Mother and Child

14 years ago, she was lying in a pile of leaves with me.

Now, she's a junior in high school, taking a humanities class. It's an interdisciplinary class, on what it means to be human, team-taught and stretching across literature, philosophy, visual arts, film, and music. I mean, I kind of wish I were taking it:

1300 HUMANITIES I (Fall Semester)
Focuses on themes of Self, Creativity, Freedom, Love, and Death. Readings, art, and music span different cultures and range from the classic to the contemporary (texts may include Plato, Aristotle, Buddhist philosophy, Sartre, Sigmund Freud, Derrida, Oliver Sacks, Tolstoy, Kafka, various poets, Alice Walker, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Giacometti, Lucian Freud, Wim Wenders, various artists, Mozart).

For class last week, she had to bring in a family photo, and she picked this one. And then this is what she said about it:

The photo reminds me of the two Madonna and Child paintings that we looked at in class. The first was very formal, the second much more informal but still older, mine seems like the modern reincarnation where all formal “rules” between mother and child are broken.

She slays me, my girl.

Admonishment

I was on the way to work the other day, when I walked past five tidy tree pits, freshly planted with ornamental kale. In the middle of each pit, nestled up to the tree, was a plastic rock.

I've been thinking about how one waters new trees in tree pit street plantings, because our town has just planted a whole lot of new trees as part of a street-scape rehabilitation. There are no visible watering devices, but the town claims that the trees are being watered by hand. I hope so.

What I've seen in the past are those cone-shaped plastic bags that wrap around the tree. The water seeps out slowly and the bags need to be refilled periodically.

The rocks were, arguably, less unattractive.

I mean, it's clearly a PLASTIC rock, but it's not that awful.

Idly, because I have eclectic interests, I googled "tree watering rock" (as one does) and found the manufacturer of those very rocks!

I confess to unmitigated glee when I learned that said tree watering rocks are good for admonishing existing sprinkler systems. Enhancing? Augmenting? Intensifying? No, admonishing.

Herewith, I admonish the copy writer. Use the right verb!

Not So Blank Books

I confess to being a sucker for a blank book. So, I wasn't surprised when I spent time cleaning out under the packrat child's bed and found, oh, upwards of twenty of them.

Some were untouched.

And some had two or three or seven pages written or drawn on, and then ... nothing.

So - I put a few of the virgin ones aside, and set to ripping out the marked up pages of the others so I could put them in the Take It Or Leave It pile.

But ... but ... but ...

I couldn't not "keep" a few things.

From a book of "lists", I learned that she wants to take a road trip to the Mid West, that she doesn't plan to marry Marquise or have 20 children, and that she needs to go down a zip-line at least once. (Also, she used to spell poorly.)

I am happy to report that she has, in fact, been down a zip-line at least once.

---

A book with a wolf on the cover, a book that I remember to have been bought in Yellowstone, where we heard a lecture about wolves, included a poem.

Wolf
in and out of trees,
a White Ballet,
Flying over the fresh snow,
the king of the forest,
Protecting his family for Life.

---

And finally, one book included a list of cat names - for girl cats and boy cats.

My mother always said she was going to name a cat Puifor, as in Puiforcat, the French silver company. How delightful to find Puifor on the list.

Oh To Be An Undergraduate Again. Or Not.

Death On The Cherwell, by Mavis Doriel Hay, was a fun read, perhaps because I'm a sucker for books set in colleges - especially Oxford ones. It grabbed me from the second paragraph, which so beautifully describes new college students - past and present:

Undergraduates, especially those in their first year, are not, of course, quite sane or quite adult. It is sometimes considered that they are not quite human. Emerging excitedly from the ignominious status of schoolgirl or schoolboy, and as yet unsteadied by the ballast responsibility which, later on, a livelihood-earning career will provide, they enter the university like beings born again with the advantage of an undimmed memory of their former lives. Inspirited by their knowledge of the ways in which authority may be mocked, they are at the same time quite ridiculously uplifted by the easy possibility of achieving local fame in the limited university world during the next three years. Conscious of the brevity of their college life, they are ready to seize every opportunity to assert their individuality. The easily acquired label of “originality” is so much more distinguished than the “naughtiness” of their outpassed schooldays, and quite a lot of wildness may be mixed with a modicum of work and form a sound basis for a highly respectable later life.

It's a twisty silly mystery, but enjoyable - and sometimes that's just the ticket.

Four Days In Montreal

As you will remember, I have an internet friend, one of those people I’ve never met, and yet – YES, SHE IS MY FRIEND. The internet is awesome. Anyway, said friend and her husband jet off periodically for long weekends, and call them “Crazy Trips™”. I like that designation.

We – my kid, my husband, and I – made a Crazy Trip™ last weekend. We left Saturday, returned Tuesday, and spent three nights in Montreal. I had never been there before, the child had a four day weekend thanks to Rosh Hashanah, and she had expressed interest in visiting McGill so…

We stayed in an unremarkable hotel in the downtown, walking distance to both McGill and old Montreal.

The child practiced her French – reading the instructions on the parking meters, transacting business in shops, ordering Timbits in a Tim Horton’s. (Despite taking French into college, mine is now non-existent.)

We ate well:

• Oysters and grilled octopus at Belon
• Viande fumée (smoked meat) sandwiches at Schwartz’s
• Bagels (natch) at St-Viateur
• Coffee at a seemingly unnamed coffee shop a few doors away from the bagel place (it must have a name, but it wasn't on their business card or on the credit card receipt)
• Breakfast (pastries, and yogurt/granola/fruit) at La Finca
• Sandwiches in a funky garden at Café Santropol (it seemed like the sort of place that would have alfalfa sprouts on the sandwiches but no sprouts!)

The best meal was at larrys – it was a hodgepodge of little dishes: a pork chop, some roasted cauliflower, a flammkuchen, a salad of peaches and corn and feta, and some warm goopy eggplant. And maybe some other things that I can’t remember. And a lovely unfiltered white wine from Germany that I need to chase down.

Shopping was fun – we wandered up and down Saint-Laurent marveling at the many small clothing shops selling stuff manufactured in Montreal, and the myriad vintage shops, and a French language bookstore (where the kid picked out a copy of La Nausée). We stumbled into the Montreal outpost of Fluevog; the kid didn’t want to leave. I bought a tiny little silver necklace at Boutique Unicorn, the child got a fuzzy bucket hat at Ophelie Hats.

And we succumbed to tourist expérience immersive: the entirely kitschy yet exceedingly well executed sound and light show – Aura – at Notre-Dame.

Notre-Dame is lovely.

Of course, we went to the top of the mountain.

We also did a drive by of Habitat 67. (I wanted to go on a tour, but it was sold out.)

We sort of kind of accidentally ended up on the F1 track, which caused great joy for my husband.

I was amused by a sod failure.

The city has an enormous amount of construction going on, and still has evidence of manufacturing including flour mills and silos. I don't know what this even is, but I liked it.

We visited McGill which is rather enormous. 28,000 undergraduates!

And then we came home.

La fin.

Scenes From The Road

Last weekend, we undertook a five day, 1500 mile road trip, to drop the kid off at a summer program in Nova Scotia. Yes, it was arguably insane. On the other hand, it was delightful.

* * * * * * * * *

Somewhere on I-495, a woman was reading a book on the back of a motorcycle.
This may have made my day.

* * * * * * * * *

Because there is currently no ferry from Maine to Yarmouth, we had to drive to Saint John and take the ferry from there to Digby. It was completely socked in on the way to Nova Scotia.



And brilliantly clear on the return.



I love ferries.

* * * * * * * * *

The western end of Nova Scotia - between Yarmouth and Digby - is lovely, lightly populated, and seems to have had a Radio Shack once upon a time.



And NO, I did not flip the photo.

* * * * * * * * *

On the way home, we sailed through the border crossing at Calais and stopped at the first rest stop in Maine, an Irving. We pulled into a spot next to a parked SUV with New Jersey plates. As I was getting out, I spotted a large parrot, sitting on a cage in the passenger seat of the SUV. Then, I noticed that there was a woman in the driver’s seat, with a smaller parrot perched smack dab on top of her head. She was reading something on her phone, and never looked up, or I might have tried to chat with her. I went off to do my business, and when I came back, she was still there.

But what I really want to know is, does she drive with the parrot on her head‽

* * * * * * * * *

The car has a GPS system, and I have Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze on my phone - so we weren't suffering from lack of direction. But here's the thing: a paper map is really nice. It gives you a far better sense of where you've been and how far you have to go - namely, in this case, nearly all the way across the widest part of Maine. Happily, Maine was handing out free maps at a rest area/info stop.



The map folded into six panels, so I could announce "we're two and a half panels across the state!" or "just one panel to go!". It amused me, at any rate, and kept me from being ridiculously bored.

Winners Take All

In May 2019, there was an op-ed in the New York Times by Anand Giridharadas – in which he talked about tainted money and the “growing awareness that gifts to the arts and other good causes are not only a way for ultra-wealthy people to scrub their consciences and reputations. Philanthropy can also be central to purchasing the immunity needed to profiteer at the expense of the common welfare. Perhaps accepting tainted money in such cases isn’t just giving people a pass. Perhaps it is enabling misconduct against the public.”

Working, as I do, in the non-profit sphere – I decided I needed to read his book, Winners Take All.

It isn’t just a take down of a certain kind of philanthropy – it’s also a take down of the idea that “world citizens” will change the world through apps and shoes and other feel-good entrepreneurial activities. Because, in point of fact, all of that activity is occurring in an unregulated, unaccountable arena, and it would be better to accomplish problem solving through civic life: “It is the habit of solving problems together, in the public sphere, through the tools of government and in the trenches of civil society. It is solving problems in ways that give the people you are helping a say in the solutions, that offer that say in equal measure to every citizen, that allow some kind of access to your deliberations or at least provide a meaningful feedback mechanism to tell you it isn’t working. It is not reimagining the world at conferences.”

Here’s a concise summation, from page 246:

"If anyone truly believes that the same ski-town conferences and fellowship programs, the same politicians and policies, the same entrepreneurs and social businesses, the same campaign donors, the same thought leaders, the same consulting firms and protocols, the same philanthropists and reformed Goldman Sachs executives, the same win-wins and doing-well-by-doing-good initiatives and private solutions to public problems that had promised grandly, if superficially, to change the world-if anyone thinks that the MarketWorld complex of people and institutions and ideas that failed to prevent this mess even as it harped on making a difference, and whose neglect fueled populism's flames, is also the solution, wake them up by tapping them, gently, with this book. For the inescapable answer to the overwhelming question-Where do we go from here?-is: somewhere other than where we have been going, led bv people other than the people who have been leading us."

We need a society with laws, with rules, with a civilized infrastructure. It’s not enough to address a problem without looking at the large scale root. “Think of the person who runs an impact investing fund aimed at helping the poor, but is unwilling to make the connection, in his own head or out loud, between poverty and the business practices of the financiers on his advisory board.” We’re all in this together. And Giridharadas’s book is worth reading.

Childhood Dream

When I was five, I used to walk around the house saying I wanted to be a philanthropist. Honestly. I have no idea how I knew that word, or if I knew what it meant, but that's what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I also had a baby doll named Howie Dirks. I named the doll after a friend of my parents' because I liked the way it sounded. Howie Dirks, Howie Dirks, Howie Dirks.

I digress.

This morning, I had the great good fortune to attend the New York Women's Foundation annual Celebrating Women breakfast. I've been hearing about it for years, both because they give awards to badass women, and because the event is at the ungodly hour of 7:30am. So, when someone I know invited me to be her guest, I instantly said yes, even though it meant getting on a train at 5:40am.

This year's awards went to a mix of women you've heard of and women you haven't:

Abigail E. Disney
Filmmaker, Philanthropist and Activist

dream hampton
Filmmaker, Writer, and Organizer

Cyndi Lauper
Co-Founder of True Colors United / Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning Artist

Rhonda Joy McLean
Attorney, Author, and Philanthropist

Sarinya Srisakul
First Asian-American Woman Firefighter of the FDNY / Former President of the United Women Firefighters

Dr. Marta Moreno Vega
President of the Creative Justice Institute / Founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute

The whole event was inspiring and empowering; there was a warmth in the room engendered by 2000+ women supporting one another and good causes.

Rhonda Joy McLean, in the department of women I had never heard of, was terrific. In addition to ending her acceptance speech with a song, If I Can Help Somebody, she made my day when she said "you do not have to be a millionaire to be a philanthropist!"

Because lord knows I'm not a millionaire, but $25 here and $50 there, and hey, I am a philanthropist - just like I wanted to be when I was five.

Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax — Of cabbages and kings

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny




Because people I know and love love Louise Penny, I was happy to find a copy of one of her books in the library's free pile.

I confess, though, to being sort of not taken in for the first half of the book. Eventually, though, it clicked into place - especially when the intrigue surrounding Inspector Gamache started to emerge. So, it was okay but I'm not really feeling the need to be a completist and read every one of the Gamache books.

That said, I loved this one passage:
'As always. He came over for dinner last night, you know,' said Peter, opening some jam jars. One still had the wax on top and he needed to dig it out with a knife. 'Hardly ate anything.'

It threw me back to my childhood - my grandmother made jam, and sealed the jars with paraffin, as did the formidable Ruth Bogen, who lived across the street. And I can still remember the way you had to dislodge the wax, popping it in a bit so you could pivot it out in one piece. And then, because my mother never threw anything out, you washed the paraffin disk so that you could add it to the collection of odd candle ends and other bits of wax, for making candles anew one day. Who does that anymore?

The Library Book

If you are a fan of books or libraries or Susan Orlean, you know that she came out with a book recently, called "The Library Book".

It's wonderful. It's shaggy, and erudite, and witty, and it rambles from library theory to arson to book conservation to the history of Los Angeles, with discursions hither and yon. Do not pass go; read it.

I was, however, stopped in my tracks early on, in a passage about the joys of discovering what books are shelved close to one another at the Los Angeles Public Library, based on their Dewey decimal numbers:

Do you see what I see? The numbers she's chosen are not in order:

301.4129781
306.7662
301.45096
301.55

This nagged at me, so I googled Gaydar. Or maybe I googled 306.7662. And I discovered that, in about 2015, the Los Angeles Public Library moved their whole LGBT section from Dewey Decimal 301.4157 to a new call number area at 306.76. Because, it turns out, what seems simple - the Dewey Decimal Catalog - is actually fraught with value judgment decisions about what books should neighbor what other books.

Orlean must have visited the stacks and made her list before the change, and a copy editor must have reviewed the list to check that the books and the numbers matched. And the copy editor found that Gaydar now had a new Dewey Decimal Number and so edited the book copy. But really, Orlean should have found a new book to stick in her list so that the numbers could stay in order. Erik Erikson's Childhood and Society, at 301.43, would have done the trick.

You know, for nitpickers like me.

I digress. The Library Book is a lovely paean to books and libraries and reading, and you should read it. Take it out of your local library.

Recycling the Reusable

The eco mantra is reduce, reuse, recycle. And always bring your own bag.

I came home from the farmer's market and unloaded the chicken and greens and bread and hummus and pears and mozzarella and cauliflower and onions and, yes, many pounds of food - and discovered that the side seams on the bottom of my sturdy shopping bag were splitting. Happily, they did not give way in an unseemly fashion in the middle of the parking lot.

I turned the bag inside out, and contemplated fixing the seam. But the bag's construction meant that it would have been a half-assed repair, so I took the bag to the garage thinking I'd bin it. But...

The Instant Pot has been living in the garage on the counter next to the toaster oven - remember my summer kitchen? I'd been thinking that the Instant Pot needed a slip cover, and with nary a pause, I slipped the shopping bag on its head. Ta da! It fit like a glove, though a little taller than it needed to be. I took the bag back inside, dredged up some denim, cut the bag down to size, and Bob's your uncle!

I love that I repurposed a reuseable bag.

In Which We Fall Down A Gorey Rabbit Hole

Diving into the rabbit holes of sketchy draft posts has been the best thing about #nablopomo. Some of have just stopped me in my tracks - they've been nothing more than a hodgepodge of links and a little text, like this one:

I start copying the links to see where they go.

Oh!

I love that image!

The next one's the same. So's the third - although the third one tells me the image is the Boggerslosh, from The Utter Zoo.

The Boggerslosh conceals itself
In back of bottles on a shelf.

I fell down the Boggerslosh rabbit hole because I'd bought a book of postcards when visiting the Gorey house a few years ago. The Boggerslosh is the only postcard that I didn't mail off to someone. I kept it because it reminded me both of my mother (who was fond of blue & green glass bottles) and of the Gorey house (with its collections of oddments and glass bottles).

I decide to check my Gorey library. I do not have The Utter Zoo - and it is not included in either Amphigorey or Amphigorey Too.

Tucked inside Amphigorey, though, is a photocopied note in my mother's handwriting:

Amphigory
A nonsense verse or composition - a rigmarole with apparent meaning which proves to be meaningless.

Rigmarole
A succession of confused, meaningless or foolish statements; prolix and rambling or incoherent talk.

Ragman Rolls
Document having many names or seals (i.e. Papal bull) - from rolls of deeds in which Scottish novels swore allegiance to Edward I of England in 1291.

I do not remember discussing rigmarole and ragman rolls with my mother, but I love knowing that she cared enough to look up amphigory and follow it back to Edward I.

Aimless archeology paused, I return to the draft post.

The Wuggly Ump, by Edward Gorey

It eats umbrellas, gunny sacks,
Brass doorknobs, mud, and carpet tacks.

The Wuggly Ump is in Amphigory, but - sing tirraloo, sing tirralay! - I also have a battered 1963 hardcover, complete with dust jacket.

What I cannot find is the photo I took at the Gorey house, of the small pile of carpet tacks on a mantelpiece. I know it's here somewhere.

Funnily enough, there's a new biography of Gorey just out, called Born to Be Posthumous. I did need to read aloud much of the review at the breakfast table yesterday. Like:

Even some of Gorey’s most ardent fans assumed he had to be British and long deceased. Such intricate, gothic scenes were supposed to unfurl from the pen of a wan, wraithlike neurasthenic holed up in a garret — not some towering Midwesterner partial to floor-length fur coats and busy days attending the New York City Ballet.

Even though I generally don't love biographies, I might need to put that one on my Christmas list.

---

I meander here, I meander there. And thus concludes a month of posting, nearly every day.

Throwback Thursday: Cat Scan

Why yes, I did scan the cat once.

And in a completely unrelated event, I wrote a haiku about the underbelly of the cat.

The underbelly
Of the insatiable beast
Is soft, cat, fluffy.

I tell you, I have found some great stuff in the drafts folder.

Unanswerable Questions

Why does the free WiFi work on the lower level tracks at Grand Central Terminal but not on the upper level?

We have two water bowls for the cats: one in the kitchen and one in the upstairs bathroom. Why do they only drink out of the the upstairs bowl?

Why does my doctor’s office need to text once, call once, and email TWICE to remind me that I have an appointment on Friday. One or two reminders, okay. But FOUR?

Giving Tuesday, Or How To Kill Two Birds With The Same Stone

You are probably inundated with posts, emails, tweets, and other messaging about Giving Tuesday.

May I offer another way to think about it?

You surely have people on your holiday gift lists who need a gift from you, but who don’t actually need anything. Yes? I know I do. Instead of buying a tie, or a scented candle, or another well-meaning but banal gift, make a charitable contribution in their name.

• Your aunt likes dogs? Give to the local ASPCA.
• Your mother-in-law is a rabble-rouser? Try the Southern Poverty Law Center.
• Your father has a fondness for fishing? How about the Atlantic Salmon Federation?
• Your grandparents always take you to the ballet? Make a gift to Dance Theatre of Harlem.
• Your sister is a passionate advocate for women's health? The Fistula Foundation does great work.
• Your friend works for a non-profit? That's easy - donate there, in his/her honor.

One less mug out there in the world, one more pair of toe shoes for a ballerina. It's a win/win.
​
Incidentally, Giving Tuesday is a new phenomenon - it only began in 2012, the brainchild of the 92nd Street Y. The intent was, and remains, lofty: "a way to pivot back to the values of community and gratitude celebrated on Thanksgiving after Black Friday and Cyber Monday." So, even though you're feeling overwhelmed by the solicitations pouring into your in-box, think about how you can kill two birds with one stone: a charitable contribution can be your gift to someone on your list.

Pinocchio, The Velveteen Rabbit, and Me

Today, because I opted not to go on a field trip to the dirty bowels of our building, my boss shrugged and said "you're a girl".

I replied, "I'm not a girl".

Him: "Well, what are you then?"

Me, snarkily: "Wouldn't you like to know?"
​
Don't get me wrong. I've made plenty of visits to the cellar. I love the generally off-limits, odd spaces around here. We had a fire drill not long ago, which dumped me out a door I'd never gone through - a ground floor exit through a wood paneled staircase that must have once been lovely.

What I don't love is when people call me a girl. I do not take kindly to people who said "you went to an all girl's school". Nope, I went to a women's college.

I can say, about myself, that I never learned how to be a real girl - but in so saying, I am acknowledging my complete inability to apply or wear makeup, my absolute indifference to any hairstyling that isn't wash and wear (and yes, I don't own a hair dryer), and my refusal to wear spike heels ever.

Unlike Pinocchio (who wants to be a real boy), and the velveteen rabbit (who wants to be a real rabbit), I am perfectly content to be me because, in fact, I am a real girl.

But if you tell me I'm a girl - real or not - I will bite your head off.

In Which We Rant About The Good Grey Lady

Allow me to be cranky for a moment. I am annoyed with the New York Times.

Today's Arts & Leisure section is modest - only 20 pages, only 12 articles.

Of those 12 articles, nearly HALF - 5 out of 12 - are essentially dialogue. They are not fleshed out writing, they are "he said, she said" transcribed conversations.

Dialogue
The Power of Stories
The Many Perils of Rose Byrne
Bryan Cranston Likes Getting ‘Mad as Hell’
The Boy Who Became Princes
How A $15,000 Movie Rallied Black Auteurs

Actual Written Work
A Network for a New Era
Look, You Need to Start Acting Like a Child
A Partnership Most Powerful
A Writer Who Found His Voice in the Movies
Looking Into the Past
Uncovering the Secrets of Bruegel
Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears a Crown

I'm sorry, but that just seems like a cop-out. Sure, once in a while, maybe once in every Sunday Arts & Leisure section, you can include a transcription, but in nearly half of the pieces?

It's not just today's A&L. These "conversations" have been creeping in all over the paper. The most egregious iteration of this trend was a purported review of an actual new Broadway musical, in which, instead of writing a review, two of the theater critics had a conversation! Lord knows I don't want to see King Kong, but it feels like an over the top dis to not even give it a proper review.

Rant over.

Cocktail party nibble food

If you are in need of a quick something to bring to an impromptu after-dinner nibble party, here's your ticket: Marinated Brussels Sprouts.

It comes from my mother's Black Book, her looseleaf binder of handwritten and copied and clipped recipes, so I haven't any idea of the original source. But it's essentially pickled sprouts - steam them, and douse them with a hot vinaigrette, and cool, and eat.  I find that the recipe as written makes way too much marinade, so I tend to scale back the liquid.

I haven't time to refrigerate mine for two hours, because I started making them at 5:30 and need to be somewhere by 7:30. But they'll be delicious none-the-less - a piquant addition to a plate of cheese, with the added virtue of healthy!

Marinated Brussels Sprouts
1 pound of Brussels sprouts
1/4 cup olive oil
2 T. lemon juice
1 t. salt
1/4 t. freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 T. chopped fresh parsley
3-4 branches of fresh thyme (or a 1/2 t. dried)
1/2 t. dried oregano

Trim the sprouts and cut an X into the bottom of each one. Steam until tender - about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine everything else in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.

Drain sprouts and place in a heatproof bowl. Pour marinade over sprouts, and set aside to cool a bit. Refrigerate until you need them. Fish the thyme branches out if you used them.

Transfer to a pretty serving dish and serve with toothpicks.

My Own Private Dictionary

A few years ago, I started reading Georgette Heyer. To date, I've read nine of her Regency romances:

Sylvester: Or the Wicked Uncle
Frederica
Venetia
Cotillion
Regency Buck
The Reluctant Widow
Cousin Kate
The Toll-Gate
The Quiet Gentleman

And I found myself looking up any number of words as I went along. Always a good sign in a book, yes?

Herewith, a tiny glossary:

• Abigail - a lady's maid
• Almack's – an upper class mixed-sex public social club
• Cicisbeo – the escort to a married woman, like a walker
• Curricle - a light, open, two-wheeled carriage pulled by two horses side by side
• Domino – a robe-like costume worn at a masquerade ball 
• Farouche – sullen or shy, as in behavior
• Gig – a light, two-wheeled sprung cart pulled by one horse
• Gretna Green – a Scottish town (just over the border) where English people ran away to get married under less restrictive rules
• Jean – light denim fabric, as in “your boots are made of jean, not of kid”
• Lief – happily or soon – as in “he would just as lief eat a porcupine”
• Morganatic marriage – a marriage between people of unequal social rank – in the context of royalty, this would prevent the passage of the higher ranking person’s titles and privileges to the lower, and to any children born of the marriage.
• Obtunding – to dull or to blunt
• Phaeton – a sporty four-wheeled carriage, drawn by one or two horses, with extravagantly large wheels and open seating
• Plum – 100 pounds (or maybe more) 
• Rheumatic fever - a complication of untreated strep throat
• Se'enight – archaic word for a week (seven nights)
• Tilbury – a town in England, not far East of London
• Ton – upper crust English society
• Trevithick – English inventor of a steam engine 

Phaeton

A Happy Thanksgiving To You

This picture wasn't actually taken on Thanksgiving. In fact, it's marked on the back as being taken in March - spring, therefore, not fall. Or maybe it was just processed in March, and was taken in January, or even November. So maybe it was taken on Thanksgiving!

In any case, it says holiday to me. It says family to me. And so, I offer it, this portrait of my siblings, for Thanksgiving.

May your day include a ferocious game of Monopoly, played - perversely - outdoors on the front porch. Wear a warm hat, and a leather motorcycle jacket purloined from the French boyfriend. Drink your beer from a bottle, and don't forget a blue bowl of Cheez Doodles. For what is Thanksgiving if not nostalgia?