Fresh

There is nothing like having people visit from away to make the old seem new again. Shawn is a veteran, with many visits to NYC under her belt. But for her 10 year-old grandson, Eamon, everything was brand new. Although he lives in the largest city in Newfoundland, he really hadn't experienced a large city before. As we went around the city, visiting sites large and important, as well as ones that were more out of the way, it was often the trip to our destination that made an impression more than the place itself. It is so easy to forget what an amazing thing it is to take a ride on the subway or sit in Central Park eating ice cream on a hot day. Or catch fireflies in the backyard and walk over to get an Italian ice after supper.

I know Shawn will have many more (and better, no doubt!) pictures. But here a few of mine.

We planned to visit places in one borough/day.

On our Brooklyn Day, we started at the Botanical Gardens.





Rain couldn't stop us from enjoying every moment.

Then we moved on to Fairway in Red Hook for lunch and a view of the Statue of Liberty. I know some might say, "You took them to Fairway in Red Hook??" But lunch on their back porch overlooking NY Harbour was fantastic. And since Fairway is so far and away different from any place to buy food in Corner Brook, Shawn was enjoying seeing so much amazing food in one place.




Who are these lovely children?

Then a quick aside to Brooklyn General. Shawn made it clear that this trip wasn't about her but about showing Eamon the city. But since Brooklyn General was a six-minute ride from Fairway, it seemed to make sense to drop by, just, you know, in case they had something special that day. And they did! Shawn found some hard-to-find angelina in various colours. Coming soon to islandsweet yarns!





The kids waited very patiently.

Somehow, for three days, they talked non-stop. We did so much and yet, it didn't feel rushed or stressed. Everything just felt fresh.

The carousel in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

An Island About To Get Sweeter

We awoke from our heat-induced coma to discover that the house was a wreck, there was a pile of bills to be paid and I was behind on our homeschooling paperwork. How did that happen?

And we have visitors coming! Shawn and Eamon will arrive this evening.

Something must be done.

Once the heat lifted from Are-You-Kidding-Me to I-Think I-Will-Make-It-After-All, I set to work tidying up. But not your run of the mill, stack the books in the corner, sweep the middle of the floor (what? you never do that?) kind of cleaning. This time I tackled all projects, large and small, that have been building up for months. Lucy's doll was repaired. My zafu no longer leaks buckwheat husks every morning. Homeschooling paperwork was dispatched to the belly of the DoE beast. The art supplies that ate the dining room hutch have been tamed. Laundry? I laugh at your laundry!

In the dim of a closed curtain afternoon, our house is looking pretty and awaits the arrival of our long-anticipated guests.

From King Corn to Grinder Sutra

Martie of Taos Sunflower made the mistake of asking, I mean, very kindly inquired if we had encountered any sandwiches that could be included in Grinder Sutra on our trip. Grinder Sutra is a project in development, a film about those long sandwiches that are sometimes called subs or hoagies (Martie can be forgiven if she accidently called them that in her kind note). We encountered them in southern Rhode Island and Connecticut but have since discovered that the term "grinder" also is in use in part of western Massachusetts, somewhere in Michigan, and oddly enough, in Riverside, a community that is part of, or just outside of LA.

Well, Martie, the answer is yes!

We stopped in Omaha to visit an old friend, Jeff Peter. Jeff was, in fact, the only person present as a guest at our marriage ceremony at Queens Borough Hall in 1991. He doubled as witness and photographer and did an excellent job as both. He subsequently moved back to Omaha and we have only seen him once in the interim, so it was very exciting to finally see where he grew up and currently lives.

That is my long-winded lead up to the fact that a local pub in Jeff's neighborhood serves a grinder. Of course we had to go and check it out! The research just never stops.

But first, obligatory shot of Nebraska corn:


Seeing that much corn growing did seem wrong somehow. It just can't be healthy to grow that much like that, nor consume that much. If you have read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, then you know what I am talking about.

Ok, back to grinders...

The menu at the the Dundee Dell. Ok, this is obviously a hybrid grinder place. I mean, anyone who notes that you can have your grinder also served as a wrap? Not happening. And their use of the term "hoagie roll" to describe the bread is sketchy at best. They are a little misguided in the details but the question is, how did it taste?


Finnian and Jeff did the honours. Finnian declared it very good, although the lettuce was not shredded so points off for that. And Jeff, well, with all due respect to him, as someone who spend most of his life in Omaha, I am not looking to him as a judge of the many and varied nuances of the grinder. Love the man! But for grinder expertise, I look elsewhere. But he did say it was good too.

So the Dundee Dell in Omaha is added to the list. If I hadn't been so dazed from the 100F heat, I would have done some actual filming but maybe we need another cross country film tour for Grinder Sutra. Not sure the Canada Council will fund that one, however.

And here is our very last travelogue photo!


A Louis Sullivan bank building in Grinnell, Iowa. We took this detour and photograph for Dan, who is a huge Louis Sullivan fan. Too bad he wasn't there to see it in person.

Trains and Rocks

So, where were we? Oh yes! What? Well, if you must go and use the washroom, please do so, but do so quietly...

The travelogue continues. This time with lots of trains and rocks.


Eastern Oregon, take while dangerously trying to drive a huge vehicle and snap a photo in an artful way.


The spotty hills of Idaho, near Boise.


At our campsite - Lucy pointed out that the trees had cozies of moss on their branches. I felt a dash of motherly pride of having affected the imagination of my children.


Wyoming. Looking at this photo, some days after it was taken, I am struck with the same feeling I had when I there in the original: What the hell? At the time, I think I was also thinking, get me outta here, pronto. I need me some trees. This was too, too much.


There is a train in this photo if you look closely at the center.

Actually, we saw some of the most amazing and amazingly depressing landscape in Wyoming. The depressing part was the human element, I'm afraid. In the southwestern part of Wyoming, there is a lot of natural gas exploration going on and there are large trailer parks of impromtu communities set up in this stark landscape. I had read about how they were filled with men, being paid large amounts of money to do this work, who have nothing to do and nowhere to go. A recipe for a lot of debauchery, as you might imagine. Also, we saw, near a (real) town, a hillside that had been torn up by ATV tracks - a landscape millions of years old ruined forever so that a few people could have a thrill ride on an ATV. I felt those scars like they had been done on my own body. They HAD been done on my own body. Your's too.


More trains and rocks.


We drove behind the Tow-Low for some miles, Finn and I speculating on what was driving it. A dog wearing a hat? It seemed entirely possible.

Pacific Time

This is getting to be like visiting friends who insist you watch their vacation slide show when they invite you to dinner. Well, just pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable...

We left Vancouver and officially I was done with my Knitting Sprawl travels, although I feel like I need to do it all over again to get what I now know I missed the first time. In any case, we left Vancouver, not without my gently giving a city bus a little tap, mirror to mirror like. The bus driver, breaking with Vancouver stereotype, was distinctly unfriendly about it and ranted at me while I sat dumbly at a stop light. No actual damage was done but it was a little bit of a sour note to go out on.

We crossed the border, had all our oranges seized and two organic avocados - I am still burned about that! - and headed to Seattle and the home of an old Cooper Union friend, Will Kitchen. Will moved out to Seattle in the early 90s and now has his family there. We hadn't been in touch for over 10 years but, in the best way possible, we picked up as if it had just been last week.

Will is a real painter's painter. Here is a small example of one of his fanciful paintings, part of a series based on his collection of toys: a loose narrative he has created. He also paints en plein air at the Seattle Botanical Gardens. The man can not make an ugly mark, but I know he tries sometimes.



For the first time, we slept in the RV on the street in Seattle. It felt a little dicey, such things being illegal in NYC, but it was not big deal there. Will assures me that he has several friend who live that way all the time. Is that a good thing?

Then we headed to Portland, OR, and another friend and artist, Amy Bay. Amy continued the sub-theme of the trip in which people who used to live in NYC tell me about how great it is to homeschool out of the city. We decided that Portland was like a giant Brooklyn, or maybe a smaller Brooklyn actually. The whole artisanal, DIY, cycling thing pervades the whole city. Very hip place, is Portland.

Here is Amy and her son, Leo, as we sit down to enjoy lunch at the famous carts in downtown.




This is apparently the most famous of the famous carts. It serves only one dish - a poached chicken dish served with ginger rice. Finn and Lucy tried it and swore by it. I tried another, less meat-centric cart. Pretty fabulous and cheap.


Yes, Portland has got things figured out.

Here, Finnian (and Amy's little sweetie, Irma) contemplate a display in a shop that sells light fixtures but, for some reason, was exhibiting this one person's Lego set collection. Finnian, who can be a bit jaded under the best of circumstances, was obviously impressed. Finally something impressed him!






And this has nothing to do with any of our trip at all. I stumbled across it and thought it was very funny. A Madonna and Child, with the baby Jesus holding a niddy noddy. Notice the look on Mary's face...."please don't break my niddy noddy, even if you are the son of God!"

Blanket Creek

Between Calgary and Vancouver we indulged in some time in the mountains: first Banff, then in a provincial park in BC called Blanket Creek. I just picked it out on a map and made a reservation without knowing what it would be like. Fortunately for us, it turned out to be paradise on earth.

Don't believe me? Exaggerating, you say? Take a look...


It is situated on the Columbia River. Being mid-June, the official season hadn't yet begun so we essentially had the place to ourselves. It was tough going but we managed to make the best of it.




At night I could hear the roar of traffic and I spent some time bemoaning our modern world, where even in paradise, there was noise from cars. The next day we walked up to this waterfall and I discovered the real source of the noise. I could point out how it is that we become convinced of things that we make up in our minds and how those things affect our happiness and behavior and how those things are, more often than not, wrong in reality. But, the waterfall was so gorgeous and powerful, I think it can speak for itself.


The cedar forests were, we were convinced, full of faeries. We were even more convinced when we found these amazing looking black slugs that looked like Dutch licorice. We didn't eat them to find out if they tasted like Dutch licorice, however. Later we found out that they are called Rocking Slugs because they make a rocking motion if feeling threatened. We never threatened them - just enjoyed the Dutch licorice traveling across the floor of the magical forest.


This view, which again I took in completely solo, was what one sees if you turn a corner on the riverbank.


There also were the remains of homestead that added further to sense of magical enchantment. It was rather infested with ground squirrels who would pop up out of the ground and make funny noises. I did my yoga practice here one day, feeling very happy to have found a place - finally - that was level ground, not rocky or lumpy from tufts of grass, nor muddy. But there also were lots of signs around warning about bears. I got up to marychasana D in the series before the feeling that I was being watched by many pairs of bearlike eyes reached a peak and I fled back to our campsite.

We were very happy there.

The Three H's

Hazy, hot and humid.

It has been eight years since we spent a summer in New York and New York is repaying our disloyalty in spades. Everyday this week is forecast to be near 100F/38C. Lucy, who was two when we started staying in Newfoundland regularly, is particularly angry. I can remember strategies for dealing with hot weather from years past, but this is rather a shock for her.

Next week, our dear friends Shawn (from islandsweet) and her grandson, Eamon, are coming for a visit. I hope the heat wave has broken by then because I am not so sure they are prepared to come from where it has been hovering in the high 60sF/18C to this situation.

I guess we will just have to kill the heat.

To Do Handwork is Divine

A short video of Renate Hiller talking about the importance of handwork. By Sono Kuwayama and Chuck Smith.

Knitting Sprawl - Vancouver

Nearly a month into our trans-continental voyage, we made it to the Pacific, the left coast, the other side. It was a little anti-climatic in as much as we arrived on a cloudy day, the ocean blanketed in fog, and I got fairly mixed up trying to get to our campground with the result that I spent our first half-hour in Vancouver alternately driving and stopping to consult our maps. But find it, I did.

It was just under the Lion's Gate Bridge in North Vancouver.

Well, it wasn't quite that close...I took this photo outside the campground.

The day we arrived, I was able to check email and discovered that I had two opportunities to meet up with knitters that very day. What can I tell you? I felt exhausted and, more importantly, my children were clearly not up for another meeting. Living closely together, nonstop, for a month was mostly great and harmonious. We get along well and travel well together. That said, there were times when the thread holding all that harmony together felt very thin. So, with a deep breath, I made an executive decision to forgo the meet-ups and instead we took care of domestic business after four days of being off the grid in the mountains. It felt a little like failure in some ways and I felt terrible that I had to say no to people who were kind enough to arrange meetings, but as every parent knows, sometimes it is the only choice. And so it was that, instead of conversation and insight, we had a long walk along the waterfront of West Vancouver.





This guy was there, along with many dog walkers.


This blurry photo, which I kind of like, is of one of two communities right near our campground that were for First Nation people only. Without knowing ANY of the politics behind their existence, they appeared to be thriving, which is quite different from the communities in, for example, Labrador. But like I said, I have no idea if my superficial glance is correct or not.

This was also the night that a person working at the campground stopped me and said, very slowly while enunciating very clearly, "We...will...leave...the...TV...room....open...until...3..am...for....the...soccer..." I was quite mystified by his way of speaking until I realized that he had mistaken me for one of the many, many Germans who seem to flock to RVs (and RV parks) and who might be World Cup obsessed. When I replied, "Ok but I'm not really interested in soccer," he returned to a normal way of speaking. And what the heck, I always get a little thrill from being not identified as an American. Typical Blame-America-Firster, I suppose.

Dan met us in Vancouver (taking the easy way, I might add - he flew in), so we had a day of touristy fun.






Finn is such a camera hog - he just loves getting his picture taken!


A great blue heron sitting quietly right in the middle of the city. Vancouver totally won us over and we soaked up the whole, laid back, west coast vibe. Everything was so fantastic - food, weather, friendly people....why do we live somewhere else? It was a thought that ran through my head during most of my time in BC. I know, it is too perfect. Yah, that's it.

But after totally blowing it on the day we arrived, I had some work to do. Thus we headed out to Surrey - the end of the metro line in one direction. I got some excellent video from the train, as well as some incredible, unforeseen video of some older women doing country line dancing in costumes at a community festival. Video gold!

Surrey proved a rich vein for exploring what is happening around Vancouver. Older bungalow style houses are being sold off to developers and new high rise buildings erected. It made for some odd juxtapositions.












Among the gentrified version of "luxury" that was getting the hard sell in Surrey, there was clearly a still-seedy underbelly. And a thriving immigrant community, which allowed us a fabulous lunch of Vietnamese food. It was the perfect experience of wandering around a corner, expecting only the worst, and discovering the most amazing place, full of Vietnamese and offering up food that would make you weep. Damn you Vancouver! Too perfect once again!

And then, there was this sign....


Bible study and dessert party? A natural combination.

So, somewhat like where we started in Winnipeg, I felt like I didn't really tap into the heart of the community, or communities, of Vancouver and its suburbs. This was disappointing but it was the reality of the moment. I took in as much as I could, I spoke to strangers, I let my outsider's perspective be my guide. And I certainly made a convenient set-up for another visit to Vancouver...

Happy Canada Day!

This is our first year in quite some while that we are missing Canada Day in Newfoundland. I guess we will have to have our own, more quiet celebration in Sunnyside. We returned there yesterday, safe and sound (and profoundly tired).

Today also is my birthday. Lucy wrote me a poem as a present and I share it here with you.

Mom is nice.
She likes to laugh
and kill seals with a gaff*.
Mom is nice.
It's fun to hike with her
even in the winter.
I love Mom,
even though she is sometimes like a bomb.
Mom is nice,
to say the least.


* Newfoundland insider reference....a gaff is the long stick with which sealers traditionally used to kill seals. I don't really kill seals, but it is a good rhyme with laugh.