The egg table went up today. I’m way behind my usual schedule but after an evening of wax and dye I feel pretty good and remarkably relaxed. Between paper crafts and the Ukrainian eggs I am in hobby heaven.
It’s fantasy time. Money and time are no object. What’s a hobby you’d like to try?
My mother is extremely pragmatic. When I was growing up, some of this manifested itself in not having many decorations around the house for holidays. It was a waste of money and time to put stuff up just to have to take it down in a short while. We did have a tree and stockings at Christmas but the rest of the holidays came and went without any seasonal knick-knacks or gewgaws.
I went the opposite direction – I have boxes and boxes of holiday décor in the attic: Spring/Easter, Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo, Fourth of July – you name it. But not as much comes out these days, since we got a naughty tabby. Nimue is a terror on décor. Nothing glass can go out. Easter grass is a no-no. Plastic Easter eggs hit the floor and then become dog toys. So over the last 8 years I have put out less and less. And now I find myself becoming my mother. Seems like a lot of fuss when I have to guard it from the cat and then just put it away in a couple of weeks.
I did put out a few things last night for trick-or-treaters – a large ceramic pumpkin with our name carved out as the teeth, some tin can luminaries that I made years ago when YA was a toddler and the big orange candy bowl. I do have some pumpkins and corn stalk on the front porch as well. Not quite the over the top haunted house that I used to have for Halloween, but it will have to do.
Here is one of my favorite haunted house poems:
Haunted Houses
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.
There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.
The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.
So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What makes a good haunted house in your mind?
Today’s post comes from Steve Grooms.
In 1968 I walked into a gift shop in Dinkytown that sold Danish modern products. There I bought a handsome coffee mug made by the Finnish ceramics firm of Arabia.
I soon decided the Arabia mug was the only perfect object I owned. It was just the right color, the color of coffee. Its size was ideal for me, holding a generous amount of coffee. The design was classic. Because the bottom was larger than the top, the mug was stable and didn’t spill coffee when I walked with it.
Although I don’t value “things” nearly as much as I value relationships or values, the Arabia mug became a thing with a special claim on my heart. It was a joy to start every day in the company of something perfect, or at least as perfect as anything we are likely to touch in this world.
In the 1970s we hosted a small party at our Saint Paul home. Looking across the living room I spotted a guest drinking from my Arabia mug. I felt an absurd twinge of jealousy, the same feeling I’d had when I walked into the student union and saw my college girlfriend dancing with another guy. After that party I quietly hid the Arabia mug whenever we had guests. Some things you just don’t share.
I knew the mug was doomed. I used it every day and it went wherever I went. When you handle something that fragile that often, it’s just a matter of time until the worst happens. That time came in 1983. My six-year-old daughter bumped a wobbly table, knocking the mug to the floor. It shattered. I concealed my grief from her.
I tried to replace it. Haunting antique stores taught me that objects popular in 1968 can be hard to locate decades later. But that’s why God gave us the internet, right? Two or three times a year I would spend a few hours running Google searches for the Arabia mug or something very similar. All those searches were futile. Years passed, and then decades. I made do with other mugs, but every day I missed my old coffee-colored mug.
All that searching did turn up some delightful mugs. My favorite was a handmade teal mug that I found at a curated craft show at nearby St. Catherine’s College. And I loved a mug from San Francisco decorated by ten cheerful bears having an orgy.
Then, last year I was thrilled to spot my old mug on eBay. I learned that Arabia called it their “beehive” model. Alas, the photo was linked to a shop that had sold the only copy they had. I’d come so close! By that time I had been pursuing a replacement beehive Arabia mug for thirty-two years. I’d spent many hundreds of hours running internet searches.
Last Sunday I tried again. In Phoenix there is a little antique shop called In Old Things We Trust. Its owner, Teena, has a great eye. She had one Arabia beehive mug. I ordered it as fast as arthritic fingers could type. And now, in spite of many losses in life, in this one special sense my world is complete again.
Do you own—or have you ever lost—anything that seems perfect?
Our former fearless leader was almost a prophet. Missed it by that much.
That one little a.
I sent this to Dale. He answered “I take no pride in being able to predict the Sherpa. All it took was cynicism + imagination. I’d feel better if I had prophesied something hopeful.
Unfortunately those who expect the worst are frequently right!”
We will keep mum about Dale’s own little Russian influences.
Heard a prophesy lately? Have one to make?
ND Highway 22 runs through our town north and south. In the middle of town there is a very old, ugly, railroad bridge which allows trains to travel above the highway so emergency vehicles can go under the bridge from the south side of town to the north side of town when there is a train. It is a very low underpass that invariably floods and is impassable during rain storms.
One of our friends who is a community organizer sort of person got funding for a mural to be painted on the railroad bridge. It took all sorts of Federal and State hoops to be jumped through to get the approval, and this week the mural painter arrived from California. He has done several murals in our town and our State. The local paper described the project thus:
The four underpass wall panels will comprise one large mural, more than 400 feet in length, celebrating North Dakota.The walls north of the underpass will depict the landscape of the Badlands.The east wall will show immigrating Ukrainians and the west wall will show cowboys, Native Americans and buffalo. South of the underpass, the west wall will depict Dickinson State University’s May Hall and the east wall will show historic downtown Dickinson and a modern pump-jack. (Dickinson Press, October 2, 2018).
The mural artist is enlisting local students and adults to assist with the painting. I think it is a wonderful project. How often do we get to legally spray paint on bridges?!! I just hope the Czechs and Germans from Russian don’t feel slighted that he chose Ukrainians instead of them.
Where in your community would you like to see an outdoor mural, and what would you like depicted on it?
My favorite Twin Cities ice cream shop is not an ice cream shop. It’s a drugstore. It’s called St. Paul Corner Drug, located on the corner of Snelling and St. Clair Avenues. I remember when their ice cream cones cost 35 cents, but it’s been awhile since the price was that low. A single scoop cone is now an exorbitant $1.75. A cup of coffee, however, is still a nickel.
The store has a traditional soda fountain counter that dates to the 1920’s. There are always four flavors of ice cream. Traditional vanilla, chocolate or some variation on chocolate, and a fruit flavor of some kind. The fourth is anybody’s guess. Might be butter pecan or salted caramel, peppermint bon-bon, or some novelty flavor like bubblegum.
The counter sports several racks of magnets with humorous sayings, which you can peruse while enjoying your ice cream.
On the outside of the building, there is a water faucet. Beneath it you’ll find two stainless steel bowls filled with water for the neighborhood dogs, in the warm weather months. There’s also a table if you feel inclined to bring your ice cream outside so you can hang out with your pooch.
There is, of course, a pharmacy counter, but IMHO, the ice cream is the best medicine.
What’s your medicine of choice?
You all know I’m a little obsessed with all things Sherlock Holmes. I don’t usually go looking for Sherlock but occasionally Sherlock comes to me when I’m not paying attention.
Last week I was looking for something else and stumbled across Sherlock Bones and the Missing Cheese, a children’s picture book. In that same foray I discovered that there is a video out there also named Sherlock Bones with a terrier starring as the illustrious detective. I also discovered that there is a series of books pairing Sherlock with Elizabeth Bennet, another character who has lived on past her initial publication. All of this took about 5 minutes!
The Missing Cheese book was at the local library, the Sherlock Holmes and Elizabeth Bennett is in paperback for a price I’m willing to pay on Amazon. Unfortunately the video is more than I’m willing to pay. I’m working to find it on some other library. Fingers crossed.
In the meantime, the children’s book has great illustrations and the story line is fun, however, the poetry itself leaves a little to be desired. But in the category of new ways to portray Sherlock Holmes, it gets an “A”.
Tell me about a favorite character, or an author you follow loyally or a series you can’t get enough of.
Today’s post comes to us from Cynthia.
Every April for the past 11 years I have gone to a weekend Norwegian language camp for adults at Concordia Language Camp near Bemidji MN. Last year one of the attendees gave a presentation on the Norwegian poet Olav Hauge with several references to Robert Bly’s translations. So this past April I volunteered to do a little presentation about my friendship with Robert (and Ruth) and tell three fairy tales.
I met Ruth and Robert when they first moved to Moose Lake, MN, in 1980…a town just down the road from Mahtowa, where I live. Many of our first conversations were about fairy tales. On Robert’s 63rd birthday, Ruth organized us to do an enactment of “Vasalissa the Beautiful” as a gift for him. It is a Russian fairy tale that features Baba Yaga, a witch who lives in a house that revolves on a chicken leg. I played the witch. We had recently butchered chickens and I used rooster legs for my hands. Robert fell asleep. When he woke up he asked to keep the legs.
In 1984 while traveling around Ireland on a tour with Robert, Ruth and Gioia Timpanelli, I was mesmerized by Gioia’s telling of the Irish legendof Diarmuid and Grania.
Sometime around 1986 or so, Robert began an annual Valentine’s Day free reading in Moose Lake. He read his poetry;, he read other poets’ poems. And he almost always told a fairy tale.
So started me on my love affair with fairy tales. But then Ruth and Robert moved to Minneapolis so I had to learn to tell the fairy tales myself. I loved telling them to children when I taught day care, but this year I discovered that telling them to adults is equally fun. At Norwegian camp I told three of my favorite Asbjørnson and Moe tales: Askeladden (The Ash Lad), Lurvehette (Tatterhood), and Tre Bukkene Bruse. I told the first two in English, the third in Norwegian. For fun, I am sharing Tre Bukkene Bruse with you in the Norwegian, because it is such fun to tell it that way and I trust you will recognize the story from your childhood even if you don’t know norsk.
Tre Bukkene Bruse
Det var engang tre bukker som skulle gå til seters og gjøre seg fete, og alle tre så hette de Bukkene Bruse. På veien var det en bro over en foss, som de skulle over, og under den broen bodde et stort, fælt troll, med øyne som tinntallerkener, og nese så lang som et riveskaft.
Først så kom den yngste Bukkene Bruse og skulle over broen.
Tripp trapp, tripp trapp, sa det i broen.
“Hvem er det som tripper på mi bru?” skrek trollet.
“Å, det er den minste Bukkene Bruse; jeg skal til seters og gjøre meg fet,” sa bukken, den var så fin i målet.
“Nå kommer jeg og tar deg,” sa trollet.
“Å nei, ta ikke meg, for jeg er så liten jeg; bi bare litt, så kommer den mellomste Bukkene Bruse, han er mye større.”
“Ja nok,” sa trollet.
Om en liten stund så kom den mellomste Bukkene Bruse og skulle over broen.
Tripp trapp, tripp trapp, tripp trapp, sa det i broen.
“Hvem er det som tripper på mi bru?” skrek trollet.
“Å, det er den mellomste Bukkene Bruse, som skal til seters og gjøre seg fet,” sa bukken; den var ikke fin i målet, den.
“Nå kommer jeg og tar deg,” sa trollet.
“Å nei, ta ikke meg, men bi litt, så kommer den store Bukkene Bruse, han er mye, mye større.”
“Ja nok da,” sa trollet.
Rett som det var, så kom den store Bukkene Bruse.
Tripp trapp, tripp trapp, tripp trapp, sa det i broen; den var så tung at broen både knaket og braket under den!
“Hvem er det som tramper på mi bru?” skrek trollet.
“Det er den store Bukkene Bruse,” sa bukken, den var så grov i målet.
“Nå kommer jeg og tar deg,” skrek trollet.
“Ja, kom du! Jeg har to spjut, med dem skal jeg stinge dine øyne ut! Jeg har to store kampestene, med dem skal jeg knuse både marg og bene!” sa bukken. Og så røk den på trollet og stakk ut øynene på ham, slo sund både marg og ben, og stanget ham utfor fossen; og så gikk den til seters. Der ble bukkene så fete, så fete at de nesten ikke orket å gå hjem igjen, og er ikke fettet gått av dem, så er de det ennå.
Og snipp snapp snute, her er det eventyret ute.
What was your favorite childhood fairy tale? Do you have a favorite now?
I’ve bitten off quite a bit to chew for Solstice this year; my card design is quite…um, robust, shall we say. No other word for the situation. I’ve been having dreams about being late to places recently and I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m feeling behind schedule. I’ve decided I need to do at least an hour a day in my studio for the next few weeks to try to get on track. As I’ve said here before, this is difficult because once I get home from work, I’m basically worthless without a looming deadline. I’m hoping that saying to myself “you have to do an hour a day” will make it seem like a looming deadline!
When was the last time you bit off more than you could chew?
I scrubbed off all my temporary tattoos tonight. It’s official – the State Fair is over.
Most people I know don’t understand my love affair with the Great Minnesota Get Together and to be honest, it occasionally mystifies me a bit. But one of the things I do know is that I love getting temporary tattoos at the Fair. I got nine this year over my four days of attendance – 3 from the airbrush tattoo guy, 2 from Kemps, 2 from the AG building, 1 from the lamb building and my favorite, one of the emerald ash borer. There was a young man dressed up as an emerald ash borer at the DNR booth, trying to engage people about this new threat to ash trees and I felt sorry for him so I let him put his temporary tattoo alongside my others.
The airbrushed tattoos wear off the soonest (which is truly irritating, since they cost money) but over a week later, my free ones were still going strong. Every day last week I had to explain them at least twice a day to one or the other of my co-workers and today my book club members (my OTHER book club) wanted a full run down. It’s been my way of extending the Fair – however tentatively.
But tonight when I was closing a couple of windows (because it’s been getting chilly at night) I realized that it’s time to let this year Fair go and start dreaming of next year.
Do you have a tattoo? If you were to get one, what would you get?
Trail Baboon 