The Potato Eaters... or not

No doubt you’ve all been waiting for the sequel to my spring blog about our virgin effort to grow potatoes vertically.

     Instead of digging trenches, putting in seed potatoes and mounding them as the plants grew – the traditional method – we decided to build a large crate-like structure in the middle of the vegetable garden with the seed potatoes buried inside, then add dirt as the plants grew.

     We (mostly Rick, really) have tended the structure (we call it our redneck hot tub) for all these months, gradually adding soil as the potato plants grew taller.

     Today, I decided it was time to see if our experiment had worked.

     I got out a potato fork and started digging through the dirt. I got through about half of it then quit in discouragement because…

     THERE WASN’T ONE SINGLE POTATO!

     So, there you have it. A little time in the sun and a little aerobic activity were all we got for our efforts.

     But you know, one of Van Gogh’s first great paintings, The Potato Eaters, is considered one of his most intriguing because he had not yet mastered the techniques that would later make him famous. The painting is considered imperfect. But it helped in the development of those techniques that would one day make him a master.

     Maybe next year we can say the same about our potato-growing efforts.

     In the meantime, there’s always the farmers market.

Wearing a burqa

Today I did something that might have gotten me arrested had I done it publicly in France.

     I wore a burqa, “an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions to cover their bodies when in public,” as Wikipedia defines it.

     It was only for a while and entirely in the privacy of my home, but it stirred many thoughts about women and religion and liberties and plain old comfort.

     It wasn’t what I expected.

     It was tight-fitting at the top of the head – to secure it, I suppose – and so flowing and unusual that my dogs circled and barked when I first put it on.

     And it was dark. I had trouble seeing through the mesh in front of the eyes, even with the kitchen lights on, so much so that I had to lift it to read the mail.

     It was also hot inside, even on this coolish September night.

     But it is what many Muslim women around the world wear, in keeping with ancient religious tradition, and what many of them fight to continue wearing, even as some other European nations considering joining France in banning burqas in the name of national security.

     I’m not Muslim and I didn’t wear the burqa (borrowed from a friend) for religious reasons, but to try to understand another culture and religion (wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all did more of that?).

     A small part of me found it appealing – the anonymity it granted, the cocoon-like security – but not so much that I’d consider wearing one again.

     The better part of me found it unfamiliar and uncomfortable, which is why I won’t.

     But ban it?

     It occurred to me only after I tried on the burqa that I was doing so on 9-11, the anniversary of the worst terrorism attack in U.S. history, initiated by Muslim fanatics.

     They were attacking our freedoms – including freedom of religion, freedom of expression.

     Seems to me wearing a burqa is one of those freedoms.    

Partying in another language

Our little friend Nathan just turned 2, and his parents, our friends, were kind enough to include us on the guest list for his birthday party yesterday.
     It was a typical Brazilian party – one meant for adults as much as children, with a themed backdrop for the birthday cake table and artful little favors created by his talented mother, a trampoline and potato sack races for the kids, beer and wine for the adults and, of course, the usual spread of incredible Brazilian food. (Who barbecues better?)
     Most of those present speak at least some English, though one or two had arrived from Brazil within the week, and it was a chance for me to practice the Brazilian Portuguese I’ve been learning by listening to CDs on my way to work.
     I know only a few basic phrases – like “How are you,?” “pleased to meet you,” “I’d like red wine, please,” and “where is the bathroom?”
     But I haven’t had as much fun talking to people in a long time. We laughed at each other’s attempts to converse, provided the fill-in-the-blank word for the sentences the other couldn’t complete and shared our thoughts on the difficulties of learning a new language.
     They, of course, need to know English if they’re going to continue to work and live here for as long as their visas allow. I want to learn Portuguese because it’s fun to learn anything new, but mostly because I have grown to like and admire many of them and I want to meet them halfway in this effort to communicate.

     I’ve never partied in another language before but, based on my experience, it’s “muito divertido.”

     Now you, too, know at least two Portuguese words – “very fun.”

Rediscovering roots

When I was a little girl, my best friend was Polish and lived in the house behind mine. We wore the chain link fence between us down with our constant climbing over for visits, much to my father’s disapproval.
     Her mother would say things like “let’s go by Aunt Mary’s house to visit” instead of let’s go to Aunt Mary’s house to visit, and when I started unconsciously imitating that phraseology, my mother immediately corrected me and told me not to talk in that “Polish” way.
     Aunt Mary lived in a Polish enclave of Detroit called Hamtramck, and I often did visit there with my friend Judi and her family. There were two-and three-story tenement houses there, unlike the low-slung ranch houses in my suburban neighborhood, but there was food like kielbasa and pierogis and other unpronounceable things and I always had a good time.
     At Polish weddings, there was always a band with an accordion and they played things like “The Philadelphia Polka” (remember that from the movie “Groundhog Day”?), “Roll Out the Barrel” and other ethnic songs that non-Poles, probably including me, tended to dismiss as low-brow.
     In fact, the many Poles in my neighborhood and school faced a lot of subtle derision, like the Polack jokes that none of us thought anything about repeating. Even they laughed, probably in self-defense.
     I’m ashamed now, of my childhood insensitivity.
     Why does all this come to mind today?
     Because I spent Labor Day weekend at a fantastic music festival in Rhode Island, Rhythm and Roots, where many of the musicians work hard to preserve ancient musical heritages.
     And not all of them are on the stage.
     In the camping area, little mini-festivals go on day and night, and one of them, on Sunday morning, was hosted by a group called Polka Dan and the Beetbox Band – and they were every bit as good as the paid help.  They had maybe a hundred people dancing on the grass to polka tunes (sans accordion) like the ones I mentioned (and “You Can Have Her, I don’t Want Her, She’s Too Big For Me” and “Who Stole the Keeshka”) and Dan was very clear about his message – he wants to preserve his culture’s music and celebrate it in a way the mainstream culture never has. Besides, as he says, polka music is “fun music.”
     His was just one of the many groups I had never seen before. Did you know Hugh Laurie, of “House” fame, is a damn fine musician with a blues band of his own? Or that an incredibly talented, intelligent, group called The Carolina Chocolate Drops is researching and performing some of the lost, beautiful, early works of black American musicians?
     I’ve always known that what we experience as children helps form who we are, but I never that about how what we hear as children does, as well – from generation to generation.
     I wish Aunt Mary was still alive so I could go by and visit her.

Starting a new job, at 64

After five years as editor of the Woburn Advocate, this week I started a new job as editor of the Concord (Mass.) Journal.
     It’s a larger paper, with an engaged, exacting readership, and I am grateful for the challenge.
     I’m still getting my feet wet, but already I have fallen in love with some of the town’s female elders.
     There’s Dot, who’s 90-something and writes a weekly column for the paper, delivering it by hand every Thursday.
     And Phebe, who’s lived in places as far-flung as China, helped start a local feminist group in the 1970s and still motors around town on her trademark bicycle.
     And Marion, now in assisted living, who knows more about Concord’s historic cemeteries, and the famous authors buried there, than anyone alive.
     Those are just three of the people I’ve met so far.
     I think I’m going to like it here.

Miracle in a jar

     It was about an inch long, bullet-shaped and a leafy shade of green, roped with sparkling gold rings that my nieces would call “bling.”
     “A chrysalis,” Rick pronounced. The hard-shelled pupa of a moth.
     So, like two 7-year-olds undertaking a science project, we did something I have never done: We put it in a jar with a twig and few leaves, poked holes in the top and waited.
     We didn’t have to wait long. Less than a week later, Rick said he could start to see orange and white stripes appearing inside the translucent shell.  On Monday, there appeared before us a monarch butterfly, full grown and moving its wings uncertainly.
     We named it Harantis, after our street.
     Yesterday, before work, in a driving rain, we took the jar outside and gently deposited its contents on top of a tarp inside our open garage. I took one last picture and left.
     I was still at work in the late afternoon when Rick called.
     “Harantis is gone,” he said, and I swear I thought he was going to cry. “Off to Mexico.”
     And here is the magical part.
     Monarchs are the only butterfly that migrates both north and south, like birds do (though no individual one makes the entire trip, females depositing eggs for the next generation to continue the journey).
     By the end of October, Harantis will indeed be well on the way to Mexico, likely the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve.
     That little inch-long thing we found on a plastic lawn chair in our yard is an intercontinental flyer.
     Who says we don’t encounter miracles every day?

A new Spin on things

Never been to a farm-team game.
     Never thought I wanted to.
     But thanks to some free tickets from work, Rick and I found ourselves Friday night in the stadium of the LowellSpinners – the Red Sox farm team based in the one-time mill town that was once one of the largest producers of textiles in the world. That accounts for the team’s name – “spinners,” as in the turning spools of thread used in the mills.
     We had a ball, no pun intended.
     This year’s team isn’t ready for prime time (as if this season’s Red Sox are) but we fell in love with the ambiance of the place on that perfect summer night. The between-inning entertainment that ranged from two girls racing to see who could put on firemen’s hats, jackets and boots the fastest to the amazing border collie that could run halfway across the field to catch a Frisbee.  The basement Gator Pit, with its sumptuous grilled offerings. The mascot, an alligator (I don’t know why either). And, especially, the stadium itself, a low-slung, open structure over which the towering smokestacks of old Lowell still towered.
     As Rick said, Kerouac (a Lowell native) would have loved it – the laughing people, the beer, the good times.
     We loved it ourselves.
     BTW, Lowell won over the Connecticut Tigers 7-6.
     I think we might be back.