has had the serendipitous comic experience of being thrust together for any length of time with any variety of haute hipster, warrior feminist or the chronically artsy will find the comedy of Portlandia nothing short of pure genius. (I say this as an academically trained artist.)

I don't know about any of you all, but I generally find these types of overly earnest person every bit as unintentionally hilarious and oddly similar in a larger cosmic sort of way to their polar analog: the folks who dwell on the hyper-earnest (often the hyper-earnest religious) right.

The series has popularized the phrase "Put a bird on it!" spoofing overly precious crafty types. (Can't you imagine someone cheerily chirruping "Put a bible verse on it"?!) So, in the spirit of another season of Portlandia beginning this very night and while contemplating my burgeoning new art ventures, I had an inspiration! I am so filled with enthusiasm, I have to share with you all! I just want to put a fish on it! I mean, taxonomically speaking, don't fish share an equal karmic space as birds? I am so totally thinking so.

So, wanting to be wholly ethical in my quest of fish imagery, I Googled "Put a Fish on it" to see if that has been done before and whether or not it is so over by now. You know, to see if anyone else is inhabiting the same space as I am right now. I mean, has the Lord called anyone else to a similar spirit-led mission? And so, how fittingly perfect could this be?

Ooh. Some sort of synchronicity going on here? Maybe I am an actual hipster myself?! Or a powerful vessel of Yahweh. Without even trying! Is that blessed talent or what?! All I need are orange and purple tights, a rooster tail in my hair and a fish tattoo to let everyone else know that indeed I have God ordained "talent". Because, without letting everyone know like that, well, it just can't be quite the same, can it? And you know, you just can't quite Give. Him. All. The. Glory. without advertising it so nobody can miss Him getting all of the glory, now can you? Awesome!

Outrageous, Over-the-Top? Falsies!

2011-12-31T15:08:00.000-05:00

Maybe it says something about my recent teevee viewing habits but lately I am asking what is up with all of the really over the top cosmetic adverts? Besides the resurrection of that horrid bright blue sparkly eye shadow we all thought died a well deserved death in the 1980s, what's up with the new fixation on the "falsies" look in eyelashes?

Call me seriously retrograde but I am mystified. For those few times I care to get really dolled up for a night out and want to do my version of glam, I dig around my bathroom drawer to find that half dried tube of brown mascara. Yes, brown. Do you people know how next to impossible it is to find brown mascara in America? The land of ten thousand choices at your local coffee shop no longer "does" brown mascara. This has been the case for several years but has only gotten worse lately.

Sure, you can find something called "Brown-black" or any version of darker dark: Jet black, Blue-black, Midnight black, Black with "Diamonté Dust" sparklies, Super Black Max Volume Voila Vavoom (with patented micro filaments with the fibrous tensile strength of suspension bridge cable).

But something closely approximating what Mother Nature might coyly enhance a fair-skinned natural blonde? Nope. Not a chance.

In short, to be fashionable, women are told we must risk being mistaken for a hooker or maybe a tranny. As Jerry Seinfeld might say, "Not that there's anything wrong with that..." Hey, I don't judge. But can't a girl have the choice of simple brown without being laughed away from the cosmetics counter?! For so many choices, so few options.

Perhaps we fashion hold-outs should just get with the postmodern times and channel our inner drag queens and give in to all of this falsies fashion? I guess my comfy size 6 Børns will have to go in favor of size 12 leopard print stiletto Jimmy Choos that might double as a lethal weapon. Guess my real blonde hair needs to go in favor of the enhanced version of peroxide "blonde" applied to a wig of "hair" I can keep on a mannequin "head" at night. Since I am "the whitest white woman" ever seen by my dermatologist, I suppose I'd need a "tan" sprayed on me too. Then, I suppose, the smart money would be on heavily investing in the corporate parent companies of all of that salon "product". (When did shampoo, hair spray or styling goo suddenly morph into an amorphous, albeit gelatinous, category known simply as "product"?!)

I suppose I'd also need to give up my trusty nail clippers in favor of those super fake French manicure nails all the rage at the moment. Only in America could the fashion industry take the classic French manicure, the epitome of understated good taste of slightly enhanced well-groomed fingernails and turn it into a trashy glam parody of itself with acrylic "nails" squared into something closely approximating a snow shovel, painted Day-Glo pink and tips striped white like a skunk.

And I will definitely need some bass in my walk if I want to look the part of the fashionable modern woman of 2012: a woman who looks like a man trying to look like a "woman". Why do I have this sneaking suspicion that in a decade (or less?) we will be looking back at the fashion trends of this time and space we are now inhabiting and find ourselves asking the same sort of questions we asked once we recovered from the taste vacuum otherwise known as the 1970s?

Have Yourself a Plum Tasty Christmas!

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Ms. Plum Tasty and The Queen Bee cajoling The Fat Man c. 1962

My sister's name means "Queen Bee". It fits her. She has always known exactly what she wants and always seemed to have a strategy to get it. She is the eldest and seems to have been born with some innate sense of some sort of cosmic right of primogeniture in all things. I was the annoying little sister who was born knowing that within the orbit of The Queen Bee my role was that of the loyal retainer: to help her further her aims. This seems to be a common enough dynamic in such birth order relationships.

When we were little kids, she had some strange notion that if she pressed me into her service with the aim to cajole The Parents for whatever she was scheming, she would enjoy much quicker results. She was of the grossly mistaken impression that as The Baby, I could simply coo and bat my eyelashes at The Parents and all wishes would be granted. But, I had worked all the angles of that enough to know the actual limits of that little strategy. It wasn't nearly as effective as she presumed and if handled without great finesse, easily derailed the entire enterprise. Subtlety was always the watchword when trying to charm or convince. My sister preferred the full frontal assault. Her style would have been more useful for, oh, let's just say a tank commander?

So The Queen Bee was always working me for angles, trying to lay groundwork or attempting to reel me into her tactical maneuvers and convincing me of the superior nature of whatever it is that "we" wanted. My usual response was a shrug. Okay. Whatever. My will might have been often eroded to the point where I gave her the right to use my name and likeness, if not a full endorsement in whatever her ad blitz/propaganda du jour may have been. But I tried my best to resist the need for my personal appearances in her actual infomercials or participation in air drops of leaflets behind enemy lines in Parentland. I am nobody's spokesman, pitchman or mouthpiece. Such unsavory business. While my sister was better suited for tactics in a Sherman tank or the war room, I preferred the afternoon tea at the State Department. No unsavory business-- just fancy tea.

So, it was via that sort of united front of action that in 1966 she got the Go-Go boots she had been lusting after for some time. And because it was a united action, I got a pair too. Frankly, I didn't care. I'd have preferred red cowgirl boots with tassels and a cowgirl get-up with fringe. Especially if a pony came with the package deal. But that was about as likely as a pumpkin turning into a fairy princess coach. So, Go-Go boots would work in a pinch. Diplomatic attachés assigned to the foreign sovereignty of Parentland also like doing the Watusi, the Mashed Potato and especially the Monkey. Just so long as it doesn't spill any tea.

So, in the run up to Christmas, I culled and refined my own wish list (usually with the help of the most excellent Sears & Roebuck Wish Book toy catalogue). To me half of the fun was just ogling stuff in the catalogue. But every year I had to fend off the entreaties of The Queen Bee attempting to press me into HRM's royal commando service with schemes of a joint venture of Wish Listing--a limited partnership formed with the intent to leverage "our" requests of fewer toys but of much higher value by claiming added value as we would be "sharing" the toy so as to make it more cost effective for Santa and less labor intensive for the overworked elves. A real win-win. (By which she meant she would win twice since whatever deal she was pitching was wholly derived from her own wish list.) She missed her calling on Wall Street in the cohort of the ten-for-us-one-for-you deal: the realm of wheeling and dealing acquisitions, mergers, hostile take-overs, private equity, pork belly futures or arbitrage.

Usually, she could wear me down not wholly because I was a sucker but because it just wasn't worth the battle. But when it came to my sacrosanct Christmas wish list, I was prepared to defend the ramparts with the to-the-end determination of Davy Crockett at the Alamo. Defending the sanctity of my own Santa list could have had me also killing a b'ar when I was only three as well. Easy-to-please goes out the window when my business with Santa is involved.

So, between The Queen Bee and myself? Let's just say our business interests never intersected at Christmastime. Nothing personal. Just business.

Oh, joy! The tiniest Whos in Whoville seem happy!

For some reason my Daddy refers to Santa as "The Fat Man" now that we are all grown up. I have no idea why, other than the fact that he is rather droll. For years my Daddy played the role of Santa at our house but yet he has never been a fat man nor has he ever donned the fat man's suit. Rather, his Santa shtick was to send us off a bit early for our baths on Christmas Eve with Mother to supervise. His reasoning was that we needed to hit the sack and get some good shut-eye so Santa could turn up. Everybody knows that Santa cannot arrive if you are still awake, giggling and chitter-chatting like monkeys.

But, somehow Santa always arrived at our house while we were taking our bath! He would ring bells and Ho, Ho, Ho and make a racket and by the time we could get the Mr. Bubble goop rinsed off, toweled off, be made decent in pajamas and tumble down the stairs, he'd be gone! Every year my grandmother would claim she saw him too and had a nice chat with him while we were getting dressed. She liked to chat with Santa because, she claimed that she knew him from the old days when he was just a youngster. But he had to be on his way. He couldn't dilly-dally.

It was not Daddy's style to go all thespian and dress up as Santa but he didn't wholly eschew the theatrics of Santa. He was a natural talent as a foley artist and special effects master. If there was snow outside, he would recreate sleigh runner and reindeer hoof marks in the yard without leaving tell-tale Daddy footprints.

My Daddy, always the practical, engineering master of logistics claimed that Santa can't really go so many places in such a compressed time frame and so it sometimes became necessary for him to get an early start so he could "make good time". When faced with a road trip, making good time was always my dad's unwavering objective, so it seemed wholly plausible to us that man from the North Pole would also be of a similar mind. I suspect that the real reason for Santa's early arrival at our house was that my Daddy, who normally got up early for work, might make good time sawing logs by sleeping in on his holiday. My Daddy is droll but he is also clever.

But the funny thing is that despite the chance of sleeping late, Daddy was always up bright and early to help us play with our new toys. No cajoling necessary. No giggling and chitter-chatting like monkeys needed. He always seemed as delighted as we were at the prospect of a full day's fun in toyland--even with girly toys!

The most important reason some lucky little girls were visited early by the jolly fat man? According to Daddy it was because we had been extra good and maybe we were a bit lucky too. I'm not so sure we were ever all that good but I do know that we have always been quite lucky. That Santa sure is a great guy! Even if he never wore red, never had a beard, never walked this earth as a fat man and never left a trace in the snow that wasn't the result of Mother's kitchen broom!

Santa brought a play kitchen set with a percolator coffee pot that really blurps! Santa loves coffee!

Santa is real. His name is Daddy but some folks just call him Jim.

Hallelujah, Everybody Say Cheese!

2011-12-17T00:27:00.004-05:00

Back in the 1970s Donny and Marie Osmond had a big hit with a sort of dopey version of the song A Little Bit County; A Little Bit Rock-n-Roll. It is a singularly stupid song. But, it does convey the sort of split personality thing most of us embody. Aren't we all just a little bit of this and a little bit of some other thing which seems polar opposite?

I have noticed that tendency comes out in me most prominently at this time of year. I am just a little bit classy and a little bit garish-n-kitschy. (Okay. So maybe more than a little bit of the kitschy.)

I love a very traditional Christmas: the classical music concerts; a little Handel and Bach--a whole lot Julie Andrews and Nat King Cole; Currier & Ives; cookies with sprinkles; garlands of fresh balsam; tasteful ornaments; chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Literally. Usually we take a little ride over to New York City at Christmastime to take in the holiday cheer and street vendors around the southern end of Central Park always sell roasted chestnuts. Lovely!

But then I have my evil twin tacky holiday side as well. I have a weak spot for over-the-top garish light displays, tinsel, elf shoes, weird holiday recipes that require a few drops of green or red food coloring... and yes, those cheesy Christmas novelty songs played non-stop on most radio stations this time of year.

Of all of the novelty songs, the ones I like best are the slightly naughty or irreverent variety. If you are going to violate all of the boundaries of good taste and decency, you might as well do it up as big as a beehive hairdo on a rodeo queen in Lubbock, Texas. Y'all will get a little peek at what passes for good taste at my house later on if I share a few holiday snapshots.

But in the meantime, wallow around real good in this little gem from deep in the heart of Texas. It don't git any more ticky-tacky than that, Darlin'. Way better than Grandma getting run over by the reindeer or those dogs barking Jingle Bells! This lyrical masterpiece is my ALL TIME FAVORITE novelty Christmas song. Mix you up some homemade egg nog and have a little listen. Hope y'all enjoy it too!

I'll Take Potpourri for 100, Alex

2011-12-12T18:11:00.000-05:00

Random thoughts from my kitchen today:

Good thing I don't own a proper kitchen mallet or we'd eat way too much scallopini as much as I love to pound.

You can make any main dish taste better with garlic and onions. The only exception is liver and onions which in my humble opinion does not technically qualify as fit for human consumption.

Cookies are the food of kings. Chocolate cookies are the nectar of the gods. My cookies are not for sharing.

When in a little doubt with even less time: meatloaf.

Meatloaf requires almost a 1:1 ratio of Vidalia onion to meat and must contain oatmeal.

French fried onion rings in a can are full of fat and God only knows what other nastiness dreamed up in a soulless food science lab contained in a bland industrial complex somewhere just off the Jersey Turnpike. But damn, they sure do taste good.

I cook most of our dinners totally from scratch but I keep a small stash of ingredients for the occasional comfort food fix such as the aforementioned fried onions in a can, a box of mac and cheese with the nasty orange powdered cheese packet, a can of tuna, small can of peas and a can of cream of mushroom soup to make the ubiquitous dump and stir American meal circa 1968: Tuna Casserole. Tastes like third grade on Wednesdays when my mom spent the afternoon at the beauty parlor. All that's missing are the Sputnik motif melamine dishes.

Thank you Jesus for my gas stove and kebab sticks so that we may partake of the blessed sacrament of S'mores in the dead of winter. Nothing says tiki fun like a flaming torch of marshmallow on bamboo. I prefer S'more Flambé.

School cafeterias would not require the First Lady of the whole United States to come down here to straighten things up if we used some of that common sense God gave us and went back to old school cafeteria ladies in hair nets who have Christian names like Eugenia: ladies like my aunts Zelma and Hazel who could make even a Sugar Smacks addict beg for more butter beans and squash casserole.

School kids would not be so fat if we did the above plus brought back proper recess and gym class which requires real gym class uniforms because kids actually break a sweat.

Every red-blooded American needs to experience a meal at an old-fashioned southern "Meat-n-Three" at least once in his lifetime. (A meat-n-three is a Mom-and-Pop restaurant where the entrees come with a choice of three vegetables and the smart choice is always the day's Blue Plate Special unless it is liver and onions.) To fully qualify as a proper Meat-n-Three, the list of side vegetables should be longer than the listed entrees and contain every sort of veg known to man including several dark, leafy greens including collards, turnips, mustard and spinach---plus the one outlier: macaroni and cheese casserole which technically qualifies as a veg at a Meat-n-Three.

Who exactly was Susan and why was she deemed Lazy?

You aren't a real American if you don't have a cupboard filled with novelty coffee mugs that you regularly use but would feel complete shame and disgrace to use in the presence of nice company. Some of ours include the Big Lebowski mug; "I made it to the top at Pike's Peak"; Crater Lake with our kid's name on it; Mother's Bistro & Bar which helpfully reminds: "Call your Mother!" and a commemorative ACC Basketball Tournament mug from the days at least a decade before the ACC acquired a Boston accent.

Whoever invented plastic storage containers that do not easily stack should be tried for crimes against humanity.

A kitchen is not a proper kitchen without a junk drawer. It should contain at least half of these:

Used twisty ties
Out-of-date coupons
A dried up or virtually empty tube of glue
At least one mystery key
Every sized battery known to man --except the size you need
Scratch pads and pens from businesses you have never patronized and from at least one of the following: a Hampton Inn, Days Inn, Holiday Inn or Marriott.
Box/book of matches with only one match remaining.
Pez dispenser sans candy.
A random number of worthless tchotchkes from various business conferences imprinted with either an indecipherable logo or motto with an earnest intent for inspiration or motivation (but accomplishing neither). Every once in awhile such junk drawer-worthy give-aways (not quite worthless enough to pitch in the trash) become excellent fodder for juvenile humor and therefore will remain forever enshrined in the hallowed junk drawer. That one honored item at our house is the tube of lip balm imprinted with "JANUSINTECH Asset Management" which some cheeky middle school boy (who shall remain nameless) scratched out the J, N and E in the first word. Because of its current unappetizing labeling, its use as a lip emollient has been rendered inoperative. Now, besides providing a junk drawer chuckle, that item serves one thing most prominently: to beg the question of how much thought and money went into that corporate moniker and how much Ivy League MBA brilliance missed what was instantly obvious to a kid not long past carrying a lunch-box and watching cartoons? Hm. There is another blog rant in there somewhere...Y'all supply your own thoughts and punch lines. Then go wash up for supper or you can help me set the table.

FREE is a four-letter-word

2011-12-07T09:28:00.001-05:00

Meet Namasté, Reader's Digest cover girl.

Okay, so my favorite four-letter word is "FREE". But, I am seriously reconsidering...

A few months ago I started receiving Woman's Day magazine out of the blue. I did not subscribe to it. I have never subscribed to it. I have never, ever read Woman's Day except when bored in the doctor's waiting room (but only if they don't have anything better such as National Geographic, Cook's Illustrated, Harper's or maybe Organic Gardening?!). Is it just way too much to hope for Garden & Gun or something with some zing to it even if their main thrust isn't totally my bag? Why bother reading stuff that reinforces every last bit of who you demographically already are?! Or what someone else wants to pigeon-hole you as? Bah. I want interestingness.

Woman's Day? Not so much. I now have a stack which is awaiting transport to my 75+ year-old mother.

You can always determine a magazine's target readership by looking at the advertisements. No, really. Dirty little secret: publishers don't make money from selling subscriptions. They make money from selling advertisements. Magazines are vehicles to deliver advertising to targeted consumers. Some magazines manage enough decent content so that isn't so obvious. Some miss the mark. To effectively sell ad space, they have to demonstrate to advertisers certain target demographics in terms of age, income, education etc. So, they will often send you free magazines to count you in their readership. Apparently, that is what has happened to me. Great.

So, I flip through a few issues to determine who they are aiming at and who they think I must be to be sending this to me for free. Hm. The good people at Woman's Day must believe I am seriously in need of the following products:

Stool softeners (several competing brands)
Whitening toothpaste
Cholesterol meds (several competing brands)
Mucinex
Something vaguely called "Senior Care"
Overactive bladder meds (several competing brands)
Medications for some mysterious ailment called "COPD"
Weight loss products
A variety of brands of cat food
A variety of brands of cat litter
A variety of brands of cat meds
Various featured items "sold exclusively at Walmart"
McDonald's Happy Meals touted as a way to "give back"to deserving children since a portion of sales go to Ronald McDonald House. Seriously?!
Heartburn meds
Any variety of Olay or Cover Girl products (including an Olay facial hair remover duo system- I am skeptical of any product which requires a system)
Several brands of "probiotic" items--"for a balanced colon" (Eat more fiber?!)
Phillips Milk of Magnesia in convenient caplet form
Campbell's "Cream of..." soups including a featured recipe. (Who knew Chicken Alfredo is made with Cream of Mushroom soup--the low sodium version to call it "healthy"?)
The "Not Mom Jeans" Lee brand slimming blue jeans. M'kay. If they really aren't Mom Jeans would they need to convince us? Facts: I am a Mom. I wear straight up old fashioned five pocket jeans. I am fifty-one. By definition whatever jeans I wear will be "Mom Jeans" and my ass will look too big. Not a problem for me. It is the same bulbous booty I've always had. At least it isn't bony and doesn't sag. Not worried about it. Don't like it? You can kiss it.
The Bradford Exchange collectibles
Ashton-Drake Galleries collectibles

Honestly, that pretty much sums up what merch Woman's Day is pushing. Okay, so they do have a few recipes in the back that don't look so horrid. The Christmas cookies look tempting. But who needs another recipe for gingerbread men? And thank God not one ad for Velveeta! But isn't that a rather low benchmark?

Usually free stuff sends my un-medicated heart going a happy pitter-pat, but nonetheless, I am sitting here looking at this feeling pretty insulted. Maybe if I needed some of that probiotic stuff and a stack of magazines to keep me company while I let it get to work on an overstuffed colon, I might appreciate all of this bonanza of free reading material. Then I get to the back of the magazines and see the ads for collectible items. Bradford Exchange is selling something they call "Limoges-style Heirloom Porcelain®". The item is a ceramic box in the graven image of a Bambi-esque fawn. The caption says "Granddaughter, You're My Little Dear".

It doesn't get any better with their tschochke competitors, The Ashton-Drake Galleries. They are hawking something called "Baby Babu: The Most Lifelike Simian Sweetheart Ever!" Readers are instructed that we shouldn't delay as the "incredibly detailed" ape with the "RealTouch® vinyl skin" who is posable with "hand-applied wisps of soft hair" is being offered for a limited time. I need to act NOW for only $99.99 or in four convenient installments of $24.99.

Why is it that the pharmaceutical companies have not jumped all over this obvious omission of hawking psychiatric meds to old women buying overpriced thumb-sucking monkey dolls? What a bonzo untapped marketing opportunity! This is funny stuff right here but somehow I don't think it is meant as my minimum daily requirement of ironic humor.

So, when I overcome feeling bummed out for being pegged as someone who might find this magazine even remotely interesting (even as I find the superior unintended humor in it), I open my mailbox to discover a complementary subscription to Reader's Digest. And if that were not quite enough, people, it is the large print edition. I refuse to do an analysis of their advertisers past the very first page which sports an ad for a supplement targeting the dreaded "AMD". (What the hell is AMD? Age-related Macular Degeneration.) Oh. Well, wouldn't advertising for that in a large print edition sort of be like closing the barn door after the horses have fled?!

Surely, looking any deeper into said magazine it would just pile onto my Woman's Day funk. But, perhaps Reader's Digest has gotten oddly off-beat and hip in their dotage as their cover sports a standard poodle striking a yoga pose (even avoiding the overly literal "downward dog"). But then I notice a little caption with an arrow helpfully pointing to said poodle art which says "Dogs who do yoga!" Oh, for crying out loud! Geez. And I thought perhaps Fifi was doing the "surf's up" pose? Scratch "hip" and make that "hip replacement".

Nevermind.

The featured article is entitled "Increase Your Funny Power!" Yeah, no foolin'. (Got to give 'em high marks for the 3 R's: eagerness, earnestness and enthusiasm.) Another feature screams: "The Thirteen Things a Debt Collector Won't Tell You!"

Hey, I have an idea! Perhaps if people didn't bite for the heavily processed foods advertised in magazines, they'd not need to be asking their doctor if nearly so many meds are right for them: aids for acid reflux, high cholesterol, stool softening, probioticizing colons or losing weight. Or, for that matter needing info-mercial articles on weight reduction surgery or jeans with built-in girdles.

And perhaps if people were not blowing their limited funds on completely overpriced crap from the Bradford Exchange or Swarovski crystal-studded collars and faux "gourmet cuisine" and upscale litter for their infanticized cats, they'd not be so in need of thirteen tips on how to handle debt collectors.

So, this attitude of mine pretty much sums up why I'm not a big magazine subscriber. My one-and-only decades long magazine weakness is a southern lifestyle mag because there just cannot be too many ways to creatively use magnolia leaves, monograms, antique silver, pecans or bourbon; truly awesome recipes; solid advice from good pie crusts to being rid of aphids. Not to mention interviews with people like the Avett Brothers, ancient bluesmen, Maya Angelou or twenty-something organic farmers who have miraculously tamed the hard-baked red clay of Tennessee. Thumb-sucking monkeys need not apply. Some of us just defy demographic stereotypes.

Happiest Holidays!

2011-11-27T16:14:00.001-05:00

Some random thoughts for the holiday season:

Awhile back I wrote about Christmas decorations wherein I mentioned a neighbor's rather unfortunate creche scene made of molded plastic. The slightly less than life-sized figurines are lit from within. For several years their Mary glowed with an unearthly high wattage which we found rather unsettling and bizarre. Then last year her wattage was returned to a normal level to match the other figures and we were relieved. All that candlepower and we had feared a meltdown of great magnitude. Something on the order of an astronomical phenomenon :

A luminous Stella Maris,

Adrift down on Meadow View Terrace:

From dazzling luminosity

To fiery atrocity

Meltdown with supernova velocity.

This weekend the same neighbors erected their storied creche scene again. This year Mary is absent. Which lead us to wonder if Mary just stepped out for a much-deserved make-over and would be getting the band back together shortly? Or are these folks now making some other statement? Perhaps a super-duper, extra immaculate conception? Which lead to another spate of irreverent joking which all ran to speculation about their manger scene. Year-after-year the entire set-up lacks drama in the wooden shed manger prop, the wise men, baby Jesus, Joseph, the cattle and sheep figures are all there. Except they always seem to have pressed some drama upon poor Mary.

Away in a manger whence Mom has just fled...
Why is it that Mary either gets short shrift or conversely gets put so high on a pedestal? Either way negates her humanity and the enormity of what she accomplished in the Christmas story? She is the Sacajawea of Christmas. But come to think of it, being dismissive of the one huge facilitating character of the story or making Mary (or any other main character) so completely beggaring belief isn't terribly productive for maintaining market share or widening the brand in an age of caveat emptor.

As a character to a larger story, I have always thought Mary should be reserved as the patron saint for mothers of small children. That seems fitting. But these things are left up to the decree of men and so you know a really special deal for beleaguered moms would not be in the cards. Sacajawea got immortalized in coinage which nobody wants to accept because it is too easily mistaken for coins of lesser value. Mary does slightly better.

So, with those general thoughts in mind, we speculated as to what may have transpired which has caused Mary's absence to the nighttime holiday glow around the corner from us:

The Grinch stole Mary.
It was Bingo night.
Mary works 2nd.
She ran to Walmart for diapers. (She previously sent Joe. He remembered the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, chip & dip and a six-pack of PBR --he is a carpenter after all--but forgot the Huggies).
She was admitted to the hospital as a result of being trampled, crushed and assaulted by crazed Black Friday shoppers at Walmart while buying Huggies.
Three little words: Girls. Night. Out.
She's got an invisibility cloak.
She stepped out for some Chinese take-out. You know, some exotic guys showed up unexpectedly with some fancy gifts (which were really nice and all) and being guys they then hung around watching football with Joe until suppertime. Frankincense is super nice but couldn't they have brought a casserole?
Mary decided this whole "Perpetual Virginity" thing is totally a bum deal, cooked up by a cabal of super rogue Promise Keepers guys with serious intimacy issues.
Joe had the brass to ask her what she'd done all day. So she smiled, got her coat, grabbed the car keys and went out. Maybe the answer will miraculously come to him.
Once again, the strong female character got written out of the script.

Here's hoping that their Mary returns really soon. A Christmas creche just isn't the same without Mom.
*****************

After the recent news featuring the crazed state that Black Friday shopping has become, wouldn't it be great to find a way to avoid it all, save more money, score much nicer gifts and enjoy a sane and meaningful Christmas? Why not just observe a very simple Christmas Day sans gifts? If you want to exchange gifts that require a trip to the mall and aren't organized enough to get your shopping completed by August, why not follow the practice in some other cultures of celebrating Christmas Day as a sober religious holiday and do the whole gift exchange on Epiphany? Epiphany, (or Three Kings Day as it is known in some cultures) is twelve days after Christmas and is the day which marks the appearance of the gift-bearing wise men. You know, those wise guys who forgot to bring that casserole?

Doing the whole Epiphany thing has the added benefit of scoring a gift-giver a bit more shopping time to find all manner of extra great retail deals after December 25. If one can wait until January, even more stuff goes on sale for much deeper discounts. This might not work well for people with children of the Veruca Salt variety who demand the same list of things that every other kid is demanding (plus a little bit more) because they have all been brainwashed by marketing gurus to want the same stuff from Santa on THE DAY. But for people who are game for celebrating this holiday on their own terms; who actually care about the original meaning of Christmas; generally adore sticking it to The Man; appreciate serendipity among amazingly great deals--Saks Fifth Avenue quality at Walmart pricing--what's not to love? Let's face it: Black Friday is for suckers.

As the ever sagacious Lucy Van Pelt once famous said: "Look Charlie Brown, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know." Indeed.

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

Yep! It is that time of year again! The Official Christmas Greetings Police are at it again. I witnessed my first anti-holiday outrage rant of the season last week. You know, the whole tiresome hoopla about stores wishing shoppers "Happy Holidays" instead of wishing "Merry Christmas"? Because we all know the only ones trampling one another at the mall for loot are Christians, right? Right?! The outrage has returned to pour self righteous ice water on the entire happiness of the holidays yet again. Oh, fiddlesticks! Won't some folks ever just enjoy the sentiment offered and leave it at that? This isn't an evil gummint plot to suck out your soul and replace your love of Jesus with a remote control device which will force you to worship Gaea, bow towards Mecca thrice daily or take the Christ out of Christmas. The problem isn't that someone else is playing the Grinch. The problem is when we ourselves forget to be Mary Lou Who.

I would like to helpfully point out to the hyper technicality driven Christians (or at least those who marinate on Fox News 24/7) that at the very root of the word holiday is a thought of the holy. The modern English word derives from the Old English word haligdæg which is the union of halig = holy + dæg = day. To wish someone "Happy Holidays" is to wish someone "Happy Holy Days". Since the Advent season just commenced on Sunday, November 27, we are now officially in a period of meditative contemplation of the coming Nativity. In other words: holy days. Plural. More than one. Apparently, the nit-pickers spent a whole lot of time asleep or throwing spit balls while sitting in Sunday School or catechism class. Or at least failed to learn the wisdom of Charles Schulz or Dr. Seuss while watching Christmas cartoons.

Beyond any of that, while living in a very diverse world, a retail establishment wishing "Happy Holidays" is just a lovely sentiment that graciously covers whatever special day(s) their customers might celebrate. And, in the most macro sense, isn't "the reason for the season" grace itself?

"He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. Maybe Christmas he thought...doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas perhaps...means a little bit more!"

I wish you all much peace, love, joy and laughter! Happiest Holidays to One and All!

Skipping the Light Fandango

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Unicorn hunted into extinction by literalists.

Dearest Readers: This blog will continue but at a slower pace of posting for the near future. I love to write about everyday things from what friends say is my irreverent and off-beat perspective. Or for that matter, for anyone else who cares to drop by to join the foolishness. But I have some other things on my plate and up my sleeve right now. Pardon the mixed metaphor. What goes on my plate quite often ends on my sleeves. I am hoping to venture forth with some new opportunities within the realm of what I am trained to do and what I have been told I am good at. (Well, besides leading a double life as Madame Plum Tasty, aka "the thinking man's smart ass".) I am taking a leap and hope where I land isn't filled with briers.

Many thanks to everyone for reading my stream of nonsense-ness. I was reluctant at first to engage in blogging (as it strikes me as quite narcissistic) but very glad a handful of insistent friends kept after me until I took the plunge. Aside from thinking nobody in their right mind would care to read my rambling pondering, I also knew my style to be more of a wild synthesis of weird stuff which tends to accumulate into one quasi-salient point...eventually. But it takes time for me to build my case--which is always something much larger than a stupid story about myself. (How does one make points about the human condition by using examples inherent in other people whilst being a total smart ass without being a complete jerk? So, one uses one's own experiences as fodder and risks the narcissist label. Sometimes you just can't win.)

Most people don't have the time, patience, or (dare I flatter myself?) wide curiosity or native intelligence to wade through such a riotous assimilation of disparate parts to reach the conclusion which does tend to tie the parts together in most cases? I am the first to admit that my work is an acquired taste. We are a culture accustomed to the quick and obvious punch line; fast food writing. I love the journey, the chase, the act of savoring. Nonetheless, it has been a whole lot of fun and will continue to be so--just maybe not delivered with such frequency.

It was so thrilling to realize that I have readers who have no reason to indulge me so I began to keep a list of the countries represented. But then thinking that rather too self-involved and vain, I let it go. But the list got to somewhere around thirty different nations when I quit paying much attention. Outside the US, the most frequent and a few of the most recent hail from: Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Netherlands, India, Slovenia, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Palestinian Territories, Philippines, Indonesia and Brazil.

Ooh. Real readers! So now my friends are urging me to write a book. I am seriously thinking about it. I just need to figure out how to start. I am sort of like a full beer keg on a hill: Once you get me rolling, I am off and unstoppable. But doing the heave-ho to get to the edge and commence the plunge to the abyss below? Eh. Not so easy. It isn't because of my innate slacker ways but rather Newton's First Law of Motion and all of that. Who am I to too brashly challenge the immutable laws of physics?

Unfortunately, when I allowed myself to be seduced to this new Blogger format, I had no idea it would be such a pain in the neck, failing to load correctly, cutting off or squishing photos when viewed via certain browsers. It was billed as "new and improved". Oh well, live and learn. (If you experience formatting problems, just try refreshing the page.) Progress is never easy. So, I thank you all! I have no intention of going anywhere but in case you notice a slowing of posts, you will know I am doing other creative things--some of which will be just a skosh less ridiculous than this. But with any luck they will pay more than this gig.

As long time friends and readers will know, once upon a time ago I studied classical organ but gave it up as the pedal work just got too much for my elfish legs when it became readily apparent they were not going to accommodate me by growing any longer ( my legs--not the pedals). Energetically working two feet simultaneously on a full pedal board while working both hands is rather difficult. To facilitate an adequate reach, one has to adjust the seat as low as it will go yet still enable one's elfish arms to reach the keyboards. And then hang on for dear life with the very bottom edge of your butt cheeks and hope you don't slide off right in the middle of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor which tends to change the mood from, oh say, Bela Lugosi to the Marx Brothers. Such "foolishness" tends to seriously piss off organ tutors. I always imagined one day, due to no fault of my own, I'd screw up once again and I'd begin to hear this.

Effective progress required frequent practice at a never-quite-empty church sanctuary on their full scale organ. And lacking a vehicle, that required walking a few miles on very inhospitably busy roads to accomplish my after-school practice. In winter that meant well after dark. Uphill both ways in a blizzard too. Since my mother was super neurotic about my riding a bicycle on busy, pedestrian-unfriendly streets (among other things), I accomplished this on foot. After a full day of experiencing the beat-down of school, there is nothing like schlepping not only school gear but a music portfolio on foot, avoiding huge piles of plowed snow along the roadside to my next beat-down, wherein I would find myself critiqued by the disembodied voice of the tone deaf cleaning lady buried somewhere in a sea of empty pews. Then return home to queries as to why I hadn't completely my homework yet. Bah. It sucks to be a nerdy teenager.

I don't know how short people who lack a rotund, bench-gripping butt effectively play the pipe organ. I guess like me, they don't. Better to just quit before one needs that Requiem Mass for the last movement to the grand opus beat-down of them all: facing the parents after a note home from the organ maestro from hell.

So for those reasons I ended my budding organ career. Well, for all of those reasons and the fact that I got tired of boys making lewd jokes about my playing the pipe organ and suggesting I come over to their house and play theirs. Beavis and Butthead can turn even stuffy sheet music titles and references of seriously geeky musical instruments into all sorts of tiresomeness. You take a bashful nerd with hobbit legs, weekly music beat-downs, add those sorts of comments and what results is a redder shade of red every other day. Then, not knowing how to retort to such comments, one gets labeled "stuck up". Maybe Randy Newman had a point.

So, how can someone so immersed in classical and sacred organ music from a tender age fail to appreciate J.S. Bach (even as one is secretly loathing him), the demigod of baroque organ music? But even more so, how can that same someone fail to appreciate the fine musicality of classic rock--music from one's own lifetime? Music which in the words of the mavens of American Bandstand "has a good beat and you can dance to it"? Music is music after all. One would have to be an inbred numb skull, organ nerd or not, to miss the classical pedigree of so much modern music.

One of my favorite classic rock melodies is Procol Harum's 1967 classic A Whiter Shade of Pale. Those who who know me will readily attest to the fact that title might be an apt descriptor for yours truly--well, at least when I am not turning a redder shade of red. The organ solo part is kind of an homage to Air on a G String (tee-hee) from Bach's Orchestral Suite #3 in D Major but slightly more groovy.

Anyway, somehow I unexpectedly stumbled upon this video and I found it incredibly beautiful. (All of the above ramblings to explain why.) And since having absolutely nothing worthwhile to say today (which by now has become readily apparent), I hope you all enjoy watching and listening to the below video as much as I did: First, an orchestral intro composed of that same Bach work, then played in counterpoint to Gary Brooker singing Whiter Shade of Pale forty years on without any loss of vocal power or depth.... pure magic.

You have to give it to those old English bands. They were more than a collection of lads who just happened to know five guitar chords. But rather, are former English schoolboys who obviously learnt proper music in an old school way as I did--and perhaps once carried their sheet music around in a nerdy music portfolio tied up with a cord--something which rings a certain note of familiarity to music lesson nerds everywhere even on this side of the nerd pond. I'll bet there were times when they too turned a redder shade of red at the hands of their youthful peers or stern music master. But unlike the rest of us, they seemingly grew up more than just okay. They went on to write gorgeous melodies with enigmatic, yet incredibly seductive lyrics about things that back in the day tended to make English schoolboys and American schoolgirls blush twelve shades of crimson--not completely because of pasty white skin.

But the moral of the story is that if one must resort to ribaldry, couch it in lyrical poetry set in baroque form perhaps but with haunting and mystical romantic allusions to vestal virgins, mermaids, (heck, throw in an elusive unicorn or two) even as one obliquely references the naughtiness found in Chaucer's miller's tale. The form may be pure Bach but the lively spirit more Mozart. Kindred spirits who comprehend such expressions well past literalism, will give you high marks for your attempt at a higher, artsier form of yuk, yuk, yuk. And, who knows? It just might be enough artfulness for you to score whether you are the lead singer in a rock band or not. When all pretense is stripped away, isn't "scoring" always at the core of human impulse? And that, dear ones, is why back in the day the fellows who could tell a tale as noble and courtly as Chaucer's knight (i.e. sans tasteless ribaldry, halitosis or chronic body odor) almost always got the girl. A note to Beavis and Buttheads everywhere: Scoring is a two-way street.

A fail-proof axiom of life: "Know thine audience" is the conjoined twin of "Know thyself".

Which induces me to wonder if this particular performance is any measure of what is on offer in Denmark on a regular basis? (Along with their truly stellar ham and utterly civilized civic life?!) I am tempted to channel my inner mermaid and move to that lovely nation which merrily floats on the sea. Especially the way things are headed here given so much abject numb-skullery set loose at every turn in my beloved country. We have become a nation wherein the kind of boys who ask "But can you play my organ?!" all too often appear to be fast-tracking to the top. And they resist taking Nein, nein, nein as an answer. Excuse my abysmal ignorance. I have so many things twirling in my head right now. Oops!

And if that weren't enough, we don't even come close to doing such lovely touches to a concert venue as an orchestral tent reminiscent of a jousting tournament. But I seriously doubt the Danes have room (or patience) for one more insane American ex-pat with a damaged psyche from too many youthful beat-downs. Most especially another smart ass--not even one who might appeal to thinking men. Not even one who in a pinch can reference classical literature, music or art in which to tart up, uh, I mean, to ennoble the ribaldry? Not even one already dwelling at the spectral end of the whitest shade of pale?

Too bad. If romanticism is out of my reach, I guess I'll just have to go for baroque.

Guru Hound

2011-11-14T16:17:00.001-05:00

The birthday girl

Q: How does a lop-eared, cerebrally challenged beagle celebrate her fourteenth birthday (that's ninety eight years in people years) on a candy-licious day like Halloween?

A: However she jolly well pleases! She lapped up one of her new favorite sweet treats in the form of a pile of effervescent watermelon flavored hot pink Pop Rocks and then feverishly begged for more! After they were gone she spent the rest of the afternoon trying to dislodge the sticky remnants from her snout and floppy ears tips. Her afternoon of bliss!

Sure, candy isn't good for her but she's lost most of her teeth so at this point, we aren't too worried about what four out of five dentists might recommend about preventing tooth decay.

It can't be a problem for something which simply does not exist.

She beat the long odds a long time ago and deserves to enjoy whatever melts her sugar now including novelty candies.

Elsie Mae is a terribly inbred country beagle we adopted from a farmstead which dated from somewhere just this side of the American Revolution on the backside of nowhere just beyond a hamlet called Fingerville, South Carolina; a town which for all casual appearances may have adopted its name from a gesture waved in its general direction. It is a place in which modernity seems to have purposefully side-stepped. But the residents seem perfectly contented to have been side-stepped.

Tiny Elsie came home with us the same day we went out to the farm to make inquiries about their beagles on offer. She was too young to leave her mother and being the runt of the litter plus scared of her own shadow only made matters worse for poor little Elsie Mae. She came to live with us from the world of possum and raccoon hunts, canines who ride in the back of rusty pick-up trucks to reside in town on a boulevard street known for debutantes and mint julep cups and rides to the vet in a late model import. The first few weeks her constant mournful cries would have melted even the Grinch's heart. But in time she got comfortable with her new family even as she contentedly rode around with me throughout the day in a special pocket I sewed into an old apron so she could feel safe. It wasn't that I intended to dote on her so completely but I could not tolerate another second of the mournful cries in order to leave the room to answer Mother Nature much less concentrate on intricate artwork with all of that wailing. Thus the apron compromise. The farm lady had flatly said that had we not taken her that very day she'd have been put down. So we figured taking her home too young was better than the alternative.

You can take the good ole gal out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the good ole gal. On her first visit to the veterinarian we were informed in the most matter-of-fact manner that the reason for her horribly occluded overbite was that her family tree didn't have but one branch. There was never any illusions about her pedigree or breed standards or ability to survive on the farm as a dog too timid to hunt, but there was never any question of her sweet nature and comical personality. She isn't anywhere near the sharpest knife in the drawer but she has always been a loyal companion. And so if she wants Pop Rocks on her special day...or to mooch half of my sandwich, who am I to deny such a good-natured buddy?

But as she has aged, she has increasingly adopted the temperament so common with advanced geriatric patients: occasional confusion, lethargy, halitosis which could derail a freight train, unprovoked snappiness, general geezer peevishness, a touch of incontinence and prolific farts casually trumpeted somewhere in the basso profundo range--deadly reekers an enormous ruffian longshoreman might proudly claim.

For all of the grand patience required to cope with her growing senility, she offers shining moments when I truly admire her. I envy her growing indifference to other annoying dogs. Neighbors on both side of us have two large, very vocal and jealously possessive dogs. And each set seem to claim our property as an annexation of their own respective domain--we live in the overlapping subset of their territorial Venn diagram. Poor little non-threatening Elsie Mae goes out for a quick little old lady tinkle and her presence begins a chorus of deep-throated, punkish bully-boy woofing grandly amplified in surround sound. But kudos to toothless granny Elsie Mae. She is wholly secure in her domain and doesn't pay them one bit of mindfulness. As they yap themselves almost to grand mal seizures, she calmly and slowly takes her time picking out a spot in the grass to water. Then, languorously conducts her olfactory surveillance of the margins of shrubbery frequently marking her approval of the nocturnal movements of the neighborhood deer, rabbits and fox. She is the grand dame, regal at her leisure amid the furious barking. I suspect that amid all of her assumed slow hillbilly ways, her inbred Ernest T. Bass hound dog tendencies, she knows exactly what she is doing, gesturing not a low-brow Fingerville one-finger salute, but a royal, back-of-hand gloved wave to the commoners yapping just beyond the margins of her realm.

And that my friends is the exact effect I hope to adopt as age continues to creep up on me. "Y'all yap all you want, knuckleheads, knock yourselves out--I will take my sweet time. Yap some more and I will adopt an increasingly infuriating slowing pace." That is more and more my mantra as the incurably impatient buzz around my margins in futile attempts to hurry at breakneck speed to the next traffic light where I will pull up along side them and give a pleasant little wave. Bless their hearts. Miz Elsie Mae is a true southern belle. She's perfected passive aggression to a high art form and I am in complete awe. I have not yet attained such perfect age-induced zen as has Miz Elsie but I am diligently working on it.

So the other day I spotted utter perfection in the form of a bumper sticker for the metaphysical space I dearly wish to inhabit. Riddle me this, Batman: If a twit honks in the woods and nobody is around to hear, does his horn make a sound? What is the sound of one horn honking in a vacuum? Can I successfully negate the very existential being of incarnate rudeness via simple blissful denial? Hey Y'all! I may be onto something new and powerful up here in Yankeeland! I have imported the elusive white kid glove-encased iron fist of Mama.

Mercy me. I do believe I am blissfully driving behind the PennDot road crew transcendental idealism truck on the Turnpike of Life which is blinking "Follow Me" in dazzling wattage. And all y'all behind me? Hummm-- I ain't hearin' a thing, Sugah! De Nile ain't just a river in Egypt, friend.

We live too close to New Jersey to avoid a spill-over effect of those who in an identical fashion as our neighbor dogs' constant yapping reaffirmation of their raison d'être, employ frequent exuberant honking and gesturing as acolytes of the Jersey Turnpike philosophy: "I tailgate/honk/flip the bird; Therefore I am". They honk for no other apparent reason. They honk for you to hurry up when your progress is wholly determined by the guy ahead multiplied by an incalculable number of others. They race around you gesturing wildly just to race up to the tail of the next guy and repeat the process. To infinity and beyond. See ya at the next traffic light, Sug.

That guy used to unsettle me and make me feel inadequate as a driver and human being. That guy turns up so many more places than the highway. And, since my existential odometer reveals I am now past being under warranty and I have lost most of my blue book value, while still reliable, I am now a metaphorical beater: the perfect car for sticking it out there and assertively merging into heavy traffic. I've got enough dings one more won't make much difference, pal! So, yeah, I think I can conquer this thing. Go ahead, honk and make/or not make my day since you simply don't exist! I am the master of my day, wholly unmoved by someone who simply does not exist! Whaddyagonnado?! Eh?!

Merrily we roll along: driving while in the High Awareness Vehicle lane of life...Elsie-ism: Mom's newly adopted Swedish station wagon dialectic of being. Ja. Now all I need is a bag of cookie treats and a sippy to-go cup of tea for dwelling in perfect nirvana-tude with absolutely nobody in my rear-view mirror crawling up my tailgate. It can't be a problem for someone who simply does not exist. Bliss.

Honk, honk...Ohm.

A Walk in the Woods

2011-11-12T17:09:00.001-05:00

Autumn is my favorite time of year for a walk in the woods. The seasonal color is rapidly fading and today was a brilliantly clear, warm day. The day just demanded a brisk hike up South Mountain!

I love this time of year when some brilliant color remains but no longer serves as the main attraction but rather as an occasional ecstatic punctuation for the bare trees foreshadowing the stark beauty of coming winter. The naked trees reveal the underlying structure of the woods--beauty with much less flashiness.

Autumn color is lovely, especially on such a radiantly sunny day. But color is transient-- coming and going with daylight and the seasons. Color and its changes are wholly dependent upon light.

The structural forms of the woods are less transient than the fashion show of seasonal color, changing almost imperceptibly over the span of years. Or in the case of glacial boulders, change occurs over geologic time. Only the dance of light and shadows make quick changes on its face--in fleeting time. The structures of the woods and their changes are wholly dependent upon time.

But occasionally, as made quite evident today, profound destructive changes can result quite swiftly from the power of a storm through such forces as wind, flooding rains or the incredible weight of deep, wet snow. Depictions of such damage-- huge trees uprooted or limbs ripped from their trunks-- are most often shown by showing severed parts lying on the ground. I think seeing where those parts once belonged and where they will be missed seems more appropriate. The painfully torn places where they were ripped away--much akin to a limb lost on the family tree--more profoundly speaks to loss. A live tree, as any live organism, can regenerate life, fill gaps, regain its health and find new vitality over time.

The woods change from the presence of man as well. Sometimes for good; sometimes for ill--not always immediately apparent. Sometimes the woods seem ambivalent to the presence of humans.

Fallen autumn leaves ride gentle currents in the air or in a stream, briefly pausing to be noticed individually for their brilliance before they resume their journey. One leaf is beautiful on its own.

Color and light. Form and structure. Forces of change and the relentless march of time. Take a hike in the woods. There is always something to see if you take time to look with more than just your eyes.

Cock-a-Doodle-Doo

2011-11-10T09:58:00.002-05:00

Tuesday was polling day here in my neck of the woods. We exercised our right by choosing members for our local school and township boards. Now it should be known quite frankly that while I try to stay abreast of the big issues of the day, I don't concern myself too deeply with this local stuff. I don't have a kid in school anymore and while I'd like to see myself as a thoughtfully engaged citizen, quite frankly, there is a whole lot about the local tit-for-tat which I find wholly mind-numbing.

I just can't quite find the energy to worry too much whether the township yard waste center no longer stays open late on Monday nights or whether the township volunteer fire department cuts back on hosting Santa in December at their monthly firehouse breakfast. Or, come to think of it, whether or not we can do whatever we jolly well please on the back of our property given that it has been deemed a wetland. Big whoop. Less to maintain or mow if we leave it as a natural buffer which is what it was intended for from the start. A healthier environment means a clean creek for us and everyone else downstream and healthy flora and fauna--including my beloved songbirds-- even if that means I can't turn it into my personal junk yard. Oh dang. I think we'll manage.

A few days before a local vote, I always do my homework about the issues. I read the candidates pages in the newspaper and ask a few questions. The choices usually become quite clear without a lot of mental strain. It usually isn't quite rocket science.

For a few months now, the local landscape has been downright littered with yard signs and campaign literature. What is wrong with our system when people running for the local school board in a quasi-rural area spend the kind of money required to print up slick campaign materials, yard signs and mailers--the sort of materials which were done up for statewide elections twenty years ago? I have also noticed over the years that those same folks, more often than not, tend to be the very same people spun up into a high holy froth about how their taxes are wasted. But they apparently think nothing of blowing a small fortune to keep my mailbox stuffed with their literature which goes straight from the mailbox to the dust bin. I have a strict policy which goes back about a decade (after living through a very distasteful campaign season) of never allowing campaign material over my threshold. Nothing puts my antennae up faster than a guy running for local dog catcher with a campaign budget worthy of a state-wide US Senate race.

I also hang up on pollsters and campaign callers. The get-out-the-vote busybodies also turn me off which is another residual effect from my days living in South Carolina. It seems like nothing short of intimidation when someone you know calls you up and hounds you all day on the hour on polling day because you've not yet voted by 10am. Yeah, well I am busy, okay? I failed to turn up at all more than once back in my southern days solely because of the sheer hounding. That's what you get from party workers when you cross their cock-sure attitudes and skill sets previously learned buttonholing for Jesus with the political world, folks. "You don't want to die unprepared--to suffer for all eternity if you don't make a decision and pull that lever right now, do you?!" Gotta go get that sticker of salvation on your shirt that says "I voted!"

I learned a long time ago that exercising my innate politeness by merely saying "No thank you" absolutely does not work with zealots. And, unfortunately, zealots seem to be running our asylum anymore, friends. Thank God these days for Caller ID and my large garbage bin conveniently on wheels! And the fact that up here in Pennsylvania they don't engage in phone harassment. Woe be unto the unfortunate and daft citizen who challenges the system. Or worse, God forbid the thought of calling foul on dirty tricks because then the dirty tricks arsenal will then be re-aimed to fire upon the private citizen without any sense of proportion--or decency. What on earth happened to basic respect? One only has to turn on the television to see any and all of that sort of thing in action right now. When the world of politics sheds the characteristics of aluminum siding sales, Myrtle Beach condo time share flim-flams or televangelists with serious anger management issues on behalf of guys with self-aggrandizing egos and outsized budgets, I might start listening more.

But after what I learned via last week's "cramming for exams", I might just rethink my policies. Oh, the soap-opera-worthy story lines I have been missing around here! I knew that some of the hard core Christian right wingers/ anti-gummint crusaders tend to diligently work toward stacking school boards but I had no idea how much jaw-dropping entertainment I was missing! But, odd characters worthy of a Dickens novel aside, the most interesting situation in these here parts, dear friend, is the one starring the guy who decided to run for township supervisor apparently independent of the backing of some larger interest group after running afoul of the township zoning officer over the chicken population on his property which is not zoned for agriculture. It should be pointed out we live in a rural township where having a few chickens for fresh eggs doesn't seem to be a huge problem. Lots of people keep horses and live the typical rural life. But this guy wanted to do a regular chicken farm operation in his backyard.

Apparently this fellow had never shown much interest in township business but suddenly he has found big government intrusion into life, liberty and the pursuit of chickens out here in the boondocks. He went on a jag and decided to run for office to slash the burdensome "regulations" and "wasteful government spending" going on right here in the form of too many government services such as the salary of the guy who runs our township snow plow or the budget item for the old man who mows the township baseball diamond? I have no idea what grand waste is going on out here where most of the work which gets done by our township is on a volunteer basis. Including our volunteer fire department which helpfully reminds us with the word volunteer right in their name. His platform also included rants about the dictatorial overstep of our local government which he deems "out of control" because of such fascistic demands as limiting the number of chickens one can keep on a residential property. He is of the opinion one should have the right to do anything one wants on one's property. Period. End of story. As if our property values haven't dropped enough already, this guy wants to pile on because who wouldn't want their neighborhood's well water contaminated with a large poultry operation's waste run-off?

Who knows? I may have been seduced to vote for him on an absurd whimsy if he demonstrated the cerebral nimbleness and wit to create a great campaign slogan which could incorporate his screed with the old "A chicken in every pot" promise or conjure up the imagery of Chanticleer (starring himself as the crowing rooster) versus ravenous Reynard the Fox (the cunning Big Brothers of the Dark Side). Or maybe just exhibited some measure of grace in explaining his point of view? But, unsurprisingly to me, that didn't happen as it seems crackpots and demagogues don't usually exhibit a sense of literary style, neighborliness or sly humor. But then again, neither do most politicians. Certainly not these days.

"I say, I say there Egghead, boy!"

Which brings me to the thought of the late Tip O'Neill and his famous line of "All politics is local" meaning that politics are mostly animated at the level where people dwell via the issues that enliven one's community and daily life down in the trenches. But sometimes they also serve as a thematic incubator or a bellwether for what ultimately goes national. I began to wonder whether this guy's platform resonated locally, might we be hearing from the chicken lobby as our national elections heat up? Would the electorate be treated to pithy quotes culled from the plum tasty writings of the sainted founding father of the chicken-lickin'-good state of Kentucky Fried? And once translated for the Latino vote, would all of it still resonate as some foundational principle of the American Dream or become nothing more than El Pollo Loco? Would partisans suddenly refuse to eat coq au vin in the Senate dining room, giving it the freedom fries treatment?

Would Rep. Foghorn Leghorn win re-election in a Texas-sized landslide? Would some naughty Family Values™ incumbent get caught in a public restroom somewhere out in fly-over country with his trousers around his ankles choking a few chickens? Would he drop out in shame or cockily continue the pose and strut by adopting Mick Jagger's Little Red Rooster as his campaign theme? Cock-a-doodle-dandy.

Would a new political hack-guru on the order of the storied Turd Blossom (who, come to think of it, does oddly resemble Foghorn's nephew Egghead) emerge on the scene? One who while plying all things foul, conjures the magical campaign fowl which lays the golden eggs? Pluck me and cluck me. The world will never know.

Sadly, our local would-be township hen house statesman and chicken rancher lost his crusade to restore freedom to limitless roosts everywhere when his opponent, a real farmer and volunteer fireman named George, bested him by a margin of 756 to 619. So much for "Don't Tread on Me" which has now flown the coop at least in our rural neck of the woods. While it truly should dismay everyone that such a non-serious person could garner more than a handful of votes from the perpetual angry-man constituency, thankfully more people than not care whether their neighbor can create an unregulated amount of chicken poop upwind of their dining room window so much they are willing to sacrifice their own "freedom" to likewise raise a stink on their own property for the reciprocal sake of their neighbor--even the angry chicken man-- patriotism and individual liberties notwithstanding. Not anywhere near our water table with your salmonella outbreaks, thank you very much.

To read the man's manifesto, one would be lead to believe that by imposing limits on poultry farming within a residential community, the handful of local volunteer public servant guys who uphold the local rules, including the ones concerning sanitation--Bob and Steve-- are lording their powers as they shove our sacred liberties down the slippery slope towards a sludgy farm waste pond of governance.

Horrors. First, the nanny state authorities come for your chickens. Next thing you know it, they've created some authoritarian fascist's gulag! Hm. Come to think about it, perhaps the gulag in question here is more like Tweedy's Farm?

Quick! Someone rent the man a copy of Chicken Run! Maybe what the hard-core red state folks need is a man like Rocky Rhodes, the Rhode Island Red on which to pin hopes! You can bet your drumsticks he is a real red-blooded American patriot. Youbetcha! He has "Red" right there in his name!

Wordlessness is Next to Godlessness

2011-11-04T14:19:00.002-04:00

So sue me. I have been accused of being wordy. Excuse me but I am of the opinion that words do matter. A lot of words matter a lot more. So there.

The other day I learned that the much anticipated fifth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary, a work ten years in the making, has finally been published and recently hit bookstore shelves. I am elated. My copy of the fourth edition seriously needs updating. The binding is getting a tad splayed, the title page has become irredeemably rumpled, some of the entries are a tad outdated and it lacks some newer entries. Sure, I can look things up online but it just isn't the same experience as flipping through the print edition--the unabridged one with the helpful finger tabs and full entries of etymologies and usages. I am one of those dinosaurs who simply could not live without a print dictionary. Life is too short to miss the richness of a real dictionary, friends.

We live in a time when caring about words, the full range of meanings, derivations, usage or the craft of writing is deemed fussy and old-fashioned. Modern electronic communication has rendered the use of the complete sentence downright quaint as we are now well into the territory of the incomplete word especially where texting has entered the picture. ( e.g. "R U OK? LMAO!!!")

The argument for abbreviated expression? Time. But, even while we can all agree than none of us escapes life at an increasingly harried pace, I would submit that the cashiering of grammatically complete written thoughts has lead to something more ghastly and fatal than a simple crunch of time or shorthand writing: incomplete, shorthand thinking.

And, it seems to me that the most valuable skill gleaned from the discipline of writing is ordered thinking. As we pare down our written verbalization, we are bringing to the art of writing the extemporaneous and often erroneous ways of casual, fleeting speech. As one orders one's thoughts on the page or the computer screen, one is first obligated to order them in one's head. (Does in fact B logically follow A? Does one's thesis hold water? Do the assumed supporting arguments uphold the claim? Has one considered all of the variables?)

Then, while writing them down, as one writes, one continues to rearrange and refine thoughts, bringing them more into agreement with not only the thing literally being communicated but the intended nuance and tone. But, in order to do any of that, one needs some facility with words as rudimentary building blocks and the construction methodology of writing with such building materials. How often are you seized with a thought or conceptualization of some thing only to realize while in the act of writing it out that it lacks coherence or, as the Brits might say, is complete and utter bollix?

Pardon the digression, but isn't bollix a great word? Americans should use it more often. It sounds perfectly adapted to its meaning and use. It is most properly used as a transitive verb but often casually used as a noun which quite usefully broadens its utility and appeal. According to The American Heritage Dictionary (Fourth Edition--Naturally, I've yet to drop the sixty bucks for the new edition), bollix means "to throw into confusion; botch or bungle: bollix it up". It turns out that it is also spelled bollox and is an alteration of ballocks, a term for testicles. Ooh, all of that only adds to its zesty word flavor, does it not?

I can hear the time and word minimalists now: "Who cares and what does any of that bollix have to do with the topic at hand?" Well, dear skeptic, I learned the nuances of bollix one day while looking up the meaning of the word bollard which my dear Mr. Plum Tasty used when referring to those upright barriers in front of our local Target store. Up until his usage, I had no idea those post thingamabobs had a name. As a Navy brat, he long ago learned that bollards are posts usually seen on wharfs or docks used to secure lines or hawsers.

Bollards? What are bollards? (For that matter, what the heck is a hawser?) He explained bollard to me but then commanded with a sly grin: "Look it up in your Funk & Wagnall's". Smarty-pants. He knows better than that. He knows full well that I prefer The American Heritage Dictionary.

And so when I bothered to look up bollard in my print dictionary, my eyes landed on the very next entry which happened to be bollitomisto: "A dish of vegetables and various meats simmered together and usually served with an anchovy-garlic sauce", which derives from Italian meaning mixed stew: bollito, stew + misto, mixed ". That sounds downright delicious! Which then lead me to the following entry: bollix. Had I looked bollard up online I would have missed the collateral learning opportunities to be found in a print dictionary.

Lacking an enriched vocabulary toolbox of glorious words not only hampers expression, I would argue it limits a richness or breadth of our very rudimentary thoughts. If you pardon me for borrowing the hallowed words of St. John for such a mundane topic: Consider that your words may become flesh and dwell among us (so to speak) in the form of thought made into action. Or not. Do you have words enough to challenge your own current thoughts and assumptions in a nuanced way? Are we rapidly losing the curiosity and vivacity needed to spend the extra few minutes it takes to expand our horizons in ways which don't always fit into what is expected of us on our mid-term exam or what we can itemize into billable hours?

All of that reminds me of what is so wrong with the way we learn and filter information these days. We have become so adept at "cutting to the chase"; cutting out the "superfluous"and demanding "just the facts, Ma'am", teaching kids only what we most intrinsically value. Which is to say, what blips of knowledge we can immediately plug into a winning test score or quick cash. We no longer teach our young how to learn (nor how to think) but rather a list of discreet factoids which are sure to be on the assessment tests or give them a short-cut to a qualification to get a job. We rather teach them what to think. So that they miss out on the inherent meaning of what the result of a formal education represents: the ability to ask pertinent questions, seek meanings and answers to solve problems. The learning process should be one of discovery by way of the great encounters to be had while in the act of looking things up, asking questions, searching in order to find, trial and error and along the way finding serendipity and enlightenment in discovery. But that is no longer the norm. First and foremost, we want our kid to have a paper that says Johnny is qualified, not necessarily that he actually is qualified. Perception is reality, baby. To hell with the actual perception of reality. We no longer require actual brilliance. Rather, we are satisfied so long as everyone believes us to be as brilliant as we ourselves think ourselves to be and we are compensated accordingly.

Socrates must be rolling in his grave.

And so, absent within the "educational" process, students then lose not only the ability to know how to independently seek and find or that such a quest devoid of tangible rewards holds any inherent value--should they not be blessed with an innate, incurably motivating curiosity. But rather they are left without any consciousness that such a path to discovery even exists. And sadly, they fail to cherish the richness of a life spent learning even while they are supposedly learning so as to make a living; wholly missing the stuff of a glorious world made up of myriad things which shall never appear on the omnipresent test or on the quest for the omnipotent dollar, but which are the ingredients for creating a life so much more educated, enriched and much more alive to plum tastiness: a veritable bollitomisto!

Bridesmaid Revisited

2011-10-25T12:51:00.000-04:00

Cousin Margaret's wedding c. 1966

Recently, Mr. Plum Tasty and I had the pleasure of attending a wedding. This event took place only days before I found myself rifling through some old family photos wherein I came upon several hilarious wedding photos from years past. Weddings can be so much fun: happy events where the entire family gets together to celebrate love and with a little luck some cake that isn't too dry and some champagne that is dry enough. But they can provide many good laughs for years to come as well.

All of my family album rifling got me to pondering a bit about the whole world of weddings. I wondered about any correlation between the astronomical sum some people spend and odds the match will end in divorce court. I wondered what ever happened to those gloriously simple 1960s weddings with the do-it--yourself spirit? You know, before weddings like the senior prom became a profit center and morphed into an industry rather than, you know, a solemn ceremony or a charming rite of passage?

Frankly, even the most ill-conceived homemade shoestring weddings have more charm than the most lavish society weddings. I have attended and I have been a bridesmaid in both variations. All things considered, I like the simple ones best. But then, you all didn't ask me, did you?

But a question most of us seem to inevitably ask at any wedding is what is up with the bridesmaid dresses? It does not matter if the wedding is low budget or high dollar. Quite frankly, every bridesmaid dress costs way too much. Then, every bride tends to add multiple insult to injury with bridesmaid fashion disasters. How many girlfriends of the bride have heard the dubious claim that the dress can be cut off and recycled into an all occasion number or a "cute" cocktail dress? Sure. Fat chance. Just like those matching satin shoes that remind one why the practice of binding women's feet fell out of favor somewhere along the Ming Dynasty.

Sweet ride!

What on earth were any of us actually thinking; those of us who have had our turn at playing the role of Bridezilla in the whole psycho-drama stage play known as Wedding? Why do girls inflict such disastrous fashion on their very best friends? In what ways are choices of bridesmaid dresses a bit of passive-aggressive retaliation--the surfacing of our latent mean girl? Let's face it, short of a royal wedding where the bridal party is dressed by a carefully chosen designer, minutely choreographed and coached, very few bridesmaids pass a rudimentary test of good taste.

The wedding that made a huge impression on my childish mind when I was about six was my second cousin Margaret's wedding. She had been a fine arts student at Berkeley and came home to the rural midwest to get married in full artsy student fashion: in a country church that exuded the "Here's the church and here's the steeple; open the doors and here's the people" vibe. White clapboard-sided. Simple stained glass neo-gothic windows straight out of central casting for the role of Church. That was the era when most newer suburban churches more closely resembled a bland medical clinic crossed with a space ship. Or were too deeply entrenched in the establishment of The Man for a pair of flower children, high on love. Even otherwise devout Methodists.

Guests in period clothing

Their friends, all artsy types, turned up in vintage clothes and antique cars. It was performance art at its very best and to a six-year-old, it was pretty awesome. The whole thing was a sort of precursor to the whole Little House on the Prairie aesthetic before it got too syrupy sweet. I fully admit it: I was charmed by the romance of it.

Most especially because they had some pretty good simple, hearty, home-made grub at their reception including Aunt Janet's cake. I seem to recall they skipped punch and served apple cider as it was an early autumn nuptial. The reception had a sort of barn dance vibe, no doubt the precursor to contra dances. But even for people who had more aesthetic sensitivities than most during that era, Margaret didn't avoid bridesmaid fashion disaster. The dresses weren't too awful for the 1960s but God only knows what she perched on their heads?

Channeling Carmen Miranda?

The next big wedding impression for me was my sister's wedding. It was my maiden voyage into the land of bridesmaid. Given that it was the late 1970s, the era of orange and brown and Superfly wide lapel tuxedos and butterfly bow ties, she was in the height of Brides Magazine and Gingiss fashions.

She dressed us in tangerine tiered dresses all the rage in the late 1970s, which required a poufy underskirt to help it pouf out even more. The girls looked vaguely like Gone with the Wind while the guys looked vaguely like something straight out of a blacksploitation film. A truly unfortunate pairing.

UGH!

And if the tangerine print dresses with little daisies all over it were not painful enough, she topped our heads with the quintessential hat of the decade: the floppy sun hat sprigged with (what else?) baby's breath. When the proofs came back from the photographer I realized I had been wholly duped--posed in a style I can only describe as 1970s Massengill Disposable Douche advertisement. The winsome, hazy photo of some young woman pensively touching flowers with some ridiculous tag line: "Fresh as a Summer's Eve". It would have only been made worse had I been standing out in the middle of a daisy-filled field instead of before my mom's draperies that somehow always reminded me of a bowling alley. And of course the iconic flower of freshness is none other than the daisy which were all over my dress.

Being the 1970s and wholly inspired by those hideous tuxedos, I think I swore an oath under my breath through a pleasantly clenched smile: "I'm gonna get you sucka". And lo, it came to pass that in a few short years sweet revenge was mine. All mine! Let it be known that I had a short-lived love affair with Oil of Olay pink in the 1980s. And it just so happened that dear Sis fairly well detested pink. Voila! That solved the wedding color motif issue!

So, I channeled a vague memory of Margaret's vintage wedding and managed to find a super great deal on a vaguely Edwardian style bride's dress well under budget right off the rack that fit me perfectly. Awesome! No bridal gown drama! But there tends to be a reason why dresses wind up on the markdown rack, friends. I was informed that it was from the spring collection and because of the long sleeves not appropriate for an August wedding. But, I countered, it is Edwardian! They didn't "do" short sleeves even in a heat wave back then. So I scored an out of season dress for less than 50% of the original price and it was exactly what I wanted. I actually paid more for the bridal native headdress. But, I am still wondering about my choice, good deal or not. We did manage to avoid the whole Superfly look on our guys by way of gray morning coats and wickedly handsome cravats. It takes a lot of effort--or simply the 1970s--to truly screw up menswear. Luckily, I got married in the 1980s!

My best friend shackled in pink pouf

But, the search for bridesmaid dresses was a tad problematic. I suspect my dilemma was the problem of all brides: the more tasteful look I was chasing ultimately eluded me due to budgetary issues, time constraints and being worn down by too many opinions and sheer annoyance. So the sleeves went from "spring collection" vintage dressmaker detailed with some tailored stuff like cuffs to, well, August flouncy poufiness. And getting caught up in the romance of the whole thing, I could not restrain myself from making up for it by trying too hard for the vintage thing with lace gloves, no doubt a precursor to my whole retro granny vibe still going strong to this day. Unfortunately, the end result was more the look of a child's First Communion.

Like all brides, I just could not help myself with what later can only be described as the "What in the Sam Hill was I thinking?" enlightenment. Every bride who is even marginally self-aware tends to have such an a-ha moment sometime after the photographer's proofs arrive.

The most unfortunate part was that not only was my pink poufy bridesmaid fashion disaster payback, at the same time I was ensnaring myself by paying it forward because caught in the web was my best friend from childhood, next door neighbor and maid-of-honor. The pink pouf befell the wicked and just alike.

So naturally, a few years later she got me back by asking me so sweetly to wear a dress I can only describe as Miss Kitty, saloon dance hall girl mashed up with prom queen Paramus High, New Jersey, circa 1986. We went from not so pretty in pink to terrible in teal. Cotton lawn and pearl buttons gave way to satin diagonally hemmed can-can skirt. Vintage to vixen. Demure to diva. Hey, Bridesmaids-R-Us: we got it all covered. She was no more a girl suited for Oil of Olay pink than I was a girl in search of a bustier.

Buffalo Gal?

But she had even more reason to lay that fashion disaster on her attendants as she knew us so well. And we lived up to her expectations horridly serenading her on her way to the chapel with an unfortunate rendition of the Dixie Cups doo wop hit Going to the Chapel. For that alone, I deserved teal satin, matching pantyhose and shoes... and the need for a strapless bra that needed hiked every ten minutes which made sociable dancing a tad problematic. She got me good. Best friend: 14. Me: 0 She even scored both field goals.

As it was, the Night in Teal Satin had me coming perilously close to a wardrobe malfunction while dancing with my groomsman escort, a guy at least a foot taller than me who given his basketball player legs dragged me around the dance floor while the wedding party attempted a slow dance for the happy couple. I needed five steps for his one. We'd have done better if he'd have let me stand on his feet as he danced, little kid style.

So, I bowed out when the Rick Astley, Kool & the Gang, Foreigner, Kenny Loggins, Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran tunes cranked up for fear of a truly flopping décolletage fashion disaster illuminated under spotlights and a sparkly disco ball somewhere inconveniently too close to Father Tony. Here I am, every bit the boring and repressed WASP valiantly trying to participate in the festive spirit at a Big Fat Chicago Polish-Italian Wedding shindig of an only child without looking like the Super Tramp in the room, wholly not of my own doing. News flash: If your bridesmaids actually need a brassiere, don't put them in fashions that tend to illuminate that feature so prominently and then induce them to sportingly keep up with the dancing abandon of your overly-lubricated Uncle Stan.

Bridesmaid swansong

I didn't want to be a party-pooper eschewing a dance floor Celebration by failing to cut Footloose. But neither did I want to spend the evening Living on a Prayer. So, in true 1980s style, like a Flock of Seagulls, I Ran. (Holy Electric Slide, Batman. It was an exhausting decade and even more of a fraught evening!) But, I confess. I had it coming. All of that was all well deserved payback for the pink poufy and my nauseous singing. But, I'm wholeheartedly in agreement with Cher: If I Could Turn Back Time! The pink poufy would have been another one biting the dust or I'd have been back to the future so as to pack some all-purpose duct tape for impromptu foundational help.

Actually, had I really turned back the clock and taken my dad up on his offer of a pile of cash and a brand new extension ladder if we'd just elope, I would have been so much ahead of the game. That would have been the smart move. No lingering photographic evidence either.

So, thankfully the next couple of weddings which required my participation did not include any well deserved payback. Happily, I ended my bridesmaid career wearing sedate lavender. Cyndi had it right: Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Sure we do! Even the bashful ones--we of the Nordic ice queen set. Sometimes it is an uphill climb but sometimes we manage that quite splendidly via the revenge of the bridesmaid and a glass or two... or five of dry champagne.

Veggin' Out

2011-10-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

A part of the last haul of the season from our farm share.

Yesterday I picked up the last haul of veggies from our CSA farm share. I've preserved all of what I planned to do--either by canning or prepping and freezing. Despite all of the horrible weather we've had this year, the farm has managed a decent harvest. The last few days we enjoyed what I'll bet is our last hurrah of sunshine and shorts/sandals weather. Today it is damp, chilly and feels like autumn as I sit here in my favorite wool sweater, sipping some Irish tea steeped so strongly it just might put hair on my chest.

The carpenter turned up to rebuild our fireplace surround and mantle so when we crank up the fire we won't have to stare at the old one which was a total disaster. Seven years of staring at that wood shop class reject is quite long enough, friends. I am a patient woman but even I have my limits. And Hurrah! I am sitting here staring at a pile of great looking veg!

I've already earmarked the green tomatoes for some fried green tomatoes for Mr. Plum Tasty. The butternut squash will mostly be turned into soup. I found a great recipe this summer for chard cheese bake which I will tweak by using kale. I'm not a big fan of chard or kale but when you lace the dish with onions, garlic and a zesty mix of Italian cheeses, even I want seconds.

The sweet potatoes will make some lovely tater dishes or even a sweet potato pie which just might be enough to induce Mr. P. Tasty to crank up his lovely tenor voice to sing for the cook. I can turn the Irish potatoes and leeks into some more wonderful soup. (Who can resist soup at this time of year?) I hate to cut up the delicata squash as they are so beautiful but they'll make some even yummier stuff. As much as we eat peppers, onions, garlic and shallots, it won't take long to polish off this last haul of them.

The farm share introduced me to hakurei turnips (aka Japanese salad turnips) which as the name implies are often sliced and eaten raw on salads. I don't usually like turnips of any variety but these are delicious. They have a peppery flavor. I have devised a couple of favorite ways to cook them. One, mixed with diced potatoes and onions, skillet cooked like hash browns in some garlic-laced olive oil or butter and topped with some delicately-flavored fish fillets to steam for a one skillet dinner. And the other, a skillet-cooked mix of hakurei and french green beans, butter, bacon, a dash of chicken stock, thyme and a little splash of white wine. (A little for the pan and a little more for the cook.)

But the thing that I am sitting here thinking about is our favorite autumn creamed vegetable soup. It has quite an ingredient list but it is incredibly easy and very satisfying on a day like today. The only thing I lack is a rutabaga and a parsnip but I think I can manage a batch without them anyway!

Autumn Veggie Soup

2 large carrots
1-2 celery stalks
1/2 +/- pound mushrooms
1 turnip, peeled
1 onion, peeled
1/2 bunch of leeks-white part only
1-2 potatoes
1 handful parsley
2-3 cups chopped plum tomatoes
1 small squash (like a zucchini etc)
1 parsnip
1 small rutabaga, peeled
2 quarts chicken stock
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp basil
1 Tbsp tarragon
1/2 tsp chervil
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
6 black peppercorns
1-2 cups heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste

Coarsely chop all vegetables and saute them in a large stock pot with some butter. Add the rest of the ingredients except the cream. Simmer the soup til all vegetables are soft about 45 minutes. Purée in batches in a food processor or blender. Add the heavy cream. Adjust seasonings. Serve very hot. This soup tastes even better the day after you make it so it is great to make and reheat!

Serve with a crusty loaf of your favorite rustic bread and a nice Riesling (slightly sweet and fruity) or a not-too-dry hard cider which compliments the soup quite nicely which couldn't be better suited for this time of year.

Just Kidding! LOL!

2011-10-18T09:50:00.000-04:00

Who's on First?!

What is it with Americans these days? Whether in written online communication or spoken, people have this unparalleled need to end an otherwise witty jest with a "Just kidding" or "LOL". Pardon me if I sound like an annoying geezer who compares everything current to the golden old days. But honestly, I don't recall the universal requirement of so earnestly clarifying one's intentions while joking twenty years ago.

The best snappy repartee of old films don't punctuate each volley with "just kidding". Heavens. What a dreary, dreadful world that would be! Indeed, a dreary world such as the situation in which we now find ourselves rather than closer to the bright, sparkling wit of a Noel Coward play. Sure, that sort of dialogue has never been real but there was a time when smart people aspired to the skill of such brilliant conversation.

Today, conversations more closely resemble the inanity of a fourteen-year-old's texting or the kind of belligerent verbal violence of the comments section following any given online news article. On websites of serious newspapers it takes a few comments before the remarks derail into the realm of the personal and seriously ugly; in the world of online news forums there lacks even the courteous foreplay before the venom commences. Which is why I don't read anything beyond the New York Times anymore. Agree or disagree with their editorial point of view if you wish but they have kept their site from morphing into the equivalent of a biker bar on mud wrassslin' Wednesdays.

As a society are we now incapable of discerning light wit and humor from angry bilge?

This is the very reason I love towel-snapping and banter with my friends over the pond where even heated debate still contains some sparkling wit amid the thrust and parry. This earnestness and inability to immediately spot jesting humor seems to be mostly a contemporary American affliction. Does the root problem lie in poor construction of jokes by way of our inartfulness with language or rather in a public which has utterly lost its sense of humor? Can we not spot humor in the mundane even if not in our own sacred cows-- which is where the very best humor has always been mined? When did we lose our self-deprecating humor and begin taking ourselves and our culture way too seriously?

We get offended when someone says the F word but we aren't nearly as offended when someone has that F word violently done to them. What is up with that? Violence of action is less offensive than the words on the speech police list? Really?

Please spare me the thesis that our country is under duress. Look at the Irish. They have been under duress most of their history yet they are some of the most witty people on the feckin' planet, mate. Their Celtic Tiger came crashing down around their ears, they teetered on the brink of national default but they took drastic steps, took their lumps like men--which seems to be in their DNA--and have moved ahead. And their recovery just may be a tad ahead of our own. Fair play to 'em. If things here deteriorate more, I might just up-sticks and join them. The world can go to hell in a curragh but the ride might not be so bad given some sparkling dark gallows humor, lively music and a wee pint.

Last year while towel snapping about baseball with a friend and her California cohort on her Facebook page, (okay, that's the dead give-away where this story is headed) some guy she knew from high school (which she later confessed used to be a hilarious guy-filled with rollicking good humor) started giving me massive grief about my joking about the off-the-wall stylings of certain San Francisco Giants pitchers. I think I made some silly comment about hot players verses the ones that might be exceptionally talented but are scary looking.

As I recall my existentially offensive thought stream, my comments were so obviously ridiculous and light-heartedly silly that anyone--anyone--would know right away that it was all in good-natured jest. Well, apparently not everyone. And for some reason the guy latched onto my comments when his hair-trigger of offense could have found plenty to misconstrue with any bit of any of our rollick. When offense was loudly claimed, I quickly replied that I didn't mean to offend and was just being silly. But given his aggressive claim of victimhood, I wasn't about to concede that I was intentionally being nasty or bigoted for calling out what amounted to fashion crimes and then distastefully grovel for it. Far from it, pal.

I think the offending comment was that I personally find that one Brian Wilson, Giant's ace pitcher, has a sort of pirate creepiness to his look and I hated to see baseball turn into a oneupsmanship of side show bizarreness where guys started doing the whole goth or punk thing in a serious way by punching holes in their heads and skin art all over themselves like some other professional sports have in the US of A. Or turn the game into a vehicle for heightened celebrity stunts. Call me seriously retrograde but baseball and punk somehow does not work in my middle-aged geezer mind. The NBA and Dennis Rodman? Yeah, sure. The NBA is already gone beyond that brink but please not our pleasant afternoon in the sun! My point was that personal expression of style is all fine and good but when you are a part of a team, wearing a uniform and all of that, perhaps all of the bizarro stuff was best kept to one's personal time. What happens in the off season can stay in the off season but when you are a part of something larger than yourself, even if you are a star, its not about you.

Which made me a sexist pig, homophobic and "judgmental". All claimed by a guy more comfortably into geezerhood than myself so it wasn't an generational issue. Me thinks I touched a California nerve. But if I am forced to confess such sins for voicing a dislike for athletes who moonlight as fashion hot-dogs then I was determined he must likewise concede membership in the perpetually offended, thick-skulled, thin-skinned club, oh they who couldn't detect joking if it bit them in the ass.

As an aside, I wondered why is it that the bulk of oddities in personal stylings are most often found on pitchers? Are pitchers the hot dogging test pilots of baseball? Is all of the unnatural shoe-polish black dyed hair, goofy facial hair, necklaces made of nautical rope of a gauge meant for docking large, ocean-going container vessels and weird personal ticks solely meant to distract and creep out batters? In which case, might not that reasonably be seen by some as a bit of unsporting behavior? What's next? Googly-eye glasses on batters for a reverse courtesy creep-out? Or posting a pin-up poster of necked girly pictures (or whatever appropriate variant given various proclivities) behind home plate? Really? Just play the darned game, guys. Let's not turn our national pastime into Jersey Shore or Pimp My Hair. Although, the way things are headed, maybe that would be more apropos?

To me, some of Wilson's stylings verge on the kind of creepy stuff you see on prison inmates or biker gangs. I'd kind of expect maybe next season he might try tattooing eyeballs on his eyelids or tats on his fingers that spell out S-P-I-T-B-A-L-L or some other ballpark taboo.

So anyway, this guy just utterly flipped out. Claims he was grossly offended at this and is outraged with my "bigoted" comments. So after sussing out the situation-- that he wasn't being as facetious as I was, and giving a sincere apology for offense taken as none was intended and thus the apology being rebuffed, I replied that in all fairness, the only fans who really should get dibs on outrage are Chicago Cubs fans. But, being Cubs fans--most especially the famed Bleacher Bums--are way too patient which must infer some level of saintliness or, well, martyrdom and therefore negate any possibility of twisted knickers over minor humor offenses.

Cubs fans are like the Irish. They find a way to relish the game even if their team is last in the standings. And since I was a congenital Cubs fan I would not take offense at him or his overreaction. If I could not be offended at such a long losing streak as the Cubs have maintained, heck, by definition as a sport fan with a permanent "Kick Me" sign attached, there was not much which would offend me. But, that said, I was not going to give him quarter to continue his outrage-a-thon. Perhaps such verbal gun-play is never well advised but some days you just need to strap on your holster and six-shooter and step onto Main Street, pardner. If you engage with a bunch of middle aged women who are happily smoking and joking about baseball, get with the program, pal. If you can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen, or take what you deserve: the high dudgeon of ridicule from a quick-drawing, razor-tongued harpy.

Well, despite the kindest words of "sorry to offend you-- we were just goofing", the guy finally told me he hoped I contracted some gross disease and died a painful death. All because I commented on baseball millionaires who don't respect the game enough to keep it about peanuts and Cracker Jack and the kids who turn up to catch fly balls and not who can sport the most outlandish hair. I will not apologize for that sentiment.

So, he got kicked off my friend's page and I was left speechless at such a level of contemptible bile and hate from a guy who claimed joking about creepy tattoos is "hate speech". Really?! But I refuse...refuse...to surrender good humor and rollicking fun to comport with the extortionist demands of such people who send out heat seeking missiles, on search and destroy attacks on frivolity. All you humorless fundamentalists who refuse to enjoy comic timing or California left coast thought police who've skipped your meds, beware. Mama's packin' the heat of hollow point humor and menopause. All of us folks stuck in the middle between such inability to roll easy need to stick together. If for nothing else, for the sake of the hallowed punch-line of sanity.

Back in the day, people were cognitively capable and dispositionally willing to discern good natured ribbing and joking. Now, people, even after lengthy explanations and graceful backpedalling still go ballistic as if it is their hereditary right to offense and injury. A former minister once referred to such people as "professional weaker brothers". They require their humor handicap to become everyone else's burden. When I hit forty, I decided I no longer wished to play along with that societal pathology.

Which seems to me why so many of the rest of us feel compelled to end even the most slight jest with "Just kidding" as a legalistic disclaimer or outrage missile defense shield. Even amid obviously absurdist comments so blatantly meant in jest that if uttered in seriousness would suggest one is a psychopath. Have we become more conditioned to see our neighbor more as a psycho than a joker? Really?! Friends, I can't help but think that this says something dark about our culture. We've surrendered to the sour-puss special interest groups who ironically seem to harbor no disinclination to lash out with "I hope you die soon" retorts. The joke's on them though because while we will all die on a day not of our own choosing, it is fully within our own free will whether we die laughing or not.

The ubiquitous but utterly meaningless "LOL" could stand for "Laughing out Loud", "Lots of Luck", "Little Old Lady" or "Lurch Off, Loser". Somehow we manage to happily live with the ambiguity of LOL as a wimpy social deflector but not the honesty of naked, unadorned, disclaimer-less wit. This is an absurdity in itself to me.

A decade ago I was a part of the "Oh, so sorry to offend" groveling cohort. Now? Pfft. I don't go out of my way to offend people and have no intention to start. Being nasty or hurtful for its own sake is rather pathological. But so is playing the role of perpetual victim of offense or cowering in its face. Adding to the crime is the jocularity terrorist's demand that we all sully even the most well-played, perfectly timed jesting with such burdensome baggage as a "just kidding". Of course you are! It is better to laugh at absurd jokes than to be one. Sometimes the truth of a matter is much more darkly comic than the artifice of fiction.

And, no, most certainly I am not kidding!

Blog Botox

2011-10-17T09:35:00.002-04:00

Unless some of you are readers of the Plum Tasty braille version, by now all of you have figured out that this blog has had a face lift. And a nose job and a tummy tuck, liposuction and a few implants. Based on comments from friends (aka my personal Greek chorus), I am not sure if it now looks "awesome" and ten years younger or as Robert Redford says of Hollywood types who bite for plastic surgery: "body snatched".

Blogger tempted me with a new look and yeah, I'll admit it, I bit. I had become rather bored with the old format. The blog reminded me of that old teevee ad for Geritol iron pills from the 1960s: "Do you feel tired, run-down with iron-poor blood?" Yeah. I reckon we did. So, thinking we needed a good refresh, I fell for it. But perhaps I should have just channeled all of that need for a new order into cleaning out my sock drawer? Sigh.

Perhaps I could go back to the old more funky, irreverent look with the retro encyclopedia card and Scrabble tiles if you all threaten to cancel your subscription if I don't. I surely do miss my avatar of the cigar smoking broad. She is an actual flower vase from the 1960s which at that time were all the rage as bridesmaid luncheon favors. She has a hollow head with a giant hole in the back of her bouffant hairdo for a bouquet of posies. I gave her a little cigar because her little hand needed a prop.

She lives on as a container for bar tools. I got her for less than a dollar at a yard sale but later found out these things are highly collectible and can sell for as much as a hundred bucks. Well, that was before the big crash. Now? Not so much. But she's worth much more than that as a conversation piece. Even the broad got a new lease on life holding bar tools instead of daisies in her hollow head. So maybe there's hope yet for another fifty year old broad--smoking or not-- or my blog?

So, hey, the new look is a bright, shiny object and it has already driven more traffic, hopefully not just from the crow community. So, I can exemplify my whole crusty, snarky, irreverent persona with the format art or I can tart things up with a little nip and tuck every once in awhile, eh?

I dunno. Let me know what you think. If you think. If anyone actually, you know, reads this and has an opinion one way or another enough to bother to comment. I am not sure the format or the looks of the blog matters that much though. All of the really smart people claim they only read Plum Tasty for the articles anyway. Cheers.

Rainman With a Tack Hammer

2011-10-14T15:43:00.000-04:00

I am so aggravated I could spit finish carpentry nails.....pardon me while I rant here. I have become a prisoner in my own home...a captive to a man with a very fastidious tool box. An array of tools so pristine and perfectly arranged they seem to be channeling either Martha Stewart or Michaelangelo.

Okay, here's the story...We wanted to redo our fireplace mantle and surround, right? No big deal for a decent carpenter who knows what he's doing. I don't necessarily need Bob Vila as we aren't doing anything wild or crazy. Our house is built in the Federal style as is quite common of traditional houses around Philadelphia. The vibe is clean, straightforward, classical design. Good proportions. Nothing baroque or bombastic that looks like someone ripped it out of a villa on the Amalfi Coast or a page from a catalogue that caters to McMansion owners . No marble, faux or otherwise. No gargoyles, curlicues or gee-gaws. This is an American house in the American countryside in one of the original thirteen colonies which suggests an inherent understated aesthetic and we most assuredly are standard issue Americans. We don't aspire to a "lifestyle". We just need something that works and fits the house, our basic tastes and most importantly will allow us to put stuff on the mantle (e.g. a Christmas stocking filled with goodies instead of the necessity of a weightless air-mail appropriate onion skin paper inscribed with a Santa IOU) without fear of it coming loose from the wall.

The mantle that came with the house was a minor design disaster. Okay, from a merry holiday standpoint, a major disaster. It was very poorly constructed and lacking adequate support to put anything of substance on the mantle shelf without fear of it cracking off the wall. To call it "jack-legged" is to exude a gracious compliment. The rest of the house was built well above current standards of construction and amenities for a house of its modesty. But the fireplace surround had yet to be built at the time of our contract for sale of the house. I asked the builder to finish it in the same style and quality as the rest of the room. Stupid me that I didn't specify down to the millimeter and number of nails because "in keeping with the quality and style" didn't quite happen. Ultimately, I got tired of hassling with a guy who's head had already moved on to his next project. Typical builder with a convenient ON/OFF switch when it comes to craftsmanship and self respect not to mention customer service. So, we hadn't gotten around to fixing it because while it was flimsy it didn't look all that bad if you didn't look too closely and frankly, the project wasn't the hottest fire on our butts.

So, we contacted this finish carpenter guy in May. He came highly recommended as being "very thorough" from someone I trust. Sounded good. I appreciate "thorough and conscientious". (Clearly the builder of our current mantle was neither once he had a bill of sale in his grimy mitt.) So this guy said he was stacked up and it would be maybe August? Okay. We've lived with the jack-legged mantle for seven years what's a few more months?

At the end of September out of the blue on a Friday night around 9pm our AWOL mantle guy calls and asks for a pow-wow the next day (first thing Saturday morning--ack!) to get started by showing us plans. We had given him a photo of what we wanted back in May-something vaguely "traditional" without being fastidiously a classical revival clone or requiring too much fuss.

We rearranged our day to accommodate him because we really wanted to get the thing rolling. He claimed it had taken him awhile to draw up the plans on his computer program because it was a new program...and he finally figured it all out. Okay. He's an older guy so I fully understand that techno-paralysis. And we told him from the outset we weren't hair-on-fire to do this thing like yesterday and so he took us quite literally. But, when it takes you seven years to get around to fixing something, hey, you can't complain too much about foot-dragging. No big deal.

So he arrived with his laptop and his drawings which were IMPECCABLE and looked fantastic. But then, after our telling him we loved it, how perfect and how well he had dealt with certain design restraints we have, he sat there for almost three hours fiddling around with it, showing us if we do this and if we do that, going back and forth about molding samples and tweaking the design and piddling with it over absolute minutiae so much it was giving me inverse vertigo. I learned a long time ago in art school that at some point you leave well enough alone or you risk screwing it up. Or in the case of computer drawing--doing so many versions you lose track of your files and delete the version you preferred. At some point you have to be decisive, get down to your business and just get off the proverbial pot.

So, we were trying to kindly signal that to him. Heck, when the customer is gushing with praise and enthusiasm, it is time to stop fiddling, hemming and hawing, man! I started telling him how his design was so perfect--it complied with the Golden Section--the classical formula for impeccable ratios in design--PERFECTION. It really was that good. And apparently he had pretty much sussed that out by eyeballing it. I was quite impressed.

So, as to our choosing from his bucket of molding samples (all of perfectly uniform lengths and finishes)--I asked him to narrow it down for us as to which moldings make sense given dimensions and application rather than require me pick through a whole bucket of stuff that doesn't apply--ceiling crown moldings, chair rail samples, shoe moldings. I really have no full idea what I am looking at as a layperson. You have to lay out reasonable choices. So then more piddly-poking around fishing stuff out and grand asides, digressions and discussions of uses for each type of molding all along the way. (That critique coming from the Queen of Chit-Chat and Digressions who believes that often great serendipity can be found in the journey almost as important as the destination.) But this guy was breaking even Plum Tasty records of digression.

Finally, after endless trivia about the various uses of lathe strips and dado boards, the pertinent samples got fanned out and within seconds I'd made my choices. We knew what we wanted and given the sizes and proportions it was nothing more than a logical process of elimination. Bingo.

I figure maybe the guy is a bit self critical or lacking confidence so I tell him again his drawing is spot-on and how we are very happy with what he has done thus far. So then he mutters around about ordering wood and delivery date and other things. Nattering details. Whether the wood comes in before 10 on Tuesday or after 3 on Wednesday doesn't matter to me. How about we just pick a date within a safe margin and shoot at that? Maybe in a couple of weeks or so? No big rush but we'd sort of like to know to schedule something and nail this sucker down because we have scheduling issues, an out-of-town wedding, various commitments and what-nots-of-life.

So anyway, (Gosh, I am embodying what I am complaining about with Mr Carpenter...yeah, I need to cut to the chase myself, don't I?) Anyway, blah, blah, blah,...more piddly-poke stuff and naval-gazing about logistics and every "what if" scenario. So Wednesday he was to come and rip the old stuff out and prep the area for the new. So Tuesday night he calls me at (You guessed it!) 9pm and has a proposal to set up a spray booth in our den and totally re-prime and re-paint the metal fireplace fittings because he is not sure he can exactly match a few bits of wooden trim pieces need to successfully marry the whole together. What?! Lemme get this straight. We have a few piddling pieces of wood moldings that will need to be the same color as the existing metalwork so the proposal is to drive the entire process by way of whatever color choices (black, black and black) we can acquire in high heat paint? Really? All of that instead of being able to brush on some basic trim paint on the new wooden bits? The mountain has been summoned to come to Mohammad rather than Mohammad working out minor details and shaking his shanks to the mountain? Seriously, dude? You want to set up a full spray operation in my den to accommodate a perfect match on bits that nobody is going to notice anyway? Are you freaking serious? Yes, he was serious.

I suggested priming the bits in question and allowing me to go talk to my buddy at the paint store and get a "close enough for government work" match on color and we can leave it at that. You do the best you can within reasonable bounds and then let it go. Hey, I 'm good with that. I'd already told him I'd paint the finished work. No big deal to me. He muttered around about all of that, fretting. The color we need to match is a sort of dark slate gray. OMG-- It might be too black or too light? But, I'd rather have a slight variation in the pieces than to have to live with stove black metalwork when I currently have a soft pewter/slate color that I really like. I remind him that even the same paint applied to metal and wood are going to look slightly different anyway because they sit on different materials differently. No biggie. I successfully talked him down from the ledge. No sweat, buddy. Logistics or the imposition of Plan B seem to throw this guy for a loop. In my mind I was saying "Good God man, get an effing grip! I am being as helpful and good-natured as anyone could ask, and you aren't the one living with one arm tied behind your back with whacked out estrogen!"

Seriously, dude. And they talk about hysterical or fretful women?! Give me a break.

I'll give him this much: the man never loses his cool to raise his voice but he goes eerily silent as if he is working out some differential calculus in his head to figure out how to solve a paint matching issue. Despite some serious Rainman tendencies, the response is creepy silence and staring into space for lengths of time that suggest something on the order of a Rasputin trance rather than a full bore freak out sustained from turning off "Wapner-at-five" or taking the Cheetos away.

So, he turned up Wednesday and it took him a small eternity to do what needed done. In the process I missed my completely inviolable 12:30-2pm Wednesday and Friday appointment with Pilates that is more than just my gym time. It helps keep my back from a full-blown case of rigor mortis. But hey, the mantle project is under way! I didn't even freak out or go silent or blow a gasket or suggest a spray booth upon missing my therapeutic sessions. I just popped some extra pain meds and dealt with it. I womaned up and took it like a chick.

At some time on Wednesday he asked if I had any artwork around my house. Heh. Does a bear scat in the woods? Geez. Look around, man. Oh. His gaze landed on some of the funkiest, least control freak stuff I have ever done in my life. My pit fired clay vessels. They are fastidiously carved for wall thickness and balance although intentionally done so to be sort of lumpy and simplistic rather than obviously fussy. I fuss like Rainman over them then slap on an array of goop, suspensions heavy with such things as copper, and employ an array of combustible materials that create various markings, in which to pit fire them. How the surfaces turn out are up to the flames and whatever chemical or physical reactions take place given temperature and drafts and whatever else goes in inside a fire. It is utter anal retentive control freak of craftsmanship and technique but then when I get it just the way I want it, it is a matter saying "Oh f**k it" and throwing it into the fire. I didn't bother to explain my process to him. (Some folks might call it bi-polar. I like to think the "oh f**k it" part is the happy cathartic result of a normal person finally having enough of being anal.) I am sure discussing it would have been met with a cocked head and silence for about twenty minutes.

So, the prep step has been successfully completed--without a spray tent and wheel reinvention. And today he is to turn up and start building. It took negotiations and a round robin to set his arrival time. I have my midday appointment but he can't fully say how long it will take him to gather his tools and load his truck this morning. He has some issue with loading tools just so. This seems a real stress-out factor so I finally I say I will just stay home all day so he can come whenever he jolly well gets around to it--when he gets his "tools arranged in his truck" and the stars align. I'll just pop some more pain meds and deal with it. (Mr. Plum Tasty saw the inside of his truck and said you could do brain surgery in it which might come in handy when I need that lobotomy.) Once his estimated time of arrival was sufficiently settled, he asked me if for some reason he doesn't finish today if he can come back tomorrow--Saturday morning to finish up. At that point I began banging my head on the coffee table. I will be here today, fully medicated from back pain, but Mr. P. Tasty has been informed that if this rolls into Saturday, my plan is to go sit on some overpass and watch cars zoom by or something less inane than dealing with another day of this.

I have no doubt this mantle will be the most perfect mantle known to mankind when it is completed but I just hope I manage to live through the process to see it. I was asked permission by him to use the toilet on Wednesday. Not "Where is your toilet" or the kind of asking one does out of politeness but rather in a tone that reminded me of when the neighbor kid got locked out and came over to ask if he could pee at our house. Or maybe the kind of groveling inmates do before the "screws" when they need to run to the can and need someone to unlock the door? Geez. My mind runs wild. Maybe he learned wood craft in prison? Or the Loony Bin?

My first impulse upon being asked to use the toilet (which he could not have missed noticing while he has been here) was to be my usual ridiculously snarky self and tell him in deadpan that we are strictly a pay-for-pee establishment and it will be 50 cents with a 25 cent surcharge if he uses paper. But some little voice told me the poor man probably doesn't get humor. He can draw a mechanical drawing on his computer that complies with ancient ratios of perfect balance and symmetry without even really knowing about them or understanding them but settling on a time to turn up or sarcasm seem a stretch. Rainman with a tack hammer.

So, I've downed my meds already in anticipation. Dear God in Heaven if this thing is not completed by next Wednesday I will be in a padded cell or traction. Or maybe both. Never in my life have I ever dealt with this level of paralysis by analysis or reinvention of the wheel. And at the point where we realized we were dealing with Rainman I have been trying very hard to be patient and kind working around his ticks and seemingly slacker ways which really are quite the opposite. But it is driving me plum crazy. The funny thing is, because of Mr. Plum Tasty's profession, I have spent a whole lot of time around financial nerds, accountants and "tax wienies" (his term for them)--people who think actuarial tables are chin-rubbingly interesting. Talk about a nerd-a-thon: I once dined with a former tax commissioner of the United States of America but amid all of the tax wiennese, at least that guy had a great head for baseball anecdotes and metaphors so it wasn't like dining with a complete idiot-savant. But, Great Ghosts of Gehrig! Mr. Tool Box wins the pennant.

I am so glad at the outset of this project I committed to painting the entire thing whenever it is finally built. I just cannot imagine how much longer it might take to paint the Sistine Mantle. You just can't rush genius.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere A Sign

2011-10-11T18:07:00.001-04:00

Rockland, Maine

I've gotta admit that one of the best things about having an i-phone is playing with the camera. But, I'm not really a hard core gadget type of girl. I like to keep things simple. Which accounts for my being an Apple devotee. But I sure do love snapping pictures of things that make me chuckle.

Besides fiddling with my favorite phone camera, I like listening to all manner of novelty pop songs. One of my favorite songs from the 1970s was a song called Signs by the Five Man Electrical Band, a Canadian band few people under the age of fifty know or care about. Calling them a one hit wonder would be a bit harsh and overstating things a bit but neither are they in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Signs is all about chaffing under the thumb of The Man, a real bummer of a trip, man. Such was life in 1971. Actually, the lyrics are pretty applicable for today too but your chances of getting shot due to speaking vaguely "hippie" sentiments today are about as good as ever--even if voicing them in a sort of ironic way and circumspectly avoiding any trespassing. (The Man does not get irony.) But, even if one is not a connoisseur of retro seventies rock the song fits into that whole era of songs like Chevy Van by Sammy Johns which are so much of their time and worth another listen for nostalgia or at least a good chuckle.

Speaking of retro vans and whimsical photos, I missed a classic photo opportunity just around the corner from my house a few months ago. Some guy had a van painted like up like the Mystery Machine in the old Scooby Doo cartoons parked outside of his house. When I returned with my camera the sweet ride had disappeared. Poof! Just like a Scooby mystery only I didn't feel like being a nosey kid. So I shrugged and went home.

The original pimped ride.

My classmates from high school will recall that one English teacher at our school who in addition to a bodacious head of hair and groovy threads which the Bee Gees might have envied (always worn unappealingly too snug), actually had a Chevy van with an airbrushed desert sunrise scene on the side of his shaggin' wagon with the caption "Tequila Sunrise" and those hideous seventies convex bubble windows in the back. No doubt it must have had burnt orange shag carpeting, mirrored accessories, an eight-track tape player and a vaguely Love, American Style mini bar. All that was missing was the infamous bumper sticker: "Don't come knockin' if this van is rockin' ".

That was back in the days before the Moral Majority was around to picket the school or get the teacher fired for what was (in our eyes) nothing more than an old guy who was seriously "lame". So, we were never in any danger around the Lothario in bell bottoms, lecturer of Beowulf. ("Takes one wolf to know another 'wulf.") Teenagers seem to have better radar for adult creepiness, BS or lameness than their elders. That was back in the days of the original Saturday Night Live so we were all finely tuned for satire.

I love collecting snapshots of ridiculous or sublime signs. I've posted some funny ones before but here are a few from my latest stash:

WTH? Because chemical engineers otherwise are... road kill?! Lehigh County, Pennsylvania

Cantilevering and a truss can do wonders though. Portland, Oregon

I jones. U jones. We all jones for an airport limo. Chicago, Illinois

Gas. Food. Lodging. Naturally, they list the Waffle House under "Gas". Troutville, Virginia

Speaking of gas: aka The Nitrous Oxide Medical Offices. Asheville, North Carolina

They have much more than mere methane gas...Newcastle, Maine

Much more tasty than cow pies and will not result in gas. Doylestown, Pennsylvania

Hm. I'll still go with the cupcakes. Rockland, Maine

Oh, I hope they aren't male monkeys with 'guy crap' to fling. Doylestown, Pennsylvania

Delayed Gratification

2011-10-05T11:47:00.000-04:00

Gardeners have always been known for their patience, often planning and planting for the long term, of which they define in decades or generations. The best gardens in the world are the ones which were planted many years ago and continuously maintained.

People who inherit the old family home are lucky. If you have such a place with all of your grandmother's garden flowers, cherish it! I'd lay a heavy bet your grandmother rolled old school in the garden and at some time it crossed her mind in some hopefulness that one day her young'uns might be getting some pleasure from her hard work. You can count on that. That's just the mentality of old school gardeners and mothers. You can't have short-term-itis disease and be a dedicated gardener or mom. Neither are the type of work taken up by the likes of day traders or the otherwise impatient, immature or impetuous.

People plant trees to enjoy their deep shade ten or twenty years hence. They plant herbaceous shrubs for similar enjoyment. Not quite on that same chronological scale, perhaps more in line with the pace of modern life, are the folks who plan a few months ahead by planting spring bulbs. That is most of us who like to putter in the garden. Right? Well, that's always what I thought until I struck out at my favorite full-service garden center last weekend when I went hunting some basic spring bulbs to fill in some spots in some garden beds. I was informed they no longer carried flowering bulbs because too many people no longer were interested in such "delayed gratification". What?!

You know our society is in serious trouble if people are not willing to wait a few months for the reward of a splash of post-snow color just outside their own doorstep! The America that busted its butt building a great nation; settling a great wilderness, building a transcontinental railroad; inventing the modern era; working round the clock for a decade to put a man on the moon isn't the same America that thinks planting tulip bulbs in October deserves a payoff well before March or April. Holy Chia-Pet, how pathetically lame and lazy have we become? Are we all suffering from ADHD now?

So, in an effort to do my bit to reverse this trend, this past Friday, our first full day of sunshine since the beginning of August when our current monsoon began, I spent the entire glorious day planting three flats of winterizing pansies (which will bloom in warm spells through the winter, do a bit of napping and then reappear with their sunny faces come springtime) and two hundred spring bulbs. They weren't fancy or expensive--half a narcissus mix and the other hybrid Darwin tulips-- but I did my wee bit for reconnecting my corner of America with one baby step back towards a concept of delayed gratification. And payed it forward to myself. Just as winter is ending and we are all in a grand funk, we will have something to cheer us every time we step out our door.

Poet's Narcissus

For this post, I was scrolling through my i-photo file (yes friends, I am a Mac) of old snapshots I have taken of my garden over the past couple of years and it really hit me how old school I really am. Not only do I plant "delayed gratification" in the form of spring bulbs, I have spring flowering bulbs from the old homestead of my great great grandmother.

A few years ago, I found the time in my oh-so-harried 21st century calendar to pull my grubby garden shoes on, grab my garden spade from the garage, stick it in a new garden bed and dig a hole in the ground. Then, I heaved the bulbs into the ground and shoveled soil back over them. To some that might seem equivalent to a moon shot but I guaran-dang-tee it didn't take me more than about five minutes. And thanks to Great Great Grandma, the bulbs were free to me!

They got happy and treat us every spring to their sunny faces. Sometimes they get a handful of compost over them. Sometimes not. No fuss. No bother. But they never fail to bloom come spring. And if that weren't enough, they multiply and the little patch has ever so gently and politely spread its margins.

The old saying goes "If you want a friend in Washington DC get a dog". That may well be true but one might say if one wants a lifelong friend, plant some old time narcissus. Unlike some friends, they aren't high maintenance nor will they poop out on you just when you really need some sincere cheer.

Lent Lily

What could be more charming and sweet than a knot of Poet's Narcissus (N. Poeticus recurvus aka Pheasant's Eye) which natively grows wild in upland meadows from Spain to the Balkans and appeared in English herbals of the 1600s? They were brought to colonial American gardens and spread west with pioneers which undoubtedly is how mine made their way west to Illinois to a humble 19th century cabin homestead which is where my dad found them growing a few years ago. He went hiking in the woods near the old homeplace and found bits of sunshine in the tall grasses where the homestead long ago crumbled back to dust, the only thing remaining, a chimney and the flowers.

If that isn't quite enough carefree color for ya, how about some Lent Lily (N. pseudonarcissus) which is recorded in English gardens by the 1200s? One source says that this is the "dancing wildflower" of Wordsworth's poem and a favorite in colonial gardens. It grows carefree from Maine to California but is "most loved in the upper south thriving in pastures and woods where homes once stood". Bingo.

Every time they bloom, I thank a woman I never met but to whom I owe more than just a passing thanks for flowers. Some people are wholly impatient for a payoff in less than five months. Some flowers are ready and willing to bloom where planted for centuries. How is that for "payoff"?

The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of the bay;

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

- William Wordsworth

Going With the Flow

2011-09-28T16:38:00.003-04:00

So, it has been raining here since the beginning of August. We've had the effects of a couple of hurricanes, a tropical storm, stalled-out meteorological frontal boundaries that sit and spin right on top of us and drop a lot of rain. The ground has been so saturated that every time it rains again the flash flood warnings get posted. Last Friday evening it was raining a bit more emphatically and yet another back road was closed due to a creek jumping its banks and running as a torrent across the highway. We learned this as we were making our way home from an evening out when we came across a roadblock: a cop and his blinding lights right in front of Class IV white-water rapids across the road. Yikes. Even the State Highway Patrol can't make the water slow down or obey the flow of traffic. It is a fact of nature that water seeks a level and doesn't give a flip about flashing red lights or a badge no matter the posted speed limit or rules governing the flow of traffic. It flows however it wants.

It has been difficult to find a window of opportunity of non-rain to cut our grass. Although when that window appears, the ground is way too soggy to run a mower over it. Part of our lawn has been so wet for weeks that if you walk across it you leave footprints in the ground that rapidly fill in with water. The neighbor gave up on cutting the back portion of his property as last time he tried it he got mired in. Now he has a fallen tree lying across the rest of that part of his yard from the super saturated ground giving way.

And today? Raining again. The last few times we mowed the lawn, we had frogs jumping up right out of the grass. Weird. So, we've all been in a big funk.

Then I look at a summary of my blog statistics the other day. More weird on a global scale. Like a gigantic full moon episode that endures for like four months. Okay, it is kind of cool that I have now had visitors to my blog from literally all over the world and regular readers in several countries. Some are in nations I have never visited and do not know a soul so apparently folks are tuning in either because they like this plum tasty mix of things or whatever weirdness I suffer from has become the subject of their abnormal psychology thesis and they have shared with their network of like-minded ab-psych friends.

You know you have achieved something when you see 'Nepal' on the list? But I am not sure what it means or even how many degrees of separation I or Kevin Bacon may be from that person? (Does reading my blog now make this person one degree away or does it even count?) It just reminds me of Zen Buddhism and that reminds me that living is suffering. But then something as very un-exotic or un-zen as negotiating the grocery store on a Saturday morning can remind me of that concept of suffering. Especially if I make a wrong turn down the cereal aisle with all of the rug-rats whining about Sugar Pops. Or is that more a Nietzsche thing?

Hm. "To live is to suffer; to survive is to find meaning in the suffering"? I don't know about you all but the only meaning I find after an insufferable encounter with rude grocery shoppers and their unruly offspring is the nirvana-esque thought that I scored a new box of Carr's Ginger Lemon Creams and a steaming pot of Barry's Irish Gold Blend tea awaits me at home. I am happy to take my enlightenment in the form of hot tea and cookies if nothing else works. Complex notions of suffering can stuff it. That's the philosophy of Madame Plum Tasty.

But where the real weird comes in is when I see what key search words people were using when they found my blog. Oh. Sweet Jesus. Some of you people are seriously sick puppies or enduring some twisted sort of suffering of your own without the balm of tea or sympathies. And because I can see the referring URLs and can detect country of origin, I can only say this: Germany? Russia? Eastern Europe? What the hell are you people smoking? I hate to lump people together and stereotype but...YOWZA, some of you folks are some seriously freaked out party animals with geriatric mother issues.

Frau Farbissina aka Madame P. Tasty?

Truly, I am shocked. Shocked.

And, perhaps I am just really naive but what is the fixation with searching for something kinky + 'granny'? What is that all about? And how in blue blazes does all of that seriously twisted stuff lead someone to my blog? Yikes. Nothing like pouring fuel on the fire for my own neuroses. Thanks a lot, Google search engine people!

But maybe it isn't some latent, undercurrent of dark non-analyzed issues on my part that attracts weirdos but maybe it is in the nature of Googling.

So, then I recalled how awhile back a friend and I did a little experiment with Facebook. It became readily apparent that it was giving us ads on our home pages that the Facebook algorithms thought suited our profile. It was seriously depressing and insulting. Between the adult diaper and prosthetic adverts were sale priced garden gnomes and deals on polyester stretch pants. Feeling more than a bit insulted, we sought to post things that would force the forces of Zuckerberg to blow a gasket even more than the thought of the Winklevoss twins. (Although, the thought of those twins is enough to creep anyone out. Can you say 'future Goldman-Sachs partners'? They have that certain je ne sais quoi but it may be something to do with those reptilian nictitating eyeball membranes.) So, anyway, in an effort to throw a monkey wrench in the works, we started posting things about castrating bulls and steer roping competitions at the up-coming rodeo; doing searches for "truck nuts" and generally trying to get Facebook to think we were burly ranch hand men or wannabe rednecks. Or at least seriously butch women.

It sort of worked. The garden gnome and glittery sweatshirt ads disappeared. I have no idea if we blew any gaskets but it felt good to give an algorithm the finger and I haven't done that since that horrid semester in college when I took a certain math class whose name or academic catalogue number may not be spoken. That class blew a few of my gaskets plus an unquantifiable fuse or two.

Reducing the rich complexity of human thought or subtlety of culture, tastes, personality down to some wonky, cut-and-dried mathematical algorithm is, on its very face, utterly ridiculous. It seems so very...I dunno....German?! So all of you German kink-sters who might wind up on this blog post because the nerds at Google pointed you this way based on some off-hand comment that a 'frontal boundary sat on us and spun' or several mentions of 'grass' in the same paragraph with the work 'cut' and 'mire'; the term 'sick puppies' and once again I used the word 'granny' in a post. This time it appears twice and so does the word 'kinky'. But to sweeten the pot, I have also mentioned bull castration, truck nuts, butch women, blowing gaskets and sweetened pot. Sigh.

Okay. Now I sit back and wait for the Google algorithms to sit and spin. (Or would that be to 'perch and rotate'?!) And send another deviant German, Russian or citizen of some former Eastern Bloc country my way. Come to babushka, my darlinks and I will read for you szometheeng to give you schweet dreams from zee Brothers Grimm...

So, read between the lines looking for something naughty here. Knock yourselves out as I sip my tea and coyly smile thinking about how smart the young bucks at Google or Facebook might seem despite the obvious limitations of their search metrics or the insanity of feeding people prescriptively what they figure you will want to read based on what you have already read. Wow. Just like one great big digital circle jerk, giving the peasants what they want before they know they want it! (And there is yet one more key search concept to bring the kink-sters to my blog!) Yay!!! Go ahead, increase my traffic! Make me an instant "success" based on my Google quotient of weirdness. What a fun game to play!

Y'all don't mind me over here with a bemused expression on my face, calming drinking my tea and petting the cat. I am like water. Just going with the flow.

They Can't Tell You What to Do, Kid!

2011-09-21T11:06:00.000-04:00

Three Sunflowers in a Vase-Van Gogh

In case any of you hadn't noticed: Lately I've been in a bit of a funk. Okay, okay. I have been in a big funk. We have had so many dreary days filled with rain and bluster, mud and fungus that it seems to be getting on every one's nerves around here. The farms around here are losing crops. My garden is a mess. Legitimate plants are succumbing to the long list of perils from being water-logged. The weeds have taken over. Add to that this recession where everyone seems to be stuck in another kind of mud, waiting for something to make it end, not sure what to do next and slumping in despair about other sorts of weeds choking out the sunflowers. The weeds are the nutrient-sucking wastrels who take from the legitimate beauty-creators. Yes, I am speaking in parable there, friend. I think you all know what I mean. We are all hoping for improvement but hedging against more of the same.

Top that with the beginnings of campaign season which really brings out the loonies. Mix in thoughts that some of these loonies might actually wind up running our whole asylum because of the zeitgeist of crazy + anger + impotence felt by most of us just now. The guy we have running our show isn't anywhere near perfect but at least he isn't demonstrably: a) an eejit or b) insane. How's that for a ringing endorsement? There is such a thing as jumping from the frying pan into the fire. It used to be that attitude of caution would have been called 'conservative'. Now, frying pans are deemed too wussy and 'socialist' for even such metaphors. Sweet Jesus, we are all freakin' crazy. And if that were not quite enough, add in the rest of the world which seems similarly poised on the brink of wholesale insanity too.

It is enough to make you want to climb the highest mountain you can find (or if you are in the Midwest, the highest water tank around) and yell at the whole world to go to hell. But that would be utterly ridiculous, wouldn't it? Where's the fun or catharsis in standing like Moses on Mount Sinai (or your town crank atop the water tank), with dramatic wind in hair, dramatic sound and lighting effects in the best Hollywood style damning the whole mess to perdition when the entire global mess is gleefully racing to hell already? Not even the proverbial hand-basket is necessary. Accessorizing with said hand-basket for the grand voyage to damnation would constitute unnecessary carry-on baggage. So, your angst-filled demand would be akin to sternly ordering your annoying, obese neighbor kid to the candy store. In my neighborhood, such a miscreant would be the mischief artist formerly known as 'Lard Ass' who was so self-indulgently porcine he broke the rails sitting on a split-rail fence. He was to candy as Wall Street is to profit. (Gluttony is just an edible form of greed, is it not?)

Oy. Speaking of being damned: If we do or if we don't. So what's the point of doing anything then? I am seeking doing nothing as a means of preserving my energy stores; my way of going green on the lazy.

Some people's funk right now is wholly directed at their financial portfolio. Mine is directed towards another sort of portfolio. The former sees our big problem as one wholly economic. I am seeing it as a failure of priorities, imagination and artfulness. Artfulness includes the art of living with finesse. The old way of living grandly broke. We've got to find a new way but people are still fixated on fixing the old way with broken means. So then this morning I read this and decided we're even more screwed than I previously knew us to be. What on earth? The Big Guys truly run the entire circus, folks. Oversight? Ethics? Guilt? Innocence? Justice? Who needs that when you can be a part of the big hustle of the "Hey folks! Look over there!" playing at the Theatre of Misdirection and Distortion?

Really. And just who doesn't love the Fun House at the circus? You know, with its distorting mirrors and unlevel playing field? The funny mirrors will make some look much better than they deserve all svelte and lean. But for the vast majority of us, those mirrors portray us as fat, squatty and unsympathetic. They twist our appearances into the worst possible light. So much the better to abuse! So much fun for ages 8-80! Step right up, folks!

So enough of that world. The world of portfolios that have to do with money and greed. I have been in a funk about the world of money and greed as it has infiltrated the world of art as exemplified by this and this. Some of you will roll your eyes and ask how on earth can someone be talking about art, the wholly frivolous at a time such as this? But my larger point is that these examples showcase just how much we can take the profound and wholly human/humane and make it all about money. In other words, wholly commodify it. Sort of how we commodify people; hanging a dollar sign of worth around a person's neck. They are given zero value besides what we can quantify in dollar measurements. Which, in my view is what our uber-grand-funk is caused by. We've all been commodified and made slaves to the Almighty Ka-ching whether we acquiesced to it or not.

All too often, those who have a lot of money like to cluck to the rest of humanity not to be such materialists. And so many of the folks who run the art world cluck at the rest of us that we are artless neanderthals in a great case of the pot calling the kettle black.

So, we all need an antidote to the self-aggrandizement, perfidy and greed. So, here are two stellar examples in film, friends. They will both restore a bit of your faith in humanity in such a sea of unvarnished guile.

Bill Cunningham New York This film documents the work of the storied fashion photographer Bill Cunningham who is currently known for his On the Street photo essays in The New York Times. At its core this film is not about the fashion world. It is about this one luminously decent, kind, wholly uncompromising free spirit of a man and his incredible dedication to his craft. His ethos is best summed up in his line said with a hearty laugh: "If you don't take their money, they can't tell you what to do, kid!"

Séraphine The enchanting story of Séraphine de Senlis, the brilliant self-taught French artist who insistently defined her life around her art.

They are brilliant films for anyone in dire need of the inspiration to shoulder on with whatever it is that they do in this world. That is, whatever one attempts to do which brings meaning and joy. God knows sometimes it can be a herculean task. All of us could use as much encouragement as is humanly possible. When the world screams epithets your way, tells you NO and throws you nothing but bread crumbs, make some delicious bread pudding. The weekend is coming up. Load up on some simple goodies. Stay in and have a film fest. Just think! You won't even have to bother with telling the world to go to hell, so that one more thing you can scratch off of your To-Do list! One less thing for that soulless DayTimer overlord of yours.

The world might be going a tad looney but frankly I'd not mind being a bit "crazy" myself. The kind of crazy that shakes off all of the baggage that brings us down and keeps us from really living our life to its fullest; the kind that creates more time and head space to emulate people like Bill or Sérephine. That kind that can make us insanely happy!

The Last Rose of Summer

2011-09-16T06:00:00.000-04:00

Jaune Desprez, Strawberry Hill, Classic Woman and Eglantyne.

The first and the last roses of the season in the garden are the ones I appreciate the most. The blooming of my late grandmother's beloved white rose ushers in the beauties of the season in late May or early June. September brings a smattering of last hurrahs from the rest of my roses. Usually prolific 'Colette' gets the last word but this year she has suffered a bit from our monsoonal August.

Thomas Moore, Irish poet and author of The Last Rose of Summer (1805) had the sentiment quite right. I truly hate to say goodbye for the season. Buying roses out of season for a quick fix just doesn't cut it for me. Florist's roses are the floral equivalent of a hot house tomato. Oh, they are full of show, have nice, sturdy stems and usually offer themselves in brilliant colors but they have no fragrance, no delicacy of hue, no tale to tell... and therefore, no soul. Nothing compares to the delicate beauty of one's own garden roses--especially heirloom roses-- grown for fragrance. It is the fragrance which I miss the most come mid-winter.

This year I added a pair of 'Jaune Desprez' roses which I dearly hope survive our winter. They were purchased at the Rose Festival held at The Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Virginia this past spring. The storied cemetery which was founded about the time Moore was writing his moody poem has a beautiful collection of organically raised heirloom roses in its Confederate burial grounds. Their sale roses are the children of the original roses planted in the cemetery many years ago by Virginia families in honor of their dead. My new roses are now planted at the extreme northerly bounds of the their hardiness zone. I planted them to trellis on either side of our south-facing porch. I am hoping the sun's warmth radiating off of the bricks will protect them from our colder temperatures up here in Pennsylvania.

The woman who helped me with my purchase teased me that she was not sure if it was a good idea to carry them north of the Mason-Dixon as they might succumb for reasons larger than this being Zone 6b. But, not to worry, Madame. My garden space holds no grudges nor hostile proclivities. It is a horticulturally neutral Switzerland, with open borders and few questions asked. Thus far the plants seem quite happy in their new home here among other well-travelled ex-pat roses. The largest of the new pair has already produced several blooms with an aroma as luscious as what I remembered. Ah.

"I know a bank wherethe wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips andthe nodding violet grows,

Quite overcanopiedwith luscious woodbine,

With sweetmusk-roses, and with eglantine:

There sleepsTitania sometime of the night,

Lulled in theseflowers with dances and delight."

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer's Night Dream, Act 2 Scene 1

Au revoir. 'Til next Midsummer!

Bessie's Teets Have Done Give Out

2011-09-12T13:30:00.000-04:00

A rant by any other name wouldn't taste so sweet. Or something like that.

We've all heard the expression "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free". Usually it refers to women who are too free with their affections and their declining fortunes for marriage. Or to update the sentiment, one could heed the words of the Beyoncé hit Single Ladies: "If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it." I'd provide a link here for you but I think her hoochie mama dancing doesn't quite fit the sentiments of the song. Sort of undermines what she is trying to say about "not being that kind of girl" but maybe I am just too old school. But if you are that curious, Google it. Mama here is just too damned tired and fed up to bother today.

So, where was I? Oh yeah....

Today, let's examine that cow-to-free milk ratio as it has to do with the concept of volunteerism, shall we? Or maybe I am asking you all to indulge me while I rant more than a bit. (For regular readers, I have put out plenty of free reading material right here. And I can read my blog stats so I know how many folks have partaken for free... so y'all can just bear with a little bit of Mama's kvetching, m'kay? It is the price you pay for an ad-free blog.)

One might rightly ask if that same cow:free milk cause and effect equation applies to volunteerism? Why, now that you mention it, Lord have mercy, I reckon it does!

When we first moved to this area I immediately got very involved in an arts organization, hoping to give something to the community, meet people and yes, maybe score a job. I hold an honors art degree from an institution respected for its arts graduates, I have worked in various areas of the arts over the years and found myself open to new possibilities, including returning to university for any additional training if I could find a good fit. Surely, I could bring something to the table around here?

So, with the thought that I'd show 'em whatever it is I've got, I signed up for what morphed into a many-hours-a-month volunteer gig with a local art institution. Within a year I was asked to join the volunteer board. At the time they said it was based on my "deep arts background". It was more likely my "deep sucker background"that sealed the deal. One day, as we were preparing for a fund raiser, I was asked to carry a box to the dumpster. The cardboard box contained rejected items which had been donated for the event. Being the curious terrier that I am, I rifled through the box to see what was in it. I found a pair of very skillfully rendered, unframed watercolor paintings. Clearly, they were no amateur effort despite the fact that they were unceremoniously crammed into a box filled with junk on their way to the trash. Now it should be known that I have a knack for finding such things in unlikely places. It isn't that I am so brilliant as much as I bother to take the time to seek and find. Most folks don't bother. Bothering is what cuts the men from the boys.

So I returned the two paintings to the donations chief and asked if I could purchase them as she had previously told me to speak up if I saw anything that caught my eye among the things set aside for sale. It was a small perk for spending hours volunteering. So, as for the watercolor paintings, I was willing to consider any price they thought was fair--within reason. To my utter amazement, she named twenty-five dollars. That was clearly unreasonably low but shrugged and told her to hang onto them. As I didn't have my purse handy, I'd come around the next day and pay for them. In the meantime, I suggested she think more about the price or if she wasn't really sure to please ask someone. She agreed.

The next day when I arrived I was given the run-around and told to return the next day. The next day, I was given more run-around until I demanded someone tell me what was going on. Only then was I told the paintings had been spotted by a board member for the entire organization and apparently it was thought I was trying to take advantage of things by offering a measly twenty five bucks for something clearly deemed much more valuable. Apparently nobody bothered to mention the crucial fact that I was the one who pulled these things from the garbage and was honest enough to ask to pay for them rather than just spirit them away on their way to the trash?

So, in the meantime, the paintings had been sent to an art appraiser by this organization's Executive Director. I was told by him that I could return to the charity auction and bid on them "like everyone else". Okay. Sure. Glad to be of service. Y'all are very welcome. I reckoned that'd be the last time I'd employ my sharp eye for good art on their behalf. Dig through the bin yourselves. But I said nothing. Not worth the dust-up. Needless to say, I did not bid on them and the person who was coveting them got them for more than twenty five bucks but not the unrealistic sum they hoped for. Maybe enough to cover their appraisal costs and archival framing that was necessary to auction them. In the meantime they surely showed their grasp on honesty and integrity. Okay. Sure. Whatever.

Not long before that event I had been at another charity event. This time a black tie gala where I had bid on an art print in a silent auction. That evening, we were sitting at the table of a wealthy benefactor; one whose name graces a wing of said institution. I was the last person to sign the silent auction bid sheet on my much coveted item. Our entire table had been amused with my diligent work on bidding and they all were cheering me on. I will admit I was comically determined. Before that night, I have never "hovered" over a silent auction bid sheet but I had to be sure I was the last and highest bidder that night. Much to my shock, I didn't win the bid as it was later revealed a "phone bid" had been accepted to surpass mine by the exact minimum increment needed to beat mine. And curiously it was in hand at the very same time stamped minute my bid was placed. My last bid was placed to up their last bid. Which they would have no way of knowing I was in the process of doing five seconds before the bell rang to end bidding. So, Dear Watson: It is actually quite elementary. The lapse in logic is astounding. And they had a day or two to come up with such a lame alibi. Why does someone up their own bid? Phone bid? Really?!

Okay. Sure. Whatever. (Said with a stifled chortle.)

Rather than cause the stir I know would have surely ensued had this come to light at our dinner table, we quickly and courteously made our excuses to leave the party a tad early. I knew the boat would rock if the truth came out. And who wants to be the unfortunate one to have let the truth slip which then turns the gears and engages the mousetrap to drop the proverbial turd in the gala punchbowl? A lousy art print is not worth it no matter how much I really had my heart set on it. So we missed the rest of the party we paid pricey tickets to enjoy while the well-connected person who didn't bother to show up won the prize. The ultimate in "phoning it in".

Almost as tacky as it is for me to be retelling this story here and now to the entire universe, would have been to trump that person's self-importance with inducing some righteous indignation from the much more important person sitting in the head chair at our table. A few years ago I wasn't nearly as tacky as I have since learned to be now. In the time since planting my big butt in this state, I have gotten over my need to be nearly so charitable or gracious. In the local parlance: "Fuck it." We live too damned close to New Jersey to bother with any of that anymore.

So, things went on in this vein for some time for me at this organization. It was very apparent that folks like me were there to put in hard work and plenty of time, spend my hours solely on their behalf and never hope for anything other than a feeble attempt at small city social climbing from the miserable experience. Social climbing ranks just below mud wrasslin' and living the life of the Mayflower Madame on my master To-Do list, friends. Although, come to think of it, those two activities have much more in common with social climbing than not.

On several occasions, I heard my unique personal observations about various pieces of artwork which had been previously offered in private conversations being parroted by staff people as they gave tours. And the observation was wholly folded into their own material as if it was their unique insight. Okay. It made me chuckle. Freshman slackers aren't the only ones who ruthlessly plagerize. But it sort of stung since I was repeatedly reminded by the very same cohort that my academic work was in applied art and not art history or education. You know, I learned how to actually do art not just talk about art with plagerized material. So how on earth did I have such astute observations on any it, anyway? What a puzzlement. But then maybe "Those who do, do. Those who can't, give gallery talks." But then the doing in art pays much less than even arts education. Pathetic.

My mention one day of the Golden Mean as it had to do with the composition of a particular painting in the collection was followed up with a stunned "Where did that come from? How on earth did you figure that out?" I replied that I paid a whole lot of freakin' tuition money to learn to notice such things as the intersection of mathematics and art. As well as assorted other meaningless pieces of trivia. How does one manage to earn a degree in any branch of the humanities much less visual art without even a slight acquaintance with such a basic concept as the Golden Mean/Section/Ratio/Fibonacci Sequence whatever nom du jour is in fashion? What do they teach people these days? Dear Lord, do they not study the Renaissance anymore?! Aren't even education majors required to do at least a measly semester of Art Appreciation anymore? How does someone like that end up as the Director of Education at a decent sized art institution?! Or is it just me who rolls so old school as to think that is important?

An entry level job was advertised for this institution. It wasn't much and paid even less but it was something and I was willing to work hard to earn my keep. I applied. It came down to me and another applicant. I didn't get the job. Oh well. That's how it goes sometimes. But I was informed of this fact at a social event where other people could easily overhear my loser news. When the would-be boss walked away, I had the wonderful task of answering (as graciously as I could muster with a pained smile) uncomfortable questions from people I barely knew about my personal loser business. Okay. Sure. What could I say? Quickly, I decided honesty is always the best policy, right? My response punctuated with a shrug to those thoughtless and awkward questions was "Hey, why buy the cow when you can continue getting the milk for free?" And immediately I could detect the sound of seat cushions being violently sucked up.

Ask nosey and mean questions and get a crass answer, sweethearts. Hey, when understatement and elegance no longer work, hit 'em with crass. At least it leaves 'em with something to remember you by as the door is hitting you on the ass on your way out the door.

The very last straw for me was the day the Director of Arts Education, a woman whose credentials were in education not art, scolded me about a comment I made concerning some metal sculpture (my degree focus was on sculpture--art not education) during a session where I was to effect a museum gallery tour, I was explaining a certain aspect of patination of metals with a tad more nuance than apparently she could grasp, so she flatly told me in her condescending tone of voice--the only tone that woman knew--in front of a group of people that if I didn't know what I was talking about --and clearly I did not-- I shouldn't "go there" on such topics.

I waited until later and privately to explain the basic physical science behind what I was talking about--physical versus chemical reactions on non-ferrous metals. You know, some trivial stuff some of us managed to grasp a basic knowledge of somewhere around the seventh grade. But, hey, she was clearly employable and I was not. So based on her less than C student understanding -- which required basic art technique concepts and a smattering of middle school physical science knowledge-- she deemed herself the authority. And me? Utterly uninformed. Because of course, she was a certified educator and I was not. She was being paid for her services and clearly I was not. Its all about the money folks.

The problem isn't a lack of knowledge wherein factoids are easily researched or checked for accuracy. The problem is a total failure of imagination or the basic humility to realize when you really don't know more than the next person no matter your resumé. It is lazy thinking at its worst. Okay. Sure. Whatever.

It was some time around that point that we were boldly hit-up by this institution for seriously upping our charitable contribution. Really? Remind me again of the definition of 'chutzpah'? I was informed as a volunteer organization board member, I was a "leader" and perhaps I needed to increase my giving. Really? Give more you say? You have already taken my heart, questioned my integrity and intelligence. What else do you people want? Instead, we purposefully allowed our membership to lapse and I resigned the volunteer ranks as well as my board seat. I honestly explained that I just could no longer support the place. I had had enough. I was then deemed a "quitter" by a woman who on any given day of the week wears outfits that cost more than the bulk of my wardrobe had the audacity to suggest I was being a "prima donna". At least she had the brass (without a spec of interesting patina) to say such a thing to my face.

Okay. Sure. Whatever.

You know what? I just wanted a job in the area for which I am trained. I wanted to be useful, to fit in, to be a part of something larger, to be challenged, use my brain, make a difference, support an area of the arts for which I care deeply, to draw a salary. Is that too much to ask? In the larger picture over the long term, I wasn't just there to stuff envelopes or lecture school groups and go for lunch afterwards. Although I did that sort of thing plenty of times and never complained, biting my tongue a whole lot. Trying so damned hard to make nice.

That sort of work is vital to any organization and should not be in any way disrespected. Since I was working hard to try to get noticed to be seen as valuable enough to warrant consideration, I did everything and anything I was asked to do with a genuine smile. Which included stocking toilet paper and tidying up during an event where someone had to do that. Hey, I do it at home and I was brought up by a mother who constantly reminded me to make myself useful and not get too big for my britches. But, apparently because I am unwilling to allow myself to be used like a wad of tissue, I am a prima donna shirker. Okay. Sure. Whatever.

So since then I have tried my hand at a few other volunteer gigs. If for no other reason than to find a place in this community. Nothing has sunk quite to the same low as that arts organization experience but on every occasion I am told what great contributions I make. How this project or that got fixed once I took it on. Including erroneous work done by past staff members. You know, people who were getting paid for their slack services. (Amazing how things work out so much better when one takes ownership of a project and sees it through with a modicum of personal pride and some work ethic!) How they just couldn't have done that last event quite as well as they did without my help. How much they appreciate my dependability and honesty. Okay. Sure. Sounds like I'd make a pretty damned good employee, eh? No?! Really?

Okay. Sure. Whatever. I get it. Not so long as the ole Bessie is still giving milk...

Why is it that such non-profit organizations overlook the folks who obviously are there because they believe in the mission of the place enough to roll out of bed and come work for absolutely nothing and have proven beyond anyone's doubt that they are qualified and by the actual admission of administrative staff would make a great addition to the team? Not even a small, part-time gig with no benefits? Really?

Oh. I see. Nevermind.

That was before the economy hit a wall and so many arts and cultural institutions have taken huge hits. Most especially those which heretofore have relied upon whatever paltry stipend from government, they are now deemed "pork barrel spending". You do the math on how things stack up since. So, Mama is sick and tired of working for free; for making art at give-away prices or busting my too tired ass for folks who view their having to pay admission to a cultural institution as an affront to their God-given American rights to lay their cheapness off on someone else. Feckin' freeloaders. You want your darling children to have arts experiences? Great. There is no free lunch and there are no free arts programs anymore, folks. And there never have been. For years someone like me has been busting their hump so your over-indulged darling spawn can enjoy an "arts experience" which is now deemed "fluff" by some of you same folks who can't grasp that its more than glorified Crayola time; time you see as free babysitting. Maybe if I'd been turned loose with your knuckle-headed kids I could have shaped their skulls full of mush with some cool connections between the arts and science or math? But these days too many deem science and math an much of an affront to their world-view as art.

My last volunteer gig was a sometimes-paid deal when they really needed me for short bursts of concentrated time. I really appreciated that. It wasn't a lot of money and it wasn't a lot of hours but it was at its core a tangible recognition that my time and efforts are worth something; that my lot in life is not to serve someone else's every whim and then sort of disappear when not needed. Then it was suggested I apply for a temp job there for a position I really wasn't interested in, don't have much aptitude for despite the fact I had already done a large project which fixed some problems in that area. I had taken on that project simply because it needed doing but honestly it was not my cup of tea. I was told the temp gig would absolutely not turn into a regular position as it was only for a couple of months. It would have also meant I couldn't have gone on our regular summer vacation which was already booked and paid for. And the money I'd have earned would not have begun to cover the out of pocket costs of missing our much needed week vacation. You do the math. I sincerely and regretfully turned it down. Then things were sort of awkward. As if I was being unreasonable that I turned down the idea.

Okay. Sure. Whatever.

I am tired of being asked to give up things which are way beyond the call of what should be reasonably asked of anyone. I am sick of living for the benefits of others. Charity and volunteerism be damned. All of you who recoil at that honest statement, would you sell insurance or build bridges or run a company or sit in the Statehouse or do brain surgery for free? Simply out of your altruistic impulses? All you who bitch and moan about paying for stuff out out of your federal income taxes of which rates aren't any higher than they have ever been --even back in the "good old days". I know this as a fact, dear one, I am married to a tax guy. Quit repeating bullshit you hear on talk radio and look it up for yourself. You pay less percentage of income in federal taxes now than you did back in the "good old days" of Ike. What I am talking about here is tax monies that goes for things like the programs your kids enjoy on field trips. If you can't or won't ante up for your own darlings why should I be making up the slack with my free labor?

But, let's not put it down to a society with skewed values; one that culturally is going to hell in the proverbial hand basket. What I am getting at here, people, is the societal compact; the idea that if you are utterly free to give up on your altruism or what you are contributing to in the realm of the common good with taxes (while screaming about it), then why shouldn't I also have the right to say to hell with my own contributions? To hell with my version of altruism? Too hell with volunteering for organizations you or your kids directly derive benefits? How about them apples? What if everyone acted on that? Where would we be?

Perhaps we should blame Bessie for being too generous for too many years spoiling everyone?

So, I will remain one of the umpteen million Americans who are unemployed for the time being. But I have decided I am not sure I am interested any more in volunteering in all of my free time. I am wishing I had an income to be paying taxes for which I could bitch and moan all of the time like some of you. Too many people view volunteerism as what antsy geezers or bored housewives do; women who have no skills or intelligence. Something to tide them over between their bikini wax session and bridge game.

For every person who is willing to give it away for free, it makes it that much harder for people who are needing a job and you know, a little something for their effort to find that. I wonder what would happen if every organization which relies on volunteers suddenly discovered that their volunteers had gone on strike? But, I won't sit around and wait for the free enterprise system or the wonderful world of underfunded not-for-profit organizations to figure out any of that economic calculus. Our culture is one that likes to give lip service to the notion that it is more blessed to give than receive. But only so long as you are on the receiving end and someone is making your life easier. The other way around? Not so much.

Culturally, we have become a very low-brow country filled with selfish boobs, so I reckon analogies to teets seems rather appropriate here as they do elsewhere. So, I'll not ask you to pardon my earthy analogies today.

There is a reason why the old saw about free milk and buying the cow has been around for ages. And, that is all fine and good until good ole dependable work cow Bessie and her generous teets give plum out. I don't know about any of you all but my aching back is about to give out. Lord only knows, the teets are next. Y'all do for yourselves. God gave you two fully-functioning arms and legs and a brain. Use 'em. What're you waiting for? No need to form a committee or "pray" about it. God or Mother Nature or what your Mama spent nine months bakin' gave you all the means you need. It is high time to forget your volunteer call sheet. Just get off your ass and do it yourself.

Peace out. Mama.

My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

2011-09-09T18:22:00.001-04:00

For good or ill, we Americans have always had a myth of the cowboy when it comes to our national identity. Call me seriously retrograde but quite frankly I love the image of the can-do cowboy (or cowgirl). Sure, Dubya sort of screwed it up "Big Time-Major League" as he would say, with his weird, Connecticut born/prep school/Ivy League/Lucky Sperm Club interpretation of what it means to be a cowboy. He wore his "all hat and no cattle" cowboy persona with bully swagger with a touch of snickering Beavis and Butthead heavily sprinkled with more malapropisms and non sequiturs than Yogi Berra (but lacking Berra's guileless charm).

Let us recall a few things: Cowboys are not insecure or ignorant dopes who pathologically need to flex their muscles. They don't have Daddy issues. They are not swaggering. They are not bullies. They are not glory hounds. They don't put up "Mission Accomplished" banners and strut around in costume like a movie set extra. Cowboys famously love to wax philosophically eloquent by the campfire, strum a guitar or unabashedly write cowboy poetry.

Cowboys of myth and film, like the knights errant of Arthurian legend, ride into town, do what needs done without a lot of fanfare and pomp. They man-up, do the job, then swing up into their saddle in one smooth, natural motion and ride out of town. They do what they do based on an intrinsic moral code. They don't do big elaborate parades or self-congratulatory speeches. They don't wallow in some maudlin displays. They don't milk their grief or prolong the nursing of a wound when their side-kick takes lead and buys the metaphorical ranch in the sky. They don't make it all about themselves. They don't use their heroic exploits for personal gain or to win votes.

When the going gets tough, they tie a dirty bandanna around their gunshot leg to stanch their own bleeding then cut the bullet out with their Barlow knife. Without anesthetics or whining. All while continuing to participate in the shoot-out with the villains. They embody the understated competence and clear moral vision of Gary Cooper in High Noon. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. But not one ounce more when it comes to dispensing justice to the bad guys.

But lately we have become a nation which understands itself through the lens of another nineteenth century romantic genre: the vampire myth . Instead of seeing ourselves as the rugged individualists of the Old West; the folks who stoically face hardship, lawlessness, or societal change which threatens to alter a way of life, we now seem to cast ourselves as hapless victims. Deflowered damsels in distress. Instead of steady self reliance, we fall back on the need of the magical talismanic powers of an uplifted mirror, out sized gilt cross or a necklace of garlic to ward off evil. Instead of quiet competence, and stoic, determined action we seem to be held in sway to morbid reminders of what evil emerges from the crypt at night and how we are powerless to overcome it. Boogety, boogety, BOO!

We need to get off of our fainting couches and suck it up, people!

Are we Cowboys or are we Victorians? Are we the people of "noun + verb + 9-11"? Are we people of action or people of perpetual maudlin displays? Are we this very weekend making an event which by its very nature is something much larger than ourselves into something that is all about ourselves? (Breathlessly asked: "Where were you when the towers fell?!") Will we dress ourselves in black crepe and sad faces, wallowing in the grievous tales of fallen heroes or average citizens instead of getting busy honoring and respecting the ones who are still among us quietly doing their jobs day in and day out? Will we remember with dignity and honor our fellow citizens who have gone on to the great beyond? Or will we, as time warp Victorian ladies, sit around in our stuffy parlours, drapes drawn, weaving tokens of the dead from locks of their hair, feeding some sick national fetal position of mawkishness with our own version of holy relics pulled from the wreckage?

Will we continue to be as the Victorians who created such morbid, hyper-romantic mystical pap as vampire lit; fixated on mysticism, paranoia, insanity, oddly mixing our personal monsters of fear and terror with creepy neo-Gothic titillation of blood lust and rubbernecking?

Will our national myth be taken from the work of Bram Stoker's Dracula or Charles Portis' True Grit? Should we find some national morality play in Brides of Dracula where the women are made into vessels of terror and fear in some psycho-sexual vampire ritual?

Or shall we continue to find some national meaning via one (albeit much less than perfect) scripted with a plucky girl seeking justice; a strong individual firmly placed chronologically within that same Victorian era as the aforementioned but set in a new frontier, truly embodying grit much more than the protagonist played by John Wayne?

Sure, both aforementioned films from the 1960s exhibit much more camp than high art but nonetheless they have something to say to us and about us. Today, do we see ourselves as players in a horror drama or an action film; one in which we retain a sense of wit? Are we players in some Twilight romance drama or even a darker version of our national myth a la The Unforgiven? Who are we? And what will we make of our circumstances and our times? How do we view ourselves or one another? Will we honor our American forebears and decisively continue their legacy to actively shape our own destiny or will we cower before the fearsomeness du jour?

This weekend, will we be Victorians or will we be the kind of folks we have always claimed to be? Will we finally dry our eyes and embody the determined spirit of Rooster Cogburn's conscience and animating force, the vivacious young Mattie Ross?

What We Still Can't See

2011-08-31T16:39:00.009-04:00

In the middle of the night Saturday as Hurricane Irene howled over our heads and all around us, we lost our electricity. Yesterday morning was the first real opportunity I had to reconnect to the world and find out what had transpired. When we lose power at my house, we lose our electrical pump for our water well. So, beyond losing our lights or conveniences, we have no running water. In order to flush the toilet we have to bail water into the commode tank. To have water to bail, before a big storm we fill our bathtubs for this purpose. But since our septic system empties the holding tank via an electric pump out to the drain field, that only lasts so long before we truly have serious problems when the laws of physics overtake the situation. We always keep about twenty gallons of clean drinking water in cans on hand for such emergencies as well. The utility companies prioritize their repairs with the more rural areas regaining power last. After the outage from last winter's big blizzard and this hurricane, we have decided it is time to acquire a generator for such times.

We are fortunate to have some old-school camping gear and a gas stove to heat water and cook food. We have a portable kerosene heater, a fireplace and down comforters to stay warm enough in winter storms with or without electricity. Our food mostly comes from local farmers and we keep a decent cellar of the foods we preserve. We have a healthy library of books for entertainment and one another to play a few hands of Rummy to while away some stormy hours. The TV is hardly missed. When you live outside the city limits, you would be nothing short of a fool if you weren't prepared for such inconvenient events. We try to follow the old Scout's motto: Be Prepared. But, all things considered, it is but a mere inconvenience to lack the ability to push a button and have an instant flood of light. Being imperiled with a sudden rush of flood waters or lacking such conveniences in good times or living hobbled with an inability to really see the fully obvious even with plenty of light is much worse.

Fortunately, despite a good bit of widespread flooding around us, we came through the storm unscathed. When seeing what happened to the good people of so many communities from North Carolina to New England--and the Maritimes of Canada as well-- we are fortunate. I found myself getting quite annoyed with the cynical commentators who called the pre-storm warnings, evacuations and media attention to this storm "over-hyped". The sandy, flat soil of coastal regions might easily absorb and drain the torrents of their common tropical storms but the rich, upland soil of the farms of Pennsylvania or the steep, rugged terrain of Vermont is another story. While doing errands yesterday I overheard some silly women blathering on about how they couldn't see what the fuss was about. They suffered no damage and their power never flickered! It is only "over-hyped" if you don't live in a place with damage or cannot fathom the fate of others who are not quite so situated. Rather than feel relief, they exuded scorn of those who weren't so fortunate, dismissing the reports as "overblown". Apparently, their perspective on the world stops at the gates to their own community. But in a larger sense, don't we all live in a place that is damaged, friends?

Perhaps not physically or visibly damaged but certainly spiritually? If you look closely you can see it. Whenever some catastrophic event happens these days in America, it never seems to fail that some self-proclaimed spokesman for God informs us all that whatever tragedy just transpired is proof positive that the Almighty is filled with wrath for a reason usually quite self-serving to the one proclaiming it. Rev. Pat Robertson decided that the victims of Katrina were struck down because of God's anger with abortion in America. God hates the loss of innocent life so, naturally, he jumps into the act himself, right?
The events of 9-11 occurred--according to Rev. Pat and Jerry Falwell--because God was angry over all of the gay people in America. So, to follow their logic, God smashed some planes into the center of America's financial district killing a whole lot of people and causing a lot of pain for average folks. He wasn't angry at business people, or about rampant greed or Bernie Madoff or the flim-flam of any number of Wall Street concerns? No. He struck Wall Street because he was angry about gay people.

More recently, Rev. Pat proclaimed the earthquake that rattled the east coast and caused some damage to the Washington Monument a sign from God. Even commentators and politicians cannot help themselves from jumping into such a cul-de-sac of reason. As Hurricane Irene approached, radio commentator Glenn Beck proclaimed it some sort of cosmic "I told you so" to people who had not followed the instructions he laid out in one of his books on how to be prepared. Presumably, Mr. Beck has a good idea of how to keep a wall of water from washing away every inch of one's property?

Not to be left out of the circus, politician Michelle Bachmann proclaimed the hurricane a message from God of his wrath against politicians and Big Government spending. So God sent a hurricane to trash the little people's lives and in some cases, make them more in need of some Big Government spending as they stand there with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their lives intact.

Perhaps none of this is a grand IM from God at all other than a general reminder that every day in which we breathe is a good day? But we don't need reminders from the heights of heaven to know that. Common sense tells us that it surely beats the alternative.

Once the storm passed us, we found a way to get out and find some normalcy in town by eating some Chinese take-out (Chinese take-out places are always open when nothing else is stirring--Chinese take-out people are the world's most industrious or hopeful) and going to a movie. The film The Help has gotten good press mixed in with some criticism. While I understand the criticisms, I tend to view any artistic endeavor that helps people to see things they haven't heretofore comprehended as a very good thing. Its the message not the imperfect vehicle which is important. And, judging the sentiments expressed in the bulk of comments left on film sites, a lot of people have gleaned some new insights or enlightenment from watching it.

Having lived over twenty-five years in the South, we found a lot in the film quite familiar. For those who think the bad old ways of that world are completely gone, guess again. The "maid's bus" made a stop only a few yards from our front door in our very conservative, historic neighborhood. A good many of my older neighbors still employed their black maids who wore those awful uniforms and played a similar, subservient role as the women in that film. They rode the local public transport bus which really was referred to commonly as "the maid's bus". Many of the homes in that neighborhood had special "maid's toilets" the size not much larger than a closet. The house I lived in only seven years ago once had such a special accommodation which a more enlightened previous owner had reclaimed as a passageway. I was informed that my riding the local bus over to the shopping center would constitute an enormous faux pas. I was also informed of other things I ought not do but did a lot of them anyway. Doing what you think is right or logical isn't always the popular thing but it does wonders for one's ability to sleep at night if one is fortunate to still possess a conscience. Someone has to be the first one to ask a few hard questions.

Watching the film, I was also reminded just how cruel and unkind the "Us-four-and-no-more" clubby Junior League, high-and-mighty church lady types can be. Nothing like swaddling one's locally approved prejudices in one's smug perception that God is the lead singer in the local Amen Chorus. The herd mentality is deadly where ever it is found. Living a life so constipated, so impacted around doing the popular, the "safe" status quo same old stuff clouds one's freely flowing perceptions as surely as a storm knocking out your lights; whether that be repeating and reinforcing the same old stereotypes, the same old tropes about who is allowed to join your own enshrined little club based on hand-me-down assumptions or living life in a rut; who God is angry with or smiles upon or whether one has the audacity to follow the better angels of one's own conscience to do the right thing in the face of such willful ignorance or downright hate. Even at the peril of the disapproval of the Mothers Superior--the upright church ladies of one's own town.

Sometimes those who call themselves 'godly' are the most godless.

Why are people so afraid of finding their way with only a flashlight whether in a hurricane or amid the dark whirlwind of one's time or place? Why not consider how we are blessed; how we should be thankful; how we already possess the power to do what needs done? Or what we can do to make things better or initiate change for our fellow human beings rather than complain or find scapegoats as the causative factor for natural disasters or times of trouble? Your narrow brand of theology or ideology is not a good basis for what you can better discover by just living a full life; one fully open to concepts and people outside your comfort zone. Your neighbor most likely is just as decent and hard working as you are. And likewise for the folks on the other side of the tracks living down near the flood plain. They didn't get flooded out because they are wicked, slothful or stupid. They got flooded out in life's storms because they are poor and can't afford to live up on the hill with some of the rest of us. Let us embrace that truth rather than assume the worst.

If we find wrongs, perhaps we should seek to call them out and fix them instead of averting our eyes or failing to be an advocate. If we see others in need, we should address it. No, I don't mean telling your neighbor he is going to hell because he drinks scotch. That isn't your concern. Maybe the poor soul has been driven to drink in excess as a balm for the exact reason that you are his neighbor? We moan about how tough we have it but maybe someone in our own sphere has things much worse but we don't know because we haven't looked or listened, having been too caught up in our own concerns or flawed view of the world?

Maybe we all should ride the maid's bus around a bit and find out what life is like inside the skin of our brother of sister. Maybe it would do us all a whole lot of good. And maybe it will help us not to fear the simplicity of a flashlight in the darkness as it focuses our attention on just our own next step even as it helps us to see the larger picture of what we still have trouble envisioning even in the year 2011: Faith isn't about power, your religion or proselytizing your entire block for stars in your crown, winning the next election or stamping out the kinds of folks who give you the willies. It is exponentially larger than any of that. It is about championing justice, hope, thankfulness and most especially love: embodying the change we wish to see around us. On this day, let us all hope for what we still can't see.

If you can't always be there in person, you can be there in spirit:
The American Red Cross
The Southern Poverty Law Center

Makin' My Own World of Intentional UnCool

2011-08-22T12:12:00.007-04:00

Why is it that stores insist on a Frequent Shopper Card one must use to get the sale price? Which requires one to haul around a fistful of such cards in one's wallet or on one's key ring with their "convenience-sized" key chain version? Really? Is any of this convenient? As I sit here looking at my collection of key chain cards I spy cards for three grocery stores, a pharmacy, an art supply store, Crabtree & Evelyn (the place I get my beloved gardener's hand cream) and a card for Petco for all of my lop-eared beagle's pampered needs among a few others.

I amassed so many of them I put them all on a dedicated key ring because they didn't fit on my actual key ring with my Volvo key (the size of a small cell phone), one house key and one garage key. The same ring to which I am seriously contemplating adding a mace dispenser. But then when changing purses and downsizing for summer, the discount card ring got left in the old purse. Who wants to lug all of that crap around anyway? Why lug all of that around while visiting Canada where a) they don't seem to have those same stores or b) if they did, (at least where I was visiting) they don't appear to believe in anything closely resembling reasonable pricing with 18% tourism area tax slapped on top...much less discounts. (Many of them love to bitch and moan about Americans--we're all lumped together as ignorant boobs because they like to moan that we all lump them into stereotypes of Canadians-- but they surely don't seem to mind lumping the lot of us into their own stereotypes or taking our tourism dollars just the same. But that's okay because the eye-rolling irony is absolutely free, friends! Oh, and incase you were staying up nights wondering: Ontario single-handedly won the War of 1812. Americans can rest easy that we aren't the only nation with our share of chest-pounding, nationalistic, self-aggrandizing historical revisionist myth makers. But I digress...)

So, only a couple days back from a little road trip, yesterday while buying a whole boatload of art supplies, I suddenly realized my Dick Blick ten percent off discount card was in the other purse at home in my closet. Great. (Luckily, the kid ringing up my order wasn't as slouchy or petulant as some of their employees and was willing and able to look up my account and give me my discount.)

Every once in a blue moon, Macy's mails out discount coupons to their customers which always seem to be on my desk while I am actually at Macy's in need of such coupons. I shop when it becomes convenient to dash in to pick up something I need so unless I change my ways and pencil in dedicated shopping trips onto my calendar and purposefully remember coupons or just walk around with all of my coupons with me 24/7, I am out of luck.

So, once in awhile I go soft and fall prey to thinking that I really should just keep such things in my purse. But then when I start carrying around things such as coupons and sale ads, discount cards and pamphlets, only a bit later I get disgusted with all of the clutter and crap insinuating its way in my purposefully-chosen, smaller scaled bag. I am a woman torn between two lovers: I refuse to carry a diaper bag purse but I can't seem to completely eschew sale prices yet can't find room for a extra stuff such as a wallet of coupons.

What happens? Every once in awhile I go medieval on my purse, dumping all contents on the table and ruthlessly editing. The only things that make the cut: Super cute Art Nouveau-esque Fossil billfold which also gets routinely purged of extraneous things such as receipts or old membership cards. Key ring. One slender Burt's Bees Lip Gloss, Peony color (the only stuff I ever use). Stylishly turned wood pill container (made by my very skilled and clever Dad). Handy interlocking comb/mirror combo (a Clinque freebie promotional give-away about fifteen years ago--clever and useful or free never goes out of style, my friend). Mini-sized tin of Altoids. Sunglasses in a bulkier-than-I-prefer case--- but what's a girl to do? That's the legitimate content of my purse. Anything extra is deemed superfluous clutter.

Does purse size matter? What does the contents of my purse or my private neurosis about all of this matter to you? This is all a great metaphor for life, people. Every so often one needs to purge the contents of one's existence. For me of late besides the purse? It is the grand Facebook purge. I won't bore you all with all of the immediate reasons but it feels marvelous hitting DELETE and then answering in the affirmative when asked "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO PERMANENTLY DELETE THIS?" Oh, indeed I do!

As an old art prof used to preach: "Simplify. Simplify. Simplify." Oh yeah, baby.

I've been reading a fantastic book called The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman. In it he quotes the artist Sol LeWitte's advice to fellow artist Eva Hesse:

"Learn to say 'Fuck You' to the world once in awhile. You have every right to. Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, gasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, rumbling, rambling, gambling, rumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose-sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO. Don't worry about cool. Make your own uncool. Make your own-- your own world."

My no-fuss/no-muss world would be a world de-cluttered of coupons, frequent shopper discount cards and some of the most annoying BS aspects of modern life, including but not limited to things such as Facebook or schlepping around with more than one shade of lip gloss. From here on out, I am just asking the retail clerks of life ringing me up (the actual gum-snapping one handling my lip gloss purchase at CVS; the hipster putting greasy finger prints all over my fine art papers in Dick Blick (really, what are they teaching these kids in art school these days?!)...

...Or the cosmic, metaphorical ones scanning the contents of my existential shopping cart. Look up my account on your Big Brother computer which enjoys much more storage space than my cute summer crocheted handbag to check on my discount eligibility if you dare hope to keep me as anything resembling a loyal customer. They glean God-only-know-how-much information on all of us for their own marketing purposes. Why can't they put it to good use for our convenience or benefit once in awhile? Huh? Otherwise, be advised that I will much more attentively following some of de wit of Sol LeWitte. And that, my friend, is only one short step to vowing to never pay full retail ever again.

Rarified Halls of Elitism?

2011-08-08T19:02:00.012-04:00

Over the weekend, we had the pleasure of visiting the storied Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The closing date for an exhibition I had been meaning to see was looming so we finally got around to going over to take a look. (It was exquisite!) Upon arriving, we were confronted with mobs of people queued up in two lines extending a few blocks up and down Fifth Avenue. The wait time was to be almost two hours just to enter the museum's grand doors. Then, once inside, another wait of three hours in another enormous queue that wound around and around the labyrinthine halls of grand art. Surely, all of those folks were not lined cheek-to-jowl to see eighteenth-century pastel portraiture or the new Frans Hals exhibit? That wouldn't bring out every young hipster and waif-thin sprite in New York City in such droves?!

Silly me for even thinking that! Certainly not!

Everyone was in a façonnable panic to see the big Alexander McQueen fashion-palooza exhibition on the very last day of its run. Please know that I have nothing against fashion, the late Mr. McQueen or his work, which while created with impeccable craftsmanship and the chops of a Savile Row-trained tailor, is a just a bit too nouveau-creepy-Victorian for my tastes. But, as Jerry Seinfeld might say "Not that there is anything wrong with that..." I cast no aspersions. And so, craftsmanship or not, I was not interested in waiting in line for well over five hours to see any of it, most especially since we were there to see a different exhibition. As members of the museum, we were afforded a wait in a short thirty minute line to gain entrance at which time we were free to wander at will around the almost completely deserted galleries.

While awaiting our thirty minutes for our controlled access to the side door, I spent the time pondering a bit about the dichotomy of the thousands and thousands of people quite willingly corralled in ninety-five degree heat on sweltering pavement, seriously suffering for fashion, awaiting their precious moments to revel in the couture of celebrity as they'd be herded along like, well, sheep. Not wholly unlike some of the imagery conjured up in some of McQueen's creations, mind you. Versus the freedom of spending those five or six hours engaged in serendipitous adventure roaming amid art of the ages in one of the world's premier art museums. With hardly another soul around, I might add. Which one would you choose? It was a no-brainer for us. I don't go out of my way to suffer for many things in this world and fashion is clearly not close to being on my list (as anyone who knows me well can attest from sight of my wardrobe).

For those who might dismiss the rest of the contents of the museum as that of "old art"; the art of dead, white males which is deemed stale, inaccessible, humorless and irrelevant, I say this: Pish, Posh Says Hieronymus Bosch. If its inspirational enough for imaginative children's literature, should it not suffice for adults? And, yes, some prefer the safety of the ancient, venerable or merely "pretty"--Dutch Masters to the eye candy of Impressionism which tends to co-ordinate so well with the decorator toss pillows on so many suburban sofas. All of which is just as misguided if they actually understood very much of it past gross superficialities.

For those who claim they simply cannot take all of that "dry" art culture at one meal, might I suggest that if one actually gives license to one's senses--one's eyeballs to one's mind --so that one might really see, to savor, one can find all manner of lively messages, coy humor and sometimes outright ribaldry besides the enormously technical work of talented folks who labor amid the milieu of visual culture? Oh, Dear Friends, where should one begin?

Well, why not head first to the galleries with the Old Masters. They are safe and familiar, are they not? Let's have a peek at the work of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). What do we see? Comely, buxom milkmaids (tee-hee) and the shimmering sensuality of a variety of symbolic objects, amid all of that middle class, Dutch domesticity. How delicious! Picture The Girl With the Pearl Earring in a modern-day version, oh, I don't know, how about as Scarlett Johannson? Get the picture? If one bothers to read the accompanying wall texts, one will learn of those visual clues contained in those paintings; clues which lie just below the proper, corseted figures. Many of Vermeer's paintings were created for the enjoyment of a single patron who was a red-blooded male with-- how to put it?-- fantasies. One will also come to realize that when casting the eponymously named film, the choice of Scarlett was dead-on perfection.

Then move along to Frans Hals and his smokers, drinkers, dancers and card players. Not enough raw humanity for you? Go find Merrymakers at Shrovetide. with references to the mythical stage personalities of the Netherlandish characters of Jan Wurst (John Sausage) and Peckelharing (Pickled Herring) who make obscene gestures at the buxom blonde in the foreground, cozying up to her to no avail. We know nothing comes of their advances as the painter gives us the answer in the witty visual clues of the impaled wieners, the broken eggs and wrinkled and flaccid bagpipe draped over the table which stands as a clear statement about these losers amorous prospects. All that's missing is a cartoon dialogue bubble and some cheesy pick-up lines. The "hot chick" sits amid them frozen in laughter... since 1615. You know, "She who laughs last..." and all of that.

Hieronymus Bosch, anyone? The man well ahead of his time (1450-1516) who is famous for The Garden of Earthly Delights where bizarre figures, many of them writhing naked and arranged in almost Kama Sutra like poses present us with a spectacle of skin, skin, skin which every Sunday school kid knows leads to one thing: sin, sin, sin. But, we seem to be given this moralistic message amid a vision of a place, as author Peter Beagle writes: "an erotic derangement that turns us all into voyeurs, a place filled with the intoxicating air of perfect liberty." It reminds me of the Teevee preacher who preaches on the perilous evils of S-E-X or Lord-have-mercy-I-don't-know-what-all? Scary stuff like mini skirts, devil music or the "homosexual agenda" in a manner which in its delivery and content is intended to scare the bejeebers out of everyone present but winds up quite the dive into the most lurid and exquisitely wrought detail. It is only later we learn more of his personal connoisseurship and scholarship of such things, meticulously footnoted and annotated but just before the dramatic, tearful public confessions and reassurances that God has forgiven so hey, no harm, no foul. Oh, how the mighty fall. Sigmund Freud, grand master of sexual weirdness and repression, had a few things to say about such things, did he not?

After that dizzying display, spin around the corner to check out the paintings by some dead super white guys from Delft. After the Calvinists got done smashing the "idols" of Catholicism and whitewashing the walls of their newly converted churches, they started painting images of the church interiors. Images of saints were verboten and paintings on the walls were removed. But apparently, images of whitewashed walls in sanctuaries was all of the rage. Venerating images of saints is bad. Venerating images of bricks-and-mortar is good. Who knows? Perhaps we should ask Sherwin-Williams? Or the Dutch Boy paint guy who must have made a fortune selling all of those idol smashers white paint. For some reason they all had a fixation on the "Oude Kerk" of Amsterdam. Must have been the highest steeple (painted white, naturally) of the low churches? In any event, a whole lot of them got in on the act. Guys like Cornelius de Man (who truly was da man in Dutch painting) and Hendrick Van Vliet.

Some claim such pictures to be exercises in the newly celebrated advances in architectural perspective. But I'd like to see them as pre-photographic cover art for church directories. Add some pages with quick sketches or rough watercolors of a few youth projects or church camp hijinx--outhouse tipping or a round of Hide the Delft Chamber Pot in Cabin Six. Mix in some seventeenth-century family portraits, (forerunners to the venerable Olin Mills pictures) complete with tight-lipped, dour, hyper-Calvinistic matrons and churls wreathed by their "quiverful" of miserable looking children and what you stir up is something deliriously sly. Especially if the modern viewer has ever attended such a calvinistic kerk of Protestant propriety. (Which seems to lead to unfortunate alliteration among other vices.)

Interior of Oude Kerk, Delft by de Witte

Then you come across another Interior of Oude Kerk painting from 1650. This time by the clearly cheeky Emanuel de Witte (who quite possibly was da wit of Dutch painting). He painted the place with hobbits and elven men and a dog pausing in his pursuit of another fleeing dog, to hike his leg on one of the main supporting pillars of the church in order to take a pee. Read the meaning of that however you will, Gentle Reader, but pious charity of a calvinistic variety might suggest he was illustrating for the weak and impressionable the first point of the Calvinist TULIP acrostic: Total Depravity. But, since: a) everyone knows all Calvinist dogs most certainly do not go to heaven because they are not among the elect and b) anyone who has spent much time in such a whitewashed church can appreciate such naughty humor as a shaft of light illuminates the dog mid-act. God seems to be giving his approval, no less. This heaven-blessed dog seems to favor sprinkling over dunking or pouring so despite his behavior, we know he must be reformed.

When all of that Low Country fervor gets to you, head over to the British painting section. Quite frankly, most English art is duller than rusty nails--nothing at all like French art. But you might get lucky and find yourself standing before the work of Sir Henry Raeburn (1783-1855) who wasn't really British but a Scot, to be exact. And, oh, aye, there is a great bit of difference, lads and lasses. He did gorgeous portraits in the Romantic style. Most folks have seen his work but probably don't know it. He painted Sir Walter Scott and other such lights and luminaries of Scottish society.

"Portrait of George Harley Drummond of Stanmore, Middlesex & Drumtochy" by Sir Henry Raeburn

I ran across such a perfectly Scottish painting the other day that was as cheeky as it was brilliantly and lusciously painted by Raeburn. I'd reckoned he wasn't terribly enamored with the subject of this portrait. And seeming to echo my own thoughts, the wall text read: "The foreshortened view of the grazing bay horse is the most complex part of the composition, though not the most important. It is curious therefore that the animal's hindquarters should be so prominently displayed." Which calls to mind my favorite bumper sticker of all time. It was spotted just below the top of the rear gate of a partially enclosed horse trailer where a horse's bum was in full view above the gated door. The sticker simply advised: "Don't be what you see." I'd like to think that Sir Henry Raeburn was making a similar point about George Harley Drummond of Stanmore, Middlesex and Drumtochy? Plummy toff.

Isis (and her hat)

When you get tired of all of that high art, go hit the cafeteria for a nosh. Or go have a quick look at the Egyptian crypts and mummies. That's good for a bit of old-fashioned prurience. Then on your way towards the exit, wave a hearty HEY to the lovely, doll sized, fully nude, ceramic Isis encased in a vitrine conveniently placed at eye level. Isis, the Egyptian Aphrodite, was quite a scamp. Obviously, after this one got done Walking Like an Egyptian, it would appear she did her final encore number as a forerunner of the much-later English tart skillfully working it a la the full monty to the old Joe Cocker classic: You Can Leave Your Hat On.

A day at the art museum and none the worse for wear! You just might find yourself a little more cultured, a whole lot entertained and a whole lot less starchy. Who says art is in the sole provenance of stuffed shirts, egg-heads or elitists? Only if you allow it, Dear Readers. Only if you will it to be so.

We Can Work it Out

2011-08-03T12:00:00.007-04:00

Do other people entertain such bizarre threads of stream of consciousness as I do? Maybe other people are better than I am at casting out the demons of weird thoughts. But, rather than dispel them, I tend to work them to see where they will go. They make great material.

Yesterday, on the car radio I heard the song Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond. It isn't a song I particularly like but it took me back to the summer of 1970 when I was a kid. My neighborhood pals and I spent countless hours playing kiddie card or board games and listening to 45 rpm records. The records were almost entirely supplied by the spoiled kid down the street.

The spoiled girl had loads of records--mostly the kind of stuff which would appeal to a kid who devoured Tiger Beat magazine and belonged to various official fan clubs. Her taste never rose to the level of bands such as the Beatles but rather less appealing pop singers. She owned every last Barbie accessory and to the wonder of all of the neighborhood kids, her family kept a freezer in their basement stocked stem to stern with Mr. Freeze Pops. Opening the lid on that thing was like discovering Blackbeard's hidden treasure chest of gold to us kids who had moms who weren't so concerned with appeasing us as giving us lectures and "something useful to do" should we whine. So, when summer days got hotter and more humid, we all kept our silent pact to keep the spoiled, fat kid happy for the sheer, self-interested want of Mr. Freeze Pops.

Her counterpart today would be a die-hard Justin Bieber fan. She had a thing for pop stars like Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy. Pretty boy singers with perfectly coiffed, silken hair--a male version of the Breck Girl advertisements from the back of Seventeen magazines of that time. But, thankfully her mom had a bodacious stack of hi-fi recordings containing less saccharin (albeit more ingredients of oh, let's just say Love Potion Number Nine?) so when her musical choices became tiresome or more vomit-inducing than a bottle of Syrup of Ipecac, we induced her to poach something from her mom's collection of cocktail lounge lust.

And, in time, I truly came to appreciate that Mrs. G's music was just the grown up version of Bobby Sherman. Music for women who swooned to the likes of Neil Diamond and threw their panties at Tom Jones. The apple does not fall far from the tree, friends. I was always more a fan of the Beatles or maybe sixties Motown and super old school soul--you know, music made by men who could skillfully dance in total synchronicity while rocking awesomely matching outfits. Or women with voices so strong and large (such as Aretha's or Mahalia's) that they fill the room and you could feel the reverberations of that voice in your very gut. I also liked all of the mellow male falsetto and limber vocal stylings of Motown which amazingly never seemed girly or cheesy like the disco dons, the Bee Gees' falsetto later would represent.

Seriously, I've always been of the persuasion that you cannot possibly grow up around Chicago and not pick up some appreciation for such stuff unless you live sheltered under a rock. But, hey, everyone has his own tastes. So, we always seemed to strike some compromise on the music. If all else failed us, we could pull out the handy transistor radio to take in whatever the local DJ was spinning that day. The larger point is that we kids managed mutually beneficial dealings that our very own Congress today could learn from. Such deft compromises that Mr. Boehner himself might weep at in awe. But then it doesn't usually take such inspiration for him to shed tears.

To avoid listening to Sherman singing Julie, Do Ya Love Me until we all fell into a sugar coma, we agreed to listen to the stylings of Mrs. G's lounge lizard, microphone cord tossing, Vegas-y singers. Whatever game we would play was also chosen by turns and if necessary a round of rock, paper, scissors or serious horse trading. Playing such games was the preferred activity when the heat and humidity soared. In addition to a life-time supply of Mr. Freeze Pops, the spoiled kid's family also had the only centrally air conditioned house on our block.

The fat, spoiled kid was always a bit needy for friends who would tolerate her occasional outbursts so we all had plenty of incentives to compromise and work out something mutually beneficial. There are plenty of spoiled, overly indulged persons (or those who nurture a constant sense of entitlement or victimhood, the poutiest often being the ones with the most) given to temper tantrums in the adult world but it does occur to me that perhaps we could get much better cooperation if we made such folks conduct business while enduring a constant hum of boy band music or the stylings of Englebert Humperdinck in the stifling heat of August sans air conditioning. Or making them play the equivalent of Authors when they'd prefer a rousing round of Mystery Date.

So, Spoiled Kid supplyed the cool air, cool snacks, tunes of her choosing and the fancier board games. I would bring a pack of Authors or Old Maid cards and various other kids kicked in whatever they had along with our combined patience and forebearance. Fat, Spoiled Kid did tend to kick in more to the entertainment kitty but hey, to whom much is given, much is required. And if a kid wants friends, sometimes there is a price. Sometime that price is Mr. Freeze Pops. But the rest of us all earned whatever perks we enjoyed via that arrangement in that we tolerated her petulant whining over the years.

I was a real fan of Authors for which I was mistakenly deemed some sort of "brainiac nerd", which in hindsight still appeals to me much more so than fulfilling the role of Barbie's Dream House connoisseur or card-carrying member of the Official Fan Club of Davy Jones. We all fill a role in life, do we not? I liked the game of Authors mostly because it was one of the games I owned. And isn't it better to find enjoyment in what you've already got than to always want something else?

Now you should understand that Mrs. G. was a large, loud and perpetually annoyed woman who could suddenly turn to putty at the sight of Tom Jones swiveling his hips on teevee. It was a true wonder to behold. She would come home from work, chain smoke, drink some adult mixed beverage on the rocks and get instantly horny watching a gyrating Welshman. I never saw anything like it at home. My mom taught Sunday School and the only thing she drank on the rocks was lemonade or Tang instant orange drink which as I recall, was famously taken into space by the astronauts so you know it was wholesome. My mom only occasionally ventured into hipster territory when she'd pull out her sheet music for Beatles ballads to play Michelle on the organ.

So, this sort of summertime daytime entertainment would go on for hours until we got tossed outside by the spoiled kid's baby-sitting grandmother who usually endured the gang of kids there because, as she once admitted, her grandchild always behaved better with peers to chide her into more socially acceptable behavior. And Grandma was then free to watch soap operas in peace and air conditioning. Grandma knew something about compromise too.

But in the event we all did get tossed out, we would go to my house and repeat the procedure in front of a box fan singing along with some fitting song, such as Bobby Goldsboro's over-the-top maudlin song Honey. A large fan turned to HIGH made our voices sound as hilariously quivery and deliciously mopey as his. That was until my mom would kick us out outside to "get some exercise" or to "make yourself useful". Which meant she was tired of listening to the same five cheesy songs over and over or had designs to vacuum the carpeting where we were sitting.

Hence, yesterday I drove for miles recalling all of this: the summer of 1970, the summer which should have had hints of a lingering afterglow of the flower children's previous Summer of Love, the perennially losing Chicago Cubs almost making the playoffs or the amazing feat of men walking on the moon the preceding summer of 1969. But all around us was the escalation of talk of war and injustice. So, we were just kids playing Rummy with a deck of cards that had a bunch of dead white guys with bad hair and sour expressions on them. With Louisa May Alcott constituting the single Little Woman deemed worthy of such exalted literary fame. It took me until college to fully appreciate the brilliance of Nathaniel Hawthorn, given his seriously creepy face on my deck of Authors cards. It took me much longer to finally appreciate the incredible voice and musicality of the likes of Tom Jones.

Which just goes to show that so much can be added to or subtracted from something by way of context or the lingering aftertaste of it being situated within times filled with bad fashion, bad hair and so much latent angst in the air. But amid that, what impresses me most is the ability of a disparate gang of neighborhood kids to effortlessly work out a mode of tolerance and companionship even if it did at times hinge on such a small prize as freebie Mr. Freeze Pops. I wonder what middle-aged, flashback moments and stream of consciousness ramblings today's kids will be having about this particular moment in their formative years? Kind of sobering, ain't it?

Your Butt Isn't a Helicopter

2011-07-28T10:09:00.005-04:00

Okay. Enough of a dive into art, culture or dinner table niceties the last few posts. Hey, you will have to pardon me. I got lazy and went on vacation. No thinking required to crank out nice-nice.

But, lest any of you had given up to despair that I had gone all soft and gooey, never fear.

I have just returned from a road trip vacation and I have some pent-up rant in me, Dear Readers. Thank you very much, yes, my vacation was very pleasant and relaxing. We came home refreshed with our batteries charged. But, I really must comment about something relating to what we in America call public restrooms. If you go to Canada or even a Tim Horton's Coffee Shop you will be reminded that Canadians call that little room a public washroom. I suddenly recall that is what we called it out in the Midwest as school kids. We knew bad boys smoked in the washroom and that is where mean girls plied their evil trades when they weren't doing so at their private lunch table. When one asked permission to go pee in the middle of diagramming sentences in Miss Throckmorton's class, one asked to use the washroom. Then we all went to college and suddenly that little room was the restroom. Who knows?

Actually, I prefer the British term for them as simply: the toilets. (Always with a definitive article: the toilets.) That is what they are, isn't it? Nobody gets any rest in a restroom and judging by the number of people who exit a stall and immediately exit the so-called washroom, not a lot of washing is going on in there either. I only hope that none of the flush-n-go set are employees because apparently they cannot read either. Anyone washing their hands in the washroom sees the little sign from the public health department about washing hands. Scofflaws. But, as is the case so often, I digress.

The most often visited public facility while traveling for long stretches in America along our interstate highway system would be the venerable roadside Rest Area where rest actually does occur or at least that is the aim of public safety officials. Having traveled every state of our lower 48 via its highways, I feel I am in a unique position to rank rest area facilities. Since such rest areas are provided and maintained by each individual state, one might extrapolate an insight about the state of our states via their rest area facilities.

Some states helpfully provide a Welcome Center and have all manner of helpful tourist information; a gracious tourism employee to help; clean toilets; lovely picnic areas and once in awhile some charitable group will offer free coffee on a busy holiday weekend. So far this year, I have logged car travel in fifteen states. Based on my very scientific research, (well, okay, personal anecdotal evidence) the prize for the greatest place to stop for a pee is the North Carolina Welcome Center on I-26 north of Asheville, North Carolina.

If you need to pee while you are in Connecticut, my advice is to just hold it. They obviously don't "waste" taxpayer dollars on providing a good impression to travelers much less facilities you'd want to visit. But not to worry. It doesn't take long to drive out of that place. One might think as many hedge fund managers and Wall Street bankers as live in that state, they could afford half-way decent public toilets. (You may supply your own snarky punch line for that one. It is just too easy, friends.) The Connecticut "Welcome Center" attitude: "Welcome to Connecticut. Now get the hell out of here."

Massachusetts isn't much better. New Hampshire doesn't believe in welcome centers or rest areas as it appears to be against their religion. But they have built enormous state-run liquor stores along the heavily traveled I-95 where New Hampshire welcomes you to take a tinkle in their bare bones restrooms that reminds one of the one-step-above-dry-hole facilities at a the so-called "primitive" campgrounds of one's youth (back in the day when tent camping in places like Hattiesburg, Mississippi in July seemed like a lark) before you grab a shopping cart and ultimately drop a load of cash on hooch (they hope). Their attitude seems to be: "Welcome to New Hampshire. Now, take your liquor and get the hell out of here." Don't put yourself in the position to get laughed out of the joint with queries about tourist attractions or spots of culture or it might go something like this: "Hey, you got your discount bug juice, Lady, now scram." I like discount prices on pinot noir but I prefer that with a bit of culture or at least a smattering of half-way cultured attitude, thank you very much. Silly me. I should have known. When you mix the Invisible Hand with a rest area, it does tend to conjure up unsavory, rather pervy images.

Virginia's welcome centers comes close to North Carolina's in a true welcoming atmosphere. They are often built in the architectural style of Colonial Williamsburg with gable end chimneys and embellishments of which Thomas Jefferson would approve even if the chimneys are fake. They still look charming and I have a hunch TJ was into charming based on his penchant for shopping in Paris. And most of all, their toilets are well maintained and clean.

When you pull into a rest area/welcome center in Maine, you are greeted with a sign that says: "Maine: The way life should be". Ayuh. Life should be filled with helpful people to aid you along your way. It should be dotted with quiet, shady groves in which to pause and picnic, refreshing one's self unmolested. It should offer a clean, safe and private place to answer a call from Mother Nature. That happens in Maine. They act as if they are delighted you are visiting them. I suspect they understand you just might linger and leave behind some tourism dollars but they take a softer approach than New Hampshire. I'd readily pay a bit extra for my pinot noir with that attitude.

In West Virginia, a state that proclaims itself in exuberant script "Wild and Wonderful" on welcome signs, it is not uncommon to be offered a free cup of coffee at their rest areas, especially on busy holiday weekends. They aim to slow you down for a few extra minutes as you sip your hot joe, replenish your road tripping caffeine alertness and hopefully decrease rates of accidents...and induce another stop to pee again a few miles down the road repeating the process. Who says folks in West Virginia aren't as the old wry mountaineer saw goes: "As dumb as a fox?

A lot of the rest stops in New Jersey are along toll roads and tend to be arranged in the service plaza format so you aren't offered the chance of a quiet, shady picnic area but you can buy overpriced fast food if that is your cup of tea. But that cup of tea is highly sweetened with high fructose corn sweeteners. But they usually have decently maintained toilets. You will not, however, encounter anything near a welcoming attitude, pleasant visit or helpfulness. You might get lucky and find an employee who speaks English but you might get luckier and find one who gives a rip. But, hey, whaddaya want pal? Its New Jersey. They have a reputation to uphold. And, we give them high marks for attaining their goals.

But the biggest of my pet peeves in the entire universe, the thing that can ruin my day? Needing a potty really badly but being in a crowded public toilet where everyone is lined up and taking turns and your spin of the roulette wheel lands you the prize of a toilet last used by an old woman who hovers. (Yes, hovers. Like what a helicopter does when attempting a rescue mission above raging flood waters. But helo pilots have much better triangulation skills.) And in such a Ladies Room line, you don't get the option of looking for another vacant stall. It is a travesty. Hovering rates legislation that would make it a federal crime. Yes, working on such a bill would be a much better use of time for Congress than what they generally piss away time, effort and money doing. Such as the kabuki theatre in which they are currently engaged.

For some reason, unknown to me, despite much personal research on this topic, old women seem to be the main culprits. With, I might add, measurable assistance of certain foreign tourists who shall go unnamed because of my latent Welcome Center sensibilities. I can understand the habit in folks who live in a culture where their own public facilities require hovering and not necessarily a good aim. What I cannot fathom is the Branson set, the uber-clean All-American church ladies who tend to keep a home so neat one could eat off of their floors who, when peeing in a public facility, ritualistically hover, leaving a freshly sprayed mess for the next person to wipe up.

I am informed by some of the very self-confessing culprits, that they behave this way with some vague excuse from fears of getting a dread disease from a public toilet seat. What makes it even more a mystery is when it happens in places which helpfully provide hygienic paper seat covers. Amid my research I asked such culprits if they use the paper seat covers and I was met with a blank stare. Seat covers? And do they not think that perhaps the rest of us don't want to sit after them once they have sprayed the place down? Grandma, how do we know you don't have some dread disease? Huh? And do you think that germs differentiate toilets? Why is it that you don't hover in the ladies room at your church? Are church folk exempt from germs?

This same cohort of old women think nothing of sitting on a public bench at their local YMCA swimming facility's locker room in a swim suit or even bare bottomed as they change clothes. What is the difference? They might claim that nobody peed on the bench but they don't know that as a fact, do they? Huh? Little kids pee in the pool all of the time. Who says they don't do the same in the locker room? And, if, Dear Granny, there is pee on the toilet seat, it is because you and your gal-pal hovercraft set put it there. All of which raises the thought that doing unto others as one would have them do under you is a pretty good rule of thumb.

So, if you happen to amble into a charming and hospitable public facility wherever you may roam, or even if you should find yourself in New Jersey, or even the posh toilets in Harrod's of London where to gain entrance, a special hall pass is required, please don't hover. If you wouldn't dream of spraying the fine toilets in the inner sanctum of your house of worship or Harrod's why do it in New Jersey? If it was possible to catch a dread disease by way of your exposed butt cheeks from a toilet seat it would not matter if it was surrounded with designer wallpaper or flushing holy water or not. Rich people and super holy people have weird diseases too.

Just don't spray the seat, people!

Based on my aforementioned personal opinion poll research of a handful of self-confessed culprits, I have more than a strong suspicion that the old ladies who do this are the very ones who harp at their old men for leaving the seat up. Well, honey, ya know what? Maybe he just found sitting down on a wet seat rather tiresome and aims to share the sensation with you. Preferably at 2 AM.

Ah. Now I feel better. Catch ya on down the trail once all of the coffee catches up to us. If I beat you to the line, I pledge to leave a very tidy stall, friend.

You Just Have to Look

2011-07-21T06:00:00.014-04:00

Some people rescue stray cats. I rescue orphaned needlework. It never ceases to amaze me the wonderful needlework that can be found for next to nothing at resale shops. One just has to look. People no longer seem to have much appreciation for handwork. So, I will admit I have become a bit of a table linen horder. I rarely spend a penny over $12 for any large item such as a full dining room sized linen tablecloth in pristine condition often with matching napkins.

Sometimes I find lovely lace work or quilts. I even found an antique hand-woven needlework basket filled with granny's goodies: a lovely array of hand made lace and very finely crocheted exemplars, tools and some old patterns.

Quite often, I find things that have never been used as they have quite obviously never been laundered. If you have done much needlework, you can tell. Looking at such pieces, I often imagine that someones grandmother spent hours working the lovely embroidery and then put it aside for use for special occasions but for some reason, the item never got used. Then Grandmother passed away and her kids got tasked with going through her things and don't want all of her old fashioned granny stuff. So they pack them up and send them up to the resale shop to be practically given away. I reckon it is better that they do that than throw such things away.

That's where I come along with my latent retro granny gene that insists that I scoop up such wonderful workmanship. There is some crime in the fact that one can buy a full sized table cloth, hand embroidered for less than a similarly sized, cheaply made plastic import from China at WalMart. I ask, with great exasperation, just what is wrong with our world, Dear Readers?

Some of my finds:

Found in Newburyport, Massachusetts for $20. Never used.

Fifty cent linen napkins found in Vermont.

Teeny tiny stitching...

The $20 Double Wedding Ring patterned quilt found in Pennsylvania.

After trying my hand at embroidering a linen tablecloth, I decided it is just a whole lot easier to find one for eight bucks than spending months embroidering. I plan on fully enjoying the use of my work to the fullest extent. Every meal is a special occasion if you are dining with those you love. This is my one and only attempt at such a big embroidery project. Never say never...but I have no plans to attempt this again. It was worked with cotton thread on linen in subtle shades of plum and green with french knot embellishments in gold. I am pleased by my humble effort but it pales in comparison to some of the truly fine work to be found in resale shops around here for a mere pittance.

Andrew's World

2011-07-18T06:00:00.003-04:00

Last summer we enjoyed visiting some locations in Maine where the mid-twentieth century American artist Andrew Wyeth painted. If you are familiar with his work, you will recognize these places. If you are not familiar with his work, perhaps these haunting scenes will inspire you to become familiar with his work.

The Old German Church, Waldoboro, Maine:

The Olson Farm, Cushing, Maine:

Deeply Moved by Holy Toast

2011-07-13T11:27:00.005-04:00

Feelin' the love via Fed Ex.

Hey, everyone! A miracle just occurred! The Fed Ex guy just delivered unto me my warranty replacement toaster oven sooner rather than the much later I expected! How often does that happen? Nothing short of a miracle. Here is what happened:

About eight months ago my toaster died. Actually, the handle that you push down to drop the bread into the toasting chamber broke. There was no feasible way to fix it because it was formed of plastic and the intermediary bits were also plastic. Dear Readers, you all should understand that I maintain an awesome shelf in the garage, filled with all manner of super duper serious adhesives and epoxies. If it is physically possible to stick two things together, I can do it. I learned all manner of sweet tricks from a sculpture professor. The man was a adhesives magician. But it is well nigh impossible to over-ride the clever engineering of planned obsolescence. So, my toaster was toast.

After enjoying the convenience of a small toasting oven at a vacation rental house a few times, I was quickly warmed to a toasty glow by such a device. But, detesting clutter and gizmos on my kitchen counter tops, I resisted yet another lump of electronic metal on my counter top. Until the toaster died. So, seeing the multi-tasking possibilities of such a device, I jumped all over it.

I got busy scanning Consumer Reports, price shopping, looking for a compact oven that would meet the need. I was so enthralled with the idea of a compact toaster oven that is all I requested of Santa at Christmas. No toys. No candy. No sugar plums. No faddish stuff. No jewelry or designer gee-gaws. Just a compact toaster oven that makes excellent toast. I am a woman of simple wants. Santa, being the awesome dude that he is, delivered and all was right in my world. Excellently crisped toast, a means to quickly melt butter while cooking, perfectly reheated slices of leftover pizza...Ahhhh!

But then at six months my glorious toaster oven suddenly died. One day it just did not respond at all, showed no signs of an electrical current, no pulse, no brain wave activity--and I was bereft. And so it became necessary to ship it back to Santa's Return Merchandise Department (otherwise known as the Breville Company) for a replacement as it was still under warranty. We were told it might take up to a month to receive a replacement! A MONTH?! Without decent toast?! Are you jesting, man?!

So, not having any other means, I have been resorting to such lunacy as toasting in my over-sized wall oven. I have an over-sized wall oven for such purposes as roasting gigantic Thanksgiving turkeys and marathon cookie baking sessions, baking more than one casserole at once. When I cook, I really cook, people. But if someone can name something that constitutes more of an example of overkill than toasting two pieces of bread in a large wall oven upon a pizza stone then I'm all ears. All for the sake of my daily commune with toast.

The sane approach might be to forsake breakfast toast and midnight snacks of peanut butter toasty bread but nay. Toast is sacred. And sometimes so sacred that some blessed souls receive visions of holy persons upon their toast. Man cannot live by bread alone. But I am thinking I could make a good go of it with toast. So long as there is ample tea to wash it down. I have too many British genes coursing through my toast-fueled body to forsake toast.

The biggest hitch lately was the big heat wave. So, during a record breaking heat wave I was heating up my kitchen in the process of making toast in a wall oven. My world so often is one of tumbling dominoes and unfortunate rippling effects, wholly unintended. I am damned if I do and quite often damned if I don't. But if I am to be damned, toast will make it more palatable.

So, now that the archangel Bob of Fed Ex delivered unto me a toaster, tightly swaddled in post-consumer cardboard product and a copious padding of Styrofoam, my life is back in balance.

So smart it is bilingual!

Faith healers and teevee preachers often inform folks to "Claim the miracle" ahead of time so that it will actually happen. So, since I am feeling all warm and toasty this morning, I am expecting a miracle! Lo, I am claiming it, my brothers! I am commanding the demons out of my kitchen and claiming the miracle of toast. And if I get really lucky, and an image of something sacred shows up in my morning soul-satisfying serving of grains, I will gladly claim whatever price I can flip my toasty miracle for via EBay. What is a sacred miracle these days without the attendant exploitation of it? But, wonders I, since the Breville bilingual toaster oven is actually manufactured in China, should it manage the creation a holy toast image, would it be one of the Buddha or Confucius? Do Chinese folks receive toast visions? Or would they have to toast rice cakes for that possibility?

Confucius says "This face SO works on toast!"

So, should some wag make the cheeky 'enquiry' (cheeky folk tend to use the British spelling) asking what I will do when this replacement piece of planned obsolescence dies on me again at six months time? Well, perhaps I will revert to a simpler life, a more monastic existence, a baby step towards life lived off of the grid. A path of less convenience and ease. No, dear friends, I will not forsake toast. But, I will employ my hand-me-down, folding, punched tin camping toaster which could sit atop of the flames of my propane range. A propane range isn't the same vibe as a campfire but I have been known to successfully make toasted marshmallows for S'mores on my crisis-proof, all-weather-functioning range during a power outage during a raging blizzard thereby conjuring the comforts of a sunny, warm day. Tra-la-la.

Don't worry. I'll survive. So long as the flame endures, holy toast endures! Amen.

The Most Important Things

2011-07-12T13:50:00.003-04:00

Somewhere along the way we forgot the most important things. You hear opinion-makers and politicians blowing on all of the time about how we all need to be mindful of what is in the best interest of the children. Always intoned with a certain self righteous modulation of voice. May I make a suggestion? We might consider pulling the entire lot of Congress, overwhelmingly a middle-aged-to-geriatric white male crowd (the others are just out of luck--too bad, so sad) from our halls of power and replacing them with kindergarten teachers. Yes, you heard me right. Since we are all so concerned about the children, I say we replace the good old boys with those who are (mostly) young women with soothing voices with the unflappable nature of a four star general and the patience of Job. That should move the day along much more smoothly. Naps will be had if people get cranky. Debates will be much more a mannerly time of sharing. Show-and-Tell will be instructional and not include sexting or lurid photos of some Member's member. Resources will be shared and materials will not be wasted...or someone will lose a good behavior balloon.

Perhaps I make a leap of faith to assume that the current cohort in Congress at some point in time learned to wash their hands after using the toilet, cover their sneezes and other items of basic hygiene, although it seems readily apparent that they missed a whole lot of the other important concepts dealing with good manners and comportment. They surely haven't demonstrated an ability to play well with others, sit quietly until called upon, keep their hands to themselves and the importance of sharing. Although, I'd wager that most Americans wouldn't really mind so much if they ran with scissors. Brats.

In my scheme, the good old boys would be pulled to attend summer school, forfeiting their prime summer golfing period to engage in intensive remedial reading. They could gain the opportunity to return to their class upon a successful demonstration of reading skills (which might come in handy in Congress for, you know, reading bills) and a robust grasp of the material content within the reading curriculum (i.e. the morals of the stories).

The Plum Tasty Congressional Summer Remedial Reading List:

The Berenstain Bears Get the Greedy Gimmes (Greed is not good.)

The Giving Tree (Generosity)

Mine, Mine, Mine! (Sharing)

The Lorax (Respect for nature)

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (Tantrums aren't nice)

Everyone Poops (... and it all equally stinks...Yes, Senator, even yours.)

Oh, the Places You'll Go! (Inspiration and possibilities)

The Little Engine That Could (Yes, you can!)

Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day? (Respecting the essential labor of others)

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (Consequences; cause and effect)

The Cat in the Hat (Clean up your own messes)

The Twits (Thematic content should be obvious)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Make sure your heart is not three times too small)

Stone Soup (One can generously help those in need up front or one can pay much more handsomely for it later.)

Amazing how all the good sense in the world gets forgotten when a lust for power and money under the influence of testosterone gets in the way. It is high time they relearned what they seem to have forgotten. For the sake of the children...

Granny's a Sadist. Who Knew?

2011-07-07T10:30:00.001-04:00

Who's the ghoul under the mask? Grandma.

Dear Lord: Please bring back the daytime soap opera for the sake of old women and those in dire need of a steady diet of gossip fodder. For no other reason than as a public service in the aid of civic tranquility. Perhaps we can start a write-in campaign to convince the FCC to grant such networks PSA credits for such a splendid service to humanity?

Nothing brings folks together like tragedy. The more salacious the scandal or chance of a public hanging, so much the better. Why is it that people will sit in a doctor's waiting room stone-faced and silent, assiduously avoiding eye contact with their fellow patients but add to a waiting room TeeVee, the storied Idiot Box, tuned into some horrendous bit of cable voyeurism (what I call Scandal Porn), and suddenly the room is thick with excited chatter? People suddenly chat amongst themselves with the ease of long lost chums. They trade insights and personal experiences which informs their opinions and biases. A veritable opinion pollster's wet dream.

Recently, I experienced such a situation. In a room roughly the size of our family room at home, this waiting room had two high definition, flat screened televisions tuned into the latest edition of "Trial of the Century". And as my misfortune would have it, that was on Tuesday afternoon, what was to be the very hour when the world would learn the impending verdict of whether the woman would be found guilty of murdering her kid or not. Unfortunately, such waiting rooms are now devoid of reading material. So I had to find something of interest either in a brochure for an assisted living facility or a doctor's journal on oncology. As much as reading morbidity rates among cancer patients is such a downer, I could not bear to be a part of the TeeVee carnival, a bigger downer. Even the receptionists were chattering about it, requiring me to wait a minute for a commercial break for them to do my paperwork.

Never before had I been so utterly relieved when my name was called to go surrender a few vials of blood. At least the phlebotomist's blood lust was of a professional nature.

Yesterday, I was running errands in town. I was browsing in a shop next to an older woman completely unknown to me. Absentmindedly, I deeply let out a sigh. I was tired and yesterday's temperature was real scorcher. I had just been thinking to myself that I needed to cut the errands short and find a cold drink to refresh myself. My reverie was broken with the woman blurting "My sentiments exactly!" I thought for a moment she would make a remark about how draining the heat had become. But no. She launched into a dissertation on the horrendous not guilty verdict from the previous day's installment of Scandal Porn. You know it is bad when you long for cliched remarks on the weather. I just stood there looking at her with my perplexed expression, hoping it might induce her to wonder if I'd just arrived from the Outer Hebrides and perhaps her diatribe wasn't being understood. Why is it that I just seem to be a magnet for people unloading the burdens of their deepest souls onto me? I let her blow on and said nothing. Honestly, having not followed one iota of The Trial of the Century, I had no idea what she was talking about. Finally, she stopped herself and she asked if I had a similar view?

I shrugged and said I had no idea about any of it as I long ago made a conscious decision to avoid any such cable coverage of such events. Such tragedies are what feed the rapacious appetite of the 24 hour news channels. I was disgusted by the circus surrounding the OJ Simpson trial and then the gross fascination with other celebrity scandals since. The apex for me to the TeeVee sleaze was the sordid public intrusion into a family's private grief in the Terry Schiavo case. It was not that I didn't care about Truth, Justice and the American Way but that I seriously doubted I would find any of that on a made-for-teevee media circus covered with such leering delight and morbid fascination. Besides what normal person has the time or constitution to sit and watch an entire trial, gory details included? "News" celebrities, cable networks and advertisers are making a small fortune off of the grisly death of a toddler. That utterly disgusts me in a similar fashion that the aforementioned plus politicians personally enhanced themselves with campaign fodder during the Schiavo spectacle.

She went on to say she felt sickened that an unfit party-girl mother got away with murder and that surely she'd make a small fortune off a book deal and maybe movie rights. But she absolutely would not participate in furthering the murder mother's celebrity or in helping make her rich. I conceded that she had a good point. But, what pray tell, has the media carnival folks been doing all of this time if not enriching themselves off of tragedy and creating murder mom into a celebrity---with your help, Ma'am? Is Nancy Grace et. al. doing volunteer community service? Who among them hasn't already handsomely profited off of all of this? And haven't the lot of them already contributed to the cause of creating a star out of the very person they claim to loathe? Suddenly she was not so much interested in what I had to say anymore.

I was stunned to return to the waiting room after the blood work lab lady had finally done her deed just as the verdict was being announced on the two gigantic television sets. To hear a gaggle of old women angered from what they heard, calling for blood, visibly livid that "that cold-hearted bitch" wasn't going to "fry" for her crime, was nothing short of alarming.

I wanted to stand on a chair and proclaim "Don't become what you hate, ladies!" but I truly believe they would have lynched me.

If people are so invested in the issue of Truth and Justice to induce them to turn up to the scene of the "news" event to protest or voice an opinion or become a part of the circus or joining a Facebook page to turn porch lights on in honor of a dead child, then might I suggest that they harness that energy and actually DO something to help living children who are disadvantaged or abused in a material way thereby perhaps preventing future tragedies? Become a guardian ad litem. Volunteer as a Big Sister. Just show compassion to the neighborhood kids when they annoy you one time too many. God only knows what they might be coping with at home. Or in the case of a Schiavo-type situation, go volunteer your enormous amount of free time (which obviously otherwise gets spent glued to the Idiot Box) helping a family burdened with the enormous weight of caring for a seriously injured person.

Maybe things would change for the better if we spent more time making positive change rather than slumped in front of the television getting angry. Here's a thought, America: Be what you claim to love. Think for yourself, think clearly, think critically. And then go out and make something beautiful out of it.

Mom's Words of Wisdom

2011-06-29T18:56:00.001-04:00

These are some words of wisdom from Mom. They might not be the kind of words of wisdom your mom would give you. They aren't necessarily on the list my mom would give me either. She'd have a list that would include things like chewing one's food fully, brushing my fangs three times a day, wearing clean undies and not talking to strangers. Not wearing white before Memorial Day or after Labor Day and matching my shoes to my pocketbook might be a few more. Yes, "pocketbook" would be the term of art here.

My best friend in high school had a mom who would effortlessly give us girls words to the wise about those wicked creatures known as boys and clever tips about our "bloomers". She actually called undies such a magnificently horticultural name--which was very quaint. Her ideas about boys were quaint too.

But since I am a mom and today's offering might include some words to the wise that-- at least theoretically--I might give, one might claim that they fit the bill as Mom's Words of Wisdom. I can be your mom for a day--long enough to dispense advice. Not to worry. Mother doesn't mind. Really. Enjoy!

...And Eat Your Veg!

Defining Weirdness Up

2011-06-27T10:30:00.005-04:00

Surely not forgotten, thanks to the infamous line about peasants eating cake, the diva's diva, Marie Antoinette, has also been credited with saying "There is nothing new except what has been forgotten". Poor dear, she lost her head and was born the wrong way--in the wrong century. Today, she'd be a pop star, prancing half naked on stage in a meat sarong or perhaps more fittingly, decadently attired as an oversized slice of Gâteau des Rois. "Les Pâtisseries, c'est moi." Or something like that.

But, truly, some things are best forgotten. A lot of popular music is best forgotten. But some should endure in a greatly improved state via the musical parody genius of Weird Al Yankovic.

For a bit of Monday fun, check out his latest send-up, the music vid entitled Perform This Way, which magnificently spoofs Lady Gaga's musical manifesto Born This Way, the latest from the diva of brazen post-modernist cribbing--- um, "appropriating"--- from many sources, which touts self-actualizing originality, quite ironically, demonstrated via ripping off any number of previous pop artists and visual concepts, repackaging them in an orgy of narcissism and faux-losophy for a whole new generation of pop fans who don't know the difference.

I didn't think Weird Al could equal the fun of White and Nerdy, his brilliant 2006 release, a hilarious take on the gangster rap song Ridin' by Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone. But I think he's done it by rapping the Gagster herself with his superior gender-bending, drag queen stage persona. After all, who does weird better than Weird Al? Plus, girls, after watching his latest vid, who isn't quite envious of his super hot legs?

Tool Shed Meditations

2011-06-21T18:52:00.002-04:00

Last weekend I went to Vermont with a friend. I took my camera along but I hardly remembered to remove it from its case to put it to use. It wasn't for a lack of almost constant Kodak moments. I was so fully enjoying myself and the scenery that I didn't want to pull myself away long enough to look through a viewfinder. To take careful photographs is to remove one's self from the action, or disengaging in the moment so as to save just a fraction of it. A photographer misses several moments for the capture of just one. Is it worth the bargain? Sometimes not. There is something about the very photogenic Vermont that induces me to put the camera away and be wholly present very much living in the moment, only removing myself for a split second of epiphany. I managed a few quick snapshots of things that gave me pause to ponder.

What are the things that arrest our attention and capture our fancy in such a place? What are the objects of our deepest desire? What was the overwhelming allure of this charming blue wheelbarrow and garden shed scene--a random arrangement of tools and gardening items?

Wheelbarrows represent an extension of human effort as an extension of the human arms. They intensify our efforts, enable us to bear more weight and leverage our force. With human effort and guidance, they maneuver with great agility. But, they provide equal ease to make progress or carelessly tip over. In a way, a wheelbarrow can be seen as the part of our destiny which lies within our ability to direct; a tool to master our work and extend our efforts to achieve our desired results.

Artists have long associated the color blue with a state of meditation or dreams. Blue can be the infinity of the sky or the depths of the sea; an object from the world of the unconscious or the surreal. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols says of blue:

"The realm, or rather climate, of the unreal--or of the surreal--blue stands still and resolves within itself those contradictions and alternations of fortune--day following night--which modulate human life. Indifferent and unafraid, centred solely upon itself, blue is not of this world: it evokes the idea of eternity, calm, lofty, superhuman, inhuman even. To a painter like Kandinsky, its movement is at one and the same time one which distances itself from mankind, a movement directed solely towards its own centre but one which, nevertheless, draws the individual towards the infinite and awakens a yearning for purity and a hunger for what surpasses nature."

So what to make of my utter delight in this tableau of the charming blue wheelbarrow in the aesthetically enchanting and literary wonderland of Vermont? I am not quite sure. I will have to ponder that for awhile. But, I think I very much want a blue wheelbarrow-- both real and existential: To make work-a-day labor much more aesthetically charming and to elevate to loftier heights whatever my humble efforts might otherwise yield.