Blog #15--Writing is like sex!

     I never—in a million years—thought I´d use this metaphor, but “writing is like sex.”  You have to be ready for it, turned on by it, have all of the right equipment for it, even if you want to do it, it doesn't mean you are able to perform during it, and when the act is over, you have the realization that it was either good or bad. 

     Just the other day I was speaking with a classmate (Patricia) in the creative non-fiction class about our writing and how we can never tell when the inspiration will hit us with the topic to use in our next essay.   What should I write about?  How should I present the topic?  Is the subject worthy of reading?  Why does it matter to me that the subject has some meaning to the reader?  Am I just writing it for myself, just to put my thoughts on paper?  Most times these are the questions I ask myself during my writing process.   Of course, there are other questions that pop up, but these are the typical ones.

     Sometimes I think I was born to be a writer, but now think that maybe I’m just a good story teller through the written word.  My earliest recollection of actually writing a story is when I was in the fourth grade, and I think I still have the story—and the pictures I drew to go along with the story—buried in a box in my crawl space.  It was about the animals which came over on the Mayflower and how the turkey was afraid of the dark in the ship’s hold.  How did I come up with that idea?  Only God knows at this point, but all I can think is that it must have been Thanksgiving time at Navesink School.  I was hooked on writing from that point on.  I wrote more stories and poems and played word games—like Scrabble (and I still do, both with the board game and online)—and I even wrote a short play once, kind of like Dudley Do-Right of the Canadian Mountie fame, but mine was called Peter Peppernickel, and he was a sailor—sailing around the world doing good.

     Nowadays my inspiration comes in fleeting moments, like the “writing is like sex” metaphor, which hit me just this morning as I was crossing Green Lane on foot, with the wind blowing in my face and the pelting snow causing droplets to form on my glasses.  How did that inspiration happen?  I wasn't thinking about sex, but I was thinking about writing this craft essay about my writing process.  Well, whatever it was, this is how I look at my process:

     The topic is usually the toughest thing to decide upon, so I search my brain for something that is fun, exciting, or has a deep hurt within me.  I don’t usually like to write about the hurtful memories, but sometimes it seems to help as a form of release of emotions—like my” Painted Moons” piece.  I cried while I wrote it, and even now I can feel the tears welling in my eyes just thinking about the whole story.  Those kinds of hurts may never go away, but writing about it also brings out emotions in the reader of stories like it. Do I write to please others?  Do I write to bring out emotions in my readers?  I think the answer is a little bit of both, especially if it’s meant for to be graded—I hope it’s good writing.

     As a non-traditional student with lots and lots of experiences, there is always a plethora of subject matter to use.  The fun memories are usually the ones that stand out in my mind, so I like to write about fun or funny things that have happened in my life—like all of the road trips with friends.  I was relating a funny story to Patricia during our talk about subjects.  The event I was telling her about was something that only lasted during a 20 minute period of time—one brief encounter—but the memory is so vivid and funny, that I’ve related it to many people over the years.  I can’t tell it without cracking up and have yet to put it on paper, but only time will tell before I do.

     The brainstorming activities in class and on the class blog are good to do, but it’s not something I’ve done in the past.   I just like to search my memory.  My friends have always told me that I have the best memory.  It can be a curse and a blessing at the same time.  Why do I have all of this useless knowledge in my head?  Why?  What purpose will it serve to know, for example, that the dot on a lower case I or J is called a “tittle”?  Once I stumped an English teacher with that information in the form of a question.  She had to look it up.  OK, so I’m cursed or blessed with a memory like no other.  Do I have to bore you with the gory details?  Do you even like to hear my “war stories” as my divine truth?  Maybe I embellish the stories a bit.  Who doesn't?  OK, maybe Mother Theresa didn't, but she was one of a kind, too, and no longer among the living.  Maybe I’m the only one left!  Maybe I’m meant to share my stories with others through my writing.

     The hardest part of writing creatively for a class like creative non-fiction is that when it is required to write a draft, I have a really hard time doing that.  I tend to just write and polish the writing at the same time.  If I had to write a draft and save it to a flash drive every time I made a change, I’d fill up a 1 Terra Bite flash drive in a flash.  My first attempt at a draft left the reader with a cliffhanger—my “What Did I Do to Get Unfriended on Facebook” piece.  The assignment was to draft about 7 pages out of 10 to post on the class blog.  I was already at about 8 pages, but the story wasn’t finished.  So, I posted what I’d done up to that point, only to get flaming comments about the missing end of the story.  Fail!  Big fail, right?  So, my next attempt at writing a draft—“Putting all of my eggs in one basket” piece—left the reader wondering what this collection of stories meant.  Well, to put it bluntly, it meant fun memories for me, and to heck with the reader, I guess.  It’s not part of my process.  How do I make it a part of my process?   Maybe I’m just not meant to write drafts, or stories that mean something specific to the reader.  Can’t a reader just read my story and say, “I enjoyed reading that story,” without analyzing it like a literary critic?  Maybe I just write because I can and have some funny stories to tell.  Maybe I should write a book of funny stories, like Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader by the Bathroom Readers’ Institute.   Mine might be called Mountains of Memories, M&Ms for short, or something else fun. 

     One day I would hope to write a book.  I can’t tell you how many people I've met who all say they’d like to write a book, but there have been plenty.  I think everyone has a story to tell.  I have lots!  I hope to be doing a creative non-fiction journalistic piece for my thesis in the spring.  The story has been brewing in me for quite some time now, but I have to do more research and get all of my ducks in a row to get it done—the one about the house I grew up in and how it was “stolen” and knocked down by a lawyer who was renting it with the option to buy.  I've got to add a personal angle to the story, and I’m thinking that it will be how hard it is for me to watch all of that happen and have no control over it, since I still live in the same town and pass by the house about once a week.  Who knows?  Maybe this thesis will be published as a book.  I know I've got it in me to write it.  I think I'm ready for it, I'm turned on by the thought of it, I have all the right equipment at the ready, I want it, and I hope that I'm able to perform the right words.  When it's all done, I hope that a publisher has the realization to know that it's good enough to be printed.

Blog #14--The Collagist

1.        The Collagist takes submissions in the form of poems, fiction, non-fiction, book reviews, and book excerpts.  The submission page states that it will take non-fiction that has not been previously published and is “on a variety of personal, political, and literary subjects” but with seemingly no word limit.  The current issue has 2 essays of non-fiction by the same author—who is a female, or a male with breasts—which were mentioned in the essay—hard to determine the gender of the author from the first name or the content. The length of the current two non-fiction essays is approximately 500 words to about 900 words (though other submissions in the current issue were as long as 5,500 words—the fiction section's submissions were between 1,000 and 3,700 words). 

2.       It’s kind of tough to determine the niche for this publication.  The stories were kind of “out there” and all over the place in terms of subject and, to be quite honest, I didn’t understand a couple of the essays in the fiction section.  In the "about" section it states that it seeks “powerful, progressive literature by both new and established writers to an ever-expanding audience” of readers.  So, anything goes to anyone willing to read it.  Also, the publisher, Dzanc Books, is a non-profit and wants to “champion those writers who do not fit neatly into the marketing niches of for-profit presses.”  If I had to make an educated guess, I’d call this publication avant-garde, since it’s so out there and doesn't fit a typical marketing niche. 

3.       Both of the non-fiction essays presented in the current issue are personal in nature.  The shorter of the two essays is titled “Since You’ve Been Gone” about a personal journey through places around the globe and attempts at alternative medicine.  It reminded me of “Eat, Pray, Love” in a way, since it had the air of a free spirit.  It was done in one single paragraph, albeit in a long single paragraph form.  This long paragraph reminded me of a run-on sentence and of “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, which had one sentence in it that lasted about a page and a half.  At least this essay had periods to stop the sentences.  I would consider this a serious reflection by the author, as it had many personal events shared within the story, like who he/she dated. 

The longer essay was titled “Out of Body” and relays an out of body experience while going through chemo therapy.  The voice of the essay makes me think that the story is being told about someone who relayed this story to the author, as it is not done in the first person, and the word "you" is used a lot for the first words in each paragraph.  This also would be considered a serious reflection, though about someone else, perhaps a loved one.  

I thought the shorter essay had a strange form with just the one 532 word paragraph.  The longer essay had no segments, just paragraph form and extremely short paragraphs at that, like 2 sentences each, with a couple of exceptions.  

As for the artistry of The Collagist, well, I’d give it a 2+ since both essays were interesting narratives and were well written, though not necessarily to my liking. 

There is no information on the website to indicate that there is any form of payment, either to be charged to submit or to be paid when an article is published.  As a non-profit, I would have thought there would be a nominal charge.  I went so far as to submit my "Painted Moons" piece to see if there was a hidden charge that would pop up prior to submission, but nothing happened, so I have submitted my first piece.

Reading dates:  Two periods through the year—March 1st through August 31st and October 1st through January 31st. 

Manuscript requirements:  attached as an attached file.  

In terms of male or female writer dominance: there is none and seems fairly equal.

Blog #13--I'm in a jam

Wild Maine Blueberry Jam spread on a Ritz cracker or three or four is a tasty evening treat.  Sour Cherry Jam over cream cheese on whole grain bread will satisfy me for lunch.  Warmed Apricot Jam basted onto roasted chicken reminds me of my mother’s “ginger peachy chicken” she’d bake every week for dinner.  All of these fruited vittles are part of my daily diet obsessed with jams, jellies, fruit butters, and marmalades.

                When I do my weekly grocery shopping, I venture down the aisle for jam with an anticipation that makes me drool a little.  Finding that special jam is a quest I’ve been on for many years.  It is my fervent hope that I will find something new to excite my taste buds with each visit to the store.  I feel the need for that little sweet treat as part of my evening ritual after dinner every night that I’m home, so keeping my shelves well-stocked is important to me.  Every evening I make myself a cup of chai tea and a plate with 3 or 4 crackers slathered with jam—the crackers are important as a vehicle for the jam, but the flavor of the cracker should not, and I repeat not, overpower the flavor of the jam. 

              I scanned the shelves at Shop Rite this week, and I saw something that caught my eye!  Royal Fig All Fruit.  That will do for this week.  I put the jar in my cart along with other items on my list.  I never have to write jam on my list—it’s a given that I will remember to get a jar, or at least look for one.  Some days I won’t find anything new that I want.  I didn’t say need because somehow I manage to always maintain at least 25 different jellies/jams/fruit butters in the house on any given day. 
                I just took a look in the refrigerator and found opened jars of fig jam, seedless strawberry jam, plum butter, peach sangria jam, 4 berry jam, sweet tomato butter (yes, tomato!), red currant jelly, and blow hard mustard on my jam shelf.  Wait!  How did that mustard get in there?  Well, I guess it’s time to clear out any non-jam items, huh?  All of these jams have been opened in the last month and will (most likely) be finished off in the next couple of weeks.  I rotate through all of my jam selections so that nothing goes to waste, and I don’t feel like I’m eating the same thing over and over again until it’s gone.

                I open up the storage cabinet to see the names of the jams I have yet to open.  My daughter calls my storage cabinet a “traffic jam,” since jam seems to be clogging up the shelves.  It appears that jam is the main staple in my house.  I immediately spy pepper jelly—which is really good when poured over cream cheese and slathered onto a cracker—maple vanilla pear butter, cherry butter, caramel apple jam, raspberry-cherry-cranberry preserves, apricot butter, and peach jelly.  Quite a few of these flavors came from a vendor at a craft show I attended last spring.  

              When I take a trip to a new place, the first thing I look for in the way of a souvenir is jam.  I don’t collect post cards—like my daughter—I don’t want another T-shirt, magnet, or tack pin.  I want jam!  I like my jams to be in a glass jar, Mason, or otherwise.  Somehow having my jam in a glass jar makes it feel like it’s homemade, even if it isn’t.  My best friend is an avid canner, and her homemade jams are the best!  I’m one who NEVER refuses homemade strawberry jam…it’s probably my favorite, even though I like to try new flavor combinations.  One day she gave me a jar she’d just made. I gladly accepted the gift and the drool was wiped away first chance I had.  Did I have to wait to get myself home to try it, or could I borrow a spoon now and have at it?  I asked for a spoon, no crackers or bread needed.  I think I ate about half of the pint jar before I even left her house.  Hey!  It’s fruit and it’s healthy and I can justify eating jam at any time of the day, but I had to jam on the breaks or else I wouldn’t have any of it for my evening ritual.  

Blog #12--Knitting, weddings, and a favorite job

My daughter and I have been attending a knitting group on Friday nights since the beginning of April.  Even though knitting is my form of therapy—as are most crafts that I do—I thought that there may be some interest in a craft essay of this sort, since it involves a group of people and the things we talk about are pretty outrageous at times.  I have a very active social life, don’t I?  hahaha.

Then I thought about a wedding I attended by serendipity on Saturday.  I was at Twin Lights Lighthouse in Highlands, where I normally volunteer on Sunday, but had a meeting with the curator and her assistant.  There was a knock at the door—a little unusual since it was an “authorized personnel only” area—and when I opened it an older gentleman was rolling a lady in a wheelchair up to the door and asked to use the bathroom.  The public handicap bathroom is at the other end of the facility, but we didn’t want to delay and let them in.  We closed the outer door and then the inner door to the office so we could continue our meeting, but then we heard more voices.  When we opened it there were about 8 people standing in the tiny vestibule and the outer door opened with more people coming in.  Needless to say, it was a wedding party trying to get in out of the cold.  The bride-to-be was the caterer the Lighthouse uses for special events.  As usual, I opened my mouth to say something and put my foot in it, or so I thought.   Since I knew the bride-to-be in a professional way, I asked her if she would mind if I observed her nuptials.  No problem.  It was an interesting outdoor wedding. I've also crashed a couple of weddings in my lifetime—and been invited to the receptions in the process!

Did you have any doubts that I’d remember another job I’ve had?  Well, if you did, doubt no further.  Number 36 popped into my head yesterday.  It’s wasn’t on the list, but it is now.  That particular job wouldn’t be something I’d write about, but I may pick the one I would have retired from, if the company hadn’t closed its doors in 2006.  That was probably my most favorite job—the one I truly loved—the one where I was the lone female working there, so the only PMS I had to deal with was my own.

Blog #11--Painted Moons

The funeral parlor is the one used by our family for decades.  There are new owners now, but it's still the same place.  The old Victorian home was converted ages ago into the local funeral home.  The large wrap-around porch tells tales of a bygone era.  White wicker rocking chairs and tables line up waiting for outside visitors.  Not today.  It’s too cold and windy on this December day for settin’ on the porch. The house’s grand staircase greets me inside the front door with the antique painted flowers chandelier hanging in the foyer ready to hit my brother’s head if he steps too close; he side-steps it.  We're directed to the chapel on the right.  I hold my breath and enter.

Mom lies still, resembling sleep.  Her hands are folded, holding the cross of her rosary with the chain wrapped around her hands.  She kept  the rosary in her coin purse, the rosary's purpose was part of her soul.  I look at her nails, painted her color:  Revlon Red.  The polish is covering her entire nail beds—her moons.  I weep.  It’s wrong!  I brought Mom’s lipstick and nail polish to the mortician only yesterday.  Mom never, ever painted her moons.  My requests to the mortician were simple:  don’t paint her moons and smear a little bit of her lipstick on each of her cheeks for blush—that’s the way Mom did it.  My unassertive requests fell on careless ears.

Seeing it now initiates a sniff.  My eyes are a waterfall of tears, while my shoulders crumple.  I want to correct this mistake.   I want Mom’s hands to resonate life.  The polish is wrong, oh, so wrong. This needs to be corrected now!  The redness of my face is evidence of my unhappiness.  Where's the funeral director?  Her nails need to be repainted.  I’ll do it myself.  Where's the polish?

I voice my concerns to my brother.  To say that I’m spitting mad is an understatement.  I'm disturbed by the scene and am making my own.  My brother holds me back.  His calm embrace hides my strife.  He whispers in my ear that I should remember Mom’s illuminated smile, her infectious laugh, her worse than Hee Haw repeat jokes, the creaminess of her crustless sweet potato pies, the ginger peachy chicken she made once a week from a recipe she found in the newspaper, and her classic scalloped corn casserole.  “Her painted moons mean nothing,” he sighs.  He doesn’t understand. 

Painted moons suffocate her fingers.  Her hands call to my burning red face.  These red flags on Mom’s fingers are smothering her hands; restricting the life already gone from her.  I’m breathing hard.  The painted moons are tormenting me.  I want to repaint Mom’s nails, but there’s no time.  The visitors are already through the door.  Each woman’s face I see with blush only makes me cry more.  At each handshake, I look down at their nails; some polishless, some painted.  If their moons are painted, it’s OK for them, but not for Mom.  They file past me one by one.

It’s time for the service to begin and everyone sits in the wooden folding chairs with the padded seats.  Reverend Wilson calls us to his attention as he stands at the podium and reads from the Bible.  He’s my minister, not Mom’s.  The Catholics wouldn’t provide a priest for her.  She’s only a Catholic on paper to them—no longer practicing, no longer tithing to them.  She was Catholic in her upbringing and in her heart; the heart that failed.

The service is over.  Time to say our good-byes.  The guests file past the coffin one more time.  Some kneel and say a prayer.  Others just stand for a moment looking at Mom and her painted moons.  The family is always the last to say good-bye.  It’s our turn.

I lay a photo of Amy next to Mom’s hands, taken on the day Mom died.  Amy is 4½ months old, sitting on Santa’s lap in her red plaid Christmas dress—her first Christmas, Mom's last.  She’s Mom’s first grandchild and my daughter.  My brother kisses Mom’s forehead.  My cries are sobs and hiccups.  We say our good-byes to Mom.  We get into our cars and turn on the car’s flashers.  The casket is being sealed while we wait.  The pall bearers bring out the casket.  Mom is placed in the hearse.  We get in line behind the hearse, ready to ride in the shadow of eternal painted moons.

Blog #10--Shotgun rider and backseat driver

Oh, how I love road trips, especially when I go someplace exciting and new.  Over the years I’ve taken road trips across the USA and around my own tri-state area.  There have been times when I’d be gone from home for more than a week and sometimes just for a day trip.  In any case, most of my trips have been instigated by friends who just need someone in the shotgun seat to keep them company, or need help with driving.  However, just because they ask me to ride shotgun or be their co-pilot doesn’t mean that I don’t do my own backseat driving, since I’m not always a good passenger to those whose driving skills are less than my own.  Maybe, just maybe, I’m asked to go along because I’m a good traveler, they like my company, and know that I enjoy finding those little, non-tourist trap places along roadside America.  I could reminisce for hours about my time taking road trips, but I will limit it for the sake of brevity.

            My first memories of taking road trips in the car are of my family, with my father behind the wheel of my mother’s 1960-ish black Ford Country Squire station wagon with the fake wood on the sides.  Mom would be sitting in the front passenger seat next to Dad, my two brothers in the middle seat, and me in the “back-back”—the 3rd row seat, which faced out the back window.  Most of these trips were on Sunday afternoons and were day trips to some relative's house or business associates of my father’s.  I thought it was strange that we never had any of them to dinner at our house.  The only time we "entertained" any of them, we'd be out on our sloop, the Christeen, during the weekends in the summer months. 
            One location stands out as the place we visited the most on those Sundays.  My parents had friends (the Stewarts) who lived 110 miles away in Middletown, New York—which, as a child, I always thought was kind of funny, since we lived in Middletown, New Jersey.  Every year in the fall and again in the spring we’d take a day trip up to visit them, have lunch and sometimes dinner, too, and stay until it got dark.  My brothers and I usually looked forward to the trip, since there was almost always a trip-within-a-trip.  Once we got up there, inevitably we’d be going to see something else in and around the area where the Stewarts lived and not just hanging out at their house all day. 
            Most of these trips-within-a-trip were fun.  I remember going to some kind of quarry where you could "pan for gold" as the billboard stated. When we got there, the building had a working waterwheel on the side of it, and the water ran through a trough at the edge of the parking lot.  Mom bought a lunch bag-sized bag of dirt and rocks.  The attendant would bring you over to the trough filled with water and proceed to dump the bag into a screen-lined frame over the trough.  I was told to pick up the frame and swish it in the water so that the dirt would wash away and I'd be left with gems that would be too big to filter through the screen.  Somehow this did not seem to be the “panning for gold” that it was advertised to be, but as an 8 year old, it seemed like it was a lot of fun.  I think I still have the shark’s tooth and piece of quartz I “found” from that trip.
            Another one of the Middletown, NY, trips-within-a-trip is most memorable, but only because of the vivid images preserved in my mind.  I recall that it was a bright sunny day, and even though it was late September, it was warm enough that I didn’t need a sweater or a jacket—we were always warned by the Stewarts that it was much colder in the Catskill Mountains than it would be at home near the river where we lived.  On this specific Sunday, we had already eaten lunch at the Stewarts, and the lunch discussion between Dad and Mr. Stewart led us to go to a nearby farm to see the barn fire from the night before. Dad was a volunteer fireman at home, so he had to go see the remains of the burnt barn, taking us along for the ride—Mom, too.
           As we drove up to the farm, I could see at a distance that it was still smoldering with bits of gray smoke rising.  The car windows were open, and the closer we got, the more I wanted to leave as the smell emanating from the barn was pretty potent. This was a dairy farm, and the barn that burned housed many cows, which had been tied up for the night and were unable to escape the fire.  That vision of those poor cows tied and literally roasted to death is very plain in my mind’s eye.  Dad, there are some things that young children probably shouldn’t be exposed to, and this was one.  Mom saw the look of horror on my face and agreed that it smelled bad, so she and I went back to the car to wait for Dad and the boys to finish ogling the burnt cows.  My brother John came back to the car within a few minutes and asked if he could cut a steak out of one of the cows, since he was hungry.  Ew!  Yuck!

As I got older, and made many friends along the way, I was invited along on other trips with their families.  My best friends in high school were twins and the three of us did practically everything together.  Their parents owned a pop-up camper and took week-long camping trips with it.  I was invited along on one of those trips during the summer after my junior year in high school.  The 225 mile trip was to Assateaque Island in Maryland.  It’s a barrier island strip of land with sandy beaches and where wild ponies run free, but the ponies didn’t know about being wild.  Most of the ponies are tame, and a few spent a fair amount of time in our campsite.              The memories from that camping trip are a bit vague, for the most part, but I remember not sleeping in the camper, but in a pup tent—just the three of us.  The twins’ parents and sister stayed in the pop-up trailer.  It worked out well, since their father was quite a loud snorer, and somehow the sound of the crashing waves on the beach deadened the noise coming from the trailer.  I also remember their sister swatting flies—using a fly swatter, but gently—to rid the ponies’ rumps of the annoying insects.  I think the flies were only stunned, since I watched some fall to the ground and after a few moments seemed to no longer be in the pile of fly bodies lying on the sand next to the pony’s feet.                                                                                                          

One day on this week-long trip, we went to a water park, which was fun, don’t get me wrong, but seemed odd to go to, since we were staying at the beach and swam in the ocean every day for hours on end.  I’d never been to a water park before and had some trepidation about climbing way up to slide down on a thin spongy kind of mat into the waiting pool below.  The line was long to go up, and the line was long to go down.  I waited my turn.                                        

The twins and I talked and laughed each time we got to the top, After a few turns going down alone, we decided to try a “train” like we’d seen happening among the other people.  On our first train attempt we all sat with our feet at the waist of the one in front of us and held on at the ankles. Well, our train fell apart about mid-way down the first tube. As we crashed into each other at the bottom pool, we decided that we weren’t holding on to each other tight enough and would have to try it again.  On our next attempt we wrapped our legs around the one in front.  Going around the turns was hard to do in that position, so we kept trying different methods.  We kept at it a few more times, but for some reason our train kept falling apart, but we still had fun trying.

            A few years ago my friend Mary asked me if I’d like to ride shotgun on the way to the National Poultry Show in Columbus, Ohio, I came out with a resounding YES!  Of course, I didn't know what I was getting into, but it sounded exciting, and I was happy to go with her, as we are kindred spirits with many similar, however some dissimilar, interests.  Chickens are Mary’s primary interest of late—raising chickens, watching chickens, telling chicken tales (tails?), giving talks about chickens at the local library, and showing chickens.                                              

The National Poultry Show was set for a weekend in November, and I found myself getting really excited about going on this 550 mile trip to the Ohio State Fair Grounds.  We’d be driving it all in one day, with the requisite pit stops for gas, food, and bathroom breaks.  The event lasts for almost three full days, and Mary expected to be there for at least two of those days—the show part on Saturday—oohing and aahing at all of the birds—followed by the swap/sale between attendees, and the awards part in the early afternoon on Sunday.  Friday evening was some kind of meet and greet thing that she’d rather avoid.  We’d be driving all day on Friday and really wouldn't have time to do whatever it was on Friday anyway.                                  

We arrived at our hotel in Columbus, and it was really late, since we left later than originally planned.  I was ready on time, but something unforeseen happened and Mary was delayed a bit—like 2 or 3 hours delayed.  Our trip across Interstate Route 80 was pretty much uneventful, and we spied a couple of quilt shop signs along the way—thanks to the shop owners for putting up those billboards—but we would just have to wait to visit those shops on our way home.   We were on a mission to attend the Ohio Nationals, as the National Poultry Show has come to be known, and nothing would deter us from getting there on time, barring any more unforeseen events.                                                                                                                

Saturday morning came early, since Mary had brought along six of her girls to be in the competition, and the rules stated that any competing birds had to be “cooped in” by 9 a.m. so that the judges had time to view all of the entrants.  After getting to the show and cooping in the girls, we wandered around the massive building, which housed approximately 40,000 birds.  The racket was deafening, to say the least; never mind the odor.  I spent about an hour roaming the aisles and quickly looked at various birds. Who knew that “show chickens” and poultry was such a big thing?  Here in New Jersey a poultry show may not be considered a big event, unless it’s a chicken eating contest, but out in the mid-western states, well, it seems to be the national pastime.                                                                                                                                                   

Chicken shows really aren't my thing, so I had made plans for a trip within this trip.  Mary gave me the keys to her pickup truck, and I headed off to the Longaberger basket company headquarters in the Dresden, Ohio, area, which is about 40 miles from the Fair Grounds.  I was excited to be going to Longaberger, as I had heard so much about it and own several Longaberger baskets.  Its main office building is in the shape of a basket.  I was really excited to see that 7 story building with the basket handle way up on top as it loomed above the landscape when I rounded the bend in the highway.  I’m sure there have probably been some accidents in the vicinity if a driver isn't expecting to see that massive building and its unusual shape.                                                                                                                                                                    

The interior of the building was decorated for Christmas, complete with a 6 story Christmas tree made from probably thousands of Longaberger baskets and greenery.  It was a very impressive sight.  Around the lobby were little vignettes set up as living rooms, dining rooms, bed rooms, and a kitchen, and all had an ample number of Longaberger baskets in each room, put to good use holding magazines, napkins, fruit, and hair brush sets, etc.  It’s a retail company, so why shouldn't it show off what can be done with some of its baskets?                                   

After visiting the main headquarters, I set off to see Longaberger Home, just a short drive from the main office.  It's the factory and a mini strip mall, where the baskets are made and sold.  Mary’s mother had given me some money for something Longaberger and asked me to get whatever that would buy.  I hunted around and found the perfect things, which I bought for myself, too.  I found a small rectangular basket and some Mason jars with the Longaberger logo and a basket weave design embossed into the glass.  I had just enough money to buy her 2 jars and the basket.                                                                                                                                

As I roamed the factory, I observed several people making the baskets, but with the aid of an experienced basket maker.  I really would have liked to do that myself, but it was a bit out of my price range, so I just watched for a while.  I was taking photos of one woman and a master craftsman, and for a moment the woman excused herself.  The craftsman asked if I’d like a photo of myself pretending to make a basket, so, what the heck!  I said, “Yes!!!”  I stepped up behind the basket the woman had worked on, and the craftsman took my camera, told me where to position my hands, and he photographed me in that pose.  It was fun and felt a little deceptive, but I didn't plan to share the photos with anyone, so it really didn't matter if I was really making that basket or not.                                                                                                                           It was nearing dinner time and I needed to go back to pick up Mary, so I headed out to the truck and found my way back to the Fair Grounds.  Even though I’d never been to Ohio before this trip, I found that it was really easy to find my way around.  It helps that I’m really good with directions and maps and am extremely observant of landmarks.  When I got back to the Fair Grounds and eventually found Mary among the noise, she made sure her girls had feed and water before we went back to the hotel for a while before meeting up with some of her BackYardChicken.com friends for dinner at the Red Lobster.  It had been a very egg-citing day for both of us!

            I met my friend Marge when her granddaughter Nancy joined the Girl Scout troop my daughter was in and I was one of the leaders.  Through most of the years Marge would be one of the parents to come along on our camping trips and other outings.  We shared similar interests and became fast friends.  In time we would take small vacations together with our respective children/grandchildren in tow.  Once Marge’s grandchildren graduated from high school, she and her hubby Bob decided to retire and move to Colorado, where her son and daughter-in-law lived with another batch of grandchildren.                                                                                                             Her house sale moved rather fast, and the moving company was hired to do the essentials of removing her household goods and safely moving it all to Colorado.  There were special things which Marge didn’t want to put on the truck, like the handmade pirate’s chest one of her uncles made and carved from wood he'd found along the beach. This chest was so magnificent in my eyes!  The handles were carved dolphins, and there was also a carved skull and cross bones on the lid.  I wouldn't want the movers touching it either!  Marge was going to pack all of her special things in her minivan and drive out to Colorado, but she needed a co-pilot to share the driving, since her hubby was legally blind and was no help to her.  She asked me to be her "backseat driver" even though I'd be in the front seat either as a passenger or driver.  Her hubby was going to fly to North Carolina to visit his sister for the first week after leaving New Jersey, so it was just going to be the two of us for this trip.  (Her grandchildren were staying in New Jersey to attend college.)  Let the preparations begin for this 1800 mile adventure!                        

The trip was planned for mid-July that year, and Marge wanted it to be slow and sweet, since she knew that she’d probably never get the chance to do another one of these road trips.  Marge's New Jersey family and friends gave her and Bob a going away party, which I also attended.  It was at this party that her brother Russ decided to dub us “Thelma and Louise, but with a better ending.”   He was referring to the movie with the same name, where Thelma and Louise go on a long cross-dessert trip and end up driving off a cliff at the end.  No cliffs for me and Marge!  We took a slow ride to get to her new home in Longmont, CO, stopping at various places along the way.                                                                                                                          

Our first stop was at Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania.  It’s the Frank Lloyd Wright home he designed and built over a stream and waterfall.  The house tour was quite impressive as I’m a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture.  It is simple in nature, yet beautiful to the trained or untrained eye.  Every detail of the home seemed fluid and amazing to me.  My favorite part was just seeing all of it up-close and personal, since I’d seen it all in books for many years.  I was finally here!  Check that off of my bucket list.                                                       

As we headed out towards the Chicago area, we weren’t quite sure what we’d do once we got there, but something caught my eye in the AAA travel guide I’d brought along for the ride.  There was a stained glass museum on the old U.S. Navy pier, which had been converted to a retail center in Chicago.  I also found information about Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio in the Chicago area, so we set off to visit all of those sights.                                                      

The stained glass museum held many pieces designed by Wright and made by Tiffany, as well as many other beautiful works, with unknown artists through the ages.  My favorite non-Wright piece at the museum was a door that was so intricately designed with glass—all of the same blue hues—but had an overlay of wire in a scroll design that worked together with the monochromatic color scheme to create almost a 3-D look to the door.  Just amazing!                                 Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio were right next to each other in Oak Park, so we took the tour and enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed Fallingwater.  The dining room was my favorite part of his home, as everything in it was designed by Wright, including the lighting fixture, the table, and straight-backed chairs, which are his classic and simple designs. A lot of homes in Wright's neighborhood were also designed by him, so we meandered through the streets and could easily pick out the ones he had designed.  There was so much talent in that man that I’m still in awe of it all.  I can’t get enough of his work, I guess, but Marge felt like she was on Frank Lloyd Wright overload, so we headed out of town for our next adventure.                                  

Friends of Marge told her not to miss the Amana Colonies in Iowa, so that was our next stop.  I looked up the Amana Colonies on the Internet prior to our trip and found that it was a restored village and former religious commune.  The village has many artisan shops and restaurants, much like the ones here in Smithville, New Jersey, where Marge and I loved to shop.  Marge and I also share a love of quilting and found our way to the quilt shop located on the edge of the village in a refurbished barn.  You know, the one who dies with the most fabric wins, so Marge and I are competing in that respect.  Though I knew that I had to limit my buying on this trip (since I would be flying home and needed to be aware of how much I could or couldn’t take on the plane with me), I loudly declared that we couldn't spare the room in the van.  The sales clerk heard me say this and mentioned that they ship anywhere.  Problem solved!               

When we stopped for the night in Adair, Iowa—population 781 on the 2010 US Census—located in the western part of the state, we couldn’t seem to get a cell phone signal at the motel.  We drove up and down the main street for a while trying to find one.  We didn’t! Then we figured we’d find a pay phone around town, and we roamed around near the motel for a while looking for one, but most of the businesses were already closed for the night—and it was only about 8 p.m.!  It doesn’t matter anyway, the motel should have Internet, and we’ll just send our loved ones an email of our location, so we headed back to the motel. Well, the Internet was not working on the motel's lobby computer.  We resigned ourselves to the fact that we’d be “missing” for a day, and we’d just have to explain ourselves the next morning once we found cell service.                                                                                                                                                            Our morning regimen included a leisurely breakfast at the only restaurant in town opened for breakfast—the Happy Chef.  I had my fill of eggs, pancakes, bacon, and tea, and Marge had hers.  We paid the bill to the cashier and thanked her, and she proceeded to ask us where we were headed, since she could tell we “weren’t from these here parts” by listening to our accents.  Marge said we were headed for the Denver area. The waitress mentioned that from where we were standing Denver was just 7 hours away.  Marge and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows at that thought.

            When we got to the car, I looked in the AAA travel guide to see what we might see in Nebraska along the way.  Nothing caught our eye that was even remotely close to Route 80, so we decided to ride it out and get to Denver that night instead of in two days.  We averaged about 5 hours of driving a day, so one day of driving 7+ hours wouldn’t seem too bad.                                                While driving along Route 80 in Nebraska, we were impressed with the landscape.  We were told that it was flat and barren of much greenery—and flat and brown it was—but it had a serene beauty about it, even with its flatness.  There were many farms with horses, cows, and some crops growing.  We even saw a camel at one farm along the interstate highway.  There were small windmills, which more than likely were there to aid in pumping water up to troughs and pools for the animals on the farms.  There were also the giant windmills used to generate electricity, and we noticed that there were “farms” of those, too, with those giant windmills numbering in the hundreds and which seemed to go on for miles and miles.                                   

As we approached the western edge of Nebraska before getting off I-80 to turn south towards Denver, I spied a small white straw-like wisp forming off to the left that seemed to be moving out of the clouds and towards the ground.  It looked like a funny cloud formation to me, but it soon became apparent that I had just witnessed the beginning of a tornado.  The sky was fairly clear with some white puffy clouds and bright sunshine, so this wasn’t the kind of tornado I’d seen on TV, which always showed dark clouds, hail, and everything getting blown away and swirling upwards.                                                                                                                           

My knuckles starting turning white, and I wasn’t even driving at this point, Marge was!  I pointed out the tornado in the distance and to the left.  She remarked that it looked like someone was just burning something as the dust puddle started to rise like smoke from a fire.  I told Marge to put on her sunglasses to cut the glare so she could see the white straw attached to that puddle of dust.  Oh, my!!!  It was a tornado all right.  My first, and hopefully my last!  As we were speeding towards this sight at 75 miles per hour--the speed limit out on I-80—my heart was pounding, I could feel my blood pressure rising, and my face getting hot with the fear.  I could feel my toes curling to grip the inside of my shoes and my hands tightly clenched as my nails dug into the palms of my hands.  I was nervous, to say the least.                                                                    

We immediately turned on the radio to listen for a weather report.  I took out the map of Nebraska to know where the heck we were and figured out that we were in the northwestern part of a particular county after we passed one of those “city limit” signs, but with no city around.  Where was the city?  Evidently it was hiding from the tornado.  Our speed didn’t change as we continued to head towards the tornado.  After about 20 minutes of driving, the radio gave the warning signal that I normally associate with “this is a test, this is only a test of the emergency broadcast system” but this WASN'T a test!  THIS was a National Weather Service (NWS) announcement, and it was about the tornado we were heading towards.  The NWS mentioned that there were tornado warnings in that same northwestern part of the county we were in, so we were in the thick of it and making me even more nervous as I fixated on that continually rising cloud of dust swirling in the distance.                                                                                 

Did I mention how flat it is out there in Nebraska?  Well, the tornado was probably a good 75-100 miles away, but we could see it!  New Jersey doesn’t have that kind of flatness, so to see something that far away was something that took a while to comprehend.  After I finally recognized that that tornado was a bit to our south, we passed it and relief washed over me.  I turned to look out the right side window and saw another tornado!  Thank God we were past that one, too, and I was certainly pleased that I hadn’t notice it until then, or else I surely would have had heart failure.

           All of these memories of road trips have one common theme:  I’m with good friends or family, we see new places together—sometimes serendipitous, sometimes not—and I’m always ready for a new adventure.  Who will be the next to ask me along for the ride to be the co-pilot, the shotgun rider, or the backseat driver?  Wherever I go, I go with a happy heart to see new sights and learn new things along the way.  It doesn't matter where.  I'm ready. When’s the next trip?  

 

 

           

               

Blog #9--Snack bag nourishment, reminiscing with former teachers, and did I mention I like jelly and jam?

Short essays, huh?  How does someone like me do a short essay?  I can’t even do a short email to a friend.  It always comes out like an epic.  Well, I guess I’ll have to give it the “old college try” since I’m going to be graded on it, right?

Possible topics:

I was thinking about this just after the break during the last class that I am the “snack mom” and always have something in my bag of tricks—aka, my snack bag.  On this particular occasion I was out in the hall talking to Christina and Melissa, I think, and Christina mentioned that she hadn't eaten.  Well, any good mom would have some kind of nourishment for anyone who happens along, so I looked and found my “emergency chocolate chips” in a bag.  They were a bit surprised, to say the least, so I think I could come up with some more of those types of happenings that come out of my bag when it’s least expected.  Kind of reminds me of Mary Poppins’s carpet bag, except mine is smaller.

Today I worked the polls and saw my fifth grade teacher, a teacher from high school, and also a college professor, who all happen to live in the same town, which is right near where I live.  It was a serendipitous occasion for reminiscing with all of them, but I also had the added benefit of seeing my daughter’s third grade teacher, who lives in the same town as the others, and I was her class mom the year my daughter had her.  Of course, it’s been 20 years since my daughter had her and I found out that all of these teachers are now retired…well deserved and thank you!  I could write about something like this, which is that I always seem to run into someone I know no matter where I go, even on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean Ocean.

I love to eat jelly and jam, but not just any jelly or jam—homemade and/or really unusual combinations.  I still have a jar of kudzu jelly I bought on a trip to North Carolina that hasn't been opened yet.  Did I mention that I like jelly and jam?  Oh, yeah, I did, but did I tell you that I probably have at least a dozen opened jars of jelly or jam in my fridge and maybe another 25-30 jars of jelly in my cabinet just waiting to be opened and eaten?  Well, I just did tell you, so did I mention that I like jelly and jam and that it doesn't necessarily have to be made of fruit?  I also like some vegetable jams.  One of my new favorites is an onion garlic jam I found at Whole Foods.  It’s not cheap, but oh, so worth the price for the flavors.  Mmm mmm mmm!  Did I mention that I’m not a big fan of grape jelly or jam?  I know.  Weird, huh?  It all stems from my childhood, I’m sure, since my mother never really cared for it either, so I never really got a liking for it, but have a particular fondness for strawberry and any combinations with strawberry.  More mmmmmms.

Blog #8 -- Serendipitous Road Trips, Sunday drives, and chicken tales (tails?)

Revise, revise, revise.  OK.  I tried to write a draft, but mostly made Dr. Chandler confused about my focus, which, of course, wasn't really there.  Chickens and basket companies have some correlation, but only in my mind, I guess.  With that said, I think the best way to revise my road trip story is to focus more on the fact that I really like to take road trips, especially the ones that are serendipitous.  

I've loved to travel since I was young, remembering the Sunday afternoon drives my family used to make in Mom’s 1970-ish black Ford Country Squire station wagon with the fake wood panels on the side, my father at the wheel and Mom in the front seat with him, my two brothers in the middle seat, and with me sitting in the back-back, which was the third row seat and facing out the back window.  Nowadays that kind of car would never be made, and of course, this was in the day before seat belts too, but I digress.

Well, maybe I need to digress to do some revision.  I would think that I would add some stories about my love of car travel, perhaps reminiscing about my youth’s travels, then moving into my high school years of traveling with my friends’ families, and later as an adult.  I've been asked along on many journeys over the years, and I think in my revision, I’ll include some of the events of those trips.

   

One road trip I recall was sometime around 1976 when I took a last minute trip to New Haven, Connecticut, just to bring my friend’s friend back home, after he was visiting here and totaled his car while here.  I went along just to keep my friend company on the trip back to New Jersey, and while driving up along I-95 through New York City, there was a fist fight right there on the highway, in the middle of a traffic jam…perhaps it was the cause of the traffic jam.  Only in New York City would this have occurred, and it is still quite vivid in my mind.  Road rage to the extreme, I suppose.  I’m full of stories—maybe just full of IT—but memories of road trips abound, and, so, I guess I should focus on those memories in my revision, but tell a chicken tale (tail?) or two, since those trips were also serendipitous.

Blog #7½--The search for Marven Gardens is over!

     Look what I found last Saturday!  My daughter, my friend Cindy, and I were doing the NJ Lighthouse Challenge, and after visiting the Absecon Lighthouse, we decided to go visit Lucy the Elephant in Margate.  Knowing that Marven Gardens was somewhere nearby, I asked the clerk in Lucy's gift shop if he knew how to get to Marven Gardens.  He got out a local map and showed me where it was located, then handed me the map, and off we went in search of Marven Gardens.

     We spent just a scant 20 minutes driving around Marven Gardens (we were on a tight schedule to get to the next lighthouse on the challenge tour) and decided that we couldn't possibly pick a favorite house.  All were just so magnificent and beautiful!  It really was quite a sight to see.  FYI:  currently at about a million dollars, more or slightly less, a home in Marven Gardens is no longer affordable to the middle class.
     Go visit when you get the chance.  Located on West Drive, between Fredricksburg Ave. and North Brunswick Ave., which basically run north/south, and Ventnor Ave. and Winchester Ave., which mostly run east/west, Marven Gardens is at the very edge where Margate City and Ventnor City meet.

Blog #7--Putting all of my eggs in one basket: an EGGciting weekend

            On the road again!  Oh, how I love road trips, especially when I go someplace exciting and new.  When my friend Mary asked me if I’d like to ride shotgun on the way to the National Poultry Show in Columbus, Ohio, I came out with a resounding YES!  Of course, I didn't know what I was getting into, but it sounded exciting, and I was happy to go with her, as we are kindred spirits with many similar, however some dissimilar, interests.  Chickens are Mary’s primary interest of late—raising chickens, watching chickens, telling chicken tales (tails?), giving talks about chickens at the local library, and showing chickens.  

            The National Poultry Show was set for a weekend in November, and I found myself getting really excited about going on this long—550 miles one way—trip to the Ohio State Fair Grounds.  We’d be driving it all in one day, with the requisite pit stops for gas, food, and bathroom breaks.  The event lasts for almost three full days, and Mary expected to be there for at least two of those days—the show part on Saturday—oohing and aahing at all of the birds—followed by the swap/sale between attendees and the awards part in the early afternoon on Sunday.  Friday evening was some kind of meet and greet thing that she’d rather avoid.  We’d be driving all day on Friday and really wouldn't have time to do whatever it was on Friday anyway.

            My first experience with live chickens began when Mary got her first six “girls” and gave each one a name.  She chose the seven brides' names from the Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”  Well, she only got six hens and there were seven names—Milly, Dorcas, Ruth, Martha, Liza, Sarah, and Alice.  She had yet to get a hen to name Dorcas, since she wanted a specific breed of chicken and was waiting for that to happen.  

             Dorcas was reserved to be a Malay hen, the breed that one of Mary’s daughters chose.  A Malay chicken is a little bit strange looking in that it stands up tall versus the typical chicken that is always stooped, squatting and pecking near the ground.   A tall chicken—standing 24” to 30”—is quite a sight to see!  That’s almost the size of a one year old child!  Finding a Malay hen was not as easy as Mary anticipated, so Dorcas is yet to be.  In the meantime, the other six “girls” found happiness in Mary’s backyard, complete with a coop made from her daughters’ old playhouse, now retrofitted with roosts for sleeping, a caged-in chicken run for, well, running, scratching, and pecking, and the nesting boxes for all of those lovely and colorful eggs.  No, brown chickens don’t necessarily lay brown eggs.  No, a rooster isn't needed for a hen to lay an egg; a hen of egg-bearing age will lay approximately one egg a day for the duration of its laying lifetime. 

             Back in 2010 Mary and I had attended Chicken Stock, which is kind of like Woodstock, except the only music you hear is the sound of hens clucking, roosters crowing, geese honking, turkeys gobble-gobbling, and ducks quacking, etc., all under the same barn roof.  After all, chickens aren't the only kind of poultry that people are raising these days.  It was held at the private farm of a young couple in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania (near Kutztown).  The event was sponsored by BackYardChickens.com (BYC), an online forum devoted to the care and proliferation of chickens.  Mary’s been a member of BYC for quite some time.  The membership at BYC is currently over 280,000 now!  That’s a big flock of followers!

    We arrived at the farm (owned by Steph and Jason) on Friday evening.  It was a "by personal invitation only" evening, which Mary got from Steph.  We did the traditional meet and greet with everyone already there, most of whom Mary knew only by their screen names on BYC…they didn't really know Mary either!  We wandered around the farm yard for a while, getting to know the dogs and pet pot-bellied pig trailing behind us.  It looked like the pig thought it was a dog, so the pig did what the dogs did, or was it the other way around?  Hmm?  Steph had so many chickens that she kept separate coops—I think I counted 4 coops.  Among the chickens was a lone hen turkey, who decided to nest on top of a pile of chicken eggs.  She was an older hen turkey, and she probably was past her egg laying years and didn't have any chicks to call her own, so she must have been trying to hatch the little darlings.  She didn't know if the eggs were or weren't fertilized, but she was going to give it a try anyway.  After roaming around and introducing ourselves to the horse, the pony, and the goats in the corral, we wandered back to the house, where there was a full blown party happening, complete with Jason at the barbecue grill, cooking everything from ribs and steaks, to hot dogs and burgers, as well as grilled corn on the cob.  There were plenty of other vittles on the table brought by some of the other guests—I brought my “world famous” broccoli slaw, too.  Everything was yummy! 

   After we ate our fill, and while the groaning was going on, the fire pit was loaded with wood and lit to a blazing glory of warming flames, since the cold of the November  evening started to chill us.   It was getting very late and most of us couldn't keep our eyes open, so Mary and I skedaddled to our evening accommodations at a nearby campsite.  Mary isn't much of a camper, but she had reserved a one room cabin with 2 sets of bunk beds.  We were prepared and brought our sleeping bags to roll out on the bunk mattresses.  It was clean, very wooden and log cabin looking with a covered porch.  There was a separate building for the communal toilets and shower facilities.  At the evening meal with Jason and Steph, we met another BYC lady member who mentioned to us that she planned to sleep in her car for the weekend, so we offered to split the cost of the cabin with her, and she was all prepared with her own sleeping bag.  The cabin was a dry and reasonably comfortable place to lay our heads to try to sleep.   We was cozy for the night and out like a light.

   When Saturday morning arrived, the drizzle was steady and at times turned to a teaming rain, so it’s a good thing I brought my raincoat and a book to read.  Our initial plan to arrive back at the farm at 9 a.m. was daunted by the fact that the limited shower facility was being used by other campers, so we had to wait our turn until there was an available spot to get showered.  Breakfast consisted of what we packed in our coolers from home, and we ate that in the truck while we drove back to the farm.  As we approached the farm at around 9:30 a.m, it became apparent that there were lots of people at Chicken Stock, with their cars lining the street and in the farm's open areas.  The whole place was packed with several hundred BYC members and other folks who just loved a good poultry sale and swap meet.
This particular Chicken Stock event was even written up in Time Magazine’s “Postcard” section.  Mary was interviewed for the story, but her bit didn't make it into the article, though the mention of her bumper sticker did—“My Pet Makes Me Breakfast!”  Mary is so chicken crazy that even her license plate reads GTCHKNS (Got Chickens?).  A day doesn't go by when she doesn't hug and kiss her girls.  I draw the line at kissing a chicken; hugging is one thing, but not kissing.  Yuck!   

   At this stage of the game, Mary has about 3 dozen hens, in either standard or bantam size, and one bantam rooster named Armand.  Armand is quite spectacular in his own right.  His feathers are quite a few colors starting with his black face and neck, which looks like he’s got a ZZ Top kind of beard going down to his chest.  Then he’s got these long, thin feathers that cover his shoulders, sides, and part of his lower chest, which is mostly salmon in color.  The rest of his body is the wider feathers, blending from brown to black, mixing with the salmon colored feathers at the base of his tail.  The magnificent part of his appearance is the really tall tail feathers, which are brightly colored in a black/green iridescent pattern and standing high in a plume, as is traditional on a Faverolle rooster of the salmon variety. 

   The rest of Mary’s hens in the flock have names, which are usually appropriate to their particular breed.  For example, for one of the Brahmas—an Indian breed in her flock—she has given the name of Jasmine, taken from the Disney movie “Aladdin” as an Indian princess name.  Brahma chickens come in lots of colors, but Mary has the ones I like to refer to as the color of a Golden Retriever dog.  It’s that caramel color of other breeds of dogs, too, but looks especially nice on these chickens, which are fluffy and plump, and also have feathers on the legs, which resemble pantaloons.  It’s pretty funny to see a chicken with pants on its legs.  Most would expect to see the wrinkled-looking, lizard-like legs of a chicken, but not on the Brahmas.  Nope!  There are feathers instead; very cool to see.

   One of her chickens, which has the name I suggested, is a Speckled Sussex—a breed from England—named Daphne.   I took the name from Daphne Du Maurier, who was a famous writer from England, one which I’d read at some point in time, and who also had several of her books made into movies.  Perhaps you remember Alfred Hitchcock’s famous movie “The Birds”—a real creepy movie from 1963—Daphne Du Maurier wrote it!  

   Daphne seemed like a good name for an English girl.  Daphne, the chicken, has a really pretty feather pattern.  Heck, most of Mary’s girls are quite beautiful with the variations of color and pattern.  I find the feather patterns of chickens to be quite interesting and amazing.  I don’t know how Mary tells all of the similar breed girls apart, but somehow she does.  Daphne is mostly brown, with specks of black, white, and a little bit of blue.  The thing I like most about Daphne’s feather pattern is that it looks like she is wearing a lace apron around her mid-section from the lower part of her neck down to just before her tail feathers.  It’s just the cutest look, and all because of the way her feather pattern is arranged. 

          
             In 2011 Mary and I attended another Chicken Stock up in Onchiota, New York.  When she first asked me to attend, and when I asked her where it would be, she laughed when I told her that I knew exactly where Onchiota was, since my best friend since first grade lived in the town right next to it—Loon Lake.  There are two Loon Lakes in New York, but this one is about an hour from Lake Placid, 20 minutes from Saranac Lake, and about 45 minutes from Plattsburgh, all of which are way up in New York state and only about two hours from Montreal, Canada—basically in the middle of nowhere and very rural.  Great for people with livestock and, of course, chickens! 

   I called my friend and asked if we could stay for the weekend to attend this Chicken Stock event.  It was all arranged.  The weekend we went up was kind of rainy and drizzly, so we weren't surprised that it wasn't as well attended as the first Chicken Stock in Pennsylvania.  Of course, the location in the middle of nowhere didn't help either, since accommodations were few and far between out there in the woods. There were a few attendees who took advantage of the invitation to camp out on this farm, owned by Natalie, but with the seasons in this neck of the woods being June, July, and winter, having a Chicken Stock in October didn't help matters any.  So, those of us who attended had fun chatting, learning how to “process a chicken”—basically cutting off its head, watching it flap and jump around until its body finally realized it was dead, plunging it into boiling water to make the removal of the feathers easier, and then gutting it, saving the heart, liver, and gizzards for further use—and eventually ended the evening with a campfire and a s’mores roast, albeit with wine and other libations to imbibe.

         
            We arrive at our hotel in Columbus, and it’s really late, since we left later than originally planned.  I was ready on time, but something unforeseen happened and Mary was delayed a bit—like 2 or 3 hours delayed.  Our trip across Interstate Route 80 was pretty much uneventful, and we spied a couple of quilt shop signs along the way—thanks to the shop owners for putting up those billboards—but we would just have to wait to visit those shops on our way home.   We were on a mission to attend the Ohio Nationals, as the National Poultry Show has come to be known, and nothing would deter us from getting there on time, barring any more unforeseen events. 

Saturday morning came early, since Mary had brought along six of her girls to be in the competition, and the rules stated that any competing chickens had to be “cooped in” by 9 a.m. so that the judges had time to view all of the entrants.  After getting to the show and cooping in the girls, we wander around the massive building, which houses approximately 40,000 birds.  The racket is deafening, to say the least; never mind the odor.  I spent about an hour roaming the aisles and quickly looking at various birds. Who knew that “show chickens” and poultry was such a big thing.  Here in New Jersey a poultry show may not be considered a big event, unless it’s a chicken eating contest, but out in the mid-western states, it seems to be the national pastime.

Mary gave me the keys to her pickup truck, and I headed off to the Longaberger basket company headquarters in the Dresden, Ohio, area, which is about 40 miles from the Fair Grounds.  I was excited to be going to Longaberger, as I had heard so much about it and own several Longaberger baskets.  Its main office building is in the shape of a basket.  It’s really exciting to see that 7 story building with the basket handle way up on top as it looms above the landscape when I round the bend in the highway.  I’m sure there have probably been some accidents in the vicinity if a driver isn't expecting to see that massive building and its unusual shape.
The interior of the building was decorated for Christmas, complete with a 6 story Christmas tree made from probably thousands of Longaberger baskets and greenery.  It was a very impressive sight.  Around the lobby were little vignettes set up as living rooms, dining rooms, and bed rooms, and a kitchen, and all had an ample number of Longaberger baskets in each room, put to good use holding magazines, napkins, fruit, and hair brush sets, etc.  It’s a retail company, so why shouldn't it show off what can be done with some of its baskets?

After visiting the main headquarters, I set off to see Longaberger Home, just a short drive from the main office.  It's the factory and a mini strip mall, where the baskets are made and sold.  Mary’s mother had given me some money for something Longaberger and asked me to get whatever that would buy.  I hunted around and found the perfect things, which I bought for myself, too.  I found a small rectangular basket and some Mason jars with the Longaberger logo embossed into the glass.  I had just enough money to buy her 2 jars and the basket.  

As I roamed the factory, I observed several people making the baskets, but with the aid of an experienced basket maker.  I really would have liked to do that myself, but it was a bit out of my price range, so I just watched for a while.  I was taking photos of one woman and a master craftsman, and for a moment the woman excused herself.  The craftsman asked if I’d like a photo of myself pretending to make a basket, so, what the heck!  I said, “Yes!!!”  I stepped up behind the basket the woman had worked on, and the craftsman took my camera, told me where to position my hands, and he photographed me in that pose.  It was fun and felt a little deceptive, but I didn't plan to share the photos with anyone, so it really didn't matter if I was really making that basket or not.

It was nearing dinner time and I needed to go back to pick up Mary, so I headed out to the truck and found my way back to the Fair Grounds.  Even though I’d never been to Ohio before this trip, I found that it was really easy to find my way around.  It helps that I’m really good with directions and maps and am extremely observant of landmarks.  When I got back to the Fair Grounds and eventually found Mary among the noise, she made sure her girls had feed and water before we went back to the hotel for a while before meeting up with some of her BYC friends for dinner at the Red Lobster.  It had been a very egg-citing day for both of us!