New Project

My new project is actually 22 years old already. I started this quilt back in 1997 but I don't remember what my plan for the entire project was. I do remember it was to be a gift for my husband but that he had really irritated me and I decided not to finish though I didn't discard the previously completed blocks. As I described previously, I recently found the blocks again and decided to do something with them even though I had already planned a more ambitious feathered star quilt.

I made two more blocks and put all nine together in a 3 x 3 set but thought the top looked rather plain. I proposed a more elaborate edge design to my husband and a seam embellishment design that he preferred. So here it is, clearly incomplete at this point but on its way. It will take longer than it used to because my right arm is so damaged with tendinitis and tendinopathy but there isn't any rush.

  When my sister died she was already mourning the books she wouldn't be able to read. I mourn those already as well and I mourn the quilts I won't make and the quilts I won't see. But I celebrate the ones I have made including this incomplete work.

Too Funny 2

I am not a big tattoo fan even though one of my sons has multiple tattoos. It probably stems from the old Roman Catholic prohibition about defiling one's body or something but tattoos pretty much creep me out. It was hard for me to coach some of my swimmers who would come out to the pool looking like the walking dead to me.

Anyway, I laughed out loud today when I read that Ariana Grande had a tattoo inscribed that celebrated Japanese bbq rather than her hit 7 Circles (I do confess that I had to look her up on Google). These days folks are pointing fingers in all directions about cultural appropriation so I certainly hope someone in the pc police laughs at this silly story. When my son got his first tattoo, the kanji for the family name as drawn by his great-grandfather, he had been given a hanko by my other son's sister in law who is Japanese that she said was the name. I looked at it and told my son that it didn't look anything at all like the kanji that his great-grandfather had used and showed him the hanko that I had of that. He took our hanko to the university and asked his Japanese professor if the family hanko was correct. BTW, a hanko is a stamp that is used to mark documents or art or whatever. They are usually carved out of stone and utilize a weird pasty ink that is most frequently red. My husband's grandfather left a large collection of different carved stamps and I have no clue what each denotes.

Now, please keep in mind that family heritage does have an entirely different connotation in Japan, especially in those who are older folks. My husband's grandfather changed his name from his given samurai heritage name that he had been charged with in the Shinto temple to a name that he thought was more in keeping with what he thought were his socialist ideals. But his socialist ideals were never that firmly placed so he chose a very common Japanese name, the equivalent of Smith or Jones or Johnson, but wrote it with elegant calligraphy that produced the same name but with an entirely different meaning or intent. Still, because of his common adopted name, my husband's brother was forced to do a family heritage search when he wanted to marry his wife because her father didn't want her to marry the wrong caste.

We don't really have anything like that in the western world but luckily my son's professor, a native Japanese man, read kanji and said that great-grandpa's version was the name even if it was not the common, plebeian kanji. As a side note, the professor was so impressed that he had a son of this famous man that he treated him with deference and ended up giving him a biography of his great-grandfather.

The bottom line is that my son wanted his tattoo to be accurate so he checked it before he went in to have it etched in his flesh. Ariana Grande now has to choose whether to go through the process of tattoo removal or to laugh at her own hubris and learn from that lesson. Of course most people's tattoo mistakes don't become news items and for all I know she likes hibachi cooked food.

I am German Jewish, Irish, English. Does that mean I can only eat potatoes not rice and only wear wool and linen? We all need to laugh at our pretensions and shake hands with the fellow next to us on the bus.

Congratulations!

I have written many times about the young woman I helped with her entry to Harvard. She had a tough time there for a variety of reasons but ultimately thought it was a valuable experience. Like many young people of diverse backgrounds she took a gap year before applying to medical school. Part of the gap was to take some courses she had not been able to at Harvard and part was to boost her medical work related experience by working at a lab in Utah. Her first choice of school is Utah simply because it is easier on her and on her mother (she is an only child) if she stays in state. I read over her application essays a few months ago, took her out to dinner in Philadelphia when she came for an interview nearby, and have tried to be a mentor and a friend.

Well, drum roll please, she received a phone call a couple of days ago informing her of her acceptance. This was by no means a guarantee so it is a joyful and a sobering moment. Even though I live 3000 miles away now, I have arranged for her to take some friends out to celebrate through the good graces of my son, the chef. These aren't sophisticated diners so burgers, brats, fries, and bread pudding will be just the ticket, plus my son's burgers got named to the top 100 list a little while ago. 

Flummoxed

Trump announced today that he had reached a deal with Congress to reopen government and pay federal employees for three weeks. The fact that this comes after more than a month of very bad optics and very bad outcomes seems secondary to the fact that his friend, Roger Stone, was indicted today for a variety of federal offenses but what do I know. Perhaps Trump really does want government to function appropriately and not at the whim of a two year old.

But no one, least of all Trump, knows what the three week hiatus will bring. I can almost guarantee it will be a hiatus in which Trump tries to assume the high ground so that he can turn around and put the blame on Democrats but Schumer and Pelosi are experienced politicians and negotiators so that tactic seems unlikely to be a winner for Trump.

Despite KellyAnne Conway's repeated assertions that Trump is not insisting on a wall, his announcement today made it clear that he does really want a wall. He has already begun the legal work to use eminent domain to take American land to build a wall (in some unspecified place in Texas) so some American is going to have to give up land for Trump's ego. This is all despite the fact proven by records and statistical analysis that the vast majority of drugs come from other entry points, the vast majority of undocumented people come from overstaying visas, and the very few foreign terrorists who have killed in the US came through the Canadian border not the Mexican border. Sure, there are cases of undocumented people who kill Americans and that's a tragedy, but the best guess by fact checkers is that the number is under 500 per year. That number is small in comparison to Americans killing Americans. Just in the last two days there have been more than a dozen murders by Americans on Americans that have reached national attention, so it isn't as if shutting off  any entry from other countries will prevent senseless gun deaths--or drug use, or robberies, or child trafficking, or rapes.

One of the ideas that made the United States what it is in mythology and imagination is that we had frontiers and open spaces. Even after the last bit of land mass in the continental area became a state we still yearned for the open idea of exploration and wonder. When we begin to physically close those open spaces, we begin to mimic the failed ideas of the European continent, the ideas that led to devastating conflicts and unspeakable death. I don't support open borders, i.e., unlimited entry, but high walls are not a way to encourage the spirit of the US. Perhaps Trump supporters don't want to encourage that spirit, preferring instead to stay insular and close minded. All newcomers to the US throughout history have been scorned, derided, and mistreated. Some of my own forebears endured that and none were deterred from staying in the United States. That's what makes us who we are.

Homage to the Original

As charming as many of the newer version of the classic Bird of Paradise quilt are, they stray very far from the original in both intent and style. Since my initial introduction to quilting was through the very old favorites from museums such as the Metropolitan in NYC, I haven't completely adjusted to newer styles or colors or even methods of construction. Many magazines show photos of quilts described as modern that simply leave me cold. Often quilts that are more old-fashioned in detail of applique then have machine quilting to the point of distraction for me.

Quilting isn't the only aspect of my life that is old-fashioned. My husband and I are old and old-fashioned in many respects. That doesn't mean we are stodgy necessarily, so when the fellow turned to me in the parking garage when I opened my trunk and said,  You don't usually see someone your age driving a car like that," I laughed. Why wouldn't I have a sports car? I don't have children or grandchildren depending on me for rides and I definitely don't want a "mom" car.

So as my husband and I are planning yet another remodel, this time on a house that hasn't been worked on except for electricity and plumbing in 40 years but that is an architect designed space from the turn of the last century not this one, we are flummoxed by the questions asked by the cute young woman who is the initial representative of the design firm though she is not the designer nor the architect. "Do you still want that formal dining room or can we remove this wall and open up the space more?" "Can we move the dining room from where it is to this much smaller space in the far corner of the house so that we can open up the kitchen, breakfast and laundry areas?"  Those ideas may appeal to most buyers but we won't be remodeling this place to sell but to live in. Besides that, one of the main reasons for moving yet again is to have more space to hang the art we already own and perhaps add pieces to our collection. Once the walls start coming down, the space for art disappears. Opening up the living room to the kitchen may be the modern way but it spreads the mess which cooking is--not the ingredients but the smuts of grease and gas and aroma making it hard to protect the art and the fabric, including the quilts on display, from being damaged.

So in that spirit I re-post some photos of my version of an American quilt classic that I made more than ten years ago. This is not The Civil War Bride quilt, as cute and romantic as that may sound or be. No one really knows for sure who made this American original. She never finished it and certainly didn't sign her unfinished work. There are some hints about the woman whose photograph often appears with the photographs of the original but there is no proof that she is the creator. Who made the top matters far less than the care she took to build her own ideas, not copy the quilts of the period. Having drawn the blocks out from the original Whitney museum photos, I grew to appreciate and understand that person more. All the modern versions are nice, some are pretty and some are cute, but none has the vision of the original. Most of the modern versions make the same shape for all of the leaves whether they are rose leaves or chestnut leaves, something the original artist did not do. My bed is from about the same time frame as the original so makes a fitting space to display my version. It's not an exact copy but it is quite close and it is my homage to the person who made this marvelous top with its animals and fruits and what I interpret as her version of the "grotteschi" of many European interiors.

 

Icy Weather

The high today is supposed to be 14 F and the saving grace is that it is dry. So the wind is howling and it is bone chillingly cold outside with a very stiff wind making  it seem even colder, but the sun is shining. We walk about two miles every morning through rain or shine but we had to bundle up and our poor dog was not happy. It is nearly February so the weather is probably making its final push for some sort of winter here in southeastern Pennsylvania where we have had two snowfalls and a lot of rain.

The cold weather inspired my husband to make chocolate cake. I put his favorite recipe on the blog a while ago, (Wednesday, September 25, 2013 under the title "Winter is Closer and Closer") and it is still his go to cake recipe. I think it's because he has never been big on frosting and this cake doesn't need any although feel free to add frosting if that's your deal. Poor husband--his hormone antagonist has pushed him into the male version of menopause with hot flashes and other side effects. He has to go and get another shot in about a week or so followed by getting tattooed and getting the fiduciary markers prior to the radiation treatment.

I finished the extra two blocks on the UFO from 1997 and layered it today. Luckily my husband simply loves it so it is time well spent and a project worth rescuing. I will provide pictures at some later date but it is pretty funny to have a quilt that uses mostly 20 year old fabric and ideas. Quilting is constantly changing so this quilt is very different from what is shown around now. Lots of people are making very beautiful applique quilts though.

Chutzpah

The classic example of chutzpah is the man who throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan after he kills both parents. Now that the FBI is having to shut down some operations because of the government closure debacle, Trump says it is really getting to be a national emergency, giving him even greater authority to declare an emergency to get his ridiculous wall built. Given that the wall is a boondoggle anyway and would end up being a complete disaster of epic proportions (who in Texas or anywhere else on the southern border is going to give land back to Mexico to accommodate a wall?), financial, environmental, and psychological, the real emergency is that Trump thinks he is god or godlike, pushed on by creepy guys like Steve Miller. His advisers tell him that the Israeli wall is 90% effective yet the Israelis keep firing weapons over the wall and shutting down tunnels under the wall. That's what the Russians did in Berlin and how the Chinese used the top of their Great Wall. Do we really want to start shooting Mexicans? I know we fired tear gas over the border last week but are we prepared to fire bullets? You want to talk about a humanitarian crisis you need to envision the ramifications built in to the proposition. What has this country come to?

When the wall doesn't work what do we plan to do next? Resurrect a dead Ronald Reagan to declare, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall?"

The Wheels On The Bus

If you are from the US you probably know the song referenced in the blog head. But what happens when the wheels come off the bus?

Right now the US has five "acting" cabinet members ranging from Interior Secretary to Secretary of Defense. Trump said he likes "acting" members because it gave him more freedom but what exactly that meant eluded most people. And anyone who feels better about Trump having more freedom to be Trump needs to think about other developments this week.

NSC head Bolton went to Turkey this week after going to Israel to make an attempt to explain Trump's extemporaneous announcement that the US was pulling out, unilaterally without consultation, from Syria. Trump even claimed in his brief announcement that dead service members were thanking him from heaven for his decision. Besides the complete weirdness of that statement, the announcement precipitated the departure from the Department of Defense of General Mattis. It also freaked out numerous foreign governments (at this point one hesitates to call them allies though one might hope for their forbearance) because there had been no prior information of this intent.

In the time between that statement by Trump and today, multiple governments are asking, "Just what does that mean?" John Bolton tried to explain yesterday in Israel but because of what he said in Israel Turkey's leader, Erdogan, wouldn't even meet with him today. Trump keeps saying that his gut is better than most people's brains but turmoil in international affairs is not usually a sign of smooth sailing ahead.

The White House sent out spokespeople to defend Trump's wall as a necessary for national security but they got corrected in real time by Fox journalists. That opened the door for all investigative bodies to fact check the statements from Nielsen, DHS chief, that had been previously debunked. Now even Fox plans to fact check in real time but probably not on the opinion shows.

So when you watch Trump tonight, if you watch Trump tonight (I am not going to watch it live because there is no point in watching someone who has lied on camera or on Twitter more than 7600 times in 711 days), don't believe what he says about terrorists or even criminals. Nielsen admitted finally that her "criminal" tag was simply because someone had crossed the border without authorization. As much as I despise that action, it's a fact of life here in the US.No clear way for average people to prevent the crossings or to prevent those crossing working in the US since no one has answers for the first or enforces e-verify for the second.

So when the wheels come off the bus, which they are about to do, hold on tight. The ride is going to get bumpier. 

Many Headed Hydra

So here is a picture of my latest project. Because of my right arm issues of tendinitis and tendinopathy I decided to try machine piecing and machine quilting. I have a Bernina not a quilting machine so the piecing part was all right but the quilting part practically made me crazy. This isn't a big quilt (51 x 51) but even maneuvering that through and around my Bernina was like wrestling that many headed hydra. Ultimately it got to be too much for me, causing nearly as much neck and trapezius pain as anything I do by hand.

I like the colors. I had fun choosing the fabrics to mimic stone or other mosaic material. But I  just stopped after I quilted all the pieced areas, leaving the outside light fabric blank. I am still calling it Taormina both for the stone mosaic theme and the sparkling colors like a seaside villa in Italy.

Outrage Doesn't Suffice

Trump keeps insulting America's military. Whether he is lying to them to their faces or calling them names publicly, he has spent the last couple of months showing us what he thinks about the military. Gone is the praise, gone is the admiration. Now the generals are "dumb", "stupid", "dogs", and for Trump what must be the biggest slur, "Hillary lover".

Then Trump had the audacity to say "I think I would have been a good general, but who knows?" Well the rest of us certainly know because we know that Trump avoided service at least five times including spurious bone spurs. Don't get me wrong. There were many people who avoided service in Viet Nam. The men in my immediate family weren't among them since my husband and my brother both served and went to Viet Nam and I do have a brother-in-law on the wall. But I got one of my husband's brothers out of the draft completely by telling him to go to his Army physical wearing his old retainer.  It wasn't because I thought the war was stupid, though I certainly did, nor because I cared that much about my husband's brother since I barely knew him. What I did care about was the prevailing atmosphere in the country and in the draftees. The last thing the Army needed was my husband's brother, who is still a very drifty guy despite having had a successful career. So the Army certainly did not need Trump and he definitely would not have been a good general. He wouldn't have gotten that far of course. Sometimes it is difficult to tell but the Army does have standards.

Being able to read is one of the earliest standards.

My Son's O-Zoni

In my previous post I mentioned o-zoni, a traditional Japanese New Year's dish, that we were not eating this year since I felt bereft of hope for the past year. But I also said that my son, the chef, was making o-zoni for the first time and he invited other people to share in the tradition. Here is a photo of his o-zoni:

 He served the o-zoni on his grandmother's obi but it looks damned good.