Raven and Sparrow

Slippery puckery

I haven't forgotten about my project to design some table settings around my sister-in-law Lynne's Royal Doulton china. In fact, I have been working away at it, without producing anything visually interesting to show you. One of my first steps was to take the sample saucer she lent me to our closest large fabric store just to have a big selection of colors and textures to try with it. I came home with a number of swatches and some new ideas, but the big score was finding a wide, sheer material machine embroidered in white with leaves and vines. Something clicked when I saw it and I bought enough to make a square tablecloth. It has been hell to hem. The edges pucker like the dickens. I used to think I had good sewing skills but I guess middle school home ec wasn't enough. It makes me crazy when I can't even do a smooth hem job, and keeping these cloths square is a nightmare. I got this one finished and realized that it was too big for Lynne's elegant little oval table and had to do it again. I have now reached the point where I must either go on or throw it away. I am going on. My idea is to add color delicately with paint and embroidery, and then layer it over a colored cloth for spring. Wish me luck.

Clouds and snow

We are having quite a lot of snow, but it isn't sticking very much.....too warm. Still, there is a wintery cast over the land that echoes something in my heart. Last Thursday was my 62nd birthday. For many years birthdays have been more introspective than celebratory but this year I actually feel oppressed. Getting old seems more real somehow, although I certainly don't feel old inside. I'm afraid I'm running out of time to do what I came to do. What is that? I know, but I still don't know how to express it and I'm beginning to be afraid that I won't.

Tree down

 

      We have been living in our new house for almost three years now, but it is not finished. We collapsed in exhaustion, both mental and financial, after the intense push to make it liveable and are only now taking the project up again. The biggest thing left to do is build up the front enough to make a patio and cover the attractively exposed septic tank. (Mike refers to it as the two-man hot tub.) That means constructing a big wall and we have been talking to contractors and masons about how it will be done. All of them agree that the fir tree at the corner of the house has to come down. I have resisted taking this tree ever since the house was started, but apparently my efforts to save it have been in vain. The height of the septic line doomed it because it won't survive having its lower trunk covered when the line is buried. Sigh. The septic tank was supposed to be somewhere else, but the county made us put it right in front.

  On Monday a tree service came out and cut it. It was too close to the house for us to handle safely ourselves, and we also wanted to save the madrona tree entwined with it. The sawyers brought a boom truck and cut the tree in sections. Its always amazing how big these Douglas firs are and this was a fairly slender one as they go on our property. Tree loss is always sad.

  

   

                                    

          

   

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Super time with the Super Bowl

I've never been too enamored of football, but Seattle's presence in the Super Bowl this year has thrown even non-sports fans into a tizzy. Seattle has the usual collection of professional sports teams, but they don't usually make the big time, struggling along mostly in obscure mediocrity. The ascension of the Seahawks into the play-offs and finally to the Super Bowl released a pent-up enthusiasm that is all the more fervent for having been suppressed for so long. Everyone was rooting for Our Team. Mike, traditionally more of a sports player than watcher, wanted to have some of the family over for the game, so we ended up having a Super Bowl party and dinner. I thought it would be enough to set the table in Seahawk colors, but the night before we attended a club meeting that had cardboard Seahawk centerpieces as decoration. I liberated one of them and used it on my table too. The little stand-up pockets were perfect for hellebore blossoms which are blooming now and just the right color. Our Seahawks won the game so the atmosphere at the table was highly celebratory. A good time.

I think it interesting how sports can be such a connecting influence in a community. As I said, I'm not much of a fan usually. In my younger days I complained with snobbish superiority about the resources expended on sports that could be devoted to social justice or the arts. Then the Mariners, Seattle's baseball team, caught fire. They were very talented young athletes that seemed like nice people as well. When they clicked as a team and began to play fabulous baseball, all the city was captivated. Seats in what had been an almost empty stadium filled like magic, and everyone who couldn't go to the games watched TV or listened to the radio. As they moved through the end of the season into the play-offs we were gathering with our friends every night to follow the game. It was so much fun. When they were finally eliminated just short of the World Series I was exhausted. I'm not sure if I could have stood the emotional pressure of a Series. The experience made me realize how potent a team can be in the life of a town. I continued to follow Seattle baseball religiously for two or three years after that wonderful season, until all my favorite players were traded away and the quality of play became disheartening.

Professional sports mostly seem like corrupt exploiters of our innate tribalism. The teams shamelessly trade on local loyalty although all the players are bought from outside and the only continuity of "team" revolves around the highly paid civic extortionist owners and leagues. Still, when a local team ignites the imagination and pride of its town, nothing can beat the communal joy. I read in the paper today about some celebrating people last night after the win who gathered in groups on either side of a busy street. When the light read WALK, they flowed together through the crosswalk, giving each other congratulatory high fives before regrouping on the opposite side to await the next WALK light and the chance to do it again.