Art, Business, Kids, Uncategorized

Budding Artist and Art Dealer

30 Comments

Today’s post comes from Plain Jane.

Thursday afternoon a boy of about nine or so rang my doorbell. Turned out to be Marcus, a budding artist who lives in the neighborhood. He showed me a 14″ x 17″ watercolor painting and asked if I’d be interested in buying it. It’s an abstract piece, and in addition to some pretty watercolors he has used salt on it in some places to achieve a different effect. I told him I thought it was pretty interesting, and asked him what he wanted for it, and why he was selling it. He needed to raise some money, he said, and would take whatever I thought was fair. I gave him five dollars, but could tell from the look on his face that he had hoped for more, so I gave him another five bucks, and he seemed pleased. He then offered to rake the leaves in my yard, an offer I declined. He then pulled a long piece of turquoise yarn from his pocket. He had finger-knitted it into a chain, and offered it to me. I politely declined, but he insisted, saying “it’s for free.” I thanked him for this gift, and he happily biked off down the sidewalk.

About ten minutes later my doorbell rang again, quite insistent this time. When I opened the door, there was Marcus with an older sister who appeared to be about twelve or thirteen. Pointing to his sister Marcus said, could you please tell her that you bought my painting. Would you believe it? Marcus had apparently gone home to report on his art sale, and either his mom or his sister had questioned the veracity of his story and took him back to our house to verify it. I thanked his sister for checking up on him, but assured her that I had, in fact, paid him ten dollars for the painting. Thank you, she said, and turning to Marcus her face lit up in a big smile, and she said “congratulations, you’ve finally sold your first piece of art.”

This incident made my day. I had never met Marcus before, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen the last of him. He is a testimony to good parenting. Polite, creative, and showed good initiative, glad he’s in my neighborhood.

How do you support local talent and initiative?

 

Family, Food, History, holidays, Uncategorized, work

Rusks

56 Comments

I baked 11 dozen sweet rolls for an Easter fundraiser at church to raise money to send our bell choir to New York in November.  The rolls were either cinnamon, raspberry, or blueberry filled, and were lavishly iced. I had 3 dozen left at the end of the day, and brought them home and made them into rusks. That involved cutting them in half, brushing them with melted butter, and baking them at 275 until they were crispy/chewy. They store really well.

I brought a bag of rusks to work on Tuesday. My coworkers  thought they were delicious,  but only one  had ever eaten anything like them before and knew what rusks were.

This puzzled me greatly, since I assumed that everyone would know rusks. I grew up with Zwieback and Dutch rusks.  Dutch rusks came in round packages with windmills on the paper covers, and my grandparents would pour broth on them to soften them up.  My coworkers are of German Russian and Czech heritage, and many of them grew up on farms, and I thought they would be familiar with a fine way to extend to life of stale bread.  The only one who knew rusks was a coworker of Danish heritage.  She said her grandmother used to butter stale bread and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar and bake it. She didn’t know they were called rusks.

You would have thought I had brought in the most exotic pastry imaginable. I looked up rusks on the internet, and found that there are examples of twice-baked bread from the Philippines to Greece. I think that it was used extensively to extend the shelf life of bread on sea voyages. There are loads of rusk recipes in the Nordic Baking Book my son and dil gave me for Christmas. Perhaps rusks are more common the closer you live to the Baltic or North Seas. In any event, they demand more rusks at work.

What family or ethnic foods do you have a hard time explaining to other people? 

books, Fantasy, Stories, Uncategorized, Words

The Cruelest Month

49 Comments

In an email this week, Renee said to me “April is the cruelest month”. I disagree (because, of course February is the cruelest month) but it made me think about assigning human characteristics to the months.  Or days (Monday’s child is full of grace….).  Or anything non-human.

I tend to appreciate this – I supposed because it’s a version of metaphor and I love metaphor. Here is one of my favorite passages in which the non-living becomes living (from Betty MacDonald’s The Egg and I)”

“Town” was the local Saturday Mecca. A barren old maid of a place, aged and weathered by all the prevailing winds and shunned by prosperity. Years ago the Town with her rich dot of timber and her beautiful harbor was voted Miss Pacific Northwest of 1892 and became betrothed to a large railroad. Her happy founders immediately got busy and whipped up a trousseau of three-and four-story brick buildings, a huge and elaborate red stone courthouse, and sites and plans for enough industries to start her on a brilliant career.

Meanwhile all her inhabitants were industriously tatting themselves up large, befurbelowed Victorian houses in honor of the approaching wedding. Unfortunately almost on the eve of the ceremony the Town in one of her frequent fits of temper lashed her harbor to a froth, tossed a passing freighter up onto her main thorofare and planted seeds of doubt in the mind of her fiancé. Further investigation revealed that, in addition to her treacherous temper, she was raked by winds day and night, year in and year out, and had little available water. In the ensuing panic of 1893, her railroad lover dropped her like a hot potato and within a year or so was paying serious court to several more promising coast towns.

Poor little Town never recovered from the blow. She pulled down her blinds, pulled up her welcome mat and gave herself over to sorrow. Her main street became a dreary thing of empty buildings, pocked by falling bricks and tenanted only by rats and the wind. Her downtown street ends, instead of flourishing waterfront industries, gave birth to exquisite little swamps which changed from chartreuse to crimson to hazy purple with the seasons. Her hills, shorn of their youthful timber in preparation for a thriving residential district, lost their bloom and grew a covering of short crunchy grass which was always dry and always yellow—lemon in spring, golden in summer and fall. She wore her massive courthouse like an enormous brooch on a delicate bosom and the faded and peeling wedding houses grew clumsy and heavy with shrubbery and disappointment.

I also love commercials that depict non-human objects as having personalities. I really liked the Jimmy Dean sun commercials:

Did you ever name your stuffed animals as a child?

100 Words, Business, Family, Food, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Spring Tableside

20 Comments

On Saturday, as YA and I drove around, it seemed as if every restaurant in SW Minneapolis had chosen that day to assemble their outside tables and chairs and begin their outdoor service. Lots of folks were taking them up on the offer too.

Then on Sunday morning, when I let the dogs out, a fresh rainy burst of air hit me – aah, the smell of Spring. Finally.  Made me wish I has sat outside at a restaurant table the day before to sip wine and appreciate the first truly warm day of the season.

Do you have a favorite outdoor restaurant/dining spot?

100 Words, Family, History, Theatre, Uncategorized, work

Happy Birthday!

12 Comments

Daughter’s birthday was last week, and she reports that it was the best birthday ever. She finished her last graduate school class and  she was given an award at her agency for her good work. Both our children become unusually disorganized around the times of their birthdays. Too much anticipation, I guess, although we never made their birthdays into productions. I was glad daughter kept it together and had a great day.

Today is William Shakespeare’s  purported birthday.  April 23rd is also the same day he died 52 years later. It is certainly not the way I should choose to spend my birthday.

What is your favorite Shakespeare play or scene. Which is your least favorite? What was your best birthday? What was your worst?

 

Family, home, pets, Uncategorized

Rag Rugs

30 Comments

Husband and I had no real shopping agenda going to Santa Fe except, perhaps, to find some nice, everyday place mats. We thought that Santa Fe would be a good place for interesting textiles.

Husband went to the Santa Fe farmers market and found these place mats you can see in the header photo.  We have plain white plates, and the place mats went with them nicely. They came from Guatemala, and are made from rags. They are thick and soft,  and are kitty approved for napping comfort if we leave them on the table between meals. They also reminded me of my childhood.

My best friend’s mother had rag rugs that she had made from worn out clothing.  She sent bags of rags to a woman in Magnolia (Cedric Adams home town), who somehow wove them into throw rugs for the entryways into their farmhouse. I thought they were so pretty and colorful. What a wonderful way to recycle! Nothing went to waste in that household.

Do you know of anyone who makes rag rugs these days? How do  you recycle? Does anyone remember Cedric Adams? Where do your pets like to nap?

holidays, Music, Nature, Seasons, Travel, Uncategorized

The Annual Migration of the Timpani

55 Comments

I saw four enormous birds soaring over town in migration a couple of weeks ago . They were whooping cranes, probably on their way to Alberta.  I have only seen migrating whooping cranes one other time in all the years we have been here.  We also have had geese fly over, and the owls, hawks, meadowlarks, and vultures are back.

Yesterday Husband and I assisted in the migration of  two timpani from the college band room to our church in Husband’s pickup. They are needed for a piece  our bell choir is doing on Sunday with a brass quintet. (Our bell choir director failed to see how funny it was when she kept saying a few weeks ago that she was one trombone player short of a brass quintet. She didn’t get it when people replied to her that they had always thought that).

When I grew up in Luverne, we usually had timpani in my church on Easter. They came from the high school. All the high school band directors in my youth were Lutheran, and we always got the timpani for special church services. No one from the community ever complained about it as being unfair or a misuse of public property. Our bell choir director teaches at the college, and I guess that is why we have the timpani for Easter. Our church probably has the most music of all the churches in town, and not all of them have the space for such things even if they had the musicians.

I wondered yesterday just how many timpani in the US are migrating from schools to churches for Easter services.  I like to imagine that there are many in transit, and that it is a brief but yearly migration. I like to see cooperative use of such things. How many timpani does one small town need, after all?

What migratory birds have you seen lately? What percussion instruments would you like to play?  What are some successful public-private cooperative ventures you know about?

100 Words, Family, Kids, Uncategorized

Blog Babies

24 Comments

Our grandson took his first steps this week. A couple of weeks ago, tim sent a video of his very adorable, curly haired, red headed grandson who had just started taking his first steps. The child was absolutely prancing! I couldn’t upload tim’s video due to WordPress rules.  Here is what tim wrote:

my grand kid (ari)

took his first step april 1. he’s got it in his soul if not in his dance step yet

we all have ways we come at the world

tell me about yours

 

Music, Songs, Theatre, Uncategorized

Broadway Musicals

26 Comments

Well!  I am curious about yesterday’s dearth of comments on Rogers and Hammerstein.  Ben said they were too “Syrupy”.   I suppose, but they fit their times. I remember finding a book in the local library when I was in Grade 7 that described most of the recent musicals of the early and mid 20th century. I was fascinated and researched all the musicals that I could, and surprised and exasperated my Grade 7 music teacher with all the things I knew about “All About Eve” with Lauren Bacall. It was the first musical sound track I bought.

We are challenged with deciding what we want to do when we visit New York in November.  We want to see a musical.

Any suggestions from Baboons about current Broadway musicals to see? What musicals are your favorites?  What is the first musical you remember? What about movie musicals?

 

Music, Uncategorized, Words, work

Saying “No”

12 Comments

I have a hard time saying “no, I can’t do that”.  I tell the intake people at my work that my schedule is too full to take on new clients, and then I get a phone call from our county social services that they have five children who need therapy, and I am the only one in the area who sees children as young as the ones they are referring, and guess what? I have five new appointments for next week. People at work just laugh at me when I tell them I am going to put my foot down and not take any new clients. I have no one to blame but myself.

Is it hard for you say “no”?  How do you manage to do it if you are able?  What is hard for you to communicate to others?  What is your favorite scene or song from Rogers and Hammerstein?