Pickin' and Grinnin'

"I Need Pickers?"....hmmm.

     I was just now contemplating what, exactly, motivated me to create a blog, (or, with little forethought, to name it this - except because of my high  frustration at that moment with all my excesses of stuff!) My first post was written shortly after watching an episode of the show on History Channel named "American Pickers", which I adore. At that minute I was wishing that Frank and Mike would pay me a visit, (but driving a tractor trailer, not that skimpy van), and to whisk it all out from under me ~ making me a huge profit while they were stomping and kicking and hooting out loud to the cameras about what amazing, irresistibly great junk that good old gal Kathy had accumulated! 

     Was just now also contemplating how I find myself yet again at my computer on a late Sunday night, listening to the Pandora internet radio station which I've created named "Bluegrass and other tunes" - and I realized that it's imperative that I must have another kind of picker in my life, too, besides my junk guys.....

     I mean the kind of pickers that get together and JAM, man....simply making music and hanging out together. Many types of music levitate me into a different place and time in my life: back to when the music industry was actually a paying job for me. I met lots of the acoustic legends of folk, bluegrass, pop; even some authentic country pickers (writers/performers) that are, to my astonishment, still recognized names. Some of the old timers are gone now, probably having lived longer lives from the sheer joy of making music. A couple top artists that I met went out far too young, such as Jim Croce and even John Denver. I saw John, close up and personal, at a local small-venue concert only weeks before his death, and that was a night I'll never forget. He had hit his fifties, but was absolutely at the top of his game that night. I have the curse/blessing of perfect pitch, and was pleased that neither he nor his talented band hit a pitch-glitch (an off note) during one song of that entire concert. I was literally three feet off the ground at the sheer entertainment perfection of it all. Best of all, during the entire two hours, you didn't hear a pin drop, nary a cough, from the audience.

    I am nobody special. And yet, somehow in spite of myself I landed a job for a couple years, during the mid-Seventies, out of my usual office jobs into a new world outside of the musical mainstream, nearing the end of the "folk era" -  and was able (blessed, nearly), to worship at the feet of Doc Watson, Tom Waits, Janice Ian, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Don McLean, Joni Mitchell and countless other talented individuals that you'd recognize if I listed their names and their hits. Many are currently still successfully performing, and even my daughter's generation, I have discovered, appreciates their music. Remind me some time to tell you about Tom Waits, a down-and-dirty, lone freewheeling  folkie back then, who I recently was delighted to see in an excellent supporting acting performance in Denzel Washington's movie, "the Book of Eli".

                             Janice Ian & Friends circa 1974 - recognize anybody?!?

      I was so damned intimidated by their talent and guts.... when all I was doing was working a job helping to run and maintain a windowless, 270-seat coffee house which - compared to the stadium concerts of today - was an intimate room of hushed musical worship. Don McLean never failed to hold us spellbound with "bye, bye, Miss American Pie" or the still-recorded "Vincent": (Starry, starry night, paint your portrait blue and gray.....Now I think I know, what you tried to say,to me, how you suffered for your sanity, how you tried to set them free....)


     I'd listen to them all talk with the staff between sets, and never admit that I owned and picked around with a half-decent acoustic six-string that I'd bought off a friend back in high school, for what I could put together from waitressing tips. Hell, I was already a married woman, working for money and putting myself through college at night while trying to keep together a precarious relationship, plus maintaining a home that I wanted to look like the magazine ads. (I was Martha Stewart before Martha was, but that's yet another backstory not for this post!).

    Anyway, what would I give.... to go back and really be "in the moment" and realize that what I was experiencing would have been so enhanced if my mind hadn't been elsewhere half the time, worried about material things and keeping up an appearance of "normalcy", instead of relaxing and having fun with it. I was so young and so serious! But I was programmed from birth, I swear, to keep my nose to the grindstone -  what an experience I was having without even appreciating it!

      So, wouldn't it be just great to get a few of those guys and girls over to my house - we'd light a fire tonight and boil up some expresso, pour into heavy crockery mugs, add a taste or two out of the Bottle, put a pinch of cinnamon and whipped cream on top, plates of cheese and crackers (being the normal fare back then) scattered here & there. Everybody'd be on the edge of a chair or on the rug with an instrument on their lap...pretty soon we'd just start fooling around with chords - strummm, lick, tickle those strings  - a little pickin', a little grinnin'....fast on the bluegrass but some sweet ballads in harmonies, too.....and sure: pretty soon I'd be picking up the back strums and singing along, and they'd tell me that I had potential, guitar-gal. I wouldn't be the mother-figure, the problem-solver, the ashtray-emptier ~ wouldn't be paying them in cash at the end of the night on the "gate" plus fixed price....I'd be one of them for sure, and we'd be having us a good old time. I could sure use those kind of pickers in my real life again, instead of my imaginary treasure hunters and the harsh realities of mid-life crises that require much multi-tasking.

    
     It's ironic that Robert just came up to my office to say he's been flipping channels and that the Grammy awards are on TV tonight.... he caught the end of Mick Jagger's high-energy performance and was amazed that the guy's "still got it".... No offense intended, Mick - but your stuff was never my gig. Though almost over, I turned the Grammy's on the TV in my office for a few minutes and watched Lady Antebellum win for the year's best recording, "I Need You Now".  Yes! I'm not so old that I can't love that song (and secretly pleased that their fresh new/old style won out over all the unfathomable rappers!)

    Hey, I'm just chilling out here with Alison Krauss crooning "When You Say Nothing At All". That's one of merely a thousand songs that tell my story. I forgot for a long time who I was, and what that's made me. I'll have music forever, integrated into the daily grind to lighten the load. A pickin' fantasy now and then never hurts, either....

living in the moment, sort of.

So what's this "new life" I mentioned? I guess it's about more balance, more freedom, the pursuit of joy and a conscious understanding as to what I want. And, it's about sharing part of that life with a man I met quite by accident, and have been with in a relationship for nearly three years. One of these days soon I'll tell you about Robert - he's amazing to me.

I'm currently retired from the workplace, but I'm too young for that to become a permanent condition..... I'll cross that bridge when I'm ready again. In my mind I'm trying to create a vision for my future (Robert and I want to buy our own home and live together), and, since I believe in Affirmations put out to "the Universe",  I fully intend on reaching certain goals in whatever time I have left. That might be only one day more to live... or twenty five years of productivity and happiness. Naturally, I opt for the latter! The inspirational literature I read exhorts us all to "live in the present" because you never know what tomorrow will bring ~ well, I have one foot in the present and one in the future as of now. 


Three years ago I'd been a widow for about a  year, was very lonely and still coping with quick but horrible flashbacks to my husband's illness and death. Also, still trying to realize what life was going to be like as a middle-aged woman who now needed to let go of caregiving, to find a way to center herself, and to find a way make a living wage in order to keep a roof over my own head. I was, at times, nervous enough about it to envision "bag lady" status!


I tried several jobs, and was heartened to get hired at every interview I landed, regardless of my age, my rusty skills, and the declining economy.  One job lasted only six days - whoops! The next lasted six months, and the third lasted almost two years. And though I had challenges at each job, I learned a bunch. More of life and relationship skills than job skills, to be truthful. You never stop learning and I welcome new opportunities - which seem to arrive daily whether I want them to or not!

I have a  friend who has quite suddenly been diagnosed as gravely ill. She is also a widow, and her two daughters don't live in the area, both having their own families and full-time jobs. The sisters are scrambling to get their mother the proper care she needs immediately. You always think, even when a family does somewhat pre-plan these things, that you'll have TIME to make it all work.

As of a few days ago, the number one issue was to find a way to curb the sudden onset of severe pain from the cancer that seems to be moving like a wildfire throughout her body. Within two days after testing and diagnosis was achieved, they'd already upped dosage and changed medications several times. Because I thought that somebody needed to do it (and not for any kind of egotistic reason), I gathered together a support group of women who have in common either an organization, an informal group that plays bridge together, or simply their mutual fondness for my friend.  I started "Maryann-Mail" emails, to keep the gals informed of the situation, but mostly to solicit people's time and effort for delivering meals and for taking my friend to therapy.  I was able to get everybody's availability and their compassionate support in  readiness. The idea was to coordinate it so that there wouldn't be an overlap of too much food, nor any uncovered window of time to accompany her for treatments.

"Life": minute to minute things change. In only the one full day it took me to organize eighteen friends to help Maryann at home, my girlfriend was put in the hospital on IV pain meds, and taking treatments right from her hospital bed. I have those gals and a church organization all waiting in the wings... The doctors say this radiation will reduce her pain to manageable and then, chemo can begin.


Come home soon, my friend; we're waiting for you, one day at a time.

arts & crafts cabin fever

        This past summer I made a big financial commitment to hire a guy to paint my whole house ~  to create "curb appeal" for selling this Arts & Crafts Foursquare-style home that was built in 1915.  Hey, it badly needed a facelift. Years ago I shocked my neighbors by painting a formerly 1960's mushroom brown to a pure white with the addition of large dashes of shocking teal/turquoise trims. For years I loved what felt to me like the "beach cottage" look, disregarding the safe exterior colors around my neighborhood; but time and weather eventually dulled them down to drab and neglected.

        As a student of interior decorating who watches trends, for the past few years it's seemed to me that everything looks so plain in comparison to the previous cottage-chic kitch, and before that, the Victorian lushness in decorating, both of which I embraced with a vengeance in my interiors.  Now nothing will sell but stainless steel, granite, black and white, neutral and boring. Just like fashions change almost yearly, they need to sell us on completely new decorating styles every ten years or less.... so we can spend our money to keep up, of course. We're brainwashed~ but I digress.

        I capitulated to my potential buyers' market sensibilities by picking a slightly blued shade of dark gray for the body of the house, with ultra white trim. I had him paint the first floor shutters and porch railings a matt black, and the wooden porch floor a nice dark cinnamon-brown color, which is close in shade to the solid chestnut of the original front door.

       I'm pleased with the result, as I now have the freshest, most outstanding paint job on the whole block. 

       However, I've decided that what it needs now is more GREEN! Such as green grass, greened-up trees, my perennials sprouting their green variegated foliage.....sigh.

       Yes, I have a bad case of the winter BLUES this year.

       So, an additional two feet of snow to shovel the other day. This winter and last have collectively broken all snow total records for the Philadelphia region where I live. To rub more salt into our wounds (and onto our cars and streets), tonight it's sleeting outside and thick ice is predicted - it appears this is a huge storm which affects many states. I can only pray the electric doesn't go out. I have just filled the fridge and freezer with food I'd hate to lose, my heaviest winter coat is at the dry cleaners, and the emergency firewood is stacked beneath an enormous frozen snow drift at the far back of my yard.

      I think that two of those choice steaks in the freezer and that bottle of champagne in the fridge would make for a lovely celebration of the snow melt that's just around the corner, if I can only hang on a little while longer.

the yellow picture -

Why is my photo yellow? I will find a new one someday soon, I promise.
That was my "official I.D. photo" at my last job. The photographer grabbed me,
on the fly, in the cafeteria of all places....pushed me against the door of the
ladies room and snapped away.
Sheesh. I've changed my look a dozen times since then;
but I haven't yet gotten up the nerve to dye my hair black,
use white foundation, sport bright red lipstick and take on
the "Goth-Grandma" look.

what the hell have I done?

American pickers, unite - and show up at my house for the big sale soon to be advertised.
It appears that my house has turned from a home into a warehouse; I need an intervention.
Some kind of help. There's TOO MUCH STUFF! Where did it all come from?! Time passed and I collected. Not hoarded, mind you - that's gross. I collected, I treasured and I enjoyed.
But now I have to downsize by at least half, and quickly. Been trying for a year now to get motivated and just git 'er done. Problem is, as much as I want to move on to my "new life" - subject of the next post, probably - I just can't seem to part with all the things that have become "me" - literally, my identity. Pathetic?... or a common problem?
One big sale in October loosened me from my ornate 1800's cast iron coal cook-stove,  an oak ball & claw-foot pedestal table, my green 1930's kitchen gas stove that a guy practically stole from me (I need lessons from Mike & Frank, or that gal at "Cash & Cari" on how to better negotiate, I guess).  I suppose I should be more positive, because the money I earned from those allowed me to buy a kickin' new stove and dishwasher for my kitchen - just so I can leave them for the next people who will buy the house.  : (
That sale also freed up some space so I can unpack more boxes to see what the hell I've been holding on to, with the past intention of selling and making BIGGO BUCKOs on eBay. Somehow, that's not as enticing any more, though....I'm exhausted just thinking about it! Guess I'll go brew another K-cup.
Meanwhile, you can't walk almost anywhere in here, as I supposedly "organize" and "categorize" my junk. Piles of doilies, for heaven's sake. Want 'em? Women spent countless hours creating those, and now they're out of fashion, how sad. My mother and grandmother's vintage turquoise Fiesta Ware (mint condition, too,) is sitting all over my dining room floor. What to do with it all? I know somebody must want it.
Goodwill and Purple Heart has made millions on my giveaways already ~  hopefully bettering others' lives in some way. Pass it on, they say. Now that the trash is gone, how do I deal with the Treasures?