Groucho Moky

Last fall, I couldn't find my passport. And it was really eating at me, because it was expired and I wanted to get a new one, and get one for the girlie. You know, just in case we need to flee the country or something. Eventually it turned up, but then I started wondering where my social security card was, since those kinds of documents usually stick together. I knew I had one - the original one that I'd gotten in high school - but it was nowhere to be found.

I've spent most of the past two weeks away from home, mostly at my mother's house. In between bouts of incompetent nursing, my sister and I engaged in some aimless archeology (and surreptitious updating of one another's Facebook statuses).

Lo and behold, in a box of random treasures, I found my social security card. It was in one of those plastic card/photo holders that slips into a wallet, though the wallet is no longer around. The only other thing in the photo holder was the only picture of a family member that I can ever remember having carried around with me. These days, I've a handful of pictures of the girlie on my phone, and a couple tacked up around my desk, but I've never been the sentimental type that carries photos.

I have no idea when this picture was taken, or where. I don't recognize the house. But it's my mother. I love the ginchy hands, and the way she looks so happy under her Groucho glasses and the family wig.

When I slipped the picture out of its sleeve, it delaminated. It's an old Polaroid, and it had been cut to fit in the sleeve.  I quickly (and crookedly) scanned it and stuck it back in the sleeve.  You can see how the surface layer is cracked - from age, from being sat upon.  

It's a thoroughly goofy photo, and it was good to find it. Because the woman in the photo is now but a shell of herself - her fingers are gnarled, her smile is rare, her plastic nose has been replaced by an oxygen tube. But she once was.

The Twelve Months That Were

I have been thoroughly betwixt and between for the past 10 days - a couple of days here, a night there - hither and yon from home to my mother's house, to my in-law's house, to my father's house - with stops at various and sundry holiday parties and dinners at friends. The Christmas presents received are piled up in the living room, as yet to be absorbed into their proper spots in the house. Don't ask me where the clean laundry is.

So, Slouchy's post today, in which she rounded up the year just ended by quoting from the first lines of each of the first posts of the twelve months of 2008, seemed perfect fodder for filching.

January

In November, the subway posters from Poetry in Motion were running a poem by Vera Pavlova, one that had been published in the New Yorker last summer.

The poem, about desire and regret, was completely apropos for each and every marking of the new year.

February

Remember part one, about the pile of books that I'm currently reading? I've finished Decca and Organic Housekeeping (and, I dare say, Decca never cleaned a house in her life).

Frightening. This was a post about a pile of books waiting to be read. Of the nineteen listed in that post, I've read five and I'm in the middle of two. So twelve of those books are untouched. Mind you, I've read plenty of other books that weren't in that pile, but still. First in, first out is apparently not the operating concept for my library management.

March

When I was raising my kids, I used to say that work was therapy for home and home was therapy for work. (Eleanor Clift in an interview with Deborah Solomon in yesterday's Times)

Way to go - this post started with a quote. So here, I'm quoting a quote of a quote?

April

Every year, the pre-school class at Miss M.'s daycare hatches eggs into chicks.

And, yes, the eggs hatched. So what else would be new?

May

After some trial and error, we've found some good aides to help our mother.

Despite its quotidian beginning, this was a funny post - mostly acerbic anecdotes about the care of our ill mother.

June

Herewith let it be known that, if a four and half year old child eats Carvel ice in a not-found-in-nature shade of intense turquoise blue, it will stain her face and hands and legs, and, on the following day, it will cause her poop to be blue.

A two sentence post, the above being the first sentence.

July

Ooh, a pink popsicle from the queen of pink!

That queen of pink would be the inimitable Niobe, but that was probably supposed to be a secret.

August

I tend towards the stoic, I tend to hide my emotions.

Um, yes.

September

The first house that I remember living in was one of four nearly identical little houses in a row.

Gum. If you don't know what to bring to a potluck, bring gum.

October

Her: Mommy, why do you have hair on your parts?

Okay, I cheated. The first line of the post was actually a stage direction of sorts. But this is the first line of content.

November

Here’s the thing about meatloaf – it doesn’t need a recipe, it needs an attitude.

I could say that about a lot of things. I could also, and may, make some more exhortations about food.

December

Every year, I make the same three new year's resolutions:

Eat less
Exercise more
Dress better

And here we are again: New Year's Day.

I wish you all a lovely 2009, full of joy and peace and luck and love.

Brandied Fruits And Felted Ponchos

Not because of the economy, but because of an inborn general frugality coupled with a crafty urge, I managed to purchase very few Christmas presents this year. There were a number of things culled out of the cellar (yes, I regift!), there were things I found at the thrift shop when I was donating some stuff we no longer needed, and there were things I made.

The two little girls of my acquaintance (Miss M. and her six year old cousin) both got ponchos. Months ago, I'd seen a poncho for sale on the website of an Atlanta based craft cooperative, and I said "I can do that". I felted a couple of shetland wool sweaters, cut them out freehand, blanket-stitched the edges, and added some appliques made from scrap felted wool (from last year's projects).

Here's one of the sweaters, showing how it was cut. I also cut the neckhole just along the transition to the collar ribbing, though if it had been a v-neck sweater, that would have been completely unnecessary. The V at the bottom starts just above the ribbing along the lower edge of the sweater, and the indent under the arms is at the point where the sleeve meets the body.

The blue sweater had been a cable-knit, but once it was felted, I decided I liked the inside better - it had a more interesting appearance. The points of the star are plain pearly shirt buttons, and both ponchos are blanket-stitched along the edge with black wool. Miss M. got the one with the star, and her cousin got the one with the heart.

Funnily enough, that same Atlanta craft cooperative has just opened a shop in the next town over from us. I went in there before Christmas and found a rack of the ponchos, and felt oh so smug for having made my own.

For grown-ups who needed gifts, I started some brandied fruits in June, with 13 ounces of perfect strawberries.

By mid-July, I'd added sour cherries, blueberries, apricots and plums. And in August, peaches and nectarines went into the jar.

Last week, I decanted it into seven assorted jars and gussied them up as gifts with scraps of ribbon and tags made from last year's Christmas cards received. I kept one for myself, and I'm looking forward to spooning some of it over a dish of vanilla ice-cream.

What 48 Looks Like

Because Bennie wanted to know.

There's rules on his blog if you want to play. But, it's my birthday and I make the rules today, so I'm just posting the picture of me. Actually, though, since I took it yesterday, it's really what 47 looks like.

Time Stands Still

It's that time when time stands still. We're between Christmas and New Year's, between life and death. We've two weeks off of work and school.

I'm at my mother's house, with my sister. We left our various children home with their fathers, the aides have the weekend off, my brother and his wife have decamped to Canada until after the new year. Christmas feels like it was ages ago, and time is just standing still.

Pinky and I have been drinking wine, going to the supermarket, incompetently nursing our mother, and playing Royalty.

The phone rings, the doorbell rings, the kitchen timer goes off, and time stands still.

Moky sleeps, and we get her up for a meal. And then she sleeps some more. Sometimes she says nearly nothing and needs to be fed, other times she perks up and feeds herself. Last night she asked for a glass of wine, so we gave her a shotglass of the Fat Bastard. At breakfast, her toast was too crunchy crusty and she was having trouble biting into it. She looked up at us and said "get me my wolf". Humor still sneaks through the fogginess.

But it's hard to avoid feeling like it's a death watch. Time stands still.

Wordless Wednesday: Great Balls of Fire

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

The Fruitcake, Redux

You haven't forgotten the story of the fruitcake, have you? We haven't gotten a holiday fruitcake since the fruitcake tradition died with my grandfather. Oh, my father sends out canned cheese every year (really, in a can, and it's good), and my uncle sends nuts (and it's just not Christmas without Uncle Phil's nuts), but fruitcake has gone the way of all things.

Not too long ago, though, I was flipping through the Archie McPhee catalog, and came across this:


The thought crossed my mind that I could step into my grandfather's shoes and send a "fruitcake" to everyone on that side of my family. But I restrained myself.

Anyway, if I had sent it, would I then have to send one every year? Or could I just send a postcard, "don't forget to blow up your fruitcake!"? Gosh, life is complicated.