Schooling for All

I'm a little behind on this one (you may have heard that I had some other stuff going on this past week), so I can't find a free link, but there was an article last Wednesday in the NY Times (front page then jump to page A13) about people who are home-schooling their kids but want their kids to have access to school sports teams. To them I say: Bite me.

I'm not, in general, a fan of home-schooling. For one thing, home-schooling takes away resources (tangible as well as intangible) from public schools, and I regard good, free public schools as an essential component of a free society. (Hence my where-the-fuck-are-the-media rants as well: an ignorant or uninformed populace is a populace that is ripe for exploitation by the wealthy and powerful, as we are seeing right now.) If you want to pay extra to send your kid to a private school, well, okay, but you still have an obligation to (and, if you're paying attention, should have an interest in) making sure that a good, free public education is available to everyone.

I understand that some people regard public schools as insufficiently educational for their children, perhaps because their child has special abilities of some kind. (It's kind of ironic that parents of kids with developmental disabilities often are fighting to get their kids into the school system.) Why not find an adjunct to the public school system for your kid, something in addition to what's available? If you think the schooling the children get isn't sufficiently well-rounded, well, work on that, run for the school board, something. Really, though, we need to increase the funding for schools everywhere, because surely we all benefit from a better school system.

I understand that some people regard public schools as insufficiently protective of their children (for example, in cases where children are being bullied relentlessly, especially for being a racial, (non)religious, or sexual minority of some kind), and here I'm more torn. I believe the schools have a mission and an obligation, but if (a) they do not meet that obligation and (b) the child is at risk, parents should not have to sacrifice their child's health and well-being. I also believe that a fair number of these problems and the special-needs problem could be solved by a greater investment in our children's education; in California, I believe, small class sizes were mandated and that did, indeed, affect the quality of education. A teacher who has 35 students is going to have less opportunity to identify and stop bullying, for example, than a teacher who has 20 students in a classroom.

I also understand that there are communities--like the Amish and, I think, some Mennonites--who historically have not utilized public schools. I think this is potentially quite divisive, but the Amish seem to have worked it out pretty reasonably, and, to the point of the article, the Amish don't pick and choose. The article, though, highlights people who want to keep homeschooling their kids but want to partake of activities like sports or music--even though, for example, the kids presumably couldn't be thrown off the team for failing a class.

"We found enough activities within the homeschool community to satisfy our needs," said Maryalice Newborn, who runs a support netowrk . . . "But if somebody else wants to participate, shouldn't they have that right?"

In brief: No.

The whole point of public schooling is to provide a common, shared, framework--and, really, a common, public good. If you take from it only the bits and pieces that you want, you end up with the tragedy of the commons.

First Pass

Because I know I'll have to come back to this. (What is this "work" thing? How do people stand it? It is so . . . so . . . Not Fun!)

I had an amazing turnout of friends--three friends from college, two of whom I met my very first day there; four friends from grad school (two couples) plus their kids; and three friends from California, including one whom I got to know largely through very long email exchanges. One intended to come but a family emergency forced last-minute cancellation, and another could not come because, I suspect of her own medical situation. There were multiple friends from here, including nearly all the handball players and their spouses; nearly all my coworkers, including three ex-coworkers; a coworker from a previous job; and, of course, the Unofficial Bridespeople, one of whom falls into another category as well. Then there were the friends of my parents' and an assortment of relatives (four aunts/uncles, my mother's cousin, her daughter, and her daughter's partner), many of whom were not exactly on the young side, either. And, really, it was a smack upside the head to me, because it was clear that these people love me.

There was also my father's toast (I'd asked him to give a toast as we sat down to dinner), wherein he noted that he'd always thought that if I got married he'd find out the next day, but wherein he also noted that if someone became my friend, they were a friend for life. That does tend to be true--but I had no clue that my father had noted that about me. Kinda cool.

So, anyway, I don't have any other deepish thoughts today, but I thought I'd throw this out there.

Plus, tomorrow is Question Day! Because I'm lazy!

(Insert Clever Title Here)

We're married. The wedding, the party, the pre-wedding party (Saturday night, for the out of town folks), and pretty much everything else went as perfectly as one could possibly want--as perfectly as I could possibly want, anyway. Here are some verbal snapshots:

• realizing that friends who've heard about each other for years were getting to meet (and tell stories about me), and realizing they were having a great time of it
• my mother getting up during the ceremony to read a poem that she wrote (I had NO clue she was going to do that--she didn't tell me, in part because she wasn't sure she could get through it and only decided at the last minute to go ahead with it)
• my stepson (officially, now!) deciding he wanted to say something during the ceremony, too, and writing it out and having Grandma type it for him
• having C's sister perform the ceremony, especially the part where she got a little choked up while reading a passage from "The Little Prince"
• a simply spectacular party--everyone was just happy and smiling and having a great time
• my friend J taking care of things. Starting at about Saturday at noon, I just didn't worry about anything. If a problem of some kind came up, J fixed it. What an amazing, generous gift to give us. She also spoke during the ceremony, and it was beautiful and heartfelt and touching, and I love her.
• B, my other unofficial bridesperson, took care of whatever J didn't. I simply didn't have to worry about things. It was incredible, and I love him, too.
• Working on the wedding document together. I did all of the lettering--around the four sides, we used quotes from the Buddhist fourfold path (or four noble truths), particularly the "love" part, and we included our vows, as well--and C designed a beautiful leafy border. We didn't intend to make it a joint project, but it was incredibly cool that it worked out that way. I'll post a picture at some point.
• K ended the ceremony by saying, "Shazam! You're married." Which was totally cool.

We exchanged rings with these words:

I betroth you to me in everlasting faithfulness. With trust and devotion, I will be your loving friend as you are mine. Set me as a seal upon your heart, like this seal upon your hand, for love is stronger than death. And I will cherish you, respect you, honor you, and sustain you, in all truth and sincerity, in times of joy as well as hardship. May our hearts be united forever. May we always keep these words in our hearts as a symbol of our commitment to each other: I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.

I'll tell you more as it occurs to me, but it sure was fun.

All Better!

My throat, that is. I still have the occasional hacking cough, but the throat was better yesterday and fine today.

In the past four days, I have: taken the kid to the zoo; done the lettering on the wedding document; baked 60 mini carrot cakes; baked 36 mini chocolate cakes; gone to the grocery store twice; made a triple recipe of quinoa and black bean salad; made a triple recipe of wild rice salad; made a white bean/rosemary/garlic dip; made a sun-dried tomato pesto dip; carmelized a bunch of onions; made reservations for the Friday night the-families-meet dinner; talked to the music guy; gone in to work for a half day (with a 7-year-old with me); rearranged the tables (the the who-sits-with-whom stayed the same) and sent the new ones to the party manager (she suggested a different room arrangement); fed and entertained the aforementioned 7-year-old; cleaned the kitchen; gone to a yoga class; played handball; arranged transportation for 11 people for Saturday night; sorted the laundry; and made an appointment for my first-ever manicure. (I wasn't all that excited about that, but my hairdresser, who knows me well and knows I'm not frou-frou, pointed out that everyone will want to see the ring. As long as the manicure will hold up to handball on Saturday, I don't mind.) The things remaining to do are: actually DO the laundry; assemble the name cards; pick up a few things; and wrangle the 7-year-old. Otherwise, I'm ready to go. There WILL be handball on Saturday, followed by a party. There WILL be yoga on Sunday, followed by a wedding and an even bigger party. But with those last two? I've done about all I can do, and everything will either come together or not. Luckily, I'm not going to worry about it.

Some Whine with That?

Yes, the wedding is mere days away. Yes, I'm taking care of my stepson this week. Yes, many--even most!--details have been addressed, even if we haven't exactly written vows yet. Yes, there is a plan in place for the next few days, though the plan involves a lot of work (tomorrow: baking and cooking for the Saturday night party; laundry; and lots of phone calls. Thursday: shlepping stuff all over the place. Friday: more shlepping). But the biggest problem is that I feel like shit. I've had a sore throat for a couple of days now, and it doesn't appear to be improving all that much. If it's not better by tomorrow morning, I'm heading to the doctor. I know that strep is unlikely, but it's possible, and if it's strep, I want to be feeling better before the weekend, thankyouverydamnedmuch. And lordy I'm tired. The Kid and I had planned to get home (he had to come with me to work today, and then we stopped by the restaurant to discuss plans there) at about 3:00, he was going to play his game for 20 minutes, and then we were going to rest. Good plan, right? Except there are two strange men in the apartment, running the new T1 line the building is installing. Just what I need: two guys banging and stapling and drilling in the kitchen. I'm trying not to be anything other than pleasant to them--I imagine they prefer working without us here, too--but I really do feel like shit right now.

Ball and Chain (Friday song)

Well I'll pass the bar on the way
To my dingy hotel room-
I spent all my money
Been drinkin' since half past noon-
I'll wake there in the mornin'
Or maybe in the county jail-
Times are hard getting harder
I'm born to lose and destined to fail-

Take away, take away
Take away this ball and chain
I'm lonely and I'm tired
And I can't take any more pain
Take away, take away
Never to return again
Take away, take away
Take away this ball and chain
--Social Distortion

When I first heard this song, I liked it; it perfectly expressed that depressed, tired feeling, when it seems like everything in your life is just completely fucked. Then I worked with the junkies and alcoholics, and I heard the song again, and I realized that it's as good an intro to AA as anything I've ever heard. The song perfectly matches the stories that my recovering friends and acquaintances have shared with me--the overwhelmed, desparate, depressed sense that one's life is not just out of control, but spiraling rapidly down the drain.

One of the truisms about addiction is that if you pick up your addiction again, after you've stopped it for awhile, you don't return to where you were when you quit (in terms of consumption), you go to where you would have been had you not quit--that is, you pretty rapidly go beyond whatever considerable amount you were consuming right before you quit. (If I started smoking again, it would start out as a few at a time, but I'd eventually get to three packs/day, minimum, most likely; I was a very enthusiastic smoker.) C told me recently that right before he got sober, he tried to quit a few times--he lasted a month, a week, whatever--and, each time, he'd (a) find himself with a beer in his hand, and (b) would end up consuming even more than he'd been consuming. He was literally afraid to quit, because each time he tried he seemed to end up worse off. This song expresses that desperation.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Sunday (yeah, I know, it's a little late for a recap of Sunday) we schlepped to Indiana, the better to pick our own strawberries. The good parts: the strawberries ROCK. They're red all the way through, and sweet, and juicy, and omygod. I've been eating about two pints/day, and this morning I froze the rest of them (about 12 cups, 2-cups/bag). The downside, however, was bringing along the stepkid. In part the trip was for his edumacation--he needs to know more about where his food is from--but he had a predictable response and probably picked about 10 berries total. ("No, I don't need to go to the bathroom" while we're in the part of the establishment that has a bathroom, then, of course, a half-hour later, "I have to go to the bathroom and I don't want to use the portapotty because it'll smell bad.") C wasn't very enthusiastic, either, which I can sort of understand--it IS backbreaking work--not least because he's not that big a fan of strawberries. He likes them okay, but he doesn't love them the way I do. As a result, we only picked about 3 buckets' worth, rather than the 6 or so I would have picked if I'd had my druthers (pick 6, pay for 5 was the deal). So next year, I'm (a) bringing people who love them as much as I do, so we can (b) pick as many as possible and then (c) spend the next day cleaning and freezing them in mass quantities. B has a truck--I bet we can fit a LOT in there.

Learning vs. Schooling

That's not precisely the dichotomy, but the comments to the post below about pastry school were really interesting--and covered a surprisingly wide array of responses. Some people (e.g., Ann and kStyle) think that it's perfectly fine to keep educating oneself, even in subjects that don't appear to be "practical," i.e., of immediate or, especially, economic use. Others like That Girl) point to the real cost--in time as well as in money--of doing that, and that's not a trivial point for anyone whose resources are limited in any way. (I look at my pastry chef schooling and figure that, while not cheap, it's not exorbitantly expensive, either, in time or money, and that it may open a wide variety of options, not just the go-work-in-a-restaurant option, given my other experience.) A third point, made most notably by portia, is that there's a distinction to be made between going to school of some kind and actually being able to make a living with the knowledge that one is then certified as having or doing the actual work suggested by the schooling. ThatGirl also points out that she hated school, and I thank her for the reminder that that's true for a lot of people--I always liked school, and I've pretty much always been good at it (even if I've sucked at this subject or that), so it's easy to forget that not everyone feels that way. Ann wonders, as do I, why people hate school, and I also wonder what we can do about that.

Because here's the thing: I think that most people do enjoy learning new stuff and putting it into practice, even as I think most of the economy (and most of politics, for that matter) is geared toward getting people to know as little as possible. I'm (finally) reading the McCullough biography of John Adams (I have a secret crush on Adams), and what's always so striking to me is how much those guys knew. I was also browsing through Sheri Tepper's "The Gate to Women's Country," which is one of the best books ever, and I was struck how the society required that everyone practice an art, a craft, and a science--too much knowledge had been lost by the "convulsions," so everyone was expected to learn and teach and practice their knowledges throughout their lives. Which, really, isn't quite the same as the notion that one goes to college, gets a degree in somesuchthing, then goes off and finds a job more or less related to that thing, and meanwhile has only a passing acquaintance, if that, with subjects outside their vocationally focused majors. Then again, I was a philosophy major, so go figure.

The List

Yes, the list of WRCs is getting longer, rather than shorter. (WRC = wedding-related chores; WRE = wedding-related events) But! by next week at this time I should have crossed off nearly all of them. It looks like the final restaurant issues--dinner counts, hors d'oeurves (sp?) selection, can the musicians fit through the front door, can all of the guests fit into the back room for the ceremony--will be addressed by Wednesday. Thursday is going to be a Festival of WRCs--get the dress fitted, buy shit for the Saturday party (beer, wine, non-perishable bits of the menu), order the chocolate, order the pastries, pick up my ring, pick up C's earring (if it's ready)--but there won't be many after that, I think. Except to make the name cards and table assignments.

Here's another interesting interchange: I've been dealing with a (very nice) booking agent-type person for the music. They're union musicians, so the fees aren't . . . low, but I didn't gasp when I found out the price, either. So I asked the agent person whether I should tip these guys--I really had no idea. She kinda said well some do, some don't, it's not either common or unheard of, so I pressed a little more (because I didn't want to do the wrong thing). She basically said, look these guys are getting a decent wage for the evening, and they'll be happy if they get a thank you and a beverage at the end of the event; they consider that good treatment. Which makes me wonder what passes for manners.

Yeah, but can he make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?

Thanks to Sara, who has the funniest site I've seen in a good long while (make sure to check out the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities as well as her sermons), here's an image I didn't even know could possibly exist. Click on Sara's links, too, though, for both the full range of images and the snarky version. Warning: do not take a sip of a beverage before looking at these.

Q; Why Pastry?

Portia asks, "Why pastry?"

First, there are some very practical considerations: (a) it takes less time and schooling than it would take to become a "regular" chef, (b) pastry chefs tend to work in the early morning hours (many places want to get the baking done--and, therefore, the ovens turned off/cooled down), (c) my soon-to-be in-laws are celiacs, and a lot of the desserts available to them are awful, so I'd like to be able to make good stuff for them. (If I can also sell some products in my sister-in-law's store, all the better.) It's less difficult for them in terms of the rest of the meal--meats and vegetables aren't a problem for them. Some celiacs are also lactose intolerant, but not all are; for the latter group, cheese, butter, etc. are also possibilities. I made a completely gluten-free Thanksgiving dinner this year, and much of it was also dairy-free; my SIL's husband is celiac, lactose-intolerant, and seems to be allergic to corn, soy, sage, and cinnamon.

Second, though, I love to bake. I like making desserts, and I particularly like trying to make desserts that aren't quite so . . . rich, let's say. In order to make modifications, though, whether to reduce the fat in a dessert or to make it dairy-free or gluten-free, you have to know the science behind it. I could probably pick up a lot on my own, but I'd really like to learn the classic techniques. The program has sections on plated desserts, chocolate, spun sugar, cakes and tarts, breads, and puff pastry (IIRC), and I've attempted all of those except sugar and puff pastry. (Working with filo doesn't count.) In my rich fantasy life, I actually get to open my own bakery/patisserie; in order to get anywhere near that goal, I think it would be useful to have more of a clue about what I'm doing.

Third, there's something really philosophically interesting about producing food of any kind. For one thing, we all need to eat (even breatharians, thanks to the impurities in our world), so making food for people is literally a way of nourishing people. At the same time, the thing that you produce must be consumed in order to be useful--I like that the product is both substantial and ephemeral or transient. I'm also interested in the challenges inherent in making food that has at least a passing acquaintance with some of the principles I've espoused, but I have no idea whether I'll be able to pull that one off, at least right away.

Finally, I'm tired of trying to make a living using the skill set that sent me off to graduate school. I would have been a good professor, I think, but that door was shut. The other arenas for using my skills haven't seemed interested in me, or not all that much, or they're large organizations where I'd have to work a zillion hours a week, provided I could even get a job. When I couldn't get interviews for jobs that had my name all over them, I sat back and asked not "What else can I do with this skill set?" but "What else do I love to do?" I'm hopeful that my organizational and management skills can be put to good use wherever I work--front-of-the-house help at a smallish catering/gourmet/patisserie business, for example, at least as prep for owning my own business--and one of my friends (who has met many of the Young Turk chefs in the city) insists that I"m going to be smarter than most or all of my class; we'll see whether or how I can use that to advantage.

I should add that I'm terrified about this. I have no idea if I can support myself this way, and I have no idea whether I'll be any good at this. I got my schedule for the beginning of classes. We have a couple of days of intro stuff in the classroom (plus the safety/sanitation training), and our first day in the kitchen is going to be my 47th birthday. But sometimes you have to say what the fuck.

MORE School??

That's kind of the response I get when I tell people I"m about to start school to be a pastry chef. What they seem to be saying is something like, "Aren't you avoiding having, you know, a Real Life, by going to school all the damned time?" Let's see just how many ways this annoys me (and maybe provide some food for thought for portia, who is apparently trying to decide whether to go back to school).

First, the assumption that having a real life and going to school are mutually exclusive. I got this a lot more when I was in graduate school--there was an assumption that I lived in an ivory tower, that I was unconcerned with the Real World and insulated from it (ignoring the fact that I switched disciplines in part because I wanted to consider the real world). I pointed out that I had to pay real money for my groceries, and my rent--I was acquiring real debt, and working at jobs where I got real (if small) paychecks, so I did not see how I was "insulated" from the so-called real world. (In fact, I was paying to be in graduate school. If you look at my Social Security statement--the one that shows how much you've made each year, and calculates how much Social Security you'll get when you retire--you'll notice that my income did not go over $20,000/year until 1994, and was under $15,000 (or under $10,000) for significant chunks of the years between 1976 (high school graduation) and 1994. During the years when many people are gradually growing their incomes, mine was shrinking, plus I was acquiring significant debt.)

Second, there's an assumption that, once one finishes school, one knows everything one will need to know. Buried there is the assumption that one will actually be able to make a living using the schooling through which one has gone. That didn't turn out to be the case for me, and I am surely not the only person who (a) got a lot of schooling (b) that wasn't useful in getting a job (or (c) couldn't get the job toward which the schooling was directed).

Related to that is the assumption that one just stops learning, or that any subsequent learning can be picked up on the fly. Tell that to unemployed people, especially those who worked in an industrial setting and whose jobs went to another country. Unless there's another BigThing Manufacturing Plant in the same town--which is pretty unusual--that person is going to be lucky to find any job at all, much less one that utilizes what they know and that pays what the old job paid. But our president thinks that it's great that jobs are moving overseas, so maybe I'm missing something here.

Really, though, do we really want to stop learning? I realize that I am perhaps learning "more," somehow, than many people would regard as necessary, strictly speaking, but I don't know that it's really possible to learn too much.

This was longer and much more rantastic, and, I decided, boring. I hope it's now less of all of those things.

This is What I'm Talkin' About

Thanks to Gavin over at Sadly, No!, here's a recipe page posted by Amber Pawlik. For those of you who've never had the pleasure of Amber's purple objectivist prose, you're in for, umm, a treat. If you look at the ingredients of these recipes, you'll note quickly that it won't be a TASTE treat, however. (You can also browse her miscellaneous bits on feminism, too--but only if you think you'd be enlightened by articles such as "Feminists Pave the Way for Women to be Raped" and "How Feminism is Destroying Young Women." Yes, those are actual titles. Yes, they say about what you'd expect them to say.)

And, really, the idea that these are "recipes" in any meaningful sense of the word is truly disturbing to me. Every last one of them features a spice packet or some other "flavoring" mechanism other than actual spices. "Italian seasoning." Okay, people, there IS no such thing. Frozen hash browns, Velveeta, and mayo (yes, mixed together. And baked!). Taco seasoning mix. The "veggie pizza" sounds truly heinous--and, really, it's not that hard to mix some yeast, flour, water, a little sugar together, and make your own damn dough. But cream cheese AND Miracle Wip?

Now, of course, we all have our favorite family recipe made from a box or mix. It's true that I personally do not, because my mother did not, but I most certainly do not cook everything I eat from scratch. There are many variations on these themes (green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and canned onion rings, anyone? Jel-lo salad, a.k.a. "funeral salad"? A casserole of any kind that involves a can of soup, really), and they hold a special place in our hearts. So it's not the fact that she eats this stuff sometimes--we all do. But really, folks, to call them recipes is just wrong.

My other complaint, though, isn't just that it's a can of this or a spice pack of that--it's that someone in an industrial test kitchen in New Jersey decided how your dinner would taste. That's what happens when all we eat comes from someone else's kitchen--we don't know how things get to taste the way they taste, and we're willing to let people use chemical substitutes rather than the real thing. Yeah, I know, I should find something more important about which to rant (coughcoughDowningStreetMemo STILLGettingNoPresscoughcough), but I can't help but think that it's the small things that crumble our lives, that destroy the mortar and make the bricks more vulnerable. (Speaking of purple prose . . .)

Answers, We Got Answers!

Hestia asks about my needlework--how I got into it, what kinds I do, and what I do with finished pieces. Thinking about this question brought a rush of memory, so bear with me. The first piece of needlework I ever started was when I was about six: if I remember correctly, I stayed with my maternal grandmother when my brother was born, while my sister stayed with my father's oldest sister. (My mom had a c-section with me, and they didn't do VBACs back then.) My grandmother taught me how to do cross-stitch: it was a green pepper. I bet my mom still has that around somewhere--or I might even have it by now.

That grandmother was an extremely talented seamstress. She was a dressmaker; she did alterations in a department store; she knit and crocheted; she did crewel work, needlepoint, you name it. I remember two dresses she made for me: One had a giraffe appliqued on the front, while the other had strawberries and flowers and bumblebees embroidered on it. When my parents were cleaning out their house before they sold it, my mom found a stash of needlework (including some tatting) done by my grandmother's mother (whom I never knew), which I promptly claimed. (She was going to toss it!!!) My grandfather's mother tatted--there are still pillowcases around somewhere that she edged. She apparently also darned (who the hell even knows what a darning ball is anymore?). I have a sweater my grandmother crocheted for me maybe 25+ years ago that I can't bear to part with, even if I'd never wear it any more. My grandmother had to stop sewing when her arthritis got too bad, but she made so much.

My mother does a certain amount of needlework as well, or did. (She, too, has arthritis, which makes me wonder what my chances are in this regard.) She made a lot of our clothes when we were kids (which is why I love threadbared so much). She knit a christmas stocking for each of the three of us (and, a few years ago, one for my stepson). She didn't do much fancy needlework--no embroidery, needlepoint, or crewel. Nevertheless, I grew up around women who made things with thread and fabric, and I took to it as well. I did a little bit of sewing for a few years--in a 4H club, no less--but that didn't take, really. My sister eventually took up knitting and crocheting (I have a sweater she made, too, that came back home with her things after she died). What I really took to, though, was the fancy needlework, and I give it away. I generally make something with a particular recipient in mind. Although I've created some simple designs more or less myself, my most common method of working is to find something in another medium and copy it. For needlepoint (which is what I mostly do these days) I make a simple line drawing at the scale I want the piece to be and then trace it onto the scrim. I don't use preprinted scrims. I pick out the colors, using DMC cotton floss (though I've done a few pieces with silk thread or heavier yarn). Somewhere along the line I started combining colors such that there might be as many as four different colors of thread in a six-strand piece.

Pieces I can remember: For an old boyfriend: Pegasus, embroidered on the back of a denim jacket. For Christmas, one year, for my sister, a blue chambray workshirt with big pink poppies embroidered all over the yoke; that same year, for my brother, a blue chambray workshirt with a rainbow coming out of one front pocket, looping over the shoulder and in a circle in the middle of the back, coming back into the other front pocket. A rendition of the Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger box (embroidery). A rendition of the Celestial Seasonings Mandarin Orange box (needlepoint). Alphonse Mucha's "Autumn" (though I left off the breastplates); this one I did on incredibly tiny scrim--maybe 24 stitches to the inch? It took me nearly ten years, though there was other stuff in between, and, by the time I finished it (I started at the top and worked my way down, and I ripped out and redid her left arm at least twice), I had started doing the multiple-colors technique. My three favorite pieces (only two are finished right now) are Georgia O'Keefe's Calla Lillies (three or so, on a burgundy and black background; I can't find an online image anywhere), completed as a wedding present; one of Mucha's Job rolling papers ads, completed for my brother as a wedding present (I was incredibly happy with how this one turned out; I overstitched the needlepoint to get some of the detail. I'll post a picture if I can find one, but I'd have to take a new photo to get the detail); and Georgia O'Keefe's hickory leaves with daisy. That one is a wedding present, too, though (a) it's STILL not done, even though (b) the friends got married 11 years ago. Soon, I hope.

Interviewing Portia

Turnabout!
1. How are you, Bear, and Dirt like or unlike your parents and each other?
2. What's the most important thing that you learned from your family that you want to pass on to lp?
3. What's your favorite scene from "Holy Grail"? (That reference made me snort; thank you.)
4. What do you like to make? Why?
5. What was the first year of lp's life (and/or the first year of your marriage) like? What was hardest? Easiest?

Goin' to the Chapel (Friday Song)

Ohmygod I have so much sugar coursing through my veins . . . probably because I had strawberries for breakfast. Oh--wait--and petit fours and cookies and fruit pates! Because we stopped to sample some, in order to order post-wedding muchies.

I love the girl-group harmonies of this song, and my favorite non-standard version of it is in a spectacular movie by John Sayles called "Baby, It's You." The movie stars a young Roseanne Arquette and a young Vincent Spano. It's mostly set in Trenton, NJ. The story is simple--she's a Perfect Girl, always gets the lead in the school play, etc.; he's the son of a garbage man, got thrown out of Catholic school (I forget the infraction). They get together. Her friends sing the song to her one morning on the way to school. The way the rest of the movie plays out is extremely interesting (hey, it's John Sayles, whaddya expect?). The soundtrack features a lot of Springsteen (and there's a shot of Madam Marie's), and it fits perfectly. It was the first and last movie that Sayles made with a major studio's backing; it turned out that it just wasn't worth the hassle to him to take big studio money but then have to play by their rules. So, this weekend, go see if you can find "Baby, It's You" at your video outlet (I don't think it's ever been released on DVD).

Answer: Wedding Details

kStyle wants more details about the wedding, which is convenient, as that is the thing that's taking over my fucking life, so, hey, I'll just riff on my to-do list! I did provide some info here a couple of months ago, but now the details are starting to come together and we're seeing what things are really going to look like.

Clothing: I could come up with absolutely no reason to wear a fluffy (or even non-fluffy) white wedding dress. They cost a ton of money, and you can't wear them again. If you're planning on having daughters down to whom you can pass them, well, okay, but otherwise? Couldn't see doing it. (Another solution: one friend bought a sample dress at a department store for $99. It cost her more to have it cleaned and altered than it did to buy the dress. She looked fab it in it, too, but it was definitely a traditional white poufy dress.) I don't mind paying some money for the thing, but I wanted something I can wear again, and I wanted it made to fit me rather than something altered for a zillion dollars. (I am just oddly shaped enough that alterations would almost certainly have been necessary. The solution: The mother of a friend is a dressmaker (among other things), so I asked her to do it. Her price is reasonable ($350 plus materials, for a tailor-made rather than bought-then-altered dress). Here's the pattern, except (a) I'm having a softer, more rolled collar, (b) I'm having three-quarter-length sleeves, and (c) it'll be about calf length. The color? A gorgeous peacock blue shantungish silk; it's got glints of purple and green in it, too, in certain lights. As for C, well, no tuxedos, for the same reason as no poufy dress. He needed a new suit desperately, so we went out two weeks ago and bought two (they were on sale). I think I'm going to have some flowers in my hair, sort of woven in the braids that will be on the sides, but I'm not planning on carrying any flowers. There might be a corsage, if I get around to thinking about that. I'm still planning on wearing cowboy boots, but I'm waiting to see how they look with the dress before I decide for sure.

I realize that none of this is particularly traditional--or so you think! In reality, the whole big-white-wedding-dress thing is a relatively recent invention. Its origins are with Queen Victoria, and, until the 1950s or so, only the very wealthy (who could afford to have a big white dress that they couldn't wear again) had such a thing. (I have my grandmother's wedding dress, and it's a dusty rose color.) Really, I think the white wedding dress is one tradition with which we could easily dispense.

Invitations: We printed and assembled them ourselves; here's the style. We're using leftover bits of this to make the namecards (dark brown folded card, light brown with calligraphy name thingy, thin strip of leaf paper around the left edge, and string tied around the front horizontally). I did the calligraphy on the invites, though only the addresses, not the return addresses or anything. We'd wanted to do this one, but the blue paper was caught in shipping somewhere between here and Belgium and they couldn't guarantee timely arrival. We used traditional wording--including our parents' names as the hosts of the event--mainly because we wanted to acknowledge our parents.

Attendants: We're not having any. We're going to have my stepson hold our rings for us (and my nephews would have helped, if my brother weren't being an asshole), and C's sister is the officiant. It's true that I couldn't pull this off without the help of my friends J (who is basically a maid of honor without portfolio) and B; I've been referring to them as the unofficial bridespeople. But I didn't see the point of actual attendants.

Ceremony: We're writing our own vows, though we haven't gotten around to that yet. C's sister has become a Universal Life Minister so she can officiate, but she'll mostly direct traffic. My friend L will sing. I want to incorporate some of the Buddhist fourfold path (or four sublime states) into either the ceremony or the wedding document, but we haven't figured that part out yet. No one else has volunteered to participate in the ceremony, though the handball guys are threatening/promising to do something with handballs (throw them at me? make an arch for me? not clear). We are going to have a wedding document--kind of a cross between a Quaker wedding document and a Jewish ketubah--that we want all of our guests to sign. I also want to include a quote from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (as translated by Bernard Bouanchaud): "The mind becomes quiet when it cultivates friendliness in the presence of happiness, active compassion in the presence of unhappiness, joy in the presence of virtue, and indifference toward error." No deities, however, will be involved in this wedding (which is why I didn't ask a friend who's a Lutheran minister to officiate).

We aren't having any "special dances" (first dance, me dancing with Dad, whatever). My father isn't giving me away. We're not charging people money to dance with me. We're having a special cake (I'll try to post a picture, eventually), but we're not doing any cake-cutting, I don't think. (Hell, we might not do any cake-cutting at all: the restaurant has mentioned an outrageous plating fee, so J and B may be doing the cake-cutting.) We'll have a photographer, but we're doing the formal pictures before everyone gets there so we don't hold things up. We're having a jazz trio for music (and dancing, if people want to). We finally succumbed to pressure to register, but people's presence is way more important to me than any gift. We're going to have trays of petit fours and cookies and such for people to nibble, and we're going to have really good chocolate as little favors. I finally succumbed and allowed J to throw a shower for me (and C) this weekend--mainly it was an excuse for my mother and future mother-in-law to buy me presents, which they very much wanted to do. It was small, and fun, and no shower games were involved. In order to have plated dinners rather than a buffet, we're making guests choose their entree on the response card. There will probably be about a hundred people, maybe as many as 110, at this event. No honeymoon, though; I start school 10 days after the wedding, the following weekend is 4th of July (and therefore more expensive and/or already booked for anything nearby), and remember that not-getting-paid thing through which I was going? Plus, this wedding thing ain't cheap. I'm happy to do it--anything for a great party--but a trip on top of it would break the budget.

kStyle specifically asked about the "non-traditionalness" of the whole thing, but I'm not being very helpful on that topic. It was never clear to me why anyone wanted to do the big white poufy thing, and my advanced age enables me to scorn it with impunity. My guess is that a 25-year-old would have a harder time resisting the pressure of, say, a mother who always dreamed of seeing her daughter as a princess bride--though, if it's not you, by all means resist! Anyway, I'm sure y'all will tell me what I've left out.

Ask Me!

That whole interview thing was really quite interesting--I had no clue what questions portia might ask, and that somehow made it more fun to answer them. Thus, I'm instituting a new feature: Question Day. (Really--it's a feature!) Got a question? I'll try to answer it. Rules:
1. I'll answer at least one question per week, if there are that many. It can be a personal question to/about me; it can be an opinion question; it can be an advice question--whatever makes you curious.
2. I'm allowed to maintain anonymity.
3. I'm not allowed to answer questions in ways that compromise someone else in some way.
4. I don't have to answer questions that Google can answer at least as well.