Goats on Dog House

My youngest son texted some photos to me late this afternoon from his hunting trip in The Okanagon in northeastern Washington state, and I felt relief ripple through through me, felt a pent-up breath release. A week without any communication from him + back-country camping + rifles does not a settled-and-content-mom-make.

I came home from a full (and extremely) busy day at work to the necessity of moving a load of plants to a safe place, as the construction of my new deck supports begins sometime this week, whenever the rains stop.  (The deck which is literally ripping my house in two, three, four....) It was less than pretty outside — nearly dark and an onslaught of precipitation. And despite a weekend of intense rain, the soil proved dry and impenetrable only about an inch down. Nonetheless, I went at it (with the help of my oldest son) and it took less than 30 minutes to relocate a section of my garden to a sheltered spot, beneath the quince.

Back inside I shed my gritty outer layers and began chopping kale and apples, checked the yams roasting in the oven (whose fragrance, enhanced with brown sugar and cinnamon, was piped outside via the kitchen fan), and finally sat down to dinner with my two best people: my sons.

We've always been a boisterous trio — at once argumentative and jovial — and after several weeks of pondering unbloggable issues from the past, this was just what I needed, just the balm my agitated self required/desired.

 I commented on Nelson's nearly manic consumption of pulled pork, and he said, "Well, there's something to the notion that food made with love tastes better."

Reilly groaned and rolled his eyes. "I can't believe you actually said that, Nelson!"

Meanwhile, I was aglow in the compliment, and mentioned that there are few things more gratifying for a mother than feeding one's children. And for Nelson, whose conversation is nearly 100% science-based, this was indeed his supreme compliment to a mother, who, well, loves nothing more than to feed her sons.

I can't even begin to recall the paths our conversation followed, but it was impassioned and spirited, and veered from politics to the science of sleep to the history of religions (as well as the etymology of the word religion) to venison to the question of whether or not one could purchase a hill on Amazon, and, if so, would it qualify for free shipping? And what if I wanted to buy an organic hill? (Nelson said he wanted a free-range hill.)

Disintegration lead to collapse by laughter, and we knew the evening had reached its denouement when we began to argue whether or not goats liked to hang out on the tops of dog houses. What better than You Tube to settle this?

Here's my answer (the first hit, incidentally, when I typed "goats on dog house"):



 It doesn't get much better than this.

Rain

Getting my pumpkin fix —

ho hum

Other than a marriage proposal from a total stranger living in Morocco and an invitation to visit Stockholm from a dashing 33-year-old, not a damn thing is going on.

(I think I'll decline the proposed nuptials.)

And you?

Soft

Forty days and forty nights (and then some) without rain in this city known for rain, and I can finally sit upstairs in my solitary suite, in a fur coat, and listen to the rain on the roof.

I mean, isn't this what you would do?



 

I've never been much of a dancer, but there was exquisite choreography in the 5am baking sessions at Two Tartes, too many years past now. Mondays through Fridays, and only myself as partner save the dozens of scones, the galettes & cupcakes. A blindfold would not have slowed the pace, which was scheduled to the minute. One misstep meant a lost sale. I kept the pace.

In the coldest of winter I kneaded with my apron tied around a fleece jacket, scarved up to my chin, until the convection ovens began pumping out their radiant heat, and the storefront windows fogged.

Always there was music, and loud: Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Loreena McKennit, Johnny Cash. My alto harmony. No one to hear but the lumbrous  50-pound flour sacks, the many scoops of oats, and the massive bar of Callebaut bittersweet chocolate (eight pounds? ten?) which I wrapped in a towel, took a hammer to.

Later in the winter, on the cusp of the new season, the price of strawberries began to drop, and I'd slice through flat after fragrant flat, fold them into buttermilk scones with a generous handful of white chocolate chips. I penned a card: Berry Whites. Every day they were gone well before the lunchtime rush.

Round about 7am, there would be the predictable call from a desperate customer to "reserve" a toffee brownie: the equivalent of crack, for the (too) low price of $1.25. And legal to boot. (And probably shouldn't have been.)

I don't miss my middle-of-the-night alarm clanging, but I do miss that dance, and mightily. I miss that sugar two-step, that waltz of everything good.

Golden hours, golden days.

Haze

Leaving work today, late afternoon, I could have sworn that the light in the north, at lake level, had a sound — muffled, muted. A trick of synesthesia, perhaps.

Once home, I could hear my house, at ground level and below, groaning and cracking. Another trick.

(The latches on doors fail to catch, and any breeze sends an open greeting to spirits.)

My friend Tom set his level on the deck and measured the depth of the sinking: an inch, more in some places. And suddenly it was all visible to me, all cockeyed angles, atilt and teetering. Inside and out.

Tom walked out the back gate and around the overgrown grape vines to the other side of the house to check the foundation there. Something caused me to hesitate — I was following and then I abruptly stopped — and for a moment my dead husband (Mark) was present, watching, summing up, silent. Ripped t-shirt, jeans, an all-over scuffled appearance. A narrowing of the eyes. 

Just as quickly he was gone again. I realized that I had frozen in my steps, dazed and jangled by the sighting. Didn't mention it to Tom when he momentarily returned.

Nine years ago Mark made his abrupt exit, leaving a rutted trail of unfinished business and a house in great need of mending. With my single needle and spool of rapidly unwinding thread, I've persevered, and managed to stitch things together. Along the way I've tripped and stumbled, banged my head up against the wall of failure. Dropped my head to the table, ready to hand these house keys over to the devils of defeat.

And now more pressure on the underpinnings, a fault line of no fault I claim.


The earth’s crust shifts and trembles,

entire civilizations slide away in an instant.

Sun, wind, the ravages of rain and thunder —

we build, we pound and cement

our lives onto rectangular plots of land.

And without knowing, suddenly we lose

a step. And for a moment there is nothing

concrete. For a moment there is only

the wind rattling the dishes in the sink —

And then sometimes, for a moment, there is a husband returned and a light that hums softly, despite it all.

Sometimes, I say, that's how we do.

Just that.

Yes.

Okay, Cupid

These days working with just one other person calls for dramatic stories to perk up the table time. Apparently, it's one of my primary job descriptions. And by god, I do my best.

Which brings us, again, to that pesky online dating.

Things had gotten a little stale recently, not a lot of hits, no "action" to speak of.

So I switched out my profile pic to one, um, slightly more provocative.

Well.

Let's just say things have started to percolate mightily. (But, puh-leeze, spare me from the twenty-something boys who are entertaining their MILF fantasies.)

Humor abounds, though, as always, and to keep "my" men straight (perhaps straight isn't the best word choice but I'll leave it just for nuance), I quickly create a "user name", so-to-speak, for each of them. Something short and easy to remember.

For example:
1. There was "Music Man", who turned out to be a redneck (not much of a music man at all) (mainly a lot of puffed-up self-aggrandizing) and who talked at length about buying chicken breasts in bulk and individually packaging them in his Food Saver packs. Fascinating. I'm going to rename him "Frozen Chicken Breast Man".

2. "Bad Poetry Man". Advice: NEVER tell someone you're a poet on your first date. Within minutes of my arriving home after said date, a "poem" from Bad Poetry Man appeared in my inbox. Sweet, I suppose, but no. NO.

3. "Cat Scratch Man": I should've taken my own advice re: "Bad Poetry Man".

4. "Tiny Hands Man" — besides possessing the smallest hands I've ever seen on a man, he spoke at length about a book (unpublished) his sister wrote about an 11th century pope. At. Length. (The second glass of wine helped, but not enough.)

5. A man who was so dull he didn't even earn a user name. He never looked at me and he asked me nothing about myself. Bad Hawaiian print shirt, tucked-in, pants hiked up waaaaay too high. Oy.

6. "Architect Man" said, "Redwoods are sentient beings." (Need I say more?)

7. "Screamer". See here.

Waiting in the wings (first face-to-face still to be scheduled) are "Drummer Man" and "Clown Man".

Could life get any more thrilling/fascinating/titillating than this?

God help me, it certainly better.

(And, for the record, none of these men know my full name or have any knowledge whatsoever of this blog.)

Blue, and More Bllue

When I asked my neighbor for a cutting from her hydrangea, I stopped to consider that I already have five vases of that same hydrangea, some dating back to a year ago. Did I really need/want more? Yes, I did.

Each possesses a different blue shade, and I covet all of them.

One is the same faded blue of the suit my mother wore when she married my father in Atlanta during WWII. The suit is impossibly small — my mom weighed ninety-something pounds then. I have it folded away safely.

When I was a child, she kept it in a trunk in the basement, and sometimes I'd make myself invisible and go downstairs, quietly open the trunk and take it out, unfold it, hold it. Cornflower-blue crepe, short sleeves, covered buttons. Lace on the collar and sleeves. Not sure why I was so furtive in my viewing, but something about going into that trunk felt like a violation, felt forbidden.

I lucked upon it after her death. Funny, but all my adult years I've searched out as many blue flowers as possible to plant in my garden.

Wired

These are the softest of days, honey-aired, with a sweetness that I want to take in and in and in....

On this night of the full moon, the roses
are even more lovely in their ebbing —

Hello, House

Two sons:

One sleeps with a baseball bat beside him.

The other arms himself, goes target shooting, hunts.

Both are liberal, loving, incredibly decent and tender men, their "arming" a reaction to the home-invasion robbery that occurred three years ago. My front door sports a metal panel around the dead-bolt. I pay for an alarm system.

And yet, despite this history, it's home.

Imperfect, worn, unfinished: home.

Vulnerable, drafty, creaky: home.

And I love it.

I gave up the notion of a "proper home" some time ago. Accepted that I have cats instead of a new sofa, "old-world charm" instead of doors that close properly. I've lived here long enough to add my DNA to the sheetrock, my nightmares to the attic crawlspace, my own particular gloom to the dank-aired laundry in the basement.

Here lingers the sound of a police officer's voice saying, "Your husband has been involved in an accident."

A wall once held a neighbor's suicide note.

This house has listened in on epilepsy diagnoses and taboo phone conversations. Heard slammed doors and broken dinner plates (slammed against a door). Endured a broken window and the body pushed against the window.

But in equal measures, this house has heard my son at ten learning Beethoven on his flute, Bach (badly!) on an untuned piano, and poetry spoken in a multitude of volumes. Daily it hears my son R.'s bold laughter.

And how many times has "Happy Birthday" been sung here? Nearly a hundred times, but not quite.

Its roof has been raised and its underbelly gutted-out.

It once swelled with the noisy exuberance of teenagers and then shrunk to its now nearly-empty nest.

I've learned to not just accept its many idiosyncrasies but to honor them, because this old house has lived more lifetimes than only my quarter of a century here, and so deserves praise and admiration for simply existing, for putting up with my years of complaints.

I've always believed that I would have a difficult time living in a new house, and I don't for a moment question that sliver of wisdom I can call mine.  

Really, really big rose.

Walking home tonight, dark on a balmy late September night, and there was the hint of marine air on the breeze, but only if I tipped my head up a bit, much like I've seen my cats do when they first go outside. It seemed to float and waver, inconstant, at the edges of all the other scents: the yellow-dried-lawn scent, the dust-of-no-rain scent, the dropped-plums-fermenting-on-the-ground scent.  The urban exhaust. A simmering dinner from an unseen kitchen. A suggestion of roses.

Marine: salmon and mussels and oysters. Kelp, salt, crabs.

Sunday evening my boys and I had an early dinner on the deck before sunset, and a pair of hummingbirds were putting on their best performance of the year so far, swooping and darting and chip-chip-chipping just a few feet from where we sat. Then I heard a sound that I'd not heard before, thought that maybe it was a branch squeaking against the garage, but a little odd, a little too high-pitched, more like a whistle, with too much air in it to be a branch. I heard it again, and so did the boys, and then again, but in the opposite direction from the garage.

It sounded like a piccolo Pete firework, like this, although not so slow. I admit that we were were plain stumped.

Yesterday evening after work I stood out on the deck, and a hummer flew up and hovered 18" in front of my face — completely marvelous greeting! Then it flew straight up about forty feet, quickly turned and shot straight down to the garden, and at the base of its dive, before it turned to arc up again, I heard the sound again, and was completely mystified.

After a lot of dinking around online, I finally discovered that what were hearing was whistling produced by air passing through feathers of the diving male bird. I also found out that if these are Anna's Hummingbirds, they do not take part in the long migration southward, and that I should continue to feed them throughout the winter. It is recommended that in cold weather, I bring the feeder in at night to prevent freezing, or else string Christmas lights around it so the ambient heat will keep the formula fluid! Oh lordy, what have I created here?! (I must admit that the little red bottle feeder with lights strung about will be quite festive.)

I think I'm in it for the long run.

O

Sewn, and then some.

I am trying to make this:

No, not the barn — the skirt. It's an Alabama Chanin design, all hand-sewn, double-layered cotton jersey with reverse applique and embroidery. Crazy, yes. Today I discovered that it's pretty much impossible to buy 100% cotton jersey in Seattle. Strange, when one considers that retail clothing stores selling thousands of items made of cotton jersey.

Natalie Chanin, the designer and author of the Alabama Stitch Book suggests using recycled t-shirts, so after my futile attempt to purchase new fabric off-the-bolt, I headed over to Goodwill. The tricky part is that you need two pairs of identical shirts, without any screen-printed design. I can't believe that I lucked out and found two charcoal-grey and two black tees —the colors that I wanted — both all-cotton, both pattern-free and in nearly-new shape.

Next I had to copy the pattern (it's on loan), so I photo-copied it in 81/2 by 11 pieces and puzzled them together, spread out on my floor. My brain feels rattled & addled.

My total investment, minus gas, is $18. Not bad when the Alabama Chanin website lists new, hand-sewn skirts in the $2000+ range. (And yes, that's for one skirt.)

Now all I have to do is make it.

Listen (and yes, it's worth your time)

Here's my remedy for moping — be sure to watch Chris Thile's expressions of ecstasy (he's the winsome mandolin player):

The Presidential Seal of Approval

Abacus Gallery in Kennebunkport Maine sent an email to Melinda today informing her that Bill Clinton stopped by yesterday and purchased a few of her pieces. Let it be known that my hands were a part of their creation!

This was cause for a considerable amount of excitement at Studio HiJinx. Hard to buckle down to the job when you know that one of the most powerful men on the planet has laid hands on the very work over which you've labored. Not only that, he laid down his hard-earned cash for it.

Thank-you, Mr. President, for helping to support two of the 99%/53%/
slaves/hardworking/tax-paying/privately-insured/unentitled-to-shit/Americans who will never vote for Mitt Romney.

Summer's end, and the nasturtiums finally are showing their colors, and the Heavenly Blue morning glory affords me maybe a single flower per day. Don't want to overdo anything, do you Mother Nature?

In less than a month the year will begin to fold itself beneath the soil, a blaze of death in the garden. And then the first frost, and the rains for which Seattle are famous, our barely-there rains with their omnipresent grey skies, unrelenting.

A good friend stopped by work today and said he's pulled together an exit plan for his house, whose value has slipped beneath the price he paid for it, and his work (as an artist) is spotty. This is a hard-working man, a decent man (I used to work for him), a good man. No need to mention the overpowering despair which took up residence this afternoon. And how far are any of us from this same scenario?  I took last week off because there was a slowdown in orders; happily, this week, new orders have bulked-up the files on through December, and I'm grateful.

And although I generally avoid politics in this forum, the Republican presidential candidate has pushed me to the brink of the cliff, and I'm ready to scream. His current vocal inflammation is beyond the pale. (If you haven't already read about this, click here.)

Shoving anxieties about the future aside, the late-afternoon light on my walk home from work was glorious, and suddenly buildings I look at every day appeared glowing, larger than life. Here's my temporary little love affair with the color yellow: