pomegranatesandpaper

Signs of the Seasons

 

We can turn our heads and pretend it's not happening, but nature tells a different story.

 

 

My Christmas cactus is abloom.

 

My amaryllis is growing several inches a day.

 

 

And my sheep have put on their thick winter coats.

 

Okay, I don't have any sheep. Not yet. But just wait until we move to a farm on Cape Cod. Oh yes, I have even bigger plans than The Cottage for Cape Cod. I plan to buy a little spread in a wooded area near the water. With an antique farmhouse, a barn, and several sheds. I'll be raising some sheep, gathering eggs from my chickens, and adopting a few more labs (and a Bermese Mountain Dog). 

Now I just have to win the lottery.

You know what they say, visualize it and it will come.

Unlike Christmas, which is going to come whether you are ready or not.

And that's actually a really good thing. Christmas and all its trappings will come whether we are ready or not. So why not just let it come? Drop a few traditions, overlook some rituals, scale back the decorating. Concentrate only on what makes you happy. Maybe just take out some white fairy lights, buy a rope of evergreen, a big red bow and call it done.

Yes, I know: family, friends, and expectations.

You'd be surprised how satisfied they may be if you are calm, happy, and relaxed. Thrown in a little flower and sugar for a few batches of cookies (even from the bakery - they'll never know) and it may just be the best holiday season you've ever had.

 

 

 

 

Ta Da

 

This is the Official Engagement Photograph of The Princess and The Fiance. Is it not just dreamy? The wedding photographer is in Boston and she arranged to take the ferry to Provincetown on the very last weekend that it was running for the season in order to meet them in Provincetown and take their engagement photos.  They were rewarded with an absolutely beautiful, balmy weekend in October. I know that they picked the right photographer because the photographs capture their personalities so well. The results are both breathtaking and adorable, not an easy combination.

The wedding plans are coming along very well. The Princess has arranged almost everything after researching it all with The Fiance. She has a very thick binder full of photos, tear outs, and websites,  that itemize everything from the color scheme to the  gift bags. She has always been our most organized child and I am very impressed at how well she has tackled the preparations with an itemized budget and a long list of questions to ask every vendor involved in the plans.

I keep reminding myself that once Christmas is over, the time until the wedding will fly by on wings of doves.   I know the time will be intense and I want to enjoy it and not be overwhelmed. So I am deliberately not doing anything that is my responsibility (bridal shower, my dress, Mr. Pom's tux, a little party after the rehearsal dinner, some type of gathering the day after the wedding) until after the New Year when I can give it my full attention.

I can't wait to start making plans for the shower. I can't wait to dream up a theme and begin making decorations. And I cannot put off any longer getting back to exercise and eating well so I can lose the ten pounds I need to lose to wear what I want to wear. Shoulda remembered that as I ate that last serving of mashed potatoes and stuffing tonight. And damn that chocolate pudding pie!

 

 

Day 3: The Eating Continues

Saturday afternoon and I have a turkey in the oven (no, a real turkey: Im not pregnant And if I was, it would be a miracle since I no longer have that plumbing. And then I'd be a sought after miracle worker. Probably untold riches. Oh my. I am digressing. Must be the tryptophan.)

Despite an all-day affair on Thanksgiving, my family didn't have OUR turkey dinner with consequential leftovers, always the most important part.  So even with  full bellies from Thursday, a pizza party on Friday night (look, I can entertain family twice in a week, but on the second night, you will not get a home cooked meal) and much breakfast pie-eating, our house is suffused with the aroma of roasting turkey, butternut squash, and apple crumble.

Tomorrow, we will pop Micalangela on the train back to school; Mystery Man will take off for home; and the rest of us will resume our daily grind. Before we all go our separate ways, we will sit down together to enjoy this  balmy, sunny Thanksgiving weekend for one more meal before the Christmas Crazies begin.

Before we break bread, we will bow our heads and give thanks for:

 

The roasting and carving:

 

(How did I miss a photo of Sister #4, whose house was the venue?)

 

The baking and sauteeing:

 

 

The jello molding:

 

(Specialite de Empress who wants it known that she usually made it in a turban mold, but these days the demand for Mold, as we call it, has dwindled and she's cut it down to half a recipe and thus the plastic container>)

The hostessing:

 

(

 (Her Christmas plates are divine)

 

The decorating:

 

(I made the decoupage plates years ago.)

 

The picture photo-taking:

 

(Everybody. I mean everybody. Except four more cousins on Daddy's side and 6 on The Empress's and her two brothers and their wives..okay, NOT everybody.)

The sistering and mothering:

(#1, The Empress, #5, #2, Moi, #4)

 

Especially the remembering:

(Daddy who had an extra middle name:  Bartholomew, much to my kids amazement.)

 

The Next Generationing:

 

 

 

 

And most of all, the one from whom this all flows, The Matriarching:

 

 (This is the best picture of The Matriarch ever taken in re the expression on her face being It.)

Enjoy your weekend and I hope you didn't set foot in one single store on Black Friday!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

WUT? Something going on in the barnyard??

 

 You looking at me?

 

 

 

I want my Mommy!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was having my morning coffee the other day, making my list for what I had to do for Thanksgiving. I really do my best thinking while drinking my coffee in my car on the parkway on the way to work. I

 

If you were to have breakfast with me, I would offer you one of the beautiful white chocolate brioches or a slice of olive bread from the bakery in Wellfleet. ( Of course, my real pain quotidien is  an egg white/tomato/feta wrap  usually in my car on the way to court .)

 

 

 

Today, however, I am inviting you into my kitchen to sit down and have a cup of coffee. Sorry, but we do not have an eat in kitchen, so there are no chairs to pull up, or even a stool. And the counters are too small and crowded to perch on, unless you are a microwave. (They are however, the perfect height for Cucciolo to jump onto with his two front paws and I am thinking of investing in a bunch of mouse traps to break him of this.)

 

 

 

 

We've lived in our house for 11 years, and I think that when you begin the second decade of living in a house, you can no longer say things like, "Ignore the state of the kitchen; we're getting to it as our next project." Instead, I say things like, "Ignore the state of the kitchen. We are paying for three college tuitions."

So my kitchen is not 40 feet with a fireplace modeled after one in Williamsburg, with black and white checkerboard tile floor, huge peninsula, and a wall-sized desk and bookcases, as we once had. It is, however, in New York and is regularly visited by family and friends, so we deal with it. (And I whine a lot.)

The other day, Mr. Pom put in a new kitchen hood and in the yen for remodeling, I moved a hutch that had stood in front of a window for about 5 years and turned it at a right angle against the door to the cellar that we never use. That little three foot move changed the entire figuration of the room and flooded it with light. Who knew such a little change could make such a difference?

 

 

 

 

Someday, we will take the little wall between the kitchen and dining room down.  But then, I won't have a place to tack up the little sketch of my grandmother's baking scale.

 

 

And I'll have to move the little farm table I use as an extra counter, so I won't have a place to hang the lavender from my garden to dry.

 

 

I love my farm table. We bought it about 17 years ago at a antique show in Fresno, California. It's always been in my kitchens and has a  nice full shelf under it that holds my food processor, blender, large Corningware casseroles, and the oversized barbecue tools. I can hide extra cases of Diet Coke under it, too.

 

 

I've cooked enough for today. I made chestnut cornbread stuffing, a chocolate pudding pie and a vanilla pudding pie. Oh, and a sugarless cranberry compote for me. I bought a pumpkin pie since I ran out of steam to bake anything else. I am now ordering pizza for the Pom kidlets who are all home. OH, and it's our wedding anniversary!

Tomorrow we will be at Sister #4's house for dinner,  and Sister #1 and her husband will be in New York for the first time in 3 years. We thought about going to the Macy's Parade, but I am leaning towards sending Mr. Pom to Starbucks and watching it with him on the sofa in my pj's.

I'm really looking forward to 4 days off and 4 days to make some art! (BTW -Christmas card went off to the printer! Yay! It's SO cute!!)

The Soft Glow of Holiday

 

I am about to do something that is going to make many of you hate - maybe villify - me.

 

I am about to decorate for the holidays.

 

 

I know. I know.

Even Nordstroms isn't putting up their decorations until Black Friday. That's commendable. At our church in Memphis, the pastor wouldn't let us decorate the church until Christmas Eve. Despite the protests of we women who did the decorating that we were too busy on Christmas Eve to spend hours decorating the church, he wouldn't even allow a sprig of holly until after morning mass on Christmas Eve. And it's not even Advent yet.

 

I know that the Christmas season is really from Christmas to the Epiphany. I do try to honor that. But here's the thing: The pumpkins are rotting; the crepe paper turkey has seen better days; and the bittersweet didn't make it to Thanksgiving and I had to throw it out before the dogs ate the poison berries.

 

And more than all that: it's dark outside. Dark, cold, grey, and rainy. I need a little warmth, some color, some light. I walked into Starbucks this morning and they had put up the twinkle lights, the shelves were stocked with mugs in beautiful shades of red, and there were bags and bags of foil wrapped beans in Thanksgiving and Christmas colors. Trays of free samples of sweet drinks topped with whipped cream filled the counter and Cranberry bliss bars were in the case.

I didn't want to go back out in the cold rain.

 

So I will be taking out a few decorations. Starting with just the lights - maybe the lobster lights for the dining room? I'll pester Mr. Pom into putting up twinkle lights around the weeping cherry by the front door. The cinnamon pillar candles and the yellow and green Christmas teapot and big Christmas bowl will go in the dining room. I have a large brocade cloth that in shade shades of persimmon and ochre that will look beautiful on the dining room table with the off white ceramic plates for Saturday's brunch.

 

 

I promise to hold off on the tree and the Santa collection, but can't promise anything with regard to watching Muppet Family Christmas after brunch. Shake your head all you want it's okay.  While you are telling your friends that you have no desire to start any holiday preparations until the week before Christmas, I'll be surrounded by lots of candles and drinking Earl Gray from my yellow Christmas teapot and be obsessively washing my hands with Williams Sonoma's Winter Forest. In between making the stuffing, I plan on studding cloves into oranges and lemons. And whilst I make my apple crisp, I'll swill some cinnamon sticks in wine o the stove and fill the house with the lovely aroma of mulled wine.

 

And I'm pretty sure I'll be making this:

 

 

But no Christmas music! I have my principles, too. 

Unless Mystery Man comes home early and starts playing Raffi. Then I have no control over what happens next.

 

 

What's Your Bag?

Tuesday night. Bad sitcoms but good lentil soup from the freezer made by me two weeks ago and olive bread hauled home from the Cape. Today was on again and off again &  on again and off again appointments that just wore me out. I drove to work; drove to my six-month post-op with the knee surgeon (perfect, he told me);drove back to work; drove to court; drove all the way back to where the surgeon was to pick up the dogs from daycare; drove home.

When I pulled into the driveway it was already dark. I was so tired and hungry that I couldn't even wait for Mr. Pom and I threw on my sweats, warmed up the soup, and ate it under the covers. By the time he got home, I felt back to normal and was heating up the soup and bread for him.

Every year about this time, the list-making begins. I am having a brunch after our local Thanksgiving Day parade on Saturday, so I have a list of what to buy and what needs to be made on Friday night (waffles) and Saturday morning while we are at the parade (a ham).

 

Now, I own about eleventy billion journals, including a slim, soft Cachet, but I always find myself with a legal pad on my desk and writing my lists on a torn off page that I fold, stick into my bag -or even the journal - and promptly forget that I have. I usually find them around mid-January and wonder why I needed

• salt
• pot (as in potatoes)
• wh mk (whole milk)
• b sug    (brown sugar)

I do have one journal that is for keeping track of holiday traditions, gifts, and menus. It is a beautiful journal with a red brocade cover that sister #5 gave to me a long time ago. I am not extremely faithful about keeping up with it, but I try to be when I remember. It is always helpful to know what I gave Micalangela in 2004 and what we served at Christmas Eve dinner two years ago.

 

 

I like these Cachets the best for carrying around.  The other day, Mr. Pom handed me my purse and groaned. What is in there? he exclaimed. Let's see:

 

• large wallet
• sunglass case
• reading glass case
• slim ID wallet
• phone
• Ipod wtih earplugs
• mirror
• 3 lipsticks
• small brush and comb
• paperback
• box of band aids (don't ask)
• pens
• keys
• moleskine
• protein bar

And this is my small bag. I had to cut down as my shoulder's been hurting.

Yes, so...that's what you all have in your bags, right?

 

Very happy that so many of you would like a Christmas card. Several of you, however, forgot to include your address so you'll be getting an email back from me. My kids will be proud to know that I installed the ink in the printer after oh, maybe, a year and now we can use the scanner! So I have scanned in the artwork and I'm about to send the card off to be printed. Whew, what an accomplishment. I've alway been printer/scanner challenged and the fact that I could get it all to work was, well, better than the case I got dismissed today!

To each her own! Now you can look forward to actually seeing more of my artwork. Gotta go and get ready for Modern Family.

 

Church Of the Woods

We went to the woods; it seems fitting this time of year. The ocean will be there all year long, but right now we are drawn to sounds of leaves crunching underfoot and bright color above.

 

 The path is lit with sunlight filtered through the branches. The path is soft, layered with the leaves of a thousand years. So much to smell, investigate, poke your noses in and take a sniff.

 

The quiet is as magnificent as the sound of the waves crashing on the shores.  The woods are our cathedral, a passing gull our cantor.

 

 

Raise your voice in song; lower your eyes in prayer. 

 

Even the river grasses change colors as Alleluia.

 

The smallest branch is festooned with celebration.

 

 

The dogs know all this. They know it and act within it without pretense or design. They just are present in the moment, investigating, reacting, and turning back to check that here, in their world, we follow their lead.

 

 

The world is framed for us to see. Don't close your eyes to its magnificence.

Occupying Our Hearts

 

Today isour Friday because my husband and I are taking tomorrow off to go to Cape Cod for three days. If you knew my husband, you understand how remarkable this is because he can never take a day off. So I am very excited to have this unexpected 3-day weekend, especially because we haven't been to The Cottage in about 2 months.

The Princess and The Fiance started off for the Cape last weekend. After an hour in the car they only had gone about 15 miles, so they turned around and came home. Traffic is insane  anywhere on a Friday night and has only grown worse in the past few years. We were happy to see them come back and spend the weekend with them, but they were disappointed that their plans  once again, were thrown off track.

This generation of twenty-somethings is finding roadblocks thrown up all over their lives.  The world has stalled for them  and there is no sign of change in the near future.  We are not the only parents to have twenty-something children  living under our roofs,  watching them applying for jobs,  going on interviews, but then hearing nothing, and  working at hourly jobs that pay less than the part time jobs they had in college.

It's not easy to keep your life on hold while you keep waiting for "tomorrow". Especially when you have plans to start a career, move to your own place, be married, have a wedding, start a business, use your degree, or travel the world. Life is not what we thought it would be for these smart, educated (some say over-educated) young men and women. None of them expected to still be living in the rooms they grew up in, or sleeping in their twin bed long into their late twenties. None of us expected their expensive degrees to be not worth the paper they were printed on.

As a parent, you thank God that you are employed and can keep a roof over their heads. You try to keep quiet about what is or isn't happening on the job market. You help out financially as much as you can. You hold your breath if they don't have health insurance and get sick. You watch the envelopes come in the mail with school loan payment books. You listen to the rants and ravings when the frustrations become unbearable.  Most of all, you try to stay out of their way as much as possible and overlook all frisson that arises when adults share the same home.

When your children were little,  your instinct was to  rock them on your lap and tell them everything will be all right. That natural parenting just doesn't work with adult children. Yet, in these circumstances, it may be all we have to offer. We counsel only when asked,  cajole whenever possible, turn a blind eye to what's  not important, and encourage, encourage, encourage them to believe that with the grace of God, things will change.

Occupying Wall Street, occupying our third floors, occupying our hearts, these kids are the center of our universe and we all are hurting.

 

 

November

 

Post-Edit: Ma cheries, to clear up a tiny misunderstanding, I am not sending out hand-painted Christmas cards; I am  painting a card and having them printed.    Although I would love to send you each an original, even The Empress will be getting a print!

 

 

Mr. Pom is none too pleased. We haven't been to the Cape in about six weeks. We had planned to go last weekend, but several events kept us home, not the least of which was the nor-easter snowstorm that stretched from Baltimore to Maine.

Secretly, however, I love staying home. Mr. Pom would say I am hardly secretive about it. He knows that once I switch gears and get over summer, I am reluctant to make the trip. Understand that if I could blink my eyes and be on Nauset Beach, I'd do it. The trip, regardless of any season except midwinter, gets longers every weekend, and I no longer have the patience or endurance to sacrifice 5 hours up (or more) and 4 hours back from our weekend.

 

I turn inwards in the fall. I become very domestic as you know since I am sure you were all wondering if I was ever going to post about anything other than cooking. This morning, Mr. Pom had a bunch of things to do, so once I got my Starbucks and the dogs went to the woods, I headed home with them and he took off for the dentist.

I headed straight for the basement and threw loads of wash in and out. I ran up to our bedroom and hung up a week's worth of work outfits and culled out the dry cleaning items. Tonight we are going to a party and last week's snowstorm prevented me from taking a pair of pants to the tailor.  I dithered back and forth all week about wearing a skirt instead but I don't have the right shoes to wear to a stand-for-three-hours cocktail party in a skirt.

 

 

I took a deep breath, got out the ironing board, straight pins, Gingher scissors, needles and thread, and a ruler. I put the pants on inside out, fiddled with the length by turning up a cuff about eleventy million times until I got it right, measured one leg against the other, pinned, pressed, and then took a giant breath, and cut. Did I mention they were lined? And were "Katharine Hepburn" style wide-legged pants?

Two and half hours later, they were done. The worst part was the marking (next time I'll wait until The Princess is up and can mark them for me.) Next was getting the lining the right length so it didn't show when I cross my legs. Lastly, was remembering how to take a blind stitch in order that the stitches didn't show.

They actually came out quite well and I am enthused to take on a pile of pants that have been waiting for me to go to the tailor since last year.  Most of all, I enjoyed being home in the quiet of a sunny Saturday morning, Cucciolo asleep on the bed next to me; Bella Sera chasing the reflection of the sun glinting off her dogtag (she's a little nutty). I watched 3 episodes of Bravo's "Work Of Art" and finished my cappuccino while I cut and pressed and sewed. 

 

 

The transitional seasons of spring and fall are all about balance. The planet eases us into the extremes of summer and winter with  the shortening and lengthening of the days, by the gradual increase or decrease in temperatures, and most of all, by grabbing our attention with a grand display of birth and death that grounds us in the natural world. If you aren't lured outside by flowering trees or the crunch of leaves underfoot,  when will you be?

Of course, it is those out of season snowstorms and premature heat waves that remind us that Mother Nature always has the upper hand.

 

 

Tomorrow we will take down the Halloween decorations, cook something slow on the back burner, and read all the newspapers. As long as I have the ironing board up, I will hem another pair of pants and press my cotton shirt with the ruffled collar. I'll even have the time to clear off my sewing table  and set up the machine so I can do some mending on the machine.

And I'm painting our Christmas card. Yes, I'm actually making a Christmas card for the first time in about 5 years. For real! I already drew it and transferred it onto  watercolor paper, andI even bought the envelopes. I think I may even get them in the mail before Valentine's Day!

So if you would like a Christmas card from The Pomegranates, all you have to do is leave me a comment with your name and address. If you don't want to post it online, you can email me personally at: [email protected]

 

Hope to hear from you!

 

 

 

Seize the Snowy Day

You may have heard about the snowstorm here in the Northeast. When a powerful nor'easter dumped wet heavy snow on thousands of leafed trees, causing them to topple, crack, and fracture, taking down power lines everywhere.  My own heart skipped a beat when I saw all the trees ringing Grand Army Plaza across from The Plaza snapped in half like toothpicks.

 

 

 

 

The pics above were taken at the beginning of the storm, when the snow seemed rather novel and "cute". It was snowing too hard later on for me to get the shot of the scarecrow face down in a drift like a drunken sailor (or would that be a drunken farmer?)

Really, I shouldn't say a word about our experience in the storm because the amount of snow that was dumped in our area was about 20 inches less than what upstate received. Take a look at the amazing photos posted on Margarent Roach's blog of her  upstate farm. 

 

 

 

We were so seriously fortunate not to lose any trees or have significant damage in our immediate  neighborhood. I was sure that my neighbor's gorgeous weeping birch was not going to make it, but as you can see, it's fine.

 

There are still thousands without electricity and many school districts still closed. The physical damage, though severe and devastating on its own, was made worse by a startling surreal upside down wow we really screwed up the earth free fall panic. Where did fall go? Where is our lovely drives-in-the-country pre-Thanksgiving time? Why the hell didn't I send all the parkas to the cleaners at the end of last year?  How did we go in two days from wearing cute little cardigans to rummaging through the hall closet for down parkas,  scarves, and boots?

 

 

And then, just as quickly as it came it went away, and  autumn was back.

 

 

 

As soon as I get a chance, I'm getting a shovel and banging the hell out of the snow plow drift in front of the house. I swear the ones from last year just  melted about three months ago and here we go again.

 

 

 

But for today, the world righted itself. Gold sun is pouring on  persimmon leaves and woodsmoke is  perfuming the air.

 

 

Mrs. Scarecrow is upright again and none the worse for wear.

 

The snow seems to have deepened the magenta of the ornamental cabbages.

There's a lesson in here, something about living for the moment, enjoying what you have, staying in the present, and riding the wave.

Let's all breathe a little sigh of relief (and get the snowblower tuned up. Let's face it: it's gonna be a bumpy, snowy ride).