Closing the Book (Aug. 14, 2011)

Inching toward noon on Sunday. I didn’t plan to be parked at the computer, about to mourn the loss of the bookstore. But here I am. I’m sure I’m not the first person to put fingers to keyboard on this subject, but it hit home for me today so here I am.

I was out and decided to swing by a bookstore I hadn’t been inside in at least a year. I needed bribery material for a child who whose hair soon will be detangled and cut, and who won’t be happy about it.

After parking, I marched inside, bee lined for the front desk and asked a clerk why there was a huge sign out front. Why were they going out of business? Was it because of low-priced online competition that rhymes with “glamazon?” She said there were a lot of theories about why.

As I wandered off to find bribery material, I felt sad. True, I hadn’t been in this store in ages. Although I love reading, I frequent libraries more often than book stores. And I’m among the masses that flock to the discounted online sites, so I can hardly point fingers and accuse others of not going to book stores. I get that the online stores can discount more than the brick-and-mortar stores because they don’t have the same rent, utilities, and personnel costs. (I really get this, because I worked at a book store years ago. Here was how we answered the phone, each and every time: “Thank you for calling Crown Book Stores, where we have the lowest book store prices guaranteed. This is Sarah. How may I help you?” (Gasping, I’d pause to replenish my lungs with air.) We did have low prices because the company paid minimum wage, and considered thirty-six hours per week part-time, therefore skirting paying health coverage! So I really do get that running a book-selling business costs money!) But I’m still sad to see this store close.

Since I was a child, I’ve loved to read. When I babysat a lot as a 12-to-15-year-old, I spent a lot of my earnings at the local book store. I have great memories of these special places. If you love to read, going to book stores and libraries is like kids’ being dropped into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Amazing! There are dazzling sights and colors everywhere you look. There’s something you want to get your hands on at every turn. It’s a wonderland, a feast for the eyes and the mind. You can learn. You can be entertained. You can reload on ideas for creative projects. It’s relaxing and stimulating all at the same time.

At the check-out counter I paid for my three books (one is the earliest Christmas present I’ve ever bought, and needs to be hidden for the next four months. Of course, there’s always the danger that I will have hidden it from myself, too, or that come December, I will have forgotten it entirely. Note to self: write reminder and location onto the calendar in hieroglyphics only I can decipher.)

The clerk and I commiserated about the closing, and she said she thinks that part of the problem is that people come in and treat it like a library, sitting in cozy chairs and reading for hours, and not buying. I’ve done that, too, so I won’t finger-point. But I’m still sad. The world changes, I know. But it can be hard to watch it happen. At best, it’s sometimes a mixed bag. And when it involves something that is meaningful to you, it’s extra hard. I hope the little bookstores are able to make it. I guess I need to be part of the movement of keeping it local, buying from stores I want to see survive.

Super-Duper Markets (Aug. 5, 2011)

"They’re doing WHAT to the old Safeway?”I screeched. Dad hadn’t realized that this would upset me. “They’re renovating it, giving it a facelift,” he’d said a moment before. He was referring to a store near where I grew up. Although it wasn’t the one we frequented the most, I still feel some nostalgia and regret that its original look is being altered Even though I don’t live there anymore, it still bugs me. No one asked me if they could change things from my childhood! It’s a smaller store, especially as compared with the giant stores that are the standard now. It had the familiar Safeway front and gull wing roofline, the glass frontage and lava rock. This was called the “Marina Style,” named for the prototype store on Marina Boulevard in San Francisco. In the mid-1960s Safeways took on this new look, and being that I’m a child of the 1970s, the original look was still in place when my young brain was studying the world. This is very similar to what they looked like:


There must be people out there who don’t care to join in our chit-chat about supermarkets and their symbolism. They would rather pluck their eyelashes one by one than ponder this subject. That’s ok. But if you think about it, food is one of the things that every living creature needs, so if there is one subject that unites us, it could be this one.

For many of us, a trip to the supermarket may be among our earliest memories, if not for its glamour but due to the frequency of our visits. I recall going to two Safeways as a very tiny child in the late 70s, when Safeways still boasted their original 1960s style. I may have been only three or four. Was it the height of the building that made an impression on me? The interior ceiling was so tall. Was it the promise that we’d bring yummy things home? Was it the fun of being lifted into the child-seat of the shopping cart? I still remember the narrow aisles, stocked high with dozens of varieties of whatever you needed. I recall the formica on the check-out stands. I remember the circular, rotating area where you’d load your groceries (it carried your groceries around the circle to the cashier). This predated the one-way black conveyer belt. Another Safeway I remember is now a drugstore, but I recall walking through it, looking up at huge tables of apples (there seemed to be thousands of them atop a metal stand shaped like a pool table, the stand tapering down to a smaller footprint at the base). Why is this so significant to me? Does it connect to some basic urge amongst women to gather? Were my gathering instincts being shaped even at age four?

These days what I appreciate at the super market is completely different than what I liked as a child. Now a harried mom, I’m glad to be in any building that feels different from my house and all its unfinished chores! Here is an informal checklist of how supermarkets are different from my house:

Supermarket floors are spotless. Mine are spotted. At supermarkets there are no milk spills, dirty socks, disgarded clothing items, thrown raisins, dust bunnies, capless markers, or unidentified substances on their floors. (If something is spilled at the store, it’s not left for me to discover and clean up! At least three employees swoop out of nowhere and are on it before the last drop hits the linoleum. Amazing!)

Supermarkets shelves are nicely organized. Mine are a jumble of whatever can fit and (hopefully) not fall down.

Supermarkets play upbeat music. The sounds echoing in my house are “Gimme that! It’s mine! I hate you! (Followed by sounds of kids hitting each other and often, crying.)

For some, going to the store is a chore. For me, it’s almost a vacation!

The original look of those Safeways just brings me back to the innocent wonder I had as a four-year-old. My own four-year-old likes to go to the store. She’s picked up on the idea that supermarkets are a place filled with solutions. She’s vaguely aware of money, but still has that innocence one should have at four. Out of milk? She has the answer: “Let’s go to the store!” It’s a shiny place of bounty. People greet you, pack up your stuff, wish you a good day. And since she’s not paying the credit card balance (!), it’s a completely good experience for her.

Recently I stumbled upon a smaller store I’d forgotten about, as I no longer live in that neighborhood. It’s an IGA, formerly a Safeway, and despite a change in ownership you can see its original design features:

I’ll be back with another ode to supermarkets of old on another day. There are Piggly Wigglys to discuss, after all. For now I’ll leave you with sparkling visions of Safeways dancing in your heads.

Now where’s my shopping list?

Long Live the Quonset Hut (Aug. 5, 2011)

Does that name evoke any images? I’d never heard of them until I started college, when I first stepped inside one for an art class. I remember it clearly. The structure really fascinated me. Curved walls and ceilings are so surprising if you’ve always lived in square-cornered buildings.


(This photo shows one of the Quonsets that UCSD aquired when it took over the land from

Camp Matthews. It's not my photo but this is exactly what they looked like more than twenty-five years later, when I started school there.)

(This is also not my photo but this is what it looked like in the Quonsets where we had art classes.)

Their funkiness really fit with what art students do: forgoing traditional approaches in favor of something less confining. The lack of sharp angles in the huts fit perfectly with what I was experiencing, not only in my art classes but as a brand new college student: new ideas, new freedoms as well as new hurdles. Our intro art classes were very conceptual. We contemplated what art could be. It was air. It was an idea. It was a moment. It was the tangle of voices chanting different things at precisely 10:32am. It was limitless, not bound by rigid rules. Like the Quonset hut itself, art bent where you expected things to be solid.

That useful tool known as Google is helping with my Quonset Hut questions. It turns out UCSD was born on land that was formerly a marine base. In 1967 UC La Jolla (as it was originally known before becoming UC San Diego) acquired the 1,000-acre Camp Matthews. The Quonset Huts remained on university land for more than twenty-five years. While I was there they were all removed to allow for the construction of a fancy-shmancy, huge new building. Although I recognize that it makes sense to put a multi-story building in the footprint of a formerly 1-story building, I felt sad about it. New isn’t always better. Older things have value, too. The quirkiness of these buildings fit with the rustic feel UCSD had twenty years ago. Now it’s much more cutting-edge and polished, which is a mixed thing for me.

Quonset Huts were named after the site of their first manufacture, Quonset Point, Rhode Island. They were lightweight prefabricated structures made of galvanized iron and semicircular arched ribs. They did not require skilled labor to be put together and could be shipped anywhere in the world. The first Quonset hut measured sixteen feet by thirty feet. Apparently the military did not make the original Quonset Huts after 1959, although similar, larger structures have been created since.

When I drive around San Diego I sometimes see a Quonset Hut. Next time I spot one I need to get out and really look at it. One houses a roller skating rink! Some of the local Quonset Huts may be new (it’s hard to tell when you’re driving by, and the basic design has not changed in fifty years so how am I to know if it’s original or simply using the original shape?) The new ones don’t interest me. They are too big, too modern. I like the humble, small ones that are only marginally taller than a person standing, ones with a back story. Online there are many, many photos of Quonset Huts, and buildings inspired by them. There are new homes that borrow from the Quonset’s curves. But for me they are akin to the newer Volkswagen Beetles: cute in their own way but too modern-looking for my taste. I need chrome. I need 50s curves. I’ll take funky charm over speed or modern touches any day.

(This is another photo I got online, showing the interior of a Quonset Hut owned by a woman named Rose, in Kodiak, Alaska.)

(How fun is this photo? A woman and her granddaughter transformed the outside of a Quonset, making a cookie-cutter prefab building into simply fab!)

In rural areas I’ve seen structures that resemble Quonset huts: plastic-covered half-pipe structures, under which are growing things. They are called high tunnels, high hoops or hoop houses, temporary structures that extend the growing season.

Apparently there is a huge number of Quonset Huts in Alaska. Is this because their curved roof made sense in a snowy climate? Or is it because a state like Alaska is not as populated as others, and less vulnerable to bulldozing of old structures in order to make way for housing developments? I’m sure Quonset Huts can be found in quite a few (or all?) states, but rural areas seem to have more of them.

I’m borrowing a book from the library this weekend, Quonset Hut: Metal Living for a Modern Age, by Chris Chiei, and I’m sure I’ll be back to blog more about Quonsets once I’ve flipped through it. It may seem funny to some that I’m so excited about these structures. My friend Ed finds them far more functional than fabulous. But their unpretentious ways appeal to me. I’m sure it has something to do with this, too: when I discovered them I was also discovering who I was as a young adult. It’s easy to feel nostalgic about that sense of wonder that comes upon you when you’re uncovering so many new ideas, new places, new experiences. I was a shiny new college student, and I found some magic in something older, something dusty and to some, outdated. But I say you can find magic anywhere, if you’re open to finding it in unexpected places.

Ageless Art (July 22, 2011)

As you may (or may not) know, at times my art has been very abstract. I like mixed media, and combining different things is appealing.

I named this piece "Ageless Art." Is this because it refers to many genres of art, Abstract Expressionist as well as Postmodern? Is its relevance to all time periods obvious, therefore making it ageless? Of course.

This piece is not actually one of mine. It was created by someone far ahead of her time, a four-year-old I know well. We share studio space. And chocolate chips.

I found her...creating...a few days ago. I realized (too late) that I can't leave certain...art supplies...around within her reach. And by art supplies, I mean this: anything on earth. I must not have read the contract's fine print, as I failed to realize that if I leave anything on my bedside table, apparently I am waiving all rights to a) getting it back, b) having it left alone, and c) being annoyed that it was either altered, taken, or all of the above.

When I found her, she was finishing the piece, which includes pencil, colored pencil, red bugle beads, and anti-wrinkle cream. My eyes widened in horror and my mouth opened in a silent scream. "Oh, wow," I managed. ("#*$%&#*$*!" I thought.) "You are so creative, but next time ask me if you want to use something and you aren't sure it's glue," I said, whisking the new art piece away. In the next room I managed to salvage a little of the wrinkle cream. I should have just rubbed the wet paper across my forehead, as I'm sure a new stress line was appearing as I held the art piece. Thank Heavens I didn't buy the most expensive wrinkle cream, I thought.

She's a very imaginative child, and I don't want to stifle those instincts. I’d heard that kids’ hobbies could be pricy, but now I’m a true believer.

Would You Like That Gift-Wrapped? (July 4, 2011)

I've been gift-wrapping trees in anticipation of July 4th. This tree is particularly conducive to being wrapped with streamers, and it was so fun! Once I did the tree, I put extra streamers around the front windows. Then I realized I needed flags. We'd kept the flags that real estate agents deliver each Memorial Day, but I decided that six or seven was not enough!

So I made some mini flags (four inches wide) and it was so fun that I made more and more and more. I’d had red and white fabric for years, as well as some blue plaid. Throw in some hot glue and some straws and I had lots of decorations for the front of the house—for free!

Making fun-looking cakes is a hobby of mine, and today gives me a good excuse to bust out the food coloring. Here’s today’s creation:

Happy 4th, America!

German Lessons (July 3, 2011)

The German lessons may be sticking. How much of their language can I speak, you ask? Maybe ten words. No, I’m not referring to German language lessons. I’m talking about life lessons.

The lesson began yesterday morning. I was out front, pulling weeds and clipping branches, trying to manage weeds that had suddenly trippled overnight.

Was I starting with yard work because cleaning the inside of the house is so boring? The house cleaning I thought I’d do on Thursday and Friday had been…postponed (!?) until Saturday morning. (I just can’t get excited about cleaning!) Whatever the case, I had a busy morning ahead. I planned to do a little weeding out front, some weeding out back (if time allowed), tidy up the living room/kitchen, put away the haystack-sized mountain of laundry, and wash some dishes. I had several hours before our afternoon plans. Plenty of time.

I was out front with the hedge-clippers and green-recycle can when a car cruised slowly up our street. I stared at the driver, mentally transmitting this message: don’t even think about breaking into a house on this street. I’ve seen you now. (Usually I’m much friendlier than that but there have been a number of break-ins around here in the last couple of years, so the neighbors are all being extra vigilant.) The same car drove back the other way a minute later, and again I stared hard at it. Our street is only one block long so drivers don’t use this street accidentally. If a potential burglar was casing the street, I wanted him to know that I was hip to his agenda and if he intended to do something sketchy, I would use my hedge-clippers in a way he wouldn’t forget. When he pulled the car into my driveway, I called “Hello?” in a somewhat suspicious voice. Finally I figured out who it was. They were our German relatives, who had arrived at midnight and who probably wouldn’t emerge until that afternoon, as they were so overcome by jet-lag. Wow. They’re…early.

I quickly snapped back to the here-and-now, and ran over to give hugs and say hi. Laughing, I said, “See those weeds over there? No you don’t. I was weeding so that when you arrived later there would be no weeds. So pretend there aren’t any!” Hubby’s cousin said he hadn’t wanted to just drop by and had called but the two phone numbers he’d been given hadn’t worked. He offered to come back later.

“No, no,” I said. “Stay! Visit! Hang out!” I threw the gardening gear in the general direction of the garage and led them into the house. A quick scan of the living/dining/kitchen area confirmed that Santa’s elves had not visited my house while I was weeding, and that the clutter, floor crumbs and dishes were still there. “Welcome, welcome,” I sang. Although I’d rather welcome them into a clean house, I knew instantly that I needed to make our visitors feel comfortable. There was time when I’d have done almost anything to make a terrific first impression and would have worried whether it was clean enough for visitors. Hubby’s cousin hadn’t been to America in more than twenty years, and his son never had visited. But what I’ve finally learned is that making a great first impression is not about how spotless your floor is. It’s about how warm your welcome is. Years from now, will your guests recall how clean your house was or how friendly you were? I think it’s the latter. My guess is that visitors remember whether they felt welcomed, not whether every surfaced gleamed. You could have the cleanest house in the world and still make someone feel uncomfortable if you aren’t friendly, or if you spend too much energy being uncomfortable with the imperfections of your home. So my advice is to ditch the self-induced pressure to have it all ship-shape. If visitors arrive early, take it as a sign that it’s okay to show people your imperfections. Showing your human side is the way you show someone that it’s safe to show theirs. Make a joke about the mess. They’ll be more relaxed, and so will you.

Fun Back Then and Fun Again (July 2, 2011)

Certain toys from childhood hold a lot of nostalgia, and have the power to take you back to the age you were when that toy meant so much. Recently I’ve been thinking about a child’s sewing machine I got for Christmas when I was nine or ten years old. I’d forgotten about it for many years, but today I searched online through hundreds of photos, looking for one that was similar to my first machine. Mine was pale blue and white, and somewhat angular. Here is a similar one:

Why are certain items an instant portal back in time? Maybe it’s not the item itself, but rather the age at which you used it. When I had this machine I was still a child. I hadn’t yet tripped and stumbled through the bewildering tangle of ‘tween and teen years.

I have memories of going to fabric stores with my mom when I was a young child. There was one store only a few blocks from our house and it seemed gigantic to me. I still remember the carousels of buttons and appliqués, the check-out stand and the ramp leading from the back door into the store. The long columns of fabric seemed as tall as Sequoiah trees. My little sister and I would wrap ourselves in the cozy velours, peeking out. I remember the textures and colors. It was a wonderland. There were other fabric stores Mom liked, too. I think one we frequented is still there, although under different ownership. It makes me happy that sewing is still popular enough that fabric stores stay in business. So much has changed in Southern California since the ‘70s. It’s nice to know that in spite of the omnipresence of technology, despite a culture that thrives on getting things NOW, sewing hasn’t gone the way of macramé plant holders. Sewing seems so antithetical to the culture dominating the 21st century in America. Sewing takes time, and we want things fast. Sewing is old school, and we want the newest, most technologically-advanced gizmos available on the planet. Sewing has history, and we want the future. (I do include myself in this generalization. I think the microwave takes too long to cook (!) and I do like using the computer and Internet. So I’m not seeking out an Amish lifestyle, devoid of machines and conveniences. But I do like to take the scenic path sometimes, forgoing the faster route.)

Mom sewed a lot of our clothes when we were little. She made my sister and me matching dresses for Christmas and Easter. As I grew a little older, I helped design some, choosing the fabric or buttons. Being the young artist, I had definite ideas about design. Perhaps this is why she got me my sewing machine.

The machine was much simpler than an adult’s machine and I’m not sure I did much more than sew a straight line with it. My plans to make Barbie clothes never came to fruition. But even if I didn’t become the next Betsey Johnson at age ten, I’m glad Mom thought to get it for me. Maybe it set the stage for a sewing adventure I’d seek out decades later, one I’m finally starting.

My second sewing machine also came to me as a surprise, decades later. One morning I biked through an alley in my neighborhood and saw the machine in its carrying case. I was thrilled, and raced home to get the truck. When I returned to the alley, the machine was still there, surely a sign that I was meant to be its new owner.

I’m embarrassed to say that it sat unused for the nearly nine years I’ve had it. The following year our first baby was on the way and most of my time since has been devoted to kid care. In the weeks after I got the machine, I ordered the owner’s manual online from Canada, and months later it arrived. But the instructions were lacking, and we didn’t have much space to set up the machine in our 1-bedroom apartment, so the machine went into hibernation.

One day recently, I finally set up the machine. It took hours to clear a space in my cramped studio/storage room/baby’s room, but I hoped that seeing it daily would inspire me to try to use it. For years I’ve collected info on where and when local sewing classes are held. I’ve also collected pieces of fabric for since I was a teen, planning to create wearable art someday. For years I’ve hand-sewn embellishments onto clothes, or altered hems and I created my own dresses for high school dances. I hand-sewed them myself, and I’m proud of how they turned out. Back then, I was the most outrageous person in my school, and my idea of what to wear to a formal dance was a little different from what the others wore, but that was fine! Here I am as a high school junior. I was (and am) very patriotic, and this dress shows it:

When I was creating these high school dresses, I could have asked my mom for help but I really wanted to be behind my own creation. Yes, it took a lot longer to sew by hand than it would have on a machine but I had time then. I remember vividly the details of the whole process: I started sketching dress designs in math class one day and after school drove to the fabric store we’d gone to for so many years. I found the right colors and fabrics, guessing at the amount I’d need. I was modeling the outfit off of a top and skirt I already had. At home I traced the top and skirt onto my new fabric, piecing it together with straight pins, and eventually sewing the seams. It turned out exactly as I wanted it to, and for the next year’s dance I also created something memorable. In college I modified some of my clothes but my hobbies shifted a bit and I didn’t do as much clothing art for a while. In recent years I’ve felt growing excitement again over clothes that are also art.

My good friend Roxie made me an adorable skirt recently. The collaboration was really fun. I found a pattern and various fabrics I liked, and Rox worked her magic. Rox and I have been friends for years but only recently did we talk about sewing projects. I asked Rox if she was interested in my hiring her to sew my skirt. She’s a busy mom of two and I said “no pressure,” but I hoped she’d say yes. She tried to convince me to let her do it as a gift but she has little time to herself so I insisted on paying her (I would’ve wrestled her to the ground to convince her, if necessary), and the partnership began. The skirt turned out just perfectly. I love the colorful, fun patterns, I love that I have a unique piece of clothing, and I love that a good friend made it for me. Here’s a photo of her beautiful creation:

It strikes me as significant that several of my closest friends sew. It’s not that they are artists, or that we met in fabric stores. But there must be something to it: three friends who sew are all nurturers, like I am, and sewing involves nurturing. It’s much easier and faster to go and buy something, of course. In times past many people sewed in order to save on cost, and as Roxie pointed out, these days it’s not always cheaper to sew something yourself. You do it not necessarily out of frugality but because you really want something to look a certain way or because sewing something for your home or someone you love involves gifts of effort, time and love.

Last month I took three sewing classes and while I’m not fluent in speaking machine, I understand enough to get started and I’m really excited about this adventure. Adrenaline-junkies might not think of sewing as an adventure, but there really is a thrill from dreaming up something and then creating it. Maybe that’s one reason I have such happy memories of my toy sewing machine: it connects me to a time when my creativity took me on a high and when anything seemed possible. It’s time for me to reconnect with that joy.