Pigment of Imagination

Painting at work today, mixing colors in the red tones:
pink, purple, garnet. Each just a short step from the other,
sister-colors, linked by a common heart. The reds always
make my heart glad, especially this time of year, this
bundling-in time, this season of hibernation & burrowing:
perylene maroon, iridescent garnet, quinacridone magenta.

And then I switched to blues/greens, and I could feel these
in another part of the body, up around the neck,
the back of the scalp. A tickle and a tease: Indianthrope blue,
duochrome lapis sunrise, duochrome blue-silver.

And iridescent antique copper over a mix of purples.
A depth of tones, one over another, a foreshadowing
of what we perhaps would rather not anticipate.

I have come to this love of colors-by-the-tube
late in life, compared to others who get out the brushes
early and get on with the business of painting. I have no
desire or illusions of becoming a painter. Heavens no!
One useless/idealistic art (poetry) is one too many, often.
And then again, there are uses for poetry, as there are
uses for painting. (If you know what they are, please
leave a comment.)

It's safe to say that the writing of poetry is as essential
to me as the act of breathing. It's my daily bread,
a communion between the soul and the word,
organic, intrinsic to the self, an idiomatic prayer.

And now, this sacrament with liquid color.
Lucky I am. Grateful.

Feast

R. cooked The Most Fantastic Dinner for my BD
last night. Oh. My. God. Someone hire this guy!

____
Poached Chestnut Mousse & Fennel Canapes
***
Cold Celeriac & Walnut Soup
***
Red Cabbage, Pear & Pomegranate Slaw
with Pomegranate-Balsamic Vinaigrette
***
Cassoulet with Duck & Forest Mushrooms
***
Roasted Parsnips & Broccoli with Sherry Vinegar
& Lemon Pepper
***
White Cheese Poundcake with Mascarpone, Ganache
and Toasted Almonds
***
Candied Roasted Chestnuts
____

I received these words from Robin this morning:

That was the best dinner ever. Woodsy. Fungal. Nutty.
Rootsy. Delish. Lovingly prepared by a loveable boy.
There's no place I"d have rather been. Wonderful company.
____

Over the top.
I am one lucky mom.

Not Old Yet

Heading out into the the 8:30am darkness,
in this storm which seems to not want to end,
for breakfast with Nelson, at The Market.
The best kind of day for downtown Seattle!
We'll get a table somewhere with a view of
Salish Sound (aka Puget Sound) and revel
in the Seattleness of it all. God I love this weather!

Prince James

(The young prince, before the onslaught,

on my mother's lap.)

I didn't have a blog entry in mind today
until I received a phone call from my brother.
He's the oldest of us seven (and the only sibling
of the male persuasion), and twelve years
more senior than I am. (Or, I should just say that
he's a senior, because I most certainly am not.)

I went to war with him when I reached adolescence,
and it wasn't until I was in my twenties that I discovered
that he was really a nice guy. Imagine that!

The purpose of the call was to wish me a Happy BD,
a few days early. Get out the record books! Stop the
clocks! Retirement must be good for him. I don't
generally expect to hear from him this time of year,
but when his BD arrives a mere six days after mine,
I always sign my BD card to him:
from your sister who just had a birthday.....
This was indeed a momentous occasion.

I've often suspected that he views his six sisters
as a single organism; a cackling, shrill lump
of female cacophonous flesh. I took a good-natured
risk this morning and broached this subject,
and he vigorously agreed, without pause.
Ha! I must give him credit for being able to differentiate
enough between us to realize that we were indeed
born on different dates, in different years.

All in good fun, of course. I love getting him to laugh,
and this morning his all-out, deep-throated galumph-
of-a-laugh nearly caused my phone to vibrate.
Whoa there Nelly!

He's gleefully retired on an apple orchard
in Yakima, and this morning the conversation
centered on apple varieties: yellow banana, gala,
golden supreme. He told me about taking a walk
last December through the trees and discovering
one still laden with red delicious apples that had
somehow been missed in the harvest. They were
massive and ridiculously sweet after having endured
several frosts. I love that image -- the surprise
of all that color in the winter landscape, the gravid
fruit hanging low to the ground, sugars simmering
just beneath the surface of the peel.

Listened to Glen Gould playing Bach today
at work. November music. I rarely listen
to classical anything when it's sunny
and cheerful. Heat = Jazz, in my book.
On my measure. In my time signature.

Accidental Kale

Mistaken for rainbow chard

in a Sunday rush at the market --

sauteed in garlic and sweet onion,

it springs up crinolined

from my spoon as bacon, diced,

approaches a crisp autumnal brown.

Is this how it works?

We plunge along heartless,

our fists crammed

with lettuce, watery tomatoes.

End up gasping

at a table steamed full

of unintended desire.

Like love, we take one bite,

another, stunned by surprise

filling the hollow long within us:

such goodness in error, delight

in what might not have been.

T. Clear © 2005

(originally appeared in Seattle Woman)

Dinosaur Kale with Diamonds

I failed Catholicism.

(My new header is a photo of original artwork
designed by Mary Melinda Wellsandt, painted
and photo-edited by Yours Truly.)

---

All Saints' Day. This used to be, for me, a Holy Day
of Obligation, back when I was a Catholic.
I found this delicious tidbit whilst cruising
the online Catholic Encyclopedia:

Solemnity celebrated on the first of November.
It is instituted to honour all the saints, known and
unknown, and, according to Urban IV, to supply
any deficiencies in the faithful's celebration of
saints' feasts during the year.

Kind of a make-up saints' day. If you failed, say,
in your observance of a Holy Day of Obligation
sometime, in, say, June, here's your chance
to retake the -- what? -- mass? Heaven --
yes heaven -- forbid that one would be a failure
at Catholicism.

And one more thing: if Pope Urban I, II, III or IV
had an office assistant, or a vice-pope, or any other
underling, would that person be called SubUrban?

Hobo

Back in the olden days of the last century,
when we were penniless and subsisted
on one turnip each for dinner and walked
ten miles blind and barefoot and uphill
through the snow to school each day,
and uphill back home again, and forks
had not yet been invented and we daily
suffered through hour after hour without
You Tube and facebook --

STOP!

I was just kidding.

Seriously though, did anyone else put vaseline
on his/her face and then stick coffee grounds
on the vaseline to mimic a beard in order to complete
his/her hobo costume for Halloween? I don't know
whose brilliant idea this was, but I do remember
a big greasy mess and the coffee grounds dropping off
onto the shoulders of our coats (of course we had to
wear coats OVER our costumes: The Injustice of It!)
along the dark and often rainy trick-or-treat route.

Hobo! I can't imagine anyone these days dressing up
as a homeless person. Or even using the word "hobo" --

1889, Western Amer.Eng., of unknown origin, perhaps related to early 19c. Eng. dial. "lout, clumsy fellow, country bumpkin." Or from hawbuckho, boy, a workers' call on late 19c. western U.S. railroads. Hence facetious formation hobohemia "community or life of hobos," 1923 (see bohemian ). Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

When I googled the word "hawbuckho", nothing came up,
in spite of the dictionary reference above.

I love the internet.
I love where it takes me.

I think tonight I'll dress up as a hobohemian,
minus the coffee grounds.

Boo

OMG! I want a set of these (click on the red sentence):
Can't we all just get a'lawn?

Deluge

I love October rain.

I love its wet-leaf smell
and the insistence of it,
how unforgiving it is, how
it just doesn't give a fuck.

I love that it turns every slight slope
into a path for a stream, a waterfall.
Love when it overfills hollows.

I love its symphony, its percussion.
How it helps me to sleep, and wakes me up.

I'm here.
I'm here.

Rules One and Two

It's been two years since I first posted this,
and I think it might become an annual event.
While I am grateful for this blessing of good
health, there are many in my life at the moment
who are experiencing otherwise. I find myself
going back to this quote by Brendan Gill, which
appeared in The New Yorker upon his death.
I'd torn it out and posted it on my bulletin
board, where, over the course of ten years,
become yellowed and splashed with the remnants
of cooking (it was in my kitchen). When I remarried
and moved, it ended up in a box somewhere, but
thanks to the internet, it's easily accessed:

Rules One and Two
"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the argument that life is serious, though it is often hard and even terrible. Since everything ends badly for us, in the inescapable catastrophe of death, it seems obvious that the first rule of life is to have a good time, and that the second rule of life is to hurt as few people as possible in the course of doing so. There is no third rule."
--Brendan Gill

Mr. Gill, a lion of New York's civic, social and literary life for nearly half a century, died on Dec. 27 [1997] at the age of 83. Some 1,500 people crowded into Town Hall to celebrate him with recollections of his zestful life as a civic gadfly and tireless campaigner for historic preservation; as a distinguished critic of books, plays, films and architecture, as a prolific presence at The New Yorker under all four of its editors, and as the versatile author of 15 books, including biographies of Cole Porter, Tallulah Bankhead and Charles Lindbergh, and a best-selling memoir, ''Here at The New Yorker.'

Alaskan Way Collapse

This is undoubtedly a political move, in light
of the election in just a few days, but it's
terrifying nonetheless:

We're ramping up the production at work
to get us through this holiday season. We were
booked solid when I got back from Ireland
and we've received additional new orders
every single week since. Yikes. But no complaints!

---

P. and I are watching Project Runway Season One.
It's so much more fun than the current streamlined
& refined production! There's a lot more cattiness,
and Heidi Klum hasn't assumed the dominatrix role
(which gets tiring). And none of the contestants know
what to expect yet, so there's an element of surprise
that, by the sixth season, just isn't there.

Great stuff.

New Paint, and Torrents

Not a big fan of painting walls; in fact, in the Brandon
Street house there's a wall in the living room which was
primed seven years ago and it's still not painted. There
was some mix-up in communication with the painters,
and this wall was left primed but without a color coat.
In fact, I've been known to loathe the act of painting --
walls that is. But I've learned in my job the joys of painting
in the artistic sense, so I approached Saturday's task
with new eyes, and found that it needn't be such an onerous
burden. (Really helped to have a cheerful husband who
participated willingly.)

And: ta-da!

(And...I actually used math skills learned in grade school
to position the artwork.)

---

It's raining like the end of the world, lights are flashing,
and there was just a big boom, and I'm guessing something
electrical blew out close by. It's not quite time to get out
the lifeboats, but I'm keeping a close eye on the accumulation
of water. (Wink, wink.)

Bozo Feet

...in case you're considering going back to school.

My Sleeping Beauties

R. and I made some kick-ass green mole chicken
with masa dumplings. A helluva lot of work but
the kind of meal where there isn't much talking,
only mmmmm and aaaahhhh. R. tasted the puree
before it went in the simmering pan and nearly
set his mouth afire, smoke coming from his ears, etc.
I grabbed the butter and handed him a chunk
which quickly tamed the flame. Good old butterfat.

Today's math:
15 dumplings ÷ 3 people = not enough.

And then there was the tres leches cake which was
almost a dos leches cake because I forgot to buy
cream (leche numero tres) but I had some spray-on
cream in the fridge which easily whisked back to its
former state of liquidity and the 6-egg sponge-in-a-
springform soaked up all the sweetened condensified
and evaporatified milks and the liquidified spray-on
cream and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. [Whoa. Forgot
to take a breath there.]

Damn I'm tired.

(And then there was the painting of the yellow wall.)

Some Bright Notes

--coffee with Robin, which involved wicked laughter

--a glass of Hogue Sauvignon Blanc ($6.99 @ Trader Joes)

--big wind, leaves flung above the treetops

--hundreds of crows passing over the house

--finishing the Friday puzzle

--pizza for dinner

Swept up by hundreds of wings....