Dig a pony

I was so distracted from work this morning by 1) my Christmas shopping lists and 2) these puffed up brown birds battling over a perch on the red bird feeder, shoving and shouldering each other off over and over again, when there was plenty of space for everybody.

Happy last day of November, everybody. I'm still a little obsessed with the Beatles documentary, totally in touch with my child self who loved them* so much and was utterly heartbroken that they split up. 

Fun fact: my first memory (quite possible not real, but I like it anyway) is being in a playpen and hearing Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.

*especially Ringo, every child's favorite

Which will bloom most constantly?

As Lizzie As Possible.

I also forgot to mention the pockets and tufts of fog I drove through on my way to Holly's. The world disappeared on the bridge across the Piscataqua — I didn't realize I was even on a bridge until the Google map lady welcomed me to New Hampshire.

I realize I'm dwelling on this journey quite a lot here, considering I was away from home for about 36 hours. That may be a reflection of the number of times I've left Maine in the past two years (TWO).

Still Life With Blueberry Oatmeal

Holly not only made me coffee when I shuffled downstairs in my pajamas Sunday morning, but she gave me this beautiful handmade ceramic mug too. 

One must have a mind of winter

Food, fire, walks, dreams, cold, sleep, love, slowness, time, quiet, books, seasons – all these things, which are not really things, but moments of life – take on a different quality at night-time, where the moon reflects the light of the sun, and we have time to reflect what life is to us, knowing that it passes, and that every bit of it, in its change and its difference, is the here and now of what we have. 

More by Jeanette Winterson on the lovely, cozy, dark seasons of the year here.

It snowed. We have warm lights on the outside and the inside of our house, toasty sweaters and socks, and thanks to Mom and Dad, a brand new heated mattress pad on our bed.

I met Emily today to go Christmas shopping, which we did while clambering over snow banks and avoiding icy puddles. We also sat for a long time talking over coffee at a cafe, which was so lovely. I spent precisely eight dollars on teeny stocking stuffers and took pictures of other things to contemplate later. 

So much in the holiday spirit was I that I also ordered special stamps for my theoretical holiday cards!

If you ever feel daunted by the snow and cold, get yourself a dog with a mind of winter. Or two.

Look around

(Jeannette took me to see Hamilton!!)

I keep thinking back on Hamilton, and remembering how even when I was watching it, how sharply aware I was of it as a fleeting moment.

Also, while watching, I kept imagining Isaac watching it and wondering what he would think of those silly musical theater tropes (someone swoops in with a chair, sits on it, pretends to talk to another actor, dances off, the other actor twirls away with the chair...) I mean, I love them, but what would he think?

Come to think of it, 21 year old Isaac might scoff a bit, but nine or ten year old Isaac (I can't believe I'm not remembering specifically how old he was) was a superstar on the stage in Oliver! Singing, dancing, the whole nine yards. He really was great, in a role as one of the pickpockets with one line that got laughs, as I (his proud mother) recall. That was an era of Cockney accents and little tweed vests and hats and urchin shoes around here. Not just Isaac, but Zoë and a few of their best friends too.

They were urchins for Halloween that year.

A bunch of pickpockets.

Don't tell Isaac (right) I said that he is still this adorable.

The guy who played Fagin HATED the kids who played the pickpockets. They cast so many of them, so there were hordes of rascally children running around the theater all the time, and more than once Fagin had strong words, mainly directed to their MOTHERS specifically.

So, actually, that kid has some experience with twirling around with props and posing stage left, etc.

Also, Hamilton was just amazing. It totally lived up to my expectations. I feel like I had one item on my life list (I will not call it a Bucket List because it's against my religion to use that phrase), and now it's neatly crossed out. Not to say I wouldn't love to see it again.

My Thrifty Friends

I am a thrift shop enthusiast in theory, but I tend to have bad luck and/or am so horribly indecisive that I run, screaming (in my head) from the shop, with nothing to show for my careful shopping.

Observe, however, what some friends have found in their recent travels through church sales, grocery store book bins, and thrift shops.

The Greengage Summer, found by Emily in the aforementioned "grocery store book bin." Who knew there was such a thing? She loaned me this book, and it was wonderful.

Emily is the best thrift shopper I know, by the way. She has a knack for finding really, really good stuff. If she's wearing an adorable cashmere sweater, for example, she undoubtedly found it at Goodwill.

David M, who has lavished so many beautiful antique/weird books on us over the years, is another ace finder. And usually, he just finds things in random places (the basement of his building, for example). This vintage Parcheesi game, however, he purchased at a church sale in Lovell, Maine.

And my very own Mark found these paintings, below, at our local Goodwill store. And not only did he find them, he actually purchased them. And hung them upon the wall. And they are sad clowns, friends. If you come and have a sleepover at our house, you will most likely get to fall asleep with these guys being sad right beside you. Lucky, lucky you!

A Disgraceful Lapse

"What a disgraceful lapse! Nothing added to my disquisition, & life allowed to waste like a tap left running. Eleven days unrecorded." -- Virginia Woolf, beating herself up about not writing in her journal.


But, you should be grateful, dear reader, because if I'd been keeping this bloggery updated over the last week and a half, I'd have been posting nothing but kitten photos, like so:

We got a kitten. Isaac got a kitten, to be specific, and his name is Theo. He's by turns sweet and wild, kittenishly. He is cute, and he and Isaac together are cute.

(Aww, look at his paw on Isaac's arm.)

He curls up in my lap, cutely, falls sound asleep, and makes it hard for me to get anything done during the day.

But of course what you want to know is: how does Minnow feel about this turn of events? The photo below captures his feelings pretty accurately, I think.

I spend a lot of time whispering in his ear, things like, "I love you best. You are my best, best friend and your place in my heart will never be usurped by the likes of a cat. Even a really sweet, adorable cat."

When we weren't sitting around looking at the kitten this week, we had a little party to send Max off. He's in China now, but first he burned almost all the brush that was left in a pile in our yard and ate cupcakes with us and our friends.

Oh! And I got two mysterious packages in the mail which turned out to be A HAMMOCK. A gorgeous, quilted, hammock-built-for-two bought for me by my sweet, sweet uncles and aunties who all got together and sent it to me JUST BECAUSE. I still can't believe it. It's under the willow tree tucked into a green shady corner of the yard, and even those who "aren't hammock people" get in and something happens to them...something like this:

(Above, Isaac "studying for his French final.") Wednesday is the last day of this infinitely, ridiculously long school year. We can't wait to stay up late watching movies, lighting fires in our yard, eating dinner outside at 9pm  if we want to. Sleeping in the hammock, going to the beach, reading mysteries until 3am. Drinking iced coffee, picking the cherry tomatoes we planted in pots, going for walks in the sunshine. You know, summer.

Haars and Gullywashers

Thank you, friends, for all your sweet words of commiseration and encouragement re: homeowner's insurance. I had utterly forgotten that my parents went through a similar fiasco years and years ago, so I should've had that tucked away in the back of my mind and not been quite so shocked. The update is that it looks like we'll be covered by a friendly insurance company (friendly until a TREE FALLS ON OUR HOUSE, that is), but we do need to get a home inspection first. Blerg.

I learned a new word today, haar. Which is what you call a fog that sweeps in off the North Sea in Scotland. I think, no I know that we have those here too. As I write this, the sun has emerged, but we've had days of haars and gullywashers* around here lately.**

My girl is fine. Better than fine! We did a long three day stretch with no news (the Internets are spotty where she is). Even her sweetheart was getting a little nervous.

We went out for Indian food the other night and Mark made friends with the woman there (we've known her for years, but never asked her story), who ended up inviting us to stay in her "big house" in Punjab. She also said Zoë should stay there and speak Hindi with the woman's mother, any time!

I am a little hooked on goat milk. I need to start buying the low fat kind. Or a goat. This morning when I was filling the bird feeder, I had a sad little fantasy that I was out there feeding my imaginary chickens.

Way back in October, David gave me a subscription to Quarterly, and I've been receiving goodies in the mail periodically ever since. Yesterday I got a set of Buckyballs (can I just tell you how excited Isaac was when he saw them?) and this patch:

just exactly, precisely, when I needed it.



*my spell checker doesn't recognize either haar or gullywasher.

**and just as I get ready to publish this, what should I see outside my window, but another gullywasher!

One is Silver and the Other is Gold Crappy

Brand new, beautiful sofa. The actual color has a little more brown in it than this picture shows, but it's a gray-brown that is so nice. And yes, before you ask, it will be covered with lint and dog hair, and I will happily remove said lint and dog hair with nary a complaint. Come over and stretch out on it!

The old one. Poor old thing, it's been loyal and green, and long ago it had a halfway decent sofa bed within. But it's from Ikea, and not only that, I figure it must be at least as old as Isaac, which as you know is sixteen years old. You can't see the many, many stains and rips in this picture. You can't see how many dogs barfed on it, nor how many babies peed on it. Ahem. My apologies if you've sat upon it in the past.

Things I've Forgotten to Tell You

There was one perfectly foggy morning when I drove around the Back Cove and it was all green and shrouded with fog, and I thought, "I should stop and take a picture!" but I didn't.

When Isaac was trembling and pale with pain in the emergency room back in the days of the hot grease burn, he sang the original Tetris theme, a little hysterically, to distract himself.

My friend is moving away. She gave me many gifts and took me out to lunch. It should have been the opposite, right? I should have showered her with gifts and taken her out to lunch. Lunch, by the way, was delicious.

The gifts included something I've had on my wish list forever, a Polaroid sx-70 Land Camera. Now I just have to shell out some money for Impossible Project film and try it out!

I got a handwritten thank you note in the mail yesterday, and also a wedding invitation. I love mail, it feels so old fashioned now.

My Polaroids will look like this, only for real.

Phantom

Just now, I was listening to NPR and heard a reporter's cell phone vibrating in the background while she chatted with Melissa Block (or possibly, it was Melissa Block's cell phone, but I seriously doubt it). Have you heard of phantom vibration syndrome, when a person thinks she can feel her phone vibrating but it's not? No, for real. It's a real thing. There are some days I'm afflicted (last week, for example, I was pruning our beach roses and put my pruning shears in my back pocket, and almost immediately had the sensation that someone was calling me via my pruning shears).

Sad news: my trusty old White sewing machine (handed down to me by my mom) has bit the dust. Our favorite sewing machine repair shop man told us there was nothing to be done, it's beyond fixing. I don't even understand what's wrong with it, but I am sad because that machine knew how to get the job done with no fanfare and just exactly the perfect tension on the stretchy cotton scarves I stitch. Mark found two cheap/free replacements: one is too new and feels all plasticky and wrong, but the other is the lovely old Singer pictured above. It's so basic, made of metal. I like the feel of it. You have to plug it in to turn it on, and unplug it to turn it off.

A happy thing: Mother's Day happened, and Isaac gave me a gift certificate to buy some plants, plus that excellent silver rake pictured below. And Zoë, who is lingering in upstate New York with her sweetheart before departing next Saturday for Mumbai, called me on the phone! And my mom and dad drove up for the day and we had  brunch together. It was really the first day I could eat like a normal person after my illness and followup antibiotics, so that was extra festive.

Isaac is playing the role of Trinidad and Tobago at the Maine Model UN conference for the next few days. He's pretty excited--he had a lot of fun being Kyrgyzstan last year. I miss that big tall boy when he's not around.

It gives me a chance, yet again, to contemplate my impending empty nest. What to do? More dogs? Sell the house and buy an RV? I keep thinking chickens, although I need to get Mark at least a tiny bit excited about that first.* In the meantime, here's what I'm doing with my quasi-empty nest: catching up on all the work I didn't do while I was sleeping 16 hours a day last week! Also, getting Zoë's room somewhat organized (everything from her dorm room is home, even though she's not). Also, eating half an avocado for dinner, and drinking a decaf homemade latte made with raw goat's milk, which is my secret non-vegan treat I like to buy myself in tiny containers from Lois's sometimes.

*Mark's dream tends toward "move to New York." Mine tends toward "start a small goat farm." Don't worry, we're both great compromisers.

he exceeds even the tallest grass

granted, he made me stand half a step behind him for this photo. but still, i think my boy grew bigger and taller while i was away over the weekend.

which is fine with me as long as he stays sweet. isaac and i made a wonderful discovery this week, which is that our immersion blender (a new year's gift from my bruddy) does a nice job of foaming milk. we have been making all kinds of lattes together. isaac's favorite is a chocolate tea latte, made either with chocolate chai from a southern season or red velvet tea.

 






































the history of mothers of sons by lisa furmanski

a little birdhouse in my soul

don't mind me, i'm just messing around with my blog template a little bit. i want to make my pictures bigger, maybe. especially the following, which should be entitled, "well hello! and welcome to my bathroom."

ugh, don't ask. well, okay, since you ask: we have one of those house issues that i think of as a twisted kind of rube goldberg machine, all impossibly interconnected. there are pipes in the bathroom that are leaking a bit into the kitchen ceiling. they are old, made of lead, and basically dissolving. and in a tricky place to get to, so we need to rip up the bathroom floor to deal with them. meanwhile, the bathroom, which was "redone" in a really sloppy way right before we bought this house, needs to actually be redone. here's where it gets boring, so let me just wind this up by saying we needed to scrape off all the old floral wallpaper, and we did. and beneath that are walls of utter weirdness. story to be continued.*

below, i present exhibit a, me at work in the wintertime. i don't think i've ever actually taken a photo of my beloved hot bag of corn, made for me years ago by my maman. november through may this thing is my security blanket, constant source of warmth, and pretty much the only reason i can't get along without a microwave. i made isaac and mark each their own hot bags of corn this year for christmas, because they were both stealing mine all the time.

  





































ah, the birdhouse in my soul. have you ever seen a more gorgeous thing? this was a christmas gift from my sweet (absent) brother and sister-in-law. i don't know if it will live here permanently--i keep moving it around trying to find the perfect spot. it is way too gorgeous to go outside, by the way.









































*this story might involve paint. or it might involve beadboard. or tile. or all three! it might involve happy hours of working together to make our (only) bathroom lovely, or it may involve the wringing of hands and great cries of despair. i'll keep you updated.

twenty-one

my birthday present from my bruddy arrived!

he gave me a subscription to quarterly, a service that sends you cool things in the mail periodically. my very first mailing arrived today, two little notebooks and two tattly temporary tattoos by marc johns: I LOVE THEM.

different from what any one supposed

some birthdays happened last week! first mark's, featuring pumpkin waffles for breakfast.




















and then mine, which had more of a doughnut theme...

























there were many other celebratory events, in addition to the consumption of waffles and doughnuts. there was pie, for example. and a feast at asmara. my gift from cousin-uncle meiklejohn was like my very own make-a-wish dream come true: foley for a day on his latest film. not to mention sweet emails, tweets, cards, gifts, lunches with friends, and book-of-faces messages, which i love love love. also, now, i am an even number of years, my favorite.

and on saturday i got a second feast, this one with my mom and dad at green elephant, and then a birthday hike up my favorite little mountain. it was far more treacherous than usual because it was wet -- think 1300 feet of slippery rocks coated with even more slippery leaves. but as usual, it was worth it when we got to the top ("like childbirth!" said my mom).

 























maman et moi.


























mon papa.

























(mark was there too!)

as a little birthday present to myself, i bought this poetry app for MYphone. it's called poem flow, and it's free for a limited number of daily poems that flow "in a gentle reading application" which is actually much more wonderful than that description makes it sound. it's a really organic way to read a poem. the words appear on the screen sort of in the rhythm you might read the poem aloud. it's nice. i bought myself three months' worth of extra poems.


































(from song of myself by walt whitman)

pursued by a bear

remember this?

okay, now prepare yourself for this:

is that not the most amazingly beautiful artistic representation of me and my bear that you could ever imagine? my sweet friend the checkout girl made it for me!

even though my photos are always crappy phone pictures, i must apologize in this case -- i actually took some with mark's fancy camera that i'll upload soon. just, wow. this is hanging to my left as i type, right here where i can look at it all day.

we are as happy as people can be, without making themselves ridiculous*

scenes from christmas in carolina 2010. there are many more photos over here!

*nathaniel hawthorne, in a letter to his sister, referring specifically to his marriage. the entire quote is: "we are as happy as people can be, without making themselves ridiculous, and might be even happier; but, as a matter of taste, we choose to stop short at this point."

birthday party

cake + friends + books + birds. also, i stitched up a hoop for my girl, with lyrics from a favorite song (it can make us both cry, it's such a beautiful sad song) and she liked it.