The glue here is Bourdain

Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2017 by spoonbeams

Morgan – where & when?

My older son worked in restaurants while in school, during the summer, and when out of work. In fact my younger son worked in restaurants — how could I forget? I’m pretty sure both Sarah and Sam, their wives, did also. Morgan at the old wonderful Woodshed in Moultonborough, Egg in Brooklyn, even Chili’s in Nashua, someplace on Martha’s Vineyard, at a few ski resorts, and Alex at Court Street Grocers again in Brooklyn, both of them at our Olde Orchard Inn. They washed dishes, cleaned the stove, threw pizzas, shucked oysters; worked the line and the register; expedited, managed, served, and played various roles at our bed and breakfast.

They told stories of course, but nothing like those of Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, which came out in 2000. I read it, learned from it, cringed at parts of it. It was a peak into what went on in kitchens and what happened after the kitchens closed. It was a frenetic read, but thankfully it was neither of my son’s lives.

I never forgot the book, in fact thought of it often, but never followed Bourdain nor watched his series. Now Journeyman, the article in a recent New Yorker has Bourdain calling to me again and hopefully I’ll catch up. He is not, yet he is, the same man whose book I read.

Bourdain takes Obama to dinner in Hanoi – $6

Why my inerest? His life, his work, his experiences are legend. He’s been everywhere, eaten everything, gets to film it, write about it. President Obama had lunch with him on one of his adventures. So cool. Would I like to go on one of those adventures? Not so sure I could do it. I once invited myself to lunch with Norman Mailer and then could barely say a word.

All through the New Yorker article I found snippets that made me think of my children, quotes to send them or not send them. I usually have to think it through — how often to email, call or text. How often to intrude into their already full adult lives. These are important decisions for a mom who is so proud of and so loves her sons and their wives but doesn’t want to be over-momming it.

Instead I’ll write them here. Perhaps they will read them some day.

For Morgan, who has done research on New York City’s food carts, and who with his wife Sarah works at the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, this quote from Bourdain describing his proposed Pier 57 “market modelled on Singapore’s hawker centers or open-air food courts.” Bourdain plans to bring in the “best street-food vendors” recruited “from around the world and awarded visas — assuming that the United States is still issuing them — ”

Singapore’s orderly hawker markets combine the delights of roadside
gastronomy with an approach to public-health regulation that could pass
muster in post-Bloomberg New York. They cracked the code with out
losing this amazing culture.

For Sam, who writes for Food 52, and Alex who is a frequent commenter, this clip on Bourdain confessing that he now seeks to “capture how people go about their daily lives amid violent conflict” while filming Parts Unknown — ”

As ‘Parts Unknown’ has evolved, it has become less preoccupied with food and
more concerned with the sociology and geopolitics of places Bourdain visits. . .
To viewers who complain that the show has become too focussed on politics, Bourdain responds that food is politics: most cuisines reflect an amalgamation of influences and tell a story of migration and conquest, each flavor representing a sedimentary layer of history. He points out that most shows about food are premised on a level of abundance that is unfamiliar in many parts of the world.

Go Sam! We all knew you were right to bring politics onto the website!

I’ve got a good one for my buddy Lee, who’s a firm believer in “if it doesn’t kill you it will make you strong” as he judges the edibility of some morsel that I question. It’s a conversation of Bourdain’s with Stephen Werther, his partner in his new market project, and Stephen Alesch of Roman and Williams, the design firm which has agreed to work on the Market. They are talking about those Asian food vendors again. “The new frontier for American tastes is fermentation. . . That’s funk. . . Aged steaks. . . Age is code for rot. . . Cured.”

“Alcohol is the by-product of yeast,” Stephen Alesch chimed in. It’s the
piss of yeast.”

“Basically , what we’re saying is that filth is good,” Bourdain concluded.

And I found one for me. Bourdain’s publisher Dan Halpern from Ecco and HarperCollins says of Bourdain —

“He can’t believe his luck. He always seems happy that he actually is Anthony Bourdain.”

I am so lucky too!

* * * * * * * * * *

Last night, after putting this post to bed for a quick review in the morning before publishing, the thought came to me that there was still more to do. Netflix streams Parts Unknown. I watched the first episode, filmed in 2013, in Myanmar. Bourdain presents an interesting, colorful travelogue, integrating the life of the people with the food of the country. His dining companions spoke out loud, but guardedly, of their new freedoms. The story is out of date because the papers today are filled with atrocities against the Rohingya, and I was left wondering what his experience would be if he went back. Bourdain seemed surprisingly uncomfortable in front of the camera. I will watch more.

Ice Sailing on the Hudson, 2015

Posted on Monday, March 23, 2015 by spoonbeams

There wasn’t the excitement and activity that surrounded last year’s ice boat rally at Rokeby in Barrytown, but it was a real treat to look out the window and see four boats scooting around at Cheviot Landing several days this week.

At the opening of the Ice Boat Expo at FDR Library and Museum in January, Wint Aldrich, historian and member of the Aldrich family that hosted last year’s event summed up 2014’s rare ice-boating conditions:

This past February brought the most “exceptional conditions of ice-boating on the Hudson in living memory … 15 miles of practically skate-able ice, 15 inches thick,” Aldrich said. “We have all our fingers crossed that this is going to happen again and again. What a treat it would be.”

John Vargo, former commodore of the Hudson River Yacht Club agreed. “It’s once in a lifetime . . . I”ve never seen this many iceboats together on the Hudson, and I’ve been coming here 70 years.”

Over thirty boats and thousands of spectators gathered on the ice. Some of the ice yachts were over one hundred years old, and two, the Jack Frost and the Rocket, both restored and both about 50 feet tall, sailed with each other for the first time after about a century. Spectators dragged coal stoves down onto the ice and danced around the boats to music from a brass band from Bard College.

But no, it didn’t happen again this year. Our little ice boat rally was much smaller and quieter.

The 2015 season started when Lee was walking the dogs down by the river. He met some of the hopeful boaters who had driven up from Newburgh looking for suitable conditions. They came back with friends and boats the next day and we watched them set up and take off. They’ve been back several times. Lee spent time down by the landing filming, and one of the boaters asked him if he wanted to go for a ride.

I would have said yes —

Living with a foo-foo

Posted on Friday, August 29, 2014 by spoonbeams

Dread descended upon me as Lee and I were driving home from an evening out.

This was my fourth return to my house for the day. The earlier three times Brino, the current doggie love-of-my-life, bounced down from his lookout on the spiral stairs to meet me at the door and bark his greeting. He looks so cute sitting at the window where he can smell, hear, or see someone approaching..

As is his custom, Brino barked unrestrainedly, expressing his joy and love, until he had circled Lee once or twice and then run out the door to greet me, all the time circling in a frenzy, circling back to circle Lee, and then circling around me and in front of me and wherever space allowed. I sat down on the bench and started to pet him and told him what a good dog he was. He quieted down, trying to be a good dog, trying so hard to please me by not barking because he has learned that it turns me into a crazy woman. His face and body showed that he was really sorry that he forgot. Strange strangled sounds emerged from deep in his throat. He looked pleadingly up at me, gurgling and croaking, his eyes saying “Love me, don’t leave me, love me, stay with me, love me, don’t go away again.” Even though it’s amusing, it’s hard to take. It’s exhausting for me. It’s exhilarating for him. He’s so happy we are home. He’s so cute.

A little history —

The foster mom who had “Spike” before he came home with me in January and turned into “Brino,” wrote in his online profile that he would sing and dance for you. That sounds cute, doesn’t it? She said he would pick up each foot and point it. He does do that and looks like a little ballerina. So cute. She also said he yipped with glee to see her. After having one disappointment after another trying to adopt a dog I was desperate, and a little yipping was not going to deter me.

Surely Lee and I could break him of this unappealing small dog behavior that he had most likely picked up from those mini poodles and things he somehow got mixed up with and was fostering with. K, his foster mom, had twenty-one dogs at her home. Spike, a twenty-five pound Pomeranian mix or whatever he is, was the big guy at this mostly mini dog rescue (hereafter called TMMDR). The last time I checked, the largest dog available at TMMDR was a 19-pound Pekingese, Miss Becky, unless you count the bonded pair Kaylee and Mikki, two shih tzus who together weigh 26 pounds.

Pepper — one of the 100 pound labs

Most of the dogs at K’s slept on the lower bunk of a trundle, but a favorite few got to sleep up on her bed. Spike wasn’t one of the favored. My grand delusion was that K, with twenty foo-foo dogs — as my family disparagingly labeled any dog that was too cute for words, yippy and spoiled to boot, that resembled a chew toy for one of our 100 pound labs — just didn’t have the time to retrain Spike herself.

Spike had been on my short list for a few months, but never at the top. My heart ached over a few dogs already during the search, and my life was stuck in a deep loneliness without a furry companion. My days were spent scanning adoptable dogs on petfinder.com, scouting local kennels, completing applications, studying breed characteristics and temperaments, and feeling sorry for myself.

Spike filled most of my requirements. He was older, small enough to fit on my lap, large enough to walk with the big dogs, and not a constant shedder. He was house trained, neutered, and had no allergies or health issues. He got along with the twenty little dogs at K’s, K’s grandchildren, and cats, and he didn’t cause mayhem when left alone in the house.

Spike got low grades on my barking and yipping requirements, his adoption fee was pretty high, and his foster home was too far for me to visit him ahead of time. But he was cute. I decided to apply for him.

TMMDR seemed keen on having found someone to take him.

Petfinder is the most popular site for finding your pet soulmate, It is similar to dating sites, and just as humbling and depressing. Each pet has a profile. People read profiles and pick a pet. One difference is that prospective adopters or rescuers don’t have profiles.

Each rescue organization requires a separate application, and some won’t even answer a “Is Buddy-boy” still available?” inquiry until they have received and reviewed your application. That could take a week or more.

Uncle Jack

So I filled out yet another application form, answering questions such as: size of yard, height of fence, dog experience, disciplinary strategies, training plans, hours away from home, name of groomer, other people and pets in the home. Did I ever return a dog or put one down? and why? Who would take care of the dog if I went on vacation or died? How often do people, children, dogs visit? Most wanted to call the vet, some wanted to call neighbors, a lot wanted to make a home visit. I felt terribly guilty inflicting unnecessary intrusions into my vet’s day at her clinic.

The application process is a bit overkill. These are dogs looking for new homes. We treat abused children coming across the border and our mentally ill and homeless with less concern.

Petfinder claims to list over 340,000 adoptable pets in over 13,000 adoption centers and shelters. Surely the web designer could streamline the adoption process by setting up a questionnaire for each prospective pet owner to compose a profile. That’s what dating sites do. If the system works for finding a husband or wife it should be good enough for finding a pet.

The adopter profiles could be secure so that only rescue organizations approached by the prospective adopter could see them. Individual rescue organizations could have the option to add a question or two if they deem it necessary. A single secured recommendation from the veterinarian could also be posted online. Harvard and Yale do it. More than 500 colleges choose freshman with a Common Application. Why can’t doggie angels have faith that a common application will work for them also?

Some rescue agencies just don’t respond. They put up barriers. Do they like to play god, are they scams, or they are just incompetent? Many are staffed by unpaid volunteers, but I’m an unpaid volunteer and consider myself competent.

Finally the application was in and accepted, the home inspection went fine, and all we had to do was sign the contract. There were off-putting clauses in the contract, such as —

“The adopter hereby declares that no representations about the nature of the adopted dog . . . have induced the adopter to sign this contract.”

What else would have induced me to choose this dog and sign the contract? All I had were his cute pictures, the profile, a few conversations and emails. We hadn’t even met yet, and they were also asking for pre-payment.

Obviously I had more trust in TMMDR than they had in me.

The contract goes on to dictate what kind of collar he should wear and couldn’t wear, where he should be allowed in my home and outside my home. It threatens to take action to retrieve the dog should I give him to my children or my best friend.

Tuck – my doggie-love before Brino – would have been a very miserable dog if he had to abide by certain rules. How about this one?

This dog will not be kept outdoors during the adopter’s working hours, or at any other time left alone outdoors while the adopter is not at home.

Tuck was happiest in the fenced-in area behind the house where he could look out over the river. He showed his displeasure by being extremely destructive if left inside alone. Tuck’s foster mom warned me, but I had to find out for myself.

Tuck

Another rule in the contract stated that the dog had to be protected from the elements. Tuck loved the snow, the cold, sleet, rain, the wind, the outdoors. He slept on the deck at night. He never went into the shelter we built for him He was constantly on alert, listening, watching. Even the owner of the kennel where Lee’s dog, Uncle Jack, and Tuck stayed finally gave in. At first he thought it imperative that Tuck stay indoors with the pack, but finally he let him sleep outdoors.

Tuck, by the way, rarely barked, and if he did, whoa — it was scary. He looked like a wolf. Nobody ever called Tuck “cute.”

Perhaps rescue agencies don’t know what is best for all their dogs and their new owners. Perhaps they should have a little humility and allow adopted dogs and their owners to find their own way. The contract includes threats of recall, attorney fees, and fines. It is as if TMMDR doesn’t want to relinquish ownership of their dogs. In paragraph one it states that the “donation” is not a fee or sale price.

It’s a very invasive contract. TMMDR can visit my home anytime, call my vet for information anytime, demands that I notify them if I move and if Spike/Brino dies.

But I signed the contract, just like I sign my life away over and over – when I open a bank account, or get insurance, or go to the doctor, or buy a cell phone, or download software, or now, adopt a dog.

I do love my Brino. Except for the fact that I later learned that TMMDR kept the entire fee, including the extra $50 I paid to “help defray the cost” of getting my dog to me, and did not give any of it to K, I do appreciate their efficiency and the work that the organization does. K feeds 21 dogs and gets them their shots and meds. She brought Spike to a groomer so that he’d be cute as could be when I picked him up, drove to meet me half way for the pick-up, and definitely deserved a big chunk of that fee. K and other foster moms and the transport volunteers who ferry the dogs around have very big hearts.

It’s been a few days since the dread and it has slowly dissipated. Brino was able to come along with me on most of my errands since that night so he hasn’t been overwhelming at the door. Everyone he meets on my travels thinks he is so cute.

He is lying by my desk on the tower deck as I write. He’s been a good little boy today, not barking too much, settling down quickly. He trotted gaily by my side on our walk with Lee and Uncle Jack – on the leash and off, he took a dunk in the stream and shook himself off before he came near. He sticks close, doesn’t bolt as all my other dogs did whenever they had the chance. It feels good.

Who knows what goes on in Brino’s cute little head? When I wrote to K to report on how he was doing, she twice asked me, “Is he still behaving like a gentleman?”

“Ooohhh,” I thought. “He’s got an ungentlemanly side???”

He has antagonized some, but not all, of the neighbor dogs, mostly the pit bull next door, and the Caine Corso who usually is very sweet but always very large. Wikipedia, although not necessarily the preferred source for information on such a grand beast, says it best: “Ideally the Cane Corso should be indifferent when approached and should only react in a protective manner when a real threat is present.” That’s what I keep telling Mina, since Brino is certainly not anything resembling a real threat. After getting bit on the bum by the pit bull (totally not the neighbor’s fault and no hard feelings) Brino has been much less feisty.

Depending upon the length of his hair, Brino is my Baby B., my fox, my bottlebrush, my scraggly little guy, my flutterby, my chipmunk, my lion, my mop. Lee affectionately calls him a pain in the a–.

He’s lucky he’s cute.

____________________________________________________________________

Love in the Cookie Jar

Posted on Monday, August 11, 2014 by spoonbeams

Back in those crazy years after my husband died and I began dating again, a fellow who intrigued me asked me to bake him cookies in exchange for his affection. He followed a quasi gluten free diet. I bought Gluten-Free Baking with the Culinary Institute of America. Author Richard Coppedge had formulated four specialized flours that could be blended for breads, cakes, cookies, bagels, pancakes, everything to keep a lover happy. It was intense, scientific, and required visiting several natural food stores for ingredients. This was 2008, before gluten free baking flours and such were readily available. I am just a casual baker, and after several attempts at success, was not willing to put in the effort to get it right.

In the end the fellow wasn’t worth the effort either, but at this point I was hopelessly smitten. Momma’s Favorite Monster Cookie was perfect. I found it on the internet. It was simple, forgiving, nutritious, and the recipe produced 48 delicious cookies.

He loved them. They surpassed anything found anywhere, and they still are hard to beat. He encouraged me to market them.

Well he’s gone but the cookie is still a favorite.

Lots of friends and family, one with gluten issues, visited these past few weeks. I made a double batch, froze them – which they do so well — and served them continually. Several cookie lovers asked for the recipe.

I went online to send them the link. The url no longer existed. Fourteen million, six hundred thousand results popped up binging “Monster Cookie.” Ah yes, a lot of them were Cookie Monster hits. Forgot about him.

There were countless versions of this oatmeal, peanut butter cookie: Grandmother versions, Jewish versions, Amish versions, Nestlé’s version, Pillsbury’s version, Paula Deen’s version which has 447 comments by the way; a modified version for autistic children which uses corn syrup instead of butter or margarine, fully illustrated presentations, utube demonstrations, and some which added flour. One site honored it as a “modern classic.” And then there was that entirely different blue genre mentioned above.

What is my point?

I’m not sure.

But many caring women, and hopefully some just as caring men have featured this recipe on their blogs or have commented on it suggesting variations, asking for more details, or simply praising it. And surely, an even greater number of women who have discovered and baked and loved this cookie have their own story they will tell when they share this treat.

Momma Kate’s recipe was originally at recipezaar.com and is now available on food.com.

One of the most recent comments on Paula Deen’s site is “. . .They did not turn out. They were yucky cookie balls. Such a bummer.”

My suggestion to the writer is that she try again. Practice makes perfect, and mine get better and better every time.

Just like picking fellows.

So let me tell you about my tower #14: But this, but that

Posted on Saturday, May 31, 2014 by spoonbeams

The narrative has been played out, and unfortunately so has the work on the house.

There are more stories: lighting, flooring, the glorious deck railing, landscaping, decoration, the highs, the lows, the surprises, the disappointments, the could-have-done-differentlies and the-things-to consider-next-times. But details have been slipping away and my muse is calling me to follow.

Friends and neighbors celebrated the completion of our addition at a party on a spectacularly warm, sunny afternoon last Columbus Day weekend. We celebrated too. The tower is great. Lee and I have been in the whole house for almost a year and it is our home, comfortable like an old bathrobe.

But the poor little cottage – my sweet cozy nest on the river – needs TLC. The walls in the cottage need spackle and paint. They always did, even before we opened up the second floor and buffed up the skeleton. Now after groaning and creaking with the added weight, the walls are crying for help.

I knew this would happen. I’ve been here before.

I like many of the design concepts the previous owners incorporated into the cottage: the trim-less windows, the curve where the ceiling meets the walls, and the mirrors on the sliding doors to the bathroom. They’d look great in a coffee table book. Perhaps that’s where they belong.

Lee has nothing good to say about them. He sees the workmanship; I see the look. The edges around the windows keep chipping and tape is popping up all over. The rounded angle at the ceiling line was beyond the ability of the drywall man. The mirrors on the bathroom sliding doors are very, very heavy and they push the confines of the door housing. One of them only opens all the way at certain times of the year.

Lee would rather be finishing the stone walk, and he is, and he has to comply with lead paint regulations elsewhere, but most of all he wants to stop abusing his 67-year old body.

To keep us both smiling I finally decided to call our favorite painter friend to repair and paint the walls in the cottage but she seems to have disappeared. Know someone good?

Once the painting is done the house can more or less grow old gracefully. Cold air fills the top floor of the tower when the winter winds blow down the Hudson, but the heavy quilt I thumbtack over the warped door reminds me of long winters in New Hampshire when I hung blankets on stairways to keep the heat from drafting upstairs. Baseboard moulding sits loose where it should be stained and attached, but why is that different than the curtains hemmed with safety pins? The stair treads in the cottage are well scuffed and spotty, but they are memories of running barefoot up to bed after late nights in the hot tub – peaceful moments I had during my solo years in the cottage.

We’ll get there. Whatever needs to be done will be done – hopefully before the family gathering this August. But the rest will wait until whenever we decide to sell.

So let me tell you about my tower #13: Heat and running water

Posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 by spoonbeams

Air conditioning — Mobius Fan by Westinghouse, no longer made

Looking for a project? Upgrade your heat and plumbing and fuss over your septic system and drainage. Then you can casually mention to friends and neighbors the tens of thousands of dollars you have spent on the hidden mechanicals in your home. They will admire your attention to detail and potential problems, envy your ability to spend grand sums on the highest quality of unseen pipes and tubing, or they will think you have lost your mind – maybe they will do all three.

Shower tile work

I replaced the furnace in 2008. Four feet of water flooded the basement during a freak rainstorm. A frantic neighbor called me up in New Hampshire to report that water was pouring through the retaining walls on my land, gushing down the sloping lawn, and funneling through the 1870 stone foundation under the front porch. I listened but refused to react because she had called me once before to tell me that the electricity had been out for three days and the days were 20 degrees or less. That time I panicked, asked the neighborhood handy guy to install a generator and lost my refrigerator, cd changer, microwave, phone, modem, and television to mishaps in connecting it up.

It was still raining when I arrived at my house two days later. The cascading fountains on the front lawn rivaled those of Las Vegas and the roar heard from the basement stairs brought to mind Niagara Falls. I could see nothing. The electricity was out and the flashlights were dead. I sheepishly closed the door and went to a friend’s house to wait out the storm.

Lee’s “Female Form” & Biasi panel radiator

That little event cost me well over $6000 and a lot of tears. The plumber drained the boiler and disassembled the exhaust and intake. He cut the heat lines, removed and replaced the circulators. He replaced the Peerless Pinnacle LP gas stainless steel efficiency sealed combustion boiler with a new one, and then reassembled the exhaust and intake, reinstalled the heat lines, rewired and started the boiler and did an efficiency test, at least that’s what the invoice says. My neighbors installed a sump pump for me.

Water, heat, electricity & phone/internet cable going underground from the cottage to the tower.

Water, heat, electricity, phone & internet lines going underground from the cottage to the tower.

The town and neighbors were great during the crisis. The fire department pumped the water. They did it for a lot of people. Some neighbors thought the water pumped from one of the homes higher on the hill found its way to my basement. The highway department regraded the road. Friends helped throw out a lot of the unsalvageables.

That didn’t solve all the water problems in the basement. Rebuilding the French drains helped a bit as did redirecting downspouts, but the basement still is not reliable storage space.

During construction we discovered that the pipe leading from the septic tank to the dry well had shifted and now flowed in the wrong direction. Just a few more thousand on my bill.

Radiant heat tubing

We were pleased that the new tower and the regrading of the front yard diverted the water that used to flow straight towards the house, and the basement stayed relatively dry during heavy rain.

This summer however we had a house full of happy young folk and noticed that the toilets were all gurgling. When everybody left we called in the plumber. He had us try this and that and dig up this and that and we discovered that our dry well was filling up with ground water from a day or two of soaking rains and was back filling our septic tank. So we had our favorite excavator come in and dig up the yard one more time to install a French drain to draw off water. He told us after he did the work that he didn’t understand where the water came from because the ground was bone dry.

Shower tile work

Whoa. I just did a search to see how that Pinnacle boiler ranked in price and customer satisfaction and was shocked to see how many people have had very unhappy experiences with it. The positive comments come from plumbers who say you have to know what your are doing or forget it.

The oil company service man said the same thing about the Buderus oil burner in my b&b in New Hampshire. He had no clue. It was much more impressive than my little Pinnacle. I would stand in front of this blue machine with six circulators blinking at me as they went on and off and recall a field trip through the Deer Island Waste Water Treatment Plant in Boston. What if even just one of those couplings came loose. The thought was horrifying. Obviously the engineers in the plant knew what they were doing. I could find no images of the inside of Deer Island online. It looked like a cross between what lay behind the Wizard of Oz’s curtain but 1000 times as large, and what one would imagine a nuclear power plant looked like. It’s probably top secret.

Brain-like soy-based foam to keep the heat in.

But I digress. Heat and plumbing are essential, and Sean did a great job making our home cozy and comfortable, but I resented spending the money. Lee and his man Derrick installed all the bath fixtures so I was able to save there.

Electricians also are unbelievably expensive and the bulk of that work is also hidden in the walls. Our town does not require a licensed electrician so Lee did the electrical work. It was frustrating for him at times and he had to call in Scott as reinforcement towards the end. But at least he didn’t have to hear me complain about paying the bill!

Concrete sink, bluestone countertop

Let me just sum up. We’ve now got five circulators coming off the burner, two for the cottage, two for the tower and one to the hot water heater. The previous owners put in Burnham cast iron baseboard heating which is sort of classy, but just like inexpensive baseboard the end pieces fall off and furniture can’t be placed against the wall. Papers are constantly falling off the back of my desk getting lost in the dust bunnies.

We’ve installed radiant in the first floor of the tower – it’s WONDERFUL. We’ve got cool (I don’t mean temperature) Biasi panels on the second floor – not as classy as Runtals, but much more economical if you can call any of this economical, and a perfect fit out-of- production Hearthstone Tudor gas stove on the top floor. We installed bare baseboard on the bridge and Lee built a bench around it for plants.

More shower tile work

The fun purchase was a concrete sink we found in the horse-traders barn at Williams Hardware. It came complete with a fancy-shmancy never-would-I-pay-full price-for Kohler faucet that lists for over $1000. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but why complain since it came as a bonus with the sink all for $200? Of course since it was the floor model it didn’t have any of the hidden parts. Our shower is an earthy earthly paradise. Lee created sea and sky murals with hand made tiles from his pottery period.

The Tudor

Last week when the temperatures were down to minus 9 and the gusts were recorded at 28 miles per hour (much higher along the river) I was delighted with the heat generated by my Pinnacle and cute Tudor. And I’m walking on air having just watched my loyal sump pump keep the basement free of water during the downpour the past day and a half.

We’ve got that generator as back up when the power goes out, six ceiling fans to keep us cool in the summer, and a gas fireplace in the living room.

Please no more surprises.

I hope I’ll get another chance

Posted on Wednesday, December 4, 2013 by spoonbeams

We just recently moved into the eleven by eight foot loft of our new addition where we can lie in bed and look out over the Hudson and the Catskills. There’s not much we can do there but sleep, read, and you know what. It’s very romantic.

Our kids were up for Thanksgiving – three thirty-ish men with their lovely women. It was a fabulous weekend for us, the first Thanksgiving with the two families merged.

The last of our children left Sunday afternoon, and the house felt suddenly empty, but it also was once more ours alone. We decided to pour ourselves each a glass of wine and watch a movie in bed ––

An hour or two later we awoke. Lee told me he felt like were in our twenties again.

I told him I forgot to open my eyes.

Fourteen joys and a will to be merry

Posted on Thursday, October 31, 2013 by spoonbeams

Tuesday morning the flag that flies in the park outside my kitchen window was flying at half-mast. It was important to know why.

Two of my friends had died quietly the day before: one was more like family. Although they lived next door to each other, near the park, neither of them had any clout in town. The flag wasn’t lowered for them. It was eerie.

My friends were in many ways similar.

Both spent a lot of time by themselves. It seemed by choice. They did enjoy socializing, and each of them could be great company.

Both loved the Hudson. One kayaked on it, the other swam in it.

They both spent a lot of time gazing at it from their back porches, and they knew that it was forever changing, and that it would always be revealing more but not all of its secrets.

They loved the birds – the birds in the air and on the water. They watched each other watch a duck family that crossed through our contingent yards several days in a row on their way to the water. We never did find out where the ducks were coming from. Perhaps they nested at the pond down the road. It seemed a long walk for little ducklings, but one theory is as good as another for the story.

They both observed the animals that darted out from the lilacs and sumac that bordered the tracks – mostly bunnies, but there were others. One took a picture of the sickly fox that roamed the shore, the other took the fox out of its misery.

They both were survivors. She fought breast cancer and was determined to beat it. She reminded me of my husband Clark who fought until he didn’t have the strength to sit on the tractor and mow the orchard anymore.

My other friend’s body was full of buckshot. We knew it was in his ear, but not until the xrays the day he died did we know that his body was riddled with shot, especially in one leg. He started gagging and gasping for breath on Thursday, and by the weekend Lee and I knew that he deserved a better life than the one he would have if he started the regimen to cure himself.

They both were creative. She maintained beautiful gardens, mostly in large planters. I like to look down on them from my top deck. We talked plants a lot, and also animals, and neighbors, and always the river. Her husband gave me one of her pottery pieces for our “tower toasting” just a few days before she died. It is next to me on my desk. Lee and I knew when she went into the hospital the last time she might not make it to our celebration.

My other friend, whom if you haven’t guessed was my dog Tuck, was creative too. He could find a way to get out of anything – almost. She called him Houdini. I think she would have loved to find a way out of her body and run with him.

What does one do when two friends die on the same day? I got into the car and drove to see my mother. She has had to depend upon someone for help in her daily life for the past ten years. She acknowledged me and smiled and I told her the news of the family, and in five – ten minutes she dozed off again. I held her hand drawing in whatever motherly comfort I could.

When in transit, I’m nowhere, a good place to be when you don’t want to be anywhere else. I sing with favorite music or listen to books. This four-hour round trip the book was A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of my Father by Augusten Burroughs. I hurt for the little boy who longed for his father’s love and had created a reality where he and his father shared a special relationship complete with little rituals. Finally Augusten discovered how wrong he was.

The tape kept running. I was no longer listening, but had had my own breakthrough. Life, death, love, loss, yesterday, tomorrow had all come together and I was happy to be alive. The memories of these two friends, whose times were up, were now part of me, along with the memories of others who had touched me in one way or another.

At home I read the blurb on the audiobook cover: “. . .Though harrowing and brutal, [the book] will ultimately leave you buoyed with the profound joy of simply being alive.” Come on, I thought, this is ridiculous.

It’s now Thursday and I’m somehow picking away at this feeling of joy by wondering if I should feel guilty for loving life while others are struggling just to live another day. Every now and then this pesky theme of mine surfaces and Lee, bless his heart, tells me it is good to enjoy life. I always come up with qualifications.

But here’s to a great neighbor and my dog Tuck, and here’s to my neighbor’s husband who shall grieve as long as he needs, and here’s to Lee, my constant companion and our lost spouses, and here’s to my mother, my sons, my friends, my extended family, Tuck’s vet, and here’s to you.

Love,

Spoonbeam

So let me tell you about my tower #12: Ups and Downs

Posted on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 by spoonbeams

Lee and I will be young forever. Lee may not actually believe this, but he certainly did not encourage me to look at the tenuousness of that assumption during design stage. His method of operation is to take no responsibility and let me make my own mistakes. Then when something goes wrong he’ll say, “I wouldn’t have done that.” If he doesn’t say that it is what I imagine. It’s okay. He’s prepared. He has a dumb waiter at his barn which he used to move pottery up and down from his workshop to the kiln which will fit into our spiral corner just in case.

We climb 27 steps to get into the tower’s top floor. The easier climb, going up in the cottage and over the bridge has 29 steps.

Perhaps it was not the smartest design but it is fun to live in a tree house. So far there has been only one evening that I couldn’t possibly climb those stairs and that was two days ago after spending time on my knees in the garden.

Tuck is not really this goofy looking

Nobody has fallen down the stairs except my dog Tuck, on the spiral. It is a good thing he got over that embarrassment quickly since he is a dog with little self-control. He’s not allowed to cross the alley between the cottage and the tower because he will be overpowered by the desire to chase rabbits or take a swim.

Looking across the alley from the tower door

Looking across the alley from inside the tower door

We’ll be sitting in the kitchen and decide we should walk the dogs. Lee crosses to the tower to get Jaxon’s leash. Tuck is up the steps over the bridge and down the spiral to meet him at the door. Lee comes back to the kitchen through the alley. Tuck is up over and down and greets him at the door. Lee remembers he forgot his phone. He cuts across to the tower, and Tuck goes up over and down to meet him over there again. It’s great. Tuck has never been happier.

Jaxon on the other hand will not use the spiral. I admire him for recognizing his limitations.

The stairs have fallen with me on them. Lee claims the blame, but it’s partially my fault also. He was working on the three steps that go from the bridge to the tower and left the project for lunch or whatever. I dislocated my finger when the steps collapsed beneath me. That was a down. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ll probably have a stiff index finger and not be able to make a tight fist for the rest of my life. Lee will probably be very disappointed I didn’t post the photo he took of my finger — the one that he has used to gleefully gross out most of our friends.

Sitting on the top deck and having morning coffee is an up and makes me so glad we threw out common sense and built our home with all those steps. We are in the shade, we see three herons in their usual places, an eagle, fishermen, and an early sailboat. There’s a delightful breeze. There is a lot of bird activity in the trees at that level in the morning.

Our stairway to the second floor is a spiral from Stair-Pak in Pennsylvania. It’s all oak, and arrived in pieces, each numbered so that there would be no mistakes putting it together. It went together easily and looks great. Make sure you check with them before you buy elsewhere.

Our stairway to the third floor was designed and built by our friend Scott Ziegler – a true craftsman.

Lee designed and built the bannisters out of a slab of cherry. He built our coffee nook and storage under the stairs from excess flooring. The risers and sides of the staircase still need finish work and painting.

Close up of the head of the monster in the railing

And Lee built new handrails on the second floor landing in the cottage. He hated the ones that were there. The railings sit on metal rods which screw into the floor for easy removal — convenient for carrying furniture up and down and into the two rooms on the second floor. Also for spanning a ladder over the stairwell when painting the ceiling and walls or placing a light fixture.

Ah – and then there are the outdoor steps complete with Lee’s wife’s family goddess which traveled from China by plane on the lap of his father-in-law. Now she protects our home and our families. Later she will stand at the door of his son’s home and hopefully she will continue to bless my boys and their loved ones as her own.

Just a brief aside. We received our Certificate of Occupancy yesterday. Thank you to everyone who worked with us!

It wasn’t all roses

Posted on Sunday, June 16, 2013 by spoonbeams

Today is Fathers Day and I had a show-stopping conversation with Morgan. His dad, my husband, passed away in 2006, when Morgan was 22. We were talking about choosing a partner for marriage.

Morgan said a thoughtful, tender thing to me, at least that’s what I heard. He said that he and his younger brother Alex have an idea of what a good marriage can be because of the way their parents, Clark and me, stayed together and remained committed to each other for over 25 years. That’s the model they have in mind, and they are looking for partners with which to do the same. But oh, my words are so clinical and cliché. His words were so very much more human, more Morgan.

Clark and I were truly each other’s best friend, there for each other, no question.

Morgan and I spoke about other things too – work, the addition, his cats, air conditioning, July 4^th weekend, the cicadas. And then we hung up.

And then I began to worry.

In my efforts to make sure my sons are certain that Lee does not mean more to me than their father, have I led them to believe that Clark and I had a fairy-tale marriage? Will they be endlessly looking for fairy-tale relationships? As a young girl I believed in fairy-tale romances and marriages. As an older woman I believe in fairy-tale romances and marriages. But in-between I learned that it isn’t all lovey-dovey and happy til death do we part.

There were days during my marriage, and sometimes there were weeks or months when I wondered why or how or when. Do I really love him? Would I be happier with someone else? Am I trapped?

We never fought and I can’t remember ever raising our voices at each other. I’m pretty sure that is true. Two of the men I dated after his death, and the one that I am living with now get to that frenetic, shouting state so quickly.

Arguing with men, with anyone actually except my mother and a few employees (I loathe being in a supervisory position) was new to me, and very uncomfortable, and so I talked about it, trying to understand this hurtful dynamic in a relationship. One of my “dates” thought that Clark must have been hen-pecked. How else could he not have gotten angry with me since I was such a controlling, demanding woman? I don’t see that.

Clark was level-headed, calm, comforting. When I totally crashed the computer in our bookstore, leaving us without any inventory or purchase and sales records, he treated me gently and with concern as I walked around constantly crying, mute, and in a shadow for three weeks. Even when he was hurting with cancer, he found the way to help me through my anxiety and craziness over my mother’s violent and ugly onset of Alzheimer’s and the difficulty of getting her, her friends, and her independent living facility to accept the fact that she needed help.

Another one of my “dates” thought that Clark must have been a saint. I don’t see that either.

Lee doesn’t analyze. He just knows that we are both a little bit (hah) high strung, and get frustrated easily. Of course, I think he is the provocateur, but we won’t go there. If we’re not laughing at ourselves in an hour, we kiss and make up in the morning. We know we’ve got a good thing going and we aren’t going to let our big fat egos and our insecurities mess it up.

Clark and I may have talked and discussed, compromised, but I don’t even remember doing that. We just thought the same way. We successfully owned and operated two small businesses together. We built one house and did major improvements on two others. I guess we were a good match.

When we were courting he had a dream of sailing around the world. This sounded like heaven to me. After several years I realized this was definitely just a dream. He was much too cautious, too responsible, and he had a nightmare of an experience sailing the Marion Bermuda Race in 1979.

Only once did I see him lose it.

That was right after Morgan was born. He had recently changed jobs, and had given up smoking. Who knows exactly what brought on the anxiety attack that sent him to the hospital and then to bed for months. If ever I would have left him, it would have been then. But somehow both he and I got through it. Yes, he did get stuck when he was diagnosed, but who wouldn’t, and he soon started looking for answers.

Later on, as he got sicker and weaker with his non-Hodgkins, our life got smaller and smaller, but it was actually a dream. We were living in a 200 year old home that smiled on us. We hardly ever left it. Our children were off on their own.

It felt to me as if I was getting to know a new Clark. We spoke of what was happening to him and what would become of me. We were delving into places that we never had entered before. We were falling in love again.

Perhaps I have rewritten history for myself and for my boys. It is hard when you are juggling jobs and children to take the time to love each other. As I look back now, which I am so lucky to be able to do, I wish we had taken more time for ourselves and were more expressive of our feelings. At the time I was proud of our stoicism. It seemed to me that we just understood we were with each other and we didn’t have to prove it to each other over and over. And I think he felt the same. We never doubted.

We were fortunate we had a quiet, close time at the end of Clark’s life. He made it possible. He is the one who wanted us to buy that big, rambling house – a bear to maintain – on nine acres which needed constant mowing and care. I wanted to say “No. We don’t need an apple orchard. What are you crazy? All that spraying, all that work?”

But because I knew I had another life on the way, I would have done anything with him.

And we did good

spoonbeams

growing younger and older at the same time

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