pomegranatesandpaper

Skeins of Thought

Mid week - too tired to focus on a well-written, edited post. [Stop smirking, you know I occasionally manage one.]

So here are the trails of my woolly thoughts:

• Mystery Man, who has not had a hair cut since early June when the girlfriend was coming,  came down yesterday to go to a Yankee game with my cousin's young son, Mr. Pom, and The Young One.He kind of looks like a white Don King.  The Princess, though she is on vacation, was jealous and wished she was home. I, for one, was so excited to be alone for the evening, that I was giddy. I watched Gilmore Girls opening episode, and then promptly fell asleep.

        Ah, the jet set life.

• Gilmore Girls: Are they kidding me with these up and down Luke and Laura episodes? Luke's character had been turned into an absolute idiot and I don't see why anyone would want to marry him. Lorelei is on the verge of becoming the town drunk and slut. There's no chemistry between those two - can you remember one passionate kiss between them? I'm disappointed. They better get it together or....I'll have to watch something else.

• Our managing attorney has decided that all the attorneys must come to the office at 8:00 before court each day. The office does open at 8:00, but since most of us cover 9:30 calendars and need at least 45 minutes to get to court, park, and walk to the courthouse, we were never made to come in at 8:00. Besides, our office is open until 4:30, when the support staff leaves, but most attorneys leave between 6:00 and 7:00 routinely, so we work long hours anyway. Not only does this screw me up in terms of getting The Young One off to school, it means I have to get up at 6:00 if I want to wash my hair. Do you know how stressful this is??

      I do not do well at 6:00 a.m. It's either falling asleep at my desk, or         clean hair. Sophie's Choice.

• I have been dieting for six weeks. Lost 7 pounds, gained back 2. For 2 years, my office had neither coffee nor food in our kitchen. We used to have practically a smorgasbord, and that was the problem. Then we went to the other extreme and there's wasn't even a cracker if you were starving. But now, now that I am dieting, they've started another coffee club. So far this week there's been two giant boxes of Munchkins, a dozen donuts, and a huge tin of Rugelach. The Rugelach was especially good.

• Every night I come home and say I will upload scans of artwork and take photos of things around the house I want to show you. Every night I sit down and never get up. I promise to do better this weekend, if I don't have the crud again.

• I closed up the dining room table when MM went back to school and The Princess took off for her vacation down south. Looks very pretty and there's just enough room for the three of us to sit around for it dinner. Not that I've actually made any dinner....But tonight, The Young One made a pot of pasta, we opened a jar of Rao's Marinara, and I threw together a salad. I even served the macaroni in the pot, something I never do and something that would make my mother blanch. The Young One was so thrilled that I had just made rigatoni with marinara sauce, without any peas, squash, strange cheeses, sundried tomatoes, or beans, that she sighed and hugged me. Really, a pot of pasta and salad from a bag. Gotta love that kid.

• Mr. Pom is heavily into Halloween this year. He ran to Target and bought some cute skeleton lights that glow green, and this:

He refused to buy this because he is scared to death of birds. Especially birds inside the house. We had to have the neighbor kid come over. He did, however, take care of the bat with a tennis racket.

And I am thrilled that he did not buy this because it would give me nightmares and I'm not sure what the hanging part is made of. Tripe?

• Most importantly, he hung all the stuff up already , which is amazing because we are usually doing it when the first little kids are walking up to the door and we've got ladders up and the liability issues for an insurance lawyer are scarier than any Halloween costume.

• Too bad I didn't have this blog in the years when MM and his friends put up a haunted house in the back yard each Halloween. Think fog machine, strobe light, scary music, a maze, severed hands, legs, kids dressed like dummies, and being chased by a chain saw down the driveway (sans chain). Mr. Pom would take to his chair with a glass of Scotch and refuse to talk to anyone. I thought it was pretty cool. We usually had a line and The Young One was the gatekeeper.

• I miss those days of screaming kids running outside, candy and silly string being thrown everywhere. I especially remember when his friend spilled gasoline when trying to fill the chainless chain saw, and it went over the new porch floor that Mr. Pom had just installed. I came around the corner just in time to see the boy about to turn the hose onto the porch. The porch floor on which was sprawled all the extension cord outlets for all  the electrical wires and for all the lights. Ah, I didn't need to spray paint my hair for that Halloween as it had automatically turned white.

• Lastly, is Project Runway on tonight or what? And now that I know from the New York papers who showed at Olympia Fashion Week and what the critics thought about each line, do I really need to see it? Of course I do. I haven't heard an "auf" in two weeks. We like to watch it and just stare at Heidi Klum. We ogle her gloriousness. Next life: tall, Aryan, blonde. Either me or the guy I'm with.

Big Blue Chair

No, I'm not watching kiddie television, not anymore anyway, but I am looking for two new chairs for the living room. It's time; our wing chairs have served us well for 25 years, but it's time for something new.

We bought these two chairs for an obscenely small amount because my Dad was a furniture salesman. At the time, we bought them in a blue plaid and they were very sturdy and looked very cozy in our wood-paneled living room. Impervious to spilled bottles and toddler drool, they were the perfect match for our rustic house.

When we moved to California, our rustic chairs did not translate well in a stucco, California ranch. The ginormous living room/dining room was sterile and cold and our chairs looked like they were waiting to be picked up and taken back home. Before we could do anything about it, we were transferred to Memphis.

Our chairs looked nicer in a traditional colonial house, but there was so much house. Suddenly I had a living room, den, and family room. And two chairs and a couch. Barnlike was the atmosphere. We couldn't go out and buy three new rooms of furniture, so we picked up a loveseat at a garage sale and some club chairs that I reupholstered.

Still, our "good" furniture still looked strange in the living room. The room had teak floors, a marble fireplace, and crystal sconces from Raffles in New Orleans. The blue plaid chairs and Queen Anne sofa with pindot fabric looked pretty lame.

And that's when I discovered yet another way to indulge my fabric sickness. No  longer did I have to limit my textile obsession to quilt making; I was now living in a city that had not one, two, three, but six major fabric stores.

Life was never the same.

I hunted for fabric for those chairs like a woman tracking a cheating husband. I spent whole afternoons strolling the bolts, caressing silks, snapping satins, plucking plaids. I brought home books, samples, swatches.

And it was all too much.

My head was swimming. A blank slate is hard to decorate. If you're obsessed with fabric, color, and patterns. And then one day it appeared before me: coral, blue and white porcelain, watercolor vegetables - all in one fabric. Bit much? Probably. But when we had it upholstered on those wing chairs, those sturdy, cozy Vermont wing chairs blossomed into  butterflies in the room. And the room was large enough to contain them.

I knew I had a hit when my neighbor up the street, she of the beige house, beige carpeting, beige furniture, and denim jumpers with embroidered collars, visibly blanched when the upholsterer took them out of the truck. She was endeared to me forever when she said, "He did a great job. Too bad you picked that fabric."

Well, the butterflies fluttered happily in that room, especially after we had the boring pindot sofa upholstered in a blue and white polished cotton and  found an Oriental rug that tied all the colors together. I still only had three pieces of upholstered furniture, but now the gigantic living room looked bright and cheery.

Fast forward five years later to our new house in New York. We're cramming the furniture from the living room, den, and family room into one small living room. We are vetting what stays and goes. We throw a few pieces out, banish some to the third floor TV room, and give stuff away to my sisters.

But damned if I was going to get rid of my chairs. The sofa, well, it bit the dust soon after Mystery Man flipped a plate of ravioli onto the polished cotton. It wasn't very comfortable anyway, and we are all enjoying the chunky chenille sofa that replaced it.

But the chairs are still there. And they're kind of big and bold and bright for that small room. But worst of all, they were never meant to be chairs to lounge in and the Pomegranates are a big lounging family. Trust me, if I removed all the furniture and just put mattresses on the floor, the family would worship me like a cult.

So for the second time in 25 years, it's time to be new chairs. Did I mention that I hate furniture shopping? That my eyes cross as I survey too many choices and too many ugly fabric choices? Did I forget to say that when we went out to look on Sunday, I had just taken a new antibiotic for whatever crud it is I have and that said drug had the unknown side effect of making me feel like I was having a panic attack?

Envision me in Crate and Barrel with chairs everywhere, a husband pining after a big, ugly cube chair, the daughter whining about a squishy, tiny armchair slipcovered in white, and me, with a racing heart, flushed face, and breaking out in a cold sweat.

The poor girl child and husband decided to hide and let me careen crazily through the store. I finally found the least offensive cheap chair in the store and had the guy drag it over to the fabric. Blue, I ordered, and he pulled out all the blue fabric. Ugly. Ugly. Ugh. Uglier. Aha! Not bad. Different for us. Contemporary, clean, but subtle.

What? Somebody hung this sample on the wrong wall? It belongs on the other wall? So? Oh, it's from a different manufacturer. But we can use it? Cool? How much? Twice as much?? The cheap chair will cost twice as freaking much??

Abandoned the chair with the fabric samples littered all over the floor, stomped off to a sofa in the mall and fumed. The girl child and Mr. Pom took off to safer surroundings. My heart was still racing and now I had a stomach ache. I felt weak. Mr. Pom helped me find the rest room. I felt really ill. I began to cry on the toilet. The girl child was sent to find me. I stopped sniffling and went out.

Suddenly the drug wore off. I felt as though I'd run a marathon. We shuffled into a restaurant to eat. I could barely life the fork. Mr. Pom kept muttering something about having the chair right in his hands. The drug, I offered. He raised his eyebrow. It was a quiet lunch.

The truth is I was ill but I didn't like any of them. And I really don't like spending a ginormous sum of money on two chairs that I don't really like. I know exactly what I want. And that would be anything from this company. I just have to get a printing press and start making those dollar bills in the basement.

If I put up a Typepad tip jar, will you all contribute to my chairs?

And speaking of which, is there anything tackier than a Typepad tip jar?

Bumps In The Night

I'm sick.

I know, who wants to read about that?

But I can't sleep, and have actually gone to bed twice, and now I'm up late for the Pomegranate household.

I have more of whatever it is I've had since June. The doctor suspects sinus infection and prescribed Levaquin. I came home early from work and took to my bed as soon as I picked up the meds from the pharmacybefore it  closed at 7:00.

I ordered way too much sushi and Mr. Pom was convinced we'd won the lottery when he went to pick it up. I had two sips of seafood souop, and lost my appetite.  I covered it up for tomorrow - but even expensive sushi tastes like shit the next day.

We shut the light at 10:40 and I was sure I'd drop like a rock, but Mr. Pom was snoring. After several polite nudges, I woke him up to go sleep in Mystery Man's room.

But then I was too awake to try to sleep.  I watch The Food Channel and Alton Brown telling me more than I'd ever want to know about peaches. This puts me right to sleep.

But as soon as I start to drift off, I hear voices in the street and the sound of glass breaking. I don't become too alarmed because the voices were clearly kids walking by and the glass sounded like a bottle, not like a windshield. But then the voices sounded too close and I jumped up to look out the window.

There's about 8 kids, with a knot of 4 girls and 2 guys, look like teens. Then I notice one coming out from the yard across the street and see one coming out of my driveway. Now I'm leaning out the window but with no lights I can't really see who it is so I decide to yell out the window.

But what with feeling all shaky from whatever I have, instead of a firm yell, all I manage to do is croak, "you'd better get out of here or I'm calling 911".

Is that like an old lady or what?

In any event, they didn't move any faster, so I decided they either 1) didn't hear me, or b) didn't do anything.

Of course, in the light of morning, I may find out differently.

My daughter has a friend sleeping over, so I don't want to be all alarmist and call the police. And I've already woken up Mr. Pom twice. I can see all our cars and no glass is broken.

So for now it's just me and Rachel Ray. Feeling more than slightly nauseaous, I will change the channel while she eats a giant pastrami sandwich.

I've googled every possible disease I could have, and having scared the shit out of myself as usual, I am ignoring the deadly links for abdominal pain and back pain. Will I never learn?

Anyone up and feel like I'M'ing?

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

Update: 2:20 a.m.

I  tossed and turned for a few hours, and then I'm awakened by the sound of a car door slamming, then slamming, then slamming again and again, punctuated by the sound of loud voices. WTF?

I drift off again, and then I hear a very loud BANG and raised voices and run to the window for trip number two.  I can't figure out what's going on but I hear voices raised in Spanish. Then I see two people by a van parked across the street. They are right under the street light and I go to my art room window to see if someone's getting hurt. I hear "BULLSHIT" and Spanish and then a man and a woman start to walk almost leisurely down the street.

He's wearing boxers and a t-shirt and she has on long flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt. She's a few steps behind him and every once in a awhile they turn to each other and talk and another "BULLSHIT!" erupts from him.

I decide this is definitely a domestic quarrel, but he isn't touching her or restraining her and they seem to be calmly walking back home. I go to the bathroom to take a sleeping pill and when I come back into my bedroom, a flashlight is shining in my windows and I look out to see 4 cop cars. Our city's finest! Someone called the cops but no one is to be seen. I tell the officer that the couple may have come from the van and that he was hitting it in anger, but I don't know where they went.

The cops do a sweep around the street and confer and leave.

Five minutes later, I hear another car door, and then see the lights go on in yet another minivan, which jerkily makes a u-turn and speeds past my house. A woman was driving. Alone.

A spoiled affair? A cuckolded husband?

Really, I live in a very quiet neighborhood.

I'm beginning to think the antibiotics are making me hallucinate.

And Mr. Pom is sleeping peacefully in the back bedroom through it all.

Tomorrow's going to be a hell of a day.

It's time for tea and toast. 

The morning is sunny, but crisp, and my bed linens are dancing with leaf shadows. 

I have an extra hour today because I have a deposition ten minutes away instead of in the city. What to do with this extra hour?

I could work on some art, but I'm not quite awake enough.

I could roll over and go back to sleep, but then I'd dream I'd overslept and spend my nap being anxious.

I could read a book, but I left it in the car.

What I want to do is to pour tea from my chunky little ceramic pot, have Italian bread toast with real butter and a touch of honey, and open up the science section of the New York Times.

Only I want it brought to me.

On a tray.

And no one's here but me.

And I have no newspaper.

And I'm 6 weeks into a diet and I don't eat toast with butter and honey anymore.

Sigh.

I need the day off.

To clean up my room with is littered with clothes from the cleaner, clothes from the laundry, and dirty clothes waiting to be carried to the basement. My "Aeroglider" (you can do it!) lies collapsed on the floor because Mr. Pom was sick of seeing it as a giant clotheshanger (what? - it's only been 2 years, I'll use it!). So now I have to jump over it to get to my closet.

My night table is so full of books and magazines that I have an overflow basket on the floor that is now overflowing onto the floor.

My dresser, that I so artfully covered in a paisley shawl, is covered with work papers, packages, and more clean clothes waiting to be put away.

Our room looks like we are in the process of moving.

Moving to slothdom, I fear.

So, I think it best that I get dressed, take a bunch of sinus medication, and have my tea downstairs, along with my plain yogurt, blueberries, and Kashi Go Lean Crunch. My good friend, Lesley Riley, has a beautiful feature in the latest Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion, and I haven't had time to read it yet.

It's not all oysters and hip hop at the Pomegranate household.

We Are So Hot

Updated Celebrity Sightings!

After a weekend of errands and a sinus headache, Sunday was too warm and sunny to continue cleaning out the third floor family room as Mr. Pom intended to do. We decided to go to the city, after a promise extracted by Mr. Pom then we would go to the city, not just through the city.

Mr. Pom loves to drive in the city. He just doesn't  like to park in the city. It's not the parking per se, he just sees the city as one big electronic game and he is Mario as we race the light, careen around a cab, slalom through the pedestrians, and screech to a halt. There are rides into the city that are still talked about by my sisters and mothers, and Mr. Pom is perversely proud of his ability to navigate midtown traffic and the contortions of the meatpacking district while inducing nausea in his passengers.

So I didn't panic too much when the highway was backed up and he decided to get off at 125th Street and drive down Broadway. I haven't been around the Columbia University Avenue since I was in college, and was surprised how many sidewalk cafes had sprung up.

But we weren't stopping there.

Midtown: more crowds, heavy traffic, Some wild, giant glass lens being installed in Rockefeller Center.

But we weren't stopping there.

Found Daisy Mae Barbecue, which Mr. Pom's company sells to.

But we weren't stopping there.

Flew over to Ninth and took the lights all the way downtown. And we were stopping there, since I was now carsick and had a splitting headache, which is why I forgot to take a photo of the restaurant and had to use the one from the website.

We went to Pastis and only had to wait a half hour for a table on the sidewalk.

The food was great.

The service very accommodating when we asked to move from our table in the direct sun to one in the shade. I was sweating from places I didn't know exuded sweat. Not conducive to eating poached eggs, but made my whiskey sour go down well. (Whiskey sour: a drink from the 60's. Should have stayed there, too.)

But when you go to a restaurant in the heart of the trendy district, you really don't go for the food, albeit great food was served. No, you go for the circus that is New York.

When we drove around for a parking space, we almost ran over these two:

It's hard to tell from this photo, but she is posing in the middle of the intersection. Barefoot. Hope she didn't pay too much for these headshots, though they were there for about a half hour. Not sure about her outfit - muddy brown top and a Danskin style skirt. Eh.

She was upstaged when the bride and groom appeared. The groom was carrying a bundle of large calla lilies. I guess the bride was tired.

There were lots of Euro types with shopping bags from pricey stores.

And dogs, small, large, fierce and friendly.

There were also Famous People. We know that because photographers with giant cameras were staked out on the corner. Unfortunately we do not know who the famous people were.

We think these may have been Famous People.

The tandem bike was quite large and new. They drove it around the whole time they were waiting for a table.  His sneakers were sparkling white and his T-shirt still had the fold lines from the store. The wife was wearing a long, clingy dress, not a very safe garb for bicycling. All of which led me to believe that they were Famous People or Wanna Be Famous People.

Though I suspect if they were Really Famous, they wouldn't have had to wait for a table. Unless they wanted the Riding My Bike with My Kid Like a Regular Guy Photo Op.

[Editor's Note: a faithful reader, Rain Treaux, has identified our celebrity as hip hop impresario Damon Dash. Check out this link for the whole story. Thanks Rain!]

I was thinking hard yesterday.

And I'm quite certain that we were seated next to the actress Dana Delaney. She had on no make up, and her hair, which is no longer black with blunt cut bangs a la China Beach, is now brown with red highlights and  was up in a clip, and she was wearing a very plain casual skirt and a black and white striped sweater. She was very quiet and unassuming but when she opened her mouth, it was definitely Dana Delaney.

I think. Which would make it my second actress seating next to me this summer. Not that I keep track of those things.

There were more sweet sights, like this little one with her pink tutu and red sparkly Dorothy shoes.

I missed the photos of the guy/gal with bright yellow and orange hair, the Hells Angels that thundered by, and the thirty-something dude walking around with a large, black parrot on his shoulder. I did have to eat at some point.

After our late brunch, we stopped for gelato: coconut and caramel de leche for me; pistachio and Baci (chocolate and hazelnut) for Mr. Pom.  But before we left, we had to visit our favorite shop,

Satisfied, we drove home. Quickly.

Please Let Me Run The World

Oh, I don't mean things like foreign policy and ferreting out terrorism, or world hunger, or global warming.

No, I mean the important things, like running my office, fixing the courts, and fixing my daughter's high school schedule.

The Young One started high school last week. For the first time in 18 years, I no longer have a child in grade school. I thought I'd miss being involved in her school, but so far I've talked to the high school staff in three days more than I've talked to her middle school in a year.

We have a great high school, but it's b-i-g as it's the only high school for the whole city. It has several "houses" with their own staff and assistant principals, and guidance counselors, which is supposed to make it user friendly. But I gotta tell ya - it's anything but.

She's in 10th grade Math, chemistry, global, english, gym - but no elective. We asked for Studio Arts because that's what she wanted, but seems all those electives are closed out because all the seniors put off taking Studio Arts till senior year when they need it to graduate. Why? Because when they were underclassmen all the classes were full because all the seniors put it off because all the classes were full when they were underclassmen.

Anyone see a solution here, or is it me?

But so far, we I have talked to various secretaries leaving messages for her guidance counselor to switch her out of 10th grade math and into 9th grade where she belongs and out of chemistry and into earth science because I see no need for a 9th grader to tackle chem in 9th grade if she doesn't want to.

After three messages, I finally talked to a live person, and now she's been switched into an earth science class but with all 10th and 11th graders - and not the smart ones - even though  there's an earth science class with her classmates from middle school in the same period.

By now I am banging the phone on the desk at work and cursing out public education and wondering where I can come up with an extra $14,000 a year for her to attend private school,

And the Studio Arts, now I have to call the AP and plead my case because he's the Wizard and the only one who can okay yet another kid into an already crowded class.  (The mind reels at 34 kids in a Studio Arts Class - do they draw on the floor - from the ceiling?)  My sister beat me to it and got her daughter into it, but at a different period, so now it's personal.  The secretary for the AP was unimpressed with my call. Think she'll give him the message? It's doubtful.

So I have a bunch of numbers written with a red Sharpie on a napkin and I'm taking them to court where I have to argue for an adjournment on one trial because the file we sent to outside counsel was eaten up the overnight delivery service (DHL - that's what we get for not using FedEx), and argue for another adjournment because our expert left the country and no one knows where the good doctor is, and then try another case.

Why can't Mr. Pom make these calls? Because he's a man and when he gets to work he only works and can't multitask with personal problems. Yeah, thanks.

I'll have the phone on vibrate and run out into the hall should the AP call. Hopefully, he won't call while I'm cross examining the plaintiff's expert.

"Excuse me, Judge, can I take this call?"

"Counselor, you're out of order!"

"No, you're out of order!"

Court officer goes for my cell, I hold it up over her head (she's short),  I text message the princiapl to switch the kid or I'll be on his doorstep for the entire semester, all the while continuing my cross examination  and waving the cell phone above the head of the court officer who has now drawn her gun.

I win the case, get the kid in one class and out the other and manage to hold onto my cell phone.

I am woman hear me roar.

Is this the truth?

You can't handle the truth!

Tour de Blur

Lousy photo, I agree. I'm not a big fan of photos from camera phones, but they can be useful and appropriate to capture gritty street scenes.

This photo was the view outside the inn we went to on Saturday. I was going to clean it up in Photoshop, but I kind of like it as it is. I think it is a very painterly composition. The colors are wonky, yet I think they work to imbue a certain mood of a fading fall day.

You'll see it again when I draw and paint it a few times.

This photo also sucks. But the vase was Italian pottery and gorgeous and the wallpaper in this room was a blue as serene as a May morning. I am now in search of this paper for my dining room. Unfortunately, it may require me to actually go to a wallpaper store because I can't find it on line, despite surfing through every country french Pierre Deux Souleido website I could find. I HATE wallpaper stores. The books are heavy, stupidly stored and organized, and not matter how determined I am to stay focused, I get the biggest case of ADHD and end up lugging ten books home and hating everything I picked when seen in situ.

Would you believe this photo was taken in full daylight? This is the home to the half-priced Merrels (in a groovy green gold) and the kayaks as expensive as used cars.

This crappy pic is of a tub of homemade ricotta. I tried to steal the tub but it didn't fit under my blouse. Being somewhat lactose intolerant, it's a good thing I left it there. But get your hands on some and you'll never be able to eat that plastic shit from the supermarket again. When we lived in Memphis, i had to go to an Italian specialty store for Polly-O ricotta, a ubiquitous brand here in New York. And I paid, gulp, $8 for the large container. It was our first Easter and I was determined to make cannolis that we couldn't find anywhere. Thank god we found cannolis somewhere finally because my tasted like crap and frankly, Italians have to have cannolis at Easter. It's a religious rule or something.

This is my arty bunch o' radish photo that I intended to paint from. Or it could be a close up of the enlarged capillaries on my nose.

I'll leave you with the out of focus pie photos. The pies were $12, which I thought was ridiculous. How much does it cost to make a pie - butter, flour, and a bunch of apples. A little sugar and you're done. But hey, even the baker has to eat.

The total cost of our impromptu detour to the Farmer's Market was about $43 for:

pint of ricotta
a pint of mozzarella
an apple pie
6 ears of corn
6 tomatoes
2 huge bunches of carrots

Next time I want to taste the fresh harvest from local fields:  Costco.
Next time I want to use Mr. Pom's camera phone: Don't.

 

I never want to be excused of unrealized dreams. There are too many people whom  I see who seem to have no dreams, who stagger through each day with no other goal than to hear the closing bell and go home and collapse.  Since I've been back from vacation, I've felt the pull of that slippery slope and it's a quick slide if you lose your footing.

For some reason, my family seems to think that I've gone to the dark side. They are accusing me, their mother and wife, the woman who has books piled on her night table, on shelves and tables all over the house, the person who has knitting stashed here and there, a room full of art supplies, and totebag with journal and watercolors with her always, of being obseessed.

Seems the Pomegranates aren't used to their female figurehead wasting large amounts of time with a laptop  glued to her lap with no discernbile movement except a twitching index figure, jumpy eyes, and the occasional gleeful scream when a tower of bubbleballs fall and the scores rises.  Mesmerizing. Repetittive. Soothing.

A lot like drugs.

So I uninstalled Bubble Shooter after my family repeatedly pointed out to me if not once at least 50 times that I'm Always Playing That Game and it is a really Boring and Stupid Game.

Seems I'm held to a higher level, or at least that's how it appears as I walk through the living room and trip over the Game Cube and X Box cables.

I think I've kicked the habit, but there's always the ability to quickly reinstall.

Is there a self help group?

Photos Wherefore Art Though?

Saturday we felt the need for a drive upstate to find some hints of autumn. We headed for our favorite rivertown, Cold Spring, and the Hudson House Inn.

[Insert pretty picture of long white building with rambling porches alongside the Hudson and then check back tomorrow to see if Typepad has stopped being wonky.  Continue to imagine images as you read on. If you read on without photos as you shake your head and say, geesh first no posts for 5 days and now no photos, get it together lady!]

We've been going to the Inn for 24 years, having celebrated our first anniversary there with my parents and sisters, long before any of the Pomettes were on the scene.In those days, there was a lovely weekend buffet brunch, which we worked off by climbing up the hill of Main Street and visiting all the antique stores.

The 160-year old inn is still there, but the buffet is not, which is probably good for our waistlines. We eagerly awaited the real reason we drive an hour, besides the beautifully appointed rooms, and the gorgeous view of the Hudson and of Storm King Mountain.

The popovers. With strawberry butter. Need I say more?

Unfortunately, although the inn still looks beautiful, perhaps better than ever, the food has suffered in quality. They have a smaller menu, heavily concentrated on American cuisine from the ubiquitous salmon to frilled sandwiches and more expensive entrees. The Young One and I were looking forward to the French Onion Soup, having had one last week locally that was like a slab of prefab cheese on a bowl of onions in saline stock. The inn's soup was more pleasantly salted, but in all lacked flavor and  I consoled myself with a peach Bellini and The Young One downed a few Shirley Temples.

Mr. Pom ordered a lobster salad roll - he is nothing is not consistent - but didn't care for the grilled meat and avocado combination. I thought it was great, what little bits of lobster I could glean off his plate while he was distracted by the large wasp hovering around his head. When it hovered near mine, he went back to eating. My salmon in Dijon crust was, eh, "eh" at best. I've had better salmon at the local diner. The portions size of rice and tiny slivers of carrots and zucchini were exactly the same size as a Lean Cuisine but cost 18.95.

So when the dessert menu was proffered, I said to the hell with the healthy eating today, and we got a Bananas Foster, flourless chocolate tart, and a "peanut s'mores". Is your mouth watering? Ours was! And then we tasted each. Mr. Pom's chocolate tart was good, but not gooey enough and they served it without whipped cream or any kind of sauce, like the traditional raspberry, to give the yin a  little yang. The Young One's S'more looked gorgeous, but she didn't care for the nut crust, saying it reminded her of a protein bar. Ugh. My Bananas Foster had lackluster vanilla ice cream, which I could have forgiven since it is really just a vehicle on which the bananas wave as they go down your throat, however, some nouvelle chef decided that traditional Bananas Foster was too sweet, so the sauce had a strange astringent taste that I think was pineapple and lacked the browned sugar punch of the original dish.

In all, we should have spent the money on hot dogs and Good Humor Bars that they were selling by the river.

However, all was not lost because we went to a Farmer's market and bought homemade ricotta that was like Velvet on our tongue, huge bunches of carrots with their feathery tops, ruby red clusters of radishes, sweet corn that they were practically giving away, tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella. The Young One wanted an apple pie, and after the earlier indulgences we gave it to her to bring to a friend's and she said it was delicious.

Today we are recuperating and too tired to make the corn and tomatoes for dinner, so I'll take a tomato sandwich with goat cheese for lunch.

So wha'da ya think - should I  become a food/restaurant reviewerer blogger?

Frank Bruni watch out!

Smokin'

You guys are great and I thank you for all your kind comments and rallies around the flagpole. I'll get back into the swin of things and hopefully I won't lose all my readers before I do!

While I'm writing this, I'm listening to the sound of chain saws and yellow lights are flashing in the windows as crews take down the downed trees on the end of the street. I'm glad I haven't been without power since Saturday. We know the drill from the winter - first they have to shut off the live wires, then the tree crew has to come, then  utility guys from 8 states away have to get in and rewire the street. So I'm thinking at least another 12 hours for these poor people.

Us, we're living large with TVS and gas fireplaces and microwaves.

And yet, my greatest wish is for a firepit.

Mr. Pom thinks I'm nuts since we never sit outside. Why not the porch, I suggest. Now he really thinks I'm nuts as he explains about smoke and ceilings and someone falling into it. Phooey. Who needs a realist? Actually my neighbors across the street have one and when they light it, the currents are such that all the smoke ends up in my living room. Don't know how, it's really quite a distance. So I guess I will attribute our smokelessness to our stance against acid rain and make them feel guilty. Hah! But wouldn't you love to be sitting there? Think of the s'mores in your mouth....

Some of the Pom sisters were talking about going camping. I was jumping up and down with my hand in the air to  join them, but then remembered that the October weekend they are planning for is when we are going to the lake to see our friends' newly enlarged cabin. When they bought the cabin about 12 years ago, they specifically wanted a rustic log cabin, with no central heating, a big wooden stove, no dishwasher, no washing machines, etc. That lasted about two years when they discovered that when they used it for apres skiing, it took 5 hours to get the house above freezing with only the stove, and that draining all the pipes was too much of a project so they weren't using it in winter at all. A few years ago, they put in central heating and one of those doohickeys that call you if the temp inside the house drops below freezing.

Now they've decided that they do need an extra bathroom (man, three families with 6 kids in total sharing one bathroom seriously cut down on my trips, I can tell you that!) and they finished the basement with bunkbeds. Rustic appeal at 35 can lose its luster at 50, so last year they went whole hog and had an addition put on - more baths! more bedrooms! Washer dryer! Bigger kitchen! Suddenly, the little log cabin is a lot more "house-like". If they install a jacuzzi, I'm there (the outdoor big barrel tub is cool, but there are bears...)

So for now I'll have to settle for my gas fireplace and make s'mores over the stove. But I'm working on Mr. Pom. We could put the firepit on the patio outside the porch, even if it is a few steps down. We'd have to make sure no one went out the porch door quickly and we'd have to keep Fluffernutter away from it because that dog is so dumb she'd stand in the firepit if she thought she could catch a few crumbs from the s'mores.

Then we'd have a hot dog.

Get it.

Really, I should quit while I'm ahead.

Deja Vu All Over Again

I don't know what Ernesto was like in Florida, but here in lower New York, it packed a wallop.

This time, most of the trees just keeled over at the roots after a week of heavy rain. This is at the corner of my street, but the electrical lines that are down are not ours for a change.

Further up the street, were two more uprooted trees, and one of these hit a roof. This sucker's root (ha ha) were at least ten feet across. [Teri - your end of the street was spared, but the entire block has been blacked out since Saturday night.]
We heard all these fall, but it was after dark so we couldn't tell where. We had a few large branches, one of which set off The Princess's car alarm, and today we cleaned up a huge mess of leafy twigs and a million baby acorns. Most of this mess came from my neighbor and I wish to hell she'd take down the two monster oak trees in her yard. There are plenty of others not to miss them - and none of those are hanging over our house.

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Enough of the meteorological crap - where have I been? I'm in one of those swing times, when my brain is actively engaged in images but no words are coming out. I'm sketching and painting like crazy, but have no impetus to craft a sentence.

I'm approaching my 3rd year blogaverasary in November - or is the 4th? I thought I'd never run out of things to say, but I feel I've fallen out of fashion. I'm not one of those smart-ass, ultra-hip Mommy bloggs; I'm not a purely art blog, craft blog, book blog, or foodie blog. I don't feel like I've ever carved a niche for myself because I'm too eclectic. My stats have fallen, comments are at an all time low, and I've lost a few subscribers. Is there more life to Pomegranatesandpaper? I feel like I've run out of things of interest to say, what with the smartly self-imposed censorship regarding work and certain aspects of family. . I've never cracked the clique and childishly feel like the kid not picked for dodge ball.

Wah wah wah.

I'll let you know before I pull the plug. I may just transmogrify into a purely art blog. Or just creative writing. Or esoteric facts of the pre-Colombian people.

Enough with the rain already!

We snuck in that last week on the Cape just in time. It's been more like end of October here, rather than end of August. Seven days of rain and cold weather, coupled with dark falling at 7:30, and my head says get out the Halloween decorations, while the calendar says one more summer weekend to go.

My nephew obviously feels the same, because when I stopped by there last night, he was wearing his spiderman mask and threatening to shoot me with his spider web/Silly String wrist thingie.

So I'm thinking that my other sister's pool party on Sunday is either cancelled or changing into a Scrabble party. I'm convinced that the minute you put a pool in your backyard, you will be cursed with ten years of cold and rainy summers.

Enough about the weather! What's really going on?

Work and then ...work. Mr. Pom's mom is in the hospital, so that's kept us, especially him, pretty tied up. We thought she would come home here for a few days, so The Princess and The Young One tackled cleaning out Mystery Man's room, which basically meant getting garbage bags and donning rubber gloves.
Honestly, the child has so many good qualities...he's just not into organization. I did recover all the plates and glasses that I thought someone has broken and thrown out, so although my MIL insists on going straight to her house, I have replenished my dinnerware.

It's about the little things, folks.

The Young One got her class schedule, so I guess it's really true that she is going to high school. The phone and instant messaging was burning up the wires last night. Of course, she's in the wrong level math and science classes, so I will be spending most of the day at work trying to get through to someone at the school. I would gladly let her stay home...but then she'd be 42 and asking me for her allowance.

This weekend, we will switch into fall mode: books, DVDs, paints, and a fire in the fireplace. I think it's time to get into the city and go to The Whitney. I haven't been there in a long time and I'm sure I can get The Princess to come. Today she is taking her sister clothes shopping. It was deemed that she would be of more help than I, who is obvlivious and/or appalled at what teens are wearing. I am, however, deemed worthy of giving them my credit card.