Having Heros

Painting by Maira KalmanIt is, in my opinion, so important to have heros. 

I have been trying and trying to find the right words to describe my feelings about the inauguration of Barrack Obama, and how honored I was to be there.

And how it felt like being in a room with a million people who were all in a state of inspiration.

And how thankful I am to have a friend like Vince, who has known me since I was a grubby toddler, who invited me to join him at an event that could not have been imagined by any american generation other than his own, or realized without the help of any other generation than my own....

and was coming up with nothing. 

Leave it to my hero, Maira Kalman, to paint a perfect picture of everything I was trying to say. Kalman has long been a hero of mine, a self taught author and humorist and artist. It turns out that she was there too, and by the looks of her painting above, she and I had the same amazing view during the concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Which means that I was sharing air space with Maira Kalman and Bruce Springsteen at the same time. Which is just absolutely too much for me to comprehend.

I know, I have said this before, but isn't it amazing when you see a piece of art for the first time, and you are struck with the sense that at least one person understands you completely? See more of Mairas art from her trip to DC here, and even buy limited edition prints at the gallery that represents her here. And buy her book, The Principles of Uncertainty, almost everywhere else.

Taking The Plunge

When I was very young and too far away from my future to even guess what it would hold, A very wise and well-lived woman gave me excellent advice. She told me that no matter what I did or did not do, there would only be two things that I or any other woman would never, ever regret: "A swim, and a baby". I understood the swim part perfectly. I grew up in a damp swimsuit, and knew that late afternoon sun and finally-dry-again hair could trick you into thinking that you did not need another jump-in, when in fact you always do. I had learned long before that if I jumped in with the faith that once I was underwater, the reason I jumped would be clear, and so there was no point in arguing with myself. 

For almost two decades I have shared that advice within the private confines of every "should-I-or-shouldnt-I"  conversation that has presented itself, with an assuredness that I am sure, at times, was a little annoying to my friends who were facing the important, life-changing decision to have children. My faith in this advice has been unwavering, unbending, and, apart from my commitment to swimming in anything, conveniently untested. I finally must admit that now that its me in the should-i-or-shoudnt-i spot, that faith is a little shaky. Not surprising. It is rare that I have faith in anything (which is too bad, because having faith in something is a very good thing, if only because it provides a rest from over-thinking and indecision). Lately I have been feeling the need for a little more than blind faith to push me past this very comfortable stage of my life, a little more faith that having a baby or two will not leave me in a state of regret...  And this, in a very roundabout way, is why I agreed to jump into the ocean at Coney Island on New Years Day. Because sometimes you have to test faith in order to renew it. 

But wait, lets back up. Regret might be too strong a word. Its really more of an anxiety about the idea that my life will be irreversibly altered and filled with many many new opportunities to make terrible mistakes, just when I feel like I have finally gotten the hang of things. My swimsuit and my hair are dry, so to speak. I have glamorous, confident friends who argue that a baby will ruin them because they will no longer be able to dress up and stay out late and travel on a moments notice to exotic places. In contrast, a baby would actually justify my ideal evening routines, which last night involved eating an entire bag of chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels while watching The Biggest Loser. And it would be nice, for a change, to blame someone else for the food stains on my clothing, especially if it was someone who could not verbalize a defense. But even so, I'm good at my life right now. I'm a pretty good cook, a pretty good friend, I love my husband and my dog and my cat and when I am in my kitchen and my dog is sleeping on his little rug under my feet and music is playing.. things feel pretty complete. Why muss that up?

And then, of course, there is the issue of my devoted husband, to whom I give too little credit.  TC finds himself reminding me, far too often, that I am no longer going it alone. This is taking some getting used to on my part. New Years Day was no exception. When I imagined TC's reaction to my wanting to join the Polar Bear Club at their annual Coney Island swim on New Years Day, I pictured him being supportive and perhaps coming along as a spectator, not being crazy enough to jump in with me. Crazy was my hobby, not his. And besides, I already had definite plans to borrow the extremely warm muppet-like fur lined knee length four inch thick warm-up jacket that he had worn between practice laps as a competitive swimmer in college, and now hung in our closet. I also planned to use his thermos, which is better than mine, and was counting on him, post swim, to order my favorite wonton soup from Grand Sezchuan, and to reward my bravery by giving me the corner of the sofa and the remote control for the day if not the week. But when I saw myself in the water, I saw myself alone. I always see myself alone. So, when he jumped at the chance to join me (and our very adventurous friend Stephen, who had first broached the idea) I was a bit floored. I think my first words were: "OK. but I get to wear the jacket." 

TC not only gave me the jacket, but he let me wear the pair of sheepskin boots that we share when we take turns walking the dog. I had my warmer than warm manitoba mittens, a very good hat, and a huge thermos of hot coffee. Under another layer of fleece tights and a wool undershirt, I wore a bikini. When we stepped out into the bright cold (sunny, but 18 degrees f)  New Years morning, I looked at TC and Stephen. They looked sporty and well layered, almost as though they were headed out for an apres ski fondue. I was taking no chances, making no allowances for fashion, and as a result looked like I had woken up in the coat closet the morning after an ill-fated party at the Notre Dame swim teams squalid off campus house and made a run for it.... but not without stopping for coffee.

The most surprising thing, upon reaching the pre-swim party on the Coney Island boardwalk, was that so many other people were there. I had pictured dozens of people running into and out of the water - not hundreds. There was live music and a wide variety of costumes, a "strong man" demonstration and much beating of bared chests. An adorable troupe of water ballerinas in big flowery bathing caps and goggles fluttered about, giggling to stay warm, while a group of burly bearded men, one of them holding an enormous american flag waving madly in the wind, passed around a teensy flask. This was not at all what I had expected. I guess I had pictured a dozen or so sturdy old men, espousing the health benefits and logic of cold water swims. Isn’t that what I always see on TV on New Years Day? Instead, the costumes and mock-pageantry made it suddenly apparent that everyone agreed that this was a seriously insane thing to do. And yet, we were all giddy. Everyone seemed so different, but everyone seemed to belong. It was so cold that it hurt a little to inhale, and my speech was impaired by a frozen chin. Loud music was being played for people who were dancing to stay warm, I just jumped up and down, and panicked a little inside.

When the happy mob finally moved onto the beach and the countdown began to the 1pm call to jump in the water, we made a plan. Genuinely afraid of losing sight of each other and the pile of warm clothing we would be leaving on the beach, we mapped out our route. We were maybe fifty feet away from the water, and directly between the large burly team with their american flag and a very permanent looking wooden lifeguard stand, and decided that it would be those two things that we looked for when coming out of the water.  Confident that we would be able to beeline in and out, we shed our clothes and, when the buzzer rang, ran straight into the ocean. 

TC was in the water first, almost completely submerged.  He was turned around and dashing past me before I was knee deep in the water, and then gone, engulfed by the screaming crowd that was still rushing towards the surf. Stephen and I were in and out almost as quickly. The water, which was about 41 degrees, didn't feel too bad. The air, on the other hand, was bitter. I had no shoes on (it was enough of an effort to have to find a bathing suit in January with a hangover, I gave up on the water shoes) and my feet began to ache immediately. I looked at Stephen. His eyes were very, very wide. And panicked. He had just realized, moments before I would, that the wooden lifeguard stand had been moved. "WHY??" he screamed at me from mere inches away, his eyes wild, "WHY WOULD THEY MOVE THE STAND??" It wasn't a rhetorical question as much as it was a demand for a new plan, ideally set forth by whoever had moved the stand. We were suddenly completely disoriented, standing on a very crowded beach that looked the same for a hundred feet in each direction, packed solid with cold, wet, and equally disoriented people. We ran a few feet in one direction, then a few feet in another, and then back again. We were not calm, nor were we able to think constructively. As many times as I told myself that I needed a new plan, that thought process was interrupted by a part of my body screaming at me to make it warm. Each time Stephen and I collided, which is what happens when you run in tiny circles with a friend and you are both in shock, we would repeat-scream at each-other. WHY?? WHY DID THEY MOVE THE STAND??   or "$%@!". That was it. I believe I had opportunity to repeat these two phrases five, maybe six times before I turned around for just a minute and lost sight of Stephen completely, and found myself alone. With no one to scream at. My entire body was bright red, except for my hands, which were a sickly grey-blue, and my feet, which hurt too much to look at. I could not think what direction, other than towards the water, I should run. I was completely and utterly incapacitated, and knew, based on the expressions of almost every member of the confused and panicked mob I was a part of, that I was not the only one. And here is where I will admit, ashamedly, that I was not thinking about TC at all. In fact, when a small opening between bodies allowed for a split second glimpse of him, it registered as an illusion. 

It was actually the long coat that caught my attention, flapping in the wind high above the crowd. He stood, bright pink and shaking, and wearing only his tiny wet Speedo (his old college racing suits are so miniscule that when we had a housekeeper she would put them away in my fancy underwear drawer) and bright orange water shoes. I knew that he could not see me, his glasses were off and his eyes were closed against the cold. He was stretched tall, with his arms high above him, each of his hands clenched tightly around the the end of a sleeve of the jacket, its gold fur lining bright against the grey sky. It flapped and waved like a huge flag, as he must have known it would, and while I couldn't hear him I could tell by the way his mouth moved that he was shouting my name as loudly as he possibly could. When I reached him he was so cold that he could not manage to put the jacket around me, much less get himself dressed in the warm clothing that lay in piles next to his feet. He had been standing there for many long minutes, which each must have felt like hours, and rather than taking even a moment to put his wool sweater and mittens and long underwear, much less to steal my sheepskin boots, he had turned himself into a bright pink flag bearing human beacon. There's my guy. And there's my faith. 

This years Polar Bear Club swim turned out to be the coldest on record. This winter, in general, has been a harsh one in New York. Everyone is looking forward to summer, a little more than usual. After a very subdued holiday season in a city that is just coming down from a five year fiscal high and has a pretty serious hangover, that plunge on New Years Day at Coney Island felt like the beginning of something great. Terrifying and unpredictable, but truly great. TC and I spent another very cold day outside together last weekend at the inauguration of Barack Obama, standing again with a mob of other cold, giddy, and determined people, this time more than a million. Both events left us with a similar feeling, a remembered sense that none of us are in this alone, and that a dry swimsuit is highly overrated.

from top left, me and the jacket, pre swim, front and back, Coney Island swimmers, and Stephen, me and TC

New Years Eggnog

As a child in Vermont I often spent New Years Eve at the home of my grandparents. Theirs was a fabulously kitschy circa 70s alpine chalet on the backside of a small, burly ski hill called Jay Peak. There was always heaps of snow on the ground during the holidays back then. My grandmother would put on her dirndl and stand ballerina-still by the fireplace, looking as though the small but lovely party had planned itself, perhaps while she was out roasting sausages while on skis. My grandfather would make and serve eggnog from a big crystal punch bowl placed in a position of honor where his large leather chair usually sat. I remember a wool plaid vest on him, I think. It may have looked Epcot Perfect upon arrival, but somebody always went off the road on the way home. I partly blame the eggnog.

Driving down their icy mountain and up to the top of ours late at night with my mother after a few servings of that eggnog was always harrowing. This was a long time ago, remember, before Mothers Against Drunk Driving brought to our nations attention the fact that while we might have thought the opposite, alcohol made us into terrible and unsafe drivers. In those days it wasn't even illegal. Really, really studid, but not illegal.  It didn't help that we rarely had enough gas to get all the way home, much less to burn while spinning our wheels trying to back out of snowbanks, or that my mothers exchanges with her brother and parents usually put her in the mood to storm out early and then to drive too fast. I should mention here that she is an extremely skilled person when it comes to getting herself out of snowbanks. I have seen her correct an upended honda civic without putting out her cigarette or turning down the radio more than once. Really spectacular. That didn't calm me much though, on those evenings. I was forever telling my uncle to follow us down the hill and keep his eyes open for our tail lights in the deep snow along the 7 mile drive home, which I think he would have always done anyway. Eventually we would get to the bottom of the mountain and turn left to climb up our hill, and he would keep right and find his way to the top of his. Once his headlights had disappeared from our rear view mirror along with the last lights of the houses in the valley, I would watch our gas gauge without blinking. When and if we did run out of gas, I was always a little relieved. Walking was extremely safe, considering. and running out of gas, it turned out, was always much better than worrying about running out of gas. The odds of another car passing us on that road was next to none, and the quiet stillness once the sound of our engine died and we coasted to a stop was the most peaceful sound I can remember. We ran out of gas on summer nights too, but summer forests are filled with noise. In the winter they are silent, even though they are full of life. I would hear very faint feathery sounds and imagine that they belonged to the rabbits with their thick winter coats and broad furry feet bounding across the top of the thick snow silently. If I walked slowly enough along the long dirt road my mothers strong, tall, and sometimes angry strides would put her through the front door a solid twenty minutes before me, which meant that by the time I got home the whole evening would have been balled up and forgotten along with whatever she had used to start what was now a lovely roaring fire.

In later years we moved to town, within downhill coasting distance of everyone we were related to. Sobriety behind the wheel was actively enforced, even in our town where pubs outnumbered graduating eighth graders. I learned to drive, more or less, and how to get myself out of snowbanks. My mother still doesn't trust me to drive in Vermont in the wintertime, even though during college I routinely managed a mile long driveway uphill in reverse on snowy days because my $900 car was rear wheel drive and had better traction that way. The last time I visited her during the winter we drove up that same mountain road that once led to my grandparents house to have dinner. She would not allow me to drive her car, and did not want to drive herself after having had a few drinks, so we took my rental with its terrible slippery little tires. Apparently her fear of me damaging her beloved winter worthy car was a far worse imagined fate than dying together in mine. I gave her one last pleading look in the driveway, promising to drive very carefully if she would reconsider. "Absolutely not." she said, folding her hands across her lap and nestling stubbornly into the passenger seat "and please don't go off the road, I didn't bring my mittens." 

Last night I threw a party and at the very last minute, decided to make eggnog and put on my grandmothers dirndl. Both were a hit, although my grandmother was a smaller woman than I am and the laced up bodice was so tight across my chest that my vision was affected. The outfit looked better on her than it did on me, better in her little snowy chalet than in my post modern loft. Once the eggnog was served though, the evening felt quite complete. My uncle was kind enough to scan and send me his favorite recipe from my grandmothers old copy of Joy of Cooking, he has also carried on the eggnog tradition in past seasons. I have always suspected that my grandfather used Peach Brandy in his recipe, so I instead used this version, which is fortunately available to us all via epicurious. Family members approved and those who had driven to my party knew well enough to stop after one cup. My husband, who did not head my many warnings about the hidden evils of such an angelic looking beverage, had a bit too much of the stuff that he was supposed to be stirring. It didn't stop him from having some of the leftovers today, and he is presently collapsed on the couch, having renamed the beverage Napping Sauce.

Handmade Holidays

When you hear stories of New York women using their ovens for shoe storage, please don't assume that we are all a bunch of fashion obsessed domesti-phobes. This is merely an attempt to maximize the use of an appliance which, in many cases, has been shrunk down to the point of being almost useless for anything other than, oh, I don't know, drying your delicates by hanging them on the half open oven door. Its worth noting here that if you do use your broiler for shoe storage, make a little reminder sign so that when you do attempt to dry your unmentionables or anything else on the half open oven door you do not make your entire building smell like foot. Not that I have done that. Recently.

For this reason, I haven't done a lot of delicate baking since moving here. My little stove means well, and can actually broil and boil like nobodys business, but lacks any real self control in terms of its exact temperature. My oven, regardless of the numbers on its dial, has only two settings. OFF, and #$%%#@!.

This christmas, however, I was pleased to run across this recipe for peppermint bark, which is surprisingly easy to make and absolutely delicious. It requires no candy thermometer and depends on a barely warm oven to melt chocolate. Undeniably festive and hardy enough to survive a trip via post to California, it might just become my new signature holiday baked treat give-away, which will please my inlaws to no end. Last time I visited them for Christmas, I took over the kitchen for close to six hours in order to make a Bouche Noel. I got a little carried away (obsessed) with making the little red mushrooms and red bellied newt from colored marzipan, and drove everyone so nuts that when I announced that I planned to make it EVERY christmas, my sister in law rolled her eyes so hard that it was audible. This recipe should make her very happy.

I followed the recipe exactly, and tried a few different types of chocolate, all of them high quality and all of them semi-sweet. I found it very easy to melt chips or wafers, not so easy to melt big cubes. On the third batch, just to see what would happen, I melted the white chips in the microwave, cutting out the double-boiler step, and had very good results. I only needed to melt them about half-way, which in my old microwave took about three minutes, and then a quick stir with a rubber spatula helped them to melt completely, while allowing me the chance to blend in the peppermint extract. I do love my double boiler, its a vintage glass pyrex model with wooden handles that allows you to see exactly what is happening. Double boilers aren't as scary as they look, and work very well for melting just about anything or making delicate sauces like a hollandaise. I admit that I am a sucker for any recipe that allows me to bust out my blender, my pyrex, or my orange kitchenaid mixer, especially this time of year.

 For my local friends, super, veterinarian, hairdresser (even though she got carried away with her big round brush after my cut and color session last week... even she had to admit that I looked like My Little Pony), dog walker, postwoman, etc., I broke up the peppermint bars and put them into little wax paper bags, (which I found at While Foods and are a great biodegradable alternative to plastic sandwich bags) and sealed them with labels and ribbon. For my crafty friends and the crews at Purl Patchwork and STC, I wrapped bars first in wax paper and then in squares of scrap fabric, and for a few mom-friends living in cold climates I tied them up with little mittens-on-a-string made from embroidery floss and felt. I found these envelopes that are padded and bright white to use for sending my peppermint bark far and wide. If you live near a Container Store, you might be able to find this paper, which I am determined to stock up on next year.

If you have found yourself in the hand-made holiday spirit this year, its time to head over to Melanie Falicks blog. Melanie is the editor of my upcoming book as well as many well loved craft titles including the Last Minute Gift series, Knitalong, and lots of other titles. She has a very cool post up right now about making gifts by hand, with a give-away to boot! I am ordering a bunch of STC Craft books for gifts, intended for the long list of friends who love to make things by hand. I plan to order them through Purl Patchwork and Reprodepot, and in a few cases throw in a gift certificate for fabric or yarn. There is something about this season, especially this year, that makes me want to make more by hand, don't you agree? I'm also giving away my friend Domenicas cookbook, Mamalicious. Its my favorite cookbook of all time. If you know someone with children (picky eaters included) who needs some healthy and easy dinner ideas, this is the book for them. She has a few free recipes on her blog now, and they are all amazing. My nieces and nephew now demand this one regularly.

My Little Pony Out.

My Weekend With the Clothespin People

This has been a busy, busy week. Actually, its been work work work since I returned from Quilt Market in Houston (I was there to promote my book, due out in March) working on two new fabric lines set to launch in the spring, both of which were due before I left. I had finished the first (for Kokka) and was well on my way to submitting the second (for Westminster) when I decided to tweak it just a tiny bit, to add a print or two more that would really "pull it all together", promising myself it would only take a few extra hours of my time, and now here I find myself,  five days later, with guests on their way and nothing done.

How, you might be asking, did I wander so far off track? Simple. I was led astray by an odd and dandy tribe known simply as the Clothespin People. My diary of this cultural experience as well as some insight into what I like to think of as my productive if not alarmingly tangential creative process reads below. 

Friday

My Birthday! large box of incredible swiss chocolates have just arrived by morning delivery from C & J, am so quick to start inhaling them that I assume they are from TC and do not read the card. Must focus and tweak Westminster line, which is looking like it wants to be developed from a "sewing and crafts" theme into a full blown "Odd Church Basement Craft Bazaar Upstate" collection, but must make it quick as it is due. Will try adding a sheep print (rare breeds bred for their wool) and maybe something simple and tiny. knitting needles aren't working. maybe I will try clothespins. Must Google clothespins. Vintage or modern? Plastic or wooden? Colored or not? Eat more chocolates and call my sister, who is also having a birthday today and is therefore the only one in the family that I remember to call. I am halfway through my first draft, which is so boring that I have to go back upstairs and get one more chocolate. see for yourself:

O Dear, so dull. Maybe I should look to vintage clothespins? OOO, this is nice:

TC calls from train on his way back from Washington, and when thanked for the chocolates he tells me they are not from him, which means I have to rummage through the recycling to find the card (the beautiful packaging is already on my inspiration board, those swiss sure know how to get the color green right) that came with the chocolates, but on my way past the computer I see that my search has turned up these two images:

Saturday

Out walking the dog in the freezing a.m. and begin thinking of clothespin people. Would it be gettable? Confusing? Tacky? Craft Bazaar, certainly, but what would you do with it? The fabric I mean... Am so distracted by voices in head that I leave the leash on the dog when I get home because I go straight to my drawings and only realize it when I hear him coming down the stairs loudly dragging it behind him.  I spend five minutes untangling him and pondering my potential as a fit parent, then get distracted again and go back to drawing little outfits on my clothespins. 

Sunday

A day off from drawing and spent at the newish Elizabeth Peyton show at the New Museum and lunch with Alli and Denyse trying not to think about clothespins. Still, I realize during my day away that I have become quite attached to my little clothespin people, and look forward to coming home to them. I have begun to think of them as a band of pluckish little pioneers, all full of hope in their long skirts and braids and startled smiles. I can picture them carrying water and driving oxen, knitting warm hats as they move westward in their little wagon train, towards the arduous mountain passes that have tested clothespin people before them, until they huddled cold and shivering, eyeing one anther's brittle little legs as the last of the firewood is exhausted... OK wait stay on a cheerful track here... Perhaps dancing in groups, swinging one another around on those little cocked pipe-cleaner arms. I and am determined to finish them and to introduce them to everyone as a part of my little collection of new prints, which I can see now has been rounded out because of them. I already love them. I am prepared to defend them. And to dress them. Now they look like this:

Monday

Sent clothespin people to those who will really tell me what they think, my sister and Brooke, and also to my husband, who will likely think of something funny to say about them and tell me that I am a genius, which usually counterbalances whatever honest critiques I get elsewhere. Also to Denyse because they will make her smile and its Monday. My first response is from Brooke, who thinks they look like little naked mannequins. I am almost ready to defend my little nude clothespins against her obviously extreme views when an email comes through from my sister. She thinks they look like "little nude wooden people". Now I really have to consider this. Westminster is pretty liberal with its designers in terms of creative license, but I am pretty sure nudity is out. A third and R rated email from TC confirms the success of my foray into clothespin _orn. Not since my first day in life drawing am I blushing like this. I also need to rethink the layout and remember loving Andy Warhol's shoe print.... which I am able to find online and compare. Yes, that's better. Here is my next try:

Emails from the council agree, its better, but almost everybody thinks its better without the people. Brooke suggests killing them. I know she means it as an editing term but I am suddenly fiercely protective. I get the attention of my little clothespin family and yell at them to gather up their little prairie skirts and circle the wagons, because we have six months of uncharted territory ahead of us, and as usual, not everybody will know what to think of us. Plus we have to convince Westminster that they should allow me to make this one a border print, with the little people along the selvedge (see top image). This means that the sales reps will have to drag around a sample that is the extra big and cumbersome. They are going to love that.

Am nowhere near done, one year older, and not at all prepared for Thanksgiving.

And somehow, during my accidental process, I managed to miss the loveliest example of clothespin civilization out there, which is led by Sarah Neuberger at  The Small Object. I have seen her cake toppers before, but did not make the clothespin connection! Here are a few of my favorites, but I highly recommend going to get some chocolates or a coffee and looking at each and every one of them. She has a blog too. And look! KITS!