Alizarine

Paris Part 7

Thursday was our last full day in Paris. We hopped on a morning RER train to take in the sights of Versailles. Jeff's health was beginning to deteriorate a bit, but he was hanging in there with the help of his French cold medicine. I kept a bottle of water for him in my purse, along with some cough drops. The weather was nothing short of ideal, at least, and Jeff knew his way around Versailles. It was my first visit.

The train was about half-full but almost eerily quiet, and the ride was so smooth it seemed like the rails had been buttered or carpeted...whatever. We basically floated over to Versailles during this half-hour ride. Upon arrival we had a quick breakfast, sharing a muffin, coffee, and orange juice, and then it was a quick walk to the palace's golden entrance.

I hadn't realized that a city was connected to the palace of Versailles--for some reason I had assumed that it was in the middle of nowhere. We arrived just as it was opening for visitors.

The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.

(That paragraph was from Wikipedia. I'm not much of a Francophile beyond its art and food, and I'll also admit that writing 1,500 words per day about Paris is wearing me out!)

Inside the gates: a massive courtyard formed by the U-shaped palace that faces the sunrise (Louis XIV was known as the Sun King, and this theme was repeated throughout Versailles). Jeff and I guided ourselves through the palace's beyond-grand rooms while reading quietly from his Rick Steves iPhone guide.

I tend to start strong in palaces, but after a while their gold-encrusted splendor and--I'm going to call it colored marble abuse--gets to me. The spaces are often so busy and vulgar that I can't imagine living in them. Versailles was no different, although the craftsmanship and time that went into the palace was not lost on me, and the paintings decorating virtually every flat surface were outstanding.

Chandeliers were everywhere. Since I enjoy painting shiny glass things, I thought it would be a good idea to photograph them for use in a future painting. Most of them didn't quite work out, but I do like the one above. I'm not sure if I'd want to paint it, though. You can see the kind of decoration going on in the palace here, but this room seems low-key compared with some of the others.

Say hello to Marie Antoinette's bedroom, every young girl's dream!

I'm not sure if those floral motifs were painted or embroidered, but either way that's a whole lot of work for some poor soul.

The hall of mirrors, seen here in a photo not taken by us, seems like the length of a basketball court, with seventeen huge, arched, west-facing windows on one side and matching mirrors on the other. At the time of its construction, mirrors were very expensive, so this gallery was a showstopper. And it's a showstopper now.

Since Jeff and I were there in the morning, the lighting wasn't as dramatic. You can kind of see us in the center of the photo. And you can really see Jeff here.

Lookin' pretty good for a sick man!

Jeff's previous trip to Versailles was in the afternoon/early evening, and he took a lovely photo of the moon rising over the palace.

Seeing that photo makes me feel sad, as Jeff was nursing a broken heart at the time, but at the same time I'm so glad he's with me now.

West of the palace: the formal gardens, the canal, and the rest of the grounds that go on for as far as the eye can see. As stupendous as the palace was, I took the vast majority of my photos outdoors that day. Early spring--what an amazing time to be there.

Dewy daffodils and tulips were in bloom in the formal gardens near the palace, and I mined them for future painting gold.

So fresh and beautiful!

It was like they weren't even real.

The dewdrops were so perfect it seemed like Versailles had employed someone to walk around misting the flowers all day.

I couldn't get over how peaceful it was, far from the bustling city, with an infinite number of trees and singing birds. It reminded me of Illinois, just a little bit.

We walked (there was so much walking that day) to the palace's summertime getaway, and beyond that was Marie Antoinette's Hameau de la reine, a model village with a mill and twelve cottages, nine of which are still standing.

The buildings were small, quaint, and situated near a pond with ducks, geese, and a swan.

"Watch me Thomas Kinkade the hell out of this photo," I told Jeff before taking the following picture.

More gardens, more flowers:

Jeff waited patiently for me as I knelt down and snapped away.

He took some photos himself, including this amazing 300 year-old tree.

And I took this one.

During the week we were in Paris, we saw dozens of trees laden with fantastic pink blossoms that looked more like pompoms (see top photo). I couldn't get enough of them.

We strolled around Versailles for three or four hours before we left for lunch at L'Angelique, the fanciest restaurant of our trip, about a mile from the palace. Do click on that link; they have some great photos.

This was another situation where we guessed and pointed at the inscrutable French menu and put our trust in the chef. After we left, we noticed an English translation of the menu in the window and took a photo of it. I've marked the items we selected with J and K. (My dessert wasn't included on this menu, hence no K down there, but please don't panic. I totally had dessert.)

I love "Menu for everybody" at the bottom.

Let's see what they made for us! Please excuse any blurriness--this place was so nice and I was trying to be discreet.

This was Jeff's foie terrine with artichokes. Nice.

When I ordered this, the only word I recognized was "Iberico," and I thought "veloute" might mean something soft like velour. I was rewarded with a creamy watercress soup. In the middle were five or six small slices of what I declared "the best meat I have ever tasted." I thought it was beef and so did Jeff, but it was that famous Spanish ham, so tender I could cut it with a spoon, and so flavorful I couldn't quite believe it. Major.

Next Jeff had a perfectly cooked piece of fish with beans in a butter sauce (bonus foam). On the top was what we think was a fried zucchini flower.

Mine (below) was a charlotte of scallops, and the only reason I ordered a charlotte was because I have always liked that word.

It was so beautiful! The scallops were arranged into a cylindrical form on a bed of baby spinach. Inside the charlotte: artichokes in a tiny dice. It was topped with lime zest and surrounded by an ethereal lime-butter foam. Divine.

Finally, dessert!

Jeff--surprise, Jeff!--had pears with sesame nougat and prune jam. Some kind of caramel component was happening. I can't get over that dried pear slice. Pretty as this was, I was the big winner this time around:

I mean, you can tell this is awesome just by looking at it, no? Ice cream of indeterminate flavor. Whiskey? I don't drink, but it was lovely. Cinnamon/caramel brushstrokes. Chocolate rolls, tightly coiled, that burst into many shards when tapped. The star: a soft caramel dome containing chocolate mousse, and hidden inside that? Hazelnut filling. Basically everything good in the world is in that dessert.

And there was much appreciative murmuring and affectionate cooing going on at our table. Writing about this meal makes today's leftover tomato soup seem very humdrum indeed. Humdrum recipe available here.

We returned to Paris on the train. Sitting across from us were two young women from Turkey who were puzzling over a map. Jeff helped them figure out which stop they wanted. He received big smiles in return and a couple of follow-up questions such as, "How do you pronounce the name of that river?" I love watching Jeff be a hero.

We got off at Notre Dame, walked along the Seine, which is pronounced sen, by the way, and shared a gelato from the famous Berthillon on Ile St Louis. What a gorgeous day that was. The bridge where this photo was taken had a fence covered with padlocks with the names of couples on them. (Painting idea?)

We peeked inside Shakespeare and Co. (hi Terry), which was too crowded to really enjoy...

...but I took a couple of quick pictures of the books because that's kind of my thing.

The Metro was having problems that afternoon, so we walked the rest of the way home, a couple of miles. We picked up a tiny rotisserie chicken and some clementines along the way and snacked on it later that night in the apartment.

It was our last night in Paris, and Jeff was coughing in earnest once we went to bed. He did what he could to medicate himself, and he managed to endure the insanity of Charles de Gaulle and the plane ride home the next day without seeming to suffer too much. (He's on antibiotics and a cough suppressant now and is well on the road to recovery.) 

Jeff plans to write a guest blog here regarding the ins and outs of planning a trip to Paris and how he saved us money at virtually every turn. He truly was the brains of this operation, and I am so thankful for all the time he spent making sure we had a great vacation.

Thanks also to everyone who managed to wade through my ramblings. These trips seem more real to me once I've written about them, and I try to do that as soon as I can after we return. I don't want to forget anything!

You can find the rest of our trip to Paris using these links. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6. And if you're so inclined, you can read about last year's Spain trip starting here.

DIY Vanilla Extract

"I need a bottle of cheap vodka," I announced to the owner of St. Joseph Liquor and Wine, one of several local booze outlets. He smiled in a yeah right kind of way when I clarified: "It's for a recipe."

But it was!

Spoiler alert if you are Poof, Mom, or Ryan: this year I made you guys homemade vanilla. And it was so easy!

A couple of months ago I saw a recipe on the internet, and in typical me fashion, I wasn't satisfied until I had made some, too. And while it's too late for you, dear reader, to be a hero tomorrow, you can get going on this during the lag time between Christmas and New Year's and keep it all to yourself! Because--show of hands--who hates buying vanilla?

ALL OF US.

It's so expensive, and it comes in those tiny bottles that last maybe two weeks if you do any baking at all. Then it's back to the store for more vanilla. And you're tempted to buy those big containers of the discount fake vanilla, but you know that in the back of your head you will hear Martha Stewart wondering why you're not using "pure vanilla extract" or Ina Garten urging you to use "really good vanilla" as you dump suspicious brown chemicals into your precious, precious baked goods.

The tyrrany of the red and white McCormick box is officially over, my friends!

So here's what you need:

1. Glass containers with lids or hermetic stoppers that you can seal tightly, as many as you like. Dark containers (such as brown or green) are preferable to clear ones, but if you promise to keep your vanilla away from light, it doesn't matter. I ordered six flask-shaped bottles from The Container Store. It looks like they're sold out as of right now, probably because people are finally starting to learn how to make their own vanilla. But I'm sure you can find containers. You could probably even use, like, a barbeque sauce bottle as long as you sterilize the heck out of it.

2.Vodka, enough to fill the containers. Miraculously, Jeff had a 95% full bottle of premium vanilla vodka lurking in the back of our liquor cabinet for some reason. He donated it to my vanilla cause. It almost filled my bottles but not quite, so I drove uptown for cheap vodka to top them off. Coincidentally, the brand name for the cheap stuff was McCormick.

3. Vanilla beans. How many? One bean per 1/3 cup of vodka. I'm sorry, but it looks like you're going to have to do some math. I bought mine online from Beanilla, and so should you--getting beans in the mail is fun. I decided to go with Tahitian vanilla beans because remember when Paul Gauguin went to Tahiti?

I really had no idea what the difference was between Beanilla's ten varieties and was too excited about the prospect of making vanilla to do any real research. But when the Tahitian beans arrived a few days later, they were long, glossy, flexible, and positively reeking of vanilla, all of which I took to be good signs.

That is all you need: bottles, vodka, and vanilla beans.

Then once you've figured out how many beans should go in your bottles (again, one bean per 1/3 cup vodka), simply split the beans lengthwise, leaving one end intact. Or, if you are dealing with small bottles/large beans and you have to snip them in half to fit, leave both ends intact. (Actually, I kind of can't see how leaving the ends intact would matter one way or the other.)

Put the split beans in the bottles, fill to the top with vodka, seal the bottles, and store them in a cool, dark place for at least six weeks before using, peeking at them occasionally and feeling awesome about yourself.

SIX LONG WEEKS.

The longer you let them sit, the darker the vanilla will become. My photos show the vanilla at five weeks, and as you can see, it's brown but not super dark yet. I'm going to tell my vanilla recipients to start using theirs around Martin Luther King Day, but I already began using mine today (you'd better believe I'm keeping one). It smelled fantastic and tasted and worked exactly like ordinary vanilla.

Also you can replenish your vanilla with more vodka/beans as needed, says the recipe, but I'm not exactly sure how you'll know when to replace the beans. Perhaps something funky will happen to them over time. We just don't know.

Decorate your cute bottle with a snazzy ornament (or not), and let the savings begin!

You might be thinking, "You know, after you factor in the amount of money she spent on bottles, beans, vodka, and snazzy ornaments, this probably costs about as much as reg--"

SHUT UP! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Chocolate Panna Cotta

Well, this is just fantastic. Like a mousse, but firmer. Like a pudding, but richer. Like a custard, but loaded with chocolate. Like an underbaked brownie, but without flour. ??? Panna cotta is hard to describe, but you should definitely eat some.

This is from Giada's Kitchen, the one where she's on the cover zesting a lemon and looking at the camera with just a whisper of a Bruce Springsteen-like underbite. The panna cotta is not hard to make, although you'll want to read the recipe carefully a couple of times before you start it, as there are lots of steps and bowls involved. You'll be heating up one thing, melting another, waiting for stuff to dissolve, putting things in water baths, and so on.

It's all worth it, trust me. You won't be able to stop thinking about this panna cotta once you've had some, and it's even better the next day. I didn't bother to add the almonds, and my whipped cream appears to be nozzle-formed, doesn't it? Sorry; it's been a madcap week. If you feel like taking your panna cotta over the top, I've included Giada's amaretto whipped cream instructions, and you can do with them what you will.

Giada says you can eat this 30 minutes after it comes out of the oven, but I think it's so much better after it has chilled for a few hours.

I appreciate your comments about Bun! She is bouncing back and enjoying her new food. I'm so relieved to see her returning to normal. Actually, she's a little better than normal. Thanks to her new meds administered by Our Hero Jeff...

...things are moving through her system with ease, and she appears to be a lot more comfortable. Here she is surrounded by art supplies on my painting table; you can really get a sense of how tiny she is!

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups cold whole milk
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 packet unflavored gelatin
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 (12-ounce) bag bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar
• 1 tablespoon almond liqueur such as Amaretto

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Butter a 2-quart casserole dish.

In a small saucepan, combine 1½ cups of the milk, the granulated sugar, and the vanilla. Bring to a simmer and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat.

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the remaining ½ cup of cold milk and let it dissolve for 2 minutes (I let mine dissolve for a lot longer, like maybe 10 minutes). Combine the cold milk and gelatin with the hot milk and sugar. Stir to dissolve the gelatin, about 5 minutes. (Heat the milk gently if the gelatin is not dissolving easily.) When the gelatin is dissolved, combine the eggs with the warm milk mixture, whisking constantly to avoid scrambling the eggs. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a large measuring cup or small pitcher.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate over simmering water in a double boiler. When the chocolate is melted, gradually combine the milk and egg mixture with the melted chocolate, stirring between each addition to create a smooth chocolate mixture.

Pour the mixture into the prepared dish. Sprinkle the top with the almonds. Place the casserole dish in a larger baking pan or roasting pan and add hot water to the larger pan until the water comes halfway up the sides of the casserole dish. Place both pans in the oven and bake the panna cotta until the sides are firm and the center just jiggles slightly, about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes.

Just before serving, whip the cream to soft peaks in a medium bowl using a whisk or electric hand mixer. Add the confectioners’ sugar and almond liqueur and whip to combine. Spoon the panna cotta into individual serving bowls and dollop the top with the almond whipped cream.

Roger & Me

"We're off to Ebertfest so Kelly can meet this pen pal of hers," Jeff announced on his Facebook page early Thursday morning.

We had been invited to a breakfast reception at the Illini Union honoring Roger Ebert. This was part of the kick-off festivities for Ebertfest, his annual film festival held over five days in Champaign, Illinois, Roger's old stomping grounds, coincidentally six miles from our house. Not the kind of people who typically do well in "meet and greet" situations, and definitely not the kind of people who are used to wearing tags around our necks that say "VIP," we were a little intimidated by the whole scene. Attendees included a number of Ebert's film critic proteges from all over the world, such as Ebert Presents wunderkind Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, festival donors, and a smattering of Ebert Club members (you should join the club!).

In our usual tragically punctual way, we were the first people to arrive at the reception, and after some awkward "are we even in the right place?" confusion, we hung up our coats and shyly wandered into the ballroom. Soon we were met by a few other attendees, many of whom were staying in the Union for the duration of the festival, and we helped ourselves to the muffin-and fruit-laden buffet.

(Gah! My least-flattering angle. "Your forehead is glowing nicely!" --Jeff, upon seeing this shot.)

About an hour passed during which we became acquainted with some of Roger's Far-Flung Correspondents and young film critic pals, including Kevin B. Lee,  Ali Arikan, Kenji Fujishima, and the guy from The House Next Door who calls himself "The Odienator." These obvious festival "cool kids" already knew each other but were nice enough to include the two oddballs whose connection to Ebertfest was tenuous at best. I gave them postcards of my painting of Mabel as I explained the random yet awesome way that Roger Ebert had changed my life this year. And then...

Enter Roger Ebert.

After the applause died down, a representative from Ebertfest whose name I sadly can't recall made a few remarks about the film festival as Roger looked on, studying the crowd. We made eye contact a few times, and I'm sure I was grinning ear to ear.

When I was a teacher, I could always identify The Smart Kids at the beginning of the school year. It's in their eyes--a constant processing of visual information along with a spark of appraisal. Even across a large room, Roger Ebert had the most intense gaze that I have ever encountered. "His eyes were like lasers," I told Jeff's daughter Melissa the next day. This man has made his fortune thanks to his extraordinary ability to see, understand, edit, and evaluate--how could his gaze not be intense? And the fact that he is unable to speak has to have made his eyes even more expressive. I should have been prepared for that, but I wasn't. It was slightly unnerving but altogether wonderful to be caught in his line of vision.

Roger moved to a leather couch beneath two paintings of pheasants several feet away from our table. Rather sweetly, he had each of his forty or so guests stand and introduce themselves. I babbled something about being a local painter whose work Roger was quietly promoting on his blog and Twitter before turning to him and dissolving into "thank you thank you thank you" as he clapped for me. Later, whenever new people entered the room, Roger was the first to notice, and he made sure that they too had a chance to introduce themselves.

After the introductions, Roger sat back and watched the people whose lives he had touched and woven together. One by one, "like kids visiting Santa" as Jeff said, guests approached him, offering gifts and starstruck praise. He wrote brief messages using a black G2 pen on a small spiral notepad and posed for photos.

Monica Valero, artist and wife of Far-Flung Correspondent Gerardo, was featured along with me a couple of months ago in this blog by Roger. She was at the breakfast and presented Roger with a small, detailed watercolor of him with Gene Siskel. He beckoned me to come over and see it. It was a beautiful piece. "Both are artists," Roger wrote on his notepad, pointing back and forth between the two of us. I shook his hand and sincerely thanked him once more--again with the lasers, although these were extremely kind lasers--and he underlined the word "artists." Meanwhile Jeff was locked in a discussion with The Odinator, facing away from Roger's couch, so he didn't get a chance to take a photo of me with The Great Man, but that was okay. I'd had my moment! Not wanting to monopolize Roger's time, I moved on and talked with Monica a bit before returning to Jeff.

Eventually all of the Cool Kids were stopping by Roger's couch, saying things like, "My mom would kill me if I didn't get a photo with you," and Jeff volunteered to do the honors, juggling multiple cell phones, because that's the kind of person he is. I stood beside him and managed to tell Roger between photo-ops, "This is my husband Jeff." He wrote on his pad, "A fine unit." Heh!

Many of the attendees had to participate in Ebertfest panel discussions elsewhere in the Union that morning, so the breakfast ended about an hour after Roger arrived. We put on our coats and exited the room. Roger was standing in the hallway with his nurse. Jeff managed to officially greet Roger and get a handshake, and soon we were on our way back to our car.

The festival itself was incredible, and thanks to the passes that Roger was generous enough to give us, Jeff and I were able to see whatever films we liked and sit in a plummy reserved section of the Virginia. But that's for another post. Today I just wanted to tell you about the time I met that pen pal of mine.

And now, a postscript from Jeff, the other half of this here fine unit.

So many thoughts were flowing through my brain when I shook Roger's hand. It's difficult to summarize a lifetime of admiration for a person into "hello." In my previous job, I had opportunities to meet a few celebrities, but this was different because I don't think of Roger Ebert first as a celebrity, but as an intellectual, and those meetings are rare.

Roger certainly speaks truth to power, and, as Tilda Swinton so eloquently stated during the festival, he does so from a foundation of hope. He has been challenged in these last few years, but what has emerged is a growing breadth of writing that increases the web-o-sphere's awareness of beauty and politics and science and, of course, mortality.

I told him that I admired him. What I also wanted to say is that I understand him. Even if he knows it, I wanted to tell him that so many of us do. He is a voice, a truly lasting voice for those of us who want to world to be as he imagines, but who do not have the ability to say so in such eloquent ways.

PS I also wanted to pitch The Troll Hunter for Ebertfest 2012. :) [I do not concur.--K]

Spain: Montserrat and Getting Home

Jeff wanted to take a daytrip to Montserrat, and I had some mental images of the place, but it turned out that everything I knew was wrong.

You know how random, useless fun facts not only clutter your brain but they can stay with you for thirty years or more? Here's a fun fact I've been carrying around in my head since junior high:

The Police recorded their 1981 album "Ghost in the Machine" on the island of Montserrat.

Has this item ever come up in casual conversation? NOT ONCE. But there it is, on the tip of my mind at all times.

But what do you know? We were actually going to Montserrat, which Jeff had described as a sort of island, maybe...cut off from the rest of Spain, somehow. Huh! Guess what, Jeff? The Police recorded their 1981 album "Ghost in the Machine" there! Jeff was nonplussed by this thrilling information.

This is what I pictured when I thought about Montserrat, conveniently forgetting the race of the extras in the video; sorry, but I hadn't looked at this in decades.

 

Unfortunately, we were not going to an island in the Caribbean called Montserrat. We were going to a mountain that was near the coast of Spain called Montserrat. And that mountain looks like this:

The name means jagged (or serrated) mountain, and it really does look like a serrated bread knife, with its numerous jaggedy peaks that are around 4,000 feet high. A Benedictine monastery sits near the top along with a small art museum boasting a Caravaggio. Getting there was an hour's journey by train from Barcelona. Once we were in the vicinity of the mountain, a second train took us up to the monastery. The view along the way was lovely as we gained altitude.

And the view when we arrived was spectacular (see top photo). The monastery itself was small but beautiful with exquisite sculptural decorations throughout, and I marveled at the dedication and skill that went into building it (and getting all of the necessary materials up there--what a thankless job that must have been).

Inside:

We were very lucky to be able to listen to the Montserrat’s Boys’ Choir, one of the oldest in Europe. They occasionally perform during religious ceremonies and communal prayers in the basilica, and we just happened to be there at the right time. A closer view:

Their angelic voices were deeply moving. While I have been in many beautiful churches and cathedrals, I've never heard a boys' choir's voices flooding the interior with music before, and this added a layer of beauty to an already impressive space. Above the choir is a small nook below an arch containing a golden statue. Before the boys' choir performed, Jeff and I worked our way up there.

This is the Virgin of Montserrat. It's one of the so-called black Madonnas of Europe, hence its familiar Catalan name, la Moreneta ("The little dark-skinned one"). Believed by some to have been carved in Jerusalem in the early days of the Church, it is more likely a Romanesque wooden sculpture from the late 12th century. Legend has it that the Benedictine monks could not move the statue to construct their monastery, choosing to instead build around it. The Virgin is surrounded by glass, exept for a small cutout area where visitors are allowed to touch the globe she holds.

The small room holding the Virgin is high above the altar, as I mentioned before, with an open window bordered by a shaky-looking gate that was knee-high at best on me. It would have been so easy to have fallen out of there, and I felt my fear of heights more intensely there than any other place in Europe, no joke. Just writing about it now is making my hands sweat. But there Jeff was, effortlessly taking photos of the sculpture, even backing up to get better shots as I silently freaked out. Did I marry a robot?

The museum was skippable with lots of filler, although we can't resist a Caravaggio opportunity. This one was a very fine St. Jerome.

Back down the mountain we went--by then it was mid-afternoon--and once we had returned to Barcelona, the restaurant we had wanted to visit for lunch was closed. This was a shame because it specializes in luxury canned seafood, which sounds odd, but apparently Spain is doing amazing things with canned mussels and other delicacies. But it was not to be. We went to a bar, picked up some overpriced jamon sandwiches for the road, and took off for our hotel. We arranged for a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call and taxi to the airport and turned in early, hoping our flight to Chicago wouldn't be cancelled.

We arrived at the airport the next morning, and hey, guess what?

OUR FLIGHT WAS CANCELLED!

The check-in woman at Iberia airlines--who gave off a "you dumbasses, don't you realize there's going to be a blizzard?" vibe--directed us to the dreaded side desk across the way reserved for problem passengers who don't realize there's going to be a blizzard.

The woman at the side desk informed us that there was going to be a blizzard, and that's why our flight was cancelled. Ya don't say? She began talking in Spanish to one of her co-workers, and the two of them disappeared behind the dreaded wall behind the dreaded side desk and stayed there for what seemed like ten minutes. Jeff and I resigned ourselves to the idea of staying in Barcelona until the storm was over, or maybe we'd fly most of the way home, to Detroit, for example, and wait there until it was safe to go home. And I was secretly deeply disappointed because I was going to miss The Storm of the Century, and I love to be in the middle of Storms of the Century!

The side desk woman returned with, amazingly, two tickets to London (where they speak English!) with connecting flight tickets to Chicago. Both flights left a couple of hours earlier than our original flight, but if we high-tailed it through security and to the gate, we might be able to get to Chicago before the storm hit.

(Note: Barcelona is seven hours ahead of Chicago, so while we were getting our tickets, it was around midnight on Monday in Chicago, i.e. 14 hours before the storm was scheduled to hit: 2:00 p.m. Tuesday. We were due to arrive in Chicago at 1:00 p.m., magically crossing time zones from east to west, chasing the sun. This helped to buy us some time.)

We breezed through security so quickly I don't remember a thing about it, managed to throw some breakfast into our stomachs, and emailed our loved ones about our progress. The flight to London was brisk and painless. Once inside Heathrow we checked the big board--somehow our flight to Chicago was still good to go! We sped to the gate and made it with about ten minutes to spare. And since I feel bad about not providing lots of photos at this point in the blog, here is a picture of London to commemorate our 30 minutes in its airport.

Once on the plane, we settled in for a soothing and not-at-all-stressfull seven hour flight. Our pilot had his Chuck Yeager voice on, and while he seemed concerned about the blizzard, he didn't think he'd have any problem getting us home. Ahh.

So really all we had to worry about was the 3-hour drive to our house downstate. Which we could probably do. Yeah! We're tough. We know how to drive in snow.

The flight was long, and we didn't even think about sleeping. We read, journaled, and watched Waiting for Superman on our personal entertainment screens, or whatever you call them. The movie is a documentary about the state of public schools, and in case you didn't know, lots of them suck! I'm glad I'm not a teacher anymore, I thought glibly as we soared over Greenland and into the gaping maw of the Worst Blizzard of This Dispensation, or as Roe Conn and other cool Chicagoans would start to call it, SNOWPRAH.

I wish I could give you the full effect of what it's like to be stressed out yet bored for seven hours, but I think the best thing you could do is to leave this blog and go sit in a tiny hot room with a small television with one good movie and seven so-what movies. Also you have a book, and also your feet are becoming so swollen that you're going to need to relace your boots. People come around from time to time to give you little snacks. Also, no matter how long you've been awake, the sun stays in the same place in the sky. OH and there's a guy sitting in a fully-reclined chair directly in front of you, and his floppy knit hat is about six inches away from your face at all times. And you're worried. That's what it's like.

Eventually, though, the little plane on the animated flight map seemed to indicate that we were over Lake Michigan, and eventually though thick clouds we could see the grid of Chicago. It looked like it had received a dusting of snow earlier in the day, as promised by The Weather Channel, and was awaiting The Big Snow. "I can see the roads!" I exclaimed to Jeff. It looked like we might make it home just in the nick of time!

Once we landed, though, there was the matter of escaping from O'Hare: getting though the line in Customs, having our bags sniffed for agricultural products by an adorable, line-roving dog, meeting the shuttle that would take us to our car, and my favorite, going to the bathroom. It all went as smoothly as possible, and we were lucky because ours was one of the last non-cancelled flights, so O'Hare was as empty as I'd ever seen it. We were in our car and ready to drive home at 2:00, and that's when it started to snow.

Started. Which was OK! We could still see the road; in fact, the slush and ice were downright minimal. We had to drive about forty miles before we were out of Chicago Proper, and then it was a two-hour straight shot down to our house.

The only problem was: everybody at work in Chicago had decided to make an early afternoon of it so they could beat the storm, too, and it was bumper-to-bumper traffic from the very beginning. Rush hour traffic in Chicago is one thing, but when you add heavy snow into the mix, it's one nightmarish driving situation. We were crawling along between 15-35 m.p.h. the entire time as the roads deteriorated rapidly. We began to slip and slide here and there and ice accumulated on our windshield wipers. Jeff did an admirable job of driving in this dangerous situation. Downstate friends and family I called told us to get a room, fast. I navigated on my phone and searched for a hotel on Jeff's phone. I booked a room for us in Monee, Illinois, a.k.a. The Place We Usually Get Gas On Our Way Home From Chicago. We just barely made it up the exit ramp and drove to Monee's Best Western.

The jovial clerk at the front desk informed us that we had snagged one of their last rooms (luckily non-smoking). Lots of truckers were already safe and warm in the hotel, and we were relieved to be able to join their ranks. The room was actually very nice, with a good heater, HBO, and a totally fine bathroom. Except we had no food, and if the blizzard was going to hit us as hard as everyone was saying, we'd need to think fast. There was no way we were going to drive anywhere, but there was a Burger King across the way.

And this is when my Jeff swooped in and, as Nic Cage in Con Air would say, saved the fuckin' day. (Note: photo above is blurred because of Jeff's superhuman speed.) In his suitable-for-50-degrees jacket, he ran over to the Burger King, bought four of those big, awful-for-you-but-delicious chicken sandwiches, and sprinted back before the perfect storm became...perfect.

It really had it all. Wind gusts around 60 m.p.h., 1-3 inches of snow per hour, and crazy things like thundersnow (which happened closer to Chicago).

 

I mean, if I had to spend days worrying about a snowstorm, it had better deliver. From our perch in Monee, we felt like we were close to the epicenter of what turned out to be one of Chicago's top three storms, with 20 inches of snow. Honestly, I am so glad I was able to witness it because it was incredible.

Once the snow was over the next day, frigid air swept in and the winds howled--we had to stay at the hotel a second night, no question about it, and Jeff ventured outside multiple times to start the car and help people dig out their vehicles (using the hotel's lone shovel). We continued to chip away at those sandwiches and ate stuff from the vending machines and a couple of surprisingly good complimentary continental breakfasts. In short: Pioneer Days!

We were able to drive home on Thursday morning--IDOT did an amazing job clearing the interstates--and were reunited with three joyous cats and one lemme-outta-here! woman. Jeff's mom took great care of Bun, Pache, and Q, but she was going a little stir-crazy, understandably, and we just wanted to sit on the couch and stare into space for, like, two whole days.

Thank you for reading this jumbo travelogue, and I appreciate your comments! I will reply to them as soon as my hands recover from all this typing. As for Spain: you should go. Learn the language as much as you can first, but definitely go.

 

On teaching

(Note: predictably, I've buried the lede.)

Above: a photo from my old classroom in Oregon, IL, a former industrial arts room where I taught high school art for eleven years.  This was the biggest class I had ever taught, and my camera was unable to capture the students beyond the left side of the photo and the half-dozen advanced students I sequestered in an unused office across the hall.  I somehow managed to teach 40 teenagers during that after-lunch class.  The numbers on the photo were added for a long-forgotten Livejournal entry I wrote about my room, and I'm sure it went something like this:

1. Corner of black and white U2 poster, ca. 2001.

2. Old supply lockers we painted to resemble paintings by Picasso.  Rumor has it that my successor got rid of them as soon as she moved in, which is a shame because the resemblance was uncanny.

3. Mysterious and giant taxidermied golden eagle (I think) that was in the room when I started teaching; I had the kids draw it every once in a while.

4. Probably uninsulated concrete blocks on two exposed walls ensured that the room was ice cold in the winter.

5. Beloved bulletin board that I always crammed with art, music, and movie posters.  (Pink Floyd provided an easy colors-of-the-spectrum visual aid; also on the board that year were The Beatles, Super Fly, The Clash, Taxi Driver, Fargo, and We Can Do It.)

6. Terrible farmer's milkin' stools provided no back support.  Somebody donated an old church pew for extra seating under the bulletin board, and I also had a cafeteria table way in the corner, where the bad kids always wanted to sit, thus making it extra hard for me to get to them.

7. Here's one of the busted-up artist desks we bought that fell apart within a few years, unable to deal with the wear and tear this many kids managed to dish out on a daily basis.  I made repairs with duct tape.

Overcrowding and underfunding were the main reasons I took the job at Unity High School in southern Champaign County, with its immaculate building and an art room that was designed to be an art room.

I taught at Unity for six years before taking this year off to concentrate on painting.  And after giving the matter a lot of thought, I've decided to continue to concentrate on painting.  I am going to turn in my letter of resignation to my principal and revisit my now-former students and colleagues this afternoon, and I hope they will understand.

I had intended to return to my job during the 2011-12 school year, but this fall's cancer scare shook me to my core.  I've already written so much about it. Suffice it to say that it crystallized my feelings about my need to paint.  When I thought about the prospect of cancer and especially dying from cancer, I felt concern for two things: my husband/family and the pictures I would never get to paint, future paintings I had been reserving for summer vacations and my retirement years.  I didn't think about the classes I'd never get to teach, not even once. 

The idea that I might die before I'd finally get to paint seemed so unfair, not to mention the fact that it might happen during a time of happiness and love after so many years of loneliness.  Luckily my cancer scare turned out to be nothing, but before I could know this, I had the entire month of September to meditate on WHAT IF.

I've also been thinking about my relatives.  My mother's side of the family is extremely long-lived, but my father's side...not so much.  When I remember my uncle Dale, his hands and body plagued by the tremors of Parkinson's, or my aunt Elaine, whose vision faded until she was nearly blind, I am reminded that painting is a physical activity.  Obviously it takes a freakishly steady hand and the eyesight of an eagle to produce a painting like this one...

...and just like everybody else, I have been given no guarantee that my hand and my eyes will remain in their current condition for the rest of my life. 

(Above: the view from my OHS classroom.  UHS did not have a view.)

At its best, teaching is outrageously fulfilling and even heroic.  Former students tell me that I changed their lives.  I was the only reason they wanted to come to school.  I made them laugh and let them know that somebody cared about them during the toughest years of their lives.  They see me buying groceries and shriek with joy, fawning over me as if I'm a rock star.  They leave messages for me on Facebook in all caps and studded with multiple exclamation points.  I've watched these kids go on to become artists and parents and doctors and musicians and even teachers, and I think of these fine people with an aching fondness.  (Below, a mural my OHS students and I painted of some of the good kids.)

At its worst, teaching is fraught with a factory-like repetition and even humiliation.  As I've said before, during any given school year I learned to expect two events so heartwarming that I'd be moved to tears, and two events so demoralizing that I'd question why I chose to be a teacher in the first place.  I've been robbed, stalked, harassed, pushed into lockers, accused of racism and, conversely, had my room ransacked and decorated with Confederate flags by kids who didn't agree with my views about equality.  I've dealt with more than my fair share of drug addicts, sociopaths, alcoholics, bullies, bigots, future criminals, and just plain assholes. 

And then there are the well-meaning but headbashingly tactless students.  A couple of years ago I was secretly mourning the fact that Jeff and I are unable to have biological children.  One day I made the critical error of tucking in a shirt that probably shouldn't have been tucked in and standing with less-than-perfect posture while taking attendance.  This prompted a cluster of perfectly sweet but mostly clueless 8th grade girls to send a representative to my desk to ask me if I was pregnant.  "Um, no, but thank you so much for asking," I told her.  Later the girls came to me, very sorry and one on the verge of tears.  I turned the whole thing into a teachable moment.  But did this little incident screw up my body image for a very long time, even to this day?  Of course it did.

My dad was a P.E. teacher and coach.  He was (and is) an amazing athlete.  He tried out for the Chicago White Sox as a pitcher, but they cut him in favor of a bigger guy.  Dad went into teaching for the same reason that I did: financial independence.  Sort of.  It's not like the job pays all that much, but at least we were able to be around the activities we loved and make an okay living off our somewhat unmarketable skills.  (And most importantly, since he was a teacher and a father, Dad didn't have to go to Vietnam.) 

But here's the thing that depressed us both: we could demonstrate our unmarketable skills, but we couldn't actually practice them for real.  Instead we had to watch and teach other people how to do the things that we loved and could do better ourselves.  We were jealous of our students because they were the ones who got to play baseball, and they were the ones who got to paint.  We came up with great activities to help them learn how to do things that seemed to come to us effortlessly.  And the vast majority of them liked but didn't love baseball and painting the way we did, and lots of them sucked at baseball and painting.  And a few of them whined and refused to try, and those were the ones that killed us.  It was insulting, and I gave all of my students 17 years of my creative life.  Dad gave his students 40.

This fall, as I've finally been able to paint every day for hours and hours, I feel such peace.  Life as an artist is not without its own special humiliations, but for the first time in 36 years, my life is not controlled by bells.  I don't have to drive 44 miles a day; instead I walk up 14 steps to get to my job.  Nobody asks me if they can go to the bathroom.  It's blissfully quiet.  I don't have to put on a Miss Eddington costume.  I can eat an actual lunch.  I have windows.  My brain is not cluttered with a catalog of 51,000 student art projects and 4,000 names (conservative career estimates).  This is exactly what I am supposed to be doing, I think to myself as I sit down to paint.  I couldn't do this without Jeff's support, and I thank him so much for helping me take these first baby steps into my life's third act, which I hope will be long, productive, maybe even prosperous, and very, very healthy.

I was Girl X

Today we chuckle at detective stories set in a pre-cell phone era, footage of weather forecasting before Doppler radar, and the very thought of researching a paper using microfilm or freakin' microfiche.  We shake our heads in amazement while watching documentaries about Mormon pioneers walking from Illinois to Utah or our grandparents’ stories about outhouses. Oh aren’t olden days so quaint and unimaginable?  We have it so easy now!

And now that is how I view my life before the Internet.  How did I survive without it?  Growing up would have been so much easier had I been born twenty years later!  Join me, won't you, as I recount my fumbling quest for knowledge in the old-timey world before the Internet and groundbreaking sex-ed sites like Scarleteen were invented.

Remember when your parents used to look at your grades and say, "Why can't you be more like Girl X?"  I was Girl X, and I speak for all the intelligent, shy girls who were raised in a sexual vacuum, whose friends didn't talk about sex at all or at least not with them, and who were too square to be invited to join in their contemporaries' high school reindeer games.  It kind of goes without saying that my parents never told me much of anything, not that I ever asked.  Learning about sex in the late 70s/early 80s was like taking an independent study course with a couple of professors who couldn't be bothered to keep office hours.

When I was little, Dad's anatomy textbook fascinated me, and not just because of its expensive-looking transparent overlays showing various organs, although those were very cool.  The image of a cross-section of a woman's abdomen with an upside-down baby inside was burned into my memory.  I had seen big women like this and was able to conclude that babies come from inside women.  But how did they get there?  A man giving a woman "a special kind of hug," as I had heard it explained, seemed unsatisfyingly vague, but I didn’t care about it that much.  There were caterpillars to collect, cherry trees to climb, and teepees to draw.  

I quickly realized that the social aspect of school was a necessary evil--it wasn’t that I didn’t like my classmates, I just didn’t seem to have much in common with them, and holy crap we were learning how to READ!  My mind was being blown on a daily basis by teachers who were heroically cracking the code of letters and the sounds they made.  I was in awe, and the fact that I had to take breaks from figuring out that mystery and, you know, actually play was sort of the price I had to pay.  The boys were kind of nonentities  except for one, the tall-as-me and fabulously named Jimmy Blue, the only boy who seemed to take an interest in me.  He was probably my one hope for finding lifelong romance in my tiny town, but in second grade he moved to the other side of the state.  I sometimes wonder how radically different my life would have been had he stayed.

When I was in 4th and 5th grade, students were bused to a school building seven miles away, and I spent many of those bus rides sitting with Roger, a good kid I genuinely liked a lot, and I suppose he was my boyfriend in that he gave me a piece of petrified wood and a skinny scrap of white suede that he claimed was fringe from one of Elvis' stage costumes.  He was nice to me, and sometimes we even held hands, but our little-kid romance fizzled once we hit junior high and the bus rides ended.  And honestly, the seven boys in my class started to seem more like distant brothers as we got older.  In junior high I proceeded to develop hopeless, unrequited crushes on much older boys (high schoolers!) and people like Christopher Reeve in Superman II.  All the while I pined for a cute, smart boy from someplace exotic like Ohio who would move to our town and scoop me up.  I'd only have to wait 27 more years for that kid to make himself known to me.

When I was 11, Mom gave me a pamphlet called "Growing Up and Liking It," which featured a dated photograph of a smiling blonde teenage girl in a blue dress on the cover.  The pamphlet described menstruation and really seemed to push Modess ("rhymes with oh yes!") sanitary napkins, which no longer existed.  Included in the pamphlet was an insert about bras.  This was lavishly illustrated with drawings of fabulous, impossibly-stacked women wearing various bullet bras and did little more than cause me to want to become a fabulous, impossibly-stacked woman wearing various bullet bras.  The menstruation information, however, was old news.  They had already shown us The Film at school.  And that, apparently, was all we needed to know about sex.  Except they were skipping what seemed to be the most interesting part!  I’ve always believed that innocence is underrated but probably not the most practical thing in the world.  I was used to being The Smart Girl, and being ignorant about something that was so important was disturbing.  Being self-reliant, I set out to learn about sex via the only tools I had available to me: books.  I knew the act was called sex, so I consulted Webster's Student Dictionary, but looking up "sex" was a big disappointment to say the least.

I turned to fiction for help.  Judy Blume seemed to know what was going on, and I pored over Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret (useful, but not about sex), Then Again, Maybe I Won't (inscrutable at the time because it was a boy's story, but I knew I was on to something), and Deenie, which described scoliosis and what I later understood to be masturbation.  Deenie talked about getting in the bathtub, rubbing herself somewhere--I don't think she ever said exactly where--with a washcloth, and getting a "really nice feeling.”  So, of course, I tried rubbing my body in various places such as my stomach and arms with a washcloth, but I never experienced a sensation beyond "washcloth feeling."  It must be something weird that only Deenie does, I concluded.  I mean, the girl had problems.

Seventeen magazine had a column called Sex and Your Body, where an expert answered one or two questions per month.  It seemed to assume that its readers had a certain amount of knowledge and experience under their belts, and if the magazine didn’t cover anything that applied to you on a given month, that was too bad.

Lots of things started happening during my freshman year of high school.  I was a popular babysitter, and through those jobs I suddenly had access to cable TV and shocking R-rated fare such as Flashdance, which merely taught me some cool choreography and how to take my bra off while still wearing a shirt, a skill I utilize to this day. I was genuinely shocked to discover an issue of Playboy sitting on top of a family's magazine basket right there in the living room.  After much internal debate, I peeked inside it for about ten seconds, its pages seemingly made of lava. I quickly put it back exactly the way I found it and glanced at the basket uneasily whenever I babysat those kids.

Later that school year I had a period that lasted a month--it simply did not stop, and I told Mom, who was hugely pregnant with my sister.  She told me she’d get me an appointment with her doctor, by which I thought she meant “ordinary doctor I see when I have the flu,” and thus began what I like to refer to as The Great Gyno Ambush of 1983.  Before I knew what was happening, I was in the stirrups and getting an exam the likes of which I had never thought possible and a pill that eventually stopped my period.  For my cooperation, Mom let me buy a new Duran Duran album from the record store in the mall.  I was still no closer to understanding sex, but my eyes had been opened to one of the joys of being a woman.

A few weeks later, I was in a hospital waiting room as my sister Emily/Poof was being born.  Bored out of my mind and having exhausted my beloved stash of Creem magazines, I started reading the hospital's offerings from cover to cover.  I came across a Redbook with an excerpt from a popular romance novel reprinted on pulpy, peach-colored paper.  The story's heroine described an encounter with her lover and said something about "how good it felt to have him inside me."  This concept was a complete revelation to me: The man has to be inside the woman!  It all makes sense to me now!

Upon realizing that a man has to be inside the woman in order for sex to happen, and having a sketchy idea of where things were thanks to Growing Up and Liking It, everything seemed to fall into place (Tetris-style, with a few gaps here and there) thanks to books.  At sixteen I began working at our town's sleepy library, where I discovered an astonishingly robust cache of soft-core pornography written by bestselling authors like Judith Krantz (shockingly favored by old ladies I knew from church) and, remarkably, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask).  I couldn't believe that this book had not been discovered by one of the town's upright citizens, who would have undoubtedly organized a torch-hoisting mob hell-bent on burning the library to the ground.  To protect my library from certain destruction, I checked the book out to myself repeatedly, and what do you know, it answered a whole lot of my questions.  I was able to look at this (unillustrated) book at home, often right under the eyes of my parents, who took zero interest in anything I was reading.

All of this information was purely theoretical, of course, because on the social front, I was never asked out on a date or even to dance by any boy at my school and basically ignored.  I would sincerely like to ask the boys who knew me then, What was up with that?  My art teacher adored me and introduced me to her son Adam, whom I soon considered a boyfriend (while I’m sure he considered me a girl who was also a friend).  He lived 45 miles away, and we exchanged a rapid-fire, years-long correspondence of hand-drawn comics, collages, and hilarious letters, the significance of which I overestimated way too much.  We went to school dances together and saw each other once every couple of months or so.  Adam’s behavior went against every sex-crazed teen boy stereotype--he never pressured me for anything at all, and we shared an awkward first kiss on our seventh date, initiated by an exasperated me.  Adam loved his car so much he probably would have gone to 3rd base with it had that been physically possible (their love affair continues to this day, thank you, Google).

Back in my sex vacuum, I discovered "Sex Talk with Phyllis Levy" a talk show on Chicago's WLS radio station.  I listened to this on headphones at night, and the wonderful Phyllis filled in more to-be-used-at-a-later-date blanks for me.  Also on my headphones: Prince, who set the standard for what I thought all men sounded like during sex: screaming, howling, panting, hitting high Cs, etc.  Oh what a letdown I was in for...

Ultimately, the fact that I had to learn everything about sex through good old-fashioned library research wasn't so bad.  In the end I felt like I somehow owned sex.  I had to fight for it--it wasn’t  just handed to me. But it would have been so much easier if I’d had a box connected to a phone line connected to The Hive Mind.  I would have loved to have had a resource written specifically for teenagers that would have provided information, answered my questions, and if nothing else, let me know that I didn’t have to feel so alone.  Thankfully, that resource exists now.  It’s called Scarleteen, and a friend of mine from college asked me to write a blog about sex education to promote the site and hopefully help it raise some money.  Please check it out here and donate.  If you’re not sure what to give, ask yourself this: how much money would you have spent when you were a teenager to have this kind of information at your fingertips?

The Fine Arts Festival

Oh, Fine Arts Festival, you fill my heart with anticipation and dread, you clog my mind with lists, you cripple my feet and damn near break my back with your unending labor, and yet you always manage to be the coolest thing Unity High School does all year. 

The FAF (which I often mistype as FAG) was Thursday and Thursnight, and even though I hummed "No Surprises" by Radiohead on my way to school, the morning set-up was fraught with many spills and chills as usual. 

Here's what I learned from the FAF this year: never assume that anyone can put things where they're supposed to go.  Over the past couple of years, the fine students in Coach Bass's woods classes (that rhymes) and a kindly Eagle Scout (long story) have constructed eight of the handsome display units seen above.  These, in my opinion, have taken the FAF to the next level in terms of presentation.  They're so much more attractive than what we were forced to deal with in previous years, i.e., oversized pieces of cardboard attached to each other with duct tape and clamps and covered with craft paper.  Since our school can't afford and/or won't buy proper, outrageously priced display units, we decided to make our own.  And we had eight of them.

Except on the day of the show, we could only find seven.  Where is D.U.#8?  NOBODY KNOWS.  It is in another dimension.

 

So, even though I had the gym situation mapped out months ahead of time, suddenly I had to scramble kids around in the most diplomatic way possible.  Because everybody wants to be on a display unit.  Nobody wants to be on the bleacher end of the gym with Art 1, because let's face it, as a whole Art 1 is weak this year.  I'm sorry, Art 1, some of you are fabulous, but deep in your heart you know that many of you are bush league at best.  Just ask Art 2.

 

I rooted around backstage in the auditorium and dug up some flats from last weekend's musical.  I covered those big pieces of plywood with black craft paper, set them up on tables, and my students with artwork that didn't weigh very much taped their pictures to it.  It actually worked, looked nice, and carried a bit more prestige than the tri-fold cardboard things that Art 1 uses. 

 

(Ashlee's work, above, is representative of fabulous Art 1, not bush league Art 1.)

Anyway, that was just one of four big problems I had to solve immediately.  I was on my feet all day, answering questions, carrying things everywhere, picking up trash, sweating and looking awful in my work clothes, writing passes, adjusting crooked things, not drinking enough water, and never getting a chance to go to the bathroom.  But I've got to hand it to my students, especially the advanced kids: by the end of the school day, the show was up and looking...pretty damned great. 

I ducked into a bathroom (finally!), changed into something that was more art teacher than construction worker, and met my sweet husband as he made an after-work cameo appearance.  One of my students, the delightful and gorgeous Suegee, reportedly spotted Jeff while I was changing and gushed over him like he was a rock star.  "You're...YOU'RE HIM!!  OMG [squeeeeee!]!!!"  And Jeff was like, "Yes, I'm him."  

Soon enough, it was time for our big fashion show.  As I mentioned a couple of months ago, I gave my students an optional assignment to create a fantasy prom dress using unwanted formal dresses.  Which they did!  We spent about 45 minutes getting ready in the foods lab.

 

Each designer found a model and styled her to match her fill-in-the-blank prom theme.  I donated a few dresses to this cause, and I made one as well.

I gave everyone an impromptu Tim Gunn pep talk, and they got their game faces on.  These girls were awesome this year.  Everybody smiled, nobody was shy, and even if a dress didn't fit, they sold these looks.

 

I made a mix CD of suitable fashion show songs, including "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga and "Head On" by the Pixies, and that played while the models and designers prowled our little catwalk on the auditorium's stage.  Big crowd, lots of cheering, girls totally working it, celebrity faculty judges handing out medals--I've got to say it was our best show ever.  A triumph, even!

 

I encouraged our designers to get crazy with the themes, as our lone male participant did with his Black Widow Prom.  I turned a 23 year-old red dress that I wore to a college dance into Lady Gaga Prom.  I covered it with rhinestone stickers, added a belt that was too big but we still decided to go with it, and lifted the left side a bit. The adorable Maridy, who is about as close to the all-American girl ideal as you can get, was my totally game model.  Years ago I bought Poof a blond wig because she wanted to see what life was like on the other side of the fence, and Maridy wore that under a crazy-ass headdress.  I customized some super-cheap, 6-inch platform heels that, incredibly, my girl could walk in.  Unity grad and one of my favorite people Laura applied Maridy's makeup.  We tossed on some Purple Rain sunglasses, and boom, a girl who had stopped by her farm to feed her horse not even an hour earlier was transformed into the little monster you see above.  She adored the craziness of it all, and believe me, that girl shut it down.  Later she gleefully reported that she had scared small children, and I said, "Mission. Accomplished."

 

I rounded up as many of the designers and models as I could after the show for the obligatory group photo.

 

At this point I could barely walk.  I went backstage in the auditorium, where band director and music god Bill Jean was putting on a five-hour variety show.  I opened a door to get some air circulating back there (Bill: "YES PLEASE OPEN IT!"), and listened to Miranda (left) sing "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen as the sun set.  My work at the show was essentially over, and as the cool breeze soothed me, I enjoyed my first moment of relief and serenity. 

Then I spent the rest of the night watching Bill (and new choir director Ashley) work their magic in the auditorium, such a pleasure.  Laura joined me for a while and we had lots of laughs between acts, including the guitar-laden jazz rock band.  Jazz rock is always a show highlight with its crew of gangly axe men and Laura's sister Chloe, Unity's answer to Keith Moon, minus the alcoholism.  I couldn't get a decent shot of her drumming, but she's the model above in the red dress and black leather jacket.

After the show was over, I limped out to my car, exhaled, and said, "Flush."  All of the things that had occupied the bulk of my brain for weeks slipped away, leaving a most welcome, black void.  I drove home, jumped in the shower to wash the FAF off my skin, ate a chocolate brioche that Jeff was kind enough to buy for me, and promptly slipped into a coma.  And then it was back to school the next morning to tear it all down.

Dad, you married a spazz.

By request, here are some photos from our wedding.  A little over a year and a half ago, Jeff and I had planned a fabulous, peony-laden outdoor wedding at Allerton, an area state park.  Unfortunately for us, the weather did not cooperate (thunderstorms all morning, sauna in the afternoon), so a mere two hours before the wedding was supposed to start, we changed its location to our house.  Jeff and his parents scrambled to arrange the house and put up signs while I launched into a frantic series of phone calls to our guests.  The wedding's theme emerged: Kelly and Jeff are good sports.

Instead of lingering over my makeup and manicure, I searched for phone numbers and explained our house's location again and again.  I slapped on the kind of perfunctory, everyday makeup that I use to keep myself from scaring children and applied one coat of nail polish (no time for two!).  People started to arrive, including my brother and his daughter Ashley, the angriest flower girl in the whole wide world. 

Jeff got ready in that annoying "all I have to do is put on my clothes" way of his, exuding effortless movie star cool at all times. 

Mom laced me into my dress (please note the red shoes that I wore at Poof's wedding--Jeff gave me a lucky penny ordered from Ireland that I taped to the sole), and before I knew it, it was go time.  

Dad and I hid upstairs in Melissa's room--soon to become my studio.  I remember watching steam rise from the roof of the garage through that window.  It was hot up there and I promptly began to sweat.  Er, glow.

Luckily it was a small wedding, and we were able to pack everyone into our living room, including a number of my students and friends Beth and Mark, who did readings for us.  Jeff and I wrote the ceremony ourselves, and our friend James, who got ordained via some church-of-the-internet site, officiated.  We stood very close to our house's entrance, and during the ceremony my dear friend Terry (who was late through no fault of his own), pounded sharply on the door: BAM BAM BAM!  I was a tiny bit alarmed at first, but then it was just funny.

We decided to have Poof and Melissa give their toasts during the ceremony rather than at the reception.  Mel's was funny, and Poof's was so touching that she choked herself up.  It was a perfect sisterly moment.  I love you Poof!

 

After about a half hour of me unintentionally crushing Jeff's poor hands with my tense iron grip (what's the matter with me?), said hands were fasted and we kissed, hopelessly in love with each other. 

Then it was out into the steam bath for a quick photo session with our average-at-best photographer, who came up with pose ideas that were staged and stiff, and Jeff and I couldn't help but be a little smirky at his requests.

But there were a few really nice candid shots, and the backyard provided an amazing, lush backdrop.  It stole the show!

After being around people and solving problems for several hours, Jeff and I usually need some time to decompress.  But we had to throw a party for ourselves!  We drove to the reception (about 45 minutes away at a small restaurant).

 

I've always labeled the following photo "Here we go. Time to socialize. Buck up."

My sweet students.

The thing that makes the above photo special to me is my near-unprecedented lack of crazy eyes.  I just do not know how to pose.

A pensive Jeff contemplates his wacky bride.

Instead of a normal guest book, we had our guests sign some of our favorite books.  They're back in our bookshelves now, and it's fun to see these notes from time to time.

 

We put divine chocolate cakes from our favorite bakery at every table, along with a big one for the head table.  I also decorated each table with small watercolor portraits of the wedding's main players and three very important cats.  (I really should scan those sometime.)

Our rings in a peony, my favorite flower.

Git it back on meh!

After the reception, James took us out to the park where the ceremony was supposed to be held.  The heat and humidity was stifling, and my hair was a ball-o-frizz, but we took some fun photos and vengeance was ours.  And no wedding is complete without a little vengeance.

I mean, can you beat this setting?  Allerton Park is so strange and so beautiful.

 

And we are so happy.

Christmas sugar cookies

"How do you like them?" Jeff asked me as I completed icing what seemed like my ten thousandth cookie.

"Eh.  My heart's not in it," I said.

Jeff and I won't be visiting my hometown this Christmas--some family members were concerned about our flu last week, so we are taking one for the team and staying here instead.  And I will really miss seeing everybody, especially my sister.  We have so many Christmas Eve traditions, including cookie decorating, Poof's melodramatic, hilarious version of "O Holy Night," playing holiday music all night long, and just being us. 

So I'm having a blue Christmas, but I had already cut out and baked lots of sugar cookies.  I was going to save some for Jeff's daughter and parents, who will be here Saturday, but most of them were going to my side of the family (we have a lot more people).  But I iced them all anyway.  I gave a dozen or so to my friend L., whom I was happy to see yesterday, and will freeze the ones that Jeff's family doesn't eat.

And here's what I'll be saving them for: Birthmas.  After a certain amount of feeling sorry for myself (and especially Poof), the problem solving part of my brain kicked in and, along with Jeff, I came up with a new holiday: Birthmas.  Birthmas will happen at our house during Martin Luther King weekend.  Since most of my family members celebrate birthdays in December through January, and since these birthdays are always overlooked due to inconvenience/timing, we are now in the process of developing a combination birthday/Christmas celebration.  I'm thinking mini birthday cakes, presents for all, culinary wizardry, general gluttony, self-indulgence, and possibly some games.  Nigella Lawson views the Christmas season as "a light in the darkness," but to me December is not the problem.  It's JANUARY.  January is bleak, awful, and endless, and Birthmas would give us all something to live for during the worst month of the year. 

As for Jeff and me, we fully plan to have a lot of romantic fun tonight and tomorrow.  Jeff has spent the day creating what we hope will be some amazing pulled pork--the house smells absolutely divine--and we'll see movies, eat Chinese food, look out at the gloomy weather and feel happy and snug in our house, play with kitties...

...sit by the fire, read, plan our trip to New Orleans next week, and generally be completely in love.  So while we will miss my family terribly, do not worry about us too much.

I hope all of my readers who are celebrating will have a beautiful holiday.  Thank you so much for your kind words this year.  And if you have any ideas for Birthmas, fire away.