Friday

Tonight we're going to see Edmund Dawe and Wendy Neilsen in concert. It should be nice, although I'm not all that crazy about opera music - I should listen to it more, I'd probably like it.

Time goes so fast. I can't believe my birthday was almost a month ago, and just a little more than a month to go to Xmas.

We saw "Cabaret" on Wednesday night - a good production, with a good cast. A busy week extra-curricularly for us - out two nights! We don't really get out much anymore.

Was today "buy nothing" day? I think it might have been. I don't think we bought anything except for pizza - although we did buy the performance tickets.

That's it for now - sorry the blog is a kind of dull, I'll try to spice it up presently.

Tuesday

So, the other things - I used to read a lot when I was younger - I always took a book to bed with me. Cynthia, my sister, got me turned onto Hardy Boys when I was about 10 and I think I read pretty constantly from then until sometime on my twenties. I'm not sure why, but I find it really hard to get engaged in a book nowadays. I do read occasionally - probably about four or five books a year. But I really feel like I should do more. When I get engaged, it's really great, and I want to keep doing it - and there are so many wonderful things you can get from reading books.

I've just realized a sort of running theme with the reading and the writing and also even my football watching this fall - for the first time I've found that I'm not really feeling all that engaged in the games either. They seem to go by so fast - and there so seldom seems to be real drama in them.

Finally, I wrote below (I thought it was above, but then I looked at the blog) that I want to become more socially aware/active. I'm not sure where this is going to lead, or exactly what form it's going to take. We spent a few weeks this fall trying to see if we could "buy nothing" except for food and absolute necessities. I spent about 25 cents in two weeks (I bought a gum at the Save Easy). But it got kind of boring after a while, so we stopped. But there are better ways to live for our environment/for other people/for our own family's health. It's hard not to be so caught up in the pace of day to day life that we don't consider these things. I'll try to make that one of the functions of the blog - to explore how to move forward to make things better.

That's it for now - we're off to see a play (Cabaret) which should be fun. I'll tell you how it was tomorrow.

Oh yes - the strange typos in yesterday's blog where caused by typing it in Word then pasting it in - I'll try to avoid doing that.

A Little More Than a Week Later . . .

I was right - I won't be posting as much. I think of it fairly frequently, but often get sidetracked. I think it's one of my biggest strengths and weaknesses - divergent thinking. It allows me to sometimes see things in a very creative/original way, but it also sometime makes me completely lose track of what I'm doing or where I think I'm going.

I wanted to comment a little bit on my "5 priorities" to borrow from Stephen Harper (I'm not a fan really, I just like that particular idea) and briefly update on us. Sorry, still no photos - I don't want to spend a lot of time on this tonight - but I'll try for soon!!

My "priorities" are as above, plus reading and trying to think/be more socially aware/active.

Gym has to do with gaining some weight and getting older (both of which I think I can reverse slightly) as well as feeling much better when I do it and realizing I need to take care of my health (I maybe should have included flossing - I'm almost perfect at that!!). One of my best friends died this past summer (Philip Iverson) - and it's very sad, and sobering. I'm still trying to process it I think. But I’m having trouble going – it’s hard to fit it into the day, and I have many busy evenings (with play stuff) so I try not to fill them up with other things. But I’ll keep trying.

Guitar I’m enjoying a fair bit. This is the third time I’ve tried to learn. I think I need to start a band or something – I find practicing very hard. If I was going to have to perform in front of someone – or if I had a partner. I’m seriously thinking about it.

Blogging I think I'm doing okay at - one a week. Partly what I like about it is I enjoy creative writing, but I find that when I do it lately I'm trapped by form. I think it's from having done so much theatre directing and having come to see so much of art through the director's lense - which has a lot to do with form/structure. It used to be that when I wrote a fictional story, I'd get carried away with the story and it would just sort of flow out of my head. Now I find myself thinking about plot and character and exposition and all sorts of other things that kind of bind my brain. I wrote some poetry last year which was fun, but it almost seems too easy. I enjoyed writing the first few, then I felt like I could keep spewing them out with no end in sight – and less and less connection to anything really inside me. Maybe I just needed to get those first few out then the pressure was gone. Maybe I’ll post one someday.

Okay, I’ve got to go now – I’m going to go have a drink of Whiskey that Peter bought me for my birthday. I’ll finish the other points next time. We’re all well, if a little tired as usual – Peter is really really cute and smart and developing like crazy.

More soon!!
Ron

Stay at home-ish Dad attempts blog

Hello,

I've decided, since I turned 41 (October 30), that I'm going to try to do several (not all!) of the things that I've been thinking I ought to get at before - well, just before I put them off some more I guess. I'm sure there's a more profound reason . . .

Those things include going to the gym, playing guitar, and working on our blog. As Patricia is now excedingly busy, I'm going to try to take over for a while. I'm not strictly speaking really a "stay at home Dad" - I work three days a week for now, and I'll be going back full-time (running an arts festival) in December I think (if our funding all works out, which I think it will!). But I am very house connected - though not in the same way as Patricia.

It's funny, because we didn't intend it, and I certainly never thought it was in my nature, but we're fairly gender traditional when it comes to our domestic interests. I think (hope) that I do my fair share of work - it's just that my share tends to include mowing the lawn, maintaining the car, fixing the occasionally leaky basement - and other stuff like that. While you can see what Patricia's is from looking at the blog.

Another big difference is I probably won't write as much or as regularly as she did - and I'm not a very good speller (and she is!)

Other than that - no definite plans what I'll do with my time - except that I will get some photos up soon when I learn how to do it!

That's it - wish me luck!
Ron

Starfish

It's late September. Summer is gone. I'm wearing boots again. My fieldwork in Marrakesh crept up, and then flew by. Peter is talking and running and amazing us everyday with his loving funniness. Is that a word? I don't know. He's definitely that, though. I've already laid this blog to rest, but wanted to leave this final word that we're all well, working hard, and living in the real world.

I guess I've missed my blog birthday

In the meantime,

the big article (on henna work in Morocco) has been completely tied up, revised, new title, new abstract, illustrations rearranged, references checked, and everything received by editor;

the second big article is about half done in terms of word count, and hopefully also in terms of time spent;

my research trip in August has been arranged;

Peter has learned to count to 13, not coincidentally the number of stairs going up to the second floor, and also not generally not in order ("Mun, two, thee, five, eight, eight, ten, rivern, thirteen..."); and

my sabbatical is over.

Sigh.

porch with red door

porch with red door
Originally uploaded by run lily.

In the end, the robin's egg blue door was an abject failure. By "in the end," I mean "after two coats". Tom (also known as "the lovely painter") suggested red, and so we went with a nice madder color. I love it. The doors have six coats, in the end, though the screen door (to which he added a bottom panel and took out the scrolled corner brackets) has just 4 so far.

almost done

almost done
Originally uploaded by run lily.

Still to do (lovely painter, not me, thank heavens): Second coat of main color. Replace lattice under porch. Take brick off roof.
Still to do (me): This year, just wait for plants to grow. I planted old roses in the back bed (on the right) though they're not really visible here. This year, I planted two climbers against the porch, and put the wires up yesterday. The urn has lavender, mints, and sweetpeas, and that's lady's mantle, artemisia, more lavender, some irises, pansies and violas in the front bed. There are also two roses waiting to be planted, and I'm thinking of putting them in front, on the far right (not visible here) next to the neighbor's driveway.

my favorite corner (and it's not the one on the right)

my favorite corner (and it's not the one on the right)
Originally uploaded by run lily.

I just included the view of the dining room to make this photo pretty for Jes. It's actually all about the pantry. This is the pantry I mentioned a few days ago, made last year by our lovely painter-carpenter Tom, when I was 8 months pregnant and we had just moved into the house. The kitchen, for all its vanilla icecream glory, has no room for food. It has room for a bread machine, loaf pans and cookie sheets, pots and frying pans, a bread basket and a lettuce dryer (try it and you'll be converted), cereal boxes, tea and coffee (I'm going around the kitchen from shelf to shelf in my mind -- bear with me), a Moroccan tajine, olive and vegetable oils and salt and a salad dressing cruet, breast pump accessories, dishes for 12 and cutlery for fewer than that (a problem, I know), potatoes, cling wrap, aluminum foil, freezer bags, spices, various gadgets and a rolling pin, a cooking scale, Pyrex measuring cups in 1, 2, and 4 cup sizes, kitchen linens, a thermos, and a Tupperware bin full of round plastic food storage containers (different volumes but all the same diameter). No room for food. The kitchen does have a short hallway leading to the dining room, though, and at the end of this hallway, there was a broom closet the wideth of the hallway and the depth of a vacuum cleaner. We fitted it with shelves salvaged from a bookcase that was removed from another room, and it is now a pantry. Top shelf for alcohol and pickles, then savory canned things (beans, canned tomatoes, fish, pastas and legumes), then baking supplies and sweet things (can you see my pride and joy, vanilla sweetened pureed chestnuts?), then bags of flour, rice, and oatmeal. No pretty shelf liner, no gingham edging, and there's always some flour on the bottom shelf, but it's just the right size.

A thing I love today: vanilla sweetened chestnuts. I may love these even more than the pantry. Gratuitous recipe for chestnut mousse that will get you invited to parties. Don't tell anyone that it takes half an hour to make and is easier than Rice Krispie squares. Whip 500 ml of cream, fold in entire can of sweetened chestnut puree, pipe into Oreo crumb tart bases done in about 45 small muffin liners (1 cup of Oreo crumbs + 1/4 cup of melted butter, mix well). I place the liners on a tray and press the crumb base into them, no muffin tin needed. About a tablespoon per tart will do, pressed into a flat disk with a low side. Let them cool if you can before piping in the mousse, and then let the completed tarts sit somewhere cool for about an hour. I don't have this much room in the fridge, so I've put trays in the freezer and in the back porch (December). The recipe is a variation on something I half-remember from a French cookbook I had 18 years ago; in the original recipe, the mousse was served in champagne cups and garnished with chocolate curls. I do that sometimes, but honestly, I don't have that many (ok, any) champagne glasses. It's Thursday. See what everyone else loves today.

About the new banner (or, why am I up at this hour?)

Parenthetical question first: Because Peter's up. But he's back in bed, and I hope that he will be there for a few more hours. And now a few words just for Robin, who noticed my new banner. The image is low tide this past Saturday at Cumberland Basin off Rockport, about twenty minutes' drive from here. We call this stretch Red Stone Beach (the actual beach is just past this picture); everyone else (hi Alison!) calls it The Steel Bridge (also just past this picture). The entire beach is small, smooth, flattish red stones that heat up so well on a warm day that they must be the inspiration for hot stone massage therapy. It's perfect for dreaming on. Some people fish there. This picture is taken from the main road because the beach access was blocked by a very large mud puddle. What you see, though, is more mud and the newly-greening marsh, and a few rocks further out out. The points of land are New Brunswick on the left and Nova Scotia on the right. Ron and I thought we discovered this place a few years ago, but it turns out that other people around here do know about it, they just don't talk about it everyday the way we did when we first found it.

House projects, writing projects, and a cold

newly painted west side
Originally uploaded by run lily.

That's my excuse, though in reverse order. I did sit down to write something in this dear little space a few days ago, but all I could get down was "I'm sick. Peter is sick." So I got up and made some tea and went for a stroll in the garden. We're both doing better now.

The lovely painters are getting further and further on with the house. It's going slowly but well, and everyone has noticed more traffic on the street as our neighbors come by to see the progress. Our backyard neighbors called over the other night to say how much they loved the colors, and a few couples from down the street have stopped me on the sidewalk with compliments. Tom (who made my pantry closet last winter and created space in this little kitchen for someone who cooks) jokingly calls my sand-and-sea color scheme "orange with yellow trim," but I can tell that he's very proud of it so far.

Today's big news, aside from getting a first coat on the west side of the house, was that final proofs of an article I wrote a few months ago arrived. They look good. The article (tourism and gender in Morocco, with an emphasis on tourist sector henna artisans) will appear in volume of a scholarly encyclopedia that's due out in July. My writing projects for the next two months: revise second article (social organization of henna workers, due mid-June), write film review (ageing and work), and finish the henna ethnography article. Plus all the other stuff that will need to be done so that I can come back at the end of August and teach the following week. Piece of cake!

Things are moving along here. Peter and I went to a speech-development program for little ones his age this morning. It wasn't really a success. The program involved sitting in a circle and doing action rhymes for an hour. The other kids did that, anyway. I spent a lot of time bringing him back from the hall, and just when he seemed to be settled and enjoying a quiet story, the animator said it was time for another jumping-around song. I thought that would be a good time to go.

Our lovely painter is painting outside, and we hope to have the back of the house done (!!) by the end of the weekend. It's going slowly. There were 1" holes in the clapboard where insulation was blown in 20 years ago. There were some missing shakes, some cracked clapboard, some rotted trim, and some gaps that a small cat could crawl through. But Tom is out priming right now, and there will be a big change in the next day. We're off to St Martins for a very short break tomorrow, and then our trusty electrician will be in on Monday to install some lighting over the kitchen sink, and hopefully advise on a few other projects. A light in the kitchen hall would be nice, but there are no nearby outlets to run a wire from, and the walls (every one of them) are solid plaster. What to do, what to do, what to do. In the meantime, I've moved these ferns from the intensive care unit (the windowsill behind the kitchen sink) to a new home in the upstairs hall. The intensive care bed is now occupied by my poor burro's tail, which got either too much sun or too much cold a few weeks ago in the front porch.

No headline needed!

A new article, a new (to us) picture, and an old house

I've been working at the kitchen table today on the ethnography article (henna practices in Morocco) that I have been wanting to do for the past two months, and which had been put off in favor of the economic anth article (done, but revisions pending) and the first book review. What a calm, beautiful place to work. I always seem to pick one place to work on each project, and this place will be where I pound out my first draft this week.

Can you see a new painting on the wall opposite the table? That was in the bottom of a box lot (with some kitchen linens too, and maybe the toy trunk?) that Ron got at an auction last summer. He wouldn't have paid more than $12 for the box, and this was a bonus hidden away inside. I finally got a frame for it ($14) and now it's up.

And this is what's going on outside.

I heart Agnes

Final Finchtasy
Originally uploaded by Agnes McArbre.

Isn't this the very, very, very best little stuffed finch ever? He would love a home in our playroom.

3 little birds arrived at my house yesterday

3 little birds arrived at my house today
Originally uploaded by run lily.

These came from Claire at needle book. Peter noticed them while he was nursing, and pointed at them (mouth full) until I took him over to look closer. He loves them. So do I.

Exterior color scheme

Exterior color scheme
Originally uploaded by run lily.

We've taken the siding off the back of the house, and will be ready to start priming tomorrow. The inspiration was this picture of a South Carolina beach that ended up in my design book a year ago. The chips for the exterior design are on the right side of the middle picture: tan for the main color, pale cream for the trim, and bright robin's egg blue for the doors (what else?). The green chips are the roof, which we're not painting of course, but I wanted to get those colors in there. (The chips on the left are the front porch, which I did a few weeks ago.) And the last picture is our before shot. Cross your fingers that we get good weather!

little boy room, part 3

little boy room, part 3
Originally uploaded by run lily.

During little boy's nap yesterday, I got the new border finished. I'm waiting for a package from Claire that's due to arrive any day now, and I'm plotting to do some sort of large pillow for the rocker. I love black and white gingham, but I don't think this room can take any more squares. Maybe an applique of some sort. I really love the lyric simplicity of Hillary Lang's "I speak for the trees" quilt, and that has me thinking of some sort of bird on a tree branch in small reproduction prints like these at Quilt Blocks 101. I'm thinking several green prints in the background, a branchy-looking tan branch, a bit of sky, and a nice fat robin (brown back, red breast). I may have to become a quilter before this room is done.

3 rush-seat chairs, a teacup, and Mother's Day

3 rush-seat chairs and a teacup
Originally uploaded by run lily.

The latest issue of Brain, Child magazine questions the notion that there is a sisterhood of mothers. There are so many different opinions and experiences about conception, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, sleep arrangements and discipline that I often think that parenting should join religion and politics as one of the topics that North Americans prefer not to discuss. After a few discussions in which I've been bashed over the head for supporting midwifery, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and other apparently unwise practices, I've become adept at changing the topic. But there is a common experience, though; pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, however we experience them, are life changes. Whatever our experience, it's different from what our life was before. And it's hard sometimes.

Which brings me to the teacup. We went to Linden House's antique sale on Saturday. It's a twice-yearly consignment sale of beautiful things, mostly furniture but also some nice china. I was looking for kitchen chairs, and picked out 3 beautiful rush-seat pieces. They weren't terribly big, but still they wouldn't all fit into the trunk, so Ron packed them into the trunk and back seat and made a quick trip home while Peter and I waited. It seemed like a normal morning for me: we looked around a little more, he talked to all the ladies coming and going, and I peeked over at the china when I could. When Ron got back, one of the shopowners came out with a wrapped teacup that she held out to me. "For Mother's Day next week," she said, "We know what it's like." There is a sisterhood after all.

7 Milner Ave Index

Words (scholarly) written today: 398

Words (nonscholarly) written today: fewer than 100

Meals with fish: 2

Beaches visited: 1

Hermit crabs observed: 4

Hermit crabs grabbed by small boy: 1

Photographs taken today: none

Photographs I wish I had taken today: 2

Cameras taken to the beach after scholarly writing: 0