To-Do List

And just how trite can you get?

/ wvfurandroot / 10 Comments

Seneca Rocks

While on a road trip, my traveling companions and I stopped at the state park at the foot of Seneca Rocks primarily because I’d confessed I’d never been in this part of West Virginia. After being there, I’m ashamed. What kind of West Virginia ambassador am I if I neglect whole areas of the state?

It’s been years since I’ve managed to come up with a new adjective to describe the beauty of West Virginia. The area around Seneca Rocks had me struggling to find one. Amazing, jaw-dropping, gorgeous, yada yada. I hope to never become complacent about it even if my descriptions have to resort to the trite.

Seneca Rocks are FREAKIN’ AMAZING.

Mystery at Seneca Rocks

We didn’t have time to linger and were combining our need to pee with letting me get a good gander. While gandering in general, I gandered in particular at a tree the likes of which I’ve never seen before. The tree bore blossoms that in violation of state law I was provoked to pick so as to get a better look. (Yes, I’m hanging my head in shame.) I had to reach on tiptoe to grab a bottom limb of the tree and snatch a bloom.

I suspect, but am not sure, that this tree is what some folks refer to as a tulip poplar. A quick foray into Wikipedia confirms that suspicion. What I know for sure, is that I have to have one.  

We were headed for a work retreat in Hampshire County. I haven’t spent much time in that part of the state (shame on me) and driving from here to there on a fine May day was JAW DROPPING (another trite description).

It was a fine May day the first time I ever laid eyes on West Virginia. I have become a little complacent since that initial rubbernecking, but trips like these bring that initial wonder to the forefront again. On this particular trip, I was gifted with the sight of what I dubbed The Peony Farm – a substantial piece of earth covered in white peonies. In fact, the entire trip was punctuated by peonies. Besides the tulip tree, I’m determined to plant a peony hedge.

Purloined Tulip Poplar Blossom

Aside from tulip trees and peonies, the entire state seems to be dripping with wild rose and honeysuckle. The combined fragrance of West Virginia in bloom is AWESOME. (Sorry.)

Some folks talk about the first time they saw the ocean. Others the giant redwoods. Or the desert. Or…or…or. Seeing West Virginia the first time was a religious experience. I forget, oh yes I do, that lots of folks can’t drive down a road and see this or this. I’m telling you, it’s BEYOND BEAUTIFUL. (Oops.)

 [Now shifting gears with an awkward transition.]

I’ve been absent from this blog for awhile and a few of you have been kind enough to inquire. I’m fine, more or less. Way too much life happening, busy-busy-busy, yada yada yada. Y’all know – the same old drill. The same old “my life is a runaway train and I have to get a grip, yada yada yada.” [Tell me, what did we say before Seinfeld coined yada yada?]

I’ve been so busy that the house is a wreck, the garden is neglected, the puppies are lonely and I’ve been even more stressed than usual, but the trip, though busy and a stressor, also served to put me in one spot for a few days. The simple act of not scurrying here and there for a couple of days was restorative. Here’s to hoping the feeling of balance will endure for a bit. And if it does, perhaps my dalliance with trite expression will come to an end.

Perfect Person

/ wvfurandroot / 13 Comments

I’ve decided to become a perfect person. Maybe that should be A Perfect Person. Maybe it should be The Perfect Person. It’s hard to tell with such things. I think I’ll go with Perfect Person.

I came to this decision the other day.

Years ago, there was this cartoon thing that a lot of folks had hanging in their office. I don’t remember the exact wording but it was something to the effect of “One Aw Shit cancels out 1000 Ata Boys.”

With that in mind, I’ve experienced a lot of Aw Shits lately, both uttered at me and by me. I figure my stock of Ata Boys (Ata Girls?) is at an all time low and it’s time to restock like Macy’s preparing for Black Friday.

I find, however, that enumerating the characteristics of Perfect Person is not easy. Are the characteristics internally or externally defined – which is to say, does the generic You or the specific I mediate what is perfect?  (And is there a generic You?)

So, here I am stymied at the very beginning.

If I go with the generic You, I’m setting myself up for judgment by every You in the world. Or at least that intersection of the world I come into contact with. While it might be interesting (and painful) to learn what all the Yous in my life think I need to do to become perfect, I’m pretty sure one You will want this and another You will want that when the relevant this is diametrically opposed to the relevant that. I suppose I could develop multiple personalities to cope with that peccadillo, but it seems to me that acquiring, deliberately, a DSM IV diagnosis is not a Perfect Person strategy.  [I believe this paragraph reveals that there really isn’t a generic You, but a collection of brand name Yous.  At least to my way of thinking which may or may not be correct.]

Hmmm.

If I go with the specific I, the very first drawback that springs to mind is I’m high diving into the bottomless pool of the Cult of Individuality. The second drawback is that I have to decide what constitutes a Perfect Person (and we know how bad I am at decisions).

Now the deep pool of the Cult of Individuality is nice to splash around in when overheated by life in the new millennium, but, really, one can only swim and tread water for so long – unless, of course, Perfect Person entails the ability to infinitely maintain an aquatic (so to speak) lifestyle. Let’s not go there. It makes my head hurt. [Hmmm, is perfection painful?]

Let’s go here instead. The Cult of Individuality has fueled the Post Modern experience which was a nice change from what went before, but, really, hasn’t it all gotten just a little dated? And silly? Besides, anyone (including me) who thinks the I is completely divorced from the You enough to define Perfect Person is delusional. [Ah, here we are back at the DSMIV again.] While I’ve yet to read an intellectually or emotionally satisfying definition of postmodernism it is, for the most part, agreed that analysis of experience is socially mediated through context. In other words, the I and the You spend an awful lot of time line dancing together.

As I’ve said here and in other places, I’m not good at decisions. Here I sit having made a decision without any idea as to how to implement it.

But since the Health Department, most of my peers, and myself are of the opinion that a clean and orderly home are a Good Thing, I think I’ll get off my derrière and restore some order and cleanliness. After which, perhaps, I’ll be able to begin teasing out a definition of Perfect Person.

Maiden Mother Crone (The Arrival)

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments
Maiden Mother Crone

I have taken dozens of photos, scrapped hundreds of words, and pulled on my hair. I cannot capture the images and I cannot find the words to describe what I’m seeing, but my Maiden Mother Crone triptych is in my possession. And it is phenomenal.

I’m nearly speechless with awe.

I began blathering about this last year when my friend, the art historian aka The Bitch Across the Hall, snagged some student work. I threatened to steal hers, but as the conversation with the artist, Melissa McCloud, progressed, I found myself commissioning my own set. I fretted for some time trying to figure out how to pay for them only to receive the news that Dr. B.A.T.H. was giving them to me for my 50th birthday.

Melissa McCloud

My 50th birthday, all around, was an occasion that kept me in happy yet overwhelmed tears. The significance of the triptych to my turning 50 is so apparent to me that I’m puzzled when I have to explain it to people.

The average of menopause in this country is 50 and I’m right on track. Menopause is sometimes referred to as the crone stage of life. I’m still mothering my son, albeit in quite different ways, but the hallmarks of motherhood are passing. I’m entering, mostly gleeful, the crone stage.

Here it is Easter weekend. I have in no way marked Easter in the Christian tradition or Ostara in the pagan tradition. I have sat around wiggling my nose hoping to end up with a bunch of completed projects without putting in the time and effort.

It wasn’t working.

I forced myself to pick up the camera and try again. It was an insult to the artist and to my friend not to acknowledge this triptych. In moving about the house trying to capture their beauty, I’m slowly gathering steam.

The Working Drawing

The three women are carved balsa wood. Layers of balsa were glued together (laminated), cut and carved. At my request, they were heavily textured and stained the same color as my woodwork and most of my furniture. I wanted them to slide into this house like they’d always been here and to appear as if they’d organically grown with the barn on this hillside. And they have.

Carved front and back.

There’s no place in this house they wouldn’t be perfect. My struggle is to find the right place where I can see them often and touch them often. They beg for touch. (Besides which, I never get the opportunity to fondle a well-endowed set of breasts.)

Some years ago, I whined and pleaded my way into another piece of art featuring the torsos of three women (Artist: Sherri Weeks.) The multimedia piece has hung in my study for several years now and I never tire of looking at it. In anticipation of the Maiden Mother Crone arrival, I have been preparing the study for installation which has involved a thorough gutting, cleaning, wall repair, dithering about color, and the application of 8 million coats of paint. I have whined.

I have also stalled.

The Other Women

My plan was to install the triptych under the painting and on top the bookcases that serve as a credenza. The one trio of women would mirror the other.

For some weeks I worked feverishly on the study and other weeks not so much. The closer I got to finishing, the more my energy levels waned and then I got zapped by Carlos the Cruddy Cold (who may turn into Boris Bronchitis).

The camera is just inadequate.

Without the ceremony they deserve, I picked up the triptych on Friday. My inertia deepened when I couldn’t get them to photograph well, I couldn’t describe them to my satisfaction, and I couldn’t find the energy to finish the damn study.

Frankly, I’m tired of the chaos of the study project. I want nothing more than to sit in there gazing adoringly at my six women.

Winter is over, the triptych is here and I feel ambition welling akin to the swelling of the branches that will result in leaves and flowers on the plants in my as yet neglected garden.

The women whisper to me to get on with the next stage. The earth has turned, the sun has returned, and the time has come.

The women must be listened to.

Colorful Wine

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments

Minoan Blue Monkey Fresco

It’s been suggested that most folk choose their wine based on the bottle. While I’m not immune to the charms of a nice bottle, all other factors being equal, I am usually more interested in what’s in the bottle. I veer towards the Chileans. You can’t buy a bad bottle of Chilean wine. The price is beginning to reflect that, but it used to be you could have a damn fine wine dirt cheap. Most of the Australians are good as are most of the South Americans if you’re looking for affordable yet decent wine.

With all that said, my palate is not that sophisticated. I’d recognize the label, but I’ve become partial to a wine sold at the Kroger – a nice cabernet IN A BOX with an 87 rating from Wine Spectator. It’s hard to burn a candle in that puppy once I’ve drained the last glass of wine, but I buy the stuff to drink – not to decorate.

Tom Robbins Wine

Or at least that’s mostly true. I do have some wine bottles scattered about the house because I like them. My favorite is a long, lithe cobalt blue one that used to house a crisp pinot grigio. And then there’s the Tom Robbins bottle. (I’ve also got a tequila bottle that HMOKeefe drained on the Mexico trip – tequila? I don’t touch the stuff. But that bottle sure is pretty and HMOKeefe buzzed on the worm was a sight to see.)

Those of us of a certain age will remember chianti bottle candle holders. In fact, I used to buy chianti just for the bottle because all the cool girls had candles and, well, I couldn’t be left out could I?

That color!

As I perused wine at the Drug Emporium (no kidding – one of the best selections around), I was dumbstruck in the Italian section.

I’ve been in the throes of painting and as I finally whittle down the number of rooms in need of painting, my thoughts turn to the dreaded hall that houses the stairs. This area is going to be horrible to paint and I have to get the color right the first time. If I manage to complete the stairwell in my lifetime, it will be the last time that area is painted. The color choice is complicated by the open floor plan and getting the exact right color is critical. Critical, I tell you. The fate of the free world hangs in balance.

Isn't that just luscious?

I’ve been flirting with the idea of a pinky peach – or peachy pink – that color where fuchsia and tangerine run away to Morocco for illicit sex under a slow-turning ceiling fan. The color your eyelids turn after two strawberry daiquiris on a beach blanket. The color that is the sound of passion. You know. That color.

So. There I am in the Drug Emporium choosing a wine when this chianti bottle leaps off the shelf and into my basket. I’m not really a huge fan of chianti, but this bottle is kicker. The straw casing weaves fuschia and tangerine together and produces that color. While that hallway will most likely end up a matronly forest green, I do now possess a retro-trendy chianti candle holder for my soon to be completed study.

Blue Monkey

And if the chianti bottle wasn’t exciting enough, I was stopped dead in my tracks at the clearance shelf. Indeed, I gaped in astonishment.

Most folk don’t know it, but at one time I was the world’s foremost expert on Minoan blue monkey frescoes. Really. For all I know, I still am. I haven’t kept up with the research. But I wrote the best research paper of my life on the mystery of why the Minoans, living on an island in the Mediterranean, were provoked to draw blue monkeys on their walls. I didn’t actually answer the question, but I had a lot of fun ruminating. You may, as I did, find it curious that people have been including photos of the blue monkey frescoes in anthropology, history, and art books for decades and decades without ever addressing the question as to why a bunch of proto-Greeks were decorating with a monkey motif.

The no-longer-lonely other blue monkey decorative item.

So, I’m admiring my chianti bottle and considering taking it to the paint aisle at the Lowe’s, when I discover the blue monkey wine. It’s a zinfandel and I’m not a huge fan, but, really people, it’s in a BLUE MONKEY bottle. Serious. How could I not buy it?

So. I now have two bottles of wine I bought simply for the bottles and which will become decorative items in my study. God help me, I’m decorating with wine bottles plus I’ve spent $30 on wine that I don’t particularly like. It’s a big old goofy world and I’m the leading lady.