That's Flippin' heartbreaking

One of the pages I regularly peruse in the Sunday newspaper is the real estate listings. I've done this for years, just to keep an eye on what my house would be worth on the market. This Sunday's front page story about the assorted horrors of the housing market foreclosure crisis in the area had my burb's housing stock as down 11% in value. Looking at the range of prices made me think that the average must have been lowered by the historic mansions out on the boulevards. What caught my eye in a shocking way, and opposite the downward pricing trend, was seeing a listing for the house I grew up in for $179K. Yikes.

That brought back anew the sorrow at having to sell that house to pay for my aunt's nursing home in the years I was going full tilt at starting a retail business. Because of the business, I was unable to fix the house up to get either a good price or be able to rent it out, and keep it longer. There are half a dozen shows now about "Flipping that house," but in the 80s that niche wasn't such an obvious thing. I was able to get into the house, just on the first floor, a few years ago. I saw the "garage sale" sign on the corner and couldn't resist a peek. I was met with effusive greetings from the darlin lady who lived next door who introduced me to the current owners who talked about what had been done with the house. I particularly enjoyed their story about having a First Annual Safecracking Party to get open the large office safe of my aunt's that had been accidentally locked by a real estate agent (with the slip with the combination INSIDE the safe). Someone got it open the first party.

The last time I drove by, I was enchanted with the three color paint job they'd done , showing off the original storm/screens on the front windows. It was warming to know that the current family loved the place as much as we did & also felt "It lives like a larger house." With 4 "official" bedrooms and 2 baths, it was large enough for the five adults, one kid and one cranky cocker spaniel when I was growing up.

I know the guy I sold it to (for less than a third of the current asking price) had to do some serious renovations. When sold, all the phone lines were hardwired in or 4 prong plugs. All the electric ran through 4 screw in glass fuses. Both bathrooms needed tile work. The heating system was one of those behemoth converted coal furnaces taking up a quarter of the basement, complete with asbestos wrapped ducts. The leaded glass cabinets in the dining room needed repair. I don't deny lots of work and likely lots of money had to go into that house. Yet, it had a working fireplace, leaded glass built ins, hardwood floors that had been protected by carpet, and one of the most comfortable porches in town. But it still does make me want to weep that I couldn't have hung on to it. More bitter the pill is that I sacrificed my chance to keep that lovely house in order to keep my aunt safe while I built the business, and I don't have the business anymore, either. .

For those companions of my youth, you can oogle the old house along with me.

Snarky Cat Blogging

MissKtty says "this is the shrink face we all strive for"

Rest in Pieces

I was in such a dash to get out the door last night that I killed my lovely large lilac dragonfly embellished teapot. It smashed on the floor and the remainder of a pot of "Tea of Good Tidings" splooshed out and soaked my foot. So I went to the concert with one wet foot, smelling of spice laden tea. All I've got left to make tea in are the very nice special-occasion-only pots or mugs. One mug at a time, for the time being. Today it's some Irish Breakfast tea in my "Snarling once a day improves the complexion" Sylvia mug.

Friday night in the big city

Sometimes in the comfort of suburban life, I forget that we live with a big city near our doorstep, and sometimes that's the place to go play, or in this case, listen. Steve, Arron, and I went to the Beachland Ballroom to hear some Celtic flavored music last night. We arrived early, got good seats, and were amused at the commercials for other shops in the area that ran on the club's sound system. It gave me a feeling of being a part of the city life like a Charles De Lint character in Newford, out for an evening's carouse. We were excited to see Gráda and were vastly pleased at the opening band, Pitch the Peat, a locally based group with some Irish imports in the personnel. The guitar player had a fascinating style: he was often playing with a flat pick while finger picking with his last two fingers. They were wondrous good, high energy and obviously had a good following in the audience, as the place filled to standing room. The quantity of quality band originals was impressive, and held it's own as part of a great evening of music winding up for Gráda's powerhouse presentation.
Gráda - oh, they were good. Every one of 'em, including their Irish/Italian substitute (#2) fiddler who doubled on trumpet. Yah really, a trumpet. Alan's fluting was everything you could hope for. There was enough light from the neon "BAR" sign that I tried some sketching: if you can't dance, it's amazing how enjoyable it is to be penciling in the dark background to a wild set of jigs. The guitarist was a dervish, dancing and waggling his guitar around while bending notes in a lush way. His glasses kept sliding down his nose; sometimes the fiddler would shove them back up, and sometimes he'd take 'em off. I watched the bodhran player's hand turn a blur on the tuneable bodhran that reminded me of Margaret's, though a bit deeper. She sang beautifully, high energy. They too had a great number of traditional sounding songs they'd written. It was three hours of grand live music. I felt sorry for them, driving off to Nashville overnight. I'd not want to be on the road after putting out that kind of energy for a couple hours. Good thing they're a batch of young lads and lass!

A Clean Slate

This spring, change is in the air. I'm reconsidering jobs, my artwork, and some of the baggage I carry with me from past sorrows. I need to lighten my load in lots of specific areas.

It was Easter yesterday. Easter a few years ago was the last time I saw the inlaws I loved when I made brunch for them. They're not dead, just dead to me. My adored elder niece inscribed a tribute to my cooking in multi colored chalk on the slate chalkboard I have hanging at the entrance to my kitchen. Grocery lists have come and gone on that slate. Notes of recordings and books lent and returned have come and gone. The lovely line from the lovely girl stayed.

I was told it wasn't my fault...exactly. It was the other folks who'd hurt them so much that they decided to close in to just the nuclear family, and shut out the rest of us with "we love you, but don't call us - we'll call you when we're ready." I ached to see them hurting, and I stepped back to give them the mental space they needed. I squelched my own hurt. But as days added up to weeks, and weeks built up months, and then to a year, and no word, the hurt festered anyway. I broke radio silence briefly last Christmas, when I sent them a cookbook I'd done of my traditional cookies, but got no response.

My blood family has long since died out. I have no progeny. The part of my late husband's family I loved has chosen to be dead to me. The wheel of the year turns to a new spring, and I've come to delight in and appreciate the generous love of friends more and more. And so I shed my last bit of reluctance.

I wiped the slate clean.

Late to the wake

Laruel Burch, a woman for whom a single adjective just isn't enough, has died. She died in September, but I only heard about it today, so it's today that my heart aches for the end of the vision of an artist and designer whose style inspired me so much. Her Obit told me things about her struggles in life that make her accomplishments even more inspirational. In her own words:

"I live within the vivid colors of my imagination, soaring with rainbow-feathered birds, racing the desert winds on horseback, wrapped in ancient tribal jewels, dancing with mythical tigers in steamy jungles."

All that in was her head, while dealing daily with a very frail body and constant pain; what she chose to make for the world was exuberant beauty and visions of joy, with a particular love for cats. My one trip to England was chronicled in a journal with this Laurel Burch cat head cover. It was with me through days of sketching at the Victoria and Albert, through grad school interviews and observations of the world I craved to enter.

I so clearly remember the first place I heard of Laurel Burch. In the early 1970s there was a book of folk artists in the San Francisco Bay area called "Native Funk & Flash." This book was a key to creativity for many artists of my generation, and seems to have been in the hands of many bead artists who sprung up in the 80s, m'self included. In it was a picture of Laurel, sitting on a bed wearing a "Lifetime dress" of her own (at that time) exotic design. My first contact with her mass produced jewelry was in Ye Olde Mystic Shoppes, a very twee shopping district down the road from the Mystic Seaport Museum. I was on a forced march speed day trip by bus & I was cranky because as much time was allotted to the "Ye Olde Shoppes" as was the Seaport, where I thought we were spending the day. Two things of delight came out of that forced shopping trip - a view of rainbow-like sundogs and the purchase of a pair of pewter Laurel Burch sitting cat earrings. I wore out the first pair, lucked into finding a matching second pair made out of sturdier metal, and wear them still. My world comes in richer colors because Laurel Burch lived.

I write this with tea fragrantly steaming by my side, my own mix of black tea with peppermint & spearmint, in a mug decorated with Laurel Burch dancers.

Is lusting after furniture a sin?

Once upon a time, in the last century, my late husband and I bought this house from a very busy couple; he an oral surgeon, she a brain surgeon, with two kids, a large dog and a nanny. I suspect the only stores they went to were grocery stores, and that they bought everything else mail order. We became "Or" (the current resident) to a mindboggling collection of catalogs that missed being forwarded. Once or twice a week something would arrive. My wonderment at the profusion of catalogs caused me to start collecting them to see how they'd add up. Six months later, I had a two foot pile. It took years to stop being the "Or" family. I think that Siberia on the Heights was a "desirable" zipcode to the catalog producers, because it took years, in some instances for the catalogs to stop coming. I think the only one we succumbed to was Lillian Vernon, who at that time had storage items that were difficult to find elsewhere.

27 years later....

I'd been gawking at the Toscano catalogs that came to a friend at work. The peculiar combination of religious articles, medievalish gargoyle/dragon tchotckes, lovely library furniture & fittings and other oddments enchanted me. The continual exposure to the catalog finally got me to ordering a couple things from them. The funky gag gift of pens turned out to be much more nicely made than I'd anticipated, and the humor part mutated into just a bit peculiar. The other items, some celtic knot work sculpture, were decent for the price. I was happy. I figured I'd be getting the Toscano catalog myself now.

Yes, that happened AND a stream of about one new catalog a week in an increasingly peculiar vein. It was easy to be amused with the one that had a combination of wiccan folderol, Christian tchotckes and hippiechick clothes. The lamp catalog was something I knew I should hide from Chuck (who has a fetish for acquiring lamps). But what really got me moaning and drooling was the fairly thick catalog with dozens of lovely, reasonably priced furniture in the Mission style. Some gave you the choice of "golden" or "Morris" oak. Even with reasonable prices, what I want out of that catalog likely equals a year's worth of salary, between the oak and the rugs. Oh yah.. lovely lovely rugs. Wool. Rugs. I am damned to catalust & I'll save you, gentle reader, the same fate by not posting their link. You'd thank me, really.