Cigars and other musings

Walking in the woods after huge rainstorm, our share of the major storms tearing across the US in the last few days



And a lovely December sky out at the preserve



And a view of the lake at the preserve



I often take pictures of my afternoon walks to bring home and show HP, and then I let you in on a couple of them, too. The light in December is evocative and wonderful, and you simply have to picture it since it changes so fast in the late afternoon. I usually have the world to myself at this time of year out walking, since a lot of walkers around here are seasonal and don't believe in cold weather!

I should remind blogreaders that my pix can be enlarged if you click on them. I've been setting them up for ages this way, and kind of assumed everyone knew to do that, until I was informed that a keen reader had just discovered this exciting feature!

The first entry or two in this blog I didn't know the enlargement wasn't happening until another keen reader asked why her clicking didn't work. So I studied the situation, realized how to upload to make them big at the outset, smaller in here, able to be clicked on and enlarged and scrolled around and forever after have done this.

Forgetting of course that everyone doesn't intuitively know this stuff. You remember the first time you tried to answer your cellphone and couldn't fathom what button to push to do this, while it rang and played music and drove everyone around you crackerdog? then once you got the hang of it you were sure it was obvious. Nooooooo.

Same with the pictures. As one godawful computer manual I used to have said: the use of this button is obvious so I will not explain it. What the heck are you writing a manual for then, I ask? and those early manuals that waited till page 154 to tell you how to switch the computer on, AFTER explaining all kinds of arcane special adaptations and personal choices you could make if you could understand a word of the text....

So whenever I show anything you want to see better, just click, okay? written material really benefits from this, and artwork you want to get a better look at.

Speaking of which, do we have any pix yet of the location of the miniature rugs and pillows and things you guys happily adopted into your homes? they would be very welcome, and I'll upload them promptly when received. You can email pix to me at lxxadams@yahoo.com and I'll go from there.

And speaking of cigars, which we weren't, but what's a rough transition between friends, yesterday on the tv news there was a feature about Cuban cigar-rolling women having books and newspapers read to them while they worked.

Here, in Trenton, central NJ, for many years there was a cigar factory, now morphed into a posh condo building, where one of my old neighbors from years ago used to work in the 1920s when she was young and newly arrived from Transylvania.

Fairly newly -- her mother, with five kids, left Transylvania, crossed the European continent with them by train, just ahead of all the frontiers closing in 1914, took ship for the US and set up home with her kids joining their father in NY. Just like Hester Street, except he was in fact there, no new wife, and with a job.

Anne spoke Hungarian and sort of English -- she was very young when they came here --and in the cigar factory there were women of all kinds of nationalities largely Eastern European at that time, the smart ones who got out of Europe right before WWI.

Cigar rolling, though it was skilled, was monotonous repetitive work, and the women, they were all women, all spoke different languages with a bit of English in common. So Anne told me they would teach each other basic phrases in their own language, to pass the time as they worked with their hands, and she picked up Russian, Czech, a bit of German, and who knows what all else. These were smart people who were not able to get a formal education because they had to work from a very early age and bring home a wage.

She was an interesting neighbor, who used to bring official documents across the street to confer with us, since her English was very functional, but she was worried by officialese, so we'd explain what they wanted, etc.

She was running a luncheonette business all this time, what a worker, the cigar factory having gone defunct, probably because of losing the Cuban connection. After she retired from the luncheonette and sold the biz, she got a bit bored, only being about 70, and took a job in food service at Princeton University.

Every June she retired again, and then by September would be bored and ask them to hire her again! this went on until she was well into her eighties, when they said, we really can't hire you again, sorry, insurance or something. They loved her because she was so used to cooking for large numbers, no trouble, leave her alone, she could feed hundreds of students.

The only tiny flaw in her neighborliness was the terrible dog she rescued, a biting little black rotter, who once jumped into the open window of my car as I drove by, and starting fighting with my terrier Buff, who was peacefully sitting in the passenger seat not hurting anyone. It is not advisable to drive a car with a dogfight going on in and around the driver's seat, I can tell you.

She was a good strategist, too. We used to have a shared well, beautiful water, shared by 35 families. She owned the land where the wellhead was and granted rights in perpetuity for the well group to get at it for repairs, etc., which used to happen when a truck might pull over too far and break the pipe under the soft shoulder of the roads, etc.

Anyway, we had an Association, complete with officers, etc., and used to vote annually for officers. One year everyone fully expected me to be elected President, and she spoke up quickly, nominated me for Vice President, which was what I ended up being.

When other women asked her later, indignantly, why she'd nominated me for a supporting role instead of the Big Cheese one, she said, ah, you know when repairs are needed to the well? usually in freezing lousy weather, and the thing has to be inspected and fixed? guess whose job it is to be out there up to the ankles in freezing mud, supervising all the work in all weathers? the President. And guess who gets to sit warmly at home by the phone notifying the owners of the progress? The Vice President!!!! smart lady.

She's long gone now, but, as you can see, she lives on for me!

Of birds and blogistas

Crowd of birds in sweetgum tree, something good to eat there, I think.


One of my favorite sights at this time of year is a crowd of birds throwing themselves about in the sky, like many iterations of a single bird in a net, then settling on a tree, like decorations, then flying away, all in concert. Individuals but working together for a while, very modular.

I love modular -- some of my biggest art pieces are modular, each part made separately in the limited area I have over the years used as studio spaces, then put together in the optimistic hope that they will work together, and surprisingly often, they do.

Putting up a solo exhibit is another modular feat, since I literally have never seen the whole exhibit all at one time until it comes time to hang it, no space for it! so it comes as a surprise. Some pieces look radically different in different light, against a different surface, in relation to other pieces, often for the better, now and then not so much...

Many years ago, I was invited to do a solo corporate show, my first, big honor, very exciting, and loaded my little Plymouth Horizon tiny hatchback with 50 count them, framed monotypes. The art committee for the company had asked me to meet them at the loading dock, and they looked down with amazement as I pulled up in this tiny car! they were expecting a van, I think....and after they got over their surprise and amusement, one of them said, well, if you ever get a bigger car, will you make bigger art? to which I explained that if I made bigger art I would have a van, but I didn't, so I didn't! the show went very well, was warmly received, all very thrilling stuff.

But again, I had never seen the pieces all together at one time. They did the hanging and did a very nice job, too, good, since it was a serious piece of work for several people to decide on the relative positions of 50 pieces of work. And they were proud of their efforts, pointing out how well it all worked together! well, yeah, since one artist did it all, chances were that would happen...but they did grasp that hanging a show is in itself a work of making art.

But speaking of the modular, it dawned on me as I took the pictures of the birds yesterday, in the trees,



one huge one presiding, not a hawk, otherwise the smaller ones would have vamoosed, and then flying off after posing was over, that it was like the individuals who read and follow and post and email around this blog.

Some of you have posted your pictures in the followers section, some are more abstract, some are shadowy presences, some comment in here, some never do that, but email, some neither email nor comment but catch me in passing to talk about what they read in here. And some read and I have no idea at all until they eventually say so. It's all good! there's harmony and unity there, great art principles.

And some of the blogistas know one another in rl, some via internet life, some not at all. But I thought you should know what a distinguished company you comprise:

Mostly women, one or two men that I know of, from New Zealand, England, Canada, the US, including Alaska and Hawaii,as well as the lower 48, and various other points on the globe as you travel about.

Talents and skills and professions ranging from printmaker, to performing musician, to dancer, to watercolor painter, to cook, to photographer, to gardener, to librarian, to weaver, to spinner, to pianist, to computer specialist, to permaculture consultant, to marketing whiz, to social worker, to knitter extraordinaire, to knitting designer, to higher ed admin, to writer, to nurse, to doctor, to teacher, to retired executive, and I'm sure I missed a few, feel free to correct this listing! and to realize that quite a few of you are in several categories all at once.

And religions from Jew to Catholic, to Moslem, to agnostic, to Quaker, to atheist.
And races including all of them that comprise the human race.

And without exception, wonderful senses of humor, which show themselves over and over as you cope with my wild and headlong blogrush.



So consider these bird pictures a loving portrait of you, dear group! bye for now, come back soon.

First snow, second tapestry panel and nature questions

For blogistas who are nature experts, of which we have a few around here, I post a couple of pix of a shrub or tree at the preserve which appears to be busting out of its bark oddly, like a snake shedding its skin in all directions.



Is it in trouble? what is it doing? the naturalists had their hands full with programs when I noticed this, so I didn't bother them, just took pix to share.

Also nice picture taken on Saturday before the snow fell, of bayberry in full fruit.




Just imagine the labor it used to take to collect these tiny berries, render them to get the fat out of them, process them and make candles in colonial times. No wonder people were careful with candles. Heck, I would have cringed to see my work going up in flames just so someone could read the latest broadsheet about the bad things the Brits had been doing. Or, as I like to interject, not Brits, Hessians!

Then we had the first snow of the winter yesterday, started as rain, turned to sleet, finally became quite pretty snow, and I took pix in the evening as it fell



through the lamplight in the street, and on the front yard.



Couldn't sleep well last night and got up at 4 a.m. to find that it was moonlight, peacefully shining on the fallen snow out back, all undisturbed and lovely to see. Peace as heavy as a warm blanket.

And yesterday,having finished a furious storm of knitting, and got all the items off to their recipients, I was able to return to the tapestry and FINISH the second panel, which I proudly show you.



Now I can get onto the the next color group for the third and positively final panel of this iteration....can't tell you what fun this all is. Most of what you see in this panel is my own homespun, bustin with pride over that.

So, Happy Sunday! well, Monday for you, Minimiss!

Everything Old is New Again

The sad news from Bhopal about how the Union Carbide disaster still resonates, gave me a surprise: HP told me that after the gas leak, UC put out tenders to companies in the water and air cleaning chemistry business, to research ways to clean up the site.

HP was one of the team whose company, not Union Carbide, no connection with it, but with a track record for water and air cleaning and benevolent natural pest control for major crops (they increased the rice and wheat harvests in India and China) set to work on it. I had no idea he had any involvement at all in the frantic attempts to put right what UC had disastrously let go wrong.

As usual, the original research chemist rarely knows to what extent the work was used, successful, etc., but he knows he was on the side of the good guys looking to alleviate the suffering there all those years ago.

It amuses me when students come around to get signatures from us to encourage clean water regs in the state, and try to explain to HP what this really means. They have no idea they're talking to one of the guys who invented the flocculating (or maybe deflocculating, I'm not a chemist) process that cleans water for re-use. And he is far too modest ever to mention it. But he applauds their idealism and willingness to go door to door in support of it.

Then today online is a story of the topping (putting a tree on the top of the final girders for a new building) of the new huge complex being built on the very place he used to work when he did that Bhopal research work.

One of his last projects before he retired was to research and write up the groundwater and soil conditions of that site where he worked, with a view to the company's eventually selling it, in order to satisfy EPA requirements.

A huge project on which he played a big part, since this is very high water table country, very sensitive wetland, and the company was working in chemistry, so they had to be very sure they had followed the protocols for protecting the water and land.

And the EPA report was successful, they got the clearance, and now 25 years later, a major hospital is being built on the site. Princeton hospital, to be in Plainsboro (yes, as in House!!! one of the producers of that program is an old high school acquaintance of HS, now a tv and movie guy, the name of the hospital in House is a kind of in-joke), is rising on the site of HP's old research labs. A hospital, more alert than almost any other site to the need for safe conditions to build on.

So since he can not get there at all, I took a ride over and made pix for him to see what's up and for you, too.

The hospital is on both sides of an old farm road with a lovely avenue of ancient elms, which have been left alone in the construction, and one of the pictures shows you two of them framing the picture of the new scaffolding.






And there's the pic of the classic little tree lashed in traditional fashion, to the topmost girder, and the flag flying.

And a couple of shots of the sheer size of the place.





They plan to include a park and walking paths around the lake, which will be untouched, good, since there are a lot of birds who come there to fish, black back cormorants, a couple of bald eagles seen around, now and then an egret, often great blue herons.

So all of this is very heartening to HP whose work goes on even though he is very much retired from activity now, and he was so happy to see these pictures and visualize what used to be there, what's happening now, and how it's changed. And how he is still having an impact on the world!

Little House in the Big Woods...

I don't usually follow myself in here so soon, but this I couldn't resist, in view of my reading A.S.Byatt, complete with fairy stories, children's books of the period, etc. I went out walking out back to get out of the way of the house cleaning team, and found outside our gate this dear little house, evidently the handiwork of the two little girls who live nearest to it, the owners of Tigger the orange cat who visits me now and then.

I just thought I'd show it to you, in the context of the big trees,



and then a real estate closeup.



Desirable residence for elves, fairies, piskies, pixies, whoever has the down payment...anyone less likely than me to be interested in fairy houses, elves, etc., than I it's hard to imagine. A.S. Byatt has something to answer for...

Accidental Art with Glovettes!

Lately, the reading front has been wildly assorted, with Anita Brookner's Strangers upstairs, to read at night, A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book on DVD to listen while I knit and flutter about in the kitchen, etc., Dick Francis various suspense thriller type things when I want something that Doesn't Matter At All, and Penelope Lively, heard on DVD her latest, Family something, title escapes me, how unusual for me. I listen while I walk, too, if the weather is not particularly exciting.

But first for Brookner, who is quite simply the most elegant, unflinchingly brave writer you can imagine, but don't imagine her, read her. Some people think she's depressing, because she deals with fears about aging and loneliness and other life issues, but I find her wonderfully grounded and realistic. There's a feeling that you're in good hands when you read her, since she faces the realities, deals with them, and accepts that there are things we can't change, maybe shouldn't even try to,that simple answers are very often wrong. All very different from my own approach, so it's very useful as a counterpoint.

Above all, she's piercingly intelligent and perceptive and knows what not to say, and where to elide the emotion, where to lean on it, like a fine musician with words.

Very different from Byatt who is expansive and sort of blowsy as a writer, with her hair coming out of its pins and her skirt hem lopsided, and frankly self indulgent in her passion for fantasy and fairy tales and the dark side of them, and a bit too obvious in making connections and holding out bait for the reader to snap at, but still very entertaining. Her research tends to stick out a bit, though -- look out, reader, I STUDIED this bit! but despite all her faults, you can't stop reading, or listening as the case may be.

The current DVD is pretty well done, except that the narrator has an unnerving way of pronouncing words that sound wrong. Her "o's" come out as "u's" as in: there were scarlet puppies on her hat....at least that was how it sounded at first. And she is all over the place in her emphasis on syllables, usually coming down in the wrong place, aieee, my grammar police background bristles at these.

And Penelope Lively never fails to be incisive, skewering, and skewing, all and sundry, wonderful spare economical writing. I listened to her latest on DVD and found it a bit too overwhelming, since the narrator did a hugely irritating and silly voice for the mother of the family, making her into a fool and a clown, neither of which she was, but amazing how she could be made to come across that way with a high wobbly delivery. I'm going back to reading Lively in book form, as you see from the still life that heads up this post.

Also in the pic is a pair of those fingerless gloves, a better fit for HS this time, I think, anyway we'll see what he thinks, happily named "glovettes" by MAJ, thank you for this nomenclature, I love it!

The pic is a shot of my little wicker worktable in the corner (found at the dumpster) and turned out to be a nice composition without any intervention on my part. So I took it that I wasn't supposed to move stuff, just snap it.

Many years ago, I used to know a man who was an amateur painter, who assured me that it was CHEATING to ARRANGE a still life! heh. He was convinced that all still life was accidental art and design. No, he wasn't a serious painter, he was a translator. Just as well he had a day job.

He was Dutch, too, which just shows that visual art talent is not necessarily a national characteristic. The blood of Rembrandt and Van G., was nowhere near running in his veins. But in the case of the Dutch, musical art talent might be, given the streams of great compositions and performers over centuries on the recorder, right to the current day.

Speaking of amateur musicians, I continue to play regularly, keeping up the flute as well as the recorder. One fun thing I have started is to play the same piece on each instrument in turn to see how it changes and what happens. Since the fingering and the range is different, it's an interesting mindbender to do this, too.

And I'm adding in the third octave to my flute range, by replaying a piece an octave higher if it fits in the range, great fun. I play upstairs, but HP tells me he can hear it fine (not the cursing, though) and enjoys his personal concerts, usually performed while the laundry is in the dryer.

Soup and Socks Already!

Thanksgiving went over just fine, with HS arriving complete with appetizers, desserts and goodwill, and I did the main course, very trad turkey,gravy, cranberry sauce (always try to get NJ cranberries in loyal support of our cranberry farmers) squash, baked potatoes, corn, mushrooms. Red wine, white wine, ginger ale, fake beer for them as can't do alcohol because of medical conditions. I use just a turkey breast now, which is terrific. It looks nice on the dish, easy to carve, and lasts long enough to enjoy but not get us all bored with turkey.

Today we're already down to turkey/barley/bean soup, made with homemade turkey broth, and some chunks of turkey in the broth. Just enough left over for a couple of sandwiches, and the thankfulness can be discontinued after that. HS is expected over for lunch so he'll be hugely amused at the rapid disappearance of the Tgiving turkey, a big chunk of which went home with him to cook into something exotic, I think jamabalaya or something furrin like that...

I remembered everything for the table, most unusual for me, since there's usually a forlorn little dish of mushrooms or onions or something waiting in vain to go to the ball, and discovered the next day....but I forgot to light the fire!!!! log already set up, everything ready, but the mild weather put it out of my head.

This is the first Tgiving we've had where HS was in a wheelchair, so not able to do like last year. But we pressed furniture into service as serving buffets, had all the meal at the table instead of different areas as we used to, and it went just fine. Including my falling dead asleep sitting up later in the afternoon, from the turkey...

And since I had to sit down and rest now and then from all this frantic cooking stuff, I turned out a pair of fingerless gloves for HS, which HP models here for your viewing pleasure,







and got the first of a pair of socks made, spiral design which I love, and fancy toe in same self striping yarn as the gloves.




The blue wool is perfectly beautiful gift merino, enough for a pair of socks and I added the toe touch! with huge thanks to the giver, generous lady in Montreal, she knows who she is!

This spiral design is very pleasing to them as likes math, since it's an even number of stitch pattern executed on an odd number of stitches, thus: knit 6, purl 2. Forever and ever or unless your blue yarn runs out...and because you've cast on 57 stitches (size 3 needles, dpns, and I've used size 2 for snugger socks for someone with smaller feet than mine) what happens is that the purls fall in an ascending spiral, very pleasing, and very easy to work without the pattern once established.

And the spiral means that you don't shape a heel, since it shapes itself to your personal foot after a wearing or two, so you just knit and knit until you fancy stopping. Well, there are decreases to do at the toe part, and the spiral stops short of your toes, so that you have a comfortable smooth finish there. But that's all there is to it. So here are the gloves and the solitary sock, whose mate will be along in a day or so.

Meanwhile, here are a few things I'm thankful for: that we all made it to another Thanksgiving, that we had many lovely greetings from friends over the holiday, including hilarious electronic cards which we played over and over like kids, that we were warm and fed and housed, that I had enough yarn to satisfy my urgent need to knit....and several thousand other things, too.

Life is good!

Blogversary Number One! Happy Birthday, Field and Fen!

It's the first birthday of this blog, hard to believe, but there you are.

I originally started it as a celebration of the blogosphere and my entering into a new decade, and found as HP's health crisis developed, it became a wonderful transmission area for news to friends all over the place of one of the most difficult years in the life of the Adams clan.

It's worked to give me support I hadn't even dreamed of back then, and I am so glad for it.

But it's also been a big part of my art life, both as a visual artist and as a writer, and much more modestly, heh, as a musician (amateur music player, just about adequate).

I was out walking the Preserve yesterday, so I thought I'd give you a few pix. The steps lead down from one trail to another, and they're very steep-looking, no railings, designed by a tall man, I think -- too broad for me to go in one step, not broad enough to fit two steps onto, so they're hazardous.



But once you get down and look back, it doesn't look so hard at all.



Which struck me as an amazing metaphor for the last year, all in all! looked easier than it was to live, but we survived.



And the bench overlooks the lake at the preserve, at the top of the steps. I love to draw benches and chairs, very eloquent statements, particularly in late afternoon light.

And there was a great sunset over the supermarket (sounds like a Randall Jarrell title) so I thought I'd throw that in, too, for your viewing pleasure.





What do you think is an appropriate celebration for the one year annie of a blog? has that been defined yet, I wonder?

Shapes, relationships and edges

My recent thinking about the labyrinth led to a few other thoughts about art and our relationships with shapes, edges, where the real art lies. For me it's not in color, which comes a distant third in importance to shapes,their relationships to each other and to the viewer, and their underlying significance as objects. It's certainly not in making pictures of stuff!

Some of the real joy of art lies in tiny intersections, and as you create the work, there's a stab of out of body insight, in small movements. Like the place where you push down the last thread you just wove in a tapestry, that movement of the fingers and the hugely satisfying covering of the warp in an elegant, unforced kind of way.

Or when you tape around the edges of a paper before drawing or painting on it, so that you deliberately let the work travel over the tape, then after the work is finished, remove the tape to see that wonderful sharp edge where art meets white all around the edges. Just removing the tape is an experience. Seeing how your work now isolates itself from the world and has left your hands.

Or when you make paper, and when it has dried, slide your fingers under the edges to lift it from the support, gently moving under it until it responds to your touch like an animal.

Or when you use water to mold your paper over a form, spraying so that the jet of water becomes your pencil.

Or when you play an instrument and just for a moment, achieve a note that is pure and lovely and has a life of its own, riding on your breath.

Or when you write a sentence that really says what you meant it to, with the rhythm, vocabulary, and cadence that work just right for it.

So often these joyful moments come without apparent effort, and certainly without putting thought into it. It's when you surrender to the materials and let them work, that's where art is, and if you're lucky it comes to you now and then, if only for a moment.

One of the most inspired gifts I ever had is the CD of Sting, thank you, S., In the Labyrinth, which is songs mostly of John Dowland, very different from Sting's usual musical vocabulary. I am much more familiar with Dowland than with Sting, but when he departed from Dowland, to sing an eighteenth century piece, "Have you seen the bright lily grow", he established himself forever in my respect for his musical skills.

On the word "grow" there's an ascending scale which is truly HARD to sing accurately, just very demanding,and I've sung that song many times, with varying degrees of success, mostly unsuccess. He sings it and with the greatest of ease renders that phrase, entirely, beautifully. So I know he knows how to sing. He knows exactly what the instrument of the voice is and how to use it and make it sound easy.

Same with the Mamas and the Paps, those ancient rock legends, whose music is still good, and that's because there are a lot of quotations in it from medieval and renaissance works. John Phillips, I guess, was the writer of a lot of it. Very intelligent musical underpinning, no wonder it's wonderful. If you play medieval and Renaissance music, which I do, you recognize the licks in songs like California Dreamin.

So there's my high flown musings for the day. To be followed by the strictly functional: I'm wearing my latest knitted goods, my new MaryJane slippers, knitted, but with crocheted straps (which I crocheted on while wearing the slippers to make sure they fitted! looked pretty comical). They are almost as hard to make as creating a PBJ sandwich.



I can't get real MaryJanes that fit my bumpy old feet, so I had to make slippers instead.

And you can see the latest joy of tapestry, using mostly my handspun dyed with KoolAid, as I work toward the end of the second panel.



Looking forward to the third, when I will be into the blue, purple, black range. At least that's the plan.

But the piece itself might lead me in some other direction.

However, this being a two-way blogstravaganza, post here the sort of little joys you get, doesn't have to be from art, just from any part of your life. Those tiny things that color the rest of your life and make it a better place to be.

Please share! that would be fun. A lot of people do email me, which I appreciate hugely, and it would be nice to open your comments up a bit to the world, if you'd like to. Just click under here where it says comments, and a posting box will come up. If you can't fathom the ID stuff, just check anonymous (you can put your name in the body of the post, though, so we know who's talking) and go from there. Thanks!

Walking the labyrinth for R. and J Jr.

Yesterday, after many attempts, foiled by weather or lack of respite person to let me get out for long enough, I finally made it to the labyrinth. The combination of weather that was at least not lashing rain, the nor'easter having moved off to sea, and business to transact in that area, and HS being over for the afternoon, enabled me finally to walk the labyrinth for friends R. and J. Jr, who are dealing with difficult health problems.

I walk the labyrinth for other people, feeling that it's not quite right to just do it for my own benefit, but I expect I get a benefit anyway. But it's a matter of putting their issues front and center and finding out what I can do to help, or at least ask the universe to swoop in and help.

What I do is start with the issue or problem, mentally put into words, then a pause looking across the labyrinth, before I look down at my own feet and start the walk, very slowly, never looking further ahead than my own toes moving slowly on the paths.



The thing about walking the labyrinth is that suddenly every thought and movement and sight is suddenly charged with significance.



On the way to the center, it's anxiety and indecision, particularly yesterday, when blowing leaves obscured the white stones that show you the path to take, and I think I probably went a bit wrong once or twice.

At the entrance I found a big leaf, beautiful colors, which I carried around not knowing why, until half way around I realized, oh, this is a stand in for R., she's walking with me in a sense. And the anxiety about getting lost in a labyrinth not more than thirty feet across is more about trying to get everything just right, when really it's not necessary, and not even possible at times. Just seeing as far as each foot goes will get you there.

And on the walk there were late bees and wasps, a ladybug, little shoots of celandine, purslane, chickweed, signs of life all around among the fallen leaves.



At the center where you pause at the four tree stumps that signify the four points of the compass, and where there's a container to put your thoughts and your symbol, I put in the leaf, and took a picture.



Usually I would not do photography, but I wanted to share this walk with the friends I did it for, and I'm pretty sure that's a good motive for introducing high tech into an ancient ritual.

Coming back from the center I always notice my breathing is quieter, my anxieties over with, life more within my grasp. And that's what I hope for the people in my mind as I walk. The prayer flags are Tibetan and fly all the time, sending our thoughts and wishes out to the world and beyond.

Machines ancient and modern

Today is a day of contrasts, since out front they are milling the street.



This means one massive exciting machine is trundling along eating up the blacktop and shooting it out in a stream of digested material onto the back of a truck



which then drives it who knows where and chucks it somewhere. Now and then a third massive vehicle dodges between them in this narrow roadway outside out house and scoops up what the others have dropped, butterfingers.

All this arouses the little kid in me (and in HP, who was thrilled when I ran out in the middle of cooking, took pix to show him and now share with you, the blogiverse), and even though it smells awful and the racket is like hell returned, it's still kind of fun.

Even though the dentist can't attend HP this week as planned because it's too far to carry his gear from the nearest parking spot he might find, and it's too hard for my art friend to visit and make art with me as hoped, same reason. But this too shall pass.

Then tonight, for the ancient part of the equation, is Princeton Recorder Society's monthly meeting, and I show you pic I took of last month's meeting, with a wonderful conductor, not only a fabulously beautiful woman, very medieval in effect, with red hair, black tunic and tights, boots, but a truly great musician, played Carnegie Hall this year, did a European tour, and in the middle of it all gave birth. And she doesn't even look tired.




The instruments we play, mostly recorders, with a few viols, date back centuries in design, though most of us play very modern Yamaha (not motorbikes, recorders) in very well made plastic, which give true tones, very dependably, wonderful to play. I also have a lovely numbered wood soprano which I treasure, bought from the widower of a player, and I play it to honor her as much as to enjoy it.

I'm including a picture of my own family of instruments, ranging from the smallest one, the sopranino, high up in the bat range (you hear this imitating the flute in the Magic Flute, in that bird song, Papagena, maybe), all the way up to the bass, big enough that it needs that neck strap to hold the weight off the player's hands.



Also in the picture is the silver flute, among her friends (!) and a wooden folk flute from Asia sent by a friend, plus a flat reedy sort of instrument that you buzz with your lips, which I can do for about five seconds before my face sort of vibrates by itself. The wood soprano is being guarded by the bass...

The stand that three of them are on is a handy way of having them at hand to pick up when needed, since in ensembles you routinely switch from instrument to instrument for variety and depending on what the piece needs. And no group appreciates waiting whle a player paws through a bagful of instruments in search of the parts then has to assemble the pieces! all these instruments are in three pieces which you assemble for playing, and it's nice that each has a foot joint that can shift to accommodate your own personal fingers, my little finger being very short I need to shift the joint on all my instruments to fit it.

The viol, which I don't play, though when I see the music with the pencilled markings for bowings, makes me look back nostalgically at violin playing before my body threatened to quit on me if I didn't switch instruments, is an old stringed instrument. You see them in medieval and Renaissance paintings, usually played by angels, and it needs an angel to make them sound really good. They are very temperamental instruments, go out of tune if you look at them wrong, but their devotees don't care, they still love them.

The viol joke is that the Renaissance took three centuries, but it could all have been fitted into one century if they hadn't had to keep stopping to tune the viols...

Cut, sew, knit, weave up a storm

The last couple of days have been knitting, weaving, cutting, stitching central around here.

First, to pass on a neat idea: remember the legwarmer notion that HS suggested for HP? and I thought sweater sleeves would do it? I had a better idea! which I have put into effect and pass on to you: cut off the legs of sweatpants, finish the cut edges, and use the legs as legwarmers and the top part as shorts. Wallah, as they say in those misguided DIY shows, legwarmers AND shorts, AND the catheter is accessible. He's very pleased with the first set which he is now wearing, and there are no draughts behind his legs now.

The thing about wheelchairs is that you can cover the top of the person, but it's very hard to stop draughts from getting behind their legs, the logistics of lowering a person into a chair being incompatible with having nice rugs behind there, largely because there's no traction to keep the person in the chair. HP can not support himself sitting upright, and would slide right down and out of the chair if he were not seated firmly on the official cushions ordered up by the medical people.

Our neighbors and local police force, saints in uniform, who have lifted him up off the floor and back into his chair before he had the approved wheelchair, will attest to this. And even a 140 lb paralyzed man, HP is small, is a dead weight, and it takes at least two people to do it. This was in pre-Hoyer lift days. So all this is part of the equation.

The reason I share info like this is in case any of you dear blogreaders, should need to pass it on for the benefit of other people, you never know, and it could save a lot of grief in someone else's life.

On to other creative endeavors: I'm halfway up panel two of the tapestry, and show you a picture here. Once again, it seems that stuff is appearing that I didn't actually consciously put there! this always happens, and it's a great surprise usually. I notice buildings in there now, in late afternoon reddish light. I show you the first panel to see the echoes in the design, intentional, and the contrast in color choices, also intentional. Interesting mix of conscious and subconscious.





The third panel, already warped, will be in the blue/purple/black range, so that a kind of vertical landscape will appear. At least that's the current thinking. I simply never know if that will in fact happen. This work looks ragged right now, because it's still on the loom, with the stay laces at the sides, and has yet to be removed and blocked and kind of neatened up and finished off, so you're seeing it in its raw state, but I think that's interesting.

And lastly, when I lose my art mojo, this kind of freeform tapestry being very tiring to work on, because of all the decision making every minute or so, exactly like painting, I have a nice bit of knitting on the needles.



It's a feather and fan lace pattern scarf, which will probably go to some person as a Christmas gift, since I certainly have enough scarves, and would like to give this one. Not sure of the destination yet, but it's fun to make. I cast this on a couple of days ago.

It's an old old lace tradition, used in the Shetlands and elsewhere, with a lot of variations. Known also as shell stitch, and as shale, reference I think to the wave shapes left on the sand by the receding tide, which Shetlanders certainly knew all about.

So that's us! Happy Saturday, tout le monde!

War and Peace

So the HOA, Homeowners' Association, has decided in its wisdom to replace all our sidewalks and parking lot surfaces. Okay, except that you have to kind of vaporize your car for several days, no parking available, no parking on all the surrounding roads, by law. Hm. Anyway, out front it's all Men at Work, making war on the street as they break up the old belgian block and sidewalk.









View from front door, man at work.

So my walk had to start from the patio door, the front door not being accessible to anywhere I could walk without dodging heavy equipment, and my neighbor's peace roses on her patio fence were still blooming away.



They smell fruity in a way, not very scented, but beautiful and a nice treat that we are still getting flowers galore, not having had a killing frost yet, just a couple of cool nights.

As usual, I take pix while I'm out walking, to show HP when I get home, since he likes to see what's up out there. So you can share, too.

Pizza today

The sure sign of a good home made pizza is -- no leftovers.

In case you fancy trying this at home, I used: Tibetan flatbread for the base. I cooked this completely -- it's easy, really easy, like about as complicated as making a sandwich, see it via Google -- because last time I tried this I thought if I partly cooked it then finished it in the oven with the toppings, that would work. It didn't really, because I had failed to realize that no home oven gets as hot as a pizza oven in a restaurant.

Anyway, this time I cooked it completely, this is done on top of the stove, while I made the toppings -- sliced black olives, sliced white mushrooms, sauteed in butter and olive oil until all the liquid was gone and they smelled wonderful, the sauce made of homemade basil/parsley pesto, made from home grown plants, I have to brag here, cut with some tomato paste and a bit of ketchup, warmed together to make a spreadable sauce, handful of shredded Mozzarella cheese.

On top of the bread came the sauce, then the olives then the mushrooms, then the cheese. Into a 450 oven, until it all looked good, then I whipped it out and served it. All gone in no time at all. Very good indeed. I will have to make two of these if HS wants lunch with us, because he would need some, too....

And the prep work, which was a lengthier affair than I expected, was okay, too, since the extra olives and mushrooms, cleaned and sliced, are now in the freezer for the next time I get inspired to make a pizza.

Very satisfying to make and to eat.

All this fuss about lunch, I ask you. It all goes to prove that deep down I'm shallow!

Tea Ceremony!

Thanks to a wonderful internet friend who found that the Lapsang Souchong tea she bought and found she doesn't like much, is in fact HP's total favorite of all teas, and promptly shipped it to him together with some other wonderful thoughts and gifts, you see here the results!

HS took portraits of the Parental Units officially throwing out the first cup. Couldn't get both of us ready at once, so one shows a cheerful one and a puzzled one, and the next is the opposite, so I am posting the set.



For him: Lapsang with a small spoonful of sugar. For her: black and fruit tea, new experience, and very good it was. HP was ecstatic at being reunited with his favorite tea which I have not been able to find in years. And HS was presented with some once we found that he, the good cook, uses Lapsang dry leaves in the special rub he has invented, to give the smoky flavor.

Note the handknit afghan on HP, and the newly renovated jacket on BP (Beautiful Partner, that's me, not conceited, not at all...). The afghan is a big favorite of Burmese kitty Marigold, who insists on sitting on it at all times. This can be a bit complicated with HP is trying to eat lunch, with a cat between him and his plate..

White Rabbits, it's November!