Shiny Things

July has been tough so far. A lot of ups and downs. Not keeping up the MMLS as well as I would like. A couple days of post-travel lag. A good day or two, a lovely 4th with impromptu party, some really yucky emotional low days (with dentist appointment), a weekend at Feminist Girls Camp, a great writing day, a busy back and forth with no time to write day -- also the onset of a summer cold -- and now a middling day I am trying to recover with the help of tea and mindfulness meditation. Apparel: Also not as muu-muu as I would like, but trying to be summery. I have new sandle tan lines! Illustrations from a post " In Defense of the Muumuu ." I also found this great blog post about someone else's " caftan summer ," which is really so familiar! Writing: Some very good days! Some very bad days! Interesting stuff about vengeance and wholeness and the red right hand/ rubente dextera via Milton and Horace! Still promising myself to be done in 40 days. (40 days! Nothing ...

One would think vacation would be totally in the mumu l.s. column, but one would be wrong. We went to Illinois for my cousin's wedding, officiated by my husband and rife with aunts, uncles, siblings, and cousins. Three nights there, and then 4 nights in Chicago, in two different locations. O plans to move to Chicago someday and live in Marina City (on the right) so he can park his boat in the basement. Hashtag goals. We vacationed hard. And it was good. And exhausting. Highlights included drinks on the river patio of homestead #1 (a cushy hotel that we got on the cheap) with NYC cousins, seeing the Neo-Futurists Pride weekend special edition (with the kids), coffee and croissant on the river walk, an architecture cruise (believe the hype; this is an awesome thing to do), pizza lunch with my monkeys, snacky suppers in the cushy hotel watching cable together, a WHOLE DAY at the Museum of Science and Industry, a rainy morning on Lake Michigan, an afternoon at the Art Institute, a qui...

"Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly." ― Pablo Neruda , from " Sonnet XL ,"  100 Love Sonnets

Monday started very productively with many things crossed off the to-do list before 9 a.m. It settled into pretty good at-home time, featuring some writing that felt real and good, and ended with great food and fresh blackberry collins and talk and dancing with friends. Also, rain. Maybe my wooded lot (see below) could have a house like this? Photo from here . Tuesday was all finances all the time, trying to get a bunch of stuff organized that has not been organized for too long. Evening came and it was gorgeous and balmy, and I thought for sure I could don the mumu and enjoy wine on the deck, but by the time I got the girl home from soccer it was getting blustery, and by the time dinner was made it was raining steadily. I was sad to have missed the perfect summer evening. Wednesday was a continuation of the finances and two rounds of errands and other preparations for a trip to Chicago. Busy and stressful, but also a walk 1.2 miles home from the car doctors in the bright, mild morning...

Friday - Saturday was a lot of music. Kids' ensembles at music camp in the afternoon Friday, Black Violin at Cain Park in the evening. Finale camp concert on Saturday. All lovely, and a great peek at Cleveland Heights life for my brother-in-law from St. Paul. We also had a picnic at home before we went to Cain Park. Waiting to be deviled. Saturday - Sunday I was really under the weather -- a cold? exhaustion? allergies? -- and i laid low as others went about their business. Revived a bit Sunday evening for Reception and some working time. Apparel: Denim mini, burgundy flower print athletic halter / skinny jeans and color blotch soft blouse Writing: A little Reading: A little ... Also began watching the film Inside Job, about the financial meltdown of '07-'08 (research). Dinner: The picnic was St. Angel cheese and apple sandwiches on baguette, deviled eggs, watermelon, Greek salad with orzo, and trifle. Soundtrack: On Friday Brandenburg #3  x2 -- once performed by Z's ...

Day 4 was puttering until the Coffee Break on The Current (my new obsession), erranding, then coffee shop writing. A lot of resistance to writing, but once I got there it was good. In the afternoon/evening, we had a family trip to the gym, to the pool, and then out for celebratory end-of-the-year fondue. Day 3 was a day of making lists and crossing things off, but not much writing or reading. Two nights of waking at 3 a.m. have taken their toll. Also, today was the day we gave in and turned on the a/c - not very mumu. The time has come for iced coffee and dry pink wines. I've been enjoying being with the kids before camp each morning, though, and talking with them in the afternoon. O is at music camp under protest, but each day he is liking it more. Z tried out for and got a rap part for the camp rendition of "My Shot" from Hamilton. I also enjoyed grocery shopping, because I have been so busy this spring I have done very little. It felt grounded and nurturing. And I enjo...

Luxurious puttering, writing, the beginning of the City Fresh season (which means schlepping heavy boxes of vegetables in the blazing heat and talking to people about produce), drinks with friends, and a long, late kids baseball game played under the lights in gloriously cool night air. early growing season wonderfulness: garlic scapes! Oh, and during my morning putter, I got sucked into the Coffee Hour on The Current (KCMP 89.3 St. Paul -- a truly great radio station. Streaming here ). It's a daily themed listener-suggested block. The theme was songs with women's names -- I suggested "Jolene." They played it! Hashbrowns! Apparel: A little a-line skirt red rayon with a black and white Chinese lantern pattern, black wide-trim tank (for work time), gray t with silk screened (by Z) Susan B. Anthony quote. SANDALS! Writing: WIP -- progress on important new scene. There are 5 or 6 more (or 7 or 8?) scenes to write before this draft is technically done ... although I thin...

And so we begin -- a departure from the old format -- to document my mumu lifestyle (MMMLS), Summer 2017. This is really for me, but if you stumble upon it, welcome. I will try to include links for interesting things. A mini-manifesto for my mumu lifestyle : comfortable clothes, awesome textiles, decks, porches, parks, cocktails, books, music, writing, friends, family, art, good food, making things, growing things, embracing joy, basking in the sun, noticing. I started with the mumu lifestyle last year, inspired by a Marimekko number I got at the mass market design-friendly wonder emporium. This year I am taking it a step further. A lookbook for the collection is here. Apparel: indigo and white harem pants, black cami, comfy blue t-shirt/tunic (note: Z asked me to "just slip on some jeans" to take her to camp. "That's easy enough," she said.) Writing: journal, blog, working on WIP - 4.5 hours Reading: yesterday's NYT and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours  by ...

I'm trying to find a way to express what I have been feeling since I learned of Carrie Fisher's death. Pardon me while I wax philosophic about mass media space epics ... Yesterday, I went to see  Rogue One.  I had avoided reviews and other spoilers, and yet I understood from early on that everyone would die. How could they not? It was harrowing to watch, and it was right. I was touched by Jyn's line, "Someone's out there," as the transmission of the Death Star plans was beamed out into the chaos. That felt like a summary of the whole film, and a message I want to receive in this era of resistance. Each of us does what we can and can only trust that someone else will be in position to make the next move. None of us can solve any of this on our own, and it is best we lay down our overweening sense of guilt that we cannot. Just do what you can and trust that someone's out there. And yet, at the same time, I was thinking, "Anyone can use this to justify t...

Driving across town for the final installment of Christmas with my in-laws in Lakewood, we were all impressed with the appearance of the lake. The sky was a bright, milky mix of white and blue, but the water was a great expanse of shivering green. Grey-green, sage-green, sea-green, the green of lichen edging into moss on the dark side of a tree in a damp, cool forest. You might like to have a lover with eyes this color of green. The green was topped with a million tiny cuts of white as the cold swirled in from the northwest.  Here is a picture of an Irish phone box that has nothing  to do with anything, except the color is sort of right.* On a side note, one of my great joys is that my kids have such big, varied families. My parents are so much different than David's, and yet both are terrific grandparents to have, especially in combination. When we got to Lakewood, O gave me a big hug and whispered to me, "You know why I like to come here? Because whenever I walk in this hous...

Grocery shopping has a lot of emotional highs and lows for me. As the food-oriented individual that I am I wish I could say "marketing." I wish I went to farmer's markets more (I go approximately once a year), but I've never quite gotten my system of time to gibe with it. Someday perhaps I will. (I do, during the growing season, actively do City Fresh , a social-justice minded CSA. More on that when growing season begins again.) But grocery shopping, in a modern American supermarket. What an historical anomaly. Sometimes it completely overwhelms me. I can lose time in a supermarket. Sometimes I text David for help, like holding a string in the minotaur's labyrinth. I have been known to cry. Once I stood in line at a Giant Eagle late at night and watched someone buy tomatoes and ground beef both package on black styrofoam trays and wrapped tight in plastic and I saw the doom of our civilization. Once I met a yogi from Australia (where they apparently have different...

Also not my moon. The moon is not full tonight. But it did sort of look like this at dusk. (moon from here .) The day was spent doing more appropriately beginning of the year things like cracking the whip while the children cleaned the (900-years-overdue-for-a-good-wipe-down) fridge and trudging through this pile of grading. Trudge is a word I like for its sound. If it weren't so onomatopoetic I would wish it meant something else to fit my enthusiasm. In the afternoon, I went out to do an hour's worth of erranding that took two hours, when I returned home the kids were out stalking around the house with Nerf weapons and their favorite college-aged x-babysitter. When I finally exhorted them to come in to finish the refrigerator project, Z's hands were bright red with cold, O was happy in his gym shorts, and the moon glowed with a huge orange penumbra. Overall the day was a moderate success in the slow down project. Tea was made, children were conversed with, gifts were putte...

I will meditate on this image to further my aims ( photo thanks to Make:  http://makezine.com/craft/giant_kitty_couch/ ) 2015, what will you be? Over the past week of lounging and lolling at my mother's house I have thought about what intentions I would like to set for the new year. I have been dissatisfied with the options I present for myself. They are all so unmanageable. More, more, more. How can I do more of 10 different things when I can't even do enough of what I am already doing? Ok, then less. Less, less, less. I still feel tired. Less, as they say, is just another kind of more. Last year , my intentions were about daily routines (this, I think was a kinder way of trying for the more, more, more). Over the course of 12 months I have done better and worse at them. And yoga. I am still straying off the path there. All I can say is I trust that yoga will still be there to receive me lovingly when I manage to return. Yesterday, I caught a friend's Facebook post about c...

I've reached the point where it feels like I do nothing but process things (paper, assignments, grades, words, ideas, references, editing marks, aesthetic philosophies, fears, egos, and dreams of the future, to name a few) for students. I may not actually be a human being myself. David does most of the cooking, I have a cursory relationship to my own children, I do not exercise, and I do not write. I do however watch the morning sky. That is something I do. More than a week ago, I drove to school a bit late. It was nearly 7:30 and dawn was in full gear. Something about the post-rainstorm atmosphere made the sky a vibrant coral pink in every direction. I have never seen a sky like this before. The whole of the world glowed with this strange liquid light. It was like being inside a shell, the nacre alight with the filtered fire of the sun. When I got to school, swim practice was in full gear, the pool enclosure a glass cube of freakish aqua green within the orangey-pink air. The next...

Just a little check in to let you know I still live and there are still pretty objects. These are my new kicks, purchased today with *last year's* birthday money from my mama, along with new bras, tights, and undies! I know how to live. Thanks, Ma! I went last night to see preview night of the chamber-sized production of Les Mis at a certain local theater. I've never seen this show before but I am familiar with the music. I spent a week or two in the summer of 1988 in between living in Atlanta and New York, hanging out at my friend Andrea's apartment listening and sometimes crazily dancing to songs from the cast album, along with my other bestie Brian. It was a funny soundtrack for us to have, not something I would have guessed this trio to gravitate toward. Brian and I were both theater geeks, but not so much musicals. I'm not sure what else I was listening to then. Varieties of punk & new wave, with some Patsy Cline and Billie Holiday thrown in. Andrea had been on...

The kids and I, along with cousin A, made some improvements to the space behind the cabin in Maine this year. First, we added signage Fairies use blueberry juice for ink Fairy bonfire Fairy dugout Fairy Teepee Fairy pavilion Fairy townhouse Townhouse entrance. Also notice circular window. Fairy modernist pad, with fungi path Where the fairies dance. Blueberry Reading: Bean Trees  and David's new script Writing: No but I saw a very good writer friend, who is also my doppel-g. I love her and miss her and would love to spend hours talking with her about writing and reading and teaching and cooking and walking and being. Instead, we had a whirlwind family traipse through Salem, MA. Dinner: My doppel-g took us for cocktails and beautiful seafood in Salem. The cocktail was a Ginger: gin and cucumber and ginger beer. To eat, I had the hake marsala. Soundtrack: Iggy Pop in the cafe where we lunched. Not in person, on the radio. Random thing: We spent the afternoon in the Peabody Essex Mus...

A wax wing. (Thank you, Wikimedia) Last night before Wine Hour I was resting on the couch on the porch and listening to the birds. There was something making a high twittery, churring sound nearby, so high pitched it was almost out of hearing range. A couple of somethings by the sound of it. I couldn't tell if it was coming from the oak tree off to my right or from the tangle of lilacs, apple trees, scrubby bushes and pines over across the drive. I thought maybe it was hummingbirds. The other evening a green hummingbird darted out of the the oak tree and hung in front of the porch inspecting us for 10-20 seconds before making a curlicue dance and darting off towards the lilacs. Finally I got up to investigate and found that the big fluffy orange cat from the big house was also prowling around our yard. I determined the sound was coming from the somewhere in the lilacs and just as my father in law came out of the house and asked me what I was doing, a pair of cedar wax wings leapt u...

You could buy this Estes for $350k. I think it would be worth the outlay to be able to study it regularly. We marked the end of our first week on the cove taking David's brother's family down the coast to the big city so they could catch an early flight the next morning. I got all dressed up and wore sparkly shoes. There were proudly gender bending youth holding hands on the sidewalk while an osprey cruised overhead. Outside the place we had dinner, a tattooed, bearded guy in a trucker's hat sipped beer from a can while my niece pet his Dachsund named Zelda. You can't really see my sparkly shoes, but I am beautiful. One of the things I really like about my brother in law is that the two things he is most interested in exploring in a new city are food and the art museum. At the PMA we found a special exhibit of paintings by Richard Estes, a photorealist of whom I was vaguely aware. His cityscapes are full of reflective panes of glass and strange angles that allow the vi...

Roller coaster recovery time. Yesterday we arrived in Maine. One of the things I like most about traveling is the opportunity for unexpected moments with random strangers. This can happen at home of course, but the odds are better on the road. Somewhere between Erie and Buffalo we stopped for coffee and car snacks. I stood at a bank of coffee pots along the side of the raised box where the cashiers stand and poured myself some "bold" roast coffee, but I couldn't see anything to put in it. David had already gotten his so I called back over my shoulder, "Where's the cream?" He was involved in some important junk food negotiation with the kids and didn't answer right away. "David, where's the cream?" I asked again. The woman behind the counter gave me an odd look and said, "It's behind you." A second later David chimed in and said, "It's over here." I shrugged at the woman and apologized. "I was trying to ask h...

American mink - I saw one in the wild at Shaker Lakes last week! I'm plagued with the sense that the summer is passing me by, which morphs into one big existential cliche that bores me too much to elaborate. Regular readers will notice that I have not been blogging at all, which could contribute to this syndrome -- not catching the quick silvery moments, and so on. This is not for lack of thinking about what I would write if I were writing here, but thinking is not writing. Rather than reconstruct weeks worth of observations and interesting bits, let me tell you about the nowish things, a few of them. I dropped Z at a friend's house this morning and stopped for a bit to chat in the kitchen, which always amazes me with its beautiful, oddball Americana decor, complete with vintage signs and green milk glass (maybe jadeite?) tea cups. Today I noticed a collection of vintage orange juicers, each with its own unique juice glass underneath. I love this. I will try to divert myself fr...