Art and Architecture, Family, Parenthood, Travel

A San Francisco Treat

January 16, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

For over twenty years now, my husband had been saying, “Sometime we need to go out to California.” As a near-penniless grad student, he had given a talk at a conference in Monterey. He had flown to San Francisco, where he managed to find an affordable motel (read seedy, verging on squalid) for the two days before his university per diem kicked in. He became smitten with the city and the dramatic rocky west coast. He’s been wanting to return ever since. Yet the time was never quite right, and I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. Despite glowing reviews from him and several native and transplanted California friends, my stubborn, wrong-headed vision of the state persisted: thousands of miles of disaster-prone L.A. sprawl and superficiality. My bias was no doubt influenced by my mother’s attitude. In her opinion, California (unlike Europe, somehow), was simply too far away to merit serious consideration. While I was growing up, she harbored a vague dread that one day, school, a job, or a boy would lure me to the opposite end of the country. Now that my daughter is in high school, I can even more fully appreciate this concern.

One thing led to another, though, and we reached a family decision to head to the bay area this past winter break. And I have to admit, I should have paid attention earlier to all those fans of northern California. I understand now. It’s every bit as good as they say. Maybe even a little bit better, because the weather was so gorgeous. We had prepared for fog, drizzle, gray skies and a damp chill in the air. Instead, we found sunshine, bright blue skies and afternoon temperatures in the mid-60s. With its palm trees, live oaks, cypresses, huge eucalyptus trees and lush flowers, the city has a tropical feel that, for me, at least, was completely unexpected. It was a welcome break from the icy Virginia December we had left behind.

The 19th-century Italianate tower of the Ferry Building sits sentinel on the beautifully reconfigured Embarcadero, (former site of the 1960s-era Embarcadero Freeway that collapsed during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.)

A row of Victorian homes, delicately decorated and painted.

Portico of the James C. Flood mansion in Nob Hill. Built in 1886,
it’s one of few buildings to survive the 1906 earthquake and fire.

A peaceful view along the waterfront, somewhere between
Fisherman’s Wharf & Ghirardelli Square.

The Marina, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.
Nearby is Crissy Field, a must-see spot for my husband. It’s where windsurfers gather when weather permits.

On my list of sights was the monumental Palace of Fine Arts,
designed by Bernard Maybeck for the Panama-Pacific Exhibition in 1915. It was rebuilt of permanent materials in the 1960s.

A close-up view of the Palace of Fine Arts.

A towering Victorian mansion on Alamo Square.

Perhaps the most familiar row of Victorians in San Francisco, the
six “Painted Ladies” on Steiner Street across from Alamo Square.

The less familiar, but just as beautifully painted sisters in the lower block of Steiner Street.

Hibiscus adorns the entry of an Alamo Square home.
I loved the city’s tropical plantings.

With Muni passes, we sampled the city’s many forms of public transportation. Vintage streetcars, like this one on Market Street, are better enjoyed from the outside, as they spend most of their time stopped. Best to catch a bus if you’re in a hurry.

Cable cars offer a lively ride. We learned to avoid the long tourist lines and hop on in the middle of the intersection. Our daughter was thrilled when she was assigned an outside perch as we sailed down one of the city’s steep, signature hills.

Community, Family, Nature

Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

January 7, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

The current extreme cold isn’t news to anyone in more than half of the country. Still, it is remarkable. The need to talk about the weather seems to be an almost inescapable element of our humanity. It’s in our nature, and it’s hard to avoid. As we’ve been told, we can blame the deep freeze on the polar vortex, which has gone kinky. Oh dear!

Here in Northern Virginia, for the first time I can remember, school was canceled due to the cold, much to our daughter’s great joy. Our porch thermometer read -1 at 7 AM. D, who enjoys the sleep of the dead on school mornings, was inspired to get up and go out, briefly, just to experience the temperature.

The morning view from our upstairs rooms was almost completely obscured by frost, thanks to our leaky storm windows. If we ever get new windows, we won’t know, immediately upon waking, how to dress for the day. Justification, perhaps, for keeping the old windows.

Kiko and I walked, as usual, around 8 AM. I bundled up sensibly, in layers, as any regular dog walker does. I overdid the bundling, in fact, so I got a little warm. The ice crystals that collected in my scarf were the only indication that this cold was more serious than usual. Kiko kept up a brisk pace, thankfully. He seemed to enjoy the frosty air but had the sense not to linger over the day’s smorgasbord of smells.

When we returned about 45 minutes later, Kiko rushed onto the porch, forgoing his usual attempt to ambush squirrels at the back yard bird feeder. Once inside, he didn’t pause to check his food bowl, but hurried to a sizable patch of sun in the playroom. For several hours, he followed the sun to spots it rarely takes him. He kept himself tightly curled, like a little fox. My furry friend had evidently felt the chill.

Kikoinsun018 — Finally, warm enough to unwind.

A day off school often seems like a break from ordinary time, so I decided to do something different and make French onion soup for lunch. Standing by the stove, caramelizing onions, working the New York Times crossword while listening to John Prine and Robert Earl Keen turned out to be an ideal way to keep warm in our drafty house. Maybe this afternoon, I can convince D to watch the last half of Downton Abbey with me.

To all of you sharing this icy spell, I wish you safety, warmth, comfort, and a welcome break from the usual!

Family, Holiday, Parenthood

More Exercises in Extreme Gift Wrapping

January 6, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

Two years ago, I wrote about my husband’s flair for imaginative gift-wrapping. (See Exercises in Extreme Gift Wrapping, December 2011.) H was born into a family of happy wrappers. One of the pillars of their holiday tradition is the inventive wrapping of every single gift, no matter how large or small, no matter how humble. A bracelet might be hidden in a box sized for an appliance. If an object has a recognizable shape, it’s typically disguised in another box. Multiple containers are frequently employed. The family name is undoubtedly enshrined in a place of prominence in the gift-wrap hall of fame.

My family’s approach to gift wrapping, on the other hand, may be described as practical and decorative. Certainly, compared to H’s family, we are wrapping minimalists. But then most of the world would be, as well. I was unprepared for the sea of multi-colored gifts that flooded the living room on our first Christmas together at H’s parents’ house.

My husband has continued the tradition in his own way. He no longer feels the need to wrap up a pair of socks in a refrigerator box simply to fill out the gift-scape under the tree. His approach emphasizes visual impact and imaginative packaging. In 2011, he enclosed three gifts for our daughter in large cylindrical tubes intended for setting concrete. Last Christmas and this year, he followed up with gifts of strikingly unusual shape.

On the morning of Christmas Eve 2012, a modest triangular package appeared under the tree. The tag read, “To D, from Mama and Daddy.” Our daughter was thrilled to see that Daddy had been busy again down in the basement, working on a new packaging scheme. She suspected that the pyramid would be only the first of a series of mysterious packages. She was right, of course.

On Christmas morning, the silver pyramid had become one of the arms of a five-pointed star, the center of which was a pentagon-shaped box. Each point contained a small gift, while the pentagon encased a more substantial present. Really, though, the items inside the boxes were almost incidental. The real gifts here were the surprise factor, followed by the intricate process of unwrapping, a sustained big reveal.

Above, our daughter sits among the unwrapped elements, the hinged plywood boxes my husband carefully constructed to form the star. His engineering training and math skills equipped him for the endeavor.

This year, a slender, four-foot tall pyramid turned up by the tree a few days before Christmas. The package prompted my daughter to respond in kind with a last-minute present we had for H. The gift was in a long, narrow box. She disguised the shape by adding a gable-like projection at the top. No doubt about it, she’s her father’s daughter. Although she claims it was unintended, she was nevertheless proud that her creation turned out to be just slightly taller than H’s pyramid.

On Christmas Eve, I awakened to the startling sound of drilling coming from under the bed. I assumed H was busy working his holiday magic. Once downstairs, I found an oversized blue Christmas orb suspended from the ceiling. On Christmas morning, the final element of the mobile appeared: a silver-wrapped ring, about the size of a pool life-saver.

The uniquely shaped items, as always, were saved for last. The pyramid was another neatly hinged plywood box, large enough for D to sit inside. The silver ring turned out to be a section of pool noodle, taped together, with a tiny gift wedged inside. The blue Christmas ball was purely decorative. H was pleased with D’s clever and meticulous wrapping of his gift. He’s delighted to know that in his daughter’s hands, the family tradition of extreme gift-wrapping has a sure future.

Family, Parenthood

Time Warp (Another Little Girl in Red)

December 23, 2013 Wildtrumpetvine

I was born to a family of savers and recyclers. Among the many boxes in my parents’ attic are several that contain my mother’s old sewing patterns, clearly marked and dated, from the 1960s on. When Mama decided that my daughter needed her own Red Riding Hood robe like the one I had worn in the Christmas photo from 1965, she used the same pattern. D loved her version and wore it for years. Here she is at age three in 2002: another little blonde girl in red, happy to be visiting her grandparents.

Family, Holiday, Parenthood

More Thoughts on Old-Time Trees and Trappings

December 21, 2013 Wildtrumpetvine

As I think more about the photos of our first, unfortunate Georgia tree (see previous post), I understand better why it looked the way it did. When my parents were growing up in small Kentucky towns, Christmas trees weren’t big business. They were barely any business. Getting a tree was an exclusively do-it-yourself endeavor. Choices were limited, and the ideal of the perfect, cone-shaped tree didn’t exist, at least not in those rural areas. Maybe the fashionable Seelbach Hotel in Louisville decorated a neat, Tannenbaum-style fir, but then again, maybe not. My mother remembers her father and brothers going out in the fields on their land in central Kentucky and bringing back a tree they’d cut themselves. Daddy, from an Ohio river town in the northeast part of the state, recalls going with his dad farther up into the holler and chopping down a tree. They got what was available, what they could cut, what they could haul. Throughout Kentucky, in those years, the typical Christmas tree was a cedar. Bushy and lacking much definable shape, their branches were fine, thin and fragrant.

It was only after they were married that my parents exchanged money for a Christmas tree. As my mother remembers, they bought the first tree for their new house in Lexington from an old man who sold cedars he cut himself. The photo below dates from 1964 and shows a full but rather ungainly cedar that was the standard of my early childhood.

On Christmas morning in our house in Lexington, my hair still in rag-tied curls, I’m happily discovering Santa’s gifts of a “Debbie Eve” baby doll and a cradle. We would head to my grandparents’ later in the day, for Christmas dinner.

Christmas Eve, 1965, with Mama in the living room of my grandparents’ house. Our smiles appear to be heartfelt. We were right where we wanted to be.

Christmas morning, 1965, at my grandparents’ house.
I’m in the new red corduroy housecoat Mama made me, holding my new doll Amy. In my cloudy half-memories, this was a perfect Christmas day.

Family, Holiday, Parenthood

Oh…Eww…Christmas Tree!

December 18, 2013 Wildtrumpetvine

We had planned to get our Christmas tree last Sunday after church. (We put up several artificial trees in early December, but wait until mid-month on the real tree.) At breakfast that morning, our daughter recounted the dream she’d been having upon waking: H and I had decided to surprise her by going out for the tree while she slept. By the time she came downstairs, we had it set up and decorated. It was not a good-looking tree. D tried to hide her disappointment in not being included in the tree outing, in our choice of an unfortunate tree, in its awkward placement, and in our bad decorating. When she reached out to touch it, the trunk collapsed in on itself like a patio umbrella stand. It had been tall and ugly; now it was short and ugly. Once fully awake, she was greatly relieved to find no tree at all in the living room.

Her dream reminded me of some old photos from my childhood featuring particularly unsightly Christmas trees. D had seen them before, but had forgotten, so the impact was strong.

These photos have mystified me for years. They were taken in our first house in Atlanta, a little rental ranch in the Montreal Woods section of Tucker. When I think back on the Christmases of my childhood and teen years, I set them in the home we bought two years later, in the Morningside area. As I remember, it was graced annually with a nicely shaped, well-decorated tree, usually a Frazier fir. Why, then, were these trees, from the more distant past, so very ugly?

Upon recent re-examination of the photos, I assumed they showed two different, but equally unattractive trees, from consecutive years. (Dates on our family photos are often missing or erroneous.) The first captures a hulking, bushy tree. I look up at it with awed trepidation. In the second, I sit forlornly beside a presence that resembles a raggedy, monstrous figure, small-waisted and large-hipped. The broad expanse of blank white wall adds a further degree of bleakness.

Then I noticed that in another picture of the monster tree, I’m wearing the same black dress and blue barrettes as in the bushy-tree photo. Could we really have had two such sad-looking trees in the same year? Was the first so terrible that we took it down and swapped it for another, late in the season, when the pickings were even slimmer? Maybe the first one kept falling over? (I have vague memories of toppling trees on rickety stands.) Or maybe the needles dried out within a few days? I phoned my parents to see if they could offer any clarification. They didn’t think we ever had two trees in a single year. They did remember that we had some less than stellar trees in the Tucker years.

It had to be the same tree, one with the added distinction of looking bad in various ways depending upon the angle from which it was viewed. The same ornaments appeared in similar spots; the same aluminum-foil tinsel was draped haphazardly over long-needled branches. In the photo above, Mama and I seem to be trying to put on a good show, to pretend gamely that we’re perfectly content in the presence of this strange tree. Here we are, happy and well-dressed, holding these gifts expectantly. We could be a family on a Christmas card.

Mama’s memory of that tree was as hazy as mine, but other details of that season she recalled vividly. Ever since she and my father had married, they had spent Christmas with her family in central Kentucky. My birth hadn’t changed this; Christmas would find us in the farmhouse with my grandparents, surrounded by aunts and uncles. But that year, after our move to Georgia, we weren’t traveling. We could have our own merry Christmas, just the three of us. We would. We’d do it.

We tried. In the photo above, we continue with the Christmas card images. Mama reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and I look giddy and act like I’ve never heard it before. We’re both wearing new pink flannel PJs. Our long hair is neatly brushed. Beneath our fake smiles, you can see us grimly willing those visions of sugarplums to dance, dance, dance.
It didn’t work out. There were no sugarplums. We missed our family. We missed the big old house. We missed our tradition. It just didn’t seem like Christmas. As a young child, I tended to carry an outsized burden of multiple anxieties, for no reason that could be explained. That Christmas Eve, I was sad and inconsolable. I couldn’t stop crying. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. Mama, loving and patient, sat with me, late into the night, holding my hand and offering assurance. She had grown accustomed to this process, but usually it wasn’t quite so painful or long-lasting.

**************************************************************
Early the next morning, we packed up the gifts, the wrapped ones and those from Santa, bundled ourselves into the enormous blue Dodge station wagon, and headed to Kentucky. The time would come, soon enough, for starting a new tradition. That year, 1966, was simply not the time.

Holiday, Walking the Dog

Deck the Dog

December 15, 2013 Wildtrumpetvine 2 Comments

No theological implications here. Just a dog too sleepy to mind being wrapped in synthetic greenery. My daughter has always found it disappointing that Kiko refuses to cooperate and wear the typical doggie costume. No devil horns for him at Halloween, no reindeer headband for the Christmas photo. But this year, as we were hanging the stair garland, he lacked the energy to care, or perhaps to protest, when she decided to adorn him, as well.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Faith and Spirituality, Holiday, Nature

Deck the Tree Stump

December 13, 2013 Wildtrumpetvine

This December, we hung a big wreath on the craggy maple stump in front of our house. It seemed like an interesting, if unexpected, spot for a wreath. And by decorating the tree, we could send a message to those who might see it as a business opportunity, as well as to those who think the stump is unsightly and wonder why we leave it standing. The wreath says, We love this old tree trunk, and we’re letting nature take its course.

Then I thought a little more about it, and the pairing struck me as even more appropriate in its juxtaposition of life and death. The stump is the opposite of the traditional evergreen Christmas tree. Firs and spruces, retaining the appearance of vitality through the winter, get the privilege of being cut down, hauled into our homes, strung with lights and ornaments, and left to wither and die. It’s tough work, being a symbol. Our maple, though, would be in no such danger. If intact, it would be gray-brown and leafless by now, like its neighbors in our yard. But of course, it’s a stump, a snag, and already dead. Yet it harbors vast, unseen colonies of creatures that go about the business of breaking down lifeless material. It won’t be long before nature’s course is run. The stump may not be here next year; its center is soft. All the more reason to decorate it this year.

My husband and daughter hung the wreath one weekend afternoon, as I was napping, trying to get over a persistent cold. When I trudged out to the road to see their handiwork, a new insight hit me.

I like to think that God works with us for good, despite ourselves, despite our selfish intentions and our vanity. I initially wanted to decorate the tree because I thought it would look pretty, if a bit odd. In truth, it was a way of declaring a certain pride in being different, in having the ability to see beauty where others see ugliness.

But once up, the wreath reminded me of a greater truth, of the essence of my Christian faith. Out of death comes new, transformed life. How better to say it than in the words of John 3: 16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

And then the snow settled beautifully on the wreath and the tree, on the green and the gray, on the quick and the dead, like a blessing from above.

Nature

Ice Sculptures

December 9, 2013 Wildtrumpetvine

We awoke yesterday to the beginnings of the first snow of the season, falling lightly but steadily, as predicted. By the afternoon, tiny ice pellets had muscled out the snowflakes. The emergency announcement of Monday’s closed schools arrived early enough for our daughter and her friends to rejoice heartily and take advantage of the snow day before the snow day.

This morning, the sliding, swishing, crashing sound of falling branches served as our alarm. I looked out to see a substantial chunk of one of our silver maples settling in across the driveway. The white pines were bowed down, heavy with ice. Tree branches and foliage had been artfully and glisteningly encased in silvery elegance. It was beautiful, but treacherous, as tree limbs continued to crack and fall all around.

Each pine needle received its own individual ice casing.

The white pines took on a hulking, menacing aspect.

Our iron fence got a frosty make-over.

Dogwood branches resemble frozen feathers.

Party lights and red maple branches.

Ribs of ice, frozen on this branch at a striking angle.

Strands of an ice-covered spider’s web.

Oak leaves, tough and persistent, appear uninclined
to give in to the pull of their ice jackets.

The fallen maple branches, ever-prepared, were already in bud.

Community, Family, Friendship, Memorials, Parenthood

Goodbye to the King: Elvis the Cat, 1995 – 2013

November 30, 2013 Wildtrumpetvine

Elvis the Cat was my friend Doug’s beloved companion. Doug passed away almost two years ago, after a long, hard-fought battle with the rare disease syringomyelia. (See Remembering Doug, February 2012.) During Doug’s last years, when his illness had deprived him of nearly all mobility, Elvis must have been an especially great comfort. After Doug died, Elvis was there to offer love and support for Doug’s wife. Now Elvis has gone on to his eternal reward. He was eighteen years old. Like Doug, he was a unique character. Like Doug, he will be greatly missed.

During visits to my parents in Atlanta, my daughter and I enjoyed dropping in to talk with Doug, who never failed to entertain; his love of life remained robust no matter his level of discomfort. If we lingered a while, we would usually be graced by Elvis’s regal presence. He was reserved around all but immediate family, not one to dole out affection indiscriminately. Elvis was especially wary of children. As Doug advised D when she was a preschooler, Elvis didn’t appreciate loud voices and sudden movements. She took this advice to heart, and it often paid off. Elvis would first peer in from the hall, sizing us up with his cool yellow cat eyes. Sometimes he decided we weren’t worth his time. With a flip of his tail, he’d disappear. Other times he gave us the OK and approached tentatively, gracefully, on tip-toe. D was delighted when he decided to settle in beside her, allowing her to stroke his abundantly fluffy black fur and hear his deep, growly purr.

Doug’s wife told my mother that although the house feels oddly empty, now that Elvis is no longer there, she has much to be thankful for. She is grateful that Elvis was with Doug until the end, and that he stayed a while afterwards to offer solace as she began the process of adjusting to life without her husband. Anyone lucky enough to be helped through a difficult time by the precious comfort of a pet must know the feeling.

Rest in peace, dear Elvis. It was our good fortune to know you.

Elvis, ignoring a cat toy, 2013.

And beautifying the Christmas tree, 2012.

A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.