A post made in loving tribute to all of my fellow hippies, slackers, boulevardiers, and couch potatoes. Yes, I can get the job done–if I really have to–but I’d much rather rest on my laurels Barcalounger, thank you very much. Join me, won’t you?
As another Summer slips toward her torrid latter days, I thirst mostly for a sense of serenity amid the ache and struggle that transforms everyday deeds into Herculean tasks by mere virtue of the sizzling sun. And as I do, and sip the simplest glass of cold clear water, I recall that Summer has a range of beauties all her own. Contemplating them can bring a water-clarity to my heated thoughts and gradually, I find that slipping sense of refuge in the burning day has righted itself again, if only for a moment or two, and that is quite enough.
Here, then, I salute the summer. I salute water, and the wealth that lets me have it in cold clarity almost whenever I should want. And I salute, with deepest peace, the calm that comes in recollecting all that’s good and fair and simple in that harshest place, the burning midst of the high season of the sun itself, knowing it is its own sort of beautiful and will be missed again some other day.
. . . what might happen when romance is in the air . . .
And so, my friends, ended Another Enchanted Evening.
Appraisal
What’s the current market value of a hug, caress or kiss?
Why would any self-respecting person get engrossed in this?
Isn’t it a tad surprising we’d make such hullabaloo
Of this silly, unproductive, non-remunerative goo?
That’s the miracle of romance and of loving: that we choose
To pursue ridiculous intangibles among the ooze
Of lace valentines and candies, in hand-holding, making eyes
Like moo-cows and fuzzy puppies at each other—but the prize
Found in all this crazy weirdness, wacky though our loving be,
Is the exponential return on this small investment that we see
When beloved turns to lover and responds in foolish kind:
That’s the truth toward which we hover when two loves get so entwined.
Reading
A heavy braid of brown-black hair
Coiling over her shoulder frames
The mourning dove-brown collarbones
That rise and fall in subtle flight
As she breathes, sitting back there in such quiet repose
As if to lend some grace to that so humble vase of white
Field lilies at her side, and when she turns
The antique pages of that favored book,
She spares a moment’s look to watch the lilies catch
The kitchen windows’ waning light
Just as the late-day sun tips in
Behind those distant trees to
Chase the night
At last we come to the changes made via some refurbishing and renovations in the Jack and Jill bath and, most significantly, in the master en suite. Let’s be honest: a large part of the quality of life for many of us revolves around having access to a good bathroom–or several. You do know what I mean. Oh, joy!
Jack & Jill just got a refresher course . . .
I will simply say right now that we are mighty satisfied, contented even, at having a whole batch of fairly unfussy yet fully functional and nicely spiffed up bathrooms gracing our living quarters these days. Life is ever so good.
In the Jack and Jill bath between TV room and office, the original tub tile of pale chartreuse is here to stay, being sturdily cemented in and expensive and tough to remove, so it was essential to work around that, as well as keeping the existing dark woodwork intact. Okay, then, I stuck with that and the extant bronze-toned hardware. Even the ’80s light fixture would be a bit too pricy to replace at this point. But I didn’t have to do especially huge things besides tackling that main expense-inducer and complicator of things, replacement of the sink, counter and faucet. The new granite is complemented by a small but deep and flat-bottomed sink of porcelain that allows easy cleaning of the sink and of things set in it, particularly with its new higher-rise faucet. I confess I’m mystified why more people don’t opt for single-lever controls on faucets when that allows hands-free on/off/temperature control, a very common need among people washing their, well, dirty hands, I would think! Along with the faucet, I added new tub and shower hardware to replace the old corroded parts, new curtains there (a vinyl waterproof one and an accent set of sage green sheers to cool the tile color) and a little carved valance (too narrow for the window width, but it’s a start) over the translucent shade-covered window. All three of our bathrooms recently got grand new Toto commodes, dual flush toilets that are a massive improvement over the original antiquities that used to struggle to serve our household and guests.
The last change in the Jack and Jill was to replace the dated frame-less mirror with a simple framed one and trade out the glass shades of the over-sink light fixture with some more modern and artful ones. They’re described as ‘gold and blue’, but the color in the glass is in effect softer than that (more neutral, like sand and grey on white). They gently combine with the delicacy and prettiness of the granite color and texture and it all softens the tile’s green further and lends a quiet calm to the space.
Next to my husband’s grandfather’s shaving mirror in the J&J bath is a delightfully amusing photo of Paul Gauguin sitting at Alphonse Mucha’s harmonium while wearing an appropriately bohemian deshabille shirttail-over-no-pants getup. Old school bathroom humor, I suppose!
The Big Bang of this phase of project happiness chez nous was of course the master bath suite redo. It felt like a long time coming even though it was only two years’ waiting on the wish list. So much happiness in getting our hands on it now. First up: we had a Solatube skylight installed in the space that was previously lit only by a weak ceiling light and two arrow-slit windows in the shower. Solatube now offers a nice combination contraption, which we chose, that includes the light tube for natural sunlight collection, an internal electric light for nighttime, and an integrated fan vent whose motor attaches to the roof joists and so is quietly distant. And a whole lot more effective than our 30-year-old fan, to boot. The constant wash of daylight in the space is a remarkably cool alternative to big windows. Wouldn’t it be lovely to install some in the living room, dining room . . . .
Doors to his and my respective vanities flank our lovely, simple old bedroom armoire (that’s his grandmother’s cocktail dress hanging there, by the way). I left a strip of the dark-stained wood unpainted on the vanity door jambs to complement all of the mahogany and teak in our master bedroom furnishings and tie the spaces together.
The master bath reno actually started during the original freshening up for our moving in, when we knew we wanted doors installed in the openings between the master bedroom and the two separate vanity areas that flank the shower/toilet room and through which it’s entered. Those six-paneled doors were installed then but never finish-painted over the pre-primed starter coat. At long last, they’re fully clothed. I changed out the door handles, putting brushed nickel lever handles on both those and the vanity-to-shower doors, regular knobs of that color on the walk-in closet doors on each side, and new silvery hinges on everything, white door stops on them, new silver colored hinges on all of the cabinetry, and so forth. I’d already changed the light fixtures in the vanities from bright brass 12-light ’70s theatre dressing room atrocities to simpler nickel and glass lamps. I had put nickel knobs on the cabinetry throughout the suite to start. Now it was time to finish up everything else with some fresher and more modern goodness.
From the vanity on my side of the suite you can see that marvelous skylighted walk-in-shower room. So inviting! The vanity space is a comfortable spot, too, where I can enjoy the folk art painting of the family farm in Norway (L) and the little embroidered alpine plant my mother stitched (by my mirrored closet door).
I kept the light sage walls through the suite happily–it’s so calming and almost spa-like to me, even though our particular, personal ‘spa’ is not all that high-end. The shower we had replace our old bathtub now is the closest we’re likely to get to a spa, however, and we’re enjoying it immensely already. The men we brought in for this their second round of work on our home gave us a lovely refuge where we can scrub up for the day. They demolished the old, tough olive green tile, pulled out the beat up cast iron tub, and tiled in a lovely naturally soothing walk-in shower with sandy tan square and rectangular tiles, a floor of sweet tiny brick-shaped paler tiles and soft tan sanded grout. I bought a nice brushed nickel shower head with a single lever valve and a secondary spray head, a spice rack to use as a shampoo-and-implements holder, a wall dispenser for tea tree oil soap, and a fold-down teak shower seat.
Closeups of the new look of the master shower. The ‘Lucky Bamboo’ in the window is not the only one that loves it in here now!
I had already begun work on the other parts of the master washroom before we got to this wrestle-out-the-tub phase, but now they got some fresh paint and new hardware to wrap up the process.
The granite contractor who installed our marvelous kitchen counters and sills two years ago brought his wonderful crew back in and set in our vanity tops and under-mount sinks that match the Jack and Jill’s, and our plumber installed the new faucets I’d bought, and when the crew completed a few more tasks of fix-it mania around the house their work was done. Once they built our haven of cleanliness it was my turn to get back to work. I primed and painted all of the dark wainscoting and cabinetry in the bathroom suite white, replaced the whole-wall mirrors over the vanities with smaller white-framed mirrors and hung a white wood medicine cabinet next to each of ours, rehung the full length mirrors on our closet doors, reassembled all of the cabinets with new silver colored hinges, padded stops, magnetic latches, and a vast quantity of swear words, and finished with the clean reorganization of drawers and shelves and reintroduction of wall art and such amenities.
The long and the short of it, the small and the large, is that we have a lot of upgrades around the house to show for relatively few days’ total labor and machinations. I will very happily not deal with such messes and involvement again any time soon, but it is as always a tremendous pleasure to have things this much closer to our ideal. In the usual way, it will undoubtedly uncover the next set of changes to build a new wish list upon, and that is simply the way that this inveterate changer-of-all-things operates. And the way that life flows, no matter what. These are the details on which our reality is truly based.
Note that the light coming in here is all sunlight from that small skylight in the adjacent shower room. And yes, His (L) and Hers (R) vanities. It’s dandy to have so much space–and we each have a full walk-in closet of our own attached to these, plus the shared shower room between. Living like royalty, indeed; that IS, after all, our style . . .
Being a fairly dedicated eater and happy to grab my utensils in the blink of an eye almost without regard to what’s on offer, I still do enjoy the familiar and comfortable on my menu too. There are occasions when I just plain crave the known and cozy to fill my plate and my empty stomach. Sometimes nothing will do but the good old-fashioned classic.
So when I’ve made a batch of roasted vegetables that I can pop onto the platter at a number of meals in the next few days, it can be nice to tuck it alongside a variety of things while it lasts, just to keep things interesting. However, having some of those many different entrees be lovely old-school stuff doesn’t in any way diminish the range and color of what I’m going to eat. That just makes it doubly fun to puzzle together the menus that, despite a repeating item and a well-known dish, still easily keep their sense of invention and surprise enough to brighten up both the day and the meal.
One obvious way to accomplish that is to introduce minor tweaks: ingredient combination, presentation, and so forth. The simple roast beef from last week gets thoroughly sliced and diced and then piled into buttery grilled french rolls, and finally, dipped in a dense jus reduction of roast drippings, butter and a big slosh of red wine, and served with a touch of horseradish cream (softened with sour cream) alongside side for enhancing either the beef dip sandwich or the roasted vegetables on the way down the hatch.
A different day, a different tweaked standard: macaroni salad with bacon and eggs. Not sure I’d recommend one of this latest round of tweaks–I tried it with rice pasta (the gluten-free twist on the occasion), which was just dandy when the salad was first made, but in the refrigerated leftover salad soaked up the dressing so thoroughly that the pasta tasted pretty much just like cold rice later. It wasn’t hopeless: I added more dressing each time I went back to it, and I found that it rehydrated decently. But it wasn’t as stable in that aspect as traditional pasta, which I think I’ll still prefer in the long term. The other slight variations, however, I enjoyed very much, and by the way, so did all the others at dinner.
Macaroni Salad with Bacon and Eggs
Cooked [elbow macaroni–still my favorite for macaroni salad] pasta gets dressed simply with mayonnaise, a good squirt of cartoon-yellow mustard, and cream. A sturdy grind of black pepper gives it a hint of depth, though it’d be great with a splash of hot sauce or a sprinkling of cayenne as well. A big handful of diced pickles playfully zings things up a little; I used half dill pickles and half sweet gherkins. You know me and my sweet-plus-salty fetish. Traditionalists would of course hard boil egg and mince or sieve it before adding it to a picnic salad. Me, I just semi-scrambled the egg until it was just fully set and minced it up. Pretty much the same result, with less time and effort. Lastly, fried up a whole lot of bacon into crispy, smoky pieces.
The end product? About like what you’d expect if waiters carrying platters of the familiar summer macaroni salad and of pasta Carbonara crashed into each other and fell into a breakfast buffet table. But involving a lot less flying cutlery and cussing. Unless you count people diving after the salad avidly waving their forks and yelling, Damn, that’s good! Not that anyone at my table would ever behave in such a reckless and uncouth manner. Well, me, maybe.
Let us look for our peace wherever we can. Let us embrace it and rest in it. And let us always share that peace with whomever, whenever and however we are able, inviting them all into our places of peace so that they and others all around the world, too, can find and disperse the sweetness of true and deep repose.
Summer teases us with her dramatic, exaggerated changes of mood and meaning, but if we know our own history well enough to remember it, we can be sure that her graces will always return when the time is right.
Art-Colored Glasses 