Katharine Fontaine Heath 1914-2009

On New Year’s Day I sat down to write a New Year’s post, recapping 2008 and voicing my hopes for 2009. It started out as a very upbeat post. Unfortunately, it remains unfinished. I haven’t been able to muster the positivity that I felt on January 1, instead I’ve spent the last 12 days feeling very sad.

If you know me in real life, you are likely to have heard me mention my “adopted” grandmother, Katharine Heath. Katharine was an incredible woman and friend to my family, who at the age of 94, passed away quietly in her home late Saturday night. Her health had been declining for several years and we have spent the first two weeks of the year holding vigil over her her. Below is the letter that I wrote to her a week before she passed away and which I will read at her funeral service on Saturday. I hope I can hold back my tears.

January 3, 2009

Katharine. I believe that I can be honest and say that I know that you are getting very close to letting this world go. I am sad for myself and for all of the people who know and love you; I don’t think that any of us can adequately prepare for the hole your absence will leave in our lives. My tears are selfish, I know that you are ready to go and I do take some comfort knowing that you are still in your little house and will be able to stay there until the end. I know that you are right where you want to be. There are a few things I want to be sure that you know and that you know I will always remember. You have done more to shape my life and the person I am than anyone second to my parents. There has never been a time in my life when you were not there.

You taught me how to build a fire, a log cabin out of kindling, lit with a newspaper spliff.

You always spoke to me as a grownup, never once can I recall you babying me although I know you spent countless midnight hours walking me to sleep on you front porch. One of my earliest memories is of a humid night on your balcony watching heat lightening in the distance.

You made sure that I believed in, and knew about, the magic of the natural world, that the stumps in our yard were really fairy castles and that every grain silo was a tower for a princess. I have already started to indoctrinate my nieces in fairy lore and you can be sure that I will pass a respect for the fairies that dance around the edge of the dining room table on to my own children.

I pretended to be an elf under a toad stool umbrella in your yard while you made rainbows with the hose. We’ve picked grapes fresh from the arbor and shared numerous “elevenses”. We’ve let the wind blow through our hair as we raced across the meadow in your golf cart.

You read me countless stories, Ms. Minerva and Ollie LaCoy. I cherish those old children’s stories but not nearly as much as I cherish the stories of your life. I don’t need to close my eyes to picture 5 year old Katharine following the trolley tracks home because Betsy had lost her train ticket and you wouldn’t let her walk home alone. I see you on the streets of Charlottesville and on the grounds of UVA as a young woman, sharp and beautiful. I can picture your driving your old Jeep across the dunes and rushing Lee to the doctor after yet another accident. You were always ready to make me laugh with the “Lee Story”. Every campfire song I know comes from you. Thank you for sharing the stories of your life with me; I carry them like they are my own. I will always remember you, dear Katharine, in the Spring time when the flowers begin to bloom, when I set a dinner table (“the fork goes on the left, the knife protects the spoon from the fork”), when I make a cup of tea. You are and always will be a constant part of my life; so much of what I know has been shaped by you. You told me to “forget the boys and wait from the men”. I hope that you approve of the man that I have chosen and I’m happy that he has had an opportunity to know you. I’m sorry that my future children will not get to have you as their “great grandmother”. I promise that they will know all about you. I will hang the boat painting in their bedroom and tell them the story of the elf, Ollie LaCoy, who creeps in the bedrooms of sleeping children, laying drops of warm milk on their eyelids so that they can climb into that painting and sail the boats in their dreams.

I could fill page after page with memories that we created together and wisdom that you have shared, perhaps one day I will, but I will stop now and let this be my goodbye to you. Thank you for everything that your have been and will always be for me, I love you and am blessed to have been able to call you Grandmother and Friend.

November 5, 2008

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are
suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long
oppressions of enormous public debt." - Thomas Jefferson, June 4, 1798

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I am truly proud of my country. We came together and mandated change. We chose hope over fear and decided to look towards the future rather than dwelling on the failures of the past. I went to bed last night with tears of joy in my eyes and I’ve woken up the same way. My hope now is that we can live up to the ideals we professed in the polls yesterday and move forward with the same positivity and optimism that brought us this victory in the first place. I hope that in four years, like today, I’m proud to say I’m a citizen of the UNITED States of America.

For the first time since Kennedy...

For the first time in 44 years Virginia is projected to be a "blue state". Dare I hope?

Words can not accurately describe how excited I am that Phish is back. The rumors reached me Tuesday and I could hardly sleep, waiting to see if what I hoped for was true. I knew there was good news when I woke up to my cell phone ringing at 6:20am. I didn't have to answer to know that it was our touring buddy, Mike, calling to tell me the ticket lottery was on, that Hampton was coming back to life.

I'm ready to pack the Subaru (tour Volvo, RIP) to the gills with microwbrews, sleeping bags and lawn chairs, drop off the dog and hit the road for Summer Tour. Yet another reason I'm glad Cory is back on school: summers off. Now if they could just be so kind as to hold off on the East Coast shows until I clear April 15th, that would be super.

My first Phish show was at Hampton back in 1998 and I hope through some miracle of miracles that I'll get into all three nights in 2009. Wish us luck and I'll meet you in front of the fountain!

Something else for me to worry about.

We were about an hour outside of Raleigh on Friday afternoon when my sister called and told me “Get gas now!”. Apparently the threat of Hurricane Ike had sent North Carolinians scrambling to the pump and some gas station owners were taking full advantage of the situation. Gas in Raleigh was hovering between $4.69 and $4.99 a gallon for regular unleaded. The jump seemed to have occurred after lunchtime and by 5 pm there were lines of cars coming out of the gas stations and into the road. Lucky for us we’d filled up an hour previous for the slightly less unreasonable rate of $3.89.

The gouging continued into the evening and as we returned from dinner out with my sister’s friends we saw more and more gas stations with plastic bags over their pumps. The few stations that had not raised their prices above $4 were shuttered. Lines continued to spill into the street at the open stations. I started to think we might be spending more than the weekend in North Carolina.

I was both relieved and disgusted to hear that the gas prices had returned to normal Saturday AM. Apparently the panic was largely based in North Carolina and multiple stations were cited for price gouging. While the price per barrel for gas did jump on Friday, it didn’t go up enough to necessitate a dollar increase per gallon, particularly since that gas was already in the tanks and had been purchased at the lower per barrel rate. Of course, having every Tom, Dick and Harry who drives an SUV jump into line as soon as the prices started to increase didn’t help either.

What really scares me is that I think this is just a sign of what we can expect in the future. Just how far away are we from another 70’s like gas crisis? Thank goodness the motorcycle can go 200+ miles between fill-ups and I only drive an average of 2 miles a day.

Vote Obama/Biden.

Time to put away the white dresses and flip flops...

Well, I suppose summer is finally over. We certainly had a busy one and the Fall is shaping up to be just as eventful. Cory has started grad school for Elementary Education which is possibly one of the biggest lifestyle changes we’ve ever made. He is now a kept man (I chose to over look the 3 nights a week he is working at the restaurant; everyone knows that waitering isn’t a REAL job and I’m a martyr, damnit). I’m probably having a harder time then him adjusting. I just can’t get used to being home alone 5 nights a week while he is either in class or slinging Santa Fes and margaritas. I’m going to have to join a club or something. For now I’m devoting my energy to small home improvement projects. I’ve been painting my kitchen cabinets for several weeks now (that is a whole other post) and I have a short list of repairs that I think I can tackle myself. Gots to be keeping busy and off the streets!

I’d say we managed to wrap up the season with a bang last weekend. Cory’s birthday was Saturday, marking the end of his most auspicious year (28, *snap, snap*). I was up until almost midnight on Friday putting the finishing touches on his birthday cake. Carrot with cream cheese frosting, all from scratch. Of the many skills I have inherited from my mother, the ability to make a damn fine cake from scratch is certainly one of the best. Not that I’m proud of myself or anything. The secret is to soak the grated carrots in brown sugar for an hour before adding them to the batter. That and using twice as much cream cheese as your recipe calls for. After struggling with back pain for the last two weeks I was able to pull myself together enough to make it to the UVA vs USC massacre on Saturday and on Sunday we went on a truly relaxing tubing trip through Nelson County with 20 of our friends. All and all not a bad birthday weekend, I think.

Since I have so many free evenings on my hands nowadays I’m especially grateful that my friend Sarah is back in town after spending her summer in San Francisco pretending to be a lawyer. Last night she cooked me what was possibly the best quesadilla I’ve ever eaten. Chamoniard, green chiles and a perfectly ripe peach. It was heaven I tell you, heaven. Then we cruised across the street from her apartment to the My Morning Jacket show at the Pavilion. All I can say is wow, what a great show. This was my first time seeing them live and they were everything I’d hoped they would be. Cory does claim that we saw them at Bonnaroo. I do not recall this, which means I was probably enjoying the ummm…other things…Bonnaroo has to offer or was asleep back at the tent. Either way, it felt like my first time. Last night you could tell the band was having the time of their lives being rock stars at a small and enthusiastic venue. I just love those reverby vocals that sound like they’re migrating up from the bottom of a deep bucket of water. They manage to combine a jam band vibe and classic guitar driven rock (that is ROCK! said gutturally with your mouth wide open and your fist pumping the air) into something just amazing. As we sat on the lawn with a warm breeze blowing in our faces, we both agreed that we were really lucky to be there on such a beautiful September night. The only thing that could possibly have made the night better was is we’d had more than $16 in cash between us. With beer being $5 a pop, that didn’t go far, but at least my head didn’t hurt this morning.

Cory & Susan Get Their Panic On

Cory & Susan Get Their Panic On, originally uploaded by yoko can't spell.

I made this desktop background for my sis-in-law Susan to commemorate the "3rd Annual Cassity-Jordan Get Your Panic on in P-Town". For the last 3 years we've met Susan and Ted in Olde Town Portsmouth to see Widespread at the Portsmouth Pavilion. Even when S & T were living in Norfolk we'd all get a hotel room in Portsmouth so that we could adequately get our party on. Activities include (but are not limited to) ferry rides to Waterside, blatant disdain for open container laws and freaking out the squares.

Stainless Steel Straws

photo via The Kitchn

It is like someone read my mind and created these just for me. I love my straws! Don't mock me for bringing my own on vacation! This stroke of brilliance can be found here.

Strengthening My Resistance Muscle

I just want to thank everyone who has emailed, called or left me a comment in response to my last blog entry. All of your love and support is (and will continue to be) appreciated. When you are feeling as down on yourself as I was it really helps to be reminded that there are people who love me for who I am, not for what size jeans I wear. Thank you.

It turns out that baring my soul was just what I needed. Several times I've come very close to deleting that post. I reveled something that I personally find very embarrassing to the world. I'm ashamed that I care so much about how I look. However, having my innermost insecurities laid out there for all the interwebs to see has provided just the motivation I needed to make a healthy change to my lifestyle. Already I'm eating better and I'm exercising more. I can't hate myself if I know I'm making a conserted effort towards a positive improvement. I've always eaten well and exercised some, I just needed to amp up both and cut out the crap. I have a plan and I'm going to stick to it. I'm not on a diet, I'm just strengthening my resistance muscle.

This is where I beat myself up.

I’m such a bad blogger. I start every day intending to post something and then before I know it I’ve gone two weeks with out writing anything. How lame.

In all honesty, I’ve been feel kind of “blah” lately. We have been having a great summer, plenty of weekend trips and seeing lots of friends and family but I can’t seem to shake the blues. This happens to me occasionally. I’ll know rationally that my life is great but still be unable to shake whatever black cloud I’m under. My self-esteem has been particularly low lately. I’m not going to go on and on about it, because frankly I’m pretty embarrassed that I care, but I’m really, really unhappy with my body right now. Again, this is a feeling that has come and gone my whole adult life. I would really like to go smack my 19 year old self for feeling fat. What an idiot that girl was! I think that it is particularly bad right now because there is some truth to my self berating. I’ve gotten complacent with what I eat and how much I workout and it is really starting to show. I hate the way I look in pictures, my pants are getting a little tight and I look pregnant in almost everything. I have actively dreaded some of our social engagements this summer because I’m embarrassed by how I look. I short, I’m starting to develop a potentially unhealthy relationship with food and/or my self image and I’m going to work really hard to change that. I think that losing 15 pounds is a reasonable goal to start with. I already have a plan and have been eating smarter (more fruits and veggies, less mindless nighttime eating) and going to the gym more. I love food and I’m not going to stop eating because a hungry Yoko is a very unpleasant thing but a little portion control isn’t going to kill me. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels, right?

I have been debating whether to post this all morning. I feel like I’m admitting something to everyone that I’ve always tried to keep hidden. The occasional self disparaging comments that I make about looking fat are one thing, laying out that I hate my body to all the internet is another. I guess I’m hoping that posting this will provide some accountability for myself and if it does, then it is worth the shame I’m feeling right now. Wish me luck, I’m off to have my morning apple.

I miss it.

The desire to return to vacation isn't exactly an earth shattering sentiment but, man, I want to go back to Paris and stay there FOREVER. Having looked at our own pictures about a hundred times I'm now looking at strangers' pictures of Europe on flickr. I peer at the backgrounds, looking past the photos' intended subjects, straining to recognize a street or cafe. Two weeks wasn't long enough...I should have been an architect.*

*or a doctor or a lawyer or a trust fund baby

Melon Madness

Watermelon Mint, originally uploaded by yoko can't spell.

Oh summer! It was hotter then all get out last week and this young girl’s thoughts turned to melon. We had a nice sized, seedless watermelon in the fridge and I decide do to utilize it in my after work cocktail. I’ll call what I mixed up “Yoko’s Watermelon Cooler”. First I cubed enough chunks of melon to fill a standard sized rocks glass, added several sprigs of chopped mint from the garden and a dash of lime juice. I muddled all that together, added crushed ice (the best kind), ½ spoonful of sugar, soda water and a shot of white rum. Delicious!

Unfortunately, eternity is two people and a watermelon (or a ham…) so I decided to look up a few watermelon based recipes. The first one I stumbled across was Paula Deen’s Watermelon Salad with Mint Leaves. Remarkably, I had all the ingredients on hand and despite Cory’s skepticism I made it as a side dish for some steak we were grilling. Personally, I thought it was delicious. Cory wasn’t a huge fan but he doesn’t really care for “sweet & savory” dishes. I’ll make it again, perhaps for a BBQ. The recipe is below; don’t add the dressing until just before serving or the watermelon loses some of its crispness.

1 (5-pound) watermelon
1 Vidalia or other sweet onion
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
6 whole mint sprigs
Cut the flesh from the melon and cut into bite size pieces, removing and discarding the seeds, and set aside. Peel and slice the onion into rings.
In a small bowl, combine the vinegar, salt, pepper, and whisk until salt is dissolved. Slowly whisk in the olive oil, a few drops at a time. Add in the chopped mint, taste, and adjust seasonings.
In a large bowl, combine the melon, onion, and feta. Pour the dressing over the melon mixture and toss gently until everything is coated and evenly mixed. Garnish with mint sprigs.
To serve, divide salad among individual plates and garnish with mint leaves.

Recipe courtesy of Paula Dean

Leaving Paris

After three days in Paris, we were ready to start the next leg of our trip. Originally we'd planned to stop in Germany for a night on the way to Amsterdam but after our luggage debacle*, we realized that we'd be short changing ourselves on time in The Netherlands and decided to cut the German portion out. No schnitzel for Cory.

Silly us, we thought we could just go to Gare du Nord (Paris train station) on Friday morning and hop on a train. We had Euro Rail passes but hadn't taken into account that a) it was Friday and everybody and their mother was trying to get out of the city or b) there are a limited number of Euro Rail "seats" available on any given train. Opps. Our plan to take a morning train failed miserably and we ended up with a 7:30 PM departure. This wouldn't have been too big of a set back if we’d arranged a place to stay when we arrived in Amsterdam. See, before we left the US we'd (foolishly) decided to "wing it" when it came to our lodging. We booked a room for the first night in Paris and figured we'd have no problem booking as we went. Let's just say it wasn't quite as easy as we'd anticipated although, ultimately, it did all work out. Anyway, finding a room at 3pm in an unfamiliar city was something we were prepared to deal with, finding one at midnight was not. We'd have to get on the internet before leaving the city and just book the first thing we could find…that or face the possibility of wondering the streets of Amsterdam all night. I'm young enough to wing it but too old for that, I think. So, our backpacks safely in a locker at the station we set off to kill 9 hours and find a web café.

I'm actually kind of glad our departure was delayed. Gare du Nord is in a very different part of Paris then the Latin Quarter where we'd been staying. While the Latin Quarter is all cafes and artsy fartsy movies theaters, the area around Gare du Nord was a little seedy in comparison. Our first destination was Sacré-Cœur, a Roman Catholic basilica built on the butte Montmartre, the highest point in Paris. To get to Sacré-Cœur we walked through what I can best describe as the "Garment District", a combination of "bin" stores selling everything from cheap nylon underwear to knock off designer clothes and actual fabric shops. It had a real Times Square feel to it with its crowded sidewalks and more aggressive beggars. Honestly, it was one of the only places we went on our trip that I didn't feel particularly safe. Not mortally unsafe, it just felt like a good place to get your pocket picked.

Sacré-Cœur took my breath away. The weather had changed overnight from cool and drizzly to sunny and seventy (the way it would remain for the entire trip) and as you can see from the pictures, the white of Sacré-Cœur against the bright blue sky was stunning. We picnicked in a little park behind Sacré-Cœur then walked down the backside of Mortmartre, where I filled up the first memory card on the camera. For those of you keeping track, that is 600 pictures in just over 3 days.

The web cafes in the Gard du Nord area were not nearly as slick at the ones in the Latin Quarter. They were smaller and tended to be in the back of little stores that sold phone cards and bootleg Indian and Pakistani VHS movies. We found one that only looked moderately sketchy and Cory went in to find us a hotel room for the night. There wasn’t room at the computer for me so I went out on the street to wait. And wait. We’d been walking most of the morning and all I really wanted to do was sit down but the sidewalk had some truly dubious looking stains on it. Normally I’d have just sat myself down in the pigeon poop but we’d packed light and I didn’t know when (if ever) I’d be able to wash that skirt again. First I tried leaning against the building, then squatting, then leaning again without any relief for my barking dogs. Then I spotted it: A moderately clean, large cardboard box sticking out of a nearby trash can. Not being proud I grabbed that sucker, and plopped right down on it, beggar style. Let me tell you, I got some strange looks in the 30 minutes I sat there. In hind sight, I should have put a cup out; I probably could have gotten enough EURO to pay for lunch.

Eventually Cory was able to find us a room for the night that didn’t completely break our budget and we spent the rest of the day just wandering around. When we boarded our train to Amsterdam we snagged one of the few “cabins” hoping that no one else would sit in the other two seats and we’d have a nice quite space to sleep and relax. That didn’t work out. Just before the conductor blew his whistle we were joined by two girls in their late teens. These two proceeded to take off their shoes, unpack and repack their backpacks, giggle, sing and chatter in several different languages the entire trip. The only time they shut up was when they were eating and man, did they consume some weird things in four and a half hours. I watched one of them eat, I swear, 10 packs of Sweet-n-Low sprinkled on Saltines. Then she washed that down with an entire avocado that she mashed up and mixed with several ounces of mayo. Go ahead; I’ll wait while you gag. Needless to say, we did not get a nap in, something we’d soon come to regret.

Next up: Arriving in Amsterdam

*It finally materialized late in the evening of the second day. It took Cory's Mom making a call to US Air in Philadelphia to get any results. She must have used her "teacher voice" because the luggage was at our hotel within an hour of her hanging up. Good thing, too, we were getting a little ripe, even by European standards. Thanks Linda!

Not really a Suit-man.

Discussing the fashion choices of various Grand Theft Auto IV avatars with Cory.

"Do you get to choose what your character wears?"

"Yeah."

"And you chose a suit?"

"Well, I had to wear it for a mission and never took it off..."

"..."

"...and when I wear this I don't have to pick out pants."