C is for sweet deliciousness...

monday morning. husband begins a new endeavor...a musical one.
i support by baking cookies to take to the studio.
i will also tag along and find a spot on the black leather sofa (that every studio seems to have) and nod approvingly and smile silent encouragements in his direction. i wish i could do more...like play the tambourine on a song perhaps.

alas, i have no rhythm.

whenever jeremy eats something that he likes a lot he always says, "mmm, sweet deliciousness..."

he sampled a few cookies pre-studio. they were all laid out in neat little rows: chocolate-dotted circles of temptation on the countertop. i poured him a glass of milk.




the secret ingredients (well, not so secret) are oatmeal powder (made by putting oatmeal in a blender and letting it grind into dust), and a grated up Hershey bar...these are in addition to all the regular things that go into chocolate chip cookies. i figure the oatmeal gives the cookies a bit of a health factor---lowering our cholesterol at the same time as the butter and eggs are raising it, so it all evens out in the end.

someone once told me that they love to watch people eat ice cream because no one is ever unhappy while eating an ice cream cone. the same holds true of my husband and a cookie...

charcoal and lead

the spice cabinet is still in disarray, but i completed a drawing i've been chiseling away at off and on for a few months. it feels good to have something completed. yesterday was creatively productive for the both of us, Jeremy and me. we stopped only for chicken tacos (lunch)...see, i really DO like Mexican food, a quick outing to buy a bag of Manjaro Java coffee from Davis Cookware in the village, and later to make an inventive salad with apples and sesame-ginger dressing for dinner. today, a brilliant song is five steps closer to completion and our piano is well worn-in...and after two years of a big blank wall, we finally have something to hang above our bed:




it was inspired by a photo i took of tangled paper light fixtures through a shop window one night while walking around Siena, Italy:

the colors of the day

Music fills the house in an endless stream. The cat scuttles about; the dog sleeps. Gluey oatmeal bubbles on the stove. Stacks of books topple from the coffee table trunk, and my handweights sit in the corner, gathering a guilty layer of dust. Our entire living room has an amber haze, a blending of morning sunlight, the apricot-cinnamon wall color, and the rusty brown of the old wood floors.

Nipper, the RCA dog, peers down from atop the TV armoire toward the radio cabinet that houses our record player and stacks of vinyl. It’s an odd assortment of childhood Christmas records, $3.00 thrift store discoveries, and my dad’s old collection. Captain and Tennille rest atop Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, while Frank Sinatra perches crookedly at the top of the pile, his wilted plastic cover rumpled undeservedly. I can spot Tom Waits' Mule Variations easily from the sofa, its bold white against black letters waving to me. I bought the album for Jeremy for a 1st anniversary gift…number 3 on side 4 is "Take It With Me," the song of our first married dance.

Jeremy clinks his spoon, eating breakfast at his desk while watching a documentary on the computer. I can tell because of the slightly British, very serious narrator voice, the one that's only found on documentaries and from Charlie’s science teacher in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Documentary Man abruptly morphs into Jon Stewart from The Daily Show. The music has stopped and has become a random smattering of un-related television clips via download. Now it’s Paula Zahn. This is the way he watches real TV too: five seconds of one show, three minutes of another. As soon as you give in and finally let yourself become engrossed in Archaeological Finds of Ancient Egyptian Catacombs, he’ll switch the channel mid-scene, just as they are unveiling the tomb of Tutankhamen’s brother and you’re holding your breath in suspense. He’ll jolt you out of your trance into something a world away and ridiculous, like South Park or that show with Flavor Flav, where he’ll pause for a quick laugh before moving over to CNN. It’s a dizzying process, but has become almost endearing. Almost.

The dog is up now and so is Jeremy. They have stopped the madness, and together gone out to mow the six-foot-long grass. It’s been neglected the past two weeks while Jeremy has been hunkered down in his studio writing music for his new record, which begins Monday. So now, the distant buzz of the mower competes with the hum of the dishwasher cleaning sticky oatmeal bowls, which competes with the occasional scamper of cat paws across the floor planks.

I don’t have much planned for today. Odd for me, a planner. I may head back to the fabric store to hunt for more swatches, or rearrange the spice cabinet. (I just know there are plastic baggies of paprika spilling into the bay leaves and tamarind back in the shadows.) Neither seems like an interesting way to occupy a Saturday, so maybe I will paint instead. I am working on four projects at once and need the satisfaction of completing something monumental, more than just muffin-baking and sorting jars for a change. We’ll see.

the canopy

Sitting down at the computer this morning in the lamp-lit map room, I opened up my Word program to bring forth today’s empty page. Some mornings, I almost dread that white rectangle the screen, wishing it could be a more inviting color and not so blaringly, glowingly WHITE. Other days, I am happy to see the blank canvas appear, unaware that it expects anything from me. This morning, I was somewhere in the middle: not so much dreading, because I re-read a few chapters of Bird By Bird last night (a long ago gift from my favorite aunt Jeanne) and woke feeling a little inspired, but also not exactly sure what I should write about.

Sometimes inspiration hits you across the face like running through a wind tunnel. Suddenly, onto the screen popped a little alarm clock and a box that read: Thanksgiving (Overdue.) Now, we use this computer every day, so I am not exactly sure why it chose the middle of August to pull up a calendar reminder from November--(I am guessing that’s why it was marked overdue.) Kind of makes me think it’s more the computer’s issue than mine…

…however, as my hand moved forward to click the box closed, I paused for a minute and thought: maybe I am overdue. I mean, I do tell Jeremy every day that I am thankful for him (at least I try to,) and most mornings I can honestly say that I am really and truly thankful for my cup of coffee. When we sit down to dinner each evening, we usually take a moment to stop and be thankful for our chicken. But beyond that and a few other things, I am not sure how often lately (or since November) I have taken the time to thank God for all the amazing blessings in my life.

Much more typically, the word ‘thankful’ rolls off my tongue as a sigh of relief. “I am so thankful that the weather is no longer a suffocating 800 degrees,” for instance.

Being that the announcement dubbed me overdue makes me realize that I need to go back to the very beginning and try to remember what it felt like when my thanks-giving first had real sincerity. I believe I was five.

My sister, who is almost six years older than me, had an amazing canopy bed that every girl dreams of. It was slung with ruffled white fabric, creating a billowy rooftop for her to fall asleep under. My room was down the hall, and I am sure my own small bed was something cute, but I barely remember it because I hardly ever slept there.

From the years 1978 to at least 1983, I had a ritual. I would go to bed with the bright hall light spilling into my room. I’d pull the covers snuggly around me and recite my prayers: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take”…and then my own little goofy addition, which I had merged with lines from ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. It went: “Goodnight to all, and to all a goodnight. Amen.”

In retrospect, I think I was mainly praying for myself to have a safe night, because I was terrified that there was something frightening lurking inside my closet or in the shadows beneath my bed. I remember tossing and turning and blinking my brown eyes open and closed; I wished for sleep so desperately. Often, I would return to my prayer with a P.S. to God... "and please let me fall asleep fast. Amen again.”

An hour or two later, my sister would come trotting up the curving staircase to her bedroom, and I would wait, listening in the distance as she washed her face and got ready for bed. The minute the lights blinked out, I would tiptoe quietly down the dark hallway in my nightgown, clutching my blanket or a stuffed animal for protection. I would stand at the doorway and see the lump of my sister, lying there ready to doze off, and I would whisper: “Laurie…can I sleep with you tonight?”

Most nights she would begrudgingly agree, and before she could finish saying “yes,” I had flung myself onto the right side of her comfy double bed, nestling myself down under the shelter of the canopy, warm and secure and finally able to sleep.

Other nights, especially as she got older, she would grumble a sleepy “no,” and I would head reluctantly back to my room, grab my yellow afghan and pillow, and dodge monsters as I timidly walked the hallway toward her room again. There, I would settle myself down on the itchy beige carpet, with one little arm reaching across the doorway into the safety of her bedroom…so thankful just to have my sister nearby.

a place to sit

while walking around the house, i noticed that we have quite an eclectic assortment of chairs. some people collect stamps or seashells...i collect places to perch. some are flea market or antique store finds, others are hand-me-downs or pieces of my childhood. i have my favorites, but each of them holds special meaning, even if just a comfortable place for the cat to sleep, or brightening a corner of our bedroom. i have posted a more detailed display on Flickr...but here are a few of the images i like best:

[red flea market chair - i love the bright color, the rustic feel, and the curved lines]



[ruby velvet chair that feels regal with its tassels. mia's current favorite napping spot]



[pea green soup desk chair from the 70s with a modern-retro feel, and a bit tattered]




[shabby gold hand-me-down chair from my once-boss lisa. this is where i sit most mornings for coffee and reading by the window...when it is not being occupied by a dog]




[antique wooden rocker, once seatless. a birthday gift from my mom that needed some work...my friend todd refinished it and we had a new thick cushion made from tapestry fabric. this is a chair i will keep forever]

dot art

While browsing around Textile Fabrics a few days ago, snipping swatches of pinks and blues to tuck away for future use, i came upon this amazing circle patterned silk fabric. i had to have it. it was expensive, so i bought only 1/4 of a yard and decided i could make it work for something. the colors and pattern seemed a perfect fit for our bedroom, and we've been needing some more pieces to liven the walls in there.

at home, i found a couple of old canvases in the basement, splashed with an odd mixture of paint from one of my failed artistic attempts. i stacked them, and jeremy nailed them together for me to make one thick canvas that would jut out from the wall. i covered it first with a thick cream fabric to give it some padding, and then set to work shredding and re-designing the silk and stapling it to the frame. here is the finished product. total cost $6.


i think it looks nice with our pillows and sheets.

fotomat

I decided to study our garden, up close. I love the way the soft green lambs ear leaves appear as if they're sprinkled with sugar. From a nearer perspective, it's more like whispy white fur. I discovered a whole new layer to our garden (along with a friendly bug) just by studying it through my camera lens...










...which inspired me to create a place for my photography on Flickr so that it will be easier to view and keep organized. Hopefully I'll be motivated to add new galleries at least once a week in my effort to plow ahead with photographic pursuits (even if only for fun.)

More images from the garden can be found there.

(www.flickr.com/photos/kcasella)

Apricots, Tomatoes, and Lots of Pink Icing

I did muster enough energy to do a little baking on Friday, but waited to clean house until today. Apricot Poppyseed Muffins with fresh orange zest -- I altered the recipe's fruit component because I couldn't find any dried cherries at the store, only apricots. Still not bad though! Currently, comfort food is bubbling away in the oven...Creamy Mac, Chicken, and Cheese with Spinach from my Foster's Market Cookbook. It's a husband favorite.

This fall a new store is opening in our neighborhood: Marche' -- an artisan foods market. I am jumping for joy (inside) about this for two reasons. One, I love to cook and it will be wonderful to have a gourmet shop just down the street to get my fill of crusty breads and interesting cheeses. Two, the new market will be owned by Margot, who also runs our all-time favorite restaurant in the city (a few blocks away from our house.) Inside, there’s exposed brick and Tuscan colors and unbelievably delicious food that changes daily. The ingredients are always fresh and exotic – in a home-y and creative kind of way, not an intimidating one. We almost always split a homemade dessert. Out front, tangled sunflowers a mile high grow wildly, and boxes of fresh herbs sprout from window boxes. If I had an unlimited eating-out budget, Margot Cafe would be my choice at least 9 times out of 10.

I noticed the “Opening Soon” sign for Marche’ on Saturday, while Jeremy and I were strolling the neighborhood at East Nashville’s 3rd annual Tomato Festival. It was fun to see so many people out and about (though Jeremy accurately pointed out that almost everyone was white---not at all an accurate representation of our diverse section of town.) Kids with bright red face paint, tomato costumes even, mulled along the Woodland Street Bazaar with their fists wrapped around giant roasted turkey legs and hot dogs, ketchup dripping down their chins. There were artist booths and samples of salsa, and special tomato cake sold at the local coffee roaster. Scribbles of sidewalk chalk pointed us this way and that…we followed the arrows to a photo exhibit and then I had my toenails painted in bright red polish at Magnolia salon. Jeremy sipped a tomato martini (yick!) and waited for his chair massage. We ran into a few good friends as we watched a parade of veggie-clad participants and their unamused dogs marching down the street to the beat of the Tomatofest band.

We ended the afternoon at a birthday party for Zoe Weigel, who celebrated by smearing pink icing across her face, followed by a bath in the kitchen sink in front of nearly thirty guests. Having never been to a one-year-old’s birthday party before, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, especially seeing all our friends’ babies and toddlers scurrying around the kitchen floor. It’s so rare that I actually feel TALL among a group, but for that hour or so, I did.

This was definitely a weekend out of the ordinary, but somehow it made the craziness of last week seem all covered up in sweetness.

Grey.

The sky is white and I am tired.

Everything went bleak and hazy last evening, as a much-needed storm swept in and blew the trees wildly around. Sam shivered and panted under the thunder and lightning while Mia perched with her usual sophistication, unphased.

Forty minutes later the streets were drenched and the power blinked out. We lit candles and huddled down as night fell and the house grew black--all except for a few glowing corners where flames flickered. I drifted into a nap.

A little after eight, we decided to venture out in search of dinner, and ended up at the Boston seafood house down the street, which was surprisingly packed. We munched on fish and chips and chatted with the owner who kept coming around to make friendly conversation. He offered us some sushi to try, which seemed an odd fit in a place reminiscent of the Cheers bar, with Red Sox headlines and pennants adorning the yellow walls.

The rain subsided a bit, and we headed to the bookstore across town. I settled down in a stuffed chair in the corner of the café’ with a stack of art and home magazines, cozy and content to read until we were booted out at 10.

Our house was still dark when we first returned home, but the lights flicked back to life an hour later. Thankful for the air conditioner returning, we fell asleep late, restless from the grumblings of a late meal in our stomachs.

At 4 AM, we awoke harshly to a loud pounding on the front door. My heart did a somersault. It was a policeman, waking us to report that the house next door was on fire (what is it with all the fires?) and that we had to get outside immediately. Sleepy and disheveled, we dressed in 10 seconds, put scared-y-cat Sam on his leash, left poor Mia to fend for herself (at least temporarily,) and stumbled out to the curb to see what was happening.

Fortunately, there were no flames, only smoke to be seen between the lights of two fire trucks and three times as many police cars. They had the fire under control, but we were still forced to wander the block for close to an hour until it was safe to return inside.

It’s equally dreary today, with thick clouds and quiet streets, but I am glad for it. I will hold off on my plan to clean and bake muffins until the weekend. I need this afternoon to catch up on some sleep.

Blue.

Today feels like a picture day. Last night I watched Project Runway, which always inspires me to some creative end, and I begin to see ordinary things as more than just the purpose they serve.

I also notice colors.

For instance, this morning over a bowl of Special K Red Berries, I began to realize the number of items in my house that are some shade of Tiffany blue…

...my Nigella Lawson citrus juicer, matching measuring cups from my sister, the tiny whisk Jeremy used to scramble some eggs for breakfast:






And I found even more beyond the kitchen:

A Mysterious Rain

Last night at eleven, Sam and I ventured outside for his pre-bedtime visit to the grass. I usually accompany him as far as the patio, and then let him wander while I stand barefoot on the bumpy cobblestones, admiring the garden in the moonlight. It’s the only time of day lately that it’s actually cool enough to be outside for longer than a quick dash to the car. Sometimes I trace the squares of the patio floor with my feet, or run my hands along the twigs of rosemary and lavender in the copper pots to gather their aroma. Last night I inspected my hibiscus to see if any new apricot blooms might be ready to emerge with the light of day. Two wrinkled flowers were folded around themselves, asleep for the night.

Out of nowhere, something caught of the corner of my eye as it drifted down against the side of the house. It looked at first glance like a grey leaf. Then came another, then another, and another, and I thought how strange that the first signs of fall would be coming in the midst of an August heatwave at eleven at night.

I bent over to inspect one of the bits that had fallen near my feet and noticed it was shriveled and black, as if dead. I pinched it, and it crumbled to dust under my fingertips, leaving them smudged. Why were there ashes falling into the yard?

For two seconds, I admit, I thought the world was ending. What else is a person to think when huge ashes are pouring from the ink-sky like charcoal snowflakes? I squinted my eyes upward and looked for some sort of explosion between the stars, debris from a missile, I don’t know what. I know that sounds crazy, but it was literally raining ashes.

One by one they floated straight down, then in twos and threes. Some big, some small. All black and crumbly. They peppered the cobblestones and made our fresh garden feel eery and unfamiliar. Sam stared at me from across the lawn with a tilted head, the way dogs do when they’re tentative.

Jeremy was down the road with some friends, and I called him to see if it was raining ashes where he was, and to ask him to please come home. I think he assumed it was my hormones causing a hallucination, but he promised to be on his way. I opened the side gate and stepped out to the sidewalk, but no ashes appeared to be raining onto the street…only in our backyard.

Then came the stale scent of smoke, like an abandoned campfire that’s been smoldering too long. After inspecting the rooftops of our house with a flashlight (from the ground), I reassured myself that the world was not ending, and that our house was not on fire. I made a phone call to the non-emergency police who confirmed that there had been a fire reported on the next block.

Jeremy arrived and we drove down the street and circled through the alleys several times, looking for smoke or charred remnants of something. Instead we found only a few random trails of ashes scattered around in various places, but no real evidence of what might have created them.

It feels like we’re so shaken in these times we’re living in. Days that will fill pages of our children’s future history books, the way we once read about old wars and The Great Depression with a removed sort of understanding, as we sat in bright classrooms with posters of Snoopy. Those events almost seemed like made-up stories, nothing we could grasp with any real impact. Now, I feel as if in my short adult life, I have witnessed enough world-altering history to span five decades. It causes a tension inside me as I pat my rounded tummy and wonder what the future holds, and think about the ashes raining down.

Diving Into Domesticity

Yesterday I baked my first angel food cake – a chocolate chip one with gloppy icing. Come to find out, angel food cakes are not as easy to make as, say, brownies from a box. This is mainly because you have to beat the egg whites for about 100 minutes in order to get them to peak and become fluffy. Never have I wished so urgently for a KitchenAid mixer as I did while standing there with a weak bicep, holding my hand mixer for eons upon eons. At about minute eighteen, I decided the eggs were frothy enough—peaks or no peaks.

The cake turned out pretty well actually, not as light and spongy as the ones you get from the Kroger bakery, but definitely tasty.






After a sample slice each (for J and me) to make sure the cake was up to par, I covered the rest in a glass dome to await my friend Lisa’s arrival. She just returned from a two-month honeymoon in and around Germany. The cake was my attempt at a welcome home. We sat on the sofa with Chinese take-out and caught up on all her adventures in Munich, Switzerland, and Prague, and my adventures in napping and eating large quantities of frozen yogurt the entire time she was away.

I must say, I am really enjoying my foray into the hidden corners of my domestic self. Besides the cake, I am discovering that I might really love the idea of sewing something. I have clicked through hundreds of vintage fabric samples on Ebay in search of an alluring swatch--to make what out of, I have no idea, but my pin cushions are ready and waiting.

This is different than the time that I discovered a new love of shoes; this goes much deeper. I feel as if I must create.

Between watering the plants incessantly, Jeremy has been creating too---putting lyrics into his magic red notebook, and filling the house with piano sounds, which I love. We are in a good place…staying inside, out of the way of August, and learning what it means to be inspired again.