Texas, Part II: Art, the Titanic, and What's Really Under a Bustle

Print of a watercolor by artist Larry Stephenson

We were off to the Main Street Fort Worth Arts Festival soon after we arrived at David and Michele's house in Arlington. The festival's huge, encompassing all kinds of art: photography, painting, quilts, jewelry, sculpture.  I thought some of it was pretty high quality (yes, was tempted but how to get it home on plane?).

Lots of people, lots of booths.  Saw a jewelry-maker from Berkeley, beautiful stuff, very high prices.

 

Admired the intricacy of these quilts.  Didn't get quilter's name.

Another outing in Fort Worth, one of my favorite Texas cities:

The Titanic, a big show of artifacts at the Museum of Science and Technology.  

You can't believe the stuff, including china in perfect condition, that's been brought up from 2.5 miles under The Atlantic.  We were each given a card outlining the identity of a real passenger, and at the end, we learned how our passenger fared.  Mine went down with the ship because her hobble skirt made it impossible to get in a life boat. (Fashion kills?)

The museum building, opened in 2009, has distinctive architecture.

 

David and Jerry inside the museum

Photo op:  David, Michele, me, and Jerry in photo-shopped museum picture (we were not on the grand staircase of the Titanic)

Texas-sized chocolate fountain at the Golden Corral, a  buffet restaurant.

 

David and Michele with a dessert at the Golden Corral. (Jerry went with pie, of course.)

A dim picture of the Victorian dresses exhibit at the Texas Civil War Museum.  Impressive number of dresses spanning 30 years.  Killer waists and in some cases, bustles.

So that's how they did it:  the hidden engineering of a bustle.  Imagine wearing this stuff!  And all for a bigger bum.  (Why)?

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Spring wildflowers:  Evening primroses at a nature preserve.

Nuzzling pick-ups in David and Michele's driveway; one is on its way to being sold.

Bluebonnets growing in a sidewalk crack.  They're a species of lupin.

Texas, Part I: Doo Wop, Snakes, and a Shopping Spree

 

Home from a week in the Lone Star State.  We went to visit Jerry's daughter, Julia and her family in McKinney, about 30 miles north of Dallas, and then to spend some time with Jerry's son David and wife Michele, in Arlington.  Barely made it out of the Metroplex.

Julia and her granddaughter, Addison, met us at the airport

Spoons Cafe in historic square, downtown McKinney

In Spoons Cafe: Love it!

Lots of upscale shops in the square.  Managed to resist a $65 baby dress

The former courthouse, now the McKinney Center for the Performing Arts

In the Performing Arts Center: A Doo Wop group, "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," four women of a certain age in circle skirts, petticoats, and saddle shoes.  Note flags:  At the end, they sang the hymns for all five military services.  (No escape--a stern usher stood guard.)



Lots of Lone Star flags and pick-ups, very few Priuses

Addison on a shopping spree for clothes at Target.  A girl's gotta to have some duds, and besides, her first birthday was coming up.

 

Checking out her haul...

 

..to be wrapped up in pink tissue paper

Julia and Jerry at the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary

A trail sign warning of copperhead snakes. We saw none, thank God.

After a family dinner:  Addison with her parents, Amanda and Matt

Four generations:  Jerry, Julia, her son Matt, and his daughter, Addison

It's still Texas, after all

Tomorrow, Part II:  Art, the Titanic, and What's Really Under a Bustle?

Saying Good-by to Ellen

Today's the day I said good-by to my friend Ellen, who is flying to New Hampshire tomorrow to live in an assisted living facility near her brother.  She has early dementia and can't live alone anymore.

How to say good-by to someone you probably won't see again?  Someone you care so much about, so enjoyed, shared so many jokes with, that you felt compelled to help her pack up her life and move on to the next sad stage?

Our mutual friend Anne, who joined me in packing and sorting on many winter Saturdays, came with me to say good-by.  Here we are in a picture that Ellen's brother took of us:

Me, Ellen, and Anne this morning, just before we said good-by.

We said good-by in Ellen's bedroom upstairs, where we'd spent a lot of time sorting clothes and jewelry.

At the end, Anne took Ellen's hand and said simply, "We love you."

And that's the truth.

General Chaos

During a lull at the Berkeley Food Pantry yesterday,  I pulled out my phone and checked the news.

A quiet moment at the desk

First,  I found a puzzling e-mail from a woman in my quilt group reporting that another member, Angie, was safe.  I thought, safe from what?  Then an e-mail from Angie herself, saying she'd  heard both explosions and was only a tenth of a mile from them.

 I'd forgotten she was running in the Boston Marathon.

Quilt group:  Angie is in the front row, far right

More clients were coming in the door with their empty Trader Joe's bags and backpacks, and I was trying to read the story under the table, while I checked them in. Finally,  I clicked off the phone and paid attention to the matter at hand.

Then I went back to my phone to read more, only to be interrupted again, then back on the phone, until I finally turned off the phone altogether.  I sat there trying to help people the best I could, with all the Boston business rattling around in my head.

A blurry picture of Judy at the Pantry a few weeks ago

Besides Angie, there was my friend  Judy, who moved to Boston just last week.  We were really missing her yesterday at the Pantry, where she and I volunteered together for 4-1/2 years.  And then there's my young friend Leah, a student at Tufts, just outside Boston. Where they all okay?

Yes.

Leah on Boston Common last week

Tomorrow we fly to Texas for a week, and the idea of getting on a plane is not appealing, I can tell you, even though Jerry has run through the logic of probable safety.

A month after that, we fly to Boston for Leah's graduation.  In 2010, we were in New York City when someone tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square the day after we'd gone to a show there.

Angie, Judy, Leah, us--regular people who could be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Miniature Men

Our friend Dan calls his four-month old son, "the darling despot."  Seems apt.

 Something I'm wondering about:

Why do people refer to boy babies/toddlers as "little man," and "buddy," but don't refer to girl babies as "little woman"?

Is it because it's disorienting to have a small-scale male?   That it's somehow lese majeste, even demeaning to the child, so we pump it up a bit?  Where does this come from?  It happens before babies can even ask to be called a man or a guy.

Rylan's adorable, but I'm not seeing a man here. Not yet. 

 I find myself calling three-year old Rylan, "little guy," sometimes.  Meaning: you may be little, but you're still a "guy," with the capability and status that term connotes?   But he's no more powerful than a girl his age, and I've never called a three-year old girl "little woman," or "little chick," or whatever the equivalent would be.

I see this all the time on blogs, and I hear it when some mothers refer to their very young sons.

And baby girls are called "sweetheart," or "little girl,"  which is fine, but why the difference?

Can't baby boys be allowed their time as merely vulnerable, sweet people?  To hell with being brave, stalwart, and manly--that'll come soon enough.

A Sweet, Bittersweet Party

Note:  The top bidder for the quilt was my friend Suzanne, who is donating $250 to the Berkeley Food Pantry.  Thanks to everyone who bid and "liked."

Val's utterly delicious, eyes-roll-back-in-your-head Walnut Cake

Yesterday, my dear friends from the pool class had a birthday lunch for me.  Anne, my carpool partner, set a beautiful table, with a small signature garden bouquet, and served up mushroom soup and salad.

Valerie brought her renowned (have written earlier post about) Walnut Cake, an English recipe that is killer.   I brought home a slice for Jerry, and he gobbled it this morning with his coffee.

That was the sweet part.

The bittersweet part was that this was also a farewell for our friend, Ellen, who is moving to New Hampshire to begin living in an assisted living facility.   I've been helping Ellen get organized for the move, finding realtors, packing up, sorting things in her house.  Anne and Val have helped, too.

Ellen doesn't want to go--who would?  She's giving up her life of 40 years in California, where she was an elementary school principal.  She's lived in her house since 1977.

Here's a picture of Val and Ellen and me yesterday:

And one with Anne:

We four met at Albany Pool in 2002 (actually Val and Ellen met way before that--they're sisters-in-law of over forty years).  We are irreverent, especially Ellen and me, and like-minded about politics and humor.  Val and I use bad language, Anne does not, Ellen sometimes.  We find some of our classmates tedious, or eccentric, or funny.

As of April 27, Ellen will live in New Hampshire, and we don't know when or if we'll see her again.  I'm trying not to think about it.  In the meantime, it's all about lists.

There'll be an empty place at the table