Blizzard days/ Días nevosos

(En español después del inglés.) 

From Friday, January 23rd until Saturday the 24th, the East Coast suffered a historic blizzard. Here in Silver Spring, Maryland, we have had lots of snow before---just not so much so quickly---at least in quite a long time. So, this is just a quick little blog post to show you what it looked like, and how Donna and I went to work to dig ourselves out. A boring story for those who dwell in snowy regions, but perhaps a bit of a novelty for those who don't. 

Desde viernes el 23 de enero hasta sábado el 24, la Costa Oriente de los EEUU sufrió una nevada histórica. Aquí en Silver Spring, Maryland, hemos experimentado mucha nieve antes, pero no tanto a la vez. Escribo este blog para  que vean cómo era, y como Donna y yo nos excavamos. Especialmente para mis amigos en el Cono del Sur, sería algún novedad en sus tiempos de 40++ grados!

Saturday morning, our back yard looking toward Sligo Creek Park. Sábado, en la mañana, se ve el fondo de nuestra propiedad,  hacia el Parque de Sligo Creek

On our patio: chairs around a table with a big snow cake! Nuestro patio con sillas alrededor de una mesa con un pastel de nieve!

The trees in front of the house.  Los árboles enfrente de la casa

Where are our cars?? Dónde están nuestros coches?

Then, after 8 hours of digging on Sunday, here below are the results as seen on Monday morning, January 25. Pues, después de 8 horas de cavar con pala el domingo, aquí abajo se ven los resultados visto la mañana de lunes, 25 de enero.

A path to the cars! Un senderito hasta los coches!   

The car is getting free. Casi se libera el coche.

Ladd Street, facing east, nicely plowed. Nuestra calle hacia el este, nieve quitada con gracia.

Our house: still a lot of work to do! Nuestra casa con mucho trabajo quedándonos .

Here I am, all geared up. (I took off most of these clothes after 30 minutes of shoveling.) Aquí estoy, equipada. (Quité la mayoría de mi ropa después de 30 minutos de trabajo.)

Acción!

After 5 hours of labor, Donna artistically freed her car. Después de 5 horas de trabajo, Donna artísticamente libero su coche.

Smile of triumph

We admire her work again, as the sun sets. Admiremos la obra al puesto del sol.

Lazy indolent sloth!  Gandula holgazana!

Water Fetish

I discovered recently and with surprise that over the years I have developed a water fetish. One by one, various water-imbibing implements have been added to our household hydration, until a fetishization  seems to have manifested. Cold water, hot water---I've got to have it. I spend a great deal of the day studying, so I truly find it comforting to have a cup of something hot or cold nearby. It's a thinking aid, a brain relaxer, a mild distraction to allow a thought or vocabulary word to sink in. As the study I do usually demands much concentration and focus, I get hungry. The working brain gobbles energy---everyone knows that. So, in comes zero-calorie water to work beautifully as an appetite depressant. It curbs the urge to graze, to plunder the refrigerator. And of course, cold water from time to time does what it is meant to do, and quenches thirst.

First, the subject of obtaining cold water. Tap water is wonderfully clean in this country (except for Flint, Michigan, January 2016 ( see link). We could easily drink right from the faucet, and be content, but here at home we upgraded long ago with a Brita water filter system. A clumsy and obnoxious filter-in-pitcher system, this was happily replaced by filtered water pipelets that came out of both the kitchen sink and a front section of the refrigerator. The taste of chlorine and other impurities mostly disappeared. 

Next, the space-robbing freezer-burn-prone ice cube tray was replaced by the automatic dispenser, also on the front of the refrigerator. Not to give up entirely on the tray, I discovered a soft silicone giant ice cube "tray" at the addictive kitchen store Sur Le Table, which makes 2"X 2" squares. One per glass, and you're good for at least one refill, if not two. The silicone's squeezy consistency also allows easy removal of the cubes, which can then be put in a plastic bag for use.  

Ice-cold flat water is great, but carbonated is even better. Enter the SodaStream, which is, at the outset, an admittedly over-priced water carbonation system. However, its CO2 cylinder makes 60 liters of fizzy water, and lasts us 3+ months. Flavors can be added or not. Together with all of the ice cube choices, comes cold water satisfaction.

The soda stream dispenser and a liter of fizzy water

The filtered water and ice dispenser and the giant ice cube tray

What about hot water? I started out with first the humble tea kettle, and then the much handier electric kettle. Electric kettles which turn off automatically when the water comes to a boil were on every kitchen counter in the London houses I visited in the 1980's. They gradually made their way to the U.S., and I used them for many years. Until I started to study Chinese. When I first arrived at the home of my beloved Chinese teacher, she asked if I'd like tea. Thinking of the cumbersome electric kettle, I nearly refused. However, a cup of hot tea materialized after ten seconds or so every time I went for a lesson, though I had no idea how. When I spent five weeks studying in Tainan, in the south of Taiwan, my kind landladies left for Cheng Kung University every morning, and I was alone in the flat to study. They had a marvelous device: a kettle which dispensed water kept constantly at a temperature near the boiling point. A true miracle, it let me choose from a great variety of teas, cafe con leche mixes, or just hot water whenever I wanted. Most of the Asians I know relish a cup of hot water in the winter, and I took up the habit, for a while at least. When I came home, I longed to have such a marvelous invention, and after a few months, there it was, a king of dispensers. It is a Japanese model, Zojirushi brand, holds 4 liters of water, and has three temperature settings: 208, 195, and 175 degrees F. (212 F is boiling.) All day long, I can have any hot drink I please. 

The magical Zojirushi nearly-boiling water dispenser/life enhancer

Except for one: maté. Yerba maté is a sensitive beverage, and is best brewed at 180 degrees F. The dispenser water temperature is stubbornly maintained at 208 for making coffee and tea, but that near-boiling water makes the maté too hot to drink from the silver bombillo, or straw. Therefore, I  need what the maté drinkers of Uruguay and Argentina lug around with them at all times: a thermos. I just ordered a two-liter midnight blue exemplar, so I too can lug the maté equipment around---at least to the upstairs library. 

The marvelous thermos: water still mate-hot after 12 hours!

So, you'll be happy to know that my retirement studies are going extremely well, thanks to water variety. Do you have any other ideas to add to this repertoire? Suggestions are welcome in the comments section.

Haciendo compost abono/ Making compost fertilizer

Escribiré primero en español, después en inglés. I will write first in Spanish, and then in English! See the English below the photos.

Dedico este blog a mi gran amigo Jonatán en la ciudad de Córdoba, Argentina. Jonatán  cultiva su jardíncito, de su proprio iniciativo, para dar comida a su familia.

Jonatán, por supuesto puedes hallar mucha información sobre compostaje en la red, pero prefiero darte informaciones más personal, de mis experiencias haciendo mi proprio compost por muchos años. Lo hago porque es abono limpio, sin sustancia química. Además, me da mucho placer hacerlo. Parece que todavía soy niña que quiere ensuciar sus manos jugando en la tierra!

Para comenzar con foto #1, se ve abono "vivo," plantas que se puede desarraigar, y despues socavar en la tierra. Hago esto después de unas estaciones, para dar de nuevo nutrientes a la tierra.

Una parte de mi composto se hace en un receptáculo de plástico. Pongo dentro malas hierbas del jardín y comida incomible de la cocina. ( Fotos #2, 3, 4, y 5)

En cuanto a las malas hierbas, es MUY IMPORTANTE recordar de no poner: plantas con semillas ni plantas con enfermedads, como fungo. Y en cuanto a la comida incomible de la cocina, no poner: carne, huesos, o cosas ya cocidas. Cáscaras de huevo son muy amadas de las lombrices. Te, café y maté también.Todo se pone en el receptáculo  grande de compost, foto #6.  La próxima etapa es girar el compostaje cada 2-3 semanas, poniendo lo de arriba en la tierra para formar el montón de nuevo. Al fondo del montón original, habrá tierra negra y fino. Esta es el compostaje bien "cocinado," o terminado, como se puede ver en foto #7. Este pongo en otro receptáculo  para continuar a "cocinar" durante los meses fríos, para usar cuando comienza la estación de cultivación. 

 El segundo tipo de composto es algo muy común en el este de los Estados Unidos: hojas! Compré seis graneros para hojas. (Foto #8) Las colecciono en el otoño, cuando caen, y las pongo en la tierra entre las plantas para impedir la salida de malas hierbas. Y, a la vez, las hojas son perfectas para nutrir la tierra. Al fondo de los graneros hay tambien compostaje de hojas que parece tierra negra y fino. (Foto #9) Este tesoro mezclo con el otro compostaje para abono "super." Produce plantas fantásticas también! (Fotos #10 y 11.) 

Pues, ya ven que soy una compostadora fanática! Pero vale la pena en cuanto al salud de la familia y el sabor de las hortalizas. Buena suerte, y buen provecho! 

Foto #1 Abono vivo.  Cover crops to replenish nutrients

Foto #2 Contenador de plástico para compost    Plastic composter 

Foto #3  Malas hierbas   Weeds

Foto #4 Receptáculo  para comida incomible de la cocina   Kitchen composter

Foto #5 Comida incomible de la cocina (se puede poner el mate!). Kitchen waste

Foto#6 Aquí se pone todo!  Put everything in here!

Foto#7 Compostaje terminado.  Finished compost

Foto #8 Graneros de hojas. Leaf bins

Foto #9 Compostaje de hojas, bien terminado.  Leaf mold.

Foto #10 Nabos!   Turnips!

Foto #11 Col rizado, o "kale"

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

I dedicate this blog to my great friend Jonatán in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, who cultivates his small garden, all on his own initiative, to give fresh vegetables to his family.

Jonatan, of course you can find a lot of information about composting on the Internet, put I prefer to give you more personalized tips from my many years of making my own compost. I do it myself because it's "clean fertilizer," without any chemicals. Also, it is great fun to make it. It seems that I'm still a little kid who wants to get her hands dirty playing in the dirt!

Starting with photo #1, you can see "cover crops," which are plants which you dig up and then bury in the soil. I plant these after a few season to return nutrients to the soil. 

One part of my compost is made in a round plastic container. I put weeds and kitchen scraps in it. (Photos #2, 3, 4, and 5)

Regarding the weeds, it's very important to remember not to put in any plants with seeds, or any plants with diseases, such as fungal infections. And when using kitchen scraps, remember to leave out bones, meat, or anything that's already been cooked. Worms love eggshells, as well as tea, coffee grounds, and mate. Everything allowable is put into the big plastic composter, photo #6.  The next step is to turn the compost pile every 2-3 weeks, putting the stuff on the top on the ground next to the original pile to form a new pile. At the bottom of the original pile, there will be fine black soil. This is "finished compost," which you can see in photo #7. I put this in another container to continue to "cook" during the cold months, in order to use it when the new planting season begins.

The second type of compost is something very commonly found in the Eastern United States: leaves! I bought six leaf bins. (Photo #8) I gather the leaves in the autumn, and put them on the ground between the newly-growing plants in the spring and summer to impede weed growth. And, at the same time, leaves are perfect soil nutrients. At the bottom of the leaf bins, there is also leaf compost that looks like fine black soil. This is leaf mold, a treasure shich I mix with the other compost to make a "super fertilizer." It produces fantastic plants!

Well, now it's obvious that I'm a compost fanatic. But it's worth it for our families' health and the taste of the vegetables. Good luck and bon apetit!

Re-Entry from Travel: What a Change!

A week ago I returned from a five-week trip to Argentina. During the first three weeks of the trip, I felt as if I were floating in a dreamy state of experiential bliss: observing new sights, walking and exploring endlessly, starting many conversations with strangers, and living free from schedules, to-do lists, obligations, and tyrannical self-rule, to which I have at least 50 years' worth of in-brain jail time. By the fourth week, I organized myself enough to eat vegetables, take my vitamins, and stop eating any pastries or junk food, but that's where the bossiness ended. So when my plane landed in Baltimore, I fully expected to enter the jail cell of my brain and endure the endless orders that an Organized Person gives to herself in order to Get Things Done.

There was only one thing to cause tension in my mind. My host in Cordoba, Argentina, looked at me intently, and asked "What kind of work do you intend to do when you return?" I cast about in my floaty vacation state, and couldn't come up with anything except, "Get my violin out and start practicing my scales....?" "But what kind of work?" he persisted. I just could not answer him. I knew I needed to do something, but I couldn't figure out what.

A week after my return, my usual tense self-exhortations to WORK, and to do my weekly planning and extreme day scheduling had not happened.  Although I wrote all my weekly goals in my fabulous Planner Pad, they were all relaxed and happy: rehearse Shostakovich, finish Giardinelli novel, start editing Argentina blog, start watching the video, "Sewing with Silk," etc. My daily life has been likewise relaxed. WHY???

I think it is because I am now retired. RETIRED!! Retired from the need to tightly schedule my interests around my work, to organize all my time efficiently and smartly, to push push push to accomplish accomplish accomplish. The five weeks in Argentina gave me a break in which to part ways with my weird driving nature of a working life, and have a relaxed re-entry to my new retired life.

So now I have an open and kindly-natured attitude to let ideas enter about what will happen next. There are so many possibilities! Here is a toast to being imaginative, helpful, creative, inquisitive and fun---so everyone can enjoy life along with me---and perhaps get a bit of interesting work out of me! CHEERS!

Scenes from Childhood: Scandalous Movies

These days, I am luxuriating in a wealth of possible online entertainment. What I have discovered is the ability to re-visit some of  the memorable movies I saw as a child. When I say "memorable,"I really mean it. My parents would take my sister and me all the way from Altadena to a Los Angeles art house cinema, the Nuart, which was 38 miles away.  And we saw a film, which we then discussed, because we went out to dinner at Kowloon's afterwards, and relived our artful experience with a Stinger (Mom), an Old Fashioned (Dad), and Shirley Temples (my sister and me). How special!

The very first real art film I remember is The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman 1957, but I'm sure we saw it a few years later. Mom and Dad explained the meaning and symbolism of Max von Sydow's character challenging Death to a chess game, which made me feel like the most superior under-ten atheist intellectual of everyone we knew. See the chess match here. 

We saw Spartacus, Stanley Kubrick 1960, which wasn't really an "art film" because it wasn't European, but could qualify because Saul Bass designed the brilliant main titles. Saul Bass was a friend of the family. Sort of.  Anyway, here they are. 

My mother adored the joyous Never on Sunday, Jules Dassin 1960. The inimitable score immediately filled our house, but the film itself was considered scandalous at the time, and most definitely never for children. My sister and I weren't allowed to go, but it was talked about endlessly: a beautiful Greek prostitute, played by Melina Mercouri, goes to meet a boat of incoming sailors, and the fun begins. I was nine, and there was no censorship in our house! See the original trailer, and then see the film NOW.


Giving cause for fascinated discussion was Irene Papas in Electra, Mihalis Cacoyannis 1962. Electra and her brother Orestes avenge their father's murder by thrusting a sword into the throat of their mother Clytemnestra. At age eleven,  I had a personal understanding with Euripides: we related. The only link I found to this film contains ultra-short scenes, with a rather nice song accompanying them. However, the horror begins at 1:57 on the clip, so enjoy.  

Can you believe parents taking their impressionable young children to see Tom Jones? Tony Richardson 1963. In the extreme low lighting of Kowloon's, we had a discussion of what could possibly have been going on in the "dinner scene." See for yourself.

Another artsy film, just right for a 15-year-old, was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf , Mike Nichols 1966. The events of the film were more dramatic than what happened at our house, so therefore impressive. I can't remember the Kowloon discussion very clearly, but I think it had to do with how bad it was to drink and argue. There are many choice scenes to choose from, but this is as vitriolic as any.

How great to be taken at a tender age to see these  totally inappropriate films! The urge to continue this highbrow movie-going tradition is in me still.   Great movies are so accessible now---may I recommend the 994 films from the Criterion Collection, available from a cheap subscription to Hulu? How wealthy I feel!

Oh Shirt!

My third attempt to create “The Classic Tailored Shirt,” using Kwik Sew pattern 3555 and an excellent online video course put out by Craftsy, is the most successful one so far. Yet surprisingly, it was not easier, faster, or more streamlined, as one might suppose a third attempt would be. Why not? The pattern instructions seem easy and straightforward. The instructor, Pam Howard, speaks slowly and calmly, with therapist-like reassurance every step of the way. Her instructions seem clear enough. Yet in the making of the first two shirts, construction became so fraught with difficulty, that I seriously feared something was wrong with the processing abilities of my brain.

But no, this is not quite the case. The difficulty exists because each step needs to be damnably exacting, fussy, and perfect. The collar and collar stand, for example. Every single factory-made shirt that one can buy from the rack has one, done perfectly. It looks so easy. But doing it oneself, trying to make each side a mirror image, and then attaching it to the neckline---again perfectly---is difficult and challenging. Ditto with the shirt fronts. Well, those are slightly easier. But the worst part of all are the cuffs, and attaching them to the placket ends of the sleeves. They drove me crazy, these ordinary and boring parts of shirts. Ordinary is not necessarily simple.

In a previous foray into a difficult sewing arena, I did another Craftsy course called “Sewing the Couture Dress,” with Susan Khalji. Oh-ho---couture---we know that the word itself implies work that is exacting, time-consuming, and perfect, with exquisite, one-of-a-kind, expensive-looking results. And yes, the course was difficult in the sense that each step represented a new technique, and quite a bit was done by hand. But there was a lot of heartening control: if the fit wasn't quite right, it was easily correctable. Everything could be fixed.

But the shirt? No no no. By shirt number three, I finally discovered the Big Secret of why it was so difficult. It's because shirt making is part of tailoring.  I read Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped and Smoothed by Richard Anderson, which is a memoir of his frightfully long apprenticeship at Huntsmans on London's Savile Row, and his eventual opening of his own shop. In his apprenticeship, learning to make a cuff must have been a two-year stint! Actually, each step in the making of a Savile Row suit belongs to an expert who does just one specialty: pattern-making, cutting the cloth, etc. And here I was, making the entire shirt! When I discovered the link between shirt making and tailoring, I gained a great deal of respect for the "simple" task I had set for myself.

Which brings me to another favorite idea I keep spinning as I try different activities: getting to know the difference between passively experiencing something, and actually trying to do it. I have tried drawing and painting, juxtaposed to observing art in a museum. I have grown most of the vegetables I eat instead of just buying them. Playing the violin versus listening to the violin? Don’t get me started. Therefore, sewing my own garments cannot be compared to going to any store and choosing stuff to take to the dressing room. I have nearly come to regard buying ready-to-wear clothing as cheating. 

Despite the struggle to learn such a complicated skill, it has been extremely satisfying to keep trying to make this shirt. OK, it was designed by Kerstin Martensson, dedicated educator and founder of the Kwik Sew pattern company, and my personal creativity has merely consisted of choosing the fabric, the thread and the buttons. But the struggle, the angst, the incredible amount of time pondering the instructions and trying to figure out what they mean, and then trying many times to achieve them--- all this investment of my spirit and my essence in this most basic of clothing items is wildly inspiring. Shall I make five more shirts from the same pattern to really master it? Maybe I need to study online with a master shirt maker. Or actually apprentice to one myself.

What I think I'll do is to have and enjoy my respect for tailoring, for the art of shirt making, for being careful and exact, and for taking time to actually make the shirts, and---let’s move on to sewing with SILK!

Please enjoy the illustrated shirt saga below.

Cuffs! Clockwise from left, Shirt#1 (the muslin), Shirt#2, Shirt #3

Collars on their stands! 

This is the muslin, the practice shirt. People who sew will spot 10 horrendous flaws immediately!

Shirt #2  Much better! It was still a practice shirt, made for $6, with fry-yourself-in-the-sun polyester fabric.

The best, Shirt#3. A soft cotton lawn pima fabric, total cost:$26. If in the Vogue September issue, $1,600! 

I Flunked Apron, So Why Do I Sew?

I am just about to go upstairs to “The Studio,” our combined painting and sewing room, to work on my third version of a classic tailored shirt. November 3, 2015 will mark the second anniversary of my return to the sewing machine since the disastrous mess of an apron I “made” in my eighth grade home economics class in 1963.

There was a brief return in 1992 when I was inspired to make curtains for a new lodging. I mentioned this to an adult violin student, as we appraised my naked windows facing the street. The following week she lugged a 1976 all-metal Singer sewing machine along the sidewalk, and thrust it into my arms. “I bought it, I never used it, it’s yours,” she announced. I enrolled in a beginners’ class at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland, where I was thrillingly able to make a tote bag and a blouse. (The bag I still use; the blouse I wore out.) I called my experience “Re-doing 8^th Grade Home Ec.” The important core of my success was learning to go slowly and carefully. In the class, I watched hurrying students put a heavy foot on the machine pedal, stitch madly out of control, and then rip out seams for hours. This was something I had done at age 12, not knowing The Secret of Slow and Careful.

So, I made some curtains, put the sewing machine away, and did not return to it until 2013.

  

What brought me back? Not curtains, and definitely not aprons. There were a number of reasons. First of all, there was the issue of fit. I am 5’3” and small-boned. I am also rather thin and somewhat awry in my proportions. I am thin because my diet is 90% vegetables.Then, there are two ancient pins in my left ankle, causing me to be a little lopsided. Also, playing the violin all my life has made my left neck-to-shoulder territory shorter and more congested with muscle than my right side. Ready to wear clothing just doesn’t fit properly. So, that was one reason I decided to sew.

More compelling attractions were the seductive twins of textiles and handwork. I have always loved fabrics, rugs, quilts, costumes, woolens, the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., the lace galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Costume Institute at the Met in NYC, weavers in India, silks in Japan, cotton prints of the Kuna people of Panama, etc.  And handwork---which produces an amazing alpha-and-beta-wave combo---is Big Pharma to me. Sewing can set off those brain waves until time disappears, and I bliss out with concentration.  Years before, I crocheted and knitted, but stopped because I couldn’t stop. It was too calming, too pleasant, too addictive, too opposite-of-me. 

But I made the big decision to start sewing with the best reason of all: it’s a reward! A reward for what? For eating healthfully, exercising daily, taking my vitamins, seeing the doctor and dentist at proper intervals, growing all the vegetables we eat all year long, taking care, taking great care, every single day. One needs a Big Reward for all that, so I gave it to myself, and set up a sewing section in “The Studio.” 

As the second anniversary of my Sewing Reward approaches, today I celebrate  being able to concentrate on the lovely pima cotton lawn shirt, my 30^th garment, counting all of the muslins (practice garments) I painstakingly stitched and fitted. So, I am contemplating a reward for pursuing my reward: a new “Rolls Royce” up-to-date sewing machine to replace my trusty “Model T” Singer. I’ve almost earned it.

 

Here is the tote bag from 1992,  holding my swimming gear (with Sophie the Cat)

The sewing section! Observe (left to right) pieces of shirt #3, shirt #2 on the dress form, and the 1976  Singer