Summer Day

This incredibly serene summer morning photo is by a photographer named Miles, who puts up his photos on his blog, titled Mute. Click *here* to go there.

And have a nice summer day. Stay cool.

A Quilt, or Two

I couldn't really talk about these before because they were both gifts. The one above was for my son and his wife. When I made the first round of HUGE quilts, they'd just gotten married and weren't really sure they wanted a quilt (she told me later her grandma made VERY traditional quilts, and she's more of a modern gal). But after seeing some of mine, we all went down to the fabric store last Thanksgiving and picked out the pattern and fabrics; I added some from my stash when I needed to broaden the palette.

I gave this to Matthew and Kimberly this weekend, and they seemed happy to have it. I'm sure they'll send me a photo of it on their bed soon (hint, hint) and I'm happy they like it.

I didn't really have a name for it when I sent it off with them, but today I had some time to think about it. . . and go through my favorite quote book. I couldn't resist Marlowe's verse, from The Passionate Shepherd to his Love:

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That valleys, groves, or hills or fields,

Or woods and steepy mountains, yield.

While it's everyone's mind runs to the obvious (we are so conditioned) I read it on a different level. The quilt has zig-zags, that when looked at from a sideways direction, looks like little mountains, so the name is Steepy Mountains. And for Matthew and Kimberly, who are one of the Most Alive Couples in the universe, they will have lush groves in their life, mysterious woods, rolling valleys, but also the steepy mountains and fields and fields to sow and tend and harvest. Of course, I wish them cuddle time under this quilt, but I wish them most of all, that they live together forever and ever and be each other's love.

This one, titled Sun and Sand was made in honor of the marriage of my son Peter to his love Megan this past weekend. While they both live in Davis, the wedding was held in Monterey, where a lovely confluence of beach and tide pools and sun and sand occurs. The colors of beigy/yellow of a warmed beach and delft blues of a clear summer sky I thought would represent the world around them on the weekend of their wedding.

It was begun in a class I took last summer, and I wasn't quite sure about it initially. It's hard to see the final project when you've just spent hours at the sewing machine. I bothered my friend Rhonda in Washington, DC until she said finally: "Get it quilted, and then decide!" I took her advice (she's an award-winning quilter with impeccable taste), and when I brought it home from the quilter's, I fell in love with it. I'd already decided it should go to my newlyweds, but boy, did I have a hard time parting with it!

And isn't that how love happens? We begin, we stitch our lives together, not always knowing how things will turn out, but over time, we blend our hopes and dreams and fears together, and our love changes a few disparate pieces, a lump of wadding and some raw materials into a sun-bursting of a quilt. And we like it, and each other. (Of course, this is all rather cheesy, but hey, I've just been to a wedding and I'm all aglow.)

I first discovered this experience when I was stitching a quilt at the bedside of my mother, who had just had a heart attack. I had just pinned the quilt top to the batting and backing and struggled to get it in the hoop to quilt it. I sat there day after day, visiting, working. As I put more quilting stitches in, the quilt sandwich ceased to be three separate pieces of fabric and instead started to behave as one piece.

Enough of the metaphors. . . I just know I send my love to these two couples with my hands and heart and quilts.

Hallway

Barbara and I saw this at a shop when she was down visiting.

I've Got Wedding on the Brain. . .

. . .so enjoy this clip of an unusual wedding procession.

New Summer Tunes

Sometimes I just get tired of my iTunes playlist, so new songs are in order. This time I was looking for some upbeat, catchy, walkable-on-my-morning-walks tunes.

I freely admit I'm not cutting edge, for all I know these are a hundred years old. But they're new to me.




I know if I put too many videos on a post, it bogs down, but here's hoping. This one's from The Corrs and is titled Summer Sunshine (as you can see from the YouTube video). The images of the house being pulled apart are kind of interesting as well.



Okay, last one. Embedding is disabled by request--that's okay--but you have to head over to YouTube to see it. Dido's done a nice tune with Sand in My Shoes, complete with summer romance and a dumptruck of sand on a city sidewalk.

Having a Bad Day?

Then click on the photo. Then click play. As many times as you want.
In fact, make it "big" and turn it up waaaay loud.

The Uniform Project

This young woman is fashioning different looks that all include this little black dress, modeling them on her blog. Here's one photo. Read about her project here (NYTimes).

Commerce, Downtown LA-style

Between Ssexxy Accessory and TU-TU fashion, I knew I'd arrived in the garment district of LA.

Unlike how I imagine NYCity's district, with racks of clothes being pushed around by runners between showrooms and ateliers, I also knew I was in LA's district by the smell of grilled onions, fresh for the pupusa take-out lunches. Other tip-offs are the mannequins, neatly lined up, bottoms-out, advertising their wares in a cheeky fashion, pockets and decorative stitching all in a row. There were also extremely fluffy dresses for First Communion, stacks of white T-shirts and colorful socks, as well as hanging garments lapped shoulder to shoulder so they looked like a headless-legless line of chorus girls, flapping in the hot LA breeze.

I was traveling up Maple Street to Michael Levine's--any sewer's mecca. I needed large buttons and Jo Ann's and Hancock's weren't offering anything with any kind of style. Getting to LA is half the adventure for those of us out in the sticks.

Most of us on Highway 60 were pushing 70 miles per hour when a small white car suddenly swerved right, overcorrected, swerving to the left, sideswiping the pick-up truck in front of me, then hitting the cement median wall. At that point, the principles of physics took over, scattering the bumper pieces into the faster lanes, and propelling the car back across four lanes of traffic, where it screeched and crashed into the right-hand wall; several cars stopped to help. We all crept slowly around the debris, then like true Angelenos, picked up speed again. A car with the license plates "Ms. Spedy" swept by me on the right. It was a miracle no one was pulled into the accident. The cynic in me supposed, "texting."

It reminded me of the pick-up truck traveling next to us when Mom/Dad were taking me to the airport last week. A loud explosion, and the shreds of the tire went flying--one right over our windshield. Dad pulled over to the right to give the swerving truck a chance to maneuver, then we slowly moved back into the traffic and on our way.

Back to the buttons. I crept around the block, looking for a meter and found one! Quarters to the rescue, but it wouldn't accept them. I pulled forward the next empty one. Ditto. The two shop owners brought me out a bag to put over the meter, and said, in a lilting reggae-ish patois: "Some folks park here free all day." I hurried over to Michael Levine's, bee-lined for the buttons, where I found what I was looking for. On the way out, I noticed their quilt fabric section. Another day, I thought, until, walking back to my car I noticed a parking lot right next door. One free hour's parking with purchase from Michael Levine's.

I'm not dumb. I moved the car, and headed back into the store.

After a pleasant interlude, I headed home, trying to escape the city. It's common knowledge that if you're not out by early afternoon, because of LA traffic, you won't get home in any timely fashion (as reported on the news radio on the way in: most commuters in Los Angeles spend--waste--70 hours per year in traffic, down from last year's 72 hours).

No mishaps on the way home. I used to do these little jaunts more often, but work, family and church responsibilities had filled my time. So, a sort of an adventure--silly little one--but a welcome respite from the norm.

Rickrolling/Happy 4th of July!

Couldn't resist Rickrolling you.

Actually I got the idea from Peter's Facebook entry, where he directed us to a Firefox Update page after promising a well-made Jackson tribute. I first heard about Rickrolling from David Pogue's New York Times column Circuits. As he writes:

Rickrolling (as *everyone* knows, obviously) is an Internet prank where you send a Web link to someone, promising something exciting--but you've actually linked to a YouTube video of Rick Astley's 1987 music video, "Never Gonna Give You Up." (Eventually, Astley himself Rickrolled the entire viewership of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade last year, live on TV, as you can see here.

Okay, that's it. In honor of Independence Day, here's your patriotic pictures. Happy Fourth of July!

Washington Memorial, all aglow--seen from the World War II Memorial

A tribute to all those Scout Fourth of July breakfasts I've attended over the years

Original Daughter of the Revolution grave, Alexandria Virginia

Civil War Soldier's Grave

from a mural inside the Nation's Capitol Building

Soldiers at Mount Vernon, Virginia

Moonwalk

While I, too, am tired of the MJackson circus, when I watch this video, I remember. For another fascinating tribute to him, click here.

More tomorrow.

Veritas

The chair on the left, with the red leather cushion is my father's "Harvard chair," with its logo--Veritas (truth). The chair on the right came from my mother's side of the family; it was one of six kitchen table chairs from her mother.

My father and I spent a lot of time in these chairs these past few days editing his memoir. He would sit with his notations on the hard copy, neatly arranged by chapter in two massive D-ring binders. I would sit at the computer, noting on the electronic copy all the changes.

Occasionally I'd cajole him to write more, clarify, amplify, to linger in a scene or to be ruthless and cut cut cut. Some times he'd resist and we'd have a dialogue about what worked, or why the reader needed more, and in the discussion we'd find the compromise we were seeking. It was a lively and exhausting three days with lots of laughter, shared secrets, and active discourse on a variety of subjects related to what we were reading and working on.

Mother was patient with these two hermits in the study, sitting on their chairs, taking a journey.

Thomas Jefferson--Kalman's Up Again

(Click picture to go to Maira Kalman's latest blog post.)

How I'm Spending My Summer Vacation

Some have asked what I've been doing lately.

First, I did all those things I left undone during the last two semesters of teaching school, even finding some un-read Christmas cards in the basket as I went through them. And one bill.

I read the middle third of my father's memoir, edited it, and went up to Utah to visit him. I read the last third of his memoir, edited it and am headed up there on Sunday to visit with him.

I gave a talk in church.

I had some home renovations performed.

I had the five floorboards replaced where they dropped the counter slab tear-out.

I cleaned up after all the workmen (not a sexist term; I promise they were all men).

I made this:





And this:


And a couple of other things, like a skirt (which I have to fix a bit) and stuff.

How's your summer vacation going?

Thank You.

Whiz Kid on the Block

When I converted to Google Reader it was a heady experience, scrolling with my teensy button on my mouse, zipping through a hundred or more blogs in twenty minutes. I hated it when they stacked up and so learned to click on "Mark All as Read." Wiped away were the numbers, the bold typeface that said, "You aren't finished here."

Then on one of the blogs I follow, The Year in Pictures, the blogger James Danziger wrote a post a titled "Listen Up!" a few weeks back, asking where everyone had gone--where were the comments?

The question is why are people not leaving comments these days? Or maybe the request is: please leave comments whenever you feel even the slightest bit moved to. They are really what keeps a blogger going. I would have thought that this week there would have been more than one comment on the Gursky photo or more than two comments on the amazing Narduzzi picture of the Byblos Art Hotel.

Maybe it's the weather...

In the torrent of comments left at that time a couple of people mentioned the fact that now his blog was in their Google Reader:

I think more and more people are using Google reader for looking at their favorite blogs. To leave a comment you then actually have to make the effort to open the blog itself. Maybe that has something to do with it. Nevertheless, I have been puzzled myself by the lack of comments on your blog. Because it's such a great blog, personal and informative, and very generous. Please keep it up. We're out there.

I've been thinking about this one too, as the comments on this blog seem so few and far between now, yet I hear that people do read and enjoy the writings (or they're polite enough not to comment when it's a droll day).

So I've made a concerted effort to use the Google Reader tool a little more sparingly. I like seeing the blogroll on the side of my OccasionalPiece page, clicking to read someone's blog and being in their world, with their photos and headers and typefaces, rather a driveby reading in an aggregator's world of same type, same style, same abbreviated presence on my electronic page. I also like when I visit other people's pages, seeing what interests them in their Blogrolls and clicking through on a few of their links. More is not always the way to go. Maybe it's my own effort to slow the whole process down, to live in this current time and to interact, internet-style, with one human story at a time.

Lingering on Blogs

I've been thinking about blogging and blogs and Google Reader for a couple of days now. I think it began with a Pico Iyer's article in the New York Times about how he detached from his successful (and I assume high-pressure) job writing for the Times and now lives in a two-room apartment in Japan. He has no internet and so is not tied to the quick life we lead now. He writes:

While I’ve been rereading P.G. Wodehouse, or “Walden,” the crazily accelerating roller-coaster of the 24/7 news cycle has propelled people up and down and down and up and then left them pretty much where they started. “I call that man rich,” Henry James’s Ralph Touchett observes in “Portrait of a Lady,” “who can satisfy the requirements of his imagination.” Living in the future tense never did that for me.

I have long since passed the idea that living like that would suit me. I like walking across the street to visit a neighbor, I like being connected and pursuing connections via the internet; I like my life generally. I say this not to tempt fate (as I knock on wood) or to say that all is nirvana and perfect (it's not) but to acknowledge that I've come to a place where I know where the equilibrium is. And I can tell when things are out of whack more easily than I could at age 30.

While I applaud Iyer's "stepping out" of the rushing river of modern life, or as he put it "living in the future tense," I sometimes wonder about the rivers I find myself stepping across. I've been blogging now for 363 posts, nearly three years. My first post was just a picture of the Disney Concert Hall in LA. I didn't know what else to post. It all seemed so self-conscious, this writing--as my brother-in-law puts it--one's journal on the web. Yet when I heard Trott's talk last night about the lady in England who died of cancer, or the one-pound preemie baby and how is father took a photo of him every day, I realized that like Trott I enjoyed reading other's "journals on the web."

I liked my niece Alice's blog. I still remember many stories she told, and the year we "spent" with her and her new husband in Switzerland. I lingered over many of those tales, adding others' blogs to my blogroll, linking them into my day's reading. Lingered is the key word here.

More about not lingering tomorrow.

On Blogging

I have to give a talk in church this Sunday, so I was trolling TED.com for my subject.

Link leads on to link and I ended up watching this talk by Mena Trott about blogging. I recommend it.



I'll write later about what interested me.

New Windows

And then another fine day, we decided to take advantage of the Stimulus Package rebates and support the President by re-doing our windows. Here are the photos.

BEFORE


DURING

Two devices that keep Window Boys going: Super-caffeinated colas and. . .

. . . charged-up drills.

Oh yes, the sink guy was here at the same time.

Yanking out the slider frame. All the windows went in over the existing aluminum frames, except for the slider. They did new construction on that, complete with new stucco on the exterior and drywall on the interior. Actually they just wanted to cover up the contruction with molding, but we decided on the drywall.


AFTER


Look in the kitchen post, for a few more After Photos.
I keep thinking of my sister-in-law Rachelle and my sister Christine, who had full-scale remodels of their home, with workmen and mess and chaos for more than a full year.
I'd lose my marbles, I think.

Visit to Mom and Dad--May 2009

All good airplane journeys over the continental US begin with crop circles somewhere. I'm continually fascinated by them.

Beside the Ogden River is a walking path that Mom and Dad frequent.

Mom and I

A shot of the mountains through the trees.

The birthday lunch was at Zucca's Restaurant--known for its good food, like some local trattoria in Italy. Char (at the end of the table on the bench side) and Naomi (front, in the purple sweater) joined us.

Dad snuck out to pick up some birthday cake while we ladies lingered around the table discussing Prop 8, taxes and other sundry items.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Mom and Dad have teensy container gardens on their two patios. This side is herbs and flowers, while the front patio is all flowers.


On Friday, Judy had a luncheon for Mom, with a few guests. Joining Judy and Mom in this photo are Sharon Lewis and Margaret Hunter.

Outside on Judy's deck.

I hope I look as lovely as my mother does, when I hit her decade!

Carolyn Nebeker joined us.


Carolyn had made some rhubarb cobbler that was delicious.

I'm always fascinated by Ogden High school--a masterful rendition of that era's architecture.



Dad waited while I snapped a few.

Sign on a defunct storefront on 26th Street.

A visit to see my parents is not complete without some balcony time, watching the sunset.


Lunch at Trio's, in a huge rush on the way to the airport.

I was fascinated with the swirl of sweetened balsamic vinegar on top of Dad's cheese pizza. Mom and I both had the lemony chicken salad, and we were all done in record time, thanks to an efficient waitress and fast eaters. I made my plane, of course.

The spines of the mountains intewoven with Orange County fog.