tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69212883747796272812024-03-13T04:17:13.066-07:00Hogg BlogFrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-7503303795781314362012-07-29T11:39:00.003-07:002012-07-29T11:39:54.268-07:00WE'RE IN ECUADOR!!!<br />
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I got an e-mail today from a friend, wondering if we have had any luck selling our house. I guess this means I had better send a letter and update this blog, eh?<br />
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We put our house on the market in April. Sold it in a month. Spent a frantic month selling, giving away or packing (more of the former than the latter) everything we owned. We moved into a horrible hotel with our kitty cats and spent another month selling cars, getting cats certified for the move to South America, setting up bank accounts, getting visas, etc. On June 13 we got on a plane (but kitties were bumped---awful story! They are still in New York waiting for me to be able to come back and get them!) and flew to Guayaquil, in southern Ecuador. There, Robert was greeted with open arms. I was told that my visa was not recognized by the Ecuadorian government (the consulate in New York had made a typo in my passport, making me a "political refugee" rather than a "dependent spouse") and I was told I had to get on the next plane back to the United States. Not a wonderful experience (being hauled into a windowless room, being denied access to a bathroom, not knowing what had happened to Robert) but I dealt with it as I usually do in similarly trying circumstances, by telling myself, "Someday this will be a funny story!" Unfortunately, that day has not yet arrived...<br />
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Here's Robert in our storage unit. We are going to be shipping about 6,000 of our books once we get our residency visas...<br />
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I don't want to bore you with the legal stuff. The end result was that we had to hire attorneys here who have done the near-impossible (that is, to get any official to admit they made a mistake) and hopefully, my passport will be cleared on Tuesday, and I will again be able to leave and re-enter the country, and go back and get the kitties out of jail! <br />
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We are here in Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador, and its cultural capital. Cuenca, in Spanish, means "basin," because the city sits in a depression into which four rivers tumble. We are two degrees south of the equator, but because we are in the Andes, 8,500 feet above sea level (that's half a mile higher than Denver), it isn't hot here. The sun rises and sets at the same time every day, and the weather is spring-like. The lower air pressure doesn't hold heat the way it does at lower elevations, so people say in Cuenca, every day has all four seasons. It is spring in the morning, summer at noon, fall in the evening and winter at night. But the winter is a mild one, at about 52 degrees (great sleeping weather!) and the summer tops out at about 72 degrees. It rains here almost every day for a little while, and the cloud formations are usually amazing. Here's a picture:<br />
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Cuenca is also a World Heritage city. That means it is one considered by the international community to be of special beauty, history and culture. It is like having a historic designation in the United States. No old building can be torn down or changed without first obtaining an impact report and approval. The result is that the 100-to-400-year-old buildings have been saved, and the colonial aspect of the city remains. Cuenca's history goes back much further than that, to a <span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Ca</span><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ñ</span><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ari</span> </span>civilization called Tomebamba, about a thousand years before the Inca invasion. When the Spanish arrived in around 1535 the <span style="font-family: Times;">Ca<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ñ</span><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ari</span></span> decided to join with them against the Inca. Never a good idea, siding with the Spanish...<br />
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Right in the middle of town there is a huge archaeological park featuring the ruins of Pumapungo ("the puma's door"), a <span style="font-family: Times;">Ca<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ñ</span><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ari</span></span> religious center. It is a fabulous outdoor museum and arboretum. There are also lots of other great museums and gorgeous churches in town (I keep calling it a town but it is a city about the size of Hartford CT or Grand Rapids, MI.). There are also ultra-modern shopping malls, indigenous markets, sports arenas, and cows grazing along the banks of the rivers...<br />
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Here's Robert at Pumapungo:<br />
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I guess that's enough for now--I've got lots more pictures and lots more news! So stay tuned! </div>
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</div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-63997988570866584952011-05-23T09:10:00.000-07:002011-05-23T09:10:06.316-07:00Her computer is behaving nicely, for once! So she's back!I will not bore you with all the horrible stuff I have been dealing with. Let's just say THANK YOU to Genius Simon Verkhovsky, who came to my house at about seven p.m. on a Tuesday to help me figure out what is wrong with my computer. He left at noon on Wednesday. Simon managed to fix about half of the things that were wrong with it. Also, Genius Bryce Shashinka's mother forced him to drive to Beacon from Connecticut on his day off to see if HE could figure out what phantom program was sending my CPU usage to the limit and slowing everything to molasses. It took him from 7 pm to 1 am, but HE FIGURED IT OUT! He fixed my screwy e-mail and Microsoft Outlook problem, and all the things that have kept me from putting up web sites, etc! I am on the floor, prostrate, in gratitude, to these two excellent men!<br />
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So now that I have a purring computer, instead of one that coughs and sputters, you'd think I'd write a nice long letter, wouldn't you? Well, I will. But now I've got about two weeks' worth of backed up stuff I have to take care of. But here are some musings---<br />
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<strong>A Picture Worth a Thousand Words</strong><br />
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When I was little my parents had a friend who was a famous photographer. He wanted to enter a contest about taking photographs of children, so he asked my parents if I could model for him. This was in about 1959, I think, when color film was a big and exciting (and also very expensive) plaything.<br />
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He was very picky about the colors he wanted Mom to dress me in, and she put me in a little jumper apron to make sure I would stay clean for at least the hour or so when he'd be taking pictures of me. I remember him sitting me in our bay window and adjusting the drapes behind me, and telling me not to wiggle around so much. He tooks lots and lots of photos. Here's the picture that not only won the contest, but graced the cover of the photography magazine:<br />
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It was my mother's favorite picture of me.<br />
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Now you may ask, why did he bother to make such a fuss about the color of her dress, when he took a black and white photo? Here's a test photo that explains that, and also why artists' models are not to be allowed to play with colored pencils:<br />
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And that was my Dad's favorite picture of me!<br />
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<strong>Spring Has Sprung</strong><br />
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I am busy trying to get a garden in, in between downpours. Of course, when such terrible things are happening to people along the Mississippi and other rivers, it's not polite to complain. When things dry out a little I'll put in my vegetable beds. In the meantime, though, I was able to plant my strawberry pot. <br />
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I bought the pot for Robert last year, and tried about three times to get strawberries started in it. They all fizzled. I finally transplanted a plant from the neighbor's yard that had grown under our fence. That took off like crazy, and the pot was certainly pretty last summer, brimming with lots of healthy plants accented with beautiful and <em>completely inedible</em> strawberries. So this year I tried again, purchasing new, actually edible strawberry plants, but of course, they died. I repeated this again, but finally I concluded that whatever was going to grow in this pot, it wasn't going to be strawberries. <br />
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Now, I love parsley and use lots of it in the summer to make tabooli salad (cracked wheat; chopped tomato, onions, parsley; fresh mint; lemon; and olive oil). So I planted the pot full of parsley. A few days later, when the plants had had time to adjust, wow! So pretty! Like a fluffy fountain of green lace, cascading down over my favorite cat sculpture! It was so gorgeous and lush, I decided to take a picture of it before I harvested any of it, but I found I had to charge the camera battery first. That took a while. Here's the photo:<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Yes! Denuded! Murdered! Wiped out! Destroyed! In only about 45 minutes! By whom? </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qNMAutksJnM/Tdl4HtNk72I/AAAAAAAAAYE/FhPvY20Mpgw/s1600/peeking+munchie.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" j8="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qNMAutksJnM/Tdl4HtNk72I/AAAAAAAAAYE/FhPvY20Mpgw/s320/peeking+munchie.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">And here's the sneaky culprit, peeking out of his hole under the fence that abuts my neighbor's shed. Though these creatures are called groundhogs in the midwest and woodchucks in the northeast, Robert and I call them "munchies," with good reason. Notice that I was being NICE to this munchie, trying to entice him away from my flowers and gardens with offerings of carrots. It turns out he doesn't care much for carrots, but he LOVES him some parsley...</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"> I wish they weren't so darn cute. Damn you, munchies! </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">These were the pitifully unsuccessful lengths I went to last year to keep the rotten munchies from eating everything.</div><br />
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All I can say is, wish me luck. <br />
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<strong>Other stuff</strong> <br />
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There are so many things I haven't written about! The whole trip to Greece and Turkey, and all the cool things we did there, and my book tour of Michigan. Then there was that fun week spent in North Carolina and environs, where we stayed in a fancy million-dollar beach house owned by our friend Norma's pals, to celebrate her birthday with her there. We also visited other friends Marguerite, in Baltimore, and the Smith family and our dear Ken Jones, in Virginia.<br />
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I am busy at my computer as an editor for Dark Moon Books. My second Callie Sadler mystery, Dry As Bones, has an end-of-June proposed publication date. But we still find time for other new pursuits. On Saturday, Robert spent the day at a recording studio, narrating a movie about space aliens while I went on an audition at a talent agency, where they hire backgound talent (the fancy name for movie extras). It was so funny to be in the casting office, where the young, pretty things were told to drop their resumes and headshots in the basket on the desk, but I instantly got four shooting dates, for two movies and a TV show! (Unfortunately, I don't know any more about them than that).<br />
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Robert and I were extras in a movie last fall and had fun doing it. It pays better than my doggy-babysitting job does, and you get to meet a lot of interesting people. How excellent that having gray hair, a dumpy figure and wrinkles is, for once, highly desirable to more people than just my husband! I will be playing an old lady in a nursing home, a hospital patient, and someone sitting in a cafe. I'll keep you informed. <br />
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Tonight we are having company--a young man has moved in across the street. His name is Craig. He is a graphic artists and a sound engineer, and he has offered to help us get our recording studio set up. So we're happy about that, and even more happy just to have a cool and fun new neighbor!<br />
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Hope you are all well! <br />
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Love, R and F <br />
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</div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-85780300157779216372011-03-25T05:57:00.000-07:002011-03-25T06:01:52.901-07:00My Love Affair With a BullI grew up in a house full of books. As a child I was fascinated by a paperback with a brown and black cover and stylized illustrations, similar to those on Greek pottery. I don't know what was more interesting to me--the depictions of horrible mosters and flying horses, or the depictions of boys with no clothes on.<br />
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The book was Edith Hamilton's classic, "Mythology." When I learned to read I loved the stories and I became a sort of mini ancient mythology geek. Of course, I also loved the cool Ray Harryhausen movies that featured mythological stories and creatures, like Jason and the Argonauts, and the Sindbad movies. At Okemos High School I had the opportunity to write my own independent study classes under the supervision of a teacher, so I expanded World Mythology I and II to World Mythology III through VI! I have always been excited and interested in these wonderful stories and characters, and I was thrilled when Robert found an affordable trip to Greece for us that included visits to many places that are important in the myths.<br />
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We went to Crete, to visit the Palace of Knossos. This was the center of the bronze-age Minoan culture, one of the oldest in the world, that disappeared shortly after a massive volcanic eruption on nearby Thera, and its subsequent tsunamis. That happened around 1628 B.C. For centuries the palace disappeared everywhere but in mythology. It was reportedly designed by Daedelus, father of Icarus and the inventor of flight. It was the home of King Minos, who angered the Poseidon. The revengeful Poseidon tricked Minos' wife into having sex with a bull in disguise, and she gave birth to the terrible Minotaur. The Minotaur lived in a layrinth maze, and ate men. The Minotaur was killed by the hero Theseus, who escaped the labyrinth with the help of the King's daughter, Ariadne, who had given him a ball of string so he could find his way out.<br />
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The Palace ruins were found in about 1875, when the area was controlled by Turkey. Schliemann planned to excavate it after he finished at Troy, but he died. When the English took over in 1900, a wealthy Lord named Arthur Evans bought the whole place and started digging up stuff. The Palace has over 1,000 interconnected rooms, some quite small, and for a long time people thought it might be the remains of the legendary Labyrinth, but now it seems more like that a nearby cave complex/ancient stone stone quarry that includes more than three miles of tunnels and chambers, is the most likely candidate for that designation. <br />
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Anyway, Evans decided to try to reconstruct the Palace as he thought it looked, and used the bits of artwork and stone remains as his guides. Archaeologists either love him for all the work he did, or despise him for using too much conjecture in his designs. The Greeks mostly love him, because unlike Lord Elgin, who took the Parthanon Marbles to London, Evans gave all the treasures he unearthed to the Greeks. <br />
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So, even though almost everything at the site is a reconstruction, it was cool to wander around and imagine what it must have looked like. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Some of the walls that made people think this was the labyrinth. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Reconstructed "throne room" and the famous bull-jumper mural. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">BUT WAIT!!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">This is not supposed to be a story about a palace and a myth and a history lesson! It's supposed to be about me, and a bull! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I fell in love with that bull the first time I saw him. He was in another of my parents' books, about art history. He is amazing--so powerful and perfect, carved 3,500 years ago. He is about twenty inches tall and made out of black marble, with a white marble nose and inset eyes so well fitted you can hardly see the joins, and graceful golden horns. I have always been attracted to depictions of animals and animal totems, but this bull sculpture has always just stunned me. I had hoped to be able to see it, but we only had twenty minutes after the tour of the archaeological site, and I knew that wasn't enough time even if I had known exactly where the museum was and exactly where the sculpture was inside it. The fact that the museum was closed for renovations sealed it for me. Out of luck. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">But then, when we had returned to our bus to go back to the ship, the guide said, "Around that corner, there's a room, if you want to see something . . . . " </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;">The museum had moved most of its most popular pieces to one room during the renovations. There were so many gorgeous and amazing things to see! And I got to see my beautiful bos, so I can die happy! </div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-73676181437199015492011-02-18T06:06:00.000-08:002011-02-18T06:06:25.639-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I4l01amaEGk/TV56P-S3bMI/AAAAAAAAAXM/N016mHVIs0g/s1600/Das+Kinderhaus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" j6="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I4l01amaEGk/TV56P-S3bMI/AAAAAAAAAXM/N016mHVIs0g/s320/Das+Kinderhaus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
This is a picture of the little log cabin that my brother built for his daughters in their back yard in Mason, Michigan. The scale is a little hard to determine, because that's a little kid chair lying next to it. I think it's about four feet by six feet. All of Andy's family lives in Chicago now, but Amanda was visiting the place she grew up and she posted this picture of it.<br />
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This is a replica of one built by my Great-Uncle Ernst, in Oneida, Kansas. He was from Switzerland, and was an amazing woodcrafter. He made a doll bed for me that I still have and a dollhouse for Andy that I recently restored and sent off to the youngest of his relations, to keep it in the family. We loved to visit Uncle Ernst and Aunt Clara because of the cool things around their farmhouse. There was a little lighthouse made out of stones, wire and concrete, that had a light in it that really worked. COOLEST OF ALL, he made a tiny log cabin that kids could play in.<br />
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That cabin was the inspiration for Andy to build this one for his kids, and also for this story: <br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">DAS KINDERHAUS</span></strong><strong><br />
</strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>by Frances Augusta Hogg</strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>I must have been short enough once to walk through that little door without stooping, but now I can hardly imagine being that small. I have a vague memory of being fascinated by the door latches, of opening and closing them. It must have been one time when my family had come back from Michigan to visit Uncle Ernst and Aunt Clara Gerber. I look up at their decrepit farmhouse, twenty yards away. It has been empty for years, and only used by the family for furniture storage. The house looks sad. It’s too bad I don’t have enough time before the auction to give it a coat of paint. <br />
<br />
The front porch swing hangs from one chain. I suppose I could try to fix that. I remember when Kirby and Johnnie were pushing it. Their backs against the clapboards, they hit the back of the pine swing with the heels of their hands as hard as they could every time it came back toward them. I could hear their laughter. I could hear the squeaking of the chains in the eyebolts and the shuddering jerk of the swing every time the boys hit it. I remember my sister Julie squealing. Julie scared out of her wits on the swing as it flew out again and again over the rosebushes and sunflowers. <br />
<br />
But there is a flash of something like white light. It’s something that happens to me sometimes. I focus on the feeling of the rake in my hands and it helps me pull myself from my reverie. The auction is tomorrow. I’ve come all the way from New York to help my Kansas cousins get Uncle Ernst’s house cleaned up and ready for the crowds that will come in the morning. <br />
<br />
I look back down at the little log cabin that my great-uncle Ernst Gerber built. It’s about four feet tall and six feet long, with roof shingles made of split cedar shakes. I rake leaves away from it and marvel at this perfect child’s toy. There are panes of glass in the tiny windows, and the door is a double one. A Dutch door, they called it. But the Gerbers weren’t Dutch. They were members of the Swiss Apostolic Church, and people called them Swiss Amish, or Dutch, because they spoke a kind of German. I think Dutch was probably a mispronunciation of “Deutsch.” <br />
<br />
Childless, our great uncle built what he called “Das Kinderhaus” for his nieces and nephews to play in. I think it must be at least sixty years old. But did Mom and her sisters also play in it when they were children? If so, it might be eighty years old. Maybe older. Mom will know. For a moment I think about asking her, but then I remember that I can’t. Both she and Dad have been dead for a decade. I am no longer anyone’s child. I wonder when my subconscious will ever accept that. I am not anyone’s child anymore. <br />
<br />
I rest my rake against the peak of the roof and lean down to pull away a curtain of withered morning glory vines from the side window. A spider races across my knuckles, and I’m glad I’m wearing work gloves. <br />
<br />
The glass pane is covered with a pattern made by raindrops hitting dust. I rub off the dirt and try to peer into the inkiness within. I try to remember, was there any furniture? I think there was a little footstool, painted red. There used to be a doll bed, too. Uncle Ernst made doll beds for all the girls. Cousin Barb uses hers to store magazines next to her sofa. I wonder what happened to the one he made for my sister, Julie? I wonder if Uncle Ernst made anything special for us boys? I can’t remember. <br />
<br />
I kneel, shield my eyes with my hands and look through the glass. Could that dark shape in the corner be the footstool? I seem to remember that Aunt Clara had painted white flowers on it. An eighty year-old painted footstool might be considered folk art that somebody in New York would pay a lot for. Maybe I should get it out, and put it in the barn with the rest of the stuff for the auction. <br />
<br />
The rusty latches complain against budging, but I manage to open them. I kneel before the open door. I can see the red stool standing in the corner on its four stubby legs. If I go sideways, I think. If I slant my shoulders, I can get through there. It’s a tight fit. I have to crawl and drag my legs behind me, my head down. The dirt floor smells damp and pill bugs run crazily in all directions. I sit up and wipe spider webs from my face. Dull light comes in from the unwashed north window that faces the house. <br />
<br />
I dust the stool with the sleeve of my corduroy jacket. Yes. Here are the flowers I remember. White peonies. They look pretty good after all these years! The paint is remarkably bright, having been protected inside the kinderhaus. <br />
<br />
I look around inside the tiny room, and wonder how long it has been since any child has been in here. Aunt Clara died in the ‘60s. Uncle Ernst died when I was in high school. None of us cousins were married then. None of us had little kids. I suppose the last person ever to be in here after me had to be one of the youngest cousins. Maybe Caroline. <br />
<br />
I lean forward to clean the window, but the grime is mostly on the outside. The view of the old farmhouse through the little window is a dreamy one, viewed through a filter of dust of years upon years. The picture changes in my mind and I see window boxes spilling flowers, and Aunt Clara in her dark Amish clothes, hanging laundry at the side of the house. Bright white sheets are flapping in the wind. Bees tend to royal-looking sunflowers by the porch. I can almost hear the laughter of some little cousin, as he chases after one of Aunt Clara’s banty chickens that freely roam the yards. <br />
<br />
I can almost hear laughter. I can almost hear screaming. <br />
<br />
That flash again. I’m back. I’m a balding 58-year old man, crouched uncomfortably inside an ancient play fort. <br />
<br />
I see myself in the reflection of a little mirrored cupboard on the wall. It is an old wooden medicine cabinet. We used to put things in it when we were little. I remember Cousin Janet pretending it was a refrigerator, and Cousin Kirby and I pretending it was a bank vault. What treasures had we stashed in there? I stretch my hand forward to open it. <br />
<br />
It is empty now, but once it held the imaginations of dozens of little kids. <br />
<br />
I hear a surprising sound outside. It is the “buck-buck-buck” of a chicken. How odd! I suppose some neighbor around here might still have chickens, though there’s no farmhouse near. I close the cabinet and look into the dusty cracked mirror. The magic of the dirty glass seems to linger. The lines of my face seem somehow softer. I reach up to run my fingers through my tousled hair. <br />
<br />
Then I stare at my hand. Where is my work glove? I don’t remember taking it off. I stare at myself in the mirror again. At my reddish-brown hair that hasn’t been that color since I turned forty. <br />
<br />
There are more noises outside. A dog barking. A child laughing. I hear the slapping of damp laundry on the line. I reach for the little Dutch door and push it open. <br />
<br />
I walk through the door. <br />
<br />
Aunt Clara is at the side of the house, hanging out the laundry. This time it’s overalls and towels. A hen is scratching the dust near the pump. I can hear Uncle Ernest in his woodshop, sawing something. On the porch, Kirby and Johnnie push Julie on the swing. They are pushing her hard. The swing flies out and Julie’s braids fly up in the air. She looks terrified. She is screaming at them to stop. <br />
<br />
I run at them, waving my arms in the air. “STOP!” I yell. The fringes on the sleeves of my genuine Davy Crockett jacket wave like little brown fingers. “STOP, GODDAMN IT!” <br />
<br />
Then I’m knocked to the ground by a wall of white light. <br />
<br />
* * *<br />
<br />
“Paul?” It’s Cousin Janet. She’s been in the barn, helping set up the long tables they’ll use for the auction items. <br />
<br />
“What are you yelling about? Are you OK?” she asks. “What are you doing in there, anyway?”<br />
<br />
I hand the little footstool out to her. <br />
<br />
She says, “Oh! Our chair! I remember playing with this, don’t you? What else is in there, Paul? Is my refrigerator still in there?” <br />
<br />
“Yeah,” I say. I squirm my way back out into the sunshine. “But there’s nothing in it.”<br />
<br />
She touches the worn shingles on the roof of the little house. “Uncle Ernst made us such neat toys, and we always had fun. I always felt sad that the Gerbers never had their own kids? They were so nuts about us. I was so upset when our parents wouldn’t let us come here to play anymore.” <br />
<br />
I’d never heard this story before. “Really? When did that happen?” I’m still feeling woozy, so I sit on the ground with my arms resting on my knees. My jacket is filthy with dust and cobwebs. <br />
<br />
Janet looks at me, surprised. “Of all people, I never thought you’d forget!” She crouches down to look into the little room. “They say you always remember the first time you see a dead person.” <br />
<br />
She doesn’t seem to notice my shocked silence, and swings the two portions of the little door closed, allowing the latches to drop with a “click” sound. “You want to know something odd, Paul? The thing I remember most about when Julie fell off the porch swing and broke her neck, wasn’t how she looked, lying there in the grass.” Janet stands up and brushes off her knees “The thing I remember the most was the look on your face when you saw her.” <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"></div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-35666065827237847352011-02-06T11:28:00.000-08:002011-02-06T11:28:47.984-08:00It's STILL snowing, so make some bean and sausage soup!When it looks like Antarctica outside, you need to make yourself a big pot of bean soup.<br />
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Get out your big soup pot and throw about <strong>two cups of dried beans</strong> in there and cover them with <strong>water</strong>. You can use navy beans, lentils, split peas or any legumes you can think of except peanuts. And peanuts might work, too. For purposes of this recipe, I'm using a nice combination of beans. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TUGF6P2AQpI/AAAAAAAAAW4/Yo5OA-3y4-4/s1600/IMG_1859.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" s5="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TUGF6P2AQpI/AAAAAAAAAW4/Yo5OA-3y4-4/s320/IMG_1859.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">See? A nice combination of beans...</div><br />
Cover them with water, put a lid on the pot and let them sit there over night. In the morning, pour off the water and rinse the beans, put more water in the pot along with <strong>two bay laurel leaves</strong> and <strong>a great</strong> <strong>big onion</strong>, chopped up. Bring that to a boil, then turn the heat way down. You can let this simmer all day if you want to, just check it from time to time to make sure it isn't burning and add more water when necessary.<br />
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Chop up about <strong>three </strong><strong>celery</strong> stalks and a little of the green leaves. Dump that in. I like to be able to see the vegetables I'm eating so I chop my veggies in pieces about 3/4 inch long. I also like different textures in soup, so I wait until later in the day to add <strong>three big carrots</strong> and a <strong>big parsnip</strong>. A parsnip is a sweet-flavored vegetable. If you put them in too early they turn into mush. Mushy bean soup is also delicious. <br />
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Take out the bay leaves after a few hours. Now add a big <strong>tablespoon of ham base</strong>. In my opinion, "Better Than Boullion" is the best soup base on the market but a close second is a Spanish brand called Goya. That comes in little envelopes. You can use two envelopes of the Sabor a Jamon. Third best choice are the little soup packets that come with roasted pork flavor ramen noodles. Using a soup base like this, you should not need to add any salt, but lots of cracked <strong>black pepper</strong> is always good! <br />
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About an hour before you're ready to eat the soup, put in <strong>half a package of those little smoked sausages</strong>, cut in thirds. If you put them in too early it's fine, because the flavor gets into the soup but it leeches out of the sausage.<br />
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<strong>Other good things to put in bean soup:</strong> <br />
<br />
A chiffonade of fresh <strong>spinach</strong>. This is a fancy chef word for taking a fistful of leaves, rolling them up in a bunch and then cutting them into thin, spaghetti-like strands. Spinach provides more color and vitamins, and tastes good with beans. <strong>Cinnamon </strong>adds an interesting undertone to bean soup, as does fresh <strong>fennel </strong>(also called anise, or fennuccio)n but I wouldn't use both in the same pot of soup.<br />
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You can eat this stuff thick or thin it down to feed the multitudes. Like most soups, it tastes even better the next day! You can dollop it into single servings and freeze it, or do what I do and just put it in your Great Big Refrigerator.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TUHDCYjrrrI/AAAAAAAAAW8/BGeSOAkuipU/s1600/Big+Fridge.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" s5="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TUHDCYjrrrI/AAAAAAAAAW8/BGeSOAkuipU/s320/Big+Fridge.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">My Great Big Refrigerator.</div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-90126854072866894482011-01-24T13:08:00.000-08:002011-01-24T13:08:24.717-08:00Some ups and downs. But mostly, ups.There is a saying that whenever God closes a door, He opens a window. This is supposed to make you feel better when you get fired or your husband leaves you or the manuscript you've been working on for ten years gets burned up in a house fire. As trite as it is, I believe there is truth in this platitude. But I can tell you from experience, it's a damned lot harder to crawl through a window than it is to walk through a door.<br />
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Oh, don't worry! I haven't lost my life's work in a fire, nor has Robert left me. But I did lose my job--again. As little money as it brought me, my daily dog-walking job has been important to me, as it is good to have some kind of daily schedule and responsibilities. I was bummed when my puppies' daddy told me he won't be needing me now because he'll be working from home instead of traveling into NYC everyday. But actually, the news is not so dismal. His new job sends him off to different cities and he'll be on the road ten days a month. I'll still be taking care of Casper and Annabelle, but not as often, and not on a regular schedule. What to do? I immediately set out to find other things to do with my time, and specifically, other things to do with my time that might be sources of income.<br />
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So I applied for and got a part-time freelance copywriting job for an advertising company. My first task there was to write catalog entries about cheese. Here's an example of my artistry:<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong>Scamorza</strong></span><span><em> means “beheaded,” and refers to the shape of this </em></span><span><em>classic </em></span><span><em>cheese, the </em></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>result of it being hung “by its neck” </em></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>to ripen. </em></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>Naturally </em></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>creamy white, the cheese takes on a delicate </em></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>almond </em></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>color when smoked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Made of cow’s milk, it is a chewy-</em></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>textured</em> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><strong>pasta filate,</strong><em> or stretched curd cheese, delicious paired </em></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>with </em></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>smoked meats and mushrooms.</em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span> </div><br />
Doesn't that just make you want to run out and get yourself a pizza? It pays fifteen bucks an hour. I'm also writing copy for a friend who is starting a company to cater to people who need help moving around in their homes. He'll do things like widen doors to make them wheelchair friendly, and install non-slip floors and walk-in-showers. All I have to do is describe what he does. Although copy writing sounds easy and I can certainly do it, it is daunting because I'm always second-guessing myself and thinking I'm not doing a good enough job. I could write a whole short story in the time it takes me to eke out one silly paragraph about sturdy titanium grab bars, or olive oil infused with the essence of the rare <em>tuber magnatus</em> truffle! I'm waiting for my next assignment from the ad company. <br />
<br />
Another thing I have been doing is selling stuff on eBay. I think my experience of emptying the homes of two elderly mothers in a short period of time has me looking at almost everything in my house and thinking, "Do I really need that?" I have collected all sorts of things, like antique glass bottles and dolls, because I know they're valuable to somebody, though I'm not interested in collecting them myself. I was shocked when I sold a little paper booklet of Halloween decorations from the 1920s for $65.00, and even more shocked when I sold my cheapie ceramic coin banks shaped like the Beatles in their Yellow Submarine outfits! Mom bought them for me from the close-out shelf at the Felspauch grocery store in Williamston, in 1972. They cost her $2.75 each, and had originally been twice that much. But the movie had come out in 1969 so they were already vintage by the time I received them. I didn't care. I cherished them, particularly because 1972 was the worst year in my parent's financial life. By that Christmas, nobody in my family had owned a single new article of clothing for about two years, so I knew they were a dear splurge. <br />
<br />
In any event, I really didn't want to let go of my Beatle banks but I had no place to display them and they had ended up in my attic. I contacted a memorabilia broker to find out how much they might be worth, thinking I'd put them on eBay. He offered to sell them for me and two days later they sold for three thousand dollars. Yeah. THREE-THOUSAND DOLLARS. That's what I've been living on for the past four months.<br />
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TT3SyCjgCtI/AAAAAAAAAW0/b4Uyxi7PnLY/s1600/Beatle+banks.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" s5="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TT3SyCjgCtI/AAAAAAAAAW0/b4Uyxi7PnLY/s320/Beatle+banks.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
In any event, my experiences selling things on line caught the attention of my friend, Ralph. He was a very successful antiques dealer until illness and a divorce knocked the stuffing out of him. He has tons of things to sell (mostly music and books) and he asked me if I will go into business with him, selling his stuff for a little commission. So I'll give it a try! <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">My other means of making money is to sell more of my own books. I have recently spent days and days and days getting the final polishing done on THESE WEE BONES. It's the first in a series of novels I wrote that are based in the Cass Corridor and Woodbridge districts of Detroit. I've written three of them (including DRY AS BONES and BREAK SOME BONES), but dratted perfectionism (or insecurity) always hangs me up. I even acquired a literary agent at one point, but I never sent the entire manuscript to her because I thought it needed more polishing! ARGH! It's hard enough to get a manuscript published through the traditional process, and even MORE difficult if you never actually submit it to anybody.<br />
<br />
So I finally started my own press (Pen-in-Hand Press) last year and published NEVER LOOK A GIFT HEARSE IN THE GRILLE. It has done very well, inspite of the fact that I never arranged to have it sold on Amazon.com. Because of the European Union, if you can believe it, in order for me to sell books on Amazon they have to be trade-book size (6 by 9 inches) and on a certain grade of paper. No matter what they tell you about penises (and people are ALWAYS telling you things about penises, aren't they?) bigger and thicker is not always better when you're talking about a book. They are more expensive to produce. Also, selling on Amazon and in major bookstores there is a required percentage mark-up over production costs. The cheapest I can sell THESE WEE BONES is $22.00 (they suggested $26.00). But I found I could also publish it in a smaller format that I like better (about 8.5 by 5.4 inches). It's less expensive, but only available to me through Pen-in-Hand Press, and you have to pay me for it by check (until I get my stupid web site set up).<br />
<br />
<br />
I know it's confusing. If you'd like to have my book, you can buy it from Amazon.com or Lulu.com (I get a lot more money if you get it from Lulu, because Amazon doesn't take a cut) it will cost $22. If you buy it from me you can get the smaller version for $15 and I'll autograph it, but it will take a little longer for me to get it to you. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Anyway, here's the cover: <br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">On the back it says:</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">"In a vibrant inner-city Detroit environment, it's a struggle for Callie Sadler and her assortment of odd-lot housemates and neighbors to keep their heads above water, let alone solve murders. Callie's myriad good works--from coordinating the local art fair to caring for her elderly neighbors and her chosen career as a legal aid attorney--keep her busy and help her cope with her history of failed romances and lost opportunities. But when a neighborhood clean-up project unearths a sad secret, her special eye for human value where others have overlooked it makes Callie an unusual, intuitive detective, in spite of herself. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>A buried garment. A blind woman's vision. New flowers on an old grave. </em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Clues from unexpected sources pull Callie Sadler back in time to unravel an old mystery, ultimately to discover that she is not the only one living in the past--and that her life is in danger." </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<br />
<br />
Well, enough of this for now. It is FRICKING FREEZING here. I went to the bank this morning to deposit a couple of checks. I had been wearing gloves and my hands had been in my pockets, but when I got there, I couldn't take the paper clip off the checks! The teller had to help me! He said I wasn't the first that morning to discover that cold fingers don't work!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-43433600868380892062011-01-08T12:50:00.000-08:002011-01-08T12:50:10.356-08:00How to Spend a Snowy Saturday when You are not John Backus, and you are not Vacationing at a Ski Resort in Vail, Colorado1. Make a pot of coffee. <br />
2. While getting the coffee milk, remember that you paid $1.99 for that that celery that has now gone limp, and you really ought to use it up.<br />
3. Get out your soup pot and a package of bacon. Cut up a third of the bacon into little pieces and start to brown it.<br />
4. Put on boots, a coat and hat and gloves, then slog through a foot of snow to get to the newspaper that the paperboy threw into the middle of the yard.<br />
5. Fill up the bird feeder while you're out there.<br />
6. Sweep off the porch while you're out there.<br />
7. Give the snow shovel a sideways glance, then dash back into the house before it sees you looking at it!<br />
8. Decide to put your snowy coat, gloves and hat into the dryer for a few minutes, and realize it is full of laundry that needs to be folded and put away.<br />
9. Check the bacon and get rid of any grease buy running a paper towel around the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon. Then chop up about two cups of onions, all that expensive celery (about two cups) and half a carrot for color, and throw it all in the pot.<br />
10. Empty the dryer, fold the laundry, notice that the hamper is full. Throw a load in the washer.<br />
11. Put four cups of water in the soup pot. Peel two big potatoes and cut to a 1/2 inch dice. Throw them in the pot and if you've got some, add a teaspoon of "Better Than Boullion" Clam Base in there, too. (If you don't have some, put it on your shopping list.) Let the soup simmer. It should look like this:<br />
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12. Take the ornaments off the Christmas tree and put them in boxes. Fuss about whether or not it is worthwhile to even bother to try to find the one damned light that has caused half the tree to be dark<br />
13. Check the soup again. Add 1/2 c. powdered milk, two small cans of minced clams, a 7 oz. can of corn, 1/2 T. of cracked black pepper, 1/4 t. white pepper and 1/2 t. dried thyme. Turn the heat down as low as possible. <br />
14. Put in another load of laundry. Take the tree down. Wrestle it into its storage bag.<br />
15. Check the soup again. Dump in a cup or so of whole milk. Turn off the heat and cover.<br />
16. Haul all the Christmas junk up to the attic. Notice how you haven't put the off-season clothes away properly. Spend an hour straightening up. <br />
17. Finish the laundry.<br />
18. Warm up the soup, but don't let it boil, because the milk will scald and the clams will get tough. <br />
19. Get out the bowls, spoons, and the oyster crackers. Ladle up a nice bowl of chowder for yourself and your spouse, who has just finished shoveling the driveway, and is grumpy and hungry. <br />
20. Sit down, put your feet up and watch "House" re-runs for the rest of the day!Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-18764408465662083092011-01-02T12:23:00.000-08:002011-01-02T12:26:33.966-08:00Getting back home.<div style="text-align: center;"> <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">GETTING BACK HOME</span></div><div style="text-align: center;">A New Year's Essay</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In some former life I was probably a wrinkled old woman dressed in rags who predicted people's futures by searching for omens. I believe this because I feel an innate calling to look for them, especially around the New Year. There is usually some event that sticks in my mind as important, and then I watch it play out during the year. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The event this year was our trip home from a much-too-short but excellent trip to Michigan. Though Robert had requested Thursday through Wednesday from work, there was an error, and his office demanded that he be back in the office on Monday morning. There was nothing he could do about it. So our vacation consisted of two full days in our car, and two days crammed with short visits with good friends. It also meant that we were forced to be on the road during the terrible blizzard that hit the Northeast.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Sunday, we got up and on our way early. I took advantage of any dry pavement to speed as fast as I dared to get as far as possible on our 700-mile journey before the snow hit. We did pretty good. It started snowing when we reached Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, but the last fifty or so miles were the worst. The snow was dry and light and flew around, so that all we could see in the headlights were the changing patterns of white dust in the air, and the painted lines on the road were only visible in sporadic glimpses. Many drivers had given up and had pulled to the side of the highway, but I didn't think that was a good idea. Snow drifts were piling up around them and they looked like igloos with headlamps shining through. I wondered when and how they would ever be able to get back into the traffic flow. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I got in as close as I could behind a big oil truck, and panicked a little when it took an exit about 18 miles from Beacon. My hands cramped from gripping the steering wheel, but we finally made it to our peaceful little town at about 10:00 p.m.. The streets were completely deserted but for some rumbling snowplows. We only had about four inches of snow on Beacon Street proper, but 20 inches in our driveway. Our neighbors were vigorously trying to dig out a car parked in front of their house. Robert had to jump out and slog through that to get the snow shovel on the back porch, and I had to keep driving around to keep from getting buried. It was scary every time I came to an intersection, because the snow plows left berms in their wake that were taller than the underside of the car, and I was terrified of getting stuck. I had to turn the wheel and "gun it" to get around corners.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And poor Robert was having a worse time than I was, shovelling as fast as he could. But he finally made a space large enough. Because of a fence, we have to make a very sharp turn to get into our driveway. I aimed, prayed, and stepped on the gas. The car slid sideways, bumped up against the huge snow pile that Robert and the neighbors had made, and slid right into place! How good it was to turn the key in the door lock and to feel the warmth of our pleasant home! How nice to be greeted by the twitching tails of two grumpy cats, who were not happy to be left alone for four days, thank you. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I think the theme for this new year is about how it is sometimes hard to get back home, but wonderful to get there, and how thankful I am for my homelife.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A homelife is not just a house and a family and friends and what objects we own and what good works we have to do--it is a state of mind. It is the life that we live within ourselves. And mine has been a little "off" for awhile. I generally have an upbeat, can-do attitude, but sometimes (but not always) I have felt as if I am just <em>pretending</em> to feel that way. Then I remembered something my mother said when one of her best friends begged off coming to my wedding ceilidh, claiming it was too near the anniversary of her husband's death, and she didn't think she would fit in amid a bunch of happy people. Mom told her that it had taken her three years after my father died, to feel like herself again. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is the third year after the trauma of my mother's slow death, and I feel better now. I don't know if that's the reason why I feel I am back to my real self again. I don't know if there is any way one can speed up that healing process. I know that my blackest days have been trifling to those of others, who have so much more to worry about, and so much more to grieve. But it is good to realize that even if you are not in your "home" where you feel you belong, you are on your way. And even though it is hard to get back home, it is worth the white-knuckled, scary drive in the dark to get there. </div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TSCjSrUr-9I/AAAAAAAAAWk/P4We5J5Itsk/s1600/IMG_1720.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" n4="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TSCjSrUr-9I/AAAAAAAAAWk/P4We5J5Itsk/s320/IMG_1720.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Robert, the next morning</span></div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-16652832242015273122010-12-05T08:30:00.000-08:002010-12-06T06:35:12.056-08:00Thanksgiving, a sofa, and ballerinas!<strong>Thanksgiving</strong><br />
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Just finished Thanksgiving dinner. Yum! I love to cook and I love to have an opportunity to use all the fancy dishes and silver and crystal I have inherited from everybody. We had our friends, Paul Clark and Paul Aronson. It was a very pleasant day. Kitties are excited at the prospect of turkey leftovers.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>My sofa...</strong><br />
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I am thankful on this day for many things, but especially for my sofa. When I moved out of my house in Detroit, I brought my two Mission-style sofas (that had been so perfect in that house) to Beacon. The plan was to put both of them in the upstairs TV room, but the big one wouldn't fit up the stairs. It ended up in my parlor, where it has been a nice place to curl up with a book, but it was too lumpy and huge and modern to suit a Victorian parlor. Also, while I had considered it to be nearly impervious to any assault by cat claws, that was only because it had not yet met the Big Twerp. He was able to do within weeks what generations of cats (oh well, at least, any of my cats since since 1995) were unable to accomplish. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TO8UFJUB1tI/AAAAAAAAAWI/W2FFFPcP8QI/s1600/DSC01663.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TO8UFJUB1tI/AAAAAAAAAWI/W2FFFPcP8QI/s320/DSC01663.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>I was bummed out because the sofa looks so crappy and the floral slip cover I put on it in spring and summer is baggy and cheap-looking. I decided to make a new, tailored slipcover. <br />
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Whatever they tell you on "Trading Spaces" and those other redecorating shows, making a slip cover that fits right is NOT EASY. It is a big, frustrating pain in the butt. But I found some upholstery fabric that was the right style and color and price, and I decided to go for it. I bought seven yards, but I started getting nervous that I hadn't bought enough. I went back to the store to buy additional yardage but they no longer had any. Argh! Depressed and dejected, driving home, <strong>I SAW</strong> <strong>IT!!!</strong> Sitting in the parking lot behind an antique store! The perfect sofa! The perfect color! They had just unloaded it from a truck! I demanded a price! $200 bucks, the guy said!<br />
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But I do not have $200 bucks! I am the marginally employed part of my family unit! So when Robert came home I told him my exciting news. He was not so excited. It seems he really likes the old green-and-red sofa, and even the frumpy-looking slip cover. He didn't want to buy a new one. And this is the time of year when we get hit with the taxes and the insurance bill, and money is tight. "Not possible," he said. I sighed. <em>Poop</em>. <br />
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But the next day Robert said, "OK, let's go look at this sofa." By the time we had arrived the shop owners had had an epiphany, and the price had risen by fifty bucks (still, NOTHING, for a sofa...). I knew Robert wasn't happy about the idea but when I promised him I would move the new sofa in and move the old one from the parlor to his basement music room and he'd never have to lift a finger, he pulled out his credit card. <br />
<br />
I lined up about six people to help me with the project. They said, "Sure, when it's time, give me a call and I'll come right over!" I did everything I could think of to get ready--taking down unnecessary doors and moving the furniture out of two rooms, and even tearing down a lattice "wall" at the back basement entrance. When I got the call telling me when the new sofa would be delivered and dumped at the end of my driveway, I called all those people. Nobody answered. For two days, nobody called back. I started to flip out. I even stole fifty dollars from Robert's collection of quarters and went out into the street to accost buff-looking high school kids. No takers! With only half an hour to delivery time, I went through my entire address book, calling mere acquaintences. Most were mysteriously not that excited to hear from me when I told them what I was calling about. To make matters worse, a downpour threatened.<br />
<br />
But amazingly, just minutes before the new sofa was delivered my wonderful across-the-street neighbors appeared and wrestled the big sofa to the basement and helped me move the new one in. I want to kiss them! I am thrilled with how it looks, and it's even COMFORTABLE. That's saying something when you're talking about Victorian furniture! It's my Christmas present from Robert. I want to kiss him! (Excuse me, while I do that...)<br />
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<strong>Ballerinas and Boats....</strong><br />
<br />
Norma came to visit in late October. I met her at art camp in Kansas, when I was fourteen. That summer was life-changing. I had been an ostracized geeky weirdo, but through my parents' gift of allowing me to go away to find myself, I found out I was a hippie! It fit me like a glove! Suddenly at school I wasn't an outcast, I was --MYSTERIOUS! People wanted to know me! People wanted to be like me! What a fabulous thing!<br />
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Norma Levinson and I also found each other at art camp and an instant friendship gelled. She was one of six daughters of a Jewish restaurant family, in Toledo. What great folks! What a fabulous fun and creative family! <br />
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Anyway, since she has retired we have been seeing a lot of Norma, who lives in Virginia now. I love it when she visits! She brings her silly little dog, Lucy, and I am usually able to rope her into helping me work for some charity event or another. We do art projects and have fun adventures together. This time, we went to see Cassie Okenka be a dancing mouse.<br />
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I was introduced to Norma's niece when she was about three years old. My memory is of a tiny girl with a not-tiny voice, screaming and running up and down the stairs for what seems like hours. But that dramatic streak has served Cassie well as a professional actress and singer. She was a contestant on a reality show to cast "Legally Blond." Unfortunately, as a Jewish redhead, she didn't fit the Reese Witherspoon mold and was quickly voted off, though all the judges agreed she had best voice of the bunch. Her magnificent talent was noticed, and for two years she was Dorothy in the traveling tour of the Wizard of Oz. She got tired of that and moved back to New York City, and now she's in a Broadway version of "Angelina Ballerina."<br />
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If you do not know who Angelina Ballerina is, you do not have a three-year-old daughter. Angelina is a mouse that attends ballet school and is the subject of prize-winning children's books and a cartoon show. And now, she has a Broadway musical. Norma arranged for us to have tickets. Not only was the play fun, but it was a blast to watch the audience. Zillions of little teeny girls from above-average income families came with their <em>au pairs</em> and nannies. And they dressed up for the event! One little girl wore pink cowboy boots with a tutu, leopard-spotted tights and a tiara. They were so excited and so funny! <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TO8w3uwhm3I/AAAAAAAAAWQ/UUSidz2g3AQ/s1600/IMG_1460.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TO8w3uwhm3I/AAAAAAAAAWQ/UUSidz2g3AQ/s320/IMG_1460.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Here I am, performing my wifely duty of</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>telling Robert he is not holding the camera the right way.</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TPu9Iz30DcI/AAAAAAAAAWU/N700MqaUDpI/s1600/Norma+and+Alice.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TPu9Iz30DcI/AAAAAAAAAWU/N700MqaUDpI/s320/Norma+and+Alice.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>Norma and Cassie.</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Another adventure with Norma was a sail on the "Woody Guthrie." This is a reproduction antique sailing boat called a Hudson River sloop. It is operated by an environmental group in Beacon, and they give cheap sailing lessons and free rides, with the end result of educating people about the Hudson River and how important it is to keep it clean. Norma and I signed up for an hour-long evening sail. We were advised to wear coats and sweaters and hats and gloves and extra socks and bring blankets and hot cocoa and something warm to sit on. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I have only been sailing one other time, in Portland Maine. Robert and I boarded a beautiful, restored sloop, they unfurled the magnificent sails, and then -- nothin'. The sails just hung there, sagging, as we drifted through pea-soup fog for way past the time we were supposed to return to shore. We were cold and uncomfortable and hungry. Eventually, the captain gave up and turned on a little motor, and we chugged slowly back to the pier. That sailing event was a big dud, so I was excited to have another opportunity.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Norma and I got all geared up, wearing multiple safety devices and looking like kids imobilized in snowsuits. Mysteriously, all of the other six guests who had signed up for the sail failed to show up for the cruise. The crew and captain got on board. We settled in. They unfurled the beautiful sails, and then -- nothin'. Nothing, except that the Hudson has an extremely strong current, so we drifted quite aways. We looked at the pretty moon and the twinkling lights from the shore. We got to drink our hot cocoa. We began to get really, really cold, and to wish we had worn more coats!</div><br />
<em>Right here is where I'd stick in the really funny </em><br />
<em>pictures of Norma and me, all bundled up, </em><br />
<em>if I could find them.</em> <br />
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<br />
We also got to hear the captain yell at everybody. We got to listen to the crew make nervous comments about <em>how the heck are we going to get back</em>? The crew started singing sea chanteys, about being lost in the Sargasso Sea doldrums and <em>ne'er see' me sweetheart again</em>. The captain ordered them to break out the oars. The crew was not excited about that. For a good forty minutes, they rowed like madmen, but didn't move us an inch back toward Beacon. They begged, "Turn on the motor! Turn on the motor!", but our Captain Bligh wasn't havin' none of that malarkey. <br />
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<em>And this is where I'd put the picture of the grumpy sailors, rowing.</em><br />
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Finally, the crew used the Franny and Norma card. How unfair it was for us, poor guests, to suffer! The Captain finally relented, and turned on the feeble motor. We chugged back home, about an hour late. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Well, that's enough for this missive. Next time I'll tell you about the Beatles and maybe, zombies. </em></div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-74550534659617311052010-11-20T15:59:00.000-08:002010-11-20T16:04:25.568-08:00Tonight, I celebrate my potato.No, "I celebrate my potato" is not some feminist metaphor for self-pleasure, or anything like that. It means, I am excited and happy about my potato!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TOhcFoGGZQI/AAAAAAAAAWA/DhzdjIQAFKU/s1600/IMG_1545.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TOhcFoGGZQI/AAAAAAAAAWA/DhzdjIQAFKU/s320/IMG_1545.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br />
It is getting colder and we are in the midst of all those preprations one must make for winter in these parts. This requires UN-DOING all the things we did in the spring. We close all the storm windows, turn off the water to the outdoor spigots, empty the bird bath and fill the bird feeders. I tore out all the plants I had put into my two new garden boxes this spring, planning to fill them with the leaves we rake up, to make even better dirt next year.<br />
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I did a lot of fussing about the garden boxes and as a result, I didn't didn't get them finished and planted until quite late. I ended up putting in too many tomatoes, and they took over and engulfed all my other vegetables, including two little potato plants. I had cut a potato in half and buried it even though I had been told I had missed optimum planting season. I was told if the plants didn't spend enough time in the ground to grow flower buds, they couldn't make any new potatoes. So I didn't expect anything. I never saw flowers, and soon, I didn't see the plants, anymore-- but wonder of wonders! While pulling up frost-killed tomatoes, I found potatoes! Only three, but I thought they were worth celebrating by turning them into a big pot of clam chowder. YUM!<br />
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I'm busy writing and editing scary stories for a horror magazine. More about that next time. Also, I hope to be celebrating my new sofa. Man, my life is exciting!!!! <br />
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I guess I'm making Thanksgiving dinner next week. We're having our friends Paul Clark and Paul Aronson as guests. This is the first time in about twelve or fourteen years that I've cooked a Thanksgiving dinner. The last time was in Detroit, when my foster-baby Christina was two, and I didn't have Hannah yet. Wanna see what Christina (she prefers "Tina") looks like now?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TOhf_FQVFWI/AAAAAAAAAWE/Nx3HrTOlguE/s1600/Tina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" ox="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TOhf_FQVFWI/AAAAAAAAAWE/Nx3HrTOlguE/s320/Tina.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I feel old. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(Proud, but old.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anyway, folks. Have a happy holiday. F and R</div>, Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-88030268163136437072010-11-06T19:36:00.000-07:002010-11-08T14:35:14.812-08:00Your Franny, Movie Star. <br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">WHY I OFTEN SUFFER FROM WRITER'S BLOCK WHILE AT MY DOG NANNY JOB... </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TNX_YJ0OkjI/AAAAAAAAAVw/yL49JApmx6w/s1600/IMG_1393.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TNX_YJ0OkjI/AAAAAAAAAVw/yL49JApmx6w/s320/IMG_1393.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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</div><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">WHY I SOMETIMES HAVE DIFFICULTY WRITING AT HOME</span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The real reason why I haven't written since April is that I can't think of any way I can explain why I haven't written since April. I think about writing every day. I write every day. I just don't write letters or blogs. I want to write letters and blogs, but I feel like I have to start at the beginning, and my God! Who has the time to read that? Not you, certainly! So I'll start with today, and maybe work backwards.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Today, I was a movie star. Or at least part of me was. I am pretty sure the back of my head was. The back of my head and perhaps Robert's whole face will make an appearance at Cannes next year. As you know, Robert and I prefer to avoid the Euro papparazzi so we will probably blow off Cannes and instead, opt to catch our performance and sign autographs at the Tribeca Film Festival, in New York City.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only one part of the above paragraph is in any way exaggerated. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The parts that are true are: Robert and I worked on a film crew today, on an adaptation of Hemingway's story, "Hills Like White Elephants"; it is going to be entered in the competitions at Cannes and Tribeca and a few dozen other festivals next year; we can't afford to go to Cannes, but we can hop on the train and see whichever parts of ourselves survive the cutting room at the Tribeca Festival; and we are happy to sign autographs, any time. [Robert adds: Well, for a price.] The lie was about the European photographers. We have nothing against European photographers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Working as movie extras today (we prefer to be called "background talent") was an experiment. I wanted to see if Robert could handle all the waiting and standing around in the cold (AND IT WAS FRICKING COLD!) and whether this is something we might enjoy doing together from time to time. We both thought that although it was not fabulously comfortable nor particularly fascinating all the time, we met interesting, talented people, and it was fun. </div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TNcQjbpNjuI/AAAAAAAAAV8/McQ9P2qmsQg/s1600/movie+board.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" px="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/TNcQjbpNjuI/AAAAAAAAAV8/McQ9P2qmsQg/s320/movie+board.bmp" width="239" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Since being laid off I have not been able to find any kind of conventional job, so I have been looking at lots of unconventional ones. Some are fun, some are hard, all result in very little or no money, but most might be steps toward better things, eventually, and worth doing. For instance, though we are not being paid for working on this film, the producer asked me if I would like to be an extra on "30 Rock" sometime in the future, and that is a paying job! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The film work is sort of an offshoot of the voice acting business I am trying to build up. Daily, I scour craigslist and other websites for work I can do, and sometimes I pimp my husband by sending in his demo tape. Unfortunately, nobody wants MY voice yet, but Robert has already snagged a job narrating a science fiction movie (for no pay) and he did two little 30-second commercials about music festivals in California. (They were not actually used, but he still got paid $25.00 to make them.) So you can see, we are not on the fast train to magnificent wealth, but we hope to make friends in the business and establish a good reputation, so we might have something fun to do part-time when Robert retires. (You know, when he can afford to do that. In fifty or sixty years...) </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, I think this is enough for now. Later I'll tell you about my fun visit with Norma, who came up from Virginia Beach, and our trip to the city to see her niece Cassie perform on Broadway. I'll also tell you about our nice visit with Herbert Ferrer, in Pennsylvania.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">By the way, if you are lonely for us, you can listen to us at: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://robertlochow.icanvoice.com/">http://robertlochow.icanvoice.com/</a> and</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://franceshogg.icanvoice.com/">http://franceshogg.icanvoice.com/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Our website, VoxHumana, will be up very soon. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">F </div><div align="center" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-481408659682035582010-04-23T11:39:00.000-07:002010-04-24T06:33:04.991-07:00Birthdays, another prayer answered, and pictures of Pompeii!<span style="font-size: large;">WE BECOME OLDER AND WISER </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">(ALSO CREAKIER, MORE FORGETFUL </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">AND CLOSER TO DEATH)</span><br />
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Robert's birthday is April 14. Mine is April 17. We celebrate a tradition in our marriage of Robert giving me boatloads of thoughtful and perfect birthday/anniversary/Christmas gifts and me giving him things he already has several of and/or he has never had any interest in owning. This birthday I had an additional financial limitation necessitated by not having any income (my unemployment is now Gone With the Wind). I decided to take on some projects he had been planning but dreading doing, including installing a real door between his finished basement office/music room and the rest of our basement. We had a nice door that we wanted to use -- a heavy, solid-cherry one that used to be in our downstairs hallway. Robert liked it because it had a textured glass panel, beautiful wood, and antique hardware. <br />
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The main stumbling block to installing the door down there was that the basement door frame was not plumb. We had actually talked to several carpenters who had all kinds of ideas for ripping things out and installing a new frame. The door would fit within the frame, but there was a one-inch difference between the top and the bottom of the side of the frame where the hinges would have to go. We never got anyone interested in doing this job for us, so as a stopgap I installed an old screen door by screwing it to the outside of the frame. Then, to keep air-conditioned or heated air in that part of the basement, I covered the screen with big sheets of bubble wrap secured with duct tape. It looked like crap but it was certainly functional, except that every time you swung open the door, it smacked into the hanging light fixture behind it.<br />
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It became my goal to fix this problem and give Robert the professional-looking office that he has always envisioned. I fussed and fussed about the door frame, until I realized that if I would only turn the hinges around and screw them into the side of the door frame as I had done for the screen door rather than to the inside where they're supposed to go, I didn't have to change the door frame! <br />
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So I tried to do that by myself. But while holding it in place with one hand and reaching for the screw driver with the other, the door tilted and crashed to the ground, hitting me on the wrist and causing some interesting bruising. Of course, the glass panel shattered. <br />
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I had to go out to buy something to replace it with. I was worried about trying to put in such a big piece of glass so I bought a sheet of Plexi, thinking that might be easier to handle. Home Depot wouldn't cut it to size for me because you have to use a special saw blade, but the guy told me how EASY it is to do. He said, "You just score it with a knife and then snap it off! Easy as pie!" So I bought a sheet and brought it home. Just to make sure I was doing it right I looked on the 'net for a video showing how to do it. All the comments were from extremely angry men, complaining about what an impossible thing this is to do, and what big fat liars they have working at Home Depot. <br />
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I tried the score-and-snap method. What a disaster! I worked on it for hours and ended up getting a blister on my hand from nipping microscopic bits off with a pair of wire cutters, because of course, the cracks hadn't gone all the way through or had veered off course. It looked as if a badger had been chewing on it, but I eventually got it the right size to fit into the door. Because this new pane wasn't privacy glass and that was one of the reasons Robert liked the door, I found some film that was supposed to make the Plexi look like a stained glass panel. I put that on, then really messed up the pretty wood on the door trying to get the little surrounding pieces of wood off so I could install it. <br />
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It's up! I keep telling myself it looks better than a beat-up fifty-year-old screen door covered with bubble wrap and duct tape, but not by much. <br />
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I also moved the light fixture, reupholstered a chair, painted a rocking chair, cleaned out his office closet and put in some recycling bins that he can use for storing cables and wires. I hung artwork and moved stuff around, got him a cake and some used DVDs and promised to make him some curtains. Robert was happy. Mostly he was happy because he HATES doing stuff like installing doors and cutting glass and moving light fixtures. [Robert adds: I also LOVE sitting on my ass, watching old videos, and eating cake!] <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S9HUzkoarqI/AAAAAAAAASQ/am_p-ADD_Yw/s1600/R%27s+office.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S9HUzkoarqI/AAAAAAAAASQ/am_p-ADD_Yw/s320/R%27s+office.JPG" tt="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Robert's gorgeous, professional-looking music room!</span></div><br />
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</div>On MY birthday we got up early to prepare for our big day at the recording studio. We have been taking training to be voice-over actors, and this was the day they would record our demo tape. Each recording took about two hours to do, and the product won't be ready for a few months. When we finally get our demo discs we'll send them out to people who might need a voice actor. It might be for something as exciting as playing an animated character, or as boring as being the person who says, "For Lisa Smith, please press 2. For Yvette Jones, please press 3." The demo will end up being just two 1 1/2 minute long tracks on a CD, but they cost us each about two thousand bucks! But that's show biz . . . .<br />
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We did the recording in Schenectady, about a two-hour drive. Then we drove home. I got to open my presents before going out for our birthday dinner. I got a new quiche pan, a new frying pan, a new flour sifter. The best gift was a laptop computer that I can take to my new job!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">MY NEW JOB</span><br />
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Yes! I am a five-dollar-an-hour dog nanny to Annette and Casper! The job starts Monday! I'll keep you informed!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD</span><br />
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I had invited our friend John Mendelssohn, over for dinner. He is a very talented musician and web designer who knows a lot about setting up a recording studio, which is something we need to do in order to get <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">VOX HUMANA</span>, our audio book recording business, off the ground. He offered to come over and look at our equipment and give us advice on software we should buy, etc. He declined my dinner offer, which I thought at first was a bad thing because I had purchased some gorgeous-looking veggies. I had planned to prepare a beautiful, fresh fennel bulb, some tightly budded broccoli and some lovely ears of corn. I know that corn isn't in season now so it probably came from Argentina, but I decided to get it as a special treat. I bought six ears.<br />
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It would be a lie to tell you that I am a great cook. Because I am a <em>fabulous</em> cook. Everything I touch turns into a culinary masterpiece! So after John left I made dinner for just Robert and me. I split the fennel bulb to discover that the inside was full of holes and had turned black. While preparing to steam the gorgeous broccoli I had to change knives because it was like sawing firewood to cut through the stems. They were dried up and hollow and as tender as two-year-old bamboo. I never had such bad broccoli to work with in my life! Finally, the corn was pretty but had the consistency and flavor of soggy talcum powder. I only managed a few bites. Thank God John turned me down!<br />
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So you ask, "Franny, is the existence of God proven by he fact that He caused John Mendelssohn to have other dinner plans so you were spared the embarrassment of a truly inedible meal? Are you THAT hungry for the peace of a Grand-Plan-for-All-Things that you grab at such flimsy straws as this to support your non-conformist spiritual beliefs?" <br />
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NO! The existence of God was proved to me when, just as I was sitting upstairs wondering what the heck I was going to do with FOUR EARS of fresh corn that I had no intention of eating, Robert said, "Franny, come here!" I joined him at our front door to see two of the fattest and boldest raccoons I have ever seen, sitting on our front porch like expectant Trick -or-Treaters.<br />
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Take THAT! Non-believers!<br />
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(Robert begs me not to encourage critters like this onto our porch and insists I feed them at the bottom of the porch stairs. I feed the ground hogs [known by you Michigan folks as woodchucks] by leaving treats of stale biscuits and wilted celery at the entrance of their burrows. I put chicken bones in the garden for skunks. I hope this makes that squirrel-hating lady who lives next door CRAZY!) <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">PICTURES FROM POMPEII</span><br />
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As promised, here are a few gems from our trip to Pompeii. I have always wanted to go there and I know a lot about it. When I brought up the idea of using one of our few days in Rome to go there, Robert was hesitant. But our good friend Carolyn Carroll's family is from the Amalfi Coast. The Carrolls had recently visited them, and they showed us their slides of Pompeii. That got Robert interested. [Robert amends: No, I was always interested, and always sympathetic to the idea. The only issue was whether we wanted to see Pompeii rather than Rome for a whole day. I loved Rome, but I think we chose right.] <br />
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We investigated various means of getting to Naples from Rome but found nothing inexpensive. There are tours you can take but they cost a fortune, and include a bunch of crap you have no interest in and they don't permit much time in the ancient city (Carolyn and Steve spent over six hours there, and still didn't see everything). But our other option, to figure out train schedules and maps and ground transportation on our own, was just too much hassle. We would have preferred being able to do what the Carrolls did, to wander around on our own, and we would have loved to spend hours there, but we couldn't. So we bit the bullet and signed on for a tour.<br />
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We were picked up at our hotel and got on a nice bus for the trip. Our guide was ridiculous. His name was Fabio but you would not have any problem confusing him with that OTHER Fabio. He spoke about six different languages and repeated things in Spanish, German and Greek, as well as Italian and English, but his English was amazing. He added a vowel to the end of almost every word. "Here-ah you see-ah the ancient-ah Roman-ah walls-ah, built-ah by the Emperor Justinian-ah ---" But he was friendly and nice. We became friends with an interesting Greek couple we met on the tour, Effie and Spyros. He is a professor in Athens. We hope they'll come and visit us in New York soon!<br />
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Anyway, after a not-that-good luncheon that took way too long and featured a bad singer crooning "O Sole Mio" at us, a quick tour of the city of Naples, and a boring stop at a cameo factory (read, crappy jewelry shop) we finally got to go into the ruined city of Pompeii. We had planned our trip perfectly--the week before the start of the regular tourist season. That meant we were able to walk around ancient Pompeii (it is acres and acres and ACRES and ACRES of excavated streets and buildings!) and not run into many other people. <br />
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With only two hours to spend there, we didn't get to see many of the best preserved and grandest houses with their fabulous murals (such as the Hall of Mysteries) but we enjoyed what we saw. It was a real experience to walk on the streets of a city frozen in time since the year 79AD. The level of ornate design everywhere was incredible and it was easy to imagine what it must have looked like then, when the paint colors were fresh. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S9HWvWEbqYI/AAAAAAAAASg/Luqn5cB00wU/s1600/IMG_0161.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S9HWvWEbqYI/AAAAAAAAASg/Luqn5cB00wU/s320/IMG_0161.JPG" tt="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">My foot, on the streets of Pompeii</span></div><br />
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I was particularly impressed going into a bathhouse that, because it employed Roman arches, is the only building with a roof that didn't collapse under the weight of the ash and pumice stone that rained down on everything that day. Here's the ceiling:<br />
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Even the mattress of a metal bench was preserved.<br />
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These "strong men" divide little cubbies where bath patrons left their clothing.<br />
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Most of the art treasures found in Pompeii have been removed to museums, but perfect copies have been left in their places. The remaining objects and plaster castings that were discovered (like the famous and tragic chained dog, and some castings of people) are kept behind bars in this "antiquarium."<br />
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My favorite things were a very small mosaic of doves, stealing pearls from a jewelry box (here is is, with Robert looking down at it--I wish I had taken a close up of it) and the famous "Beware of the Dog" mosaic, laid in the front hallway of a house.<br />
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These are the remains of the counters in a storefront. Things like olives, pickles and wine were kept in the round wells.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Here's a watering trough. I wish I had taken more pictures of these! They were ornate and clever.<br />
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These are pedestrian stepping stones (the streets ran with raw sewage...ick!) that allowed chariots and carts to pass. You can see the ruts carved by cart wheels. <br />
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</div>This is the courtyard of a grand house.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S9Ha-iJ5wFI/AAAAAAAAAUY/5_MZtu_WVC0/s1600/IMG_0165.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S9Ha-iJ5wFI/AAAAAAAAAUY/5_MZtu_WVC0/s320/IMG_0165.JPG" tt="true" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> </div>And here are a few other pictures that I liked, that express the feeling of the place.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Above is Vesuvius, as seen from Pompeii. I picked up a handful of the pumice stones that litter Pompeii everywhere, and which, with tons of ash, are the reason the city is so well preserved. They are lightweight, about 1/2 inch wide. But when you hold the cold rock in your hand and then look at the great distance from which they flew, you remember that what the residents of this city dealt with was not the light pitter-patter of pebbles, but a torrent of burning missiles. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Our visit to Pompeii was a gift from my beloved mother-in-law, Muffy. I was so thrilled to be able to go there. We thought about her a lot during the trip, and I hope somehow that she knows how much we enjoyed it.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Well, this is enough for now! Hope you are good! Hope to hear from you! I have a Facebook page! (I think!) If you have a Facebook page too, it makes it easier for me to let you know when I update this blog.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">We love you! </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">F and R</div><br />
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'Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-70755419635831622702010-04-09T09:35:00.000-07:002010-04-16T04:10:07.736-07:00Rome! Arty-fartsy stuff! A--(gasp!)--JOB FOR FRANNY!<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">I APOLOGIZE FOR BLUBBERING</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My real life is the fun, creative one, where I get to run all over the world and see fabulous things and pretend to be rich. My fake life is the one where I look for employment and fuss about money and do laundry. Sometimes that fake life swells up and crowds out my real life, as it did the other day when a job interview reduced me to tears and I wrote about it. I felt stupid about that later and thought about deleting that last entry, but I decided against it, because I am human, and because I am sure that </span><span style="font-size: large;">SOMETHING GOOD AND WONDERFUL </span><span style="font-size: large;">WILL HAPPEN, EVENTUALLY.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So here's some good stuff. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">WE GO TO ROME</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S7VUje0GEwI/AAAAAAAAAP4/TEl4bm8N6ho/s1600/Robert+at+our+hotel+the+Napoleon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S7VUje0GEwI/AAAAAAAAAP4/TEl4bm8N6ho/s320/Robert+at+our+hotel+the+Napoleon.jpg" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Robert, being Napoleon, in front of our hotel</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-size: large;">Despite the fact we do not have any money to burn and I haven't had a job for more than a year, when we received Robert's inheritance from his mother, we did some thinking about what she would have wanted us to do with it. We decided she would want us to take a vacation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Robert said he would like to see Turkey, but the time he could get off from work was limited. I found a great deal on a trip that included three days in Rome and three in Istanbul. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In Rome we stayed in a fancy old hotel near the train station, in a neighborhood where everything is covered with graffitti and all the stores and coffee shops are run by Asians. It was a fun place to stay and we had a great time there. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The weather was rainy and chilly, but that didn't keep us from walking our feet to stumps. We wandered into any interesting church, museum or shop we came upon. We were very near the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. It is one of the most decorative and beautiful churches in the world -- as impressive as St. Peter's, but on a smaller scale. There were fabulous paintings, mosaics and stonework (lots of porphyry!) everywhere. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the center, under the floor, is a reliquary of St. Matthew the Apostle with a huge statue of a pope kneeling in front of it. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The church's other famous relics include wood and hay from the nativity manger, the original swaddling clothes, and some holy breast milk. Who would have thunk to save that? Mary? What did she save it in? Did one of those wise men tell her, "Hey, you better keep some of that!" </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I like relics. I am SURE they are all genuine, just as I am sure that no scheming pope, gullible crusader or money-grubbing king had any part in their creation or collection. When I was traveling around Italy when I was sixteen, I saw three different wedding rings of Mary, each in a different town. I guess she kept losing them. Somewhere in an undisclosed Italian location is the only part of Jesus that sitteth not at the right hand of the Father. Write to me and I'll tell you what it is. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, here are pictures of the interior of Santa Maria Maggiore, and looking down toward the reliquary and the giant pope: </span><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">We saw another fabulous church, Maria of the Angels and Martyrs, that had a special exhibit about Gallileo Galilei. There were beautiful models of some of his scientific experiments and machines. He was quoted as saying, "In order to understand creation, you must look at the stones." We also visited Saint Peter in Chains, where Michaelangelo's Moses is, and all sorts of really gruesome memorials featuring skeletons and spooky representations of death. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">We didn't see the Vatican City or Sistine Chapel, as we'd both seen them before. We'd also had no plans to visit the Colosseum, but I had promised my pal Mavis I'd have my picture taken in front of it, so here you have it. As I am the photographer in our family, this is about the only photo of me from the whole adventure, so it is unfortunate that I am making a silly face. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">When I was in Rome in 1971, the Colosseum was open to the public. You could walk through it anytime, and there were little shops in the niches inside where you could buy postcards and candy. It was closed to the public for several years for restoration and reinforcement, and was only recently reopened. Now you have to pay money to go inside, and they have built some sort of walkway over the middle so you can look down into the maze where the gladiators' rooms and animal pens used to be, under the floor. It was closed for teh day when we got there, so we didn't get to go in, but I didn't know if I really wanted to see a "new and improved" Colosseum, anyway.</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Writing this, I realize I've been assuming that everybody knows that I spent what would have been my junior year in high school hitchhiking around Europe. I lived in Perugia, Italy, for a time and went to Rome or Florence every weekend on my quest to see everything ever sculpted by Michaelangelo. I managed to do this except for the Madonna of Bruges, in Belgium (which I saw in 1990) and a pair of angels that are in the Hermitage, in St. Petersburg. I didn't have any money, so I spent lots of time doing free things, like sitting in the ancient Roman Forum watching feral cats snooze on ancient stone walls and clean themselves. </span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">I had hoped to go there again. My memory of the Forum was of a big, wild area that was oddly quiet in the middle of the noisy city. You could wander around and try to imagine what the streets and temples had looked like, that were now just paving stones and remnants of toppled pillars lying amid weeds. And there were scores and SCORES of cats. But now the Forum is surrounded by an eight-foot high fence, cement sidewalks have been installed and the grass is perfectly manicured and edged around every fallen stone. All Robert and I could do was to peer through the bars of the fence. I didn't see a single cat! Of course I understand that these treasures must be protected from vandals and souvenir pickers, but I am very glad I had the opportunity to experience that history it in a much different way, before. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">I had told Robert that one thing I really wanted to do was to visit Pompeii or Herculaneum, or both. So we took a side trip to Naples, but I'll write about that next time. We saw the Pantheon and I took pictures of Italian sandwiches (amazingly artistic!) and we ate great food. We went to the Piazza Navona at night to see Bellini's incredible Fountain of the Four Rivers. Unfortunately for us, they were working on it, so it was drained and surrounded by a huge plywood barrier! Urgh! Oh well! It was still pretty! </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S7VTI0H1SCI/AAAAAAAAAPw/S01wVUGCkDU/s1600/Piazza+Navona.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S7VTI0H1SCI/AAAAAAAAAPw/S01wVUGCkDU/s320/Piazza+Navona.jpg" /></span></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S73TzosgZII/AAAAAAAAAQI/ivfvKcZ_D0w/s1600/IMG0083.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S73TzosgZII/AAAAAAAAAQI/ivfvKcZ_D0w/s320/IMG0083.jpg" wt="true" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well, now I am tired and must pack for a trip to visit Robert's sister. I'll write more when we get back! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Happy Passover and Easter!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">I KEEP MYSELF BUSY</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">Just before Christmas I decided to do something about our parlor fireplace. It was boarded up but if I tapped on it, it sounded hollow. Several years ago I purchased an antique gas jet insert just because it looked pretty. I put it in front of the mantle and burned </span><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">candles in it, which is as close as I could get to having a roaring fire. I thought it would look better if I could open up the firebox (which is all of about six inches deep) and set the gas jet inside it. I assumed I'd have to fashion some sort of interior walls and insulate it, but I thought I could get it done before our Christmas guests arrived. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">Well, the joke's on me. After destroying my home with a chisel and hammers and getting plaster dust and grit all over everything, I learned that I can't put the gas jet in that space. For some screwy reason there is a chimney within the chimney (which comes from nowhere and leads nowhere) that is only half as wide as the fireplace opening. So unless I felt like risking having two stories of bricks fall down on my head, I was stymied. Pooh! </span><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #134f5c;">I covered everything up with a tartan curtain for Christmas but realized I'd eventually have to board up the space again. I decided I should do something with tile that would look nice in our Victorian house. </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #134f5c;">We shopped for ceramic tiles in Italy and Turkey but didn't find anything useful or affordable. I ended up making my own fancy tiles by decoupaging pieces of a very expensive William Morris wallpaper sample ($10.00 for a 18" x 24" piece!) to pieces of cheap bathroom tile I had cut to the correct size. I used them along with plain black and glass tile to make a fancy "firescreen" sort of thing. Also, I had salvaged an antique cast-iron fireplace surround from the alley behind my house in Detroit. I brought it to New York but it was too short to use for either of our fireplaces. But I found if I built a fake raised hearth, it fit just great! H</span><span style="color: #134f5c;">ere's my masterpiece. (I accept your applause graciously.) </span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S79TwDzI-SI/AAAAAAAAASA/TG84G248G30/s1600/IMG_0500.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S79TwDzI-SI/AAAAAAAAASA/TG84G248G30/s320/IMG_0500.JPG" wt="true" /></span></a></div><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">I am pretty happy about the result, but still hoping we'll get rich and we can have a real wood-burning fireplace some day.</span><br />
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</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;"><strong>I GET A JOB!</strong></span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">It is incredibly depressing that I can be so excited about getting a job that is only four hours a day, five days a week, and pays five bucks an hour. And in fact, I am not yet sure the job is really mine! But if it turns out that I, with my multiple university degrees, management experience, awesome creative talent and general genius, am not qualified to be a DOG BABYSITTER, I might as well just shoot myself.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">But I will not shoot myself, because I have finally experienced an epiphany. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">Nice ladies come to my door with magazines and tell me that if I do what they do, I can have a personal relationship with God. I used to be vicious to these people whenever possible because I thought they were idiots. But God has personally told me that as He made everything, even idiots, there is a place for them and I should respect them. So I do. I am nice to these ladies, and I take their magazines and I tell them that I am all set, thanks.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">God communicates with me on a personal level all the time. He has sort of a quirky manner of doing this. Sometimes he says, "Had enough yet, smartypants?" and sometimes, "Ha! Ha!" Sometimes God holds my head underwater until I am about to pass out, then says, "Cry Uncle!" So I have finally accepted that if employers have no work for a person like myself, I'll have to make my own work, or more specifically, to make the work I do make money. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">So I am very excited to have this opportunity (taking care of two miniature doggies whose master has accepted a job in NYC) because it will get me out of the house (where I tend to spend my time doing things like making fake fireplaces) to "go to work." I hope to use the time to do more writing, and look for editing jobs. I also have quite a bit to do getting the voice-acting company off the ground.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">The dogs' owner is on vacation for a week. I'll let you know how it goes.</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">Well, I guess this is enough for now. Drop me a line! Thanks to those of you who have written reviews of "Gift Hearse," especially since I tried to show my sister-in-law how to navigate the website to do it, and found out what a massive pain in the butt it is. If you have trouble, call me at (845) 838-6248. I am trying to get a website up to make it easier to find, and to jump through the hoops I need in order to get it in bookstores and Amazon. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #134f5c;">And thanks to you who have bought it! E</span><span style="color: #134f5c;">njoy spring!</span></span><br />
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</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">F and R</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-89456068010482560782010-03-23T15:26:00.000-07:002010-03-24T18:39:18.292-07:00Rome, Pompeii, Istanbul! What it's like being me...<strong>MY BOOK!</strong><br />
<br />
OK! I finally have a shipment of my book, <strong>NEVER LOOK A GIFT HEARSE IN THE GRILLE.</strong> If you want it, you can get it from me for $11.00, or buy it from the publisher for $15.00 plus tax and shipping. I have (I HOPE!) added the link to lulu.com. Otherwise, just contact me at <a href="mailto:FAHOGG@al.com">FAHOGG at aol.com</a>, and I'll be happy to send you one. Thrill at the embarrassment of your high school friends! (I am still not sure whether Marisue Richardson is still talking to me--Colleen McNeilly seems to have come to some sort of personal resolution, who knows what Carl Wasson thinks?)<br />
<br />
<strong>POMPEII! ROMA! ISTANBUL!!!!</strong><br />
<br />
I broke our camera just days before our big trip. We bought a new one, and I took a zillion pictures of all our wonderful adventures, but as yet, I haven't figured out how to get them into a computer file I can find again! Argh! Why am I so computer DUMB? I am so smart at other things! Really! I am! I have a very high IQ!<br />
<br />
So I will write to you about all the exciting things we did and saw, but later.<br />
<br />
Today, I want to write about what it is like to be me. Being me today, has reduced me to tears. I am SO depressed and bummed.<br />
<br />
<strong>BEACON, NEW YORK!!!</strong><br />
<br />
Ten years ago I had a job I loved. I was helping poor and disadvantaged people in inner-city Detroit deal with bad guys. I loved my clients, especially my dear old ladies. I got a great deal of personal satisfaction from knowing I could make huge differences in the quality of their lives whenever I got a mortgage set aside or I kept someone from being evicted. I was involved with youth groups in my inner-city church. I knew it was my calling since childhood to help other people. I knew my path. I was on the right road.<br />
<br />
I had a busy life in other ways, too. I lived with my good friends, Dawn and Leo, and other friends like Herb and Cindy and Danny and Benita. I had a big house and whenever anybody was in a tight squeeze I was usually able to help them out, offering a place to stay for awhile until they got back on their feet. (A writer friend suggested I should write my life story and title it, "Strays.") I wrote mystery novels and ran a theater company and was a volunteer for various good causes. One of the best and most enjoyable things I EVER did in my life was to be the foster mother of two bright, funny little girls. I had friendships all over the globe (I still do) and one of those friends was the wonderfully funny and incredibly smart and excellently good-hearted and honest <strong>Robert Lochow</strong>.<br />
<br />
Then the job I loved was de-funded. I found another one that was almost the same. Robert told me he loved me and asked me to move to New York. I hesitated--what about all those people who depended on me? One by one, barriers fell away, though sometimes in ways I never would have wished. Leo suddenly died. My babies went back to live with their mother. Dawn and Herb moved away. My new job was slated for de-funding. The house next to mine caught fire and my house was damaged. [I figure, when God has been sending you all sorts of messages and you keep arguing with Him about it, when He gets around to burning your house down, you better listen!]<br />
<br />
So I moved to New York. I LOVE it here. The mountains and the majestic Hudson River and the waterfalls and ancient farmhouses and forests and historic areas thrill me. I live in my dream house--so pretty and comfortable. I married Robert. We have been together for ten years (having known each other for about eighteen years before we had our first "date") and we have never had a fight. I adore him. We are intellectual equals and share so many interests. He is always thoughful and supportive of me, I am the happiest wife in the world. <br />
<br />
My only frustration is that I have not been able to find the right place for myself, job-wise. I loved working at Robert's firm as a paralegal, but that ended when the firm had a bad year and had to lay off a lot of people. I loved working for attorney Charles Rock, helping families with children who had been damaged by lead paint poisoning and people who had strokes after chiropractic treatment. (Charles is personable and talented and wonderful; I loved everybody I worked with there; I loved the work I did; but the bad economy has affected law firms everywhere, and his work dried up.) Hell, I even loved cleaning cat litter boxes at the shelter -- FOR NOTHING! I always enjoy my work! I always enjoy DOING something and finding ways to solve problems. But I got laid off in February, 2009, and I have had ZILCH luck finding a new job since then.<br />
<br />
I realized lately that the situation I am in now is very similar to the one I was in in Detroit. I am at a crossroad. The life I loved and enjoyed is not available to me anymore. I need to figure out what I am good at doing and what makes me happy, and go for it. I need to trust my instincts. (Robert Lochow made me happy. I went for it.)<br />
<br />
I was telling Robert a while ago how frustrated I am because I can't do anything that anybody wants. He told me something that really made me feel better. I had just purchased an antique chair that needed to be refinished, repaired, and the seat re-caned. I told him I had purchased the caning supplies on line and I was waiting for them. He said, "You know how to weave a chair seat?" I said, "Sure." He said, "I don't know ANYONE who knows how to do all the things you do! You are remarkable! Everything you do, you do well! How can you think that you can't do anything!"<br />
<br />
But my legal experience is very specialized, and I have a learning disability that affects my ability to do mathmatical or spacial computations. (Dischronophasia and discalculia! Look them up!) I decided to screw being a lawyer though I still want to keep my license so I can be a volunteer lawyer and help non-profit organizations. I realized I need to take a close look at what I enjoy, what I am good at doing, and find a job doing that. <br />
<br />
So today, I applied for a job as Activities Director of an assisted living facility. Having dealt with the demise of my mother and mother-in-law and all the fussing I did trying to find ways to help them feel better about their changed lives and their depression and feelings of uselessness (and I was SUCCESSFUL at that), I found things they could do, despite their challenges, that made them feel they were still contributing to society. This is a calling so near my heart, I can't even write about it without crying. It is so important to me.<br />
<br />
All my experience outside of being a lawyer suits me for this job. I love doing event planning. I just pulled off an incredibly successful fundraiser for the cat shelter. I ABLY handled the cat shelter auction a year ago, in spite of it happening a month after the entire economy collapsed. Thanks to my artsy-fartsy parents, I know how to do all sorts of things, and I have some talent in almost every "craft area." I HAVE A MILLION IDEAS. I am always busy and always doing something creative. <br />
<br />
But the person (she was sweet, and I would love to work with her, and I hope I will be able to!) who looked at my resume said, "Oh, you don't want to do this!" She told me what I REALLY want to be is a lawyer, and it was ridiculous for me to expect I could make the same money doing this paltry job (my response: WHO SAYS? DO YOU THINK I AM NUTS??). She actually told me she thought I should move back to Michigan. She couldn't understand why I am here, when I had such a useful life there! I literally had to FIGHT her to get her to listen to me, and when I told her about some of the volunteer things I do ("Oh! You're the cat pin lady?") she made a special entreaty to her boss to talk to me. But he, finding I am a lawyer, said, "You don't have the experience I want." He has no idea what experience I have. I am so disgusted and upset. I have been crying for about four hours.<br />
<br />
So tomorrow I will send him a letter asking him to reconsider me. I'll tell him all the stuff I can do. Then I'll figure out how to transfer these freaking pictures of our WONDERFUL trip to Rome and Pompeii and Istanbul, and I'll write you another letter!<br />
<br />
I LOVE YOU ALL! I receive all your unconscious mind messages of good cheer, but I sure wish I could get a note from you now and then!<br />
<br />
F and R.Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-13464045993276934282010-02-27T06:00:00.000-08:002010-03-23T13:30:22.705-07:00Successful fundraiser! Other stuff!<strong>I AM THE JAY LENO OF MY GENERATION.</strong><br />
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The comedy show fundraiser I put on on February 18 was -- A HUGE SUCCESS!! I am so happy! Even though it was Thursday evening, we made over one thousand dollars! I am thrilled. It usually takes eight of us, sitting for hours at a booth at some community festival (and me working non-stop as face-painter) to make five hundred bucks. This was an almost effortless event. I got some good publicity (including a cable news spot, that unfortunately, didn't air in Beacon, so I missed seeing myself, but people who saw it said I did a good job) and we filled every seat and then some! The comics were so funny, and so professional, no one could have asked for more. Everybody was laughing and smiling, money flowed like water. It was just great.<br />
<br />
Too bad I forgot to bring my camera! A few days later, I dropped it off my desk and killed it. It is DEAD. We need to buy a new one before we take our trip on March 10, to Rome and Istanbul. <br />
<br />
<strong>HOME IMPROVEMENTS.</strong><br />
<br />
Sitting at home with no employment, I like to keep myself busy. In addition to the wallpapering job that nearly did me in, I have been working on some woodworking projects. If you have old furniture, or an antique house, you need to buy some Briwax! It is a colored wax that you rub on wood, then buff it to a shine. It doesn't work on wood that has already been varnished, so you have to use some elbow grease and sandpaper first, if that is the case. <br />
<br />
When he moved out of my house in Detroit, Herb Ferrer gave an antique English walnut dresser to my housemate, Dawn Young. She gave it to me. I absolutely love this piece. I have used it as a buffet in my dining room, though for eight years I have been unable to open any of the drawers. It was literally a mirror and a pile of boards with some water damage when I packed it up to move to New York. I put it together like a puzzle, held together by nothing but gravity. When Robert asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told him I'd like to have it restored. He called in an expert who gave us a current price of about SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS for the repairs. I told Robert that was too much, and we decided to try to do the restoration ourselves. That required a couple of weeks with dropcloths on the carpet and lots of hammers and clamps and glue bottles lying around, but we finally got it put back together. A little steel wool and Briwax, and the water damage disappeared. And the drawers actually open and close!<br />
<br />
I was so inspired that I took the doors off our really crappy-looking upper bathroom cabinets. They had paint dribbles, scuffs and worn sports, and I had figured I'd have to paint them because they looked so shoddy. But I used Briwax on them and put on some new hardware. They look great! I want to make commercials for Briwax! (It's from England. You have to buy it from a paint company.)<br />
<br />
<strong>TOO MUCH WHITE STUFF!</strong><br />
<br />
We were spared during the last two crippling snowstorms. It was as if a magical dome came down from the sky and settled over Beacon, while everybody around us and all down the coast got slammed with sleet and yards of snow. This made Robert happy but it made me nervous, because I believe in The Great Leveler. The fact that we didn't get our butts kicked twice only meant to me that when we DID get our butts kicked, it would be twice as hard.<br />
<br />
It was sleeting a little on Tuesday evening when I walked to my writing group. It is held at a local wine bar. When I got there, the place was closed (the proprietor had been snowed in and was unable to come there to open up) but no problem, because Simon and the other members of the group were sitting in his car in front of the place, ready to take me to another member's house for the meeting. During the meeting, though, the snow continued. Afterward, the drive back to my house (less than a mile) took an hour and a half! When Simon's tires weren't spinning uselessly on an ice slick, the car was sliding sideways through intersections. Thank God there were hardly any other cars on the road! Every half block or so I had to push the car to get it unstuck, and then Simon didn't dare slow down to let me back in. So I ran most of the way home next to his car (with the theme from "Rocky" playing in my brain), always ready to give it another push. Needless to say, Simon was our overnight guest. <br />
<br />
On Thursday, the snowfall started shortly after Robert left for work and didn't stop all day. I began shoveling at about four for his seven o'clock return. It was very wet and sticky, and hard shoveling. I would go out for an hour, then come in to throw my soaking wet clothes in the dryer and put on new ones. And of course, every time the snowplows hit the street, they built an even higher fence of slushy stuff, so the depth at the end of the driveway was at least two feet. I had to get enough of the driveway cleared so Robert could get the car off the street, and I ALMOST made it. I was about four feet from my goal when the across-the-street neighbor came over with about four other guys with shovels. He was apologetic for not coming to my aid sooner. "Every time I looked outside, you were still out here!" Anyway, I was extremely thankful he came, because I was about done in. They also cleared enough of the driveway to free my car (as if I were driving ANYWHERE in the near future!).<br />
<br />
This morning, OH MY! I wish I had not destroyed my camera, because it looks like another planet around here. There is a ten-inch blade of snow standing on every fence, every electrical wire and every branch. We have a free-standing birdhouse on a post in the back yard that looks like it's wearing a miter. Unfortunately, my beloved pink dogwood suffered serious blows, with most of its largest branches splintered. I am really bummed about that--I enjoy that tree so much. But at least we'll have lots fewer oak leaves to rake up this fall! Broken limbs are everywhere. I'd like to put more birdseed in my feeder, but the snow is hip-deep on that side of the house. And our electical power keeps flickering on and off. <br />
<br />
Pretty, pretty, dangerous snow. <br />
<br />
I just went outside to tell Robert to take a shoveling break. I must make chicken soup and hot chocolate!<br />
<br />
[Post script--I still don't have pictures of the original snowfall, but here are some photos from a few days later (when we'd already had a sizeable melt)]<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S6kkEaVYTZI/AAAAAAAAAPI/30u4OpcyrJQ/s1600-h/IMG_0006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S6kkEaVYTZI/AAAAAAAAAPI/30u4OpcyrJQ/s320/IMG_0006.JPG" vt="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S6kkOLt7SeI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/gQDPS2TNbaE/s1600-h/IMG_0010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S6kkOLt7SeI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/gQDPS2TNbaE/s320/IMG_0010.JPG" vt="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My favorite tree! The pink dogwood!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S6kkvpepg4I/AAAAAAAAAPY/pfGR9Tyuiig/s1600-h/IMG_0012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S6kkvpepg4I/AAAAAAAAAPY/pfGR9Tyuiig/s320/IMG_0012.JPG" vt="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is an ancient hydrangea tree -- totally destroyed. </div><br />
<strong>MAMA'S BOOK</strong><br />
<br />
I have made a breakthrough in the work I am doing on my Mom's book (a thirty-year labor of love she was writing about her family). There is just SO MUCH PAPER I often become overwhelmed. Not only did she keep all the original source materials (boxes and boxes of ancient letters, crumbling diaries, crates of old photographs, notebooks of transcribed newspaper articles ) but she kept every draft she ever wrote, and every <em>copy</em> of every draft that she gave to other people to read and make comments on. Then every time one of her computers pooped out on her, she'd re-type the whole thing, so I have various versions of the book. It is my job (as I see it) to figure out what version she wanted, and to organize the last six year's worth of letters. All I do is sort! <br />
<br />
Like my Mom, I fear having a computer failure that wipes out years and years of her work, so I, too, have been nervous about throwing out anything that I'm not absolutley certain I have a copy of. But my breakthrough is --I have actually been TOSSING STUFF OUT! Just the fact of having less to deal with makes everything manageable! Even if I lose my computer files, I'll have a printed-out version, that is the closest I can come to her vision.<br />
<br />
My only New Year's resolution for this year (See? I've even given up on the idea of losing weight!) is to get the book published by December. I feel pretty good about it.<br />
<br />
Well, this is enough for now. We hope you are all well and enjoying the weather (HA!)<br />
<br />
<strong>F and R</strong><br />
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<strong> </strong><br />
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<strong> </strong><br />
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<strong> </strong>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-26182960743988143902010-02-14T09:05:00.000-08:002010-02-14T14:59:37.660-08:00Help for Haiti's Vegans, I fail as a drug addictMan. For a solid year she can't make herself sit down and write a letter, and now she can't shut up.<br />
<br />
It is amazing I can do any writing. Since the installation of the bird feeder outside my window, my desk looks like this:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S3gaU10nPPI/AAAAAAAAAOo/_7mP6IHNzR0/s1600-h/cats+on+my+desk.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S3gaU10nPPI/AAAAAAAAAOo/_7mP6IHNzR0/s320/cats+on+my+desk.JPG" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">I AM A SUCCESS AS A PATIENT</span></div><br />
I report that my fun experience with my knee, lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs writhing in pain, has not permanently crippled me. Thanks to Robert's insistence that I stay off it for two whole days, it got better much faster than I imagined it could. I still feel pangs so I am babying it, in hopes of being completely fine by the time we take off on our Euro/Asian trip next month. The injury, along with a bout of sinus agony, has caused me to miss several of my writing and acting group meetings, but I think I'm ready to rejoin the creative fray. (Wait a minute! Who writes crap like "bout of sinus agony" and "rejoin the creative fray?" Did somebody put something in my coffee?) <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">I AM A FAILURE AS A DRUG ADDICT</span></div><br />
Perhaps as a result of having few and infrequent medical issues and a naturally high pain threshhold, it never occurs to me to take medicine. I forget it exists. I probably ingest four aspirin a year, and I have never gotten the hang of remembering to eat vitamins.<br />
<br />
But recently my doctor surprised me, telling me I have a pre-osteoporosis condition. Now I have to take a pill once a week that has to be taken at the same time, before any other food, while sitting or standing, AND I have to take twice-daily doses of Vitamin D and calcium for a year, to see if the condition reverses itself. I know how important it is to have strong bones, especially if you are an idiot who amuses herself by jumping off stair railings and tumbling down stairs. <br />
<br />
In spite of my good intentions, days go by before I realize I can't remember when I last took my pills. I have tried everything-- a post-it on the bathroom mirror. A note on the fridge door. Vitamin bottles in the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. A big plastic compartmented box with the days of the week printed on it, smack in front of the coffee maker. But still, I get involved in my morning tasks, and I forget. <br />
<br />
But there is a morning task I could not forget if I wanted to, because my cats won't let me. At about six a.m., the mewling and frantic scratching begins. To keep Twerpy from actually digging through or UNDER our bedroom door, I have had to resort to screwing a sheet of tin to the floor, and repeated applications of duct tape. Handsome, huh? It is not even worth DREAMING about replacing the carpet as long as he is alive. Here's some of Twerp's handiwork:<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">All cats abhore a closed door.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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The reason Twerp is so frantic to get to me is because he fears I may forget his morning COOKIES! My cats have a self-feeder stocked with dry cat food and water, but somebody (Damn you, Dee!) gave me a gift of cat treats, and somehow, these have become my cats' expectation. Twerp will not stop chattering and whining until I parcel them out on the kitchen floor. Last week I said to him, "Here! Take your damned shut-up pills!" <br />
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Voila! I have not forgotten my vitamins since!<br />
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<span style="color: red;">I AM ONLY SO-SO AS A SAVIOR OF HAITIAN VEGANS</span> </div><br />
It is my nature to keep busy so I look around for volunteer opportunities. I saw something on our city website asking for people to donate to a bake sale to benefit Haiti. So I e-mailed and asked what I could contribute. The organizer suggested I whip up a batch of my favorite recipe for delicious vegan cookies.<br />
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Some people might argue that "delicious" and "vegan" don't belong in the same sentence together. [If you don't know, vegan is a more extreme form of vegetarianism where even products like honey and milk, that don't require the death of an animal, are not eaten.] I said, "Wow! My extensive collection of delicious vegan recipes is so vast, it's hard for me to choose one!" (I didn't really say that, I just asked her for a suggestion) and she offered a recipe for some molasses cookies. I had all the ingredients, and made a batch. <br />
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They looked good, but smelled funny to me. I checked the ingredients I had used, including the canola oil, because I feared it might have gone rancid. I use very little oil generally and it can go bad fairly quickly. Robert thought it smelled fine but I wanted to be on the safe side. I bought new stuff and tried it again. A better result. <br />
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I was happy to make a contribution to a good cause and the Vegans for Haiti ladies were very happy with my offering. The little creatures in my yard are a different story. I put the first batch of cookies in the feeders. Squirrels pick them up, smell them, then knock them out of the feeder with their hind feet! Skunks, on their nightly rounds to the grounds below the feeders, have not yet bothered to pick them up! I am either the worst cookie baker in the world, or there are more anti-vegan animals out there than you would think.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">WHAT ELSE?</span></div><br />
Next week is my comedy show fund raiser. I feel optimistic! I would love SO MUCH to make a couple thousand bucks for the shelter. Cross your fingers for good weather on Thursday and a happy, generous (and drunk!) crowd! <br />
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I am also going to speak to some school kids about becoming writers. I sent off for forty copies of my book (because I can sell and ship it for about half of the website price) but they were lost in transit and I am so grumpy about that. The publisher won't do anything about it for six weeks so I am stuck with only about eight books to sell and lots of missed opportunities. Grump! Grump! Grump!<br />
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That's all for now! Drop a line! <br />
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F and R <br />
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Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-23748480021823408732010-02-03T10:28:00.000-08:002010-02-05T05:29:05.442-08:00Wallpaper- the true test of a marriageThere are certain life lessons every girl is supposed to learn at her mother's knee. I picked up on most of them, but apparently not the one that goes: "Just because wallpaper is on sale, it doesn't mean you have to buy it." <br />
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When Robert and I bought our house I was still living in Michigan. While I prepared for the big move Robert made lots of home improvements, such as tearing up the dog-pee-smelling carpet downstairs and installing new stuff, and painting some of the rooms. I was glad he did those things but I wish he had not removed the wallpaper in the front hallway. Not that I liked it and wanted to keep it there -- but I did want to get a photograph of it first, just in case there is ever a "world's ugliest wallpaper" contest offering a cash prize.<br />
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This stuff looked like someone had thrown buckets of vomit on the walls. Literally. It featured dribbles and streaks of brown, tan and pea green. Robert tore it all down, leaving the plain plaster walls, then a leaking pipe under the upstairs bathroom floor let loose, that resulted in the ceiling of the downstairs hallway being badly damaged.<br />
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When you have seventy-five thousand projects going on all at once, you become sort of blind to certain things. That gaping hole in the ceiling with the lathe showing through, and the stained and cracked plaster walls, weren't things I paid attention to because I was up to my armpits in other projects in other parts of the house. The hallway -- one's first impression upon entering our humble abode -- stayed that way (BUTT UGLY) for several years.<br />
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Then Robert started talking about how he was planning to repair the ceiling. This job would require knocking down any loose plaster, screwing furring strips into the lathe, cutting and attaching a piece of plaster board to fit the hole, spackling that, then sanding, priming and painting it. <br />
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This kind of repair is never fun and even less so when you have to perform it standing on a ladder with your arms up over your head, while dirt and plaster dust and blobs of wet spackle fall onto your face, and you are dropping your hammer and losing your screwdriver every two minutes. This is NOT the kind of job that a perfectionist with a short temper should approach.<br />
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My method of preventing my perfectionist, short-tempered husband from having a stroke is to keep him entirely in the dark about home improvement projects. I hand him his sack lunch and kiss him goodbye in the morning, and as soon as his car is out of the driveway, I go nuts. The most important thing is not to do a good job -- it is to get the job done before Robert comes home, so he never has to think about it again. So what if I don't have the right tools? So what if it really needed two coats of paint? I don't have time for two coats!<br />
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So I did a really sloppy job of mending the hallway ceiling. I never even sanded my crappy patch job. Before the plaster was even dry I watered down a gallon of latex paint I found in the basement, and slapped it on the walls and ceiling. As parts of the walls span the two floors, I did lots of it with a long handled roller and a paint brush taped to the end of a mop handle. Then I put a thin strip of egg and dart-printed wallpaper border around the top. It looked SO MUCH BETTER, but I never intended it to be a permanent treatment.<br />
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One of the Christmas gifts Robert got for me was ten samples of William Morris wallpaper with the idea that we would invest in some nice paper for the hallway that suits our antique house. This stuff is SO expensive -- hundreds of dollars per roll! -- and it would require at least sixteen rolls to do the job. I told Robert that was just way more money than we should think about spending until everybody buys my book and we are rolling in dough (Ha!). I said I would look around for some less expensive papers and see if I could find something acceptable. What I actually intended to do was to put this project on the maybe-ten-years-from-now list.<br />
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Robert told me he'd seen a sign for a wallpaper sale in a store window and asked me to check it out. They only a few designs available but the price was ridiculous -- $60 a roll on sale for five bucks! So I decided to take advantage of my massive load of I-don't-have-a-job-and-I'm-not-helping-Robert-enough guilt, and apply it toward making the hallway look better. <br />
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Mom told me that Dad only swore at her once in their life -- when they were attempting to put paper up on their bedroom ceiling. Also, she only heard her own father use a curse word once, and this occurred during a similar event, when he was assisting my grandmother. Mom said: "Wallpaper is the true test of a marriage." So I promised myself I would NOT ask Robert to help me in any way.<br />
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Stabbing a wet paint brush at a faraway corner is one thing. Deftly lining up wallpaper joins and patterns, smoothing out air bubbles, wiping away excess paste and trimming around mouldings is another thing. It simply can't be done from the far end of a mop handle. I did everything I could do safely by myself on a step ladder, but when it came to the dangerous business of tall ladders perched on too-narrow stairs, and having to straddle a fifteen-foot drop, I waited until Robert came home.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Dig that crazy wallpaperer's hair-do!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Robert was so cool! He never even flipped out! He hardly even swore! He handed me things and showed me where the rucks were, and we finished all the hard parts, then he took me out for a nice Italian dinner. Here's a picture he took of me. <br />
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Then I spent hours and hours searching for the perfect one-inch wallpaper border. Border is so ridiculously expensive, I usually try to find a roll of some kind of compatible paper with a stripe, then and I hand cut strips to use as border. But wallpaper is so expensive now! Having spent only $40 on the paper, I balked at paying $64.00 just for the stupid fancy edging. Luckily, I found something that worked in the bargain bin.<br />
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Most of the job was finished. I had only the border to put up and a few spots to patch. I knew I should have waited for Robert to be home, but I thought, "Oh, this is easy. I'd rather he come home to a finished product." I put up the strip of border in the scary place, at the very top of the stairwell wall, where I had to straddle the stairwell with one foot on the hallway windowsill and the other on the stair railing. <br />
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I managed to do that without falling to my doom, but when it was time to get down off the stair rail, I realized I had not pulled my little utility ladder close enough to be of use to me. I had no choice but to try to "hop down" from that (about 2 1/2 feet). Of course I landed wrong, fell over and smacked my head against the doorframe. I lay there for a several minutes, trying to figure out whether I had broken any bones, all the while chewing myself out for being so fricking stupid as to try to do that job by myself. I figured I was OK, and got up and started walking down the stairs. Then my bum knee (the one I had landed on) gave out and I bump-bump-bumped on my butt all the way down.<br />
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So now, LESS THAN FIVE WEEKS from the day I expect to be wandering around the ruins of ancient Rome and Constantinople, I can hardly move because of a throbbing knee and a bruised tailbone. I don't know how to spell the sound of a Bronx cheer, but if I did, I would be typing it now.<br />
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The good thing is that I am so pleased with the way the hallway looks, that it somewhat mitigates my misery. Here are before and after views of the hallway. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2nCSlQgm3I/AAAAAAAAANo/lmuo_DVpz58/s1600-h/hallway+before.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2nCSlQgm3I/AAAAAAAAANo/lmuo_DVpz58/s320/hallway+before.JPG" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2s-JpAjnNI/AAAAAAAAAOI/tEPv2P4EkBs/s1600-h/DSC01651.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2s-JpAjnNI/AAAAAAAAAOI/tEPv2P4EkBs/s320/DSC01651.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Before - After</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2s9cNb9keI/AAAAAAAAAN4/qrVAxmC2bYE/s1600-h/downstairs+before.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2s9cNb9keI/AAAAAAAAAN4/qrVAxmC2bYE/s320/downstairs+before.JPG" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2s968MQO3I/AAAAAAAAAOA/Oot4bfvmpTM/s1600-h/DSC01652.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2s968MQO3I/AAAAAAAAAOA/Oot4bfvmpTM/s320/DSC01652.JPG" /></a><br />
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</div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2tMuqLYMTI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/HgkUCTYh1tw/s1600-h/DSC01650.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S2tMuqLYMTI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/HgkUCTYh1tw/s320/DSC01650.JPG" /></a><br />
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WHAT ELSE IS NEW?<br />
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I have formed a company called Pen-in-Hand Press, to publish short fiction. I have also joined an acting class here in Beacon, taught by my friend, John Mendelssohn. I have not done anything like this (acting class) since I was in college, but I hope it will help me in my future life as a voice actor! Robert and I have decided against "Readers for Writers" for our business name, though we hope eventually to specialize in producing audio books for writers. Instead, we have decided on "Vox Humana," because that opens the way for all sorts of other jobs, like being that voice that tells you to push #7 if you have a complaint about the product you bought on line. Vox Humana will be me, most of the time, but when Robert retires, he hopes to do a lot of voice work, too.<br />
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Job wise, everything stinks. I can't even get hired at WalMart, because I'm over-qualified. I have been applying for every part-time attorney and writer job I can find, and I have done a few little editing gigs advertized on craigslist, but I have yet to be paid for anything. I am also enjoying being a volunteer reading tutor through a group called "Literacy Connections." <br />
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So if you need a voice, if you need wallpapering advice or assistor ance, you need your manuscript critiqued or edited, you want to buy my book, contact me!<br />
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We hope to be seeing our friends Colleen and Brian Murphy. Chant healing prayers for my rotten knee! We hope you all remain healthy and groovy! --<br />
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F and RFrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921288374779627281.post-88472957406804357742010-01-23T16:43:00.000-08:002010-01-24T14:29:18.207-08:00ARGH!<strong>Boots, Made Fer Walkin'</strong><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">My mother wrote a short story about me once, called, "My Daughter, the Clothes Horse." The joke is, of course, that I am no fashion plate. I buy new clothes when the old ones are worn out or stained. I only own one purse. It's not that I don't APPRECIATE fashionable things, I just can't imagine spending the money. I also don't understand how people can fit things like professional manicures and hair-styling into their budgets. <br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">So people like my gym-buddy, Mavis, astound me. I'll go to her house to pick her up and she 'll come down the stairs wearing earrings, sunglasses, shoes and a $500 Coach bag that are all the same color of lime green. I told her she looks great (she DOES) but I could never imagine buying shoes in any color but black. She came by at Christmas to say hello and to give me a Christmas gift. RASPBERRY PINK LEATHER BOOTS! (She also gave me a matching blouse, sweater and gloves.) Oh, the frivolity! But I must admit, I am over the moon about these silly boots! I spend an inordinate amount of time admiring my pretty feet.<br />
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<strong>Evil Neighbors and Ecstatic Cats</strong><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">The boots are only my second favorite Christmas present. The best one is the cool bird (read "squirrel") feeder that Robert made for me. It has one-way glass and is attached to the window right outside my office, so while I type this I can watch birds (read "squirrels") munching away on treats only about two feet away from me and about two INCHES away from the nose of a twitching kitty.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S1uJlZlKzlI/AAAAAAAAANI/HVSXagO0UQM/s1600-h/DSC01587.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" mt="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S1uJlZlKzlI/AAAAAAAAANI/HVSXagO0UQM/s320/DSC01587.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mabel, checking it out.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">I keep a little "kitty mattress" on my desk top by the window, because cats like to sit near their people and I am often at my desk. I don't want to make aspersions about my kitty Twerp's intelligence or lack of it, but you would think, after nearly knocking himself out a few times, bonking his big, buffalo head against the window, that he would understand that he can't get at those birdies (read "squirrels"). Sometimes I have trouble typing because of the repeated slapping of my hands by mighty excited kitty tails.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S1sOdXeHN2I/AAAAAAAAAMw/zuWIzz46OTY/s1600-h/DSC01612.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" mt="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S1sOdXeHN2I/AAAAAAAAAMw/zuWIzz46OTY/s320/DSC01612.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here's Mabel</span><br />
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<div align="left" class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S1sPcFI_6TI/AAAAAAAAAM4/WcsP_Va5DI0/s1600-h/DSC01614.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" mt="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S1sPcFI_6TI/AAAAAAAAAM4/WcsP_Va5DI0/s320/DSC01614.JPG" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here's Twerp </span><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">I had actually asked Robert to build me a SQUIRREL feeder, as the critters nearly killed my pink dogwood last winter, having squabbles and squirrel dramas among its delicate branches. There was a pile of damaged bark at the base of the tree come last spring, and that's not a good thing. I wanted something AWAY from the tree (the squirrels had been in the tree, getting at a bird feeding station I had there) so I suggested to Robert that we put it in the windowsill, with a little squirrel ladder for them to get to it from the ground. Robert then went to work to make me a BIRD feeder. He figured squirrels would not be able to reach it, as getting to it would require them to climb six feet straight up a brick wall. (They do this easily, it turns out.)<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">I love the feeder, and I don't care what kinds of critters eat out of it, but squirrels do frighten birds away, and I still wanted to keep the little rodents away from my dogwood. So I built another feeder to attach to the property-line fence, which backs up against the side of my neighbor's falling-down garage, where all day I watch squirrels coming in and out of holes in the roof. I put some corn there and enjoyed watching the happy surprise of the animals to find it there.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">Then I got a knock at the door. My next-door neightbor, fuming purple. She demanded that I take the feeder down because (literally) 1/2 inch of it extended over on to her side of the fence. I explained to her why I had put it there, to protect my tree, and she just got madder and madder. I told her that there are no more squirrels there than there usually are, and that they nest her garage. She said, "I DO NOT LIKE SQUIRRELS! I DO NOT LIKE TO SEE SQUIRRELS!" and stormed off.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">I moved the feeder to the other side of the house, but I was upset about that experience for a long time. Whenever I'd think about it, my mind went crazy. A small gray and white rabbit used to live between our two houses (also living in her wrecked garage) and I'd think insane thoughts, such as: <em>What happened to that rabbit? Did she KILL it? Is SHE, the terrible animal hater, the reason I don't see that possum anymore? Did she run over it AGAIN and AGAIN with her car?</em> <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">Nobody likes having run-ins with neighbors (for one thing, it's so darn unneighborly) and I was all stressed out about it, trying to figure out how to avoid engaging her wrath again. Then I realized something important. IT IS NOT MY JOB TO PROTECT PEOPLE FROM SQUIRRELS. And PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN NORTH AMERICA, WHO DON'T WANT TO SEE SQUIRRELS, SHOULD MOVE TO ANTARCTICA.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">Pooh to animal haters. We like little animals and spoil them silly. In addition to the feeder, the cats had a very exciting Christmas overall, recieving TWELVE catnip mice, NINE tinsel balls, and TWO custom catnip toys. [Robert adds: But that partridge in the pear tree was the final touch!] <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S1uH-boX4wI/AAAAAAAAANA/Jh2GJU0VGI0/s1600-h/DSC01600.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" mt="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KhFipcF_2yE/S1uH-boX4wI/AAAAAAAAANA/Jh2GJU0VGI0/s320/DSC01600.JPG" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Twerp in heaven.</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">It seems I am writing a lot about cats. (Gee, you'd think I was a childless middle-aged woman or something. . . ) But I did want to tell you that I am working on a big project for the Shelter--putting on a night of stand-up comedy at a local night spot, on February 18. I have four professional comics lined up. It is my dream to be able to hand over a HUGE check to the shelter.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><strong>Losing My Mind and My Passport</strong><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">I understand it is a part of this &%!*##$ aging process, but my memory scares me lately. I totally freaked out my sister-in-law, telling her we didn't receive the Christmas wreath she sent (we actually DIDN'T) nor a gift shipment of pistachios. Then I found the pistachios wrapped, under the tree, and addressed to Robert. I had no memory of wrapping them. Argh. And I keep losing things. <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">Normally, this is only a minor irritation, but I lost something recently that is really distressing me. When Robert's mother died she left us a little money, and we decided we should spend some of it on something Muffy would have wanted us to have--sort of a gift from her. We talked about taking a trip, and Robert was interested in seeing Turkey. The problem is, most trips would require him to use up most of his year's vacation all in one fell swoop. But I found a seven-day trip that included three days in Istanbul and three in Rome, and we decided to do it. We are leaving March 10.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">I started pulling out guidebooks and money belts and stuff like that that we'll need for the trip, and piling them on the guest room bed. Robert thought I was slightly mad, starting this process in January. But I'm so glad I did! I looked at our passports, and realized that the one for me was the old, expired one. No problem! Since being laid off, I have reorganized everything in our house, from the attic to the garage. Everything is in labeled bins or files, and I can tell you where to find ANYTHING in my house. <em>Fountain pen cartidges?</em> My office, third little drawer from the right in the organizer on my desk. <em>Dinky nightlight light bulbs?</em> In the labeled coffee can on the shelf above the toilet in the basement bathroom. <em>Passports?</em> In the antique camphor-wood box on the bookcase in the bedroom!<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">But NO! My 1970 passport was there. My 1992 passport was there, but not the current one! The last time I used it was for proof of citizenship when I got my job in 2008. ARGH! I tore the house apart. I went through every closet, the pockets of every jacket, and every file in my filing cabinets. I finally gave up, and realized I need to order a new one, and fast. OK. That requires obtaining the application, filling in the info, attaching an expired passport and my marriage license, getting a new photo taken, then paying the exhorbitant fee.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">No problem. Our marriage license is kept in a file called "personal," in my office. Or at least it USED to be.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">Guess how much it costs to get a stupid copy of your stupid wedding license? $64.00! $39.00 of that is for shipping! Where's my gun?<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">I decided that at least, I could save the $18.00 cost of professional passport photos. I asked Robert to take my picture when he got home after work. He worked late and I was already in my nightshirt. He took the picture of me in the bathroom (the only expanse of wall not covered by art or wallpaper). Though I didn't get dressed , I slapped on some beads, earrings and some lip gloss.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Franny says: Who is that wrinkly old lady?</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Robert says <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(in awestruck tones)</span>: Joni Mitchell? </span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">Anyway, as soon as my *#+%&&@! wedding license shows up, I'll send of for another *#+%&# passport, and then, I'll find the originals, probably some place I've already searched twelve times.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">Such is life.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">We hope yours is good!<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">Love, Franny and Robert<br />
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</div>Frannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01974843334382508268noreply@blogger.com1