Not exactly the 3-ring circus. We got up late--8:30-ish, after having stayed up way too late Christmas Eve watching something I can't even remember on TV--oh, yeah. It starred Susan Sarandon and several other good actors who should have known better. It had been a frustrating 4-hour drive from SF for Dylan and Rachel (should be only 2 1/2). Then we sat down to a lovely, slow asian hot pot dinner (a bit of a tradition with us, now, three years running). After dinner, we cleaned up and hung out in the living room, inadvertently getting sucked into whatever-it-was.
Christmas morning, we all woke up to big snow flakes falling from the sky (it was, like, "cue the snow!"). It only lasted half the day, or so, and mostly melted later, but it was SO pretty! We shuffled around all morning, munching and drinking tea or coffee, laughing at Dylan's hair. It seemed to have a life of its own (see next entry).
Sometime, mid-day, or so, we ambled in to open presents. No hurries, no fuss (I think we've nailed this Christmas Day style!). A Christmas Story was playing in the background. Some way or another, we've worked it into our activities every year since it first came out in theaters in '83. We never just sit and watch it straight through, though. Don't need to. We could act out the whole thing without the movie whenever we wanted.
I think we all do a pretty good job of thoughtful, personal gifts every year. There are often handmade things. This year, Dylan made gorgeous cutting boards for Rachel and us. He has a million designs in his head and they're all amazing. I goofed up and didn't reset the camera mode from some earlier time, so the photos are not so great, this year, but you'll get the gist.
Ours is maple and paduka wood. Rachel's is walnut. Hers is end-cut laminations on the top, but most interesting from the sides and bottom. So cool! Like an upside-down city. Of course Dylan had to take them back home with him to do some finishing...
(Cont'd....)
So it was over the San Joaquin Valley and through the Coast Range, to the Trautwein's house we went. They live in Montecito ('burb of Santa Barbara), the part that didn't burn to a crisp last month. Diana, Tom's sister, is the associate pastor of Montecito Covenant Church, 15 families of which lost their homes in the benign-sounding Tea Fire. She and husband Dick hosted the annual Gold-Christmas gathering this year. We were extra-careful with the candles.
We left late Saturday afternoon and landed in a motel near the aromatic Harris Ranch on I-5. Don't get me started.
Next day, since we had extra time to travel the rest of the distance in order to arrive by the appointed time, we decided to hit a back road or two in order to drive through Birthplace of Champions--Taft, California. 61+ years ago, a certain family welcomed a new arrival they called Tom in that very place. Then they got the bleep out of there. For good reason. Tom's dad had been teaching at a little community college in town (still composed, as far as we could tell, entirely of portable buildings--as if it were just waiting for a better offer to go somewhere else at a moment's notice, as the Golds had done 61 years earlier). This is the first time since leaving at around two months of age, that Tom had been back to see his birthplace. And it will probably be the last. I know there must be a perfectly good reason for Taft. There must be. But to the casual observer, it's a little bleak. It's nestled in the southwestern San Joaquin Valley surrounded by oil derricks which give the air a special essence and provide quite the, uh, industrial aesthetic. Nothing like an oil town for scenic beauty.
Anyway, we spent a wonderful afternoon with Tom's mom, brother, Ken, Diana and Dick, their kids and their kids' kids...a way fun bunch! There's Eric and Rachel and their daughter, Grace. And Joy and Marcus with their boys, Wesley, Colby and Griffin. And Lisa with her boys, Ben, Luke and Joel. It was their dad/husband, Mark, who passed away a few month ago. We missed him. Dylan and Rachel were unable to make it, unfortunately.
We all ate ourselves silly surrounded by more festive decor and tasty goodies in one place than should be legal anywhere! It was a beehive of fa la la the whole day! Some were playing games or making gingerbread structures of various sorts, while others were playing with new toys, including navigating a radio-controlled airplane through the house when least expected.
Saying our goodbyes, we headed back north in the evening, staying in Paso Robles for the night before continuing on, feeling no particular need to retrace our path through Taft. We arrived home mid-afternoon. There had been some rain to wash away some of the snow, and it has continued off and on since.
It's Christmas Eve and Dylan and Rachel are on their way from San Francisco and should arrive within the hour. And it's supposed to snow tomorrow. Merry Christmas!
...which is to say, Cornish Christmas. Cold. Wrong shoes, cold feet. But had fun, anyway. Here's the Cornish Choir singing Cornish Christmas Carols. Historically interesting; musically, not so much. And here's our favorite local fancy-soap-maker, plus a cool sax band playing nice versions of Christmas faves. Got our bag of kettle corn to eat at home. Barely made it back up the driveway (our snow-angel, Scott, later plowed for us).
We're taking off this afternoon for Santa Barbara to spend an afternoon with the Gold side of the family, tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Back Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile, here are some links to entertain:
Funny (but turn stupid sound track way down)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp9Gm-aRe5AA little more apropos to the season (but not much more), here's a site about extreme Christmas stuff. Look at the "extreme Christmas trees". I didn't have the heart to look at the "creepiest Christmas ornaments"...
http://www.holidash.com/2008/12/05/extreme-christmas-trees-around-the-world/
Here's another one. Most (not all) of these trees are a little more traditional (though the closeup of the TR ornament might well fit into that "creepy ornament" category, above). Some are spectacular. (From the LA Times)
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-xmastree-pg,0,7335460.photogallery?25
Have a good weekend, everybody!
We didn't have to go out in the sub-freezing, snowy night.
Last year (albeit in slightly warmer and dryer weather), we went to almost all the Victorian Christmas (Nevada City) and Cornish Christmas (Grass Valley) street fairs--there are 5 each. They aren't that different from each other, nor are they so very different from the summer street fairs--we just like that so many people come together and hang out, eating fun food, listening to music and hawking their crafts. We like being two of them.
This year, because of our schedules, we can only attend one of each. Last night was Victorian Christmas. The town is all lit up (including the lovely homes nearby) and the Christmas tree lady walks around and gives candy to kids.
I like that a little cold weather doesn't seem to affect the attendance, though the icy streets/sidewalks make it a bit more of a challenge to get to where the action is without landing hard on one's keaster. The slow summer saunter along the rows of booths and shops becomes more of a brisk, purposeful march, with quick glances at most of the different products for sale, stopping rarely (at the hot-cider station, preferably)!
How the Salvation Army Brass Band guys don't stick to their instruments, I can't say. Seems like it would be a bit like putting your tongue on a flagpole. And don't get me started on the kids playing guitars and fiddles with no gloves.
So, will tomorrow evening find us at the Cornish version? Probably. It's become a tradition, already. But we may put on even extra layers, and try to walk just a little more slowly past the booths selling fancy soaps and candle holders.
What about preparing for winter did we not get, these last eight or nine months?
Last year, especially during our 8-day power (/water/phone) outage in the snow, we made plenty of promises to ourselves about being better equipped when the snow and inevitable power outages occurred. Things like:
1. Making sure our tire chains fit and that we could put them on easily (yesterday, they didn't, and we couldn't)
2. Having plenty of wood cut and stacked in our woodstacking thingy (oh, there's a lot of wood around--just not cut, split and stacked where we can get to it easily)
3. Having more than one battery-powered flourescent lantern ready to use (SO easy--aargh!)
4. Having plenty of drinking water stored up (melted snow is good for everything else)
5. Having a generator that kicks in when the power goes down (well, that one lost to electrifying the shop, this year).
6. I actually did buy a few more big candles (big whoop!).
The snow is gorgeous, I think you'll agree! From Sunday afternoon through Monday morning, we accumulated about 8 or 9 inches--pretty heavy for a first storm of the winter. SO pretty! But, somehow, our technology hasn't progressed to the point of providing continuous power/phone during wind or snow. In Germany, last year, we wondered where all the cables were. Underground, of course, was the "duh!" response. Hmm. It does seem kind of logical...
So, yesterday, after about 7:30am, when we lost power, Tom thought he'd just go to a cafe to use their WiFi and outlets to work for awhile (to prepare for a critical software release). But the snow was too deep. Even for the all-wheel drive Suby. And, after lots of digging around tires, sliding sideways, digging some more, trying to put the chains on, digging some more...you get the idea. A couple of hours later, we just gave up for the day. Stuck.
The house stays in the low 50s, so we bundle up. I cut the tips off of some old glove liners to keep my hands a little warmer and put a giant candle on the table over which to warm them now and again. Feel like I'm channeling the monastery monks laboring over the manuscripts!
Today, colder and with some plowing help from a neighbor (thank you Scott--cookies are coming!), Tom was able to get out and spend the day in the Safeway Starbucks, where a guy chewed him out for talking to loudly on the phone.
NEXT time the power goes out, we'll be so ready...
I was decorating the Christmas tree, this morning, when it began to snow. It's our first real winter storm. By now (evening), there are several inches accumulated and it's still coming down softly in big flakes (that's a shot through a kitchen window that Tom took at around 4 o'clock). 
We gave our last Christmas concert this afternoon, and were pleased to see that very few folks stayed home because of the weather. Here I am in front of the half-finished tree in my singing outfit, and, then, hot tea and music in hand, ready to head for the fairgrounds.
The concert went great! Our neighbors went and enjoyed it, too (whew!). Then, on the way home, sad that it was over, but singing my way through the falling snow and unbelievably gorgeous forest, I hit a curve just slightly too fast and skidded into a guard rail.
Phooey.
It's difficult to see very much damage, but that's partly because it's over the top of some dents that Rachel put there last year, uh, sliding into a guard rail.
We'll check it out tomorrow. Meanwhile, back to the tree...
...That was the name of Tom's favorite of the many choral numbers our choir performed in our first-of-three Christmas shows last night. It also turns out that a 50-something first tenor female who can sing a lot of rather complicated music, much of it in latin, mostly from memory for almost two hours can forget when exACTly to lead her half of the choir up to the stage during the opening processional. Who knew?
There are about 100 of us, mostly-boomer types working our heads off for an extremely gifted and experienced boy wonder (25-ish) with high expectations, and Tom said it showed. From Saint Saens (Christmas Oratorio) to Berlin (White Christmas) to Victoria (O Magnum Mysterium), and the rest, I loved all the music Ryan (Murphy) chose for us. I wasn't sure if such a large group could pull off some of the jazz chords or medieval sounds, but we did.
We were accompanied by a small orchestra, large organ (played by a small person) and a harp, though there were three a capella numbers (my personal favorites!). We carried electric candles into a darkened hall, singing O Come, O Come, Emmanuel to begin the evening, made only slightly less magical by the director glaring pointedly at one oblivious singer who was enjoying it so much, she totally forgot to continue "pro-cessing" up to the stage in order that everyone could be in their spots by the end of the song. Oops. She'll do better tonight!
It's been a joy to sing and meet new folks, this autumn. We had a glorious time in Sacramento singing Beethoven's Ninth, and I loved the two evenings I spent in Auburn earlier this week singing "The Messiah" with the Auburn Symphony (Tom joined in on the fun Tuesday night for that performance). All because I finally swallowed my fear of auditioning last August. Now, I'm very excited for it all to start up again after the New Year.
So, we still have tonight and tomorrow afternoon, the end of seven straight days of music. I just saw a few snowflakes flutter by the window--the first of the season. By tomorrow, and through the rest of this week, we're supposed to drop into the 20s and 30s and get some decent snowfall. So, it seems that we could actually be singing "White Christmas" during, well, you know!
Here are the photos Tom took last night. There's me, with my red rose and white pearls. And there we are loading ourselves into our places a little more quickly than usual, having gotten a late start (I'm standing at the top just to the left of the blond lady). And then there we are, all in place, ready to rock!
Here's hoping that, whereever you are, you are enjoying the music you love this time of year!
Here we have those stained glass panels I made for Community Covenant Church and delivered this last weekend. They are the last three of the series of eight that I started a few years ago. Glass is difficult to photograph, and I do a particularly lousy job of it, so these aren't the best representations, but you'll get the gist. You can double click to enlarge, as usual.
The first one represents the story of the prodigal son. Craig and I had talked about doing a treatment of the story of Jesus healing the leper, and as I was sketching away, the two figures began to remind me of the Rembrandt painting (a print of which hangs in Craig's office) of the story of the prodigal son. I emailed Craig to find out if I could change the subject, and he agreed. So, the position of the father and son in the glass panel is taken from the position of the two figures in the famous painting. Therefore, in the lower right corner of the panel, I've etched "after Rembrandt" (invisible in the photo).
The next one is a window about worship. If you've been in the lobby of the church, you may have seen the four, framed charcoal drawings of hands in various positions of prayer. They were commissioned by Craig for a sermon series, and my son, Dylan, drew them. I stole the image of one of the drawings and incorporated it into the design for this panel. I was trying to suggest an upward flow of thoughts, words (little colored squares) and music (black diamonds with staff sticks). I also chose to use all colors in the spectrum to indicate the full range of people, styles and reasons involved in worship.
The third, and last, is an image representing the hand of Jesus grasping the hand of Peter as Peter is sinking into the Sea of Galilee. The source of this image is taken from a series of four black and white paintings done, all representations of hands, that were painted in front of the congregation (one each week) during a series of messages by Craig. This particular image has been comforting to various people in the congregation at times of struggle and hardship. So, Craig thought that having a representation of it in glass would be appropriate.
And that's it. I hope that they will enhance the community life of the people of CCC for many years.
It was, indeed, a quick trip. A delivery, really. Like FedEx, or Big Brown. After Thanksgiving, I looked at the month of December to discover that I had very limited opportunity to drive the three stained glass panels to El Cajon before Christmas as I so casually had assumed I would. Mostly, but not exclusively, because of music scheduling*, I needed to make it a 3-day hit 'n' run. So, I concocted a plan: drive to Dad 'n' Jean's in North County Friday, deliver the panels to El Cajon Saturday morning, visit the Tuckers Saturday afternoon, and finish the day back at Dad's, after which I'd drive home again on Sunday.
And that's what I did.
I left a bit after 7 at around 30 degrees. First stop--at the end of our street our neighbor wanted to see the panels before I left, so I unpacked them, delivered their concert tickets, repacked the panels, and was on my way again about 7:25. Something happens to me that I can't explain when I'm on the road by myself. I hate to stop for anything. It becomes a "thing". When I travel with Tom, I like to make stops here and there for whatever--it's fun!--but Friday, I packed my tea, water and dry roasted edamame to get me to San Marcos, 550 miles away. I had forgotten to eat breakfast, though, so, fortunately, it was the Costco sized edamame. Cutting to the chase, even with some expected traffic through LA, I pulled into Dad and Jean's driveway, nine hours later, just short of 4:30 pm having stopped only twice (for gas and bathroom breaks).
Of course, as soon as one gets off the 78 freeway, one can follow one's nose to Jean's kitchen. Especially if one has had only edamame to eat all day. Dad and Jean had planned to come up for a visit near his birthday last month, but had to call the trip off when Dad strained his back. It's still giving him trouble, so I was glad to be able to get down for even a short time before Christmas. They had invited their good friend, Don, for dinner and we had a fun and fabulous meal together.
Jean, then, presented me with our Christmas present, which, among other things, like the monster-sized bag of M&M Peanuts (a big fave!), was a gorgeous afghan that she crocheted for us in bright reds! So beautifully done and a wonderful addition to our winter warmth supply kit!
Next morning, I hopped the 60 miles, or so, down to Izzy's in El Cajon, where I had a great brunchtime with Karen, Fran and Lydia. Really fun (as you can plainly see)! After that, we all met back at the church to hang the glass panels. Fortunately, they liked them. I'll post pictures of them tomorrow. But, for the moment, there are Karen and Fran near the Prodigal panel. The panels were all installed amidst the beautiful Advent decorations. A little after noon, hugged goodbye. I miss them. I need to make more treks just for visiting.
Next on the agenda was to spend the afternoon with the Tuckers, good friends that I hadn't seen since before we moved. Their two kids, Jasmine and Ashton, are my godchildren. Curt and Cora live with their family near downtown Escondido, only about 20 minutes from Dad's house. (on the way to the Tuckers', by the by, I paid $1.59/gal for gas! What a crazy world!) I loved seeing them and couldn't believe how much the kids had changed.
Jasmine, 15, is beautiful and sophisticated. Ashton, 13, another handsome kid, seemed twice the size as our last visit. He struggles with autism, but seems to have progressed quite a bit, having picked up much more speech and command-following in the last couple of years! Curt and Cora project the calmest, most serene atmosphere and have created such a beautiful, restful home. I miss them, too, but they're all "wired" up, now, so we'll do more e-visiting than we've been able to do, up til now.
I spent another delicious dinner and evening chatting with Dad and Jean. This picture is one I took before I left early Sunday morning. That's cute li'l Abby mugging for the camera down there. 
So, I was off, again, northbound, this time. I left at the same time as on Friday morning, but, with no traffic, I shaved an hour off of the time. Four quick stops, and the same diet later, I arrived home just before 3:30 pm.
Just in time to go out and buy a Christmas tree and have it set up at home before dark!
*Chorale schedule this week: Evenings of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday plus Sunday afternoon (yipes!)
Sheesh! What does she do all day? Hey! Don't be so nosy! Sometimes we artists have to ponder and, and do stuff that isn't so easily quantified by Time or Productiveness, or, or Something Explainable.
However, there are a few things I can show, I think. I'm actually 3/4 done with a pullover sweater I'm knitting (though I'm presently searching for the rest of the yarn I need to finish). I just finished the knitted phase of a felted hat I'm making. And I'm nearly done with another basket. I'll put up photos of all that stuff when I'm done with them. Soon.
As for other projects, I did some more signage (foamcore and canvas) for The Pittsburgh Project recently. 
Looks like this--It's supposed to match some other pieces I've done for them in the past. Those black rectangles on the green one will accommodate photos of their various ministries.
I made a small calligraphy piece from a quote by Victor Borge, whose schtick still makes me laugh.
And I finished three 24"x 36" stained glass panels to complete the set I started for Community Covenant Church. You see only the corners of the finished framing to suggest that they are actually done. In fact, tomorrow (Friday) morning, I'm leaving for the 8-hour trip to my dad's in north SD county, glass panels in tow, to install them at the church in El Cajon on Saturday morning. I don't have the means to take decent photos, here, so I'll post them after I return.
It'll be great to see Dad and Jean. Dad is temporarily playing the decrepit 81-Year Old Guy since he hurt his back, recently. The mishap the resulted in the cancellation of their planned trip to our house. It's probably just a ploy for some attention. I'll see...Then, on Saturday morning, it will be fun to see some of my good friends from CCC who will be there when I arrive with the panels. I'm looking forward to catching up!
So, more, soon, I'm pretty sure. Stay tuned...Oh, and while you're waiting, check this out. Tom forwarded it to me a few days ago. http://www.greatdanepro.com/Blue%20Bueaty/index.htm
It's pretty amazing (the spelling notwithstanding), and one of those things that reminds me how great it is to be alive to see it! Seriously!
We had some turkey, and--hey did you know that the name "turkey", the bird, actually DOES relate to the country? Yup. Heard it on NPR while I was cooking on Wednesday. Here's the link (I know you'll be thankful to know, finally):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97541602
So, I picked Mom up at the Sacto Amtrak on Tuesday. She hadn't been here since a month after we moved in, so things had changed some. Well, not that much--we still have a few unpacked-box piles that we've just learned to accept as part of our landscape. Sort of a permanent "just moved in" kind of look...
I spent some of Wednesday cooking (as previously noted). Anything unusual? The dressing was extra-good! It's from Sunset and includes artichoke hearts and Parmesan cheese. Here's the recipe (except that I deleted the stock and stuffed the turkey with it): http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=523487. Oh, and then the roasted-sweet-potato cheesecake--another Sunset find that I've made a few times before. A lovely concoction, indeed, served with maple whipped cream. Here's that one: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1119574 My apple/orange/cranberry relish was OK, but didn't have as much of a bite. Needs more tang.
Dylan and Rachel rolled in mid-day on Thursday. Not a big group, but fun! I'm never prepared for how short the meal is compared with how long it takes to prepare. Never. Something wrong with that ratio. And I always chill the Martinelli's and then forget about it until the next day. It's a tradition.
Tom drove Mom back to the train station Friday afternoon, whilst Dylan and I were creating a "clean room" in the shop. It was a corner of the space that we walled off with black plastic, vacuumed, and laid a cloth on the floor. He had brought a table (in pieces) that he needed to keep working on in order to ship it Tuesday (you may have seen it before, but if you haven't here's the link: http://dylangold.com/stink2.html ). So, he and I worked on that while Rachel collected and painted manzanita branches for her apartment, a few of which she painted. Manzanita is the coolest. Amazing color and branching form!
Besides the table, Dylan was working on a design for bookcases for a project he and his partners are bidding on. More on that, later, I hope.
After the kids had left, I went to check out an artisan's fair in Nevada City, with which I was quite impressed. It's research! I'm always scoping out these affairs to figure out which ones seem like a good fit for me at some time in the near future.
Sunday was a day for a deep breath and to reflect a bit on how thankful we are for so much and so many. Overwhelmed, is more like it. And I love the way things never work out quite like I imagine they will, but always more interesting. I hope your time with family and/or friends was fun and memorable in some way!
Dylan proudly models the sweatshirt I found in the same catalog (some of you will recognize the one I mean). The rest of the day we munched, and just generally hung out together. Here are Rachel and I doing just that.
She's the Queen of Social Networking and also pursues jewelry-making and ceramics.
I think she's planning to take a class about working with silver, soon. Dylan is working hard in his furniture-and-other-cool-stuff-made-from-wood business and making some headway (he might also have a future in hair sculpture).
