Category Archives: Musings

Another Regret

Memories, Musings, Reading, ,

A number of years ago I wrote a blog post about regretting not going to a wedding as a 6th grader. Over the Christmas holiday, while being shown around Atlanta, I realized I had another regret.

When we lived in Pittsburgh in the early 1980s I’d discovered the works of Anne Rivers Siddons. I’m sure I read her first three novels (Heartbreak Hotel, The House Next Door, and Fox’s Earth) while living in Pittsburgh. When I read that she was going to be visiting a local bookstore, I was excited and planned to go to the event which was taking place sometime in the middle of the day.

I am unclear on the actual date. If Siddons was promoting a book, then it had to have been Fox’s Earth because the next published book was after we’d left Pittsburgh. That would make it 1981. I am also unclear on the bookstore. My memory puts it in the ritzy part of Shadyside — an area I was not very familiar with. I don’t remember if I walked there or drove. Whatever, I am 95% sure the author was Anne Rivers Siddons.

What I am clear on is walking into the bookstore shortly before the event was supposed to begin. I looked around the store and saw no area set up for a book reading (although I’d never been to a book reading so I am not sure I knew what I was looking for). At the time I was incredibly shy and found new experiences to be painful. I am sure I was nervous just going into the bookstore, but I suppose I assumed there would be welcoming staff or at least a sign telling Anne Rivers Siddons fans where to go for the reading. Being shy, I was terrified of asking one of the book sellers about the reading, so, after a few moments of walking around the bookstore I turned around and began walking out of the shop.

As I headed towards the exit I saw a harried looking woman enter the shop. She said something to me as I passed her about it being hard to find the bookstore or something. I smiled and nodded and left. Moments later I realized it was Anne Rivers Siddons but I was too shy to go back into the store.

I’d mostly forgotten about that event/non-event until we were leaving for our recent semi-spontaneous trip to Atlanta. I ran downstairs to my bookshelf of books I’ve been meaning to read and grabbed my thirty-something year-old mass market paperback copy of Anne Rivers Siddons’ Peachtree Road.

Peachtree Road was the last Anne River Siddons book I read — and I never finished it. I picked up a copy of The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver and fell in love with a new author. I remember telling people about it, saying that it had some of the same themes as Peachtree Road, but Kingsolver didn’t waste a word in her writing. Since I don’t remember much about the 170 or so pages I read in Peachtree Road, I don’t know if the themes were similar. I do think that Kingsolver’s writing is more concise.

The reason I grabbed my copy of Peachtree Road is because I always thought that the day I finally visited Atlanta, I would visit Peachtree Road and then read the book to the end.

My regret is that I didn’t stay to see Anne Rivers Siddons at the bookstore in Shadyside. If I had, perhaps I would have continued reading her works (and still discovered Kingsolver’s books). I regret that perhaps her only fan that could make it to the reading in the middle of the day in a work week was too shy to ask about the reading. That could not have been very pleasant for her (if no one showed up).

So to honor the author who I didn’t stick around to hear her reading, I posed near Peachtree Road in Atlanta with my copy of Peachtree Road. And now all I have to do is read the dam thing.

Art in the House

Memories, Musings,

A few years ago at an arts and crafts show in Washington, DC a relatively new friend who’d never been to my house asked me if I had art in my house. It was a question I was unprepared to answer and said no, except for my daughter’s paintings and drawings, we really had no other art in the house. My friend went on to tell me about the art pieces in her house but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking of the art in my house and how I should have answered the question differently.

At the time I had:

  • Jeremy’s “Dona at Stonehenge” (as well as at least three of his other paintings)
  • Robert Addison’s “Moonlit Carousel”
  • Mary Hamilton’s “Wolves Dining Out (Observed)”, and “The Invitation”

We also had various pieces of pottery and carved wooden pieces handmade by artists.

Since my friend’s question we’ve obtained (mostly as gifts) several other pieces of art created mostly by artists we know.

Every time we do receive a new painting, print, carving or piece of pottery I think back to that question, “Do you have any art in your house?” and silently say to my friend, “As a matter of fact, I do. I have a lot of art in my house.”

Only One Giraffe

Life, Musings, ,

I have been thinking about drafts lately and that thinking brought me back to one of my earliest memories. We lived in an upstairs apartment near the highest point of a street on a (rare) hill in Elgin. I think my parents were having a party in this memory and I remember someone, possibly my mother, saying there was a draft in the living room. 3 or 4-year-old me heard “giraffe in the living room” and was disappointed that I could not see this giraffe my mother spoke of.

We’ve lived at our Bethesda house for more than 28 years. It’s an older home (built in 1947 or so) with mostly original windows on the main and second floors. For the first 13 or so years in this house we only had valences on the windows in the living and dining rooms. Each room has a large picture window plus up to 4 sash windows, so besides sort of living in a fishbowl at night, those rooms were also drafty and chilly in the winter.

Sometime in 2006 we installed honeycomb-style pull-down blinds on all the windows on the main and second floors of our house. It made a considerable difference in the temperatures of all the rooms in the house, especially the living room and dining room (and back room in our kitchen area that had two walls of windows). Winters were much more comfortable because of these shades.

A couple of years ago we bought new living room furniture. One piece was a beautiful leather “cloud” chair that sits next to the fireplace. It is exquisitely comfortable, has a light and plug nearby, yet I find myself drawn to the end of the sofa instead. I realized that the reason for that is because the chair is sitting in the coldest spot in the living room. The cold air from upstairs flows down the steps and into either the living room or the dining room. The cold air from the window behind the chair flows past the chair, into the kitchen. So even with the window shades, there is still that draft.

I searched online for a solution (I wanted pocket doors, but that was not practical) and found recommendations for curtains hung from expansion rods in the doorways (we have two into the living room). I bought some and installed them about a week ago. They are not haute couture by any means, but they do the job — very well!

The living room used to be several degrees cooler than the dining room (where the thermostat lives), but is now several degrees warmer.

When I realized that the curtains were working I proclaimed to no one in particular, “No more drafts in the living room!” Then I noticed the giraffe that Dean brought back from South Africa on one of his trips and amended my proclamation: “Only one giraffe in the living room.”