I made some toast today, and immediately thought of my mother, Edna.   I love Orange Marmalade.  I put it in a lot of things, and when I put it on my toast, I use a spreader I got from my mother.  It was a spreader I grew up with.  In fact it is older than I, as  my mom got it from her mother.  When I say I got it from my mother, that’s not exactly true.  My mom died almost two years ago, and anyone that knew her knows she was very well organized.   (In fact, she would put J. Edgar to shame… there were files on everyone… from me all the way down to Ula)  She had made arrangements to have everything of any value, monetarily or sentimentally parceled out to her family.  My sister Marja helped her organize at the end and I know my mom was very grateful for the help and maybe more importantly the company, as my Father had monopolized everyone’s time and energy, and my Mother got the short end of the stick so to speak.   I will be forever grateful to Marja for that.

So, everything was pretty much decided about ‘what went where’.

As I was helping my sister’s dispose of things… giving things to our Mom’s helpers and friends and us taking some things… “Hey, I need a storage container that size!” (anyone knowing our Mom knows about storage containers!)… I came across this spreader in a drawer with about 5 other spreaders… God forbid we would run out of spreaders.  My Mom had a lot of duplicates… I guess that’s what happens in 90 years of life.  The cabinets were almost sagging off the walls with the weight of all the dish sets.

But, back to the Spreader… This one spreader, was one I used when I was a child and had advanced to making my own toast and sandwiches.   I used it every time I went to Sacramento to visit.  So, I pocketed it that day.   Every time I make toast or a sandwich I think of my Mom.

Tonight, I’m going to The Palace Theater to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo… I will think of my Mom, as she loved to go to the movies more than anything else.  I saw more movies with my mother than anyone else in my life.  She would go to see anything with me.  She said she wanted to see ‘Sin City’ (my daughters were aghast when they found out I had taken her to see ‘Sin City’, I said “Hey she really wanted to see it!”) so we went.  But, I was the one who really wanted to see it,  found out later she really didn’t like it and was just looking out for her son (I know that feeling myself), and I loved her for that… she was my Champion in life.

The perfect day for my Mom, was to go to Arden Fair Mall.  Have lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen or the Cheesecake Factory… actually her favorite was to get a Polish Dog in the Food Court… then we would browse Barnes and Nobel looking at books, maybe buying a few… well always buying a few… then on to the show in the Mall or nearby Century 21.  That was our day… and in the old days when she was in good health we would sometimes go to 2 shows.  So I saw a lot of movies with my Mom.

Of the all things of value she wanted me to have, it is the little things that spark memories… those are the most important.  Because it’s the memories that are most valuable in our lives.

I used to hear people say “I miss and think of my mother every day”… I now know what they mean.   Although I may not think of her every day, there are so many little reminders, it’s hard not to.

Photos are great reminders… I have a lot of my Mom… here’s one of my favorites.

                                                       Washington, DC  ~ 1942

I just started reading ‘The Victorian Chaise-Longue’ by Marghanita Laski… it has been a long time coming.

I first encountered this little book, when the title caught my eye, while looking through a Persephone Books catalog about three years ago. I had seen ‘Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day’ at the Palace Theater, which I absolutely loved… such a delightful story and with Frances McDormand and Amy Adams, what’s not to love. I liked it so much, I went back the next night, and while walking to my car, I saw the book in the window of Griffin Bay Books. When I went back to buy the next day, it had been sold… apparently someone else liked the movie as much as I. GBB ordered the book and I was soon enjoying Winifred Watson’s delightful story.

Persephone Books of London, reprints neglected classics by 20th century (mostly women) writers, like Watson’s 1930 story. I ordered their catalog and that’s where I saw ‘The Victorian Chaise-Longue’.  They currently have 95 books listed, and they are beautifully made.  The endpapers feature a fabric print from the period the story takes place (‘the shiny cream curtains printed with huge pink roses’ p. 3).  And a bookmark germane to the story (‘berlin-wool cross-stitch embroidery that sprawled in bright gigantic roses over the shabby felt’ p.13).  Book #6 is described as a very scary  story.  It looked interesting.  I tried the library… I tried the Inter-Library-Loan… I tried Amazon.com. Nowhere could I obtain the book. It was not available. So, over the last few years, when I would go to Amazon it would pop up sometimes (but never in stock… oh, there were some used copies somewhere for 35 or 40 bucks), as something I was interested in, you know, those helpful reminders. I get a new Persephone catalog twice a year, and this time I couldn’t take it any more and ordered it… it was only ₤12 plus 6 shipping, for a total of ₤18... I had no clue what that would be in $, but didn’t care and hit PayPal… it was $27.00.

‘The Victorian Chaise-Longue’, starts in 1953, and is the story of a young woman of means, who is suffering from tuberculosis and confined to bed. She is finally well enough to be allowed to move into the parlor and lay upon a chaise-longue she had purchased in an antique store right before she became stricken. She falls asleep, and when she awakes, she finds herself in a dingy gas-lit room in 1864, on the same chaise-longue… although newer looking… being cared for by a brusque sister she does not know. She thinks herself in a dream and keeps trying to wake up. When she finally realizes she is awake, the terror sets in. I’m now on page 50 of 99… my head is drooping, I’m tired, time for bed.

Now, I’m in a dream. I have never had one like this… not my usual ‘Waiter’s Dream’ where I keep forgetting to wait on my tables, and then can’t find them… or the ‘Actor’s Dream’ where I forget to go onstage. No, this one is too real. It is hard to keep going and I force myself to wake up. I realized, that near the end of the dream I had started to analyze it as if writing a blog. Great, now I’m writing in my sleep… even organizing photos.

This dream starts out as a secret report on an Eastern European war torn country, there is a triangular flag on the cover, I think red, green and yellow. Soon it shifts to Africa… the unnamed country ends in ‘ia’… and I am thinking Ethiopia. There is a rebel encampment, and in this dream a group of aid workers are lined up before the leaders. I am not there, but looking at this through newspaper or magazine photos. One photo shows them sitting in a row and the next is the same photo, but now they have a dot on their foreheads. They have been shot, and I am wondering if they will fall backward or forwards. What will the next photo be. It was terrifying. I wake up. It was 2:30 a.m., and it took a long time to go back to sleep. As I lay there thinking about this strange dream, I realized it had happened to my family.  My daughter’s  husband’s sister was killed in Somalia, when a bullet struck her as she was riding in a convoy to deliver aid to a remote village. Valerie was a 23 year old nurse, from Dublin, working for an Irish aid agency called Concern.  A photo of her  laughing, surrounded by Somali kids hangs in Ashley and Declan’s front room. Her senseless death in 1993 was of major importance to Ireland, with the President attending her funeral. It had put a face to the tragedy  of what was occurring in Somalia.

I always wonder what influences dreams. Sometimes it is obvious. I don’t really have nightmares… more annoyances really, like the waiter’s dream, although those can be a bitch. Did the story taking place on the chaise-longue start this terrifying dream? I don’t know. I had not thought of Valerie in a long time, although I know Declan does. And I’m sure she was terribly missed at the Christmas Table when they were in Dublin this year.

So, I’ll finish the story of the young woman on the Chaise-Longue today, only 49 pages to go and hope I am dream free tonight.

Here is where you can find a wonderful catalog… PERSEPHONE BOOKS

I never make New Years Resolutions.  1 ~ Because if you want to do something… do it. I think resolutions are a crutch to procrastinate and make yourself feel better… and you will never keep them.  2 ~ Because I never kept them.  So this year, my New Year’s Resolution is to reopen TedBook and write something in it.  I feel better already.

My friend Margie told me, “only 8% were ever kept”.  I read that if you put it in writing, it may actually have a chance of happening.  Okay, it’s in writing now… it’s all up to me… I want to be in that 8%!   Yesterday I looked to see when the last entry in TedBook occured… yikes!  January 2, 2011… one whole year of silence!  Another friend, Keri, reminded me of that this morning, after I mentioned I might start blogging again.

Why the silence?  No one particular reason really… I think mostly procrastination.  It’s not like I didn’t have any ideas… I had many, and wrote a lot of blogs in my mind, complete with photos.  But, I never got to the point of transferring them into my computer.  A lot of my friends asked me where TedBook was, and why they were not seeing new blogs.  I would hear… “where’s your blog”, “what happened to TedBook”, “weren’t you writing a blog”… after a while it was down to two.  O’B would bug me about it when we saw each other.  Louisa would mention it… in November, I got a note from her… “Why aren’t you writing?”  I could tell she was disappointed in me.  I thought… “I’m disappointed in me too”.  I have friends with blogs… Jane in L.A., a champion fighting Autism … Aggie in Chicago who posts a quiz everyday, except Saturday when she’s shacked up with her boyfriend.

The straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, was when O’B started a blog!  She had moved back to Sacramento, after an absence of some 30 years, and she and Anthony had bought a house in Southside Park.  Southside is a downtrodden mostly Latino neighborhood, that I have a feeling is becoming Yuppified (not naming any names here).  Catherine is a curious and outgoing woman, who has undertaken the chronicling of Southside.  Hence her blog

                      Southside Park: Forty-Six City Blocks of Surprise 

       Join me as I explore urban living in Sacramento’s Smallest Neighborhood.                                                                                 

Lord knows I waste enough time on facebook and playing Words with Friends (Alec Baldwin has yet to challenge me), so I really have the time… I just have to do it.  I was jealous with every new post O’B made… and she is prolific.  So, that’s what had been in the back of my mind, and I don’t mind admitting I was feeling guilty.  My own daughter, Ashley, was now more of a writer than me.  She had taken a creative writing class, and had written some impressive pieces.  I had encouraged her to start a blog… and I can’t even do my own… at least she has two teenagers to blame, or maybe just the college classes she is doing.  Sure better reasons than my slacking.  So, this was where I was at on New Year’s Eve.

I don’t drink Champagne or go to New Year’s Eve parties anymore.  The last one I went to, about 10 years ago, my date and I snuck out early and welcomed in the New Year in private… my best New Years Party ever.  This year I watched a movie, and was saying Happy New Year to my facebook friends when I saw this post.

I had been meaning to check out Amy’s latest album, ‘Lioness: Hidden Treasures’, and was glad for the reminder.  I’ve always liked Amy and was saddened  by her death and the loss of such a talent.  After listening to “Our Day Will Come” and “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”, I was near tears.  Her day will never come, and there is no Tomorrow for Amy Winehouse.  It gave me pause to think… I was lucky, I had survived my drug of choice, which like her’s, was alcohol.  It’s destructive force had ruined relationships and created havoc in my life, but my biggest regret, is that I could have been and should have been a better father.  Unlike Amy, I was able to change my life for the better.  But, Amy made me face myself and make some choices that night.  One of those is to resume my blog.

                          Of course I bought the album and I reopened TedBook.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2010. That’s about 3 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 8 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 47 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 14mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was June 29th with 93 views. The most popular post that day was DESSERT DISASTER: The Dangers of the Internet!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, big-brother-blog.com, healthfitnesstherapy.com, obama-scandal-exposed.co.cc, and alhome-finance-guide.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for tedbook.wordpress, jennifer garner, ted strutz, penny in a bag of water flies, and tedbook.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

DESSERT DISASTER: The Dangers of the Internet! June 2010
13 comments

TINY August 2010
13 comments

“WHAT THE HELL…???” July 2010
13 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

About June 2010
7 comments

WHICH CELEBRITY WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE FOR A DAY? October 2010
4 comments

LIE ABOUT MY AGE? Oh Hell Yes… haven't you? I think I was 16 the first time. Of course we wanted to buy beer… being in High School and all. There was a little market called Jimmy's on Fifth & Broadway… No Questions Asked, as long as you had anything resembling a fake ID. My dad had just renewed his driver's license, and threw away his temporary one. It was just a typewritten form (this was 1959) and easy to erase and retype. We got the beer!!! It also worked at The Alameda Theater, which was the burlesque house in skid row. Very grown up we had become. We decided to score some of the hard stuff, and feeling very brave with my new identity, I tried a liquor store. The clerk looked me up and down and started to laugh… "nice job on the ID, but got the date wrong". Well I couldn't get out of there fast enough. At least he gave it back to me and didn't tell my dad. We stuck to the beer after that.

Actually, I would not want to be a celebrity, even for a day, but if I could meet just one, it would be Jennifer Garner. My friends know that my infatuation with JG is almost as famous as my fixation on Madame X (who is one celebrity I will never get a chance to meet).It all started when I saw the above photo in USA Today promoting a new TV show called ‘Alias’. I immediately loved the show and watched every episode for five years. That was when I fell in love with JG. I embarked on a crusade to watch Everything Jennifer, which I think I succeeded in doing. I loved her in ‘Hey Dude Where’s My Car’, saw her potential in ‘Rose Hill’ (an early TV movie) and was moved by her portrayal of a young woman desperate to have a child in ‘Juno’. Of course, I cried tears of joy in 2002 when Jennifer won a Golden Globe for… Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama.  In fact, I think I escorted Jennifer that night… isn’t her dress lovely…

Oh, I could go on and on and on… well, you get the idea… But the question of celebrity intrigued me, and I could only really think of one I would really like to meet (well, maybe Jack Nicholson… he’s pretty cool) and that’s Jennifer.

I actually had a chance a few years ago… Jennifer was appearing on Broadway in  Cryano de Bergerac opposite Kevin Kline.  On impulse, I bought a ticket to the November 9, 2007 performance at the Richard Rogers Theatre…

I knew this would force me to go to New York City, where I would get to see JG in person, and finally get to see my one true love… Madame X!

I had a wonderful time exploring the city!  What I packed into 1 week was amazing.  After all, I might never get back and so many things I wanted to see… The Met of course was my first priority… Two trips were needed to get my fill of Sargent’s Masterpiece.  The Frick Museum, Statue of Liberty, Top of 30 Rock, MOMA, Guggenheim, NYC Public Library, Corned Beef at Katz Deli, Central Park, GreyLine Tour, Three Broadway Shows, Riding the Subway (brought back such happy memories of my days in Chicago) and just walking the famous streets of The Big Apple.

I was never exhausted… because I was on a mission.  I was lucky enough to be able to stay with a friend of Krista’s… Noted Filmmaker Greg IvanSmith and his dog Olive.

Their generous hospitality, well his anyway… Olive didn’t like me… was the Cherry on top of a wonderful week.  I do hope to get back to see Madame Pierre Gautreau once again some day, but if I don’t, I have some wonderful memories of spending time with her and my trip to New York.

Cyrano was Great!!!  Kevin Kline was amazing and Jennifer was wonderful… when she entered the stage my breath was taken away and I was absolutely enthralled for 2 hours.

After the show, I was too afraid to go backstage and maybe get a chance meet my idol.  I felt that I didn’t want to intrude, and that she wouldn’t want to be bothered by me.  I knew in my heart that would not be the case, because that’s not the kind of person she is… but that’s how I rationalized it…

I was just chicken.  I did wait outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of her as she dashed to the limo that Ben would bring to take her home.But it was pouring rain and no doorways to stand in, so I went back to Greg and Olive.  So, even though I didn’t get to meet My Celebrity, I did get to see her in person.

On a side note: The day after I saw the play, the Stagehands Union went out on strike closing all shows on Broadway.  Someone upstairs must have been smiling on me… I got to see my two loves in NYC!

I think this was right before we got married in 1965… I was taking a drawing class from Robert Else at Sacramento State College.  We were living at 23rd and J sts.  Ann was wearing a green shift and sitting in a high back chair in the kitchen while I sketched her.  I painted it the following week.  She never liked it.   In fact, my second wife, Annie, didn’t like it either, but that was because I insisted on having it on the wall… I figured it was on the wall when she met me, etc.  I always liked it and thought it was a great work of art.  My first and last painting.

Ann did not know I still had it.  Ann did not know I was entering it in the San Juan County Fair Art Show.  I was not expecting it to win a prize, much less First Place!  My daughters Krista and Ashley knew I still had the painting and was planning to put it in the fair… they thought that was pretty funny.

I just happened, by chance, to run into them as they arrived at the exhibit hall… to view the photo and art shows.  I realized they both came with her to see her reaction to the painting, so I tagged along with my camera… Surprise!!!

'TINY'

I'm not sure my granddaughter shares my enthusiasm for fine art...