My Favorite Magicians at the Renaissance Faire

Do you like to play dress up? I do. Sometimes I want to be Peggy Oleson on Mad Men. Other times, it's hippie fare for thrifting on the weekends. Nature inspires me, and I love flowery prints and earth tones. When the mood strikes, I bring out my inner Laura Ingalls Wilder with calico prints. I love color above all else. Playing dress up is something as young girls we loved when we had a more innocent attitude towards fashion, before the media and marketers jaded us with body images we fret far too much about.

Two events I went to again this summer validated how much adults love to play dress up. One was the 1920s Jazz Age Lawn party on Governor's Island. View my photos from a past soiree here. Another was the Renaissance Faire in Sterling Forest, which we received complimentary tickets to from one of Steve's colleagues. I've never dressed up for the Faire. I had a thrifted black Free People dress which would have been perfect which I realized only after I got to the event. I love the freedom and festivity here of the costumes. We should dress up more often for fun, don't you think?

Costumes aside, we were entertained by merrymakers in the past, but this year, I had a different perspective. I was taken by the artistry and craftsmanship on display, perhaps because we live in such a mass production world. To me, these craftsmen and women are true magicians just as much as anyone on stage.

These were my favorite magic makers.

Those who turn delights from the garden into nourishing, pleasing-to-the-palate meals. My vegan "Nights in Tunisia" vegetables in couscous which I savored with (not pictured) mint ice tea.

Storytellers, of course. Signs for Wanted: Robin Hood posted in this forest tavern. I sipped on some mead (honey wine) pondering his whereabouts.

Those who entertain us with visions of the future, true or not. In one of my favorite storytellers of all time, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, Owen sees the date of his death on a tombstone during a school play. Imagine if a fortune teller would be able to tell you your end. Would you want to know?

Those who turn the 21st century woman into a maiden.

Those who create beautiful garlands. I loved the fragrant eucalyptus.

Those who create quality, artful fabrics. I believe in the power of dressing artfully and using your own imagination, not listening to someone else's vision for you.

Those who shine a light on the world. Ever notice how many candles are imports?

Those who make art out of commonplace items.  I purchased a small hummingbird looking glass for an extremely reasonable $10 and it sits on my night stand. We are so hard on ourselves when glancing at our reflections in the looking glass (I am too). Let's try not to do that to ourselves.

Those who create beautiful glass baubles in a rainbow of colors.

Those who repurpose the unexpected.

Those who make us believe in wishes. A wishing well here. Ponder your innermost wishes. If you had three wishes granted, consider what they would be.

Those that make us believe in romance. A kissing bridge invites those to share a kiss with their sweetheart.

Costumes, food and crafts aside, I think these events are what we all need - a fun escape. Hands up those tired of our tabloid media with "celebrities" famous for no talent, the bad economic news and world events. I'm glad the Renaissance Faire swept me away from all that. These types of events are what I consider a "healthy escape" - not about numbing our minds or putting others down. 

Now, I'm off for my bedtime stories (never too old for that, either), maybe from a sonic storyteller.

July and August Storytellers: Two Months of Books

One of my most favorite sonic storytellers, Tori Amos, talked in an interview about "the mythology of ancient Ireland whereby the poets do battle before the warriors do battle and if the poets are good then hopefully they intimidate the other side so much." Maybe poets should have done battle before the national conventions. We need more of the beauty and power of the word in our daily lives, don't you agree? I could listen to Amos tell stories in song form or other all day. She made my reading list, as did a chef, a scientist author/poet, a local historian and a famous frontier author and her daughter.  These were my storytellers for July and August.

 Tori Amos: Piece by Piece, by Ann Powers and Tori Amos, Shaw's Book Shop, Westwood, New Jersey, aprox. $20.


It's funny how books sit on your shelf and wait patiently for their turn.  I've owned this book almost since its release several years ago, but it found me only now. I could relate to Amos' desires to become a mom, although I've never had to endure any of the miscarriages she suffered before she produced her daughter Tash. I also thought of her mother's story about putting aside her own ambitions to follow her husband's path. As I prepare for a wedding in a Catholic church (I'm not Catholic) and have to tell the priest we intend to raise our children Catholic (can I say "intend") I'm struggling a bit with my own path.

The book about Amos is told in dialogue form with journalist Ann Powers with a host of Amos confidants chiming in this work very much about her journey and creative process instead of a traditional biography.

"The romantic myth of the artist says that you are the Source. I have no illusions about that. I think this goes back to my grandfather. That was his great gift to me. Native Americans don't believe they are the Source. They have access to the Source. Endless access.  But don't get confused.

I can have access, but so can a librarian..."

Song Canvas sections give some insight into her works. So many people know her as the Cornflake Girl singer, but to me she's so much more. Her song Garlands, from The Beekeeper album era that disappointingly didn't make the album but appears on an extra with the bonus album, reminds me of my author friend J.J. Brown's Vector: A Modern Love Story. Vector is an ill-fated love story of a young opera student Eva and an older man, Michael set in in New York City. I thought if they made a movie about it, Garlands, where two lovers are meeting in Washington Square Park to go see the Winged Painter in a museum uptown, would certainly appear.

"I'm off in flight towards another light. Rest. Youth."



I love that Amos finds inspiration in the skies of New Mexico. I find creativity in our office painted a sage green and decorated with Southwest fare, with a raspberry colored rocking chair and a book case filled with favorites.  I do declare that I believe my ghost will roam in the Southwest. Where do tap into your creativity?

She talked about her mother, a literature major who dropped out to become a minister's wife after Amos' father switch from pre-med giving her the "keys to the library." Her mother read her Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Browning, and William Faulkner. Amos feels she wouldn't have been a songwriter without this influence of her mother's texts and her father's theology. Who gave you the keys to the library?

I love the chapter "Corn Mother: Genealogies" the most in which she shares memories of her Cherokee grandfather and the wisdom he passes on. Her stories about an ancestor escaping the Trail of Tears is something out of a Hollywood movie. Powers shares here too a Cherokee story. Let's take it in:

"Selu, the Corn Mother, lives with her grandsons in the mountains. The young men are hunters, and Corn Mother provides the staples that round out their meals. The men want to hunt and hunt, and this greed for meat makes Corn Mother sad, yet she loves her descendants and does not challenge them. One morning her grandsons spy on Corn Mother as she makes the corn, which falls from her body whenever she slaps her sides. This terrifies the men, and they reject her. She withers, but before dying, instructs them to bury her in the earth and tells them she will arise again as a plant that will need to be cultivated. Corn Mother does as she promises, but in her new form she cannot be blithely generous. People must learn to cultivate her; they must earn her fruitfulness. With this lesson Corn Mother teaches humankind the need for balance and the love of nature's gifts."

Amos recalls the medicine women coming backstage after 2001 and the Afghanistan War. One said to her, "Do you feel the soul of our land is in the right hands....Would you turn over your physical mother to those who are in control of she who we call America?" Bluntly put, the medicine woman tells her "Caretakers or Takers- you're either one or the other. If the masses keep taking and not caretaking, then your grandchildren will have very little to nurture them....Your loyalty should not be to anyone who claims power over the land at any given time, whose intentions can change on a whim, depending if they've been seduced by power and what it brings."

I've never understood how things like clean water, air and soil ended up so low on our list of national priorities. It won't matter as much if you can't pay off student loans when the water isn't good to drink. One of the greatest environmental threats of our times I believe is the danger to our water supply by oil companies and politicians promising jobs and domestic energy production in the area of "natural" gas. I've written about my opposition to fracking, the process to extract natural gas, before. Fracking sounds like the premise for a dark science fiction story - but it's true. There was an article in The New York Times, "Tapping Into the Land, Dividing Its People" about fracking in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana - so they can pay off debts for building a failing casino?  My thoughts: when an oil company comes bearing gifts for your community's children - run. Burn their contracts. In Colorado, farmers are now competing with oil companies for water for these great domestic jobs and energy source. I need not consult a psychic to see higher food prices acoming. They're even tapping into municipal fire hydrants. Who do you think will win?

There's been a few news reports about cleaner air as a result of natural gas when it's used instead of coal, but does cleaner air trump polluted water? Not for me. Politicians only need to use the words "jobs" and "domestic energy" to generate applause. Both Obama and Romney support natural gas. On this issue, I call them takers, not caretakers. I applaud Obama's efforts with wind and solar, but am so disappointed when he speaks of  the 100 year supply of natural gas and the jobs it's going to create. He's mentioned it in the State of the Union and at his acceptance speech at the DNC. I would like to see Romney and Obama drink from a water supply that's been fracked or send their family members off for a week to take part in these "good" jobs. I hope they'll join the side of the caretakers.

On a lighter note...Bon Appetit! The Delicious Life of Julia Child, by Jessie Hartland, free, the library. The hardcover retails for $17.99 (is that what children's books cost?!) While everyone was looking at their fancy gizmos waiting in line for the bus at Port Authority (I'm often listening to music on one), this time was cheerfully lost in this most charming children's picture book about the life of Julia Child. With her 100th birthday coming up in August, I was searching for books and discovered a slew of new Child fare
.

Who says you can't learn something new from a children's book? One of her projects while working at the OSS (Office of Strategic Services in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka) was to help develop a shark repellant to keep curious sharks away from underwater explosives meant to destroy enemy ships. I also learned her high school French class was a disaster, it took her two years to speak well enough to get by once in Paris, and four years to become fluent. I've taken community school French classes here and there and love the language, but have never put a serious effort into it. Really, it was most fun to socialize with other Francophiles.

Minette's Feast, by Susanna Reich, free, the library.

Less informative biography wise but very sweet about Julia and her cat Minette. I'm loving all things feline lately - maybe the spell of watching Disney's Aristocats hasn't worn off yet. I think I'm so drawn to Julia's path even though I don't share much of her cooking beliefs (this vegetarian won't be deboning a duck anytime soon!) I'm always fascinated how Julia didn't figure out her path until she was in her 40s. I'm grateful - vey grateful - for my job, but I wonder about passions for a career.

The Goffle Road Murders of Passiac County: The 1850 Van Winkle Killings by Don Everett Smith, $20, Well Read Book Store, Hawthorne, New Jersey.

An intriguing account of the murder of a judge, John Van Winkle, and his wife, Jane, in Hawthorne, the county's first murder trial that would send the killer to the gallows. Crowds came to watch as high as Garret Mountain on execution day. Imagine if there were public executions today. I pass the house the murders took place in nearly every day and never knew its dark story until this book found me at this wonderful local bookstore, which I decided to support with my purchase.

The author starts the book with the haunting "The House with Nobody In It" by Joyce Kilmer, which talks of an old farmhouse the narrator passes,

"I have never seen a haunted house but I hear there are such things;
That hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two."

The poem ends...

"So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart."

Think of all the lonely old houses you've passed. Do you believe in ghosts? Consider all the storytellers there are about our very own local history. Why the nation is consumed with "reality" television when history serves up so much more interesting fare, that's the greatest mystery to me.

Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life, by Pamela Smith Hill $9.94, Amazon.com.

"If you write for children, then I am in my second childhood," Wilder's editor George Bye declared. Anyone who has found these books as an adult will understand that sentiment. 

The book made me a better Little House reader. I've read through By the Shores of Silver Lake. The book examines closely the relationship Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane shared professionally and looks at some of the fact and fiction of the book. No, Lane didn't pen the books, but according to Hill did largely lift large parts of Laura's unpublished (rejected) Pioneer Girl manuscript to piece together Lane's Let the Hurricane Roar. I think what most surprised me is that the Ingalls family was made to sound so isolationist when they weren't. That snug winter in the surveyor's house? They had a boarder. All alone in The Long Winter? They had a couple with them who had to have a shotgun wedding. No going to see the railroad with Pa in By the Shores of Silver Lake. He would have never taken her along.  In the books they always looked West. Not so in real life, as they backtracked.

There was also some interesting history here. I didn't know Little Women is considered the first young adult novel. Wilder's books start out as children's books but branch out into young adult fare as Laura's journey grows.

Rose Wilder Lane instructed her mother to "show not tell" readers, and show she does in her magnificent Let the Hurricane Roar. Dare I say it, I almost liked this more than some of the Little House books.

I inhaled my library copy before the one I ordered from my favorite online book retailer Better World Books arrived. I just couldn't wait a day longer for it.

This book is a cautionary tale against accruing debt that could be true for any age, and reminds us of the humbling power of Mother Nature, which simply doesn't care about your plans. Spoiler alert: after the grasshopper invasion strikes as it did in On the Banks of Plum Creek," she writes,

"Grasshoppers, going west - like the railroads, like the people, like cities and settled lands and law and government. Yet grasshoppers were as alien, as indifferent to human suffering, as wind or cold. Perhaps they were no more indifferent to human beings than human fate itself."

Natural Supernatural Love, J.J. Brown, $8.99, Amazon.com. A collection of poetry to read in your comfy, coziest share under a blanket with some tea. Sharing one of my favorite poems here, what seems like a perfect end to this Storytellers column.


Library Lantern

light a candle in the lantern
this quiet evening to read by
and close the patterned metal door
to watch the shadows cling to the wall
as people have done evenings
for ages and ages past
lean against the bookcase
and imagine each book is a person
lined up side by side
and take one from the shelf
to leaf through captured thoughts
of lives that refused to end
light a candle in the lantern
this quiet evening to read by.



The Greatest of American Dreams: Leisure Time. Weekend in Lake George, New York.

There’s scene in the Lifetime film about Georgia O’Keeffe’s life where she tells Alfred Stieglitz what she misses living in New York City – the sky. Next scene: they are off to the Stieglitz family home in Lake George, New York. I had no idea of the O’Keeffe connection to Lake George until I watched the film. She seems to be finding me - almost nudging her way into my life this year, kind of like Laura Ingalls Wilder did last year (she's in my life too at the moment, more about that in a future Storytellers column). Working in the city, I miss the sky also and wanted for a change to be greeted by scenes of towering trees and a landscape of water – not towering buildings and a landscape of tourists, always-in-a-hurry commuters (me) and locals in New York City. Confession: I have a fantasy about having a lake house. Not so frugal, right?

Parasailing on the lake. The cost for this was $75 per person. I've never done this (Steve has). We skipped the chance on this visit.

I had never thought much about the name of the iconic Adirondack chairs - since I didn't know the name until spotting this book.

From history from Wikipedia,

“The precursor to today's Adirondack chair was designed by Thomas Lee in 1903.

He was on vacation in Westport, New York, in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, and needed outdoor chairs for his summer home. He tested the first designs on his family. The name Muskoka was adopted from the municipality of Muskoka, Ontario, a cottage country area north of Toronto.

The original Adirondack chair was made with eleven pieces of wood, cut from a single board, with a straight back and seat. It also featured wide armrests, which became a hallmark of the Adirondack chair.

After arriving at a final design for the "Westport plank chair," Lee offered it to Harry Bunnell, a carpenter friend in Westport, who was in need of a winter income. Bunnell quickly realized the chair was the perfect item to sell to Westport's summer residents, and apparently without asking Lee's permission, Bunnell filed for and received patent 794,777 in 1905. Bunnell manufactured his plank chairs for the next twenty years. His "Westport chairs" were all signed and made of hemlock in green or medium dark brown. The modern name refers to the Adirondack Mountains, which Westport is near.”

The Minnie Ha Ha sounds like something out of Rose Nylund's St. Olaf stories on the Golden Girls! We mentioned our AAA membership and got a small savings. Only a dollar or two, but it adds up, right? I kept thinking how equally beautiful the scenery must be when the leaves change colors in autumn.

Carrot ginger soup and a bleu cheese, walnut and New York apple salad at the Boardwalk Restaurant. With our tickets from the Minnie Ha Ha, we got $5 off a starter, so my soup was free. :-) 

We liked the Bank Café, a former bank, so much we ate here twice.

So decadent! Nutella stuffed French toast and a Snickerdoodle coffee and OJ.

A veggie panini with vegetable chips and butternut apple soup (so good!) with an iced tea.

Wine tasting at Adirondack Winery, $5 for 7 tastings. I always think of the film Sideways when I do these. Their grapes are from California but are pressed locally. I took home a bottle of blackberry merlot.

A veggie burger and raspberry smoothie at the super casual (note the papertowel holder for napkins!) Lookout Cafe. I love guacamole, but never thought to put it on a veggie burger. I gave up eating meat when I was 14, and never miss a "real" burger.

We took a nice long drive around the lake and visited historic Fort Ticonderoga.

 We didn't really plan our visit too well, so we just missed the tour of the King's Garden. Native Americans would plant the three sisters crop of corn, squash and beans.

Signs here talk about culinary and medicinal uses of herbs. I think about just the aromatherapy from the herbs. There's no man-made perfume that can compare to the scents of brushing my hands against the basil or rosemary in our garden.

James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of The Mohicans is on my long to-read list. Classic Starts publishes a series to get younger readers familiar with the classics.

Interested in names like I am? According to Wikipedia, “The lake was originally named the Andia-ta-roc-te, by local Native Americans. James Fenimore Cooper in his narrative Last of the Mohicans called it the Horican, after a tribe which may have lived there, because he felt the original name was too hard to pronounce….

On August 28, 1755, William Johnson led British colonial forces to occupy the area in the French and Indian War. He renamed the lake as Lake George for King George II and built a protecting fortification at its southern end.”

We stayed at the Sundowner Motel. We took the cheapest room - of course ;-) - which was 99 plus tax (so $120).  The rooms were very clean, small and basic. We enjoyed the heated pool (away from the busy road, but then the pool motor is very noisy when trying to enjoy a quiet moment by their small private lake), the jacuzzi, and free kayak rentals. My first time on a kayak - so fun.

I love these little roadside farmstands.

The sweetest yummiest blackberries.

We're going to get some tents and camping supplies from Steve's father he doesn't want anymore, and hope to use them on future outings. I've never been camping.

I adored all the cute bear decor. Lake George did feel so welcoming.

On golden lake.

Did you know that "about 57% of working Americans had unused vacation time at the end of 2011, and most of them left an average of 11 days on the table - or nearly 70 percent of their allotted time off, according to a study performed by Harris Interactive for JetBlue," CNN/Money reported. Vacation time is something those who came before us fought for and I cherish every vacation day off, whether it's a trip to the Southwest, a weekend getaway to Lake George or even a staycation day. Don't lose your vacation days! I also consider vacations a vital part of our economy and this American resents the constant stream of photos with consumers with shopping bags in so many articles on the economy's health. I support inns/motels, restaurants, shops, museums, parks, local shops and more with travel. Happy travels to you, wherever your road may take you.

If I Could Turn Back Time: On Bad Spending Habits

Scene: Steve and I are at a motel lobby and I spot a $1 off coupon for a wine tasting we just attended on a weekend getaway. So our $5 for seven wines would have been $4 each. I’m annoyed at myself - $2 I could have saved! I’ve been thinking about the Golden Girls episode where Rose’s already frugal boyfriend Miles becomes even more penny pinching, and Rose finds out it’s because his doctor told him he’ll live to be a very old age, and he’s not budgeted to live that long! With the idea of starting a family in the near future on our minds (we hope! I’m turning 37 in November), money is heavily on our minds. I always read in those Americans finding themselves in France type travel books and blogs how the French allegedly never discuss money. Well in the post Recession, I think we should talk about money, a lot, and that frugality shouldn't be something to be ashamed of, it should boasted about. How to save it (for rainy days, for family, for retirement), how to be more resourceful with what you have, what you enjoy spending on that it feels right for you to spend on (for us it’s travel, thrift shopping and eating out more than we should).

Scene: Steve and I are in a God’s Plan for a Love Filled Marriage session required by his church. The man running the session talks much about family planning (he has nine children!), but money was on my mind. He talks about hand-me-downs, whipping up a feast for a large family for $10, not participating in the media room obsession (how many tvs I see on the side of the road which I’m sure replaced perfectly good ones). I’m all on board with that part of the talk. I’m also looking around at the engagement rings on the women there and seeing the large stones that make my grandmother’s ring, purchased on my grandfather’s teacher’s salary in Switzerland many decades ago, look so very humble, but I wouldn’t trade my ring for one of those large stones any day. We kept hearing couples talk on lunch breaks of the pressures they felt to have so much food at the wedding and such, and we don’t understand the treadmill everyone remains on in the post Great Recession America in 2012. Not us. No way. Steve always says we work too hard for our money. Driving home, it was raining. I’m thinking of the rainstorm and the rainbow on my drive from Santa Fe to Taos. The Southwest lingers on my mind, but I think because the day was filled with all the religious talk I thought about something my colleague said who has roots in New Mexico and who had a family member doing a religious pilgrimage to Chimayo around Easter time. She talked of chili pepper seeds and said, “That’s my religion.” I feel that way too sometimes. Steve spots a picture on the roadside. We stop. We rescue it from the rain just in time. It was a Georgia O’Keeffe, Light Iris, 1924. We were at her museum in Santa Fe, and I still felt a pang of regret for not getting an O’Keeffe at the Goodwill for a price more than I wanted to pay at the time. The universe was smiling on me I think. Guess what, the O'Keeffe I passed on, I found at a garage sale over the weekend for $1.

We talked with the homeowner where we found the O’Keeffe who was leaving as we were getting it, and spoke about the housing market, how bad the job situation is. She mentions someone who just lost her house but bought a fancy car and shops for Coach bags.

I wish we would have more of a dialogue about our own spending habits and it’s not just blame Obama for all of our financial woes, or if Romney gets in, let’s blame him. Many of us continue to live way beyond our means.  I raise my hand first and say I've made a lot of bad spending choices which were my own fault.  Unlike the Edith Piaf song, I’m not one to say “Je ne regrette rien.” There are so many times now when I think, I wish I had the money in the bank for the future instead of what I spent it on. Some spending regrets (and how many relate to my vanity!)

Expensive haircuts and color. I started doing blonde highlights in my natural brown hair in high school, and this went on for a decade. I later switched to red hair. I’m back to my natural color and while I sometimes miss being a redhead, and I actually like my current color the best. I was paying $110 for the highlights touch up and $150 for the full head for blonde and then $60 for red hair at a pricey salon. Add to that haircuts of about $50. I completely cringe. While I enjoyed experimenting with colors and wouldn’t rule it out in the future, I so wish I had done at-home color treatments. I also strongly resent the price-gouging of women’s haircuts versus men. Why should we pay $50 for some “luxury” cut when men can spend $15 at the barber? Now: I go to Supercuts and pay $19 for a wash and trim. I skip the blowout. I doubt the cashier at Trader Joe’s cares what my hair looks like when I’m getting a cut on a Saturday and then running errands. While I’m normally a cheerleader for independents, I like the value of Supercuts (my next cut is free after eight cuts), and considering this a service where you’re not outsourcing to another country, I allow it. I have a simple cut (straight with bangs) and it takes 10 minutes. Pricey cuts, not again. I may look for a reasonably priced independent salon in the future (read, not $50!) Fake blondes may or may not have more fun, but true brunettes have a bigger bank account.

Manicures/pedicures. I know most women view this as a “treat” and I get it. But now, the smells of the polish and polish remover nauseate me, and I’m skeeved about by the communal tools and dipping your feet in questionably sanitized pools. In my twenties, I paid $11 for manicures with tip and $30 for manicures and pedicures regularly. My nails have never felt and looked healthier since I said goodbye to manis/pedis. My sister wants to take me to an organic spa before my wedding, but in general I wouldn’t do polish. If I did, at home would be the way to go.

Clothing: I used to “splurge” on pieces at Anthropologie and Ann Taylor Loft. I’d think I was treating myself to a $100 skirt here or there. More cringing. Now, $25 is on the high side for a skirt (that’s from charitable thrift). The highest I spent was $35 on a DKNY skirt which I happened to like the cut of from Housing Works. Some fall wardrobe items I can’t wait to wear: a blue/white cape from the Goodwill ($5), a dress from a garage sale ($1), a tweed vintage coat ($10 or $15 from an estate sale), and a Goodwill dress ($5). I just scored vintage pieces from an estate sale that were about $1-$2 a piece. I'm so proud of Steve who is now a Goodwill enthusiast for clothes too. Heck, my wedding dress is from there!

Dry cleaning: Save for my vintage coats which I get at estate sales and thrift shops, and my thrifted wedding, I never dry clean anything. I hand wash everything on cold and hang dry it. I used to run up enormous dry cleaning bills and just didn't question the label, "Dry cleaning only." I've had a few items where the garment shrunk a bit but the lining didn't. With most of my clothes second hand, I'm willing to gamble any possible damage.

Cable: I blogged last year about how I cancelled cable, but when I moved in with Steve he insisted on cable and still does. It’s his one indulgence. While he likes to remind me how much I enjoy Mad Med (which I really do!) when it’s on, I don’t enjoy watching TV much at all anymore unless I’m watching a favorite film or having a movie night. When I had it on my own, I spent thousands of dollars on it when I did the math. Better off: getting a Netflix account, or using the library for DVDs.

Furniture: I furnished most of my first apartment from IKEA. Admittedly, I’m not proud of this, but I still enjoy browsing through their showrooms and yes, even dining in their cafeteria (their spinach and cheese crepes are surprisingly good!) I love homey stuff. I had a $100 gift card I spent at Home Goods, and totally get the appeal. I’m a sucker for almost anything that reminds me of the Southwest, or that has birds, butterflies or the Eiffel Tower on it! But when I moved and I looked at my U-Haul, I thought of my IKEA stuff, well, it’s kind of junk. Since Steve got a minivan, we’ve been able to move all kinds of furniture (hunter green couches from his brother he didn’t want, patio furniture from a garage sale for $30, etc.) I wish I had at least been better outfitting my two apartments from thrift shops and garage sales. It’s so much more fun and creative to find your own things secondhand than copying the IKEA showroom. Butterfly curtains from an estate sale in my bedroom - $2!

If I add these up and had spent instead the way I spend now, I would have thousands and thousands of dollars or more money in the bank. In my world, that's horrifying. Live and learn I know, but I wish I had learned earlier. I've always saved since I started working for my retirement and put into a savings account. One of my favorite four letter words lately - save.

So those are my financial regrets. What are yours? Ponder them in the comments section, or internally. 

May and June Storytellers: Two Months of Books

I've hit a wall. I have piles of inviting books waiting for me. I plan on getting to them, I do! More often lately, though, on my prime reading time on the bus ride back to New Jersey from New York City (going in I read the newspaper) I feel like listening to music, but those are storytellers in another form, right? I thought about an article on one of my favorite singers, Natalie Merchant, in The Seattle Times, "as teenager she studied folk music from the British Isles and Ireland, and learned to embrace song as storytelling."

..."When people give birth, when people get married, when they're ailing and when they die ... Our culture developed song," Merchant observed.

Do you ever hit a reading wall, despite your love of books? I watched a documentary on the French actor Maurice Chevalier. I had no idea he was an author, and it was noted that because he was such a reader, he was able to be a great writer. I always see the correlation between avid readers and great writers, whether they are bloggers, songwriters and novelists. The more I read, the more I want to write. The creative spark is infectious. Overall, my life feels better when I'm reading. I plan on hitting the books again.

So this is what it is, my tiny reading list for the past two months (I haven't had many blog entries lately either, probably related to a distracted mind). I have a lot to say though! My May and June storytellers: Let's discuss!

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, by Alison Arngrim, 50 cents, garage sale. As an online reviewer put it, "At last, a Nellie Oleson tell all!" What a lucky find! You never know where your next storyteller will find you. Don't let the title put you off (I'm not a fan of curse words, never mind in the title!) I couldn't get over how much I enjoyed this book. Ms. Arngrim is an engaging, witty storyteller. I actually felt a void after reading this. You'll want to be at least a fan of the Little House on the Prairie series to enjoy her anecdotes. Above all, she is an inspiration as an AIDS advocate (best friend and former cast mate Steve Tracy who played Percival Dalton passed away of the disease). She also candidly shares her story of being molested by a family member starting at a very young age and her fight to get an incest exception law off the books (can you believe the laws in California were more lenient if a relative molested you?) This was my favorite storyteller.

Lunch in Paris, by Elizabeth Bard, free, the library, about Bard's relocati. How did I find out about it? Searching for keyword "Paris" on Anthropologie's site. Embarrassing, but the truth. There's a suspicious number of 'Americans who go to France to find themselves' books, and an even more suspicious number willing to spend their leisure time reading this (me!) Some pet peeves: I don't want to know when you first slept with your husband (our too much information age), how she kept making fun of her husband's tap dancing classes (watch a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film and see the appeal), and her attitude about things like American tourists wanting to eat early dinners and not late when the French dine. She also got very snippy about her mother's visits, even demeaning a gift her mom brought her. Often in this book, I wanted to scream out, "Get a job already!"

This was an easy read and engaging, but it will be one of my more forgettable books over time. The recipes do look mouthwatering. I did like how she debunked some of our envy over the French healthcare system. When her father in law gets sick, she writes frustratingly about the lack of second opinions and other treatments available to them. Seeing another doctor would be almost an insult to your current doctor. No flying to the Midwest for some experimental treatment.

And there's our national obsession with the French thin woman. She talks about being at a dinner party when she's asked if she wants a small or normal piece and she says normal, and she's asked again if she's sure. She takes the small and talks about the series of small decisions French women make like these. Point made, but American or French, our cultures seem to be overly fixated on weight.

I don't understand the wanting to be thin versus healthy, no more than I understand wanting to be wrinkle free in your 40s and older. Weight loss seems to me always associated with vanity issues. I hate weight loss compliments. I'm a size 14 and when I've lost weight in the past it's usually due to stress, but hey the most important thing was I was thinner, right?  The only time I did lose weight for dietary adjustments was when I was eating vegan vs. vegetarian (for ethical issues), since I was cutting out so much cheese and lots of sweets which were off limits. When I lose weight, I immediately get compliments, so I look so horrible before? Oh the horror stories, readers, the "when are you due?" comments, almost all from women who should know better. I've lost count and stopped crying in the car afterwards when people have asked me. After a fun happy hour sharing sangria with some friends after work, going home at Port Authority some woman was going to let me go because she thought I was expecting, and when I told her I wasn't, she said, "You're not?" Lovely! Then there was the time I saw a former neighbor who said, "Wow, you put on a lot of weight!" What discrimination and comments do others get, I can just imagine. Frankly put, I think people should think more about the factory farms their cheap meat comes from, the pesticides on their food, and how much a farmer earns before issues like my thighs or bloated stomach (or theirs). Do people like Ms. Bard or others spend as much energy wondering or caring how their foie gras was produced as they do about the secret to French women being thin? I had a great beach day this weekend and know that no one there cared how beach body ready I wasn't. I look at pictures of myself a decade ago at a size four and think - too thin, not enough curves. As Forrest Gump would say, that's all I've got to say about that.

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 99 cents, the Goodwill in Paramus, NJ. This book sounded so me - gardens, England, a children's classic tale - but as an adult, I really was disappointed by this.  It was tough to follow Mandy by Julie Andrews, another book about an orphan in England and a secret garden that was one of my favorites from this year. I really disliked how overly focused the story became on Colin, and think the line "Master Colin!" is the worst ending for a book I've ever read. I agree with many online reviewers describing it as "boring." I just wish there had been more story here, or less pages. I do appreciate the message of children connecting with nature when now they are always connected to a device, which I'll never get. I always say politicians do not scare me, marketers do. They run our country. I don't even see kids coloring at restaurants, they're looking at some glowing screen. Is Crayola still in business? I hope so.

I've finally been spending time in my own garden doing my own "coloring" I guess you could say. I really went to town when the local garden center had their annual 40 percent off storewide sale earlier this month. A sampling below. Did you ever see the Keeping Up Appearances episode when Mrs. Bucket (Bouquet) has an indoor-outdoor luxury bbq for the garden center king and her car is loaded with plants and Richard can barely see? That's what I looked like driving on Route 17!

I've been a fan of Tori Amos, another favorite sonic storyteller, for years, but only really listened to and explored the lyrics of Datura, off of To Venus and Back, this year. Gardens have really been in my life this year, in the written page and in real life. Do you know many of the names of what resides in your garden? I know so very little about my own. The lyrics of Datura, according to Wikipedia, "are derived from the plants that were found in Amos' garden. A list of the plant names was handed to Amos by her gardener. Apparently most of the plants in her garden had died, except for Datura."

I hope you get out into a garden, your own or a public one, this weekend.

Wanted: A Thriving American Reuse Market

Has your blogger been busy starting a store in the guest bedroom? No, this was just a sample of clothing, shoes, bags and other goods Steve and I rescued from a cruel and unusual fate in the landfill. Taking a Sunday drive to go to garage and estate sales to outfit our part of our new two family home, we happened upon a large pile of trash in River Edge, New Jersey, which we were drawn to because we saw a baker's rack and some other items. The woman saw us from her window and urged us to take anything. She needed to move in a hurry she said and was just getting rid of the items her and her three daughters (in their late teens and early twenties) accumulated. Luckily, Steve was driving a used minivan he bought this year, and we were able to take quite a bit. Later in the day, I told Steve, let's go back. I have a feeling there's a lot there and I can donate or give to my family and I can use some of it myself. We left with seven large contractor bags filled with goods. We saved so much, but it still haunts me what we didn't save here, and what's being thrown out every night in Anytown, USA.

A sampling of the bounty now NOT in the landfill:

For my mom: UGG boots (something she wouldn't buy new, but used, in good condition and free, yes!), several pairs of summer and winter shoes (she was actually shopping for the summer sandals and didn't have to spend a dime), some scarves and two tops.
For me: An Eiffel Tower decoration (what a lucky find for a Francophile!), a beautiful Irish wool sweater and matching scarf for winter, several tops, two handbags (I looked up one that said they retail for $1100, but I'm unclear if it's a copy), a beach towel, a blue throw blanket for our bedroom, brown suede boots, and more.
For my sister: A whole new summer wardrobe. I loved how she put it, "Who needs to shop when I have you?!"
My seasonal clothing swap: various sports shirts, Seven brand jeans, bags, other clothes. I co-organize four swaps a year at work, and much of what I brought was scooped up, the rest donated to one of our charities, including Housing Works Thrift Shops which helps out HIV positive and homeless New Yorkers.
Charity shops: The majority of it went to the Goodwill in Paramus, New Jersey, since they could handle the volume and it was convenient to drop-off, but some also went to CATS Resale Shop in Emerson, NJ and Cinema Verite in New York City.

Steve thought I was nuts, but I washed everything we found (except for some items that had tags on it, which gives them a higher resale value). I didn't know where it was stored or if it was clean, so in good faith all my clothing donations were freshly laundered. You don't want to go into the landfill Elmo, do you? No way, let's go to the Goodwill!

I felt bad for the woman. She was going through a divorce and had to move in a hurry. I think people don't declutter and this is what happens - they get overwhelmed and have to discard when moving. I spent a lot of time and energy on these items since I was distributing them to various places and people, but I can't believe there wasn't an hour in the day on the owner's part to run this stuff over to the Goodwill. Thousands of dollars spent, dozens of hours shopping, and then, I don't have an hour or two in my day? I'm really saddened that people are slaving away in other countries to feed the American appetite for cheap fashion and things go so readily into the landfill, some never even worn.

I don't understand all these little girls clutching logo bags (fake and real) around in one hand and their phone in the other. I don't even like logo bags for women. As for companies like Coach declaring their products are "handcrafted in China" I declare I will never give you a dime of my hard-earned money for your false status symbol bags you are conning American women and girls to buy. Katy Perry might be maxing out her credit cards in her song Last Friday Night, but I don't march in that army, and I don't have her bank account. What message our we sending about money when we are done using our latest trendy whatever, we throw it out when someone else could have gotten it for free at a clothing swap or from freecycle, or some great charities could have benefited.

It was a lot of work, but it was worth seeing my donations for sale at the Goodwill. These shoes were not my size or style (too bad they weren't 7 1/2 size ballet flat fans), but these were priced for $15 at Goodwill. Instead of the landfill, this shoe is giving an American a wage and keeping demand down for one more new pair of foreign made shoes.

Certain brand names always draw strong interest, but when I look at these Seven jeans, I just see another "Made in China" label and a clothing manufacturer charging a premium to the consumer.

There was a Dateline NBC piece recently about Americans who were now out of work and struggling financially, some having to go to food banks. Like anyone in hard times, cut backs were needed, but I found some of the items mentioned in the piece hard to swallow as struggling like cutting cable, eating meals at home and shopping at thrift shops. Each could warrant it's own blog post, but for our topic here, I'm tired of the media associated thrift shopping, like acts like hang drying laundry, as, "Oh, that's what poor people do." I don't understand the snobbery against second hand goods. There's a line in the Sonny and Cher song, "Baby Please Don't Go" where Cher sings in the character of a young struggling woman, "I never had no money. I shopped at the secondhand store." I shop at the secondhand store, and always will even though I have the means to shops at traditional stores. If people don't like my lifestyle, I'll compare credit card debt notes. I have none.

WalMart is running ads about their low-price guarantee. Why is it okay that we brag about low prices on some items (never mind no questions asked about how our food, clothes and other items are produced), but there's shame associated with getting something at a swap or from the Goodwill? Steve and I attend a black tie dinner each year with his chef's group, and this year I was thrilled to find a vintage dress at an estate sale for about $10. I got so many compliments that evening and he kept saying don't tell them where it's from, but I'm proud of who I am. I didn't go to Nordstrom and spend $200 for some Chinese made dress. I recycled and I got a huge savings.

Retail therapy, America needs it for sure. Just not what the traditional retailers want.

I always think back on the free shelf I saw in Telluride, Colorado. Why can't we have this in every community?

Steve and I ponder this issue often and how we can make a difference. I do the swaps, I buy the vast majority of our clothes and household items second hand, we rescue things from the trash. We're not registering for our wedding so I can rip open overpriced foreign made goods in front of my friends and family when I'm getting things for a dime at garage sales and recycling in the process. But we want to do more. I'm sharing this post with you in hopes that some seed will be planted somewhere.

I tried to plant a seed with the woman throwing it out. She came up with excuses about hearing the Goodwill or other places shreds things for rags. Even if they do that with a minority of items, at least it's being reused. I just wore at our Independence Day bbq a cute Old Navy summer dress from the Goodwill I paid about $6.50 for. I assure you that wasn't shredded for rags, and I'm so glad its previous owner took the time to drop it off. When I don't want it anymore, I'll give it, not throw it, away. When I mentioned what a shame it was so much was made in China and other countries, she said there's no way around it. This consumer respectfully disagrees. This isn't about being perfect and making ideal choices all the time, but I largely don't give these companies my money. Yes, sometimes I do, but mostly I swap. I rescue from the curb. I thrift shop or go to garage sales. I vote using (and not using) my dollar.

Please share your thoughts in the comments section about the epidemic of waste going into American landfills, and how we can solve it.

Resources:
Find a charity shop near you at the TheThriftShopper.com.
Find a Freecycle. group near you
Shop estate sales (where the entire contents of a house are for sale). Find one near you.