tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64982994137548242112024-03-13T10:10:05.988-04:00New Best Friends ForeverAll the stuff that's fit to share Kate Bufordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07405606246508872579noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-65137826101991999312015-09-30T14:24:00.002-04:002015-09-30T14:43:42.921-04:00A Writer Edits Her Own Life #2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3O8UcMgB2cY/VgFpPZbA4zI/AAAAAAAAAaI/aitIp1BOu8I/s1600/NBFF%2B--%2BDesk.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3O8UcMgB2cY/VgFpPZbA4zI/AAAAAAAAAaI/aitIp1BOu8I/s400/NBFF%2B--%2BDesk.JPG" width="320" /></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>My desk in Charlottesville, VA</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The final editing of a book -- sometimes called "killing your baby" -- is i<strike>ndeed</strike> a ruthless process. That phrase you love? Cut it. The cozy word which adds <strike>really </strike>nothing to your sentence? Delete.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-size: small;">My <a href="http://www.newbestfriendsforever.com/2015/08/editing-your-own-life-1.html#more">recent radical downsizing </a>before moving from a big house tin Lexington, Virginia to a small one over the Blue Ridge in Charlottesville, was like being my own big red pencil. I slashed through stuff as my Knopf editor whacks away at my prose. "Think harder!" he says.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: small;">I thought harder about each and every book in the house, selling about half of them to a used bookstore in Charlottesville (Heartwood Books). Kept: all the old <i>Elizabeth and Her German Garden </i>hardcovers from my Irish grandmother's library. Sold: any title that had no persuasive reason to be there. I looked hard, too, at each piece of furniture and asked myself: do I love this? What is its meaning to me? Things got existential fast.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-size: small;">Initially I thought I'd get rid of my California grandfather's desk in the photo above; it's so big and heavy and brown. But it had been in his office at UCLA, then in his library in Westwood down the street from the campus, and then in my uncle's office at the Institute for Governmental Studies at Berkeley. So much good history.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-size: small;">The cane armchair to the right of the desk? It was on the left as you entered the Los Angeles library. It had to come, too. The desk and the chair are best friends forever and must stay together.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;">Now: the Eastlake table in Charlottesville</span></td></tr>
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</span> <span style="font-size: small;">The Eastlake table of the California grandparents above was an easy YES. That was where their copies of <i>The New Yorker</i> were kept. My sister and I sat for hours on the floor, laughing at the cartoons. The table got repurposed</span><span style="font-size: small;"> from my old living room to the new bedroom. The painting of Goshen Pass in Rockbridge County, VA went from the old bedroom to the new. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-size: small;">And so it went, through more furniture, kitchen stuff, tools, appliances. OK, I did get a storage space for the overflow that would not fit in the new townhouse -- and am already thinking I don't need most of that stuff, either. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-size: small;">What happened was that not only did I get rid of my life's excess baggage, what was left looks so fresh in its new home. The desk is perfect and I wonder how I could ever have thought of leaving it behind. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-size: small;">A friend told me that what she loved about my Lexington house was that everything had a story behind it. Now it's time to put the most important things together to make a new narrative. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Like a well-edited book in which the spaces <i>between </i>the words that are left shimmer on the page with implied meaning -- less is <strike>definitely</strike> more.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BbAdjxZAvkU/Vglt-FWW13I/AAAAAAAAAas/plW8PUOf5Lg/s1600/NBFF%2B-%2BEastlike%2BLex%2B.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BbAdjxZAvkU/Vglt-FWW13I/AAAAAAAAAas/plW8PUOf5Lg/s320/NBFF%2B-%2BEastlike%2BLex%2B.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Before: The Eastlake table in Lexington (me in the mirror)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Instant Gratification: </span></h3>
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</iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-56996861589270210952015-08-25T18:10:00.000-04:002015-08-25T18:10:31.201-04:00Editing Your Own Life #1<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gPob2Y1VvgU/VdtemxKszAI/AAAAAAAAAZY/rT78aMvosAU/s1600/Skaggs%2B-%2BCooder.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="433" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gPob2Y1VvgU/VdtemxKszAI/AAAAAAAAAZY/rT78aMvosAU/s640/Skaggs%2B-%2BCooder.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ricky Skaggs, Sharon White, Ry Cooder </td></tr>
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The other night I was at a <a href="http://www.theparamount.net/2015/starr-hill-presents-ry-cooder-sharon-white-and-ricky-skaggs/">Ricky Skaggs/Ry Cooder/White Family gig</a> east of the Blue Ridge in Charlottesville, VA. The vibe was religious revival, the songs a mix of Gospel, folk, bluegrass -- and Grand Ole Opry, especially when the Whites jumped in with their heart searing harmonies. <br />
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The sold-out audience was ready to climb right in when Cooder belted out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFMbmJ7Sov0">"Take Me In Your Lifeboat." </a>And for the duration of the song, at least, I thought I'd died and gone where this great music magician will sing us all beyond that raging storm into Glory Land.<br />
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But when they got into "You Must Unload," an old <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug2CmMGR-XY">Blind Alfred Reed anthem</a>, the evening got personal. <br />
<a name='more'></a>It was a pointedly angry song for "now," Sharon White said, for our gross-income-disparity times, as Bernie Sanders calls for a Revolution:<br />
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<i>You fashion loving Christians, you'll surely be denied,</i><br />
<i>You're robbing God of treasure when you feed yourselves with pride...</i><br />
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</i> Cooder spat out the chorus to the One Percenters in the affluent C'ville audience, doing this stabbing twist of his left leg to the beat as his face grimaced the words:<br />
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<i>If you want to get to heaven, your future uphold, </i><br />
<i>You must, you must unLOAD!</i><br />
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</i> I felt suddenly virtuous, in synch with the times and ready for heaven. Though hardly a One Percenter, I had just done my part for the cause. I'd unloaded, radically downsizing earlier this month from a 4-bathroom, 5-bedroom, 3-level, 2+-acre house to a baby townhouse so small it almost qualifies as a <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/06/28/living_large_in_150_square_feet_why_the_tiny_house_movement_is_taking_off/">Tiny House</a>.<br />
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Everything is there because I love it, must have it and need it. The rest of the stuff has gone to Habitat or Goodwill. Living on less. The unloading process was cathartic. I even sold half my books. What's left pops, looks fresh and brand-new.<br />
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Like a piece of writing with the words that are not absolutely necessary cut ruthlessly out. I'm a writer and I'd just edited my own life.<br />
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<i>Instant Gratification: "It's not about the tiny house, it's about the life you're going to lead in it." Lindsay Abrams</i></h4>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-15043609799389751212015-05-02T00:00:00.000-04:002015-05-02T00:00:50.718-04:00Otters, a toad and a badger<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NISUYWdG-ZA/VT6eI6uCtiI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/-cvXT0S26Ms/s1600/CuriOdyssey%2B4-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NISUYWdG-ZA/VT6eI6uCtiI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/-cvXT0S26Ms/s1600/CuriOdyssey%2B4-15.jpg" height="640" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Otter Place at <a href="http://www.curiodyssey.org/">CuriOdyssey</a>, San Mateo, CA </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">Some of you will see where this is going from the title of this post. </span><br />
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Backing up: I am in the middle of this family <b>Experiment in Multi-Generational Living</b> out here in California (you go "out" west and "back" east, btw. Must be a holdover from pioneer/Manifest Destiny triumphalism. Native-American friends just shake their heads). </div>
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One of my assignments is to have fun two afternoons a week with Kevin, the five-year-old grandson, to break up his long Kindergarten day. Last week we went to CuriOdyssey, a science and wildlife center for kids south of San Francisco. I wanted to take Kevin there because it had <b>otters</b> and there are few things more fun than watching otters play in the water.<br />
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And that's what you see in the picture above: a bunch of kids (Kevin on the far right) and one adult, mesmerized as they watch two otters jump, slither, push themselves off the glass to zoom and twist faster. Pure joy in the water. </div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">There were lots of other animals at the center, too -- quick foxes, lots of birds, big turtles, a slow, shy badger, snakes, a plump toad -- over 100 mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. Kevin gazed at them all, but the otters transfixed him. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">I also wanted him to see the otters because shortly before this excursion we had started reading <i><b>The </b></i></span><i style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;"><b>Wind in the Willows</b></i><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">, that magical book about a community of wild animals in the English countryside messing about with boats in the river, getting into trouble with "motorcars" but always staunchly helping each other as friends. Best friends forever. It is the best kind of moral book.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">I had given the book to Kevin at Christmas, a little pocket-size edition with a dark red satin ribbon to mark your place, like a prayer book. Kevin loves opening the book and carefully taking out the ribbon to start reading and then putting it back into the pages when we stop for the night. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kevin's book, with the original Ernest Shepard illustrations</td></tr>
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</span> <span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">He never wants to stop, which at first surprised me. The book was published in 1908. The language is ornate and archaic. He can't understand many of the words. But he hears the cadence and, no doubt, my love of the book in my voice. He follows the plot regardless. He keeps track.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">We spent a long time that day at CuriOdyssey, especially at the Otter Place. As we drove back home, Kevin was quiet, looking out the window. Then he said: "You know, Mae-Mae, we saw otters, a toad and a badger." I held my breath, waiting. "Just like <i>The Wind in the Willows!</i>" he said. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the quiet, secret smile of an initiate. He gets that book and I hope he always does.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">Instant Gratification: <i>"Never in his life had he seen a river before..."</i></span></h4>
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</iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-82364504168958727062015-04-21T19:19:00.001-04:002015-04-22T17:09:12.596-04:00An Experiment in Multi-Generational Living<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Carlos, CA: T-Ball Team Photo Day</td></tr>
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This year was a dark, cold, snowy, miserable, endless no-good winter in the eastern United States. It was even the worst in living memory in the mountains of Virginia where I live most of the time. </div>
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In mid-January my daughter Lucy called from sunny, drought-ridden Northern California and said: "Mom, it's time you thought about moving back out here -- and," she added, "you could help out with Kevin."<br />
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That's the five-year-old grandson. Lucy was worried that the long day of Kindergarten (the new First Grade) plus the After School program until 6 pm was too much. By the end of the day, he was tired and cranky. With her job at Stanford, she couldn't give him the breaks he needed. His lawyer dad works in San Francisco, with many late nights. </div>
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Would I come out for a few months, she asked, and, for two days a week, take Kevin home in the middle of the day after Kindergarten ended? I can do my writing and editing work from anywhere. They'd fix up the downstairs bedroom for me. Kevin and I could go on expeditions to the many terrific activity sites around the Peninsula, below San Francisco, where they live in a small, cozy little town rather like Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, the one Lucy grew up in. I could see if going right back where I started from, California, made sense.<br />
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My son Will, who recently moved to Oakland from New York, volunteered to come over for one afternoon a week and spend the night. It was the first time my two children were living near each other since high school. And they are both so much nicer than they were then. So, they tell me, am I. </div>
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How could I say no? So, like thousands of boomer grandparents right now across the country, I said Yes and flew out to California on Valentine's Day. </div>
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We're eight weeks into our Experiment. After a sharp learning curve for me -- it's been awhile since I ran around after two small children -- it's working. Bless my son-in-law, Rob, for putting up with all this in-law family running in and out of the house pretty much all the time. There are lots of cousins, aunts and uncles in Northern California, too. Lots. In fact everybody in my family is here now except me.</div>
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I'll be posting more updates in the weeks ahead. Meanwhile, look at the photograph above, taken on Kevin's first day of T-Ball. Who would want to miss that? Not me.<br />
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Instant Gratification: <i>Put me in, Coach!</i></h3>
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=ss_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=t03b0-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B00T66M3B8&asins=B00T66M3B8&linkId=MMLWUSBILZQWZGIA&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"><br />
</iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-91094124500578111322015-01-30T14:37:00.000-05:002015-01-30T14:44:47.828-05:00My 5 (6) Best Blogs of 2014<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fWN-g4rrUjY/VMvaNJs3AhI/AAAAAAAAAXI/4Fjp-0Mr-J4/s1600/2014%2B-%2BBeach%2Bshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fWN-g4rrUjY/VMvaNJs3AhI/AAAAAAAAAXI/4Fjp-0Mr-J4/s1600/2014%2B-%2BBeach%2Bshot.png" height="400" width="264" /></a></div>
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Before we reach the end of January, 2015, here are some of the most popular NEW BEST FRIENDS FOREVER posts from 2014. Note to self: write more of them in 2015!<br />
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The word these days is that doing so-called expressive writing helps keep you sane and happy. Let's hope so.<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6498299413754824211#editor/target=post;postID=4584705498479728699;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=3;src=postname">Unexpected Friends</a><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6498299413754824211#editor/target=post;postID=4180119983543144837;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=10;src=postname">Walking Into the (Very) Old Picture</a><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6498299413754824211#editor/target=post;postID=7988997606718426386;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=5;src=postname">Ah, Rhubarb!</a><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6498299413754824211#editor/target=post;postID=2837105606174840303;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=7;src=postname">Spring Morning at the Kitchen Table</a><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6498299413754824211#editor/target=post;postID=5198107586524266319;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=8;src=postname">Finding An Old Best Friend in a Book</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6498299413754824211#editor/target=post;postID=6708154815380847791;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=2;src=postname">Conceal Everything</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-32374764221702081992014-09-22T14:11:00.000-04:002015-01-30T14:39:32.099-05:00New Best Laundry Friend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_1hf9yGew8/VCBlmzmYFNI/AAAAAAAAAW4/LGYCF6Zm-I4/s1600/WB%2BT%2Bshirt%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_1hf9yGew8/VCBlmzmYFNI/AAAAAAAAAW4/LGYCF6Zm-I4/s1600/WB%2BT%2Bshirt%2B2.jpg" height="640" width="604" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My favorite T-shirt. Used to be my son's. Says it all. </td></tr>
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We need backup teams to get through this life. What I call my Life Management Team is the lawyer, internist, dentist, therapist, mechanic, financial advisor (if we're so lucky to need one), handyman, manicurist, pest control guy, colorist, and so on that keeps me safe, solvent and sane. My family and friends keep me sane, too, but that's another kind of team.<br />
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And there's this team, the non-human group of bottles, cans, sprays, cleansers, polishes, brushes, boxes, and jars lined up on the shelf that you rely on to come through when you need them. The Product Team.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a3MOQIESKiQ/VCBidGrgfYI/AAAAAAAAAWs/4gbg_cTMg_4/s1600/Clorox%2B2%2B-%2B2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a3MOQIESKiQ/VCBidGrgfYI/AAAAAAAAAWs/4gbg_cTMg_4/s1600/Clorox%2B2%2B-%2B2.png" /></a></div>
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Today's tip from my personal Product Team to you is <b>Clorox 2 Stain Fighter & Color Booster </b>(Fight! Boost! Yeah!). Maybe you know all about this wonder laundry stain remover already. My mother never mentioned it, so I only discovered it recently after bright red Popsicle juice dripped on my favorite T-shirt.<br />
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Nothing worked to get it out and -- desperate, because there are memories associated with that shirt -- I went online to see if I could find a miracle. When one customer reviewer claimed to have gotten a nine-week-old strawberry cheesecake stain out of a comforter with Clorox 2, I thought I'd better let it try out for my Product Team.<br />
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Following the directions to the letter, I poured the stuff into the wash cycle<i> and</i> rubbed some directly onto the stain. When I later pulled the T-shirt out of the washing machine, the stain had disappeared, totally. So I tried Clorox 2 on older stains I'd given up on. They disappeared, too.<br />
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Funny how these small triumphs make such a life-changing difference.<br />
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Instant Gratification: <i>"Clean Your Home With Clorox"</i></h3>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-67081548153808477912014-08-13T07:11:00.000-04:002015-01-30T14:40:43.999-05:00Conceal Everything<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qsNv_NuNWLA/U-pHRcKLF3I/AAAAAAAAAVs/0RHOI5g7Gc4/s1600/Concealer%2Bon%2Bside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qsNv_NuNWLA/U-pHRcKLF3I/AAAAAAAAAVs/0RHOI5g7Gc4/s1600/Concealer%2Bon%2Bside.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
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It's almost the end of silly season, mid-August, 2014. But this summer has been anything but silly. It's been nonstop terrifying. Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, ISIS, US-Mexico border. Ebola and, now, Robin Williams gone too soon. There's more, but I don't want to think any harder right now. It's raining and the bed looks so inviting, so safe.<br />
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Time for something frivolous that will make you prettier, New Best Friends Forever. <i>When the times are bad, look good.</i><br />
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L’Oréal has come out with another great product: True Match Super-Blendable Crayon Concealer. You can keep this nifty little wand in your pocket, dab it everywhere and it blends in and lasts and lasts. What more could you want?<br />
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In the picture above I've plonked the concealer in the middle of this beautiful necklace from <a href="https://www.onekingslane.com/sales/40470">One King's Lane, their "Relaxed Romantic"</a> collection, an exact description of how I don't feel this August, 100 years after the start of World War I.<br />
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The pretty jewelry is a gift from my daughter, Lucy, which she gave me for no particular reason. Just for fun. <i>Carpe diem. </i>We love One King's Lane. I can't open the emails from them anymore, the stuff is so good.<br />
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Stiff upper lip everybody. The world is scary. Smile. Wear jewelry. Conceal everything.<br />
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Instant Gratification: <i>"Customizable Coverage"!</i></h4>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-45847054984797286992014-07-20T18:47:00.000-04:002015-01-30T14:09:50.286-05:00Unexpected Friends<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K9B4GGLQ8lQ/U8wdg33AhYI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/SmZxwqWLNjo/s1600/Mary+Jane+-+Milne.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K9B4GGLQ8lQ/U8wdg33AhYI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/SmZxwqWLNjo/s1600/Mary+Jane+-+Milne.png" height="222" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>What </i>is the matter with Mary Jane?</td></tr>
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I've been thinking a lot lately about how friends emerge in unexpected ways. Someone you've always thought of in one dimension -- a person who was an adult when you were a child, and the opposite -- can suddenly look new and different. A "new" friend -- no longer simply and primarily some kind of category like a teacher, an uncle, a grandparent, or your own child.<br />
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My Auntie Pat is 92 years old and lives in Maine. My mother's younger sister, she was always my favorite aunt. When I would have one of my temper tantrums, which evidently were frequent, she could always cajole me out of them by singing in her pitch-perfect voice or by reciting poems. <br />
<a name='more'></a>She was of a generation and culture that memorized poems, lots of them. They were often elocution exercises, meant to erase the harsh Northern Ireland accent. One of her favorites was this Victorian gem: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/omf2br5">"A Broken Heart" by R.S. Hichens</a>. She loved saying that last line, with a flourish: "One less thing to dust!"<br />
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Once, during one of our summer trips from California, I was ill and confined to an upstairs bedroom of my grandmother's house in Northern Ireland. A servant brought up a breakfast tray for me and my six-year-old self deliberately turned it upside down onto the floor. So, there.<br />
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Auntie Pat was sent up to deal with me. She sat on the bed and with a knowing, tolerant smile began to recite the A.A. Milne poem, "Rice Pudding": "<i>What </i>is the matter with Mary Jane?/She's crying with all her might and main/ And she won't eat her dinner -- rice pudding again."<br />
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I loved her for that then and always. She was pretty and funny and merry. A child's delight.<br />
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When I was married with two children and we moved from Virginia to New York, she immediately called and said, "Why don't you come up here to Maine for some R & R?" We did and it was the beginning of many trips north to visit, to ski, to help when her American (and only) husband, Uncle Carl, was dying. When I was getting divorced, she called and said, "I understand you're having a tough time." No judgment, just sympathy.<br />
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Since then I've gone about twice a year to see her where she lives alone in a house just off the main street of a tiny Maine town. I stay for two nights, no more. I bring in food and we talk about long ago in Northern Ireland. The older she gets the more truthful the memories become. It's like a veil lifting to reveal an alternate universe behind the family myths.<br />
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She was, like my mother, a war bride. They married Americans working for Lockheed at an airplane plant that was quickly thrown together with the Brits after Pearl Harbor. I am just about the only person on this side of the pond to whom all the names and memories she wants to share make any sense because I lived in Ireland when I went to college in Dublin.<br />
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But even without all that background, she is simply the best company. She can still find the humor in just about anything. She had to. Uncle Carl's work kept her and their four children moving from town to town, state to state, over and over again. During this last visit she told me that the Maine house was her fifteenth.<br />
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A couple of months ago I drove up from Virginia to see her. One sunny, clear June afternoon I persuaded her to come out for a very short walk up the road of her cul de sac. She had her cane in one hand and the other was hooked into my right arm. As we proceeded very slowly -- she bent over almost double, her white hair shining in the sun -- she pointed out the trees, the flowers, the beautiful valley that stretches out behind her house. She commented with her sharp wit on the idiosyncracies of the neighbors living in the houses along the way.<br />
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She quickly tired, hanging, now, on my arm, and we turned back. I suddenly had a premonition that this was the last time we would be together here, in this little piece of Maine. A week later Auntie Pat fell and had to go to the hospital and then into rehab. She can't live alone any more; the house is up for sale. She will go into some kind of assisted living near her son, my cousin, in Portland. I always thought she'd do better in a more social setting, where she could be, would be, the center of attention.<br />
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I look forward to more visits with this dear auntie who became, with time and age, one of my best friends, now and forever.<br />
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Instant Gratification: <i>When We Were Very Young, by A. A. Milne</i></h4>
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</iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-38656336103886663322014-06-04T09:32:00.000-04:002014-06-04T09:32:20.084-04:00The Perfect Flower<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Virginia house: Looking south, toward the Chessie Trail <br />
& the Maury River</td></tr>
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I'm not much of a gardener. At all. I say that so you don't get any idea that I'm one of those people who make things grow in the dirt and that this will be one more blog post about the joys of gardening. Gardeners are superior beings. But I am not one of them. </div>
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Six months before my daughter was to be married I was invited to put my house on the Virginia Garden Week house tour, held state-wide each April. This is a pretty big deal here and I didn't hesitate one New York minute to say yes. The wedding was at the end of May. Having my house on display in April would force me to get it ready a whole month in advance. </div>
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But, as I hung up on the Garden Club lady, I realized that I did not, in fact, have a garden. A beautiful, green, undulating meadow descending to the Maury River, yes, but nothing anybody would call a garden.</div>
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<a name='more'></a> I picked the landline phone right back up and called Faith, a landscape designer and fellow former librarian. Help, I said. I need a garden by next spring. No problem, she said, and came up with a charming design of two beds, planted with various hardy perennials that the deer and bunny rabbits cohabiting the property usually won't eat.<br />
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The only thing I insisted on was that my garden have peonies (often pronounced Pee-OWN-ees in these parts). Six years later, the six plants are thriving. They range in color from the exquisite white (below) to various shades of dark to pale pink (further below). </div>
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I love them so much that last year, at their peak of gorgeous blooming, as I was heading out to the airport to fly to California for a speech, I stopped to take a picture of them on my iPhone and drove off, leaving my suitcase in the driveway.</div>
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Peonies are the classic flower of Chinese art. That's probably because they are perfect. Roses are lovely, too, and I have grown roses in another life, but peonies have a voluptuousness all their own. Best of all, they just grow themselves. They don't need to be sprayed or fussed over. They're happy to bloom, live and die.<br />
I must have loved peonies even before I knew what they were. Below is a silk peony, attached to a pen, that has sat on my desk, no matter where I was at the time, for years. I bought it at the gift shop in the big 42nd Street library in New York, the one with the two lions out in front, guarding it. Something about this phony peony's happy pinkness calms and inspires me.<br />
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Instant Gratification: <i>"Flowering and beautiful"</i></h3>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-79889976067184263862014-05-30T09:47:00.000-04:002015-01-30T14:39:52.507-05:00Ah, Rhubarb!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Rhubarb Shake</td></tr>
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Rhubarb is an acquired taste, so they tell me. But the odd-looking stalky red vegetable with its tart taste was a Proustian element of my childhood. My mother's party piece dessert was a rhubarb pie, legend in our family. If you brought a boyfriend home to meet the parents, and he was deemed promising by Mother, she made that pie. If the guy asked for seconds, he was in.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l4FkNE-6wZ4/U4eOFjgUb7I/AAAAAAAAAUc/U6RJfu9Cvq0/s1600/Rhubarb+-+Pie.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l4FkNE-6wZ4/U4eOFjgUb7I/AAAAAAAAAUc/U6RJfu9Cvq0/s1600/Rhubarb+-+Pie.png" height="256" width="400" /></a></div>
The season for rhubarb is brief, only about six spring weeks, and its going on right NOW. Melissa Clark, a food writer for <i>The New York Times</i>,<i> </i>recently featured a video + recipe for a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/recipes/1016354/rhubarb-shake.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults&mabReward=relbias%3As&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry444%23%2Fmelissa+clark+rhubarb">Rhubarb Shake</a>. Greek yogourt, rose water, honey, pistachios, rhubarb -- it looked on the screen as if it would be a long tall drink of (peaceful) Beirut, Athens, maybe Grenada back in the Moorish day. Anything made from a by-product of the distillation of rose petals seems redolent of something exotic. Some people swear by it and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6498299413754824211#editor/target=post;postID=3420972538484986945;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=1;src=postname">rosehip oil</a> as a skin moisturizer. Cleopatra?<br />
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I had to make it. But evidently there are other rhubarb fans here in Lexington, Virginia, because I had to run fast around town, getting up early to buy up the stuff from two local farmers' markets. I cooked up a big batch of the compote that gives the shake its name -- and I suggest you do the same (but only if you already like rhubarb). Then you can freeze 1-2-cup portions to enjoy this wonderful shake all summer long. And, its so pretty.<br />
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Now, I'm thinking up variations to play around with this summer. Peaches. Cashews. Mint. Almond extract. Lavender? Maybe cinnamon. Go ahead. Channel your favorite Greek goddess.<br />
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Or god.<br />
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Instant Gratification: <span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>A product of Lebanon! </i></span></h3>
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</iframe><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-74329074973108434152014-05-05T12:21:00.000-04:002014-05-05T12:32:16.793-04:00Beautiful Beauty Balm<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZfmyBEhQhUc/U2PaqSz4YCI/AAAAAAAAATM/RAqWR5_G5k4/s1600/BB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZfmyBEhQhUc/U2PaqSz4YCI/AAAAAAAAATM/RAqWR5_G5k4/s1600/BB.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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Oh, the face. The first thing we see in the mirror in the morning. If we're vain. And who isn't?<br />
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In a <a href="http://www.newbestfriendsforever.com/2013/08/makeup-or-not.html#more">previous post</a> I shared my minimalist makeup approach, to date. Then my daughter Lucy (in her mid-thirties) told me (not in my mid-thirties) about an even better BB cream -- in the L'Oréal tube in the pic above. It works for both of us and it's one fine product. Light and creamy in texture, it gives a subtle but effective polish. We go out into our day with our best face on.<br />
<br />
According to the Internet, BB creams evolved in Korea to make women's skin as close to flawless as possible. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB_cream">The Wikipedia entry</a> is weirdly interesting on the origin and development of this stuff that is known in Korea as "blemish balm."<br />
<br />
That name would never work for Western markets, so we get Beauty Balm. Can't you hear Peggy Olson in <i>Mad Men</i> coming up with that product name? (Don Draper, before his current downfall: "Not bad, Peggy.") <br />
<a name='more'></a>Somebody like Peggy over at <i>Allure </i>magazine created the tag (for BB creams in general): "Tinted moisturizer on steroids." Not bad.<br />
<br />
I like L'Oréal. It's not phony French. Its CEO is actually French: <a href="http://www.lorealusa.com/governance/executive-committee/jean-paul-agon.aspx">Jean-Paul Agon</a>. He's pretty cute, too, in a kind of Frenchy way. Most of the rest of the executive hierarchy of the company also seem to be French, to judge from their names. Which suggests, as least to this susceptible Francophile consumer, that they bring to their cosmetics the respect for quality and style that country is famous for.<br />
<br />
What's also good, though, is that this product is so affordable. You don't have to go to a department store or specialty shop to buy it. It's available at your local CVS. Or Wal Mart.<br />
<br />
That's a welcome touch of<i style="font-size: 18px;"> </i><i>Egalité</i> for those of us not in the economic 10%.<br />
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<h4>
Instant Gratification: <i>"Primes Corrects Hydrates Perfects"</i></h4>
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</iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-28371056061748403032014-04-25T11:45:00.000-04:002014-04-25T12:07:53.331-04:00Spring morning at the kitchen table<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kwmkvi1M2W8/U1aQGpEwvqI/AAAAAAAAAS8/MHeb77RFY74/s1600/Easter+Table.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kwmkvi1M2W8/U1aQGpEwvqI/AAAAAAAAAS8/MHeb77RFY74/s1600/Easter+Table.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
I'm a writer, so I work with those graphic abstractions called words. But increasingly, for me it's images that tell stories. Like a reflex, my eye sees visual compositions. Objects with a relationship to each other. It's like an eye hunger. That's probably not unusual, given the ascendency of visual media ever since the development of photography, then movies, television, Instagram and Pinterest.<br />
<br />
Here's my kitchen table early one April spring morning this year. I didn't re-touch the shot because I like the muted, browny look of it (it's the "brown corner"). Natural first morning light. The quiet tones make the bright yellow of the tulips pop.<br />
<br />
Behind almost every object in this house, as in most houses, is a story, or at least an anecdote...<br />
<a name='more'></a>Some are more surprising than others (<a href="http://www.newbestfriendsforever.com/2014/01/walking-into-very-old-picture.html">See this previous post)</a>. The table and chandelier were bought years ago at a Planned Parenthood auction + tag sale, held on the grounds of Lyndhurst, robber baron Jay Gould's historic estate on the Hudson River in New York. I think they each cost about $25 and have gone from house to house with me ever since. Somebody once told me that he could tell I was from California by the chandelier: it looks like a Hollywood prop for a Zorro movie.<br />
<br />
The chairs are mis-matched, so they often look as if they're having their own dinner party. The one on the left, with the blue-and-white checked seat, I recently bought here in Lexington, Virginia for $25, then re-stained and re-covered it. It's a good old country chair. I already love it.<br />
<br />
In the lower right foreground is a little cane chair that was the first thing you saw coming through the front door into the foyer of my grandparents' house in Los Angeles. It sat below a wood-framed oval mirror, which I also own. On the far side of the table is a cane armchair. It was in my grandfather's library, on the left, as you entered, upstairs in that same California house. On the bottom bookshelves were stacks of old LIFE magazines, a formative influence, if there ever was one.<br />
<br />
I remember where everything was in that house. It's still there, down the street from one of the Hilgard Avenue entrances to UCLA. The lawn, front steps, windows, trees, look exactly the same.<br />
<br />
But I'd only knock on the door if I knew my grandparents would be the ones to open it. And that the chairs were exactly where I remembered them. The Lionel trains in the dumbwaiter. The <i>New Yorker</i>s in a stack on the table near the terrace. The Chinese scroll painted with slender elegant birds hanging at the foot of the stairs. My little grandmother telling me she never really understood <i>The Great Gatsby</i> and my tall grandfather humming loudly as he marched into the kitchen to make oatmeal for my breakfast.<br />
<br />
No wonder time travel has such appeal.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Instant Gratification: <span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Out of the night/ When the full moon is bright...</i></span></h4>
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<h3>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-51981075865242663192014-03-25T12:11:00.000-04:002015-01-30T14:05:13.440-05:00Finding an Old Best Friend in a Book<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FcFIRX2hrIU/UzBqaSTDedI/AAAAAAAAASk/Fe6ZokmvOPw/s1600/TCD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FcFIRX2hrIU/UzBqaSTDedI/AAAAAAAAASk/Fe6ZokmvOPw/s1600/TCD.jpg" height="320" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trinity College, Dublin (and me, then)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="p1">
<br />
<b>Small World Book Story.</b> One evening before my <a href="http://w3.lesmills.com/global/en/classes/bodypump/about-bodypump/">Body Pump</a> class at the Y, on the shelves of freebie books donated by members (always a source of surprises), I saw a slim hardcover: <i>The Guynd: A Scottish Journal, </i>by Belinda Rathbone. The author, an American, marries a Scottish laird and tackles the renovation of his large 18th century estate. The world it purported to describe is or was familiar. And who could resist the <i>Rebecca</i>-like echoes of the new wife facing a new life in a big, very old British -- Scottish, in this case -- house? </div>
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<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
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So, I started reading, snuggled down in bed at night before sleep. When, early in the book, Rathbone mentions driving by Fife in Scotland, en route to The Guynd (the name of the estate, pronounced like "wind"), I thought, "I bet she knows Keith Adam." That is "Adam," as in Keith's ancestor, <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/robert-adam-neo-classical-architect/">Robert Adam</a>, one of the great British/Scottish architects of the 18th century. The ancestral home -- Blair Adam -- is near Fife. Rathbone was clearly moving into the same Scottish social sphere as Keith's of old families living in big old houses north of Edinburgh. The chance of their coming across each other was pretty high.<br />
<br />
I had dated Keith when I landed at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_College,_Dublin">Trinity College, Dublin</a>. He was a gentle, charming man and he and I had had a great time at TCD back in the day when this university in the middle of Dublin was still largely British and Anglo-Irish and everybody was warming up for London. Formal balls, dances (with dance cards; Rathbone goes to those, too), and lavish parties with formal rsvps written on blue writing paper and <i>only</i> with a fountain pen: "Katey Lee accepts with pleasure the kind invitation..." It was an education for this Californian. I thanked my parents, every time I picked up a fork, for teaching me proper table manners.<br />
<br />
Keith later inherited Blair Adam, originally built in 1736 by Robert's father, William, also an architect. The last I'd heard from Keith, decades ago, he had married the young widow of another mutual TCD friend, moved into Blair Adam, and was valiantly facing the daunting work of fixing it up -- just as Rathbone does in this book with her husband's crumbling estate. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
A few chapters later Rathbone told of going to lunch at Blair Adam. She -- rather, her husband, initially -- did indeed know Keith and his family. She became friends with Keith's twin and describes what Keith had been doing to the estate for the last 40-odd years.<br />
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It was a deeply happy surprise to read in this little book of him, his wife, children -- and that house, about which he'd talked so much, so many years ago, with a wry resignation to his fate. Rathbone goes on in the book to recount what appears to have been an amazing transformation of The Guynd. Keith, it also appears, has done the same with Blair Adam.<br />
<br />
The life of this old boyfriend turned out happy and well. And don't we wonder what happened to (some) boyfriends?<br />
<br />
If you're into Old House stories, this is a delightful and moving book. I'm not returning it to the Y, but keeping it. Keith is running a couple of guest rooms at <a href="http://www.aboutscotland.com/fife/blairadam.html">Blair Adam</a> as a mini-B&B. You should visit. So should I.</div>
<div class="p1">
<br />
<h4>
Instant Gratification: "<i>I knew when I married the man that I married the mansion."</i></h4>
</div>
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&Operation=GetAdHtml&ID=OneJS&OneJS=1&source=ss&ref=ss_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=t03b0-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1593720254&asins=1593720254&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&MarketPlace=US" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"><br />
</iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-9085581444728936292014-01-28T13:37:00.000-05:002014-01-28T19:22:20.630-05:00Cheapskate Chobani<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o_SweWqQycA/UufhOOBRxUI/AAAAAAAAASE/KHATk8aEJyQ/s1600/Chobani+-+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o_SweWqQycA/UufhOOBRxUI/AAAAAAAAASE/KHATk8aEJyQ/s1600/Chobani+-+2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My fridge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://www.newbestfriendsforever.com/2013/01/my-quirky-diet-new-years-resolution.html">My first post</a> for New Best Friends Forever was about the wonders of Chobani Greek yogurt. I lost weight eating it. I loved the flavors. I liked the fact that the company donated a percentage of its profits to charity. I talked it up to anybody who'd listen.<br />
<br />
Well, girlfriends, all good things must come to an end. We know this from drugstore cosmetics. Love that primer from Revlon? Give it time. It will disappear, only to be replaced by the new, improved model.<br />
<br />
Around the holiday season I noticed that there seemed to be less yogurt in each Chobani tub. I'd peel back the top foil and there'd be this gap between the top of the tub and the top of the yogurt. Same size tub. Less in it.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Turned out 2013 was not a great year for Chobani.<br />
<br />
First, there was <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/07/220049147/chobani-issue-all-clear-after-partial-recall-of-yogurt-packages">the recall in September</a> because some containers from the Idaho plant were bulging with fizzy yogurt, due to what turned out to be a fairly harmless mold.<br />
<br />
Then, <a href="http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/12/whole-foods-chobani.html">Whole Foods announced </a>that it would phase out Chobani in early 2014 for various reasons, including complaints that it was not really "natural" if it was made from milk from GMO corn-fed cows.<br />
<br />
<i>Then </i>it was revealed at the end of the year that, yes, the company had <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/101309099">shrunk the contents</a> of its containers from 6 ounces to 5.3 ounces, a decrease of about 12%. <i>However, </i>the price didn't drop, nor did the size of the containers. Only the design on the labels. In the photo above, the old stuff is on the right, the new-and-improved on the left.<br />
<br />
Tricky. But, we weren't fooled. You shoulda seen the outcry on Chobani's Facebook page. I gained lots of new Twitter followers after I complained. We felt robbed of a brand and product that we had really <i>really </i>liked.<br />
<br />
So, I'm now shopping around for a new yogurt to love (see one option in the photo above). All you gotta do to make regular yogurt Greek is drain all the whey out of it, something I used to do years ago. But, I miss the blood orange and pear flavors of the old 6 ounce Chobani...<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the company is working hard to recover from last year. The company has an ad planned for the 2014 Super Bowl this Sunday, its first ever for this sports event. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chobani-2014-super-bowl-ad-ransacked-2014-1">Look for it in the 3rd quarter</a>.<br />
<br />
Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and chief executive of Chobani, actually told <i>The New York Times</i>, presumably with a straight face, that the ad -- in which a big fierce bear ransacks a grocery store -- is supposed to convey the message that “you can go to a supermarket and go through the aisles and you cannot find a decent something to eat,”<br />
<br />
I think the bear looks like all us angry former Chobani fans.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NOcRhgmUN9E/Uufx1xmUdII/AAAAAAAAASU/KhMH43b2n-Q/s1600/Super+Bowl+bear.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NOcRhgmUN9E/Uufx1xmUdII/AAAAAAAAASU/KhMH43b2n-Q/s1600/Super+Bowl+bear.png" height="183" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Chobani bear</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
Instant Gratification: <a href="http://www.browncowfarm.com/coupons">Brown Cow Coupons</a></h4>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-41801199835431448372014-01-23T11:49:00.001-05:002014-01-23T12:42:10.830-05:00Walking into the (very) old picture<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-irJKBghmK2c/Us2nf-LZaiI/AAAAAAAAARk/0md0Vvg-8Ts/s1600/Australia+-+framed+pic+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-irJKBghmK2c/Us2nf-LZaiI/AAAAAAAAARk/0md0Vvg-8Ts/s1600/Australia+-+framed+pic+2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Australia: 1844</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Last summer I was taking an old, best friend around my house in Virginia, showing her the stuff hanging on the walls. We came to the picture above and I said, "It's been in my father's family in California for a long time. It's supposed to be Australia." We peered at the idyllic early spring scene of gum trees, people out for a jaunt on horses, and one guy washing his pig in the river.<br />
<br />
My friend, who's used to looking at old things, said, "Turn it over. Maybe there's some kind of inscription on the back that will tell you what it is." We did and, sure enough, underneath the crumbling paper backing, there was something written, in a loopy, very old handwriting.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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I looked more closely at the picture -- for the first time in my life -- and realized that it was not a print, as I'd assumed, but a watercolor. Which meant it was unique. Hmm. When I and my siblings were dividing up my parents' things after they died within two months of each other in California in 2006, I was the only one who wanted the picture -- and that was mainly because of the handsome frame.<br />
<br />
I looked now in the lower left corner and saw this hand-scribbled notation: STG/44. If it wasn't a print number, it was maybe the date. 1944 didn't make sense. But 1844 would have been around the time William Chard, my great-great-great grandfather, a ship captain from London, stopped with his brother-in-law for a few years in Australia before heading off to San Francisco in time for the Gold Rush.<br />
<br />
I took the watercolor to Wayne, our local framer, and he scanned the inscription so I'd have a record of it after he covered it up with new backing (I still can't make out what it says). Wayne said, "Whoever did this was a trained artist. The bridge is very nicely done."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FoVXObtkACU/Us2kh764zEI/AAAAAAAAARQ/Y7yIzVj3fMQ/s1600/Australia+-+close+up+bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FoVXObtkACU/Us2kh764zEI/AAAAAAAAARQ/Y7yIzVj3fMQ/s1600/Australia+-+close+up+bridge.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I was hooked. A Google search revealed that the initials were inked by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._T._Gill">S. T. Gill </a>, Samuel Thomas Gill, another Londoner who had come to Australia in the late 1830s to make his fortune as an artist, painting people, their houses and local scenes like this. Later, he would make his name doing watercolors of the Australian gold rush.<br />
<br />
Living my very own Antiques Road Show, I needed to find out which Australian place the picture portrayed. And the value. My friend's son-in-law knew an art dealer in Sydney. We exchanged emails and I sent photos of the picture, with close-ups of the signature.<br />
<br />
<div class="p1">
The dealer got right back to me. Gill's work is sought all over the world for its grace, skill and documentary value to Australian history. The picture, he said, is of Adelaide, of what was at the time the<a href="http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/manning/adelaide/bridges/bridges.htm"> Frome Bridge</a>, from the west side, across the River Torrens. Gill's first studio was in Adelaide. The bridge was named after Edward Frome, the Colonial Surveyor-General at the time. But, like most of the bridges across the Torrens, it was washed away when the unpredictable water got high and fast, "a memento," according to the terse judgement in the above link, "of the uselessness of good brickwork founded upon unsubstantial piling." So much for that pretty bridge.<br />
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Adelaide was founded only 8 years before this picture was painted -- 1836. Here's what the new settlement looked like when Gill and my family lived there. The brown hills look like Northern California:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cX8_Jk1JPas/Ut68pMLx2oI/AAAAAAAAAR0/rtIuNPv7bCs/s1600/Adelaide+1939.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cX8_Jk1JPas/Ut68pMLx2oI/AAAAAAAAAR0/rtIuNPv7bCs/s1600/Adelaide+1939.png" height="250" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
The National Library of Australia in Canberra has another version by Gill of the same river scene as mine. It's undated, but thought to be later, circa 1846. The dealer told me that Gill often repeated popular subjects, but that my picture was better than the National Library's -- and dated. Plus, the beautiful wooden frame is original, he said, another rarity. </div>
<br />
My early family must have bought the watercolor as a souvenir of their time in Australia, got it framed to keep it safe, and carried it with them on their ship that sailed across the Pacific, via Hawaii, to the chaotic port of San Francisco in 1849. It survived the 1906 earthquake and fire in that city -- though their house, built on Sutter Street of wood they'd brought from Australia in the hold of the ship, did not.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NS2B0lCEhaw/Us2koWWsYPI/AAAAAAAAARY/EBLsB9cb400/s1600/Australia+-+close-up+of+pig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NS2B0lCEhaw/Us2koWWsYPI/AAAAAAAAARY/EBLsB9cb400/s1600/Australia+-+close-up+of+pig.jpg" height="244" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Had my ancestors loved that other new country? Were they sad to leave? Did they have a sense of humor that liked the detail of the man washing his squealing pig in the river? Were they excited, fearful to arrive in crazy California, gripped by Gold Rush frenzy? What kind of courage, optimism and imagination did it take for them to travel the planet like that?<br />
<br />
I held the picture in my hands. My head and heart spun with a deep time-travel vertigo. From Adelaide, to San Francisco, to Chico, to Berkeley, to New York, to Los Angeles, to Walnut Creek and now to Virginia -- this thing has been in my family for almost 170 years. Yet it took a friend from this new century to get me to look at what was right in front of me.<br />
<br />
The picture's value? Let's say it's worth in the tens of thousands. Will I sell it to the eager dealer in Sydney? No. Here's one definition of the word "precious": <i>of great value; not to be wasted or treated carelessly</i>. How could I sell something that was once so precious to the people who made me who I am?<br />
<br />
<h4>
Instant Gratification: <i>"The Epic of Australia's Founding"</i></h4>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=t03b0-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0394753666" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-70178710000658682762013-12-21T17:17:00.000-05:002014-01-22T16:43:17.518-05:00Christmas greeting from Wal Mart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ffh24NZFNWA/UrSgmmH0dKI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/yCUdfIVzZS4/s1600/Jesus+is+my+BFF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ffh24NZFNWA/UrSgmmH0dKI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/yCUdfIVzZS4/s320/Jesus+is+my+BFF.jpg" height="320" width="227" /></a></div>
<br />
Just across from the huge DUCK DYNASTY display in my local Wal Mart here in Lexington, Virginia this Christmas season is this T-shirt. Which, of course, I had to share with y'all.<br />
<br />
You maybe can't see it, but the small yellow writing just underneath the exclamation mark is: "John 15:13," as in John, in the New Testament of the Bible, Chapter 15, Verse 13. Loosely and modernly translated, that reads: <b>Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. </b><br />
<b><br />
</b> Which is, when you think about it and if you're any kind of Christian or even if you're not, the whole point of Christmas. According to the Bible, Jesus was born on Christmas Day and laid down his life about 33 years later to save, in his opinion, the souls of everybody, all of whom he considered his new best friends forever. Really forever. For eternity.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I'm not sure I totally believe the narrative, but I've always been struck, hard, by the fact that those early Christians in the desert wanted to believe it. Even if it's not true, was never true, it pulls at the heart and soul to think that human beings could make up such a powerful story.<br />
<br />
There's more, of course. The set-up, the prequel: John 3:16 says, "God [the father] so loved the world that <i>He gave His only begotten son </i>[Jesus]." It's beyond primal.<br />
<br />
When I became a parent myself, that part of the Christmas story assumed a whole new layer of meaning. Again, whether it's true or not is secondary, at least to me. For 2000+ years so many mortal creatures have wanted, needed, to believe in that dual sacrifice. First by a parent, of his son. And then by the son. For love of the world.<br />
<br />
At its best, before organized religion complicated its purity, this origin story was all about love, mind-blowing, selfless love.<br />
<br />
So, Merry Christmas, New Best Friends Forever. Believer or not, get out there and spread the holiday cheer - and the love.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Instant Gratification: <i>"Light in the Dark"</i></span></h4>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=t03b0-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B004WPZKA4" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-62716500790105347202013-12-09T15:14:00.000-05:002014-01-28T19:25:44.366-05:00Saying goodbye to a man and a house<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-039wyLXF7pg/Unp4LFN9cbI/AAAAAAAAAPk/OKZqkUl6Yg0/s1600/Barney+&+Barbara.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-039wyLXF7pg/Unp4LFN9cbI/AAAAAAAAAPk/OKZqkUl6Yg0/s320/Barney+&+Barbara.png" height="237" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barbara and Barney</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Sometimes the realization that a person -- or a house -- is a friend sneaks up on you.<br />
Take Barney in the picture above, taken in the 1950s, when he first met Barbara, on the left. They married and, years later, when I was in high school I babysat for them each week while they went to a square dancing class. They had four children by then, the oldest not too much younger than I, but definitely not old enough to be put in charge of his three sisters.<br />
Barbara and Barney lived down the road from us in Walnut Creek, California, a suburb east of the Berkeley hills. Their house -- they called it The Homestead, rolling their eyes as they said it -- was down an unpaved road, ramshackle and jerry-built, and only got more so as the years went on. Somebody said there wasn't a weight-bearing wall in it. But it was a rock-solid beacon because of the couple who lived in it and welcomed you with open arms into the "formal" entrance -- the kitchen.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
I babysat the youngest child when she was two weeks old. Barney and Barbara trusted me with her, a fact that only sunk in years later when I had babies of my own (<i>"What were they thinking?!")</i>. Barney worked for Gerber and when he heard that I was pregnant, he started stockpiling as many Gerber products -- clothes, satchels, blankets -- as he could. When I brought Lucy out from Virginia for her first visit west, he drove up with his car packed solid and presented me with everything I could possibly need.<br />
That was Barney. Quietly paying attention. Unafraid to say he loved you. Funny as hell, his vocabulary laced with words we heard for the first time from him. Every car or truck got a name. When somebody brought his big new van over to show Barney, he dubbed it "The Fuckmobile."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WKxNLS-aVKQ/Unp6m4MjYVI/AAAAAAAAAPw/5M9h09CJ2nQ/s1600/Collinson+House.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WKxNLS-aVKQ/Unp6m4MjYVI/AAAAAAAAAPw/5M9h09CJ2nQ/s320/Collinson+House.png" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Homestead</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Barbara died first. Barney died after Labor Day, this year. He woke up one morning not feeling too great, turned over, went back to sleep and was gone. At the end of October his kids put on a memorial celebration for him at the Homestead. Tables, chairs and umbrellas were set out in the big, round driveway in front of the house. Food, wine and beer were laid out in the back. Friends, children, cousins, grand-children, husbands, ex-husbands showed up -- Barney and Barbara were nothing if not inclusive. Their ashes, in two separate containers, goofily dressed up with hats, sat side-by-side on a table in front of the garage. We could go pat them on the head, say good-bye, tell a last joke.<br />
The dumpster was coming the next morning to clear out the house before it went on the market. So, the party -- a happy wake, really -- turned out to be a good-bye not only to Barney, but to Barbara and the house and all the good times we'd all had there for decades.<br />
A bunch of high school friends of Barney's son showed up with instruments in tow to play the songs they'd all performed in their band back in the day. One of them grew up to be a real musician and now writes the music for TV's <i>Justified </i>(that's his elbow on the right, in the shot below)<i>. </i>As the party thinned out -- but not to end until the wee hours -- the band launched into <i>Love Me Two Times </i>by The Doors: <i>I'm goin' awaaaaay...</i><br />
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Barbara and Barney were the alternate parents. Unlike many of our real ones, they were non-judgmental, funny, relaxed and warm. Nothing mattered and everything mattered.<br />
We're lucky if we have that back-up, the mom and dad who aren't shocked by anything except unkindness and pretension.<br />
So, good-bye Barney, old friend. And good-bye house. You gave us happy memories that keep us warm.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-34209725384849869452013-10-04T09:20:00.000-04:002014-01-28T19:22:49.619-05:00Rosehips, New Zealand & London<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t1WiOH7GsQ8/Uk2F2WN6mQI/AAAAAAAAAPU/KMF7gJ1Ba6w/s1600/Mercure+London+Bridge+Hotel.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t1WiOH7GsQ8/Uk2F2WN6mQI/AAAAAAAAAPU/KMF7gJ1Ba6w/s400/Mercure+London+Bridge+Hotel.png" height="302" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Groovy drinks lounge at the Mercure London Bridge Hotel</td></tr>
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When I was in <a href="http://www.newbestfriendsforever.com/2013/08/loving-london.html">London in August</a> Alison, one of my many young first cousins once removed, suggested we meet for drinks at this <a href="http://www.mercure.com/gb/hotel-2814-mercure-london-bridge/index.shtml">hip new South Bank hotel</a>, down the road from Roast (see <a href="http://www.newbestfriendsforever.com/2013/09/a-great-good-restaurant.html">my previous post on that</a>). Ali is tall, smart and gorgeous. Her father, also tall, smart and gorgeous, and I were born two weeks apart, but he died suddenly and way too soon. I never had nor ever will meet a man who lit up a room as he did.<br />
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Ali and I settled down into one of the big sleek couches, big glasses of prime wine in hand, and proceeded to catch up on a lot. Family news, work, new man in her life and in mine. Decades apart in age, we felt like New Best Friends Forever chattering about the important things in life.<br />
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One thing about Ali I could not help noticing -- you would, too -- was her perfect skin. Flawless, even. When she reached into her big work bag, saying she had something to give me, I was not surprised when it turned out to be the Instant Gratification item below: <b>Trilogy Organic Rosehip Oil</b>.<br />
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Ali is Training & Development Manager in the UK and Ireland for <a href="http://www.trilogyproducts.com/about-us/sisterology">Trilogy</a>, a New Zealand-based skincare product company founded by two sisters, Catherine and Sarah ("sisterology," they call their partnership). According to Ali's informal pitch to me, the products are organic, hyper-tested, pure, etc.<br />
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"Make a conscious decision," the company says, "about the way you care for your skin, your wellbeing and your world." I like the idea of linking the care of my face to the care of the world, however tenuous that link may actually be.<br />
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Though after using the Rosehip Oil for more than a month, I believe Trilogy and Ali are being straight with us. There's something good going on here. You only use a few drops each morning and evening, but they sink in and definitely make a difference in tone and texture. I'm hooked.<br />
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Instant Gratification: "Natural Skincare That Works"</h4>
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=t03b0-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B000N94XPQ" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-13306471354673495582013-09-18T09:50:00.000-04:002013-09-18T10:00:41.463-04:00Hall of Fame: An Old Best Friend Forever<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gDocZHhJFE4/UjTDDX0ysHI/AAAAAAAAAOs/SysG9GTfB4c/s1600/Royal+Orchard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gDocZHhJFE4/UjTDDX0ysHI/AAAAAAAAAOs/SysG9GTfB4c/s400/Royal+Orchard.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
Some years you're invited to lots of parties and events. You think this fun will go on forever. Other years, not so much.<br />
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This year has been the former, both professional and personal, and I'm enjoying it until I withdraw to get sustained work done.<br />
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Funny thing, though. After years of non-stop work + bringing up two children, with not enough time allowed for fun, I'm finding that this so-called fun is the real work. The sustaining stuff of life you'd miss if you were concentrating on something else, to paraphrase John Lennon.<br />
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For a couple of days last week I was at a house party on the top of the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia. This photo is the view from the front porch of the Big House, built by the host's grandfather a hundred years ago.<br />
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We -- 12 women -- were staying in one of the smaller houses of the family compound. Each of us had withdrawn from our ordinary lives and come to the top of the mountain to support our host. One of the most generous, funny and kind women we know and one of my oldest and best friends, she was at a tough time in her life. She's always right there when any of us need her. Now it was our turn to show up and do the same.<br />
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Not that there was anything sad about our 48 hours together. Somebody said it was like being in a college dorm again. We had assigned roommates, shared two bathrooms. (My roomie and I laughed when we discovered we both had hairbands, ear plugs and bedtime reading books arranged on our shared bedside table.)<br />
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Each of us had signed up to make a meal or bring side dishes, a competitive challenge that produced delicious results. <a href="http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/roast-chicken-balsamic-peaches-10000001537272/index.html">Local chicken baked with the last peaches of the summer</a>. Homemade granola with berries and irresistible pound cake for breakfast. Shrimp. Frittatas. Good coffee. Lots of wine.<br />
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All of us knew the house party drill: set the table; clear the table; load the dishwasher; unload the dishwasher; wash the pots and pans; dry the pots and pans; find flowers -- beautifully pale late hydrangeas -- for the center of the table. Put on earrings for dinner.<br />
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We swam in the grotto-like spring-fed pool. Hiked. Made a field trip to a <a href="http://wildlifecenter.org/about-center">wildlife preservation center</a> where we learned a lot about bald eagles, black bears, all kinds of hawks -- the creatures that live parallel lives all around us in Virginia.<br />
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Some of us made a point of finding one-on-one time with our host. Others knew she only wanted so much of that and was happy when she saw us happy.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-acjQSMjh53A/UjX2zBwX3lI/AAAAAAAAAO8/R8QZJ63mHoU/s1600/Royal+Orchard+-+Lane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-acjQSMjh53A/UjX2zBwX3lI/AAAAAAAAAO8/R8QZJ63mHoU/s200/Royal+Orchard+-+Lane.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<br />
Though I'd briefly met a few of the women guests before, I didn't really know any of them. The New Group Dynamic was like my trip to Maine in July (see <a href="http://www.newbestfriendsforever.com/2013/06/a-writer-goes-to-maine-to-draw.html">previous post #1</a> and <a href="http://www.newbestfriendsforever.com/2013/07/the-writer-comes-back-from-maine.html">#2</a> ): it just got better and better the more we all settled down, talked, shared, laughed, trusted. Groups like this can totally not work, but this one did.<br />
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Each woman had a particular professional expertise, such as deep sea photography, oil painting, historic preservation, sustainable farming, community service, retail entrepreneurship, biography (me). Several of them knew more about gardening than I ever will. All of them were grown-up women who get things done.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FNohsdpeQLo/UjX3C20m4GI/AAAAAAAAAPE/YysvY1wccnU/s1600/Royal+Orchard+-+needlepoint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FNohsdpeQLo/UjX3C20m4GI/AAAAAAAAAPE/YysvY1wccnU/s200/Royal+Orchard+-+needlepoint.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
Our host was the glue and the inspiration. At dinner the second and last night she gave a tearful thank-you to all of us for coming. We -- who by now knew that all of us sitting around the table had worries of our own -- thanked <i>her </i>first for letting us share the rare privilege of her family's mountain top retreat. And next for giving us the much bigger privilege of sharing her life, the best and the worst, with all of us.<br />
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<h4>
Instant Gratification: <i>"For the love of Peet's"</i></h4>
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=t03b0-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B0024KGQJI" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-62798201166552265692013-09-10T12:13:00.001-04:002013-09-18T09:26:20.836-04:00A great, good restaurantYou're sitting in a restaurant, looking down at the menu, and realize you really don't care what you eat. Might as well close your eyes and point rather than make the effort to choose. Whatever you get won't taste <i>that </i>great, anyway. Menu fatigue.<br />
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Just when you thought that would never happen, you come across a restaurant that changes your life.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iIfCX1VqJek/Ui3z3BKuXvI/AAAAAAAAAOM/hu2ndnUIg74/s1600/London+-+Pork+Belly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iIfCX1VqJek/Ui3z3BKuXvI/AAAAAAAAAOM/hu2ndnUIg74/s320/London+-+Pork+Belly.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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<a name='more'></a>Yes. You sit down at a table next to the wrap-around windows of <a href="http://www.roast-restaurant.com/">Roast </a>in London, overlooking the <a href="http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/">Borough Market</a>. You order the <b>Slow-roasted pork belly with mashed potatoes and <a href="http://www.bramleyapples.co.uk/bramley-apples-history/">Bramley </a>applesauce </b>(above)<b>. </b>When it's brought to the table, you start to cry.<br />
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Because, New Best Friend Forever, there is food that is fuel and there is food that transcends itself.<br />
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Roast had to overcome the old reputation of British cuisine as god-awful. It met the challenge head-on, trying (this is just my opinion) for the kind of food you used to get in (some) private homes and half a handful of the best London hotels. Here's the pitch, from their website: <span style="color: red;"><i>Roast Restaurant in London's iconic Borough Market uses the finest seasonal ingredients to create classical British cooking that both supports and celebrates Britain's farmers and producers, many of whom are stallholders in the market.</i></span><br />
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It's a perfect culinary closed circle there, south of the Thames, in the shadow of Southwark Cathedral, where Shakespeare may have worshipped and where his brother, Edmund, is definitely buried. Holy ground. Here in the 21st century, I'd read somewhere that the <a href="http://www.vice.com/en_uk">VICE-UK</a> gang hung out at Roast and figured it might be at least interesting.<br />
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No English dinner would be complete without pudding (dessert). I leave you with Roast's <b>Sticky date pudding with toffee sauce and <a href="http://www.nealsyardcreamery.co.uk/">Neal's Yard</a> </b><b>crème fraîche </b>(below)<b>,</b><b> </b>just before I ate it all up, very slowly<b>. </b><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A8kvCqujrFI/Ui3-G8Hq_HI/AAAAAAAAAOc/ZmsVIYh3Pmk/s1600/London+-+Pud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A8kvCqujrFI/Ui3-G8Hq_HI/AAAAAAAAAOc/ZmsVIYh3Pmk/s320/London+-+Pud.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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p.s. In case you can't get to London anytime soon, here's <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/9952862/Slow-roasted-pork-belly-with-mashed-potato.html">the pork belly recipe</a>. It seems that Bramley apples, the Granny Smiths of England only way better, are not readily available Stateside, so look below for your Instant Gratification treat.<br />
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<h4>
Instant Gratification: <i>"Made With British Bramley Apples"</i></h4>
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=t03b0-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B004G90K6U" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-85822110109279876712013-09-02T16:23:00.002-04:002013-09-09T11:36:56.541-04:00A Garden Party<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qKVHP-8Nt2w/UiTFo6cFeHI/AAAAAAAAAN0/AGGHq4jZtHw/s1600/Columbia+Cty+Hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qKVHP-8Nt2w/UiTFo6cFeHI/AAAAAAAAAN0/AGGHq4jZtHw/s320/Columbia+Cty+Hat.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
When I was invited this year to a Labor Day weekend garden party in Columbia County, in New York's Hudson Valley, my first thought was: Gotta have a hat.<br />
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I'd been to lots of garden parties back in my undergraduate days at Trinity College, Dublin. You could not show up for these events, as a woman, without a serious hat.<br />
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The school at the time was very upper-class Brit. All sorts of subtle signals -- accent, table manners, writing paper, fountain pens -- were being sent out all the time, announcing just where in the social hierarchy you fit. As a Californian I was sort of exempt. No one expected me to be exactly normal, so I could just observe and conform -- or not -- as I saw fit.<br />
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But everybody, native or foreign, had to have a hat at garden parties. Maybe the convention emerged in response to the rainy weather. A broad-brimmed hat protected you, like an umbrella.<br />
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So, a couple of weeks ago I found the <a href="http://www.zappos.com/search/Accessories/filter/productTypeFacet/%22Accessories%22/categoryFacet/%22Hats%22/brandNameFacet/%22San%20Diego%20Hat%20Company%22?tag=hydgzap-20&hvref=pd_sl_188xfbxe3d_e">San Diego Hat Company hat</a> in the picture and decided to adorn it with whatever late summer flowers I could find in the fabulous garden of my hosts, Will Swift and Kevin Jacobs. Above is a shot, taken in their kitchen, with Kevin, a master gardener, having just begun the project with ivy tendrils.<br />
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The skewer to the right is a tool he repurposed to enlarge the holes in the straw mesh so the flower stems would fit through (they just hang inside and don't bother your head one bit). In the background of the photo are the roses, zinnias, tree hydrangeas, rose of Sharon, coreopsis, goldenrod, pachysandra (perfect hat greenery) and vinca you see in <b>the finished product below</b>. (If Kevin decides to post the process in more detail on his wonderful blog, <a href="http://www.agardenforthehouse.com/">A Garden for the House</a>, I'll post it in turn here.) Learning from Kevin, I made another hat myself for the party's hostess and loved the creative charm of the whole process.<br />
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The flowers are just a little droopy after a long delightful day being pretty. And by the end of the party (a terrifying thunder storm drove us inside) the guests had decided that every future garden party should have flower hats like this.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nRTZOKU6_IY/UiTJuqJz9mI/AAAAAAAAAOA/t8l2z3CO_qI/s1600/Columbia+Cty+Hat+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nRTZOKU6_IY/UiTJuqJz9mI/AAAAAAAAAOA/t8l2z3CO_qI/s320/Columbia+Cty+Hat+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Instant Gratification: "Your favorite hat"</h4>
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=t03b0-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B0036YB2DG" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-75861353044121388262013-08-16T12:40:00.000-04:002013-08-16T12:40:27.465-04:00Loving London<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yll-J90jus4/Ug0PvRnJCNI/AAAAAAAAALE/4kCtEmQDDhA/s1600/London+-+Door.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yll-J90jus4/Ug0PvRnJCNI/AAAAAAAAALE/4kCtEmQDDhA/s320/London+-+Door.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Britain's Oldest Door (but how do they know?) <br />
Westminster Abbey</td></tr>
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Loving a place is like loving a person. It does not altereth when it alteration findeth.<br />
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I first started going to London 30+ years ago, flying over the Irish Sea from Trinity College in Dublin for fabulously fun weekends. It was still a fairly homogenous place. Upper-class men wore bowler hats and carried sharp black umbrellas. Their women wore perfectly tailored wool suits, bought at <a href="http://www.harrods.com/">Harrods</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfridges">Selfridges</a>. Afternoon tea was ubiquitous. The rest of the food was awful. Buildings were a grimy black. When I washed my hair, the water ran black, too, from the pollution. Life there felt cozy and contained by the hierarchies of the past. Comfy.<br />
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Today, the city is world-class wide open and multinational and, after my second trip there in a year, I love it even more than I did then.<br />
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There's a different vibe, a relaxed energy at play, if that makes sense, that's totally in and of the present. The Brits are a busy people and right now they're busy building, building. Everywhere you look, there are cranes jutting into the London sky<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qinlpjoej4k/Ug0TpYtyzfI/AAAAAAAAALU/Ck_9Idqnrvk/s1600/London+-+Cranes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qinlpjoej4k/Ug0TpYtyzfI/AAAAAAAAALU/Ck_9Idqnrvk/s320/London+-+Cranes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a name='more'></a>and fresh, new words to live by.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9YTqguYs0XQ/Ug0WTxAyZgI/AAAAAAAAALs/zDJU3mffZs4/s1600/London+-+Words+to+Live+By.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9YTqguYs0XQ/Ug0WTxAyZgI/AAAAAAAAALs/zDJU3mffZs4/s320/London+-+Words+to+Live+By.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Some things, however, remain forever England. Like adorable posies<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WOtVr2DJzVo/Ug0V7WG4uFI/AAAAAAAAALk/vy1t-EEZuPU/s1600/London+-+Posies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WOtVr2DJzVo/Ug0V7WG4uFI/AAAAAAAAALk/vy1t-EEZuPU/s320/London+-+Posies.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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or fragments of the wall that encircled the ancient (47 AD!) Roman city of <a href="http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Collections-Research/Research/Your-Research/Londinium/">Londinium</a><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YGVd2l25-Tw/Ug0XuYzpNQI/AAAAAAAAAL8/HoFfCf6t28k/s1600/London+-+Wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YGVd2l25-Tw/Ug0XuYzpNQI/AAAAAAAAAL8/HoFfCf6t28k/s320/London+-+Wall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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or the the big red buses zooming down the tight, winding streets like this one, across from Waterloo station<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ndtY1J4qNIo/Ug0Y7jh8QWI/AAAAAAAAAMM/RKTkTdBdrwE/s1600/London+-+Waterloo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ndtY1J4qNIo/Ug0Y7jh8QWI/AAAAAAAAAMM/RKTkTdBdrwE/s320/London+-+Waterloo.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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or the music of Handel, Mozart, and Corelli, shimmering around the church of <a href="http://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/event/handel-and-mozart-by-candlelight/">St. Martin in the Fields</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y5ZJ0qcxjIc/Ug0bo3ZFu6I/AAAAAAAAAM0/9gsvYfeytM8/s1600/London+-+St.+Martin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y5ZJ0qcxjIc/Ug0bo3ZFu6I/AAAAAAAAAM0/9gsvYfeytM8/s320/London+-+St.+Martin.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Here's the view out the upstairs window of the 1810 house where I stayed in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwark">Southwark</a><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sycblDci8zY/Ug0Z3NRcvFI/AAAAAAAAAMc/SVB59dN5lF4/s1600/London+-+Window+view.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sycblDci8zY/Ug0Z3NRcvFI/AAAAAAAAAMc/SVB59dN5lF4/s320/London+-+Window+view.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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south of the Thames, in a neighborhood far, far away in space and time and 21st-century socio-economic diversity from my old hangouts on the very other side of the river.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LcPqBfVsNnc/Ug0aWRdn0rI/AAAAAAAAAMk/SubJBIXOqfw/s1600/London+-+Lionel's+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LcPqBfVsNnc/Ug0aWRdn0rI/AAAAAAAAAMk/SubJBIXOqfw/s320/London+-+Lionel's+house.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Back of the house, from the garden</td></tr>
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Best of all? Better than seeing <i>The Tempest</i>, eating at Roast (next blog post), drinking coffee at the <a href="http://towpathcafe.wordpress.com/">Towpath Cafe</a>, being at opening night at the tiny <a href="http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/">Finborough Theater</a>?<br />
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Being with Old Best Friends and New Best Friends (and one terrific cousin). Here are me and Oline Eaton, a fellow biographer pal from Chicago who's living in London, working on a book about the Jackie-Onassis marriage. We're in front of the Museum of London, after lunch at <a href="https://plus.google.com/101016143288403350155/about?gl=us&hl=en">Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PYMZhzkjhus/Ug0dFr8OsVI/AAAAAAAAANI/KidqhVTtEIY/s1600/London+-+Oline.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PYMZhzkjhus/Ug0dFr8OsVI/AAAAAAAAANI/KidqhVTtEIY/s320/London+-+Oline.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I hadn't been to that Fleet Street landmark (1660s AD!) in those 30+ years. It was exactly the same. Life does come around full circle sometimes.<br />
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Instant Gratification: <i>Fun book about shopping and Harry Gordon Selfridge, American founder of the store</i></h4>
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=t03b0-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B00AD6R7SE" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-48111440422552288912013-08-06T14:50:00.000-04:002013-08-06T14:50:31.153-04:00Makeup? Or, not.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e2CBwqXLnfs/UgAACarK90I/AAAAAAAAAK0/ITo7uouVPtY/s1600/Two-face+-+Revlon+post.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e2CBwqXLnfs/UgAACarK90I/AAAAAAAAAK0/ITo7uouVPtY/s320/Two-face+-+Revlon+post.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Spooky, right? This photograph comes from the <a href="http://minimalistmum.blogspot.com/2013/02/beauty-skin-deep-10-reasons-for-no.html">Minimalist Mum blog</a>, attached to a post: "10 Reasons for No Makeup."<br />
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I agree with everything the Mini Mum says. It is pretty scary when you realize that the right-hand side looks "normal" by comparison to the left side, which looks like a mug shot taken in the local police station.<br />
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But, my post here is in favor of makeup. Not a lot of it and not all the time. For those days and nights you want to refine, just a little. Just so you know where I'm coming from: if I don't put on mascara, I wonder if people will run from me, screaming.<br />
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I have very fair, dry skin. Freckles. I got a fair amount of sun damage growing up because the California sun is intense and I was out in it pretty much all the time. No shoes from June - September. The beach. Baby Oil. <a href="http://www.drugs.com/pro/renova-cream.html">Renova</a> has fixed most of that, but not all.<br />
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I don't go in for expensive skin care products (except for Renova) or make-up. Drugstore brands -- Neutrogena, L'Oreal, Almay, Maybelline -- have put so much money into R&D in the last 20 years with excellent results. (A few pricey exceptions: Nars lipstick, Mac mascara, <a href="http://www.revaleskin.com/">Revale </a>skin care stuff - recommended by my tough dermatologist.) Generally, a trip to CVS, preceded by careful readings of <i>Lucky </i>and <i>In Style,</i> will get you what you need.<br />
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<b>Anecdotal proof, the best kind.</b> Up until a couple of years ago none of us had ever heard of primer or BB cream, but they are way lighter and subtler than the old foundations, which I never used anyway. Too heavy. The other day I applied the following to my face:<br />
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<li><b>Olay </b>all-day moisturizer with sunscreen</li>
<li><b>CoverGirl & Olay</b> Simply Ageless Serum Primer</li>
<li><b>Revlon </b>Photoready BB Cream SPF 30. The best.</li>
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Late that afternoon I went to Body Pump class at the Y (the subject of a future post), worked up a sweat, and headed out to my car with a fellow Body Pumper. We stood talking as the sun was taking its sweet time to set.<br />
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Later he emailed me: "You wore that light like you owned it."<br />
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And I said (to myself): Thanks, Revlon!<br />
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Instant Gratification: "<i>A lightweight, multi-benefit Beauty Balm that combines skincare, makeup, and sunscreen into one step."</i></h4>
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=t03b0-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B00AIEJW3Y" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-81657597895324085582013-07-16T14:11:00.001-04:002013-08-16T12:42:11.888-04:00Laughing With New Best Friends<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y-5n1K9s9rM/Ud28kZBx2oI/AAAAAAAAAKk/NIXLy1PmPuI/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-01-06+at+1.36.50+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y-5n1K9s9rM/Ud28kZBx2oI/AAAAAAAAAKk/NIXLy1PmPuI/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-01-06+at+1.36.50+PM.png" /></a></div>
I love this fuzzy snapshot, taken on a bus barreling down a road at night to somewhere in America long ago.<br />
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It catches the moment just after the woman with her hand extended, and the wise-ass expression on her face, has nailed the punch line of a joke or a story -- and convulsed the woman sitting in front of her.<br />
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Let's assume they didn't know each other before getting on that bus. What is it about a road trip that opens us up and makes a good joke -- or, better, a bad one -- even funnier? I thought about that last week in Maine (see my two previous posts) while traveling, drawing and eating lobster with a group of three women I'd never met before.<br />
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There were no guarantees we'd all get along, much less click. But that's what happened. By the fifth night, gathered around a table in a restaurant overlooking Boothbay Harbor, after a fair amount of wine, we were laughing as hard as the woman in the photo.<br />
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During the week, over dinner, after days of drawing and ferry travel, we'd worked our way through our careers, marriages, divorces, parents, children or lack thereof, clothes ("I've got enough clothes to last me the rest of my life."), hair color ("You put <i>beer </i>on your hair?"), diets, recipes for anything good with chocolate (<a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/wolfgang-puck/pot-de-creme-recipe/index.html">pots de creme</a>; <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4561309">Nigella Lawson's Easter nest cake</a> *).<br />
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Reserved by nature, we each recognized women we liked and could trust. Straight shooters. Lucky us.<br />
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As we happy campers walked back that night across the Boothbay Harbor Footbridge to the inn where we were staying, Madeleine (not her real name) broke out singing "All I want is a room somewhere" from <i>My Fair Lady</i>'s "Wouldn't It Be Loverly<i>." </i>Those of us who knew the lyrics joined in. Then Lisa started <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Y9nYCcYbw">"Chapel of Love"</a> as we crossed over and up the (very public) street. By now we were dancing, a coastal Maine second line without the brass band.<br />
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"Think up another song, quick," Lisa said to me, as we neared the inn. I said, "How about 'You Are My Sunshine'?" thinking everybody would know at least the first verse -- and I knew the harmony. So we sang that and we sounded so sweet.<br />
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Instant Gratification: "You Are My Sunshine" by Mississippi John Hurt</h4>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFK-mFlZ2uw&list=PLC6DF57D4B1B35E50">Or, listen for free on YouTube</a><br />
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* Scroll down through other recipes in this link for the cake. Other versions, including the one on Nigella's website, have confusing measurements and amounts. So, thanks, NPR, for this one!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01213415289553410923noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6498299413754824211.post-45360418791576246172013-07-08T14:24:00.002-04:002013-07-10T15:54:12.755-04:00The Writer Comes Back from Maine<b>Maine, Part 2</b>:<br />
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So, what did I learn after a week on and off the coast of Maine? That pretty much everything is hard to draw if you've never, except in 8th grade art class, drawn anything. <br />
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Take these, for example:<br />
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<li>The <b>big brown rocks</b> at the edge of the ocean beneath <a href="http://www.jamiewyeth.com/biography.html">Jamie Wyeth</a>'s house at <a href="http://monheganwelcome.com/">Monhegan Island</a>'s Lobster Cove. Impossible to make look like anything except random pencil squiggles. </li>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pz047IDmGoQ/UdrXK7NM7PI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/ctmHx04Vw6I/s1600/Maine+-+Rocks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pz047IDmGoQ/UdrXK7NM7PI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/ctmHx04Vw6I/s400/Maine+-+Rocks.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<li>The <b>cluster-of-rooftops-overlooking-the harbor</b>.<b> </b>Turned out fairly well -- according to the teacher. Maybe she was just being nice, since I was the newbie in the group.</li>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5lGjAGTNAWU/UdrXXwmYDFI/AAAAAAAAAKE/DyC0V0OkJNI/s1600/Maine+-+Roofs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5lGjAGTNAWU/UdrXXwmYDFI/AAAAAAAAAKE/DyC0V0OkJNI/s400/Maine+-+Roofs.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<li>The <b>sweet white wooden punt boat </b>that was pulled up onto the Swim Beach, near the ferry dock. Had wicked gentle curves that, on paper, got erased with my malleable grey eraser ball way more than they got sketched. But, after a couple of hours I'd entered the spirit of the long-dead islander who'd made the boat, following his eye as he traced the angle of his design in his mind. Which was kind of the point, no matter what my drawing looked like.</li>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ySGbCHOSGC4/UdrXd8Kxf3I/AAAAAAAAAKM/ZXnW8Ppj7Q0/s1600/Maine+-+Punt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ySGbCHOSGC4/UdrXd8Kxf3I/AAAAAAAAAKM/ZXnW8Ppj7Q0/s400/Maine+-+Punt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<li>By the end of the week, my last sketch, of <b>three little dingies</b> at Newtown Landing at the end of Southport Island in Boothbay Harbor, actually looked like three little dingies. </li>
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If you think drawing these is no big deal, you've never tried it. Words come comparatively easily to me, maybe because I read my brains out from the age of 10. Making images is, for me, way harder. Writing v. Drawing: Two different kinds of abstractions that try to mimic reality.<br />
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Sitting outside for hours, in an unseasonably chilly and damp June week, on a tiny island off the eastern edge of North America. Obsessing on every detail of what was right in front of me. Trying to replicate it on a sheet in my Windpower sketch pad, with a <a href="http://www.jetpens.com/Staedtler-Mars-Lumograph-Graphite-Wooden-Pencil-2B/pd/10209?gclid=CJCFjrC-oLgCFcOe4AodHmsAXQ">No. 2B Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencil</a>. Erasing. Looking harder. Getting the curve. Erasing. Getting the angle better. Like editing words, only different.<br />
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My Maine mission was accomplished. I'd walked into the object and stayed there until I got the picture.<br />
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Next step: always take a sketch pad along so you can write <i>and </i>draw what you see.<br />
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Instant Gratification:</h4>
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* J. J. Cale's "Lean on Me" was playing on a CD player in the little local Boothbay ice cream place the day I drew this. The flavors were so good, I went twice in one day (Cowboy Junkies "Misguided Angel" was playing the second time). Two-scoop bliss.<br />
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