Color

I am contemplating painting my cottage living room . . .

I'd been thinking about it for a long time, but part of my inspiration, I think, is the deliciousness of Caffe Trieste, where I spent many mornings during the break eating sumptuous pastries and savoring perfectly prepared lattes. This photo is of the yummy Italian yellow I am interested in emulating, though it doesn't really do the cafe (or the color) justice, because of the poor light.


The thing is, though, the colors I admire other places always seem more mustardy than I feel prepared to explore in the house. I wonder what it would be like to dare to go that direction. My room in Ann Arbor ended up being more lemony than I think I want to do here by the lake, if I do decide to paint.

And now, the functionalist tour. (Huh, this gives me interesting ideas for field notes.)

Morning! (You know, in the *broad* sense.) Time for coffee.


I keep the good stuff in that vintage coffee can on the bottom shelf, whole bean Abianno espresso from Sweetwaters. I grind it up fresh, very fine.

I knock yesterday's grounds into my compost canister beside the sink. (When it fills, I'll bring it to the compost heap across the way on the garden plot.)

Then I rinse off my Moka, pouring out setting aside the leftovers of yesterday's coffee, maybe for a chocolate cake.

And then I put the fresh coffee on to percolate in the Moka. (This Moka was actually a parting gift from Suzi when I moved out to the country. She bought it in Paris when she was living there. I had used it nearly every day when we were living together in Ann Arbor, since my own had gotten lost in the move from Austin. Suzi, I'm eternally grateful!)

I grab some whole organic milk from the fridge, and warm it on the other burner.

I'm enjoying my sunflowers while the coffee is brewing.

When the coffee has percolated, I whisk the milk until it's all foamy, pour it into a mug (I've had that silly hippie mug with the heart-shaped strawberries and and psychedelic snails since Santa Cruz). First cup is half milk, half coffee. I top it with freshly ground nutmeg. The nutmeg grinder is old enough that it actually says Made in W.-Germany on it.

A glance out the kitchen window: a beautiful day here! (Hanging in the window, there's the evil eye Seda gave me as a housewarming gift in Austin when I moved into my cottage there by the University of Texas campus.)

On other days, we might go into the living room to bask in the bright gorgeous sunlight . . .

(Ba and Marta & Liles might remember that photo of us and Ross from Otis Street on my college graduation day, which I keep framed in my living room to remind me of times when I was surrounded with friends . . .)

And we might sit on the expansive couch there. . .

Or maybe settle in at the table overlooking the water. . . (yeah, never mind that table cloth hiding on the floor. I use it to cover my TV set sometimes, when I'm not overactively using my DVD player and hiding out on the loveseat in the corner there watching romantic comedies.)




But, instead, today, I take one quick detour to my bedroom to open up the vertical blinds to let in the light . . .







(Oh, look, Mom, there's the Wheel of Life thangka I bought in Himachal Pradesh!)

(And here's the vanity table I was telling you about. . .)


Yeah, yeah, okay. So the light is streaming in, and we're finishing the daytime tour, and now it's time for me to settle down in the office, with coffee cup number two, to do some writing.

So, then, um, where *are* those papers from Qualitative Methods, anyway? I took the course only about a year and a half ago. . . .



Not here; this is where I sort junk like jars of foreign change. . .



Obviously, not here -- this is my laundry corner. I'm closing up that folding door now to hide the stacked units.


Apparently, not here, though I keep lots of old papers from past courses in this little corner of drawer-style bins, and I see some files from classes from that same semester. . .


Yes, yes, I remember -- these are all my deadlines and projects that need my attention . . .


Oh, apparently they were in the very first spot I looked, all squeezed into that brown & white floral IKEA box, now unpacked and sitting on my desk in piles, ready to be read and digested . . . So, I'd better get started with that! You can see that my office, too, is wonderfully flooded with light.

A tour of my little house

To answer another one of Mom's requests, we're taking a tour of the inside of my cottage.

So, we enter through the kitchen, taking off our shoes to keep the water and mud from the gravel road and pathway to getting tracked throughout the cottage!

You can see here the style the owners used in renovating the kitchen, which I think is really sweet. The terra cotta with my blue Fiestaware remind me of the colors in my flat in Budapest. (I found that cobalt blue teapot at a yard sale in Ann Arbor this summer.) You can also see the beautiful stainless steel appliances they put in the kitchen -- Bosch dishwasher and gas range . . . swoon!

Over there on the counter you may notice my own electric appliances: I am still using that toaster oven I got in San Francisco, Mom's old breadmaker, and I've got a new rice maker I bought in an Asian shop here in Ann Arbor that makes me very happy. Behind it is hiding the vintage bean pot I was telling you about, Mom, as well as an old pottery bowl I bought at a garage sale back in Santa Cruz.

And then beyond, a CD tower I finally broke down and bought at IKEA to house my dozens of Eastern European CDs. Up top, I've still got that old fragment of an Indian screen that I bought years ago at the flea market in San Francisco. I'm still tempted to paint those blue walls a warm gold color, but I won't have the time to do it anytime soon, if I ever do.



And quickly we make our way in the open floorplan through to the living room. Here, you may recognize my old Salvador Dali lithographs Mom, Dad, and I bought at Price Costco so many years ago . . . that old antique buffet table you gave me when I moved to San Francisco, Mom, and that tiny marble-topped table you must have bought sometime after the Fire. You can also see my fireplace, the Firelight Glass lamps I have lit there on top of the buffet table, some houseplants I picked up at IKEA.

And there on the floor are the red and blue Turkish wool rugs I bought for my cottage in Austin when the floors were so cold and uninsulated I thought I'd freeze my feet if I didn't get some coverings on my floor. I bought those funny pale blue & rose vintage rugs for the same reason, at the same time -- and now they make a nice soft layer to sit on in front of the fire, much warmer than the concrete in front of the fireplace. I do love this hanging lantern-style light the owners have in the kitchen . . .


Taking a step down into the dining room and television corner, we look back up toward the living room from our spot beside the vintage Formica & chrome table. . . There's my cookbook collection, with those two pillar-style lamps I've had since Santa Cruz, and my much-beloved new red sectional couch. At the far end is the front door through which we entered the cottage.



Here, you can spy my grandfather's old accordion atop some funky vintage stacking tables I found at a garage sale. And the custom-made pine bookcase with an antique stained glass window for a door that I bought through craigslist. I keep my fiction books in there. And above it is the Elgin sunburst clock Mom got me at the senior's center in Minnesota this summer. Beside the bookcase is my old secretary desk with my poetry collection there, and beneath it I'm sure you'll notice the sewing machine you got me in Minnesota, Mom. Behind it is a funky old vintage suitcase I keep old photos and correspondence in.


Here, we turn the corner into my bedroom, where you can see that antique mirror I bought for $5 at a garage sale in Dexter, my vintage vanity table and glass lamps I bought from that sweet older couple on Huron River Drive, and the reproduction Depression glass candlesticks I've been carting around since I left my San Francisco studio in the TenderNob (I had bought them around the corner there at the Christian charity shop.) You might also recognize the vintage-style reproduction mirror from IKEA we'd admired together, Mom, and which in the end, I couldn't resist. Same goes for the bed frame.

And, because it used to be an old screened-in porch there, you step down into the section of the bedroom that I sleep in, which I curtain off for total coziness while I'm sleeping. On the floor you'll notice my meditation cushions atop the carpet I bought from the Kashmiri merchant in McLeod Ganj and shipped all the way from India. And, there's that old armoire Mom used to keep in the garage in Oakland.


We can stop for a moment at the bath, which is nothing special, but it's simple, functional, and all mine!


Go through that other little doorway, and you make your way into my office, and you can see just a couple of my many bookshelves . . .


And here is my workspace. This in and of itself could make the drive out to the boonies worthwhile, even if it weren't for the quiet and the beauty and the deep breaths of soul-regenerating fresh air. . .



The end! Come and visit the real thing soon! :)

It's quite a spectacular morning out here on the lake, the day after our first proper snow storm in Southeastern Michigan. (When it started the night before last, I was completely convinced the rustling sound was my mischievous possum friend in the leaves outside my office again, and it took my slipping on my shoes and taking my massive flashlight out to look at the icy pieces collecting on the empty ground before I was satisfied in the knowledge that I was alone with the snow.) I'm sitting here with a leftover slice of pumpkin pie and a milky coffee, enjoying the contrast of the clear blue sky with the bright bright white of the snow lit all up with sunlight, watching the occasional flashes of bluejays and cardinals darting through the trees in the garden plot across the way. I get up periodically to dance to a particularly inspiring bit of Regina Spektor or Aimee Mann and then rub orange-scented oil into my rather neglected vintage wood furniture.

My God, vacation is a delight. I've been making my way through the house with cleansers and cloths that had been hiding in the cupboard nearly since I purchased them. This is the kind of chore I dread when I come home from Southwest Detroit twelve hours after I left the house, when it's already dark outside, or from Ann Arbor after teaching my 75 students, with a stack of all their papers to grade . . . but on a day of quiet solitude with the autumn leaves floating by on the breeze, when I've made my way in my pajamas and slippers to the desk to turn on favorite music, to the stove to prepare a coffee, with a quick sneak outside to take a few adoring photos, it's a sweet joy. Attending the spiritual house.

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day hiding away in the kitchen, baking pumpkin pie and apple cobbler and enjoying the sweet spicy scents of autumn specialities merging with the warmth of vanilla and aromatherapy candles. (More on that in Kitchen Empress!)

I then made the trek down to Ann Arbor to spend a beautiful Thanksgiving evening with Alice and her family: her brother and sister-in-law, their darling child, all the adoring grandparents,and a lovely German neighbor family, with two angelic children whom I teased with little songs I dusted off from my high school German classes. The food was delicious, the company even more of a treat. I would have loved to have seen my own family, but I'm just too tired and broke and behind in my work to travel anywhere right now. Lucky that I have an adopted family through my dear friend :) In the end, we had FOUR DESSERTS to go with the feast, because Alice's sister-in-law AND her mother both also baked pies. Apple cobbler, and pies from pumpkin, rhubarb, and Concord grape. A true autumn bounty.

Here, some of the sneaky photos. . .

My view of the neighbors' lots filled with snow.


The boats and docks stacked for the winter and gathering snow.



And a glance across the lake on the near side, with the shore dusted with white.


And this one's for Mom, finally -- a glimpse of the humble exterior of my little cottage, from the gravel road. Behind, you can spy the lake around on the other side of the tiny house. In the foreground, you can see my little herb garden that I planted shortly after I moved here in June, with rosemary, sage in a pot, savory, and two varieties of lavender that seem to be thriving since the weather has cooled a bit. (We'll see how they do with the freezing temperatures.) And through the window there, if you were looking right now, you'd see me here at my computer on my massive L-shaped IKEA desk, in my PJs, shuffling papers, pulling some fresh clothes out of the dryer, listening to the Decemberists, finishing my coffee, and contemplating starting some writing. If I have my way, depending on how things go in the next few years, this may be the window I look from when I'm writing up my dissertation one day. . .

Why I moved to the country?

People in Ann Arbor, who know me as a full-time doctoral student -- or perhaps as their Anthropology instructor -- are often bewildered when I announce that I live in the country. I can tell by the blank looks or even by the curious responses. Why did you decide to move, they want to know. How can I begin to articulate the meaning of the transformation I have undertaken in my life recently? It is so much greater than I could possibly convey in a casual conversation. The explanations for me, besides, seem to be captured in the senses far more readily than in words. In fact, the departure is about the distance from language. (Words, words, words. . .)

It's captured, for instance, in the smell and concentrated pulse of heat and the ambient glow from the wood fire in the fire place . . .



And my fingers rediscovering dough. . .
. . . and the smell of homemade quiche baking in the oven.
. . . for instance.