Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes

When the days were still short and it was cold outside early this past spring, our son planted tomato seeds in egg cartons and placed them on his windowsill. He tended the plants like children, transplanting them into pots as they outgrew the egg cartons, then reluctantly moving them outside when the time came. Once out of doors the plants required very little human attention, although they got a lot of attention from a certain groundhog.

There was a tense day in June when DH, who doesn't always read labels, decided to spray all the plants for bugs. Not only did DS, an organic gardener, not approve of the use of chemicals on his children, but the spray DH used appeared for a time to have killed the plants. Contrite, he hosed them all down, hoping to save not only the plants but his son's happiness. Fortunately a few survived, and DH sneaked in a few more he bought from the Feed and Seed across the street. Had all the plants lived I don't know what we would have done with all the tomatoes.

For the last few weeks we have been awash in tomatoes. We have orange ones. We have Roma, which always make me think of the gypsies I encountered overseas. And we have the classic red ones that taste great on a ham sandwich. It is a great joy for me to pick them in the gentle September sun and lay them carefully into a doubled Wal-mart bag, which I lug into the kitchen and empty onto the counter. A mixed blessing, however, is figuring out how to use them all. I've given as many away as I could find recipients for. I've made salsa, I've made spaghetti sauce, I've frozen a dozen Ziploc bags full, I've made more salsa, I've made more spaghetti sauce... DH grumbles that there's no room in the freezer for anything important, like ice cream.

I hate to admit this, but I left several dozen to rot on the vine. The groundhog, who early in the summer got thumbs-down for getting fat off the fruits of our son's labor, now gets an indulgent smile when I see him race away with a big orange tomato in his mouth.

World's oldest known fibers found!

Check this out: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910142352.htm

The thing I love about this story is not that people have been working with fiber for 34,000 years, it's that even way back then, we dyed them. It wasn't enough that the flax be functional, from the beginnings of time our fibers had to also be pretty. Is that great or what?

I took a particular interest in this discovery because as many of you know, I spent four years in the country of Georgia and have great admiration for the Georgian people, the single most artistic group I have encountered in my travels. Every person you meet in Tbilisi can recite poetry. The flowers in the first picture are from a wall hanging in Georgian theka, or felt. The second picture is of a handmade Georgian rug. These are only two of many examples of the beautiful textile work done there. It's no big surprise to me that the first person to spin flax into thread might well have been a Georgian.

Blue and White China

I love blue and white china. Here are a couple of pictures from my dining room, just to prove it. It seems I'm not the only one--I discovered this wonderful painting of a woman with a blue and white china ruff and bonnet at an exhibition at Vascoeuil Castle in Normandy this summer. The image above is a watercolor done by my daughter Isabella (aka DD), using my blue and white Delft teapot for inspiration. She claims to prefer Fiesta Ware for herself, but she's still young.

It's funny--my collection started entirely by accident, when one of my former high school teachers called me up one summer during my college years. He said that he and his wife were divorcing; he was moving back in with his parents in northern Indiana and he didn't know what to do with his half of their china service. He thought my sister and I might want it. I said yes, sight unseen, and he arrived with four blue and white English ironstone plates, cups, saucers and bowls. Sorry as I was for his misfortune, I was immediately smitten with the dishes and a life-long love affair began. Fortunately when my sister moved to a different apartment she left the blue and white for me, and the rest is history.

I probably have two hundred pieces by now, and I love them all. Many I bought for myself and many were bought for me by family and friends. My DM (darling mother) contributed at least a couple of dozen pieces, often precariously mailed through the diplomatic pouch. The collection traveled the world with me; at one point, during the 1993 military mutiny in the Central African Republic, I thought I had lost it, but it all eventually arrived at our new home in Djibouti. Fortunately the Foreign Legionnaires who occupied our house during the hostilities were honest and had no interest in china.

There was a time when I couldn't pass up a nice blue and white piece at an antique store, but my passion for collecting has cooled somewhat and now I enjoy rearranging them in our castle, finding new uses for them, and setting a pretty table occasionally. I'm still on the lookout for a covered vegetable dish that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, having passed up many beautiful but expensive ones, however regretfully, many times.

Thank you, Mr. DeBeck, wherever you are.

Yes, I visited the Alamo!

And here it is, with the two-person universe of happiness posing nearby. It was a quick visit to San Antonio, and a hot one, but I not only got to see where Davy Crockett drew his last breaths, I also got to visit the River Walk twice. The last evening was spent with five college freshmen and a high school junior at the Hard Rock Cafe, and I've got a glass (and this goofy picture) to prove it, except as usual I'm not actually IN the picture because I'm the one taking it.

It was fun to hang out with the kids, if a little exhausting, but back in Bedford it's time to harvest a bumper crop of tomatoes and get back to work on the house. I helped DD move into her college dorm yesterday, a bittersweet occasion. She's the third generation in our family to attend Indiana University. We had lunch at the Runcible Spoon, which I remember from my own college days (I'm not sure how long it has been in Bloomington, but there were thirty years' worth of literary journals on the bookshelves.) The iced coffee with mint was sweet and good.

Back Home Again...

in Indiana. It was a quick trip that included Washington, D.C., the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and the great city of Pittsburgh, which I had never visited before. I chose Pittsburgh because it would allow me to do the Eastern Shore-Bedford, Indiana drive in two days with something interesting in between.

Our first impression of Pittsburgh was an exciting one, until a driving rain obscured everything but the road in front of us. We checked into the Lady Palm suite at the Parador Inn (www.theparadorinn.com), a fabulously restored 1870's mansion-turned-B&B on Pittsburgh's North Side, and since the rain had stopped we proceeded to explore the neighborhood. Seconds after stepping across the street we got caught in a downpour and sought refuge in one of the arches of the Calvary United Methodist Church. Learning that the church was open, we jumped at the chance to not only get out of the rain but see those famous Tiffany stained glass windows from the inside of the dark sanctuary with the fading afternoon light behind them. We couldn't make out anything of the interior (I hear the oak ceilings are also impressive), but the windows took my breath away.

I just had to see the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, which was designed by H.H. Richardson, pioneer of the Romanesque Revival style that inspired the architecture of our jail. It was only a block away, so I ran through the rain to get a better look. It was impossible to take a decent picture with water dripping all over my face, needless to say. We had dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant, and it was all delicious. Our waitress at the Thai place, a pretty young woman with an abundance of glitter highlighting her eyes, brightened when we told her where we were staying; she hopes to have her wedding at the Parador.

A few years ago I had negotiated (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh to have a Warhol exhibition in the overseas country I was serving in at the time. I had wanted to visit this museum ever since, so after an excellent breakfast at the Parador we took a walk down Millionaires' Row, imagining Pittsburgh at the turn of the last century, and spent a couple of hours in the museum learning about the life of Pop artist Andy Warhol, a Pittsburgh native. I was pretty young in the late 1960's and early 1970's when Warhol and his friends were considered the coolest people in New York City, so it was fun to relive that era, with its striped bell bottoms and long play albums in Warhol covers, Mick and Bianca Jagger and a very young, fresh-faced Michael Jackson. The seventies were one big party for Warhol and his friends, evidently. By the time we got to the end of Warhol's life, however, to his collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat on a long line of Jesus punching bags, it was obvious that the party was over and it all just seemed sad somehow. That final impression stayed with us as we checked out the offerings in the gift shop, where we spent a half an hour and didn't buy anything.

It was almost two o'clock when we emerged from the Warhol Museum, and we had a long drive back to Bedford ahead of us, so we scrapped plans to visit the Aviary and the Mattress Factory and hit the road. Pittsburgh is definitely worth another visit, and its proximity to the road to Washington pretty much ensures I'll be seeing it again in the near future.

Adventures in Hot Glass and Remember the Alamo

Last night an exhibition of glass artistry by Ross Thackery opened at the Old Jail Art Center. I am showing you just three of the gorgeous glass items on display in the hopes of enticing you to come see the rest. There's not a lot of time--the exhibition closes this Wednesday--so hurry! In addition to being a very talented artist, Ross is a great teacher; he has taught two very successful stained glass workshops at our center so far. This fall we are again offering stained glass, and are adding a fusing/beadmaking workshop as well. I was one of Ross's first stained glass students, and I loved it. I'm looking forward to taking fusing next month as well. There's something magic about glass, as I'm sure you'll agree if you've ever watched a glassblower at work.

I'll be in and out this month (mostly out, I suspect) traveling with DD and the aforementioned sweetheart (hers, not mine--mine will hold down our very large limestone fort as usual!). I have visited the great city of San Antonio numerous times (DM, my darling mother, lived there for years, with my youngest siblings), but I have never, believe it or not, visited the Alamo. DH and I did get to the River Walk once, where we drank a beer with my sister Jessica and her husband while we paid the "little kids" (at this point teenagers) ice cream money to go away and leave us alone. Anyway, that was a long time ago, too--Jessica and Don have been married for 26 years this summer and DH and I for 25, and the youngest of the little kids turns 36 in November.

This time I will see where Davy Crockett took his last breaths, I really will, at last. I will blog about it, too. Stay tuned!

Dvasos Church

The two pictures to the left are of a beaded artwork in the Dvasos Church in Vilnius, Lithuania. I don't know the name of the artist, but I was dazzled by the beauty of the work and thought I would share it with you. As a person who dabbles in needlework, I could imagine the hours and hours the artist put in to create this piece, and how proud she was to see it hung on the walls of this gorgeous church. (I suppose the artist might have been a "he", but it seems unlikely.) The Dvasos Church itself has an unusually colorful interior, painted bright green, pink and turquoise with gold trim; according to my guidebook it has both Rococo and Baroque elements. The top photo is of the altar.

Our Lithuanian Boy Genius (aka the love of DD's life) didn't see what all the fuss was about; evidently this church is not considered an important jewel in the Vilnian crown, but I appreciated the exuberant use of color. Most of the churches we visited were austere, painted either white or left in natural stone; to me their spareness, although beautiful, reflected a more subdued, even somber, side of the Lithuanian national experience. Dvasos Church suggests something else altogether, joy, maybe.