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Nuffin ‘Bout Birthin’ No Valances

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

I love windows.

One of the great pleasures of being down to one job is the time to nest in my home. Another is having time to blog.

One of the great pleasures of living where I do is I don’t have to cover the windows with hundreds of dollars of fabric to keep the creeps from peeping in. When living in various towns and cities, intellectually I understood the need for curtains and draperies, but I hated them. I particularly hated them in my first house – the house with leaded glass and ornate molding. And I hated them during the winter when frugality dictated they be closed to keep the heating bill within the realm of payment possibility.

The last set of drapes I remember really liking were those worn by Carol Burnett during one of her more memorable skits.

Nobody suggests "window treatments" here!

When I landed in the barn at the end of a dirt road on top of a hill, I gloried in having lots of uncovered windows. I flaunted my bare windows. I’m a window junkie, so there was much to flaunt.

After twenty years of fabric-free flaunting of glass and molding, it seems I’ve gotten over the illicit thrill of naked windows. For the past few years, some of the windows have begun to look bare – unfinished – improperly accessorized – and, well, being the trendy chick I am, I began looking at what are now known as window treatments and used to be called drapes.

[Not all the windows, mind you. There are some that I’ll never cover and you can’t make me.]

Window treatments have silly prices. Window treatments should not cost more than the window. They shouldn’t cost more than major appliances, my first car, a root canal or the yearly vet bill for three dogs. People pay this kind of money? Hand me my smelling salts.

Still and all, some of my windows, particularly those in the kitchen, began looking a bit forlorn.

Mmmmmm

Kitchen curtains are hideous. I don’t want prancing chefs, embroidered tea kettles, frolicking kittens, or fruits and vegetables. The Great Kitchen Curtain Search was further complicated by my chosen and much loved color scheme. I am inordinately fond of the combination of dark brown, blue and white. That trilogy comforts me, inspires me, and was the first to teach me the power of color.

My very first kitchen was blue, brown and white and the last kitchen I’ll ever have is blue, brown and white. One wouldn’t think that would be such a rough combination to accessorize with a bit of fabric. One would be surprised. One was surprised.  For that first kitchen, I found a set of tiers in the three colors and, since, country was all the rage, they worked.  It helped that I had only one window in the kitchen.  [Raging or not, my patience for ruffles can wear thin.]

What can I say?

In a fit of country kitsch brought on by low blood sugar (or possibly a hangover), I bought some white eyelet valances with blue embroidered flowers for the current (and last) kitchen. They weren’t totally hideous, but they were totally too short and looked flippin’ ridiculous. Think Jethro in pants and sleeves that were never long enough. I took them down to wash them and never put them back up. That was, hmmm, five years ago?

Yup. That's a sofa throw if I ever saw one.

The compulsion to partially cover kitchen windows ratcheted up a few months ago. I looked and looked. Surfed the web. Haunted clearance sales. I found the valances I thought were the ones of my dreams – Indian batik with a lotus motif and beading. Valances were my preferred covering because they don’t really cover, but do solve the oh-my-god-what-do-I-do-with-the-windows problem. $250 for cotton strips of fabric? People pay that? Really?

So. I found some Indian batik on the web (sans beads) and decided to sew some valances. The fabric arrived and it’s gorgeous, but I decided it would make a better throw for the sofa than window treatments. Besides, I didn’t have time to learn how to bead.

I just realized the blue swirls are actually the word coffee.

So, I toddled off to the fabric store and found some really spiffy cotton in all the right colors. I began haunting websites for instructions on how to make valances. Good grief they made it sound complicated. Let me just remind you of the great fear I hold for my sewing machine.

Both lengths of fabric have been sitting on the church pew for months. I’ve been trying to a) find time b) when I was motivated to c) tackle the Beelzebub of Bobbinhood. It never happened. That particular trilogy can’t be achieved without additives to my blood chemistry.

Now ain't they something?

One thing led to another and then another and another and, in short, while trying to find a Mother’s Day gift, I ran across the Most Beautiful Valances in the Whole Wide World. At 90% off with free shipping. I clicked, whipped out the debit card, and typed in my address quicker than you can sing the three verses of To Hell with Sewing Machines. (Lawsy, Miz Scarlett, I don’t no nuffin ‘bout birthin’ no valances.)

They arrived today. I figured there was a good chance my internal image of them wasn’t going to match their external image. I also figured there was a good chance I would be sending them back.

Yup. It's spring.

They’re perfect! They’re ridiculous enough to be mine. (Who has taffeta in their kitchen, hmmm?) They’re the right size. They’ve got enough ornamentation to make them interesting. They’re a tasteful, elegant white.  They’re washable. They’re peachy keen, cool beans, awesome, righteous, neato, and groovy. I love them. They don’t completely cover the windows, they’re sheer enough to have no effect on the ability of the sun to flood my kitchen, and my windows look like they just won the tiara in the Miss Window Treatment contest. (With any luck the complete prize package includes Windex and a Windex-er.)

It’s a good day to be me.

[P.S. I saw my first blooming daffodil last week. I am so excited about a lot of stuff these days and not least among them is the opportunity to garden with my nights and weekends free free free.]

12-Step Program for Refrigerator Magnetaholics?

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments

I have a thing for refrigerator magnets. I realize it’s hokey, bourgeois, tacky and a sign of feeble intelligence. But I love them. They make me smile and, sometimes, guffaw. My penchant for excess is clearly apparent by simply looking at my refrigerator. [I was sorely disappointed to learn my dishwasher door was not metal. That’s probably a good thing as I tend to dribble coffee down the door.]

I don’t even pretend they’re utilitarian. I don’t use them to hold notes, children’s artwork, grocery lists, or medical appointment cards. They are there because I like them. Although when Chef Boy ‘R Mine was little, I had alphabet magnets near the bottom so he could play with them. The magnetic poetry is not on the fridge because I like to sprawl on the couch with the nifty magnetic board and compose my pearls of verse.

Some magnets I bought as souvenirs and others were gifts. Some my son made and some were made by friends. Many were given to me by HMOKeefe. Some I bought just because I liked them or they spoke to my heart.

When I painted the kitchen several years back I packed them away. For reasons I don’t understand and certainly can’t explain, they’ve languished in the closet all this time. During the holiday housecleaning frenzy it occurred to me while cleaning the surface of the refrigerator that I ought to perambulate my lazy butt over to the closet, fish them out and put them back on the fridge. And so I did.

I feel like I’ve reunited with old friends.

Among the puppies, quotes, Wizard of Oz characters, tropical fish and goofy photos are the Unemployed Philosopher Guild’s magnetic finger puppets. If you’ve never seen these things you really must meander over to their website. My favorite is Freud and his accompanying couch. But then again I’m uncommonly fond of Frieda Kahlo. Not to mention Schrödinger’s cat and Pavlov’s dog.

My magnets are not confined to the refrigerator. I also have them on my filing cabinet at work. I haven’t added to that display for a few years now. It’s time to remedy that.

As for alternate locations at home, for years, I’ve been trying to find the right sized piece of sheet metal without grooves to cover one side of my antique filing cabinet so the finger puppets can go live there. I’ve explored the possibility of magnetic paint, but I’m not convinced it will hold the heavier magnets and, besides, we all know how I hate painting. [And if you don’t, please understand that I would rather clean the cat box with my tongue than paint. While cleaning the cat box in that manner is never necessary, painting is and the bitching and moaning that occurs is legendary in its intensity.]

I really do have to get the puppets out of the kitchen to protect them from grease and the occasional flying food spatters. And the cat. She likes to pull them off and play kitty soccer with them. I’m a little tired of finding Dorothy Parker under the church pew though I think if she were still alive she would have something really funny to say about lying under a church pew.

Somewhere I have a package of 50 magnets the size of business cards with adhesive on one side. Their reason for being is to turn business cards into fridge magnets. When I bought them I did so because I figured making my own magnets would be a big bunch of fun. I’m going to throw in the towel and just go buy some more. [Lost Things drive me crazy. It doesn’t matter if I want them or not, their status as Lost is a challenge that makes me feel like a failure when frenzied looking is of no avail.]

Frankly, I think we all have some silly thing we collect not because we need them, but because they make us happy. My shoe collection is another, but that deserves a post of its own as do the reading glasses and watches (all of which need new batteries). And of course there are the cow and barn images.

I have a friend who has a display of antique toasters – at least a hundred of them – that are stacked two and three high on the top of his kitchen cabinets. I have an uncle who collects clocks. Every wall in his house is covered in clocks. I believe they number in the hundreds. My brother and his wife have every movie released on video tape or DVD in the last 20 years. My father acquires old computers he works feverishly on to get them running. He does nothing with his successes as most of them are such old technology they are useless. My mother is into glass birds and painted birdhouses – both collections are getting completely out of hand. [I am so dreading dealing with my parents’ house when the time comes – they’re getting close to needing intervention for hoarding.]

So, what is your silly thing? And how to you justify it?

The “Little Tree” and The Nutcracker Suite

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

Godfather Drosselmeier

Well. It’s about time.

I’m in full-blown Christmas cleaning/decorating/wrapping mode. There’s not that much to wrap and if UPS can’t figure out how to get up my hill, there may be next to nothing to wrap.

No matter.

I’m putting up the “little tree” and I’ve got The Nutcracker: The Motion Picture on the VHS player. Yes. Video TAPE. I suppose I ought to go about procuring it on DVD.

Tchaikovsky is filling the air and I’m a ballerina en pointe arabesquing about the house in a Martha Stewart Meets Minny Pearl mashup of holiday décor.

[I keep pricetags on some of the “priceless” ornaments as I think it may amuse my great-great-children to see what my treasures cost.]

The Prince and Clara

Back during a different geologic era when I was a youngun, I happened upon The Nutcracker Ballet on television. I’ve always thought it was PBS, but I’m not sure. This version of the ballet has reached legendary status in my mind because I can’t find a copy of it anywhere and I can’t find anyone who even knows what I’m talking about. I do remember watching it once a year from about the age of 9 or so through junior high – 1968 to 1973. Maybe earlier, maybe later.

This version opened with large double doors opening slowly to show the mother lighting the candles on the Christmas tree. That opening scene took the breath of the little girl I once was. So much so that I have worshipped Christmas trees ever since. To the point that I have candles on my Christmas tree – though never lit. And so much so that it’s just not Christmas without watching The Nutcracker.

Sugar Plum Fairy

In my early 20s, I saw the Milwaukee Ballet and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra perform the piece. Cross my heart, it was one of the best versions ever. I particularly remember the eroticism of “the silk scarf” wrapping herself around the gift recipient’s neck. The entire audience gasped.

Maurice Sendak of Where the Wild Things Are joined forces with the Pacific Northwest Ballet company and the lot of them produced The Nutcracker: The Motion Picture which was released in 1986. It’s a lush, gorgeous, edgy, hypnotic piece of Christmas tradition. It doesn’t haven’t a silk scarf to get the juices of the audience flowing, but it has other charms.

When I first procured the tape, the Ex and Chef Boy ‘R Mine were less than pleased I was pre-empting football playoffs to watch it. The Ex wandered off, but The Boy and I were glued to it. The next year I had it playing while preparing Christmas dinner. My brother arrived early. The next thing I knew, he and my son were sprawled on the floor, hands propping chins, and so thoroughly engrossed my brother didn’t hear me ask if he wanted a beer. [Possibly the first time my brother didn’t hear the offer of a beer.]

There’s a reason these things become classics. Experts will tell you this is one Tchaikovsky’s worst pieces of music. Ballet folk insist the ballet is mediocre at best. The two of them twirled together in snow, candy canes and twinkle lights are a gestalt that defies explanation. Having watched the whole thing, twice through while I decorate the tree, the holidays now feel like a joyous, magical time and not the period of obligations they felt like yesterday.

Lord! Is it ever going to be done?

Christmas trees are my favorite part of the holiday and the “little tree” took flippin’ forever to put up, in part, because I kept resting on Memory Lane. This tree is comprised of all the ornaments most likely to please children, big and small. It’s out of control and tomorrow I have to fiddle with it to find room for the ornaments from my childhood that my mother is giving me. At the moment it’s covered in Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Star Trek, The Nutcracker, 12 Days of Christmas, bears, cows, pigs, flamingos, Green Bay Packers, dogs, Santas, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, M&Ms, lobsters and Chef Boy ‘R Mine’s ornaments made in school. It’s a treasure.

Tomorrow, I’ll start the the “big tree” – a truly monumental undertaking.  While the “little tree” is all whimsy and chaos, the “big tree” is all elegance and sparkle.  It too will provoke stop-overs on Memory Lane.  Most of the ornaments were chosen with care to provoke remembrance of people, events, places and things.  And it’s dubbed the “big tree” because the amount of stuff on it is testament to my penchant for excess.

O.K. Mostly done!

But, it’s all good. Last year, what with one thing and another, I didn’t decorate at all. This year, it’s all coming out and going up, down, on or in. Most of it will be up for months as I’m using this time of relatively empty closets to paint them, shelf them, and, ahem, organize the hell out of them.  There will be whining.  Right now, however, I’m glorying in my favorite part of the holiday – Christmas trees.

I hope that right now you are doing what it is that you most love about this time of year. And if you’re not, that you will be soon. Now, of course, you and I both realize that the best part of this time of year is spending time with the folks we love. I’ve been doing some of that and will be doing more of it in the days to come, but right now I’m in a decorating frenzy and loving every second of it.