Bubba's Birthday

These are Southern Bubbas

When we moved to the south, we learned that many families call the brother in the family, Bubba.

Well, I didn't have a brother so I just started calling my sister Bubba and it stuck. For good or bad, for thirty years, she's been Bubba to my parents, my N'Awlins friends and my boyfriend Chip. Sometimes she's Bubs, sometimes she's Ha-Bubba. But she's rarely Amy anymore.

So, my jumbled thoughts over some forty plus years of sisterdom, in no particular order:

She can't remember names well and once referred to a woman as "Janet Undergarment", which Chip and I immediately said we were pretty sure wasn't correct. She dutifully ran behind me lugging all the suitcases for 30 minutes in 1986 as I zigzagged hyperventilating across the Barcelona airport after realizing there was no plane and our tickets were out of Madrid. She got into a girl fistfight at the Circle K in high school, prompting my mother's classic comment still used to this day, "How tawdry." She's been a friend to Trudy and Stephanie for thirty years, one who she still sees almost daily and introduced her to her husband, Dave....and one sadly that she can only see in her prayers now.

Despite years of protestations from everyone in the family, she still spends hours choosing from the Hallmark mushy card section for our birthday cards, the ones that have flowery script writing and horribly gaggy sentimental sayings and cost five bucks a pop. She dropped everything and came to live with us in the early nineties to be our nanny for six months while I was in graduate school. She has endured endless torture at my hands her whole life, rarely if ever telling on me. This torture included the usual sibling punching, pinching, pushing and hitting but I think I took it to a new level that could well go in the Guinness Book of worst things done to siblings: mouth to mouth resuscitation whilst breathing. I can say with authority that the sound of the lungs inflating on the Resusci-Annie mannequin is quite authentic. It was the exact same sound my sister's lungs made right before she pushed me off of her, coughing and gagging uncontrollably as I pleaded with her to be quiet before Mommy or Daddy heard.

She is the most faithful of friends and to this day, keeps in touch with old neighbors and friends from our childhood hometown. She went to a really cool 70s hippy school in the woods called Rose Valley that nurtured and celebrated her for who she was and probably helped make her the person she is today along with my patient, loving parents. She has a chameleon quality that makes her the best of friends to all sorts of people, assuming their interests and concerns with the same passion as she would her own. She took more than a month out of her life to live with and take care of our mom with a broken ankle. She's acted as lay social worker to boyfriends, stepchildren, nieces, friends, parents, husband and even me. There is no one more special than my sister and I feel undeserving at times of the love and loyalty from such a unique and fantastic person--a truly good person, and there aren't enough of those in the world which is what makes them stand out.

This is My Bubba


Happy Birthday, my Bubba. I can't wait to see you in April when I hope to buy you a steak for your belated birthday and then try the Heimlich maneuver on you if you'll let me.

Spring thaw

Mud mohawk, my fault entirely

We don't fool ourselves by thinking this is the end of winter, but these first few days of 50ish temps in March are an optimistic sign that Old Man Winter is losing his grip. There might still be some snow left to puff from his weak lungs but it won't hang on long on this thawing ground, plus we're gaining daylight rapidly and spring break is within sight....winter's almost over and we rejoice with mud! Mud means spring. These hearty 'sconnie spawn love the outdoors and I fear that my pleas for staying dirty until I got my camera caused an uptick in the actual mudslinging. Their moms were good sports luckily for me, and I think the pictures make it all worth the laundry. But I do apologize for any riot I may have incited. I may be in for a hundred bucks in the boys department at Target for some new t-shirts and shampoo.

Victorian crazy quilts

This poem is reprinted from Good Housekeeping, October 25, 1890.
Excerpted from:
The Crazy Quilt
And where is the wife who so vauntingly swore
That nothing on earth her affections could smother?
She crept from your side at the chiming of four
And is down in the parlor at work on another.
Your breakfasts are spoiled,
And your dinners half-boiled,
And your efforts to get a square supper are foiled
By the crazy-quilt mania that fiendishly raves,
And to which all the women are absolute slaves.

And thus it has been since the panic began,
In many loved homes it has wrought desolation,
And cursed is the power by many a man,
That has brought him so close to the verge of starvation,
But make it she must,
She will do it or bust,
Beg, swap, and buy pieces or get them on trust,
Oh, the crazy-quilt mania, may it soon cease to rave
In the land of the free and the home of the brave.
-Anonymous

I'm awestruck over a fad that happened over a century ago. Victorian crazy quilting swept the nation in the late 19th century like scrapbooking has swept the nation today. Women were obsessed with making these quilts that it reached a pop culture status of its day. I read about an exhibit at the School of Human Ecology at the UW in the paper and went to see it today. I don't know what Human Ecology is but it has a building.

The quilts are indescribably elaborate with layers of embroidery, photo transfers, appliques, and a pattern that is reckless and orderly at once. There is an obsessiveness to the stitching that is positively manic. It was a fanatical pursuit, and women would scrounge for swatches of any interesting fabric they could get their hands on....even if it meant tearing it from another person's body. Women were known to rip apart men's hats for their silk linings and it wasn't clear that they always asked the men before doing so. The industrial revolution brought textiles to another level working with fabulous new textures and designs of fabrics, most of which don't even exist anymore. At the time, collecting fabric pieces was the rage and women went to all sorts of lengths to obtain swatches of fabrics to put in their quilts. Montgomery Ward finally got sick of it and made it plain in their advertisements that "swatches would be sent by request but not of any size usable for crazy quilting."

I still have a bin full of baby clothes because in my fantasies where I know how to do stuff without putting in the effort to learn it, I am going to make a quilt for each girl. It's like my fantasy about Pilates. I'm really quite good at it in my mind. My core is tight. Crazy quilting seems a possible pursuit for me as I do enjoy knitting and running the sewing machine occasionally, but then I remember I'm me....once someone walks into the room and turns on the TV or someone calls me to come over for a glass of wine, that project's going to get put down indefinitely. I have two good hours in me as craft projects go and then I need a long break...sometimes months.

I talked to the student working the exhibit desk as she sat sewing something in the color protective low light of the exhibit. Aaah, young people eyes. I remember them...I used to have them! Walking around the exhibit was like one of those learn about the human body experiences in a natural history museum...the amazing macular degeneration simulator.

I asked the student what she found most amazing about these quilts. She said she couldn't believe they were done by hand and that they took, in some instances, an unimaginable 1,500 hours to complete. She laughed and we agreed it was possible when I pointed out there were no TVs and computers and no jobs for women. It seemed far too possible that the over-obsessive nature of this quilting craze was perhaps a sign that women were restless for serious and heartfelt occupation beyond mothering and housework, an occupation that was creative, innovative and challenging. I like to think maybe Suffrage replaced the obsession of crazy quilting as the new passion of women of that era.

Will my great granddaughters go to a scrapbook exhibition in 2100? And will it be as remarkable?

Two more days....

Oh, February. How I hate you.



I woke to a most depressing situation this morning. Not enough coffee for a pot. It's like running out of money it's so unthinkable in this household. What kind of crumbling infrastructure are we dealing with here? Chip and I parcel out several weak ounces of brewed coffee each in our tiny ridiculous bone china kitty mugs that would normally be banned from our house for their sweetness except my mom likes a thin lipped coffee cup when she visits. They're strangely twee and I shun them on principle. The coffee situation would be enough but it's not nearly as bad as the sour milk: my first and only big bite of cereal is truly shocking and the kids get to witness their mom with her head hung over the garbage disposal--that's a nice memory for them. It was the kind of sour that's been fermenting in the fridge for a couple days and causes one to back up from the sink as it's poured out.


Gray invisible killer

Then my sister calls and tells me it's 70 degrees and sunny in Alabama. Luckily for her, her phone cuts out before I unleash profanity. There's ice everywhere here from a storm yesterday. Walking the dog is treacherous. In these extreme conditions I do what I must do. I send Chip to walk the dog.

Chip informs me that David Cameron, the Tory shadow P.M. in England, and his wife lost their seven year old son yesterday. I find the YouTube clip of Gordon Brown paying his respects on behalf of the government for this terrible loss to one of their own. He does a great job speaking from the heart, something he's not inclined to do well and I cry. It hardly affects the flow of my day. I'm crying anyway about February.

Then, finally, "The cherry on the top of this messed up pie", as Allison once said....after returning from my errands, I return home to find in the mirror that I've been traipsing all over the west side of Madison with my shirt on inside out.

March, please come take me.

A pan of brownies does little for my mood but others are happy

Steaks and summer

As we pulled into the driveway, we noticed two Styrofoam boxes on the porch. I realize now we watched too much CSI in England as Olivia yelled, "Mac Taylor sent us body parts!" But no. Two boxes of Omaha steaks. It reminded me of last summer's meat party.

February is a good time to reminisce about summer. Our backyard is one of four yards that all touch, making an L shape and insulated from traffic and the greater world at large so that even the little ones can play out back loosely supervised by the bigger ones. In good weather, the kids migrate through the yards for various games depending on desired terrain--hilly and woodsy for Hide and Go Seek, flat and open for Baby in the Air, or swing set gymnastics for a break from the running and arguing over who cheated in which game. There is screaming from sun up to sun down in summer in the yards. Like when I was a kid, but without cigarettes.

When our girls were younger, they would literally come in the front door after school, shed their coats and backpacks as one unit sliding off with the weight of the day, kick off their shoes and proceed directly out the back door without ever breaking stride and yelling behind them, "I'm going to play in the yards." If you didn't witness the seamless transition, you'd think they had been vaporized on the foyer carpet. On lazy Saturdays, Ally would wake up, listen for kids out her window and proceed directly down the stairs and out the back door in her pajamas to play. All the moms took turns bringing out the feed bucket of Wheat Thins or cut up watermelon to placate the horde and prevent any movement indoors. Sometimes they would all play until well after dark on summer nights and come home bug bit, filthy footed and smelling of grass and sweaty heads. It was a great consolation prize to leaving the city, that my kids were finally getting properly good and dirty from playing outside. Not dusty and covered in sticky greasy grime from pollution, chewed gum and spilled soda on the Philly playgrounds.....but the dirt that comes from running through cut grass and digging in dirt and blowing fresh air and lawn sprinklered clothing gone wet and dry on their bodies and sticky Popsicles and sweat, all making for that salty sweet summer kid smell that is dear and nostalgic and completely gross all at once.

A new development of recent summers...Lord of the Flies 'Sconnie style.

The next generation of yard kids is mostly boys and they cannot seem to keep their shirts on. They shed those shirts as soon as we break 50 degrees and wield sticks and light sabers and toy guns and run and scream and generally terrorize everything in their paths, especially sisters and bugs. As I look out my kitchen window at all these shirtless boys, I see how the idea for the book came along. I love them all individually as one might do with an individual wolf or hyena cub, but when they run together as a pack, well, I throw the latch on the back door just in case.


Last summer, before our sabbatical, we had a freezer full of meat to purge. I married a meat squirrel. Loves to buy it and freeze it all year long. So, a meat party in August--brats, chicken, hotdogs, hamburgers and the remaining Omaha steaks sent from Christmas 2007 for friends and neighbors. And all the little Lord of the Flies boys came with their shirts off. And when asked for their dinner preferences, one by one they responded, "I'll have steak." Of course. The adults ate the hotdogs.

Uncle Mike has generously sent a big new shipment of Chinese New Year Omaha Steaks. They will be hidden from the pack until we get our share.

C'est si bon

The weekend before Mardi Gras. Granted we had seven inches of snow Friday night into Saturday. Granted we live in Wisconsin. But if you've ever lived in New Orleans, you have this sense that there is a giant party going on without you and it's irksome. I haven't been to Mardi Gras but a few times in my life and still.... There's a party goin' on without me!

First, I take Minnie for a romp thru the snow. She meets her friend Kate. I stop to take a picture and accidentally drop the leash. She makes a power dash, as she does, down the street, leash bouncing behind her like a jet ski, until thankfully the leash gets tangled in a bush. I can't catch her when she decides to run. And she always decides to run. I can't even get mad because she loves snow that much.


Back home, we haul out the beads, the Crystal, the file' and the pepper and make some gumbo and jambalaya. The king cake we bought from a local bakery. I made it one year and the taste was good but it did not look pretty. Like the king cakes ordered in the mail, the green sugar resembles a whole lot of mold and mine was a green hot mess.



Lots of beer, wine, food and great friends help make our own little carnival. It will surely do as a substitute for the real thing.





All was well until the presentation of the Best Supporting Actress award when I thought I might have to shoot the television a la Elvis. What a buzz kill on an otherwise delightful weekend. The Oscars sadly have jumped the shark.

A Tale of Three Blankets

Hannah's blanket

I have been rushing to finish a baby blanket this week for my second cousin's baby. Little Hannah joined our Shaker family just last week, thankfully bringing our pitiful little tribe up to about sixteen and that includes those saints who've married in. Hannah's great grandmother is my 101 year old great aunt.

Julie's faded holy baby blanket from Aunt Win, or is that holey?

I last saw my Aunt Win at her granddaughter's wedding (Hannah's mom) when at age 100, she got up and shook her tail feather to the song, Brick House by the Commodores. It goes without saying that that was awesome. Sixty odd years ago, she came late to parenting in her own life and so when her son moved to a new job, she moved too, obviously thinking that already in her seventies, she should take advantage of the time she had left spending it close to family. Thirty years, two grandchildren, holy communions, confirmations, birthdays, high school graduations, college graduations, graduate school graduations, great grandnieces, marriages and now her own great grandchild and here we all are still. It's an amazing story of faith, family and longevity with a sense of humor. My favorite letters from her over the years included the lines, "Still here, don't know why," and after the doctor gave her and her brother a clean bill of health in their nineties, the ever popular, "I told the doctor he's going to just have to take us out and shoot us."

She comes to my mind as I finish this baby blanket for her great granddaughter and I remember that she is the knitter of the pink and blue baby blanket made for me. I was never much of a blankie kid, preferring to suck my fingers for way too long in secret until sleepaway camp and an awkward discussion with a friend's parent caused me to break my dirty habit. But this blanket was always on my bed growing up, and has survived 45 years thus far. Sure it's got some moth holes and sure I peed in it once in the back of the car when I was little and couldn't make it to a toilet. But it's a treasure from a dear great aunt and should soon be bound for the Smithsonian with my size 8 jeans.


Julie's blanket, Ally's blanket, Hannah's blanket

Ally, on the other hand, was always a blankie kid. Ally's blanket is from Boots the Chemist in England. My friend, Jacqui "lent" it to me, only to watch it meld with Allison's body, and resignedly said to me when she was pregnant with her second kid, "I'm not getting that back, I guess." Nope.

Ally's blankie is called Blankie and he's a he and we all refer to him as Blankie. He's gone everywhere Allison's ever been. First torn by our shot putter babysitter, who wrenched it out of the stroller wheels with brute force when it became tangled, the hole was quickly stitched together with found yarn and an old crotchet hook. Blankie continued to open that same wound over and over, and each time we found some different yarn to stitch it back together. And that's how it's gone for 14 years. We left it in a cafe in Connecticut once and it's the only time I have hyperventilated and nearly passed out. The cafe owner Fed-Exed it to us on our vacation on Block Island and I literally tore the box open in the post office to reunite the lovers as violins crescendoed and cameras panned wide. Blankie always flies carry-on (even as a little girl, Ally knew luggage stowed was subject to disappearance) and most recently, we nearly left him behind in Morocco in the riad. She refuses to talk about it still.

And so what goes around comes around in this story. This little pram blanket has been stitched together from many squares made by us three girls when Chip flew back to the US to be with his dad in August. We were desperate for a project to keep our minds busy and our grief in check. It makes me sad to finish it because I feel like I've had him with us in this blanket. But I know how he would have loved to get closer to 101 than he did, and that he would love that there is a new blankie stitched in his memory for a brand new baby. We send along with this blanket all the good energy and love that created it.