the joy of owning an old house

I spoke too soon about the end of the year 2011. My old Whirlpool frig gasped and died that very day, melting a year's worth of garden veges and freezer jam, plus sundry other stuff. Then came the New Year weekend, so it wasn't until Monday, the 2nd, that I could shop for new frig's.

The first difficulty was finding one which would fit into the cabinet space. I don't need a large frig, but it did need to fit into a space 30" x 68" maximum. Going on line, I managed to find 4 models at both Home Depot and Loew's, only two at Agren's, the local appliance distributor. So I went back and forth that Monday between Loew's at Cook's Corners, and Home Depot in Topsham negotiating price, delivery costs, and times between the two of them. Home Depot won out because it could get me the frig today, vs. Jan. 24th at Loew's.

But today it arrived, and wouldn't fit into the kitchen!!!!!! My kitchen has a great many wonderful handcrafted features, all carefully built into an old kitchen. But the doorways have been sacrificed in size to the joys of beautiful craftsmanship. The logical doorway to take out the old frig and bring in the new, should work by itself, but it is compromised by a clever corner cabinet that reduces the opening to 25" wide. The old, let alone the new, was not going to fit in or out of that.

So I called my contractor, who after conferring with the delivery boys, decided that they could leave the new frig in the dining room. Bill Dighton will come in on Friday to take out the other kitchen door frame, bring the old one out via the dining room, and install the new one in the kitchen - finally.

In the meantime, it feels like I still have a dead body in the kitchen, while the dining room fills up with strange, dysfunctional sculptures. The old frig does not smell quite as bad as it used to, because Nancy Adams came and helped me clean it out. But it still smells a bit. At least the new one doesn't smell bad, just like new plastic. 2011 went out with a big bang and a plop; 2012 started out well but it seems there's still a bit of a hangover from 2011 with the cast on my arm and the frig in the dining room! What's next I wonder?

oops!

Though I had clothes on, I do feel like this girl after falling on some black ice after yoga class. What irony - when I had just successfully done 'tree' on my left foot, I fell on my right hand and broke the bottom of the radius bone as it meets the thumb joint. Just before Christmas!

I still drove to Vermont and had a wonderful time with 2/3 of my little family, plus others in the extending family. The snow was nice, not too much, and the Waterbury church was magical.

I am finding though, that I am very glad to have this year gone by. Lots of things ended this year - my underwater mortgage, Osama bin Laden's unfortunate life, the unfortunate war in Iraq, a good friend's life. Many good things happened, too, and I shall work hard tomorrow evening to be grateful for a new daughter -in -law, for connecting with cousins, new friends and adventures.

The rug I bought in Turkey arrived just yesterday, after drifting around the transportational netherworld. It made me realize that trust is a simple thing if you only give it a try.

Imaginary visions

Some of my best images have come from a passing glimpse of someone or thing. Others come from long, careful study. This image came from a boat and man glimpsed going out to sea at dusk from Monhegan. He had a beautiful dory workboat all fitted out, and the evening felt like it would be very profitable for him.

So I put this together, though the background really doesn't look like Monhegan. Sometimes you just have to make stuff up. It was important though, to get the boat and the guy driving it, right, or nearly so. I hope it is.

I'm going to do some more of these blogs, of my art work, as a way to explain some of it, and to spread it farther around. It is also a way to keep it in front of me. I've just sold some things; sometimes I am glad to be rid of stuff, and sometimes I want to be able to look at it - to remind myself that I really can produce some good, interesting work. I hope you'll enjoy this new focus.

extreme plein air painting!

Though we aren't actually shivering here, we all ended up in McSeagull's Restaurant in the Harbor this noon, after trying to paint, draw and otherwise note scenes in the Harbor this morning in the rain/sleet/freezing rain. Probably we shouldn't have stayed as long as some did, but when else are you going to paint in December in Maine?

And the clam chowder was really good!

left to right: Bill Tomsa, Tony vanHasselt, Corinne McIntyre, Suzanne Brewer, Allen Bunker, and me.

Now, let it snow for some really good color!

tis the beginning of the other season

The other season here in the greater Boothbay region is the holiday season. It is a time for those of us tough enough, or poor enough, or just stubborn enough to not go south when it finally gets cold. This year it hasn't been cold at all, until now, after Thanksgiving. Finally, it has gotten cold enough to matter - to buy the salt for the walkways, and to get out the hats and mittens.

Tonight, though, I had on the mittens and my Christmas coat for an annual ride on the Harbor Princess, at the tail end of the Lobster Boat Parade. Last year, I was too sick to go out. Two years ago, I went out but it was cold and snowing and was kind of miserable. This year, it was as wonderful as it could get.

There were 16 boats in the parade, all lit up and decorated. It is impossible to photograph it because it is so dark and the boats must be pretty far away, so you'll have to either come and see it for yourself, or imagine it. There was a boat with Rudolph on the bow, pulling Santa on top of the boat. There was a boat all outlined in blue lights with a red Rudolph on the top. There were two boats, one with a candy cane gateway into the cabin of the boat; there were two boats all lit up towing little dinghys lit up with Santa sitting in the stern. The Coast Guard boat was also done up with Santa aboard. I felt like I was a Babe in Toyland. Magic.

We went out as the sun was going down - hence the photo above of the sun sinking behind the pines on Juniper Point. The day is called Harbor Lights, when the Library tree is lit; Santa arrives by lobster boat. The shops and galleries are open until late, and most importantly, the Opera House is full of the Festival of Trees. Each year the Garden Club members, plus others like the Land Trust and the Botanical Gardens, decorate a fake tree of differing sizes, and they are put in the Opera House, which becomes a fairy land of beautiful trees. Martha Stewart has nothing over these trees. They are gorgeous.

Of course, the one I helped put together for the Land Trust, is one of the nicest. Carol, Stephanie, Pam and I had a wonderful time spending an inordinate amount of time and effort on a table top tree. It had pine cones treated with glaze and soap-snow, winterberries in tiny clusters tied with yarn, photos of different Preserves in the Land Trust mounted on foamcore and painted with gold paint, plus a wonderful cardinal in a winterberry nest on top of the tree. We are very proud of it, and hope someone buys it for a lot of money!

On a more mundane level, the Inter-Island News reported this week that lobsters talk. A research team at the University of New Hampshire has documented 50 different sounds that a lobster will make at the approach of a cod fish. Their conclusion was that the lobsters are "sounding off in order to discourage fish predation." I can only imagine what they say on the approach of a kettle full of hot water.

back home in east boothbay

I am home again after nearly two weeks spent in the mid-east. It was a not very fortuitous trip, though stimulating and ultimately valuable trip. I was briefly ill with stomach trouble in Jerusalem and caught a bad cold in Turkey.

I went with a group of friends from the Congregational Church in Boothbay Harbor, first to Jerusalem for 4 days, then to Istanbul, Izmir and Ephesus in Turkey for 5 days. Jerusalem I found to be an armed camp, regardless of which side of the West Bank wall you are on, and regardless of what religion. Returning home, I read Moshe Dayan's widow's story in the New Yorker about the death of Israel, and I couldn't agree with her more. And from what we heard, there is very little hope that Israel and Palestine will resolve their differences peacably. The lack of hope was palpable. The one bit of spirituality I found was a bird singing outside the window of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Garden of Gethsemane.

In Istanbul, however, I found a thriving, growing city full of pride for what it has become. Although the current government is conservative and Muslim, the separation of church and state is written into its Constitution, and the pride of the people in Istanbul is tangible.

One of the major reasons for going on this trip, besides curiosity over the presence of any form of spirituality in Jerusalem, was the Hagia Sophia. Ever since Prof. John McAndrew cut up his oranges and grapefruits in front of us in Art 100, thus demonstrating the ability of a round arch to support other round arches and barrel vaults, and thus to build the Hagia Sophia in 533AD, I have wanted to experience that space. Even today, it is the 3rd largest dome in the world, though it is over 1500 years old. I don't know the others, probably football stadium domes, but this surely beats them in impressiveness. It was built as a Christian church; its apse faces east. Today it is a museum but it was a mosque for over 500 years, and the small enclosure where the Imam reads the Koran is in the apse, slightly off-center, facing Mecca. (see above right-hand photo)It is a happy enough arrangement, with some of the original Christian paintings being exposed, even as they are covered still by the beautiful mosaics of the Muslims.

Our later visit was to Izmir, or Smyrna, Tardis, and Ephesus. The layers of civilization to be found there are stunning, as is the current countryside, and food! The cabbages are literally nearly 3feet in diameter; the yogurt so creamy! It was too much for this poor body and I stumbled back onto the plane in Izmir and have been sleeping for 3 days now. Finally I am beginning to come out of my cold-induced stupor. When I remember more, I will write more!

out of Jerusalem

I am glad to be in Istanbul, and out of Jerusalem.