Tricks

image from this website.

O'lover just e-mailed me the above photo.
I love it!
I bet he's going to build a bike just like it for us.

Ollie fact: He can bike and play the guitar at the same time. He can weave through traffic on his bike while playing the guitar!!!

AND I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT BUT...I can lay a big huge distracting kiss on him while he's playing music at a party and he'll kiss me back but he still doesn't skip a beat and seamlessly plays on. It has become my one and only party trick. I am so in awe of all you people with your double and triple joints and tongues that can knot a string. So after years of not having any material i found someone who can give me a party trick.

And that's why O'lover is my personal rock star hero.

Wicking it Up

I've been making herbed butter and fresh cheese. Oh! And chutney with homegrown dill and coriander seeds and homemade vinegar (a batch of kombucha turned into some very tasty vinegar).
This is the view from the art studio window. I love watching the alley art develop plus we're really close to the Gallivan Center and can hear a lot of the Thursday night concerts. It makes me more productive to feel like I'm in the party but not of the party.
And here is proof that Mamma Mia-of-the-off-the-charts-high-energy can sit still for a couple of minutes!
We're writing a book together. It's all about our beloved ancestors and their unbelievable stories. In comparison Mamma Mia and I feel...much quiet(er). By the way, Mamma Mia is an excellent, no messing around writer. I'm contributing by giving her topical assignments plus she's under the impression that I have good grammar. Teehee.

Besos!

Eccentric Ladies are Da Bomb and Pressing the Reset Button on my Housewifery

"Hey, was your father a terrorist? No? Because you're da bomb."

That line was used on me in downtown Provo by a transient a while back, when my co-worker Teresa and I were wearing our matching green coats from Nordstrom Rack and getting paid to roll a huge cement mold (sonotube) down the sidewalk on Center Street and 300 West. I told Teresa I wanted to get inside the sonotube and see if she could roll me down the street while I was in it. We died laughing...and trying.

Are you still reading this? Even though there are no pictures and you might not know what a cement mold is? No wait, here's a pic.

Hold onto that thread and here's another one because now this post is about Grey Gardens, a film about two former socialites in East Hampton who ended up living as recluses with raccoons and lots and lots of cats. And their excrement.

Last night I watched the ending of Grey Gardens for the second time, not on our little TV but on the world's largest screen which is located next door at my in-law's five-star residence of comfort and earthly delights, and zero dust. Their craftsman house is where I go when needing a break from my cottage of compost and garden dirt. And Grey Gardens looks very different on their enormous screen. For instance I could tell that elder Edie's eyes were clouded, maybe she was going blind? And couldn't see the squalor? And I know from experience that even the most vivid stench can disappear after a few minutes. Kinda like yesterday when my mother-in-law came over and started opening all my doors to let air circulate because my house stunk of ashwaganda root (I was accustomed to the stench but I assure you it smells like a house full of concentrated horse sweat).

This time as I watched Grey Gardens I wasn't quite so horrified by the state of their house and could enjoy the mother and daughter relationship. Eccentric old ladies are da bomb. But still how did they let their home become such a shambles? And this is where I am so scared by their fate. Eccentric and clean, yes. eccentric and dirty? eeeeeeee. panic. PANIC. Because to some degree I recognize that tendency to carve out a little space and let the rest be chaotic.

I am pressing reset on my housewifery.

And O'lover happens to have vacation time in the next couple of weeks. So we're going to be finishing all sorts of projects and then...we are getting rid of salvaged materials we've hoarded and that a friend (we love you!) has put in our back garage.

Plus we're having a yard sale.

And do you feel sorry for Ollie that this is his vacation time? Me too! So maybe we can spice up cleaning out the garages and putting in window screens with some creative use of materials. Like making stilts out of 2x6s and old climbing rope?

Besos and wish us luck! And don't come over unless you want to practice your circus act or clean things up. =)

conSOULation

It is EMO friday. Truthfully, I think it's fine to be emotive any day of the week but when you've grown up half-Italian and your heart clutches about EVERYTHING including the plight of fictional characters (poor count of monte cristo in solitary confinement), every kidnapping or wrong doing you've ever heard about, etc. sometimes you need to limit your funk to one day a week.

There's a lot to be sad about in real life.

and when I feel this way, I don't leave the cottage. unless it's to go to our studio in the guthrie building AKA my conSOULation. It's two blocks from the Salt Lake library and I have stacks of books about Illuminated Manuscripts to pour over. And plenty of paint to pile on some canvas.

Besos!

lovely view of the guthrie from slcPOMP

Taking Cues in the Garden

For generations my family has been growing a stand of bamboo so that we always have something to cut and use for trellising peas, beans, pumpkins, squashes, cucumbers, and more. Below is Tia Magdelena with her hens and the little girl is Abuelita. You can see her bamboo trellis behind her. Tia Magdelena was the medicine woman of her neighborhood. She also grew flowers to sell at the market and baked bread in enormous clay ovens.

Many years later...Here is my Abuelito with his bamboo. It looks like he is gardening in the countryside but he owned two long city lots...that's urban farming. A few minutes away is the heart of downtown Paraná, population 265,000.
And more years later...here's two of my bamboo trellises. The sugar snap peas have died back and the lemon cucumbers and some pumpkins are taking over. In the left of the picture you can see some of my growing clump of bamboo. Peering through the pea vines you can spy pretty yellow lemon cuke flowers and a lemon cuke that will soon be ripe.
I'm about to go outside and cut the pea vines at the base and harvest whatever peas I can for eating and seeds. You don't want to pull the vines out because the roots fix nitrogen in the soil. Now is the time to replant peas for a fall crop. Well, it's a tad late but I've been busy...

Do you need some bamboo starts? Let me know so we'll have you in mind. We'll have some starts available in the spring. It's the clumping bamboo instead of the runner bamboo. I promise that the clumping kind is much easier to tend, plus your bamboo would be the grandchild of Mamma Mia's bamboo, and that is good luck.

xo!

Anaconda Squeeze

Dear reader,

While I have been lent out to my sister, all my housewifery duties back at home have been generously picked up by my mum-in-law, my neighbor Summer, and most of all my O'lover. Without them the homestead would be fried in that hot summer Utah sun. It's a lot of work to keep everyone and everything fed and watered, I know. Thanks guys! I love you.

Meanwhile...here I am with this guy.

He got written up at preschool for doing the anaconda squeeze on the other children. And then that preschool had a freak flood and is closed for three weeks. So Mr. T and I have been doing a full time anaconda squeeze on Chicago and enjoying every ounce of freshly squeeeeezed goodness.

Such as 13 days at the Crown Fountain, 3 Beluga Whales, 3 farmers market visits, 1 hidden vegetable garden, 1 pepper planting, heirloom raspberry picking, 1 goat petting, 1 foam office at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1 Children's Festival, 2 bands at the park, 2 days at the Art Institute museum, 1 Contemporary Art Museum visit, 1 roof top barbecue, the Lincoln Park Zoo, and Pirate ships, Pirate Field Museum, Pirate windows at Macy's, Pirates and cannons in flowerbeds, everywhere, and pirate flags.

Pirates. I love this city.

Squeezes, from us pirates, me and Mr. T.

Separate Vacations

While our dog Farmer is in Provo crashing a fabulous Latino wedding at the Rock Castle Amphitheater with AJ, Oliver is enjoying the Greek Festival in Price, Utah as well as using a special permit to visit the Range Creek Canyon Fremont villages.

And I'm saying "hi" from Chicago.
from this field of garlic chives, lavender, and echinacea to be exact.
with my constant companion, Mr. Agreeable himself.
While his 8 1/2 month pregnant momma is patch clamping cells in the lab, we've been enjoying the new 3 story contemporary art wing of the Art Institute. I belong here. Even their bathroom stalls are my style of vandalism. I like my vandals several ways and "kind" is one of them.
signed,
i bought some potted plants from the farmers market because it is too weird to be anywhere without my own patch of garden.

One Stitch at a Time

Classic Abuelita drinking yerba mate with a dress on her head.

****
Some people love other people as if one-size-fits-all. They can grab any random hanger off the rack and wear that love just fine. And sometimes...it works. and looks easy. Hey! If you're a clever seamstress, you can alter any generic love to fit you just right.

I witnessed Abuelita's clever seamstress skills all the time. All sorts of people had a place stitched in her heart.

Sometimes (maybe rarely?) loving a particular person is a custom fit from the start. And then it's a miracle. It's sublime. And when you recognize what a custom fit feels like...it becomes the measuring tape which tells you when to iron seams or when to rip them out so that any love can fit just right.

(Or when it's time to give up the alterations and simply wear the dress on your head.)

signed,
off to drink some yerba mate

p.s.
holy gourd! Almost 5,000 views of this video.

Blanca Raquel Caceres Di Stefano

Here's Abuelita at her knitting machine. Her fingers worked miracles as a concert pianist (a professor at age 14!), sewing, knitting, cooking, and scratching our backs!

If you met her you were soon adopted and may have ended up in her lap! She was full of hilarious jokes (some way more racy than Mamma Mia could stand!!) and good fun. She was always falling down and then laughing too hard to get back up. Once we were holding hands in Tierra Del Fuego and Abuelita fell in a penguin hole causing quite a ruckus while trying to get back out.Growing up Mamma Mia wouldn't let us eat sweets so Abuelita mischieviously hid treats all over the house and left us little notes on how to find them.

We loved playing a Spanish card game named !jodete! (which i just looked up and is a way worse swear word than i thought, no wonder she laughed so hard every time i said it!). More than anything we LOVED sharing a yerba mate. She adored Oliver and they would spend hours and hours discussing old fashioned Argentine recipes and Tango. Abuelita passed away last night. Her beautiful soul will be enormously missed.

!!!Te amo hasta el cielo Abuelita!!!

!!!Muchisimos Besos!!!

Tu nietita

Shout, let it all out.

Dear Reader,

Two things!

Firstly,
last week I resigned from managing Provo's Farmers Market.
I am sad about it but it's been a very long time coming. The good thing is that quitting gives me more time to focus on shopping there!

I am a bit of a waffler about decisions (just ask Susan KB). (HA! "Waffle"r. That's an inside joke about the market. hint.) But I am not going to second guess this decision! I am/will be working on other projects with inspirational people that I dig! More about that later.

Meanwhile until further notice please direct all market inquiries to Tom Parker at provofarmersmarket@gmail.com or call Sharlene Wilde- at 801-375-5820.

See you at the market!

Secondly,
O'lover just informed me that the green architectural firm he works for is ranked as the top most profitable architecture firm in Utah. That means green building is on the rise! Also, the Wetland Education Center they designed was just certified as the second LEED platinum building (the highest ranking for sustainable building) in Utah! Go Utah!

Cheers,
Quel

Blocking it out

Yesterday Oliver took the day off from work and we:
cleaned up after Sunday night's wonderful dinner party,
constructed and hung two lovely gates,
weeded much of the garden,
carefully watered new plants,
ate strawberries for every meal (straight from the back patch),
harvested our first raspberries,
visited with friends,
brought in our summer clothes from storage,
and bricked up a hole in the side of the house where a broken air conditioning unit used to be.

And every chore was interlaced with conversations about a new vision of our family's future. What do we want?
What do we not want?
Where do we need to build walls and where do we knock them down?
Today we continue in "vision mode". I'm not sure what the future will bring, we are usually too busy to give it much thought. But right now the future seems like a clean slate ready for drafting new plans and reshaping old dreams.

signed,
in love with the colors of the bricks but yes, we will paint over them...

P.S. I'm so proud and inspired by Susan Krueger Barber for having a painting acquired by a very important art collector!! (Ask her about it when you see her!)

Case Solved

Everyone who meets her, gushes over how Mamma Mia is soooo "cute".

It makes her boiling mad (which is very cute) and she often wonders aloud "Why can't people call me elegant?!" (cute pout!)

Well Mamma Mia it's because you're always doing things like wearing a tree identification tag around your neck to remind you that you need to order another winter hardy kiwi from the plant catalogue! Cute!

And because we can hardly take a picture of you without you doing this cute face:
More about Mamma Mia...

Once, when we lived in Chicagoland, Mamma Mia saw a street fight. Mamma Mia stopped the car (with us kids in it); got out; ran over to the huge group, and started screaming that if they didn't break up the fight that second she was going to honk her car horn until the police came.

They didn't believe my super cute petite Mamma Mia.

So she got back in the car and laid on the horn. And the crowd took off in all directions.

Mamma Mia, you may not have the elegant french manicure but instead frequently have dirt under your short nails 'cause your always gardening (and can't stand to wear gloves) and you can't sit still elegantly (for long) 'cause of your non-stop high energy...

but no one

no one

can take cute

and turn it into fiercely cute like you.

Besos!

Rising

There's a Man who i watch sleep at night. He does not wake up when I stroke his hair or let my finger ski down his nose and crash land on his chin. Even when i press his cheeks in search of dimples or lift and then drop his heavy arm HE DOES NOT WAKE UP! 

Why? Why does he not wake up? 

Because he gave the day everything he had.

Happy Birthday O'lover. Thank you for being born. You are my true love.

signed,

your happy wife

p.s. Ollie, thank you for sprouting grain and making your own starter and trying every trick under the sun to bake bread that a grain allergic gal can eat. You are a miracle worker!!!

Typiquel Day

One of our backyard prairie mushrooms for break-the-fast.
Tara and I went hiking 'round the waterfalls.We held each other back from going for a swim... it was really very very hard to not jump in.

Ran into the super great Denny Jenks of the Adonis Bronze foundry who was helping the scouts put in signs along the trail. Denny and I used to work together in my former life as a public arts director. We got home to find a naughty dog named Farmer trying to impress some strangers/visitors by playing keep-away with mouse poison. This is Tara picking up pieces of poison while Farmer was at the pet hospital where all the veterinarians know him well. Update: Farmer is still foaming grey at the mouth from the poison's antidote. He thinks it's cool. On the other hand, the intended recipient, our greenhouse resident mouse whom we named "Leprechaun", has never touched the poison. I psychically warned him not to because life would suck if he touched it but to please leave my pumpkin seeds alone. Well, Leprechaun has heeded the don't touch the poison warning but still ate every pumpkin seed I planted.

Typical. Typiquel.

I've heard tales of their fantastic gardens...

But that was before Afghanistan was in a decade long war with the USSR. Spectacular Spectacular. Afghanistan's mountains remind me of Utah.
My bro is a Major in the Airforce now stationed in Kabul.
He skyped me this morning and it was great to hear him talk and laugh and tell me about his daily life (busy). He's well versed in Afghani history (unlike me).

This is a picture of a flower garden in Kabul. Have you heard of Defiant Gardens? It's a website about gardening in war time.
I love the painted clay pots stacked in the background.

Signed,
my throat catches and i can't wait til my bro is safely home.

New Branding and Capital Letters

The above header has retired. R.I.P.

Parden the settling dust. The blog makeover is almost done. The blog name has changed*. Check it out! Also, I'm now using capital letters for reading ease.

*For me, "-wifery" and "husbandry" conjure images of partnership in creating a well run household and hopefully won't ruffle any feminist feathers (if so clue me in!) Luckily today most of us can negotiate our roles to be whatever we want (yay!) and hopefully the chosen tasks are not oppressive but inspiring. Plus I LOVE the word "wife". I am O'lover's wife. ahhhh...it's a good life.

still rolling with it

HEY! guess what! construction is nearing completion. knock on wood (a familiar sound around here.)

meanwhile....

reposted from Sept. 17, 2007-
The One Who Cracked My Code

I’m currently looking forward to entering the stage of the enchantress. No, really it’s a stage. And it doesn’t mean that I will be sociable. Quite the opposite, it means that I will be a witch, in my shell, collecting my thoughts and HIDING… so as not to curse or bless you. Cackle.

And then there’s the crone. When for a week I’m eighty years old and have wisdom to spare and feel a bit less inhibited…because there is no time like the present, and then you die.

The seven days of virgin are among my favorite (not so for the O’lover). This is when my finger burns from the weight of my wedding ring. When I constantly forget that I share O’lover’s name. Mind you, I don’t like hurting O’s feelings when I take off without disclosing my destination but a virgin has untamable wonder and an unbroken stride (and little interest in men).

But really my absolute favorite stage is that of the mother. It’s when I’m clinging, and caring, when I nest and massage, and coo and pet. But 1% of the time it’s also when I over react and imagine offences. When the Mother Bear gets ticked off…heaven help you, my heart rate, and Ollie who has to mediate.

Before O’lover cracked my code my mysterious alternations between piety and caprice were a hairy rollercoaster ride I didn’t know I was on. And then the LIGHT. And we’re having fun.

Thanks Oliver.
--------

Ollie told me that this is a broadly applicable cycle. I just looked it up; read more about archetypes here.

halloween at the hayes'

Andi is the Halloween Queen.
yummy homemade soups & doughnuts.
group art projects.

here Andi and Sophie are holding my pin art up to the light.

Andi made this cool skirt.
wonderful folks...
being old & gray together...

i wouldn't miss halloween at the hayes' for the world!