Colonial Princeton, NJ - take that, Colonial Williamsburg, Va!

A couple dressed in the style popular around the

American revolution.

Having recently returned from my first visit to Colonial Williamsburg, I decided to try to come up with colonial sites to visit in my home state of New Jersey, to assuage the let-down of leaving that truly charming town.  Once I started to tote up the sites, I realized that New Jersey has an amazing colonial heritage still standing and open to the public.  Of course there is Burlington, and Trenton, and Princeton, and Mount Holly, and, and, and!  

I realize how remiss I have been in taking my home state for granted.  There are so many wonderful historic houses and sites around, I am going to make a list (and check it twice) as well as mark up some maps to try to come up with some itineraries for myself and Chir.

Tomorrow, we finally go to Olden House and its grander older sibling, Drumthwacket, on Route 206 in Princeton.  Olden House, a four-room farmhouse which was built between 1759 and 1765 by John Hill, is named after Thomas Olden, a tailor and farmer who purchased the house from Hill in 1772. His father was John Olden, one of the six early settlers who established the Quaker community of Stony Brook. Charles Smith Olden, one of Thomas Olden‘s grandsons, who was born here in 1799 was responsible for beginning the construction of the mansion Drumthwacket in 1835.

I have spent more than 35 years in this area over the course of my life, but not once have I visited Olden House or Drumthwacket.  I hang my head rhetorically in shame.

Next week will be Morven, also in Princeton, built in 1758, which has an amazing history peopled with fascinating characters, including a woman George Washington himself called "The Muse of Morven" in honor of her poetry!

Ice and Roses

Our second snow this fall greeted me this morning . . . big, fat, sploshy flakes tumbling down and laying a temporary white cover over everything, including the last buds and blooms of my roses, including a juicy red Eden bud that will probably never get to open, and this lovely pink Eden bloom, capped with ice and snow, but still breathtaking.

Our first snow was in October, just after the much-vaunted and quite terrible Hurricane Sandy storm blew through, toppling trees and branches right and left.  I wonder if this winter will be like last year's - heralded by Autumn snow, but snowless itself.  I hope not.  It's not that I want to be inconvenienced, but Winter without one substantial snow storm seems somewhat pointless.  I want to be able to build one snowman, and fulfill my typical winter resolution.  I would prefer it snow heavily on Friday evening, so Saturday morning would find everything under a blanket of sparkling white snow, and that it melt away Sunday late afternoon and evening, leaving Monday morning traffic unimpeded.  Not that I'm picky or anything.

Fall is here

Fall is here . . . actually, Fall has been around for about a month; I just hadn't noticed.  All of a sudden I'm surprised by the bare branches, the colored leaves heading into brown decline.

As Sherlock Holmes would say, with a lip curled in pitying arrogance:  "Hempel, you see, but you do not observe."

Of course, he would not be entirely correct.  There are many things I observe minutely, but the passage of time has never been one of them.

My experience of time is that it is one long, continuous taffy pull; that it will keep stretching out forever, and that  a certain day or event in the future will never arrive, because time will keep on stretching.  A kind of Zeno's dichotomy paradox for time, as it were.  You never get there.  The thing is, of course you do!  And of course time doesn't actually stretch further and further; so Spring ends, Fall arrives, Fall progresses, and all of a sudden I look at dwindling brown foliage in surprise.

I love Autumn's weather; "October's bright blue weather," as Helen Hunt Jackson put it.  My only argument with it is that winter inevitably follows, and although I am not filled with melancholy at the prospect, as I so often have been in the past, the colder months are still less fun than Spring and Fall, no two ways about it.  At any rate, here is the poem by Helen Hunt Jackson.  I discovered it when I followed up a quote about "October's bright blue sky," which turned out to be a misquote.

October's Bright Blue Weather




O suns and skies and clouds of June,

And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October's bright blue weather;




When loud the bumblebee makes haste,

Belated, thriftless vagrant,

And goldenrod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;




When gentians roll their fingers tight

To save them for the morning,

And chestnuts fall from satin burrs

Without a sound of warning;




When on the ground red apples lie

In piles like jewels shining,

And redder still on old stone walls

Are leaves of woodbine twining;




When all the lovely wayside things

Their white-winged seeds are sowing,

And in the fields still green and fair,

Late aftermaths are growing;




When springs run low, and on the brooks,

In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush

Of woods, for winter waiting;




When comrades seek sweet country haunts,

By twos and twos together,

And count like misers, hour by hour,

October's bright blue weather.




O sun and skies and flowers of June,

Count all your boasts together,

Love loveth best of all the year

October's bright blue weather.

Simple leaves

Aren't these beautiful?  They are composed of the simplest leaves, artfully arranged, then sewn to the page, as you can see in the last panel.  Why don't I do that?  What a reminder of the beauty all around us we do not see clearly enough to appreciate!

Long time, no see

Well, time flies.  It has been more than a month since I posted.  I am working on a piece for a gallery show called View from Above, View from Below.  Or that is, I should be working on a piece for this gallery show.  I have the idea, I have a sketch, but I haven't started yet.  My first step would be making a tree; not so hard to do.  I am hoping to have it done in the next several days.

I made a new journal cover.  I inset a wooden mini casement window which open to reveal - ta da!  - whatever image I put behind it.  Perhaps a woman sitting at a window?  We'll see.

This summer I have been to brooks, found many stones with holes, convoluted shapes, and fascinating grotesqueries, and even made necklaces out of some of them.  I got to Doylestown to see the art on loan from the Uffizzi Museum in Florence, which I remember dimly from my childhood.  I finally finished my Spring book/journal . . . But somehow, this has been a slightly gray summer.

Right now, there is a lot going on in my life.  One of my two best friends had a small stroke after surgery, impacting the peripheral vision in her left eye.  Her daughters, who live in Seattle, panicked and strong-armed her into moving into assisted living in Seattle just one and a half days after her release from the hospital.  No time to say goodbye to the house she lived in for 40 years, or her friends, or her town, or her life.  And for what?  The loss of some peripheral vision?  She was in such a vulnerable condition, and they literally forced her into it.  She has been there about a week and a half, and is miserable, and told one of her daughters, from whom she has taken a lot of guff and for whom she has done a great deal, and the daughter basically said, "No way are we letting you go back to Princeton."  Letting her?  But my friend is still very psychologically shaken, and said to me "I guess I'll just have to make the best of it."  Her house is still there, most of her clothes, books, and belongings are still there, all of her furniture except one chair a friend took and can return is still there, and my friend doesn't need assisted living - so just why shouldn't she come home?

Last Friday, one of my mother's best friends would have died if I had not come to visit her.  It was very frightening, and reminded me all the more of the fragility of life and the constant change and unpredictability all around.

And I have given notice at the school where I teach art that I am not returning for the Fall term.

So much change.  I feel quite unsteady, and even vulnerable.  I believe good comes out of everything, although we may not, with our limited capacities, be able to recognize it; so I believe good will come out of all this as well, but it doesn't mean that it is easy.

Speaking of songs, how about . . . . .?

"Friendship, friendship, just the perfect blendship . . . "

I can hear Ethel Merman's braying in my ears as I think of this classic song.  Her charm has always eluded me.  Why is she so heralded when her voice was awful:  abrasive, brassy, nasal?

 However, the song is funny and warm-hearted, and hits on an essential truth. Friendship is good for what ails you.

Thanks, pals!  You know who you are.  Probably.  Sometimes we don't know the difference we make in other people's lives,

The Power of Song - Here's to you, Reb Shlomo!

For the past couple of weeks I have had Chassidishe nigunim swirling around in my head.  It all started with reading tehillim (psalms), which I love to do.  I keep on meaning to memorize more of them, but haven't gotten around to it.  The ones I do know by heart, I love to be able to recite to myself when the moment calls for it.

At any rate, when I was reading psalms, I came across the phrase "Essa eynai el heharim"  "I lift up my eyes to the hills," and the melody I knew from college days jumped into my mouth and I started singing.  What a pathway to heaven!

Once I remembered "Essa eynai," I started to recall other songs:  "Pischu li sha'arei tzedek,"  "Am Yisroel Chai," "Romemu Hashem" . . .  Why couldn't some of these be incorporated into a Taize-style service? These are all songs by Shlomo Carlebach, a charismatic neo-Chassidic troubator who, starting in the late sixties, I believe, started touring college campuses with his music and his message of connection to G-d.  I met him when I was at Brandeis, and spent quite a bit of time with him.  His loving warmth was like a balm.  (There were reports later in his life that were very serious, but that was not my experience.)

At any rate, I am grateful to get those joyous nigunim back into my life.  There is a place for solemnity, but we shouldn't forget about just plain, flat-out joy,  and Reb Shlomo's music is one way to experience it.

A blast from the past

This morning my brother e-mailed me a drawing I made when I was 17, quite some time ago!  I had forgotten about it, but the minute I saw it, I remembered it and remembered all the circumstances surrounding my drawing it.

Birthday surprise

I came home from work today quite tired and somewhat dispirited.  I pulled into the driveway, grabbed my various bags, and decided to head over to the front of the house to pick up my Town Topics newspaper, delivered on Wednesdays.  When I got to the front door, I stopped dead in my tracks.  There was a beautiful bunch of flowers and a box of Lindt chocolates.  I knew at once they were fro m Twinerik, aka the Mystery Chocolatier.  My eyes welled up with tears of emotion at his remembering my birthday, and marking it in this way.

The most important part of the birthday present I discovered once I got inside, however; a card from my friend Twinerik with the most incredibly positive message one could imagine.  At that point, the tears spilled over, I was so moved.

Last year Twinerik saved my birthday; he made it again this year.  Thanks, Twinerik.

Posh, passionate Peonies!

This bouquet of peonies from *************** is so beautiful, I can't stop wondering at its lushness.  It is incredibly beautiful.

Despondent, despairing, depressed, and other downer D-words . . .

Despondent, despairing, depressed, and other downer D-words . . . deprived, deleted, derogated (is that a word?), damned, draggy, doldrums, durance vile (ok, two words, one not beginning with D.  So sue me.)  Where was I?  Oh yes - deceased, decedent (can't get much more down than those), dark, diminished, damaged, dampened, denigrated, denied, depridation, depricated, demolished, destroyed, drooping, dreading, dejected, defeated, demoralized, dismissed, dehumanized, deceived, debased - whew!  Have to take a break.

Garlands of Lilacs

I love this vintage photo of a trio of young women wearing lilac garlands around their necks.

More Turquoise!

I am suddenly obsessed with turquoise - I spent hours last night commbing though my files and the internet looking for MORE TURQUOISE!!  Actually, didn't find that much that I absolutely loved.  But the seascape to the left is fairly juicy looking.

I also found bunches of what is called "Fenton" glass - turquoise blue  glass with either only white or white plus color touches floral and butterfly decorations on it.

Here is some information from a Fenton collecting site:
Brothers Frank and John Fenton started the Fenton Art Glass company in Martins Ferry, Ohio in 1905. Their first products were painted glassware with the glass supplied by other manufacturers. But when these pieces proved difficult to acquire they decided to produce their own glass.  The company turned 100 years old in 2005 with third and fourth generation family members still at the helm. . . . . The company, however, has now closed and being auctioned off on May 24, 2012.

La Vie en Turquoise

I bought this inexpensive necklace some time ago at Target or Kohl's, I believe.  I loved its juicy turquoise color and beaded braid profusion, and I thought it would be easy to wear.  Alas, no.  The braid is so thick, and extends so far, that it looks quite ungraceful on.  When I was trying it on with a turquoise blouse, hoping against hope for the umpteenth time that it would work, I noticed it was the same turquoise as a rhinestone pin I wear often and was planning to wear should the necklace not look right (which of course it still didn't).  I decided to put them together, and loved the turquoise overload of color.  Last night I finally decided to photograph it, which I did, twice - once plain, once with sparkly bird.  (Penny plain, tuppence colored, as they used to say in Victorian England.)  The photo doesn't capture the luscious color, but it will serve as a reminder to me at some point.  Sparkle on!

Heaven . . . I'm in heaven . . .

Just saw a Time magazine cover about a theological debate about the nature of heaven.  For heaven's sake, can't we wait until we see for ourselves, and just stick to trying to do G-d's will?  This reminds me of poor Harold Camping's prognostications about exactly when the end of the world will occur.  Again, can't we spend our time more productively doing our best, studying the Bible, you know, that kind of thing?  True, it takes more effort, and impinges on our actual lives more than diddling around with conjectures while sitting on our duffs, but perhaps, just perhaps, it is actually more rewarding in the long run.   Bought the issue, though; it had a couple of other articles that intrigued me.

That being said, there is an argument to be made that, however temporarily, my backyard garden is heaven.

The lingering lonicera fragrantissima blossoms still emit their honeyed scent, and pots of lilies, blooming lilacs, and drifts of dangling wisteria are all contributing their heady fragrance to the mix.  I could almost become drunk wandering from flower to flower.  The lilacs and especially the wisteria racemes, which grow longer and longer every year, and are of two types: one a bluer lavender, the other a rosier lavender, are so beautiful I can hardly believe they exist in this world - they are like a portal to the next.  

The importance of signage, and badinage, and triage . . . .

"The Bearded Heart," a bizzaro journal edited by Tristan Tzara.

Well, went to a play tonight.  Travesties, by Tom Stoppard.  It's one of his earlier plays, and I believe I don't care for his earlier plays,. whereas I love, and I mean LOVE his play Arcadia and truly truly deeply appreciated his play The Real Thing, both later and less surreal, over-the-top, "can you believe how verbally witty I am?" than the earlier ones.


Lydia and I had agreed that if we wanted to, we would leave during the intermission.  At the very last moment of the first half, I almost relented in my almost desperate desire to go home, NOW please, because an actor quite literally pulled a rabbit out of a hat.  Well, he was actually way gentler than that.  He actually uncovered the little white bunny, which had been somehow abstracted into a straw boater.  He then stroked it and gave it a little kiss, which I found unutterably sweet of the actor, who it seemed to me was comforting the little rabbit, aware of its potential stage fright or just plain abject terror.


When the lights went up, I turned to Lydia, and the moment our eyes met she said "We're going home," and I collapsed with relief and said over and over again - "thank you, thank you, thank you!"  After swearing the couple next to us (coincidentally, acquaintances of Lydia's) to a solemn oath of secrecy about our leaving before the end, we headed out to the lobby with them to say a brief hello to two close friends of Lydia's before turning tail and running.


The first half of what we saw was almost completely incomprehensible. We couldn't make out the words, nor could the "intellectual" couple to our right or their friends (remember Marsha?).   I even believe the first eighth might have been written as gibberish.  The second half was somewhat comprehensible, but tiresome, and not witty enough to sustain its own weight.    If only the play had been pruned by say, a third (hence the triage in my title for this post), it would have been so much lighter and fleeter, but the early, overly prolix Tom Stoppard evidently couldn't bear to give up even one mediocre jest.There were some amusing moments, but a lot of the humor, even if clever, wasn't funnier than what I have encountered in real life with real people - a bit about "enigmatic, magnetic, but not I think astigmatic;dynamic, gnomic, but not I think anemic," for example, a play on repeating phonemes or whatever.  


However, I did appreciate:
"Ah, the yes-no's of yesterday," a play on "Ou sont les neiges d'antan?"*
and "Never trusted the Hun," I remarked; "Boche," he replied.
(Boche is pronounced like bosh, but was a pejorative nickname for Germans during WWII.)


Ah, well, my attempts to pursue self-improvement through culture have bitten me in the whoziwhatsisses yet again, but though I am bloody, I am unbowed.  The final curtain has not yet fallen on my intellectual endeavors.


Driving home, Lydia remarked that Naked Pizza was full.  I was glad, although surprised, as I told her, because their sign, logo, and general design looked so bleak and super modernistic that I quite lost my appetite just looking at the store front.  And then I ill-advisedly said to her, "Perhaps not everyone reacts to signage as I do," and I suddenly felt as though I had stepped into a Stoppard play.  What would the average person make of that remark?  I believe Lydia's good-natured response is a hint:  "Perhaps no-one reacts the way you do, period," which may be true but which makes me feel just a tiny bit lonely.  I choose to think that somewhere out there, male, female, or undecided, there is someone else who will buy a book for its exceptionally well-designed cover, who is unable to buy certain foods because of the irredeemable ugliness of their packaging, and who feels a shock of pleasure straight through to the solar plexus upon seeing certain colors.  And this person, too, will be unable to completely enjoy Bryan Watson's toes-of-steel, ecstatic jive because his nose is too short for his face.

Oh, another good thing is that I got to wear a fancy pink dress I have been wanting to wear.  The bad news is I couldn't wear the bat-winged black dress I have been wanting to wear.  Well, I could have, but the pink dress would have looked very strange with the black sleeves hanging out from under the candy-colored pink chiffon.  Next time.  And there will be a next time, because every so often, that bizarre-sounding play/poetry-reading/musical improv/art event turns out to be really, really cool and I feel so good and energized by the creativity and originality of it all.  It's happened before, and it can and will happen again.


In the meantime, in a pathetic imitation of the style of some parts of the play, I am so, sew, sow glad to be home.  And remember, as you rip, so shall you sew.  How was the play?  Only so-sew, although some in the audience were in stitches.  Only so-sow; the production was rather seedy.  And last, and yes, probably least, though the other's aren't much either:  Only s'eau s'eau; the evening was a wash-out.


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*Which is itself of the mournful "ubi sunt?" genre, so called after the plaintive Latin phrase "Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?" - "Where are those who were before us?"  Hint: the answer isn't Syracuse or Lake Woebegon.  It's dead.  A similarly melancholy query is "Ubi nunc?" - "Where now?" 

Unexpected gifts

I had a tough day yesterday, but that's another story, and one that isn't going to be written.  What I am going to mention, very briefly, is what happened in the evening.

I was at a square dance with Chir, and an older man I know slightly came up to me and handed me a medium- sized box.  When I opened it, I discovered that it contained an enormous, extremely double orange hibiscus flower and a white, polished, heart-shaped stone.  The flower was stunning, and the stone like a precious talisman; as I held it in my hand I rubbed its smooth surface and felt a warming reminder of appreciation.

I thanked the man for his gifts, and for the propitiousness of the timing of which he could not have been aware.  How nice, even for a few moments, to feel a sense of being valued.  And how important to remember that we also can do this type of thing for others, that even the smallest positive thing we do for another person may come at just the moment to make a big difference.

Soaring with the gulls

This afternoon, I drove over to a nearby shopping mall to pick up craft supplies for my art classes tomorrow.  I eased into the parking space, put on the brake before turning the car off, and casually looked up through the windshield to behold a magical sight.

Above me, around me, wheeling and whirling through the air, were a dozen seagulls.  They swooped, they hovered, they dived to grab a bit of food in their beaks before taking off again, and they circled - they circled around my car.  I was surrounded by them.  It was as though they had gathered there to herald my arrival and then perform their aerial feats of wonder for me.


It was a supernatural experience.  I felt as though I were briefly in some magical realm, with time and reality suspended while the seagulls soared and dipped around me.  Finally, the gulls flew away one by one, circling further and further out until they were gone.I regretfully wrenched myself back to the real world, still filled with awe at the beauty and mystery of the experience.


I have been trying to design a banner with a dove, fretting about which view of the dove, how should it be flying, where are its wings spread, and here, all around me, were examples of every possible position I could have dreamed of.

Thanks, God, for the reminder of the wonder that exists all around us everyday, just beneath the veil of the ordinary.

Construction Blues

I am having much-needed work done on my house, and I feel like a squatter in some derelict tenement at this point.  No privacy, and sharing my bathroom with up to six grubby construction workers.  Not my idea of heaven.

Actually, the situation reminds me of various colorful curses - may you grown like an onion with your head in the ground; may you be like a chandelier, hang by day and burn by night, and the obscurely intellectual, may you live in interesting times.  To that I would add:  may you have construction work that is never completed, and frequently billed for, done in your house until the end of time, your money, or your sanity, whichever comes first.

This too shall pass! 

Nothing but blue skies . . .

I drove down to Bellmawr today, to share a lesson with BW and his mother.  I haven't seen them or Sergunchik in months, but I had a lighter-than-usual schedule this Monday, and saw my chance.  (Also, BW called yesterday and suggested we do another showcase, and I couldn't resist!)

Driving down, I was fascinated by the sky.  At one point, golden light poured through a break in some clouds high up, and the rays of light fanned out, streaking the clouds below with pale yellow and pink.  It looked rather as though an artist had taken a brush and gently smudged the edges of the rays of light passing in front of the clouds.  

When I was driving home, ribbons of tiny birds flew past over head, in undulating waves.  There must have been hundreds of them, all talking excitedly at once as they flew up and down, around and through, gradually making their way who knows where.

The sky itself was such a beautiful color - a bright sky blue at the top, gradually becoming creamier and creamier until it became the palest of hues toward the horizon.

The drive to and from was so pleasant, in fact, it felt more like an hour than like the nearly three hours the clock stubbornly insisted the round trip had actually lasted.

The universe is speaking to me, but what is it saying?

New Year's Eve, 2011.  Dinner with PAH at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants.  And just, I mean just, as we stand up to leave after a lively two-hour conversation, a couple walks in.  It is my friend since second or third grade, Deb T, and her husband of several decades.  I haven't seen Deb in several years; I think five or six.  As I hugged her, I said, "The Universe is definitely talking to us," and she agreed.  I will call her this coming week.  PAH agreed about the universe thing; he's been planning to ask her and her husband over with Jan, me (and now my guy as well) for some time.  The meeting was just too fortuitou and symbolic to be ignored.  (It is actually sort of like "out with the old, in with the old" - friend, that is . . .)

So far, the Universe seems to be speaking pretty clearly.  But that wasn't enough for me.  Driving home, I started to think wistfully about my guy, and then about brooks.  Why not, I thought (ignoring all the obvious answers to that question),  why not drive over to a vantage point overlooking Harry's Brook at midnight to see in the New Year at one of my favorite places?  And then, as I continued to drive, I refined the thought.  Why not drive over to Carnegie Lake right now, since I would undoubtedly fink out on going out again at midnight?  And then I thought of my mother, and my mother's house so close to Carnegie Lake, and decided to drive there instead of the stretch along the Princeton-Kingston Road, where there is a parking lot and easy access. 

Well, I drove to my mother's place, and drove all the way around the road going past Carnegie Lake until I found a spot to park.  It was amazingly dark, and I was wearing high heels.  Actually, as I tottered over the wet, grassy expanse toward the lake, several times I wasn't wearing high heels: they became stuck in the mire and I had to take them off to extricate them and then put them back on again.  It didn't take too many times until I was thinking that this had not been a spectacularly good idea of mine, but I was reluctant to turn back.  I proceeded very cautiously, not wanting to fall in a relatively remote spot.  Finally, I made it to the lake's edge.  I could hear the brook off to the right, and the occasional hum of a car driving across the Harrison St. bridge.  Off to the right, the lights of the cars on the Washington Rd. bridge shone on the lake below.  I could hear geese and ducks somewhere nearby . . .  And then I saw a shadowy form gliding on the water nearby.  "Ah, a duck!:  I thought.  "How nice!  How picturesque!  How -"  A really loud splash, that sounded more like a harsh thump startled me, and I mean really, really startled me, because it was quite loud.  Suddenly, no more duck.  "Well," I thought, "he's gone under catching a fish."  But I still felt creeped out, and thought it must have been a mighty big fish.  I peered into the darkness, trying to make out the surface of the water.  A large circle of ripples was spreading out.  Then I saw the form re-emerge.  At once I had the unwelcome thought, "Wait a minute.  I don't think that's a duck.  It doesn't really look like a duck ---- and ducks bob down and up again, they don't swim under water."  (I know, I know, I should have become a marine biologist with my exceptional perception and insight.)  The hideous possibility sprang unbidden to mind - it was a water rat.  A large water rat.  A really really - well, you get the idea - and it was swimming towards me. As it drew too close for comfort, I took out my keys and shook them, to startle the unwelcome critter and let it know it wasn't alone.  A loud thump, and it disappeared under the water.  I turned and walked determinedly back to the road.  I would have run, but I couldn't.  I felt rather disheartened.  What did it all mean?  What was the universe trying to tell me there?  It didn't seem like a very friendly message, somehow.  I detoured a few feet to peer over the stone wall at the brook where Deb and I played as children, and then hightailed it to my car and home.

So, Universe, I believe I got your first message loud and clear, but I'm not so sure about the second one.  Do me a favor though, please don't repeat it.  I'd rather find out myself as the year progresses.  Maybe it will turn out that water rats are sadly misunderstood, very loving, sweet creatures.  I can but hope.

Happy New Year to all, and to all, a good night.