Photographing Tulips

2011.03.31 Tulips, a photo by expetesso on Flickr.

Taking my mother's advice that I shouldn't make photography into yet another job, and my friend Ross's advice that I should practice taking lots of photos of a particular type of scene, I walked through a few miles of midtown Manhattan today with my blackberry's camera application open. After taking a dozen lousy snaps of window dressings, I captured this tiny little bit of "nature with art" along Fifth Avenue.

Yeah, that's a win.

Project 365 is really just Project 100. Maybe.

At the beginning of January I had some ambitious goals for the year, goals of a resolved nature, with a determination that I find difficult to sustain after a few days (or weeks, or hours, depending on how cold and dark the winter is). I'm afraid that I have failed abysmally at my "take and post a photo every day for a year" pattern, given that it's March 27th and I have a sum total of 27 photos thus far. My revised goal -- at the moment -- is to take at least three more this week, so that I can be on par for "a posting every third day".

I'll go looking for some photography forums later this week, and some lessons on line and scale that I can take out the door with me. My big problem is that I often don't think about taking a photograph until I'm home for the night -- and much as I love my pets, there are only so many times I can capture them being cute and call it an effort. So, tips on taking the camera out the door with me are welcome.

In the meantime, I've updated the Flickr set, and enclosed the slideshow. Enjoy!

First published at expetesso.com

Sewing: The Sound of Music Project Bag

I've been hanging on every word of the creative, resourceful people in my life who take things that are past their usefulness and turn them into lovely bits of everyday goodness.

• My mother, Bonnie, is one of those people; she salvages all sorts of fantastical stuff that others would write off as "junk" and turns it into gorgeous, wearable art for her business, The FamiLee Jewels
• My friend Patty, owner of The Plaid Cupcake, is another artist, making pretty, whimsical, fun items to sweeten your everyday life.
• I recently reread Make Do and Mend: Keeping Family and Home Afloat on War Rations, and have been poring over some new craft books that I received for Christmas: Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing and Amanda Soule's Handmade Home, dreaming of ways to spruce up the home that Corrin and I are building together.

Tonight, I decided to take the tiniest, baby step of sewing something pretty for myself -- a new project bag for my knitting. The project was born of equal parts desire-to-create and I-dropped-my-only-project-bag-in-the-snow-and-need-something-to-carry-my-knitting-in-necessity -- necessity as the mother of invention and all that. I'm pleased as punch with the result:

"The Sound of Music" Project Bag

I pulled remnants from my barely-in-existence scrap bag: a bit of courderoy in a blue paisley print leftover from a gift I made for my Nana several Christmases ago, and a healthy yard of woven cotton that I cut off of a pair of curtains purchased for my bathroom last spring.  Without too much effort I trimmed the pieces into a pair of rectangles (approximately 12"x15"), double hemmed the top and stitched the front and back together along three sides.  With a bit of extra ingenuity, I cut away the triple-thickness 1" hem from the curtain remnants, chopped up and restitched together the hem bits to fashion a pair of handles, and neatly stitched them onto the miniature tote bag with lots of reinforcement.

Without a pattern, and without much work besides some aggressive pressing and repeated pinning of corners, I havea  cute little bag just large enough to hold the sweater I'm working on for myself and the fingerless mitts I'm making for my Mom. I can't wait to carry it around with me on my travels next week!

I'm calling it The Sound of Music Project Bag, since like the play clothes that Maria made for the Von Trapp children, it's pieced together from old curtains.

First published at expetesso.com

Progress at 43things: Go Skydiving

Purchase the ticket?

Today’s Buy With Me NYC coupon is for a tandem jump in New Jersey at 45% off the typical price.

"Go Skydiving" has been on my list of 43Things since I first set up my account in 2006; along with "Read 50 Books in 2006," it was the first goal I added. Cost hasn’t been a factor in why I haven’t taken steps to actually complete a jump, but the availability of a discounted ticket coupled with the clear advertisement of a company specializing in tandem work very nearby makes it seem like I should jump on this -- pun intended -- or decide that I’m not serious about the goal.

See my progress on Go Skydiving.

First published at 43Things

World Poetry Day

Happy World Poetry Day, so declared by UNESCO "to give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements". In celebration of the day, I present two poems: my favorites by John Keats (English Romantic, 1795 - 1821) and Pablo Neruda (Chilean Communist, 1904 - 1973).

Ode to Psyche 
John Keats
O GODDESS! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
 By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
 Even into thine own soft-conchèd ear:
Surely I dream'd to-day, or did I see 5
 The wingèd Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
 And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couchèd side by side
 In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof
 Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
   A brooklet, scarce espied:
'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
 Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
 Their arms embracèd, and their pinions too;
 Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoinèd by soft-handed slumber,
 And ready still past kisses to outnumber
 At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:
  The wingèd boy I knew;
 But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
  His Psyche true!

O latest-born and loveliest vision far
 Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!
Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,
 Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
    Nor altar heap'd with flowers;
Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan
    Upon the midnight hours;
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
 From chain-swung censer teeming;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
 Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
 Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
 Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retired
 From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
 Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
    Upon the midnight hours;
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
 From swingèd censer teeming:
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
 Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
 In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branchèd thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
 Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees
 Fledge the wild-ridgèd mountains steep by steep;
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,
 The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,
 With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
 Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
    That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
    To let the warm Love in!

Puedo Escribir (Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines)
Pablo Neruda 
This is much more beautiful in Spanish than in the English translation, but I know that most of you don't speak Spanish.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Poetry: the height of human ecstasy and the depths of human pain.

First published at expetesso.com

Book Review: Make Do and Mend

Make Do and Mend: Keeping Family and Home Afloat on War Rations by Jill Norman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This lovely little book is a collection of  representation images, of the many pamphlets that were printed by the British government during World War II, advising those on the home front of how to stretch life out of every bit of fabric, scrap of ribbon, found button, and length of thread -- and how to use existing pieces to the end of their usable lives in order to save from using hoarded ration coupons.

Nostalgic and old-fashioned, but a terrific reminder of the stark reality faced by people each and every day for a decade. The sections on fuel, woolens, and altering clothes to save wear and tear have given me pause in my day-to-day, and even greater respect for my own grandmother's resourcefulness.


First published at Goodreads; View all my reviews

Book Review: Circle of Friends

Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found a hard-cover version of Circle of Friends on my mother's bookcase one summer during high school. I read it through in less than two days, took it with me to college, and re-read it so many times over the net few years that the binding eventually gave out. I didn't replace it, figuring that I had every page memorized.

The characters -- Benny Hogan, Eve Malone, Mother Francis, Peggy Pine, Mr. and Mrs. Hogan, Patsy, Sean Walsh, the Kennedys and Healys and Johnsons, Clodaugh, Mario and Fonsie, Kit Hegarty, Jack Foley and Aidan Lynch and Nan Mahon -- could be a person sitting opposite you on a bus, so real and full of personality and flaws and dreams are they. The situations they get themselves into, or find themselves lodged within, are simple ones, filled with drama and humour because of the deep care given to each human being involved. Even the villains aren't purely villainous; we see enough of the hopes and dreams and desires of Simon Westward, Sean Walsh, Nan Mahon, and Mrs. Healy that even their sins seem pardonable, their foibles human, their mistakes and lapses of judgment worthy of compassion.

The story is magnificent. Maeve Binchy spins Irish yarns of the commonplace and realistic with quiet dexterity, but this one hangs fully on the shoulders of the characters themselves. Abandoned orphans, desperately love only children, drunken and abusive parents, first steps away from home, stealing from an employer, courting one who can never love you, falling in love and being loved in return, infidelity, unplanned pregnancy, placing trust in the wrong person, accidental death, abandonment as an adult, loneliness, finding friends, realizing the dreams you've worked toward can never be true, or finding out that the things you've wished for might actually come to pass -- these are commonplace situations that individual people find themselves in all the time; we know our own stories, and those of our friends and relations, or the neighbors down the street whom we can't help but gossip about. And we care about this ending, this resolution, the steps that take place after the last page, because we care for these characters.

Sticklers for technical writing will have much to complain about, but there isn't an error that can't be forgiven, to my way of thinking. Binchy creates friends for us in the pages of her novels, and in so doing, points the way to finding the friends we might never have had in the world outside it. What a gift.

First published at Goodreads; View all my reviews

Absolutely NOT the Best Pancake Recipe

Yesterday afternoon I was walking home from the library when my blackberry alerted me to an email received. My daily recipe reminder from Real Simple was titled "The Best Pancake Recipe". I am a pancake fiend -- pancakes, johnnycakes, hotcakes, flapjacks, crepes -- whatever the style and nationality, you can call them what you will; I make and eat them at least weekly. I've experimented extensively with flours, sweeteners, the dry-to-liquid ratio, additives, the style of pan, the temperature it (and the warming plate) should be heated to, and the precise type and quantity of anti-sticking agent used. I have yet to make the perfect pancake, though I've developed a few standard go-to formulas -- and will successfully beg Corrin to make German-style crepes at least once every two weeks. (There's a reason I'm the one who washes the dishes!)

Needless to say, I'm a pancake fan. So when I saw the recipe for "The Best Pancake", I knew immediately what I was making for breakfast this morning. I just wish we hadn't been so disappointed in the dish.

Oven Pear Pancake was uniformly sweet (pears *plus* a scant half-cup of sugar?) with a texture more in line with a too-thin quiche (three eggs *and* a cup of milk to 1/4 cup of flour?) rather than a toasty-top puffed oven cake. The carmelized cinnamon-sugar dressing was delicious, and was a nice topper for a slice of baked pear, but couldn't disguise the over-sweet blandness of the dish.

While breakfast was less than satisfying, it did leave me with an idea for my next foray into pancake goodness. I'm going to try a variation on Cornmeal Pear Pancakes, replacing the pears and cinnamon with blueberries and a bit of super-fine orange zest, and reducing the sugar by a half-teaspoon.  I'll make a sweet cinnamon butter sauce, and brush the top of each finished cake before adding them to the warming stack in the oven. I think that will replace the syrup used on a traditional buckwheat pancake nicely while allowing time for the hot-cinnamon sweetness to melt into the cakes through the butter, and allow for a play of flavors on the tongue. Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

First published at expetesso.com

Book Review: The Lost Art of Gratitude

The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I needed a break from The Story of Stuff, which I finished reading more than a week ago but haven't been able to wrap my mind around without sinking into a depressive fit. I'll bounce back and come up with a fabulous, world-saving plan -- after I've had a bit of a break. Thankfully, the Brooklyn Public Library's online services include placing holds at the most convenient branch; I picked up five novels yesterday afternoon, including the sixth edition in the Sunday Philosophy Club series.

I find Alexander McCall Smith to be a delightful storyteller. His novels are just that -- novel, with witty, droll characters, a thoughtful reflection on the state of human affairs on this spinning orb we call home and generous kindness for the foibles and straights we get ourselves into.

Isabel Dalhousie is my favorite of his protagonists, and The Lost Art of Gratitude is a comfortable walk through the streets of Edinburgh and her library stacks of Philosophical journals and texts (with numerous quotes from her favorite poet, Auden). A typical month in the life of Isabel, with generous appearances by Jamie, Charlie, Grace, Cat, and the supporting cast of eccentric, lovable, and wickedly nefarious people of her neighborhood; with just enough righteous indignation to keep Isabel from being overly moralistic, and a much relished near-overdose of her ironic wit and wry humour.

I have The Charming Quirks of Others currently on the hold list at the library, and can't wait to read it on the next rainy Sunday afternoon in New York.

First published at Goodreads; View all my reviews