How far tradition? "Alice's Restaurant Massacree"

Who has holiday traditions? Family traditions, parties, xmas trees, food, dress, gifts, songs—it goes on and on. Most of my traditions are secret. Actually, in my life, holidays are discretionary. Am I in the mood? Do I want a xmas tree? How many people will be at my house in the days before and following the holiday? I'm single, so my holidays are spent at other people's dinners and parties. Who's going to be there? What's for dinner? I have felt very sad driving home from yet another xmas eve party all by myself, but that's about it. I love driving in the snow and I've seen some very unusual things on that drive home—but that's pretty much a whole book.

In Massachusetts, we have a tradition that is genuinely dear to my heart. I won't miss a second of it. During that drive to my holiday destination, at noon, the radio stations—ALL the radio stations play "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" one of Arlo Guthrie's most memorable works. For those of you not familiar with the song, it is over eighteen minutes long and is a rambling story about Thanksgiving dinner at Alice's, in Stockbridge MA, including Arlo Guthrie's Thanksgiving day, 1965 arrest —for littering. Luckily, officer Obie was able to apprehend the suspects and photograph the unholy abomination. Unfortunately, the stack of 8" x 10" black and white glossy photos, with details in notation were wasted, because the judge happened to be blind. However, that's not the punch line. Fifty dollars later and back home in New York, Arlo reported to the induction center with his draft notice, where he was determined to be too immoral to go to Vietnam to kill men, women and children, due to his arrest record.

It will make you laugh whether you want to or not. I want to know; do they play the song where you live?

Later it was rumored to be the 18 1/2 minute gap in Nixon's white house tapes…

Annual passive aggressive holiday stroll

It time! Today is the day I luxuriate in window shopping amid the bright lights and tacky decorations in the biggest mall I can find. I'm going to look at clothes, books, microwaves, pots and pans, boots, perfume, skin lotions, jewelry, candy, hats, scarves, and apple computers I'm not going to buy.

I have decided I don't feel like buying any xmas gifts this year. That's one of the really nice things about being me—I act like I was raised by wolves and I don't care. I'll hold up traffic as I stroll slowly through the crowds rushing desperately to find that essential gift. I'm blocking traffic. I'll actually listen to the elevator music Christmas carols through all the noise, to make sure I get just the right one stuck in my head. After all, it has to last me till New Years Eve.

I'm finally going to have my picture taken on Santa's lap. I don't care if I break his leg, because I'm going to act like I'm strangling him and yell "Where's my pony!!" At least my nose won't be running. I'll post it.

I'm going to stay a long time. I may even eat by the inside window of a restaurant so I can watch Christmas life go by with a summery salad and nice glass of wine. Before I leave, I'll call my neighbors to ask them over for a glass of wine, so we can all relax. I plan to encourage attainment of full Christmas tree induced comas before we call it a night.

God, I love Christmas.

The tree!

The Scene of the Crime

The Engineer of the Plot and Stylist
We only had two glasses of champagne before we got the decorations out of the attic…

The Accomplice

No really…

FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful

Xmas tree

Yay! I've got a xmas tree! And I grew it myself!

A cute little six inch pine tree appeared in my garden one day. I couldn't pull it out or cut it down. It wasn't hurting anything. The next year I thought, "It will be a problem some day, but it's too cute right now." Then it was four feet high and a little too big for me to move and looked just like a perfect xmas tree. So I decided to let it grow another year and bring it in for xmas. That year it snowed too early and there was absolutely no chance of digging into the snow drift to cut it. Before I knew it, it was huge, blocking the sun to my bright orange azaleas and flutterby rose bush. I decided I'd cut it this summer—which seemed like a waste when I could use the top 1/4 for a xmas tree. Yesterday I finally did it.

Today I can't move one side of my body due to sore ribs, but I have the niftiest xmas tree ever. It's the biggest one I've ever had—and the strangest. What I couldn't see from the ground is that the trunk splits and it has two tops. I'll have to borrow an extra star. It is quite lopsided, but you can smell it all over the house. Even the wreaths I made for some friends make a whole house smell great. I have the most excellent led bulbs that look like the old-fashioned kind, but don't get hot.

It's one of those things that I just want to sit and stare at. I haven't decorated it yet, but I stayed up late last night hypnotized by the lights. I can't tell you the joy of putting up an aromatic, crooked xmas tree with no one telling you the lights aren't even or that you missed a spot. Glorious. I'm not going to decorate it until my friends come over for wine.

Mind over matter

I'm still eating out! I haven't prepared any food since November 22nd. Having lots of good friends who remember your Birthday can be fattening! Although I did post it on my facebook ten days in advance to make sure no one was inconvenience with rush shopping. Hmmmn…maybe that's an important piece of this weight loss puzzle?

Let's see:

Crab cakes, salad, Israeli couscous with vegetables, sauce and bacon, rosemary scallops, wine and chocolate cake. Lots of chocolate cake

Scallops, wild rice, green beans, wine and I was feeling so virtuous after such a healthy meal, that I skipped the cake

Two restaurant doggie bags. Does that count as eating out? I didn't shop or cook—it does!

Full Thanksgiving dinner. Trail mix, turkey, potatoes, stuffing, gravy, carrots, broccoli, cranberry sauce and wine.

Ditto

Ditto

Six course Italian dinner with, antipasti and bruschetta, escargot in portabello mushrooms, breaded and fried, lasagna, veal stuffed tortellini, roasted prime rib of pork, fragole flambé, four wines and Limoncello. Luckily I walked.

Half lobster with scallops on wild rice with sherry sauce, asparagus, and a huge dish of pistachio gelato

Today it's doggy bag

I don't know if anyone is going to take me out to eat tomorrow night. I hope so because I am quickly becoming accustomed to this life. Friday I'm going away for the weekend and I don't think they'll make me cook, so I just have to line something up for Sunday night at this point.

Now this is the really good part. I've lost ten pounds in the last three weeks. I think it's all the healthy food that I don't cook at home. There's a little bit of gym in there, but with a hurt knee, I'm pretty feeble on the elliptical. I'm SURE the real force behind the weight loss was that, sensing impending fat doom, I watched the last three episodes of The Biggest Loser twice. I don't care how wildly you scoff. You can just die laughing!

Birthday

It's my birthday and I haven't had time to write in blogs for weeks. Today I'm doing whatever I want. I got a birthday card that said; "I'm glad you were born." Now that's a sentiment.

I've been taken out to dinner so many times this week that I don't think I'm going to be able to make my way through all the doggie bags I've been eating for breakfast. Even the idea of chocolate cake is starting to become a little boring. That's when you know I've celebrated too much. But a girl only turns 47 once in her lifetime…

I'm going to buy myself an electric can opener and a bathroom scale. I need the can opener for arthritis and I wore my old bathroom scale out! Go figure. I'm going to make some jewelry too, and paint origami lotus flowers with glow-in-the-dark paint—it seemed like a good idea last night around 2 am. Hee, hee!

I wonder if I should buy myself a TV again. The last time I did I wanted a nice digital lcd. So I saved up all my funny money and went off to buy one. Brought home a good deal. It was perfect. I liked the look, the picture was amazing, it was the right size for the room, I even liked the remote. I didn't actually make popcorn, but that would have completed the atmosphere. I looked at it for hours and I couldn't find anything I wanted to watch. Now Bruce Sprinsteen could have said that better than I just did, but long story short—I returned it. It was a little awkward returning it when they asked for the reason. I'm finding that if there's a show I want to watch I can get it on my computer. I guess I'm just used to books on tape.

Spill of the Day

To all my loyal Spill of the day followers: I am so grateful for your support and encouragement. Due to the volume of followers—and spills, I am moving this feature to a new twitter account so that I am not making multiple postings to Facebook, blog and webpage.

I will post the twitter account address as soon as I figure out what it is!

Frozen Moments

I feel like I want to write about frozen moments. My head has been swimming with them lately. I think my twentieth birthday is in the top ten. I can't really number them because they each sum up an era.

My mother had died the week before and I was stunned, so my friend Jane's family threw me a birthday party. They had a huge family. Crunching the numbers in my head, I come up with 12, but I think I'm missing a brother who was religious and living in Utah, that I never met. The household was loosely ordered with everyone coming and going as they wished. An elegant but unnoticed microcosm—no fighting that I ever saw, and amazingly, everyone helped with the work. Three people cooked. This included a number of packages of hamburger helper, someone made jugs of koolaid, got pitchers of water, set the table, yelled that dinner was served and started passing huge bowls.

After, they brought me a cake and Matthew, who was probably four or five back then, gave me a little necklace with a star in the middle. I still have it even though the gold wore off a long time ago from constant wear. I remember sitting at the head of the table with all those warm people facing me. I barely managed not to cry because it meant so much to me. All this was just the prelude to the moment.

Jane lived in the top floor of a three decker on Innman Square in Cambridge. Legal Seafood started there. Two guys and bench tables. When we were too broke for anything else, we'd go over and get pints and quarts of fish chowder in cardboard containers to eat at Jane's apartment. That was another place where friends and family passed through at any hour. Need a friend–find a friend. Need a bed–find a bed. Need a meal–find a meal. Cooked brownies–bring em over. Plan an expedition–let's all go. Man, do I ever miss that. Now, I have to make an appointment if I want to have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine with someone.

A few Sundays, we went to Irish brunch at the Plough and Stars. There was music and a boiled Irish dinner. The place was such a dive, that on occasion, you might have to wait for junkies to get out of the bathroom. I loved going there. Very homey. The drinking age was still 18 so we used to go to the Innman Square Men's Bar too. It was nifty. The booths had hanging lamps over the tables and high backs. The bartender was a huge, bald guy who looked scarier than anyone I've ever seen, but he handed over the drinks with a wink and a smile. I think the name of the Band I loved was the Travis Shook Band, but I'm not sure. They later became the Incredible Casuals and were the reason for many blissful hours dancing in the Grog when I moved up to Newburyport.

OK. Here's the moment. Sitting at a worn wooden table in a booth, beers in hand, and the hanging lamp shining a circle just large enough to include all our faces, someone asked "How old are you?"

I answered; "twenty. How old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

Then around the table: "Twenty-six."

"Twenty-four."

"Twenty-five."

And at that moment—THE moment. I was confident that I would never be THAT old.

Live through that…

Indian Summer

I opened the door this morning to be enveloped in the smell of autumn leaves. Half fallen—half fresh and fluttering. I feel like I'm swimming in the air. I can't tell where my skin ends and the air begins. Breathing it is effortless. The sun is so soft, it feels like a warm hand on my arm. It took me an hour in a patch of sun to drink my coffee this morning. All the nasty, noisy birds are gone. I miss the mourning doves, crows and hummingbirds. I feed the crows, so I bet my neighbors are glad most of those are gone. I feed the hummingbirds too and I've held one in my hand twice. Another time one got into my studio. I think the females can actually be friendly. Maybe I'm nuts.

If I want to hang onto a little bit more summer I've only got two hours on the other side of the house in the early afternoon. Maybe I'll go out then and read or paint.

I stayed up till three last night. I didn't wake up till nine so I feel fine. I kept having all these wonderful ideas about things I could do before I went to bed. Like watching "Lie to Me" on my computer. Changing all my online accounts to a different charge card number. Hunted the house for a specific piece of cardboard I just had and misplaced. It just kinda got away from me. I exercised my almost super-human powers of self control by not trying out the new idea I had for doing my nails or look for sealing wax, which I decided is a perfect way to seal the packages from my store. Seems sort of silly now…

spill of two days

Friday, October 2 2009 -6:45 PM Someone left me a bag of big juicy tomatoes. Turkey sandwich. You do the math

Saturday, October 3, 2009 -7:39 AM Truly tragic spill. Got off to an early start and shoveled dirty kitty litter into my sneaker.

spill of the day

I thought I was going to have to let everybody down yesterday, but painting late at night, I dropped a 5" x 7" oil painting which landed face down on my pants and then the rug and gouged part of the picture out.

spill of the day

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 -7:39 AM: Dribbled foamy toothpaste on myself while trying to get my front teeth kissably white. I wasn't sure if this qualified as a spill, but I did have to change my shirt, so I'm going with it. Maybe I'll spill something better later. Is kissably a word?

The spill of the day

Today, in a selfless attempt to foster goodwill toward all mankind and in the interest of promoting a safer, happier, lifestyle for others with my cautionary tale, I present a new forum here on my blog:

The Spill of the Day!

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 -8:45 AM: Spilled a full bottle of medication with a loose cap from the cupboard into a strategically placed cup of hot coffee (with cream, although I don't believe that contributed to the incident). My main concern was the coffee, because I'm sure the pharmacist will say "No problem. Let me replace that for you free." But seriously—the coffee did taste a little funny after that…

Learn something new every day

OK. So there I was working away on my computer with my faithful cup of coffee by my side, the cat sleeping on the desk and a little cup of Cheerios left over from breakfast. I just leave them there and grab bits. Unfortunately, reaching for another bunch of Cheerios, I stuck my hand into the coffee cup instead. Sigh…I mean who hasn't done that? I went out to the kitchen for paper towels to clean up the mess and when I came back the cat was fishing Cheerios out of the other cup with her paw and eating them with more gusto than she's ever shown for salmon treats. Who knew? Cats are sneaky.

Now I can't eat Cheerios without someone staring at me…

Fall Days and (Guilty?) Thoughts

Today I have my slippers on. It's chilly in my little victorian house and warm outside. It won't warm up until the sun hits the front of the house where I'm typing this in my office, so I'm going out soon. It's lovely to have this beautiful, perfect fall weather after the summer that never was. I watched a NOVA movie about global warming and they said the gulf stream isn't returning the cold water current back to the equator because the arctic isn't cold enough anymore. Could we all just get out there and paddle?

O.K. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. My Mother ruined my life. She wouldn't let me be a groupie, which was a perfectly valid career choice when I was twelve. Her lack of foresight condemned me to a life of having to earn a living, ride coach and watch other people be rich and famous for no reason. By the time I was eighteen there were no more openings for professional groupies and this tragedy has colored my whole existence.

I'm not even guilty about that thought.

I'm struggling with a guilty pleasure, so why not humiliate myself to the whole world and get it over with?

I have a crush on a rock star. Not "George Clooney is cute" but a crush like I used to have in high school. Where does this come from? How does it happen? I'm smart. Who am I talking to now? What purpose would fantasy serve?

As I have already said, after a certain age, any show of passion becomes an object of ridicule—even to others my own age. So there, is the guilt in my guilty pleasure. It has to be hidden at all costs. You'll notice I didn't tell you who is the object of my impossible affection.

I saw my rock star on tv. You couldn't hear him sing because of the screaming fans. I listened to them and said to myself: "What do they want?" They don't care about his singing—I mean, here's their chance to worship him and they're screaming in church. He's just cute. Do they think he'll pull them up out of the crowd to dance with him the way Bruce Springsteen did to Courtney Cox in some old commercial for I can't remember what? Is he going to notice them and fall in love? What?! I don't get it. Somebody please tell me.

Hero worship has always been a part of being human. It evolved from an unsophisticated brave hunter, admiration of the ability to overcome the fear of the unknown, superstition's spiritual leader, Greek mythology, doer of heroic deeds, worship of the dead hero, to ancestors, legends. "More than a man—less than a god."

Now…do we have romantic heros? Do we worship because our heros are better than us? Can we claim to follow their virtuous lead? JFK and Martin Luther King JR were philanderers. Do we forgive their misdeeds because they are above ordinary constraints? Whole countries can worship power. The names Napoleon and Hitler come to mind. Do we claim things beautiful or powerful as our own? Vicarious achievement? After all, we exist only as egocentric beings and I haven't had much luck vanquishing evil doers lately. I can't even lose ten pounds. Are we worshipping beauty? There's a lot of 'super' things going on today. Super heros, super rich, super star, super model, super market. No wait, scratch that last one. Is our worship the narcotic that sends them to rehab? Does the cult of culture reduce us to lemmings? Does our hero have a sandwich named after him? I have often wondered; Reuben who?

All I know is that for me, it involves suspending reality. That's what you're supposed to do at a good movie. Maybe it's a vacation from real life. I don't know. I'm going to figure it out. Then I'm going to become rich and famous due to the acclaim for my book. I've already got a really good title:

Rainy Day

Sometimes rainy days make it easier to work. Don't want to go anywhere.

I'm working on goofy stuff to put on my etsy store. Everything else in the store has been very serious and sophisticated. People will be surprised to see something silly in there.

I'm trying to teach myself how to scale down my paintings and make smaller ones. I never planned to, but the time has come to face the fact, that I have to sell them online. They're not selling in stores anymore and all the good galleries are booking one and a half to two years in advance.

I'm actually considering moving to a different part of the country. It's cheaper to live in most other states and just because I think snow is beautiful—doesn't mean I have to shovel it. Someplace on a lake. I always thought I had to be by the ocean. I used to just lay in the sun and tan, jump in the waves, go anywhere in any kind of boat and fish. Now I think of skin cancer, undertows, rip tides, rogue waves, bad winds, worms in the fish, pollution and sharks when I swim at night or in a kayak.

I was having, an admittedly weird, talk with a friend about where I would like my ashes scattered when I'm dead. I didn't feel a doubt. The only place for me was the lake where I spent my summers as a kid.

It was a big, cold, clear, spring fed lake. As clear as any water I've seen and as smooth as glass in the morning, with fog lifting off it. There were gorgeous sunsets over Mt. Washington. There was a giant old abandoned yellow hotel falling into disrepair overlooking one end of the lake. Like a ghost. The town had an orange and turquoise Howard Johnson's by the drawbridge, where you could get the all-important ice creams. A tacky gift shop. A combination grocery and liquor store with a slamming screen door, Elmer Plumber's marina, which was also the gas station and a school with a playground that had a TALL slide, REAL jungle gyms and REAL swings with chains and wooden seats. The kind that are considered deadly for today's little darlins' who are too stupid to duck.

A dairy truck came down the path to our camp and my Mother would buy milk and light cream for her ever-present cup of coffee. A Nissan truck would come too and she'd get bread, powdered donuts and cupcakes with frosting on top about an inch high.

When we wanted drinking water we'd go to a path by the side of the road and walk a little way down a rock path to an old wooden barrel buried in the ground. It was surrounded by moss and was chilly. You'd lift the top off the barrel and it was overflowing with cold spring water. There was a big metal dipper there and we HAD to drink out of the dipper before we filled our water bottles. It was magic.

We had a campfire every night or went to someone else's. My Dad's friends camped there too so the parental units were often happy and silly, which wasn't standard procedure. It was so easy to make friends there. You'd figure out somebody's name and start hanging around with them. There was a dumpy little store with white-bearded Mr Whitney sitting behind the counter, where we could take our Sunday dime and buy two candy bars. There was a dumpy wooden rec. hall with booths, a juke box and two pinball machines. I remember San Franciscan Nights, Red Rubber Ball, Light my fire, the beach boys. Baby it's You was my favorite. I can still sing it. There were always fascinating older kids in there, dancing or goofing around figuring out how to get beer. If it wasn't swimming weather, that's where I wanted to be. I couldn't figure out how the hell people got quarters for pinball machines. Sometimes this boy Michael Terrill from Aroostook County Maine would let me play the last pinball. He was my first boyfriend. He just said he was my boy friend. We held hands but we didn't even get a kiss in. A few years later when he was sixteen or so, he came back with his wife and baby.

Dad had a little Sprite sailboat. You could zip down the lake in it, but never get back without paddling, scratching your butt on the fiberglass floor and getting a sunburn. Later we got the most beautiful motor boat. Driving it was heaven and freedom. I met a boy named Christopher, when my sister and I were going under the drawbridge in that boat and he and his friend Barry were standing on old bridge pilings with their thumbs out for a ride. That is frozen in my memory forever. The sun, the breeze, the chill under the bridge, the smell of water and gas, hoping we wouldn't hit something with the outboard motor, the water lapping, the way the boat tips when someone gets in and those two cute guys. Barry was all charm and playing up to my sister from the start. Christopher and I just smiled at each other trying to make conversation. I have a lot of frozen moments, but if I ever forgot this one, I would be somebody else. One of my favorite memories. We went on some dates because my mother wouldn't let my sister go out with Barry unless they took me with them. One time we went to the first MacDonalds I had ever seen and I got french fries. Christopher and I dated a little later when I graduated from college and coincidentally ended up working with some of his friends.

I dated a another guy I met at the lake, who will remain nameless, for two years. He was 'tough' because he smoked cigarettes and drank beer and had an old white mustang and a 'gang' of friends who were funny and loud. It was so much fun and he was nicer to me than any other person has been in my whole life. I broke up with him when I started college because his dad carried a gun, one of his uncles that lived with them ran off to get away from gambling debts and his other uncle was 'disappeared' for who know what reason. He married a neighborhood girl and had kids. Hope he's happy.

I won't go back to the lake. I thought about it a few times, but I don't want to see it surrounded by rich houses, condos and the lake churning like a washing machine with hundreds of boats and jet skis. I'm sure someone has stolen the dipper in the spring, broken the barrel and filled it with garbage. There's probably an expensive restaurant by the bridge, a CVS, a Richdale and a playground with sawdust under the four foot high plastic slide—and canvas swings.

Baby pandas

I have the Pandacam on my desktop. Go see Bai Yun's  latest baby. They start out so tiny and when they get bigger the mama hugs them and plays with them.

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/pandacam/index.html

Look at this picture of Zhen Zhen, the last baby girl, trying to make a run for it!

Making connections

I just found the Etsy shop for my friend Erin. It is here:

http://www.everyheartcrafts.etsy.com

It's funny. Two artists using the same studio, same clay, same kiln; yet she makes delicate little leaves and charms for her jewelry and jewelry-making classes, and I make camping trailers for birds and evil baby faces.

She's really nice, but… doesn't what she makes sound a little odd to you?

It's gotten so dark here it is like nightfall. Spooky thunderstorm. I don't feel like turning my computer off so I'll probably get smited. The gods laughed.

I am filled with creepy horror anyway. I'm living with Stuart Little. Every night I find the cat meowing and chasing a field mouse skittering all over the house. She doesn't want to catch it mind you; she's just playing. I don't know where it lives or what it is wrecking. The house is really dirty so I had been thinking it would be easier to move anyway.

Damn it! damn it! damn it!

I think I'm going to sign up for a few more accounts. A couple of emails, a blog or three, facebook, photobucket, you tube, maybe twitter—then I can have at least ten more frickin passwords I can't find. Gawd! Now I don't feel like writing anything

This is my favorite painting

I don't think I'll ever sell it. It took me so long to do that I even painted the dust on the table. The title is Feathers, lucky rocks and a plastic baby. I can't sell my self portrait either—for obvious reasons.

Etsy Store

So, I made an etsy store to sell all the stuff that I make. Oddly, my store doesn't seem to have a theme. How do you relate camping trailers for birds and tiaras anyway?

Does that mean anything? Do I have a theme?

It is here: http://andersoncrafts.etsy.com

My Paintings

I've decided to put my paintings on this blog. I want to see how they look in the order I paint them. On a website I am tempted to keep the paintings that have already sold. Trophies I guess. I think nostalgia has always been very bad for me.

I've been slapped in the face a number of times recently, by the realization that after a certain age, being happy & silly or feeling passionate about anything, the way I always have makes me an object of ridicule. I don't think my friends mind, but man, the rest of the world treats me like a pinball. I don't want to see myself from the outside. I'm in here.

The paintings are coming soon.

Sunny Saturday

It's so beautiful out today and I have that horrible 'locked in the house until I get my work done' feeling. Watching all the things I'd like to do go by. I can't drive anyway with no car insurance. The dastardly bastards at the insurance company unceremoniously suspend service if you don't make their silly little payments! What kind of dogs would resort to that kind of gutter mentality? Just as well, I don't have an inspection sticker anyway…

I'm making pottery for stores to tide me over until people stop being scared and buy paintings again. Feels like a long side trip. Better than a stick in the eye. I'm going to put it on my web site this week.

There are baby hummingbirds at the feeder. They're fat and fluffy. Almost as big as the adults. It doesn't seem possible, —like picking up a tiny kitten and it's too light to be real.