Demitasse Set

Day 287: Demitasse Set

"Does Ysabel follow your blog? Are you going to talk about unwanted gifts?" These were Rich's questions when he heard that I was getting rid of this demitasse coffee set today. Ysabel does not follow my blog, but I will not be sharing today's post on Facebook. 

Ysabel (not her real name) is our housekeeper. Her employees - who may all be related to her - clean our house twice a month, for $100 a pop. They have been doing so for sixteen years, except in the leanest of times. They have never raised their rates. When we moved from Shadford to the bigger house on Morton, I offered a $15 per cleaning increase and Ysi accepted. At this point, I'm quite certain we are paying well below market. 

Once, we forgot to leave a check for Ysi, so I dropped off the payment for her at her house, a modest, well-kept modular home in a tract housing park in Ypsilanti. There were red geraniums in a terra cotta pot on the poured concrete stoop. 

We call Ysi's staff "the Ysi's" because her business has no name, and the names of the four women who clean our house are unknown to me. I almost never see them, and on those very rare days when I do, I feel enormous pressure to get out as quickly as possible, as if I've ordered a cocktail five minutes before last call, and I'm the last customer in the joint, and the bartender and waitress are dead on their feet. The Ysi's are prompt, reliable, honest and thorough. It's a pleasant surprise to come home if I've forgotten it's an Ysi's day, because the moment I open the door at the end of the day, I feel, see, smell - I know - the house is clean. 

Nevertheless, every time they clean, we ask ourselves, "Do they hate us?" Why would they consistently flip our red Turkish area rug? Why would they throw the trash in the recycling bin, causing me to have to gulp air like an underwater swimmer, submerge my body to the waist in the giant blue bin, and yank out the foul-smelling plastic bag so I can move it to the proper bin? Why would they put a library book in a bottom drawer under a sheaf of papers? Why would they throw Sam's term paper in the outside garbage bin with the used tissues and old meat wrappers?

Years ago, I read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed with great interest. In it, the author lives entirely from the proceeds of various minimum wage jobs and writes about it. Her premise was deeply flawed because her one condition was that she would not accept roommates. As I well knew at the time (as a twentysomething recent college grad), living without roommates is a high end luxury that no minimum wage worker can afford. 

Still, the book was interesting. I was especially interested in her description of working for the housecleaning company, where she was instructed to clean without the use of water and also described cleaning other people's toilets - with their bodily effluvia - as the unequivocal nadir of wage slavery. As a person who had cleaned other people's abodes for money, I was utterly shocked by the flummery - nay, let's call it deep deceit - of "cleaning" without water. At the same time, I felt a vague contempt for Ehrenreich's namby pamby delicacy when it came to cleaning bathrooms. Clearly, she is not a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of gal. 

Still, I learned something: not everyone loves cleaning other people's houses. That's why I favor the "They hate us" interpretation. Rich, on the other hand, thinks they're just in a hurry. 

I feel guilty about paying them only $100, and getting a little unneeded, rarely used Christmas gift each year just twists that knife. And perhaps this underpayment is part of what makes them hate us. But on the other hand, who wants to offer a raise to somebody who tosses out a term paper?

It's a pickle.

Owl Ring and Cross Earring

Day 286: Owl Ring and Cross Earring

Emma Jane and I got manicures today from two Vietnamese women in a strip mall off A1A. Their shop was deserted. Even though the manicures were quick and sloppy, I gave them a 25 percent tip because they were the nicest manicurists I've ever met.  Mine looked about thirty, but she said she moved here from New York in 2001 to get away from the Buffalo winters. She'd moved to Buffalo at age 21 - she didn't say why - and had lived there for 27 years. That put her age at 62.

How did she get such young skin, after walking every single day on the salty beach for 14 years? Lately, I've realized that I actually am sliding into old age: thick knuckles, sore joints, stiff hips, bags under my eyes, dull hair, bad sleep, ridged nails, age spots, sagging biceps, and, yes, crocodile skin. It's a cliche, but I can't help but be surprised.

Emma's manicurist was so delighted by the 25 percent tip that ahe turned on The Interview while we were drying our nails, which she had rented from amazon.com for 48 hours for $5.99. She was delighted that Sony had released it immediately on DVD. I believe she was saying (although I struggled a bit to understand her accent) that we are in America, a free country, and we won't be cowed by terrorists. We have the right to watch whatever we want. Also, she thought the movie was funny, and the whole family could see it over and over for two days for less than $6. It would cost more than $6 for just one person to see it at the theater.

Had I not gotten rid of the owl ring, it might have looked nicer with our lovely manicured nails, mine a tassteful buff, Emma's a fashionable oyster purple.

Pull-Up Cheaters

Day 285: Pull-Up Cheaters
Sam is off to the gym in his brand new, outlet mall Nike sneakers, only they don't call them sneakers any more.  They are bright orange with streamlined soles. With these stylish new kicks, he definitely won't need these cheaters any more. (Who am I kidding? He never needed the chewters, has never ince used them.) Uncle David's white Nike sneakers, which fit fine and look perfectly neutral to me, are apparently old man shoes. This just confirms what I have been thinking: that I am gradually sliding unto ild age.

Not as old as Aunt Donnna and Uncle Gene, however, who have been fooling me for years with their warmth, kindness and ready wit. I have said many times that I aspire to be Aunt Donna when I am 80, with her lovely soft sweaters and pink lipstick and the way she remembers every birthday with a card and a pack of Trident.

Is it just coincidence that landed both of them in the hospital on the same day? I guess when the biological clock approaches - passes - ninety, anything can happen. How lucky that we are here, and that Steve and Joann and John Patrick are arriving today for their Christmas visit. I am sitting at home with congestion and a slight cough and a glass of white wine, boiling potatoes, marinating fish and waiting to hear the prognosis.  

Garbage Disposer Part

Day 284: Garbage Disposer Part

We are cursed, at least insofar as garbage disposers are concerned. We burn one out every couple years or so. If I ever lose my job, I could have a second career installing garbage disposers. We don't compost to nourish our garden or to help the environment. We compost to prolong the relentlessly short life of our latest garbage disposer.

New garbage disposers come with the main machine - the garbage disposer itself - and with the static parts that get installed in and under the sink to hold the machine in place and create the finished look. These things never break or wear out. They accumulate under the sink like mouse turds or old raggedy towels. Yet they are so sturdy, so upstanding and solid - inanimate Calvinists, primed and ready for heaven - that you just can't bring yourself to toss them out with the rest of the packaging.  

You never know when you might want to install a new sink pipe liner.

Dog Toys

Day 283: Dog Toys

It's strange to be here in Saint Augustine without Harpo. I keep thinking he's at my feet, or beside my hand. I feel regret, walking down the beach without him.  I wonder if he's forgotten all about us, playing with all those other dogs and sleeping on Amy's sofa at The Naughty Dog Cafe.

Even though he wasn't with us for Christmas, I still bought him a Christmas present, a little green stuffed bunny with a sticker on its chest that read "Practically Indestructible." That proved to be untrue as Harpo removed the squeaker and all the stuffing within 36 hours. He had fun doing it, though, so it was worth the two bucks I spent on it at TJ Maxx. 

I've never had a dog who loved toys more than Harpo. We keep them in a metal basket on top of his crate. He delicately sifts through them, gently picking them up with his teeth and setting them aside until he finds the one he wants, like a picky eater with a box of chocolates. Of the three toys I'm getting rid of, two are the equivalent of jelly creams (no one will ever eat them) and one is completely trashed.

Paint Samples

Day 282: Paint Samples

I am not sure that refurbishing our 1890 Florida style house in historic Lincolnville would pay for itself in terms of greater resale value or higher rents. But I sure would love to do it. I've used the Good Housekeeping on-line room arrangement tool to figure out how to maximize the small bathrooms and kitchen. I have daydreams of historic paint colors (like the ones we used on our 1927 house in Ann Arbor), and clawfoot tubs, and breakfast nooks.

We bought the house just before the bottom fell out of the mortgage industry in 2007, when we thought the multi-million dollar marina down the street was set to make the value of Lincolnville houses skyrocket. Two years later, the marina deal had collapsed, the cranes and Caterpillars had departed, and the signs were taken down.  Flagler College students saved us from losing our shirts (though some of them trashed our beautiful old house).  We're still paying a little out of pocket each month to support the mortgage, and trying to be grateful that we didn't lose our house and our jobs like so many other people. We even thought about just defaulting on the mortgage, but we'd promised to pay. It just didn't seem right.

Besides, I did love the house when I bought it.  I still love it, despite the cheapo refrigerator and fake stucco ceiling. It calls out for TLC, and in the mean time, makes a snug and convenient dwelling for some very nice college boys.

Maybe someday.

Cloth Bags

Day 281: Cloth Bags

How I wish I could take a day off - Christmas day! - from blogging. Nothing makes me appreciate my home technology like traveling. I'm ready to stab this very slow computer with a carving knife.

Such a strange Christmas day. Here we are, back in Saint Augustine, with its fresh, cool wind, wide sand beach and sunsets like rainbow sorbet. Jane's next-door-neighbor has a yard full of Christmas light reindeer that turn their heads while "Jingle Bells" plays over and over. We opened gifts last night instead of this morning, and today we all got to chew stocking-stuffer Five gum on the six-hour drive from Captiva to St. Augustine. Last night, after the presents were opened and admired, we finished watching It's a Wonderful Life on network t.v., interspersed with many, many commercials, mostly advertising Christmas presents for dogs. The commercial-free YouTube version has the lips and voices out of symch, which interferes with the sentiment.

I have decided that these little cloth bags, which have been stored in the wrapping paper bin, will never be suitable for wrapping gifts. Off they go. This year, I splurged on wrapping paper, which we disposed of in the resort garbage bin. We left a significant tip for the housekeeping staff to thank them for clearing it all away on Christmas day.

Oysters for dinner.

Linnea

I

Day 280: Linnea

Linnea has been my companion in the car for 15 or 16 years, along with a slightly bigger, much yellower and more pessimistic Bert. She fits in the palm of my hand. 

A shocking percentage of people have stuffed animals in their cars. I put these in mine as a sop to the kids. When they were imprisoned in their car seats in the back, I could pull Linnea and Bert off the visor and toss them over to serve as a distraction. The blush quickly faded from the rose: Linnea and Bert hardly interrupted the fussing for a moment. 

Like all the other parents in my neighborhood, we were religious about buckling the kids in. I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for them, though. When I was a kid, we drove to Fort Lauderdale every other year to visit Emma's namesake, my great grandmother, and her son, Uncle Sherlock. We would drawl around in the car, stretch out on the floor or the rear windshield, climb back and forth to the front seat and generally enjoy as much freedom of movement as a six foot-by-six foot moving box can afford. Nowadays, unbuckling your seatbelt long enough to adjust your pillow is a spanking offense. 

Rich and I are in the car this very moment, driving to Captiva Island to meet the kids and Jane for five days on a warm sandy beach. As part of their Christmas, we flew them to St. Augustine instead of making them endure 1,000 miles each way in the car as they have so many times before. This time. Linnea is at home in the Goodwill box. Bert, however, is still tucked in the side pocket, with his scowling black unibrow and worried expression. 

Bert, I intend to keep. 

Scarves

Day 279: Scarves

Sam and I met a guy from Grand Blanc, Michigan in the resort hot tub yesterday. He said that his whole family - parents, siblings, spouses, grandkids - have been sharing a timeshare at the South Seas Resort, weeks 51 and 52, for decades. Over time, one by one, they each moved to southwest Florida, Naples or Fort Meyers or Captiva. That's how much the South Seas Resort influenced them.

Nothing against Michigan, he said.  But opportunities abound in Florida.

Sam went on a college visit at Flagler in Saint Augustine, and loved it. There's a swimming pool in the middle of their quad, and students string up hammocks in their palm forest all year round. They've got a liberal arts business major, and so he could study philosophy and finance, history and economics. He could get recruited to play soccer, and the girls outnumber the boys three to two. He could live in our little rental house in Lincolnville. And he could have Sunday dinner with his Grandma.

All this serves to revive our fantasies about selling our house in Ann Arbor and moving to a warmer climate by the sea. I've been working for 35 years. What would it be like not to have to get up qand go to work? Would it be depressing? Lonely? Would my life have no meaning? Or would it be a peaceful dream, a continuous meditation, a state of bliss?

Also, Emma is tan for once in her pale, pale life. And taking over my post.

Maybe next time, dear, you can write the entire post and not just one sentence.

Vacuum Cleaner Bag

Day 278: Vacuum Cleaner Bag

A vacuum cleaner bag may seem like nothing, and yet, I've been unwilling to get rid of it for decades. I can't say why. I really can't. 

Today Jane and I had the best naturalist tour I believe I've ever had, at Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge, while the resort cleaning staff were using the vacuum in our condo. Here is what I learned:

-Ounce for ounce, birds are the most fearsome predators on earth

-T Rex and velociraptors are most closely related to chickens (no wonder the kids thought the chickens were so weird)

-Captiva used to have the highest mosquito population on earth - 9 billion per square mile in 1954 - and thus was uninhabitable 

-Mangrove trees give birth to live young

-The fierce and sophisticated Kalusa tribe drove off Ponce de Leon but were then destroyed by livestock borne diseases 

-Brown pelicans are the only unendangered pelican species, the only brown pelican, and the only diving pelican. Most of them die at less than a year from mishaps like broken necks from flawed dives

-White pelicans live most of the year in Saskatchewan 

-Alligators store heat in the cartilage bumps beneath their skin, like batteries. When their bodies are below 89 degrees, they are sluggish. They only require 200 calories per day

Now we are watching Home Alone and eating fudge. 

Eraser and Index Cards

Day 277: Erasers and Index Cards

The resolution was to get rid of one thing, every day for a year.  It was not to write, every day for a year.  That part was incidental, merely a way to keep track of what I'd had and what I'd gotte rid of, and what I'd thought about and learned in doing so. 

So I'm giving myself the day off.  Back to the beach.

Broken Dust Pan

Day 276: Broken Dust Pan

I'm sitting on the veranda to our villa in Captiva, which is really a fancy word for our apartment. Inside, an employee of the resort is cleaning. Brooms and dust pans are far from my responsibility here. I notice that virtually all the guests here are white, mostly American but some European, the employees seem to be Jamaican or Hatian. I've been reading at least three articles a day in The New York Times - one of my latest resolutions - and with Ferguson and Eric Garner in the headlines, it's hard not to notice the racial disparities here. Sam says it's racist of me to notice and comment. 

So I'm aware of my privileged status here, but it is still so nice just to lounge on the beach and get some sun and not to be responsible for anyone or anything. 

Chaco Hiking Shoes

Day 275: Chaco Hiking Shoes

Day three of driving. Exterior temperature 80 degrees. You would think we'd be cheerful, but Rich has a monster cold and I am tired of sitting in the car. The sun is pounding into the passenger window, so bright I can barely see, and I'm covered in a light layer of sweat. I'm not blind to the irony of spending significant time and money to leave the gray skies of Michigan to enjoy the subtropics a thousand miles south, only to complain about the heat when we get there. Our mood at this moment reinforces one of my deeply held (if controversial) beliefs: happiness is internal. 

I can hear all you materialists arguing. Who can be happy, hungry, cold and naked? I agree, of course. Happiness undoubtedly results from a mix of inner and outer states. There are people at both ends of the spectrum - fabulously wealthy and miserable, miserably poor and content. Still. Last night's $85 room didn't make me much happier than the $53 room the night before. The twenty hour drive in my awesome brand new Ford Fusion with its heated leather seats was no shorter than the twenty hour drive in the noisy RAV4 with 125,000 miles on it. 

I'd like nothing more right now than to bust out of the car and take a long hike, not in these Chacos but in bare feet, with arch support from the warm white sand. 

An hour and forty-five minutes to go. 

Disposable Toothbrush Etc.

Day 274: Disposable Toothbrush etc. 

Still on the road, between Atlanta and Valdosta. Used a disposable toothbrush at the Ramada Inn this morning, where there was no lid for the Mr. Coffee (so it wouldn't brew), no bulb in the bedside table lamp (so it wouldn't light up), no plug for my computer (so I couldn't charge it), and no shampoo or conditioner in the not-perfectly-clean bathroom. They did comp our bar bill, but we don't care about that as much as we once did. 

The sky is a lovely baby blue with gray and white clouds backlit by the golden sun, and the temperature is a mild 56 degrees. From the speedy anonymity of the freeway, the Georgia flatlands look peaceful and lush. Tonight: southern food at Steel Magnolias (4.7 stars from 42

Yelp reviewers) and a better night in a higher class hotel.

Encyclopedia

Day 273: Encyclopedia

Yesterday, Emma Jane took the Webster's encyclopedia off the shelf for the first time in many years. Why? To press her needlepoint against the cardboard backing to help the glue dry in place. I asked the question, "Is this something we can get rid of?" and got a resounding "Yes." Both the kids tell me that encyclopedias are obsolete before they even reach the bookstore these days.

Other obsolete things: records, 8-track tapes, VHS tapes, phones that plug into the wall, paper maps, trains, LSD. Bow ties used to be obsolete, but they aren't any more. Beards are also back in.

Stuffed Tiger, Stuffed Lion and Tiger Finger Puppet

Day 272: Stuffed Tiger, Stuffed Lion and Tiger Finger Puppet
I'd intended not to give away this lion, because Ina or maybe Nadin brought it from Germany as a gift for Sam or maybe Emma. Indeed, when Sam saw me stuff it into a box, along with its pal the tiger, he said "You're giving away my childhood!" But today was the day of our white elephant exchange at the Gardens, and I'd been thinking about all the folks there with little kids, and all the stuffed animals in baskets in the attic that no one ever plays with. We've seen Toy Story II as a family about 107 times, and of course I know it's not real. Nevertheless, there is something a little poignant about forgotten toys tucked away in the dark.

The holiday party at the Arb & Gardens has included a white elephant exchange since time immemorial. Today was my tenth. Every year a couple people suggest that maybe our time could best be spent differently. A few years ago, we took a vote. They "ayes" had it.

For many years, there was a candle in the shape of a monkey with a wick sticking out of its fez hat. It migrated from staff person to staff person once a year like the Little Brown Jug, except the prize went to the loser. The monkey had tooth marks from when it spent the year at David's house and the dog mistook it for a chew toy. Finally it got so old, it completely disintegrated. It was replaced by another monkey, this one a block of wood posed like Rodin's Thinker. Somehow, the simian Thinker didn't make it into the game this year. We were monkey-free, and perhaps a little subdued as a result.

Are rituals like this just silly? Are they meaningful? Do they bind us together? Will we miss the white elephant exchange when we leave? Will we think of the candle monkey, and the edible panties and stuffed animals and used puzzles, and the neon santas and Holly Hobby table lamps and Chinese coasters, and the bottle rockets and Magritte lips and Jane Fonda LPs? When we think of these things, will we say, "I miss those folks?" or "Thank God I never have to go through that again?" Or both?

Mittens and Gloves

Day 271: Mittens and Gloves

Sam's forum at Community High is collecting warm clothing for the St. Andrew's breakfast Thursday. I don't know what the St. Andrew's breakfast is, but I know that Sam's forum has given him many opportunities to serve and give.

"Christmas is at our throats again." This is how Arthur C. Brooks begins his OpEd piece in the New York Times this weekend about the commercialization of Christmas. I'm not sure that all our buying is in the spirit of generosity, either. As one of my friends joked on Facebook: "Almost done with my Christmas shopping! Now I just have to buy presents."

Giving Tuesday may be a partial antidote. What if we all resolved to give an equal amount outside our immediate circle of family and friends? For every dollar on stocking stuffers, what if I contributed a dollar to Food Gatherers? We might be ripe for broadening our definition of holiday giving: the University of Michigan set a Giving Tuesday goal of $1M and raised $3.2M in that one day.

Sam's forum did in fact collect money for Food Gatherers, a charity after my own heart. How can you not support Food Gatherers when one in seven people in Washtenaw County are hungry? I'm happy for him to take these mittens and gloves, and the down vest and coat I set aside a few weeks ago, for the warm clothes drive on Thursday. Tomorrow, he's staying after school to help the homeless, something a kid in his forum organized. Hoping we are on the right track.

Needlepoint and Frame

Day 270: Needlepoint and Frame

A canvas only a mother could love: Nobody Here But Us Chickens. I'm not happy with it. The sun is too dark, the chickens too white, the sky too dark. I've been flummoxed as to what to do with it. I wouldn't want to hang in on the wall, where I'd have to look at it every day and feel dissatisfied, which makes the oval frame for which I made it also problematic. It's an odd shape, unsuitable to convert to a pillow or a handbag.  I've invested too many hours - too much thought, too much effort - just to throw it away. I can't bear the thought of giving it to the Goodwill and having someone buy it for $2 - or worse yet, decline to buy it for $2. But honestly, who would want it?

Answer: my mother! When she stopped by this afternoon and saw this piece - cast aside and unwanted on the back of the sofa - she asked if she could have it! Thanks, Mom!

Now, onto the next piece.

Sunglasses

Day 269: Sunglasses

Sadly, if you are blind in one eye, you begin to lose the vision in your good eye at a younger age.  When you are a teenager, you might feel smug about the fact that the vision in your good eye is better than most people's. So what if you can't parallel park or play tennis? Not only do you have 20/20 vision in your good eye, you have better than 20/20 vision! You can read the phone book (back when there were phone books)! You can see an eagle flying near the clouds at dawn! You can walk in the woods at midnight without a flashlight! Woot.

All that hubris fades around forty, when you're the youngest person you know in progressive lenses. At fifty, over-the-counter reading glasses (to supplement your progressive lenses) are no longer strong enough, and you find yourself squinting, or buying large-type books, or reading eBooks on a tablet that allows you to increase the font size (thereby trading the irritation of holding the books at arm's length for the irritation of having to turn the metaphoric page every few seconds).

Furthermore, at fifty, you can no longer spend $5 for a pair of fashion sunglasses, which you don't really have to keep track of because you can always buy another pair. No, it is prescription all the way, indoors and out, summer and winter. Your prescription lenses are as much a part of you as the mole on the back of your hand or the little space between your front teeth.

The blessing in all this - and I think of this almost every day, is that eyeglasses are an option. Without them, I would be in trouble. Everything I do - working, going to the movies, needlepoint, reading - would be lost. With them, it's a fashion statement.

Remember the Twilight Zone episode where Harrison Ford plays a henpecked husband who wants nothing more than to read from morning until night, if only he weren't constantly thwarted by his wife? But good news is coming! A nuclear holocaust wipes out mankind (including the shrewish wife)! How extremely fortunate! Harry, miraculously unscathed, can read, read, read, day in and day out. Until his glasses get broken.

Another advantage of modern times: when I can't see to read any more, I can always listen to books on tape. When the holocaust comes, no worries.

Goodbye, cheap old sunglasses. Hello, old age.

Needlepoint Canvas, Yarn and Needles

Day 268: Needlepoint Canvas, Yarn and Needles

Emma is home for the holidays, bringing energy, humor, and ambitious gift-making plans. Among these, needlepoint! Who would have guessed?

If you know me, you know I am passionate about needlepoint. I have created three needlepoint pieces of my own design, each one taking years to complete. I have no idea whether they are works of folk art of pieces of crap, but the process of designing and executing them is absorbing. Captivating. Consuming.

Obsessive.

I have been working with needles my entire life. I had a host of knitting-needle wielding Scottish great aunts with names like May and Nettie and Bessie and Euphamia, who knitted their own socks and underwear and who knitted us mittens in the shape of skunks that were connected with a long single-stitch string that connected the pair through the sleeves of our winter coats, so the mittens never got lost. They knitted us sweaters that were too small, so my brother always got mine, and I always got my sister's, and she never got a hand-knit sweater at all. My great-grandmother taught me to knit before I was old enough to go to school. By high school, I could knit a sweater without looking at my hands, while studying American history or reading novels.

I'm a knitting machine. I have no doubt I could knit a scarf or a sweater in fifteen minutes. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. For whatever reason, though, I completely lost interest in knitting after college.

So when my sister handed down a boatload of wool needlepoint yarn and a half-dozen canvasses - some of them blank - it lit me up like a bonfire on a dry fall day. She had gotten these from her mother-in-law, Suzanne, and thought I might be interested. And I was. Yes, I was. It was the blank canvas that did it. With needlepoint, I'm actually designing the piece, not just crafting somebody else's design. It's creating, like writing a story or creating a harmony. It's pulling out a piece of yourself and putting it out there, into the world. It's not the product, it's the process, though. Once finished, I have no interest. But while I'm creating: wow.

Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you, Suzanne.

Because I love it so much, I never intend to get rid of any of my needlepoint stuff, at least not until I've gone totally blind (I'm halfway there), or my hands become so painful I can't grip the needle (25% of the way). But right now, I'm sitting on the coach next to Emma Jane, who's surrounded with the graph paper on which she designed her Once Upon a Time original needlepoint art, and who has been working assiduously for almost two hours, and who has completed approximately two-square inches of canvas, and who keeps holding her piece up every time she completes a thread, saying "Do you think it's cute, Mom?" Or, "Does it look like a face, Mom?" Or, "Do you think I should add an extra row here, Mom?" Because, I'm writing this blog, and only half paying attention.

But still. Who'da thought? 

She's welcome to all the needles and thread she can use.

Erasers and Markers

Day 267: Erasers and Markers

I shouldn't have been surprised to find yet another clementine box full of crayons, markers, pencils and scissors. Also eight erasers. Eight.

Right now, Sam is downstairs being tutored in foundations of science by a master's student in chemical engineering. We are fortunate to live in a town where extremely educated, intelligent and very nice young people are available to tutor children for $15 an hour. This is especially valuable if your children are learning things that might as well be in an extraterrestrial language, such as chemistry and calculus.

Even with such talented instruction, erasers are still a necessity. Perhaps not eight of them, though. One or two should be enough. Used up markers, never used decorative stamps and unsharpened pencils are similarly of little value.

I chalk all these office supplies up not only to Emma Jane's love for them, but also to my own love of buying stocking stuffers. The fact that my children opened little wrapped erasers and thanked me very prettily four different Christmasses speaks well of them, don't you think?

Stuffed Turtle

Day 266: Stuffed Turtle

Let the countdown begin! 100 more days... 100 more objects...

Later note: double-checking counts and realized I had gotten off. I only had 99 days to go at this point!

Dominoes

Day 265: Dominoes
Finished shopping for stocking stuffers and oh what fun. The perfect stocking stuffer:

• Smaller than a breadbox (although I've been known to bend this rule for stacks of used books from the Friends of the Library sale)
• Costs less than $15, or (better still) less than $5, or (superlative) less than $2. The higher the original retail price, the better
• To reduce its environmental impact, is either (1) consumable (food or toiletries) (2) used or (3) made from repurposed materials (like felt mittens of old sweaters or handbags made of old neckties)
• Makes the recipient laugh, or smell it and say "Mmm," or taste it and say "Mmm," or stroke it and say "Mmm"

There should be no fewer than eight and no more than twelve. Sam and Emma Jane should have the exact same number.

I don't clearly remember our stocking rituals in the house I grew up in, but I know I still use the stocking my Auntie Mo made for me when she was 17 years old and I was only six months. It is tiny - only large enough to fit a clementine, a pack of gum and a pair of socks - and my brother's was twice the size. This was always a sore subject for my sister and me with our tiny Christmas stockings, as was the fact that we believed Karl never had to help with the dishes. For this reason, I borrowed Karl's stockings when I made a felt stocking for Rich and another for Jane, years later.

My mother knit large, stretchy Christmas stockings for each of her grandchildren. Emma Jane had the dubious distinction of being the first grandchild, with the result that her Christmas stocking has a very strange and twisted heel, which I wouldn't trade for a million perfectly turned ones.

This box of dominoes was a stocking stuffer for one of the kids many years ago. I don't really know how to play dominoes. We used it as a sort of matching game, where you built a snaking path by taking turns pairing an orphaned end with a matching block from your hand. If you had doubles, you could branch out, creating more options and complexities. We also used them to line up long phalanxes in order to watch the chain reaction when you pushed the first one down. They've been shoved to the back of the bookshelf for a long time.

They are ripe for a white elephant exchange.

Halloween Mask

Day 264: Halloween Mask

Though scary, it's hard to breath
inside this thing.
And it doesn't smell good either.

This Halloween mask says it all. Are moods like this catching? I won't bore you with the details - the mistakes I made, the mistakes others made that impacted me, and the tiny stressors that fit in amongst the larger errors - but the cumulative effect was a bad mood. Perhaps my most egregious error was bringing half an acorn squash, a banana, and nothing else for lunch, which was delicious but lacked the necessary food energy to keep the rest of the stressors in perspective. On top of that, although almost the entire morning was meeting-free, I nevertheless did not have time to go outside, even for a 15-minute walk around Willow Pond.

Heading for the basement. There's no mood so black that 45 minutes of Star Trek  and the elliptical machine can't lighten it.

Wrapping Paper Detritus

Day 263: Wrapping Paper Detritus

Ever wonder why RubberMaid isn't
spelled RubberMade? I do.

I try to mitigate the environmental impact of wrapping gifts. I have lots of ways of doing this. Reusing other stuff, like old maps and funny papers. Smoothing and saving wrapping paper and bows, just like mothers did in 1931. Buying spools of grosgrain ribbon at the PTO Thrift Shop and using it year after year. Making present bags out of fabric scraps. Cutting up old greeting cards to use as present tags. If I'm really tempted to buy festive new paper, I shoot for the thin delicate kind, not the thick stuff that costs an arm and a leg and seems like something you could use to wallpaper your bathroom.

The accumulated result of all this is chaos in the RubberMaid wrapping bin. In honor of the stuff project, I decided to clean it out. This is what I am getting rid of: red polyester shiny fabric that is shaped too oddly to convert into present bags; Chinese take-out food containers that Jess gave me a few years ago filled with homemade granola, which are now disintegrating and unsuitable for regifting; cardboard ribbon spools empty of ribbon; old greeting cards and used envelopes that are covered with writing and unsuitable for gift tags; miscellaneous garbage, like gum wrappers, inkless pens and empty Scotch tape containers.

I also organized everything that remains. I put all the present bags together in a fabric bag, all the wrapping paper scraps and tissue in another fabric bag, tied spools of ribbon together with an elastic band, and neatly stacked the small jewelry boxes. The tape and scissors are tucked neatly in corner. The box will remain this way until someone else uses it, which will probably be the day after tomorrow.

For today, it's all good.

Flashlight and iPhone Case

Day 262: Flashlight and iPhone Case
Christmas season. I had planned to take care of at least a couple weeks of the stuff project by getting rid of lots of unwanted Christmas junk. It turns out I have none to get rid of.

Awwww

There's a lot written about Christmas. A lot of mixed feelings about the holidays. The objections to it:

1. The holidays create pressure to feel happy. It highlights the feeling of alienation for those who aren't. Suicide rates spike before Christmas and Thanksgiving.
2. Christmas takes over our society, but not everyone celebrates it. It's exclusionary, yet all-encompassing.
3. Christmas is commercialized. It causes people to purchase unneeded things, which has an environmental impact. People feel pressure around gift-giving; it's stressful and overwhelming. It's no fun. People spend more money than they can afford, causing financial hardship.

A souvenir of one of my many
trips to Mexico. A teeny tiny nativity.

All this is true, and yet, I like Christmas. I always have. It's not a religious thing for me. I just like the smell of pine and hot chocolate. I like the sparkling colored lights on these darkest of days, like our own little constellations. I like the silly ritual of stocking stuffers, Tic Tacs and chocolate geld, socks and ear buds and chewing gum. I like doing jigsaw puzzles instead of checking email, eating Jane's fudge and decorating her plastic tree. I like all our Christmas ornaments: the ones my kids made, the ones I made as a kid, the ones my mother used as a kid, the ones that include adorably retro second grade school photos. I like singing Christmas carols, although, like my mother before me, I had a secular upbringing. It's a lovely story, but I don't believe in the miracle birth.

A sawed off clothes pin in a felt suit
with a Magic Marker smile. We
made them from a Good Housekeeping
pattern when I was a kid

I was delighted, as a college freshman, to learn in my Celtic culture and mythology class that the December festival of lights predates Christianity. It felt like permission to celebrate Christmas. Now that I'm a little (a lot) older, I don't need permission. Christmas can be just a simple uncomplicated ritual in a world that lacks ritual. No need for justification.

People all over the world, of many faiths, believe - deeply and absolutely - that their own faith is true. People all over the world believe - deeply and absolutely - that other faiths are false. People bomb abortion clinics and run airplanes into buildings for this reason. I myself have no early religious training that would dispose me to believe one faith over another. Nothing to slant me toward Confucionism over Christianity. No bias toward Buddhism, Bahai or Zoroastrianism. No reason to favor the Shintos over the Siekhs. Of course, this isn't entirely true; I'm certainly more familiar with Christianity and Judaism because of the accident of my culture and surroundings. But close enough.

Christmas mouse from my
mother's childhood tree

Awwww

I do believe in kindness, and helping others, and doing the right thing. I believe that most people behave morally even without threat of external punishment or promise of reward: people do what's right because it's the right thing to do. If God is a conscious and separate entity, then God must at least be the moral equal of humanity. Therefore, I believe - but I don't know - that I won't be punished for choosing wrong. If it turns out that the Mahayana Buddhists are the ones who got it right, then I guess I'll be all right. If it's the Church of Christ, I guess I'm in trouble - along with everybody else in the world who got born in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have no more interest in a god who excludes Jews and others than I have in a country club that does the same.

I can part with this half-working
flashlight and iPod case

I guess I'm like most other folks who believe what their mothers believe. In the words of my own mother: "Love me or else. Not."

Magic Kit in Texas Pecan Pie Box

Day 261: Magic Kit in Texas Pecan Pie Box

Magic. The word may be a bit overused, but only because the idea is so thrilling. So tantalizing. So...well...magical.

I'm a sucker for everything from Harry Potter to sleight of hand. And I do mean sucker. I saw Penn & Teller at the beautiful Orpheum Theater at Market and Hyde around 1995. A perfect melding of magic and comedy, they had no compunctions about revealing their tricks. I was one of the blind idiots in the audience sitting on the edge of my seat, mouth slightly open, eyes squinting in concentration, awed and suspicious, completely fooled while knowing that it was all illusion. Over and again they slowed the tricks down, slower than the Six Million Dollar Man, explaining all the while how they were misdirecting our eyes, tricking us into looking in the wrong direction. People were laughing and clapping, catching on, figuring it out. Everyone but me. Even as they were explaining the misdirection, my eyes were looking the wrong way.

This box of magic tricks is like the strip in Las Vegas on a bright sunny morning. Not nearly as breathtaking as at night, dressed up with neon, the darkness hiding the gum wrappers and flaking paint. A magic kit isn't for someone who loves magic. It's for someone who's patient enough, detail-oriented enough and devilishly deceitful enough to put in the hours. Someone who reads operating instructions.

That person is not me, nor is it Sam, nor Emma.

I like the construction of the pie box. The sentiment - "You might give some serious thought to thanking your lucky stars you're in Texas" - is exactly designed to discomfit my diffident mid-western heart. Those Texans. Tsk.

Loved the pecan pie, though.

Countertop Scraps

Day 260: Countertop Scraps

These scraps are so small I will never
be able to use them. Next time the
counter gets damaged, we'll have to
replace the whole thing

So far, the only thing I've gotten rid of and regretted is fabric. Most of it I don't miss, but I should have kept the sturdy fabrics that I really like. Other than that, I have no regrets. So far.

Things I put into the give-away pile and took back out again:

(1) The off-white teapot with green vines that our au pair Nicole Hinkel bought after she'd broken the third teapot in a row. I put it in the pile because I haven't used it in years, it has no sentimental value and I have a blue willow teapot that I also haven't used in years. I took it back out because it (sort of) matches the desert rose china that belonged to my grandmother

(2) The Kitchenaid kitchen timer that came free with my stand mixer. I have a manual timer that I like much better, plus a timer on the microwave and another timer on the oven. I have never needed four timers at once and I generally don't like battery-operated things. I took it back out because it's high quality and Emma will be moving into an apartment in less than two years. I put it in again because I'd rather get Emma a really cute timer, like a tomato or a pig, but I took it back out because she'll need a lot of things and it would be nice to have a few things to hand down. (Another good reason for keeping the teapot.)

(3) A plastic zippered make-up bag, pink, with a lower-case "k" on the side. It is too small to be truly practical as a travel case. Although it's nice plastic, it's still plastic, and I don't really like plastic things. I took it back out because my next-door-neighbor Barbara gave it to me as a gift, and I like things that remind me of Barbara. Also, my niece Kaeli might like it. On the other hand, last time I tried to give Kaeli a little purse, she declined, telling me she was trying not to accumulate too much stuff.

(4) A giant stock pot that I use to sterilize canning jars. For the last couple of years I've just washed the jars in the dishwasher and put the jam in them hot. No one has gotten botulism yet. I'm not sure why I took it back out of the give-away pile now that I think of it.

Painted Blown Egg

Emma loved this little painted egg
in a display case, like her mother
before her. I bought it in San Francisco
when I was in seventh grade and kept it
on my bookcase for decades, until Emma
took it into her own room years ago.

Day 259: Painted Blown Egg

 First the little egg stand came
unglued and got lost. Then, just
a few days ago, the egg broke.
Next trip to SF, I know what
I'm getting for a souvenir.

My little egg is 18 years old today. Her first birthday away from home. There was an article in the New York Times just a couple days ago about the hidden risks of children becoming legal adults.

No, I will not ask her to complete a living will or give me power of attorney. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it - if I come to it - and I hope I never do.

I remember what I was doing eighteen years ago today, of course: walking around and around and around the block in San Francisco, hoping to induce labor after my waters broke. And then walking around the block again. I should have realized it would be my last carefree walk around the block for many years to come. How little I appreciated the freedom of opening the door and walking out it, easy as a marble rolling down a waterslide. 

I'm free again, but the freedom feels more like a missing molar. It doesn't hurt, but you notice it's missing. Your tongue keeps exploring the gap, and then your finger. Yep, the tooth is gone. Yep, you can still eat an apple, and brush and floss, and smile. No one sees anything different. But you know that something important is gone.

It's amazing how quickly she turned into a human being again. A few weeks at college, and suddenly her room is cleaner, and she likes the food we cook for dinner, and she doesn't mind a passing kiss on the cheek. I never liked that her birthday fell between Thanksgiving and Christmas - sometimes it felt a little like an afterthought - but I'm so grateful she was home last weekend for birthday cake. I hope she's enjoying the Zingerman's brownies and colorful birthday candles in her dorm tonight. I hope she feels pretty in her new outfit, and that someone sings happy birthday to her in person (besides me, over the phone). I'm pretty sure she's not going to rush off and join the army. I'm pretty sure that I'll agree with how she votes. I'm pretty sure she's going to graduate from college. I'm pretty sure she's going to be just fine. She already is: mighty fine.

Happy birthday, my sweet little E.

Misto

Day 258: Misto

More from the spice cupboard: a Misto. Could be considered waste reducing, because it replaces disposal aerosol spray oils like Pam. Could be considered waste creating, because it stops working after a while and just sprays out a single messy stream of oil in an unpredictable direction, such that you shove it to the back of the cupboard, stop using it, and revert to good old-fashioned small pours of oil from the bottle directly into the pan, and why would anyone need Pam anyway?

Do you ever get tired from thinking so much? I do.

Pepper Grinder, Two Salt Shakers and No-Salt

Day 257: Pepper Grinder, Two Salt Shakers and No-Salt

More surprises in the cupboard, where I was rooting around looking for molasses to add to the slow-cooker beef ribs this morning. I would have said that our was not overstuffed with stuff 256 days ago. It's amazing how wealth plus space plus time equals lots of forgotten things tucked away in drawers, cubbies and shelves.

Two more of Barbara's items. If you'll recall, I promised Barbara when she moved - five years ago? six? - that I would take anything she couldn't quite part with, and either use it or give it away. Instead, I just shoved the items behind other similar items and forgot about them.

The No-Salt is a by-product of synchronized swimming. Emma drank so much Gatorade, I decided to try to make my own. Big mistake. Here are the ingredients:

Potassium Chloride , Potassium Bitartrate , Adipic Acid , Silicon Dioxide , Mineral Oil and Fumaric Acid

These ingredients taste absolutely nothing like salt. Their flavor most closely resembles the bitter aftertaste of saccharin. I wouldn't inflict No-Salt on anyone, so it's going in the garbage.

I can smell the ribs and soup bones in the CrockPot now, flavored with a little orange juice, molasses, onions, garlic, salt and pepper.

Clothesline and Clothes Pins

Day 256: Clothesline and Clothes Pins

Sun streaming through bright white sheets. The breeze making a line of shirts and pants dance, catching a woman's long dark hair, shaping her skirts to her slender legs. Children playing hide and seek amid sweet-smelling, clean laundry. A clothesline.

At the eco-resort where we stayed in Costa Rice, tourists were invited to hang their wet things on nature's clothes drier: hemp rope strung between cedar posts. What could be an easier way to reduce your environmental footprint than to let nature do the work? Isn't there something supremely absurd about using fossil fuels to perform osmosis?

In theory, yes. In fact, what could be more irritating than attaching 50 socks to a clothesline, returning four hours later and having to reattach them because the inside didn't get dry? What would more uncomfortable than stiff sheets off the line? What could be heavier than a laundry basket full of wet clothing? What could be more time consuming than waiting for laundry to dry? What could be more embarrassing than having your stained old bras and underwear visible to every passenger vehicle that drives down Packard Road? What could be more frustrating than a twisted and bent line that keeps sliding down the tree to which it's affixed, dipping your formerly clean clothing in leaf mold? And what could be easier than pivoting your torso to shift the clothes from the washer to the drier?

I comfort myself with the thought that hanging my clothes on the line will not buy the Earth and all its species one more minute, not unless my neighbors start doing it too. And their neighbors, and theirs, and theirs. I hung my clothes on the line for several years, and no one followed suit except Jess - and I'm guess she would have done so, with or without me.

Perhaps if I had a better set-up. A pulley system that would allow me to stand on the back porch and pull empty line towards me, so that I wouldn't have to move a step stool, for example. An apron full of clean new clothes pins. A secluded backyard.

But I have none of these things. All I have is this old clothesline, which fell to the ground a few days ago when our fence got knocked down in a wind storm. Will I pick it up, untangle it, sort out the broken clothes pins and start over? Or will it be one more casualty of the stuff project?

Need you ask?

Monocular

Day 255: Monocular

Today was a food day. A morning spent picking up my eighth of a grass-fed cow with my sister and Joe, a convergence of several aspects of my life: staff members from the Botanical Gardens, from the Bentley and from my extended family. A finger-chilling activity, splitting up 700 pounds of frozen meat.

Next, baking cake. and brownies Cake! Emma turns eighteen (eighteen!) on Wednesday. Her first birthday away from home.

Tonight will be an odd birthday celebration. Cake first at 5 pm, immediately followed by dinner. That's so my brother and sister-in-law can have their dinner date, have Emma as their babysitter, and eat cake in honor of her birthday. The upside is that I get to tell the kids that they can only have brussels sprouts if they eat all their cake. The downside is that the house smells like brussels sprouts instead of cake.

Today I'm getting rid of the  monocular that I bought for my trip to Kenya, over twenty years ago. My brother was living in Kenya at the time, teaching at an American school mostly for embassy kids and other expats. The monocular seemed like a brilliant idea, because I'm blind in one eye. Why carry the extra weight of a pair of binoculars when all I do is close my left eye anyway? Monoculars are hard to come by; I bought this one in a pawn shop in the Tenderloin. I haven't used the monocular since that trip to Kenya, but it still seems like a really good idea. That's why I haven't gotten rid of it. But I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and it's causing me to question why I'm holding on to things that represent ideas that are better in concept than in fact. I even carried this monocular around in the side pocket of my car for a few years, thinking it would come in handy on road trips. But I just never used it.

Maybe the monocular is an emblem of the transition of my relationship with my folks, from being a kid asserting my independence to being a grown-up who doesn't mind spending some time hanging out with her parents. I spent a week of my three weeks in Kenya with my parents, on safari in Masai Mara, and it stands out as one of the most outstanding trips of my life. Everything about Kenya was awesome. The animals, of course. Seeing African animals in the wild was beyond anything I'd ever imagined. I'd just spent a few months working in San Diego on a performance audit for the Sheriff's Department, and we'd visited the San Diego Zoo more than one. The San Diego Zoo is lauded for recreating the animals' wild habitat, but of course, the true wild habitat is nothing like the San Diego Zoo.

And the Masai people, with their rheumy eyes, their manure huts, their ringed villages that help keep the lions out. The lack of health care, the lack of vegetables, the lack of clean water. The feeling of lawlessness in Nairobi, with its rampant poverty, people hanging off the outsides of the little private busses, cars running stop signs (and people getting killed because of it), potholes in the roads, police officers pulling you over to demand bribes, children out of school, children out of shoes, and pictures of the president in every establishment. How the whole thing awakened me to government, and how local government is where all the good things happen for us here in the United States. I've never complained about property taxes. Not once.

Anyway, that trip marked my first adult trip with my parents. I was reminded of it today, with Emma in the kitchen, cheerfully helping me bake and ice her own birthday cake. It pleases my sensibilities somehow that Emma will be able to vote in the next election. Tomorrow, she'll pack up the clean clothes she washed herself, and drive herself off to college once again, where she'll celebrate her birthday away from home. On Wednesday. Eighteen.

Scissors, Name Badge Holder, Stapler, Staples and Garage Door Opener

Day 254: Scissors, Name Badge Holder, Stapler, Staples and Garage Door Opener

Black Friday. Sam and I spent a couple hours at the mall this morning looking for Timberland boots because he says the Bean boots we bought last winter are too small. We went to five stores: Macy's, Von Maur, J.C. Penney's, Foot Locker and one other (I forget which). Under normal circumstances, I would avoid the mall on Black Friday at all costs, but we hoped that the boots he wants would be on sale.

You can imagine the scene. Cars stopped in the aisles, waiting for parking spaces to be vacated. Perfume saleswomen with too much make-up, spritzing unsuspecting customers as they pass. Christmas music piping through the intercoms, not the Muzak version from my days at Kline's, but Frank Sinatra and Taylor Swift and Elvis Presley. Babies crying. Vendors offering massages and facials and iPhone repairs in the center booths. Long lines at Starbuck's, longer lines in the shoe department at Macy's. Polite midwestern shoppers, faces drawn with tension, apologizing when they bump into you, eyes glazed.

The dark spirit of Christmas. Black Friday.

Well, the boots Sam wants are $180, and they were not on sale. $180! For shoes the kid will probably only fit into for a year. The Skecher's knock-offs are $70, but Skechers just aren't the same. In the end, Rich and I decided against it.

It is surprisingly difficult to say no to a kid, harder, in a way, with a kid who doesn't argue. When Sam realized that he wasn't going to get the Timberlands, he quietly asked to go home, and I felt a little miserable.

In the car, I told him that Emma had struggled at Greenhills because of the pressure to wear expensive designer clothing, Greenhills being full of kids from wealthy families.

"But don't we have money?" he asked.

"Sure, but designer labels just aren't important to  me. That's not how I want to spend my money."

"But I'm in high school, and in high school, designer labels are important. It's important to me."

"But you're not spending your money. You're spending my money."

"Then why do we have iPhones instead of flip phones?"

"Because smart phones have a different function than flip phones. Skechers and Timberlands serve the same function."

"But the Timberlands are better quality."

"Yes, and if I thought you were done growing, that would be a great argument for the Timberlands. I might invest $180 in a pair of boots I thought you'd be able to wear for ten years. But not for a year."

A pause before the inevitable comparison. "Emma has Uggs."

"Yes, because Nannie got them for her for her birthday. It's the privilege of grandparents, if they so choose, to buy luxury items for their grandchildren. I might do the same for your kids someday. But that's not what parents do. At least, not what your parents do."

I told him that when Nannie was my mother, she wouldn't buy us designer clothes either. He had to hear the story about my sister, probably not for the first time, who so wanted a pair of Frye boots when we were in high school. My parents said she'd have to use her own money for that, so she got a job in the kitchen at Olga's. That was back when Olga's was in a converted gas station on the corner of State Street and Washington, where Buffalo Wild Wings is now. If I remember right, you stood in line and ordered at the counter, like a regular fast food restaurant. The floors were sticky, but we liked it because it was downtown and you could take the University bus there for free. Also, the pita was sweet and doughy. Anyway, Elizabeth got her job and bought herself those boots. She probably still has them.

All this as we are driving away from the mall, and the scarce parking, and the deep discounts, and the security guards and the milling crowds with their shopping bags and designer boots. I told Sam I'd be sending some of the money we didn't spend on Timberland boots to Food Gatherers, because people are hungry right here in Washtenaw County, the day after Thanksgiving. I'm sure he wasn't comforted, but he didn't complain. I think that's saying a lot, for a 16-year-old boy.

Asparagus Fern and Cactus

Day 253: Asparagus Fern and Cactus

I stumbled upon this while walking along
the Huron River near the Arb. Lovely.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Free of commercialism, there's no reason for ambivalence. The food is whole and healthy. With no religious content, it is devoid of divisiveness, and yet every religion on Earth has gratitude at its core. It is a moment to cultivate contentment. It is a deep breath.

I've had to let go of a lot of things these past few months: my bees, my chickens, my daughter. Today, more on that theme: after only four weeks in the house, the asparagus fern and cactus are already starting to die. Happily, my mother has agreed to take them in. Each time I've had to let go of something, someone has taken over for me, happily, cheerfully, gratefully - not at all as if I was passing along a burden, but as if I'm passing along a treasure. Colleagues, family, teachers, friends. What a reason for gratitude.

I made a tapestry a few years ago called "Mother o' Pearl's Blessing and Miracles." There are so many, it was hard to choose. Clean water and central heat. Vaccinations. Food on the table. Night sounds. Spring. Rich's sense of humor. My tall black boots. Hand-me-downs from my sister. My dog, my garden, butterflies and birds. Music, and love, and Rich's sense of humor. A changing moon.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

- Walt Whitman