No story. Just a daily dose of DANG THAT’S A CUTE PUPPY.
Monthly Archives: April 2013
Dear Mr. Webster
You know how my subhead says “Just a little note to say wish you were here?” Well, while I always wish you were here, I really really wish you were here right now. We could be christening my new writer’s garret with ink and champagne!
For a few weeks now, I’ve been using the other end of the dining room table for tying up loose ends, filing for insurance, filing for unemployment, looking for The Perfect Job, and writing my first novel (five chapters already). Don’t get me wrong, I love looking at Bill doing the crosswords and paying bills at his end of the dining room table, which he claimed as his personal workspace when he retired five years ago. But I’ve been hankering for my own spot to think and work write.
I love having epiphanies, don’t you? Here’s how this one shook out…
1. When we moved into this house, I claimed one of the upstairs bedrooms as my dressing room. It is like a large walk-in closet with a guest bed in the middle. It is pretty cute in here. And it has always had an ironing board set up, full-time, ready to press. Until today.
2. Not long ago, we reached the saturation point for the number of drop-leaf desks we could absorb. This is one that my mother bought for my darling girlhood daisy-papered bedroom in our pre-Revolutionary War house in New Hampshire. I think she paid $3.00 for it. She and I painted it white and accented it with some gold-leaf paint. Because it was 1970.
3. Said drop-leaf desk has since been refinished, but hasn’t really found a place to live. It has been stored and rather underfoot in the large first-floor closet that I laughingly call the butler’s pantry. (Thank you, Downton Abbey.)
4. And it seems I’m no longer wearing clothes that need ironing. For the time being, anyway.
Bam! Epiphany!
So here I am, writing to you, at a little desk that I’ve had since I was a girl — in a spot where an ironing board once stood. I am listening to the birds in the trees just outside the open window. I can hear Bill emptying the dishwasher downstairs. And I can smell the mulch that Jose and his brothers are spreading in the flower beds. And I can hear myself think.
The dictionary says that a garret is a small and gloomy place, for poor artists and writers.
Not today, Mr. Webster.
Big Love
Don’t look at me cross-eyed when I say that I just dusted a carrot.
In fact, I just dusted nine carrots. And here they are.
They are part of a sculpture by my college art professor Georgia Strange. She offered to trade art pieces with me. So she now has — or maybe had — my painting called “Daddy,” inspired by both my daddy and Sylvia Plath’s poem. (I am a little embarrassed to admit that I painted a Sylvia Plath poem, but what can I say? I was a college art student. That’s what we do. Present tense intended.) And I have Georgia’s multimedia sculpture of carrots made of bronze, wood, variously fired clay, and plaster. All contained in a handmade crib.
I have a few pieces of original pieces of artwork in my life. Not many, but what I have makes me happy.
So, this is my first acquisition, “Artist’s Portfolio,” by Georgia Strange.
And this is my most recent acquisition, “Pixie,” by Felix, age 4.
Do I love one more than the other? I don’t have to. Just as a mother promises, I have enough love to go around.
Add One Cup of Memories
Thunderstorms have caused me to abandon Plan A for today, which was to dead-head the hydrangeas and pull up the limp, brown reeds of last year’s irises. Instead, I have begun Plan B, which is to unpack the boxes holding my publishing memories. This one has a very, very sad aspect, and I was on the fence about writing about it. But I just got a LinkedIn request from a long-ago Rand McNally colleague, which of course, is a sign.
In 1980, I got an interview with Rand McNally because my grandfather had been the boyhood dentist of the Vice President of Personnel, Donald Helm. And my college work-study job was to relieve Mrs. Ruby Helm of her switchboard duties every day at lunchtime, at 3:00 on Wednesdays for her standing hair appointment, and at 4:30 every evening so she could go home. Mrs. Helm, of course, was Donald’s mother. So not only did Donald’s mother tell him to hire me, so did his dentist.
Mr. Helm could only interview me and recommend me, but without an available position, he couldn’t actually hire me. So we met and talked, and I crossed my fingers that a spot in editorial would come available. And I went to work as the receptionist at Mitsubishi International Corporation. And that is a story for another day.
A terrible thing happened in May 1979. And because of it, I was eventually offered a job as Editorial Secretary in Trade Books at Rand McNally. On May 25, 1979, American Airlines flight 191 to Los Angeles had just taken off from O’Hare, when it lost an engine and crashed on the runway. All passengers and crew members were killed.
The American Booksellers Association (ABA) was in LA that coming weekend, and on the plane were more than a few publishing people. Rand McNally executive Don Eldridge missed his flight because of traffic. But Managing Editor, Steve Sutton, Trade Books, was on that flight with his wife and children. He was rolling his business trip into a California vacation.
It was a while before Rand McNally could think of finding a new Managing Editor. But eventually, Elliott McCleary took the position, the office, and the desk. Steve’s secretary had left by then, out of sorrow, I was told. So Elliott needed a secretary, and Donald suggested me.
To my interview with Elliott in the spring of 1981, I wore a parrot-green linen skirt (knee length), a cheerful yellow polka-dotted cotton blouse, Pappagallo flats, and wore my ponytail tied with a crisp grosgrain ribbon. I carried a Bermuda bag, covered in a complementary pink linen. Monogrammed, of course.
Because I couldn’t type more than 25 words a minute without error, I know Elliott hired me because of my possibilities. And he later chuckled and admitted that he was charmed that I had included Sweetheart of Delta Kappa Epsilon and Spring Carnival Queen on my professional resume, under Awards and Affiliations.
While I was settling myself into my desk as Editorial Secretary, Elliott was doing the same, as Managing Editor. He popped his head out of his office door and held up this old pencil cup. “Want it? I don’t. I’d prefer to start fresh.”
Sure, I took it. I loved (still do) Dagwood and Blondie, Beetle, Henry, and Popeye.
Turns out that this pencil cup was, of course, Steve Sutton’s.
I did not know him, but I promised myself that I’d keep it safe for him, and honor his memory by loving it.
It has been on my desk, every day since. And it is now on my kitchen table, where I am writing my next chapter.
What a Girl’s Gotta Do
This is our basement sink. It is pretty typical of the stone basins found in older Chicago homes. Washboard ridges are cast into the inside front of it. The washing machine drains into it, as does the dehumidifier. It is great for washing schipperkes and corgis. And…
Thank goodness our last home also had such a wash basin in the basement. Here’s why.
We had only just moved into our new house on Kenneth Avenue, when this perfect storm brewed:
-It was August, and really hot.
-I had (and still do have) a bad habit of turning the thermostat way down to make it get cooler faster. (Bill insists it doesn’t work that way, but I think he’s wrong.)
-Bill was long-gone, driving Ginger halfway to meet her grandmother, Miss Gigi, in Indianapolis. Then he was going to his office, not coming home until that evening.
-We had not given spare keys to anyone.
-The basement did not have a separate entry/escape.
-We were attempting to keep the dogs in the kitchen with baby-gates, when nobody was home.
-I needed socks from the basement.
In one blink, I closed the basement door behind me, so the dogs didn’t follow me downstairs. The baby-gate fell over and wedged against the basement door. I was trapped in the basement of our new house. And I’d set the thermostat to 60 degrees.
(Can I just tell you how cold it gets in the BASEMENT when the rest of the house is 60 degrees? V.E.R.Y.)
The good news?
-All of our winter coats and sweaters were in the basement, stored in the cedar closet.
-There was an old rotary phone hooked up down there, because the former homeowner worked for AT&T, and he’d installed phones and jacks everywhere.
-And there was an old basement sink, right there next to the washing machine.
I dressed myself like an eskimo. I phoned the office, to tell them I would be late. I convinced the cell phone company to put me through to my husband. I computed that I’d be trapped for at least six hours. I did laundry. I unpacked boxes. I alphabetized the laundry. I did jumping jacks. I sang campfire songs. I dialed Time and Weather. I tried to pull up the carpeting. I broke a nail.
And…
Gosh. Six hours is a long time.
Bless the basement sink.
Time Travelers
Let’s dial it back to Easter at Miss Gigi’s, shall we?
There was this…
And then there was this…
Any idea what they’re doing? (If you do, you were probably raised by Miss Gigi.) (Or you are addicted to Antiques Roadshow.) (Or both.) These thoroughly modern boys are discovering their grandmother’s thoroughly outdated — and totally fascinating — collection of stereoscope cards on her turn-of-the-century (not this one!) stereopticons.
Here’s a sample of a saucy series, which was popular back in the day.
Back in that day, one looked at a stereo picture such as this through one’s stereopticon contraption, and it was just like being there in person, in 3-D.
At first glance, you think OH MY! THIS IS SAUCY! And then you think hmmmmm, should these modern young men be viewing these pictures on a Sunday? Much less on Easter Sunday?
Absolutely not!
On the back of the stereo-card is the 1916 approval of Chief John H. Plunkett, Boston, Mass., AND IT IS X’d OUT. Too saucy for Sunday!
I just loved watching my nephews goofing around and sharing these 100-year-old stereopticons back and forth. No grumpy birds, no insta-pix, no phweets.
Just good old-fashioned laughs!
Proof
It may be the puppy or may be an attitude-shift, but I was up at 7:30 this Sunday morning, fairly bright-eyed and eager to get this day started. We are having friends over for barbecue and Arnold Palmers at 2:00, and we needed to get a few things from the grocery store. I was raised to go nowhere without my hair fixed and a little color on my lips, because, says my mother, “If you don’t, you’re going to run into an old boyfriend.”
So when I dashed upstairs this morning to spit-comb my hair and throw on yoga pants and a fleece, I also dabbed on a little lipstick. And I grinned and remembered this story.
My hometown friend Melissa was on bed-rest with her third baby. I was home for Christmas, and wanted to see Melissa. Her life was kind of complicated at this point, so she suggested that the best time to really visit would be before her two little children woke up. “Just throw your coat over your pajamas and come over!” So I did. No shower, no curling iron, no makeup. Just my flannel jammas under my winter coat, and probably a pair of loafers, no socks.
We had a lovely, quiet visit. Melissa’s husband was at work, and her children weren’t terribly early risers. But when they did wake up I helped to get them breakfasted and dressed. Then little Claire got an invitation to play at her friend’s house in town. I overheard Melissa saying that Claire couldn’t go, because she had no way to get her there.
“Oh, let me take her, when I drive back to Mama’s. As long as I don’t have to go inside or anything.”
Melissa assured me that Claire would just jump out of the car and run in.
“Where am I taking her?”
“To [insert name of high-school crush here] ‘s house. On Lexington Ave. His little girl and Claire are best friends!”
You know what happened next. There I sat behind the steering wheel, with bed-hair, and no color on my lips, when HSC walked right up to the car to fetch little Claire.
Because God is obviously a woman. In fact, God is probably Mary Kay.
Doors and Windows
How lucky am I? I actually followed my bliss, and have enjoyed a life’s work by making books for little children. Factoring in a couple of detours (having a baby, for one), I compute that I have been in children’s book publishing for nearly 30 years. Twenty-three of them have been in one company, my last.
I was just given a lovely gift. A surprise, really. But lovely, nonetheless.
Spring.
And summer.
Lazy mornings.
More time with my mother.
Paint and brushes and canvas.
Clay on my hands.
My novel.
Comfortable shoes.
No shoes!
Long walks with a corgi.
Road trips to nowhere.
Digging in the dirt.
Fishing.
Matinees.
Long, handwritten letters.
Luncheons, al fresco.
I will miss walking through the door of the publishing house that was my second home, my second family.
But I love the view from the window that just opened.
Una piccola storia per voi
For the better part of 20 years, I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of traveling to Bologna, Italy, for the Children’s Book Fair. And while my colleagues and I actually do spend the better part of our trip inside the BolognaFiere, we usually manage to find a little time to poke around the city. The book fair was last week, but I’m only now getting around to a ginnygram because I pretty much landed, repacked, and went to Kentucky for Easter.
This is a photo from inside the tiny salumeria around the corner from our hotel. I do not think it is a tourist trap, because there are always locals crushed inside, ordering their carne di maiale e salsiccia e formaggi e funghi. The shop lady wears a costume, and invites you to taste or purchase by saying “ees posseeble?” She’s pretty cute, right? In this photo, she is inviting my colleague to taste aceto balsamico by placing a drop on her wrist with an eye dropper. Once you have found the balsamico that you wish to purchase, you receive a lesson and a mimeograph page about how to enjoy it — on salad, strawberries, ice cream, or other. You leave feeling as if you’ve signed a contract promising NOT to use your balsamico inappropriately on fruit, when yours is ONLY for salad. Hmm, maybe her costume is actually the uniform of the Polizia di Balsamico.
All this said, my real intent is to share this funny memory with you…
During one of my first trips to Bologna, I wished to order a panini for lunch, in a shop similar to this salumeria. I pointed to a sandwich behind the glass labeled “Speck,” and asked, “Speck?” I shrugged my shoulders and held my hands palms up, the international language for “what is this?”
The shop girl said, “ees em.”
“Em?”
“Si. Em.”
I gave her my most bewildered look and shook my head. “Em?”
“Si. [oink oink!] Em!”
Ham.
ginnygram 