Homage to my Sherpa

[caption id="attachment_1122" align="aligncenter" width="283" caption="Now That's a Bear! Created By: Debbie Janes Photo by: Jeff Lomicka"][/caption]

Deborah Janes is my sherpa.  I have the very good fortune to work with this talented woman and I learn from her every single day that I do.  In addition to being one of the most talented quilters I know (click on the above picture)  she has an endless supply of patience.   Seriously.  I know I sometimes ask the most basic questions of her and she manages to look thoughtful (like she has never been asked that before) and give me an answer that in no way makes me feel like an idiot.

I think I am most in awe of the latter - someone with her skills and abilities could easily take the high and haughty route but she does not. Heaven knows there are enough **QB's on the planet.  She demonstrates such a genuine love for what she does that it becomes contagious.  I've seen people in the museum shop watch her, ask her questions, and she draws them in to whatever she is working on and always tells them, "Oh yes you CAN do this,  it's fun!" and they walk away shaking their heads in amazement....and encouraged by her infused energy.

I am inspired by Debbie  for these and other reasons that go beyond what can be discussed here.  She has faced major battles in her life and she meets them head on.  I try to remember her example when I am asked questions (not about quilting) by tourists in my husband's store, by people who think working at a quilt museum is (tilt your head to the side) "sooo cute!" and who generally exhibit a disregard for personal property.  (I honk the hell out of my horn when I see someone throw a cigarette butt out their car window.)  I think we all have knowledge and gifts that we need to share with others even if we don't realize it ourselves.  I hope before I leave this earth I have been a sherpa to someone, or a whole lot of someones.

**QB's  =  Quilt Bitches.  We all know a few..... make sure you aren't one of them.

Out of the Frying Pan...

.......and in to the fire.  It has gone from hot to "heat wave HOT" in a matter of days.  We're looking at a five-day heat wave and that means working on something I can do downstairs in the company of R2D2 (our portable AC machine)  in the family room.  R2 does a pretty efficient job of cooling the room but eats electricity like a big ol' hog.  I'm OK with paying the higher electric bill if it enables me to breathe and sleep like a human being.

This heat wave prematurely jump starts my annual fall side-excursion into wool felt.  I like the change-up in fabrics and textures (and skills -  I have to remember how to embroider).  Bonus - you can watch TV or a movie while you do this  so what's not to love?  The only downside is that there is a hurricane named Earl lurking out there in the Atlantic.  This alone is not a problem, but every local TV station is working terribly hard to manufacture a frenzy about "this might" or "it could" and frankly I just do not need the drama.  Keep us reasonably informed and if something actually materializes you may  THEN push the frenzy button. The  weather reporters out here are epic at crying "wolf" about hurricanes . 9 1/2 times out of 10 these earth shattering predictions have  fizzled to nadda far offshore.  If and when one actually does materialize  there is a danger that  people are going to ignore the hysterical warnings just out of habit.  I need one of those "easy" buttons to edit the level of hype in news these days.  Since I do not have one, I will content myself  by making like Donna Reed and embroider my little ornaments.  It relaxes me to do these things and I could use that these days.......

A Quilter's Confession

I'm still thumbing through Anonymous Was a Woman.  I pick it up often and every time  I find something wonderful to savor.  This is today's excerpt, and every woman who has made a quilt, mended a shirt or hemmed a pair of trousers knows exactly what this woman is talking about:

It took me more than twenty years, nearly twenty-five, I reckon, in the evenings after supper when the children were all put to bed. My whole life is in that quilt. It scares me sometimes when I look at it. All my joys and all my sorrows are stitched into those little pieces. When I was proud of the boys and when I was downright provoked and angry with them. When the girls annoyed me or when they gave me a warm feeling around my heart. And John, too.  He was stitched into that quilt and all the thirty years we were married.  Sometimes I loved him and sometimes I sat there hating him as I pieced the patches together.  So they are all in that quilt,  my hopes and fears, my joys and sorrows, my loves and hates.  I tremble sometimes when I remember what that quilt knows about me.

Marguerite Ickis, quoting her great grandmother,  from the book Anonymous Was a Woman, 1979, Mirra Bank, St. Martin's Press.

Mosque Ado About Nothing

I came across this bit of wisdom from Someecards this morning.  "I'm okay with a mosque being built at Ground Zero because at least something would be built at Ground Zero."   Brilliant.  I'm not okay with the fact that almost nine years later  Ground Zero still sits pretty much vacant.  I'm embarrassed for our country that we are so paralyzed with political corruption, political correctness, posturing and back room shenanigans that we cannot demonstrate to the rest of the world how a powerful  phoenix should rise from the ashes.

We're talking about building a community center here, people, one that will have a basketball court and yes - a prayer room.  But to call it a mosque is waaay sexier. The media has used that term to  inflame, to stir up controversy, to  (excuse my vulgarity) piss kerosene to feed the fire. Yeah, that gets ratings! The  media is also safe in the assumption that America is now a chronically attention-impaired populace that won't actually go check out the facts.  We prefer short,  bullet-point stories that aren't grounded in journalistic principles.   We want a TMZ delivery, flashing graphics and spinning chyrons and hey and wow and IT'S A  MOSQUE, BABY, AND IT'S AT GROUND ZERO!

Except that it is neither.  It is not a mosque, it is a community center  with a basketball court and a prayer room.  Even if it was a mosque, it is not  AT Ground Zero. It is over two blocks away, and New York City blocks are big.  Clyde Haberman of the New York Times explains  the significance of using the word "at" :

There's that "at." For a two-letter word, it packs quite a wallop. It has been tossed around in a manner both cavalier and disingenuous, with an intention by some to inflame passions. Nobody, regardless of political leanings, would tolerate a mosque at ground zero. "Near" is not the same, as anyone who paid attention back in the fourth grade should know.

Listen, I'm not thrilled with the controversy here but I can't very well claim First Amendment rights and at the same time deny it to others.  Evidently, a lot  of Americans are willing to do so.  Good luck with that.  Let's see the Lutherans try to build a community center within a couple of blocks of  a Catholic church that was torched by a Lutheran arsonist but later  rebuilt. Yeah, kickass  all you  Catholics  and go  get those heretics and - wait - well, Lutherans are ok.  But not Muslims, man, that's different.  What if it was a pack of wild Lutherans who brought down the World Trade Center?  Would you be declaring a jihad on them?  Or would we, like reasonable, intelligent adults intellectually  realize that maybe, just maybe not every Lutheran is a cold-blooded killer and the few who are were not representative of their entire religion?   Imagine a religion - any religion -  having whacked out, f'd up extremists among its members.  Golly, what a concept.

I had this non-mosque argument with my husband last night. It was one of those moments  when you look up at the ceiling (we were in bed at the time) and think, "Jeebus, who the (#$)(# did I marry?"  He is a measured, reasonable person but he is buying into this frenzy hook, line and sinker and it pisses me off.  I was raised to respect the rights of others even if I did not agree with their ideas.  I live in a country that has legislated the same. (PS we had the same argument about flag burning, so there you go. )

Al-Qaeda must be loving this.  The big, scary USA is terrified of a Muslim community center.  Do I need to point out that this is exactly what feeds their mentality? Don't feed the beast.  We should, as a country, be able to stand up and say, "Yes, we guarantee the right of every American to worship and speak freely.  We are also free to disagree with each other, but the ability to do so remains  a constitutionally guaranteed right. It is one of the reasons why we are the greatest nation on this earth.  If  you gotta problem with that then bring it, baby. We will kick your ass to defend those freedoms." **

** I just think we'd  have a lot more credibility  when we said that if there was a well designed, finished complex in place at the site of the World Trace Center.  That would show 'em. Nothing says "don't f' with me" like getting right back up on your feet after you have been knocked down.  If you stay down, it appears that you fear them.

You Like Me - You Really Like Me!

Awwww, sorry to go all "Sally Fields" on you, but I just received the nicest award from Shannon over at MonkeyDog Quilts.   I think Shannon 'gets' my dark sense of humor, and aside from my family and a few good friends that is a pretty rare thing.  Anyway, she's a doll,  she has a crazy dog and she really enjoys sewing.  What's  not to love?

Before I get my tiara I have to follow a few rules and do some stuff.  This will entitle me to bestow this lovely award on others so that I may encourage them the way that Shannon has, thankfully, done for me.  First up - I have to reveal  seven things.   This could be interesting.

1. I have a tool box that I hide from my husband. Inside are my needle nose pliers, an assortment of screwdrivers, blue painter's tape (also used to tape off quilting patterns), graduated paint rollers, a stash of Allen wrenches and my very precious collection of paintbrushes.  I have to hide them because my husband would use an expensive cutting brush to sweep dead leaf gunk out of a gutter and not break a sweat.  If you turned me loose in a hardware store with $500 to spend  I'd blow it all in the paint department.


2. I consider the following one of the finest culinary recipes for comfort food: hot chicken soup, a box of Chicken in a Biscuit crackers and Skippy chunky peanut butter.  Apply chunky peanut butter to CIB crackers and float them on top of a steaming bowl of chicken soup.  It is a thing of beauty and it is delicious.  (Hey, I make my own soup.)


3. I started sewing in junior high school and have made garments all my life.  I consider myself a pretty good quilter but I can't for the life of me install a simple  zipper.


4. I sing while I brush my teeth.


5. I have struggled with shyness my entire life.


6. I have a pair of mentors who live on my CPU and I talk to them a lot.  Helen (the chicken) and Commander Bob (the green army guy) are fine sources of wisdom.  I can't use the language they use here  so let's just say they have a very low tolerance for BS and keep me on track about a lot of things.


7. I adore rhubarb.

There - let the festivities begin.  Bloggers everywhere should rejoice that while we may be separated by time, distance, opinion or subject,  we all support each other.  It is a delight for me to be able to now go forth and do it for others.

Contemplating Ceilings

I feel like indulging myself in  some really selfish whining so if you can't handle it just  bail right now. It's my blog and I'll bitch if I want to -- and I want to.

I have spent an unfair amount of my life staring at ceilings, namely the drop  ceilings found in doctor's offices.  I have had  a LOT of surgery over the years so I am something of  a connoisseur of ceiling construction, examination garments (paper and cloth) and the accoutrement that goes with yet another trip to the doctor to see what-the-hell-is-wrong-this-time.

My most favorite ceiling was in the OB/GYN offices of my beloved and much missed Dr. Rose Osborne.  Rose was not only a hell of a surgeon, but for a "cutter" she had a great sense of humor. Rose always had pictures on the ceiling so you had something to enjoy and contemplate while your feet were in the stirrups.  God I loved that woman - and I miss her dearly.  Cancer often takes the best from this earth and I'm getting a seriously bad attitude about the "why" of it all.

Most hospital or doctor's offices have dropped ceilings with or without the little black dots.  I have counted those dots many times while waiting for a doctor, physician assistant, EMG, EKG, MRI, X-ray,  or any one of the endless round of procedures I seem to have on my chart.  A few ceilings have that textured popcorn stuff that is pretty droll and gives you nothing but endless craters to contemplate as you prepare yourself for what comes next.  I'm surprised that no one has thought to put a flat screen on the ceiling so you could watch a movie or take in a sitcom - have a few laughs while you get tubes and electrodes stuck into places where the sun don't shine.  It sure would make a difference. Hell, it would make a huge difference. The pharmaceutical companies should cough up some serious bucks for those things instead of the wine-and-dine golf outings and  BS they pay for now.

I feel at this point I have earned my own examination  gown (they call them a "johnny" out here) that I could whip out of my totebag and put on with some aplomb.  I'd certainly make it out of some attractive print, maybe a Kaffe Fassett, so I could at have something  pleasurable to wrap up in for the duration. (The bleached out drab greens and blues are  surgical and so depressing.  I'm just sayin' . )   As for the ceilings - well, hell - would a little something up there bankrupt your practice?  I don't think so.   I'm not asking for the Sistine Chapel (although a poster of it up there would be a pisser)  but is it really asking too much to tack something up there so those of us trapped in a tarp with three armholes can have a little something to look at while we ponder what  orifice or vein is next to be violated?

I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon this morning at a sports medicine clinic.  I can't wait to see what they have on the walls.   Judging by the age of the building,  I can  tell you right now the ceilings are going to have fluorescent light fixtures with  those cracked ice lenses.   There will be pictures of patients shooting a basketball, or back on their slalom skis swooshing about with "thanks Doc!" penned across the bottom.   I'll bet anybody $100 that  their ceilings are bare of any posters, much less one of a  50- something  female with a spinal fusion from scoliosis gone to hell-in-a-hand basket.  Any takers?

I didn't think so.

Food for Thought

Whatever you say,  do, create, paint, weave,  whatever --   this is today's food for thought:

I've been a hard worker all my life, but 'most all my work has been the kind that 'perishes with the usin'," as the Bible says.  That's the discouragin' thing about a woman's work....if a woman was to see all the dishes that she had to wash before she dies, piled up before her in one pile, she'd like down right then and there. I've always had the name 'o bein' a good housekeeper, but when I'm dead and gone there ain't anybody goin' to think  o'  the floors I've swept, and the tables I've scrubbed, and the old clothes I've patched, and the stockin's I've darned...But when one of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren sees one o' these quilts, they'll think about Aunt Jane, and, wherever I am,

I'll know I ain't forgotten.

Aunt Jane of Kentucky,  ca. 1900 - from the book Anonymous Was a Woman, 1979, Mirra Bank, St. Martin's Press.

What Makes a Woobie?

Everyone needs a woobie. Your woobie can be a doll, a toy,  or even a special old sweatshirt, but more often than not your woobie is a quilt. One of the great things about being a quilter is being plugged in to groups who specialize in woobies.  Check these out:

• Project Linus -  the ultimate in security blankets


• Quilts of Valor - no better way to say thank you to returning wounded veterans.  It's not about politics - it's about people.


• Operation Pillowcase - for the troops overseas, a little comfort all their own.  Many local groups with similar names operate the same way - Google one up near you.


• End of life quilts, hospice quilts, quilts for babies in neonatal units - there are groups everywhere creating gifts of loving comfort. You need not make an entire quilt - you can make a quilt top and send it to a volunteer who does longarm quilting, or vice versa.  There are entire systems in place to make it happen.

My woobie for over the past decade has been one of my Mom's quilts - one she called "Green Propellers." I found the pattern and sent it to her, bought her the book in fact (HINT HINT HINT Mom) and she did it up in cream and greens.  Really beautiful, but she always thought it looked like airplane propellers, hence the name.  When at last she gave each of her 6 children the Christmas gift of selecting one of her quilts, I dove for the Green Propellers.   (I wanted the  "Blues in the Night" quilt but that one was not on the offering list. Seriously. More on that later. )

After we lost Mom to cancer I  spent a LOT of time under that woobie, wrapping up in her love, in something she touched and handled,   hoping to absorb some bit of her into my soul and ease the grief.   As the years have passed   I still climb under that quilt when I am  missing her, or when  I'm sick, feeling stressed out, or just need a protective barrier to shut out the world for a while.     Tracing my finger along the seams, the squares and the lines of  her hand quilting is a zen-like experience that enriches my spirit and channels her love.  (Love never dies, you know, it simply changes and takes on the most amazing forms.)  Woobie quilts have that crinkly, wrinkly softness that soothes your body and soul.  They can cushion  you against whatever the world can throw at you.  Pull someone you love beneath that woobie with you and the whole world will look even better after a bit.

Not all quilts are woobies, but each quilt has woobie potential. I try to remember that when I am working on a quilt,  that everything I cut, sew, touch, fold and stitch should be done so with tenderness.   I would love to think that at least some of my quilts will find their way into their recipient's heart and become their woobie someday.

See?  That's what I mean about different kinds of love taking on the most amazing forms....

Wanting to Walk in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes

George Gordon, Lord Byron, must have been thinking of a woman wearing a really good embroidered silk kimono when he wrote that lovely poem.  My love affair with nightgowns began when I was very young. This picture shows me going out early -  in very bright sunlight -  to fetch the morning milk.  I knew the nightgown would provide the necessary elegance to undertake such an act at an ungodly hour.  (It was before I drank coffee and could manage a few basic functions....but I digress.)

My mother was prolific on her sewing machine and I had beautiful nightgowns all through my life (even college).  I could give you colors, trims, details about them that should have long ago disappeared from my memory banks.  To this day  I seek out and feel a little thrill when I find something really nice. A new nightgown by   Eileen West has been my annual birthday gift to myself since I turned 50, but deep down I'm yearning for something really spectacular, something I have wanted for years.

I want a silk robe kimono.

An authentic one,  none of this eBay or Pottery Barn crap.   I have this "champagne taste on a beer budget" syndrome that extends into the strangest areas of my life. Purses? Meh.  Shoes? Pffft.  Jewelry?  Got it, don't wear it.  But a good nightgown and silk robe?  Tie on a bib, I'm slobbering.

Most movies are memorable for the story they tell but  I also remember them for the truly important stuff.  In one of the most poignant scenes of the movie DeLovely, Ashley Judd gets dressed for an opening night just after suffering a miscarriage.  She's weepy, the music is haunting, and all I can see is this drop dead gorgeous silk kimono she is wearing as a robe.  It is thick, heavy, buttery, gorgeous. The colors?  OMG.   In Gosford Park, Kristin Scott Thomas rocks  a silk nightgown (likely trimmed with Calais lace) and shrugs on the most spectacular ivory kimono, embroidered with all kinds of muted tones. Her face is covered with night cream for God's sake, but she still looks positively STUNNING.

I'm not at all  surprised at my love affair with nightgowns and robes.  I have never felt especially pretty in my entire  life - even when I was young and thin and pretty-ish.  The nightgowns and robes are just for me - not for public consumption, not for competition or approval.  They exist solely to please me.  I feel pretty in soft, lovely things.  I feel elegant and pampered and sophisticated.   I like the feel of it on my skin and the whooshing sounds they make when I "walk in beauty" to refill my morning coffee or cross and uncross  my legs as I read the newspaper.   That is probably the same experience other women get when they are rocking a new pair of designer shoes, the latest purse, or something off the fashion pages.  It isn't really important what that thing is that gives us  the feeling of 'walking in beauty.'  It just matters that you take the time to do it for yourself.  Women generally spend too much time and energy caring for others and neglect themselves.    Whatever it is that  makes you feel like you are walking in beauty,  to borrow a phrase from Nike -  "Just do it."

Stay-In-Your-Nightgown Monday

Design Wall Monday has been preempted by Stay in your Nightgown Monday. The 2010 Lowell Quilt Festival is in the history books and I'm taking a day to decompress.  While the festival closed on Saturday, the museum is open on Sunday and it's one of my 'regular' work days.  I woke up Sunday morning wishing I could take a roll of duct tape and strap a couple of puffy pillows on my feet and call them shoes.  (Probably  not advisable to attempt the  one-hour commute with pillows strapped to my feet. )  I could also use an IV drip of ibuprofen for sore muscles. Bonus - I'm sporting a large BUO (bruise of unknown origin) on my right forearm, pretty attractive since it is too hot to wear anything with long sleeves. Really attractive.  Yes,  today I need to stay home in my nightgown and just.....cocoon.

Between the ramp up to the festival and the actual three-day extravaganza the days are long and the hours are demanding.  A good friend managed to get me two nights at a very reduced rate at a Holiday Inn near the festivities.  I'm never one to complain about hotels (I think we stayed in one twice during my entire childhood) but I think I'll be writing the management on a few issues.  Namely the following:

1. Why do you put the coffee pot in the bathroom?  DO NOT  put the coffee pot in the bathroom.  Do you have any idea how gross and disgusting that is? I get the dry heaves just remembering it  and I don't need to pay for the privilege.


2. Touch up paint.  Buy it in bulk and apply it generously because  it makes a big difference.  Lotta bang for the buck.


3. Put a sign in the hallway that says, "Unattended children who repeatedly  run screaming up and down the hallway will be shot on sight."  If you don't have the stones to do it, leave a BB gun in my guest bathroom.    (Hey - then you could move the coffee pot to the far corner desk in the sleeping area.  Think about it.)


4. Doors to the room should not only lock securely but they should be actually CLOSED.  This picture shows  (I turned off the room lights) just how much room was between the door and the door jamb.  Color me paranoid but I don't feel all that secure when you could swing a cat through the crack in the door.  The one along the bottom  was even bigger.  (Note: apparently not big enough for them to slide a copy of my bill beneath it (enabling rapid checkout) but I'm guessing big enough to slide under  a Sunday edition of a newspaper without having to expend much effort.) Just sayin'.

All of that and more is why today is going to be just for me.  I'm tired - mentally and physically.  I need to be left alone for a while.  I want to soak up some quiet and take a ridiculously long shower and do girlie stuff like scrubbing and buffing and putting nice moroccanoil on my feet and sliding them in to clean, cotton socks.  I want to be pink and fresh and centered.   I'm going to snooze, read, pad around in my socks and let the world turn without me. I'm always better after I do, and that makes life easier for everyone around me.

PS - I will also be enjoying as many cups of coffee as I like, from my coffee pot that is not located remotely close to a toilet.

Melancholy Meteors

The annual Perseid meteor shower is underway but I won't be watching this year.  I'm away from home (and too surrounded by city lights) to get a glimpse of the magic. It's probably a good thing as my dark Irish side kicks up and I go into a full "have a pint, dear" funk.

I didn't know it at the time, but the last time my parents came to Gloucester for a visit was during the Perseid meteor shower of about 1998.  We had friends who were members of a local beach club so we were able to troop down to the beach with a hibachi, wine, dessert and sand chairs to make a perfect evening in a perfect setting even more....perfect.  We had a marvelous supper, topped off by peach pie made by my mother from peaches picked in our own backyard.  Dad was the official peach peeler (he's a hound dog for peach pie) and Mom could whip up a pie so effortlessly it was all done in a blink.  I can still remember the setting in vivid detail, but I can't conjure up the taste of Mom's peach pie.  It's been too long and while my own peach pies are pretty good (from good DNA) they aren't hers.  They aren't from peaches in our own backyard, they weren't peeled with love by my Dad, and ..... well, you get the idea. We watched the sun set and the stars come out, the moon rose perfectly between the twin lighthouses of Thatcher Island, and the meteors began.  It was an experience we all talked about for years to come - but especially during the annual event.

I woke up this morning and listened to the news about the meteor shower.  I got a little weepy - I'm up here for the Lowell Quilt Festival and I thought about how perfect it would be for my quilt-making mother to come out for the show, see me working at a museum of quilts, and then go home and enjoy the meteor shower.  Some things aren't meant to be - but at least I know Mom has a fabulous view of the Perseids, and that helps.

Strap on Your Quilting Liver - It's Festival Time!

We've been very busy at work getting ready for this year's Lowell Quilt Festival.  The FedEx and UPS trucks have been making two stops a day to deliver the juried quilts, and believe me - there are some spectacular quilts to be seen.  It is a tremendous project,  undertaken by a core group of volunteers from the New England Quilt Museum Auxiliary, museum staff, and supportive spouses!  I include them because they won't see much of us for the next several days - events all day and in to the evening will occupy a lot of time and energy.  The auction on Friday night is my favorite part (click on this link) because of the wonderful variety of quilts and quilt tops available.  Bonus -  we have the opportunity to bid on quilt blocks (some very old) to create something of your own.  I have my eye on a couple of quilts - but there is one lot of antique quilt blocks that I might just have to tackle a few people to outbid and get them for myself!  There is no discount or special treatment of museum staff - we bid like the rest of the folks - so I will square my shoulders and go easy on the pre-auction champagne and chocolates so I keep my wits about me and bid responsibly.  The  auction proceeds benefit the New England Quilt Museum, so it is a win-win evening.   Wish me luck!

'Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky

It is Sunday night and it is  happening.  Again.  You wouldn't think so after this long, but it is definitely happening again.

This Labor Day marks the 26th anniversary of my moving to Massachusetts. I was 26 when I moved here, so my time-life  pendulum will officially swing to this part of the country in a few short weeks.  You would think after 26 years I would not still get the August blues but I do.  I have them now.  Neck deep.

August is always the time of year I am most homesick. I'm not sure why - the change of seasons, the memories of school starting  and that fresh new start feeling you'd get purchasing textbooks and notebooks and wondering what (and who) the new year would bring.  It always seemed to me the new year began in the fall  when the last bloom of summer dies and the whole process begins again. Football season starts - college ball, what's not to love? It is also thee best time to be outdoors and see acres and acres....of sky.   I miss the sky terribly. I am surrounded by dense populations, buildings, wide stretches of  concrete highway.  There is very little sky - it is either blocked by buildings or by trees. I need sky - serious sky - 360 degrees of sky.  It is nowhere to be found out here.   I need to get out where I  can breathe and walk or drive for miles and just see open space and sky.  I need to go home. I am homesick.

When I fly in to the Lincoln, Nebraska airport (my favorite airport in the world) I begin a ritual.  It starts with crossing the street from the 4-gate terminal to the parking lot (yes, across the street) and getting my rental car.  There is a ticket stub you feed into the machine so the arm at the gate will swing up and let you pass.  But get this - written in beautiful scroll across the gate/arm is the phrase "WELCOME HOME."  I burst into tears every time I see it. I am weepy just writing about it - I am so homesick.

Then I'm out on the road, flying along (speed limits are much higher!) and the whole sky opens up.  My head unzips and my shoulders relax and I can't begin to express the  feeling of weight lifting  off my spirit.  I am most at home under the sky.  When I was little I used to stretch out in the grass for hours and watch clouds to see if,  from heaven, my Grandma McGill would peek over the edge. (Okay, I was very little.) Then I'd find shapes of things and wonder where the clouds blew off to and whether I'd see distant lands myself someday.  My mom was a huge fan of a good sunset - I think I have loved the sky since I was a fetus.

I feel saner and calmer under a wide swath of sky than just about anywhere else.  I miss the Nebraska sky, the slower pace and the kinder people.  I don't know that I could move back there, but I definitely need to go home and recharge the batteries of my psyche, inhale my family, sit with my Dad  and maybe eat some  proper hash browns.

The picture above is of the Platte River (a mile wide and an inch deep) which will be my final resting place someday.  I want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered somewhere  along that river.  I hope to be near a cottonwood tree (it exemplifies my "if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be" spirit) and bonus -  I'll have an eternal view of wide open sky.  Heavenly.

$tupid iPhone Charge$

The latest weapon in Apple Computer's diabolical  world-domination scheme  is - get ready for  this - ringtones.  Honest.  I have an old iPhone that was given to me by a friend who, like me, is a gadget whore.  He could better rationalize getting a new one if he found a good home for his old one, and believe me there is no good-er home for a gadget than with me.  I don't use it as a phone - AT&T is too rich for my blood -  but I do have it loaded with all kinds of  apps.  One of my favs is actually named "Quilt Fab" - it calculates yardage, binding, sashing, etc. for any size quilt.  Bitchin'.

I also like the alarm clock on the iPhone.  I can hook it up to play any number of preloaded ringtones but recently I decided I wanted something new, something different - something..... funny.  It's good to wake up with a laugh, right?  Since nothing is funnier than farts  I hightailed it to my iTunes  and purchased a couple of 20 second clips from the  Worlds Funniest Ringtone Collection. ( I also purchased a ringtone of the Brandenburg Concerto, so don't go pointing fingers lest somebody pull it. )

So - get this.  They aren't ringtones.  Seriously.  THEY ARE NOT RINGTONES.  Lyndsay (Yes, that is how you spell her name.  Another poor child with a stoned parent who decided it would be cute for her daughter to spend her entire life spelling out her name for people)  clued me in on how I have actually purchased  SONGS, and for another charge I could "convert it" in to a ring tone.  Seriously.  I had to read the email about three times because I could not believe that the 20 second ringtone clip I paid for and downloaded had to be paid for TWICE so it could actually be USED as a freakin' RINGTONE.

There is more.  Songs you have ALREADY  purchased from iTunes can also be converted in to ringtones.  You select the part of the song you have ALREADY PAID FOR and PAY FOR IT AGAIN so you can use the 20 seconds you have, again,  ALREADY PAID FOR as a freakin' ringtone.  I am serious.   This is either incredibly greedy and evil or  the handiwork of a diabolical  genius.  I'll let you guess which side I'm coming down on here.

I already know you can download software and edit music clips and cram them into iTunes and use them as ringtones but folks I do have a life  and on my long  list of  chores,  creating ringtones comes just after "clean toilets" and "mop baseboards."   I think the whole thing just stinks.  Apple Computers is one of the richest companies in the world  yet they want me to keep paying for something I have already purchased.   That's like going to the store and buying fish and getting home and finding out you have to pay again if you actually want to cook and eat the fish.  Buy a sweater for work?  You'll have to pay an extra fee if you want to wear it around the house. Give me a break,  Apple.  Say what you will about Microsoft (and believe me, I have plenty to say about them too) but at least they left some money on the table for independent developers and don't charge me if I want to use the 'help' menu in MS Word AND MS Excel.

Thus endeth the lesson.  PS - I  even hate eating apples, the skin sticks in between  my teeth.  Stupid evil fruit.

Reality Bites....Back

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Well, this is what happens when you house sit for a month.  Our  creeping ivy has become galloping ivy.  It is also a bone of contention - I love it, my husband hates it.  (He should sand blast and paint the patio of he wants to get me on board, I'm just sayin'.)

All of that,  a dusty house, and the return to non-central air  conditioning are looming like a veritable sword of Damocles.  Tonight  is our last night over at the house-sitting house and we are celebrating with take out lobster rolls for supper.  It's a Thursday special at a local restaurant and we figured - why mess up the kitchen again?  We'll just eat lobster rolls and soak up the cool.  I came home for a quick shower (hey, I'm a girl and all my junk is here) and check email.  I've also got to find a little hand sewing to take back with me for one more afternoon of movie watching, hand sewing and at about 4PM EDT, one last, great, epic  indulgent nap on the world's greatest napping couch, under my woobie - one of Mom's quilts.  It does not get much better than that.
My two Christmas cathedral window's projects are each missing a tooth (who counts?) so I've got to stitch up a couple of foundations (made easier by my repaired, cleaned , faster, smoother Bernina) and bring them with me back to the "summer cottage," as we have been calling it.

Sigh.

The Party's Over....

Not only is the party almost over, the outdoor temperatures are about to soar....again.   Our house-sitting adventure staycation is coming down to the final one or two nights before the homeowner returns.  (He is currently making a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2 and swears he will never leave the ship, but I have a feeling when he  hits New York he'll be ready to come home.) I spoke to him this morning.  He was sitting on the balcony of his stateroom watching the ocean pass by.  Now I don't like to brag  but I would be SO GOOD at that.  I would be equally  accomplished in a deck chair.  I could positively preside over an en suite stateroom.  I have these refined skills and talents - yet no way to exercise them.  I could flag down a nattily dressed steward and gracefully request a something or other  and do it with such panache.   Seriously.

The ship above is the RMS Cunard Campania. It happens to be the ship Margaret Carroll sailed on  from Ireland  to New York  and then spent her 18th birthday on Ellis Island.  I'm glad she did, she later married Martin McGill and they became my maternal grandparents. I'm sure when Grandma sailed on the Campania she was probably in steerage.  That seems to have set the tone for my life - I'm a first class girl always sailing (and flying) in steerage.  What's up with that? It is enough to convince me in the possibility of having past lives - and in one of mine I must have been some  kind of grande dame with engraved (not thermographed) stationery and all the accoutrements necessary for exercising the civilized life.  What else explains my penchant for bread and butter notes, cloth napkins and having the instinctive knowledge of how to properly eat soup?

My mother used to say I had champagne taste on a beer budget.  True dat.  I don't  need to fashion myself as wealthy or  throw myself around on boudoir furniture and feign a swoon at odors, but jeez  I do like nice things.  Not expensive or pretentious things, just nice. Everything is so disposable now, nothing is made to endure.  From appliances to dishes to events  (an e-vite?  Are you kidding me?)  it has all gone down with the ship.   Now we must pack up our bags and return to home sweet home.    Oh well, we can always dream, right?  I think of all the things I'll miss about the staycation house,  the central air conditioning (and the world's greatest couch for napping) will be what haunts my dreams most in the ungodly hot  days to come.

Hi Honey, I'm Home!

Look what I brought home from the doctor today - my Bernina!  She is still sitting in the front entryway, I can't lug her upstairs without doing some serious bodily harm so I'll have Joe do it when he gets home.  He is at his class reunion (about the bazillionth, I think. I don't do class reunions - I've never even been to one of my own. Meh.) I don't think he'll be home late. He sees his classmates all the time - his umbilical cord will not stretch over the A. Piatt Andrew bridge. He has lived  in Gloucester his entire life.  I'm talkin'  HE HAS HAD THE SAME PHONE NUMBER FOR HIS ENTIRE LIFE.   It boggles my mind.  Me?  I'm  so filled with wanderlust I could explode. I am  so ready to move somewhere new.

Anyway, I can't wait to thread the machine and fire up the old girl and listen to her hum.  It has been a remarkably productive break, one that forced me to finally  venture in to applique - and I love it.  I'm excited to finish up some dangling  projects though, as there is nothing more satisfying than sitting down at a finely tuned sewing machine and just blazing through to the finish line.  Hopefully I'll have some completed things to obsess over soon because I've taken the pledge to finish up three specific projects before I begin anything else new.  (A girl can dream.)  You heard it here first.