ANN (-ual) ARBOR

Monday Inge and I made our annual Christmas shopping trek to Ann Arbor, an hour away from the farm.

We browsed Crazy Wisdom bookstore with all its pretties like these soaps on the right. We sipped coffee in the tea room on the second floor. We ransacked books, some for gifts, and some for ourselves.-

Books I leafed through:

~ Immersion Travel USA has ideas for visiting a place long enough to really get to know it, and maybe to volunteer and make a difference where you stay.

~ iBrain is Dr. Gary Small's book about how technology is shaping the way 20-somethings' minds develop, function and interpret information.

~ John Lennon: The Life is Philip Norman's new in depth biography of the Beatle.

I can't tell you which ones I bought, it's a secret.

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A few c-c-c o - l - d blocks away is another have-to stop: Hollander's School of Book and Paper Arts. You can buy everything you need to make a book. I've never done that. But I am in paper heaven walking the wood floor between racks of decorative papers, some of them home-made. In fact I start going into a trance, a defense so my systems don't overload with so much beauty.

Is there anything more full of promise than a blank journal? Well, maybe a baby.

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It was freezing cold outside, windchill around 0°F (-18°C), so we didn't stay in the mini windy city as long as usual. Didn't even stay for dinner. Too bad the Michigan Theater didn't have any matinees. Ok I have to explain why the photo below is so good. Those of you not from Michigan may not realize that two of the universities in this state are major rivals: Michigan State University (aka "Michigan State" or "State" or "MSU" - GO GREEN!) and the University of Michigan (aka "Michigan" or "U of M" or "UM" - GO BLUE!). I could write an essay on the cultural phenom between these two schools. To summarize: Michigan State (where I work and earned my BA - woohoo!) is in East Lansing and began as an agricultural university referred to often and a bit condescendingly as "Moo U." The University of Michigan is in Ann Arbor and is known for its law school, med school and other high falutin hoity toity snobby entities. (Oh! Did I say that? Forgive me, Ginnie! You're one of the nice, humble alums.) They are both excellent research institutions, but there is little love lost between the schools' sports fans, and otherwise. Anyway, I could go on and on. But I enjoy walking up Liberty Street in Ann Arbor - home of "Michigan" - in the photo below, and looking at the two theater marquees that spell out "Michigan State" - bwaahhaaa.

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BTW, this Michigan Theater is a wonderful historic artsy icon. You can still hear organ music before the movie starts; the 1927 pipe organ rises up from under the stage.

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Today's ornament:

Dorothy: "There's no place like home."

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Florida ruby reds

Letitia wants beach? Letitia gets beach.













I got this old tablecloth from my mom, although I am guessing it came from her mother, Grandma Olive.






When I was a kid I watched my parents dust halves of grapefruit - the yellow variety - with sugar before eating. Then in adolescence I watched my red-headed sister Susan eat ruby red grapefruit from Florida without sugar, always exclaiming "It doesn't need sugar, it's so sweet!" To myself I said, "notta chance." I was pretty sure the real reason she liked them was that they were pink, her favorite color, which sadly she didn't wear for years because you weren't supposed to if you had red hair. Finally as an adult I tried the ruby, and all I can say is, what a shame all those wasted years. If you don't eat the pith, the fruit is scrumptiously sweet.

In April a few years ago Don and I arrived at my niece (Susan's daughter BTW) and her husband's house in Sarasota, Florida, for a few days, pulled into their driveway, opened the car door, and wham! Got smacked in the face with a soft pillow of the sweetest fragrance I'd smelled since jasmine in Pasadena. A blossoming grapefruit tree arches over their driveway. I kept trying to think of excuses to run to the store just so I could get in and out of the car and fill my head with that intoxication again.

I may live in a Winter Wonderland, but this time of year one of the sweetest treats is eating pink grapefruit from Florida.

Proper grapefruit utensils help build anticipation. With the grapefruit knife carve and separate the flesh from membranes and pith, first with the double blade end along straight sides, then with the curved blade along the round edge. Don gave me this knife for Christmas the year I remember as the best gift bonanza ever: all cool stuff for the kitchen.

When that's done a grapefruit spoon has a sharpish point that helps you scoop out any remaining attached flesh down in those triangular valleys so you can slurp the juicy fruit into your mouth. This one is from another Susie - my dad's sister, Auntie Sue.




Grapefruit has to be eaten in a bowl, then don't forget to squ- e - e -e -ze it out and drink the last drops of juice when you've dug out every morsel of fruit you can. Oops, don't choke on the seeds.





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Today's ornaments:

Most years we picked up ornaments for Lesley and Peter that matched. They were pretty little when they got these stuffed nursery toys. Lesley's dolly has a lovely ivory porcelain face (and so does Lesley).

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slow winter

Almost everything slows, like precipitation taking its time getting to the ground in the form of snowflakes. Not the finches though - quickly scooping thistle seed into their gullets, flashing glances to see if they're being watched. But the photographer is slow and stealthy, the lens is long, and they are captured. I'm grateful all we have to collect out-of-doors these days are photographs and firewood from the corncrib - the lefthand building above. (Don collects eggs, they're sort of indoors in the coop. Thank you, ladies.) Thank you, farmers in a warm climate, and truck drivers who bring food to our stores.

In 1st grade Peter punched airy holes in the tree, below, and pasted colored tissue paper behind to glow through like ornaments. Don's 3rd graders reprised this decoration last week with wreaths, trees and snowflakes. Click on it to see the colors better.

Winter slowing satisfies a craving to sit long and look out a window (not that I need a certain season for that). It's also time for reading a dense book by Henry James (so many commas and clauses in each sentence!) that I would normally read the first few pages of and shelve on top of other unfinished books for another day, which would never come in spite of good intentions. (Sometimes you get what you need from a book in the first chapter, at least in non-fiction . . . ) But after hearing Ann Patchett (whose Bel Canto I also want to read), talk about James' The Ambassadors the other day, I was inspired to push through it, in spite of poor reading comprehension, something I struggled with as an English major: I have to read slowly and sometimes re-read passages again and again. I have to read slowly and sometimes re-read passages again and again. I have to read slowly and sometimes re-read passages again and again. (Oh no, that was a James-esque multi-clause multi-comma sentence.) It wasn't until Don told me a couple years ago what he teaches his 3rd graders, that my comprehension began to improve: Visualize it as a movie in your mind. (You good readers are probably thinking: Duh.) What Don taught me was like punching holes in a book and letting the light through, like Peter's tree.

Another reading comprehension trick - besides not falling asleep - is explained in this cute 2-minute video for parents and their kids: predicting what is going to happen in the story. Following these ideas, maybe one day before I die I'll read as speedily and voraciously as finches eat thistle seed!

If like me you haven't read Henry James before and want to give him a go, you might consider starting with his fairly short tale "Brooksmith" about an upstairs manservant who has the "misfortune of being intelligent." Love this quote from it: ". . . anything that is supremely good produces more acceptance than surprise." It took me 3 years to finish it, but it might only take you an hour, hehe, just kidding. "Brooksmith" comes more easily than The Ambassadors. (When you click on "Brooksmith" it will take you to the Introduction. Click on "enjoy your reading" at the bottom of that page to get to the wonderful tale.)

Painting of the woman in green reading is by Félix Augustin Milius (French, 1843-1894).

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Paradise, and Hell: lost

With head, hands, wings or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

. . . Hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

John Milton was born 400 years ago today. When Milton began writing Paradise Lost in 1658 at age 50, he had been blind four years. Then for the next five years he recited the entire work to a series of assistants who wrote it down for 40 minutes every morning. Apparently he became quite annoyed if they were late. "Milton was said to have grumbled around the house, 'I want to be milked. I want to be milked.'" (Read or hear more surprising facts about Milton in National Public Radio's little piece played Sunday.)

I never read Paradise Lost, or any other Milton, but as a kid I looked through my dad's oversized 1865 copy of the book again and again, at the illustrations of Gustave Doré shown here. (Another book I got, lucky me.) Embedded in my brain are pen drawings of Lucifer - Prince of Heaven - falling from grace (example above), and of Adam and Eve being cast out of Paradise (example below). I remember feeling awed by the beauty and depth of the drawings while at the same time being stumped that God would - or could - be threatened by anyone and have to cast them out. Yet the power of the drawings pointed at the power of God, and somewhere in those batlike wings of Lucifer and in the soft vulnerability of Eve, the story did its job. I was a very obedient girl.

Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon.

Hell lost

If you are interested and have time, there was a related (in my mind) story that was also on NPR earlier, on Ira Glass's "This American Life," about Carlton Pearson, pentecostal pastor of 5,000 who fell from grace when he declared that God told him there is no Hell. When he began preaching that new theology, he was of course declared a heretic by the likes of Oral Roberts, Billy Graham and the whole evangelical community, and his congregation dwindled to 200. Makes me wonder which is more costly: Loss of Paradise, or loss of Hell?

That to the highth of this great argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.

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Today's ornaments:

Peter just arrived back from his band's cruise ship gig in the Caribbean, bringing these stunning etched gourd ornaments - a pair of owls for me, a hummingbird for Don - crafted by an artisan in Bonaire, a Dutch island colony still quite untouched. They reminded Pete of the gourds his dad grows on the farm. It's time to do some etching!

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Pygmalion, Cinderella & Guess Who's Coming to the Ball?

Isaac Mizrahi's design for Malia, Michelle and Sasha Obama

While Women's Wear Daily published sketches of designer ball gowns for Michelle Obama to wear Inauguration night (she will likely choose a different designer, what WWD and the designers did there was just for fun), a U.S. businessman named Earl Stafford was conjuring up his own inaugural ball. Prompted by the Washington Marriott's $1 million Build Your Own Ball offer, he decided to throw a People's Inaugural Ball for 1,000, one third of whom will be homeless folks, battered women, disabled soldiers, and terminally ill patients. Stafford heads the Stafford Foundation, which is committed to the underserved, marginalized and distressed.

The people will be pampered in a luxury hotel for 3 days, and provided with tuxedoes and ball gowns, hair dressers and beauticians for the event.

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It's easy for me to start an argument with myself over this.

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"Balls are silly."

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"Yeah, but this is an important milestone in history, and it should be marked with a grand celebration."c-

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"Michelle will make a statement with the designer she chooses."
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"Who cares?"

"Me, maybe."
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"There are better ways to spend $1million (not these). And how will those people feel going back to their misery?"
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"Well, Mr. Stafford does head a foundation to help them. Maybe their lives will improve with his help, beyond 3 nights. And wouldn't you love a chance to do what Earl Stafford is giving these people a chance to do?"
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"Um, I dunno, wearing an uncomfortable dress, and having to talk to people I don't know for 3 or more hours?"
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"Yeah, but maybe Michelle and Barack will stop by." -

Mr. Stafford said: The People's Inaugural Project offers the underprivileged in our society a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come to our nation's capital and join in the watershed inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. It's a historic investment for our foundation.

Illustration for Charles Perrault's Cinderella from Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé: Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye(1697). Gustave Doré's illustrations appear in an 1867 edition entitled Les Contes de Perrault. Second of three engravings (from wiki commons)

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Today's ornaments:


Lesley and Peter made these from yellow construction paper when we lived in İstanbul in the late '80s. The yellow has faded in these past 20 years, and some glitter has worn off. Like Turkish carpets, they have grown more valuable with age.

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new header, again

Yep. I changed my header again. Whenever I opened my page, the last one just didn't say to me, "yeah, that's it." And because I love play-play-playing, I made a new one. I plan to keep this one here for the winter.

I think.

If you're like me, you like change. If you're not - sorry to change things up so fast. I kept my curious little girl standing at the side, looking on. I think she needs to stick around.

But hey, this kind of change is free! And there's no waste piling up in a dump.

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clothing, like part of your skin

I don't remember where I saw or heard it recently, someone wrote nostalgically about how clothes used to be worn like part of your skin: worn in.

In junior and senior high school in the late '60s and early '70s, I sewed many of my own clothes. Then stores like TJMaxx and Marshall's appeared - maybe that was when sweat shops proliferated - and many of us Susie homemakers stopped sewing. Why bother sewing to save money, when you're probably not going to spend less than those bargains? I kept sewing dresses and doll clothes for Lesley, because I enjoyed it. Along with bargain clothes stores came fuller closets and disposable clothes. It didn't seem to matter so much if you bought something, wore it one season, and gave it to Goodwill.

Things had really changed from earlier in the century. When we lived in a big 1920s Arts & Crafts house before moving to the farm, you could see from the tiny bedroom closets how few garments people had when the house was built. They didn't even have rods for hangers. There were just hooks around the three short closet walls. Maybe for two or three dresses? Or two pairs of pants and a couple of shirts? If you had one good outfit, for Sundays, weddings and funerals, that had to stay pretty nice. If you had one or two everyday outfits, those got worn and transformed into a second skin. It isn't easy to find a bargain and the quality of garment that feels good next to your skin, even before it's worn in. I can sometimes find them at thrift or consignment stores. Sometimes I shop new for something well made and designed if I know I'll wear it a while and it's a staple, like good black pants for work. And then I look for sales. But wanting to be less of a consumer I'm just not shopping for new clothes much, trying to recycle from those second hand stores, and I've slimmed my closet way down, though I sure couldn't fit all my clothes on a few hooks. Also, I am wearing clothes longer and allowing them to get a little softer and fuzzier than I used to. I guess that resembles my first skin too, ha.

my sister Nancy picked up this little vintage linen top for a few dollars at an antique store

Apparently resale stores are surging because of the economic downturn (good for those who want to sell their own and for those who want to spend less on clothes), so last week NPR reported on Encore Resale where you can find a "bargain" for $2000 instead of $3500 (for example), where they sell "Chanel, Hermés, Prada, Gucci, Armani, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, Oscar de La Renta and Judith Leiber as well as many other coveted labels"? I loved hearing one woman say she's not shopping there because she has to save money, but because, well you never know what might happen. I wonder how many people who listened to that report could relate to it.

Lesley, who lives in NYC, told me about Bag, Borrow or Steal, where you can "borrow" - i.e., rent - a designer handbag (and watches, sunglasses, and jewelry too). Are you kidding me? The bargain here is that instead of laying down $1,695 for this leather Prada Cervo Antik Tote, you can "borrow" it for a mere $77/week or $225/month! Now that's some premier, supple skin. Is there another planet people are living on, and no one told me? -

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I'm joining Anet, posting an image of ornaments now till Christmas. Lesley crafted these four 5 1/2" felt doves with vintage buttons. I hung them on Peter's painting "Gurtie" from high school (in the manner of Peter Max).

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Click on image below to see the details.

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