pomegranatesandpaper

SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT AND NEVER BROUGHT TO MIND

 

 

Where are you going for New Year's, New Year's Eve?

 

I hope it's glamorous.

 

Who are you wearing?

 

 

Are you going long?

 

 

Or short?

 

Don't forget - accessories make the woman!

 

 

And the pumpkin, apparently.

 

 

Remember: a lady always needs a place to put a lipstick and a dime for the phone!

 

Though I rarely find I need to call a cab when I'm slurping homemade soup for supper.

 

And the pups and dottie angel really don't care if I fuss with my hair.

 

 

So instead of painting my face, I'm painting some pages.

 

Tripping the light fantastic will only occur if I forget to step over the Christmas lights.

 

THE Mister and I are quite happy to turn on the heated mattress pad at 10:30 (no, that's not a smutty metaphor; we literally are turning on the heated mattress pad) after seeing two movies (in a cinema and not on the TV since it's a holiday and all).

 

Don't feel sorry for us! We are as content as two snowmen in a storm and our last official holiday obligation is to say

WE RAISE A CUP OF KINDESS TO YOU AND THE DAYS OF AULD LANG SYNE!

WE LOVE YOU ALL!!!

 

 

 

 

Boxing Day

 

 

Mr. Pom was in a mighty tizzy. In Massachusetts, The Jets vs. Giants game was not to be broadcast on Christmas Eve. Aside from the birth of you know who, the thing he was looking forward to on Christmas Eve  was the hours from 1 to 4, which were in his words "The Game Blackout". This meant that none of us were to disturb him, the TV, or his view and hearing of the TV during The Game.

So when we got to Cape Cod and found out that no one in Massachusetts was interested in the game and thus the local cable station was not broadcasting it,  an immediate hue and cry went up. To avoid the imbroglio, I set out for the store for an urgent run for anything that would get me out of the way of Mr. Pom's ire. Need more candy for the stockings, darling!  By the time I got home, peace had returned and Mr. Pom was in his comfy chair, feet up, beer in hand, surrounded by his son, son-in-law-to-be, and the women who stand by their men and do not ditch them for candy runs.

Mystery Man is subscribed to some sports website that had an  internet feed for a Canadian TV station that was broadcasting the game. A spew of wires led to and from the laptop, speakers, and TV, and the game was on the big screen. Happiness reigned in The Cottage until, inevitably, it didn't because The Jets lost.

The most only interesting part of the game for me was the Canadian TV commercials, which prominently featured sales for "Boxing Day". Boxing Day? What the heck is Boxing Day, the kids all asked.   How could you all be in your twenties and not know what Boxing Day is? I despaired - had I not raised a family of readers? Had they not learned anything from all those English novels they read? Blank stares faced me.  Oh, wait; I was the one  reading the English novels. I was the only one who knew what Boxing Day" was.

I should not have been surprised. Mr. Pom and I have noticed in twenty-somethings a certain gaps of what our generation would consider commonplace knowledge.   For example, there was great indignation expressed by a certain well-educated young adult who was on the search for a postal mailbox. Was I aware, I was asked, that there are olive green mailboxes that have no slot to mail a letter? And that they are scattered all over the neighborhoods and have seemingly no purpose whatsoever?  Do you mean the mail deposit boxes that hold the mail that is to be delivered that day? Ridiculous! was the response.  This is what happens when a whole generation has never had the need to mail a letter.

Taking on my role as the erudite, literary member of the family, I carefully and precisely educated them about Boxing Day. Boxing Day, I intoned, is    the day after Christmas, December 26th. Furious clicking on cell phones could be heard in response. Hey, she's right. It is December 26th.

Eyebrow raised at this need for cyber verification, I raised the ante. Okay, smarty pants (that's mother talk for a throw down), without looking at your phones, why is it called Boxing Day? Silence ensued and then,  "It's when you throw out all the boxes from your presents," one declared. Wrong!   "It's the day when you return all the stuff in the boxes that you don't like."  Nada! I relished the fact that I, alone, knew something that apparently all of Canada did but my own children did not.

Boxing Day, I declared with motherly pomposity, was the servant's day to celebrate Christmas and receive the "boxes" - gifts - from their employers.  Hence, in British commonwealths, the tradition continues to this day that  the day after Christmas is a holiday, turning the event into a much civilized and gracious two-day affair.

They all googled and binged and then confirmed that I actually do have some knowledge gleaned from being a mid-50's woman in the twenty-first century, knowledge that is not dependent on pixels, bing, google, or electronics of any kind.

Bathed in hubris, I was ready to further educate them on the card catalogue, research librarians, and even Shepardizing (non lawyers look it up). While I blathered on,  Mystery Man was hooking up his new game console.   As I prattled,  the game console began to spin of its own accord and everyone fell silent as the TV screen became populated with thermal images of our bodies appeared in position around the room, and electronic sensors were plotted onto them.  While waiting for the game to boot up, an incomprehensible discussion commenced about 3D TV and progressive scans vs. interlaced scans, and then the game announced it was ready and MM clicked through the screens by moving his hand in the air.

I felt my hoary little balloon of antiquated knowledge spring a large leak and begin to fly around the room, out of the house, into the sky, and across  the ocean, fueled only with the spent energy of my long-stored belief that my way was the true way. I imagine my grubby fistful of latex came to rest on a stack of damaged, water-stained and moldy books in the dodgy backroom of a decrepit library somewhere in coal-dirty London where a cracked bell could be heard tolling mournfully in the fog.

Despite the laptop, FB account, blog, Ipod, smart phone, and twitter account, I  was the rube in the room and I would never catch up. While I would never call my kids to ask how to work the answering machine, I was already calling as to how to get the TV back on cable and off the internet.   It was time to cede my cepter to the younger generation.

And my immense pleasure at not finding a Kindle in my stocking? More hubris. 

 

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS WITH LOVE FROM POMEGRANATES AND PAPER

I hope by now

that you have trimmed the tree

wrapped the gifts

baked the cookies

sent the cards

broke open the eggnog

mulled the wine

and lit the candles.

If not,

then put on some music

put up your feet

put up with the in laws

and put up no fuss

Christmas is just about here

and

there's no time left

to do more than

cheer.

A Very Merry Christmas to All of You

From the Staff of

Pomegranates and Paper

That is to say,

Love from Me.

Signs of the Season: Day 20 And a 20th Birthday

20 years old!

No, not Cucciolo, but you can see who is his main gal.

Our tenure as parents of teens, which began in 1997, is offically over!

20 years of darlingness, cute-osity, and adorbs (as she would say).

We love you!

 

Signs of the Season: Day 18/ Word For the Year Is...

One of my last essays for Cloth, Paper, Scissors was about "leaping" to new levels in creativity. I wrote about taking myself in hand and finally acknowledging my new self both creatively and physically.

The artwork that was published with it is not the one above. This was my first concept but I didn't like it as much and did another. I found it in a portfolio and hung it  in my cleaned up studio. It's grown on me as I keep looking at that word.

2012 is my time to leap. I wrote one of the last chapters of the novel today. Oh wait, before you get too excited - I "leaped" ahead to the end, as I had a vision as how I wanted it to be. So I leaped ahead and wrote it this morning at Starbucks.

What is your word for next year? Have you thought about it yet?

Quinn McDonald writes about choosing a word for the year instead of a resolution and I think that's a marvelous idea!

In other news,

We had "little Christmas" today.

That is my newly made up concept for the weekend before Christmas get together with my family. We are taking the daring leap to spend Christmas itself with just our immediate family, at The Cottage in Cape Cod.

Gulp.

Leaving my mom - 86 - albeit with 3 of her other daughters to be with her and dine with her along with her other 5 grandkids. Leaving Sister #2, who I think I've nver spent a Christmas without except one or two when we lived in California and Memphis. And leaving my other sisters and their lovely children, who make the holidays for us.

But leaping into a new tradition for my own little family. How many times can we all be under the same roof in the future and how lucky are we that my kids want to be "just us" and not want to be jetting off somewhere to be with their friends?

So we are going, but before we went, we hosted everyone here. No lobster this year, but ham, chicken cutlets, lasagna, antipasto, shrimp cocktail. Old School Christmas. And more importantly, we celebrated Micalangela's 20th birthday. I made a promise to her little bitty newborn self that although she was born 5 days before Christmas, she would have every birthday celebrated and so far, we've managed it for twenty years!! I'll show some pics soons as I get the energy to upload.

This week I don't have to go anywhere or do anything other than:

• Unpack all the gifts bought online
• Wrap all the gifts
• Pack all the gifts to take to the Cape
• Write all the cards I owe y'all
• Oh, and work

But really, after the past few weeks, it'll be a breeze!

Meanwhile, the house is as decorated as it is going to get, the tree is done, and we are ready to walk on the beach Christmas morning, try out Mr. Pom's new car to go off roading on the dunes, and relax.

The big day is almost here and we all have lots to do. But we can make it and Jingle All the Way!

Day 13 and I Never Said I Was Posting Everyday

The best of intentions go astray, I am afraid. The six weeks from Thanksgiving to New Year's encompasses 3 major holidays, our anniversary, Mr. Pom's birthday, and Micalangela's. I take a deep breath and dive in and know by now that I will resurface somewhere around January when life will seem oh so boring and sad and ....sane.

But here I am and the weather has finally turned cold and now it  feels like only 12 days until Christmas.

 

My Christmas cards finally were sent by the printer and I plan to spend tomorrow night addressing them to all of you. I learned a lot by this adventure in printing. For one thing, check on the standard sizes that the printshop has for cards before making yours. There was much fiddling and diddling and in the end, in order to maintain the proportions, some of the design had to be cropped and dropped. But no matter! I just love them and I have the pleasure of keeping the original artwork, which I will show you later in the month after you have all received your cards.

 

Each Christmas, my office has the tradition of wrapping all the prints on the walls as though they were gifts.  Somehow this morphed into a contest many years ago and all the prints are numbered and the participants draw a number out of a jar that matches a print. It's supposed to be anonymous, but it is a little hard to miss someone coming into the office with a 24 X 30 - or much larger - frame all decorated with tinsel and paper and hanging it on a wall.

The way they get people to participate is making the first prize a day off. Believe me, even the most jaded, cynical, non-holiday participating person will glue some cotton battle and string a banner on a frame if they think they will get an extra day off. I for one always say I'm not doing it again, but then I picture how nice it would be to have the day before Christmas Eve off and I'm off and running.

This year's entry came out the best of all. I f inished it too late to take a pic of it tonight. Tomorrow I have to run to an art store and get some mounting tape because I haven't quite figured out how I am going to attach this embellished painting to the frame.In between court and the art store,  I hope to take a picture of it outside in the parking lot. Look for it as a new banner in the next few days.

I have so many things to write about:

• our trip to the holiday crafts fairs almost two weeks ago
• The Holiday Cheer Concert ten days ago
• My friends Kathi's beautiful ladies and teens luncheon

I hope to have some time to do so about 2013.

I know you are all as busy as I am. I know you all have a tree that only has lights, a stack of UPS boxes up to the ceiling and not a gift box in the house. So I'll talk to you all as soon and until then, have a salted caramel brulee latte (or a good old cup of hot cocoa), watch White Christmas tonight with Bing Crosby, and go to bed early!

 

 

Sign of the Season Day 6, no, err 7

Life isn't all candy canes ova heah. There is other things like Mr. Pom's birthday TODAY and the concert we went to Monday night, and the fact that my house suddenly smells like Eau de Dog no matter what I do.

Also, the lovely navy and cream striped Anne Cramer long "Flynn" skirt?

No longer available.

Seems that there was a production quality issue, so they pulled all the navy and cream ones. However, they assure me that the new spring line will be out in plenty of time for the wedding and there will be other lovely long Flynns to choose from.

The company is very responsive to orders and emails, so don't hesitate to order from them. While you are at it, check out Anne Cramer's gorgeous home, an old Colonial (my favorite) filled with vintage furniture, stripes, silvered walls, crystal and china - and she has 3 boys!

 I did order the short Flynn skirt in black wool and though it is darling on the hanger, it has way too much width in the material for me and adds about three sizes to my profile. So.....I will not be ordering the long Flynn for the wedding. I'm sure I'll find something wonderful nonetheless.

Despite the city trip on Saturday, I managed to finish cleaning out my studio. Look at the mess I started with:

 

I know it looks horrid, but this is what happens when you are pulling fabric and papers and juggling lots of projects. I thought I would love those tall chests from Ikea but although they are theoretically perfect for storage wtih their twelve drawers, they are so poorly constructed that they aren't fit for the purpose for which they are intended. The metal runners are held into the particle board sides of the drawers with short screws. These quickly pop out with repeated use of the drawers and before you can say, I hate Ikea, the runners have disengaged from the drawers and stick out just far enough to catch your clothes or poke a dog's eye out. Mr. Pom has promised to take out all the drawers and use longer screws, but even I don't have the heart to make him do so as he hated putting them together to begin with!

 

 

The room looks so organized and welcoming now. I was inspired by a photo in House Beautiful and created a large design board out of foam core. It does  double duty as a shade on the window when I am in there at night since the house next to is quite close.

 

When Granny Pom passed away, she left a a secretary desk that we used to use but returned to her when we moved as we didn't have room for it. Despite the sentimental value, the maple piece  was falling apart and Mr. Pom just wasn't interested in restoring it. Before he brought it down to the "recycling room " in the basement of the senior apartment building where she lived,  I took out the "cubby insert" and now use it on my desk to hold little bits and bobs from the beach and to actually store some stationery. I sat down there today and wrote two sympathy cards. Amazing! I am a grown up with a desk (ok, it's really one of the old closet doors from The Princess's room, but it's nice and big and flat.)

The vase of dried lavender is from the garden; the little charm hanging from it says, "Leap" and was created by my sweet friend Nina Bagley. It is a daily reminder to me that we are never too old to take our creativity to the next level.  The tole tray is one of 3 that I bought at an estate sale  of an elderly neighbor, who had letters between Elvis and her husband, who was a businessman  in Memphis. The Spode cup was a gift from Mr. P about 15 years ago.

 

I set up a drafting table to my left in front of another window. We picked the table  up from the curb across the street about a year ago, but it was just a hold-all for what-do-I-do-with-this-stuff. I cleaned out the bookshelves, got all the cast offs onto the shelves and off the drafting table, and have it set up in front of the northern window for drawing.

Mystery Man has promised to make me a light box as a Christmas present, as I need one as I work on the illustrated journal. They are very expensive and I could kick myself for selling a large one I bought on ebay years ago. We were moving and I hadn't used it much, so it was just one more thing to get rid of.

Once I get the light box, I will be needing another table, and there's only one wall left. I'm on the look out for a long narrow wooden or enamel table top. I already have two sets of legs from Ikea.

 

 

The studio  bookcase is a piece of a long wall system bought about 30 years at Workbench for Mr. Pom's bachelor pad. Think 80's and "unfinished pine" look. This the only piece of it I can find and it  fits perfectly between closet and window. It holds mainly art, craft, journals, poetry, inspirational, and how-to books. (As opposed to the other 8 bookcases in the house.).

I am trying to figure out what to do with all the artwork that I created for Cloth, Paper, Scissors. Some of it is scattered around the house. Some I redid because I often hate a piece after it is done. But most is languishing in a portfolio, unframed and unseen.

Our little house has no more walls left to hang anything, so I'm thinking of making the staircase wall a revolving gallery where I can hang two pieces a season or something like that. Framing is incredibly expensive!

 

What's on my vision board at the moment?

 

 

There are some vintage flashcards that I play around with. My pen and ink sketch of my Dad in his twenties in his Army fatigues. My sample watercolor palette. Some cross stitching I did years ago and never had framed. My dad's father's pocket watch that doesn't work but reminds me to remember him.  Next to the pocket watch is a cut out of my personal family icon, Aunt Frances, my spiritual mentor, creative muse, guardian angel, and my grandfather's sister. Never met her, but she has been speaking to me through her pictures for years. I need to get her off the board and back into my artwork.  Above her is my grandmother's black velvet and jet bead evening bag. I've never used it but hope some day to be grown up enough to have occasion to do so!

I haven't had much time to be in the studio in the last few weeks. It is nice, though, to poke my head in and see it waiting for me, clutter free. I hope to get my Christmas cards from the printer quite soon and I plan on popping some Christmas music onto the Ipod, lighting some candles, and spending a lovely afternoon or evening addressing them to all of you.

Right now, I have to bring out Mr. Pom's birthday cake!

 

 

 

 

 

Signs of the Season Day 4

 

 

No, you did not miss Day 3. I did. But I know you will forgive me because I was in the city have an amazingly wonderful Christmassy time with my friends. More on that later when I have a chance to upload the photos.

Signs of this season are not all red and green. Even if it is the Second Sunday in Advent, this Sunday has been all business. I cleaned up two days' worth of dishes (mysterious occurrence since all that was eaten under this roof on Friday was a plate of cheese and crackers and I was out all day Saturday); Mr. Pom is furiously throwing loads of wash in and out of the machines; and I made a minestrone with tortellini  pasta.

Earlier, we scooted down to the Bronx to pick up Micalangela's car, which had been repaired after suffering body damages when she was sideswiped by a tractor trailer on the New Jersey Turnpike in the pouring rain on the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving as she drove home from college.

I stopped breathing when she called and only escaped total asphyxiation when her father, sister, and brother-to-be scooped her up from a service station and drove her car home. The car was pretty banged up but she was fine as was the truck driver so all is well after some used car parts and a new coat of paint. We may have to drive to school to bring her home for Christmas, which is not small feat since since it will involve and overnight and there is, amazingly so, only two weekends left and nary a tree has been bought or a cookie baked or gifts finished.

 But never you mind. It's all just things and things we have to do to and with things, and whether we do it now or at midnight on the 23rd or not at all, there will still be woodsmoke scented with rosemary that mysteriously suffuses our neighborhood each winter,  and brilliant stars in a indigo skies, and more than enought to eat, and plenty of family to fete.

So when I grew very cranky at Mr. Pom when he didn't want to stop in at the nursery up the street to buy our Christmas tree on our way home from the Bronx, and instead wanted us to switch cars and drive to the next town to buy our tree where we always buy it from, and I couldn't understand why he had to be so traditional about it since we were right there and it would have taken two minutes to buy, throw on the roof of her car, and set up in a water bucket in the back until we were ready to put it up, he wisely left me alone and went off to do some errands.

And I, for once, wisely let it go and stayed outside and put away all the clay pots and rewound the lights around the weeping cherry so the ugly orange plastic wire didn't show, and pulled off all the dead hosta stalks and at least took a stab at cutting down all the perennials for winter. By the time he came back from his errands, I'd forgotten how I just wanted to cross as much stuff off my list as possible and was humming while I chopped carrots, and then I brought him a pot roast sandwich as he watched The Jet game.

 

Hurry is the password for Advent. Hurry and come Christmas! Hurry and buy the gifts! Hurry and get a tree! Hurry and get in line for the sale! Hurry home and bake and wrap and send the cards.

I can't help but think of Mary with her belly heavy with child plodding across the desert hoof by hoof on that donkey.  One step at a time in the sand under the sun, under the North Star, under her cloak of blessing. I don't think you can hurry a donkey and I absolutely know that you can't hurry a birth.

It all brought to me the lovely song that I once heard Kiri Te Kanawa sing and it sliced me to the heart. I can't find an MP3 of it, but this is a cover by Kathleen Battle:

 

01 - Mary Did You Know_ (Voice)

Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy
Would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy
Would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your Baby Boy
Has come to make you new;
This Child that you delivered
Will soon deliver you.

Oh, Mary, did you know?
Oh, Mary, did you know?*

Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy
Will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy
Will calm the storm with His hand?
Did you know that your Baby Boy
Has walked where Angels trod?
When you kiss your Little Baby,
You kiss the Face of God!

Oh, Mary, did you know?
Oh, Mary, did you know?

*Words by Mark Lowry
Music by Buddy Greene

____________________________

Mary did you know that the baby boy's birth would be the biggest retailing event in the history of the world? That entire armies  of candy canes and fir trees and jolly Santas and reindeer and plastic ornaments and silver tinsel and red and green candy and foil-wrapped chocolate snowmen and gift boxes and gift cards and money envelopes for the mailman and ribbons and gingerbread houses and jingle bells and  elf hats and North Poles and sleighs and stockings hung by chimneys with care would replace the Face of God?

 

Oh, Mary, did you know?

 

 

 

 

 

Signs of the Season Day 2

 

There is a constant tension in this  house between our love for the sea and our love for the seasons. We anticipate spring, revel in summer, savor the bittersweet chocolate of autumn, and mourn winter. Underlying it all is the pull of the ocean on us like our personal tides, rising and falling each week in intensity.

My husband and the eldest both are shunning the approaching holiday, declaring that they are not done with summer yet.

My temptation is to say, "Snap out of it!", but really, I understand the conflict. 

We compromise by hanging fish and mermaids amidst the snowflakes.

After all, we don't really have to choose one over the other. The winter beach is quite breathtaking, both literally and metaphorically. A deserted winter beach with howling wind, scouring sand, and icy floes that should be bearing polar bears is a creation of beauty that only the hand of God could have configured.

How does that compare to shoulder to shoulder masses  oiled and frying under a scorching sun, and the airladen with the heavy scent of  coconut oil and frying onion rings?

The winter sea lures me more and more each year. I can't seem to let go of a story that swims in my head each night as the pale, wan disc of sun drops low into the sky. I hang fairy lights in my studio and plug them as early as noon, watching them sway in the drafts of the uninsulated windows of this 100 year-old house. Bella Sera and I stare at the twinkling lights and I hang more and more glittered ornaments to refract the shimmer like the disco balls of my youth.

This mermaid won't leave my mind. She rides a large white whale but does not answer to Ahab. She casts a spell especially on those who do not see her. I hear the sound of her lute and catch sight of a copper glint across the dusky sky just before the sun sets.

I need to get to the Cape but I do not see a weekend free until the 24th. Near enough the solstice, I suppose, and a night magical by all nights.