As I've gotten older, I've had more of a tendency to look for people who live by kindness, tolerance, compassion, a gentler way of looking at things. ~ Martin Scorsese

A day or so after my grandfather died in 2001, my dad and I were at home stumbling through the motions of making breakfast or something when he mentioned that upon stepping outside that morning, he'd found two homemade pies that his coworker Buddy had left on our front porch.  Immediately, and repeatedly over the next couple days, it wasn't Papa's death or Grandma's loss of her husband of almost sixty-two years or the knowledge of other family members' pain that made me cry, but instead those damned pies.  I cried over the pies even while agreeing with Dad how good it had been of his coworker to offer them.  The mental picture of those disposable foil pans left without fanfare on our porch made me cry awhile later as I dressed for the viewing.  A stretch of time would then pass in which I'd be calm, in that rubbed-raw weariness that grief brings on, and then the pies would return to mind and I would feel my face crumpling up again.  Soon enough, the full weight of Papa's death hit me, of course, but until the initial shock wore off, my tears were for the kindness that leads a person to buy the pans and the ingredients, to take the time out of one's own life to follow a recipe and to wait for pies to bake and then for them to cool, to wrap them up, and finally, to drive them across town--all to acknowledge and console another's hurting heart.  

Similarly, this past week, with our world news seemingly fuller than usual with stories of trauma and terror, it is a show of compassion, and not one of grief or gore, to which my mind keeps returning.  Soon after the Boston Marathon bombings last Monday, Boston.com created Google Documents to help locals who could offer housing reach those who had been displaced by the attacks.  In just a couple of days, almost 6,000 people posted to the spreadsheet offering everything from guest room beds and pull-out couches to hot showers, cupcakes, and snuggles with pets.  In honor of these Bostonians' kindness and goodwill, the list of housing offers has been kept online.  As with Papa's death and the front porch pies in 2001, it is this story this past week that has made me cry more than any other.  If you need to be reassured of human beings' capacity for compassion and goodness, this simple spreadsheet glows with both.  "I just made soup. . .and have a friendly cat," one offer reads.  Another:  "We have lots of coffee and floor space."  Yet another:  "Futon, showers, and two doggies ready to comfort you."  One more:  "We have lots of food, beer and cookies!  :)" (The smiley emoticon is the poster's, not mine, and even seeing THAT touches me.  People are amazing.)  "My wife might even spring for Chinese food tonight," reads another listing.  Some are from local college students who live in dorm rooms but are willing to give up their beds.  Some helpfully mention all foreign languages spoken in the households.  Many offer transportation.  At least one offers his YMCA guest-pass so someone can shower or sauna there and/or just get away for awhile.  Imagine:  Nearly 6,000 people reached out to help like this.  Constantly refreshing both Boston.com and the Boston Globe's Twitter feed last Monday, I read some of  these housing entries aloud to Mike as they began pouring in and exclaimed to him, "Honestly, can you even imagine!?  In a major city--And these people don't even KNOW who-all is reading this--And they're posting their phone numbers and email addresses and everything?!"  I was astounded by it.  It is one of the things I will remember most about the events of last week, all that kindness.  It is only now, eight days after the attacks, that I can even think about the housing offers list, let alone skim through it, without beginning to choke-up again.  ". . .Pullout couch.  Excellent brownies."  Well, honestly.  

I believe that good outweighs evil.  I believe that most people are good and are actively trying every day to be good.  I believe, like Mr. Rogers believed, that "you will always find people who are helping."   Here we all are, stumbling around the planet together, sometimes the ones falling and being helped up and dusted off, and other times the ones with hands outstretched to lift or carry.  We share our stories, we sing songs, and we try to make both sense and something good--there's that word again--come from it all.  We offer what we can, and if we pay attention, we see how the love we pass back and forth saves the day every day, one pie on a porch-front and sofa-bed-offer at a time.  ♥

Two Years

Mike took this photo of us in our hotel room on our wedding day two years ago.  It's one of my favorites from that whole day.  Our smiles!  We had just finished calling our parents to tell them the news, and the blushing giddiness we felt after those laughter-filled conversations is still on our faces in the picture.  "Oh, I figured you were up to something!" Mike's mom responded to his announcement.  "You never call in the middle of the day on a Friday like this!"  My own mom tried to speak normally but kept giggling and barely managed to call out to my dad in the background, "GENE!  Val's MARRIED!"  When she put my dad on, we caught up, and then he mentioned, in his usual Dad's Daily Diary-fashion, some dish he had recently cooked for his and Mom's supper that had bacon in it, and when I replied that it sounded like something Mike would love, Dad chortled, "That's right!  Mike!  I'll have to make it next time you're both here!  For my son-in-law!"  I love remembering these moments, all of us simultaneously shy and stunned-a-bit-stupid and and laughing during every pause in our conversations.

Tittering to each other and repeatedly rubbing our thumbs against the backs of our plain silver bands, Mike and I took one more picture and talked about where to go for supper.  We decided on a restaurant.  We commented that it would be Our First Meal as a Married Couple.  We laughed some more.  And hand in hand, we set off.  

Easter Breakfast

Mike and I will be having our Easter dinner tomorrow--He's cooking a ham and asked me to make macaroni and cheese to go with it, while I'm excited about the broccoli-cauliflower salad and cake--but this afternoon I surprised him with a late Easter breakfast so we would have something festive on the table today too.  

I love holiday foods and tables.  My mom is the same way, and our conversations on the subject, usually held while looking at pictures we're clipping from magazines, always find us saying the same things:  "Look at this, Vally!  Isn't this cute!"  "Oh, honestly, Mom, the people who come up with these ideas for magazines have the BEST job!"  "I'd eat themed food every night if your dad would go for it."  And then she tells me again about how when she and Dad were first married, she was in her Daisy-collecting period and had them on everything, so the first breakfast she made for him was sunny-side-up eggs cooked into Daisy-shaped molds.  "I think he started wondering then what he'd gotten himself into," she concludes.  When I called home a little while ago to wish my parents a happy Easter, I told Mom about today's rabbit-shaped pancakes, egg casserole nests with potato eggs, and bacon Tulips, and predictably, she ooohed and ahhed.  

The practice I got painting those bunnies onto my Easter cards last week paid off during batter-pouring today:  Mike's pancake actually turned out bunny-shaped on the first attempt.  :)  A donut hole rolled in coconut flakes made the tail.   

I never did find a bouquet of my beloved Daffodils at the store, so I tucked a couple sprigs of my silk ones around the table.  The yellow gingham tablecloth is actually a small bedspread I found at a thrift shop a few years ago.  It was a simple table and a sweet breakfast with my Mike.  I hope you've all had a wonderful Easter too.  ♥  

This Year's Easter Cards

I wish I'd thought of this a week ago, as now the race is on to get these mailed out in time for a Saturday arrival.  I didn't see any packaged Easter cards in the stores this year that interested me, and late last night, it occured to that a simple rabbit silhouette would look sweet against these pink, yellow, and green plaid notecards I already had.  I looked at a few silhouette images online, drew an outline in pen, and then began painting.  I'm happy with (most of) them, but I wish inspiration had struck sooner.  I haven't decided on what-all I'm making for Easter dinner or dessert yet either.  'Definitely not my most-organized holiday ever, but there are still a few days for me to get it together. 

Oh I wish it was spring of the year again. Forsythia bloomin' by the fence and the Crocus comin' up through the snow. . . . ~ Olivia Walton in The Homecoming

The local church's garden that had such beautiful Irises in bloom last spring has patches of egg yolk-and-indigo-colored Crocuses today.  I've never been a big Crocus-lover, but after the seemingly never-ending winter this year, every single one I spot peeping out in yards around town delights me.  Springtime!  Bring it!  

Sad Sack Looks Forward to April

When I finally got around to treating myself to the Daffodils, the store was out of them and had moved on to other flowers.  And that kind of sums up March So Far.  There was also the moment Monday night when after what seemed like three weeks straight of  my bumbling through life like Sad Sack, I was washing dishes and noticed how beautiful it all was:  The grooved orange cereal bowl, the curvy bottle of pink (pink!) dish liquid (Palmolive "Soft Touch" with Vitamin E [it's lovely]), the mounds of sparkling soap suds, the green plaid dish cloth. . . .It was all so colorful and so pretty, and the sink smelled rich from the soap, and my hands were warm in the water, and finally, finally, my mood lifted.  I breathed it all in and thought about how lucky I was, how blessed, really, to be able to enjoy such a moment.  And I told myself to laugh off the absurdities and blunders of the past few weeks, to make amends where needed, and to go ahead and just declare this March over already and start anew.  I even imagined myself writing about it here, the rainbow of dishes in the sink and the rainbows on bubbles in the soap suds and the gift of--and the life-long lesson in--seeing beauty where others see a mess.  I had the blog post half-composed in my head when, lost in my revelry, I somehow squeezed the sink's hose nozzle and sprayed myself full-on in the face.  Water up my nose, water flooding my eyes, water dripping out of my hair, water trickling from my face down into my bra. . . .And so March continued.  You really do just have to laugh.

The month's best laugh came from Stuffed, however, who decided to help us do our taxes Sunday afternoon.

He had seen paper clips many times before, so I don't know what the fascination was Sunday, but he went to this clipped pile of Mike's tax forms over and over and over, looking ever more shark-like each time he approached the pile.  This is a ten-second clip, but this went on for about an hour before we took the papers away from him a final time and settled down to the thrill that is tax-prep, and we laughed until we ached every time he ran off with them.  God bless curious little cats.  ♥

We Make Our Own Sunshine

Likely because I have had to spend the past few days inside the apartment waiting for packages to be delivered, I am craving sunshine and light and fresh air and bold colors like mad lately.  The joke has been on captive-feeling, Cabin Fever-ed me so far this week, since although online shipping notifications stated that the packages were "out for delivery" starting in the morning both Monday and yesterday, the buzzer didn't ring until 3 p.m. Monday and until 6 p.m. last night, so I had stayed indoors "for nothing" hour after hour both days when I could have bundled up and headed out for a walk.  I love my little home, but even a homebody needs fresh air and exercise, especially a homebody who recently polished off most of a Valentine's Day carrot cake by herself.  :)  

This reminds me to tell you that in last Sunday's post about my grandmother, I should have mentioned that whenever my dad would try to get Grandma to join Papa on his daily walk or to do a bit of exercise on her own, Grandma would shake her head and reply, "But I did that already!  When I was a schoolgirl, we all had to do fitness exercises!"  As if physical activity was a life event.  :)  Year after year, Dad argued the benefits of a daily walk, but Grandma never budged on the issue.  She had done that already, end of story.  Remembering their frustrating-to-each-other arguments on this still makes me laugh.  ♥

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. . . .Stuffed and I have spent my time off this week here in the apartment, Stuffed more often than not cuddled up with paws outstretched under the space heater or radiator while I've tried to get some more projects crossed off my seemingly epic To Do list.  I have been faux-upholstering (just kind of making it up as I go along) the wing chair above for awhile now.  A post for another day, and hopefully, not too long from now either, as I'm eager to be done with this project.  After rearranging the fabric squares with straight pins the past couple days, I think I have the patchwork the way I want it.  (A quick glance behind me and I see it's changed a little more since I took that photo, but you get the idea.)  The seat, for now, is a vintage pink roses baby blanket.  It's not at all a cutter, and I almost hate to hide the size and condition of it by using it as a chair seat, but it's also perfect for the project, so for now, it stays.  I haven't touched the chair's sides or bottom/skirt yet and have only begun to re-cushion the arms, so there is still much to do, but it's beginning to look the way I'd envisioned it.  And Stuffed has been content to nap in the warmth instead of nosing around the needles, thread, and hot glue, so we're both happy.  

A few rays of sunlight have been spotted in here this week. 

Pay Day will find me treating myself to this year's first bundle of Daffodils.  They are my favorites, so they show up here and there in various ways in the apartment year-round, but there's nothing like a real Daffodil, especially during these dreary end-of-winter weeks. 

February wraps up tomorrow.

March is almost here. 

And today itself is cozy and certainly good enough, with its comfy cat and spots of light and its colorful patches and tea and a husband on the way home from work soon.  There is even--although Grandma would shudder at the thought--time and opportunity for a brisk walk.  Life is good, life is very good, and let me not forget it.  ♥

Cuddle Paws

I have a few days off from work and am trying to get a lot done around the apartment.  'Always time to cuddle this black and white puffball of a cat, though.  Gahhhhhhh, I love him so much.   He chased the rays of rare-this-month sunshine around our table and in the bathroom for awhile earlier this afternoon, and now, post photo-shoot, he's sitting in the kitchen seemingly guarding my bubbling pasta as it cooks.  'Such a dear, sweet heart, my little home companion while Mike's at work.

2013's Valentines

I've always thought of Valentine's Day as the highlight of post-Christmas winter.  Just when the season seems endlessly cold and bleak, Valentine's Day arrives with its cozy reds and warm pinks and its gifts of love and flowers and pretty sweets and kind words.  A little girl in my care at work last week put two and two together while we were making cards and exclaimed, "Hey!  Val!  Valentine!  VALentine!"  I told her that the fact that my name is in it was part of the reason I loved this holiday so much when I was her age. 

 I love it now for better reasons, rest assured.  Since I didn't have my first boyfriend or even date until I was 24, my love for the day was never about dolling up for a romantic dinner out or finding the perfect present for a man or any of the other things we're too often told are the point of Valentine's Day.  It is for me a whole week of finding and making cards, catching up on letters, looking up recipes, deciding what to bake and which tablecoth to use, admiring the stores' displays of flowers and sweets, and marching through snow to the post office to send my stamped and stickered greetings.  I set what remains my own record my freshman year of college by mailing 44 Valentines, but even years like this one, when payday was the day after and the holiday was a more low-key affair, simply sitting down with a cake recipe and a few cards, stickers, and stamps before me was enough. 

 I mailed out Aunt Laurie's card and then realized I'd forgotten to include a frog somehow, a Valentine's Day tradition she has graciously come to accept over the years, so I created a second little card and walked back to the post office with it so it would arrive on time.  

Aunt Laurie's own card arrived Thursday and was more of her amazing paper art.  Remember the incredible scrapbook she made for Mike's and my first anniversary last April?  Lately, she has been crafting these house cards--"Cottage Cards by Laurie," she labels them, inside a heart-shaped tag that hangs from the chimneys--with windows and doors that open to reveal images, the recipients' names, and other little surprises.  

 This Valentine's Day's sweetest surprise came from my friend Tina, who is also my friend Sommer's sister.  In a big red heart-covered envelope was not only a long letter, but also recent pictures of her and her family, a handmade fabric Valentine card, and a puffy cinamon-scented fabric heart to hang.  Tina and I have shared the most heartbreaking moments over the years, so to be exchanging happy hearts still twenty years after we met is now the sweetest gift of all--and one that likely delights Sommer.  ♥  Life is such a wild ride. 

 An exchange of cards and a small carrot cake for us here Valentine's night, leftover cake the next few days, and Valentine's Day/Week has now come and gone again.  Love to you all, and here's to a happy March.  ♥

Henriette

Today is my grandmother's birthday.  On what would be her final birthday, the local newspaper noted that she was now the oldest person in town, a fact that she rolled her eyes upon sharing with us. 

Grandma was the only child in a family of nine who wasn't born in France.  Her father died not long after her family came to America.  Her mother hated having anyone underfoot while she was in the kitchen, so Grandma didn't learn to cook until she herself had gotten married. My mom still marvels at what a great cook Grandma turned out to be given that, but I am more impressed that someone who had never met any of her own grandparents back in the Old Country ended up being the epitome of a sweet old-fashioned grandmother. 

To her fellow high school students in the Class of 1927, she was "Frenchie."  Papa called her "[his] little Napoleon."  To her nieces and nephews, she was "Aunt Hen."  Her name was Henriette, in tribute to her brother Henri who had died not long before she was born, although it was informally Americanized into "Henrietta."  She hated it, she told me when I was a kid, and I was surprised and responded honestly that I thought it was pretty.  Her foreign name conjured up to my young mind happy images of both cozily-roosting chickens and lovely French ladies. 

Grandma taught me how to play cards and bake bread and peel an apple in one long unbroken strip.  I taught her that when an apple is sliced in half horizontally, a star of seeds appears.  She once said that it was impossible for her not to laugh when she heard me laugh, and she called me "[her] sweet girl." 

She cried while holding my younger brother for the first time, and since his, our older brother's, and Grandma's birthdays are all in February, she would always make a special birthday dinner sometime that month in shared celebration. 

The next-to-last time she and I saw each other was a May afternoon in a city hospital far from her home, and I was wearing a tie-dye t-shirt.  When I leaned over her bed to give her a hug and kiss, Grandma took in my wildly-colored top and weakly commented, "My arms look like your shirt."  Poor Grandma's skin was splotchy with bruises in various stages by that point.  Her observation was the last dry-humored comment of hers that we smiled at together.   

A rainbow appeared soon after she died, and as she had requested, she was buried with a letter my dad had written her from Vietnam.  She had wanted me to have her writing desk and handmade crochet tablecloth, and I do, but it is her scrapbooks and recipes and family papers and photos I treasure more.  She has appeared in a few precious dreams since I've died, and one helped me gain perspective at a time I felt I was spinning out of control in life.  

I think of her when I see cottage gardens, round loaves of homemade bread, delicate script handwriting, canned goods, cantalope, Poinsettias, political cartoons, poetry anthologies, pastel mints, and barkcloth.  When my ex-boyfriend and I visited her grave a couple weeks after she died, I left her a letter promising, among other things, to try always to be her sweet girl.  That I am forever her granddaughter is one of the most beautiful-to-me things about my life.  I miss her more, not less, every year.  And I hope she still laughs when she hears me laugh.