I got a B in Photography. My teacher was generous. I just went through my old high school stuff and very few of the pictures developed well (the teacher had us submit a themed assignment for each roll of film, on a transparency sheet with places for the film strips). My “Lights and Shadows” sheet was mostly pitch black frames. Heavy on the shadows.
I entered my best picture, a geometric one of a tasseled pillow on a couch next to a dresser (with squares in every element) into an art show and my parents came to see it but I was embarrassed about the whole thing in a teenage way.
My dad and I found a used camera store to get my camera from for the course. The teacher said that the camera had to be pre-1965 and Canon, Minolta, or one other brand.
It was 2 older guys with bow ties in a town (in Illinois at the time) that we never went to. The way I remember it is that I/we had no idea what they were saying or which camera to get. One of us said the word “beginner”. And I’d recited “SLR” to myself on the way in but they were all SLRs from the 60’s so that threw me off. It was exciting! I hoped that I’d be good at it (I was not).
The photography store was closed when the semester was over and we wanted to sell it back to them.
That camera was like a cursed object, like in that weird Brady Bunch Hawaii movie with the Easter Island mini statue that curses Greg, and John Steinbeck’s The Pearl.
There was a little dance we would do in line for the darkroom (our class was too big to all use it at once) of shaking the thermos of chemicals for a certain amount of time at each step with our film to develop it. Working in the darkroom was really fun even though my pictures were terrible. Some of us who knew we were bad would just hang out at the table and watch everyone else’s images come into fruition like magic in the bath of chemicals. It was a refuge from the other class periods of the day. People were pretty positive because we all had fragile teenage egos. Sometimes people told you drama about their boyfriend.
I don't have the eye for photography or ear for playing an instrument. Don't worry: I will not attempt to play an instrument and make you listen to it. Speaking of, I heard on a podcast that the recorder used to be an instrument that people would attend concerts for! Very different from the 3rd grade plastic recorders which sounded shrill and terrible. They’re cheap to make apparently: a good first instrument.
Okay art
Every year we go to the Heritage Gardens in Sandwich, MA. They have a labyrinth and a maze. Chatham has one, too. A labyrinth is a path that you can follow and just think about stuff. This is my second labyrinth pattern in our woods. Our friends’ kids kicked the first one apart, which is fine. Many things in the woods are ephemeral. It’s baked in.
“Fruit Crumble recipe
Sliced peaches, plums or apples
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 beaten egg
1 stick butter (1/4 lb), melted
1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. To make the crumb, mix the dry ingredients and egg until most of the mix forms into clumps. It doesn't need to be fully incorporated.
3. Spread the fruit in the bottom of a casserole dish.
4. Pour the crumbs over the top of the fruit.
5. Drizzle the melted butter on top.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes. The edges will brown, and the top will be puffy and golden brown.
7. Let it cool on the counter for about an hour before serving. This allows the crumb to harden.
Notes:
-This is for a big casserole dish (e.g., 9" x 12"). For a smaller dish, you can halve this recipe and bake for about 25 minutes.
-Kelly says that if the fruit is really juicy (like ripe peaches), she adds some corn starch to the mix to keep the crumb from getting soggy.
-Fresh fruit works best for this recipe, but you can experiment with frozen or dried (you'd want to soak it first, though) fruit. It's a very flexible recipe.”
Anyway I made that recipe today. I think you can tell by the notes that I rewrote it. I think my mom had it in this little rolodex of recipes from her bridal shower. My siblings and I found some great recipes in there.
I used 2 Granny Smith and 3 Honeycrisp (they were on sale) apples. This time I did one thing different: I tossed the apples with the dry ingredients and followed the rest of the recipe as-is. It came out great!
Art returns!
Alan had a brass rooster lamp when I met him. He kept it on the work bench, which was IN the tall-ceilinged living room (we call that apartment 909 for short. Our other places were my studio, 906, and the condo) that he shared with our friend Matt, and they’d been roommates for years.
The tool bench was used for making lamps from wine bottles (he’s an electrical engineer), a hobby that he was really into at the time. It was cool. He was nerdy but somehow very cool at the same time. He had a very old Sears and Roebuck alarm clock (which was as loud as a fire alarm) that he used for ages until it bit the dust a couple years ago. He had a lot of friends and hobbies. I was curious about him and was already in love with him before I realized it.
So the carpeted room where they had lots of parties was also littered with glass fragments and metal shavings, he said with a laugh (he has a gift for delightful hyperbole). I did still wear shoes in that room just in case.
He had lots of old tools that his grandpa had used on display. I think they were hung on the walls like this sandwich place that we loved but it got popular and now it's all about ultimate frisbee in there. They have a course through the orchards that they started in the pandemic and the gift shop area is like half frisbees. It was like it lost its quirky authenticity of not having changed a damn thing in 20 years.
You used to get a paper menu to circle options on. The papers were exactly the same for my 12 years here. They just did away with the paper menus (I know, gasp!) and you order at the front like at a normal place. It's sad.
At my mother-in-law’s house, I asked after she showed me the fun crafts that she and AP had worked on (during my radiation oncology “planning” appointments last week) if she had any table lamps she wasn’t using. She brought out the rooster lamp in the basement, smiling and looking very satisfied when I said I’d take it. Alan was, too. She wanted to be rid of it and he was happy to have it back. He did say never to leave it turned on unattended because it’s old and could start a house fire?
Nerding out about Crocheting
The 1dogwoof humpback whale pattern is a beast. It always sounds easy enough. You crochet the top and bottom pieces separately and then (my addition. The first one I made in 2017 had some rough stitchwork) line up the colored stitch markers and sew them together by hand with a embroidery needle (which has a larger eye hole for yarn). I’ve found some shortcuts over the years, like linking the 2 sides together with the stitch markers as I go. I find the rainbow order visually-pleasing. It may be the main reason that I keep returning to this pattern.
In 2017, I made 13 of these whales for Christmas Eve. It’s now a tradition where I crochet more every year, last year 45 —so 45+ next time— of the same thing (I know a lot of kids) in the calendar year leading up to Christmas Eve. This year I’ll have to break my streak and it’s okay. My hands really hurt until recently so I just couldn’t.
It takes some research to find a pattern that I like. Other years it was yetis, sting rays, baby octopi, and owls.
I tried doing elephants (like the yellow one pictured above) but they weren’t creatively fulfilling. The pattern did, however, include a no-assembly technique that I later used on a yeti and I’m very happy with it. Assembly is such a pain.
I didn't know how to read crochet patterns until I was like 24. Before that I would learn one stitch and wing it. Once I made a duck for Liv but my guesses at where to add and subtract stitches in each round resulted in a UFO-looking thing. The first patterns that I followed must’ve been for my nieces and nephews. And in my nesting phase I crocheted animals for AP and decorated the nursery with them. I’d go in there once a day, sit in the rocking chair, and read/recite The Wonderful Things you Will Be. The last page says: “Then I’ll look at you and you’ll look at me/ and I’ll love you, whoever you’ve grown up to be.”
Hi Katie, 🌸 I really love your blog. 🥰 We also enjoy the Heritage Museum, though we’ve only been there around Christmas time for the artful light displays / festivities. We should probably also go for the gardens sometime. Sending sunshine your way and a big thanks for sharing your beautiful (and often funny) writings and photography.