a little red hen

An Unexpected Family Day

We were concerned that Roxie and her parents would get caught in long delays as they travelled  out of New York on Christmas Eve.  So it was quite a surprise to get a call this morning from Leanne that their flight had been cancelled by bad weather in the midwest.   

Making the best of it, they decided to take advantage of a clear, bright day by coming in to see the sights.

We met up for lunch at Ollie's Sichauan on West 42nd Street at Ninth Avenue.  On the trip downtown, I saw for the first time several walls of mosaic murals in the 8th Avenue subway at 42nd.  In writing this post, I learned its perfect title--Losing My Marbles.  Artist Lisa Dinhofer created it in 2003.  The link has a full length photo of this wall, one of three.  The online site, "SubwayArtGuide," is an illustrated catalog of 210 art works--mostly underground. Roxie would love the colors, clap her hands and probably try to eat them as she's doing here with the bamboo steam basket from our shrimp dumplings. 

It was a treat to be with her another time; it will be mid-January till we are all back in New York.  And then she will be one year old. 

WOOL from Rhinebeck--and those who love it

Two full days at Rhinebeck, aka New York State Sheep & Wool Festival, has left household heavier with many bags of roving purchased by Ron for spinning.  Virtuously (wink, wink, as I calculate how many projects it will take to use half of current stash) my purchase was one skein of Seacolors from Maine--which one can only obtain by being there.  Self-control gave way in the adventure's final moments. 

How It Began.  Through the miracle of cell phones, Xtreme English, on-sabbatical Elderblogger, and I meet up.  She does not currently knit, reveals a longing to make colorful socks like the ones she buys, hands me her latest take on the world.

She first graced these pages under the guise of MAW, an emerging artist.   Pleased to introduce M.E.C., who meant to sign this jaundiced interpretation of knitting wimmim.  However, she, her daughter and I were totally fixated on watching Saturday afternoon's Sheep Dog Trials.     

America is dotted with Sheep & Wool Events to give breeders of these fine animals an opportunity to meet, judge their animals and fleeces.  In this event, the farmer/handler directs her/his dog to go through timed paces in herding sheep.  MEC must have better photos; mine give sheep and one competitor a bit of visibility.  Massachusetts Sheep and Wool was the first place I saw this--andhas glorious close-up.  Their entire site puts the wool source up front--Rhinebeck, please note.

Famous Online Person & Fan Meet 

Clara Parkes, first time book author, creator of Knitter's Review, was gracious in her receipt of her very own Condom Amulet, "Orange, my favorite color!" (Knit from impulse-purchase synthetics, decorated with vintage buttons, plus New York City Condoms and Post-It pad inside.)  My thank-you for her telling the knit world about my Safe Sex project on Knitter's Review.

Read section on "Color" from Clara's The Knitter's Book of Yarn, as we drove back to the festival on Sunday morning.  Ron was driving.  Find it something I've been waiting for--an informed discussion of terms, especially hand-dyed and hand-painted.  Pretty patterns.  I like the name and look of Scaruffle, could be right candidate for stash yarn.

We'd stayed overnight with our friends Mike and Mary whom we'd visited this summer in Cragsmoor.  What a treat to see the Fall colors from high up in the mountains.  The four of us talked about our need to leave "the City" for refreshment in more natural settings.

More Author Meet Ups  Luckily learned about Sunday Book Tent happening (hidden on Rhinebeck website) from Kay Gardiner, friend and knitter of The Ballband Keychain Condom Amulet, soon to appear in online zine (see button at left).  I'd wanted to meet Ann Shayne, Kay's writing partner in book and blog, Mason*Dixon Knitting, a production bringing together Nashville and New York City in a non-musical way.  Sent her home with red amulet. More vintage buttons,  yarn-- found in Pennsylvania antique store-- from torn-up wool dress, probably Amish.  Busy signing books, Ann works away;  Kay smiles for the camera. 

Across the way, Clara Parkes is also busy.    Knitters want to buy books!

Faster than a sheep to shawl competition (inside joke, M.E.C. could illustrate), Ann and Kay on Monday posted someone's photo of elegant, heads-up Ann in a BIG hat.  Made by the irrepressible Lisa Daehlin, here wearing it. Knitter/opera singer, Lisa and I have known each other through yarn, knitting circles song recitals for years.

She's created two Amulets for  Condom Amulet zine.  I was carrying around the most recent--amulet as wire bracelet.  She and a member of the new Ravelry community have a technical exchange.  A months-old online group, Ravelry was everywhere. Saturday you knew who they were by their ID buttons; Sunday, tee-shirts.  Kay and Lisa tell me it is the latest, best idea. 

Rhinebeck: where man discovered wheel

   

It was 2002 to be precise on a damp day at the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, New York.  Ron Bloom, a 60-something, began to spin.  Then the reluctant journey into knitting where he found his niche making button hats at a knit retreat in Maine (which we learned about from Knitter's Review).  All the hats were from wool he spun. Last month, for a racquetball partner's new baby boy, he discovered that it was pretty easy to shift from wool to Cascade Fixation cotton for this hat.

Weaving under the influence of Sheila Hicks and her small pieces continues to be his primary interest.  A few months ago, Mark Rothko's paintings with their dark color blocks caught his attention as another design source--along with adding objects to his pieces as in the two above.

While he searches this weekend's festival for particular colors for his work, my goal is to beware of the temptation to buy yarn.  There is way too much on our shelves; I'm behind in using beautiful fiber he spun last year!  On my list for Saturday is connecting with the blogger, Xtreme English.  We've talked about watching the sheep dog trials--always fascinating. 

Sunday is a big brouhaha of a Book Tent where I'll finally meet Ann Shayne of the notorious Mason * Dixon Knitting duo, and Clara Parkes of Knitter's Review (see above) whose new book on choosing and using yarn is billed as a compendium of everything knitters need to know to become more confident in their work.  I think the resident weaver and I could both use that!

Focusing On the Prize--Despite Airport Anxiety

Early tomorrow morning we leave to see our family in Portland, Oregon.  Here's Zoe and our daughter on a recent vacation in Michigan ( included some long airport delays).  Last night, this not-quite-two-year-old exclaimed, "Granma," several times on the phone.  Overwhelmed!  Next, her 5-year old brother outlined projects we'd have together during our two-week visit.  I continue to be amazed about having three grandchildren, two of them now talking.

Distractions from impending airport trauma were undermined by today's post at Time Goes By.  Under the spot-on title, Elders and the Unfriendly Skies, Ronni Bennett says it all--not just for us slower-moving people but tall folks, child-carrying families.  Please go there, read it, then write something on your own blog about the way once pleasurable travel has become a drag.  Or should we select a dates on which bloggers would simultaneously post.  My spouse threatens to go barefoot to Security; photo will document the event.

Perhaps a Month of Passenger Indignities would get attention from the TSA, airport personnel, and, let's see, there is another group.  Oh, yes, the United States Congress.  Do you think?  Can't improve health care, can't stop an endless, illegal war--maybe this would be more within their limited abilities.         

Last week the latest sweater for nearby Roxie received its final touch. Maxine, knit advisor at Knitty City, suggested "Flower Power," from Nicky Epstein's recent book of knit flowers (link to review).  Just whenI think I have enough books!   For those who do not knit, see it as a high art, I point out that input from others often improves the work.  I asked Roxie's mother, a graphic artist who does not knit, "Flower on the left or right side?"  Her reply, "How about in the middle?" 

Did I mention there is still a stamped envelope in my baggage so I can reclaim knitting needles confiscated by TSA?   Has not happened in a few years,  but you never...

Update:  When we went to the deli for food to take onto the plane, we ran into Marie Runyon, 92 year old activist from the Granny Peace Brigade.  She was dressed up to go to dinner at a place she says has, "...great Margaritas!"  Legally blind, she travels around the neighborhood with ease.  Next time I'll ask her what it's like for her in airports, dealing with TSA.  You don't mess with Marie!

[Several posts written before departure will appear while a little red hen travels...including one from momentarily-retired blogger, Xtreme English.]

                      

Natural History, the play and the surroundings

Through the magic of synchronicity, Ron and I were invited to visit friends vacationing in what the local library calls the "hamlet" of Cragsmoor, set between the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River, surrounded by the spectacular Shawangunk Mountains.   It's only a two-hour drive into upstate New York.  At the same time, Natural History, a play we wanted to see, was opening nearby.

Though we live on a high floor in a Manhattan apartment in an area known as Morningside Heights, our panoramic view of bridges and buildings is less awe-inspiring than this one from the porch of Mike and Mary's rented cottage.  Well, perhaps if you were very accustomed to natural history, our brick and steel scene calls up a "Wow!"  But there is something about hills and mountains and lake that speaks to that side of me longing for a more untouched environment.  Mike burst that bubble when he pointed out that  much of the landscape has been entirely changed from the time it was first encountered in earlier centuries.

Okay, but I'll stay with my fantasy.  And the quiet.  The City has become noisier over the ten years we've been back.  With greater prosperity there are more vehicles--so many tour buses in Harlem-- and car horns.  I am typical of very urban types who long for respite elsewhere.*

Cragsmoor is one of several late 19th century artists' colonies upstate.  (Sketchy Wikipedia link does not include painters and artisans for whom the area is famous.)  On our way into town, we visited its famous "Stone Church," a small, pretty structure (photo in above link) begun in 1895.  Even quieter within than outside, I especially admired this stained glass window from the Tiffany Studios.

Shadowland Theatre in Ellenville was our destination for Jennifer Camp's play, Natural History.  It's a compact downtown in what was once known as the "Borscht Belt." In the summer, early 20th century immigrant Jewish families took long bus rides for escape from the crowded tenements of New York City.  Abandoned, then revived, this former movie house showcases up and coming playwrights.

Imaginatively staged with a simulation of the American Museum of Natural History entrance lobby, the four separate scenes--three actors playing nine roles!--also effectively used video on large screens.  Each scene centered around romantic relationships-- hilarious, hesitant first meeting, anxious couple's struggle to conceive, youthful, tragic loss of a partner, and divorce.  The four of us were enthusiastic about the work.  I was struck by a dark undercurrent in each story that contrasted with comic moments and fast-paced very New York exchanges. 

The actor Anthony Blaha impressed me.  He projected convincingly in a wide range of characters-- a young man triangulated into his parents' dysfunctional marriage, a gay man who has lost his partner, and a romantic medical student in pursuit of a much older woman physician.   In that last one, "The Big Bang," all three characters were doctors. I'm not sure you'd be drawn to any of them for health care once you knew their personal stories!  A local reviewer offers more details about the play and actors. 

[Another disclaimer: Jen Camp was the excellent teacher who challenged me to finish my first one-act play .]

*Note:  Unfortunately these areas are not amiable places for older Americans.  Each year there are fewer doctors outside large metropolitan areas as this New York Times article makes painfully clear.

Lulu, your usual particular cat

Is this not an irresistible design for a catnip bag?  Would you purchase it while traveling, your cat left back home?  At the Mt. Pleasant Food Market in Washington, D.C., I bought it from Audia of Audia's Farm in Woodbine, Maryland--close to our own farm friends visted the day before.

Because Steve and I had tried to make tea with rose petals the night before, we asked Audia for advice.  She explained the ins and outs of sterilizing them first to get rid of the moth eggs, that only rose hips are used for tea--petals for sachets.  Now we knew why our experiment had not produced much flavor.

 

Jonathan, our other host, was disappointed that generously-blooming bushes in front of their house would not provide something culinary.  From my other life in Baltimore, I recalled making a cake from rose geranium petals, an 18th century recipe.  This link offers many recipes for cake, pudding, and more with geraniums.

Back to Lulu and the cute bag of catnip.  Totally ignored it!  We noticed it did seem to give off an onion-like odor.  After a few days, I dumped the contents, added other catnip from Port Townsend, Washington purchased for her on another trip.  Now she was interested.

Here's hoping Audia's Mint Tea will be a bigger hit with the humans.

Travel Southward

If you take the word of Arianna Huffington, "With each passing day, Washington, D.C. is turning into the Land That Time Forgot."   But personally,  a different story.  It can also be a respite from megacity.  Here's an homage to greenery from the car window as we left NYC to drive south.

Many agendas were ahead.  First, a visit to Ron's 85 year old sister recently moved to an enormous retirement community in suburban D.C.  We brought in Chinese take-out to her apartment.  She appreciated a respite from the usual task  of taking a number to await  a place at dinner.  She had resisted leaving her home of 40 years.  This is always a hard decision but serious physical problems made it necessary.

Spending time with her made me think again about how I'd make that choice...a discussion few are willing to have.  This became clear when last summer, when a little red hen tried to facilitate a conversation about where to live in what might be called "post retirement."  The following day we visited friends not seen in many years on a farm near D.C.  The matriarch here is the same age as Ron's sister, in far better physical shape, aging in place.  Grown children live with her in a modest house.  Another option for some.

In the 1970s our family had wonderful times here.  Our children learned how to bring in the cows, Ron drove a tractor, and my favorite memory:  crushing apples in an outdoor press for cider.  We were honored to be their "city cousins" from Baltimore.

On to the District and looking at pictures in The Phillips Collection where we met up with Mary Ellen Carew who blogs at Xtreme English.  We could exchange more this time than on her April visit  to New York.   Additional programs have been added to her cochlear implant device.  I took this picture of a Calder mobile mostly to see how it would turn out.

More talk over coffee then on to meeting up at a Thai restaurant with friends we'd be staying with. Food was fine but the place was too noisy for M.E. and me.  But the rest of our tour was a respite from New York's increasingly ringing sounds--from kneeling buses (ping, ping, ping) to brakes on the tourist buses as they slow down at Amsterdam and 125th.

Chester, the cat, greeted us from his imperial post at Steve and Jonathan's.  They live in a large, early 20th century row house in Mt. Pleasant.  Saturday we walked two blocks to the Farmers' Market where everything on sale was grown locally--including these stumpy carrots--delicious in our vegetarian feast.

How about this bakery that makes "D.C.'s best baguette," calls itself "Bread Line." Not sure if that's post-modern or what.   Other favorite sign, only one we saw on their dignifed street, belonged to our friends.  We talked politics late into the night. 

Final stop: Baltimore, our old neighborhood, Mt. Washington.  Was it a 19th century conceit to name high spots in the landscape "Mount"?  We brought the rain to the delight of Judy and Carol.  Here's my attempt to memorialize the end of a dry spell.  More political conversation, exchanges about aging.  Carol told me about a book by Jane Jacobs, "Dark Age Ahead."  I've ordered a used copy and will write about it later.

Judy, who knows much about things digital, sat me in front of her Mac--effectively moved my thoughts along re departing the PC environment.  Ron and I decided we could not leave the talk and put off our visit to Baltimore's best, the American Visionary Museum.  Next time.

The Desparate Deck of Cards

Yes, necessity is the mother of invention.  That's what gave birth to a handmade deck of cards.  Though I have prettier objects that form memories of  our 1999 trip to Mexico, these little pieces of paper are special.  It began bumpily yet ended with an expansion of my creative work.

We had visited Oaxaca in southern Mexico the year before for ten days, spent some time with a weaver in the town of Teotitlan. and decided to return for a longer time.  Oaxaca, the big city center, is surrounded by small Indian villages famous for various crafts.  Our guide had been Susan, an American woman who ran a coffee and bagel (yes!) shop.  After seeing all the area had to offer, we learned she could arrange for us to learn natural wool-dyeing with indigo and cochineal, the brilliant red color.  We'd return to stay with a weaver we'd met in Teotilan who had given a good introduction to dyeing and could teach us off-loom weaving.  ins Teotitlan, the village famous for its woven rugs.

By the time we were ready to return the following winter, Susan had had a falling out with the weaver we'd visited with the year before.  Not to worry, she'd found "Raul & Beatriz and family," as she drove  us to their home in the town.  One thing:  we would not be staying with them for the week but in a home they'd built outside the village.  They would pick us up for breakfast and the afternoon meal. 

We never met Raul (and did not dye or weave.)  Their teenage daughter, who unlike her mother spoke English,  drove us us from the town center to a very large house in the middle of nowhere.   She'd return in the morning.  There was no phone, no windows, no locks on doors.  When evening came, we realized we should have bought food for dinner.  I'd brought along a small flashlight used for "Moonsnail Saves Planet," the opening night performance of my last exhibit in Maryland.  It's little beam made it possible to find the way to the main road where we'd noticed a restaurant on our way in. 

Genial man came onto the second floor balcony, "Sorry, we're not open tonight.  Come back tomorrow!"  As we wondered what to do next, a pick-up truck stopped pulled up.  Spanish and a little English got across the idea that the elderly couple in it were the parents of Beatriz--and the restaurant owner.  They took us back to the village where a wonderful street cart served up hamburgers.  Our meal provided the surrounding community a chance to observe the "locos Americanos" stuck in the Mexican boonies.  All very gracious; the pick-up returned to take us back.

And the deck of cards?  We had a room with a couch and a bare lightbulb overhead.  Reading as long as we could, after several days--we were there for Christmas week--something else was needed.  We made the cards and played gin rummy. 

Better adventures awaited us at breakfast.  We'd first go to the market, shop for our dinner, take showers, sit at the family table in Beatriz' home-plus-studio.  I stared at the skeins of yarn hanging from the ceiling--indigo blue and . The color, in all its variations everywhere, and I began to think what I could do with this vibrant cochineal dyed yarn.

This is how I came to knit interpretations of red wiggler worms. 

I digress for background info.

Kitchen composting and the worms had become my art form soon after our 1995 move to New York.  My life as a public artist has not followed a tidy path. Back in the City, I found a brochure in the laundry room of my building.  Writing the Personal Essay, a weekend class at the nearby YMCA.  There I wrote "Composting in Manhattan," a slightly embroidered telling of our life with red wigglers.  The title seemed right as a metaphor for our return and our stage of life.  In various unlikely venues I performed my tale, made art books.  (Posted about it here on the blog.) 

A couple of artists encouraged me to apply for an art grant to mount something more ambitious, to reach more people about the need for urban dwellers to dispose of food waste by bringing einsenia fetida into their apartments. An immodest proposal, yes, but an engaging one.

A grant?  I'd never written one.  Who would give money to an old lady who'd never been to art school?  After dragging my feet for a couple of years, I finally took the application material--very uncomplicated--with me to the airport as we started this trip. With my WormWare box, world's smallest composter, beside me, I did the unthinkable:  wrote it by hand on lined notebook paper.  Described how I hoped to find a group of "seniors,"--yes, that's who we are to the world--who would join me in kitchen composting, then form a troupe to celebrate the scheduled closing of the City's enormous garbage dump, Fresh Kills in 2001.

Back in Oaxaca City, I bought knitting needles, found a wonderful studio in a new, art school, Sachmo Centro de Arte.  I did a one evening performance, "Agua y Abono," at the end of our stay about the connection of water to compost.  On the wall behind me are rubbings of water meters; another time I'll post some.  Ron took Spanish classes. It was on this trip that he became interested in weaving, a craft he's only recently reconnected with. 

Puffin Foundation gave me the modest grant.  Again my friend, Miriam Schaer, advised, "Apply for your next one...a bigger one!"  I did, got it too. That is the why and how of my knitting 150 red wiggler worms for "This Dirt Museum:  the Ladies' Room," an art installation with three working compost bins, compost education, activities for all ages in Spanish, Mandarin, English.  It opened in October 2001 at Queens Botanical Garden.  [More at Cityworm, my website.]

 

Portland Supported Employment, Her Excellent Idea

In her last year as a special ed teacher,  our daughter, Rachel Bloom. developed a program for  developmentally delayed high school students.  The idea was preparation to live on their own after graduation.  Find an apartment and learn to cook were two strategies.  She helped them develop a small business--a re-sale shop with secondhand clothes.  (A nod to her mother was inclusion of a very large indoor kitchen composter with lots of red wigglers.)

Six years ago she opened PSE, Portland Supported Employment, her own business, to find jobs for people with a wide range of disabilities.  It has grown to include an enclave in partnership with a local non-profit computer recycling company,  Free Geek.  Recreation and crafts programs were added in the first couple of years.   More recent is the PSE theatre program.  Our visit coincided with the latest production, "Rainbow Kittens with Wings."

Many young, creative people make their way to Portland as an appealing place to live after college.  Rachel has these kind of people on her staff; they are enthusiastic about working at PSE where an important human service is provided and they can apply artistic talents in their work with clients.  The afternoon performance we attended--the show was presented six times--was lively and spirited.  We loved seeing how much the performers enjoyed themselves.

Besides acting, singing, and dancing,  clients had made items to sell.  At the right is a zine, a periodic publication and two of the buttons created by the PSE All Stars, as they call themselves.  Staff  members went all out. Besides a beautifully produced free program, there was a comic book with text and images from the first act and a CD of the songs written for the show.  Story was developed by Jaime Lee Currier and Anthony Thomas Schatz who appeared onstage in his magician's outfit (along with writing music, art-making, he performs at kids' parties).

Tony we knew from the summer of my grandson's third birthday. His band rocked the party with a very lively "Happy Birthday" song.  I have a photo of a startled Zach who, like the rest of us, had never heard it done quite like that before.

I hope this opens a window into Portland, Oregon, mellow northwest city, the one we hope, along with the indigenious people, does not grow too fast.  The city where a girl from the East coast who moved to Portland because she and her spouse love the outdoors never dreamed she'd become a successful businesswoman--and producer of an original musical for a very special population.

 

Portland Again: 5 Fast Days

Zach helps his dad make pie filling--two lemon meringue pies--for a Seder we went to on the last day of our visit.    Ron tells Zach a story both enjoy.  Overcast but not raining, we sat outside at Grand Central Bakery whose bread pudding as a cupcake Zach and I are partial to.     

We brought the noise karma it seems. Day after our arrival, next-door neighbor discovers serious sewer work needed.  Thus supplying a little boy with hours of construction-watching.  This activity occurs often in today's Portland where  apartment building, street fixing almost rival New York.   Then there's the weather, changing moment to moment. 

Unlike her brother, Zoe loves to wear hats.  Her favorite right now was made for her mother a couple of years ago.  "Don't make little ones anymore," my daughter advises.

It's remarkable to have Zoe photos that are not blurred--she moves so fast.  Looking at a book slows her down momentarily.  The other day I said our grandchildren's names together--Roxie, Zoe, and Zach--sounds like a singing group or a rock band?  Zach thinks his sister is cuter than his cousin.  Why?  "Roxie is a baby."  Okay.