I like to read a blog by Louise Plummer called The Chattering Crow and often find myself conversing with what she's written. It's my own version of talk therapy. Recently she posted a piece on the virtues of having a white sofa, even with kids. As an example of such a sofa, she features one from Pottery Barn.
You can read the whole thing by clicking here. One of the comments came from her friend, Ann, who wrote, "In your next life I want you to be an interior designer, okay? And I will hire you!"
Here's part of the 'conversation' I've had with the blog post....
Louise, I love Ann's comment. I think you already ARE an interior designer. One of the great ones.
Yesterday seems to have been synchronicity chickens. First, I read a great piece from one of my classmates, George. He's a retired cardiologist who smokes cigarettes during class breaks. He's also Polish and writes about growing up in German occupied Warsaw and outlying towns. In one scene, he describes destroying an anthill while the ghetto burns in the distance. He also describes how his character's mother obsesses about his penis - mostly because she's afraid some stranger will see it and the two of them will be outed as Jews. This whole backdrop he contrasts with a chicken farm in Nowheresville, NJ in 1949, when the same boy is now probably fifteen or so. He describes 'winos' who come to work on the farm and the standing bet he and some of the regulars have on how long each 'wino' will last working without a drink. Then he describes the life of chickens and the use of a chicken hook. At the end, he shows us a chicken squatting in a stupor, eyes glazed, trying to lay an oversized egg and how the 'vent' (the birth canal) ends up getting inverted in the process. This brings on a cannibal pecking-fest from the other chickens and the farmer ends up having to wring the chicken's neck. George's writing is fantastic and he tells both stories with all their serious matters, couched in some humor. I can't wait to read more. I also have a bit of a crush on George because he likes my writing.
Next, as I'm reading George's piece, I get an email from my mother. It's one of those multi-forwarded things she thought I'd get a kick out of; a little story about a kid in school whose teacher asks him what his favorite animal is. He says it's fried chicken. He gets sent to the principal's office. The next day she asks members of the class what their favorite live animal is. The same kid says it's chickens because you can make them into fried chicken. Off to the principal's office. The next day, teacher asks the class who their favorite historical figure is. The boy says it's Colonel Sanders. "Guess where I am now..." He says.
So, after all this violent chicken action, I come home to do some light reading and click on your blog. Here is a lovely, tasteful article about the virtues of having a white couch, even with kids. As a visual example, you have the Pottery Barn couch and a lovely pillow with a CHICKEN prominently featured, stylishly placed on the couch beneath a black lamp.
I begin cackling with delight.
"Chicken, chicken, chicken, who's got the chicken?!?!" I stand up to go downstairs and notice the stained glass scene above my bedroom door. Two roosters look down from the glass at me. More cackling.
So, to add a little side note to the chickens and the cannibalism and the interior design of Jason's psyche, I'm out on the stoop last night (after all this), chatting with my downstairs neighbor, John, and his wife, Heather. John is a musician and Heather is a dance teacher. Heather sees a sign for "Billy Elliott" - the musical - on a cab and says she wants to see it.
"OH, I want to see the new Silence of the Lambs musical parody," John says.
My arms drop and I stand there. My eyes begin to glaze over. "What?!"
"Yeah. Have you seen it? It looks hilarious."
"No," I say. "I'm 'whatting' because last year while I was working on this writing project, I had one of the main characters, Gabe, move away to star as Hannibal Lecter in the musical version of Silence of the Lambs!" I cackle some more. They both laugh.
"They're gonna think you stole their idea," Heather says.
"Well, not that it matters, my story is not parody... I'm not a fan of parody.... Ah well, I suppose it was inevitable. Someone was bound to make a musical version of Silence of the Lambs."
Last winter I had written to my friend, Grace, and told her I was sending Gabe off to star in the Musical Silence.
"That is RIDIC!" She wrote back. "They always say shrinks and artists do what they do to work out their own issues."
True True.
Chickens, roosters, cannibals, blood lust... Ewww! And then there are gorgeous white couches with slipcovers you can clean after your kids (or YOU) make a mess. Wash them and they look just like new. By the way, Louise, I LOVE that you had the slipcovers made with sail cloth.
When we gathered in class to critique George's piece, I told him about my chicken day. He chuckled. "Chickens are all the rage now. You see them everywhere once you're sensitized to it."
This is one of the stained-glass roosters above my bedroom door.
Warning: there's no 'swearing' or nudity or anything I would consider gratuitous content in the video below. By 'below', I mean the bottom video, not the one of me scandelously stripping an apple of its skin... There is, however, in said bottom video, conversation which is a bit of sex humor at a party of mostly doctors and/or public health workers who see a parade of male and female genitalia on a daily basis. So be warned before reading further.
My friend and roommate, Sarah, and I decided to host a 'dinner & haircut' party last night. At first, I thought it would be a total dud and didn't even really want to be involved. When I came home for the evening, I was exhausted and just wanted to focus on writing and made moves to hide in my room. Then Sarah came home and, like her timid cat, Cliff - who spent the first half of his life on the street and has learned to flee in the face of almost anything, because almost anything looks and feels like danger - I crept out of my room and sat down at the bar between the dining room and the kitchen. Sarah's friend, Anna had come over and was helping to cut up veges for the dinner part of the dinner & haircut. After about ten minutes of sitting and chatting, I said, "So is there something I can do to help? I'm just sort of sitting here like a stump while the women do all the moving. I'm feeling like one of those ridiculous, helpless men..."
"Ooh, well, I was going to skip the apple crisp but you can do that," Sarah said and pulled a bag of apples from the refrigerator.
'Oh, goody,' I thought. 'I've volunteered to friggin peel apples. My favorite.' Have you ever peeled apples with a hand peeler? It's excruciating. Reluctantly, I got up and rounded the corner to the kitchen.
"And I have this nifty toy for the job." Sarah opened the top cupboard and pointed to a box.
The top cupboard is a little high for her so I reached and pulled the box down. We took the apples and the box into the dining room and she pulled it out. "See." It was an apple corer and peeler.
It has a base with suction cups and a little lever that tightens the suction action to whatever surface you're using. In this case, it was the dining room table. Then you just take an apple and stab its core into the four-pronged do-hicky and then turn the lever. It cores, peels, AND slices the apple right in front of your very eyes. And in about seven seconds! I was in heaven.
"How many apples do we need?" I asked as I played with my nifty newfound apple-peeler-corer-slicer toy.
"Oh, let's just see how many apples you do."
"Hmmm." I laughed. "Don't say that. This thing is genius. I'll stand here and send apples through until rapture if you let me."
Here's a little demo, which I filmed with my iPhone:
After filling a bowl, I scattered the apples into the casserole dish and then sprinkeled them with cinnamen and cloves. I took a stick of butter and cut it into a mix of brown and white sugar and some other goodies and spread that on top. Voila! Into the oven with you, apple crisp!
"This is going to cure me of my cooking anxiety," I said as I shut the oven door.
"Oh?"
"When I was a kid I loved to cook. Then I dated a chef and sort of took the back seat because 'the chef' was so much better at cooking than I was."
"Ah. That's sad," Sarah said. "You should have cooked together."
"Yes, well that's a whole different story."
She looked at me and smiled.
There was talk about Anna and her fiance. There was talk about kissing. Not regular kissing. Vagina kissing. I didn't catch all the details amid much laughter and a slight ringing in my ears. You'd think growing up surrounded by eight sisters would prepair me for female sex talk. This is both true and very much the opposite of true. I still feel like an idiot and am not sure when I've said not enough or have gone too far as is, perhaps, illustrated in this very post and in the video below...
"But, Anna, I thought I heard you and Sarah kissing when you came in tonight." I said dryly. They laughed.
Sarah reenacted. "Oh, hello! So nice to see you, Anna!" Then she sent kissing sounds across the room.
Other guests arrived. Taylor Rose, Angie & Tim, Nicole (our upstairs neighbor), and Dana. We had brussel sprouts and ratatoiulle and couscous with corn and cherry tomatoes and herbs. It was a fabulous meal. Of course, later, we ate my apple crisp. I will add that Dena, our hair stylist, actually picked up the cassarole dish and spooned out every last crumb at the end of the crisp.
The desert was a success. The evening was a success.
Here's a little snippet of silly, bawdy talk after dinner. I'm curious to know if you think the conversation is funny, ridiculous, a bit of inappropriate blog sharing... boring...juvenile... Whatever it is, it IS part of the world I live in now.
