Midriff Muse

It’s Foodie Tuesday theme on the www.opensalon.com blog where I also post. In keeping with that, I try to do a piece about one of the vintage coffee pots in my collection each week. The coffee set featured here was given to me by Hawk and the kids for Mother’s Day some year’s back. It is a “Forman Brothers, Inc” creation. They did not stamp their pots with a serial number indicating the manufacture date, but based on the dome and the internal parts, my semi-educated guess would be a 1930’s vintage. Like its chromium cousins, the ceramic holds and conducts the heat for a superior clear black brew. That may seem like an oxymoron – clear black – I don’t know how else to express the quality of its appearance; but there certainly is clear, black, hot coffee and then there is tepid, brown/black mud. This coffee pot produces the former. I still maintain that it has something to do with the degree of heat achieved by these old appliances before the days of energy saving ratings and lawsuits for hot coffee in the lap. And again, as with coffee pots of this vintage, there is no thermostat controlled shut off, the unplugging/done level is the call of the maker. I chose this particular set for feature this week because I thought that the colors of this design went well with the Thanksgiving Holiday theme. The fact that it was a gift given to me in love by my husband and kids; coupled with the emails and comments left on my blog by my children, their cousins and my siblings; honoring, comforting and sharing my renewed grief at this time; reminded me that something is profoundly right in our little world in the corner of southeast Wisconsin.

Our lives do not play out on the grand stage, but are filled with the vignettes of “Turkey bowl football games, cleverly hidden Easter baskets, raucous Christmas grab bag games, marathon euchre or casino nights, gatherings for the various life events of birthdays, graduations, or the fact that one of the out-of-towners has made their way back; or to welcome a new arrival, our third generation now 10 strong with another on the way. On so many levels, I keep experiencing the fineness of the young people we’ve brought into this world; their unabashed affection for their aunts and uncles, their willingness to get to know them better and to be known better by them; each of them so unique and gorgeous and at the same time so full of many little familiarities that have been the stuff of my life.

I was prepared to wrap up my recent grieving with this writing, articulating the sense that in the big scheme of things, we are abundantly blessed at the small level, and this is true, but then a rogue wave hit.

Last week in the comments on Open Salon when I posted the recent piece titled “Grief”, Traveller1 shared: “A loss in the family can keep one screaming for a long time.“

That scream is here in my throat at this hour.

On Sunday my sister Linda left this comment on my midriff muse blog: “….I can only say that my heart aches, air does not fill my lungs, and nothing fills the void deep in the core of my being where my brother Tim held space. Not all days are like this anymore but moments still are. Sometimes it is like my world stops and I want to deny it happened, that somehow a mistake was made, and he will be returned to this earth. Now, I know that cannot be so but that would be so much easier:-(
He was my big brother and I looked up to him so with awe and amazement all of my life. I was so looking forward to hanging and jamming with him when our children got older as we had talked about doing. I have noticed that my breath this past few weeks has been labored and air seems unavailable because of the days nearing … ”

It dawned on me then what it is that is hurting me so much. This Thursday’s Thanksgiving will be the last first – the last of a year of first holidays without him and I don’t want there to be a last first because then it becomes too real. I don’t want it to become one year since he died, then two, then three. I don’t want it to become an anniversary. I don’t want it to become something quieter – with less upheaval; more acceptance. I don’t want him to become more memory than a person among us. And even as I write this in the dark, secluded on the sun porch with selected “Timmy” songs playing on my itunes; my daughter Shannon, home for the holiday, peeks in to tell me that the favorite and “missing-from-her-life lately” scalloped potatoes and ham that I made in the crock pot for her earlier is: “Good stuff, Maynard.” This brings me right back to the little picture in the big scheme of things again.

Also last week on Open Salon, AtHomePilgrim tenderly reminded: “Remember him at Thanksgiving, yes–but remember, too, to be with the people who are there. Loving them each day is the finest tribute you can pay Timmy.”

… and so we will gather. I imagine we will talk about him, laugh some, cry some. We’ll remember about him dunking his cookie in other people’s coffee, flicking the lids of the water bottles all over the Tricia’s house last year. There will probably be fishing stories told. At some point I will find my way to Tricia’s dining room table, one of several employed for the occasion; and I’ll remember a few years ago when Linda, Amy and I, along with some of our children chose this particular table to situate ourselves. As we sat after eating with our finished plates in front of us, the telling of a story brought up the concept of couples cuddling in the “spooning” position. Amy insisted she never, ever heard of spooning before and as Tim walked through she asked him what he knew of it – joking that she was sure that Tim knew all about forking but had he ever heard of spooning? Tim paused for just a second and then drawled in that Sam Elliot voice of his: “Well, my philosophy has always been …. when you’re that close ….insert!” Tim then exited the room leaving a wake of pre-teen and teen nieces grossed out, nephews looking down and smirking, my sisters and I shrieking protest while laughing our collective asses off.

Good stuff, Maynard!

Timothy John O’Connor

April 19, 1956 – December 3, 2008

November 24th, 2009 | Tags: death of a sibling, grief, loss of a sibling, Midlife Musings, Thanksgiving, vintage coffee pot | Category: Coffee Pots, Family | Comments (5)

Grief doesn’t keep a schedule. It doesn’t look in and ask: “is this an okay day for you? Cuz if it isn’t, I can come back another time.” Grief pretty much comes by when it needs to. I guess.

I knew this was coming and I thought I had it worked out. My plan was to finish my Sedona Series (the travelogue of our adult sibling vacation in Arizona last summer) before Thanksgiving. I was going to throw in a few more coffee pot pieces and on December 3rd, the one year anniversary, I was going to repost “We Lost One”.

Well, as it stands, I only have Parts 1 and 2 of the Sedona Series posted. Parts 3 and 4 are in my head and a jumble of notes here and there. Yesterday I did a coffee pot piece that didn’t require a lot of description. It was more about sentiment than vintage craftsmanship, but this particular coffee pot happens to reside on a little table in my living room sharing space with the picture of my brother Timmy, as a young man, that was resurrected for his memorial service. I included a picture of that little shrine in my piece. This morning there was a comment from Tricia, saying that Tim had been in her thoughts a lot lately. I echoed that and then Mary dropped by the site and said that she has been missing him too.

It has been a rainy day here today. Fibromyalgia has kicked my ass and humbled me again. I am sitting with my laptop and a heating pad and the itunes I’ve downloaded over the year to remember Timmy by: some John Prine, some Jim Croce, and “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues. Thanksgiving is next week and the reality has been looming at the edges and rims of all my thoughts for days now that our Thanksgiving gathering a year ago was the last time I saw Tim. So easy to take little morsels of conversation for granted, to give and receive hugs as though there will always be another one, to look at someone without the conception that it will be the last look.

One week after Thanksgiving will be the one year anniversary of Peggy calling me to tell me that Timmy had had a massive heart attack. I was ready to rush right there.

“Is he at Lakeland or did they take him to St. Luke’s?”

“Terry” she said, sensing my lack of comprehension, “He didn’t make it.”

I am to this day, on some level, still dumbfounded. My heart still spasms at the thought. I know that it is okay – has been – will be – but it is still not okay.
I don’t know why this should remain so raw. And it is not like this everyday. Many, many days, it is a smile with tender memories, but there are those days when grief still demands its due. This is one. So I am asking, if you would indulge me; walk with me awhile. And thank you ahead of time.

____________

From December 15, 2008 …

We lost one of our own. My brother, Timmy(top left), 52 years old, collapsed and died of a heart attack, catching us all by surprise. That was last Wednesday, December 3^rd. It seems incomprehensible that it has been over a week now. One of the things that always gets to me in the midst of the two most significant life events, birth and death, is that the rest of the world goes on as if nothing had happened. I want to yell out: “Hey! …. Hey! ….. Stop it!”

There are 11 of us and it feels strange as hell to have one gone. We have, each of us, from time to time secretly marveled at our seeming immunity. Our brood has existed intact for 38 years now, a 17 year span from oldest to youngest – no car accidents, no life threatening illnesses, no loss of limb or faculty, and even though our Dad passed at the age of 60 after living with lung cancer for five years, our mother is still with us, her attractiveness and cute little figure, belying the eleven pregnancies and some very tough years over the course of her own seven and one half decades.

I have been trying to write this piece off and on since around midnight on Monday night. Talk about wanting to get something right. So I rip off a few thoughts or phrases and then get frustrated because it’s too hard and switch to numbing myself with electronic solitaire. And while I know that my grief is real and I am entitled to it, I am also chastised by the selfishness of my focus when it is my sister-in-law, Jodie and my nephews, Andrew and Jack Thomas who must cope with the daily absence – each day reawakening to the reality that he who used to dwell with them no longer dwells there. The strange thing for me is this: I am the oldest of 11 – have been since the age of 17 – and I feel like one of my limbs is missing.

My sister Mary and I are the only ones who can refer to Tim as our little brother or younger brother. She was just 1 and I was not quite 3 when Tim joined us. Throughout those toddlerhood years he was often a source of giggles and an easy playmate. Mary had a story to share at the funeral service. It was about the time that she and Timmy were sitting on the back stoop, each with a bowl of strawberries to eat. When Mary finished her bowl and then lamented, Timmy scooped a spoonful from his own bowl and held it to her lips. Such things worked out to a pretty simple equation with him: “Oh, yours is all gone? I’ve still got some. Here!” Of course in later years, Tim would trade liberally on some of that good will with such antics as dunking his cookie in your cup of coffee as he walked by.

Tim’s prankishness was legend – not the mean kind - just the kind that caught you off guard and made you smile. One time he moved the suspended tennis ball hanging in our sister Peggy’s garage to insure that she parked in the right place. A receptionist from his work told me at the visitation of the time he rigged the phone with scotch tape so that when she lifted the handset to answer, the whole phone came with it. Our sister, Tricia who now hosts the annual Thanksgiving Dinner reports that she is still finding plastic caps from the water bottles showing up in her drawers and various other nooks and crannies.

One of my own stories is from the time that Tim was a groomsman in our brother Joe’s wedding, the summer of 1986. The ceremony was a Catholic High Mass and during the serving of communion, the groomsman filled the front pew on the right of the church, the bridesmaids on the left and as the communicants filed to the front of the church, they lined up in front of the pew on either side while waiting for the previous section to vacate the communion rail. As I stood waiting my turn, I felt myself pinched on the butt and I whipped my head around to be met by Timmy’s grin. He later told me that he and a fellow groomsman had been “girl-watching” as the communion line moved forward and when I rounded the corner of the pew, the other guy had elbowed Tim pointing me out. Tim had agreed with him that, yes, I was great looking but also informed him that I was his older sister and had just had a baby four months earlier. The guy didn’t believe him, so Tim felt that the best way to prove his relation to me was to pinch my butt and let the guy see my indignation turn to big sister irritation/grin. I think that Tim took a little pride in the fact that his sisters are/were attractive and enjoyed having some fun with that at another guy’s expense. I also think that he knew that in the split second before the indignation registers for a gal like me, there is that teeny, tiny little thrill to think that somebody still finds you pinchable.

The remarkable thing about our family, aside from the large number, is the fact that all but three of the 11 live within a fifty mile radius of the family home. In addition to spouses and significant others there are 25 grandchildren, 5 step-grandchildren, and 9 great grandchildren. Thanksgivings and Christmas Eves continue to be celebrated en masse and while 100% attendance is not guaranteed, a comfortable 2/3 majority is consistently present. Each year also has its share of birthday and graduation parties, weddings, showers etc. - life events that are celebrated. At any and every occasion for a gathering of the clan, Tim greeted you as though he had been waiting specifically for just your arrival.

As an entity, our family can be diva-ish. Many of our spouses would say that we are stubborn, that we have difficulty admitting we are wrong, that we never let you forget a weak moment, that we can be critical and judgmental, that we always take too long saying good-bye, and that we girls, in particular, have a certain neurosis about how we look and whether our outfit is working “for us or ag’in us”.

Every family has their skeletons, squabbles and less than stellar moments. What I have been learning through my own children is that most of the individual idiosyncrasies that my brothers and sisters and I can find irritating in one another are the things that our nieces and nephews find endearing and humorous. Watching their Moms or Dads interact in each other’s company in a way that reverts back to some childhood hierarchy revealing untold misbehaviors and quibbling is sometimes a funny, funny show. Such was the case this past February, gathered for Mom’s 75^th birthday, as we tried to shush each other and make each other obedient to get lined up in birth order for a family photo – as it turns out – the last photo of us all together.

The gift of Timmy’s passing has been the opportunity for us to have the ability to stand back and see how good we have all truly done. Throughout the five day odyssey that began with receiving the news on Wednesday through the funeral service on Monday, it seemed that our children and spouses kept gathering us all into metaphorical lifeboats and rowing everybody to safe shores again and again, solicitous of our needs and comfort. Our children - the grandchildren – the collective brood of our brood – demonstrated such soulful maturity in so many different ways. On the day of the wake, they grouped themselves to carpool to our sister Peggy’s, whose house became the central meeting place, to lay out and set up the buffet to be ready and waiting as we made our way back, exhausted and spent after five hours of sharing our sorrow, memories and tears with the hundreds and hundreds of people who came to mourn with us. Our children filled our plates and emptied our dishes and comforted each other in between with unyielding tenderness. It was such an unbelievable gift.

My brother Joe, who delivered an exquisite eulogy at the funeral service the next day, spoke of the number of people who remarked that they never heard Timmy say anything bad about anyone. Not only that, but if you yourself were starting to dog on someone, Tim had a way of just moving you along to something else. Tim just seemed to prefer waking up on the sunny side of the bed and staying there.

Many people use to think that Tim looked and sounded a lot like the actor, Sam Elliott, especially during the years when he had that thick mustache. Tim’s voice had that same deep, sort of unruffled drawl. I can’t believe I’m never going to hear that again, breaking through the din at family gatherings.

In his late teens and early twenties, Tim played the guitar. John Prine was on of his favorite artists. I wish I were better at doing some of these technical things. I would have liked to have set this up so that a John Prine song was playing in the background while you are reading this post, but for now, click this video.

Rest in peace, dear brother.

November 19th, 2009 | Tags: Add new tag, death of brother, grief, loss, Midlife Musings, sibling death | Category: Family, Me, Myself and I | Comments (11)

One of the interesting things about having a hobby such as collecting old coffee pots is that people tend to think of you whenever they spot something that they think might belong in your collection.  It’s sort of a warm fuzzy in many ways.  A few years ago, my mother spotted this coffee maker at a garage sale and gave it to me as a birthday gift.

It has never been used, the cord, as you can see, never uncoiled from the manufacturer’s packaging.  The box has a handwritten shipping label on the side addressed to “Smith Home Services; Elkhorn, Wis.”  The return address preprinted on the label is From “Standard Electric Supply Co.; 1045 N. Fifth Street; Milwaukee, Wis 53203.”  There is also a 7 digit phone number (272-8100) and underneath it a statement: “Wholesale Only.”  A Google Search indicates that the company still exists at a different Milwaukee location, but with the same phone number.  The web page indicates that they are out of the appliance, housewares and lamps business and into control panels and automation systems and such things that I do not find nearly as charming as vintage coffee pots, however I do think that it is charming that they  have an updated version of the same logo as the one on the shipping label of my box with the additional boast of 90 years of tradition and service (1919-2009).

I know for a fact that the addressee: “Smith Home Services” no longer exists in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, although I do remember when it did.  I recall looking in its display windows as I walked by and admiring the light fixtures for sale.  I suppose that it was the kind of place where I might have taken one of my vintage coffee pots for a replacement fuse, back in the day.

The serial number on the bottom of the pot indicates it was manufactured in 1967.  It is made by West Bend and the container further boasts that: it makes 5-9 cups; brews coffee to flavor-peak; is made of Sparkling Aluminum; keeps coffee serving hot; and features a “no-drip” pouring spout.  I can see that it is sparkling aluminum but the rest of the highlights will go untested by this writer as there is no intent to ever brew coffee in it.

I do not think that this coffee maker has nearly the beauty of design, curves, and lines as do most of its predecessors in my collection.  Its beauty, for me, is in its reminder of my mother’s thoughts of me.

I keep this coffee pot on a little display table in my living room along with a picture of my brother Tim.  A keen observer will note that Tim is holding a bottle of beer in this picture rather than a cup of coffee, but again what matters to me, is the sense I have whenever I walk by, of having shared a cup of coffee for a moment with Timmy.

November 17th, 2009 | Tags: gifts, hobbies, midlife humor, Midlife Musings, vintage coffee pot | Category: Coffee Pots | Comments (6)

Yesterday I joined my sister, Peggy and my mother for a road trip to Geneseo, IL to visit Peggy’s son Mark and his wife, Kyle and their three children: Connor, Cailin and Carson.

This morning we learned that the city honors its veterans by displaying a flag for every citizen who has served, each flagpole identifying the name of the veteran, the branch of service and the war/wars served in.  There were some 657 flags lining the walks of the city park.  We noted at least one flag for a veteran of the Civil War. 

There is much to admire in this small city of about 6000 citizens, but the above display of respect and honor tells a story all by itself.

My mother, sister and I enjoyed a great day strolling the sidewalks of Geneseo with Cailin and Connor.  We also squeezed in some quality time with the newest arrival in the family.

November 11th, 2009 | Tags: Geneseo IL, grandnephew, new baby, Veteran's Day | Category: Family | Comments (5)

A woman’s body expands at the mid-section during middle age and not in a way that is charming like a pregnancy. I’ve tried for years to accept this thickening philospohically. The fact of the matter is that no matter how much I wax poetic about accumulated wisdom, a broadened perspective or even the subtle layering of my thinking; I miss bending over to put on my shoes without the feeling of leaning over a basketball. While I have nothing new to say on this particular topic, what I have to offer here today is some beauty from a by-gone era that is, to my eye anyway, a perfect embodiment of well-roundedness.

I have been doing some post recently featuring my vintage coffee pot collection. This seems like a win-win on a couple of levels, especially since I am about to begin selling some of my pots on ebay to bolster our finances. Doing stories about them will create a sort of archive for me to preserve their memory.

So it is and here I am today with 3 more gleaming examples of a perfect marriage between form and function. Actually, the small one in the middle is sort of a repeat. It is the same model as one featured in a previous post, except that it is non-functioning. I include it because this is the one that got me started. This is the one that I found at a garage sale in Albuquerque, NM in the late 1970’s. I mean, have you ever seen a round globe coffee pot before with a round glass bubble at top? I hadn’t and the perfect symmetry coupled with that charming wooden handle just had me at “hello.” And once I got it home, I found that it still worked and it made fabulous coffee for several years until its vintage circuitry could carry on no longer. Now if you want to read how damn good the coffee is from one of these, I covered that previously here.

Once the pot stopped working, I could find no one who had any idea how to fix it and everybody was pretty much using Mr. Coffee’s by then (I won’t even get started on that, but believe me, I will have to have my say sometime). So my sweet percolator was relegated to decorator shelf and novelty item discussion. For decades, I kept my eyes out for another such coffee pot at garage sales, antique malls, used goods shops and along the way, I picked up other old model percolators which eventually evolved into a collecting hobby of sorts, but none of them – none of them that I could find – were spherically shaped, and sadly, none could replicate the taste that I remembered and craved.

It was not until the fall of 1996 when my husband and I were visiting my in-laws in New York and we spent a day along the Hudson taking in the fall colors of the palisades and stopping in some small town shop of the aforementioned ilk, that I spotted the medium sized one that you see pictured above. You cannot imagine my thrill – a larger orb, with a spigot instead of a spout, same gleaming chromium, same round glass globe at the top – oh my, oh my! Did I swath this in yards of bubble wrap and every other soft packing material and hand carry it on the plane like it was a newborn – you bet!

The really fun part about this acquisition was that at the time, I was a co-proprietor of a small shop in downtown Waukesha called “By the Light of the Moon”, dedicated to honoring and acknowledging the cyclical nature of female embodiment with an inventory of books, music and nurture items focused on feminine spirituality and wisdom. We had a cozy sitting area in which we served complimentary coffee and tea to all who entered. How perfect could this coffee pot be in such a setting? (We were a little ahead of the curve as far as providing cozy seating and beverages – Barnes and Noble was just building its first store in the area and it never occurred to us – no I shouldn’t say that – we weren’t entrepreneurial enough to charge for the coffee and tea.) But still, the coffee pot was perfect! Sadly, our little enterprise only lasted 2 more years.

Now it may seem really obvious to you that these two pots would be related by manufacturer. For some reason, I never made that connection. My vintage coffee pot collecting continued in the same hap hazard manner as it had been, with no further luck spotting or acquiring any other globe shaped coffee pots. From time to time, I would describe in detail, my first little treasure to someone I thought might have a clue, to no avail. It wasn’t until the early spring of 2007, that an empathetic antique store owner thought to ask if I had ever googled the name of the manufacturer. Well I had never even thought to look for a name of a manufacturer – some collector am I! Back home, I scoured the surface of my first coffee pot love and etched on the bottom, legible with a magnifying glass was the name Manning Bowman. Well I wondered whom might be the manufacturer of my other globe pot and I went to look … there is Manning Bowman etched right there on the spigot! I’ll be damned. Googling led me to the Pandora’s box of ebay and there lo and behold did I find an image of my first little round coffee pot, as well as, many other gleaming models by Manning Bowman.

I now have a total of four the smallest round pots with wooden handles in my home – only one functioning (I have been sipping a steaming black brew from it all during this writing). I have acquired and gifted two others to friends, trading parts between the several that I have to get them functioning. One of the recipients, my dear friend and former neighbor David, refers to his as “the diving bell” pot and he has featured it in posts on his own blog (Waukesha Sewer Raccoon News) several times. On another forum where I post, a fellow blogger has given me hope of eventually restoring all to functioning state by virtue of the potential know-how of her electrical engineer husband. I personally have non-existent mechanical aptitude, but it does just seem to me that there must be some technology available to keep heat going to the metal of those early electrical appliances. I’ll keep you posted on that.

The third pot of this featured trio, another globe, and of even larger capacity than the first two came into my possession via ebay. I couldn’t resist the orange Bakelite. I have, at least for the time being, bypassed the acquisition of matching creamer and sugar set with same round orange Bakelite handles that appear on the spigot, but I wouldn’t mind to own a pair some day. I have a book on Art Deco Chrome which pictures this pot and values it from $175-250 – pretty sure that I paid between $40 – 60. I know that I purchased a second one in that price range and gifted to one of my brothers for his 50^th birthday. I have seen them go for well over $100. Many auctions refer to these pots as being part of Manning Bowman’s “Atomic Pot” line, but I have yet to confirm that as an actual reference from the manufacturer. Other manufacturers made round urns , but the most common I’ve seen are the MB ones. An elderly friend once explained to me that the smallest of these used to be called “breakfast pots” because they only make enough for 2-4 cups of coffee depending on the size of the cups – in other words – just enough for breakfast. The three pots I’ve featured here have three different years of manufacture. The original small “breakfast pot” has a year of 1946, the one I have currently in use is engraved with 1948. The large urn with the orange Bakelite was made in 1951 and the middle size one, the only one with an automatic shut-off and red light, has a manufacture date of 1955.

A vintage ad site proffers this 1949 Manning Bowman Christmas ad. The smallest and the largest of these three pots are featured, retailing for $14.95 and $37.00 respectively. The ad says that the smaller pot makes up to 8 cups, but in my experience they would be very dainty cups, similarly the description for the large pot boasts a production of 32 cups. When I have used my own for parties, it yields about 18 mugs full.

Lastly, I do not intend to sell any of these three pots on ebay – they will be the last to go, if ever!

November 6th, 2009 | Tags: Add new tag, Manning Bowm, midlife body image, Midlife Musings, vintage coffee pot, well-rounded | Category: Body Image, Coffee Pots | Comments (3)

I’m not one for the macabre or ghoulishness, never have been. My kids have always had hand-made costumes: horse, cow, southern belle, cell phone, giant baseball glove. I always have candy for trick or treaters. About a decade ago, I was moved to fill my yard with paper bag luminarias on Halloween night. I’ve done it every year since. To say that it’s become a tradition is oversimplified; it’s more of a reverent endeavor.

In our city we still have night time hours for Trick or Treating, so in the late afternoon of Halloween, I am assembling little brown paper bags, folding a cuff around the edge, adding kitty litter for weight and balance, positioning votive candles inside, lighting them and placing the resultant lanterns around the outlines of my yard and the brick ledge on the front of my home. Each year I am grateful for the task made more streamlined by the fact that many paper bags with kitty litter still intact have been saved from prior years because my husband (whose inability to throw things away that might be useful another time often drives me to distraction) had carefully collected them the morning after; folded and rolled them; boxed and stored them in the attic; and retrieved them again for this day.

While in the process of this assemblage, I make sure to percolate a pot of strong black coffee - the kind my Dad used to take to work in his thermos every day - because it is an important component of the evening’s unfolding. As the dusk settles in, a spell begins to cast; my yard turns into a sanctuary. I don’t sit inside the warmth of my house in between the groups of trick or treaters; I bundle up and blanket up and situate myself outside. The lights inside my house are all turned off so the glow from the candlelight is more prominent. There seems to be a momentary pause, a brief silence before the voices of groups of children begin that unique echo up and down the block in the night air. I hear their sounds coming closer and just as they come upon the soft glow of our yard, there is an audible hush. It almost seems to make them want to tiptoe, so a not to disturb and once treats are in buckets and they turn to walk away often the littler ones have to pause to stand over and peer down into one of the bags to see what is making the light and their sweet faces are illuminated from beneath in a golden aura. Everything, it seems, is bathed in a golden aura. The leaves and dried flowers in the decaying flowerbeds cast magic shadows. The addition of glass jars with candles placed in the bottoms boughs of the bushes whispers hopefully that there is more inspiration to come. 

To the escorts with the children, I offer a hot cup of apple cider which has been mulling in a kettle with cinnamon sticks in anticipation of a chilly evening. I admit to being a little prideful inside when thanked for my efforts in the name of comfort and beauty.

From the first year of this effort, some latent aspect of my Catholic upbringing and perhaps something long, long before even that has bridged a connection between our commercialized ritual of Halloween to a celebration of All Souls Night. So it is my custom that in between the little groups of pilgrims, I sit in hallowed silence, sipping my coffee and feeling a sense of my Dad smiling with me. I think about other dear ones who have departed this life too, but mostly it is my Dad whom I linger with. This year, of course, there is my brother Tim too. We are in a church of our own making.

Each year, as the designated closing hour draws near and silence reclaims the night, I purposely choose not to extinguish the lights of the lanterns but leave them to burn until they cease on their own, which is well into the early hours of the next morning. It is as though my yard becomes a prayer and I rise at frequent intervals throughout the night to gaze out one of my windows and commune with the sanctity. 

There was one year during such a communion, that the face of an ancient Viking Warrior appeared in one of the lanterns. We gazed at each other for a long, long time. I do not know how, but I do know that we acknowledged in each other what we had been and the mysteries in our separate existences before we both turned away.

And so it is, as I sit at this writing, anointed in this year’s prayer, still wakeful from the coffee, still caught up in the spell and the lanterns still burning.

Blessed Be.

November 1st, 2009 | Tags: Church, coffee, Halloween Prayer, midlife humor, Midlife Musings, shed new light, Trick or Treat | Category: Spiritual | Comments (10)

I didn’t want to do a new post so soon because I like to leave a few days space because I’m afraid that if I post too many too fast hardly any will get read and I really do hope that you all read the previous post of  Sedona Series  - Part II, but how could I not share this photo immediately and the lovely story behind it?

My girls were home together for the first time since their Graduation Party, this past June 14th, after which Shannon departed for her new life in grad school in Connecticut and Katie returned to Madison where she finished up her life there over the summer at the end of which she received an offer for her first teaching job in Marshfield, Wisconsin.  The reality of their having moved on to separate adult lives has been palpable these last four and a half months.

Back in April, I wrote a post about Katie in honor of her 23rd birthday.  Among the many things that I shared about her included the fact that she has a hobby of collecting vintage hats.  Shannon left a comment on that post to the effect the she wished she could wear hats like Katie.  This was duly noted by my dear, dear friend Debra.

Debra, who along with her daughter Megan joins me and my girls for an Oscar Party every year, has a talent and a true heart for selecting uniquely suited and highly personalized gifts or gift baskets for whomever will be the recipient for whatever occasion.  This is one of the ways that Debra loves those that she loves.  So with the upcoming college graduation of Katie and Shannon on the horizon, Debra spotted a fabulous blue (Katie’s favorite color since childhood) vintage feathered hat.  Remembering Shannon’s comment on my blog, Debra and Megan set out to find a purple (Shannon’s favorite color since childhood) vintage hat for Shannon as well.  (Sidenote here: not only did they find a purple vintage hat, but one that was still in its original “Gimbles and Shusters” hat box!)  Upon her success, Debra shared with me her delight and excitement over her finds.

Unfortunately, the weekend of the graduation party fell at the same time as the long-held plans that Debra and Megan had for an annual camping gathering out of state.  We decided that rather than having Debra deliver the gifts to our house for the girls to open at the party, we would trust fate to find a time for us all to be together so that Megan and Debra could witness the fun.  As the summer went on, we began to doubt both the possibility of making it happen and the wisdom of our decision, as Shannon would not return to Wisconsin until sometime in the fall and who knew whether or not we could corral all of us at one time!  After all, Debra and I only live a half an hour away from each other and we only managed to get together once over the summer!

Well, today serendipity and fates collided and we all stood together in our living room as Katie and Shannon opened their gifts, having not an inkling of what was inside.

Could this be any sweeter?

Somebody once told me: “It’s all about love.”

Indeed!

October 25th, 2009 | Tags: gift-giving with soul, it's all about love, love between friends, love between sisters, midlife humor, Midlife Musings, Mothers and Daughters, vintage hats | Category: Daughters, Family, Me, Myself and I | Comments (9)

Landing in Phoenix was one thing, we still had a couple of hours of “gettin to Sedona to do.” You will remember, if you read the first piece in this series, that back in Milwaukee, we had chided my brother Joe, for putting a kink in the general plans for streamlined travel by electing to check his bag. He put up with it, turning his head ever so slightly away from us so that none of us would see that shit-eating grin that says: “you little people go ahead and have your fun, I got some bigger fish to fry.”

Now this writer hesitates sometimes to attempt a description that aptly conveys the mannerisms and affects of a person so colorful as her brother Joe and the woman (Cheryl) who alternately keeps pace with him or passes him by. The fear for this writer is that she might fall short and be inadequate in her description or, worse yet, that in some way that she might give offense. A leap of faith is required. This writer is jumping.

My brother Joe is someone I would describe as a very basic and keep-it-simple kind of guy, who knows how to enjoy himself and others. He has been very successful in his work. He is blessed with a boatload of street smarts and common sense. He has a terrific work ethic and a gift for humorous storytelling. He could certainly afford to wear designer labels if he chose, but he is more happy finding a good buy on an insulated Carhart jumpsuit at Farm and Fleet for winter sports than he is interested in any high-tech logo gear. His wife, Cheryl, is on similar wavelengths as he in many areas. They are naturally good-looking, active and fit, and competitive as hell. The two of them like to get to where they are going and to doing what they are going to do.

Once we landed in Phoenix, Joe and Cheryl were off the plane and through the airport like a shot, picking up Joe’s checked bag and moving on to the car rental satellite building before the rest of us had even realized they were gone. My brother, Jay had hitched his star to their wagon, leaving only our poor nephew, Josh and our dear brother-in-law, John, as the only males to stand by and receive the handing off of the stuffs of seven women as we hob-nobbled along with potty stops and the various machinations of retrieving needed articles from purses for whatever reasons we do at different times.

When we of the hob-nobbling group finally arrived by shuttle bus at the car rental satellite to transact the next phase of our travel, Joe and Cheryl were already finalizing their paperwork, with Jay (seen here in the photo taken on the plane in what the photographer assumed was a pensive moment when in fact he was really plotting to ditch us at the airport) standing by looking at us like what in the hell has been keeping you guys. We watched them move on to the final phase of the vehicle checkout while we got in line. Peggy and John, and my Mother (hereafter referred to as Buscha) and I were sharing a car. Joe and Cheryl, as has already been noted, were renting their own vehicle, and my sister Linda, with her 3 kids and my nephew’s girlfriend in tow, was renting yet another separate vehicle. The loosely understood plan was to caravan for the 2 hour drive to Sedona. With paperwork completed and before we headed to the garage to do a vehicle check over with another agent, some one or two of us (probably me and Buscha as the senior ladies in the group) decided that one more potty stop in yet a different building of the airport complex would be prudent.

When we were finally working on signing off the vehicle checklist that is designed to make sure that you and the car rental company are in complete agreement and seeing eye to eye on the exact nature of every ding, discoloration and dysfunction of the vehicle before receiving the keys to drive it away; Joe and Cheryl pulled up in their vehicle long enough to hand off the portable GPS Joe had brought with him and was not going to need since their car was already equipped with a GPS. That being accomplished, and with Jay comfortably sprawled in the back seat, they “gidde-upped” on out of there.

Now we had to wait for Linda and family to complete their own vehicle check out, because, as I said, we had a caravan on the agenda. Clearly, Joe and Cheryl, had chosen to ignore that memo. While we waited, I was given the task of programming the destination house address in the GPS because everyone in the car assumes that I am some sort of technical wizard, being mildly adept in the use of Microsoft Office Word and Excel and having had some experience with the use of the factory installed GPS system in my husband’s Pacifica. As it turns out, I was a complete newbie with Joe’s Nuvi and it got very argumentative with me! Everytime I tried to enter Lolomi Drive, which was the address of the house where we would be staying, it wouldn’t let me get past the second L without defaulting to some Lolalinda street in Illinois. No amount of persistence would change its mind. Finally we phoned Joe, who was by now well down the highway.

Joe: Did you change the state?

Me: No. It never gave me a chance to do that.

Joe: On the very first screen there’s a place to change the state.

Me: I didn’t see that.

Joe: Just look on the first screen, there’s a place to change the state.

Me: I’m not seeing it anywhere.

Joe: Are you on the very first screen?

Me: Yes.

Joe: There’s a place to change the state on there somewhere. I do it all the time.

He was sounding impatient, so even though I was not seeing any icon to change the state, I said “okay, thanks” and got off the phone.

I am a very literal person. When there is an icon that says “Change Country” and the country is already defaulted to the United States, I see no reason to select it. Turns out that you need to select the “Change Country” icon and reassure it that you are, in fact, in the United States, and then it will give you the opportunity to select a new state. Once I was able to convince it that we were in Arizona, not Illinois (frankly I had a hard time believing it myself – it all happened so fast) then the Nuvi backed off long enough for me to enter the whole Lolomi before it interrupted and added the word Drive on its own. I never was good in those relationships where the other person finishes your sentences for you.

I finished getting things squared away with Nuvi about the same time that Linda’s vehicle appeared behind us and we proceeded out of the rental car satellite and to the highlighted route under Nuvi’s guidance. After a few missed cues, during which Nuvi patiently corrected us, we were, in fact, en route to our destination.

Prior to leaving Wisconsin, some amongst had received word from people who actually live in Phoenix that there was heavy duty ticketing for speeding going on and the advisement was to diligently guard our speed and consistently keep it at the speed limit. With our Cruise Control set firmly at 65mph, we were about halfway out of the city when Peggy got a call from the Joe/Cheryl/Jay vehicle, which was by now out of the city and on the open desert highway. Buscha and I, seated in back, remained somewhat oblivious to the cell conversation happening up front. When Peggy hung up, she turned to us to give a report.

She said: “You gotta love Cheryl. I asked her if they were seeing any squad cars or speed traps and she says: ‘No. If you keep it between about 75 and 85 you should be just fine.’ Yah think there’s any reason she and Joe get so many speeding tickets?”

Pictured above are Joe and Cheryl at a restuarant our first night in Sedona, at this point still blissfully unaware that their speeding was being tracked by air and they would accordingly receive a ticket in the mail back at home.

And lastly, here is my brother-in-law, John and my nephew, Josh, fully recovered and then some from the task of having shepherded seven females through the Phoenix airport.

October 24th, 2009 | Tags: car rental, GPS systems, midlife humor, Midlife Musings, Nuvi, Phoenix airport, Sedona AZ, sister's wedding, Travel, travel with adult siblings | Category: Family, Sedona Series, Travel | Comments (5)

I have for some weeks now been bereft of any creative energy, hence my long absence.  I have not even had the wherewithal to check in and read my favorite blogs from time to time and comment, which I feel terrible about because so many people are so great about leaving comments and kind encouragement to me.  (I must confess to following and commenting on Silkstone’s Open Salon excellent recaps of TV’s Mad Men series.)

At any rate, I thought that I might at least check in and stay for coffee and dessert.

Pictured here is my favorite vintage coffee pot.  I collect them.  This one is a Manning Bowman manufactured in 1948.  Isn’t it gorgeous?  This is the model that got me hooked.  I found one back in 1978 at a garage sale in Albuquerque, NM.  That one has long since worn through all of its fusable links and no longer makes coffee, but through the wonder of ebay I found a replacement and some spare parts, as well as, a number of others to add to my collection.

How about that round glass globe at the top?  And a wooden handle?  The beauty of these pots is that they were made before the technology that automatically shuts them off.  You determine when the coffee is ready by the timing between perks, the color in the globe and the aroma - and oh what an aroma!  Then of course you must unplug the pot, lest this sweet little appliance keeps on perking until it burns right through its 1940 fuse technology.  

When ready, that lovely spout pours a cup of great, piping hot coffee.  The orbal beauty produces about 4 cups of the daintier size pictured here or about 2 1/2 cups of a standard mug size if  you’re a mug person. I attribute the quality and taste to the metal and the fact that it can perk hot enough to really break down the oils.  These pots are made of something called chromium and it holds its shine without polishing - a little wiping with lighter fluid now and again.  I find the lines and curves of these pots exquisite.  I think that they are the coffee pot equivalent of a 67 Chevy.  If I were more technically adept, I might do some clever photographic rendering - such is not my lot.  I leave it to your imaginations.

The only down side to these pots is the very same thing that makes them so charming: the electrical appliance technology at the time of their manufacture.  Their fuses only last so long and as of yet I have found no way to replace them except to scrapyard them off other perculators if I can find a match.  There must be some clever inventor type out there who could figure out a way to keep these babies perking for life.  If anyone fits the bill, let me know!

October 20th, 2009 | Tags: 67 Chevy, Food and Drink, great cup of coffee, Manning Bowman, midlife humor, Midlife Musings, vintage coffee pot | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (6)