A Buffet of Things

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Mondays here on the blog are often “week in review” posts.  I might tag them “weather and seasons” because so often, I report on the weather and its part in my small town life.  Last week was the week of biting cold, dry air, and many things only half-done.  Christmas strewn around everywhere, sparkling garlands all over the floor of my office like an exploded pirate’s treasure chest.

My porch Christmas tree blew down on Tuesday, the Epiphany.  Just a little early, but I made peace with it and took it down.  The wreaths…I think I’ll keep them up until the day before Valentine’s Day.  No, I’ll leave them up until my brother’s birthday, January 23.

A Little Christmas StillThere was a Green Thumb Gang meeting on Tuesday night and I started taking a conversational French class at the Franco Center on Wednesday night.  I’m almost done reading one of the three books I started and the Patriots won on Saturday night.  I’ve been snowshoeing around my yard a bit and of course, working at my professional work.

I’m happy to report that my nails have finally recovered from the two consecutive shellac manicures I had this past summer.  I didn’t blog about it, but my nails practically fell off.  Do what you like regarding these supposedly safer and longer lasting manicures.

Oh!  Yesterday, I went to a performance of a vocal group called “VOXX, Voice of Twenty” at the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul in Lewiston.  They are a local Maine group singing early vocal music a capella.  During the performance, one singer introduced a piece and mentioned the Basilica’s magnificence and he said it reminded him of a European cathedral.  In my heart, I thought about all the French Canadians who gave so generously of what they had to build this imposing church.  Just the other day, my mother told me when my French Canadian grandmother died, she gave what little she had to the Basilica restoration fund.  Now, we know that God requires no such edifice, but this idea of sacrificial love and generosity is something to ponder.

The gorgeous voices soared through the magnificent building yesterday afternoon.

Might I also add that yesterday’s performance was free?  You see, there is so much life to live and so many things in this world that are still beautiful.  Why do we waste our time looking at other people’s lives and other people’s stuff on social media?  Why do we covet our neighbor’s stuff?  These devices should be called “anti-social media” for the way they isolate us from one another and break the bonds of community.

Those are the reasons I sometimes think about not writing my blog.  Because I wouldn’t want to think my blog readers were missing out on living real life by spending an extra minute of their time reading my words.  It’s not that I don’t have a million things to say or hundreds of stories to tell.  It’s that life is here in front of us right now and we need to live it.

It’s snowing today.  I’ve noticed on snowy days, I can hear the whistle of the Amtrak train in Brunswick.

And it is beautiful.

Posted in Weather and Seasons | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

On the Road to Lewiston

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Route 196 is a busy state road that connects Brunswick and Lewiston.  Cars move along at a steady clip in daylight, ferrying folks from one town to another.  There are faded crosswalks, of course, and according to my connections in town government, they are not scheduled to be repainted until spring.

I cross Route 196 on foot two or three times a day; sometimes, like during the cold spell we’ve been having, not a once.  Depending on my mood, I may wait patiently or I may demand that traffic stop.

After all, IT’S THE LAW.

A good scholar of the law, state Senator Garrett Mason always stops for me.

If I’m in a kind and patient mood, which I usually am, I’ll wait until there is no traffic and zip across the road quickly.  If I’m in a hurry, I put one foot into the crosswalk, take my right hand and dramatically point downward towards the faded paint while simultaneously looking directly at the oncoming motorist.  Sometimes this technique works and sometimes it doesn’t; we live in an age of distraction.

Oddly enough, it’s often large logging trucks and 18 wheelers hauling dangerous petro-chemicals that slow down when they see me in the crosswalk.  Since I’m not a total BLEEP and I know a little bit about the laws of physics, in those situations, I take my right hand and kindly flag them to keep going because I know momentum equals mass times velocity.

These are the trials and tribulations of small town life.

On Monday at noon, the first day of the Arctic freeze, I headed out to the post office.  I got across Route 196 the first time, no problem.  I collected my mail and retraced my steps.  I was standing on a small bank of snow next to the crosswalk when a little boxy economy car screamed to a stop directly on the faded mark.  With no regard for the traffic behind her, the woman driving the car rolled down the passenger window and leaned over to address me.

I was a little nervous.  Was I going to get a lecture about crosswalk etiquette?

(Remind me to tell you about the time when I was five and got disciplined by a Morse Oil Brothers truck driver about running into the road.)

No lecture.  The frantic middle-aged bespectacled woman demanded:

“Is this the road to Lewiston?”

You can insert any number of less than ladylike epithets here.  They were all swirling around in my brain.

Observant, that’s me.  I saw the cat carrier on the passenger seat and putting two and two together, I knew I was dealing with a crazed cat lady.

Looking straight into her frenzied face, I said “YES.”

Then, in the blink of an eye, she rolled up the window and sped off, not even letting me cross the road.  I shrugged my shoulders to the man driving the truck in back of her, who had slammed on the brakes when she stopped for directions.  He let me cross.

As I made my way up the street towards home, indignant thoughts tumbled around in my head like numbered balls in a bingo spinner.

But then my house came into view and a serene calm descended upon me like a dove.  Yes, a dove, not a cat, and I said to myself:

“Excellent! That crazy cat lady just wrote my Friday blog for me.”

The next time you’re happy motoring through Lisbon Falls on the road to Lewiston, please keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel.  And if you see a tall, dark-haired woman standing in the crosswalk, please stop lest you end up lampooned in her blog.

Speaking of Lewiston, make sure to check out the Sun-Journal this Sunday to read my latest EATS column, which is not about cat food.

Meow!

Posted in Friday Pillow Talk | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Cold Like a Splinter

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Just a weather report.

Splinter9 below zero.

Posted in Minimalist | Tagged | Comments Off on Cold Like a Splinter

Bring It!

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Weather during blog vacation was bitterly cold and Sunday ended things icily with snow and sleet and freezing rain.  The weather puppets were recommending we Mainers NOT shovel our driveways for fear the pavement would turn into sheets of ice, but my neighbor Breezy and I had already cleared off by the time we got the memo.  As it turned out, it was a darkish day, but the roads were passable and I ventured out on an interview for an upcoming EATS column.

I still have my Christmas lights in the windows and on the twinkling tree in the screen porch; today will be the twelfth day of Christmas.  Tonight is Twelfth Night and also the last night for my Christmas lights.  I’ll miss them and the evening routine of tiptoeing about the house plugging them in.

Concurrently, there is a full moon and the early morning moon shadows of the barn on the snow mimic an Andrew Wyeth painting.  The light of the moon edges into my bedroom too and gives me pause.  But the moon is a cold, cold orb and gives no warmth.

I hop out of bed.

My brother has completed another amazing year of reading.  He’s an inspiration, having read 66 books in 2014.  My own reading list is sad in comparison, although I always start out the year with grand plans for reading.  The three books on my night stand now are P.G. Wodehouse’s Right ho, Jeeves, Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia (picked up from a free book table at the local library) and Walter Mischel’s The Marshmallow Test.  One is horrible, one is educational, and one is delightfully entertaining.  I’ll let you decide which is which.

Speaking of horrible, I read somewhere on the innerwebz yesterday that “the selfie is the new autograph.”  Apparently, though, this isn’t a new idea; it’s been floating around for a while and well…truthfully, I found the idea to stink like garbage.  If I make one New Year’s Resolution this year, it might just be “no selfies.”

The last blog post I wrote prior to my vacation was about the gift of garbage.  And I’ve been thinking about garbage a lot while I’ve been on vacation.  How we’re living in a world of garbage, with synthetic shoes, little plastic bags full of dog poop, and selfies all over the internet.  Words, too, like garbage floating around the ether.

Do my words add anything to the internet or are they just more garbage?  I certainly don’t want to add to the already overloaded stream of refuse.  If I’m absolutely honest, I contemplated ending my blog.  I just couldn’t figure out a neat and polite way to do it.  I’m hoping, you, my readers might let me know what things you’d like to hear about in 2015.  Or maybe you have a creative and polite way for me to stop writing the blog.

Drop a line, if you can.

Anyway, for now, here’s to 2015.

HNYAs my friend Jay would say “Bring it!”

Posted in Weather and Seasons | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Blog Vacation!

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I will return…

Blog Vacation…on Monday, January 5, 2015!

Posted in Weather and Seasons | Tagged , | Comments Off on Blog Vacation!

Your Gift to Me

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Small Town, USA…the day after Christmas.

It was “all good” here in Lisbon Falls yesterday.  I started out the day singing with a choir at Midnight Mass and I made it through the entire performance without any yawns.

Uncle Bob arrived at my house promptly at noon and I set him up at my kitchen bar with a Moxie while I finished the last minute buffet details.  Family and friends arrived, it was very good.  There is no need to go on and on about it; I’ve got pretty much everything I need in my life.  More than some, not as much as others, but enough.

Enough.

After everyone had gone, I took a walk around town.  The Christmas sky was clear and the waxing crescent moon was bright.  Little pockets of revelry remained, evidenced by lit windows and driveways full of cars.  Even Uncle Bob still had his candles in the window.

I fell asleep in my clothes at 10:00 p.m., reading the December, 1947 Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

Christmas All Year LongThe media message today is:

Christmas is over.

The next week in the media will be the official “Year in Review” week combined with self-help and guidance for the New Year.  Oh, and predictions for 2015.  Let’s not forget those.  The best writers want to get ahead of this curve and attract readers with dark and threatening titles like “We Just Enjoyed the Last Christmas in America.”  (Bing it yourself, if you must.)

It’s all just little packages of internet garbage.

I think I’m going to put away my Christmas dishes, do some laundry, and run the vacuum around.  I will keep my “year in review” to myself and avoid making predictions for the New Year.  I’ll also be taking a scheduled “blog vacation” next week.

In the spirit of year-end garbage, I offer you a decorating idea I developed after writing about my past employment at a “Bridal Boutique.”  Remembering how we used to line gift bags with tissue paper to make the little bags of nothing appear fuller, I started lining my bathroom waste containers in the same fashion.

Like this:

Your Garbage is a Gift to MeIt’s prettier than a plastic bag from the local grocery chain and maybe a little greener if you use recycled tissue paper.  It gentrifies the garbage, making it look almost like a gift.  Try it.  You might just join me is saying:

“Your garbage is a gift to me.”

Think on that while I’m on blog vacation and we’ll meet again here on January 5, 2015.

Peace to you!

Posted in Friday Pillow Talk | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The End of Advent

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Advent Wreath 2014.

Advent Wreath 2014Joyeux Noël!

Posted in Weather and Seasons | Tagged | Comments Off on The End of Advent

The Longest Night of the Year

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Yesterday was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.  Last night was, therefore, the longest night of the year; a good night to pull out A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and mull on things.

Earlier in the day, I had heard a couple at a local store saying “I hate Christmas,” and “I can’t wait for Christmas to be over.”  I could understand those feelings.  Christmas may be commercially successful for businesses seeking profit, such as Scrooge and Marley’s firm.  For men and women, it’s more complicated.  A season of disappointment and sadness for many.

Living in an “event-focused world” is disappointing.  I’m surprised some well-meaning despot hasn’t outlawed the “holiday season” at this point, what with all the hurt feelings and grief that surface at this time of year.

I don’t even have the heart to blog about it today.  It’s probably my diet of sugar cookies and ginger snaps that is bringing me down.

CookiesWe will meet again here on Thursday and then Friday, it will all be over.  Unless, of course, we resolve to be more like the redeemed Ebenezer Scrooge:

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.  I will live in the Past, Present, and the Future.  The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.  I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”

Posted in Just Writing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Sandals and Spoons

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

(Today’s post includes some bad language and a bit of general cattiness.)

It’s been a dark and rainy week here in my little corner of Maine, but a sliver of sunlight crept out from behind the clouds around 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, briefly bright.  I grabbed my sunglasses and headed off to the post office on foot with another batch of Christmas cards.  I started thinking about sunlight and sunglasses and Jack Rogers sandals.  You know Jack Rogers sandals, right?  They’re leather flip-flops, the official sandal of certain Floridian zip codes.  Very “Jackie Oh.”

I’m not a fan of Florida; too hot, too much hot top. I like Jack Rogers sandals.  Thoughts of the pleasant sandals in that unpleasant locale was a test of brainpower; I delicately suspended the ideas in my grey matter behind the protection of my somewhat “Jackie Oh” black sunglasses.  Mes grandes lunettes noires.  The sun jogged a recent incident loose from a locked brain cell; a recollection I had suppressed from last week’s trip to Portsmouth.

I love it when a story comes together on my walk to the post office.

Last Thursday, before old green tie ushered me out of the Portsmouth Athenaeum with his raised hairy eyebrow, I stopped into a shoe store a few blocks to the west.  It’s a perfectly lovely shop and they carry a lot high-end heels and flats.  Honestly, they’ve got the best shoes north of Nordstrom’s.

Except…

Except that retail sales can be exhausting and thankless work.  A shoe store associate can carry boxes and boxes of shoes to a customer for an hour and help stuff big old bunion foot bones into this pump or that platform and still not make a sale.  Not all customers have feet that smell like roses, either.  I can understand the plight of shoe store sales staff.  Maybe, just maybe at the hour I trudged into this little boutique, similar horrible things had just fifteen minutes ago happened.  I had no way to know for sure.

I was looking for some fun retro-looking boots with a little faux fur around the top, a half calf job like the ones actress Marjorie Reynolds wore in the closing scenes of Holiday Inn.  My eyes were drawn to a sale rack of Jacks.  But what was this?  The box wasn’t tan and brown like the boxes in my closet.  It was turquoise and midnight blue and I’m sorry to say, it looked just a tad like a Tiffany’s bag.  The “Jack Rogers” logo had changed, too, and for a split second I thought it said “Jolly Rogers.”

Ahoy, sandaled mateys!  Shiver me timbers!

Shocked, I blurted out “when did Jack Rogers change their logo?”

The woman staffing the store raised an eyebrow, unknowingly foreshadowing old green tie.  You would have thought I had asked “is George W. Bush still president?”  She gave me a look and said, condescendingly, “it’s been this way for ages.”

Pardonnez-moi!

What did she mean by ages?  Is an age one year?  Two?  Five?  I am pretty sure I bought a pair of sandals in this self-same shop in 2010, in the comfortably understated tan and brown box.  Lee Annie Leonie was with me; it was a “two for one” sale.

Yes, I was sure of it.

The woman was brief with me.  Apparently, she had forgotten my previous purchases in her establishment.  Three pairs of Jack Rogers sandals, a pair of Italian all-weather suede pumps, and a pair of fugly Tory Burch York ballet flats with the elastic on the back that practically sawed my heel in two.  I wore them for all of one hour and then promptly gave them to Tildee Murchoch, sensing that to return them to the high-class shoe store would be a whole new level of foot indignation.

After the comment, I squeaked out a fake laugh and said something like “ha, ha, ha, I ha-rdly ever shop anymore, what with working night and day to create an app that writes Pulitzer prize-winning novels with content from vintage National Geographic magazines.”

Inside, I felt like Julia Roberts in the shopping scene from Pretty Woman.  “Look, I’ve got money to spend in here.”

What I really wanted to say was a paraphrase of yet another line from Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion:

“I know.  What a bitch, taking your hamburger, I mean, what was that?”

I left the store as quietly as I could, harboring all these thoughts in my broken heart.

I had forgotten about the incident until yesterday’s break in the clouds.

I don’t pretend to be an investigative reporter and I don’t need to be right all the time.  But damn it, Jack Rogers didn’t change their logo ages ago and the problem smoldered away in my slightly hurt grey matter all afternoon.  I took a coffee break and mixed up some sugar cookie dough, using my favorite measuring spoons.

Jack Rogers Sandals and SpoonsThen it dawned on me.  A eureka moment.  I e-mailed the question to the spoon giver, who is one of the smartest women I know.  Then, not willing to wait for her response, I asked myself “what would the smartest woman I know do?

In a flash, I dialed Jack Rogers Customer Care directly at 646-480-5153 and with no verbal obfuscation, I got connected with their marketing department.  Jennifer said she thought the logo changed around 2012.

Then I got an e-mail from the smartest woman I know who reminded me that she had sold Jack Rogers sandals at her very own chic boutique five years ago.  The boxes in her boutique had the old logo.

Finally, after a little Facebook analysis of the Jack Rogers timeline, I put it all together.  No, it wasn’t ages ago.  It was just a few years ago.

Wow! I’m glad I solved that little first world problem!

But I can’t lie to my blog readers.  I’m not perfect.  Sometimes, I can be a little snarky and I am sure I’m often misunderstood.  I try to listen to people non-judgmentally, and more important, if I had a little store or boutique, I certainly wouldn’t make a customer feel lousy by being a smarty pants.  Even if Jack Rogers had changed their logo ages ago.  The customer is not always right, but the customer is always the customer.

I’ll have more to say about Jack Rogers and his jolly sandals in the future.  Why, I’m wearing a pair right now with my leopard print bathrobe.  They make great slippers and purging my soul here on the blog has lifted my spirits.  I just might get all the things on my “to do” list done.  In these last few days before Christmas, it’s easy to grow impatient, to get lost in our own needs, and lose compassion for our fellow men and women.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.

May my sometimes small heart grow three sizes today, just like The Grinch’s!

But not my feet, because goodness knows what would happen if I went looking for a pair of overpriced leather flip-flops THAT big in a chic shoe boutique.

Posted in Friday Pillow Talk | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Yankee Swap!

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Pattern recognition is important in life.

Yankee SwapI’ve got the Russell Stover chocolate thing down.

Sweet Thursday!

Posted in Minimalist | Tagged , , | 2 Comments