a little red hen

Knit elephant & sheep photo have something in common?

They give me a jump to posting again.  The yarn in the elephant's body came from Foster Sheep Farm in upstate New York--Schuylerville.  The sheep pictured here too.

Its maker, Carole Foster, brought it to the Columbia Greenmarket near where we lived on the upper west side of Manhattan.  She had a unique way of demonstrating how to spin which is captured on the link back in wintry 2009 in the City.  I'd admired a hat she'd knit from worsted Greenspun from her own natural colored flock.  Purchase the purple/gray yarn and she gave me her hand written recipe.  Something in it proved elusive, so....

This Danger Crafts pattern for an elephant seemed a good way to use it otherwise.  Easy to follow the thoroughly color-illustrated instructions.  Except for the end:  putting pieces together always a major challenge.

I'm trying to use yarn in my stash, of which there is far too much. With vintage black buttons for eyes, it's ready to mail for Roxie's fifth birthday next week.  Today Carole's newsletter arrived and the odd sheep view came from I know not where--in today's email.  That's my story and here is unnamed as yet doll from the rear also.

 

Roxie herself saw the elephant the other day on Skype.  She is reluctant to appear this way; her father says there is something confusing about the appearance of people she knows on a screen.

I hope the knit doll makes as big a hit as the chocolate-covered strawberries sent for our son's birthday earlier in the month.  Now those were a big hit, it's reported.  Everyone else seems to be about Edible Arrangements except me!  And I only found them by chance; was about to do something ordinary like flowers.  Great gift for the difficult-to-gift--like my over thirty son who loves fruit as well as chocolate.   Do you agree the baskets are kind of funky, like cartoons of the actual thing--fruit as interpreted by Disney?

Foster Sheep Farm is part of the 3 Bags Full Campaign in  Saratoga County, New York.  It is a land trust and advocate for smart growth, working to preserve a range of things important to hold dear--trails, small woodland parks.  Knitters and fiber artists are working to raise $15,00 to conserve the farm for future generations.  Great idea, makes me wonder if there are similar projects in other states.

INFORMATIONAL UPDATE FROM NYC..............

 January 5 (the brithday approaches) and Roxie has named elephant:  Snorty.

 

Katrina vanden Heuvel shares upbeat vision in PDX

How many references for a blog title?  Am I talking to self here or just me and Marianna at Hattie's Web?  Photo from couple of years ago when we met, walked over to the Pearl Cafe. 

"Upbeat vision" is such a delicious idea that featuring the words makes me giddy.  Outlandish and in-denial position these days?  Some of us grandmothers of young children ponder this often--Marianna and I among them.  We both are readers of The Nation Magazine, that not-glossy, picture-free, skinny lefty rag that delights or infuriates us.  So much for those claiming we only talk to ourselves in agreement.

As Marianna floats along on a Nation Cruise--an adventure almost unimaginable on my calendar--I question why that is any "more" or "better" than my going to a Nation fundraiser the last day of November.  It is not. Note to self:  watch that judgmental stuff.  Marianna and I were children in complex families where financial and personality issues loomed large.  We emerged with  with deep concerns on sorting out who we were/are and the lives of others.

In my own family of origin social justice was a keynote.  One of the reasons Hattie and I are  friends via blogging and real time is our penchant to sign petitions for causes (here's one today), march with signs in public, let others know what we support whenever possible.  We understand how lucky we are to have emerged from our darkish childhoods into adult lives to where we are today.

Though The Nation has been around for a long time, sometimes seems the place where aging leftists go to complain, Katrina vanden Heuvel as Editor reminds me how many young activists and thinkers are visible these days.  Marianna is a particular fan of Chris Hays of MSNBC; my own is Rachel Maddow at the same network.  It's also good to consider how my own "silent generation" has contributed some good to the present times.   My contemporary, Victor Navasky, my contemporary, had the foresight to bring Katrina into The Nation.

About the fundraiser.  We knew no one there, not a surprise.  We're always struck how the left has not discovered that the cause might be better served by a bit of reaching out.  Are we too uncomfortable with ourselves, fearful that the person we don't know might have politics a tad lefter than ours or a cause we do not care about?  We had a good time after Ron snagged a woman walking by who seemed to have an open demeanor.  As a result, had our best laugh of the evening.  Originally from New York, she and her spouse who soon came along, spoke about their early days in the City as adjunct faculty for a "third-rate university." 

Where? "That's where our son is an Associate Professor, lucky guy!"  I replied with enthusiasm. See, you just never know how small a world we live in.  Not very experienced with fund-raisers, it was curious to me that the evening was so very low key.  After Katrina gave her talk about the importance of readers increasing their support, people went up to speak with her.  I took photos.  

Shortly after, there was a book-reading at Powells' where Katrina spoke about her latest, The Change I Believe In: Fighting for progress in the age of Obama.  Poor woman, she had only a moment to eat, then had to be upfront again--with a far larger and livelier audience.  The place was packed; Ron and I split up to find seats.

Mine was next to a friendly woman my age who said she wished there was someone who'd go on a Nation Cruise with her.  She'd enjoyed the trip a few years ago.  On the other side was a man whose father had been a Wobblie!

Generally though the audience was younger than those at the fund-raiser.  Why didn't I get up and shout, "Folks, The Nation needs your subscriptions!"  That's one of the points Katrina made, and one electronic readers dodge around. By the way, I never have a link to Amazon, that book-destroyer.

She stays on message: we need to be as pragmatic and clear-eyed about Obama as he is about us....it's important for movements to keep working with the president, and pushing him when needed--criticizing, engaging, and supporting when called for.  As with Plan B and the fear of teen pregnancy.

It's invigorating to be the choir preached too--don't care what anyone says.  Katrina delighted the crowd.  Just before the very, very long line for book-signing, I slipped her another one of those immodest proposals.  Suggested that The Nation initiate Teach-Ins around the country about Occupy.  Oh, not those Nation reader groups listed in the back of the magazine.  The woman next to me, like others, have said she had to quit one because one person came to dominate with his opinions.  We had that in Baltimore too.

Could there be a better design:  Potlucks for the left?  We do need something that gets us to come together in real time, to do the hard work that Marianna and I talk about--for our grandchildren's futures.

HAPPY CUP...new, remarkable coffee roast in Portland

You're thinking, "Why would an old lady blogger be touting a new coffee roast?"  Tea, maybe, but...

And I'm answering, "HAPPY CUP is special."  

It's the latest idea from our daughter's FULL LIFE, now in its 12th year providing s a employment opportunities and a range of creative activities for people with disabilities. 

Midspring Rachel Bloom, CEO of Full Life, had an urge to  start a Flower Farm.  Before we knew it, some lovely person in the community near her business offered an odd lot--one that would not work for other development.

Full Life Flower Farm sprung into being.  Provided joyful work and outdoor space for her clients.  And  glorious blossoms.  Around the same time, HAPPY CUP was perking around in the development stage.

Rachel talks about the flowers and the coffee on this video from the website.

 

Full Life from Lifted Visuals on Vimeo.

More details on this local, sustainable business (we are in Portland, Oregon, where sustainability is the most-often repeated word) in a recent Business Journal article.

Today, an email with the latest from Scott, Rachel's spouse, very involved with Happy Cup:

As a social enterprise- Happy Cup will donate 100% of net profits to organizations that create programming for individuals with disabilities.

  Of course, we're very proud and drinking delicious coffee.  Happy Cup can be ordered online in Dark Roast, Full Potential (Expresso), Papua New Guinea, and El Salvador--even has its own cup and tee-shirt.  Just in time for the holidays there's also a Gift Box.

Happy Cup is a socially conscious product in providing excellent ethically traded coffee that is also roasted, packaged and delivered by individuals with disabilities.   Full Life has found another way to create jobs for underserved members of our community.  Government funding for programs like Full Life are being slashed in the Oregon state budget.  Full Life Flower Farm and Happy Cup underwite the lost funding for programs that provide a more meaningful life for "people with potential."

                         **************************

There are those who believe that Ron and I have many irons in the proverbial fire--knit, spin, weave, etcetera.  We are in awe that both our children have taken the model so much further. 

Last week our son, Nick Bloom, remembered to tell us, in a kind of offhand way during a Skype visit, about his latest book, American Tourism:  Constructing a National Tradition. 

This one, co-edited with  J. Mark Souther of the Center for Public History at Cleveland State University, features 35 illustrated articles from a  group of public historians, travel writers about places transformed into tourist destinations. 

 

 

 

 

Pizza-watching, southeast Portland, while eating

  Moviemaking...videocasting, what I would like to do.

Have to stop wishing there will be another life in which my writing is as pithy, hilarious as Katha Pollitt-- or my vision of an awakened FEMINISM will reinvigorate the western world.

The latter too utopian.  Need goals with less remote chance of possibility in next ten years.

 

 

 

 

Moving images...this lifetime, worth a try.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Invention of Lying" and Tooth fairies

 

  

 Don't we all need a few laughs?  I certainly do.  How disappointing that "The Invention of Lying" was only being shown one time tonight.  Couldn't make it but watching the clip cheered me up. 

Began to think about the "acceptable untruths" we tell children.  Recently we convinced granddaughter Zoe, who'd just lost her first one, that there is indeed a tooth fairy.  When her parents returned to relieve our baby-sitting stint, we reminded them not to forget to exchange the tooth under her pillow for cash.  Some discussion on fairy payment inflation since their day.

Back to today, lunchtime, picked up current issue of The Nation.  Lead article by Bill Moyers, "How Wall Street Occupied America," looked important:  too many pages, too intense for midday, might darken my film clip-induced mood.

Nation columnist Katha Pollitt in her one-page often has me wishing for another life, the one where my writing would be tighter/sharper.  Today she  outdid her usual in  "The Call" (enhanced online to the less subtle, Rick Perry, God and Me:  When I Got the Call).  It begins:

"God called me a couple of months ago and told me to run for president. It was late at night, and he had this weird voice. It sounded like he’d been drinking, so I hung up on him."

Why has she, a non-believer, received the voice of God?  Because he wants her to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States.  He has taken on the "nudgy and insistent voice of Jon Lovitz":

"...would arrange for me to have a conversion experience [Jewish to Christian], where I would renounce “feminism and all that” and find Jesus."

The page brims with all kinds of foolishness appropriate to our crazed, misogynist times.  She creates an amalgam of current politics with a hint of Don Marquis, early 20th century humorist and creator of "Archy & Mehitabel," the typing cockroach and his free living alley cat friend.  In Marquis'  "Miss Higginbotham Declines," God visits an elderly Fifth Avenue virgin with a request she become birth mother to the reincarnation of Jesus.  Marquis begins:

"It was Jehovah's custom, when he came to New York, to put on the material appearance and manner of a member of the Union League Club; indeed, he used the club iself a great deal."

Miss Higginbotham, like Katha, will have none of it.

                                                                                         -30-

 

 

OCCUPY AARP: what would that look like?

Chicago appears to have the message.  Can we take it further? 

 

This inspirational action came to my attention via a Time Goes By post.  In the style of Rachel Maddow's "Debunktion Junction," she jumps on a conservative columnist in the Washington Post serving up misinformation about the demise of Social Security.  More interest to me was a comment from Gaea Yudron that led me to this video and report on on Huffington Post:

More than 1,000 senior citizens and their supporters marched from Chicago's Federal Plaza to the intersection of Jackson and Clark Street Monday morning to protest proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). At the intersection, more than 40 protesters, 15 of them seniors affiliated with the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, stood or sat in the street, arms linked, blocking traffic.

TGB posting this video might empower other Elderbloggers to think about similar actions, or connect in greater numbers with a local Occupy group. Nothing so far in Portland, Oregon.

Our Bodies, Our Politics

Life has been a bit challenging for the past couple of weeks.  It began mildly enough with my very minor surgery.  Out-patient at Legacy Hospital, smiling staff, clean efficient.  Yes, the surgeon was swell.  That was Friday and the next day kidney stone pains began to re-visit Ron.  Sunday night we traveled to our friendly Legacy Emergency Room.

Discovered: a 7.5 kidney stone!  Tuesday morning it was now his turn for out-patient surgery far more serious than mine and with a positive outcome.  That should have wrapped it up.  Never that simple in latelife, however.  All of it threw my sleep pattern into chaos.  Finally out now and returning to post.

Meanwhile the world continues to turn in strange, sometimes wonderful ways.  Watching Occupy Wall Street has offered remarkable words and images.  Thoughtful thinking from observers--like many of us--from Zuccotti Square: Naomi Klein's reflections (here in text),  the Amy Goodman's program, Democracy Now include many thoughtful interviews at the Square espescially this one with Katrina van den Heuvel of the Nation magazine in the midst of the high activity.  Think it was this one where I saw my friend in peace, Joan Wile of Grandmothrs against the War, sitting quietly next to her sign.  Joan on her own blog describes what she was experiencing that day.

That's Joan in the middle on an October 7 demonstration marking the 10th anniversary of the U.S. war/conflict in Afghanistan.

Here she is again on Michael Moore's blog.  On October 18, a contingent of  60 Grannies appeared at Lincoln Center to protest the way private/public spaces attempt to squelch those with political agendas.  And the police backed off! Busy month for Joan and October has another eight days.

New York's deep history shaped by the rich

Why is it that I have to be reminded that New York City has always been shaped by the rich?  Those highly entrepreneurial Dutch settlers who pulled a fast one, actually many, many fast ones on the Lenape Indians, brought slavery to what they called "New Netherlands," but were eventually outsmarted by the English, and you know the rest of the story.

[Not a history blog here, just a Little Red Hen resource provider.  Read Kenneth Jackson's Encyclopedia of New York, for a left-of-center view there's Eric Foner on life among the working classes, when you're in the City, do a walking tour with Big Onion.]

Our son and his spouse suggest places we can visit while enjoying their Roxie.  On we went to another of the Historic Hudson Valley sites. Last visit it was Sunnyside, mid-19th century home of the writer, Washington Irving in Tarrytown/Irvington.  Roxie was a trouper as we stood near the Hudson, then squeezed into the small house with other tourists.

This time with better weather, it was Phillipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow and earlier years-- around 1750.  As we stood in the house, our tour guide explained that we were not really in someone's home.  Maybe a faux home would be a better description; the Phillips, an Anglo-Dutch family spent their time in Manhattan on Pearl Street.  This was their office, so to speak, where they conducted their extensive farming, milling, and trading business.

How much property did this successful family own? Though we were told on the tour, these details are not on the official site but were noted at TravelLady magazine (filled with more detail about how the place operated, who worked where).   52,000 acres from northern Manhattan to Croton.  Their holdings included 23 African slaves.  [The Rockefeller estate is nearby.] One of the impressive aspects of our tour was that we were told these facts by our guide, told what were the kinds of jobs done by tenant farmers who had to be trusted by their distant employers and, of course, slaves and who were unble to barter for freedom.  Detailed information on slavery at the manor on this video.

Unlike TravelLady whose visit was in 2007, we were at the Manor after the ruinous storms and flooding of Hurricance Irene in August.  At her site are photos of the Grist Mill when it was in operation, producing flour.  No longer; it will take a new round of fund-raising to fix it.  Natural disaster must have occurred in earlier centuries. I wonders how this changed things:  local people laid off, slaves sold?

Along with Roxie, I was intrigued with this gourd container and the corn cob  wrapped with twine to create a stopper for it. 

Thanks to our first guide at the manor house whom we asked about her shawl (handwoven there), we were directed to another guide, also informative, the fiber expert.  In the photo, she is explaining the origin on the farm of each color in her coat.  Roxie proved adept at carding and rolling wool into rolags.  We thought she'd been here before but, no, her parents said... maybe another nursery school adventure.

With all the sights and sounds in the afternoon,  the variety of beans --and their names--(Roxie took home a black and white soldier bean), being able to touch the cheese in hardening stages, sheep roaming about, it was something we did not catch on camera that happened very fast just after this cow was led to the barn.  A farm cat rushed past us, climbed quickly up a tree, rushed to the ground with a baby squirrel in his mouth.  In seconds he/she began to eat.  Ron was fascinated; Roxie missed it and was taken with the excitement of onlookers. 

If we visit again in April, we might be able to  see a "Sheep to Shawl" festival at Phillipsburg.  The link, to a 2009 event, shows the traditional border collie sheep run held at many wool fairs and Manor guides enacting slaves.  The costumed staff added a great deal to my experience, help to move me back in time.  Made me wonder what it would have been like if I'd been costumed when I was a docent at the Tenement Museum on New York City's lower east side.  A simpler setting in 1997 than now, the choices might have included myself as an immigrant German Jewish widow in 1860s, orthodox Jewish woman post World War I, or early 1930s first generation Italian housewife. 

With all my political and moral critiques  of the rich in America and what they have done/are doing to our lives, I am grateful that we had another wonderful afternoon with Roxie--thanks to the enormously wealthy people who decided to provide this connection to our pasts in New York.  It is an ambivalent life.

Early Autumn in New York with Roxie

It was mid-September when we reached New York--weather as unpredictable as Portland.  But not our Roxie: darling as on Skype with her newly cut long hair-- and our last realtime encounter in December.  And more verbal, "Look, Daddy, Grandma made me a shrug!" 

She shared her preferences with us.   Lunch in Tarrytown required the companion doll, one of those awful pink princess objects all the rage with contemporary little girls on both coasts and in between.  The Disney triumph.

Pink shoes too.  Roxie does include purple in her color range.   As the 1970s Mom who hyper-consciously did not dress my daughter and son in "those colors," even as babies, all the pinkness makes me sad.  Is this what is meant by "be careful what you wish for"?  Or proof once again that advertising and commerce rule in America and tiny social movements like the one by women change some things but resist who controls how clothes designers regard women and girls.

Along with our own dinner-for-the-flight, we'd brought along Ron's rooftop "portrait tomato" the one that elicited a wonderful range of blog commenters recently.  As we were describing it to her parents, Roxie declared, "I love tomatoes!" and transformed it into an ordinary tomato.

Here's the consequence of  her vegetable enthusiasm.  Because we saw a similar tomato from another home garden in Portland (New Seasons would never put one like this on their shelves), I speculate it is a Northwest phenomenon.  Have you spotted them elsewhere outside the PDX "keeping it weird" area?

Roxie also is a careful observer of the natural world.  She called our attention to  the glorious sunsets over the Hudson River from their balcony. Hard to resist taking photos.  At 4.5 years our New York granddaughter has already learned to do the same from her mother whose own mother was an accomplished photographer.

Our Zoe, six years old and off to kindergarten

  Earlier in September, our granddaughter Zoe was very focused on only one event.  With Ron as he ran several errands, she announced to all:

"My birthday is next week and my Grandpa will not be there!"

She thoughtfully changed the wording to include "Grandma" when she was with me.  Very significant.  My daughter sent this photo today as she went off to her second day of kindergarten.  And wore the shrug I'd knitted and gave her at her birthday party.

The chocolate sourdough cake, large enough to  serve many, found online at Cooks.com, is  same recipe that had its first baking for my final PSU Street Art class in the spring.  The vintage cake carrier is something I long ago purchased for its fit into an imaginary, alternative life I'd never had where people used these--maybe early 20th century.   Now I can feel it is slightly integrated into my own life!

The shrug was the third one knitted from the same pattern.  Used Mission Falls 1824 Cotton on both, lovely stuff, went out of business earlier this year though some still available through diligent searches.  Earlier, made one for her three year old sister's birthday in August.  Eliana (at left in photo) immediately threw it on the floor so it is in a kind of limbo life at the moment.  Then there's the one for Roxie that we will take to New York.