Dreams of Many Colored Glass - excerpt

A brilliant young man finds his life changed – against his wishes – by someone else’s dreams.

Fritz kept filling in the Grand Canyons of my education with anecdotes.
“Many years ago, Robert Koch bought his first Tiffany favrile for $4, which was a significant amount of money then.”
“I thought the Colonials traded in wampum.”
“You should respect your elders.” Fritz dipped his chin so he could look at me over his glasses.
“I do. But they need to earn the respect.”
“Koch wrote a definitive biography. He amassed a collection of Art Nouveau, including Tiffany art. Including a god-awful punch bowl that looks like it should have come from a carnival. But it’s a glorious example. His wife became a dealer instead of a teacher, so she could help him.”
The last statement seemed to come from deeper inside Fritz. I speculated what Mrs. Fritz had given up, in her husband’s pursuit of lamps.
So began my entry into the world of Tiffany, an entire ecosystem built on sand, fire, and light. There were times – coming into the breakfast room when 6 a.m. light bounced through an amber shade; seeing twilight change the sapphire and cream maze of a peacock lamp; sitting in a warm June evening when the peonies outside were almost as beautiful as the ones he created - that I caught myself from falling into the Tiffany well. I would never have admitted it to Fritz, but it would have been an easy fall. The lamps were gorgeous, if not worth the money.

Come for Supper: Food and Books

“We could do pot pies,” I say hopefully. “One of each: chicken and beef. I could make that perfect pie crust recipe from my student who was a chef and a white sauce and use asparagus with the chicken.” I think of Dan who refers to it as “little trees” and revise, “or green beans.”
“We could do a rib roast,” my husband answers.
“We always do a rib roast.”
“And people always enjoy it. Why change what works?”
I think of the Forsytes’ inevitable saddle of mutton, appearing at every family dinner, varied only by geographic origin or sheep type, and push my imagination into flaky piecrust, thick pie contents steaming with carrots, potatoes, meat, green beans. Dinner rolls homemade.
“I think that’s a great idea,” he reinforces himself. “When do you want to have people over?”
Dinner with company is a time to share food with friends, a time to catch up on what’s new. Maybe what we serve should have some newness to it also.
Joe searches the Internet for recipes showcasing what’s in season and showcases the food: We’ve watched him toss heaped yellow, orange, and red peppers mushrooms and onions, over the gas flame, anticipated the broccoli soup in our bowls and held our hands out for his grilled shrimp skewers. Keith renews his engagement with the knife and gives us chop salad dense with carrots, peppers, and crunch. When we visit them for dinner, we demand what we’ve loved before. Support for Bob’s rib roast argument.
Tina spends November and December inside the magazine features on holiday food, or newspaper Entrée sections (where I found a marvelous fruitcake recipe once I modified it). I used to bake twenty-five kinds of Christmas cookies and give most of them away. [Maybe I should return to the tradition this year?] More argument supporting rib roast.
In one of my stories, the characters reminisce about great food scenes which also advance the plot. They, and I, are rebelling against the inept writing teacher who claimed that writing about meals is always boring. Handled well, food enhances stories and relationships. Handled ineptly, food preparation gives us boredom, humor, sometimes tradition (and enhances stories).
My mom’s Waterloo proved to be Shrimp Elegant (accent on the last syllable to distinguish it from ordinary shrimp). The woman who could make a perfect pie, give her company unparalleled dinners, and turn out family meals every day for years, had one set of shrimp that refused to sit up and behave. Conscienceless children that we were, we reminded her of that debacle. I think she shredded the recipe, in an era before professional shredding machines.
Reading Julie’s recipes is just like listening to Julie [“whomp the cream”; “I had a cloves disaster, but didn’t matter much”], and I know the results from her recipes will be delicious. Marinated cold vegetables glisten orange, pale green, ivory, red, chartreuse under their light oil and wine dressing [“don’t spend money on the expensive olive oil”]. Tina, Bob, and I ate our first Linzer cookies at Schreiner’s in Fond du Lac, and the woman who brought grape salad to the dog rescue reunion was extolled and hounded, until she provided the recipe. Come to think of it, I have been threatened with unpleasant consequences by coworkers if I did not share the recipe for Beth’s Nut cookies. Recently, we and our company enjoyed the chocolate espresso cake from Eat Cake.
Back to what we will serve. Rib roast, he maintains. Perhaps Marge’s Lasagna recipe? One of the desserts from my mom’s recipe collection? Tradition acknowledged, if only we are not always sitting down to saddle of mutton.

Nobody Ever Died of Terminal Weirdness - excerpt

Nobody Ever Died of Terminal Weirdness is the narration by a high school student of the year that he decided to become normal (just like everyone else in his high school class). Normal meant avoiding tangles with the vice principal and track coach, but mostly normal meant having a girlfriend.

Last year my counselor signed me up for advanced chemistry. On the crest of my new resolution, I figured it offered another opportunity. Any girl in advanced chem was not exactly typical, so "weird" became just a matter of degree. The why she (like anyone else) was there fit into a limited number of slots. You might be actually gifted in chemicals and tiny number equations; your parent might be pretty persuasive about how you should be put into an advanced class so they could brag about you to their friends; the science department might believe you would do less damage in advanced chemistry playing with chemicals than in advanced biology playing with preserved pigs' feet and Mr. Green's mind; the school might be short a few slots on its minimum roster to make the class run. By the end of biology with Mr. Green, we could figure out who was going to be in advanced chemistry: we added up the laboratory emergencies, tallied the broken glass column, looked at who had the most after-school talks with Mr. Green about biological and chemical applications to the real world (like the school bathrooms), and we had have most of the ad chem list. Considering the relationship I established with Mr. Green, I figured I was a natural.

Mr. Grey the Advanced Chem teacher has leftover white hair, thick round glasses, and weathered sweaters that smell of Bunsen burners. He's also old. I know this because of the way he walks when he turns from the doorway to begin our class, and also because he scratches his head considerably. If it's not fleas starting his scratch, then it's puzzlement. We respected his age, and we vowed to do anything in our ability to add to his puzzlement.
There's a nose-biting sharpness to chemistry rooms, and the excitement of knowing that the dust particles above your head might frizzle if you hold a match aloft. The chemistry lab is the only place on school grounds where you can legally have matches. If there are girls at the next lab table who are afraid of the Bunsen burner, you can generally get their chemicals in exchange for copies of your lab results. Best of all, lurking always among all these chemicals is the possibility of blowing up a lab table, and if you're lucky, your lab partner along with it.
The main point of chemistry was messing around with whatever chemicals were stored in Mr. Grey's hundreds of glass bottles. Mr. Grey categorized his chemicals, not by alphabet, or periodic table, but by danger.

Life

Life's like the tide: energy, money, sunshine, connections to others come in cycles. The tide comes in, and there's lots of water. The tide goes out and there's more beach. If we don't have a pier, then when the tide goes out we might get lost at sea.

Money

Money is on our minds. It’s an election year with both candidates predicting economic disaster should I vote for the other guy; Wall Street is imitating a yo-yo; pay raises may or may not have kept pace with inflation, but they probably have not kept pace with the gasoline/heating energy/food price increases.

I’ve been thinking about money. What’s essential, what’s non-negotiable? Where do we economize and where do we blow the budget? The other morning my husband remarked, “You know I have never liked this blanket,” as he straightened the cotton woven blanket on the bed. I believe “too many books” is an implausible and impossible concept. Everybody needs to eat. It’s nice to stay warm when the thermometer registers 30 degrees. Compromise? Refusal to negotiate? I liked that sage colored cotton throw.

I found a turquoise and lime cotton stitched blanket at Target: $59.99 reduced 75% to $12.48. It was tied into a nice bundle, which felt heavy enough to be the right size. Maybe turquoise wasn’t our first color choice, but who sleeps with their eyes open? We keep bringing home books, but often they’re from thrift stores (25 cents/book) or library sales (the much higher price of $1/book). I shop the used book division of Amazon, weighing condition, shipping charges, and rationalizations (but if I spent $25 on their new books, I get free shipping from Amazon). That’s rationalization. Or survival. Or compromise.

Some of us buy in quantity – a quarter cow or industrial size bottles of soap. Some of us get movies from the library instead of Netflix. Some of us find the joys of used book stores. According to a news item, hundreds of people waited in line to get into a new Goodwill store in Connecticut. More of us are bartering. We’re thinking about where we are willing to compromise and which parts of our lives make us who we are (and are non-compromisable).

Quality food is important. We are what we eat, in more ways than the scale. What’s it worth to spend more on cage-free eggs? Better taste, better conscience, happier hens. If I’m going to eat a donut, I want it to be a toothsome donut. I’d rather turn the thermostat down, put on an extra sweater, and take that money to the grocery store. (Some people have told me this is a Midwest trait.)

Some things we cannot give up. I have a habit of finding wonderful books, and then finding additional copies to share with others. Creating Money, by Roman and Packer, has been one of those standbys, (along with Your Money or Your Life by Dominguez and Robin and You Don’t Have to go Home from Work Exhausted! By McGee-Cooper, et al).

We evoke situations (and people) by our beliefs. Money is energy. Money is a way to demonstrate ego, or a tool to help others. Money is connected with work, whether we take joy or misery from our job. Even when we’ve been given a pink slip and shown the door, that door is not a one-way trip to Hades. Sometimes we think it is – but invariably good emerges, like a phoenix rising from destruction.

The most important thing we bring to money is our attitude about it. Get out your library card and go read Creating Money and Your Money or Your Life. Remember that phoenix.

The Universal Woman

Visiting Rosemary moved us out of where we were, into where we found out we wanted to be. Or, you could argue, it got us in trouble.

Judy and I went to see Rosemary-at-home, in our volunteer capacity for dog rescue. [What kind of dog would be happiest in the home? is one way of explaining it. You don’t want to place a dog with arthritis in a tri-level home with stairs to each entrance and bedrooms on the topmost level.]

Rosemary’s back hallway was one step up from the yard, so there was no arthritis factor. “Oh my, oh my,” Judy and I said to each other. “Oh, my.” What awed us was Rosemary’s matter of fact creation of everyday life. All she did was answer our off-topic comments.

“How did you get the walls to have that swirl of colors? Like light and shadow, or silk, or water color.” “Oh that?” Rosemary waved a hand at the walls, “Faux painting. I could show you how to do that in a short time: maybe half an hour. You could do that easily.” Judy and I looked at each other. I know my painting range.

We talked about dog and person happiness, but unlike other home visits, we ranged across the Home Depot/Lowe’s/Mendard’s/Big Lots/Goodwill/Ace Hardware universe. “How did you install the tile?” “Got a sledge hammer because the people who had this house before had poured a 2” layer of concrete on the kitchen floor to level it.” “Who’s the person in the photograph?” “I don’t know, but I like old pictures, the kind that would have been taken when the house was built [1914], so when I find them together, I don’t throw the photo away.” She slipped off her shoes and climbed onto the sofa to lift a photo of some people at a picnic from the wall, “And sometimes there’s inscriptions on the back. I wouldn’t want to lose those.” We looked at the penciled words in a old-style handwriting: Washington Park, June 6, 1910.

She was comfortable where she was, with all she had accomplished. We were comfortable in our role of prying questioners. “That panel of stained glass matches the colors in the kitchen.” “It should; I made it in the studio upstairs where I teach. It’s not hard.” Having spent a summer cutting shreds of stained glass, I knew that the theory was not hard; it’s the cutting line that doesn’t always run true. It’s not easy to create a panel 3 x 4 ft where all the pieces need to match their paper patterns.

“The tin tiles on the walls aren’t part of the original house?” “I bought it as a condemned property; it was there at the time I needed a house. There were holes in the walls, and mice running across the floors. It took a couple years. Pretty soon I’ll be finished inside, then I’m going to work on the yard – more flower gardens.” She paused and touched the cookbook open on her counter. She shrugged and smiled. “I like doing it. The countertop, for instance: I happened to find a company that had the right size piece of granite, to fit in the corner of the kitchen.”

One of Rosemary’s gifts was that she made things seem possible (I could go to Home Depot for materials and accomplish a similar project); another was that she didn’t promote herself; the other was that each of the projects had worked toward her goal: creating the home. And the one that won us completely over was her sense of humor, “Sorry about the little branches on the front porch. They’re doing road work in the next block, so all the squirrels that used to live there, moved here for the summer. They didn’t want to be displaced, and they’re going kind of schizophrenic, so they keep chewing off little branches.”

She had a suggestion, too, on dog motion sickness (aka turning green around the eyes and depositing their last meal on the car’s back seat) to add to our list of helpful solutions. (“Give them a tiny bit of ginger”).
I’m not faux painting, but we did go hunting for granite and old picture frames. Seeing someone else’s work toward goals can do that. We step out of our routine, take a deep breath at what our eyes see, and go back home looking around with a new perspective and belief the projects in our imagination can turn out fine, even if we’re beginning them on dreams and courage. Thank you, Rosemary.