Paper Chase

I always wanted to work with paper. I love some of the things I see in books, especially altered art, which I have yet to attempt. A long time ago I started acquiring pretty papers, rubber stamps (I have quite a few boxes of those now, mounted and unmounted), stamp pads with different colors of ink, and books on card making. A couple of times I sat down and made some cards (found those in a box the other day) but the norm is that when I need a card for an occasion, I do not have time to sit down and make a card. I have done some wrapping papers too, but again--usually wrapping is the last thing I do with a gift on my way out the door to the party, and grabbing for the roll of paper in the closet is the best I can do.

Okay. So, I have decided to give a shower for someone special who is having their first baby. I am ahead of time, since the date is more than two months away. I can make invitations. I head out to my favorite place--The Materials Resource Center. I think of it as Crafts Without Guilt. They collect unwanted leftover items from stores going out of business, or leftover inventory, or manufacturing byproducts, and sell them off by weight. I have gone out of that store with an armload of good stuff for almost no cost, and it is all "recycled". You never know what is going to be there, and it usually takes more than one pass through, because I can't always put it together in my head until I get home and think about it for a while--"Oooo! That would be great for...."

I picked out paper for invitations, and some for the envelopes. They had premade scrapbook stick-ons--cute little baby carriages in pink and blue. Then I remembered the box of sealing wax "coins" over in the corner. They also had these funky wide sticky tapes with things printed on them--one being the specifics for a baby shower. I bought enough for 30 cards.

Well,I confess it took me at least two afternoons to design and cut the envelopes, one more to letter and assemble the cards, and then another to fill in and seal the cards into the envelopes. One trip and four dollars to the dollar store would have accomplished the same thing. Oh well--look how cute they are!

Irish For A Day

I confess I have always had trouble "getting into" St. Patrick's Day. Being neither Irish nor Catholic, I have never felt the need to celebrate the day, and most years I forget to wear green, even to Garden Fairy's St. Patrick's party. I'm not crazy for the music--the driving rhythms and tempos of the jigs and reels do not vary much, and the harmonies are pretty basic I, IV, V, I stuff. Once in a while something slow has a lovely melody that catches my ear. I do like bag pipes however.

The food leaves me uninspired as well. I made the mistake of buying two cabbages, because in honor of the week, cabbage was only nine cents a pound, only to open my vegetable drawer and discover one was already lurking in there. I started cooking cabbage dishes, and ran out of steam after using the largest cabbage, leaving me two heads ahead. Garden Fairy was happy to take one off my hands. We still have a whole cabbage left, and untouched casserole of stuffed cabbage rolls to get through. Luckily, cabbage is a friend of the Weight Watcher.

GF and I headed off to the Fairway this morning to treat ourselves to some gourmet goodies. She needed bangers for her upcoming party, and that's the only place we know that sells them. I love to go up and down the aisles and buy special treats that can't be found in your regular supermarket. I picked up a tray of fresh pumpkin ravioli, which we will have with browned butter and fresh sage sauce, and the wedge of Parmesan Reggiano from the cheese counter. The smell in the coffee aisle is to die for--MyTreasure benefited from a bag of whole bean decaf.

GF and I hit the prepared food section for some wrap sandwiches, and a cup of their special blend coffee. While we were eating, there were two Japanese chefs making sushi rolls behind us. Another woman working there came up to the counter, waved at the two chefs and said "Mazeltov! It's St. Patty's Day!" The chefs didn't seem to know what the heck she was talking about, but she had on a bright green apron and a big smile as she went on her way.

A friend who used to exercise with me moved away to New Jersey. She sent me a card covered with shamrocks, and wrote a little note saying how much she misses us all, and included a pin-on button that reads "Irish for a Day". Sweet woman--she is as Irish as I am. So there I was in the Fairway, with the Japanese chefs, and the "Mazeltov" lady, wearing my "Irish" pin on my blue sweater. I'll have to find something green for that party...

Latte, Latto, Latti, Lattied

Weight Watchers is a big proponent of skim milk. Ugh! I have struggled along with the concept of using it "in place of"--what a joke! It doesn't replace anything. You know things have really been bad when you get hold of a jug of 1%, pour it on your cereal and think you went on a vacation. And my goodness--at church coffee hour when actual whole milk descends out of the pitcher into that cup of coffee, you think heaven has rewarded you with heavy cream. Skim milk in coffee is particularly repugnant, so I gave the fat free half and half a shot. It's okay, but it has fake stuff in it to give it that nice consistency. I used regular half and half for a while, but that is not helping my efforts to lose pounds. So, since I spend inordinate amounts of time in my kitchen, I have started experimenting.

First I took a mug of skim milk, put it in a mug with a Chai tea bag, and stuck it into the microwave for 2 minutes. Wow--not bad! Chai Latte. The milk thickens up a bit and is spiced nicely from the tea bag. Of course, a cup of skim is 2 points on the WW scale. Hmmm. What else... For Christmas I received a Biali Mukka, which makes lovely cappuccino on top of the stove in 3 minutes. Very excellent. But, as my daughter-in-law pointed out, a pain in the neck to clean. Back to my French Press. I discover however, that the skim milk thickens up when it is microwaved--I guess that's the concept of the steamed milk part of the cappuccino maker.

Well, I have this little gizmo that I picked up in IKEA for $2 (I think it has gone up to $3 last I checked) which foams up the milk very nicely. What if I tried it in the microwaved milk? It only needs about 1/2 cup of milk, and the foamer fills up the whole mug with bubbles, and then you pour the coffee from the French Press right into it, and viola! Latte! So, now I'm down to only 1 WW point, and my 2 (if that) cups of coffee per day look pretty, and make me very happy. And I can pay myself however much Starbucks charges-- I don't know how much, because I confess every time I have walked up to their counter and give a look to the menu prices, I realize I am no longer thirsty.

Blitzed!

I lived through my college years way upstate, in one of those tiny towns where the State of New York saw fit to stick their colleges. I'm wondering if they sprinkled the schools around as an economic benefit to otherwise uninhabitable locales, or if the State Fathers thought that by isolating troublesome intellectual teenagers in culturally bereft environs, they could alleviate some of the turmoil that tends to occur when large numbers of like-minded people of a certain age gather and live together for prolonged periods of time. That was when I got tuned into winter. I never minded winter before that. My Dad always had us out every time it snowed, and whenever school was closed due to inclement weather, somehow we managed to forge our way through to the local golf course and sleigh ride on their hills. We also would hit the lake over at the state park on weekends when there was ice, and there was a small pond within walking distance of our house that I would carry my skates to after school. I was never any good, but I was out there...

Then came upstate. When the ice didn't even have so much as a crack by February, and then went on to linger into March, I was disturbed. Around the end of April, the permaslush that lived on the sidewalks finally gave way to amazing mud. Mud? Mud? Who has mud? MyTreasure says in his hometown, they had "Mud Week". School actually closed down for a week so that the unpaved back roads could dry out, and the school bus wouldn't bog down. Notice I say "bus", not "buses". Oy! So, I came to discover that they do not have spring in the north country. They go from winter to summer, and vice versa at the appropriate time of year. In the end of August there are already red and yellow leaves on the trees. There was a joke that went around that in New England there were only two seasons--winter and the 4th of July. If summer fell on a Sunday, they had a picnic.

So, in my longing for spring, I look back on my upstate time and think how fortunate that we didn't settle there. Surely, it is March, and the grass is showing, and I keep looking out the window to see if little sprouts are appearing from my daffodils. Alas, they are not there. They must know something that the robins do not (there have been flocks of them out in the yard, and along the parkways.) And then we get blitzed! March 2nd. Big snow--and the cold to go with it. Well, that's what I get for anticipating. March always gives one good slap, just to let us know who is in control. The sun is shining brightly today--I needed my sunglasses for all the bright. Cruel joke, since they still had Ft Myers sand on them. However, the melting has begun, and maybe this will be the end of winter, and those daffodils will spring up! I confess, I'm ready!

A Quiet Weekend With No Food

I am looking forward to a weekend with no entertaining for a change. Usually we have people in, or are going somewhere, and every time there are large quantities of food involved. I went back to Weight Watchers last spring, and did well until we hit August and went on summer vacation. I gained back about three pounds, and have been gaining/losing those same three pounds ever since. It goes like this: weigh in on Wednesday, lose a pound or so more before the weekend, gain two or three on the weekend, diet them off again before weigh-in on Wednesday. This weekend we have no plans, and I think I am just going to go with that, and maybe I will get a head start on next week's trial by scale. Right now I am on what the WW people call "maintenance", only I haven't gotten down to my "goal weight". I maintain very well, so after I get to that magic number I ought to do fine. I'm just not fading away the way the WW books claim you will if you follow their program. And, after months and months, I confess to being weary of the whole thing.

The best part of this process is that we three friends have been attending the sessions faithfully every week, and afterwards we hit the food court in the mall for a little chat session. Ut-ut! I know what you are thinking--we only have coffee and tea--we're very good. I have enjoyed the company and it gets us to the meetings, even when time was short through the holidays. I think back to when my grandmother had her weekly kaffee klatch, and all the ladies would come for catch up talk. Too bad my generation decided that it would be "liberating" to all get jobs and go to work everyday. Too bad my children's generation made this an economic necessity, and that we have all lost touch in ways it is not possible to describe to those who have not experienced a different way of living.

So, for entertainment this weekend, I'll put together some "healthy" dinners so that we have a few meals ahead and maybe get to the grocery store for vegetables to keep things going for the week. Maybe this Wednesday I will get a little star for the front of my gold book. The real target is to hit that goal weight so that I can stop paying for all this nonsense. And maybe I won't look lumpy on the next wedding video, the way I did in the last one...

Just Up The Street

When we moved into our white elephant house in the 1970's, it was on a somewhat shabby street in the center of a block of houses that had long ago passed out of style, back in the days when people tended to live within their means. Big old houses were oversized for modern families who only planned on having two children, and realized that high taxes and heating bills could break the budget if they overbought on their living space. We moved in and were the next to last of the large families to take up residence. We had five children, and the family across also had five. As of today, there are no children on the block, except for a pair of twins down the south end. People have put on big extensions, and a number of them have landscapers and sprinkler systems. The street is no longer shabby (except for maybe our house...) Funny how it goes.

Without planning any of it, we found ourselves close to town, the train station and the library, which is just six houses up the street--don't even have to cross. Our kids grew up three blocks walk to the high school, and had access to Manhattan, via the LIRR. Each one of them made use of the train, either for music school on Saturdays, orchestra rehearsals on Sundays, or as commuters to their first jobs in the city. I even rode the railroad for a while, when I was singing in the opera. The fact that we can walk to the train is wonderful, since it is almost impossible to find a place to park at the station, and we when we go to concerts, we don't have to worry about whether we will snag a spot. We also can travel into the airport by train when we go on a trip, and can save the cost of the long term parking lot. We are quite the sight pulling our wheelie suitcases down the sidewalks late at night after a trip home from somewhere.

For now, the library is a great joy. I can go on line, and request just about anything I want, and they deliver it up the street, call when it has arrived, and all I have to do is pop on my coat, and walk up to get it. Whoohoo! Free stuff practically to my door! As an added bonus, my doll club has voted to move their meetings back to the library. They had met there before I joined, but the library closed off the meeting room for renovations, and we have been gathering at a church on the other side of Long Island--a pleasant enough drive on a spring day, but about a half hour ride. We had our first meeting in the library on Saturday, and it was the due date for a music themed doll--something that said "Music" to it's designer. Music for me is opera, so here she is, right off the second act of Tosca, wearing her beaded train that dragged noisily across the floor of the stage every time she turned or took a step. I confess to cherishing my brief time at the opera. MyTreasure can't understand why I don't want to actually go to the opera, but the real pleasure of it was in the performance. How lucky I was to have had the opportunity, and that it was at the Met!

N is for Neville who died of ennui...

I confess that each year after the holidays I lose steam. Days just go by, and no work of any significance gets done. I cook, I do the laundry, but the time slips by until the spring when the days are once again long, and the air warms up so that I can take off my woolies. I can't seem to shake off the winter blahs. For now I am Neville.

Last summer when we went to Cape Cod, The Professor came across a listing in the tourist magazines for the house formerly occupied by Edward Gorey. I am not sure what fascinates me about this odd man, but for some reason I have always been attracted to his drawings, and his inexplicable little books. (You all have seen his work in the credit animations for the PBS Mystery Series.) I spent a good deal of time with an old pen and a bottle of India ink, so I appreciate the process. Gorey's texts and drawings are all enigmatic, leaving out vital parts of the plots, forcing one to draw one's own conclusions. His life was that way too, looking rather ordinary from the sidewalk, but very curious when you put it in the context of his work. Amazing that anyone could make a living from little pen and ink drawings.

So, see me loafing about, looking at picture books, and piecing together life's little mysteries, waiting for the sun to shine. I bought three bunches of tulips for my window sill just to hurry things along. I'm sure it will work...