Babayaga

The idea of Baba Yaga is intriguing. When I looked up the word – or name – it seems that it has the same meaning in many of the Slavic languages. She is what we would know as a witch, an old ugly hag of a witch with nothing but wickedness in her heart. This is what I read as a kind of preliminary study for reading this novel. My previous experience with the name is from a children's book called Babushka Baba Yaga, a title that caused a Bulgarian woman I know to giggle when I asked her what it meant. She told me that it was a grandmother witch. And in every source I could find, be it Russian, Bulgarian or anywhere else, the original Baba Yaga is known for being very old, very ugly and eating children.

This book takes it in a new direction. There are two Baba Yagas. (In the folklore I read about, there were sometimes three, all with the same name. In this book they each have a different name, and the name Babayaga seems to become a noun.) One of Barlow's Baba Yagas is the typical hideous old woman that would naturally come to mind. The other, though, is a young (looking), sexy woman who can't keep herself from misbehaving. (Killing lovers = misbehaving) He eventually tells each of their stories, in a Vampire Lestat historical style. (Coincidentally, we had a cold snap while I was reading this book and reading about the horrible winters in Russia was particularly effective sitting on my sofa with a throw over myself.)

The two fellows that happen upon them are as delightful as the witches are mysterious. Both are from the U.S. (the book takes place in and around Paris, France in the 50's) and both from the Midwest. One is happy-go-lucky with a cocktail in his hand and the other is more of a brooding, romantic type. Not a Louis the Vampire kind of brooding. Just a confused and accidentally in love kind.

The characters are fun and I very much enjoyed reading the book. I looked forward to it while I was working, even. I suppose that the one thing I could say critical about it is that it's slightly predictable. Just a little bit, not terribly so. I was reading until my eyes wouldn't stay open, so it had to have something unexpected to keep me hooked. It's just not the dark, sinister book that I thought it was going to be.

All in all, though, I'd very much recommend this book.

Corn and Black Bean Salad

One 15 oz can black beans – rinsed
One 11 oz can corn
1/2 red onion diced
1/2 jalapeño diced
1/2 bell pepper diced (use red next time)
cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
1 Tbls white vinegar (eyeballed)
1 – 2 Tbls olive oil

Mix everything together and put in fridge to set
Served over Pan-broiled chicken breast

I make beans frequently, so I'll probably put some aside from the next batch. Other tweaks are bound to happen, like salt and pepper.

A Christmas Cat Memory

If I wasn't a crazy cat lady before, I think that I must have just crossed over that threshold. Yesterday I was reading to my cats. They were sitting around me, I was reading them a Christmas story and they were purring. Some of them were.

This was not the original intent. I went to a used book store the other day and found a nice copy of a book that contains A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. On Sunday, as the Thanksgiving holiday came to a close, I was in my apartment alone with my cats. One thing about cats is they are generally in the same room as you are. My cats behave this way, anyway. I don't call them, they just end up in the same room. So, I'm sitting on the sofa and see the book on the coffee table and decide to read it. But, my only experience with this story is oral. My sister Lottie (such a lovely name: Lottie) had a school assignment when we were children to memorize this story, pare it down to 5 minutes – or some other pre-designated amount of time – and recite it. Needless to say, we heard a lot of "Oh my! It's Fruitcake weather!"

I couldn't just read the story; I had to read it aloud. It wouldn't be the same otherwise. I put on my actor voice and began reading. The cats, as if summoned by the sound of my voice, came closer. One in particular lay down in a cat bed near the sofa and began to purr. When reading the parts in which the woman spoke I read in a light, wispy voice; the boy's parts I did with a less wispy, but still high voice.

It has been a while since I've heard it and being that it had been shortened to meet the time requirement, there were parts I hadn't heard at all. So, to a great extent it was like listening to the story for the first time. For instance, I remembered their buying whiskey (in my memory it was brandy), but I didn't remember that it was from a bar, or that the man they bought it from was an Indian, or that it was the first time they actually saw him because they had always dealt with his wife in the past. I don't remember it being that comical. Of course, my sense of humor hadn't been that developed when I heard it before.

I do remember the ending being rather sad because the boy had been shipped off to a military school. I was not surprised at the actual ending; I saw it coming in the final paragraphs. But, I am I and lately I'm never more than a blink away from tears, so the last paragraph I read with a cracking voice and with actual tears in my eyes. The cats were unfazed. 

This Christmas memory is a nice tradition. It is a classic that has been “broadcast, recorded, filmed, and staged multiple times, in award-winning productions.”1 But, it’s kind of sad. Why would something sad be popular at Christmas? It’s charming and easy to read, but even before the end there’s an air of melancholy mixed with the comic. Do all of us have sad memories mixed with happy that work together to create the atmosphere of the season? Perhaps people who don’t have these sad memories can be detached enough to appreciate the story for what it is, while the rest of us relate on a different level. 

All in all I think that I’ll read it again next year. I may even pick up other stories to read to my cats. I could take this whole cat lady thing to a new level.

Book Review - Divine Secrets

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
By Rebecca Wells

I'm probably the last person on Earth to read this book and what more can be said that hasn't already been written? My own personal response is probably the only thing, and I'm certain that it echoes many who have gone before me. I was ready for this book. I needed to cry, and I had needed to cry for some time it would seem. And, there's nothing better to cry over than reconciliation, both with God and with Loved ones. This wasn't a “Woman Overcomes Adversity” kind of novel. If there was adversity, they succumbed to it and drank about it later. And for the most part they didn't apologize for it.

It was a little awkward that the other day I simply couldn't wait to finish the book and so during work I went to lunch at a cafe and read the last 2 chapters. I don't recommend this. Food kept getting stuck in my throat because I was trying not to weep in public, and the lump that developed in my throat made it difficult to swallow food..

So, if you want to read a fabulously Southern novel that makes you feel good in spite of everything else, I recommend this book. Don't tell me you watched the movie. I'm certain that the movie was wonderful, but reading a book and watching a movie are two different experiences.

Thank you,

e A r n i e

Waiting

I read Agatha Christie's Autobiography.  It was kind of interesting the way she described when she was a teenager hearing and reading that Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been assassinated and nobody thought much of it. Days passed and they read about the development, still without too much concern. It took precisely one month for WWI to begin - from the Archduke's assassination on June 28 to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia on July 28, 1914.

Here we sit as the Powers discuss chemical weapons use in Syria.

Things

June 22, 2013

Agatha Christie lamented in her Autobiography the unfortunate position a person can be in when they enjoy Things, enjoy collecting and having Things – what some Philistines these days might call hoarders – but when said person's parents were also collectors and then they end up with a houseful of stuff already, and no room to add their own. 

As I sit in Corporate Coffee Shop, a lady across the room is working with a surgical clamp on a doll and I'm intrigued. Of course, a twitterpated girl of about 18 is sitting between me and that woman, so I'm both irritated and concerned that I'm going to look like a lecher. But, I want to see what she's doing. Not the girl; she's clearly leaning in, talking to her boyfriend and she's young and blond and happy and good for her. But, she's also in the way. The woman, who is about 50 years old, with a pink sleeveless shirt white shorts and reading glasses, is what I want to see. A minute ago the doll was cut in half at the waist and my artist friend was working on her. Now the torso is complete and she's connecting an arm. It seems that there is rope inside the doll that she's clamping onto. Or she put that rope in there for her own purposes. Now she's had to enlist her husband who is across the room with ear buds in – like me – and reading his Nook. (The younger generation can kiss our grits.) It seems that she needed a man's strength to pull the rope in order to accomplish what she's working on. Whatever it was, he made quick work of it. Now the artist is back in her seat talking with who appears to be the owner of the doll. The doll's dress is back on and the woman is pulling her little panties up with her thumbs while she talks. I could not be more happy that I chose this day and time to come get a cup of coffee, and happily the younger generation is bored and moving on – and out of the way. 

This actually ties in to my point. The apparent owner of the doll is probably in her fifties as well and she needs a doll like she needs a hole in the head. (Ever since a friend's father had a hole cut into his head to relieve pressure from fluid build–up on the brain I've felt a tinge of guilt for using that phrase.) The owner is sporting a pink bejeweled baseball cap and even the doll is dressed in pink. Okay, maybe all this pink is beside the point. But, the owner, looking at her pink smart phone, is probably showing the artist pictures of other dolls that she has. She enjoys them. People want to declutter their lives, but there's no point in being sterile.

I would like to point out that I had a friend, who has now gone to meet her maker, who was a true hoarder. She was an artist – a potter. She made the tiniest little pots, some of them no more than 2 inches high. She threw them on a potter's wheel and glazed them, fired them using the Raku method, and sold them. People all over the country and beyond collected her pots. She had a degree in geology and chemistry and she had a 5,000 square foot studio that was completely full of stuff. This is what I'm told the square footage was; I never measured. It was big. And, there was a pathway to get to her work area where she threw  and glazed tiny little pots. Racks of drying pots, racks of pots in bisque. Those things were necessary. Even the stacks of newspaper were necessary because she used them in the firing. The other 99% of the space was filled with unrelated, yet interesting stuff. A Tiffany lamp was in there. Things that she had hauled out of dumpsters. She had a collection of interesting bottles and antique doorknobs. Hell, when she was getting to the end of her life I helped clean out the place; I was there and I don't even remember what was in that studio. They had a long dumpster that they filled three times. A friend of hers came down from New York to help in the effort and he had a train car – literally – filled up and shipped back to his home. She probably had a quarter of a million dollars worth of semi-precious and precious gems that she had collected through the years, her Private Collection. She would show it to us and she remembered each one, when she got it and why.

My point is, having stuff helped her creatively. Yes, she went overboard but there was a grain of truth beneath it all. Lost amongst the clutter, but it was there. Having interesting things around her, finding and collecting interesting things, helped her creative spirit. And she could produce some work; she made hundreds of pots every month. She experimented with new things. So what if she did dumpster dive sometimes? Her work was all the reason and/or justification needed. I will admit that when she got sick and we had to go help her clean it out because she was physically unable, it was a little embarrassing. But, had she continued to live and produce artwork it would have been justified.

Like Mrs. Christie, though, she inherited a collection as well. Her mother was also a hoarder – from what I understand from my friend, herself – and already had a house and attic full of stuff when she (her mother) passed and she (my friend) took the house. The house was the same as the studio, if not worse. There was less space; the house had rooms where the studio was one open space. But, there were paths to the living room furniture and to the bed and to the bathroom. When they were cleaning out the house they discovered a sofa in one of the rooms, buried and hidden underneath a room full of stuff. The room was filled right up to the door. Ask her about it, though, and she would say that she didn't have time to go through it all. She had to work too much on her artwork and she didn't have time to go through each and every thing in the house like would be required. 

I will say for her that there was no decaying organic matter around. She did have the requisite clowter of cats, but they were all tame and friendly. She cleaned litter boxes and kept the food in order. She made it a point to keep the animals in line, whereas she didn't put so much thought into the rest of it.

Perhaps I'm justifying a bad habit. Perhaps I'm enabling some poor person out there who is struggling with an inner need to have stuff piled from floor to ceiling in every room of the house. That is not my intention. There is a step from collecting to hoarding. When you are a hoarder you have lost control and begin to rationalize completely irrational behavior. Make excuses. Deny. But, a collector of things is not wrong. If it helps that person's creativity or simply makes them happy, then that's all the justification that's needed. Where is the line? I don't know. I enjoy going to thrift stores, so I'm probably not the best judge. I can say from experience, though, that I can feel a difference psychologically when things are in control and I can walk through the apartment unhindered. I'm happier and more at home when things are clear and organized than when half a room is taken up with boxes. So, I think the line is in there somewhere. When one truly forgets what it's like to feel comfortable in their own home and has to start tuning the stuff out, when the stuff is no longer fun to look at, then it's becoming a problem. (Clearly if there is a health hazard going on because of rotten food and/or feral cats in the house then that step has been taken quite some time back.)

The ladies are getting up to leave. The artist is gathering her spool of rope and her pink tool box and her husband gets up to follow her to their car. I want to know these people. I was tempted to go give her my card and let her interest be piqued by bemol Ardiente. But I restrain myself. Like Agatha Christie said, sometimes people can be better characters in your mind if you don't actually get to know them. They can be what you imagine them to be. These women are creative and enjoy things. The one enjoys collecting dolls, the other enjoys repairing them. They both have an inordinate fondness for the color pink, but that's a different story for a different time. For now, they are for me what a happy, creative person is: working, enjoying the things that they find interesting and enjoying each other's company.

Now, off to the thrift stores with Nameless. Have you ever been to Top Drawer on Burnet Rd? You've GOT to go!

More later,

e A r n i e

Cheating at Landscaping

April 21, 2013

Living in an apartment has its perks. Technically I rent a condo, but the same would apply if and when I buy it. What I'm thinking about right now is landscaping. It's like cheating. You don't have to do any of the work and you get all of the benefits. (Not ALL of the benefits; you don't get to do the design part. But I haven't had much exposure to that anyway, so it's not a big loss.)

I live in a small village (technically a Census-Designated Place) in Austin, TX called Anderson Mill. Behind the condos there's a park built around the rainwater run-off drainage ditch. There is a walk/run trail going around it. These greenbelts are all over Austin. An acquaintance recently referred to this kind of park as a Pocket Park and that's a good way of putting it. There are several in the area; this one happens to run right behind my condo. 

Today is the most beautiful day in the history of mankind. It's possible that I'm a little giddy from being out in the beauty of it all and that I'm exaggerating the tiniest bit. But truly, it's a beautiful day. Not too hot, not cold. The sun pops in and out from behind non-threatening clouds. The birds are singing and the world is just calling for people to come out and dance. So I did; I went for a walk. 

I've been working on a project and I came to a point in which I needed to think. Not work, not look at it, just step back and think about it. So, I wandered to the park and walked under the trees, mumbling to myself as I thought things out. The trail runs on both sides of the gully (ditch is such a prosaic word) and you have to walk quite a way up to a little playground, turn a corner and further up to the nearest neighborhood street to cross over to the other side. You could just go down and back up to cross over any time you wanted, but that defeats the purpose. I was walking along and I noticed how green the grass was and how neatly cut. If you're not from Central Texas you may not understand the full impact of that statement – in the middle of the drought we've been enduring. As I was walking I caught the scent of honeysuckle. I looked back and I had, indeed, just walked past some growing on a fence. God bless those people for putting that in their back yard. There is something about honeysuckle that proclaims Spring with a capital S. There are other signs of spring, and there are other scents that are pleasant, but the light, happy, slightly tipsy smell of honeysuckle is irreplaceable.

Having crossed over on the bridge and heading back on the far side of the gully I noticed for the first time a path leading from the trail to a street. The path went between two fences, so it was clearly not private property. I walked up to the street and there was a small sign inviting people to enjoy Anderson Mill Park by following the set rules that it proceeded to numerate. Across the street a young man was mowing his lawn. That's when it occurred to me that I get to enjoy the beauty of the landscaping – the lawns, the trees, the flower beds that people put in front and back of their homes – without having to be tied to doing the labor myself. If I owned a home, mine would be the one sore spot in the block that was full of weeds and never properly mown. So, it's best that things be the way they are.

Back on the trail, I walked under a bunch of limbs that create a sort of tunnel, tree limbs and leaves that shade the area and old, thick vines that give character and make it one of my favorite spots on the walk. Presently I came to the little foot bridge that brought me back around to my side of the gully and back toward home. What a pleasant walk that was. When the temperature gets to be in the hundreds for a record number of days it won't be quite as pleasant. But for now it is just the most beautiful day imaginable.

eArnie