Mary Tooley

When I was dating my husband, he took me to northern Wisconsin to meet his relatives. I was a city girl; his family were farmers. A sentence would pop up in their conversations which puzzled me. Someone would declare, “Looks like there’s no weather today.” At first, this seemed nonsensical to me. How could the atmosphere be absent?

A bit of reflection provided the answer. Farmers depend on the weather for their livelihoods. “Weather” to them meant the stuff coming out of the sky that could make or break you; rain lightning strikes, blizzards and tornadoes.

Living in a rural community now for over 28 years, I, too, am more attuned to the weather’s importance. Our current mild winter would appear to be a gift. I love not having to bundle up in cocoons of winter clothing merely to step outside the door. And taking a walk on a 56° day in February is a joy. But then I begin to think like a farmer. What will happen if the apple trees bud out and then a March or April blizzard strikes? Will we have enough moisture in the soil for planting this year’s crops if we have no snow cover to melt?

Weather isn’t something that’s just there, it’s critical to our survival whether we are urban or rural people. I recently saw a fascinating new map on the frequency and location of lightning strikes in America. To avoid “weather” in a farmer’s sense of the word, it might be best to stay out of Florida.

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A dear friend of ours gives us a most welcome Christmas gift every year, an amaryllis. More correctly, I should say a future amaryllis; it’s a bulb in a box.

Every year I carefully follow the planting instructions. I put the hard, brown disc of potting medium into the plastic flowerpot, add water, watch the “soil” expand and plant the giant bulb.

This year I placed the pot in my kitchen window where it would get light and I could watch it grow. Each day for over three weeks I carefully checked for signs of life. Nothing. I concluded that this year’s bulb was D.O.A., dead on arrival, and moved it to the garage, figuring I could recycle the pot and soil in spring.

Three weeks go by. Then one day my husband comes into the kitchen and asks, “What is that weird plant in the garage?” For a second, I’m clueless. And then I remember my dead bulb. I retrieve my resurrected amaryllis from the garage and put it back at the kitchen window. Every day the stalk grows and grows and grows. The plant is growing at such a rapid pace that my husband and I almost spontaneously have the same thought… might we have Audrey in our kitchen? If you are not familiar with the play, Little Shop of Horrors, Audrey is a diabolical plant that takes over the shop.

Our Audrey has what appears to be a bud at the top of her skyscraper stalk, but nothing much is happening there as the stalk zooms upward. We speculate that her waterless and windowless sojourn in the garage might have destroyed her flowers. But we do not banish her a second time. We just let our phallic demon stay put at the window until one day…

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The other day it occurred to me that reality is fast becoming an anachronism. We are flooded with artificial intelligence, virtual reality, bots and avatars. It’s hard to find real stuff these days; even staples like meat and milk have fake versions.

The longing to escape reality is nothing new. Down through the ages, humans have fantasized about alternative worlds and superheroes. However, today’s technologies allow humans to immerse themselves in alternative worlds like never before.

The term virtual reality is an oxymoron, a contradiction of terms, which was coined by marketers. The real world is omni-present; the VR world vanishes when the VR device is not charged, the power fails or the device is stolen. “Almost” reality cannot be equated with real reality. It can, however, be marketed for huge profit. By 2028, the virtual reality market is predicted to be worth over 60 billion dollars. Marketing fake reality is big business.

I believe the time has come for reality to counter by having a marketing campaign of its own. I would love to help out. To make a comeback, reality will need some snappy new slogans such as:

• Reality: The Ultimate High
• Reality: No Artificial Ingredients
• Artificial Intelligence? Get Real!

It might be a good idea to pull out the power cord or take off the goggles. The real world has a lot to offer. Really.

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The world’s largest annual human migration is now winding down. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been on the move to celebrate Chinese New Year or Spring Festival. This year’s domestic journeys will total a record-breaking 474 million.

Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar and begins with the new moon (when no moon is visible) between January 21 and February 20 on Western calendars. It lasts fifteen days until the following full moon when the Lantern Festival is celebrated.

These hyper-travel days are joyful ones. Many years ago, the essence of the holiday was explained to me by a Chinese American gentleman who was attending one of my art programs. He said, “Tell children Chinese New Year’s is like your Thanksgiving. It is all about coming together with your family, those you love. And it is about sitting around a table and sharing special, traditional food, lots and lots of food.” The Spring Festival is a giant homecoming all wrapped up in countless traditions to ensure good fortune in the new year ahead.

This year’s celebrations have special significance. It is the Year of the Dragon, the most auspicious creature on the Chinese zodiac calendar of animals. Symbolizing power, good luck and strength, the dragon is the only mythological creature of the zodiac. They are depicted in Chinese art as “four-legged, horned, snake-like beings who breathe clouds (not fire).” Chinese dragons are creatures of the sky and are said to control the rain and wind.

Chinese emperors believed themselves to be descendants of dragons. They wore silk robes with images of dragons woven into the fabric. These elegant dragon robes were a symbol of imperial power.

People born in the Year of the Dragon are said to be “charismatic, intelligent, confident, powerful, and they are naturally lucky and gifted. In everything they do, they tend to do it to the best of their ability with high standards.”

Happy Year of the Dragon to everybody, especially the Dragon people who have so much to live up to.

Here are some of the dragons who live at our house. It’s always good to have a few dragons around.

And here is a dragon we found hanging out in Chicago’s Chinatown.

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According to Hallmark, Americans send 145 million Valentine’s cards each year. And this colossal number does not include the cards kids exchange and the hand-crafted ones.

Women purchase about 85 percent of all these hearty greetings. So it is fitting that this blog is about a remarkable woman who is known as ” the Mother of the American Valentine”.

Born in 1828, Esther Howland grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, graduating from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1847. The headmistress of that institution had warned her young ladies against “those foolish notes called valentines”, but Esther had different thoughts.

Esther’s father owned a large book and stationery store, and one of his colleagues sent Esther an elaborate, lacy valentine from England. At that time England was the epicenter of ornate Valentine cards.

Esther was not smitten by her suitor, but she did love the card. Suitably inspired, she designed and assembled twelve cards of her own. When her brother made sales calls for their father’s business, he took Esther’s cards with him. She was hoping for around $200 worth of orders and was stunned when her brother came back with orders over $5,000.

Although Esther had originally planned on making all the cards herself, she realized a new strategy was needed. She immediately cleared a room in the family home, ordered supplies from England and invited over a group of friends. The young women were each assigned only one task. Some cut out pictures, others put on lace, while others added feathers, ribbons and embellishments. Esther Howland had invented an assembly line to mass manufacture the cards which she designed. Her idea predated Henry Ford’s “invention” of the assembly line by decades.

Orders poured in, and soon the operation filled the entire third floor of the family home. In 1870, she incorporated her business as the New England Valentine Company. Her sales were over $150,000 annually which would be several million dollars in today’s money.

Esther eventually had to move the booming operation to a building in downtown Worcester. This savvy entrepreneur had popularized commercial Valentine’s cards in America. Her tasteful creations sold for as little as 5¢ and as much as $50 for elaborate cards with ribbons, gilded lace and hidden doors for hiding treasures such as a lock of hair or an engagement ring.

Esther Howland sold her thriving business to a competitor in 1980, and this, too, is a story about love. She sold out to spend all her time at home caring for her dying father.

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