A perfect autumn day

After several days of horizontal rain, Black Friday produced blue skies, fluffy clouds, and cool autumnal sunshine.  We started the day with a dog walk around the block. The fallen leaves glowed in the early morning light, dotted with jewel-like drops.  It was clearly going to be a gorgeous day, and we had wine waiting for us at Torii Mor and David Hill wineries.  It took awhile to get our show on the road, but by 2 pm we were Yamhill County-bound to pick up our wine.

We decided to take the route via Champoeg, and we missed our turnoff.  So, we found ourselves in Salem, looking for 221 northbound.  Fortunately, it was still a lovely drive, with an empty winding road, pumpkin-filled fields, hazy multicolored hillsides, and reflective waters.

Torii Mor was having a Thanksgiving Weekend party, and they had erected a large tent behind the tasting room, complete with space heaters, music, tables, and cheese and crackers.  The wines were the usual high quality, and I had a fun conversation with the field enologist, a retired French military man in his late 40s.  He was born in the western Languedoc area, so we spent a lot of time comparing our impressions of French wines.  The wine-maker was also French, but they were very different.  He was short and grey, with male pattern baldness, while the enologist was taller than D, with a thick head of hair and a gift of gab.  But the wine-maker talked D into buying a discounted case of wine, so we have spent our food budget for next month.

Fortunately, we have plenty of food in the freezer.

Pie night!

Last night was Thanksgiving Eve, aka, Pie Night.  I was first introduced to Pie Night 10 years ago.  I had just started dating D, and he had explained to me that Thanksgiving was a big ritual at his sister's.  While he found that potentially intimidating, it was not an issue for me.  I've never known the holidays to not be ritualized.  When I moved to the Pacific Northwest 30 years ago, my Mom's family took me in for the holidays, which were mainly celebrated at Grandma's house in Vancouver.  As the song says, "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go...."   There were no woods, but the rest fit.  My aunt, her stepdaughter and son, my brother, and I would carpool over the Columbia River to meet with the Vancouver family:  Grandma, Grandpa, and my other aunt.

The afternoon was choreographed:  appetizers and champagne by the fireplace, table set with Grandma's silver and good dishes, Grandma putting finishing touches in the kitchen and refusing any help.  J would walk down from her house and stake out a place on the couch, heavy purse set nearby. L would sit next to her, elegantly dressed and sporting the latest hand-made necklaces and ear-rings.  She would talk about the latest discovery and I would dip celery sticks into the cottage cheese dip.  When he got older, E would be in charge of opening the champagne.  Supper was eaten around 2 pm.  It was a predominantly beige meal, with lefse and rutabagas in addition to the usual turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes.

Eventually I acquired my own car and was able to be independent of my brother's or aunt's chauffeur service.  I would go over Wednesday night so I could help Grandma put in the turkey early Thursday morning.  I still remember the year I forgot my glasses.  I didn't want to put in my contacts at 6 in the morning, since I was going back to bed, so I had my near-sighted face 2 inches from the bird as I was washing and filling it up with stuffing and tying it shut.  Grandma always said things like, "I can't remember how this works."  She'd been doing it for over 60 years, but I understood.  I still have to look it up the cooking time in Joy of Cooking.

After I bought my house, in 1993, I decided it was time to give Grandma a break and host the Thanksgiving myself.  For a few years, my cousin was living with me, and we hosted together.  My aunt's husband would be the chauffeur for the Vancouver crew, now minus Grandpa.  Then he'd come into the kitchen to help.   He would grab serving dishes and start mixing things up in them, using the good utensils, and he desperately wanted to carve the turkey and mash the potatoes, which was my cousin's job.  So we would send him out to the living room to share appetizers and chat, and he would sulk.  He did bring fabulous pies, and eventually I lightened up and let him back in the kitchen, which is where all the fun is anyway.

I still remember the year I forgot to turn off the preheat function (this being the old oven that didn't automatically stop pre-heating when the temp was reached.)   2 hours into the 6-hour cook time, I realized my mistake and called my brother-in-law in a panic, he being the cooking guru in my family.  Since he lived in IL, he was 2 hours ahead of me.  By that time, he was well into his holiday cheer.  He burst into laughter and informed me that I had essentially broiled and baked my bird.  Then he said, there's nothing much you CAN do but baste the hell out of it.  I did that, and it turned out fine.  Really, it's hard to ruin a turkey.

So the years passed, and various members of the family came and went.  The Thanksgiving ritual evolved.  10 years ago, I was still buying Otto's turkey and stuffing, but now I was the guest of my aunt.  I had not yet started spending holidays with D's family.   However, on this memorable Wednesday night my back was in spasm, and we stopped by to use his sister's hot tub.  D let us in with his key.  We discovered the nieces and his sister in the little room to the left of the front door.  One was lying her back on the floor, and the other two were reclining in rockers.  His sister L was looking up at the ceiling with her arm across her brow, deep in thought.  The others were equally contemplative.  They looked secretive, mysterious, private.  I was intrigued, and slightly embarrassed to be intruding.

D explained that this was an annual event, and they had a long night still ahead of them.  It was Pie Night, and they had to make nine pies for the 20 or so guests that were coming the next day.  Apparently they had already made 4 and were resting while they went through the process of choosing the other 5.  On Thanksgiving Day the pies would be cut into 20 or so really skinny pieces and deployed down the center of the table.  Everyone would take several slices, and L would keep track of what people thought of the various pies.  Some flavors were fixtures.  These were two types of apple (one with a crumble top) and two types of pumpkin (one with a graham cracker crust and pudding filling.)

The girls had been drafted into this duty for years, and I thought it sounded like fun.  I expressed this opinion, and was invited to join the group the following year.  I didn't realize that this was unheard of, but my participation was the thin edge of the wedge.  In the coming years, we would be joined by D and his cousin and various live-in students.  Also, as the years passed the nieces would begin rebelling against the formula.  They started bringing the fixings for rum-based drinks, hiding them in the back bedroom and running in for tastes.  They started lobbying for a reduction in the number of pies.  One even skipped a year.

I still like Pie Night, though.  I show up after work to find them all hard at it.   L has gathered together ingredients and made the pie dough.  It's made with egg and vinegar, as well as Crisco, flour, salt, and water.  It produces a wonderfully flaky crust, but in recent years Crisco changed its formula to be "healthier," and the dough is very tough to handle.  This year she experiments with a mixture of lard and Crisco, and it seems to help.  She is rolling out the crusts and deploying her army to make the fillings.  We discuss what to have for the additional pies.  Every year she has an experimental pie.  This year it is a cranberry pecan.  I make it, as well as the lemon sour cream.

After the first few pies are in the oven, we sit down to a dinner of soup, cornbread, and salad.  The soup has been bubbling on the stove, L has been building the salad in between crusts, and the bread has been baking while the nieces have been starting on the first fillings.  The elder takes charge of the apples.  L owns an incredibly fascinating gadget for coring, peeling, and slicing apples.  It's assembled and clamped to the edge of the cutting board.  An apple is pushed onto the coring spike, and the peeling/slicing mechanism is put into motion with a few deft turns of the hand crank.

This year I am later than usual, and, to my disappointment, I missed the apple part of the ritual.  When I arrive, K is shaking apple slices in a large baggie, coating them with sugar and spices.  Her sister had started working on the pumpkin chiffon pie, but stopped to do dishes.  A sauce pan sits on an unlit burner, filled with pumpkin and condensed milk and spices that have yet to be combined and cooked.  Later she would say that her pie was the first started and the last finished.  She is wearing her grandma's apron, it having just been unearthed as part of L's de-cluttering pre-house-sale work.  And she is clearly not in a good mood.  Exasperation is the predominant message of her utterances and body language.  Usually she is the humorously resigned niece, and her sister is the vocally indignant one ("There are too many pies!")  I wonder what's going on.  However, having already been dealing with D's snippiness, it's a relief to know this frustration is not directed at me.

Turns out she is unhappy because it's her newly-wed husband's birthday.  She wants to be celebrating it with him, but she doesn't feel she can back out of Pie Night.  Also, she is pledged to make pies for the Friday beach trip with his family.  So, she is pied out this year.  D commiserates with her, and they drink some overly fruity vanilla vodka concoction at the side counter.  (The drinks came out of the back bedroom last year and are now a regular part of the event.)

After dinner, R and K's husband start building the table.   They use plywood to extend the table so that it can accommodate 20 or so plates.  The couches are rearranged at the end of the room by the fireplace, and the table goes down the center.  I tackle my pies while D goes to work on the buttermilk pie, one of the more regular extra pies.  In the past we have made a Nutella-based pie,  with chocolate cookie crust, and I miss that entry.  We also nix a nice coffee pie, a regular pecan pie, and various berry pies.  We've never had mince, which doesn't bother me a bit.

It's all done by 10:30, and we go home, to rest up for further cooking the next day.  I've offered our oven for K's bread, as she is also making the main turkey, and L's oven is cooking the backup/leftovers turkey.  D is going to be making "bug beans," his ex-wife's excellent recipe, which uses bacon, water chestnuts, and a last-minute topping of parmesan. Etc.  It's the usual food overload.

However, it is worth it.  As L says in her grace, "we are thankful for the bounty in our lives and at this table, and for the many hands that created this feast."  I am thankful that I have been welcomed into this family, and that I have been initiated into Pie Night.

Gamba Play Date

In July, 2010, my dear friend JMR was in town, preparing for the Viola da Gamba Society of America (aka VdGSA) annual Conclave.  It was to be held in Forest Grove, at Pacific University, and local beginners were allowed to come for free, with viols supplied by friendly Seattle gambists.  I was in a deep funk at that time:  exhausted and weepy, visiting doctors both naturopathic and allopathic, with no solution in sight.  I desperately needed a break.  So,  JMR found me a room at the dorm, a gent loaned me his lovely tenor viol, and I spent a glorious week immersed in all things gamba.

You'd think 40+ years playing the violin would make this an easy endeavor, but it was surprisingly difficult.  Everything was different, so the only things I had going for me were knowing how to read music and understanding the concept of a bowed instrument.  Otherwise, my violin know-how was more of a hindrance than a help.  The gamba is more like a guitar than a violin.  It has 6 strings instead of 4.  It's fretted, with each finger a half-note apart, instead of each finger moving around to cover accidentals.  String intervals are 4ths, with one 3rd in the middle, instead of 5ths.  The 4th finger in 1st position does not double the string above.  The bow is held like chopsticks, and the heavy, emphasis bow is the push bow, exactly opposite of what the violin family does.  Because of the extra strings, my muscle memory did me no good in moving from string to string:  I had no sense of where the bow was or where my fingers went.  I bowed on the wrong string, or bowed two strings simultaneously.  I could not translate the notes from the page to the viol.  By the end of each day, I was putting down the bow and plucking, so I could at least have a fighting chance to play the right notes.

However, the music was wonderful, and my fellow conclavists were beyond kind.  They seemed delighted to welcome me into their midst, and they didn't seem thrown by my fumbling.

Above all, it was a delight to focus on one thing, to the exclusion of the mundane responsibilities of normal life.  I'd forgotten what a joy college was:  the food and housing are all dealt with by someone else, and all I have to do is concentrate on getting myself clothed and over to class to learn something.  In this case, there were 4 sessions in the course of the day, each 90 minutes long.  The beginning class came first, and then I sat in on the more advanced classes.  One was especially interesting:  it was for people who wanted to sing and play at the same time.  What a concept!  Of course, since the gamba is held between the knees instead of under the chin, singing should be possible.  But I wasn't able to concentrate on sight-reading viol and voice together, so I ended up taking a viol break and just singing.  Several other people did the same.

Each evening had a concert or an event, and impromptu sight-reading parties were hosted in various dorm rooms and suites.  I joined one of the latter, but spent most of it sketching the players, as my brain couldn't manage a 24/7 experience with the viol.

Unfortunately, the week was soon over, and I was back at the 40-hour work week.  And then I was laid off.  So all my plans to rent a viol from VdGSA went south.  When my aunt decided several months later to start viol lessons, it was one of those strange exercises in serendipity.  I envied, but could not emulate her.

Still, I remained on numerous mailing lists, and last month I received notice that the Pacific Northwest Viols were meeting in Portland (instead of the usual Seattle venue) for a Play Day.  Tim Scott, local gambist (and, coincidently, one of my teachers at the Conclave), was the lead teacher for the day.  I checked with the President, and he assured me that my lack of experience would not be a problem.  He also arranged for Tim to loan me a tenor viol.  I decided to give it another shot, and I invited my aunt to join me.   Tim let me pick up his tenor ahead of time, so I could try to bring back some of the hard-won skills from a year and a half ago.

Unfortunately, I was busy the rest of the week and had no time to practise. I arrived at Trinity at 9:30 am on Saturday, worn out from a persistent cold and too many activities, and worried about the home tasks that I was leaving for D to take care of.

There was an artisan craft fair in Kemper Hall, which was where I expected to find the group.  But a woman was on the lookout for people carrying viols, and she directed me to a room at the top of the stairs.  There I discovered my aunt, sitting on a bench outside the room, waiting for me.  She had taken the Max in from Hillsboro, and had decided to not bring her rented viol on the train.  Partly, she was worried that the viol might be damaged, and partly she thought the music would be way over her head.

We walked into the room.  Chairs were set in loose semi-circles, 3 rows deep, facing the east wall.  Tim was already set up in the center focal point, and other people were putting stands together, opening cases, talking to friends, milling around to find the perfect place.  Basses were at the right, facing Tim, so I settled in the back towards the middle right.  L sat next to me and we talked while I looked through my old folder and tried to find a cheat sheet for interpreting the clef.  I checked the tuning (415!), and L said, "you're holding the bow like a violinist."  aaargh!

A vaguely familiar form settled next to me:  a tall man with squarish glasses, dark hair, well-marked eyebrows, slightly olive skin.  I introduced myself, and he turned out to be my contact, Lee Inman, and the president of PNV.  I thanked him again for his assistance and asked about logistics.  It was all very informal:  the signup sheets were on a long table by the door, and there was also a large manilla envelope for our $20 fee.  I signed up for the afternoon beginner class and coached session and took a copy of the newsletter and resource list.  Then I settled in for some Palestrina.

Tim took some time to set the context of the music and his reasons for choosing it.  I jotted down a few notes, which are now cryptic:  "Falop, Palestrina 1526-94, you'll never run out of music to play."  The group of 20 or so musicians starts in on a madrigal.  B asks if it wasn't the rule to only have one person on a part, and Tim explains that new research indicates otherwise.  It's clear that many of the players are both knowledgeable and obsessive about the details of the music, but I'm just struggling for the notes.  It's nice to have Lee next to me, playing my part and gracious about my many mistakes, "you're doing quite well, really."

We go through the madrigal (cosi la fama seriva) several times.  The others are working on style and musicality.  I am learning the notes.  Then we play the Alma Redemptis Mater, and finally several movements of the Missa Papae Marcelli.  I am having increasing difficulties managing my bow and keeping the viol propped in place, and I find myself curling awkwardly to support it and watch my bow.  This is clearly wrong, but I can't remember what to do about it.  The music is wonderful though, and I am frustrated by the knowledge that it's really pretty easy.  If I had my violin, I would be breezing through it.

By this time it's past 11:30, and time for lunch.  L and I walk up to Pizza Oasis, an old favorite of both of ours.  The day is cold and overcast, but NW is enchanting with its old buildings and autumn-colored trees.  We are enjoying our time together, away from our husbands, focused on beauty and art.

We stop by the craft fair for 10 minutes and then go upstairs again.  The beginner class is in the children's chapel.  We sit by the altar, with the short little benches facing us.  There are 4 of us, one to a part, and Lee is our teacher.  We spend some time on basic techniques.  I ask for tips on holding the viol and managing string crossings.  The first:  sit so you can stand up without leaning forward.  Feet are hip width apart, facing forward.  Now turn your heels in together until they touch, and rest the viol on your calves.  Adjust as necessary so the bow can clear your knees, but try to keep the viol fairly straight in front of you.  It's actually a very natural position, unlike the contorted violin posture, but it feels awkward to me.  And I can't watch the strings at all!

The bass player to my left asks about hand position for the fingering hand:  Hold your arm out, easily, and then pull it straight back.  Your fingers are flat against the finger board, not curved like the violin. And the bow arm?  There are differences in opinion about the hand position, but I like his advice to pretend that I am writing something on the floor with the tip of the bow:  it helps me get the bow nicely balanced.

Now for my second question.   Oy, I have to practise!  The problem is that I need to use my ears to figure out where to place the bow.  The official distance is 3 fingers above the bridge, but you can't look to see where the bow is, and you can't measure, so you have to hear when the sound is right and get used to the feel of it.  Then, for crossing the strings, I need to get my muscle memory engaged.  So it's play the bottom string, then the top, then the bottom, then the top.  Over and over and over.  Then play the bottom string, then the next string.  Repeat.  Again. And again. Then the bottom string and the 3rd string.  Etc.

This could get boring.

We have further discussion about bowing technique.  Lee says to ignore the rule about playing parallel to the bridge.  He demonstrates the graceful throwing motion, developed by early Homo Sapiens to kill from a distance and now just right for playing the viol.  He advises us to watch a great player and see how the bow tip dances.  Finally we start playing the Redemptor again.  And then we are through with the 1st afternoon session.

L  has been sitting next to me, asking questions and listening intently.   She talks with one of the students, and gets some information about his teacher.  She has enjoyed the day, but she is going to skip the last session, do a little shopping and try to get back home before her husband so she can be domestic in peace.  We hug and promise to be in touch after Thanksgiving to discuss Christmas.  I wish her a happy birthday, and she's gone.

By this time, my brain is starting to overload, and my muscles are fatiguing.  But, I don't want to miss out on the coached session.  I share the tenor part with another gracious musician, and Tim leads us through several sight reading sessions, ending with Scottish music which is quite delightful.  There are only 8 of us, so I get a bit more of his attention than I can absorb, and my bow is flailing around the strings.  It's time to pluck:  just like the Conclave.

I return the viol with thanks, and gather up my possessions, thinking I really need to do this more than once a year.

Fusing glass

Two years ago, right before I left MCL to join PSU, a work colleague organized a party at Jennifer Wells glass studio.  We made ear-rings and pendants and sun-catchers out of leftover glass pieces and frit and stringer.  It was one of the most delightful times I'd spent with those people, and I kept it in the back of my mind.  I kept getting e-mail notifications of classes and events, and I kept thinking, "maybe later."

This week, later finally arrived.  Five friends agreed to meet me at the studio, and I promised to bring wine and munchies.  As usual, there were a few glitches.  AK sprained her ankle and was a no-show, and I hit rush hour traffic en route to OHSU to pick up W.  But we got there.

"Oh look, there's Collage!"  Yes, I knew W would appreciate this place.  We walked up the driveway to the small, brightly-lit cottage, hidden from the street by a large Victorian house.  It's a utilitarian room, with bright overhead lights and long plastic-covered tables in the middle.   Plastic chairs surround the tables; rectangular tubs of glass shards of varying shapes and sizes are lined up the middle, sorted by color; round plastic dishes of frit are lined up on each side of the tubs.

Becca has set up our workspaces.  We each get a pair of goggles to protect our eyes from flying glass.  However, since we all wear glasses, those are set aside.  We also get a bottle of glass cleanser, a towel, a piece of paper, a bottle of Elmer's glue, a sharpened pencil, a Sharpie pen, a glass cutter and two mysterious implements with long handles.

As we wait for K and MC, we set up the munchies (wine, pita chips, hummus, veggies, cheese, bread, home-made chocolate chip cookies with walnuts.)  M has brought an amazing bar cookie, filled with her fabulous plum jelly and flavored with almond.  It's still warm.  Becca makes some "stale tea" for W and me and fusses about with space heaters.  The room is cold at first, because November has caught her off-guard.  I can't blame her, and it soon becomes comfortable.

We explore the walls, which are lined with projects, some before-and-after displays, tables and shelves filled with glass, tubes with stringer, special glass cutting areas, a sink, file cabinets, some moveable shelves with lunch trays (brings me right back to junior high.)  The place is jam-packed, but there is sufficient walk space and we start getting ideas for our own projects.  M finds the stars ornaments and suggests she just purchase them and pretend she made them. W finds an owl stamp and is very pleased.

K and MC arrive at the same time, and after some milling about, we settle in our places for a lesson.  The safety lecture is full of DUHs:   "don't brush glass off the table like crumbs," "keep your wine glass covered," "don't rummage in the glass bins with your fingers, use your pencil."    (However, later on I find myself starting to brush the frit away.  Oy.)  The mysterious implements turn out to be the nippers (used to snip small pieces and create curves and circles) and the runners (which are used to cleanly break a piece of glass along a scored line.)  We practice scoring and breaking the glass and then we are ready to start our projects.

Since I made earrings last time, I decide to make one big piece.  I opt for a 14" round bowl.  I chose a lovely iridescent green glass, and Becca cuts the circle for me.  Although I had planned on a mosaic effect, I find myself starting on my favorite design, a half-Chartres labyrinth.  You begin with 6 concentric circles and then create the winding pathways.  I draw the circles with the sharpie, knowing that any mistakes will be fired out.  I start running glue along the lines, and Becca thoughtfully brings me a glue brush.  She suggests fine black frit for my lines, and I go slowly:  glue a little, sprinkle a little, tap the excess off onto the paper, pour it back into the dish, repeat.   At one point I realize that I forgot to clean the glass, and I have to start over.  Apparently glue and sharpie ink will fire out, but finger oils will not.  While I believe in organic art, I don't want random fingerprints on my bowl.

As I work, I think about how I can make it more interesting.  My final choice is to use various colored blobs (pre-fired scraps.)  I create an outer circle of blob stones, and then set up more stones at key points of the labyrinth.  I can't wait to see how it turns out.  Becca will fire it partway and then set it in the mold to finish firing.

The others work diligently, their projects as individual as they are themselves.  K is making mosaic tiles.  M is using copper foil to stamp out minute dragonflies.  She is making an ornament for her friends who just moved into their own communal house (the Dragonfly House.)  MC and W are also using the foil.  MC is making earrings, I think.  W is using stringer and blobs (and the owl stamp, of course.)  I decide to try one pair of earrings and unconsciously imitate W's design.  What I love about craft is how differently everyone approaches the activity.  Yet all the choices are valid, and these bits of glass will be fused into things of beauty, rounded, flattened, melded.  We are none of us able to predict the finished product, which adds mystery to the process.

In all, it's a hopeful sort of activity.  You work, you experiment, and you see what happens. Usually, you are surprised, but usually you are happy with the result.  And you can't ask for much better from a few hours of work.

I know an old lady who swallowed a fly

This is one of those days that gets away from you.  I was insomniac last night, so I slept in, then spent some time cleaning up after last night's supper party (D had already run two loads) and after that puttered with various domestic and fiscal tasks.  I never got out of my house dress and, other than a few abortive trips looking for the Sunday paper, never got out into the glorious November sunshine.

Around 5 p.m. I decided that it was time to eat some comfort food.  The daylight was fading and the cold was increasing, which means it's pasta time!  I cooked up some macaroni, grated some cheese (sharp cheddar and parm,) chopped some parsley, peeled some garlic and loaded the press, and pulled out the butter.  I tossed the prepped ingredients into the drained macaroni and added salt and pepper.  Voila!  a feast for the eye and the palate.

I noticed the red blend on the counter:  Chateau St. Jean's Cinq Cepages.  It was very tasty, but being 75% cab sauv, it was not appropriate for last night's fish.  So it was our prep wine, and there was about a half bottle left.  I decided to uncork it for tonight's garlicky meal.  It was a perfect match, and I alternately sipped wine,  ate pasta, and read the Sunday paper (finally delivered.)

I reached the end of my pasta and tossed back the last of the dark red wine.....there on my tongue was something rough and dreg-like.  So I spit it back in the glass only to discover that it appeared to have legs and wings.  Gaaaack!  One of the cluster flies which has been circling around the kitchen for the last week!  Braaaack!  I ran to the kitchen, and started gargling.

Perhaps I'll die.

Remembering Louie

Yesterday I said goodbye to Louie.  He looked more like a collie than usual, with his long nose pointing at me, at H, at E, then down into his fluffy tail.  He watched us suspiciously:  something was up.  Why were we sitting on the floor in a circle around him?  Why were we petting him, watching him, crowding him, giving him bacon grease?  Why weren't we knitting and drinking tea and talking story and letting him rest?

He was very, very tired and needed help to stand up and lap at the cup of grease.  The fur on his head was very soft, but the rest was matted with urine crystals.  So, I limited myself to petting his head and ears and he continued to watch me.  It was wrong that he didn't jump up and smile at me.  

Today I looked through old notes and found two haiku from the Sept 13, 2008 dog-sitting session:

Innocuous walk,
But each fenced yard holds danger:
dog confrontations. 

Louie loves me, sure,
but what about voice command?
Not so much, it seems. 

Moving the Chi

This was the last Tai Chi Chuh session for the fall term.  We do the entire practice, and then share a potluck.  As steward, I'm responsible for collecting class evaluations, so I had to show up, despite my throat.  Technically this should not have been a problem, as the main symptom now is the laryngitis, and you don't talk during the practice.

However, I was also at a work training session this morning, and the home front was pretty exhausting when I returned home.   The logistics of taking care of daily business were complicated by communication difficulties, and we ended up retreating to our separate corners and licking our wounds.

I did, however, find the energy to make a quiche and an apple crumb pie.  The latter was a peace offering to D (he brought me flowers for his offering, and went out for the apples.)  The quiche was for the potluck, and it was totally made up of leftovers and staples.  The crust was a leftover from the apple/green tomato pie I made 2 weeks ago: L's fabulous recipe makes 4 crusts, and since it takes 1 egg, there's no good way to cut the recipe down.  The filling included pesto cubes from my annual pesto production, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and, of course, the egg custard.  The whole thing was superb, and very pretty, with dots of red and green peeking through the yellow, white and brown top, cooked just right.

Baking is really the easiest way to be creative:  take what you have, substitute what you must, add in an unconventional spice or ingredient, et voila!  Uniqueness happens.

But I was still wiped out, and the drive to the class was disconcerting.  It was dark, the streets were crowded, and the bicyclists were invisible.  When I got to Chapman and Lownsdale Squares, the former Occupy Portland sites showed stark under the brilliant klieg lights.  The ginkgos' graceful golden fan-lined branches were surreal bits of glowing beauty, enclosed in chain link fences, standing amidst the pounded earth and cement.

I wondered what I was doing, going on my usual rounds while the economy crumbles and my own life is a microcosm of the larger disintegration.  But I got to church, plugged the meter, gathered up my quiche and paperwork, and went to class.

And, magically, it was all okay.  We stood sock-footed in the circle, eyes focussed on middle distance, quiet music filling the silence.  From the dark windows, headlights flashed the news that rush hour was still in force, but it was a distant intimation of the city.  Together we created a mountain retreat, arms and legs moving through platter, drum, ball, taffy, gathering in the energy, pushing it away, bringing it back.  I felt the familiar tingling warmth in my fingers, wondered if I would ever develop the "flutter," and then let that thought go:  what matters is the practice, the rest will come if it will.

And now I type while D and R play cards and Marc Cohn sings from Pandora.  Life is good, and there are so many forms the energy can take.  I just have to trust that if I pay attention, I will be supported by all of them.

Silenced!

This is officially the beginning of Week Three for my cold.  It's nothing new, I am usually susceptible to these respiratory things, and they usually drag on (and on).  However, today I woke up literally unable to speak above a whisper.

D called the doctor and made me an appointment for 3:30 p.m.  Up to that point, our day was full of whispered comments on my side and irritable "WHAT?"s from his side.   Or his favorite, "You're mistaking me for a hearing man."

(This is also not that new for us, but the blaring TV is usually the culprit.)

So we go to the doctor, and he checks for strep and bronchitis and actually there's not much wrong with me except the irritated throat.  Prescription:  treat the symptoms and give the voice a rest.  That is, NO TALKING!

This is where I realize how very much I use my voice.   I coo to the pets.  I talk back to D.  I sing.  I babble.  And occasionally I even try to communicate.  I found myself trying to invent a gestural language on the fly, and D's response was "I refuse to play charades."

A few weeks ago my friend S went to a new dentist and found herself defaulting to ASL, and, wonder of wonders, her dentist knew sign.  But what are the odds of that happening?    Still, I wish I had that default language, even though I only know two people who sign (and one is living up north.)  Or I wish that more people knew how to lip-read.

Actually, I occasionally think about learning sign,  but I know that my follow-through will be non-existent.  I keep trying and failing to revive my long-lost German and Spanish, and if I can't manage with languages I learned as a child, what are the odds my adult brain can learn a new language?

Instead, I am semaphoring and writing illegible notes to D and he is saying things like "What's that?  You say Timmy's fallen down the well?"

I'm thinking, though, that this is where I learn afresh how uncomfortable I am with silence.  Not just the absence of talk, but the absence of my own voice.  We had K and J over for dinner last night, and I really wanted to talk story, but already my voice was failing.  I would rasp out things like, "Tell me more about Hawaii," in an attempt to put the conversational onus on them, but then I kept wanting to respond in kind.   It's not that I think what I have to say is that earth-shaking, it's that I don't feel connected if my mouth isn't flapping.  Which is why, I suppose, I am so sensitive to being interrupted.

Imagine how it feels to have my voice totally silenced.

Haiku for a sick day

Yellow walnut leaves
Glow in the aqueous light
Of a rainy day.

He watches football.
A tree mascot dances, and
I fold some more cranes.

Sadness:  avoiding
Sugar and milk products, waiting
For my throat to heal.

Do I have a Personality?

D and I both took the Stanton Survey this week.  This is an extremely bizarre set of questions, designed to measure one's integrity.  It consists of a number of belief statements that are a variation on this theme:  "true or false: most people are dishonest."   When I handed it in yesterday, I said, well, this either proves I'm incredibly naive or I'm a liar.  Because I basically said, over and over, "My real name is Pollyanna, and I believe there is good in EVeryone, I invented the Glad Game and I am so glad glad glad to have the opportunity to work a low-paying job."  We have yet to know if D passed it, but apparently I did:  I go in for training next week.

Of course, I've taken numerous personality tests over the years.  The Keirsey is bizarre, too.  Sometimes I am an introvert, sometimes an extrovert; sometimes Sensing, sometimes Feeling, sometimes Judging, sometimes....you get the picture.  In 2006, I saved one of the tests:  it said my temperament is that of an "idealist."  Er, really?  Perhaps only an idealist could have passed the Stanton Survey.

I have taken a number of joke personality tests which seem to have just as much validity as these pseudo-scientific ones.  I have discovered which Jane Austen and Middle Earth characters I am, for example.  (Not that I can remember them;  I think I was Elizabeth Bennett, but I also think I loaded the dice for that one.  Lord knows I didn't want to be Fanny Price.)  And then there's this smiley face made up of words:  the first four words you notice describe you.    I am lovely, honest, lazy, and dramatic.   Well, yes.

But really, what is it about these tests that is so seductive?  Just as interviews are a poor substitute for working with someone, the tests are a poor substitute for a good interview process.  While I understand the need for an interview (you can't work with everyone before you hire them,) I'm not clear that there is a need for the test.  The theory seems to be that no one can be trusted to figure out another person.  This is a skill mankind should have honed through the ages, a basic survival tactic.  What happened to it?  And, why do we trust these random tests over a one-on-one interaction?  Why do we take the tests for our own amusement and bemusement?  Are we really such strangers to ourselves that we need someone else to interpret our behaviors?

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout describes the shorthand the adults use to interpret each other.  All Bufords Walk Like That, The Truth is Not In the Merryweathers, etc etc.  There, generations of observations are coming into play.  But in our overcrowded cities, we don't have that tool.  We have networks instead, and those operate on a very superficial level.  Maybe that's why we feel so insecure in our people-judging skills, and are desperate to find someone else to do the job for us.

The Stanton Survey was devised in 1964, when I was 5 years old.  That's close to 50 years of experience with weeding out potential problems.   It's hard to believe that it really works, but surely a company wouldn't fork over the money if it didn't have positive results.  After all, it passed me, and we all know I'm a monster of integrity.

Except when it comes to answering personality quizzes.

Refer to blog title

So, I get up, groggy with sleep and my ever-escalating cold, just wanting to feed the dog and go back to bed.   My usual ritual is:  feed dog, start coffee, pee, get newspaper, settle in to the crossword.  On automatic pilot, I walk into the studio bathroom.  I'm thinking, oh yeah, we need to clean this place up today for tomorrow's guests.  I glance at the floor to see how dirty it is, and I see....feathers.

Just two of them.  Little gray-brown ones.

Sigh.

I look under the sink cabinet.  No corpse.  I check behind the shower curtain.  Clean as the proverbial whistle.  Hmm.  And then I see my cat, silhouetted against the shoji screens that are pulled against the 3 large front windows, her blackness and skinniness accentuated by the white screens.  She is standing on the sofa back, stretched tall, paws batting at a fluttering soft grey silhouette on the other side of the screen.

Shit.  I almost prefer to find a corpse.   I scoop up the cat (and she is not going quietly) and shut the bird up alone in the studio while I ponder what to do next.

Maybe if I wait long enough E will find it and deal with it.

Peeing in a cup, and other indignities

I was standing at the kitchen sink, watching the water stream over the dishes, trying to live in the moment. Suddenly I heard my voice say, "I'm going to be working in a mall during Christmas season." From behind me, D's voice rose over the sound of frying sausage. "The reality just hit you, huh?"

Can you really use the word "reality" to describe one of the most surreal rituals of the year? For years I have avoided the malls, the stores, the frenzy. I make my gifts, I wrap presents sans tape because one year I ran out of tape and refused to go to the store for more. Now I take an extra 10 minutes per package, folding paper carefully and securing the ends with carefully wound ribbons. I love the season for the lights, the decorations, the smell of ginger and cinnamon and baked butter and sugar. But the frenzy of the mall is unbearable to me. At the best of times, I find myself overstimulated and enervated after 15 minutes in a mall. And now, for $9.36/hr and a 40% employee discount, I am deliberately planning to spend my weekends in a mall. During the Christmas season.

Not only that, I am, for the 2nd time in two months, going to be peeing in a cup. I went in yesterday after my interview, but I couldn't find my ODL. I couldn't find it today either, but I was sure that my City employee ID would work for me. Nope, has to be a state issued ID, or a passport. I don't get why some governments are better than others. Nor do I get why the store can't use the City's paperwork. How many cups must I pee in before I am finally employed as a regular non-temp employee? Do they really think I could become a drug addict and felon in less than a month?

It's a humiliating process. You sign in, they check your ID. You sit with your papers until they call your name. You can't drink more than 12 oz of water ahead of time, or your pee will be diluted. You go into a dingy lab area, and you lock your purse into small box. You wash your hands with water only. You remove all possible clothing that could be hiding a sample. A young man in a white coat hands you the cup. You go into a room, and they magnanimously let you shut the door while you pee. But, you can't flush the toilet, and you can't wash your hands until they bag and tag your sample and you sign the label.

I'll be doing that tomorrow, because I finally found my ID (it was in my purse, having snuck into the folds of some papers.) Then, in 2 weeks, if PPS calls me back, I'll probably get to do it again, as well as pay for fingerprinting. Again, for a temporary on call job.

Yet, somehow I am happy. Despite the various indignities, I find myself absorbed by the process of finding work and learning new ways of existing. I like having an irregular schedule. I feel like I am in control of this bizarre adventure called unemployment.

But I still don't want to pee in a cup.

Why I am not creative

He's standing in the doorway, forehead wrinkled in simulated chagrin, eyes triangular, bottom lip thrust out in a pout.  I look up from the computer, smiling at his play-acting.  But maybe he's really hurt:  "Are you okay?"

Apparently he walked off the top stop at the front walk, en route to driving E to the emergency room.  She's my friend, and I should have been the one to take her; but I've been fighting a sore throat for a week now, and he wanted me to stay in my chair, swaddled in a quilt, resting.

"Oh sweetie, do you need anything?"  Maybe a neck rub, he says.  Reassured, I promise to come up in a few minutes, as soon as I finish what I'm doing.

What I'm doing is trying to start this blog.  I'm fussing with templates, backgrounds, colors.  I don't know what I want to post, just that I want to be doing something creative with my time.  After a year of unemployment, I know that I need more creative structure in my life.

It's not that I have not been busy:  I've been focussed on our fledgling bed and breakfast, on keeping the domestic front organized, on applying for jobs and updating my resumes.  It's not that I have been lonely: I have reconnected with the friendships that used to sustain me, pre-Dave.  My dog and cat are snuggly (especially now that the weather has turned cold), and D continues to love me. In point of fact, it's not that my life lacks structure:  I have rehearsal Monday night, Lnet Tuesday morning, fiddling Wednesday night, scrabble Thursday night, yoga Friday morning, training walks on Wed/Friday mornings, assorted classes in meditation, Tai Chi Chuh, water aerobics.

So what is it?  It's that all this activity doesn't add up to anything, at least not anything I can put a name to.  Hence, this blog.  I want to take a few minutes every day to do some addition.  Maybe even some multiplication:  what do you get when you take 3 drawings and multiply them by 3 haiku?

But first, I need to find a way to deal with the (literal) bumps in the road.  It's so easy to be distracted by life's constant crises, like a beloved husband, lying in bed with bruised extremities and a recent dose of vicodin.  Surely it's more important to nurse a human than a putative creativity.

Maybe I can do both.  (Okay cat, get off my lap.)