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I'm enjoying another cozy rainy day here, and from the looks of Stuffed ever-rearranging himself in his nest of old quilts, I'm guessing he's happy too. I'm thinking pot pies for supper, to use up a mish-mash of ingredients in the freezer. And I'm making an effort to whittle down some of the things I've saved in my email over the years. A few items from my Miscellaneous folder of found quotes, ideas, tips, stories, and General Things I Love and Don't Want to Lose:
- In a CNN story online this summer about how eating apples helps you live longer, someone concurred in the comment section: "I've been eating seven apples a day since 1811. I'm over 200 years old and going strong." :) Mike and I laughed over that off and on the next few nights, it's so silly. :)
- Whenever I get to visit Vermont, Jericho is on my must-explore list. Have any of you visited? It sounds fascinating and just beautiful.
- When I started this blog, I was working in a deli and bakery to save some money for my move here, and one of the store's resident curmudgeon customers huffed his way up to the counter and asked for however-much white Cooper cheese. I told him that we were out of the white Cooper just then, but that we had yellow. "Ohhhh," he growled at me. "The whole world's gone to hell!" That still makes me laugh. "The whole world's gone to hell" became a catchphrase between me and my coworkers and me and my parents for the next couple weeks.
- I love Sean Hayes' song "Powerful Stuff," and I emailed myself a link to this live performance of it in May 2012. ♥ ♫ "Every day, do like a flower does. Sun rises and she opens up. Sun rises and she sings. . . ." ♪ Mmmmmmmmmm. Gorgeous song, gorgeous voice, gorgeous lyrics
- In the text of an interview with historian David McCullough I emailed myself in 2007, McCullough is asked by the interviewer what he hopes to accomplish in his then-new book 1776. "Most important of all," he responds, "I hope I've conveyed that no one knew how things were going to turn out. All the signs were that they didn't stand a chance, that the war was over and that we had lost. It was the darkest time in the history of our country. The prospects for the United States of America never looked so bleak. But because a handful of very brave people refused to see it that way, we are the beneficiaries. Without them, the Declaration of Independence would be only that, a declaration, words on paper." He goes on to say that, "Ingratitude is a shabby human failing." Beautifully put.
- I'm a sucker for a good how-to-clean-your-home-with-[lemons/vinegar/in this case, Alka-Seltzer] and emailed myself this article years ago. I use the sink-drain-cleaning tip often.
- In 2005, wise and witty Julie of the blog "A Little Pregnant" shared this gem of a conversation that took place in the New Orleans airport that summer. The paragraph begins with "I miss Southern women," and ends with "That, my friends, is grace." Indeed. ♥
- When I was a kid, thirteen or younger, I had a dream in which I was standing inside my grandparents' bedroom with my grandmother. She was showing me a pearl necklace as the dream began, and as I looked at it with her as she held it in her hands, she said, "God has a necklace of pearls. Every time one falls (from the chain), a human life is restored in its place." That was the entire dream. I woke up then and wrote it down, but I would have remembered what she said anyway.
- This banana bread recipe makes the best I've ever had. There is a container of sour cream in it, and the loaf pans are dusted with a cinnamon-sugar mixture. Otherwise, it's a basic recipe. But ohhhhh! Truly! Banana Bread Heaven! ♥
There! Back to sorting here, then on to pot pie-baking. 'Hope you all are having a good day. Thank you again for your sweet comments on my autumn walk post too. ♥
1.) I am a lover of words. I collect quotes, memorize poems, am fascinated by language, and hang favorite verses and thoughts on my fridge and walls.
2.) My favorite words, mostly for the way they sound, are "love," "luscious," "voluptuous," "pumpkin," "Papa," "Mama," and "kiddo." Sweet, plump, kind words, those.
3.) My ninth-grade English teacher told our class early in the school year that Japanese people were once surveyed and asked which English word sounded the prettiest to them. The word that was deemed prettiest-sounding when all the responses had been tallied was "diarrhea."
4.) It delights me that in the last segment of every interview for "Inside the Actors Studio," host James Lipton asks his guests to say their favorite and least-favorite words.
5.) On my amazon wish list is the book Favorite Words of Famous People.
6.) I loved learning--probably in middle school when I took my first foreign language class, unless a Reader's Digest article or similar reading taught me this even before that--that words exist in one language that don't exist in others. Age-otori: looking worse after a haircut [Japanese]. Meraki: Putting your heart and soul into what you're doing [Greek].
7.) In a college Spanish class, I learned this: "Murió" means "He died," stated matter-of-factly. "Se me murió" captures the feeling of "He went and died on me, I didn't see it coming." It's more personal and more heartfelt. I love that and loved Spanish all the more for it.
8.) Babies' language acquisition fascinates me. I have told my brothers and sisters-in-law so many times how interesting it is to see their little ones learn words and sentences. None of us can remember exactly how my now-almost-ten-year-old nephew used to string the words together, but when he was just learning to talk, he would ask for what he needed by saying something like "You will get me something this?" It was funny and enchanting. The entire process amazes me.
9.) When I read blog posts or other online pieces that have been written particularly well or memorably, I save them. At any time, I have a number of posts bookmarked and copied into my email folders.
10.) Janine over at "writing as jo(e)" recently described the sparkles in snow as looking "like sugar tossed on the crust of a homemade apple pie." That was from January 23rd's post. Lovely. ♥
11.) "Lovely" is another word I love. If I've left you a comment before, you likely know that and you know that I mean it most sincerely when I say it.
12.) And yes, if I had to choose a true favorite word, I probably would go with "love." Love implies respect and enthusiasm and kindness and true feeling. It's not a wishy-washy word. When people talk about what they love, whether it be a song or a season or a movie or a person, they're telling you something about themselves at least as much as they're telling you about the object of their affection.
13.) That President Roosevelt's "fireside chats" are part of his legacy impresses me. It is no small thing to buoy a person's spirits merely with one's words, and to do that for an entire nation, and in such trying times. . .!
14.) I don't watch awards shows but like reading the day-after recaps in the news to learn what the winners said in their speeches. Few people ever have the opportunity to have that One Big Moment to thank publicly those who helped them reach that moment and to offer thoughts on it in such a grand way, so to hear what is said can be interesting.
15.) One of my favorite Oscar speeches is Dustin Hoffman's after he won Best Actor for his work in Kramer vs. Kramer: ". . . I refuse to believe that I beat Jack Lemmon, that I beat Al Pacino, that I beat Peter Sellers. I refuse to believe that Robert Duvall lost. We are part of an artistic family. There are sixty-thousand actors in the. . .Screen Actors Guild. . . .And most actors don't work. And a few of us are so lucky to have a chance to work. . .Beacuse when you're a broke actor, you can't write, you can't paint, you have to practice accents while you're driving a taxi cab. And to that artistic family that strives for excellence, none of you have ever lost, and I'm proud to share this with you." The power of well-chosen words! To be one of his fellow nominees and hear that speech moments after one's own name wasn't called, had to have taken some of the sting out. Just beautiful, this generosity of both words and gesture.
16.) When Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Prize, he concluded his acceptance speech by stating that, "No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them. Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately." Ah!
17.) In the wise little book The Four Agreements, author Miguel Ruiz shares many worthwhile thoughts on the power of words and sums up the chapter on it with the tagline "be impeccable with your word." Especially in a world in which people increasingly communicate online, the advice to choose words that will cause the least melodrama, is advice to remember. I myself didn't think before "speaking" while leaving a comment on dear Sandra's blog last year and still feel sick when I think about. It was a good reminder of the necessity to take the time to find a clear way to express myself before speaking or hitting "publish comment."
18.) There are words I often read and never remember how to say. Is brother-and-sister actors Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal's last name pronounced Jill-en-hall or Gill-en-hall, for example? I am told and then forget again, so when I do mention one of them, I end up saying things like "[Maggie/Jake] Jill-en-hall-or-Gill-en-hall is in it."
19.) In the fifth grade, I almost qualified for a regional spelling bee but lost because my word was "capitol" and I was too shy to speak up and ask the judge which form of the word--"capitol-with-an-O" or "capital-with-an-A"--she meant. I didn't want all my eyes on me (any more than they already were?! so silly of me), so I didn't ask and instead just decided on one and spelled it. It was the "wrong" one, and I was thus forced out. Looking back, everything about that is bizarre to me. Why wouldn't the judge have specified one or the other in the first place? And since she hadn't, why was "my" spelling deemed incorrect? And why if I was already spelling and speaking in front of however-many people did I not have the courage to speak up to ask such a simple and appropriate question?! I was ten years old, and maybe that's explanation enough. Just goofy all-around. I ended up having to attend the next round/event at the local college campus as an alternate or something like that. I wasn't heartbroken--just annoyed with myself and my (lack of) actions--but every time the subjects of spelling bees or homonyms come up, this is what I immediately remember.
20.) Screenplay writers impress me more and more the older I get. I've been working on the same screenplay off and on since 2010. It is hard going. Every time I watch what I consider a good movie, I find myself thinking about the fact that someone wrote that. Every scene in every movie that's ever made you laugh, every moment that's made you cry, every line you and your loved ones quote back to each other all the time, every moment that so perfectly captures a time or an experience or a feeling: Someone wrote that. It was once part of a first draft, then part of another rough draft, words were added to it, words were taken out of it, the actors added their own input, it was completely scrapped, it was saved from the trash, it was rewritten again. . . .Someone wrote it. Your favorite movies are someone's words! ♥
21.) Along those lines, when Sofia Coppola won the Oscar for her screenplay for Lost in Translation, she included a "Thank you to my brother Roman and all my friends who were there for me when I was stuck at twelves pages and encouraged me to keep writing." I love that.
22.) My mom, aunt, and mother-in-law all tend to give me quotation books as gifts.
23.) I would bet artist Susan Branch's home studio is much the same, since she's clearly a quote-collector too, but I remember a photo of artist Mary Englebreit's painting desk and studio in one of her old magazines, and there were big books of quotes alongside the art supplies. Both artists' appreciation of quotes charms me.
24.) One of my favorite things to do in the late 1980s was to transcribe the lyrics to my favorite songs as they played on either my cassette tapes or the radio. Do kids still do this, or do they just look up the lyrics online these days? Sometimes an album came with the lyrics printed inside the cassette's fold-out sleeve, saving me the "trouble." I can't explain why this was fun, but writing out the words to the songs was something I spent a good bit of time enjoying as a twelve-and-thirteen-year-old. I had notebooks of transcribed song lyrics. Many kids in my generation surely did. When Billy Joel's mile-a-minute "We Didn't Start the Fire" came out a couple weeks after I started the seventh grade, I had my hands full. :)
25.) I think it would be nice if at the end of every year, the media would report on "Greatest Uses of Words This Year," the way they create lists for best albums, top movies, and biggest news stories.
26.) If you read Alicia Paulson's beautiful blog, "Posie Gets Cozy," you probably saw the sweet piece she wrote Tuesday in which she describes what reading to her little girl is like lately. Alicia's daughter is going through that toddler stage of being more interested in turning a book's pages than in hearing the words printed on them, so "I read out loud like an auctioneer," Alicia reports. "Here's a little baby onetwothree standsinhiscribwhatdoesheseeee? Quick, before she turns the page." Brilliantly descriptive writing, that. ♥
27.) Alison at Brocante Home begins a recent smart little piece ("Other Peoples' Marriages" from January 25th) with words that made me laugh when I first read them: "I could stare at the spectacle that is other peoples' marriages all day long." Her observations are so funny, and her website is so dear. We've probably all had moments of being the "spectacle," which makes it even easier to laugh.
28.) "Letters of Note" is one of my favorite websites. Its editor has also published a book of the best letters he's discovered. They have been written by everyone from Amelia Earhart to Leonardo da Vinci to Charles Dickens to Katherine Hepburn.
29.) Peoples' last words fascinate me. What is not interesting about learning what people say as they leave this life (and transition into the next realm, if you believe as much)?
30.) Inventor and Apple (computer) CEO Steve Jobs died in 2011 after a long illness. His sister, wife, and children were around him. His sister shared in her eulogy his last words: "OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW." ♥
31.) One of my favorite poems is Leigh Hunt's sweet "Jenny Kissed Me." Pure joy captured in fifty words. ♥
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One afternoon while sitting with my grandmother on her and Papa's front porch swing, flipping through the pages of a wildflower guidebook together, Grandma confided that sometimes when she couldn't fall asleep at night, she would try to think of a flower that began with each letter of the alphabet. It has probably been almost thirty years since she told me that, but like Grandma, I've never been able to fall asleep easily either and I often find myself employing her alphabet trick. Flowers tonight, I hear myself thinking. Anemones, Bachelor Buttons, Camelias. . . .Some nights, it is birds, and sometimes they come even after the flowers if I'm still wide awake. Auks (thank you, Laura Ingalls Wilder and The Long Winter [my favorite book in her series] for that one), Baltimore Orioles, Chicadees, Doves, Eagles, Finches, Grackles. . . .I'm not too strict with myself with my twenty-six-item lists. I often skip Q and X, no matter the subject. More often that not, the flowers, birds, places-I've-been, and words-in-Spanish aren't enough, and I decide to alphabetize my gratitude list or Things-I'm-Looking-Foward-To list. It is not a bad note to end the day on, and there are certainly worse ways to fall asleep than by reflecting on all the good and sweet in one's life.
A is for a big salad, I will tell myself tonight. My mother-in-law recently bought us huge restaurant ware-type salad plates, and we used them for the first time tonight. ♥ B is baking. My third (and maybe final) attempt at meringues has been in the oven about three hours now. This batch looks okay but isn't thrilling enough to me to bother with again. Catching up on sleep. That's always wonderful. Sleep usually is on my list somewhere. David Bowie: Starman, an impressively well-researched biography by Paul Trynka. There is so much glorious detail in this book. As a boy, Bowie, along with his friends and apparently like so many children in post-war London, used to play in former bombsites, digging in the dirt, imagining, and unearthing little treasures lost until then to the war. "It was unbelievable," one of his childhood friends is quoted as remembering. "There were these huge spaces from the bomb sites, and ruined houses, which seemed like mountains to us, covered in Buddleia: they were our plagrounds." I will think of David Bowie every time I smell or see powder-scented Butterfly Bush now, and I like knowing that he probably remembers his childhood whenever he catches a whiff of the flowers too. Dishes have been washed and are all put away. By the end of the week, all the piddly and naggy little errands that have been on my to-do list for ages will all have been run, so E is errands all the way. Fresh air. (Months now of) Good health. I cut back on sugar last fall to see if it would help my immune system, as I had read that it would, and who knows, but I have gone cold-and-flu-free for quite awhile now, so maybe.
Heart-shaped leaves. I prefer blue Morning Glories to any of the other colors, but their heart-shaped leaves always charm me. I have tomorrow off from work. Just hearing about a friend's maybe-possible-I-hope-we-can-go travel plans. Knowing a letter likely reached my parents over the weekend. One of my new loves: Linen-scented candles, particularly Glade-brand's "Clean Linen and Sunny Days" ones. My grocery store carries these for just a few dollars, and the scent is so relaxing, as if I'd just carried in a basket of laundry that had dried out on the line. A movie I'm looking forward to watching (When Do We Eat?), thanks to Heidi who mentioned it on her blog a couple weeks ago. Nancy Drew. I bought the first ten books awhile back and just finished (re-)reading them. As a kid, I was introduced to the Bobbsey Twins and Trixie Belden books by my mom. I don't remember when I read my first Nancy Crew books, but it's been fun to dive back into her world of sporty blue convertibles and classic sheath dresses. Organizing to pay bills this payday. I'm determined to have one of my student loans paid off by spring, and I've been getting real satisfaction from playing the little if-I-pay-this-much-toward-the-balance-I'll-only-owe-this-much-but-if-I-can-pay-this-amount-the-new-balance-will-be-even-lower game. Plans for next week include a visit home to my parents. ♥ Quinoa, since I keep seeing recipes for it that I look forward to trying soon.
A gift from a friend of a mini Silvertone radio that not only plays both AM and FM, but also looks vintage and fits onto my little corner shelf in the kitchen. I will think of her every time I play it, making it even sweeter. ♥ Stuffed meowed at me this afternoon. He rarely "talks"--he is silent most of the time and saves his few meows for Mike--so to hear anything besides the jingle of his collar was sweet. Time to myself tonight and tomorrow. Updating aunts in letters and email tonight. Vanilla soy milk. Creating another faux wallpapered wall tomorrow, this one pale green with bouquets of pink roses--the wall beside the mantel and that the wing chair will be against. I might skip X as I usually do. I never thought to ask Grandma what she came up with for the hard letters. Maybe she fell asleep before she reached them. Maybe that was the point. :) Y will be the 80s song "Your Love" by The Outfield since I've had it on repeat-play this past week. And Z--Z, I can do, Grandma, if you've listened all the way to the end ♥--Z is for Zucchini-Tomato Tart, one of my favorite dishes and one that will be my supper later this week. Any recipe will likely be wonderful, but I just throw sliced zucchini and tomatoes into a pie crust with feta or Parmesan cheese and maybe some olive oil and bake it about thirty minutes. (If you could be my guest at luncheon, Nancy Drew, I'd serve you this tart with your oft-mentioned iced tea and fruit salad.)
People are often asked what they've learned from their loved ones or their favorite teachers, and it seems that peoples' first thought is the grand life lessons, but Grandma's little alphabet trick is one of the things she told me that I most appreciate. Some people get up to watch television or read when they can't sleep, but Grandma stayed-put and made mental lists of pretty things. ♥ Pansies, Queen Anne's Lace, Ranunculus, Snapdragons. . . .It makes me smile now to think of garden-loving Grandma's silent recitations. To know that the sun will come up eventually, even if sleep doesn't come at all, and to decide to focus on the happy and beautiful in the meantime: This is a lesson worth passing on too.
In early December, my friend Madai shared a photo of a dear little "Deck the Halls" sign tucked in with her Christmas decorations, and it just spoke to me. The font, the size, the simplicity, the weathered black and sepia, the frame, the message: I just purely loved this tiny thing. Imagine my surprise last week when a care package from Madai arrived and after gently undoing a small sheet of pale blue polka dotted tissue paper, I found "my" sign inside! I hadn't expected that, and while it was part of an entire box full of thoughtful and beautifully-wrapped goodies, the little sign and its accompanying note were what touched me the most and made me cry. Thank you again, sweet Madai! Stuffed soon abandoned it for his food dish, but I myself will treasure it--and you--always. ♥
I look forward to 2011, but I just don't feel ready for it. I don't feel done with 2010 yet. I just packed away the Christmas decorations Monday. And 2010 was a pretty neat year: I redid our bathroom in red polka dots. We survived the blizzard in February, although our ceiling leaked for a good week as the snow melted. I continued to volunteer at the two places I started at in 2009. I redid our kitchen in a vintage-ey green. I shoved my shyness aside and forced myself to attend a volunteering-related banquet. I ran my first half-marathon and my third and fourth 5K races. I got to spend my 33rd birthday with family. I got a job at one of my dream-job places. I finally got to see Tom Petty in concert. My nephew started kindergarten.I made some new friends online. My cousin Mark and I started keeping in touch with letters and postcards. I entered Stuffed's picture in a photo contest, and he won. I only missed three days of work while sick with the Croup/respiratory infection. I received a couple great fortune cookie messages. I finally got around to making the hand/paw-print painting with Mike and Stuffed. I made it home for Thanksgiving and Christmas--this one last time for each holiday as "just" my parents' daughter and not as someone's wife too. I had a fun phone conversation with my aunt Heidi Christmas afternoon. I decided to watch more movies in 2010, and I did, and my favorites were Little Miss Sunshine, Garden State, Before Sunset, Lost in Translation, and Love, Actually. I liked I'll Never Be French by Mark Greenside and Anne Frank Remembered by Miep Gies more than anything else I read last year. I loved a few songs Mike introduced me to whose names are escaping me right now. (Something by the Gorillaz was one.) I cooked cream of artichoke soup, "lasagna soup," and a spinach-lentil soup for the first time. I made maple cookies for the first time. I began feeding the birds in our apartment's backyard. I started making the trip downtown to share Mike's lunch-hour with him the days I have to work nights, so that we'll have that much more time to connect. I played cards with my dad for the first time. Goodbye and thank you, 2010, a month late.
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