backyard morning

Oh. My. Gosh. What a glorious day. It's 75 degrees on the second day of July. Seven. Five. Seventy-five. I can't even believe it. (And no humidity, which is even more amazing.) We have all the windows open and the back door, and with the ceiling fan on in the tv room, it's almost...wait for it...chilly.

Bliss.

Callum has been jonesing for some bamboo lately. He had Neel ask a friend of ours if we could cut a piece for him to play with, and he's been making all sorts of plans for that day. He took a ride with our neighbor Tyler to go get a sprinkler last night and on the way Callum apparently told Tyler all about the bamboo. Well, Tyler is about the perfect kind of friend a boy could hope for, because from the front yard of another neighbor's house we watched them come home from the hardware store and walk right into Tyler's house. Nothing unusual in that, but out they came a few minutes later with Callum holding two tall sticks of bamboo. Instant gratification. Callum says, "I'm gonna get some bamboo." And Tyler says, "I have bamboo. It's yours." (And what a gift! In the less than 12 hours since that bamboo got to our house, it's been a cannon, a pole vault, a probe on a spaceship and a gate for Lucy.)

Last week Tyler took Callum on a (sort of) high speed chase to locate the Ice Cream Van after it sped past our house. He does that for me too. Manages to get me just what I need when I need it. Those stainless steel counters that reflect all my cooking photos back at me? All Tyler. There is so much I need to say about this wonderful block in my own little corner of the world here. (And Rebecca, who is too busy today to even stop by - hi Rebecca!- is being remarkably patient about it.) But where to begin? I'll start somewhere, soon. Promise

I'm having dinner with a friend tonight, so it's going to be "Man's Night" at our house. Neel and Callum are going to have (birch) beer and frozen pizza and watch some mannish movie like The Great Escape. How can I seriously expect some lettuce wraps and an Asian Pear Mojito to compare?

a bear of very little brain

As usual, I'm inspired by anything really, that Alicia has to say. Today it was a letter to her friend Martha. Seriously, I think that woman could post her Target list and I'd just sigh, all blissed out and wish my life were more like hers. (My own list says laundry detergent and toilet paper.)

So I commented on Alicia's blog today (see how brave I'm getting..that New Year's resolution is working!) with a quote from Annie Dillard about writing. Here it is:

"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something for a better place is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulses to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it's destructive. Anything you do not give free and abundantly becomes lost on you. You open your safe and find ashes." Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

I have to say that this blog, humble though it may be, is where I finally do spend it all. I've "been a writer" off and on during my funny little life. Stints as a technical writer here and there, and a fun year or so when Neel was in graduate school when I wrote two and a half novels (I know there are several people out there who will want to ask me about that one, and I can only say...don't.). Even now, a large part of my job is writing, framing my own words or helping others frame theirs. I know I'm pretty good at it, as much as I know that I can be better, always better. And it's funny to me, that in light of this, one of my favorite quotes about writing is not to hoard, but to use, use, use what you've got.

This blog is where I finally do that. (Saying this, as the daughter of the man who just bought six cans of bean soup because his Kroger stopped carrying it and Fresh Market may stop too is really something.) I spend it all. Sure, I have entries running around in my head. I have more, for sure, to say about Greece. Not just the trip, but what it meant to me to be there. I have plenty to say about motherhood. My neighborhood (I have people - okay, Rebecca - asking when our neighborhood is going to be featured here) deserves many a post...I'm just waiting for the right time and circumstances. There's definitely something to say about Lucy-the-hound, and how she made me fall in love with her...

And the whole reason I started this thing was to find a way to chronicle the work I was doing...what happened to all those posts? They're out there, waiting still. But what I love, just really love about this process of blogging is that I trust it and myself to say what I need to say. Sure I need a page of FOs. Sure I need to have notes on my aprons or handbags or socks or jewelry rolls. Sure I want people to see those things and comment on them. Sure I want, as I just said to my dad, a dialogue, not a monologue. But for once, and blissfully so, the stuff I write here is for me. It's meant to meet a need in me. I'm not meant (I don't think) to write a book, and I am meant (I really do believe) to spend this life I have in writing, and more than just letters asking for money(!). So here I go. Spending it all. Come along, let's have some fun.

Necklace roll

The next paragraph in that Annie Dillard quote is this: "After Michangelo died, someone found in his studio a piece of paper on which he had written a note to his apprentice, in the handwriting of his old age, 'Draw Antonio, draw Antonio, draw and do not waste time.'"

Ecelctic Patchwork Apron

This blog is me following that directive. I'm framing my days in words and pictures, and I am so grateful for the way it's making me look, really look at the way I live my life. I was joking with a friend of mine yesterday about how there's always something going on in my funny little brain, and she said, "I know. That's part of why I love you." Well, thanks, but I'm sure it makes me pretty exhausting to be around. Maybe bluerainroom can ease some of that burden on those around me who are always asked to process my latest thoughts or desires. Or maybe I'm just broadening the audience! I'm not sure where it will lead (and like Callum with math, I'm trying to be patient in that place...it makes you very vulnerable), but three months in, at least I'm happy. I'm coming out of the closet. Telling more and more people. I love writing these posts. I love, love, love your comments. Please continue to do so, to give me a dialogue. Come along. Let's have some fun.

the pact

We're all cozied up here this afternoon...doesn't that sound just the thing on a 90+ degree day?!

Only poking our heads out now and then.

Except for a mammoth marathon of this game of peacemaking and tolerance.

Winner gets to snuggle the dog. Loser gets to cook dinner.

We shook on it, so now I gotta go cook.

you've been here before, I'm sure

Greece Travelogue, Installment #1



Residence Georgio, Athens, Greece

June 10, 2007

It doesn’t matter how long it took, or how difficult the trip, or what went missing (Callum’s luggage) because we finally made it. Neel and I stood in the lobby of the hotel feeling like junior high kids at a new school. We knew no one, and Neel had been warned before we left that this could be a grumpy group. Callum picked up on our own shyness and was clingy and whiny. I felt clingy and whiny too. We boarded busses and dropped shy smiles at everyone around us. Callum is the only child. Dinner, the sign in the hotel lobby said, was to be at the Atticos restaurant. What a surprise then when the bus pulled up at the base of Dionissou Areopayitou (Grand Promenade) and a handsome Greek man stood up and said “I am Cosomo and I will be your guide for the night (we never saw him again). We will depart the bus and walk perhaps 25 minutes past the Acropolis to the restaurant.”

It seems to be a cliché to say that you’re in the shadow of the Acropolis…perhaps because it looms so high above the city. Even if you walk the streets of Athens knowing that it's perched on your shoulder, you can turn up a side street and still gasp in surprise as it rises about you. And believe me there was nothing shadowy about this awesome and venerable temple that night. Instead we were cast in the glow of the Parthenon. The setting sun bathes it in the color of a newly ripe peach. Not as fleeting as ripe-peach season, but just as sweet. We all know how sentimental I can be, but my tears surprised even me. It’s been seventeen years and I was so very happy to be here again.

As we walked, musicians tune up and dogs lie lazily beside their chatting owners. Mothers have gathered here with their children for a last romp over low walls and benches before dinner.

What a place for a playgroup! It's time for the evening volta (stroll), and the cobbled road below the Parthenon is bustling with the relaxed ease of a Saturday night. It translates to any language, any city.

After turning through an olive grove and up a side street, we climbed four flights of winding stone stairs to come to the rooftop restaurant. It is such a yucky, awkard feeling, to be so tired and know not one single person. Again uncertain, we looked around to find a table with three seats left. I felt like lunch time in the cafeteria of my junior high school. Like I would walk up to group after group asking to sit, only to be told that "no, these seats are saved." One of my goals for the year was to be more brave, and that was tested here as I forged ahead to ask if we can join what looks to be an already connected group. But it's not junior high, and they welcomed us, shifting a little to allow us access at the table. Some wine and food (especially wine!) and all will be well.

First the mezedes (small plates) appear. Olive tapenade and bread (Callum’s in heaven!), dolmades, spanikopita, a chopped salad rich with sweet yellow peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and tangy greens. And introduction to Greek dining, done very, very well. Finally the entrée, a dish of tender stewed beef in a tangy-sweet tomato sauce over orzo. After a day of airplane food, I couldn't get enough of it. The wine keept coming, even with dessert...not baklava, but sweet, sliced watermelon and honeydew.

Dinner eases along and I realize that I’ve been in this place before. I’m an old hand in the role of "spouse at scientific meeting". I am accustomed to these people, used to their geeky sweetness where sentences ranging from, “It binds to the A chain at CQ1...” to “and they said they were going to open a ‘Strom Thurmond Wellness Center of all things…’” shift around me. It’s a cosmopolitan group, featuring labs from Germany, Montreal, Holland, Australia, and even more exotic places like Kansas City. Scientific meetings are conducted in English, so this is actually a very safe way to see Europe. Surrounded by people who speak all your language (sort of, what the hell is 'the A chain at CQ1'??), who come from many parts of the world, yet, like you, find this place different, exciting and new.

As night fell around us, I really started to relax (had nothing to do with all the wine...and the jet lag, I'm sure!). We were over the first of our hurdles (getting here, and then getting here by navagiting the Athens Airport, taxis and hotel and, hardest of all, meeting people.) and Greece stretched before me. I said at the beginning of my post that it had been seventeen years, and even though I knew it, that night, under the glow of the Parthenon, I really knew it. All this time, I had been waiting to get back.

If my soul is Greek, then I must be home.

stash-blasting

Yeah, sometimes I make things...just not lately! Will you look at that...what a dump. I didn't do a lot of knitting on the trip, some embroidery, and (shamefaced) a good bit of sudoku. I sank right down into the laziness of island life with no drive stronger than to relax and have fun. To enjoy every moment.

So I'd stuff my knitting in my bag when we headed out to the beach or pool each morning, but I'd never do more than a round or two. I'd read some or simply laze around. I've never been very good at sitting still. I think that's why I like knitting so much. I can watch tv, keep an eye on dinner and hang out with my family, all while plowing my way through a few repeats of a scarf or pair of socks. I got a lot better at sitting still while we were in Greece.

Knossos Beach Hotel, Crete. With a view like this, it's hard not to get distracted and simply gaze away.

Now that I'm home, my fingers are as restless as the rest of me. I'd love to get my hands in some projects, but I just can't do it with this mess looming.

I can't even find my sewing machine in all that.

I don't have a huge stash, really. Not compared to some I've heard about, but I do feel overwhelmed, and I'd like to spend the summer reducing my footprint. I'm gonna try really, really hard to work from my yarn and fabric stash this summer. Really, I promise.

I have plenty to work with, just look at that little baby pile of fabric. And yarn too. So be patient with me a little longer, let me get cleaned up and organized, and then I might have something to show for it.

**UPDATE**

I did do some cleaning in the sewing room this afternoon. A little, at least. But my inner Greek slithered out and I came back down to make one of these:

It's a frappe'. I had a daily does of this loveliness while we were on our trip. I have mine metrios me gala (medium {sweet} with milk) and they're super easy to make. Pour two teaspoons of instant coffee into a cocktail shaker with a teaspoon of sugar and 4-5 teaspoons of water. Shake until really foamy. Pour into a glass and add milk and more water to taste. Relax and enjoy. That's what I did.