Browsing Archives for September 2008

Mr. and Mrs. Bridge

September 28th, 2008


Upon the passing of the great American actor, Paul Newman, I can’t help but think back to two great novels both written by Evan S. Connell, the first being Mrs. Bridge and the second being Mr. Bridge. In 1990, these two novels were knitted together to create a major motion picture starring Paul Newman as the ever reticent Mr. Bridge and his wife Joanne Woodward as the ever disappointed, yet guileless Mrs. Bridge.


I first encountered Mr and Mrs. Bridge while the Country Doctor and I were entrenched in the romantic poverty of medical school and babies. The movie was filmed in Kansas City, in the Mission Hills district, which is a neighborhood full of stately homes built in the early 1900s. Mission Hills was not far from KU Med nor the tiny bungalow we ourselves inhabited, so we often found ourselves loading up a baby or two, scraping a few coins together for a Coke and taking a drive through the tree lined streets trying to decide where George Brett lived and which house we would have for ourselves, if we ever had the chance.

By the time we moved to Kansas City, several years had passed since the movie was filmed, but the nine weeks that Newman and his wife Joanne spent in Kansas City was still much talked about and the movie maintained a prominent spot on the shelves in every movie rental house in town.


At some point, even though I was unfamiliar with the story, it’s relentless display and intriguing cover art, forced me to take it home and watch it. I spent two hours intrigued yet mystified by the story of the Bridge Family. I liked the movie, but didn’t really understand it. It wasn’t until I read the book, Mrs. Bridge many years later, that I came to more fully comprehend and appreciate the story. In fact, I became a devoted fan of the book and later forced it upon my book club, where I then proceeded to dominate the subsequent discussion and exclaim over all the details in the life of Mrs. Bridge to a room full of women who really didn’t think it the book was all that great.

Mrs. Bridge has that kind of effect on people, especially women. In fact, all the reviews I found on line today were written by men. I think Mrs Bridge scares the holy-ever-loving-crap out of a lot of women. I can understand this to a degree. Mrs. Bridge or India – is a woman whose entire life is wrapped up in her family and the tight, social mores of her upper middle class community. She can’t seem to find a way to define herself outside of her own home, family or social strata in any way. Yet, it is not Mrs. Bridge’s inability to step outside the safety of her very small world that is so provocative, but rather how the author, Evan S. Connell, makes this constricted, blase’ life so insanely interesting. It’s all that pent up emotion that lurks just beneath the surface of the two main characters that keeps one wondering when they are going to explode.

But of course…

they never do…

So this funny little fragile balloon-like world keeps right on spinning for them. It keeps right on spinning even as their three children adopt Bohemian lifestyles and marry unsavory characters. It keeps right on spinning as their neighborhood begins to crack open a tiny bit to non-wasp folks. And it keeps right on spinning as the rest of the world heaves with social unrest.

Even when the world does sort of inadvertently brush against one of them in the far more dramatic lives of their servants or their employees, to an extent that they have no choice but to respond, they are hardly up to the task. They simply cannot react… they simply cannot respond. For to respond is to admit something… it is to grasp something… it is to see something… that Mr and Mrs Bridge just don’t want to see. So they react by not reacting… they respond by not responding. And this emotionless existence is what makes their lives so strangely riveting.


Here is a picture of Mr and Mrs Bridge sitting closer together than they probably ever allowed themselves to do in real life. I put them on my porch, because I think they would have liked my porch. It is too warm and too breezy and the furniture is not very comfortable. This discomfort would have given them a chance to be stoically resigned and mildly disappointed. I don’t think they would have approved of my bright red and blue cushions, but neither of them would ever have dreamed of mentioning this… even when they were completely alone… just the two of them… on the long car ride home.

So if you are feeling a bit unkempt… a bit untidy… a bit frazzled and out of control… I would have to highly recommend a heavy dose of Mrs. Bridge followed by a Mr. Bridge chaser. They should neaten everything up for you..

…or make you run like a madman towards the nearest can of spray paint and cover your entire neighborhood in psychedelic colors… just because you can. 

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Filed under: Book Talk, Evan S. Connell

The Statue of Liberty Play

September 26th, 2008

Ethan’s football team has been practicing a special play.
It is called the “Statue of Liberty” play.  

Strangely, I had not heard of the “Statue of Liberty” play and I asked my sons to demonstrate it for me.  
They agreed.

First Ethan explained to me that the ball he was holding was called a football.  
“You throw it mom, ” he explained.  ”And sometimes you kick it… down a field… a football field.”
My son knows me better than I give him credit for…

Ethan cradled the ball to his chest… just like I used to cradle him… when he was my tiny little smudgkin wudgkin cuddle wuddle puddin head.  

Then Ethan said, “Down!”  
And I immediately dropped to my knees.
Then Ethan rolled his eyes and said, “Not you mom…”
And I said, “Oh… sorry…”

“Set!”

“Hike!”

Then Ethan threw his arm up in the air.
See how Ethan is holding his arm up in the air???
That is the “Statue of Liberty” part.

He holds him arm there, because he is trying to fake the other team out.  
He is trying to convince the other team that he is a statue… the Statue of Liberty… and that they should probably not tackle the Statue of Liberty  or they might get hurt.

While the other team is totally faked out and so not tackling The Statue of Liberty… Drew runs behind Ethan and snatches the ball.  

Because Drew is on Ethan’s team and he has inside information that Ethan is not really the Statue of Liberty.  
So while the other team is all “how did the Statue of Liberty get on the field?…”

Drew scores a TD!

Here is a video of the same play.  
I would like to note that no politicians and no snakes were harmed in the making of this video. 

And also – no children were harmed by tackling a fake statue.  

Just covering all my bases here.  
 
And here is the game that made the play famous.
30 comments
Filed under: The Boys

Books on a Hutch, A Giveaway

September 23rd, 2008

I have been having so much fun with these used book giveaways, that I have decided to just make it a regular part of my blog. What began as The Country Doctor’s Wife Summer Reading Program will now be more simply referred to as The Country Doctor’s Wife Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring Reading Program.

That way, it will be more catchy and much easier to remember. 

Since I spent yesterday painting my kitchen hutch – I decided to use it as a staging area for this book giveaway.

And that’s the last thing I am going to say about my hutch.

EXCEPT – you might as well take a gander at those three paint chips on the back of the hutch. That deep yellow is the color of my walls. The two blues are both recommended by Sherwin Williams as colors that coordinate with the color of the hutch. If one of them stands out as the perfect color for the interior of the cabinets let me know. 

I am giving three books away today. Three books in which a house plays a pivotal role. And while we are talking about these books,

Here is a close-up of those colors for the interior paint choices… 

Now onto the books.
I am not going to talk about my hutch anymore.

I am not going to even say the word hutch anymore.

It is starting to sound like a “bad word” to me.

My hutch, my hutch, my hutch… what am I really talking about here?

And why is it called a hutch anyway?

Oh dear! I just googled it and now I wish I hadn’t.

I am not going to be able to say hutch for a while now. I need to think of a new name for that cupboard I am painting. Let’s see – there’s sideboard… which kind of sounds like cyborg… There’s chiffarobe… and armoire… and buffet… and butler’s pantry… I always wanted a butler’s pantry, but I would settle for a butler… or an assistant.

That’s it! I will now refer to what used to be my…hu…my hu… my freshly painted cabinet as my assistant! My assistant Margot. I always thought the name Margot was so crisp and professional and efficient and brisk and a snappy dresser, low heels, neckerchief, bun, coordinating handbag, armed with a blackberry, understands her cell phone, reads directions, never eats candy, wait… NEVER EATS CANDY!!! I don’t know if I can get along with Margot or not.

Now let’s talk book shall we?

The first book I am giving away is House Dreams by Hugh Howard.

Please do not mistake Hugh Howard for Howard Hughes. They are vastly different people with entirely different aims. Howard Hughes was a fabulously wealthy guy who had a thing for airplanes. Hugh Howard is a writer who has a thing for old houses.

Hugh Howard has written several books on architectural preservation and I believe he is also the ghost writer for Bob Vila. The book I am giving away today is the story of Hugh building his own house.

It all starts when Hugh’s wife inherits a small sum and they decide to use it to buy a plot of land and to partially fund the construction of a new house. Their love for older houses leads them down the precipitous path to building a Georgian style home. Hugh designs it, frames it, and does as much of the work of building the house as his wife will let him get away with. He takes the project pretty seriously, but he is a good storyteller. If you like architecture, new houses, old houses, and a good story, you will like this book.

The second book I am giving away today is Two Part Invention by one of my very favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle. Madeleine wrote the classic children’s books “A Wrinkle in Time” ,”A Swiftly Tilting Planet”, and “A Wind at the Door”. I loved those books as a kid and read them many times, but as an adult, I stumbled across this book and it has become one that I must re-read every other year or so. 

The book is primarily set in a house called “Crosswicks” that Madeleine and her husband bought as a refuge from New York City. Madeliene’s husband Hugh was a well known actor on a popular soap opera, but the couple decided to take a break from the glitz and glamour of New York and they moved their young family to the country and to Crosswicks.

The book covers their marriage from it’s beginnings in an abrupt ceremony while they were both part of a touring theater company, through the births of their children, and into their later years of illness and loss. They were both fascinating people involved in theater, literature and the arts, as well as having a family and trying to make ends meet during times when Hugh was not working in theater and Madeleine was not selling any manuscripts.

Madeleine was a master at writing stories about families dealing with unusual circumstances. After reading about her own family life, you will come to understand how she gained that skill. 

My last book is one of my all time favorite, favorite, favorite books. It is House written by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder. 

In the book, House Tracy follows a spirited construction company called “Apple Corps” as they build a large, classic, two story home. The four men who form “Apple Corps” are highly skilled craftsmen and colorful characters.

Tracy weaves the story of the builders, the architect and the couple for whom the house is being built together as deftly as a master craftsmen himself. This true story is full of humor and humanity and you get to “see” a beautiful house rise from the ground and watch the various personalities in the book sail along with it.

I love this book. I am not even kidding when I say I have probably read it ten times. 

Oh… and this is my friend Liz making a Victoria Sponge in front of my hu… I mean my assistant Margot…

Before Margot went and got herself all tricked out in Cottage Cream.

This giveaway has come to an end.

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Filed under: House Books, Madeline L'Engle, Tracy Kidder

The Hutch Saga Continues

September 22nd, 2008


Kitchen Hutch – (from before the house was completely finished)


This is what the hutch now looks like with two coats of “Cottage Cream” paint from Sherwin Williams. 

Yes, I went with cream. 
Yes, I realize that cream was not really an option before. 
Yes, I seriously considered many of the suggestions that were offered in the previous hutch spasm story.
Yes, I almost went with black and then I almost went with the same color as the walls, but in the end I wimped out with cream. Or maybe I whipped out with cream! 
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha – boy am I funny today.

So back to me, me, me and more me, and also my hutch.

Here are all my problems for you to solve.

1. So far I have not painted the inside of the hutch with the cream paint. Can you even tell from the picture? Or does it all look the same?
If by some miracle, you can tell that the inside is still a pale blue/green and the exterior is now a warm cream, I really would appreciate your opinion as to if I should go ahead and paint the inside cream as well.  Or if I should paint it an entirely different color.  Or if I can leave the inside of the hutch the pale green/blue color and maybe have a slim chance of getting the damn… I mean DANG thing finished in this lifetime.


PS – If you vote for painting it cream or painting it an entirely different color – YOU HAVE TO COME OVER AND DO IT FOR ME!!!


2. My second problem is even spazzier than the first. Do you see how the top of the hutch is currently sitting on the bottom of the hutch? I don’t know if you realize this, but the top of the hutch used to hang on the wall suspend about a foot above the bottom of the hutch.


Like the above pic.

This is not how I intended for the hutch to be. I originally drew the hutch to be a single piece, but the country doctor was concerned that we would not have enough counter space, and so at the last minute, the cabinet makers hung the top of the hutch a foot above the bottom of the hutch. We could not hang it any higher because of the vent on the wall. And guess what? We do really use that counter space. Mostly to catch all the junk mail, and the permission slips and the book orders, and the soccer schedules and the school picture packets… which keeps the other counters free from all that junk, which makes me pretty happy.  On the other hand, I always though that the two part hutch looked kind of odd.


3. Can you also tell that we took off the crown moulding and we moved the hutch out from the wall?  Am I the only person on the planet who cares this much about my silly little hutch?  If there is anyone still reading this – I always wanted my kitchen hutch to LOOK LIKE A HUTCH! But it never really did. So I am considering giving it a complete makeover. I want to move it away from the wall, put on a new countertop that is edged all the way around, find a smaller crown moulding for the top. I would also like the cabinet makers to build a piece that goes in between the countertop and the upper cabinet that sort of connects the two pieces together so it looks like a whole. I know this is all terribly confusing so look… I drew a really bad picture…


Is it all crystal clear now?

Do you think that it will look terrible and I should just put it back like it was? Should I keep the upper cabinet on the lower cabinet? Is anyone still with me?

Anyone?
So cream inside or cream not inside?
Upper on lower or upper not on lower?
Out from the wall or not out from the wall?
Place her in psychiatric care immediately or sedate her and lobotomize the frontal lobe?
Tell me what you think.  
Muchas Gracias!

56 comments
Filed under: Kitchen

Feather Foot – The Legend of the Mountain Doctor Returns

September 19th, 2008

We are a family of movie watchers.  Well, actually five of us are movie watchers.  The Country Doctor is not a movie watcher.  He can’t sit still long enough to watch a movie.  It is far too self indulgent of an activity for him and besides, surely there are some punishing, maggot infested trees he needs to chop down with a dull axe, in a frozen forest, which he can only reach on foot, wearing a thread bare t-shirt and some ripped, paint-stained shorts.  

My boys and I often watch movies huddled in a large pile on my bed with the lap top propped on a pillow at the footboard. It is very cozy.  I  watched “The Brother’s Grimm” last night with my two oldest boys because they have the day off from school today.  
We watch a lot of different kind of movies together.  My kids have watched Miss Marple, and Poirot, and most of the Jane Austen films.  Of course we have seen all the Harry Potters and the Spidermans, and the Jason Bourne films.  We watch a lot of PG 13 action films, we still watch a lot of animated films and we all especially love Wallace and Grommit. I don’t have a lot of  parameters for what they can and can’t watch, except no “R” films are allowed.  Mostly I pay attention to the critics and if a film receives decent reviews we will probably check it out at some time.
The Country Doctor has a far different perspective than I do regarding movies.  First of all, he hates to see his family lying motionless, mesmerized by any type of video screen, and if he catches us watching a movie, we all feel like we are committing some sort of obscure crime. Secondly, the only movies that the Country Doctor thinks are truly okay for his family to watch are rated “G’ and usually involve bearded mountain men, a log cabin, a hound dog, and a friendly Native American named Feather Foot.  The story line always seems to revolve around a blonde, freckled child that gets lost in the mountains but then is saved by both his hound dog and his friend, Feather Foot.  The story concludes with the mom wearing a gingham dress, serving a batch of fresh baked biscuits and a kettle of stew to her family and the whole tribe.
Oh… and he also likes the film “The Bridge Over The River Kwai”.  
So tonight as I was driving my kids home from a football game, I called the CD and let him know that I planned to get a movie for our older boys.  This conversation took place…
Him – Would you like me to pick up the movie on my way home?
Me – Hey boys… would anyone like Dad to pick out the movie tonight?
Boys – NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Me – Um… Honey… They don’t want you to pick out the movie.
Him – Why?
Me – Because you pick out terrible movies with mountain men and goats and hound dogs and women making biscuits on a coal stove… and well… we much prefer Spiderman.
Him – Where did I go wrong?  Why isn’t my family more like me?
I didn’t know how to answer that question and the CD didn’t really want to hear the truth – that being that the days of stews being cooked in kettles over open fires by happy moms, and lost children being saved by Native Americans are long over – if they ever existed at all. 
Later that same evening, he came home to find three of us huddled on my bed watching “The Brother’s Grimm.”  As usual, he was clearly appalled and the boys and I felt worthless and guilt-ridden until he walked out of the room to go drain the pond with a pair of rusting forceps, a leaky bucket and a three legged gurney.  
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Filed under: The Country Doctor

Kitchen Hutch Does Funny Cowboy Dance

September 18th, 2008

I have mentioned before, that we ordered about half of all the cabinets in our house in “paint grade poplar” meaning the cabinets were delivered and installed unpainted in order to save a few shekels.  I really enjoy painting and thought it would be no trouble at all to paint twenty odd cabinets myself.  
Har Har Har!
I think I will have unpainted cabinets in my house until I am ninety years old at this point.  And even funnier is that I actually did paint the kitchen hutch already!
Yeah – isn’t that funny!  
Isn’t that just the funniest thing you ever heard?!?
I am laughing really, really hard right now.
Tears are just streaming down my face, I am laughing so hard.
Wait!  I’m not laughing… I am sobbing!

But I have never really liked this faded greed on the hutch.  Actually – I do like the color.  I just don’t like it on the hutch.  Actually I do like it on the hutch.  I just don’t like it on the hutch in this room.  The kitchen is painted in a very nice warm yellow and the washed out greenish/blueish hutch has never looked right to me.

Believe it or not the door above is actually painted in two different colors.  One side is a deep orange and other side is a cardinal red.  I ragged a brown glaze over both colors.  What do you think?  Can you even see a difference?

This is the closest color I could find to a pumpkin… because I just had to try a pumpkin color on my hutch.  I also used the brown glaze over the top and I love this color… I am just not sure I want my kitchen hutch to be this color.  


This is a deeper red with the brown glaze over the top.

Then I got tired of the reds…


So I decided to try a few greens.  I just had to try them.  The samples are cheap and I just had to see if a “harder green” would do the trick for me.  I especially like the darker green, but again I am not sure it is the right choice for the hutch.

Do you see a color that looks perfect?
Please don’t tell my you like the original color!
Because it is not going to be easy to cover up all that red paint!


While I was at the paint store, I happened to notice that they had a huge wallpaper book collection, so I took a break from my hutch paint color spasms and flipped through a few books.


I am usually the type of person that likes to drag home as many samples of certain materials as I can get away with.  I will lug twelve carpet samples, nineteen tile boards, and four hundred paint chips home, spread them all out, and glory in all the possibilities for days.  But the wallpaper books were different.  After looking through several, I stumbled upon one that instantly made my heartbeat erratic.  My pulse quickened.  My skin glistened with sweat.  My bosom heaved.  Every page in the wallpaper book felt like a scene from a Jane Austen novel.

 
I guess you could say that I judged the book by it’s cover.

And as tears rained down on my cheeks….

I whispered the dearest feelings of my heart…


You had me at hello…

You… had…. ME… at… HELLO!  

Huh?
Oh yeah – so if you have an opinion on a good color for that horrifying hutch up there please let me know.  
Because the clown look is really not working for me.
Muy Muy Appreciado,
Rechelle
61 comments
Filed under: Kitchen

To Wii or Not to Wii…

September 16th, 2008

Last week our patch of the prairie got more than it’s fair share of rain and our pond overflowed again.

I am thinking about starting a rice farm.


The boys got off the school bus on Friday to a wet, muddy, cold, dreary, afternoon.

 

 

 


Somehow, they were unperturbed.

Oh the exuberance of youth!… Oh the zest for life!… Oh the imagination!… Oh the imperviousness to the freezing cold water!…

So I was kind of surprised (not really) when they came in dripping wet and ruddy cheeked, vibrating with joie de vivre, and lapsed right back into the regular singsongy chant that has become the white static of my life.

I call this tune the “We need a Wii” Song.

It goes like this…

We need a Wii!  Everyone else has a Wii!  We have nothing!  Our lives are tattered ruins!  We are urchins subsisting on a paltry diet of free computer games!  We are the only family on the continent without a video game system!  How can you be so cruel!  Why do you hate us!  Why can’t you just be normal parents like everyone else?  Why do we have to suffer so???

Okay… maybe they don’t use the word paltry… and tattered… and subsist… and urchins… but you get the idea.

Our poor children are forced to live a life with very few options.

There is very little fun to be had around here without a Wii.

I hate that I am the source of such horrifying want.

I hope someday that they will be able to forgive me for making their childhoods so wretched
.

When they look back at a rainy, cold, muddy, dismal day when every other kid in America was sitting in front of a video game…


They were forced by their unfeeling parents to invent a type of football game in the pond.

 

 

 


Do you think they will forgive me someday?

 

 

 

I hope so.
56 comments
Filed under: The Boys

The Prize Box

September 12th, 2008


Jack came home with a prize from the prize box in his classroom.

Carefully wrapped in two kleenexes.

“I got a prize mom… and it is something you are really going to like”  he said.

You mean you picked a prize for your mom???

Oh!  It is absolutely beautiful son!

The kittens… you know how your mom loves kittens… the little ball of string… the gold…. the crystal….ish…. chair…with the bit of glue… sort of sticking out… because you dropped it in class and your sweet teacher fixed it for you.

It reminded me of the time April and I decided to make breakfast for our own mother when we were very young.   We burnt the toast to a black hardened crisp, because mom always ate the burnt toast… so she must like it that way right?
And then we mistook a jar of salsa for a jar of red plum jam and we spread the burnt toast thickly with deep red taco sauce.

We realized our mistake about the salsa… but we figured mom would eat it…. because our mom loves spicy food!

Mom did something with that toast… I hope she didn’t actually eat it… but as far as we knew she did…  and then she proclaimed that it was the most heavenly breakfast she had ever had! 
 

Just like these heavenly cats.  The best little cats on a uh… crystal… uh chair…. from the prize box… that I ever got!  
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Filed under: The Boys
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