Sunday Scribblings: Somewhere

I have never been a regular at bars. The dark, the noise, and the smoke just are not my idea of a good time and I'm not much of a dancer, so there's no draw there. But there was a time in my life when I frequented a Boston bar. To tell the story we need to go back to the late 80s.

At the time I was on the Boston Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee. We met on Thursday nights at Boston City Hall. After meetings the women of the committee, Darryl, Janet, Carol and I would adjourn to the one lesbian bar in the city, Somewhere Else, which was conveniently located blocks away in the Financial District.

Thursday nights were not a big night at Somewhere during that time, so we were able to settle in at a table near the bar and talk without shouting. Over drinks we would debrief from the meeting, complaining about the boys, or worrying over the work still to be done. We didn't talk about the other aspects of our life - dating, family, our paid work - we stuck to talking about our shared work. I do remember Darryl talking about when she had worked in a bar, though I don't remember what bar that was or where.

Somewhere Else featured a bar area on the first floor, with a stage on the opposite wall, and tables scattered around. Bathrooms were down a narrow staircase in the basement. In the way of lesbian bars there was a men's room and a women's room - to meet code requirements - but the designations were ignored. Upstairs featured a dance floor, a second bar and a room with a pool table.

I'd been to Somewhere Else a couple of times before with my wife and other college friends. But those visits were infrequent. The bar wasn't convenient and since we weren't single we weren't looking for places to find love. There was one memorable night when shortly after Amy and I left Somewhere Else we shared a kiss while stopped at a redlight. The driver in the car behind us flashed the lights and honked the horn - letting us know they'd seen the kiss. When the light turned green they pulled into the lane next to us and passed, taking a second to take a peek at us. I happened to look over as they passed and was rewarded with the sight of jaws dropping as this hetero couple realizing that we were both women. Amy and I laughed most of the way home, and thinking about it still makes me smile.

Shortly after we bought our house I left the Pride Committee - burned out from the politics of it, busy with work and the new house, and not willing to make the drive home after those evening meetings. And not too long after Somewhere Else ceased to be. A fire that started in the bathhouse that shared the building and a lack of appropriate insurance proved to be too much for the owners.

Other bars have come and gone since then, but I've rarely visited them. In my mind when I imagine a lesbian bar it is Somewhere Else that comes to mind. And invariably I think about Darryl, Carol, and Janet. I've lost touch with all but Carol and I don't speak to her very often, but there is a warm place in my heart for each of them, the work we did together (planning a party for 40,000 - 50,000 of our closest friends), and the friendship we shared over drinks at Somewhere Else.

To read more Sunday Scribblings go here.

(I haven't participated in Sunday Scribblings in a while, though I used to be a regular.)

New Challenges

The new year has dawned and with it new challenges and experiences. I don't make new year's resolutions, but this year I've volunteered myself into a few new challenges.

I have my sister-out-law, Shelley to thank for encouraging me to write haiku. She was the one who alerted me to the Nengajou exchange, and with the new year approaching she encouraged me to join in on the Haiku Project. The challenge of the project is to write at least one haiku a week and submit it. My frost haiku is my submission for this week and I have the women of One Deep Breath to thank for the inspiration.

Challenge number two is one of my own making. As those who read this blog regularly know I take and post a lot of photos. The numerous photo memes have really inspired me to carry my camera with me most places and to use it regularly. Carrying that to the next level I've decided to take and post one photo a day every day this year. You can find my 365 project here. One note - I actually failed this on the very first day of the year. I did take pictures that day, and I did post a picture that day. But the pictures I took were with my film camera, not my digital camera, and the photo I posted was taken on December 31st.

For challenge number three I have committed myself to being up and out of the house by 7am every Saturday for 5 weeks. Those who know me well know that early mornings are not my thing. I can count of one hand the number of sunrises I have seen in the last 12 months, and two were this weekend. I was up early today because I was so zonked last night that I was asleep before 10:30. The reason for the early rising is that I am taking a workshop class at the North Bennet Street School in Boston's North End. I took Fundamentals of Fine Woodworking there two years ago and loved it. So for the next 4 weeks I'll be spending all day Saturday at NBSS taking Fundamentals of Machine Woodworking. I've used all of the tools we'll be using in the class but this is a wonderful opportunity to fill in gaps in my knowledge and to get an understanding of the inner workings and maintenance of the machines. None of my previous classes have covered maintenance. The bonus of this is that I got some interesting sunrise pictures yesterday and during lunch some shots of the North End. I expect to add more in the weeks to come.

Finally, because I can't resist - the new year challenge haiku:

daily photograph,
saturday woodworking class
write weekly haiku

This week's prompt at Sunday Scribblings is "New" or "New Year". No story came to mind but since I hadn't written about this yet I decided it would fit the bill. Read more Sunday Scribblings here.

Left or Right

I am right handed. There is no doubt about this. I write with my right hand, I bat right handed, and I throw right handed. The only thing I have ever done exclusively with my left hand is play my French horn. Even with this unquestioned dominance learning to write in cursive legibly was one of the more difficult tasks of my childhood.

I am old enough that handwriting was a required part of the elementary curriculum. The handwriting curriculum of choice in my elementary school was the Palmer Method. About 15 minutes of each school day was spent doing handwriting exercises. The exercise I remember most clearly was writing loops like you would use to make Os. Line after line of loops.

Despite the best efforts of my teachers I had hideous handwriting. My writing was small and pinched to the point where it was illegible. My fourth grade teacher took this on as a challenge. She was going to improve my handwriting if it killed her, or me. Instead of the usual 15 minutes of handwriting, I was assigned to do 30. Slowly but surely this extra time began to have an impact. My handwriting slowly but surely was approaching legibility.

When your handwriting was deemed acceptable you were presented with a certificate that announced to one and all your membership in the "Golden Pen Club". I don't remember when this became the carrot of my efforts, but at some point it became a real possibility that I would attain membership. When I finally achieved the necessary skill and received my certificate I was very proud. I'm pretty sure my parents still have it.

When I was in sixth grade another handwriting challenge entered my life. One of my classmates was doing a research project on handedness with her classmates as her guinea pigs. Each night for about a month we were required to write 25 lines or so of text with our non-dominant hand. The only restriction was that we could not do our regular homework with our non-dominant hand - to save our teacher's sanity I'm sure. I don't remember how much improvement I made in writing with my left hand during this time.

I still do most everything with my right hand, but if pressed I can write clearly enough with my left hand to be understood. It won't get me another "Golden Pen Club" certificate but it will get me through in a pinch.

You can find more Sunday Scribblings here.

Sunday Scribblings: First Job, Worst Job, Dream Job

I spent a summer working in industrial green houses in Ohio - a job that was tedious, smelly and hot.

Those who know me well know that I am not fond of poinsettia plants. Poinsettia's are tropical plants, and aren't really happy being grown in pots. Because of that everything about planting poinsettias must be done precisely. All of the pots, and flats used are first sterilized with bleach. (This was actually the best part of that job. Two weeks of playing with a hose in the parking lot.) The soil used (can't tell you how many times I was reprimanded for calling it dirt) is sterilized. Poinsettas are planted from cuttings and each one is dipped into rooting medium. And finally the temperature and humidity must be precisely monitored. The plants are rooted in early August so that they're ready for the holidays. The weather in early August in Northern Ohio is hot. It easily reached 105º most days. Poinsettias have to be planted when the temperature is in the low 90s. So during the weeks when the poinsettias were being planted I had to arrive at work at 5am. I am decidedly NOT a morning person. Five am was tough, but I did it. Having seen what is necessary to grow a poinsettia led me to believe that they just aren't worth it.

Poinsettia's were not even the worst part of the green house job. There was boredom - hours upon hours of moving pots from 4 inches apart to 6 inches apart - but that wasn't the worst part. No the worst part was the couple of weeks I spent feeding plants. The mechanism used to do this was a long tube with a hopper at the top that sported a handle with a trigger that was activated by squeezing your hand into a fist (sort of like the mechanism on a gas pump). Each squeeze dispensed a measured amount of fertilizer down the tube into the pot. This action was repeated hundreds of times over eight hours. To get an idea of what this is like spend the next 15 minutes making a fist and releasing it. Suffice it to say that after eight hours of this I could not open my hand - repetitive stress anyone. I seem to remember that my father intervened to get me released from that torture.

But that was not the worst job I ever had. I spent most of 2 years in the mid-90s temping. During that time I had good jobs, a couple of fun jobs, and a few that were clunkers. One of those temp jobs was the absolute worst job I have ever had. It topped the summer in the green house, the hours I spent changing diapers in babysitting, nanny and pre school jobs, and working in a fast food restaurant.

I don't remember what company I was dispatched to on that fateful day, which is probably a good thing. The assignment was to spend the day entering data into Excel spread sheets. I'd had assignments like that before. It was never particularly stimulating but I have a high tolerance for boredom. Given a boring job I'm frequently able to let my mind wander a bit. When a little more focus is called for I make up games - seeing how many entries I can make in 5 minutes without error, for instance - or I entertain myself by looking for patterns in the data.

When I arrived I was shown to a storage closet. In the closet was a table on which sat a computer. This was to be my work space for the day - just me, the computer, the office supplies and a photo copier. Strike one - no day light. Strike two - copier fumes. Strike three - the data I was to enter was codes - think computer generated passwords - mixed numbers and letters. This was strike three. The amount of focus required to enter this type of data is huge. There was no room for day dreaming. By noon my eyes were permanently crossed. Over the course of the day I saw maybe three people. And to top it off I'd put on panty hose and a dress for this. It was hands down the worst work day of my life. The only good news - it was a temp job. My escape was a call to my agency letting them know that I would not be going back.

There you have it - the tale of my worst job.

See more Sunday Scribblings: here.

Sunday Scribblings: Hi, My Name Is...

Hi, my name is Hiker Boy. I'll be 4 in November. My favorite color is yellow and I'm really into cars. I have lots and lots of Matchbox cars, and I can tell you all about them. My favorite movie is Cars.

This is me wearing my Aunt Amy's hat. I'm standing on the porch of Owl Cabin at Wakanda. I got to visit Owl Cabin for the 3rd time this summer. When my Daddy and I visit Owl Cabin I get to spend time with my Aunt Chelle and my Aunt Amy. They mostly live in Massachusetts, but in the summer they live in Owl Cabin for 2 weeks. Owl Cabin has trees with bark inside.

There are bunk beds in the cabin. Next summer I can sleep on the top bunk at night. This summer I could only sleep on the top bunk for my nap.

Daddy and I put up our tent next to the cabin. It was cold at night and Daddy hadn't brought any extra socks for me, so I had to borrow Aunt Chelle's socks. They came up above my knees. They looked silly, but they kept my toes warm.

One day Daddy and I climbed a whole mountain. We could see the city from the top. (Editor's note: the "city" was the village of Saranac Lake.)

Every day Aunt Chelle took me for a ride in her kayak. Daddy came with us one day. He got to use a yellow kayak and I really wanted to ride in that one, but Daddy said it was better for me to ride with Aunt Chelle because she is a better kayaker. We saw a black duck one day. Aunt Chelle said it is called a loon. The loon sounds like the clock Daddy has at home.

This is me trying to paddle the kayak. Aunt Chelle gave me half of the paddle to make it easier.


I found this yellow boat at the beach. I had fun riding on it until Aunt Chelle pushed too hard and I fell off. It's a good thing I had my life jacket on. Those are Aunt Amy's arms behind me.

I can't wait to go back to Owl Cabin next year so I can go for kayak rides, and play on the beach, and climb more mountains.

Sunday Scribblings: Writing

I love listening to This American Life on NPR. It’s not just the stories that are interesting to me, but also the writing behind the stories. The stories draw me in and hold my attention. I’d like to be that type of writer. The kind whose use of language and mastery of imagery get under your skin and fills your mind.

I am not that writer.

The most frequent advise about deciding what to write that I’ve heard is to write what you know. Good advise, I suppose, but I don’t see why anyone would want to read about the portions of my life that I’m willing to share. I don’t live an exciting life and I don’t see why anyone would care to read about the humdrum life I do live.

Most days the most exciting part of my day is my morning commute and that is not a good kind of exciting. Mostly the commute is frustrating, particularly this time of year when there are new students (Boston is a city full of colleges), faculty who haven't driven into the city in months and the regular commuters. But I digress. My point is that I don't think anyone really wants to hear about the car that made a right turn from the left of three lanes.

So, I will continue to strive toward that goal. Until then, dear reader, you’re stuck with the humdrum. Hopefully every once in a while I will manage a truly interesting post.

Sunday Scribblings: The End

You'll have to do some imagining so close your eyes. Oh right, you can't read with your eyes closed. Well imagine you're curled up in a comfy chair with your eyes closed.

Imagine a narrow street in a nice older neighborhood in a small city, the kind with just enough room for one car to pass between the cars parked on either side. This is a dead end street, lined with large houses built for the most part in the early 1900s. Children play in many of the yards, and as you get closer to the dead end more of them are playing in the street - bicycling, roller skating - the old kind of roller skates that secure over shoes with a key, and playing kick ball using the man hole covers and storm drain openings for bases.

The street ends at with a stop sign. Behind that sign is a 3 foot drop into a sloping yard full of large sheltering maple trees. The house that belongs to the yard is off to your right. It's big with a deep front porch just calling out to you to come sit and enjoy a glass of lemonade. On closer inspection you decide sitting in the midst of the hockey game being played there might be a bit dangerous so you step inside through the heavy wood front door.

Take in the living room as you step in. Straight ahead is the fireplace set into a small inglenook to the right the room opens up. If you listen carefully you'll hear the echoes of voices from the dinner parties held here over the years. To the left is a study behind glass doors and windows topping bookshelves which separate it from the oak lined stairway. Tucked under the stairway landing is telephone table, and under the stairs themselves a deep coat closet perfect for hiding. Behind the formal stairs is a second more utilitarian stairway lined with children's artwork.

Behind that second stairway is the kitchen bright with daisy covered fabric. Looping from there through the laundry room you come to the formal dining room complete with built-in cabinets at one end. You can almost smell the Thanksgiving turkey, and over in the corner you notice the perfect spot for a children's table.

Back in the living room you make your way up the stairs, stopping on the landing to gaze out the wall of windows to the trees beyond. It looks like the perfect spot to curl up with a book. At the top of the stairs is a large open hall with room for a writing desk and an occasional hamper basketball game. Off the hall are, in counter clockwise order a play room, which the children in the house call the secret room because when the family first moved in it was filled with boxes and they weren't allowed in, the master bedroom, the linen closet, the attic stairs, a children's bedroom, the bathroom and the other children's bedroom.

Up the attic stairs you find a wonderful mix of storage and playroom - dolls, doll beds and doll house nestle in the light from a dormer window. In the middle of the space sits a desk perfect for building with the erector set that sits in a box on top. Behind the chimney you can see the framing for another bedroom, started but never finished.

Returning to the yard you imagine the sled rides that start on the pile deposited around the stop sign by the plows and continue the length of the sloping yard. The gully that surrounds the house on two sides sparks thoughts of adventures to be had in that oasis of wild.

This house that you've been imagining is the haunted house my family lived in for ten years. We moved in when I was almost 4. My parents, with help from various professionals and my grandfather, stripped layer upon layer of wall paper, replaced plumbing and electrical lines, rehabbed the bathroom, painted, cleaned and filled the house with laughter and love. It was the first house my little brother lived in. I learned to ride a bike on the front porch (yes it was that big). It was a great house to grow up in there at the end of that dead end street.

Sunday Scribblings: I Get That Sinking Feeling...

Anyone who knows me knows that I will swim pretty much anywhere anytime. Each summer during our vacation I start each and every day with a lengthy swim - 45 minutes to an hour of watery Adirondack goodness. And I start many other days during the year with a pool swim. But it wasn't always this way.

As a child I was terrified of water. Even having my hair washed was a terrifying experience. I expect that there were many times when my mother was tempted to drown me rather than deal with my screaming.

I had many opportunities to learn to swim. My elementary school had a pool. During the summer the local recreation department offered swim lessons there. Beginning in third grade we had regular swim lessons as part of our PE program. My parents took us to the pool at the college where my father worked. A particularly scary pool since the shallow end was 5 feet deep!

The swim lessons that have stuck in my head, though, are the few I had with the swim coach from the college. Mr. K had a house on New York's Lake George and on a couple of occasions our family spent the day there. I remember standing in ankle deep water with Mr. K. In his hand he held a red boat. He explained that this was Popeye's boat, but that it didn't float very well (actually it didn't float at all) so when it went into the water I would have to retrieve it to save Popeye.

The first time the boat went into the ankle deep water. No problem to pick it up. Each time the boat went into the water it went a little deeper. Soon it was going into waist deep water. This presented a dilemma. If I picked it up by bending forward at the waist my face would be very close to the water. The point, of course, was to get me to put my face in the water. But I was having none of that. I worked very hard, twisting my body so that I could get full extension into the water, but not get one drop on my face. I'd like to say this game helped me learn to swim, but it didn't. I still got that sinking feeling when faced with the necessity to put my face into the water.

I was 10 before I learned to swim. I don't actually remember learning. It happened during one of the swim classes during PE. The mother of a classmate had taken over as our PE teacher. I remember that she was patient and didn't push me to swim.

Once I learned to swim there was no stopping me. I spent most days during the couple of summers after I learned to swim at the pool at the college where my Daddy worked. I would bike over, stopping to say hello to the athletic department secretaries then head to the pool. Mid-day was lap swim time, a forced break for me, but once that was over it was back into the pool for the afternoon. Freshman year of high school I signed up for swimming 3 of the 4 PE terms. My high school not only had a pool, but passing the Red Cross intermediate swimming test was a graduation requirement.

Swimming is one of my favorite forms of exercise, and if I'm not swimming I'm probably in my kayak. I no longer get a sinking feeling when presented with a need to get my face wet, and these days no one has to bring out a metal boat to get me swimming.

More Sunday Scribblings here.

Sunday Scribblings: Goosebumps

As anyone who knows me will tell you I am not a great fan of scary things. I have seen only a couple of horror movies in my life. I saw part of Halloween in college. I think Amy may still have bruises from that. When Jurassic Park was due out Amy decided that if I had read the book it would not be so bad. So we read the book, at least part of it was read aloud while I painted the floor of my workshop. As it turned out that just made it worse, because I anticipated each of the scary parts of the movie. The only good news was that we'd waited a while to see it and there were only a couple of other people in the theater so there weren't many witnesses to my yelps.

I also startle easily. Many years ago I was a nanny for a family with 9 and 12 year old boys who discovered this tendency and proceeded to take advantage of it. The hallway from my room to the kitchen paralleled the pantry. This provided the perfect spot for the boys to hide and jump out to scare me. It took several months of almost daily scares before I got wise to this and was able to anticipate it.

There is, though, one scary event which holds a special place in my heart. The neighborhood I grew up in was home to a number of fraternity houses which housed students from the college where my father worked. One of these fraternities put on a yearly haunted house in the days before Halloween. The scary things in the house were not designed to scare the pants off of the children who went through it, but to give us a small fright.

The haunted house was an anticipated event. It ushered in Halloween, and was all about us as children. I don't remember an adult ever going through it. We would line up on the porch and sidewalk outside the fraternity. The anticipation grew as those who'd been through did their best to convince us that it was too scary for us. And finally it would be our turn.

In the darkened interior of the house were ghosts, and vampires, and bowls of eye balls, and things that dropped from the ceiling to startle. It was okay to scream when startled, that was the point. If you survived the scares the kitchen offered a steaming cauldron of cider and witches offering trays of doughnuts.

It's been many years since my last trip through the haunted house. These days I don't even watch the commercials for scary movies. But if I was given the chance to be 10 again and take the walk through that haunted house I'd do it. The goosebumps that haunted house raised were good ones.

Sunday Scribblings: Wicked

Wicked was not a word that occupied much space in my vocabulary when I was growing up. Wicked was the wicked witch of the west from the Wizard of Oz, and occasionally another story book character. It was not a word I used in every day conversation and I don't remember anyone I spent time with using it either.

I grew up in New York state, although I don't really sound like it since my speech patterns were influenced by my father's western Massachusetts upbringing, and my mother's modified mid-western upbringing, and the elocution classes my mother was subjected to in college. By the summer of 1976 we were living in northeastern Ohio, a brief sojurn, where my speech was further influenced by not only the sounds of Ohio but also by the slight British accent a school mate had acquired during his father's sabbatical in England the previous year and cultivated for reasons unknown to me.

I'm sure I used slang, I do now and have no reason to believe that I was immune from it as a child. But I can't actually tell you what slang I might have used to identify those things which were, to use a more recent vernacular, awesome.

The summer of 1976 found me working in the kitchen of a church camp in New Hampshire. I ended up there largely because I'm not good at small talk, but given a job to do at a social event and I'm fine. Late in the spring of 1976 I was at a church picnic, and someone commented on how helpful I was. The college age daughter of our pastor was at the periphery of the conversation and asked if I was interested in working with her that summer. She was the head cook at the camp. A couple of weeks later I was off to New Hampshire. The trip east was eventful enough since it was the first time I had traveled alone.

I took the train east from Ohio to Springfield, Massachusetts where my grandfather picked me up, took me to lunch at the Ground Round in West Springfield, and deposited me at the bus station. At the end of the bus ride north I was picked up by the head cook (the minister's daughter) and the waterfront director, who was nominated for the job because he had a car.

A number of my co-workers were from the Boston area. And when they wanted to describe those things that set their hearts to tingling with joy they said "wicked pissah" (never pisser, always pissah). The first time I heard it there was a pause before I figured out what they meant. Eventually it became a familiar phrase rooted in my brain. I'm sure my mother was glad that the phrase didn't become part of my vocabulary.

I moved to the Boston area just over a year later (yes I'm that old) and was able to pick out the locals at my college by their use of the word wicked. In the intervening years the phrase wicked pissah has fallen out of use, at least in the circles I run in, but on those rare occasions when I hear it I am instantly back in that long ago summer in the woods of New Hampshire.

Sunday Scribblings: Spicy

I'm wrote most of this while sitting under a tree on the campus of the college from which I graduated. As I sat there enjoying the bright sunny day, I was thinking about the chapel service this morning. It's reunion weekend and since the class I graduated with is back I stopped by for a couple of events including chapel. (I took a year off halfway through college and usually attend reunion with the class with which I started. But it's a *big* reunion, and I only live a couple of miles away...)

The college I attended was a fairly white bread place when I was there. There were students of color and international students but they didn't make up a very large percentage of the student body. Similarly the chapel services were decidedly Protestant.

I didn't attend very many chapel services as a student, but as a member of the college choir attendance was mandatory at a few every year. Those services had a comforting similarity to the Presbyterian and Congregationalist services I had attended (sporadically) before college. The order of service, the hymnal, the prayers all were familiar.

Partway through my college life the college hired a new chaplain who was decidedly feminist. I have fond memories of our choir director, an older man with roots in the Episcopalian church, complaining because this new chaplain was insisting that the wording of the hymns being sung have the wording changed to reflect here feminist bent. There is a certain absurdity to his annoyance given that I attended a women's college. Our director was a dear sweet man who just didn't want his beloved hymns messed with.

Things have changed quite a bit since then. The student body is decidedly more ethnically diverse and formerly marginalized communities are an integral part of the campus. The religious life of the college has changed as well. A number of years ago a new chaplain was brought in and charged with developing ways to embrace the religious diversity on the campus. The chaplain embraced this challenge with an evangelical passion. College wide chapel services now incorporate elements of a wide range of religions.

As I sat under the tree earlier today it was the sounds of the service which were running through my mind. The low ringing of the bell which is the Buddhist call to worship; the chattering of birds outside the open door, the lilt of a Hindu prayer, the blending of women's voices as they sang a round in Hebrew, the words of the Koran, and the more familiar words of the Protestant and Catholic traditions.

After the horrid attacks of September 11, 2001 the college scheduled a special all college chapel service. At a time when the unfamiliar was cause for anxiety, this service provided healing in sharing the range of religious observance. I particularly remember the end of the service when we were directed to the lawn outside the chapel. Once gathered in a circle there we shared a native American prayer. It was one more element toward bringing understanding about how our differences can enrich us.

Where the services of my college life were white bread, the services now are a lovely spicy stew and everyone who is fortunate enough to attend one is enriched.

This week's prompt at Sunday Scribblings is spicy. You can see more here. And thanks to Shelley for inspiration on this one.

Sunday Scribblings: Town or Country

Each summer as the highway fades in the rear view mirror as we head into the mountains I relax. Certainly the fact that exiting the highway represents the beginning of two weeks of swimming, kayaking, reading, puzzles and relaxing has a lot to do with it. But it is also that our place in the mountains feels like home.

Our cabin in the woods is less than 70 miles, by road from where I was born. My family didn't stay in that little town for long. By the time I was 4 we lived in a small city several hours southeast. But our place in the country holds an honored place in our family history, and it has a hold on me.

In my life I have lived in a small city, the suburbs, and in a small town. I am happiest where trees, and water are the views out my window. I have both of those things in my suburban home - trees in the woods behind the house and a pond just beyond our next door neighbor's back yard. The view from the cabin in the woods is of the trees that surround it and the lake just down the path.

While the view from my house is nearly perfect the sounds are not. We live within a mile of 2 major highways and can hear traffic sounds when they are not drowned out by lawnmowers. In our cabin in the woods the sounds are perfect. Loons call in the night, and the breeze rustles the leaves. The silence is broken occasionally by a power boat, but on this lake those are few and far between.

I am at heart a country girl. The lights and noise of the city don't appeal to me. The twinkling of the stars in the sky far from city lights is one of my favorite sites. I love to lie on the dock, or float in the lake, and look up at the stars, and it's even better when I can talk Amy into joining me.

The picture is me and my brother in the front yard of my family's house in the country.

More: Sunday Scribblings

Sunday Scribblings: Simple

A little late to the party...

I'm in the midst of building a table for a woodworking challenge (details here). The deadline is Thursday. As per usual I'm going to be cutting it close (no pun intended). My goal for the weekend is to complete the construction of the table so I'll have time to put finish on it before I have to post pictures of the completed table.

On the to-do list were:

• dovetailing the drawer parts
• adding dadoes to the stretcher for the shelf
• finishing the jig I designed to cut plugs with
• adding dadoes to the sides of the drawer
• attaching the drawer front
• easing all the edges (rounding over or chamfering the edges so they aren't sharp)

I figured the dovetails would be simple. Several years ago I purchased a dovetail jig. I figured that having a jig would make cutting dovetails easier. I'd pulled out the jig earlier in the week and though the instructions were somewhat lacking it looked simple enough.

When I cut the drawer parts I made a bunch of extra pieces so I would have test pieces with which to set the jig up. Six hours later I had a lot of sawdust, and a pile of much smaller test pieces. What I didn't have was a completed drawer. I just couldn't get a precise enough fit using the jig.

After much deliberation I decided to cut my losses and put the skills I have to work. You see last year in a workshop class at the North Bennett Street School I learned to cut dovetails by hand. I haven't mastered them yet, but I can make a pretty serviceable dovetail. I considered other joints, but dovetails are what I wanted. So I pulled out the drawer parts and started marking out the dovetails. After 4 hours (last night and today) of hand sawing and chisel work I had completed the drawer joints.

Here's one corner. A nice simple dovetail.

The moral of the story - don't overcomplicate situations. Keep it simple.

More Sunday Scribblings.

My woodworking blog.

Sunday Scribblings: Masks

Many years ago I worked at an art college. Each year the entering students were given an assignment to create a spirit mask and bring it with them to orientation. The mask had several purposes - it was an opportunity for the entering students to show their artistic talents and to reveal a bit of themselves.

The primary means of feedback from faculty to students in the college was through critiques. At various points in the course of the year the students would present their work to their fellow students, their professors, and sometimes to visiting artists. In most departments the critique was an interactive process with the student there to explain the techniques, and thought processes which went into their work. The spirit masks also provided the new students with their first taste of the critique process. In small groups the students presented their masks beginning the dialogue which would carry them through their college career and on into their life as artists.

Orientation ended with an exhibit of the spirit masks with a reception for the college community. It was always interesting to see the work of the incoming students and to try to figure out what they were trying to say with those masks. And I've wondered what those masks would look like at graduation time - what changes would be revealed.

I've never made a spirit mask, but because of my exposure to them during those years, I have thought about it. I don't easily reveal myself - I hesitate before "coming out" (although marriage has made that easier), I don't reveal my innermost thoughts. I worry too much about what others think of me. I wear a mask every day. What would I reveal if I made a spirit mask? How would I explain it? What would people think of me then?

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Sunday Scribbling: Second Chance

The Wellesley College softball team is playing in the NCAA Division III New England Regional tournament this weekend. They got off to a great start yesterday, blanking College Misericordia 8-0.

Today's match-up against the women from Tufts University was tougher. Wellesley's pitching was not as precise as in the last few games (two no-hitters and a one-hitter). And today the breaks weren't going Wellesley's way. Catcher Kara Wong got picked off second base and later in the game was thrown out at the plate trying to score the tying run. Tufts got help with two excellent plays from their right fielder - an over the head catch of a deep fly ball off the bat of Beej Grundlock, and a diving catch, the kind that makes the highlight reels on ESPN, on the next play.

It was an exciting, if disappointing game. As one of the players said after the game "losing sucks, but losing and having to study sucks more" (Wellesley finals start next week.)

What, I'm sure you're asking, does this have to do with second chances? Well, this tournament is a double-elimination tournament. What this means, is that to be eliminated a team has to lose twice. So, Wellesley has a second chance. They'll take on Keene State tomorrow. After all the work that has gone into getting here it is nice to know that all the teams get to play at least two games. And their family, friends, and random fans get to cheer them on a little longer.

I think this concept of double-elimination could be useful in other areas of life. I know I could use a second chance every now and then.

Update: Wellesley held off Keene State 2-1 in a game that started nearly 2 hours late because the previous game went to 11 innings. Beej Grundlock pitched a great game, and Jenna Harvey came in in the bottom of the 7th with the bases loaded and 1 out to save the win. Wellesley then took on Emerson in the nightcap (scheduled for 4pm the game started at 6:45). Wellesley's bats came alive and they won 5-1. Kara Wong had 2 - yes 2 - out of the park home runs, and took out a loud speaker with a foul ball.

Tomorrow (Sunday) Wellesley takes on Tufts at noon with the winner of that game facing Rhode Island College for the championship.

Sunday Update: Tufts eliminated Wellesley from the tournament 5-0. It was a sad way to end the season, but what a season it's been. Three cheers for the women in blue!!!

Sunday Scribblings: Ocean

When I was about 7 my parents gave my aunt, who lived in the heart of Kenmore Square in Boston, a couple of cots. My aunt was visiting my parents but the cots wouldn't fit in her VW bug so my mother loaded them into the back of our station wagon, and then loaded my sister, brother and I into the front and drove them to my aunt's house. I distinctly remember that this was explained to us as a quick trip - drop off the cots and head home.

We arrived in Boston in early evening to, as I remember it, the hubbub that is Kenmore Square when the Red Sox are playing at home. Since it was dinner time, the adults decided that we needed dinner. I don't remember what we ate or where. Just when I expected that we were about to be packed into the car for the ride home it was announced that it was too late for us to go home and we would have to stay the night.

This was quite a surprise, particularly since my aunt lived in a very small one bedroom apartment. But she did have those cots which were the reason for the trip. So the living room was lined with cots, and from some secret stash my mother produced pajamas for us all.

I don't remember much about the morning, but the overnight was not the last surprise. We loaded back into the car with my aunt and headed not home, but to Gloucester and the sea shore. We ended up at Good Harbor beach and from her secret stash my mother produced bathing suits and towels. Having grown up more than 100 miles from the nearest ocean beach, I'd never seen the ocean let alone put so much as a finger into it.

I was also deathly afraid of water (I realize that comes as a complete shock to anyone who knows me now). Wading was my limit. Even the best efforts of numerous swimming teachers, and the swim coach colleague of my father's, who wielded a heavy metal boat to try and coax my face into the water hadn't convinced me that swimming was a good thing. The swim coach used a heavy metal boat which he told me was Popeye's boat. He would drop the boat a little farther from shore each time in an effort to get me to put my face into the water. I became adept at contorting my body so I could pick the boat up without getting even my ear wet, but still would not put my face in.

When faced with the tumbling waves, the likes of which I had never seen before, I became enchanted. I didn't worry about getting knocked head over tea kettle by a wave, or about being dragged out to sea by the receding waves. No, for an afternoon I reveled in the beauty, and power of waves crashing on the shore. I leapt over waves, and let them break across my feet. I had to be dragged from the waves, lips blue with cold. For an afternoon I made peace with water.

It would be several more years before I made a permanent peace with water. I was ten when I learned to swim, but once I learned there was no stopping me. The only thing that kept me from a Life Saving certificate is that I am uncomfortable diving more than a couple of feet below the surface.

I don't spend much time in the ocean these days. I'd much rather spend my water time in fresh water. But I do remember that first ocean adventure. And to this day if I head for the Gloucester sea shore I end up at Good Harbor no matter where I intended to go and no matter how clear the directions. I don't usually get lost. I have a very good sense of direction. My psyche just insists that The Beach is Good Harbor.

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It is entertaining to me that there is a pulse in the blogosphere which leads to similar prompts from a variety of meme sites. One Deep Breath's prompt this week was Sea and now Sunday Scribblings has served up Ocean. And the photo I picked in response to LensDay's Smooth prompt was of an ocean beach. Makes me wonder what we'll all be thinking about next.

Sunday Scribblings: Wings

Sports have always been a part of my life. My father coached college football, and baseball so I attended my first game as an infant. Fall Saturdays during my childhood meant dressing up to go to Dad's games. Many winter nights were spent at hockey games. And spring meant baseball. I learned to score at a fairly young age, and served as bat girl for several of the teams my Dad coached.

The college I went to is not what I'd call sports crazy. As a women's college it doesn't have a football team for people to rally around, and attendance at sports events is usually limited to other athletes and families. When I was a student I attended only a couple sports events - the Head of the Charles (crew races) and one field hockey game. Oh, and a Harvard-Dartmouth football game, and the Harvard-Yale game my freshman year. The Harvard-Dartmouth game was mostly about the party after, and the Harvard-Yale game was with my mother, brother (a Yale student) and a couple of my cousins. My wife grew up in a family that didn't follow sports so we haven't spent a lot of time watching sports.

I have remained a great fan of softball and baseball. I umpire and coach during the summer. I'll watch softball on TV when it's there, and have spent many an hour watching the Little League world series.

The sports facilities at my alma mater are a whole lot better now than when I was there. Like many sports related events in my life I'm too old to have taken advantage of them although I do swim in the pool there regularly.

Several years ago Wellesley undertook the cleanup of a toxic waste dump at the edge of the campus. (The toxic waste was dumped by the factory which used to be on the site.) Once the cleanup was done the College converted some of the land to new sports fields. The rest is reclaimed wetlands. Among the new fields is a softball stadium which makes me drool every time I drive by, and I drive by frequently since I live nearby.

I've thought about going to a softball game there many times. Finally in March I took the leap and went to a game. And I got hooked. A friend asked recently what my connection was. I don't think I would have been asked that if I'd gone to Penn State and the sport was football.

I've attended almost every home game since then (The picture above was taken just over a week ago at a game there.), and one away game - conveniently held at the university where I work. Which brings us to this weekend. With a pair of wins last weekend my college's softball team qualified for the playoffs for their athletic conference. They won their first and second games on Wednesday. The semi-finals were more than an hour away, but I couldn't stay away. So with Amy's blessing off I went yesterday.

In yesterday's outing the team outhit Springfield College to qualify for today's finals. I had other plans for today, but just couldn't miss this game. So I canceled those plans and got back in the car this morning.

The day was grey and cold. There was occasional precipitation. But it was a glorious day. I reached the tournament early enough to watch the end of the last semi-final game. The final game was a pitcher's duel. A beautiful diving, sliding catch by Wellesley's left fielder, Megan Wood, in the top of the 4th saved a no-hitter for pitcher Jenna Harvey. And in the end it was Megan's solid single to right in the bottom of the 7th with 2 on that led to Wellesley's win and the championship.

Mid-afternoon a bus load of ecstatic young women left Springfield headed east. I'd hazard a guess that they didn't really need the bus. Those women, the ones with the great big grins pictured below, could have flown back on wings of happiness buoyed by the knowledge that their hard work, dedication and teamwork helped them achieve this first.














































Thanks to Sunday Scribblings for the inspiration to write.

The official press release on the game is here.

Sunday Scribblings: In The News

When I was in high school I managed the girls basketball team. One of my responsibilities was to call scores in to the local newspapers and tv stations. This was back in the early seventies when the coverage of high school sports was limited to the boys teams, and then only to the big three - football, basketball and baseball. Where I grew up high schools didn't have hockey teams, if they had then boys hockey would have gotten a share of the coverage.

Getting coverage for girls basketball was a challenge. If we were lucky the score would get into the papers. Forget the tv stations. But after each game I called. And I had an advantage that most other high school students didn't have. I knew the sports reporters for most of the local tv stations. I didn't know them well, but I'd met them and in a few cases served them coffee.

The reason was that my father was often a subject of sports news. He coached college football at a local college and a minor league (what most people call semi-pro) football team. He never made an obscene amount of money to coach or won a national title, but he and his teams were still news.

I didn't always like that he was in the news. When I was in elementary school it was just another bit of ammunition in the arsenal my classmates used to tease me about. But in high school it was useful. When I was brushed aside by the flunky answering phones at the local tv stations, I could simply ask to speak to the reporter by name. This sometimes required a second call. When the person on the other end asked who was calling my name, or more correctly my father's name would get the call through.

Slowly but surely the coverage of girls high school sports increased. It didn't just benefit my school, it benefited all the schools in the area. I'm proud that I had a part of that. My father who was a big supporter of equal opportunity in sports, not just for his own girls, but for all girls. I don't know if he realizes that he had a part in increasing the coverage of girls sports in the area where I grew up, but he did and I'm proud of that too.

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Sunday Scribblings: Deepest, Darkest

I'm a woodworker.

Now you know my deepest, darkest secret.

What? You already knew? Oh, right almost everyone who knows me knows that, and those who don't know me or don't know that can follow the link to my workshop and figure it out.

What you probably don't know is that I've gone over to the dark side, wood wise.

I haven't developed a jones for ebony, yet, but while at one of my favorite suppliers on Thursday I was drawn to a gorgeous slab of wenge. It was the deepest, darkest piece of lumber I've ever wanted to get my tools on. Many kinds of wood have found their way into my shop - pine (not so much lately), maple, birch, aspen, cherry, mahogany, walnut, and even zebrawood and purpleheart. I've been pretty much a light to medium wood kind of girl. Wenge isn't the right texture for the project I'm working on, and it costs more than I was ready to spend, but boy was it attractive.

The wenge didn't come home with me, this time. But now I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate a small amount into the next project.

P.S. This picture I just added (Sunday night) is an ornament I made for family and friends for Christmas 2005. I've made an ornament (different designs) almost every year since 1999. I've missed two years both because of work obligations. There are pictures of a few other creations in my flickr account (link to the right).

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Sunday Scribblings: In the Kitchen

In the kitchen daisies dance on a field of yellow,
In the kitchen cereal is stored between the wall studs,
In the kitchen pudding is stirred from a foot stool,
In the kitchen cast iron radiator foot rest,
In the kitchen popcorn fire ceiling stain,
In the kitchen tricycle zooms from laundry room to living room,
In the kitchen cookies cool,
In the kitchen girl scouts learn to cook,

The kitchen,
now only a memory,
the house long ago sold,
and not quite so long ago fallen prey to gravity.

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