pomegranatesandpaper

Take ME Out to the Ballgame?

*Warning: may contain content offensive to some. Some Yankee haters. Yeah, you know who you are.  Fuggedaboutid if you plan to flame!

______________________________________________________________________


Those of you that know me, know that I am not real big on organized sports.  I only had sisters, none of whom are athletic, it was before Title IX, and my Dad only played golf, but also monopolized the TV at night with sports, so I grew to hate them. Other than fooling around with a tennis racquet once in a awhile and watching Wimbledon, I could live very happily for the rest of my life without going to a sporting event of any kind. 

The  thing is, my family, they are baseball fans. Specifically, Yankee fans. Rabid. Yankee. Fans. All three kids and their father. Everyone, that is, but me. When we moved back to New York, the biggest excitement was not when we took them to see The Rockettes, but when we took them to Yankee games. Tickets were expensive, but worth it for the thrill they received to see their favorite players in person at The Big Ball Orchard In the Bronx.  As they grew older and Mr. Pom could manage them on his own, I would volunteer to stay home so they only had to buy 4 seats.  After a few years, it became a tradition: Mom stays home, they go to the game.  All were happy.

Until that is when Mr. Pom scores some great seats or seats at play off games.  If there's only four, it's a given, Mom doesn't come. But once in awhile MOM LIKES TO GO, which is meant with incredulity all round:

What? One of us stays home and MOM GOES TO THE GAME?  Have Mom take UP A SEAT when she never watches games and KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT BASEBALL. Let Mom sit in a $200 seat that we will never get the likes of again and she'll probably SKETCH while she's there (actual words spoken and immediately regretted by Mystery Man).

But last Saturday, the day finally came when Mr. Pom got  GREAT seats and both  MM and The Princess were unavailable. Even if The Teen brought a friend, there was still another seat and Mr. Pom really wanted me to go, and so what if I had the sinus headache from hell....









The Game Protocol is that you must wear uniforms with the name of your favorite player. Notice that I am not in this picture. No jersey for me. If I'm going to spend that much on a shirt, it better be made of silk.

Next, when arriving at the stadium, do not try to sneak in diet food so you won't eat junk all day because the big burly ticket taker will throw you off the line and the teen will hide in the shadows  and pretend that you are an unknown, strange lady.

When you finally wend your way through the crowds, the food vendors, the program sellers, and fifty million people wearing the names of a lucky few who make millions of dollars a year throwing a ball around,  it is pretty cool to see it all in person. The field is actually a lot smaller than it looks on TV and the stadium is pretty intimate.

Of course, they are tearing it down and building a huge one a block away, but who am I to argue with The Boss?

After you get to your seats, act suitably impressed. DO NOT keep asking who gets to sit in the seats right behind the wall. We do not know. We just know it is not us.

 

A crowd is milling around the dugout, which is just one section over. Someone is signing autographs.  The crowd is shouting out names. But I am looking at the guy five rows ahead of us with the most incredible combover that I've ever seen.

While everyone else is delirious over our seats and the waitress service,  something else catches my eye.  Are those clouds? Are those clouds?  No one will answer me. They are too busy ordering sausage and peppers, peanuts, and cotton candy. Blech.

Yep, rain delay. 

No one cares if it's a torrential downpour. The tarp is on the field, we've eaten, the game hasn't started. Everyone is happy!

Did I mention I have the sinus headache from hell?

After an hour and half rain delay and 40 bucks for ponchos, the game finally starts. The playas come out. 

Even I know who this guy is.

Look, a famous persona.   There to plug his new movie, The Bronx Is Burning, is John Turturro.

And this is Joba, the 22 year-old kid who pitches for the Yankees!

And Joba Dad who raised Joba as a single parent even though he is paralyzed on one side of his body, which seems to have worked out fine since his son is 22 and plays for the Yankees!

Hmm, 22 years old. Maybe I could fix him up with The Princess......Nah, who am I kidding?? Her heart belongs to Daddy  this guy:

Jeter. #2. The Jeter Man.

Seriously, we had GREAT seats. For Jeter booty.

But as much as it was fun to watch him stretch, we were there for more serious things.

Arod watching.

Jeter's kind of young for me.

I need a MAN.

Ah well, I guess Mr. Pom expects me to tell you what happened in the game instead of all this booty drooling. 

So, first half of game was really boring. Then the Yankees and Toronto kept evening up the score. Arod scores.Then the Yankees were switching pitchers like crazy. Arod scores. Then everyone was booing Farnsworth, the world's worst pitcher.  Arod scores. Then they were tied again. Jeter scores. Then they were running out of pitchers.

My god, it's 5:30, 6:00, 6:30 and the game still isn't over! The people behind us leave because they have tickets to a Broadway show. My butt is numb because we've been sitting since 11:30.  My clothes are wet. I have to go to the bathroom but refuse to since I can only imagine how awful the bathrooms are by this time. I want popcorn, but Mr. Pom can't find the vendor making fresh popcorn and brings me this sealed bag of popcorn blubber. The girls refuse to leave. Then even I don't want to leave because the game is tied and the pitchers are screwing up and Joe Torre keeps visiting the mound and people are booing and screaming. The the guy in front of us asks what RBI and MVP means and we decide he must be from a Ukranian island if there is such a thing.

It is now the 8th inning, the game has been running for over 4 hours, we've been there for 7 hours, and everyone agrees to leave. We drive 30 minutes home, take The Teen's friend home across town, go Starbucks, wait in line for lattes, drive home, use the bathroom AND STILL SEE THE YANKEES win in the eleventh inning.  The teams storms the field. The Teen storms out of the room because I made them leave.

23 runs. 25 35 hits. 18 pitching changes. 10 by the Yankees, which was a new record (thanks, Mr. Pom, for the stats.) The game was almost as long as this post.  Eaten by The Pomegranates: 1 sausage and pepper wedge, 2 hot dogs, 2 cotton candies, 2 bags of chips, 1 bag of unshelled peanuts, 2 ice creams, 1 bag of Cracker Jacks, and several diet sodas. Price of "free" tickets: over $125 with parking and ponchos.

I'm exhausted.

The next day, Mystery Man calls me from school.  "Mommy", he says, (he still calls me Mommy sometimes; mainly when he  wants to be forgiven for some college age transgression). "Mommy, I heard you sat through the longest 9 innings in Yankee history. You've earned your pinstripes. You can come to any game you want.

Great.

Oh please, let there be no chance in hell that we'll score playoff tickets.  My butt is still numb.

Buon Compleanno Principessa!

23 years...is it possible?

Must be, cause that's what the cake said!

La Principessa is enjoying the sun and surf down south, but before she left, we celebrated with food, cause that's what The Pomegranates do.

The Empress, The Princess, and The Teen!

The food was lovely - Mr. Pom's plate is gorgeous, no?

I could eat.......

And so we did!

Love to you, our oldest, first, and beautiful girl.

The Yellow Boat

I was ready to write to you all about lots of picture-laden stuff. But now my camera is out of batteries and with the new technology of rechargeable batteries (hey, it's new at our house!), I have to wait until the batteries recharge instead of running out to CVS for some new ones.

Isn't that a beautiful photo? Mr. Pom snapped it on our last day on the Cape. The color is not retouched. It was just a beautiful, yellow dinghy waiting for us to take its picture in the sunset.

It was a  simple, grace-filled moment. I was too tired that evening to hike across the sand and Mr. Pom got out of the car to get the shot for me.  The boat was just waiting for us to tell its story. And Mr. Pom jumped into the breach to capture it for me.

The longer I am married, the more I have to learn about living in a relationship. Sometimes it is just so simple. You need someone to take a picture, and the other person does it.  Other times, you feel as though you are negotiating a chess board.

When I as a kid, a cousin of ours was in the midst of an ugly divorce. There were lots of tears and remonstrations and requests to take sides. I was too young to have any idea what was going on - and my parents would never have shared those confidences with children - but I remember my father kept talking about how much "work" marriage was. He talked about the work of marriage being something that you had to do everyday. I didn't understand what he was talking about.  They were just my mom and dad and I heard them fight and get annoyed at each other and just plain seem bored with each other at times. Whatever "work" they were doing wasn't helping my mom get dinner on the table or keep my Dad from working 6 days a week. My parents' marriage was a given and I didn't give it much though. I certainly never thought of the "work" of their marriage unless they meant that my mother watched TV on the small black and white set in her bedroom so my Dad could watch sports or history at night downstairs on the "color TV console".

When my father was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, it was the realization of the worst fear you have as a child, and it didn't help that we were all grown up. Daddy was sick. Daddy was dying.  I watched my mother simultaneously pull herself together and crumble like a scone.  She was fiercely protective of him, but wandered alone in her thoughts. She buffered any negative news getting to him, but we were all scrambling to fill in with the doctors and nurses and home health care issues as we struggled to come to terms with his rapid decline.  She watched him like a hawk and cooked for him and made him drink Ensure and played cards and took him to the movies. She stood her ground until the last moments when she cradled him in her arms and we all become undone.  Now I was fully aware of my parents' marriage. Completely in awe of the power of their love and how they had created this family that was ultimately unbowed by death, perhaps even stronger for it. 

A little tiny part of me quivered inside and wondered if my own marriage was equal to the love that my parents had shared. Did we possess this extraordinary depth of emotions? We would be as broken and crushed as my mother seemed? Would my kids, only babies at the time,  become as united in grief if one of us died as we sisters seemed to be? 

My husband and I loved each other deeply, but I had to admit that there was a love I had for my parents' marriage that seemed to transcend anything that my husband and I could manage to create.  It wasn't as if we were casual with each, or lacked intimacy, or weren't deeply committed to each other. But, were we in love as much as my parents had been?  Had we created this iconic relationship? It wasn't as though we were more casual with each other than my parents were. But gee, did he love me like my Dad loved my Mom?  Could I have  been more Freudian if  I had degree in psychiatry?

When I had the surgery this summer and Mr. Pom was waiting on me in ways that I could have never foreseen, I kept hearing my father's voice in my head, "marriage is a lot of work".  I thought of how easily I would have grown impatient, annoyed, and just plain sick and tired of nursing him. And I thought of the many times I did in fact nurse him.   And for the first time, I really had been married long enough to see my marriage as though from the top of a summit: it really was a lot of work.

But isn't "work" in a labored, exhausting, drudging, or begrudging way. The work of marriage is like the sanding of a board over and over and over until it is ready to take the primer, the topcoat, and then the final glowing varnish. I think we've begun to glow together. I think all our hard work has brought us forward into the future of our marriage. We're past the child-bearing, the child-rearing, the juggling for career dominance, the wistful wondering about cities never lived in, and the expectation that there is something outside ourselves that will bring happiness to the two that is "us".

The callowness of youth rings in my ear when I think of putting my marriage on one side of the scale and my parents' on the other.  What daughter doesn't  look to her parents' relationship as the benchmark of love? And what marriage in situ can meet the mark of one that has reached it's final glowing, seal? 

We're too busy these days to worry about the depths of our passion. We are too involved with pushing the other out of bed each morning to go to work.  And with making sure we're eating healthily. Or with figuring out how to paint the first floor in a two-day weekend. And  whether The Teen should get braces, if Mystery Man's tuition was paid, and when to get The Princess's car in for service. The bills are stacking up in the mail basket. The pantry is pretty bare. We can't possibly have take out another night.  Should we get the dog groomed this week or next? Is there time for a walk before bed? Is there any clean underwear in the basement? Can we afford ......whatever?

We're just Mom and Dad.

   

Back to .... Stinkin' Normal

I did it. I walked the gangplank and went back to work. Does this qualify as a gangplank? I hope so, cause it's all I got.

How was it? Thanks for asking.

First two days I read 500 emails, marveled at how good I felt, and then mentally melted into a puddle after 2:00  p.m. Anyone who asked me any questions after that point, I would smile and wave generally in their direction, making them think that maybe I had my hearing impaired by whatever the reason was for my medical leave.

That's the greatest part about my office. We are so corporate, so paranoid, and distrustful of all, that NO ONE and I mean NO ONE will come out and ask you why you were on leave. Sometime I limp with alternating  knees just to drive them crazy and throw them off base.

Today, though, it was back to normal. Y'know, like I wanted to scream, had at least one panic attack, and I swear someone was snoring during the meeting I held.

The thing about work is that you feel so tied down. As in, "why do I have to be  at this desk the whole stinkin' day when I am so ready to go home and take a nap?"  Work is so......everyday.   But it is fun to  watch people as they meaningfully  grab my hand and look into my eyes and say things like, "How ARE you?"  To which I reply,  "Great", and they walk away annoyed that they haven't figured it out yet.

Hey, it's the little things that get you through a day in the office.

One Down, Three To Go

I finished one of the 4 art projects I have to complete in the next few weeks. Phew! At the last minute, I put it up in my room, looked at it from across the room, and realized I had screwed up the skirt of the figure and one side was considerably longer than the other. Panic set in. Various options were true. All sucked. Consider suicide. Went out and ate tilapia with the family at a pizzeria. Simple and ingenious solution came to me. Got out scissors and paper. Done.

I'd show you, but then I'd have to kill you.  You'll have to wait until it is published. And it's going IN A BOOK, which I can't really tell you about yet, but will when it all comes together. (NOT MY BOOK, I  was just invited to contribute to it.

Meantime, my studio, which my sister helped organize and clean when I came home from the hospital, is totally trashed. But I have a new toy - an oak easel. I LURVE it.  I don't know what made me wait so long to get it,

Mr. Pom gave me a lovely tabletop easel a few years ago. It's great for travel and smaller pieces, but lately I've been working large and it just doesn't work. Can't tell you the number of times I've been drawing flat on my desk, picked up the drawing and realized how askew it was. Sometimes you have to learn to draw upright. So much easier to get everything proportioned right.

Tomorrow I start the next project, which is an assemblage. It'll be nice to work on something three dimensional after so much painting in the last few months. It's pretty offbeat and I hope the magazine likes it. Gotta push the envelope sometimes and stretch myself.

We are also celebrating The Princess's birthday tomorrow. Look for pictures.

Love ya.

Nesting

I thought I'd show you a photo of my house.

But I could only find a picture of this house.

Which we do not own.

No, this house is what we would own if we won the lottery. Of if I wrote a best seller. The former is probably more likely than the latter.

I don't know if it's the cooler weather or a reaction to returning to work, but I suddenly had an inspired idea for redecorating our dining room. I'll blame it all on Country Living UK September issue.  I've been a devotee of shelter mags for 25 years, so there's not a lot that makes me want to pull my house apart and redo it all, but something about this little cottage really spoke to me.

How could I not like a house where the opening sentence is: "Lucy Capel doesn't do minimalism."

Neither do I!

I tried to find you a photo from the website, but they don't have any links to their current issue.

The photo above is from the website and it is very similar their house.  The walls were all paneled and painted a cream color. The colors were very fresh and the fabrics very simple: White polka dots on a field of red, light blues, etc. She uses vintage, bright fabrics everywhere and incorporates her collections and textile pieces in all the rooms.

Our decorating style is very similar. We've just let things go stale over the years. This is a hutch in my kitchen. It's a good place to start. This was an unfinished piece that Mr. Pom bought when we were first married and were living in an apartment. It's served us well over the years, but it's time to bring it out of the pine country country look and paint it. Hear me, Mr. Pom? Or maybe I should whisper.

 

The owners of the house have an online company where the woman sells aprons, cushions, etc. Their house isn't as "twee" as some of the products on the website.  The photo above is from their site and it gives a nice impression of their style.

The thing that struck me - you know how you see something and you wonder why you are not doing that yourself - was that she has all her fabric out on shelves. Nothing warms up a room more and inspires me than shelves filled with fabric. 

Where does my fabric live since we moved here?

In big plastic bins in the basement or stuffed in my closet.

Do I have open shelves in my studio.  Yes. What is on them?

My handbags.  Now you all know that I like bags. Keeping them out where I could see them  seemed like a great idea at the time because my bags used to be crowded in the back of my closet and I never used them.

So what happened? They are all out in the open. And I never use them.
As much as I love bags, I rarely change them out. I pick a bag for the season and that's it until winter comes. So off with their heads! Or at least off my shelves.

I couldn't possible put even half my fabric on these shelves. But I don't use half the fabric I have anyway. So this weekend I am packing away the bags, throwing out the ones I never use (may give some to the mother), and taking out my favorite fabrics. I can't wait to see them folded up neatly on the shelves.  In fact, I may just clean out my armoire and pile up all my art books and journals on the shelves and load the armoire with fabric. I think it would be kinder to my old, oak armoire than the current load of books that it holds.

Oh, and the rest of the house? We're going to do some projects in the dining room. Stay tuned!

Extra! Extra!

With thanks to Atlantic Ave. for the link.

Bundling

Things piling up on you?

September often catches us unawares.

 

One minute, you're throwing your sun hat and a pile of books in the car, the next minute, you're throwing an umbrella and briefcase in the same.

A girl could feel trapped.

Our first impulse is to sail away, dipping our paddle in the cooling waters of yesterday to skim over all that lies beneath.

But it's time.

Dive into the thicket. Hold your breath and just plunge in.  That massive chokehold of must-do's can be separated into frail, brittle sticks.  A few exertions of time and energy and that bundle of sticks will disappear one-by-one.

Time to get to work!

Books Books Books

I go through long stretches where I can't find any fiction to read that I like. Seems like all I see all over Borders is chick lit and best sellers and neither is especially entertaining.

My Cape Cod vacations are judged successful according to how many times I can get to my favorite independent bookstores and I feel a literary duty to support them because, god forbid, they're not there next summer when I need them.

This year, I was especially helpful in assisting them in staying afloat. I am nothing if not altruistic.

Best book of the summer: 

Birds in Fall by Brad Kessler is about an airline crash that happens just off a remote island in Nova Scotia.  The airline crash is the opening chapter of the novel,and the rest of the book is about the lives and emotions of a few of the family members of those that died, who gather at the inn after the crash to hope for survivors and identify the remains of the dead. But the book is not morbid and the plane crash is merely the impetus that brings about a collection of odd and damages people who find themselves through unlikely friendships with each and the beautiful island and the comforts and healing meals at the inn. The  writing is absolutely luminous. Kessler's prose is beautifully lyrical and the imagery of the migratory birds is magical. The book is deeply resonant with a sense of place and I came away feeling as though I'd been to this inn in another life.

The Girls is the story of conjoined twins, girls born to a girl who wanders into an ER in the eye of a tornado and delivers twins conjoined at the head and then disappears as quickly as the tornado passes, leaving as much devastation and turmoil as the tornado itself. The girls are adopted by the ER nurse who delivers them and they tell their story in the guise of autobiography in this wonderful, rollicking, and ultimately sobering novel.  Their physical conjoinment is but a fact in their lives but their love for each other is the heart of the novel.  I read it in one breathless gulp from morning to night.

The Space Between Us is a story set in contemporary India about the intimate yet divided relationship between a  wealthy widow and her lifelong domestic servant, an older, gaunt woman who has devoted her life to the family she works for. Umrigar's writing vividly brings to life modern day Bombay, both the slums filled with excrement and flies, and the middle class comfortable life of a Parsi family.  The story is not unfamiliar in its tale of the intimacy yet divide between mistress and servant, yet is heartbreaking none the less as both women see their ultimate dreams and worst fears engulf them. Ultimately, the denouement of the novel is the crucible of their relationship.

The best for last. Yes, I said that Kessler's book was the best book of the season, but Eva Rice's novel is well, the book I wish I hadn't read because I want to read it fresh again and again.  I read it after I came home and i only allowed myself to read it for an hour at a time. I would put it down in a remote section of the house ( as remote as you can be in this small house) so I couldn't pick it up. Or I'd bargain with myself that I could read it for ten minutes  if I put it down until I went to bed.   Why all the fuss?   I just fell into this book. It's the story of a young woman growing up in post-wartime England.  She comes from a once wealthy family who reside in a monster of a house, a house that dates back to medieval times, and a house that threatens to subsume their lives and has eaten up all their income. She quite accidentally strikes up a friendship with another teenager that ultimately changes her life.

OK, that all sounds very librarian, let me describe it this way: another novel with a strong sense of place and time. England after the war, the upper class recovering from the damage down to their houses, their families, and their wealth. Girls on the cusp of womanhood trying to figure out their lives, which don't seem to fit into tea at The Ritz anymore. Penelope and Charlotte, unlikely friends who each rounds out the other,  Dior dresses and pumps from Selfridge, literary salons, all night balls with omelettes at dawn, an American movie magnate in his Chevrolet, the tragically glamorous but wounded widow mother, Elvis Presley, a magician, and the house, oh, the house with suits in armor and stuffed zebras and curtains disintegrating from time and dust, crusty housekeepers, barren larders, collapsing ceilings, ghosts, and bibelots and objets galore that are sent to Sotheby's one by one in a ghastly metaphorical bloodletting to pay for the roof, the electric, and food in the freezing cold, achingly empty dining room.

Sigh. Why did it have to end?

Read. Read on. And then read some more. And tell me what you're reading cause I've only one novel left to go!

Siren Song

So hard to leave, isn't it, summer's golden shores? My footprints chase the seagulls and then stop to examine the carapace of a crab, a long white feather entangled in the wrack, and stones that glint like underwater jewels.

Surely there are afternoons left for walking across the tidal flats and letting the sand crabs stand at alert as we approach?  On the other side of the sandbar is water as clear and warm as the Bahamas and there's no one to laugh at my middle aged self as I sit with up to my neck and giggle and laugh as the waves knock us back.

I am not ready to trade flip flops for woolen socks that itch or the watermelon beach umbrella for the sensible black one that fits in my briefcase. I do not wear shorts anywhere but at home, but here, I can convince myself to sneak out on the sand in my cut offs and know that all eyes are turned to the sunset and not on me.

There are still so many books to read, voraciously sucked down like cookies, as I turn my chair all day to face the sun. There are cold grapes to eat one by one as I turn the pages and just when I get sleepy enough to cover my face with my hat, I hear the bells of the ice cream man and fumble for dollars to hand  round.

And pails and shovels and those sifters for the sand are much easier to wash with a dunk in the water than a sink full of dishes after a holiday dinner.

 

What are better than suppers eaten in your lap in the shelter of a chair on the beach, your legs wrapped in a blanket, your mouth savoring a warm pool of soft clams wrapped in crunchy fried dough?  Oh, and pass those beers down here, and let the bitterness of the ale wash down those last bites of onion rings as thin as thread.

We pretend to lay claim to this spit of sand, however brief our visit. We lay out the chairs and umbrellas and towels and skim boards and boogie boards and buckets and tote bags and mark a homestead against the water as if our time here was not as momentary as the tide.

We are blessed by the molten gold of the setting sun. The wind picks up and we each  shiver quietly in our own thoughts. How little we lack as long as we have this little circle of sunburned explorers, napping readers,  sticky-handed popsicle eaters to pass another season in celebration of nothing more significant than our lives together.

As the smoke of beach fires fill the air, we gather up the glasses and caps and the sandy bottles of lotion. We linger as our daydreams tinge to dusk. 

Who will spot the first star tonight?

That night I dream of sailing ships that fly and mutter in my sleep,

"Je reviens."

Blurging

Cooling my heels as the summer slips away. I'm the only one in the family not on pins and needles about returning to work or returning to school. Don't fear, next week it'll be my turn.

I am getting the fall itchies to clean out closets, cull the books, straighten the shelves, and air the quilts. (I think I am confusing spring cleaning with fall?) But somehow, my days fills up with incidentals and I never get to any major projects.

Today I had an appointment with the surgeon and that was two hours with waiting time. Then I had to talk to my boss, which took another hour. Then try to talk to the disability and FMLA units, which was a Seinfeld lost-in-a-phone-tree-hell half hour with the result of me leaving messages and no one calling me back.  After that, it was off to pick up Fluffernutter from the kennel, but she wasn't finished being groomed, so that was 45 minutes. With my last gasp of energy, I made a squash casserole and a turkey meatloaf for dinner, and now I am blurging, which is what I call blogging when I am tired and really have nothing to say. . .

Here's something more interesting: I am working on my demos for my art classes in the fall. One of them is using photographs in artwork without using photo transfers, which I am a little sick of, no offense intended for those of you who love it.

The plan is to demo different ways of drawing from photos, incorporating all the "cheater" tricks I know (yeah - you'll have to take the class!) Now, I find drawing "big" is so much easier than drawing "small", but I can't possible do a lot of demos on parent sheets of watercolor paper, so I am working up small freehand drawing demos from old family photos.

Even though I enlarged them as large as my copier will allow, I still can't make out a lot of details of the faces and NONE of them look like anyone I am related to!  So I started surfing online for tutorials for drawing faces and found several excellent ones, the best of which I found is this one.

So I'm sitting on my bed, squinting at grainy copies of black and white snapshots, flipping through web pages, and giving myself a stiff neck when The Teen saunters through my bedroom to brush her hair because, you  know, she has ten brushes but only knows where mine is.

"Whassup?"

"I. Can't. Draw. Your. Great-Grandmother's Face!"

"Yeah, well her head isn't shaped like that, here..."

At which she erases two lines, whips the pencils around a couple of places and voila: my grandmother's face appears. Sort of.  We agree it's still really off.

Even she can't figure out what else is wrong, but it appears instead of my plump,  born on the lower East side,   Italian American grandmother with the wide face, broad nose, and generous mouth, I know have an apple-cheeked, gaunt  Danish German one.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Back to Basics

Sometimes, vacations are things to be held onto with your bare knuckles, your fingernails scraping the floor as they try to drag you out the door to go home. Sometimes, vacations are like way stations on a journey,  necessary but boring periods of rest when you are anxious to continue on the journey.

This one was somewhere in between the two. Still feeling out of sorts and not up to my regular routine, the trip was challenging for all. Mr. Pom had to shoulder all of the driving and packing and toting and shopping and entertaining of the young'un. We ate quick meals out, since I still can't stomach much. I spent a lot of time reading in the car while the family did stuff, which is why Mr. Pom only blanched when I discovered this stuffed to the gills bookstore. And spent a lot of money.

However, my convalescence also shook us out of our usual routine. We only went to the big ocean beach once, and then late in the day when we fought over the only remaining dry towel when the sea wind kicked up. Fortifications of lobster fritters and clam chowder were necessary.

Most mornings, we got in the car and drove somewhere, allowing us to investigate new places to stay and swim veering from the wilds of the ocean areas to the settled, snug historic towns replete with window boxes stuffed with geraniums and impatiens and the ubiquitous onion lanterns hanging by the front door.

The Teen didn't seem to mind these excursions; she actually seemed to enjoy them. It was so lovely to have her company all week. With her job as a counselor and my work and then the surgery, I felt as though I'd hardly seen her this year. She has such a beautiful relationship with her father; they share interests in baseball, cars, and mini-golf. I don't have a lot to offer her, my athletic, busy child, at this point in her life. She's not one to go shopping and have lunch, so whatever gets us together for a few hours together is sweeter than words.

After lunch, we were ready to sit by the water, let the teen go off skim boarding for hours, and fall into our books. I have read more the past week than in the months prior and I found many wonderful new authors that I'll share soon as I round them up from all the suitcases strewn around the house.

I am working on a new journal done on pastel papers with gouache. It's for my class on travel journaling in October. Write me if you are interested, as there are still seats available. I've been invited to submit a piece for a new book being published and I'm working on the next submission to Cloth, Paper, Scissors, which is different from anything I've done before.

I'm glad to be home, sleeping in my own bed, having coffee with Mr. Pom on the porch in the cool - cold, really - early morning. Our sunflowers all bloomed while we were gone and Mr. Pom is itching to paint the front door with a new coat of Chinese red. There are books to sort and shelves to to culled to  make room for the new ones. The potted garden outside the porch needs to be pruned and watered for one last month of bloom. The pantry needs to be restocked and loads of laundry done. It's time for Mr. Pom to smoke something (on the grill!) and for a pot of something savory to be quietly simmering on the stove.