Past Blogs

A young relative of mine loves olives. His eyes dance with anticipation when he spots olives in his vicinity. As a child, I had the opposite reaction: I would do anything to avoid encountering an olive. My unkind thoughts about olives have not abated with adulthood.

Despising olives is a personal blessing. Olives are maximum salt in minimum packages. Since I have an overly abundant supply of blood pressure, I do not need tiny salt bombs in my diet.

I don’t spend excessive time contemplating olives. However, I do have one recurring memory from long ago which is firmly lodged in my brain. During my sophomore year in college, a good friend became engaged. I received an invitation to her wedding shower and eagerly accepted.

The first food offered at the party was olives, bowls and bowls of them. Knowing that many people are fond of olives, I thought nothing of this. Lunch was served. It consisted of finger sandwiches with olive spread and a yellow jello mold in which green olives and carrot shreds were suspended. The remains of the appetizer olives rounded out the offerings. I am happy to report that the cake did not feature olives.

I look back on this bizarre menu and smile. Whatever was our hostess thinking? Was she an olive addict? Or did she simply subscribe to the theory that “if a little of something is good, more is better”?

I do know that olives are not an aphrodisiac. Unfortunately, the marriage which followed the shower did not work out.

As I was finishing these thoughts on olives, I came across this delightful  passage from Alexander McCall Smith’s latest book, The Charming Quirks of Others. Note that Charlie is a toddler.

“He still talked about olives, of course; olive had been his first word, and his appetite for olives was as strong as ever. Olives nice, he had said to Isabel the previous day, and she, too, thought they were nice. They had looked at one another, Charlie staring at his mother with the intense gaze of childhood. She had waited for him to say something more, but he had not. They had said everything there was to say about olives, it seemed, and so she had bent forward and kissed him lightly on the forehead.”

The females in our younger generation are also fans of olives. Two of them recently rummaged around the kitchen and gleefully came up with this snack.

Consider these words which are inscribed on a wall in the Trapholt Museum in Denmark:

“Since the chair has always had a special status among designers, this type of furniture often comes in all sorts of inventive versions in comparison to other furniture types… in other words, chairs can be made with other thoughts in mind than just sitting.”

My husband and I have always been fascinated with chairs and chair design. We would happily give away the couch: our chairs have all the charisma.

The first chairs we purchased were seven dollars apiece, wooden, Danish designed chairs for the dining room. Forty-seven years later, those chairs remain as visually pleasing and functional as ever.

Our modest chair collection has grown slowly through the years. We added chairs designed by Thonet, Josef Hoffmann, Harry Bertoia, Charles Eames, Verner Panton, Phillippe  Starck and Karim Rashid. Fortunately, my spouse and I agree that a well-designed chair is a sculpture as well as a place to be seated.

The Mecca of chair design is the Danish peninsula where two outstanding museums pay homage to the chair as an art form.

In 1995 the town of Tonder imaginatively converted its old water tower to a museum of chairs designed by the renowned furniture designer and native son, H.J. Wegner. This may be the world’s tallest museum with the smallest rooms and the most interactive exhibits… visitors can sit on the chairs.

The Trapholt Musuem is situated on a fjord in Kolding, Denmark, and features a large wing devoted solely to chairs.

If you are a lover of art, design, ambience or wit, we think you might enjoy the following video.

Chair Movie

“It’s going to be an introspective day,” Obie Yadgar would say in his mellifluous voice.

Obie was a classical music radio announcer in Milwaukee many years ago, and we would wake up to his voice each morning. “Introspective day” was Obie’s gentle way of informing us that the weather was going to be a nightmare. Blizzards, ice storms, deluges,  tornadoes and white outs all qualified as introspective days.

Upon hearing those words, the best possible course of action would be to pull the covers over your head and hibernate for the day.

I still applaud Obie’s wisdom. Some days give no external support of radiant sunshine and clear, blue skies. Any forthcoming cheer will have to be conjured up from internal resources.

Those of us who live in the upper Midwest get more than our share of introspective days, and the season is upon us. I have always known that gray is a popular sky color where I live. Nevertheless, I was shocked when I read in the front of the Albuquerque phone book that their city has over 300 days a year with sun. Can life truly be this egregiously unfair?

It’s time to mine those interior resources. Exercising our creativity with paint, words, dance, needlework or any media of our choice is a good start. Daydreaming in front of a fireplace isn’t bad, either.

I recently came across a charming children’s book by Elisa Kleven called Sun Bread. In response to weeks of dreadful weather, a baker bakes a big, golden, smiling, sun shaped bread. That may be the ultimate spirit-lifting and stomach-warming remedy for these introspective days.

Post Script: I went out on the web to see what Obie Yadgar is doing now. He’s writing. Check out his delightful poem, To My Infant Grandson, here.

Anyone who has lived in America the last decade knows that every transaction with a large business is a scam. This fact is lamentable but true.

The creativity of these scams is stellar and endless. For the average working family, there are not enough hours in the day to be scambusters.

Being retired helps; endless time can be spent reading small print or hanging onto a phone on hold. But even this approach only yields marginal relief.

For example, my husband spent a month researching the best cell phone deal. He did get a low price and no contract, but with one caveat. The company could change the terms at any time.

But the most creative scam was just perpetuated on us. My old stove was dying, or, more accurately, burning up, and a replacement was a necessity.

Since I still work, my husband did due diligence. He read Consumers Reports for hours and then trudged from store to store. He made an educated purchase and set a delivery date. I was to see my new electric range for the first time when it was delivered.

I was home alone when the stove arrived. It was a beauty. And then the delivery guy, a nice man I believe, said sheepishly,” Do you wish to buy a cord so you can plug your stove in?”

To which I replied,”I know you were forced to do this, but isn’t it a shame that everything in America is a scam now?” He agreed.

I bought the cord. No need to send the cordless stove back only to waste another month and be victim to yet another ingenious “gotcha”.

The word “peace” is currently in season. But three more words should also be considered: positive, passive and pushover.

Over half of the Christmas cards I’ve received make mention of peace. I have not attempted to count the number of times the phrase “Peace on Earth” has jumped out of the December environment. It’s lighted up on houses, screaming from billboards and proclaimed in bold type in newspapers and magazines. For the moment, peace is in style.

Herein, I believe, is the problem. Peace is not in fashion the remaining eleven months of the year. Those of us who wish peace to be a constant presence  are regarded as sweet and ineffectual relics from the 1960’s. We are viewed as passive  pushovers who are  somewhat lacking in gray matter.

The current stylish methods of operation appear to be bullying, hate-mongering and negativity toward any effort for the common good.

I believe that peace making is not passive. A commitment to peace is a positive action. The most dynamic people I know are in the peace movement, and I consider myself lucky to know them.

Peace also involves hard work every day. It begins inside each of us and works out… our homes, neighborhoods, communities and the larger world.

As a graphic designer, I’ve illustrated scores of Christmas cards. My favorite had the message,”Peace is not a season, it is a way of life.” I would love to meet the folks who bought that card. I’m guessing many are engaged and caring individuals. And I bet very few of them sport tie dyed shirts and dangling peace medallions.

May we all find peace every month of the New Year.