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Wash Your Hands

Well, since it’s Health and Wellness Monday, I felt like I couldn’t skip the opportunity to tell you to wash your hands and to discuss current events.  Even though I don’t want to. I mean, this is pretty crazy guys. The word unprecedented has been going around, I certainly feel like it is. On so many levels – there is the virus itself, the public policy response, the social impact, and the unforeseen long-term economic impact.

I’m not an expert on any of these areas and I don’t want to potentially spread any misinformation, but I would like to take this opportunity to contemplate these four points. Maybe you have some better information that you can share with me in the comments.

The Virus

COVID-19 is a new strain of coronavirus that was unknown before the outbreak in China in December 2019. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), coronaviruses (CoV):

… are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV).

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new strain that was discovered in 2019 and has not been previously identified in humans.

Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people.  Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humans. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.

https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus

The risk of catching COVID-19 is still low for most people in most locations. Illness due to COVID-19 infection is generally mild, especially for children and young adults. Once someone catches a virus, their body will create antibodies and they won’t be as susceptible to the same illness again.

Most estimates of the incubation period for COVID-19 range from 1-14 days, most commonly around 5 days. It is not certain how long the virus that causes COVID-19 survives on surfaces, but it seems to behave like other coronaviruses (a few hours up to several days).

The issue with this virus is that about 1 in every 5 people who catch it will become seriously ill and need hospital care. Older persons and persons with pre-existing medical conditions (such as high blood pressure, heart disease, lung disease, cancer or diabetes) appear to develop serious illness more often than others.

The virus that causes COVID-19 and the one that caused the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 are related to each other genetically, but the diseases they cause are quite different. SARS was more deadly but much less infectious than COVID-19. There have been no outbreaks of SARS anywhere in the world since 2003. I think this is notable because it implies that this will probably be a similarly short-term world health concern.

Public Policy Response

Let’s agree to that the ultimate objective of the public policy response to the COVID-19 outbreak is intended as a means to curb the spread of the virus in order to protect those most vulnerable to serious illness. Based on various things I’ve read, it seems like everyone will probably catch this, not everyone will get very sick, but those who are susceptible will get seriously ill.

The capacity of the healthcare system is limited, so the best option is to take measures to slow the spread of the virus so that there are hopefully fewer seriously ill people at any given time in an attempt to not overwhelm the healthcare system.

I’m not a public health authority by any means, I am not even a public health amateur. That being said, I am surprised by the delay and haphazard implementation of institutional response. Last week, when the ballet performance that I was planning to attend was canceled, professional sports were still playing to stadiums and arenas full of thousands of people.

As I write this, it’s as if the whole world is canceled – including entire seasons of various sports, events ranging from Coachella to the meetings of my Toastmaster’s club; schools are closed, so are museums and performing arts venues.

Social Impact

This leads to the social impact. I really wonder how the crazy grocery shopping makes any sense in terms of “social distancing.” If you are really worried about exposure, why do you have to go to the store to buy ALL THE FOOD right this moment?  When everyone else is as well. Everyone is in a hurry to get all the stuff that they need to lock themselves in their house for the next month. It strikes me as an unfortunate time to cultivate an “us against them” mentality.

This morning, as I was walking in my neighborhood, I was crossing the street when a mom and her little boy were approaching the corner.  Generally, my neighbors are friendly, and it is common to great people with a smile and a “hello.” This time was different. She not only glared at me, but she turned her back as if to shield her son from me.  Keep in mind, I was probably 20 feet away from them as I passed.

Are we going to start viewing everyone as a potential threat?  I hope not. I hope that we will remember that most of us will probably get sick, but the reason that we are practicing “social distancing” is to help the healthcare system retain its capability to provide services for those of us who have a severe response to the virus.

Long-term Economic Impact

This is what really concerns me.  Let’s say that everyone stays home for the next three, four, five, eight weeks. Healthcare organizations get a grip on things and life gets back to normal. There are still going to be economic repercussions that we can’t begin to imagine.

Here’s an example: I had some freelance work lined up for next week. It was a small project, everything is done remotely, no big deal. There is no reason that what is going on should affect this job, right?  Not so fast my friend. The publication is distributed as part of an event, which was canceled.  So, no need to worry about the print deadline. Will they reschedule the event?  Probably.  Will they still want my help on the publication?  Maybe, maybe not. Maybe now they have the time to do the work that they were going to outsource to me themselves.  I would if I was them.

That is just one example of the kinds of economic ripples I think we are going to be seeing. I don’t imagine that the majority of individuals or organizations who are having their income stream disrupted have 30, 60, 90 days of resources available. I think we are going to see all sorts of domino effects in terms of the economy in the near future.

Wrapping Up

So those are the sorts of things that I have been thinking about in terms of the current situation.

As someone who has been practicing social distancing for a while, I would like to encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to do something that you haven’t felt like you have time for in your normal life.  If you are working from home, think of the time that you aren’t spending commuting as a gift. Don’t spend your energy reading all of the things about the pandemic or binging on reality TV. Do one of those things from your “if only” pile.  Read that stack of books, clean you closets, learn about astrology or enneagrams or Norse mythology, garden, meditate, make something, write something. If you want to write a guest post for this blog, let me know.

Wash your hands, avoid touching your face, and don’t forget to be compassionate toward your fellow humans. We’re all in this together.

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Spring

Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Spring

Last weekend, I headed up to San Francisco for the third ballet weekend of the season with mom and sister.  We were all looking forward to seeing San Francisco Ballet perform Midsummer Night’s Dream, a George Balanchine choregraphed fairytale ballet that none of us had seen before.

I’ll admit that I was feeling a bit ambivalent about being around such a large crowd of people given the current public health crisis, but there are certain things worth risking exposure to infectious disease and Balanchine ballets are one of them.

Unfortunately, the mayor of San Francisco doesn’t seem to share my commitment to the art of dance. As I waited at the airport for my flight to board, I scrolled “the gram” and saw notice that the ballet had been closed, there would be no performances until March 30 (later posts indicated a date of March 20 – we’ll see). At least it wasn’t just the ballet, but all city-owned performance venues.

On the one hand, it was a little bit of a relief. But mostly it was disappointing.  Especially after my sister forwarded the review of the opening night performance that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle.

What the review made clear is that SF Ballet excels at these light-hearted, fairytale ballets, bringing to my mind the excellent performance of Cinderella earlier this season or of Don Quixote last season.

As I had already done preliminary research in preparation for my own review, I thought that I would go ahead and tell you about the ballet and we can all hope that they will re-stage this production for the 2021 season.

Midsummer Nights Dream by George Balanchine

Since I wasn’t familiar with the ballet, I dug out my copy of Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets and looked it up (you know that he would never leave one of his own works out).

Created in 1962, Midsummer Night’s Dream was George Balanchine’s first original full-length ballet.

Balanchine had performed in productions of the play as a child in Russia and previously been asked to do some dances for various productions of the play, so he was familiar with the music that Mendelssohn had written for it. He credits the music more than the story for inspiring him to create this work. But because there wasn’t a complete ballet’s worth of music, Balanchine created a franken-score, using other Mendelssohn pieces.

The overture to Midsummer Night’s Dream by Felix Mendelssohn

The ballet is organized into two-acts, and six-scenes. The first act contains all of the plot of the ballet – the fairy shenanigans, mortals getting caught up in fairy shenanigans, adventures and misadventures. The second act, in the fashion of the romantic ballets contains the wedding scene, the divertissement, and a happily-ever-after ending.

The supernatural elements of any fairytale ballet allow for all sorts of wonderful creatures and characters. Combining such a narrative with Balanchine’s athletic and expressive choreography is a recipe for a delightfully whimsical dance ballet.

Midsummer Night’s Dream hadn’t been performed by SF Ballet in 35 years. I hope that it wasn’t a one-night stand.

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In last week’s ballet review, I found an opportunity to bring up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When I was thinking about what to post this week, I came across a draft about Maslow’s hierarchy that I had started a while ago.  Seems like the perfect time to dive in, wouldn’t you agree?

Abraham Maslow was a 20th-century American psychologist. He was one of the fathers of the humanistic psychology paradigm, which centers the concept of self.  The individual perceives the world according to their own experiences and this shapes their personality and behavior. For Maslow, foundational needs must be satisfied before an individual can seek to fulfill higher levels of existence.

MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg
By FireflySixtySeven – Own work using Inkscape, based on Maslow’s paper, A Theory of Human Motivation., CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

The bottom tier of Maslow’s hierarchy is physiological needs – food and shelter, followed by safety, then love and belonging (personal relationships, sense of community, and affiliation with both formal and informal social groups). Esteem, the fourth level in the hierarchy has to do with self-respect and self-confidence as well as the desire to be valued and recognized by others.

The hierarchy is not rigid, one does not need to be completely fulfilled one tier in order to move on to the next level. It is also not absolute – someone may be at the point at which they are striving to fulfill their self-actualization needs and may experience a deficiency in their love/belonging or even physiological needs.

The top tier if Maslow’s hierarchy is self-actualization. This has to do with striving to achieve our potential and satisfying out creative goals. For Maslow, self-actualization is a state in which one is able to transcend ego (this reminds me of our chakra series). It is an interesting paradox.

Scott Barry Kaufman, a professor at Columbia University has revisited and been researching Maslow’s concept of self-actualization.  On his “about” page, I noticed that he refers to his “past life” which made me smile, because I have taken to speaking about the years that I was dancing as my past life.

You can take Dr. Kaufman’s Characteristics of Self-Actualization test (in case you don’t like my hyperlinks, here is the url: https://www.scottbarrykaufman.com/characteristics-of-self-actualization-scale/). I mean, who doesn’t love a good internet personality test? This one is free and anonymous; you don’t have to put in your email address to get the results or anything. I really liked what the questions made me think about.

For Dr. Kaufman, the characteristics of self-actualization are:

  1. Continued freshness of appreciation
  2. Acceptance
  3. Authenticity
  4. Equanimity
  5. Purpose
  6. Efficient perception of reality
  7. Humanitarianism
  8. Peak experiences
  9. Good moral intuition
  10. Creative spirit

You don’t have to have a high score on most (or even many) of these characteristics to be self-actualized.  Different things are more or less important to different people, I can think of lots of people (or maybe it’s just me) who aren’t even interested in having an efficient perception of reality. But someone who scores low on all of these characteristics may be functioning in the little hunger zone, rather than taking advantage of an opportunity to address their big hunger.

Anyway, I thought this was something fun to think about on a Monday.

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Three Visions of Ballet

On February 15, mom and I attended Program 3 of the San Francisco Ballet 2020 Season.  The title of the program was Dance Innovations. It was an evening of three contemporary works (three visions of ballet), The Infinite Ocean by Edward Liang (premiered 2018), The Big Hunger by Trey McIntyre (a world premiere), and Etudes by Harald Lander (circa 1948).

We had just seen Etudes last year and I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing it again. The one thing that I will say about it is that it was a lovely palate cleanser after the two more avant garde pieces and I feel like the dancing was a bit sharper than it had been last year. Both my mom and the woman who sits next to her were delighted by the clean, classical technique and the brightness of the movement. It was very smart to program such a traditional work at the end of the evening.

Since I’ve already discussed that piece, I am going to focus on the other two, which I found tremendously interesting.

THE INFINITE OCEAN

Composer: Oliver Davis
Choreographer: Edward Liang
World Premiere: April 26, 2018 – San Francisco Ballet

I had thought that we might have seen this piece last year, but when I went back to check, mom was right, it was not on the program that we saw (don’t you hate it when that happens?).

An interesting synchronicity here is that I have been listening to the City Ballet podcast on my walks and the episode that I had just been listening to that week was Edward Liang talking to Wendy Whelan about his career as a dancer and now as a choreographer. He was talking about a different commission, but it was interesting to hear about his process. I could see how he would have applied the same sort of approach to this piece.

I really enjoyed the music for this work. The composer, Oliver Davis, is Liang’s frequent collaborator.  Liang describes Davis’s style as modern, minimalist baroque. I felt like it enveloped the stage, the dancers, and the movement. There were at least a couple of places in the score that seemed to me like they would make a great car commercial (I mean that as a compliment).

This piece had to do with death and dying, with individuals coming to terms with their own imminent mortality. The interesting things about the movement had to do with how the ensemble would come together, move as a unit, but without any sense of connection – it was as if everyone was one the same journey, but alone.  Even the partnering had that lack of connection.

Liang’s movement vocabulary didn’t fall into the trap of contemporary choreographers trying to make “interesting” or “modern” movements.  He retained a classical vocabulary, but expanded traditional steps with a sense of lightness, softness, freedom. Sort of like the idea of the dancers learning to let go.

THE BIG HUNGER

Composer: Sergei Prokofiev
Choreographer: Trey McIntyre
World Premiere: February 13, 2020 – San Francisco Ballet

Speaking of synchronicity, there seems to be some synchronicity in my small ballet world these days about Prokofiev. There was Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella last month, this piece, but also a discussion of some of his other pieces on that City Ballet podcast. Before now, the things that came to my mind when I thought of Prokofiev were The Love for Three Oranges and Romeo and Juliet.  I’m interested to discover what it is that the universe wants me to learn from Prokofiev.

The program notes for this piece were really interesting. McIntyre was inspired by a Korean film, to consider the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert’s concept of two hungers. On the one hand is big hunger – man’s search for existential purpose. On the other hand is little hunger – physical needs like food and shelter.  I would equate little hunger to the bottom tiers of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – physiological and safety needs, and big hunger to the top tiers – esteem and self-actualization. For McIntyre, conflict arises when little hunger pursuits are given big hunger value.

The dancers were comprised of three couples and an all-male ensemble. The first couple opened the piece.  They were dressed in pink, short, coverall-style jumpsuits. Were they in charge?  Or were they instigating something?  The backdrop featured a very distinct door with illuminated green EXIT sign above it. Then the ensemble makes a bold entrance wearing bright pink pageboy wigs, white collared shirts and short shorts and the first pair make a run for the EXIT.

In the next scene, the space opened up, became more abstract, and the EXIT was graffiti covering the entire back wall. It was like a warning to get out now. The second couple both wore the same wigs and costumes as the ensemble. Were they becoming assimilated into the rat race?

Next scene, the EXIT is gone, now there is no way out. The third pair (both men) enter wearing grey/blue versions of the pageboy wig and long, grey overcoats. At that point the costumes changed to the grey/blue wigs and grey shirts/shorts for all the dancers including both previous couples. We’ve lost the vibrancy from earlier. The dancers have gotten so wrapped up in their little hunger that they missed their shot to satisfy their big hunger.

I loved the athleticism of the movement in this work and the sense of something just being a bit off. I loved the way that things kept degenerating. Even the change from the bright wigs to the grey/blue wigs was like another step in toward the eventual collapse. I really hope that they program this piece again next year, I would really like to see it again.

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National Drink Wine Day

Even though yesterday was a national holiday, today is an even more special day.  Today is National Drink Wine Day (or Global Drink Wine Day depending on how you want to look at it).

Before you get all flummoxed, yes, I KNOW that it is Kitten Tuesday.  But National Drink Wine Day doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that should be ignored. So, I thought I would hit two birds with one stone (or two kitties with one glass of wine as it were).

Cat Wine

Have you heard of Cat Wine before?  I had heard of it, but never really looked into it.  It turns out that this nice man with two cats, Apollo and Hades, invented it as a sort of gag gift for his fellow, crazy cat friends. There’s a great story about his entrepreneurial journey on his website.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Apollo Peak Cat Wines are made with natural ingredients. He uses red or yellow beets to create the proper color for his Pinot Meow, CATbernet Sauvignon, MosCATo, White Kittendale, and a Pink Purrsecco.  You know how I love a good cat pun, I think he did a great job finding the purrfect names.  They are all different versions of liquid catnip, intended to give your cats the same pleasant feelings that their people get from drinking person wine.

It makes me laugh just imagining a bunch of drunk people hanging out at home with their drunk cats.

I don’t let Anabel and Sally have catnip because they get too rowdy.  The time that I gave them a catnip toy to play with, they got really too wound up. They have a daily cat judo practice, when they will chase each other and spar a bit. The time they had catnip has been the only time that I have ever been worried about their brawling. So, no cat wine for them.

All this talk about cat wine reminds me about a story that a friend used to tell about her mom’s one-eyed Pomeranian.  Apparently, mom would dress the pup up in a pirate costume, and they would sit on the couch together watching “their shows.” The pirate Pom would drink wine out of mom’s glass while they watched Ellen together. It still makes me smile when I think about it.

National Love Your Pet Day

As long as we’re talking about national this-or-that day, this seems like a good time to mention that this Thursday, February 20 is National Love Your Pet Day. Now, I know that we all love our pets every day, but apparently you are supposed to give them extra attention. 

Maybe you can drink your person wine today and get your cats some cat wine for Thursday (there is also apparently wine for dogs, don’t think that they’re being left out). That all being said, any day seems like a good day to pour yourself a glass of wine and love your pet (whether or not they partake).

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Creativity Doll

Long story short: I’m working through this creativity program. I’m part of a group and we meet every week, it’s a whole thing. I’ll go into more detail about it later, today I want to tell you about one of the exercises I just got to do.

The assignment was to make a creativity doll. And that was the whole exercise.  Whatever that meant to you, you were supposed to create.

I instantly knew that I wanted to make a rag doll. Like my childhood Raggedy Ann doll. Like Raggedy Ann, my creativity doll would have a candy heart. But she would also have magical sparkly things in her head.  And I wanted to create her completely out of supplies that I already had around the house.

She’d have a green dress, a flamingo print pinafore, a sweet face, and I could use some satin ribbon to make little ballet shoes for her.

I told Mr. Man about my plan.  He asked if she would have a cat.  You know, I had been thinking about that, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to pull it off.  And then, when I started gathering all of my supplies, I found a little bag full of felt cut-out cats.  Oh yes, she would have a cat!

I corralled all my supplies in one location and was ready to get to work.  Where to start?  Maybe it would be a good idea to look for a pattern.  Ok, Pinterest, whatcha got for me?  Wow, there was a lot there.

Once I recovered from Pinterest overload, I decided to make my own pattern.  She was MY creativity doll after all. So, I drew out the shape that I wanted, then I cut out the pieces, traced them each again, and added a ½ inch seam allowance.  Then I used those pieces to cut her out of off-white linen that had been purchased several years ago for a kaftan that has yet to be made.

After she was pieced together, it was time to get the sparkles for her head.  My original thought had been Christmas tinsel, but I realized that I didn’t want to dig it out of the back of the garage. I found a rhinestone necklace from the flea market (another unrealized project) and smiley face confetti.  And a few sweet pea seeds. Who wouldn’t have wonderful ideas with all of those treasures in their head?

The only purchase for her was a bag of candy hearts (one for her, the rest for Mr. Man). It just felt important that she have a candy heart like Raggedy Ann. I used clear nail polish to give it a clear coat before placing it.

Now that she was dressed, the poor dear needed something nicer for her hair.  I used all the remaining embroidery floss to make her a fringe. It wasn’t enough for a full head of hair, but it was much better than just magic marker.

At the end of the day, this reminded me why I’m so hesitant to get started on projects like this.  Once you have your idea formed and pull all of your materials together, its going to be a long haul. I may try to make her a nicer top for her dress and maybe a petticoat, but for now, she can sit on the windowsill with her cat and grow happy, sparkly thoughts.

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2020 Ballet Season Opener, Cinderella

It’s that time of the year again!  What time is that?  It’s Ballet Season of course!

Even though the 2020 season opened much like last year with a fairytale ballet, it was certainly not a romantic-era ballet or even an update of a romantic ballet.  This production of Cinderella was created by Christopher Wheeldon in 2012 as a joint commission of the Dutch National Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. Its War Memorial premiere was in 2013.

The libretto was written by Craig Lucas, the playwright who you may be familiar with from Prelude to a Kiss (there was a 1992 film adaptation with Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan). He brings that same soupçon of strangeness to this work. There is no fairy godmother or mice.  All of the magic in this version of the story comes from a tree that grows out of Cinderella’s mother’s grave.  Of course, you can’t leave Cinderella sidekick-less but instead of mice and birds, she has four fates who provide the magical catalyst (and help her with the chores). This Cinderella also has a respectable amount of gumption for a story where the happy ending entails getting married (spoilers!).

Wheeldon choose to work with Prokofiev’s 1940 score. For me, the music didn’t do much, it is certainly isn’t on par with his Romeo and Juliet.  But I didn’t find choreography particularly impactful either. I don’t know if one fell flat and impacted my impression of the other or if both were just meh. 

As far as the choreography goes, there was a lot of dancing. Really athletic dancing. Maybe too much, as in too many steps. The principals were on stage for long stretches and the corps de ballet really moved. There wasn’t a lot of standing around or running off and on stage. I don’t tend to miss the conventions of romantic ballet, but I do feel that this work would benefit from some of the pauses, stillness, and space that are traditional in the romantic ballets in order to give the brilliant and athletic dancing space to shine.

The night my mom, sister, and I were there, Cinderella was danced by one of our new favorite dancers, Sasha de Sola. She brought a great combination of sassiness and compassion to the role. Luke Ingham was the Prince.  But the stepsister Clementine, who was danced by Ellen Rose Hummel, was the character who really stole the show.  Clementine is the sweet stepsister, who wears glasses and takes the brunt of her mother’s and sister’s meanness when Cinderella isn’t readily available. She is funny and kind-hearted, and she gets the guy too, winning the heart of the Prince’s sidekick.

The novel libretto allows for creative applications of production elements.  The scene where Cinderella is transformed to go to the ball is wonderfully weird and full of inventive staging and effects. For me, this scene is the highlight of the show.

There is so much to like about this production, but like I said before, there was just something about it that felt overwrought.  The last time it was presented was 2017 and I remember enjoying the innovative elements, but I don’t know that it made my heart leap that time either.

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An Earful of Sweet Talk

I always make an effort to speak sweetly to my pets.  Anabel and Sally have gotten an earful of sweet talk their whole lives.  But I think that even if they didn’t know what I’m saying (they do of course because they are so smart) that they can tell by my tone of voice that it is something nice.

But something about my darling Sally has turned me into Lisa Vanderpump!  If you aren’t a Bravo TV addict, suffice it to say that she is a peculiar British lady with pet swans, miniature horses, and a whole pack of blonde, shaggy dogs (I don’t know why she doesn’t have any cats, she seems like the perfect candidate for a fluffy, white Persian or two).  Her star dog, Giggy (short for Gigolo) is a catatonic Pomeranian with alopecia who wears pajamas and she or her husband carry everywhere.

When Lisa talks to her animals, she says things like, “aren’t you sexy?”  She calls Giggy her little “sex monster.”

Now, Sally is about three times the size of Giggy and maybe not-quite as pampered, but I sure love to hold him in my arms and whisper sweet nothings in his ears.

I really don’t know when or why I started talking to him as if I was Lisa Vanderpump. It’s been going on for a while though. I will hold him and say things like, “hello lover,” “aren’t you handsome,” and “aren’t you sexy.”

  • Isn’t he handsome?
  • Isn’t he sexy?

We have these morning cuddle sessions that I refer to as “making out.”  I pick him up and he lays back in my arms so that I can rub his tummy.  He will grab my petting arm with both of his front paws and lick my hair like he’s trying to groom me. He purrs his brains out and I tell him how sexy he is and kiss him on the nose.

I call this Sally’s “let’s makeout” face

I know that my feelings are reciprocated because Mr. Man tells me about the way that Sally cries when I leave for the gym in the morning. Sure, it might be close to his breakfast time, but I know that it’s really because he wants more snuggles.

Even though I like to think that I want to carry him around with me everywhere I go, the blush would be off the rose pretty quick with that daydream.  Yes, he’s a cat with a sensitive disposition and would freak out, but also, he’s heavy! I love to pick him up and hold him but carrying him around for long periods of time would definitely get old.  

I do my best to speak sweetly to Mr. Man as well, but sometimes he gets jealous of the attention that I give Sally.  I mean Mr. Man is cute and all, but he’s got nothing on Salvatore Tessio Gellis. When he starts to get his feelings hurt, the best thing to do is make him hold Sally.  That cat is so sweet and soft and lovely that even Mr. Man can’t resist his cuteness.

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Kitchen Adventures – Cat Cookie Edition

My friend, S, gave me a set of cat-shaped cookie cutters for Christmas.  When giving them to me, she mentioned that she had seen something on Instagram about tie-dyed cookie decorating and thought that we could make tie-dyed cat cookies.

Well, you can’t just hang a statement like that out there.  I made her pick a date and commit to coming over for cat cookie making.

Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I am not much of a cookie decorating kind of gal. I’m okay with the baking part, but I just don’t have whatever it is that you need to rock at cookie decorating (I’m pretty sure that whatever is a bunch of special equipment). However, I am also good at not letting being bad at something ruin my fun. So, I was not about to let an opportunity to play cat cookie bakers with my friend pass me by.

I made the cookie dough the day before. It never hurts to have well-rested overnight in the refrigerator cookie dough to work with.

I love Nigella Lawson’s Butter Cut-Out Cookies recipe from the How to be a Domestic Goddess cookbook. Whatever they wind up looking like, the cookies are just sweet-enough, just buttery-enough, just dry-enough, and a little salty. I like to substitute almond extract for the vanilla, but other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I waited for S to come over to start baking because I find that whole rolling out dough, cookie cutter, transfer to the baking sheet business to be very tedious.  I was so glad that I did because it was almost fun since I had another person there to talk to.

Once we managed to get all the cookies baked, we threw that round of dishes in the sink and rested up with some snacks while the cookies cooled.  Once we were sufficiently snacked and rested, it was time for adventures in tie-dye cookie icing.

We made up a big bowlful of icing (aka wet powdered sugar) and then divided it into bowls.  S was in charge of the food coloring and she did a great job.  We had tangerine sunset, teal, and raspberry sherbet, to play with.

According to the YouTube video she had watched, you start with a base of white icing, drizzle the colors on top, rake through it with a toothpick, then plop the cookie, twisting as you lift.

Our results were somewhat lackluster.

We experimented with all sorts of things. It was all a mess. Finally, we decided to go for the drizzle technique.  First everyone on the tray got a white icing base coat. Then S drizzled tangerine sunset in one direction to make stripes.  I followed up with raspberry sherbet in another direction.  We decided to leave well-enough alone and not use the teal.

The end result was sort of a pseudo-preppy, abstract madras. More importantly we were done. Most importantly we came away with a newfound appreciation for those $7 sugar cookies you see in the bakery and without any delusions of wanting to go into the cookie decorating business.

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A Belated Happy Birthday to Dolly Parton

Well golly y’all, I sure am happy to have just celebrated the birthday of one of my sheroes, the indominable Dolly Parton.

I have to tell you that this has been a challenging post for me to write.  Because there is SO MUCH that I have to say about Dolly Parton. Many of you may already be aware of my fascination with her.  You’ve already heard me go on and on about what a role model and wonderful person she is, and you’re rolling your eyes – oh brother, she’s got more material. And boy howdy, I sure do. But I can’t fit all of the things that I find fascinating about Dolly in this one post, so I’ll just focus on one thing that might pique your interest today.  We can get into The Imagination Library, Dollywood, and her discography later.

I recently discovered a great podcast called Dolly Parton’s America (seriously, check it out). It’s about Dolly, but it isn’t from Dolly; it was created by NPR’s Radiolab producer Jad Abumrad. I was recommending it to a friend but having a hard time describing it.  I finally settled on, it’s deep and thought-provoking. The gist of the series is that Dolly Parton is both a creator of culture and a cultural object.

One of my favorite things about the podcast is that they discuss and examine a lot of things that Dolly won’t engage about. Things like gender and objectification and how she is wily enough to navigate these hazards without letting on to the fact that she is on to the game.  And then she wins.

One of my stand-out takeaways from the podcast was how important it is to Dolly to try to not hurt anyone’s feelings. And that is the bottom line that she is coming from in so many of the things that she does. She is not going to apologize for being herself or try to be something that she isn’t, and she doesn’t expect anyone else to either. It’s ok with Dolly that you are just the way you are; she isn’t going to judge anyone, even if they won’t do her the same courtesy.

Is it because she was picked on when she was little?  Coat of Many Colors and all that. She knows what it feels like when someone makes a point of making you feel like you’re not a part of something. She never outright says that, but her wanting to not ever hurt anyone’s feelings goes way beyond being a savvy businesswoman who wants to make sure that her market share is as large as possible.

I feel like I have an endless number of lessons to learn from Dolly Parton. About how to create meaningful art; how to be open, approachable and outgoing but still own your right to be a private person; and about how to stand up for yourself, your best interests, what you believe in, and be generous and help other people at the same time.

It’s like she says, “Find out who you are and do it on purpose!” I’m trying Dolly!  It’s not that easy.

Thank you Dolly.  Happy birthday!