The past few days have been busy and productive. First of all, I acquired a new weapon
in the war on frizz. And it was on
sale – originally priced at $49, but I only paid $15 at J. Jill. The new wide-brimmed hat proudly takes its place
among the arsenal in my closet.
But that’s not all I did on Wednesday. The day started with a quick trip to
Trader Joe’s – and a possible new career.
While I was in the checkout line, I overheard the conversation between
the checker-outer and the customer in front of me. It seems that large grocery stores pay their employees
well. Department managers earn
close to $40 an hour and store managers earn over $100,000 a year. Hmm, is it too late for me to start a
new career? Probably, but this is
the kind of information I wish I had passed on to my students. So many of them need to know about
career paths that don’t require a college degree. (Fairfax County Public Schools still clings to the idea that
all students should go on to college after they graduate from high school. I’ve long felt that such a
narrow-minded outlook is unrealistic.
Among my ESOL colleagues, this has been a topic of ongoing discussion
ever since I started teaching.)
Anyway, I was at Trader Joe’s Wednesday morning to start
gathering supplies for Thursday’s lunch for the Ashleys. I spent the latter part of the
afternoon and most of the evening hours in the kitchen. Of course, I could have opted for a
simple menu. It’s not as if I’m
competing on some Top Chef program.
But I still see every meal as an opportunity to excel, particularly when
I know my guests recognize interesting and healthy food. Therefore, I chose to serve a meal that
required some advance preparation.
The chilled summer vegetable soup, the farro and fennel salad, the
roasted veggies – all were in the refrigerator by the time I tore off my apron
and fell into bed Wednesday night. (Note to Elliott: We must find a way to keep the temperature in the kitchen from
climbing up over 80 degrees.)
When I woke up Thursday morning, I rushed off to Lifetime
for an energizing run on the elliptical machine, then rushed back home and tied
on my apron once again. In
addition to Wednesday’s items, I put together a platter of crudités to serve
with TJ’s white bean and basil hummus; set out whole-grain bread, crackers,
cheeses and sliced turkey breast; assembled up a salad of baby spinach, chevre,
minced red onion, and roasted sunflower seeds (to be tossed with sherry
vinaigrette at the last minute); and mixed together a colorful mélange of fruit
(peaches, blueberries, raspberries), plus toasted coconut, for the
make-your-own yogurt parfaits. The
table was set and I was feeling serene when our guests arrived shortly before noon. In the photo, the deep fuschia is the
chilled borscht (a big hit).
Thanks to Marie-Claude, Peter, and Darren for their appreciative
appetites and comments. It’s
always fun to be together, especially when food is involved.
Miraculously, the post-lunch cleanup was nearly finished by
2:30 p.m. when I left for my weekly Girls’ Day Out adventure. This time, our group was small (just
AHS librarian Janet and me), but we didn’t let that deter us. Our plan was to go into DC and take in
the George Bellows exhibit at the National Gallery. Originally, I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing this
show. I’d always associated
Bellows with his paintings of boxers, a subject that holds absolutely no
attraction for me. But the listing
in The Washington Post mentioned a variety of other subjects, including street
life in New York City, so I was willing to give it a try.
And, to my delight, the Bellows exhibit turned out to be
quite a revelation. We started off
by viewing a very enlightening and enjoyable 30-minute documentary, which
covered Bellows’ life and helped place his work in a historical context. One striking example was his series of
paintings chronicling the construction of New York’s Penn Station, from the
gaping excavation site, to the work at various stages during the mammoth
construction project, finally the completed structure. I wish I could have shared this show
with my students, since we study those early decades of the 20th
century, a time of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration.
Bellows’ desire to paint the growing city and the lives of
its poorest residents reminded me of Jacob Riis, who let his camera and pen
tell the world about the plight of the immigrants and urban poor during the
same time period. There was an
element of the grotesque in the way Bellows painted the faces of street urchins
and young laborers, almost as if he wanted to acknowledge the dehumanizing
nature of their living and working conditions.
In all of his paintings, there was a wonderful handling of
light as well as bold and energetic brushwork. The paintings were bursting with life, and had an immediacy
that pulled the viewer in, whatever the subject: a construction site, ringside seats at a boxing match, a
crowded city street, a sunny day at Coney Island, a snow-covered cottage in
Woodstock, NY, an island off Maine’s rocky coast of Maine, to name just a
few. You could hear the clangs and
booms of the construction equipment, the shouts of the raucous crowd and the
squeals of children at the beach.
You could smell the fumes of industry and the sweat of unwashed
humanity. Your eyes would blink
from the glare of the sun on the snow or sea. In fact, I call his paintings from Monhegan Island in Maine
the “crash and splash” series.
Standing in front of them, I could hear the waves breaking on the rocks
and feel the salt spray.
I came away from the show with a much greater appreciation
for the work of this American artist.
The vigor and vitality of his work clearly showed how much Bellows loved
painting and how much he loved life.
Unfortunately, he died at the age of 42 from a ruptured appendix. One can only imagine what Bellows would
have created if he had been granted more years. If you have any interest in art, don’t miss this
exhibit. It will be at the
National Gallery in DC until early October. Then it travels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York City, where it opens in mid-November.
Janet and I didn’t have time to linger in Bellows
exhibit. As the 5 o’clock closing
time was approaching, guards were whisking everyone out the door. We ended up at nearby 701 (the
restaurant) for a Happy Hour dinner – red wine, crispy calamari, stuffed
mushrooms, and an imaginative salad of heirloom tomatoes and peaches. It was still light and the temperatures
had moderated somewhat when we strolled back to the Metro shortly after 7:00
p.m. Despite the late hour, the
sidewalks were full of crowds of tourists. The clouds were thickening and the sky was darkening by the
time our train pulled into the Dunn Loring station – a portent of the rainy
forecast for Friday.
Sure enough, I heard rain during the night. I fell back asleep contentedly, knowing
that Friday would be a relatively calm day for me. When the alarm went off this morning at 7, it woke me out of
a bilingual dream. I’ve dreamed in
French before (several times), but this dream was in Spanish and English, a
reminder that the school year would soon begin. In fact, I can still hear a voice in the dream asking,
“Estoy lista?”
Are you ready?
I pondered that as I fried an egg in coconut oil and sipped green tea
with açai berries. The rain was
falling gently. It was a minute
before 8 and Elliott was already on the phone with the pain center. Yes, I thought. I knew with absolute certainty: I’m
ready for whatever lies ahead.
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