8 Apr 2016

A Wedding Today: Part Three

by | posted in: Family, Luv | 0
The daisy is the flower for the five-year anniversary. Here's to the first five years -- and many more. Photo: Wikipedia
The daisy is the flower for the five-year anniversary. Here’s to the first five years — and many more. Photo: Wikipedia

You’ve been very patient. I’m proud of you. You can get a cookie and come back. Are you back? Okay.

I always figured courtroom weddings took place with a judge behind the bench, looking over his spectacles, saying something like, “By the power vested in me by the State of Iowa, I pronounce you husband and wife. Congratulations, I hope you have a pleasant day.” Maybe there would even be a gavel swing, maybe even a “Next.” But that wasn’t what it was like at all. Mr. Hanson, the magistrate, came to the center of the room and said, “Okay, you ready to get started?” Everyone straightened up and the bride and groom went to stand near Mr. Hanson.

“Would you like to say anything to each other before we get started?” he asked them. He had papers in his hands. The bride and groom looked at each other, smiling, nervous. They shrugged and the girl half-asked, half-said, “Well… Let’s do this.” Mr. Hanson went into the script and at the beginning, I zeroed in on the couple. I felt all the, “This is the beginning of their lives together!” and “Love is amazing!” feelings one feels at a wedding. But I wasn’t full on wedding-crying, yet.

That happened when I looked around at the family. They showed up. It was a Wednesday afternoon. People took off from work. They put on their Sunday best. The younger girls were taking pictures; Mom seemed to be filming the whole thing on her phone. It was a family. It was a family doing what families are supposed to do, even if they don’t like it all the time: they show up. They may think you’ve lost your mind, they may not understand you a lot of the time, but they love you, and even if you’re the black sheep this year, they’re gonna take off work and get to the courthouse. I think it’s because we all know — or certainly should consider — that we’ll be the black sheep in the family sooner or later. We’d better be nice; we’re gonna need it.

When that family sentiment hit, that’s when I got the warm wedding tears and stabbed at my eyes with the sleeve of my Iowa Hawkeyes sweatshirt. I made every effort to be silent with my emotions, but one of the rough guys (uncle? brother?) caught me. I saw him turn to his wife or girlfriend and jab his thumb back at me and whisper, “She’s frickin’ cryin!”

The ceremony was done when Mr. Hanson said, “You can kiss the bride.” It was like any other wedding in that regard. I didn’t stay a moment past the end. I clapped, quietly, and smiled at the group. I caught the bride’s eye and whispered, “Congratulations!!” And then I left. This was most definitely not about me, even though if I had stayed two minutes longer I’ll bet you I would’ve gotten an invite to the bar.

Best wedding I ever crashed. Only wedding I’ve ever crashed, actually, and I did it on accident. It took a special blend of circumstances for that to happen. I like that kind of thing.

4 Apr 2016

Dance Is Forever.

by | posted in: Art, Family | 0
Mary Fons and Rebecca Fons, circa I'm not sure. A long time ago. Photo: Photographer at Debbie's Dance Studio.
Mary Fons and Rebecca Fons, circa I’m not sure. A long time ago. Photo courtesy Rebecca Fons.

You have questions. I have answers.

Q: Is that you?
A: Yes, it’s me. In the orange. And that’s my younger sister, Rebecca, in the bee outfit.

Q: Wow. When was that taken?
A: A long time ago.

Q: I meant, like, how old are you guys there?
A: I don’t know. I think that was fifth grade for me, second for Rebecca. I don’t know. The neon orange is burning holes in my retinas and also in my memory. And I can never tell how old kids are, even when the kids are me and my sister, looking directly at me through time and space.

Q: What was this for?
A: It’s a family portrait.

Q: That’s really intense, Mary.
A: I was joking! It’s a picture for a dance recital! Look, hurry up; I have to keep this post short because yesterday’s was extra long.

Q: Is the point of those tights to make you look tan?
A: I… I don’t know.

Q: Your sister is crazy adorable. Is the front of her outfit… Is it plastic?
A: I don’t know, probably.

Q: Did you guys save the costumes and the headbands and stuff and wear them after the recital?
A: For literally years.

Q: Did you like dance class?
A: I never understood that dance did not necessarily involve toe shoes. That’s what I was in it for from the start. I was continually disappointed when they were not distributed. I quit after a while because there kept not being toe shoes. No one ever really explained that you have to work up to that.

Q: Was it an artistic choice, do you think, on the part of the photographer, to cut off the wicker hole on the right side?
A: Let’s all believe it was.

27 Mar 2016

Strands.

by | posted in: Family | 3
Combing Hair by Hashiguchi Goyo, Japan, 1920, Woodblock print, Honolulu Museum of Art. Image: Wikipedia
Combing Hair by Hashiguchi Goyo, Japan, 1920, Woodblock print, Honolulu Museum of Art. Image: Wikipedia

To celebrate Easter, Claus and I took a bike ride to the lakefront.

We rode for some time, then needed a snack. Since Claus had not seen Navy Pier yet, we steered our bikes that way. I was happy to see that Navy Pier has gotten at least a partial facelift since I was last there. There are many more food options and there was a mini-Tiffany glass exhibit courtesy of Chicago’s Driehaus family, a family that has an entire museum in the Gold Coast dedicated solely to exhibiting their Tiffany glass pieces. The Driehaus family probably owns Navy Pier, so maybe the exhibit today is there because they needed extra storage. Either way, it was great.

On the way home, we got caught in the cold wind and rain that hit around 5pm. That was hard, riding home in that. We arrived in soaked jeans. My hair was plastered to my head and my glasses were pointless. Now hungry for actual dinner, Claus and I decided to take time only to get dry and then go back out for a hamburger; we also decided to take umbrellas.

Claus put his jeans over a chair and dried them with my hairdryer. I came over and sat by him while he did it. It was funny: to get the legs dry he put the nose of the hairdryer into the cuff and the air blew up the leg like there was a real leg in there.

The German looked over at me and said, “Mary, your hair is still very wet.” And he turned the blowdryer on my hair. He used his fingers to ruffle it the way you do when you dry someone’s hair, tousling it this way and that. The warm air blew all over my head and it was bliss to feel it on my neck, blowing just under my collar.

Then something strange happened. Suddenly, my eyes teared up. And my chest hurt.

I realized it that what he was doing was what my mother — even my father, if we go back further — did when I was a little kid. The sense memory hit me like a truck. The warm air on my neck, the large hand on my head, and the feeling of being helped in getting warm after being cold from playing outside. Though people touch our heads and blow-dry our hair in a salon, there is none of this connection there. Night and day.

I turned to Claus and I swear my lip trembled as I said, “That feels really good. Can you keep doing it?” He was a little surprised and said of course he could and was I okay?

Mostly okay.

 

 

18 Mar 2016

Lilly’s Big Day Out: Part 1

by | posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life, Family | 4
High tea. Lilly will not be having prosecco. Image: Wikipedia
High tea. Lilly will not be having prosecco. Image: Wikipedia

I’ve shared stories about PaperGirl readers doing beautiful work in the world, like making me monkeys and sending me candy pumpkins. And just before Christmas, while I was working in Florida, I finally got to meet friends I’ve had for almost a decade but had never met. PaperGirl doesn’t just yeild daily writing practice and a place for me to sort things out, it yeilds special relationships.

Rita is quilter, a writer, and a longtime PG reader. Rita is also a grandmother. She is Lilly’s grandmother. Rita wrote to me a couple months ago — we’ve never met — that she wanted to surprise Lilly with a trip to Chicago for her seventh birthday. (How is it possible to have an age that is a single digit?) Rita emailed because she knew I’d have some great insider tips. Totally.

I was delighted to serve as a tour director to the best of my ability, but then something wonderful happened: I saw that I’d actually be home when the girls came to town. I asked Rita if I could personally escort them around for a few hours on Saturday. The answer was “Yeah!!” and so it is that tomorrow, I get to hang out with Rita and Miss Lilly Herself. The following plan has been Gramma Approved:

12pm — Meet the girls at their hotel on Michigan Ave.

12-12:15pm — Ride the #3 bus down Michigan Ave. This is a specifically planned activity because both Rita and Lilly are very excited about sampling Chicago public transit. I can make that happen.

12:30-2pm — Free tickets to the Art Institute! I’m excited to present Lilly with her very own ticket. I know a guy, so I have passes for all of us.

2-2:30pm — Bum around on the steps of the Art Institute, check out the El train on Wabash a block away, take lots of pictures, work up an appetite.

2:30-3:30 — High tea at nearby Russian Tea Time! You know the whole fancy tea party game little girls like to play? The white glove, cucumber sandwiches thing? It’s mimicking something called “high tea” (I’ll do a post on that later, it’s an interesting topic) and I’m taking Rita and Lilly to one of the best spots in the city for it. The last time I had high tea it was intense and emotional. I think “intense” and “emotional” won’t play into it tomorrow, probably. Just fun and maybe funny.

3:30-4pm — If Lilly’s not tuckered out, we’ll all walk the couple blocks from the Institute/Tea Time to my condo. Lilly can see how a city girl lives and I can show Rita some quilts. (Note to self: get pantyhose off the shower rod, make bed, wipe counter.) The view from the top of my building is fantastic, too: all Lake Michigan and skyline, baby.

Lilly doesn’t know she’s getting a surrogate auntie for her birthday. I’m so excited!

11 Mar 2016

“Ahm Frum a Town Cahled ‘Ninety-Six.'”

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Story, Travel, Work | 0
Not yet available on iTunes. Image: Wikipedia
Not yet available on iTunes, sadly. Image: Wikipedia

Being in Atlanta reminds me how much I love the southern part of this country. Women from all over this region came to the show; I met Tennessee ladies, girls from Alabama, and a South Carolina lady who stole my heart. You know how you just zap with a person, sometimes? It’s the face, the smile, or the laugh — it could be the accent — and you recognize it, somehow, and maybe you can’t say why, but you’re just happy to be there. I had that feeling with this lady. We’ll call her Sue. Here’s how the conversation went:

“Mary. Ah was so excited to get the chance to meet you. Ah just luve your show. Ah watch it ev’ry week. You and your momma are just so sweet together.”

“Sue, you’re too kind — thank you. Thank you for watching the show. I like working with my mom, so it’s not too bad of a job. Where are you from?”

“Ah’m from Ninety Six, South Carolina.” She gave me a warm smile as I cocked my head, which is what every person who does not live in Ninety Six, South Carolina has ever done to Sue when she tells them where she’s from. “That’s raahht,” she said. “The town ah’m from is called Ninety Six. Now, isn’t that funny?”

Utterly charmed and curious as everyone else, I asked her why her town was named after a number. Sue told me that as legend has it, a young Native American woman had a boyfriend in the British Army. I interrupted and said that did not sound like a good idea.

“Oh, you’ve got thaht raaht,” Sue said. “Mary, it’s just a legund, but ah lahk to think it’s true. Anyway, she rode nahnty-six miles to tell her little boyfriend the British were coming. And that’s how Nahnty-Six got its name.” Sue was quite proud of her town and its peculiar name. I’d be proud, too — especially because my town’s high school football team would wipe the floor with the team from Ninety Five.

We chatted. Sue told me she was a breast cancer survivor. I gave her a high-five and asked if she was staying on top of check-ups and things. Sue patted my arm and said quietly, “Well, ah’m afraid it’s back, honey. It’s in mah lung this tahm.”

My eyes burned. Dammit. She was just so awesome. Dealing with cancer at all, let alone again — the pointless, “Why?” lodged itself into my brain and nearly eclipsed the moment we were having. Sue said she came to the show to enjoy classes and exhibits, to spend time with friends and to meet me, too. “It’s been a wonderful tahm,” she said. “Ah told mah husband, ‘Ah’m going to that quilt show and if mah doctor says I can’t, you tell him ah’m goin’ anyway!”

Sue, it was a pleasure. Now you go wipe the floor with Ninety Five.

3 Mar 2016

Quilt Your Heart Out, Thank Goodness.

by | posted in: Family, Quilting, Work | 1
Me and a good thing. Photo: Joe Mazza, Bravelux.
Me and a good thing. Photo: Joe Mazza, Bravelux.

Bad Things That Happened Today

Wanged the back of my leg so hard I whined about it for 30 minutes
The to-go coffee I got was lukewarm
Someone stole my cell phone

I can’t talk about that last thing. There was weeping. When anything goes wrong with my mobile phone, I am reminded how much I resent them for having to exist, to be on my person, and to function perfectly at all times. It’s just a cell phone. But still.

Phenomenal Things That Happened Today

Got a kiss
Wore new boots that did not hurt my feet
Saw that the third-ever episode of the Quilt Your Heart Out podcast was posted on the Quilt Your Heart Out website

The last thing zeroes out any woe I might’ve had about modern technology because modern technology is to be thanked for the whole podcast thing. If you don’t know by now, my mom and I have started a call-in advice show for quilters. You don’t have to be a quilter to enjoy it, but if you are a quilter, you will freak out.

Here’s hoping you find some things in your day that are so good (e.g., good falafel, good hair, good heavens, etc.) they cancel out any bad things (e.g., bad apple, bad dog, bad company, etc.) That podcast will make you smile, so there’s that.

15 Feb 2016

Big Announcement This Week… Hint: STAY TUNED.

by | posted in: Family, Quilting, Work | 1
Me and Mom, goofin' on the mic. Photo: Joe Mazza, BraveLux, Chicago, IL.
Me and Mom, goofin’ on the mic. What can it mean? Photo: Joe Mazza, BraveLux, Chicago, IL.

My mother and I are embarking on a New Endeavor. It’s big. It’s bold. It launches this week.

Mom doesn’t need another project. I don’t either, but at least I’m not renovating a movie theater. But we can’t help adding another worthwhile project to a stack of others because we’re people who love to do stuff that sounds exciting and we love to make things that feel good to make. We find room.

I can’t tell you what it is just yet, but I’ll tell you very soon. And when I do, you should have your phone in your hand. Most of us have our phone in our hands all the time, so that won’t be hard. “But wait,” you say, scratching your head with your phone, “Why would I need my phone for an announcement? Are you guys on American Idol?** Do I need to text my vote?” I think the only way to handle this until I can tell you is to play Mad Libs.

“This week, Mom and I are launching a [NOUN]. We’re sure that our [PLURAL NOUN] will love it and will [VERB] every week. We’ve been working very [ADJECTIVE] for many months on the [NOUN] and feel ready to announce it to the [NOUN] on Thursday. The best way to learn what the [ADJECTIVE] [NOUN] is? Read PaperGirl and check in on Mary’s Facebook page and get ready to [VERB] and [VERB] and [VERB]. See ya later, [ANIMAL]!”

Anything worth announcing to the public should be put through a Mad Libs process first. Not only does it get people actively involved in the event, there’s no way the actual announcement won’t be received well. If your work with the passage above looks like this, there’s no way you won’t be relieved when you learn the truth:

“This week, Mom and I are launching a FROG. We’re sure that our POTATO CHIPS will love it and will DROOL every week. We’ve been working very STUPID for many months on the UMBRELLA and feel ready to announce it to the BOARD OF TRADE on Thursday. The best way to learn what the STINKY BOOGER is? Read PaperGirl and check in on Mary’s Facebook page and get ready to CHOKE and WORK and SUFFER. See ya later, DUCK!”

*I’m sure this is a) not how American Idol works; b) hilarious because American Idol was canceled six years ago or something; or c) extremely offensive because American Idol is run by a fascist dictator. I assure you, I don’t know.

4 Feb 2016

This One’s For You, Baby.

by | posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life, Family | 1
Unidentified man with unidentified object that is too cute to be human, puppy, or kitten. Photo: Me, carefully.
Unidentified man with unidentified object that is too cute to be human, puppy, or kitten. Photo: Me, carefully.

My mom is in town for the lighting of the first (or “beta”) test of The Wabash Lights. We had plans to meet at the new Maggie Daley Park Ice Skating Ribbon. Mom and I love to skate; we both love it enough and are good enough to have our own skates. Stand in line for rentals? Not these girls. We just lace up and go.

Mom lost her phone, though (first time in her life), so she had to deal with that this afternoon. The last time we communicated was earlier in the day via email; as of then, the plan stood. So I went to the Ribbon at the appointed time, but no Mom. I couldn’t call her. She couldn’t call me. So I skated by myself until she showed up. For an hour, with no headphones, no pal to chat with, I skated round and round that magnificent ribbon. It’s less of a “view” you get than a “movie” you get on that thing. You get a moving picture and you’re the thing moving and the air is crisp as can be. The city of Chicago is the sky below the sky and the endless blue of Lake Michigan rounds out the whole world. They did a really, really good job with this thing.

I love this city so much. The Ribbon is one more reason to be a jerk about how much better this city is than any other city now or ever. But what I really want to talk about is that baby.

There is good in the world. Because nothing could be cuter or more wonderful than this baby. Strapped tight into its little snuggly, winging around on its dad’s back as he deftly — and carefully, I assure you — maneuvered the Ribbon, this baby is everything. I have other pictures. I tried so hard to not be weird, but I had to take pictures of this baby. This is the best one I got, I think. I’m on Instagram, so follow me for more of the Perfect Ribbon Baby images that I cannot stop looking at. You will not be disappointed.

Sometimes, I do want a kid.

23 Jan 2016

“Let’s Just Read.”

by | posted in: Family | 1
Me, not so much. Perhaps because of the story below. Photo: Wikipedia
Me, not so much. Perhaps because of the story below. Photo: Wikipedia

Starting when I was in fourth grade, my sisters, my mom and I were on our own. Divorce had axed our family and as my sisters and I picked splinters out of our hair, Mom went about basically gut-rehabbing — by herself — my Aunt Katherine and late Uncle Rodney’s house in town. The house wasn’t habitable for months and we couldn’t go back to the family farm, so we stayed with friends until we could move in. I still remember the smell of paint when we finally slept in the house on Jefferson Street. I will always love the smell of fresh paint.

Our home was constantly full of people. Rebecca was in elementary school and had her best friends over for sleepovers; I was in junior high and not a total social leper so I was able to entertain; Hannah was in high school and her crew was large and left-of-center, so there were usually interesting conversations going on in the kitchen and the backyard because the kitchen had a fridge and the backyard had a hammock.

The dinner table was big enough for us and at least three friends. But when Mom wasn’t on a business trip (I go on these same trips today, something I never anticipated and cannot imagine doing with three daughters at home)  so most of the time it was just the four of us. We talked and talked and shared all the stories from school and Mom’s trips. We laughed, we fought. Hannah did this thing where she’d steal Rebecca’s milk when Biccy wasn’t looking and it drove my little sister crazy. Again and again, Hannah would steal her milk and finally had to stop when Rebecca got big enough to successfully execute sororicide.* But there was another kind of dinner.

My family is a reading family, but we weren’t allowed to read at the table. But there would be times when Mom would call us all to dinner and all of us — Mom included — would put down whatever book we were engrossed in and loaf to the dinner table, reluctant to stop reading. Those nights, we weren’t interested in talking because we were still thinking about our books. The table would be pretty quiet. Then Mom would look at us, slurping pasta. We’d look at Mom, drinking her milk. She’d smile and whisper in a mischievous way:

“Let’s just read!”

We’d whoop and all run for our books and finish dinner together in silence, turning pages, until we were full.

*It’s true. There’s a word for murdering your sister. Share it with any fifteen-year-old in your life who has a ten-year-old sister. She’ll love it. 

18 Jan 2016

Rave On or: File Under My Misspent Youth

by | posted in: Family, Story | 0
Dancers at a rave. Experimental photograph by Rick Doble courtesy Wikipedia.
Dancers at a rave. Experimental photograph by Rick Doble courtesy Wikipedia.

When I was in high school, my older sister and I snuck out of the house and went to raves in Des Moines.

My mom knows now. We told her years later that Hannah and I would wait till she and Rebecca (our younger sister) were asleep then open a second floor bedroom window and jump to the ground below. I did that in platform heels, once. Youth is not only wasted on the young, it gifts and forgives and protects the young. I should’ve broken my ankle or my neck. Instead, I just went, “Did you see that?! Did I get a grass stain on my butt? No? Okay, let’s go!”

Raves, for those who were not in high school, college, or the club kid scene in Manhattan in the mid-90s, were just dance parties. It was the music that distinguished them from a bunny hop or a prom or a Sadie Hawkins dance. At raves, this newfangled “techno” music was blasted through giant speakers. Techno — and I’m ashamed to reduce it down so far but it’s late — is an electronic music melange of Chicago house, jazz, deep African rhythms, and the concept that in late-capitalist America, the Body and the Machine are pretty close to becoming the same thing. But it’s got a catchy beat! And you can dance to it! (Seriously: you can really, really dance to it. I learned to dance to it, in fact, and I feel like I can actually cut a rug to most genres of music and I owe this to Fatboy Slim.)

My hometown of Winterset, IA, had a population of 5,000. Des Moines was the closest city and close enough: a 45-minute drive got you downtown. Me, my sister, and our friends — who had snuck out of their houses — had the audacity to take my grandmother’s white station wagon to Des Moines about once a month to dance at a rave. I named my grandma’s station wagon Honky. Honky served us well. We got like eight people in that thing and never had a flat tire.

We didn’t do drugs. We didn’t even drink. I did a little drinking in high school, but that was always at high school parties on level-B roads. The raves, they were for dancing. We got lost in the music. We got lost in a community that wasn’t our own — and most of us didn’t fit too well in ours and we needed to know that there were other communities that existed. We could be different people at raves; perhaps it’s more accurate that we could truly be ourselves. Though we didn’t use the word at the time, we were fabulous. Oh, we were wearing glittery shirts and way too much eye makeup, so I don’t mean we were fabulous. But these infiltrators, these refugees, these desperate, giddy teenagers were fabulous. You bet your hotpants.

The NBC news affiliate came one night to do a story on this crazy youth movement (?) called “rave parties.” I waved to the camera and my friend Justin and I booty-shaked with renewed vigor from atop the bank of speakers, waving and sticking out our tongues in a rebel sort of way, many, many years before Miley Cyrus was born. That clip of us made the news. I saw the report myself at the five-o’clock broadcast. Guess who watched the ten-o’clock broadcast diligently, every night, in bed? Marianne Fons.

That night, Hannah and I went to say goodnight to Mom, just because “We love you, Mom! We just wanted to see how your day was!” We placed our bodies in front of the TV screen till we heard the report was over.

So far away those lives are, now. But the news archives. They live forever.

25 Dec 2015

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

by | posted in: Chicago, Family | 1
Jimmy Carter and his family, Christmas Day, 1978. Photo: Wikipedia
Jimmy Carter and his family, Christmas Day, 1978. Photo: Wikipedia

Merry Christmas!

I’m at my younger sister and brother-in-law’s home in Old Town, Chicago. It smells like ham in here — not all the time, just right now.

I have eaten popcorn, sausage, peanut butter cups and a big chocolate-dipped marshmallow with red and green sprinkles — that last item was on a stick. I made dinner at my house the other night and that went off well. My mother is presently putting together a puzzle with my step dad. We all saw Star Wars the other day, and it rocked. We had tickets to A Christmas Carol at the Goodman yesterday; my good friend plays Belle in the show and she was great. Some of us may go ice skating or pay a visit to the Field Museum tomorrow — we’ll see. I might have a bellyache because I plan to eat at least one more decadent food item off a stick if I have to stick it on myself.

It sounds perfect. But there are wrinkles. Deep breaths are taken from time to time by this person or that one because someone is loud or someone says something wrong (usually me, lately.) I got sick yesterday in the Goodman bathroom; still not sure what that was about. Every day that passes means Claus is one day closer to going back to Germany. So really, this is a perfect holiday. Because this is the way it always is; it fits perfectly into the story of the end-of-year holidays that we tell every year.

Thank you for reading my blog. I love to write it. Merry Christmas, everyone.

23 Dec 2015

Reporting From Inside THE HOLIDAY ZONE.

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Tips | 0
HOLIDAY ZONE! Photo: Marcus Quigmire; Wikipedia.
HOLIDAY ZONE! Photo: Marcus Quigmire; Wikipedia.

These are the days inside THE HOLIDAY ZONE.

Oh, we’ve been doing shopping. We roughly know what’s happening when: brother and sister-in-law arrive around 2pm Thursday, everyone is meeting at Lou Malnati’s at 6pm on Saturday, the cake needs to be picked up before the store closes on Christmas Eve, etc. But now it’s real. The kin have come. The chicken needs a’trussin’. You forgot the extra bottle of red wine; also you forgot the breadcrumbs. The children are freaking out (not about the breadcrumbs; you don’t know what they’re freaking out about but they are loud.) Your brother is doing that thing. And you still need stocking treats. The HOLIDAY ZONE is hard enough, but what’s really insulting is that now you must admit you are that rather frazzled person hustling up State Street with a furrowed brow. Lame.

People enter THE HOLIDAY ZONE at different times; you may have begun earlier in the week, you may be starting on Christmas Day and going into the days following. Whatever your particular schedule, if you’re not 100% sure you’ve entered THE HOLIDAY ZONE, here are clues:

1. You look at your email and most of it is last-minute sale offers from stores/companies you thought you filtered into your spam folder and there are barely any emails related to work or commitments with clubs/affiliations/personal trainers. This version of your email box is a feeling of relief mixed with a bizarre, vague disappointment. It’s nice to get emails that show you’re relevant.

2. Stomachaches. Frosting-related.

3. You leave a room and sigh. Then someone calls your name. You sigh again and go back to the room you just came from. And what were you going in there for? You cannot remember. It’ll come to you when you try to take the potatoes out of the oven and you realize you were trying to find the oven mitts. (They’re in the bathroom.)

4. You switch to a liquor drink instead of wine and later, you realize why you don’t do that. #spinning

5. You pull that dusty copy of Being and Time off the shelf and decide you will read it in the bathroom for awhile. The potholders are in there, anyway.

There are more signs. But if any of those symptoms resonate, you’re probably in THE HOLIDAY ZONE and you should find shelter. The good thing about THE HOLIDAY ZONE is that we’re all in it. Get along with each other: THE HOLIDAY ZONE is way easier with a pal. And heed some of the best advice I have ever gotten, ever: “Just when you’re going fast, trying to speed up, trying to hurry — that’s when you need to slow down.”

13 Dec 2015

Mark & Netta.

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Paean, Work | 1
Netta, me, and Mark, Christmas 2015. Photo: Netta, me, and Mark.
Netta, me, and Mark, Christmas 2015. Photo: Netta, me, and Mark.

Nine lives ago, I got an email from a nice guy named Mark. Mark read my blog. (This was around 2006.*) We didn’t know each other; he just stumbled upon PaperGirl and liked it, so he told me. I said, “Thanks!” and so began a many years-long friendship with Mark and, by extension, his awesome wife Netta. Mark and Netta live in Florida and have three adult kids.

Over nine years, I’d say I’ve gotten fifteen? twenty? emails from Mark and I’ve sent about as many. We’re not prolific pen pals. But we’re pals. Real pals. It’s just the way it is. Mark and Netta send me a cookie-fudge-nut tray every Christmas. Mark hired me to write a poem for his daughter years back and one for Netta this summer. I’m sending them a bundle of Small Wonders fabric as soon as I get home and stay home for five seconds. They sent a $100 gift card when I moved to D.C; I told Mark I bought a flower vase, a can opener, and dishtowels, all things I needed. I’ve sent a number of gushing thank-you cards to these people. The relationship I have with them is like a neat star that appears in the sky every few months. Never met ’em.

I met ’em last night.

Mark and Netta live in Florida, remember? Well, I announced I’d be in Maitland and who do you think sent me an email saying they weren’t too far from me and could we meet for dinner? My pen pal!

Saturday night, I met my friends at a cute Italian restaurant in Maitland. Mark got a bowl of fettuccine alfredo big enough to have a zip code; Netta and I realized we were both the middle daughter of three. I ordered the snapper special; Mark spoke about the qualities of a successful marriage. Our waiter was over-attendant; I cried about different stuff. I told them about my dad; they asked the right questions. I listened to their stories about love and family, how they’ve done it and how they might do it differently, or the same, if they had the chance to do it again. It wasn’t “like we were old friends.” We are old friends.

Mark, Netta, thank you. Again. For everything! Are you kidding me?? You send me fudge-nut trays and you let me blow my nose on a napkin within thirty minutes of meeting each other face-to-face! The counsel, the kindness… It’s good to know good people.

Here’s to the next nine years, you two. Merry Christmas.

 

*That’s right: the ol’ PG is almost nine years old, if you count a couple years in there when I had to go dark. There’s a bit about that here. 

18 Oct 2015

Moral Dilemma: Grandma’s Recipes

by | posted in: Family, Food | 2
It's just so awful. Photo: Wikipedia
Unspeakably revolting comestible. Photo: Wikipedia

I got a gift from a relative today. It’s a spiral-bound book made from my paternal grandmother’s recipe collection. Venita died several years ago and had amassed many recipes over her homemaking years in Houston, TX. That the recipes have been compiled is very sweet and it was a kind gesture to send me a copy. There is a problem, however.

These recipes make me violently ill. I’ve been through this 200-page book twice and can’t find a thing I would even consider making in my kitchen. These are not mysterious and delicious knäckebröd recipes brought over from the old country; there are no inked-in notes from my grandmother’s grandmother, warning against too much salt or suggesting a helpful whisk technique. That would be a mazing. No, this is a compendium of recipes lifted straight from the pages of Better Homes & Gardens and similar magazines published between 1950-1979. Here’s what that means:

Apricot Cheese Salad — that’s gonna be cheddar
Fruit Cocktail Mold — contains hard-boiled egg and pimento
Hot Turkey Salad — includes crushed potato chips, grated onion, and “squirt of Tabasco”
Crunchy Veg Casserole — with frozen cauliflower and 2 cans cream of mushroom soup

An astonishing number of these recipes call for olives. Green, black, stuffed — just when you think an appetizer is going to escape the olive treatment, ohp! There it is! Also included in the book are menus. These are records of all the foods served at various luncheons and gatherings my grandma attended. It’s incredibly sweet that she kept such records. It’s also deeply depressing. I’m sorry, but I cannot read these menus without a tear rolling down my face for a generation of women who would’ve loved to be working on the Human Genome Project but instead were making sure they got tips for Loretta’s ham loaf before they left the living room. Why, here’s a menu now:

Menu #15 — Bridge Luncheon at Sandra’s

1. Chicken Salad
2. Potato Salad — large leaves around inside of bowl. Tomato peeled and opened like a large flower in center on top of salad
3. Avocado gelled salad in mold
4. Layrered Jello — in square pan. Layer of clear Jello on top, then diet cream cheese (pink color), then layer of clear gelatin
5. Fruit salad
6. Egg salad in Knox gelatin — in loaf — very good
7. Salted nuts
8. Coffee and punch

That’s three instances of Jello. I know: I live in a country so wealthy I can afford to make fun of food; my disdain for my dearly-departed grandmother’s recipe collection is (almost) as gross as the celery-and-macadamia nut “ring mold” on page 59. I have shame. I also have a moral dilemma. Do I keep this book? I do not want it. I loved my grandmother. But I do not want this. What do you do with a gift that doesn’t fit, is supposed to be imbued with sentimental value, and can’t be re-gifted?

Wait a minute… Do any of you want it?! I’m serious! It would be really cool to send it to someone who is into ’50s and ’60s food! There have to be people out there who like it, even in an ironic way. I’d be so happy to send it to you if you’ll use it. Please email me. First-come, first-served. So to speak.

27 Sep 2015

My Mom Bought a Movie Theater, Part I.

by | posted in: Art, Family | 8
The IOWA Theater in Winterset, IA.
The Iowa Theater, 1951.

My mom bought a movie theater.

She didn’t (weirdly) buy some Cinemark movie theater: she bought the movie theater, the movie theater up on the Winterset town square, the shuttered, empty and badly-in-need-of-repair Iowa Theater. Everyone I grew up with saw movies there (e.g., Little Mermaid, Titanic.) Our parents saw movies and newsreels there (e.g., Klute, How To Live Through The A-Bomb.) Their grandparents went there to see movies (e.g., Steamboat Willie) and to show off their funny hats. The Iowa Theater was built in the 1920s and has been the site of tens of thousands of movie showings, thousands of live performances (back when the stage was in use), and countless adolescent gropings in the balcony. Who knows? The Iowa Theater may be responsible for the existence of a number of human beings. It’s definitely responsible for some cavities: just think of the Mike & Ike’s.

Here’s the scoop.

Earlier this year, the theater closed and went up for sale for the same reasons anything closes and goes up for sale: life changed, people moved, interest waned, money did things, etc. When my mother learned that the theater was looking for a new owner, she inquired. My mother is a mover, shaker, connector, entrepreneur, and a do-er; she is also creative, possesses a designer’s eye, she greatly values education and the arts, and she believes strongly in mixing Junior Mints into your buttered popcorn during the previews so they get nice and melty by the time the feature starts. Mom is only semi-retired and she is heavily involved in Quilts of Valor, the creation of an Iowa Quilt Museum, and she’s working on a novel. But the movie theater inquiries began to turn into real questions and the real questions turned into offers and offers into contracts and before long, Marianne had a new project and my family got 10,000 times cooler than we ever were when my sisters and I lived there. If any of us ever move back to raise a family in Winterset, our kids might actually be popular. Not that we have baggage about any of that.

The plan is to restore the Iowa. It will be beautiful — but it’s going to take awhile. The property is a wreck; the amount of work is overwhelming. Basically none of the equipment is worth a penny. There’s mold on the floor. We’ve only found one dead mouse, so that’s great. There are rooms upon rooms in the building; no one who ever saw a movie at the Iowa could ever guess what’s in there. There’s a third balcony and dressing rooms in the back; there’s a full pulley system for the stage curtain, sockets for footlights, old film canister storage cabinets — the wonders go on and on.

PaperGirl will be following this story as it unfolds. My rules state that I will only ever include one picture per post, but all the pictures I take of the Iowa Theater restoration process will be posted on my Instagram page; many are posted already and this is the page for that. The theater will show movies, it will be a place for cultural events — plans for the space will follow in another post and those plans will make you clap your hands in delight.

One day you get up and you have the same thing for lunch. One day you get up and your mom tells you your family now owns a 100-year-old movie theater. So get up!

17 Sep 2015

Mom! TV! Love!

by | posted in: Family, Work | 0
Taken at the Moda Bakeshop photo booth.
Taken at the Moda Bakeshop photo booth.

I will write about the movie theater. Until then — because I need to do some more fact-checking and get the perfect picture of the theater in the 1960s or 1970s — a photo of my mother and me. This was at QuiltCon in 2013.

Mom and I just wrapped taping the public television show we co-host, “Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting.”

I love you, Mam. You are really good at making quilts.

15 Sep 2015

The Night Baker.

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Story | 0
Time to make the you-know-what. Photo: Wikipedia
Time to make the you-know-what. Photo: Wikipedia

I smelled donuts this morning and recalled the summer my older sister got a job as a night baker for the bakery up on the town square.

Hannah was in high school; I was in middle school. When she got the job making donuts and rolls through the night, I thought there had never been a cooler thing to happen to anyone, ever. A job that took place at night? A job making donuts? I didn’t even know donuts were made. I thought they just appeared in a box. How was a donut made? Did she get to eat some as she went? Hannah would be able to tell me.

Many times that summer I would get up at 4am and go down to the backyard. I’d lay back in the hammock and look up at the pre-dawn sky and wait for Hannah to come home. The small bakery was just up on the square, which meant it was roughly three blocks from the hammock. Before too long, Hannah would open the gate and she would be so stoked that I got up to meet her. She’d lay on the hammock with me and we’d talk about all kinds of things. She smelled amazing because smelled like donuts.

Those days are so far away, now. We all know being home is a fraught thing. Here’s the bakery where Hannah worked and the place where the hammock used to swing; there’s the familiar creak and groan on the eighth and ninth step of the staircase; there’s the place where the armoire used to be. A lot of people who live far from their childhood home don’t go back nearly as often as I do; I come back at least twice a year to tape TV; this means I have an ongoing relationship with my hometown past but I also see changes as they occur.

Last month, my mother bought the old movie theater on the square. It’s right next to the bakery. More on that tomorrow. Will we all smell like film?

18 Aug 2015

Memorriiieeees: Rebecca + Jack

by | posted in: Family | 1
That's Rebecca on the left, Jack on the right. Photo: Azuree Wiitala
That’s Rebecca on the left, Jack on the right. Photo: Azuree Wiitala

Tonight, a picture of my younger sister and her husband on their wedding day. There were several reports on the wedding, but I didn’t do very well with sharing pictures.

I wrote about one kind of anniversary and year-marking event the other day. Though it’s not exactly the three-month anniversary of my sister’s and brother-in-law’s marriage, it’s close enough and reminds me that Monday marks one thing and Tuesday marks another and Wednesday, etc., etc., year after year. It’s good.

Happy Three Month Anniversary, lovebirds. You guys are almost too gorgeous here. Some people will decide they do not like you for this reason.

12 Aug 2015

From the PaperGirl Archives: Me, Dad, & Cheesecake For Breakfast.

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Family | 0
Not the hair salon I go to, but it did get your attention. Photo: Wikipedia
Not the hair salon I go to, but it did get your attention. Photo: Wikipedia

My father called me on my birthday. I haven’t talked to him in maybe four years.

I can’t recall how long exactly, but when you’re dealing with that unit of measure, the number doesn’t seem to matter. The phone call was odd and stilted; in under three minutes my father was able to make me sad, flabbergasted, and furious, as usual. I asked questions about his life and learned probably five things about him. He asked me zero questions about my life and learned .05 things about me. That’s pretty much been the ratio from “go.”

And I was at the hair salon! Christophe was doing my highlights! It was weird. When I covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “It’s my father! I haven’t talked to him in like four years!” Christophe’s eyes got big as saucers (in a Versace tea service, naturally) and he dropped a box of foils.

I get so unbelievably tired when I think of my father so I’m offering up an entry from the PaperGirl Archive. If, right after that call, someone had asked me how old I was on my birthday, I would’ve said, “Oh, I suppose about ninety, ninety-five.”

And so:  me, my dad, and cheesecake for breakfast.

25 Jul 2015

The Wabash Lights Want to Come to Chicago!!!

by | posted in: Art, Chicago, Family | 1
The Wabash Lights, imagined.
The Wabash Lights, imagined.

My brand new brother-in-law is making something wonderful.

Jack Newell (that’s the brother-in-law) and his partner in this project, designer Seth Unger have been working for four years on a public art project. They are very close to making this big, big, BIG idea happen and I’m shaking my head in wonder. Jack is cooler than Paul Newman speaking French while riding a motorcycle up to a valet guy at the backdoor entrance to a Rolling Stone (circa 1972) concert. Something like that. I recently spoke to Jack about The Wabash Lights.

Let’s talk about Wabash Avenue. What’s it like?

It embodies Chicago. It’s gritty, hardworking, overlooked, sometimes avoided, but crucial. It’s not touristy Michigan Ave or State St. It’s a place in a very segregated city where you find people from all over converging. Students from one of the seven colleges that touch Wabash, restaurants, bars, hot dog stands, jewelers, hotels and residences. If you were to walk down Wabash, you would find it dark, dreary and loud. We want to make it less dark.

I love Wabash Avenue because the el tracks run over the top. You get to walk around underneath — but I love the idea of transforming it. So give it to me: what’s The Wabash Lights?

The Wabash Lights is an interactive light installation on the underside of the elevated train tracks on Wabash Avenue in the heart of Chicago’s Loop. Designed by the public, this first of its kind piece of public art will give visitors to The Wabash Lights’ website and future app the ability to log in and design the lights, making it entirely interactive.

That is so great. It’ll be great for the street, obviously, but also civic pride and local business. And tourism! This wouldn’t be that far from The Bean. Wow. You’ve traveled all over the world with my sister Rebecca. Thanks for keeping her safe, by the way. You’ve seen a lot of public art in all these places. Talk to me about public art for a second.

There’s two types of public art, broadly speaking; temporary and permanent. Each of these can evoke a different experience. Sometimes the beauty of a piece of public art is the ephemeral nature of it.* The permanent pieces of public art need to do something different — they never change, but you do. Each time you interact with them your experience might be different. It can be an interesting experience in reflection.

Jack, I’m sorry. I have to ask. You say in the video that you’ve been getting permits and city clearance for four years. Did you have to engage the mob to get this kind of thing done in Chicago?

Funny question and we get questions in this vein quite a bit. We’ve found city government and the agencies we’ve been working with to be full of passionate, hard working people who have very difficult jobs. These organizations are most of the time underfunded and overworked. People usually only know of the CTA or CDOT when there’s something broken; they’re perceived one way, but our experience has been the opposite. They get what we’re trying to do and have been incredibly supportive and honest throughout the whole process. 

Do you ever wake up in the morning and go, “When did I become an adult who does huge, ambitious, city-changing projects?”

You either do stuff or you don’t. You are defined by the stuff you do and by the stuff you don’t do. I want to be defined by having done this.

You’re so close to funding the huge, ginormous first step for the Lights. The videos about it are amazing. There are four days left in the Kickstarter campaign. What’s the website?

The main website is right here; the Kickstarter campaign is here.

Will you engrave my name on one of the lights? Don’t tell me you can’t do it just because the thing is made of thin glass with gas inside it! If you can dream it, you can do it, right, Jack? 

No! 

The point of this, and one of the reasons we wanted to get the public on board before corporations (and in our corporate partners we will be looking for folks who agree with this) is that we want to maintain the artistic integrity of The Wabash Lights. The Wabash Lights is an art installation. It’s not a way finding installation or a commercial digital billboard. It’s a piece of art that is created by the public. 

Fine. Thanks, Jack. I’m so glad you’re my brother-in-law.

*Google “Pink Balls in Montreal” or anything by Christo.
21 May 2015

This Sunday, A Marriage.

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Family | 2
It's hard for me to express how much I enjoy this photograph. Bride and groom, Moscow, 1990. Photo: Wikipedia.
Exhibit A. Bride and groom, Moscow, 1990. Photo: Wikipedia.

Not long ago, I publicly noodled on proper attire for my sister’s upcoming wedding. I have made my selection — simple, tailored black frock with pink Yves Saint Laurent heels — and it’s a good thing I have. The wedding is on Sunday!

Even now, I am trundling along on a train to Green Bay, inching closer and closer to the occasion. In a few hours time, I will be scooped up by my elder sibling who is coming in from New York. She has procured a car so that we can drive north to Door County. Once we reach the tip of the peninsula we will drive the car onto the car ferry and float over to Washington Island. And then it’s game on.

My sister and her betrothed have been up on the Island for a number of days, now, getting everything ready. The wedding is taking place at our home there and the kids will get married outside, though I’m not exactly sure where they’ve set up shop for that; they might be down by the water or maybe up closer to the house. Understanding the location of the actual ceremony is on my list of things to do.

The next few days will be dispatches from the wedding. Consider me your Girl Friday, reporting on The Wedding Of The Century. It’s gonna be good, I assure you: a magnificent wedding dress on an exquisite bride, well over 100 guests, a pig roast, and actual, literal fireworks. Seriously, there are going to be fireworks at my sister’s wedding. I know, right?

If you’re the praying kind, pray that it will not rain and that there will not be a bug issue. If you are not the praying kind, pretend you are for two seconds and pray that it will not rain and that there will not be a bug issue. Merci.

19 Apr 2015

Community Service: It’s About Time

by | posted in: D.C., Family, Rant | 2
Me, in 50-ish years. Photo: Wikipedia.
Me, in 50-ish years. Photo: Wikipedia.

A couple months ago, I was profoundly annoyed with myself. Oh, I’ve been annoyed with myself plenty since then, but this was a big one.

For a long time, I’ve had this stock comment that I share in the course of small talk about extreme weather. Say it’s blisteringly hot or dangerously cold and I’m in a taxicab and the driver and I are lamenting about how very, very bad it is outside. I frequently would share that I worried about the elderly in extreme weather like this.

I was 100% sincere. When it’s in the upper nineties or higher, when it’s negative anything, I am genuinely concerned about the eldest among us because they are vulnerable in temperatures like those. They’re often shut into their homes for long stretches because of weather that bad. Cupboards and fridges go bare; medication runs out. And if the heating or cooling system breaks, old folks can die in their homes from the weather. In America.

But what exactly, Ms. Fons, is the use of making your concern and your feelings known to a cabdriver? This, I realized with a cosmic smack, is worse than pointless. I decided that if I made that comment one more time in my life without doing something about it, I couldn’t live with myself. And I meant it.

I’ve signed up to volunteer with an organization in DC called “We Are Family.” They visit seniors, take groceries to them, check in on them in inclement weather; stuff like that. My first volunteer experience with them will be next Saturday for a grocery delivery; the Saturday after that, I’ll go on some visits. I am profoundly glad I’m going to be home for awhile so I can do this. I’ve been excited to get started but of course haven’t been home.

Old people used to terrify me. While in the process of ruining his life, my father worked at a particularly depressing, shabby nursing home in Winterset and made us visit his “friends” at that terrible place. Going to a nursing home is traumatic for any person I’ve ever met who went to one as a kid. They’re startling, confusing places for children. When Alzheimers patients scream babble to no one — or to the child directly — they’re pure nightmare.

But I’m over it. We’re all temporarily young. And I’ma say it: our culture seems to be awfully good at putting our elderly out to pasture. I’m finding it increasingly untenable that this is the case. How have I only now realized that there is a universe of solid advice and great stories via people who have so been there? I just have to ask. And can you imagine being old and lonesome, just watching TV all day while that advice and those stories get dustier and dustier, utterly unused? Nightmare, indeed.

Yo, Fons! Less blithe, passing commentary; more fix.

15 Apr 2015

Attack!

by | posted in: D.C., Day In The Life, Family | 0
It all looks so civilized. (Photo: Wikipedia.)
It all looks so civilized. (Photo: Wikipedia.)

Iowa, you rascal!

My heart was gripped with fear the other day when I woke up with a scratchy throat and a sniffle. As of tomorrow, I will have been gone from my home for two full weeks — impossible, all the things that I have done since leaving* — and to falter in the homestretch with a cold (or something worse) is not an option.

But then I sneezed nine times in a row and I realized with a rueful look to no one at all: allergies.

I don’t have seasonal allergies anymore, for the most part. I have lived a city since 2001 and in a city, the beauty of nature is stamped out and destroyed by the fumes of cars, the steam that rises from the subway, and the crushed glass of millions of shattered dreams that carpets the cold, hard cement. Pollen doesn’t stand a chance and that’s been fine by me for years.

Because when my sisters and I were kids, good grief did we suffer. Ragweed is Iowa’s kudzu: stand still for a moment and you will be covered in microscopic beads of death. The wretched stuff — which doesn’t even have the class to originate in a lovely flower but in a weed — would snake its way into our mucous membranes and ruin us and this always happened when school started for the year. My nerdy sisters and I would be so excited for school and then we’d remember that we were social pariahs who had to carry a box of Kleenex with us at all times. Really, we all had boxes of Kleenex that we carried with us to all our classes or put in our desks.

Itchy. Runny. Sneezy. You could’ve called us by those names and we would’ve answered you. My sister Rebecca actually wadded up little wicks of Kleenex to stick up her nostrils. She didn’t do that at school but the moment she got home, up the nose they went to staunch the flow. (She still uses that method when she has a runny nose for whatever reason.) We were miserable. And I try to ignore the nagging resentment I have that no one thought to take us girls to a freaking allergist or at least try some weird home remedy that might relieve our pain. I can still remember the raw, stinging feeling when I’d blow my nose for the 10,000th time, tissue on red, raw skin and then, insultingly, a sneeze attack.

Allergies, you can flirt with me. Go ahead. I’m heading home tomorrow and I’ll return to Washington where ragweed ain’t even a thing. I’m not allergic to cherry blossoms, neither. Take that.

 

*Filmed 27 episodes of Quilty, performed poetry in front of lots of people, filmed 13 episodes of Love of Quilting, saw Yuri. Went on a date. Wrote things. Played rope toy with Mom’s dog, Scrabble.

19 Mar 2015

Give Your Quilts Away!

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Quilting | 0
Sarah's text message today. Whee!
Sarah’s text message today.

Do you have quilts in your house that are just sitting there? Are they folded, perhaps in the closet, perhaps on a shelf? Put another way: is it time for you to give some quilts away? Probably.

Generosity is in quilters’ DNA. We typically do give quilts away, which is fabulous if you’re a person who knows a quilter, because if you wanted to buy a beautifully made, king- or queen-sized quilt, it would cost you several thousand dollars; if a quilter loves you, you get it for free.

I give quilts away because there is nothing worse than looking at a stack of beautiful quilts languishing in my closet or in baskets around the house. What good are they doing there? The joy is in the making. Once the quilt is finished — unless it’s one I’m going to use for teaching or one that means so very, very much to me personally it’s like a limb — it’s time to give it away. Everyone but everyone needs a handmade quilt.

Today, my bestest friend Sarah got her quilt. It was a wedding gift way overdue. It’s the cover quilt for my book, Make + Love Quilts (available at fine bookstores everywhere!) It’s perfect for her, her husband Seth, and their kids, Little Seth and baby Katherine.

The quilt is out of my studio, out of my home, out of my life. I couldn’t be happier.

I love you, Greer!!!!

 

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