Recommendations for a long winter

Wordle's a word now, spell checker.

I simply must insist that you try Wordle if you haven't yet. You can only play it once a day, and it just takes a few minutes, so it can't...become a problem.

You could try baking a chocolate babka too, if you have some friends or neighbors to share it with. 

Stitch with yellow thread. Buy a new journal. Drink peppermint tea instead of nine more cups of coffee. Wear mittens instead of gloves. Watch good movies. Get a soft sleep mask. Light candles. Apply extra lotion. Go outside, no matter the situation out there. Read a real book. Make fish tacos, then the next night make "fish tacos" with whatever you can find in your fridge (tofu, potatoes, carrots, beans, whatever). Think about making soup. 

Fünf

I have been overwhelmingly distracted since yesterday by something terribly sad that happened to an Instagram acquaintance. She lost her child to suicide and posted about it the very next morning. I don't know her in real life, and I've only known her and her family the way you become familiar with online friends who illustrate their lives with beauty and clarity. But I've been aware of them for years, of this sweet boy who's suddenly gone. And his sweet mother and younger brother whose world has just ended, and who will have to start over in an entirely new one, without him. I can't stop going back to her post, and scrolling through pictures from her past. It feels like the heaviest, saddest event to witness (up close, but afar). If you're interested in helping, there is a Meal Train site where people are making donations. 

And of course, I'm sending love out to all the humans I adore so much.

In happier news, I'm in awe of this solar system quilt made in 1876. It makes me think of my brilliant niece Oona.*

Click for all the info!

“The eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well bisect a star with the spider web of the micrometer." - Maria Mitchell 



*MOM, note, no comma after "niece," as I have more than one brilliant niece!

Your own shivering life

I ended up spending a lot of the weekend fending off some illness (cold, rather than flu, I'm now pretty sure) with spoonfuls of this and hot tea. I started a new stitching project and was greatly comforted by multiple episodes of Great British Bakeoff, the most soothing TV show ever. Last night we ate Mark's roasted salmon with spinach, and I used up great quantities of leftover stale baguette by making chocolate bread pudding. It had to be chocolate to get Mark to eat it (I suspect there's something he finds unsavory about the name BREAD PUDDING, but it's one of my favorite desserts). It was a bit too chocolatey, but otherwise delicious.

A year ago, we hadn't met this cutie yet!

But we already loved her.

Okay, then.

Bad blogger. Bad blogger! I actually thought for a minute that I might do that NaBloPoMo thing again this year, and then we immediately got a huge Close Buy Catalog order, lost a few days due to our scarf shipment's Sandy-related delay and a temporarily broken sewing machine, and then spent five solid days doing nothing* but stitching scarves and sewing Milo in Maine labels on them.

I like this photo of Gus and a new pal splashing in the ocean, because I think it looks like it could've been taken in Iceland or someplace exotic like that.

*Well, not literally nothing. Also, I walked Gus, took him to the beach with Mark (I am nervous about taking him by myself because he isn't totally reliable, as far as "come." Or as far as knowing his name at all when he's surrounded by dogs, people, and great smells), drank coffee, and ate food. A couple of times I drove Isaac places or picked him up from places or even chatted with him or watched Homeland together (while folding scarves).

Sweeties.

Did I mention that I drank a lot of coffee? A few nights we sewed really late (me in the dining room, Mark in the living room) and got up really early, and I am like a seven year old child as far as needing my eight (or nine) hours of sleep. Or less, plus a nap. I'm a lightweight, cranky and puffy-eyed when I don't get enough, and I often think about my friends who seem to thrive on very few hours of sleep (I am thinking of the lovely Holly right now, who always seems to stay up the latest and get up the earliest, who sails off to work at, like, six o' clock every morning with such grace I can't even fathom it). Not me, I'm a big baby.

The guy on the right borrowed our car and then brought us a whole bunch of donuts.

Anyway, I also watched seven seasons of Prime Suspect while I completed this project. I love Helen Mirren, and I love British police shows. It was great, and ultimately very sad too.

We sent off our many boxes of hundreds of scarves, yay! The floor is covered in thread, animal hair, sand, and leaves. Windows are dusty, the toilet needs to be cleaned, my hair is greasy. And next week is Thanksgiving! I plan on using this weekend to prepare myself, start shopping and planning and tidying.

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.

fa la la la la la la la la

did you think i'd forget miss lulu, hound extraordinaire? mais non!

she's a pretty little pony, and she's your december fourteenth dog-of-the-day.

*cookie update, because i know you're dying of curiosity: speculoos bars are nearly to the taste testing stage (they require many steps). today's project=almond macaroons.

sixteen

oho, it's day sixteen. i have now, midway through this month, officially given up on nanowrimo. i know, i know--lame. but who chose november to be national novel writing month, anyway? there's way too much going on in november for it to be the ideal i-think-i'll-write-a-novel month. plus, there are only thirty days in it. at the very least, it should be a month with thirty-one days. like march. note, i am able to keep up with national blog posting month, which is much more my speed.

i am sewing, sewing, sewing, punctuated by occasional vocabulary-quiz-writing and the drinking of coffee and the making of vegetable pot pies and suchlike. the sewing machine seemed to be dying, and mark proved himself to be a fixer of sewing machines (i should not be surprised, considering what i've seen him do with a dishwasher and a furnace).

at night, i read furiously, so as to make a dent in that famous pile o' books. sometimes i leave the house, most often to go back to the library and pick up more books. sometimes i go to trader joe's (man behind me, last night at trader joe's: "i BEG your pardon for staring, but i want to eat dinner at YOUR house tonight." me: "oh..."  note: he was staring at my groceries, not at me).

often while i sew i watch things on hulu or netflix. i watched all the parks and recreation i could, and then i moved on to every movie made in the 1940s that is streaming on netflix. there was one called either the scar or the man who murdered himself or hollow triumph that was so ridiculous. it featured a man masquerading as another man who looked exactly like him except for a scar on his cheek. the man even had the identical german accent. which was especially odd, since the first man's brother did not have a german accent. i kept thinking, "wow, they made some really bad movies in the 1940s too."

fourteen

(Unknown photographer, Portrait of three women, 19th century)



14 is my lucky number.
yesterday, on day 13, my sewing machine broke and my dog threw up all night.
i am looking forward to some excellent luck today!

four

work.

wow, it's been a long week. not because of work, actually, just because there are weeks that feel like they last six months. oh, glorious hyperbole! next year for halloween i want to be that lady with the scissors up top. shoot, i found that image somewhere on tumblr, where i wasted many a minute looking at vintage pictures. i can't remember where i found it, but i think it's from an old movie.

there are long, soft scarves in my life, and cups of tea and chairs and many pens. mark got a foreign body stuck in his eye and had to have it removed with metal tweezers at the eye doctor. but it's friday.

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.

put that bloody cigarette out.

thanks to my dad for finding me these wonderful last words to stitch, attributed to the british writer hector hugh munro, whose pen name was saki. he was killed by a german sniper during world war I, reportedly just after uttering this sentence.

i'm guessing that in real life, it had more of a hushed exclamation point at the end, rather than a period. below, saki and joyce.

talk what you please of future spring

i suppose spring is coming -- the sky looks different, and the light in the morning and afternoon is warm. we had one really balmy day, as a little reminder that it's coming, and now the temperature is back in the 30s, as a little reminder that we live in maine.

this boy. here he is doing his h dubs (get it? homework? hw? h dubs?). he let me give him hugs yesterday.

the girl is hatching plans to leave india and go to china!

here's how to turn your computer screen into a game of katamari.

i made vegan chocolate-banana bread pudding, and not only was it delicious, but now mark knows that he does like bread pudding, despite its dubious name.

i've been watching the first season of big love (which i watched long ago, way back in the days of hbo).

i'm stitching something great.

my writing project continues for now, and i love both the writing and the excuse to sit here messing around on the internets all day.

i had the most fun dream ever.

giant rabbits.

unicorns are show offs.

sperm whales name their babies.

let's go on a rollercoaster!


see what i mean about messing around on the internets? in addition to that, i walk my dog friend, and i don't have to wear my snow boot shoes or shuffle like a little old man any more!

there is time for work. and time for love. that leaves no other time!*

my mom sent me a link to these stunning australian mug shots that were taken in the 1920s. they're unbelievably stylish; criminals dressed so fashionably back then, and had such fabulous hair and accessories. in australia, anyway. there's a link to the sydney justice & police museum's larger collection of crime photos from a period between the 20s and the late 1950s, and they're amazing. above is the one i'd like to use on a business card or resume for myself. or, not really, but for something! look at that sewing machine just behind that dead body!

*coco chanel

is it not meningitis?

(the alleged last words of louisa may alcott.)*

and speaking of illness, my girl has been sick in thailand. she even had an adventure at a thai hospital, where max and tang took her after she was pretty dehydrated. she is feeling much better now, though max got sick last night and is now doing his own recuperating. they are staying at a comfortable guest house in chiang mai where they can just rest and relax until they feel up to more exploration. i am so very thankful for skype, which makes it possible for me to talk to them practically in person, and to see that they really are okay.

back at home, isaac and i have been on our own this weekend while mark works at a trade show in atlanta with a consulting client. yesterday isaac participated on a panel at the great northeast radio rally. he spent the entire weekend working on it with the blunt radio team, and yesterday afternoon he presented his greenwashing piece before an incredibly receptive audience. i watched his panel, and it was really great!

*stitched, by the way, on a piece of an old pair of isaac's pajama pants!

something freshly birdish

there's been so much art in my life over the past week. last friday, the checkout girl and i drove down for jen's opening at nahcotta in portsmouth. her work of late has centered around these gorgeous papercuts, simple colors, incredible patterns. it was beautiful, and a treat to see jen. and then we treated ourselves to the friendly toast too!

(quietly, among the flowers by jennifer judd-mcgee. click on the photo for purchasing information.)

below, isaac's mask. art teacher, to isaac: "isaac, are you done with your shading...OH."

and JENNY HOLZER on tuesday night. we heard her speak, and then the audience trooped outside in the cold to watch this projection (words by the polish poet wislawa szymborska) move mesmerizingly down the front of the portland museum of art. it was so striking, strangely moving (and did i mention, COLD?).

finally, my own humble contribution to this week in artistic endeavor, the final words of j.m. barrie, "i can't sleep."

what's that? do i look strange?

robert louis stevenson's last words.

last words

as a good friend of mine puts it, "one person's deathbed is another person's craft fair." he refers to my current personal stitchery project (i.e. the thing i idly do while i'm watching movies but i'm not sitting at the sewing machine getting actual work done or eating an entire bag of trader joe's spicy flax seed chips). i'm collecting famous last words (apocryphal or not) and embroidering them. so far i've done james joyce and emily dickinson (and i bet you can guess which is which!), and i'm working on robert louis stevenson. this kind of thing can be a little addictive...

inspired

pardon the sudden nudity on the previously decently clothed mean mama. i just happened upon meagan ileana's gorgeous blog, threadbare, and i am incredibly inspired by her embroidery. just look at this gorgeous piece, called freedom.