Snow's gone. Labyrinth clear. Dollivers go.

The six word bio of yesterday's Dolliver adventure forms the title of today's post.

Finally the snow has gone, for now anyway, and as I was urgently in need of a labyrinth outing, what with long winter, tiredness, general depression and feelings of oh, poor me, intervening among happier passages.

So the Ds. insisted they come. The little Kitchen Witch explained that since she knows about magic and helping and powers we can't see, she had no need of a new costume at all, being fully equipped for any eventuality, but she insisted that this be her first outing of her life.




Big D however thought her handcrocheted lace dress and a headband would be a suitably humble yet lovely outfit, and Porcelain D borrowed shorts to go with her dress, and decided on a headband, too, which made her look unnervingly like John McEnroe in drag, but never mind.




They agreed to stay respectfully out of the center of the labyrinth, under the Tibetan prayer flags, which brush my hair as I walk the labyrinth, very pleasingly, like an unearthly touch. I found a piece of green glass which I put in the center of the labyrinth when I reached it and stood for a few minutes, just letting things be.

Things included music which a neighbor suddenly started blasting out of the garage while he worked on his car. Remembering the Shakuhachi Effect -- everything that happens is part of what happens, not an interruption of what happens -- I just went on.

It has been true on every labyrinth visit that whatever problems I present as I enter get some kind of response before I leave. This time it was about tiredness, long winter, feeling of cabin fever in all parts of life at times. And on the way out, came swimming up from the subconscious the thought, clear as anything: most of what you want is fantasy.

Now this really rocked me. Given that want has several different meanings, desire, need, lack, and more. And given that fantasy might mean more life of the imagination, or might mean unrealistic hopes and dreams for some life that isn't mine, or might mean taking pleasure in simply examining lives, mine and others. A lot of material to deal with.




Anyway, a great visit.

Wallpapering Together

They say that the decision most likely to cause massive if not terminal domestic strife is innocently stumbled on when the couple decide to wallpaper together. I speak as a survivor.

Some background: as you know, HP was a nuclear scientist till he retired, and I am an artist until they carry me out. This means very different ways of seeing the world and intuiting it. He was a chemist which is good, because typically chemists have a great sensitivity to color, and he does enjoy my work hanging on the walls.

However, scientists tend to like the plan and design and THEN execute school of thought. Artists, at least my kind, are more along the lines of ready, fire, AIM! When you have one of each in a couple you have the makings of a very exciting time.

I was reminded of this a couple of days ago, when HP's physio, the marvellous Emil, was here, and we had observed that one exercise which involves hoisting HP to his feet several times, with huge assist from Emil, also made HP's feet slip a bit, despite the athletic shoes, on the laminate floor. So I wondered if a section of nonskid shelf lining, often used in rehabs to make walker handles and chair arms nonskid, might work underfoot too.

Emil, ever open, despite his massive expertise, to learning anything new, was fine with trying it. HP the scientist said, oh, that won't work. No advance planning, no scribbled notes on paper, I guess was his reasoning. I said, well, let's just see.

It worked just fine. And E. commented, well that's the difference between the science and the art approach! in both cases, though scientists and artists are quite used to things not working quite as hoped, and persevering nonetheless.

And it took my memory right back, straight as an arrow, to the time we wallpapered the kitchen in the first house we owned. This was a house built in the 1920s with all the quirks you would expect in a Sears Roebuck kit house with extra ideas added in by the owner. The kitchen had three doors opening onto it, and the sort of walls that the passage of time has um mellowed, or bellied a bit, normal in a plastered house of that period.

So we had the wallpaper. Big cheerful sunflowers and green vines or something. Bear with me, it was the early 70s., this was All The Rage at that time. If you want to see almost the exact pattern, look at the DVD of Bob Newhart's first season of the Bob Newhart Show. I rest my case. And I will not mention the orange shag rug in the dining room. Or the forest green accent wall in the living room. Draw a veil over it is a good idea. Actually a veil would probably have been a good idea at the time, too.

Soooooo, the kitchen. I thought we should work around until we met, going in opposite directions. And my approach was to wet the paper, slap it up, gently shift it into position, cut it in at the ceiling and around the many obstacles, and it looked just fine. HP made many little diagrams with measurements and little arrows and runic inscriptions then transferred the diagrams fullsize onto the wallpaper, and THEN cut it out and applied it to the wall, and it looked fine.

Came the part where we were to meet, and he was horrified when I butted together the edges where we met, then cut around the flower motifs to make the join invisible. I wasn't exhibiting art at that point, that came later, but I had a feeling for how to fool the eye, anyway.

But HP never got over the fact that though my half of the room looked fine, which he conceded, I had cheated by failing to measure and mark ahead of time!!

Fast forward to the current artwork: freeform tapestry, no advance planning other than to gather up my handspun yarn in colors that like each other, and warping the frame with string. That's it. Now, there are tapestry weavers who have the HP approach, of planning and calculating the yardage and the psi concerns, and make a cartoon, that's a rough drawing, to install behind the warp to follow as they work.

I did try that at the outset, not wishing to assume I wouldn't like it, and I hated it. All the fun went into the drawing and all that was left was dull stuff! but to those who always work that way, make wonderful artworks, good for you.



Anyway, HP is finally reconciled to my working this way and now that he's seen a lot of results he thinks maybe it's okay after all. Particularly since I was just offered a solo exhibit in fiber works for Spring 2012, all my choice of items.



Adventure stretching ahead..

Of jewels, beans and Poseidon

There was one of those neat features in the NYT today about finding materials to plant in the kitchen: those dried beans and various seeds and lentils and other things we think of as food but which can be planted.

Ever since I read a book years ago called something like The After Dinner Gardener, which was about planting the pits from your dessert orange and that kind of thing, I've been a pushover for planting whatever I find around me, but had unaccountably overlooked lentils and beans. Now, given that they might have been irradiated to exterminate various dread ailments, they may not sprout at all, but no harm in trying.

So I started pawing through the kitchen cabinets and found a bag of bean soup beans, many kinds, in the freezer. I hope freezing hasn't done them in, but I figured I may as well plant a few, so I put them in a bowl to soak for a day. And realized that the beef bones which, most unlike me, never do beef, in the freezer, are waiting to be processed into stock and united with this bean soup mix for a great family soup. So the bones are now roasting, the beans are now soaking for food purposes and a selection is soaking for planting.



They look exactly like little jewels, too good to eat. I'll keep you updated on their progress if they have any progress. I think I'll put them in the glass gardens, why not.

Other updates: years ago I made a lot of art together with another artist, Stefi Mandelbaum, under the monicker Unified Field. We did very well, as Unified, juried into some very respectable places, and even made sales, gads, as well as continuing our solo art adventures. It was great fun to keep our real identities concealed, and collect people's surmises. At one point we were thought to be a couple of young male bikers!!

Anyway, Stefi has now committed a blog, which you can find (I don't do hotlinks, since to me they are like call waiting, I'd rather not interrupt your reading in here) by googling on her name, going to her blog, then finding the page entitled Unified Field, where all will be revealed, how we arrived at the name, how we worked, and some of the works we created together.



Here's Poseidon, a mixed media piece, three image transfers from polaroids we took of our own earlier works, on a torn paper background. Please forgive the distortion -- it was the only way I could get a picture of a black piece under glass without having my own reflection front and center or a big glare from the flash.

But do mosey over to Stefi's blog and take a look at her art, too, while you're checking up on Unified Field. Good stuff there.

Three Snowdrops! must be Spring..

Finally the snow receded to where I could stumble around on the patio and see if any snowdrops had braved it all and there were three sticking up gallantly from the snow and ice, blooming away. More to come, but the total snowdrop garden is about eight flowers, so three is a representative number.

I love snowdrops, because they come through no matter what. Some years they bloom and fade all under the snow, but they seem not to care about that. And though Lucia in the Benson books despises them because they hang their heads (!) I love how you have to get up close and personal to see into their faces.

HP was thrilled with this sign of Spring that I set up in a little glass of water near him.

Meanwhile his flower requirements were being met by an orchid which blooms faithfully every year in the house.




According to the New York Times, this blog, or rather this form, is dying, speaking of coming through no matter what. They claim that Facebook and Twitter have taken over entirely. Hm. I don't THINK so! they eventually got to the point of realizing that blogs are for actual sharing of thoughts and ideas and questions and solutions, not for telling people we've just parked the car and now we're getting out and now we're crossing the parking lot, truly riveting information. I wonder if everyone's talking and nobody's listening to that sort of exciting stuff. But as they say, if you like that kind of thing, it's exactly the kind of thing you'd like..

Meanwhile, back at the blogstand, this one and its sister blog, Art, the Beautiful Metaphor, aren't going away any time soon. Oh, and our Field and Fen journals, talking about going on no matter what, are as follows: Nautilus is now in Alaska, next stop will be New Zealand, and Treasure Everywhere is in Vancouver, next stop the Bay Area. These journals have crisscrossed geography and lives, some in struggling mode, some frantically busy but with good stuff, all willing to take a shot at the journal. The journals got separated in the course of traveling, but that's fine, they'll get there! and thank you to everyone who has taken part already and to those patiently waiting their turn!

Snow White and other awful ideas

No, no, poison!



Just heard the local classical music station with a program I'd never heard before -- music written for the movies. Okay, since I rarely see movies, I figured this should be new to me, and I started to listen as I drove down a busy road en route to Target about which more anon.

And almost went off the road with PTSD when they started in on songs from the accursed Snow White. And after the Target trip, to the library to decompress, and I found an obliging child had put up a collection of stuffed toys, which agreed to be models for the narrative. Snow White has brown, not blue, eye color, about which more later..but this was a doll just acting the part of Snow White, after all.




So, fast backward, hearing the SW song in the car, I quickly switched to another station, but not before a rapid sequence of awful experiences with movies had flashed before my inner child's eyes.

The wicked Queen with the red apple, cackling and rowing off armed with the poisoned red apple to kill Snow White, oh, gah. I know several people of my age who saw this movie at age seven, and never in their lives after could put a red apple anywhere near their mouths. I wouldn't be surprised if my aversion to small boats and rowing dated from then, too!

And my monkey mind rapidly switched to Lassie, and the nightmares and crying after seeing those movies.



I think I was spared them after one sequence of screaming and nightmares about "poor Lassie and her PAWS were BLEEDING..." I wouldn't even read so-called classic novels about animals in case they suffered. Like the miserable Black Beauty. Heck, even nursery rhymes weren't safe places -- remember I Had a Little Pony????

I've often wondered what in tarnation adults are thinking, well, maybe they're not thinking, when they give little children this wonderful treat which will scar them for life! Bambi's mother....oh and that poor Dumbo...




no, no, that way madness lies.

I do remember taking HS to see a Benjy movie and we left in a hurry when he just couldn't stand it. I hadn't realized it was going to be harrowing. So maybe the prospect of Snow White sounded nice to the adults to took me there, too.

One part of that which didn't strike me as horrifying until years later was the pencil on glass quality of dear little SW's singing voice..but I still remember the good part which was that unlike most fairy story heroines, Snow White was not a blonde!!! lovely dark wavy hair and blue eyes. Like mine.

Which brings me with a swoosh to the present day and the necessity to get alternative access to the internet, since the various neighborhood wireless signals are all too weak any more to be helpful. For ages I had choices and was so grateful to generous neighbors who didn't lock down their access, and now I have to think again. It was wonderful while it lasted, but I need my dear old netbook to be working for me.

So after some research and total failure to find what I was looking for online: a stand alone service using a broadband device that looks like a memory stick, but which gives internet access on a contract basis. Online it's all bundles with everything in your house including the water heater and maybe a snowblower, in the contract, and our household won't yield easily to that approach.

Anyway, I found what I need, at the local Target with a perfectly great salesperson who had exactly what I wanted, and I'll run this by HS who knows good questions for me to think about, and then I'll probably spring for it. It is literally what I was looking for, and I'm amazed to have found it so easily. Well, easily once I'd navigated the totally under construction store which seems to be turning into a grocery place. I needed a GPS to find the electronics department...

So there's the emotional and logistical state of affairs around here. HP had a couple of bad days this week, needed quick attention and I needed rapid access to doctor advice, which is email, and his appointments with various professionals are set up that way, too. So the internet is really more of a requirement than a fun deal for me.

However, all's well now, and we will live to fight another day or several!!

Forty Eight and Counting!

Feb 16 1963 was the day HP and I committed matrimony. Not intending to coincide with or near V day, since we'd been trying to get married since the previous October. But since Catholic weddings have no legal status in England, since the Reformation, the only legally recognized marriage is performed by the township registrar. However, since a registrar's office wedding has no religious status in the Catholic church, the only option is to get the registrar to attend the religious ceremony, which they hate to do. So after setting and breaking many dates, between the church being available and the registrar being willing, we finally managed to snag the registrar on Feb 16 at 3.20 p.m. take it or leave it. So we took it.




The wedding picture is a portrait of generosity as well as a wedding picture of two hopefuls cutting their cake together. The dress and veil were lent by a friend I worked with, the cake was a wedding present from another friend, the photography a wedding present from another friend, the surroundings, the Student Union at Manchester University, a low budget location for the reception.

They were all excited about it since it was the first wedding they'd ever done! they insisted on doing all the greenery on the tables since no flowers were available -- severe winter and flowers at that time of year in England used to come from the Scilly Isles, which were totally cut off by winter storms at the time

So the soap opera began! and we were married for 18 years, during which time we emigrated, lived in Wisconsin then here in NJ, divorced, were completely apart for several years, got together again, fell apart again after buying this townhouse, and remained friends through all this, though we were a hopeless couple. Finally, we think, we put out lives together once and for all on nine eleven, figuring that we wanted to be together for each other since it could all be over in a flash.



This is us a couple of years ago

So that's us! one very perceptive friend, well, she's a therapist, hardly surprising, but she was in my life as a private art student, commented that we'd actually done what we needed wrt one another throughout, very flexible approach and one that therapists are starting to see as a good thing for many people, rather than breaking up angrily forever, or sticking together angrily forever!

And so you see us. It cracks me up when people ask what is the secret of our still being close after all these years. The answer is: a great big break of time in the middle of it...

Happy VDay in the Antipodes!

a.k.a. This one's for you, Minimiss!!

Since it's already Valentine's Day in New Zealand and other good neighborhoods, I figured we'd get the wishing under way.

Dolliver in newly draped mermaid gown (note the shore theme) has to acknowledge the design influence of A.I., which does not in fact mean artificial intelligence, in fact she has a ton of the genuine sort, for her way of designing evening wear by draping a lot of beautiful fabric and going from there.





And the pet puppy Olivier read Mutts today, decided it was highly suitable for his purposes and borrowed the heart motif. D's porcelain doll, Canada, in honor of her origins, got all dressed up in her best red silk and lace and spangly stuff in honor of the day.



Hearts and flowers from all of us to all of you. Happy Day! SO remembered to get HS to produce a card and a little box of hearts for me, from HP, which touched me no end, since I didn't know he had realized the date. Little foggy on a lot of things these days.

And Wednesday, the 16th, no relation at all to V day in fact, will be the 48th anniversary of when we committed matrimony together! long funny story of our soap opera lives, together, apart, together, apart, dangit make your minds up, people, but that can wait a day or two.

Community Service and movie review. Dolliver-style, that is

I found recently that St. Jude Ranch for Children, in Nevada, takes the fronts of old greeting cards, with some exceptions, for use in recycling to new cards as a fund raiser. So the recent massive purging of the files having yielded large numbers of greeting cards, all nice to see, but surplus to requirements, I figured this was a good destination.

I kept some from Handsome Partner and Handsome Son, which I can't part with, but there were tons that were just casual sorts of deals. So I spent hours cutting off the fronts, recycling the rest of them, parceled the fronts up in a box to send off today, and two Dollivers decided that since they are nice people, they would take part in this effort, mainly by getting a new hat each




and posing at the post office, evoking a lot of quizzical looks and cautious smiles.



I think the post office people who have known me for decades wondered if I might be getting a bit strange and maybe go postal.

So the parcel is off to do some good and the Ds are consoled for not winning the movie lottery at the weekend and getting to come to The King's Speech. The audience at the event was, well, mature, many of them probably remembering the events of 1936-9 when the movie takes place.

The Ds who did win the lottery were surprised at how dark it was in the movie





and they couldn't see from this seat






so one D. made the great discovery of a doll seat.



She noticed that other people were using them to hold drinks, and concluded they didn't understand the real purpose. This screen is huge, much better than that tiny little tv at home. Maybe we could have one of these at home, too, huh?

Mainly they fell back in admiration of the great Colin Firth, who ought to get an Oscar for this movie, as should everyone else in it, including Derek Jacoby who played the Arch. of C. with just the right toffee nosed effect and a lot of aplomb, which I expect he would pronounce just right. The sets were just stuffy enough for the royal scenes and just grimy enough for the speech therapist office scenes.

The audience respectfully sat through all the credits. And if they'd played God Save the King, I think they would probably all have leapt, or wavered, to their feet. Appreciative group.

I award this movie five crowns. And may God bless all who sail in her..

Meanwhile, I have made my reservation for my Great Big Outing to Cape May in May, and the Ds have put in urgent requests for swimwear. No, not for getting wet, for lounging in the sun. And hats. And sunglasses. And tall drinks. And I told them they were getting a bit ahead of themselves.

Tracks and quilting

I noticed on a walk today, these kind of running stitches across the snow, in patterns that reminded me of quilting




And found the Canada goose family who were busy inscribing their footprints. In case you thought I was some great track detective.



Which made me wonder if the early quilters were inspired by goose tracks in the snow to do their quilting with running stitches in patterns.

There are traditional quilt designs with goose in their name, but they usually refer to the flight of geese. But these really made me wonder about the origins of parts of that artform.

It's good to know that Canada geese are creating interesting designs, in the intervals of pooping all over our parks, and eating local crops. Some misguided soul declared them a protected species some years ago, and we now have flocks of thousands of them resident all year round, very happily reproducing at a rate of knots. And now and then a farmyard goose runs away to join them.

One of my petcare clients lost their farm goose that way -- saw him flying with the Canada geese, and eventually taking off in a V formation with them. Not that they go far. I used to see him now and then just a couple of miles from home, happily pursuing family life in his new group.

So I guess that's another thing to credit them with: accepting other species into their flock. We could probably learn a thing or two from them.

Dolliver and Oliver

One of the Ds., the one most attached to big fluffy dog Oliver, decided he was suffering from cabin fever, and needed to romp in the snow. He needed no two invitations, and togged up in her new purple skirt and matching pillbox (channeling Jackie O) hat, she took him out to pose on a peak in Darien,or his nearest approach to it.



And in true doggy fashion, he romped and jumped and knocked her flat



and thanked her for playing with him in the snow and generally posed like a handsome Westminster entrant.



As she pointed out, far be it from any other D. to do such a nice thing for their pet, and the bribe of the purple skirt and hat does not count, but they do look good, no?


The big dog show is up in a couple of weeks, so no doubt Dog Oliver and Puppy Olivier will need to follow it in case their breed wins big. Fuzzy Yarnhound, Nonworking variety.

Speaking of nonworking, the Groundhog Day groundhogs performed their total annual working obligation, failed to see a shadow and cheered us all up no end that this means spring will soon come. Depending on your definition of Spring, but we'll take it at this point.

The Ds. are already planning their Spring outfits. I pointed out that Valentine's Day happens long before spring, so they stopped, thought, and flicked through more pages of their fashion mags to find suitable V wear. I probably should have omitted that information.

Ten Thousand Read! Dollivers take a bow..

Ten Thousand? Dog, that's great!

This just in: as of a few minutes ago, our blog has reached the 10,000th pageview! so if you are reading this, you have started the next ten thousand.

The Ds. of course claim that they are the main attraction and it's their followers causing this intense international interest and concern, and I've pointed out that comments relating to them are not always so flattering, but they all chorused we can't hear you we can't hear you, we're made of yarn, neener.

Anyway, thank you whoever checked in on Field and Fen and put us over the top! A while ago we passed the one thousandth comment mark, which is a very healthy ratio, one comment to ten pageviews.

Usually we used to be advised in the broadcast industry, that if one person called or wrote, you should Pay Attention, because they often represented as many as 25 other people who agreed but never got around to actually saying so. For better or worse. Evidently some clever polling people established this.

All I know is that when a member of the public came into our station one time to look at the public records of programming and times, etc., the program manager called me in great excitement: come down and see! see who's in my office! I have a Member of the Public looking at my records! Exercising his rights! All these years of keeping the records required and finally someone wants to see them!!

So this is why pageviews, and particularly comments that arise, excite me hugely. Please keep on!

Year of the Rabbit

Snow scene seen on the way out from home yesterday. Taken as an act of faith that the snows will stop coming at us.

Soon Chinese New Year will be upon us, and the local library was invaded yesterday by wild and fierce young dragons, dancing about and mixing and mingling with the crowds, along with the music, food, arts and crafts that were happening all over the place, and a huge and wonderful drum that was beating all the time, sounded like the building was reverbing.



The annual greeting of the librarians by the friendly dragon




Dragon mixing with the groups, blending in...





Dragon in search of new adventures




Which he finds in the kids' department, where he was grilled by a little guy wanting to get to the bottom of this vision that suddenly appeared. "Are those your feet? wait, there's PEOPLE in there! how did you get in? how can you get out?" and so on.




Dragon looms up for a closeup after escaping the probing questioning of the small reporter.



Bracketing the post with the snow scene caught coming home again.

When in doubt, make stuff!

So today is another day, and aside from the day-after feeling from digging snow in all the spare time of yesterday, not to mention the various alarms and excursions the previous night, I'm feeling pretty good. Especially since I got back into the studio yesterday, on top of everything else, because that's as good as a get-well clinic for me.

And made a couple of transformations. One used the backs and lovely brass fittings from another book, which I painted freely and very happily, with gold and silver and my trusty sponge brush, then cut and punched out pages to fit in, and thereby made a nice new artist book, which will be in the mail quite soon.



Some of the pages are high quality rough watercolor paper, some are thinner paper for writing or maybe drawing.

The other is just a paint job. During the massive Paper Clearout and File Fixing up, still ongoing, I found this little fully loaded, empty notebook, which was a boring old blue. Now it's gold and silver with blue showing through, much more cheerful.




If it doesn't move, paint it. And this madeover notebook got a severely useful function in its new life: my grocery lists!

Big plan: I will date the lists I make so that I can tell how long stuff lasts around here, currently a bit of a mystery, largely because most of my shopping expeditions are mad rushes to the local Asian store or even madder rushes to the further away supermarket, for just a few items, all I have time for, given that HP can't be alone for more than a very short while. This tends to militate (or as a pretentious but not very well read friend used to say, mitigate) against organization. Flylady would be horrified.

Years ago, when we first combined our households, -- that's another discovery I made, that it was seven years ago in June, time flies when you're running to keep up with what life doles out -- anyway, starting back then,I made notes for a few months on what housecleaning I did by date, in order to find out how often I actually did this rotten stuff, and was happy to find that it wasn't as often as it seemed. So maybe food items last longer than I realize too. We'll see.

This is my Inner Bookkeeper at work. My Total Artist makes allowance for my IB now and then.

Scary times at the OK Corral

We had an eventful 15 hours: two major snowfalls, one ice storm, one thunderstorm with exciting lightning, high winds, and the scary bit was a total power outage during the night.

Now this was important, because HP has an ap mattress, dependent on an electric pump to operate without deflating, which is dangerous for a person with pressure ulcer situations, and considered a medical emergency by the supply people. Unfortunately, the roads were impassable, so they couldn't have come out with a replacement anyway, and ambulances could not have got through if the house went too cold to be safe. And so on. And attempting to transfer him from bed to chair in the pitch dark too dangerous even to consider. Hard enough in the light!

I was up stumbling about in the dark looking for extra blankets to throw over him, and cautiously coming downstairs, finding a flashlight by feel, and generally trying to plan for whatever might happen. If it were only me, no problem, but it's different in this situation.

The power came back on after an hour, one of the longest outages we've ever had since we have a terrific utility company, great infrastructure. Ours are the techs. who are asked to go to other states to help them get wired up again after ice storms, so that will tell you it was surprising. But what with the alternating snow and ice storms and lightning strikes, not so surprising.

So we lived through it, but not knowing how long the power would be out was a very long wait, and HP is now peacefully eating his boiled egg and homebaked toast.

So I thought a few snowscenes wouldn't be out of place at this juncture.



Nature takes a hand with the wallhanging on the patio




Out front, snow slopes




Somewhere under there are cars, I guess




The wild cherry is completely lying down on the table now. Can't tell yet if it's broken, but it's a tough guy, and I'm hoping not

Bryson and other fun reading

Time for a couple of book reviews.

Bill Bryson has done it again. He writes a hybrid of journalism and cultural history, and it's not only easy reading, it's really well researched. He comes up with the most riveting bits of useless info, and you can just see him giggling as he points out that, for instance, the original design drawings (which are reproduced in this book) of the mousetrap are still the model for use. Nobody has ever improved on it. So much for building a better mousetrap. And how Capability Brown reshaped the English countryside so that what we think is nature's work, actually isn't, but it's flowing and natural looking.

Anyway, this latest, "At Home" is a rambling series of essays triggered by wandering about his own house, a Victorian or earlier rectory in a flat part of England, views for miles. He considers each room, which then triggers all kinds of happy tangents taking in the China tea trade, the search for spices, how Bell fought off Edison and mighty opponents who were trying to infringe on his telephone patents, and so on. Great reading, and funny a lot of the time, too.

I give him five hatstands on this one!

Then there's a nice detective writer, Sue Ann Jaffarian, a new discovery for me, whose accidental detective is a very large lady, a paralegal, partnered with a wheelchair-using man who runs a graphic arts agency, and their adventures, she stumbling into murders at every turn and he trying desperately to restrain her.

She's a funny writer, and a very good deviser of plots, if a bit rambling now and then. But what I love is her choice of main characters, without underlining her agenda at all. She simply presents a heavy woman and a wheelchair using man as actual vital highly active and interesting people. It's great, and I think it works all the better because she mentions these things where they matter to the plot, but otherwise just moves on. Corpse on the Cob is a great cross country adventure.

The other is a different series by the same writer, haven't embarked on it yet, but I plan to, since we have yet ANOTHER snowstorm, and there's no sign of plows or path diggers or anything, and even HP's doughty physio cancelled his visit today.

Both the mention of the wheelchair and of the physio remind me of a large pet peeve of mine in real life, that of referring to people by their disability or illness.

A person in a wheelchair is not a paraplegic, even if he has paraplegia. Someone with seizure disorder is not an epileptic, even if he has epilepsy. A person with asthma is not an asthmatic. And so on. The point I'm making is that reducing people to a one word description confined to their illness is disrespectful, and shows the speaker's inabiity to grasp that this is a whole person coping with a situation but living a life quite apart from those struggles.

And while I'm at it, let's ditch for all time the phrase "confined to a wheelchair". The wheelchair user in our family points out that far from being confined, he is freed by his chair to be anywhere other than in bed. He can be at the table, across the room, out on the patio, and even that small world is a whole lot bigger than being in a few square feet in a bed!

And, okay, why not go for broke, let's all quit describing someone who got cancer as a cancer victim. That's a patient, not a victim, for pity's sake. And eventually, we trust, a survivor. But never a victim.

Now I'll breathe again, and notice that the picture I took today seems not have the dreaded black line that appeared on my camera a couple of days ago. I was afraid it would make it inoperable, since it's right in the middle of the viewfinder. So I've got another of the same model and make on its way. Hm. Now I may have two working cameras! but it's as well to have the backup, in case the dreaded Pixel Failure spreads.

But if it does, don't say my camera's a pixel victim!

The recital of the grievances revisited

Remember George Costanza's father with his official Recital of the Grievances as the family holds the aluminum Festivus pole? I was listening to the Car Guys this morning, one of them recalling a terrible injustice done him by a college teacher, and the other brother says I'm glad you're really over that, and it was only what? forty years ago?

Struck me as hilarious, how in the recesses of our psyches, we cling to rotten things people said decades ago, and still get indignant. The kid who pushed us down in kindergarten! the boy who shoved our elbow and RUINED our drawing in third grade! some of us are so old that the culprits have probably gone to their reward and they're in heaven pushing people down and shoving their elbows.

However, I always like to think things from the opposite, too, just makes it interesting. And I notice the things people have said decades ago that were so helpful and terrific and probably the speakers never knew how much they helped.

Like the boss who, nearly forty years ago, when I was desperately giving up smoking, having discovered it was doing a job on my son's sinuses, poor little kid, bad mom, and after six weeks of frantic trying not to smoke, my smoker boss commented one lunchhour as she lit up, you never went back to it, did you? With that moment, I realized I was considered an ex-smoker. And it made it a whole lot easier to be one.

So, a belated thanks, Jean!

Or the patient sharing a hospital room, as I was recovering from major surgery in my forties, struggling to get back some strength, feeling about ninety, and waiting for tests to tell me if my condition was malignant. Viola, aged nearly ninety in real life, not just feeling like it, commented, oh you're doing better every day! but then you're just a little girl, aren't you? how wonderful to have someone think I was just a kid. It set me up for a terrific recovery.

Thanks, Viola. I know you've been gathered in, but I have never forgotten you.

I doubt if they knew their impact any more than the bee in our picture, going about the daily round, doing their best, knows his impact on his surroundings.

Ophiuchus? whazzat?

It seems that while we weren't looking, the planets have been shifting around, to the point where our signs of the zodiac are way wrong. We've been reading the wrong section of the daily horoscope, horrors.

Us Sags are for the most part now under the sign of Ophiuchus or something. The snake holder. Hm. Not sure if I like that, now they've taken away my horse. But then the Scorpio people have been shrunk down to a few days, to make it all fit right or something, so they may have a bigger issue.

HP is no longer a Cancer, now he's a Gemini. And so on. I wonder if all our lives will take a sudden swerve to fit the new zodiac?

The Road Less Traveled

Today, just time for a couple of views of the park under snow, but with cheering skies, better light, nearer the end of winter.

And then I was off to the Honda dealership to get them to do the State inspection, a biannual affair, which you can get done for free at the official inspection stations, gah, they hate their jobs. And if the car fails inspection, you have to go to the garage, get it fixed, and then do the whole thing at the horrible inspection station over again. Simpler to pay a fee to a licensed dealer, have them inspect, fix up and be done with it.

And they have friendly people, and a waiting room with excellent choices of coffee and if you're there in the morning, good bagels with cream cheese. All in all, not bad. And now they have installed free wireless.

Red dress, snazzy hat (call me Michele, my dress designer is American) Dolliver came along, and realized that cars come from car shops! we were going to bring a new one home? maybe? what, just fix that old banger again? it's from the last century, that 99 Civic. It's not even in the blue books any more. It's got 118K miles on it! which to me, I explained, still ranks as a new car.

I have been organizing and tossing paperwork recently, and found the papers from when I traded in the previous car for the current one. Previous Dodge had 135K on it. And before that the lovely old Plymouth Horizon, which I still mourn, had 138K miles on it before I turned it in. That was in the days when they expected cars to conk out at about 90K.

Once the Horizon needed a quart of oil and a pint of tranny fluid at every gas fillup, its days were numbered. Also airbags were the new thing and people were driving as if they were immortal because of them, so I didn't fancy being crushed in my bagless Horizon, much as I loved it. I like my cars, and keep them to a fine old age. Anything less than 10 years old and it's a failure as a vehicle in this household.

Meanwhile, D was getting a bit impatient at these ruminations and dragged me over to the balcony above the sales floor, where the waiting area is.




Listen, let's look at these new ones. See those people down there, all buying new cars?



and then, look, let's take this one home



It smells lovely. The seats still have the wrappers on. What? you never buy new? what a downer you are...I pointed out that if she and the other Ds could come up with the 18K required for that nice red car, and the extra insurance, and the special assistant I would need to get out of it, it being low and sporty, which I am no longer, we could talk again. Meanwhile, we took her picture in pleading pose.

She pointed out on the way home, actually in a continuous accompaniment, that the new car had just little booklets inside and paper mats to cover up the lovely floor. Unlike the vehicle we were traveling in, which has firewood in the trunk, empty laundry baskets on the back seat to receive bags of groceries without letting them roll about, library books, a bag of waste paper, spare shoes and all the accoutrements of normal life around here.

For my part, being somewhat defensive on this score, I pointed out that in all its 118K miles, this car has never, in any weather, from zero to 100 F. failed to start and keep running in all conditions, and that sort of loyalty is to be prized.

Once home, she was heard to explain the whole thing to the other Ds, showing them her portrait, like a model on the hood of the car, that it wasn't cheapitude, it was loyalty that kept us all in this car. And I ignored all the snickers and muttered, yeah, right, heard from various Ds. But I did come back firmly with suggesting that they get an engine installed in their clubhouse, not just talk about it, and they could drive wherever they wanted...

So they all studiously turned to their library books and bridge columns and weekly Will Shortz puzzler entries, and I settled down with a knitting book, looking up darkly now and then and wondering if I could create some new, kinder, gentler Ds. But then I'm used to the grittier models we currently have. They have my cars to thank for that.