Face to Face

Face Collection..never a blank expression

The Repast in My Mind

I wish I could step back in time once again to be absorbed in these wonderful, huge family dinners when all my relatives on my father's side sat at long tables in the side yard on a Sunday afternoon and ate the scrumptious ethnic dishes my grandmother cooked by herself. We would invite the priest of our local church that was just around the corner to dinner every Sunday. After we stuffed our tummies with all the wonderful kibbee and koosa and tabouleh, cabbage rolls, etc., we would go to another house down the street to talk and talk and sometimes we would dance to the accordion polka music that my uncle's father-in-law Pa Zelenkiwicz would play. Every relative and friend lived on the same street so it was so easy to be together. Then after dark on those warm summer nights we cousins would leave behind the adults to their own entertainment and we would walk around uptown and talk about important things that teenagers talk about and we would visit some of the shut-in older people that we knew and sit on their front porches and they would give us candy and we would talk about our ambitions and what our lives were going to be like when we grew up. The older people were always interested and never judged..they loved to hear what was important to the young people and listened intently at how we were going to "change the world". When we got back to our grandparents' house another real treat would be waiting for us that we didn't ever want to miss. We got to see our Sitoo (grandmother in Arabic) with her hair taken down just before going to bed. We marveled at how long her hair really was 'cause we always saw it up in a bun on her head during the day. I wish the past wasn't just memories.

Moments of a Setting Sun

I've been called obsessive...and maybe I am...but I am enthralled with the setting sun we've been having these past two dusks...so here are some more photos that I took capturing a moment in time.

Run Home to Catch the Light

I hurriedly arrived home just in time to catch the big red ball of setting sun last night. The photo is so brilliant it seems to still burn my eyes. As soon as I snapped the picture the sun dropped beneath my sight. How beautifully fiery this is! It's the last bit of red rays we will get to see for the next few days...spring rains are coming...

For the Love of Iron Beds

Thinking about ironing yesterday made me think about iron beds and how much I have always loved them.
When I was in high school one of my best friends had a black iron bed..single size..as much as single size was back in the day. She wanted to get rid of it and have a hollywood bed frame for her mattress...I thought that was so sad until she asked me if I would like to have it. Oh yes, I said, not bothering to think that my sister and I shared a very small bedroom and there wouldn't be one for her..oh heaven's I would think about that later..I was going to get an antique bed!
She brought the frame to a party at a friend's house one Friday nite. And another friend put it in his car and drove it home for me. My dad and mom always knew I would bring home something that I was lucky enough to acquire...they just never knew when. The bed was the kind that fits together and a mattress fits on horizontal rails that didn't happen to come with the bed...sooo, I put the head board at the head of my bed and the foot board at the head of my sister's bed and we stored the side rails for years to come.
When my daughter grew big enough for a big girl bed I fixed it for her...to have the headboard and the foot board and the side rails joined as one again. Back in the day those "single" beds were a little larger than ours today so to fix it so that the whole bed would be joined together and still hold a box spring and mattress, I put a "hollywood" bed frame in the middle of the joined frame...it worked perfectly! I painted it an icy blue enamel paint and then made her a beautiful comforter, bedskirt, pillow sham and curtains in pastels~her favorite colors. I'll have to dig up the pictures of it sometime and post them. I still have the bed..and you know what? A couple of years ago she bought herself another antique iron bed only it is a full size...and she rigged it up to fit a mattress. She uses it in her guest room now..it is beautiful with a fluffy white comforter...it is like a cloud. My kids beds always felt like clouds to me. I have other stories about iron beds I'll tell at a later time. Meanwhile I'll search for all those photos...
Do you love iron beds?

Sprinkle Bottles and Ice Boxes

Ironing shirts today...for my man. My mom never taught me to iron shirts...my Aunt Lucille taught me when I visited her and my Lebanese grandparents in Maine in 1963. Aunt Lucille was amazed that I didn't know how to iron clothes~my mom always had piles of clothes to iron and she ironed every day...first sprinkle the clothes with the sprinkle bottle~ she put a sprinkle head on a Coca Cola bottle. If she couldn't get to the ironing right away she rolled them up and put them in a pillow case and put them in the ice box...it was called an ice box then...the old Philco...not a refrigerator. There were no steam irons. I would sit on the back porch with her while she ironed and read one of the five books she would read each week and I watched Queen for a Day on the television. Mother never once asked me if I wanted to learn..you know she'd just as soon do it herself~she enjoyed it but I felt kind of guilty when my friends told me about the chores they had to do around the house. It was more of a bother to teach us girls than to do it herself..and she did a really great job of it..ironing sheets, shirts, underwear etc. So Aunt Lucille taught me how to iron shirts and I think of that with every stroke of the iron....the collar first, then the shoulder area, Then the back and the sleeves and cuffs and finally the shirt fronts. I iron fabric really well...I used to iron shirts for our male friends when I was in college. My friends sew....so when we get together to make articles of clothing or curtains they ask me to iron ...my ex-mother-in-law taught me how to buy fresh fruit, vegetables and meat at the grocery store and I learned to cook with a cook book. I'm spoiled I guess....

In the Meantime, In Between Time, Ain't We Got Fun..

Rereading again. This time it's The Great Gatsby. Actually I should clarify this, I'm listening to the audio version on C D told by Alexander Scourby. Oh, he is an excellent reader..just the right intonations for each character. I don't own the 1974 film that starred Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston and Karen Black but that was an excellent portrayal. Way back then I really wasn't convinced though that Mia Farrow or Robert Redford could portray Daisy and Gatsby..I guess I had their other rolls too vivid in my mind to allow them to cross into my imagination of my beloved book. Yes, I felt it had been written for my eyes..I have read that many people have thought this, too. I discovered this book in the high school library when I was 15. I was working in the library at the time and something called to me to pick it up. I felt an amazing calmness as I began reading it...I'll never forget that feeling. It took me back to a time that seemed familiar and a time that I longed to return. I feel the same way now after all these years and just listening to it continues that longing. I remember seeing the movie when it came out in 1974. I was amazed that seeing the billboard of Dr. T. J. Eikelberg and the road winding through the ash heaps was just like I had pictured in my mind. I was truly amazed. Fitzgerald's descriptions are so spot on that probably everybody had the same illusion painted in their minds. Over the years I have played over in my head what a friend asked me when I told her that I wouldn't have cast Mia Farrow for Daisy or Robert Redford for Gatsby. She asked me some 35 years ago who I would have chosen. I honestly couldn't come up with one person I would have cast for those two parts...but now in retrospect I believe they were properly cast. I think I didn't believe they were "believable" because they were the "in vogue" actors of the day. I felt they cast them to load the box office. Mia did an excellent job though, but I still cannot get my head around Robert Redford~although I am coming around to that mind set. I was very pleased with Sam Waterston portraying Nick (I've always been in love with him and his observing nonjudgmental ways) and Lois Chiles was excellent for the aloof Jordan Baker. Karen Black was the epitome of Tom's "girl". She has the voluptuousness and vitality of a secretly kept woman... she filled my imagined character as did Bruce Dern~he excellently carried off all the narcissism and non-empathy of Tom Buchanan.
I've read a lot of blogs and critiques of The Great Gatsby over the past 35 years and I am not the only one who is enthralled with this writer and this book~alas, sigh, it wasn't written just for me.