Hope Vestergaard's Blog, page 3

Favorite Things Friday: Tiny Chairs

my chair rail brings all the toys to the yard

So I actually like all kinds of tiny furniture, but I have a particular affinity for tiny chairs. I don’t know why chairs are at the top of the heap. (Note to self: look up chairs in a dream symbolism book or somesuch.) There is a country store in Frankenmuth, Michigan, where one could quickly assemble a large collection of tiny chairs from all interior design styles/eras, but that would be no fun. They’re expensive, and the thrilling part for me is the hunt! Over time I have accumulated a small collection of tiny chairs from flea markets, thrift stores, and one or two eBay splurges.

These pictures don’t even show all my chairs, as a few of them are on loan to various vignettes around my house and it’s Friday afternoon and the photos are already taken and I am determined to just get this done. Some chairs are part of other favorite collections so I am saving them for supporting roles in those posts.

Speaking of vignettes…which I will discuss in depth on another Friday…I like evolving art. I love it when visitors rearrange my little scenes and/or raid my treasure chest (a vintage plumber’s toolbox) to switch out the objects. So if you come visit, please note that my house is not a museum and I love surprises. Hint, hint. (no not really/who am I kidding?) HINT, HINT.

Lately I have happened upon a lot of vintage cake toppers in my thrifty excursions, and I thought this football guy’s obvious sense of flair was perfect for today’s shoot.

isn't this chair diVINE?

The large, futuristic chair was a recent find, and I don’t know why that vintage bunny works so well with it but it just does.

space-age bunny

The upholstered wooden chair was a bit of a splurge as it’s handmade and German and part of a set with a couch, two chairs, and a coffee table. I didn’t really need a whole set of tiny living room furniture. And yet, it called to me. It looks super comfy and sturdy to me, the perfect place to plop down with a newspaper after a long day at work in a miniature alternate reality.

(I collected a few tiny toilets when my book Potty Animals came out, too. A kind of game of thrones.)

I know that my affection for tiny furniture has something to do with the fact that our household was always in some sort of physical chaos (renovation, moving, etc.) when I was growing up. I love nesting. But I also love the mind play that happens when I handle small objects. I did a lot of imaginative play until I was quite old…dolls, paper dolls, Fisher Price, Legos. It was both a creative outlet and an escape when things were kind of ragged on the home front. Imaginative play is also how all kids make sense of their world and practice social skills. I made up stories for my toys. I don’t know whether that was because I was already destined to be a writer or if I became a better writer because of all the practice, but I have met many other writers who played with toys for embarrassingly long times. So I am no longer embarrassed. In fact, I’m proud. If you want to come play with my toys, you are welcome.

Favorite Things Friday: The Crafty Nook

step into my studio

I like to make things…birds, collages, art, toys, assemblages…those subjects will each get their own feature at some point or another. One of my favorite places in my house is the crafty nook where I keep my art supplies and do my work. It’s a small area jam-packed with good stuff so I’ll have to spread the tour out over a few posts.

A few years ago I went to a collage workshop by one of my favorite children’s book illustrators, Melissa Sweet. She gave us a slideshow tour of her studio and let us peek into some of her supply stashes. This inspired me to do a better job organizing my own supplies for a few reasons: so I’d know what I have, so I could access things more easily, and for the tactile pleasure of sorting and cataloging and arranging these favorite objects.

A lot of my supplies are vintage or recycled…I spend less money and find more charming stuff this way, I think. Hunting for props for my assemblages or birds or whatever gives me focus at garage sales and flea markets, and meets one of my most important criteria for stuff I collect — it needs to be useful. (Maybe not today or tomorrow, but SOMEDAY!)

My workspace includes a workbench with drawers (contents to be revealed at a later date), shelves with supplies and books, and two cabinets full of tools and fabric and other miscellanea. Today we’re just visiting the items that wouldn’t require a search warrant — those things in plain sight.

A recurring favorite theme of mine is large quantities of particular kinds of objects. I don’t mean a million Precious Moments tchotchkes, but a bunch of different versions of the same thing, such as tiny chairs or buttons or whatever. (Again, a topic for a future Friday!) In the photos below you can see many vintage thimbles, buttons, and jars of items: scrabble tiles, bingo numbers and tokens, and a jar of hands. Yes, hands. I like hands and find all kinds of meaning in them.

beloved buttons in cool jars

This photo doesn’t do the colors of my buttons justice, nor does it give you any sense of the scale of my collection. This is just a small sampling of hand-picked favorites, sorted by color and material. I like to plunge my fingers into the jars of buttons like Amelie plunged her fingers into the barrel of beans in the movie of the same name.

I approach crafting much like I tackle gardening — with a general plan but plenty of room to change course as I go. I often prune unused or less loved items from my collections and pass them along to someone who will make better use of them. Sometimes I rearrange the way I group things or display them because that affects how I use the materials. Some drawers (like the magazine clippings drawer!) are quite disorganized but that’s part of the magic…happy accidents occur when you let your supplies comingle.

Every few months the clutter accumulates as I start and stop various projects. At the point when it’s so chaotic as to be unusable, I catch up on favorite TV shows (Mad Men, anyone?) while I restore order in my garden of goodies: weeding and pruning and fluffing.

What do you collect? How do you unwind? Where do you do it?

Vintage Advice: The Art of Cooking and Serving

The Art of Cooking and Serving

by Sarah Field Splint

Proctor & Gamble, approx. 1932

The Art (yes, Art, I tell you!) of Cooking and Serving

The cover art attracted me to this little book–I love me some Art Deco. The author’s name sounds like a pseudonym a la Betty Crocker, but apparently Splint was a homemaking editor at McCall’s magazine and elsewhere.

The front matter includes this gem: “Are your meals in a rut? The appliances on pages 35 to 38 make old dishes new.” What was new at that time: measuring cups, cooking thermometers, muffin tins, gelatin molds, etc. I wonder what cooks of yesteryear would think of today’s immersion blenders, food processors, and crockpots?

One thing that I find intriguing about this book is that it differentiates between table service in the servantless house and in houses with servants, which reminds me of Downton Abbey. But I’m saving that post for another day, because today I want to talk about sandwiches. A chapter in my current work-in-progress features strange sandwiches (don’t ask) so the Sandwich chapter in this book is a good diversion.

It starts with a reference to the Earl of Sandwich folklore, and says, “If this story is true we owe him a debt, for sandwiches are a convenient and delicious food for school lunches, afternoon teas, picnics, and motor parties. They are even becoming a “square meal” when made of hot meat and thick, rich gravy.” Isn’t it funny to think about sandwiches as a novelty or trendy food?

The book includes recipes for the old standbys: ham, club, chicken salad. But there are many peculiar and unappetizing ones: cheese and pickle, egg and olive, lettuce, nut and raisin, pickled walnut and cheese. The chapter ends with Wide Open Sandwiches, which are essentially open-faced ham/egg/pickle salad sandwiches. Revolutionary.

As I looked over the recipes, a common theme emerged: Crisco. It’s in every sandwich. Even peanut butter is not paired with jelly, but with Crisco Spread. There is a special recipe for Crisco “spread” which I will share below. This was the point where I realized the book was essentially an advertising piece for Crisco…but an artfully done one with many chapters that don’t even mention Crisco! There are general tips for sandwich success (use day-old bread; try toasting the bread to mix things up, etc.) and most sandwich recipes end with the direction to cut in fancy shapes. Charming.

For the curious and strong of stomach:

CRISCO SANDWICH SPREAD

1 cup Crisco

1 egg yolk

1/4 tsp mustard

1/8 tsp paprika

few grains cayenne

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 TBS lemon juice

2 1/2 TBS vinegar

Cream Crisco. Add egg yolk slowly and beat well. Mix mustard, paprika, cayenne, salt, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice together and stir into the first mixture. Add vinegar, beating in a little at a time. Mix thoroughly. This will keep in a cool place for several weeks. If it becomes hard, warm slightly and beat to proper consistency.

[Hope says: in a cool place? How about a REFRIGERATOR? If it becomes hard? It's got raw egg yolk in it. Maybe you mean, "if it turns rancid." ?!]

LETTUCE SANDWICH [note: a.k.a. the anti-manwich!]

Cut thin slices of white or whole wheat bread and trim off the crusts. [Note: Sliced bread was not yet a staple!] Spread lightly with Crisco Spread. Lay a crisp leaf of lettuce on a slice of bread, spread with mayonnaise Dressing, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover with another slice of bread and cut sandwich in halves diagonally. Serve at once. [Hope says: And stand back, because there's sure to be a stampede at the buffet for these babies.]

NUT AND RAISIN SANDWICH

Cut thin slices of white or graham bread and trim off crusts. Spread lightly with Crisco Spread. Make a filling of 1 cup chopped raisins and 1/4 cup chopped nuts moistened with Mayonnaise Dressing. Spread between two slices of bread. Cut with round cooky cutter.

Interesting side note: when I googled the author, I discovered that this book features prominently in a Margaret Atwood novel, Moral Disorder. You can read about that book here.

 

Favorite Things Friday: Ann Arbor Farmers’ Market

This Friday favorite is a little bit alliterative: it’s the Farmer’s Market!

so package-y!

When I travel, I love to visit local produce, fish, and flea markets just as much as I like visiting historical landmarks and museums–sometimes maybe more so. You really get a sense of the local community at a market. (The tiny, impeccably-dressed Sicilian grandmothers shopping for single servings of fish and produce in Sicily both broke and warmed my heart).

Ann Arbor has a great farmers’ market. Open Saturdays and Wednesdays, you can find all kinds of tasty, homegrown and homemade items and talk directly to the people responsible for them. Local growers have a reverence for their products that I find appealing, whether the vendors are dreadlocked, organic young upstarts or leathery cheeked, bright-eyed older folks who have been coming to market for decades.

Right now all the spring flowers and first veggies of the year are overflowing in the stalls, including one of my top three veggies: asparagus! Oh, how I love it oven roasted or grilled with olive oil and sea salt…or sautéed into an omelet…or puréed into soup. YUM. Someday I will write asparagus a poem, I love it so much.

This week I walked downtown from a friend’s house on the Old West Side. The weather was gorgeous and the company, grand. We didn’t plan to go to the market, but it was a happy coincidence when we realized our excursion was happening on a market day. I love to walk and I love to talk and doing so in my old stomping grounds gives me warm, fuzzy feelings about childhood adventures. One of the highlights of my childhood was my relative independence…if something was in walking distance from our house on Sixth St., I checked it out.

Feast your eyes on the goodies below, then hot-foot it to your local market and see what turns up!

Bonus: The A2 Farmers’ market is located a stone’s throw from another favorite A2 institution, Treasure Mart, which deserves its own post. And Kosmo Deli! Mmmmm, (Bi Bim) Bop!

Favorite Things Friday: Salt & Peppa!

Ta-da! A representative sample.

I tend to be a bit of a curator… it’s about both the hunt and the trophy. I don’t collect things primarily for quantity, but for uniqueness or charm. This week’s object of my affection is salt and pepper shakers. They hit all my sweet spots: they’re kitchen-y, useful, kitschy; they don’t take up a lot of room, they’re relatively common and pretty affordable, as long as you are patient. They are compact to store which means I can easily rotate my collection when whimsy strikes. And I *do* love to make a window display…

My favorites are vintage (surprise!) but I’m not attached to a particular era. Right now I’ve got art deco and forties and mod and seventies on display. I like a variety of materials, too…Bakelite, Pyrex, plastic, aluminum, iron, ceramic. And I am not particular about the subject, it just has to be cute. (Tiny furniture and fake fruits and vegetables happen to be cuter than average, it seems.)

these strawberries' caps make them look French, no?

I don’t mind if the shakers are gently (or not so gently) used…it adds to their appeal. I like imagining the homemakers (male or female) who originally owned them. I picture these people’s kitchen colors and fixtures and imagine the meals the shakers were honored guests at.

I’m a fan of evolving design, and there are a few spots in my house that I redecorate pretty frequently: the mantel, the dining room cabinet, a couple of shelves in my office and bedroom. I might combine natural materials and and beloved knickknacks, for example.  A pair of salt & pepper shakers is often just the right icing on the display cake, as in the Japanese boy and girl shakers in the picture below. I don’t have many knickknacks from beloved, now departed relatives, but I like the idea that I am a good custodian for somebody’s grandma’s salt & pepper sets.

 

Nesting *and* Flying the Coop

I have been neglecting my writing in favor of some VIP nesting…my sister and her family have just moved from Iowa City to Ann Arbor so her husband can work with Mike on our new farm endeavor. They have two adorable and charming boys…just like the Wild Things threatened Max…I’m tempted to eat them up, I love them so! I am looking forward to much cheek nibbling and picture book inspiration. My contribution to their new nest was mostly on the design end, plus several late nights spent mapping, cutting, placing and grouting tile backsplashes. I do love a project. (My hands, however, are TORN UP.) Pictures soonish!

Flying the coop refers to an exciting project referenced here by illustrator extraordinaire and friend Lisa Kopelke! In addition to having many mutual sensibilities, Lisa and I shared a literary agent until she left the business to raise a family. Once our agent kicked us out of her nest, so to speak, we decided to carry on with a joint project we had in the works — a little book called Birdie – and it has been such a delight. The story (and the art) involves many of our mutually favorite things…sewing, birds, dogs, optimism, friendship, vintage fabrics, and buttons, to name a few!

Anyway, while we are breaking all the submission rules, I might as well share some sneak peeks…

 

Vintage Advice: Suggestions for Better Living

Today’s Vintage Advice comes from a pamphlet.

I can't wait to live better, can you?!

Suggestions for Better Living

a publication of WTVB-FM, Coldwater Michigan, ~1952

When I spied this pamphlet on an antique store shelf, I felt a little tingle run down my thrifty spine. It has charming fonts and clip art that make the cover great for framing. A quick glance inside showed it offers interesting reading, too.

It’s an oddly organized collection and it’s not exactly clear what all these tips have to do with the radio station. There’s an insert with info about WTVB-FM, so I think the brochure was probably given to potential advertisers to demonstrate the station’s target audience. It’s funny to think about how important the radio was to families at that point in time.

Here’s the table of contents:

A Few Thoughts on Thrift

And here are my guesses about what the more intriguingly titled sections contain…

Helpful Hints for You and Hubby

I predict it will say things such as:

Don’t go to bed angry.
Privacy keeps the love fires burning.
The  person who kills the milk/jelly/lunch meat/etc. should be the one to fill it.

What the pamphlet actually said:

1….Before you use a screw, twist it in a piece of soap. The slippering filing in the threads assures an easier entry into the wood. (Hope says: Hmmm! Will try this one. Have scraped my knuckles with wayward screws more than a few times.)

2. Your gun sprayer can be used for a variety of purposes. Fill it with floor wax and use it on floors. Fill it with insect powder for use on plants. Just air alone will blow the dust from inaccessible corners. (Hope says: sounds like an episode of I Love Lucy)

3. Drop gloves, belt, scarf and ribbons into a pan of dye of your favorite shade. You will spruce up your ensemble with an entire matched set of accessories and do away with that tiresome shopping problem. (Hope says: As if! I’m lucky to wear socks that match each other.)

6. If the broom handle is loose just twist a piece of steel wool around the tip, screw it back and it will be secure forever and ever. (Hope says: there’s something charmingly romantic about that forever and ever, isn’t there?!)

7. Kiddies love this recipe. Buy some round cookies as large as you can get and a box of animal crackers. Ice the large cookies and while still moist, press the animals around the cake into the frosting. Be sure that they are standing upright. A peppermint stick as a center pole will complete the individual merry-go-rounds which will delight each child. Saves hot oven baking, too. (Hope says: hot oven baking is the worst [sarcasm]. Also: this sounds like a delicious, teeth-rotting after-school snack.)

Hope’s predictive abilities score for this round: 0

Garden Gossip

I predict:

Don’t believe Neighbor X when she says coffee grounds are the secret to her large tomatoes. Go straight for the Miracle Grow – everyone does.
Place saucers of beer around the garden to attract and drown slugs. Don’t worry if your cat or dog seems a little tipsy — at least they can’t drive.
If you find yourself with too many zucchini, slip them onto your neighbor’s porches under cover of night.
The carrots were spotted canoodling with the fennel last weekend. (Re-read the section heading…I couldn’t resist!)

Pamphlet says:

1. Try watering plants with water in which empty egg shells have been thoroughly soaked. This treatment will revive all greenery. (Hope: what will it do to tired teens who accidentally drink this concoction in the middle of the night?)

3. You can provide your living room with an unusual and decorative touch by planting a sweet potato in one pot and a carrot in another. (Hope: why stop there? How about a pineapple? Corpse flower?)

5. Plants are like people. A good washing perks up anyone. Wash gently the green leaves of your potted plant with cool water at least once a week and you will notice the difference. (Hope: do you recommend the washer wears a nurse’s uniform and/or sing to the plants, too?)

Hope’s predictive abilities score, garden round: 0

kid gloves? really?

Patter on Spots and Stains

(Note: don’t you love the word, “patter”? Don’t you wish it were used more often?)

Hope predicts:

Serve party guests clear drinks to avoid dark stains on carpet.
Tonic water removes red stains from carpet and fabric.
Use peanut butter to remove chewing gum from hair.
Cut lemons will remove nail polish stains from fingernails. Nothing will remove nail polish from any other surface. Surrender now.

Pamphlet says:

1. Try cleaning your brown kid gloves at home by dissolving yellow soap in milk and applying with a flannel cloth. After they have been permitted to dry in the open air you will be quite happy with the results. (Hope: won’t the gloves start to stink once they warm up on your hands?)

9. Soap tends to set a stain rather than remove it. Try to remove stains before washing with soap. (Hope: I will try this advice if I can figure out what to use instead of soap!)

10. If a thoughtless lady guest fails to remove lipstick before eating or washing, all you can do is to sponge the napkin or towel with a cleansing fluid and then wash in hot suds. If this doesn’t do the trick, try bleach. (Hope: Oh, those thoughtless lady guests! Oh, their poor hostesses!)

11. Oily dust cloths should be washed in plenty of hot, sudsy water and kept in an air-tight container. Carelessness may result in a disastrous fire. (Hope: sounds like I Love Lucy, part II)

13. Your husband’s pipe cleaners can be used to good advantage for cleaning between he tines of forks. (Hope: oh, good! Dirty fork tines plague me and I was looking for a way to productively fill my free time each afternoon.)

Hope’s predictive abilities score, round 3: 0

Well, it looks like my household hints ESP is very poor indeed. Heloise I am not. However, from this day forward, my fork tines will be spotless. And I’m sorry in advance if my kid gloves smell like sour milk.

Favorite Things Friday: old photos

a photo in the hand is worth a bird in the bush…

Today’s Favorite Things Friday is actually a three-fer. Old photos, old notes, and old tins.

My real topic is vintage photos, specifically, this one of a Midwestern homestead with a funny note on the back. I love looking at old pictures: imagining the drama behind the moment captured in the photo, wondering what happened just before or after the photo was snapped, wondering where the subjects are now, imagining how the photo landed in my possession and pondering whether anybody misses it.

I’m drawn to old photos at estate or thrift sales. I can’t help but look at them and feel a little sad about somebody’s memories ending up in a dusty bin to be pawed over by strangers. Sometimes I make more positive assumptions…I think to myself that maybe these are somebody’s outtakes after whittling down a collection, that there are better versions of the same scenes lovingly framed or scrapbooked somewhere.

I sometimes find photos (or notes) tucked into used books that I buy. These are often my favorites, because someone saved that particular photo for a reason and I try to puzzle out what that might be. I  use my collected photos for inspiration and meditation. A snapshot can be a starting point for a story or an endpoint, or it might simply help to give characters shape and definition in my mind’s eye. But I don’t mean to imply that all the old photos I have serve some function. Many I keep just because I love them and can’t bear to imagine them untethered in the universe. I try to be a good custodian and find good homes for them at my place or with friends who have similar sensibilities.

I keep my favorite photos in a tin, tucked into books, pinned on my bulletin board, or  taped onto mirrors like Sally Jane Freedman did on my favorite cover of that Judy Blume book.

There are many awesome photos in my tin, but the one I’m calling your attention to today is especially great because of the text on the back (other people’s correspondence is another one of my favorite things).

the comical homestead

I’m guessing this photo dates from the 1930s. I like it when photos have dates and names and locations, but this one has something even better: a hilariously deadpan personal note. It speaks for itself in spidery, careful handwriting:

My Dear Sister & Bro:

Well Jennie here is our residents barn & corn crib on our farm, isn’t the house comical. The pin Lillian swallowed must of come thru allright. Dr. said it should of come the third day. Sophie watched her stool but Dr. said she should have strained it to be sure of finding it. Sophie didn’t do that. She seems just like always, just loves to tease Marion. Fred, Ma & I are going out to Schnorrs this P.M. His funeral is tomorrow at M.E. in Perry, isn’t it too bad.

with love from Millersville, Kathryn

many thanks for the papers

My Dear Sister & Bro

Isn’t that ridiculously fantastic? After I paid for the picture, I read it aloud and I could see the shopkeeper thinking he should have charged more or kept it for himself. Too bad!

I’m attracted to old photos for all kinds of reasons: interesting architecture, vintage merchandising/shops, fun clothes, compelling facial expressions, favorite scenes. I love pictures of people reading, people with pets, and children with beloved grownups. I also love photos that happen to have vintage items that I own shown in their original era. Sometimes the note on the back is more compelling than the photo itself, but today’s photo and note are so much nicer together. What made the house comical? How can a photo be so…deadpan? What did Lillian look like? Did she really pass the pin? So many mysteries to contemplate.

PS: This post features another favorite: old tins. I have a lot of them. I will save them for another post. But know that they hold many treasures.

PPS: These pictures include three other favorites. Those who know me well, what are they?

Vintage Advice: Buffet Thoughts

Thoughts about Thoughts for Buffets

Thoughts for Buffets (Houghton Mifflin, 1958)

I didn’t buy this book. I didn’t even open it. I loved the cover and the mental images it evoked and thought there was no way that the book’s contents could provide more entertainment than my own overactive imagination.

(Apparently it’s a cookbook, in a series, in case you were wondering. But Thoughts for Buffets was by far the best title.)(PS: Just found there’s a More Thoughts for Buffets!)

Here are some of my own buffet thoughts:

Cheesy potatoes? Ohgoodohgoodohgood.
See that line of people at the end of the table? That’s where you start. There is a reason there are no plates here.
Chicken? What a surprise!
Please do not eat as you fill your plate, especially while leaning over the table. You are thinking of another long, rectangular eating surface: a trough.
Have you had your flu shot?
Are those raisins or chocolate chips?
(Quick mental math to determine how many slices of bacon one can prudently take, given the size of the crowd)
Your beard is getting dangerously close to the dip, sir.
This is not an All You Can Eat buffet, it’s a They Ate It All buffet. (half an hour before a restaurant buffet’s official end)
Please don’t lick your fingers/sneeze/cough/crop dust as you walk the length of the buffet table. Pretty please.
I’m concerned about there being enough dessert. If I skip the barbecue table for now and go straight to the pies, will there be any protein left for me later? (Do I care?)
Did you get a flu shot? Did I?
Hey, person in line ahead of me. There are two fillets left. If you take them both, I will get nothing. Don’t pretend you can’t feel my eyes boring into the back of your head.
Don’t double dip! Do not explain to me that Mythbusters proved that double dipping doesn’t have immediate health effects. I don’t care. It’s yucky.
Why do I always get stuck behind indecisive eaters?
When there are 12 varieties of dessert on the table, the hosts will not be offended if you don’t sample them all. Really.
I think I must try every single dessert on this table?
No, it is not okay to manhandle the rolls or fruit in order to obtain your preferred variety. You touch it, you take it. (And for the love of all things bright and beautiful, do not sniff it.)
Do we really have to be invited to the buffet table by table? Can’t we be trusted not to stampede or cut like savages? Oh, yeah…
Can we just make a rule that large parties require a two-sided buffet table?
Can people really not see that the food on both sides of the buffet table is exactly the same?
Do not blow your nose on the linen napkin. Really.
When they say, “All you can eat,” they don’t mean, “All the calories you need to consume to survive for the next three days.” Humans are not like alligators or lions. There will be another opportunity to eat in a few hours if not sooner.
Every item on the plate of that person next to me is white/orange/brown.
Man! I wish I took what he/she took. It looks better than mine.
How many meatballs are too many?
Dear parent who wants everyone to know what a diverse eater your child is: we don’t care. We will take umbrage if you serve all the smoked salmon to little Johnny who will take a bite out of each piece and then run off to chase balloons.
Why do East coasters stand “on line?” How does that make more sense than “in line?”
Why don’t Europeans stand in line, at buffets or airports?

Reviewing these pulled from real-life buffet thoughts, it’s apparent that nothing brings out humans’ bad table manners like a buffet. Either that, or I’m a catering curmudgeon. Quite possibly both things are true. However, never fear, if you come to my house, I will cook for you and encourage you to eat yourself silly. With a modicum of manners, of course.

 

Favorite Things Friday: Ollie

books and dogs

This image serendipitously came across my Facebook feed this week. I have been sorting my book collection. One of the books I am adding is a biography of Edward Gorey, a longtime literary favorite of mine. And I’ve been thinking a lot about dogs and how grateful I am for their company.

Our sweet German Short-Haired Pointer Ollie was unfailingly plucky and uncomplaining throughout his many health trials. This winter he took a turn for the worse. He was suffering from cancer, seizures, and autoimmune problems, but had been stoically hanging in there, cheerful as ever. We really wanted his last moments to be peaceful and cozy with us by his side, so we decided to put him to sleep a couple weeks ago rather than wait for a traumatic health event. He was 11 or so years old and had lived a good and full life on our farm since we adopted him several years ago, but as any animal lover knows…it is hard to make the decision, even when it’s the right one.

It has been a cold gray spring in Michigan but a couple weeks ago we had a glorious sunny day with warm wind. Ollie ambled happily around the yard sniffing his favorite spots. He loved to chase critters around the yard ’til he was exhausted then find a sunny spot to melt into a puddle of dog for a nice long nap. I was so glad he got one more of these “perfect” days.

Ollie was not very smart, not at all. Luckily, he was too dumb to know this and lived blissfully unaware of his mental shortcomings. He had a very instinctive brain and could track birds and bunnies and mice and treats with unerring accuracy and focus.

Ollie loved to eat. His first night with us, he circled the table in hope of some scraps. Our other dog, Buck, had always observed dinner from a polite distance. Ollie paced and sniffed and we watched in horror as large, ropy strands of drool swung dangerously close to us and our plates. Eventually we learned that he didn’t like to be sprayed with a water bottle and having one on the table was usually deterrent enough. If Ollie forgot his manners and got too close to dinner, we could even make a pretend water bottle with our fingers and fake the sound with our mouths and he would back off.

CSI: Canine Edition

Ollie was big and goofy and awkward but a ninja in the kitchen. One night he silently helped himself to half a Bundt cake while I sat 15 feet away in the living room. Another time he surgically removed three muffins from a plate as I walked outside to greet members of my critique group. He didn’t disturb the tablecloth and the remaining muffins looked unmolested so I made a split-second decision to rearrange them on the plate and said nothing of the matter. Ollie was never ashamed or abashed when he binged on people food, he just looked optimistically at his discoverer as if to say, “That was tasty. Is there more?”

Ollie hoovered up his food so quickly that sometimes he burped it right back out, unchanged. No worries, he’d eat it again. He wasn’t picky. He loved to steal horse hoof trimmings, even though they made him quite ill. The only thing he wouldn’t eat was pills. He would sift them out of peanut butter or gag them up if you placed them into the back of his throat. This was a hassle when he was taking seven pills twice daily for various ailments (especially because he had no body awareness and might accidentally chomp down on your hand as you were trying to maneuver a pill down the hatch). We discovered that if we cut hotdogs up and hid the pills inside, he would happily gulp them whole, even after he watched us insert the pills.

Ollie helped himself to any treats that were left unattended. One Christmas this included approximately 4 pounds of candy that I had hidden. I don’t know how he found it, this sweet dummy who couldn’t always find his way from the second floor to the basement, but he sniffed it out and ate it, wrappers and all. Luckily, his other culinary exploits had left him with an iron stomach and the only consequence was several days of foil-speckled piles in the yard.

5 hours post thunderstorm, Ollie pretends he doesn't know it has passed.

Ollie was terrified of thunderstorms. When the first lightning or thunderclap struck, he’d leap up onto our bed and land like a ton of bricks. As soon as he knew he would be allowed to stay there, he stretched out like a bedhog and blissfully went to sleep, leaving us a small margin of mattress to sleep on.

So many things that Ollie did said, “You are my everything.” In his last years, he was never more than 3 feet away from me when I was writing or in bed, and often when I was cooking, which could be problematic for me but beneficial for him when I tripped and spilled. He was a lover and a leaner and if you were sad, he would find you and melt into you until your breathing matched his and your sadness leaked out to somewhere else and you could feel calm again. He made you peaceful.

Ollie wasn’t good at sharing toys or attention. He didn’t know how to play like a dog — nipping and growling, etc. — without going too far and ruining the whole thing. But he loved to chase a stick or ball and would do so as long as you let him. If other dogs turned him away, he just accepted it and moved on. He never barked unless you barked at him. He moaned to communicate pleasure and sighed when he was resigned to something.

When I laid paperwork for sorting or spread a quilt out for pinning, Ollie took this as an invitation to arrange his long limbs right in the middle of it. As aggravating as it was, you couldn’t help but admire his unflinching expectation that the world and we were there to provide good things for him.

I’d like to take a page out of his book and keep that in mind as I navigate meals and social groups and scary situations: the world and my people have good things in mind for me, if I can just be patient.

R.I.P. sweet Ollie.