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Scrappy

Honest scrap award


Thank you, Blackbird, for bestowing such a cool award on me, as this is nothing if not a scrappy blog, filled with bits and pieces of floating detritus of the mind.

The rules are 10 random facts about me followed by nominations of 7 bloggers that I hold dear.

A perfect exercise for a rainy Thanksgiving Eve by the fire, my stomach full of lentil soup, and my feet up.

    1.    My mother wanted to name me Lenore after my father's sister but my mother's mother nixed it and I became Loretta.

    2.    I went to a hippie high school  with no grades and unlimited cuts and I almost completely cut the first semester of junior year and stayed home and watched Bewitched every day and the only reason I didn't flunk out was that my French teacher hunted me down and dragged me back to school.

    3.    I am exactly the same number of years older than The Princess that The Empress is older than me. (Is that sentence in English?) [As edited later  by The Empress:  AS  the Empress is older than  " I " ( minus 3points)}
 

    4.    I could never undress in front of anyone when I was a kid. When I was at girl scout camp, we had skinny dipping night and I was such a good Catholic Italian American girl that I hid in my tent. (Can you imagine a camp nowadays having skinny dipping night with girls and counselors???)

    5.    In law school, I was nicknamed "Loretta Beretta" because as an intern at the D.A.'s office I went undercover wearing a wire in a motel room for an interview in order to bust a ring that was hiring teens to sell magazines on the road, then stranding them  out of town after they turned in the subscription money.

    6.   The investigator that "wired me up" was a bully from grade school who  tortured all the Italian American kids by calling us "greasers"  and now pretended he didn't know me as he insert his hand down my bra to insert the wire.

    7.   Every shelter magazine except one (Country Living) that I subscribed to this year went belly up.

  

And now to bestow this award on those whose blogs I just love!

    Jane Brocket - Jane's blog is so focused and beautifully illustrated. It is a breath of domestic calm and when I go there, I feel so renewed and happy. I want to grow up to be just like Jane. Her three books are wonderful, too!

    Amusebouche  - An amuse bouche it literally, to amuse the mouth. Traditionally, it is known as a small bite offered before themeal begins. This lovely blog is filled with small bites of food, photos, folklore, dishes, recipes, stories of her travels in search of local food, and mouthwatering descriptions of meals.   I always come away hungry and inspired to cook more and with fresher, more local ingredients.

Days of a Sampler Lover - This blog is written by a very old friend and former neighbor, Margaret. When I lived upcounty, we were in a quilting group together and she made the most beautiful, hand-stitched quilts. She still quilts, but her real passion is samplers, and I am just amazed and overwhelmed at the gorgeous work she is doing. Go take a peek! She is a stitcher extraordinaire.

Rohling Studios - Another artist friend, Claudia has a beautiful blog filled with marvelous photos. She is always cheerful and excited to show her latest finds, whether in fabric or farmer's market finds.

Dispatch from LA  - Mary Ann Moss is a wonder woman. She teaches grade school full time and makes the most incredible visual journals I've ever seen. She sprays, stencils, and stitches through fabric, junk mail, scrapbook paper, and anything else that takes her fancy. And she brings all her talent and supplies to school where she shows her kids how to make fabulous art journals. I don't think you could find a more generous, talented, and enthusiastic teacher.  And now she is offering online classes. I've already preregistered!

Little Miss Sunshine State - I think Jeanne and I became friends because I love Cape Cod and she is from Cape Cod. Now she lives in Florida with her hubby and entertains us with tales of her Pottery Barn job, fixing up her new home, and visits from Sorority Girl and Cape Cod Boy. Always a fun read.

Indigo Pears - Lila is the most talented watercolor artist.  Funny, vibrant, and caring, her blog showcases her gorgeous paintings, her thrift store finds, her beautiful family, and life in general down south.

I am now going to go eat more stuffing and turkey with gravy. It's like the loaves and the fishes around here - we haven't made a dent in it! If you're in the area, come on by with a knife and fork!


Abundance

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This is the season of harvest; the time to reap the hard-earned fruits of the earth. The sun is low in the sky and the days are very short. As much as I revel in the long, porch and coffee evenings of summer, I also delight in early lamplit evenings that call for bowls of warm stew shared round the table by candlelight. The dark evenings make home beckon and nothing is more delightful than a cup of Earl Grey on my nightstand, a new book, and two warm dogs on either side.

We are about to begin Advent and when I come home each night and turn on the porch light and flick on all the lamps, I am reminded of the Christmas Mass when the church is darkened at the end of Mass and the nave swells with the sound of Silent Night and then thunderous applause when the lights are switched back on.

It is the time to count the heads at the table and be grateful for the upturned faces at mealtime, still our children, still the parents, despite the age differences from when they were in diapers or had mimeographed sheets for homework to complete and now have college applications to fill out, jobs far from home, and careers to launch. 

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Each Thanksgiving calls for a recounting of the year, a tolling of each act of gratitude like the ringing of a bell in my mind. As I wrote a few posts ago, I am truly joyous within this year. I welcome Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's with all their pomp and circumstance. At the same time, I am relaxed and mellow, appreciative more than ever not so much for the things that I have, but for the things I have not: no death or illness in our family this year; no estranged friends or family; no extreme financial worries. How many years can we count on to be notable for the lack of worry as we age in our lives?

So let the table be set with paper napkins, the everyday silver, and the dishes that go in the dishwasher. The fancy Christmas dishes that have to be handwashed will be used for a quiet dinner just for the 5 of us. So what if the 16 members of the family will barely be able to breathe at the table. What is more lovely, a giant dining room, or a family whose main goal is to eat at table together?

We are not the type of family who goes around the table and names what we are thankful for. I could tell you that we were, but it has never been part of our family tradition. I don't think I could force it, either, not without a lot of uncomfortable people who generally keep their emotions to themselves. We have all been through enough sadness and sorrow together in our lives to recognize on our faces that the heart of our gratitude is for those that sit around us and the proximity we have to each other.

I will tell you what I am grateful for this year, and most years:

    For the silver-haired head of The Empress that has graced Thanksgivings for her 84 years. I am grateful for her corn pudding and green gelatin-sour cream mold, for the wedding rings she still wears every day  19 years after my father's death, and her sensibility and mah jong-playing friends who are the last remnants of my childhood.

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I am grateful for my four  sisters and their presence in our lives. We are all such different women but overwhelmingly sisters none the same.  I am grateful for my brothers in law that tolerate with good humor being the only males at our overwhelmingly female gatherings. I am grateful that we all except one live with a mile of each other and that our children are a close as siblings and will bind the families together when all the sisters are long gone.

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I am grateful for my three children who are growing so fast that I am breathless at times over who they are becoming and how quickly they are maturing into life. They are also three wholly dissimilar individuals who are so meltingly the same when it comes to their fierce protection of family, demanding the traditions of our lifetime long after they are of the age to be on their own. Each one of them is a pleasure to be with and a joy to contemplate. 

I am grateful for my job. It is hard, long, tedious, and not anything I imagined myself doing in the practice of law when I become a lawyer. But it is close by, a comfortable place to work, it has nice people, caring bosses, lots of laughs over the insanity that is our daily lives, and so far, not too badly touched by the recession.

This year I am calling The Year of The Marriage.  It is the year that we recouped from Granny Pom's death and the stress that Mr. Pom endured. It is the year when we came to terms with our nest emptying and filling over and over. It is the year when we made a commitment to each other to continue our marriage into a new phase, to return to an adult relationship that is about us more than about the children. It was a hard year, but it is ending on a note of excitement and pleasure that has not been felt since we were young marrieds buying our first house and expecting our first child.

And I point to my husband as the person who has plunged ahead into the future while I am stuck in  looking behind and trying to gather up the loose threads that I keep finding unraveled and trailing behind us.

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So now he plunges me into the car, the highway, the darkness, a cold house, early morning rises, windswept beaches, dog hair all over my clothes, and a time and place and purpose just for us. He had recaptured the best moments of our lives: the starting out years, the years of planning, the years of anticipation. He has created a new life for us, a place to explore, a new world for us to find our way in.

I am grateful for my art and writing. As I get older, the drive to write and create becomes stronger every day. It is frustrating at times as I still have responsibilities that require me to work full time elsewhere. But all of it has been the most magical, positive experience - this blog, my readers, the magazine, the emails I get from magazine readers, my incredibly indulgent editors who give me free reign, my fits and starts at novel writing.

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All of it is just sheer pleasure, and yet also, the passion of my life, which is to fashion my world by words, to write my life as I live it, to tell myself the story of who I am.

Thank you for sharing this all with me. I can't always promise exciting posts, rewarding posts, posts filled with photographs or adventures. I can't always deliver timely posts, regular posts or even thoughtfully written posts. But know that I am thinking about you all the time, that I am writing my life in my head every day with the purpose of sharing it with you all, and know that it is one of the great pleasure and rewards of my life.

Being here.


Reader's Choice

I picked up a tiny reading light no bigger than a business card. It has a halogen bulb and is perfect for reading on our weekend trips up the coast. The unfortunate part of getting away on a Friday in the fall and winter is the early darkness. Yesterday, it was too dark to read by 4:54 (I looked at the dashboard) and I opted to drive the first half of the trip so I could look forward to reading on the second half with my new little light.

White

I purchased this book on my last trip to the Cape. I had not heard of it nor knew a thing about it, but a novel about Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West's infamous White Garden sounded marvelous.

The narrator, Jo Bellamy, is a young garden designer, who has just received a major assignment. At the behest of a wealthy male client, she is to design a replica of Vita Sackville West's White Garden on his Long Island estate. He send her to England visit the estate and meet with the garden staff that tends the estate so she can make a list of the plants, or "poach" as the estate gardeners disparingly term these professional visitors.  

Jo is anxious to share her news with her grandfather, who also was a gardener, but the day after she tells him, he commits suicide.  Her grandmother discovers a suicide note, but it was written some 50 years ago, when the grandfather had just enlisted in the army during World War II. In it he speaks of some intrigue concerning the death of a "Lady" that occurred, she later finds out, when he was working as a gardener on the Sackville estate.

The story grows with as many twists and turns as the twining leaves that that wind through the Sissinghurst Castle Garden in the village of Kent.  The discovery of her grandfather's diary in a storage room on the estate sends her on a rollicking trip all over London and rural England as she finds herself in a web of preent day intrigue and romance that is bisected by a tale of love and corruption from the past.

The story is suspenseful and wildly  intriguing as it posits a tale of treason and murder involving the mystery of what exactly happened to Virginia Woolf during the three weeks from when she supposedly drowned in the River Ouse  to when her body was ultimately discovered.

I read it straight through, albeit with a couple of interruptions when I went online to research some of the plot lines and uncover whether any of these were true or even rumored.  It is a wonderful literary mystery that will fully fascinate anyone who loves English gardens, lists of plants, Virginia Woolf, England in the war years, Oxford universities, eccentric English characters, and romance. 

I also just finished Howards End Is On the Landing: A Year of Reading At Home by Susan Hill,

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Susan Hill is the well-known and prolific English author who wrote, among many other novels, The Woman In Black.  This book is her account of her long journey in reading only the books she had on her bookshelves, which appears to have been no real sacrifice in selection based upon the number of bookshelves she has all over her home.

Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on my shelves, I encountered dozens of others that I had never read, or forgotten I owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired me to embark on a year-long voyage through my books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know my own collection again. A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to burst into new life. Wandering through her house that day, my eyes were opened to how much of that life was stored in my home, neglected for years.

The book is not a dry list of "books I have read", but a sentimental and loving account of her years and years of reading books that delight the heart and mind. My only criticism of the book is that instead of inspiring me to stop buying books and read some of the many that I have on my own shelves, I found myself dog-earing pages, scribbling note in the margin (which she writes about), and surfing Amazon for the books she discusses.

If you are a Reader, you will find this book to be like a long conversation over tea and scones in front of the fire with your reading group. And if you don't have a reading group, you will have this book to share in your reading obsession.

And if you are like me and discover that you own not one, not two, but three copies of Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll, you will be nodding your head along with the author as you read this literary memoir.

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When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Traveler's Journey of Staying Put by Vivian Swift, is a book that I also bought more than once. However, the mystery of this book is that I hav NEVER found what happened to my first copy. It is a large, hard covered book, not easy to misplace. I have scoured the living room bookcases, the dining room bookcases, the bedroom, hall, linen nook, and art room bookshelves and nada, nothing! I have interrogated all my sisters, torn apart my closet, emptied all my tote bags, and I have never found the original copy. Must have gone out with the newspapers.

So of course, I had to buy another. It is a beautifully illustrated and whimsically written account of a year in the life of a Vivian Swift, a former world traveler who decided to stay put for a year and write about her neighborhood and surrounding area. The special interest for me is that she lives about a mile from me in the next village and writes about places I have been like local parks and Long Island Sound. What fun to open the book and go, "Hey! I've been to that deli!" Her artwork is charming and the layout of her pages is just gorgeous and I refer back to it often for inspiration in my own artwork and journaling.

What am I reading in the preholiday weeks? Well, I am currently carrying around,

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but it got bumped to the bottom of the bookbag when I found The White Garden. It is now in first place on the night table, but I brought up to the Cape The Best Food Writing 2009 since I am thinking about my Thanksgiving menu and upcoming Christmas baking, and have little time to read, I am also in the mood to read and write about food. I promise to continue My Dream of You shortly.  I loved the author's other books and her easy, elegant style that has the lilt of the Irish brogue that I hear in my mind when I read her.

What do you read when you have no time to read? This is what I want to know today.


It's Beginning

I am here to confess to you that I did something today that I never dreamed I would ever do.

On Thursday, November 19th, exactly one week before Thanksgiving,

I, Mrs. Pomegranate, walked across my office, flipped up the lid to my CD player

and played Christmas music.

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I wouldn't have thought of it, really I wouldn't have, except it was so dark and raining and I was so, so tired.

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And I'd bought a Christmas CD at Starbucks this morning. I was so moved by their festive holiday decorating. I loved the white snow and fir branch decals that trimmed all the upper windows. I loved the red and white oversized ornaments hanging in the window.

(In fact, it caused me to realize that as much as I am all about blue and white in the summer, I am all about red and white in the winter and now I have red curtains in all my windows. Really.)

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I really was enjoying it. At least until someone walked into my office and said, "Are you playing Christmas music?"

And then I was totally embarrassed. I felt like I had turned Christmas on its head.

But then I thought, "who is to say when Christmas begins? Who makes the rules about such things? Is it wrong to indulge in a taste of Dean Martin or begin drinking egg nog out of the carton? Why wait for December to be merry and bright when this day is as dreary and dark as midnight?

So I sprang to my feet and opened my office door, and made  such a clatter that all the worker elves looked up from their pc's to see what was the matter.

And what to their wondering eyes should they see but a Christmas hungry lawyer, that would be me. I raised up a candy cane and proclaimed,

"Thanksgiving's next week, so I'll take off the CD, but once it's over, they'll be no stopping me.

" I am ready for reindeer, for snow, and cookies, for cinnamon hearts, dragees, red velvet, and flocking. I crave sugar and dumplings and frosting and ginger, ice skating, bells ringing, wrapping, and tinsel.

"I will forebear from any more Christmas cajoling until all the turkey is roasted and golden. But once all the gobbling is over, I will be decking the halls and fa la la la la-ing my ardor.

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Let the games begin!

 


Taste of the Grape

Grapes

To celebrate the abundance of fall, Mr. Pom and I took a ride up to Truro Vineyards. Their slogan is, "Great Beaches and Great Wine".

I don't think you can improve on that.

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It is a small vineyard with a lovely old farmhouse and a modern open air pavilion in the back with a bar and tables and chairs for wine tasting. The house dates back to the early 1800's and is nestled in a crook of the old Route 6A.  The day we were there was cold and drizzly and some wine tasting would have warmed us up considerably, but it was only noon on Sunday and even Mr. Pom knows his boundaries.  We did, however, buy some bottles, which proved luscious and topped off our weekend.

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We bought a bottle of the Cranberry Red which comes in these pretty "Lighthouse Series" bottles. The notes describe it as, "Fresh and bold, red Beaujolais character blended with delicate Cape Cod cranberries. Super with roast turkey, duck, or pheasant. It comes in a beautiful clear lighthouse bottle".  We are opening ours on Thanksgiving, unless we decide not to wait as it is quite possible that it may demand to be sampled before then.

Mr. Pom was quite the connoisseur in his youth and we had many books on wine on our shelves.  We decided that we needed to refresh our wine knowledge and signed up for a wine tasting at the local cheese shop where The Teen works.

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The focus of the tasting were the wines from the principal regions of the world. We tasted reds and whites from France, Italy, Spain, the United States, and Australia. They were all interesting and I especially liked a Sancerre from France, whic is an appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) for wine. (See what we learned!)

Cheese 

Along with the wine, we sampled various cheeses that were selected to pair with a particular wine. Now, children, let's all guess which part of the evening was Mrs. Pom's favorite? Yes, you are right. The cheese. As the extremely thin French woman was asking us to taste the wine before we ate the cheese, Mrs. Pom's mouth was already stuffed with fromage. I noticed that the extremely thin elegant French sommelier did not have one bite, not even a moue` of cheese.

Our favorite was the triangular yellow slice on the lower right. It is a Pecorino puddled with chestnut honey.  Tasted like chestnut cheese which sounds odd but is divine. Next to it was a triple creme that was astounding and that as soon as I swallowed it, produced a triangular lump of cellulite right on my thigh.

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A delightful way to spend a Thursday evening. If you look closely, you can see a little glimpse of The Teen in her Breton waitress garb.  We are looking forward to December when we are tasting champagnes. Champagnes, cheese, and Christmas = what a fete!


Sunday On the Porch in November

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It's 65 degrees! On November 15th!  Mr. Pom and I are eating a late lunch of  molasses and balsamic vinegar slow-cooked pork roast on the porch as if it were September. What a glorious day!

We decided to stay home this weekend as I was having a severe case of fall nesting syndrome. This is a mildly contagious disease that appears in my family, erupting more virulently as the holidays approach. I can't rest or feel at ease until I have the house in order and ready to host Thanksgiving. 

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Yes, I know it is the week after next, but as you may recall from years past, we are 16 at a minimum and it is quite a production. This year, I know I need the extra time so I can keep to my new mantra, which is "Serenity Now".

Seriously, I am just really enjoying the holiday preparations this year. It is quiet this year, knock on wood, spit in the wind, salt over the shoulder, whatever you do, but I am looking forward to a simple year's end of enjoying being with my family and gathering to celebrate the abundance of our lives and the birth of Christ.  I am making a promise to myself and to my family to not get crazy about anything and to keep the holidays as simple as I can.

So naturally, I had to take down the drapes in the dining room, which I have decided are going to be shortened to window length drapes for the big living room window in Cape Cod. I just know that their raspberry lanterns will glow in the afternoon sun and look smashing against the blue walls (once we paint).

So down they came, and up went our old dining room drapes from Memphis. I wish I had a photo of  Memphis dining room uploaded, but I'll have to find one and scan it in. They are deep rose ground scattered with bosomy, flowsy flowers in glazed chintz.  My dining room there was enormous!

Here, eh, I took them down again this morning. Too much fabric, too much pattern in a crowded room.

However, I realized they'd look great in the apple green living room, so up they went there and the copper silk drapes came down for the winter. 

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In between all these drapery shiftings, I moved furniture around and opened the dining room table to make sure I can sit 16 around it, since last year's holiday with a separate kids table in the living room was highly contested by the younger set. We just make it with not a breath to spare and if my sisters bring their own folding chairs since my dining room chairs would take up too much room, as you can see in the photo above from Christmas several years ago. 

After I rearranged the dining room, I was too tired to serve the pork roast, so we had Chinese and saved the pork roast for lunch. Today, we had a leisurely breakfast at Le Pain and I asked for a soft boiled egg and was served an egg that had passed by a stove when it was turned on, so I had to make due with the "hazelnut flute" which essentially is a small baguette studded with raising and hazelnuts and it was damn good.

I was inclined to watch The World's Stricted Parents with The Teen, with a stack of magazines and the chair next to the fire, but Mr. Pom was being SO industrious with leaf clean up outside that I decided to do some laundry.

One thing lead to another and I ended up filling ten large garbage bags with basement detritus and cleaning out a major area of the mess. The Teen helped drag them out to the curb and did not protest when I threw out The EZ Bake Oven, Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Maker, and Chucky Cheese Pizza Oven. The boxes were ruined from being in the basement and I told her that when she felt nostalgic about them with her own children, to just buy them on Ebay.

Having been an industrious helpmate, and having served the pork roast, and having cooked lentil and split pea soup, I am now sitting with my favorite Ugg slippers, a gift from The Princess a few years ago, and those same magazines that I have carried with me all weekend but haven't managed to open. It's getting a little chilly for the porch and I am thinking of heading out for a latte.  A story is clamoring in my head and I could take my laptop to Starbucks and try to bang it out.

Or I could bring those magazines with me and daydream about making something with felt and ribbons and beads....

Care to come?


Cottage Tales

Little by little, Mr. Pom and I are bringing up to the cottage the things we will need. It's a slow process since the cargo area of the car is always full of dogs.  25 years ago, we bought a Sears cartop carrier, affectionately called "The Bubble" and though we have lost all the original straps, a set of bungee cords work well. It's not the sleekest or most fashionable cartop carrier anymore, but very serviceable.

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What we have learned is that whatever you can buy off Cape is worth the gas the lug it up there because there's not much choice in shopping venues and the on Cape prices are carazzzy!  So each Thursday night, Mr. Pom hoists the heavy Bubble on top of his car and we fill it with stuff like sheets, pillows, dishes, and cups.

Fortunately, we don't have to buy  much in the way of kitchen essentials. Let's just say that I've never been dish-deprived. Someday I shall do a post just about table settings....yes, I will and just in time for the holidays. 

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Our first official dinner. Those potatoes look a little sad, no?  The small container is bluefish pate. The bread is has pecans and cranberries in it - we ate it all week! The lobsters were only $7 each at the Farmer's Market - I love going to a Farmer's Market that features seafood!

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Look, there's even a Captain. I don't know where Tenille was, though. He sold us the pate.

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A lovely young woman ran this truck. I'm thinking I could be a lobsterwoman. I could haul them out of the water and then lure them into a nice pot of boiling salted water......

An actual dinner cooked in our new home was  lovely and a little strange to be there by ourselves and be using things familiar from home.

(It was also Halloween and anyone who rang our doorbell got lots and lots of candy because they were very brave and committed trick or treaters to do Halloween in a neighborhood where there are NO street lights. Funny  thing is that our attorney told us that her kids trick or treat in our neighborhood because she lives out in the sticks. So everything is relative when it comes to the lengths one will go for candy.)

 

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I hope The Empress will be tickled to see that her old stoneware plates, which were a wedding anniversary gift from us girls (I think) years ago, now reside in Cape Cod. Such a nice touch to have a link to our childhood home way up here years later.  Everytime we eat off of them we think of Claire Ave and my parents. I dare say they are almost vintage thrift worthy seventies, no?

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This is the counter next to the stove. The decoupage plate is from my days as a craft fair maven. I was going to be the next John Derrian.... Even the trivets are sentimental: the one on the left was a gift from one of my oldest friends, the Modica-Snows when they went to San Francisco; the one on the right is from our early marriage when we were deeply obsessed with all things...fowl.  

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The chimney sweep got the fireplace in working order and then left us a screen, new basket, andirons, and a set of tools. He said we could have it for a very reasonable price and if we didn't  like it, to give him a call and he'd pick it up.  I waited for the catch, but there wasn't any and then I remembered, right! We're not in New York anymore!


The house has 3 bedrooms. When they were showing us the house, they kept referring to one room as the master bedroom. It was a strange, narrow room and I couldn't imagine fitting a queen size bed and two dressers in it without having wall to wall furniture. I realized that they were referring to it as the master because it had a small bathroom with a shower that was shoehorned into one corner, thereby creating the strange space. Someday we'll rip it out and just enlarge the main bath which is on the other side of the wall.

For now, I think it would make a divine writer's retreat, though those pesky kids will want a room to sleep in . . .And it will be  a bedroom for rental purposes, so we bought a trundle bed that can be pushed against the wall once I find a nice, simple desk. This is how it will look when we are renting it or have a full house. 

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I wanted sunny, cheerful, bright furnishings. Does it look too juvenile? I was going for Maine Cottage but may have strayed into Hannah Montana land. The room isn't finished, but you get the idea. The funny thing is that I realized after I bought the bed furnishings for this room and the other smaller bedroom that I was subconsciously furnishing a "girls" and "boys" room. What can I say? Once a mom, always a mom.

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This is the view from the dining area into the kitchen. Obviously, someone took down a wall between the kitchen and dining area. We intend to move the china cabinet to another place, remove that small wall, and put in a peninsula counter from the sidewall.

The whole configuration over the stove is going, going, gone. You can't see it clearly in the photos, but the wall is fake stone. I can't get it down fast enough. Our first house had fake bricks in the kitchen. What is up with fake stonefacing in kitchens??  I pried off some of the smaller ones last weekend and all I need to get my hands on a chisel and hammer and I am good. That and a crowbar and the whole set of tacky shelves over the stove is gone, to be replaced by a beadboard wall and a long, stainless steel shelf.

I don't think we'll be there this weekend. Mr. Pom has Knick tickets and I have the need to stay home and be exhausted. Time to hunker down for Thanksgiving and kick the real house into shape!




We Have To Stop (Not) Meeting Like This

All right, I know I've been a lurker blogger. (Yes, it is possible to be a lurker blog reader and a lurker blogger). I have definitely been in the latter category lately and frankly, it probably won't dramatically change any time soon.

But you shouldn't worry about it (as if you don't have other things you worry about, it's just me right??) because my absence from the internet means I am reading and writing more, working on some art for the cottage, going to the cottage with Mr Pom for lovely, weekends alone, and hanging out my kids and the dogs.

It's been crazy, these weekends on the Cape. We don't exactly live within weekend driving distance.  Weekend driving distance being measured by increments of two hours, we are about as twice as far as we should be. Of course, we knew this going in, but chose to believe that somehow, we suddenly lived only 3 hours really from the Cape, which of course even on Mr. Pom's best day of driving is unachievable.

Human nature being what it is, going up is always faster than coming home. By the time we arrive back on Sunday, we vow not to return for several weeks. But as the week rolls by in its dreary grind, the fantasy pull grows stronger and by Friday, we are rushing to throw clothes into a bag and grab bags and bags of stuff that we are slowly moving from one house to the next.

Then the long drive, where I am thankful for my Ipod due to the early dark,  where we don't even stop for dinner or bathroom break and try to keep our spirits up when the unexpected nighttime construction strands us for a half hour of frustration. 

And then we arrive to a sky full of stars scattered like glitter across the inky darkness. Mr. Pom hunts and gathers us drinks and a supper and we turn on the heat and take the milk and juice out of the freezer for morning and fall into bed shivering in the cold sheets.

The dogs are up even earlier, as it takes them awhile to settle down to being there and we almost cry at how tired we are when we hear the youngster's whimpering in the predawn darkness.

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Mr. Pom gets up with them on Saturday and I do Sundays. They run outside to do their business in the dark, the only visible sign that they are there is the glint of their eyeballs when the front porch lights hit them. They eat their breakfast, get a bone or a kong to play with and if we are lucky, leave us alone maybe hopefully for an hour to read or gasp! go back to bed for a little while.

But by 7:30 we are always at the beach.

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The autumn beach is as fickle as the spring's. One weekend we are layered with parkas and scarves, the next it is 65 degrees and we feel the sun on our backs and the air is rich with summer.

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Even the beach itself is as changeable as the wind: one weekend it is built up with sand layered on from storms. The next weekend, we walk in wonder across a broad, flat expanse of sand and cringe as we view the dunes scoured by waves and wind to expose their tender layers.  We walk as if on the landscape of the moon, our minds imagining waves mighty enough to flatten the swells of the beach that we thought impermeable to change.

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What never changes is the rolling of the waves. Oh, of course, they vary in intensity:  breakers with thunderous roars, gentle rolling surf that tickles our feet, long, sweeping waves that chase us slowly backwards, powerful crashes with dangerous undertow. All  there it seems, for our delight alone for despite the astonishing display of morning, we are always the only ones on the beach until a few surfers arrive. How is it possible that no one else is so amazed at the miracle of the off season beach that they cannot wait to get there?

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Somedays, we forgo the drama of the ocean for the shelter of the bay. If it is low tide, we can walk the dogs out onto the flats and let them forage through the tidal pools, dazed and dazzled by the sparkle of the sun on the shallow pools. They can forage through piles of seaweed wrack, noses deep into briny smells of abandoned gull feathers and ocean weeds. We can examine the variegated layers of exposed dunes and marvel at the long threads of dune grass that stitch together the layers of sand like a great basting stitch.  And just when we think we are alone in the world, we look up and see two giant apostrophes floating across the sky and the ploughed surf kicking up beneath kite-surfers flying across the bay.

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But the ocean calls us too strongly to resist more than the occasional foray to the bay. Each morning, we walk the path that use all summer, that little boardwalk laid into the north end of the beach, and a we walk through the deep sand that the autumn storms have laid across the boards, I feel a surge of excitement and give a little dance that we are here, we are here, and pinch myself, or Mr. Pom if he is close enough, and we grab hands and run down the few steps and call to the dogs who are doing their own jack rabbit dance of excitement. How can it be that we've actually done this, the thing that we have fantasized about since Mystery Man was learning to walk and used to fall out of bed at night and remain on the floor of the rental cottage, sound asleep until we deposited him back into his bed.

But we have, and it is wondrous and exhausting and scary and relaxing.

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The dogs of course find all of this irrelevant. They are happy if there are shells to crunch, waves to cash, gulls to chase, smelly piles of stuff to stick their noses into, and us, always us, right there to reassure them and pet them, and whistle them back before the next wave crashes. 

But in pursuit of full disclosure, I will not pretend that it is all hand walking across the dunes and soft rays of sun on my cheeks.  I grumble as the dogs round me up each morning, refusing to let me stay in bed even when Mr. Pom is up with them. I am in a terrible temper as I put on my shoes and  sweatshirt and  pout on the way cause I'm tired and won't be happy until I have coffee in my mouth. I am achy and sleepy and want to keep on my slippers and finish my novel. I want Mr. Pom to take them to the beach and bring me back a Sparrow Cappuccino. I want to be let alone to write and snuggle under the throw on the couch.  I want to be anywhere but awake and outside and with the dogs.

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But I can't. Because we're all in this together and if I don't go, who will remember to bring the biscuits that lure pups back from the dunes that they are not supposed to climb? And who will point out to Mr. Pom that a pooper scoop is needed right this minute? And if I stay a big old morning grouch and bemoan my fate to be tied into this crazy life where 6:00 a.m. is sleeping in, how will I smell the scent of summer in November? How will I have an entire beach to share with only one other person?  How will my spirit be inflated by the ocean wind and baptized by the spray of waves and my feet sink into a million rocks bored down into a bazillion grains of sand that form the bedrock of this planet?

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And who will take the photos?


Q & A Part II

Kelly wants to know:

what # sister are you out of the five, never did pick that up in any old postings?

  • I am the middle girl. Doesn't that explain everything. I Am The Glue That Holds Everyone Together

can you walk to the beach/shops from the cottage? 

  • You could walk to the beach, but it takes 8 minutes by car so probably would take you about a half hour at least! 
  • The shops are closer and you definitely can walk there, especially to the coffee place and that's all I worry about. Plus there's a cute bookstore right on Main Street. What else do I need?

I know your day's are so full, but do you get to spend much time with The Empress, mine is gone 20 years this month and still miss her wish she could have know my girls.

  • Funny you should ask - The Empress is sitting to my left on the sofa while we are watching Game 6 of the World Series, and excuse me just a minute -

GO YANKEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now where was I - Yes, I try to see The Empress on Sundays, but it works out to a few times a month. This week would have been my parents' 64th wedding anniversary and Sunday is the 19th anniversary of my Dad's death, so I wanted to be sure to spend time with her and for us all to have dinner together.

when did you start painting/making altered art?

  • I started making altered art in Memphis in about 1998. Mr. Pom was living in Portland, Oregon for a year while I tried to sell the house in preparation for us moving there. It was lonely after the kids went to bed and I found myself finally having some time to work on my drawings. Then I discovered a new magazine called Somerset Studios at Michaels and the rest was history.

Badger asks the following:

1. How did you and Mr. Pom meet?

  • Mr. Pom and I met when I was 16 and he was 18 and we both worked at a supermarket that was managed by my best friend's father. (She often comments here as Pioneer Spirit - hi Teri!) I was a checker and he was a stockboy and I decided I wanted him to be my first date. And he was. And still is.

2. How many places have you lived since you and Mr. Pom tied the knot? (I mean actual abodes -- apartments, houses, etc. -- and also geographical locations/cities/whatnot.)

  • first married: apartment in the city we were born in, a suburb outside NYC.
  • after 3 years, we bought a house in upper Westchester County where we lived for 10 years and had 3 kids and lived by a lake and had a Husky named Sparky and just had the best time of our lives with lots of friends with babies and a big old house for entertaining all our relatives.
  • in 1992 we moved to Fresno California for a 30 month job transfer due to Mr. Pom's health issues with his back.  Mr. Pom's mom retired and moved with us.  We had a house with a guest house and black bottom pool, a waterfall, and fruit trees and it was quite the Shangri La. It also was the most unfriendly, desolate place I ever lived, until  I met a great bunch of girls at a quilting guild and we traveled everywhere to quilt shows. We hated Fresno but adored living in California and traveling all over the state.
  • In 18 months,  he was transferred again, this time  to Memphis TN where we had a 5000 square foot house with a 40 foot pool and a 40 foot kitchen with a fireplace. We lived across the street from our church, there was a woods next to us, we had tons of friends, and I was president of the garden club. We had Friday evening floating cocktail parties in our front yards, neighborhood Halloween parties with a funnel truck and live bands, a Gourmet Supper Club, were very active in our church and  Sunday school,  Mr. Pom became a Catholic for our 15th wedding anniversary, and we just had a grand old time until his company folded and -
  • in 1999, we were supposed to move to Portland, Oregon for a new job. We were very excited to be living in such a cool town where we could ski one day and go to the beach the next. It ended up to be the longest year of my life as I was in Memphis with the kids trying to get the house sold and Mr. Pom was in Portland and he'd reinjured his back and became very sick and worked from a furnished apartment for months until after a year, I finally convinced him to quit and come home.
  • After that, he had more back surgery, looked and looked for a new job and after we had gone through all our savings and retirement funds and was about to lose the house, he got a job in New York and we moved back
  • in 2000 to the city we were born in, and we still live here, within a mile of all 4 of my sisters and my Mom!

Blackbird asks

    1. favorite meal? 

  • My very favorite meal of all time? That I can still eat? A dozen raw oysters in Wellfleet and a glass of champagne. When I can't have that? My homemade chicken soup with rice which is just like my mother's and grandmother's which means a little tomato paste is added to the stock and the soup is served with liberal amounts of Parmesan cheese.

    2. does Mr. Pom cook? 

  • Mr. Pom grills anything, smokes ribs, and boils lobsters. He also makes a mean apple pie.

    3. how's his back? 

  • Oh, we never write how the back is. Evil eye and all . . . but you are sweet to ask

    4. do you have any plans for when you are empty nesters? 

  • Run naked through the house and eat all the ice cream

    5. there is no #5

    6. are you any good at arranging cut flowers

  • Actually - no. Not a whit of talent in that department. I generally plunk them in a vase and prop it up against the wall so they sort of stand up at attention.

Jo's questions are all food related, which of course is my favorite subject:

is every Sunday at the Pom house filled w/ Sunday Gravy?

  • Much to Mr. Pom's dismay....NO. We only do Sunday dinner about once a month. (I need some free time to write and make art).

Are the holidays also structured like my relatives (i.e. Thanksgiving means a pasta course PRECEDES the whole turkey course) or are you of the more reasonable 2nd or 3rd generation tribe?

  • Oh, we are the more reasonable group. Everyone is too exhausted to do all that eating at once - o pasta, no chicken soup - I distinctly remember The Empress convincing her mother to cut all that out and we never looked back. We just made up for it by doubling the desserts.

must Sunday gravy INCLUDE things like pork chops, brasciole and large chunks of various meats OR does it just mean a good sauce? 

  • Personally, to me gravy is a ragu that must include pork of some kind but I also love a quickly  made marinara. But for that Sunday aroma, you've got to braise pork if you don't have the time to make meatballs, of course. And thanks for reminding me - I've never made brasciole and intend to do so this weekend. And I am going to make some with a hardboiled egg in it like my mother's family and bacon and raisins in the other like my father's.  Mr. Pom will think he died and went to heaven.

Are there ALWAYS 7 fishes on Christmas eve or do you cheat or dare I ask, abstain from the fish fest?

  • The Christmas Eve feast at our house was initiated by Mr Pom who is more Italian than I am although he hasn't a drop of olive oil in his blood. I don't know that we've ever done the 7, though we've come close. Over the years, we've  made fried cod, scallop brochettes on the grill, shrimp scampi, seafood fra diavola, fried calamari (even potato chips - don't ask), but always lobsters.  In the last few years we've streamlined the menu and stick to shrimp cocktail, calamari in red sauce over pasta, and lobsters, lobsters, lobsters.

Lastly, sweet Kelly asked

What is your favorite way to relax and rid yourself of stress?

  • Writing my blog!



Q & A

Paula asks:

1.) Do you think you'd ever rent out the cottage ? 2.) You lost weight? How much? 3.) Do you ever want to quit the day job? 

  • We do intend to rent out the cottage, if we can get it ready this winter.
  • I had gastric bypass surgery in 2007 and lost 125 pounds
  • You must be a new reader to the blog if you are asking #3. LOL! EVERYDAY!

Little Miss Sunshine States wants to know, Will you do what we did (BOLT out of our house about 3 days after Alli graduated from high school)? Do you think you will enjoy your "empty nest" or will you be sad that there is no one to take care of anymore?

  • I would be ready to bolt but my bank account won't be! We do intend to move to CC permanently some day, but I have to say that I think I'd always want to keep at least an apartment here because I'd miss my family and I'd miss NYC. 
  • As for empty nest, I've noticed that it is easier and easier to get used to - but those kids keep coming back! LOL!

Dana asks,  1. your new CC kitchen...what's it going to look like, feel like, be for all of you 2. can you talk about your big writing project...does it have anything to do with the long-promised, much-anticipated 'summers on the cape' book? 3. what are the top 5 things you've found while funking/foragine/brocanting 4. what are you looking for NOW while you're doing #3 5. are there any artists that you admire that we might not know?

  • The CC kitchen is actually in better shape than my home kitchen, but needs a lot of work. Our first project will be to move a built-in china cabinet, take down some upper cabinets and put in a counter than runs from the wall like a peninsula. It needs new cabinets, new floor, new sink, and a redo of the refrigerator area and pantry.  But first, we'll have to rent it out for a summer to get some money to do it!
  • The big writing project - no, can't talk about it except that it involves the kind of writing I love, which is like what I write here and for the magazine. It involves a lot of organization and I am hoping The Princess will help me with that since she is between jobs and studying to take the grad school entrance exams.
  • Top 5 funky things I've found while "junking":
    • yards of antique red, white, and blue bunting that I've yet to do anything with
    • an entire service for 8 of silverplate that was just left in a kitchen drawer
    • am oversized Victorian scrapbook with leather covers filled with pasted in cards and handwritten notes
    • my elderly neighbor in Memphis, who knew Elvis and whose husband started one of the first Holiday Inns in the United States, passed away at 88 years old. She left behind a houseful of stuff, including letters from Elvis, that my friend had been helping her organize. I knew I wasn't in the league to get any Elvis letters, but she had a  huge collection of matchbooks spanning 50 years of Memphis history. Unfortunately, a professional estate organizer was running the sale and wouldn't sell any of the matchbooks separately and I couldn't afford the entire set. I did however buy several of her flowered and veiled church hats and a few of her tole trays that I treasure.
    • my funkiest finds have actually come from ebay, where I've managed to buy many very old ledger diaries and Leather embossed Victorian photo albums with bronze clasps. They are waiting for me to do something wonderfully arty with them.
    • Your question about artists we might now know is very intriguing. I can't answer that here without a lot of thought and research, but it has me thinking of a great series of blog posts about artists and I plan to do that in the future.

 Pioneer Spirit asks, "What style(s) do you plan to use in the decor of the CC house? (Love the Star ornament on the door...real Texasy.)

  • I have to say that being able to decorate a new house from scratch is great! How many times does someone really get to do that? At this age, I am saddled with twenty five years of decorating mishmash as we have moved four times and inherited a lot of "stuff" and acquired even more than that. So to be able to have a clean slate is just fabulous!  We are going for a Maine Cottage furniture look on a Target/TJ Maxx budget  - painted furniture, cottagey but with clean, more sophisticated lines,  and lots of colorful furnishings in creamy whites, sea greens, all shades of blue, and touches of coral. Albert and Dash style rugs. Dog hair resistant, of course!

*If you could live forever and continue to mature mentally but remain physically young...what are some things you would pursue?

    • pretty much what I am doing right now - writing, creating, cooking, gardening, and entertaining my family. Oh, and sitting in the sun and swimming. Why - have you found the font of eternal youth in Texas?? Don't hold out now! 

Part Two of Q & A later in the week.....


Reading Lens

I wish I had a book to give to each and every one of you. Your reading suggestions are so great and  I made a list to share with all my readers. If you are like me, you are always on the look out for books that are recommended by like-minded readers:

  • The Crowning Glory of Calla Lilly Ponder. ( I actually have this on my TBR pile)
  • The Pickwick Papers, and Little Dorrit (Dickens)
  • Daisy Bates in the Desert by Julia Blackburn.
  • The Pattern of the Carpet by Margaret Drabble
  • Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson.
  • One Thousand White Women:The Journals of Mary Dodd by Jim Fergus
  • AHAB'S WIFE, or The Star Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund
  •  A Gate at the Stair by Lorrie Moore
  • The Other Side of the Dale by Gervase Phinn
  • Serena by Ron Rash
  • The Shack by Wm Young
  • Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
  • Winter Vault by Ann Michaels
  • The Red Leather Diaries
  • The Girl With No Shadow by Joanne Harris
  • The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
  •  Where Men Win Glory, The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
  • Little Bee
  •  A Year on Ladybug Farm
  • The Space Between Us
  • A Cake in Kigali by Gaile Parkin

My own addition to the list is a writer who I had read a very long time ago and had no idea that she had written books. Hollyhocks, Lambs, and Other Passions: A Memoir of Thornhill Farm by Dee Hardie.  It is out of print but there are used copies on Amazon and I managed to buy an autographed copy without even realizing itWhen I was growing up, I remember reading these lovely columns in House Beautiful entitled, The View from Thornhill Farms. Someone recommended that I read her books and I have been inhaling it all weekend. One is just a collection of her essays, starting with an early  newspaper column she wrote for The Baltimore Sun, but her second book is a memoir.

As a writer, I love watching her writing grow from a humorous, brisk approach into a more elegant, thoughtful and moving style.  She has the life I've dreamed about (large family, big old country house, lambs frolicking, writing for a living, and entertaining and decorating). It is really a pleasure to read, especially in the fall when my thoughts are geared up for holiday entertaining and decorating. I don't want to finish it too soon as I'll just have to start it all over again. 

Happy Reading this week!