Tag Archives: Musings from the Dream House

A Letter From Camp Blandings

July 10, 2008UncategorizedMusings from the Dream HouseMrs. Blandings

Dear Dad,

We are sure you would want to know how things are going at camp, so I am writing on behalf of the brothers to fill you in. We hate to alarm you, but something needs to be done immediately. Our counselor is clearly unqualified and surly.

We know that camp food is traditionally sketchy, but what we have here is awful. Our counselor spends endless hours going on and on about what we refuse to eat, yet ignores our feedback on what would be more palatable. We’ve taken a straw poll and none of us feels the limitation of chicken fingers and french fries to once a week is reasonable. You should see her reaction when we remind her that potatoes are vegetables. We know they are; we googled it. Ice cream is a dairy and, no, we do not buy that frozen fruit bars are “the same thing.”

In addition, for someone who is supposed to be responsible for our summer fun, she is filling our days with tedious tasks. Just yesterday, after we returned from swimming and golf, she came upstairs twice to see if we had picked our wet swimsuits up off the floor. Twice! When we tried to explain that we were tired from our busy morning and in the middle of Drake and Josh – an episode that we had not completely memorized – she went straight off the deep end. What harm can a little water do anyway? They were not “soaking” as she suggested, merely damp. When #2 suggested that she pick them up she replied, “I’m not a maid, I’m your mother.” In response to his inquiry, “Well, isn’t that what mothers are supposed to do?” the reaction wasn’t pretty. We think hidden cameras are necessary.

Speaking of verbal abuse, she is constantly talking when we are trying to concentrate on something else. It would not be so much of a problem that she is continually interrupting us to ask us to pick things up and put things away, except she will only allow us to have “electronic time” for an hour a day. We have tried to explain that technology is the future and that if we have any chance to get ahead in this world, this is it. Her response? “Read a book.” Sometimes, it’s even worse. Sometimes she says, “Go outside.” It’s hot! Has she ever heard of heat stroke? Geez, we’re just kids.

We don’t think she should be permanently replaced as she does have a few strengths (Rosie likes her), but some coaching is in order. To help you out, we could suggest any of the lovely young women who have had temporary stints here so far. Pretty and patient, they seem unconcerned with the short or long-term affects of sugar or fried foods. They, too, enjoy the wonders of the internet and all the connection it provides.

We know you appreciate our feedback. Just let us know if there is anything else we can do.

Love,

The Blandings Boys

Postcard pictured above available on ebay.

The Morning After

June 23, 2008UncategorizedMusings from the Dream HouseMrs. Blandings

Mr. Blandings and I had the pleasure of attending one of Kansas City’s most lovely fundraisers Saturday night. A benefit for the Kansas City Symphony and the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, the Ball is held in the Gallery and it is nothing short of spectacular. The space itself is majestic and the artful arrangement of boatloads of flowers by Bob Trapp and Kenneth Sherman make it a fantasy land.

You might remember that a while back I was mulling over what to wear. I had ordered a dress and kept trying it on, fussing with this and that. It just didn’t seem to be the thing. But then again, no one is particularly looking at me except Mr. Blandings. When I tried it on for him, he diverted his eyes from the T.V. briefly and said, “Honey, really, I think it’s fine.” As you might expect, “fine” was not exactly what I was after. “Fine” was, in fact, the kiss of death.

The only problem was finding a better than “fine” replacement in time. I circled back around to the Brooks Brother’s skirt. The women here were lovely and had it sent for me to try. While the color and shape were not buzz-worthy, I loved it. A new white blouse (oh, how this is a weakness; I have a dozen, but adore them on the initial wearing) and a few alterations and I was out the door. The manager who helped me when the skirt came in totally got me. The blouse needed a slimmer fit. Tie instead of tuck. Yes, she agreed, collar and sleeves up. A woman in the fitting room blinked and said, “For that party I prefer to stick with black.” Yes. Fine. Another observer noted, “It’s cute! Don’t some people really dress up?” Needless to say, these women were not getting me.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time. The next day was a dose of a reality. Cinderella Kansas City style. Sunday is laundry day at the dream house, so we started off with gathering and sorting. I’d neglected quite a lot of things in the Spring and my housekeeping was one. Once the first load was in I started editing the wardrobes of boys 1, 2 and 3. T-shirts and jerseys multiply like rabbits in their dressers and they need to be thinned out about twice a year. While I sorted and begged the boys to focus, Mr. Blandings went down (to the scary basement) to switch the laundry. When he came back up he had a sheepish request.

“Honey? I don’t want this to be a thing. I mean, don’t take it personally, but I think you might need some new underwear. Like today.” Cinderella looked up from the piles of nylon jerseys. The blue birds momentarily ceased singing; the mice paused their merry dance. “What?” “Well, it’s just…I mean they are basically threadbare.”

Shamefully, I knew this to be true. When you hate shopping, you really hate shopping for things like undergarments. In Mr. Blandings’s defense, he was not fishing for fishnet. He’s long past hoping for something racy and raucous. It was more like your mother and the accident thing. So off I went. To reconfirm that I hate shopping.

Brooks Brothers and Hall’s is one thing. The Gap and Victoria’s Secret are quite another. Loud. (Oh my heavens I am so old and grouchy. Why must it be so loud?) And messy. These stores make me blanch when I walk through the door. The indifferent, unmotivated teen-aged sales girls don’t help and I mean that literally.

After very little success I headed back to the car. My route took me past Barnes and Noble, and while I usually buy my books at Rainy Day, they are not open on Sunday and I thought it might be just the thing to calm my nerves.

As it turns out, it’s only clothes shopping that is so painful. My arms heavy with design books and the new World of Interiors I headed home. As I came through the door my darling husband inquired, “Any luck?” Absolutely. A complete success.

This image is a bonus. I’ve had this open on my desk for a week. House & Garden, 2000, from The Well-Lived Life. Photography by Dana Gallagher. The rose is the “Sonia Rykiel.”

Home on the Range

June 16, 2008UncategorizedMusings from the Dream HouseMrs. Blandings

When my grandmother died, my mother and my uncle decided the best thing to do with her 1970-something Plymouth Scamp was to give it to me. The questionable body style and the indescribable color, somewhere between swamp green and dirt brown, made it one of the ugliest cars in my high school parking lot. But I made my peace with it because it provided freedom. The only real problem with it was its lack of FM radio. Confined to AM, my choice was news or country and western.

So I listened to C&W radio for two years and acquired a respect for it. There have been times since that I’ve tired of whatever else I’m listening to and I’ll go back to it. When I drove down to the Kansas Flint Hills last weekend I opened the sunroof and turned the radio up and reacquainted myself with what some people call “both kinds of music.”

Mr. Blandings and I were staying with our friends from town who also have a ranch just outside of Alma. They had invited us to stay with them and attend the Symphony in the Flint Hills. For the last three years a group of folks committed to the pure beauty and majesty of the area has organized a concert with the Kansas City Symphony in the Tallgrass Prairie of the Kansas plains.

It’s important to note here that the Kansas of The Wizard of Oz is the Kansas of the Dust Bowl. I’ve driven in the northern part of the state from the Missouri border to the Colorado boarder and on a diagonal route from Kansas to Texas and I’ve never seen the nuclear wasteland that that black and white classic would lead us to believe is Kansas. (And by the way, if you meet someone from Kansas or Kansas City, please don’t make a Wizard of Oz/Dorothy reference. We’ve heard them all.)

This is Kansas and as you enter the middle part of the state you enter the largest remaining tract of tallgrass on the continent. Coming in from Kansas City, you come over the crest of a hill and the wonder of Manifest Destiny spreads out before you.

This is Kansas with its low rolling hills and an expanse of blue sky that brings tears to my eyes every time I see it. I’m speechless at the thought of the settlers who traveled these hills on horseback and in wagons. It’s a magnificent setting for the Symphony. The event site moves from year to year to allow the small towns in its proximity to benefit from the 6,000 visitors who journey to see it.

We went with our friends and two other couples to see this year’s event just outside of Council Grove. Some of you have expressed concern about the Blandings’ safety and our unpredictable weather, but the weather that day was perfection. Barbecue is our traditional meal, of course, and the food was delicious.

After the concert we stayed for a while to listen to the country and western band that followed, not in the amphitheater but under a tent. We talked instead of two-stepped, but it put us in the spirit of where we were.

The walk to the car was a long one, exponentially longer than the walk from the car had been. Our host informed us that we were going to the campsite of his friend Geff Dawson, a ranch hand and cowboy poet. Geff and his family were camping at nearby Council Grove Lake, and while they were in a camper and not a tent, the site was complete with all the cowboy trappings. Tin cups, oil lanterns and a guitar were joined by sunscreen, bug spray and a Yorkshire Terrier. The setting echoed the message of his poetry and music, the blending of the rural tradition and the influence of the city, forever moving closer, if not physically then technologically.

Geff still works cattle with his horse and avoids the Kawasaki four-wheelers that have become so popular in working the herds. I asked him the first time I met him how he felt about these city dwellers setting up their weekend homes in the Flint Hills. Grateful. Grateful that people can still appreciate the beauty of the land while some of the folks who grew up there are making their way somewhere else. “They are saving the Flint Hills, ” he told me.

Geff’s songs and his poetry make you want to be a part of it, even me who is so devoid of pioneer stock that I can’t sit in the back of a SUV driving on a twisty road because it makes me so queasy. But like Jeff, I respect my friends as they are discussing the impending delivery of a calf that they fear will not go well. I envy their children’s experiences as they recount the hilarious stories of castrating bulls and their son’s reaction and the tales of camping out in one of the outbuildings with a pot-bellied stove. Their work and their life is real and their accomplishments are concrete.

As you drive across the state you pass billboards that say, “One Kansas farmer feeds 129 people plus you.” Don’t talk to me about Dorothy, but make any corny comment about the heartland that you like. This is Kansas.

Next year’s event will be June 13th near Florence, Kansas. Check the website for ticket sales information; this year’s event sold out in a day. Mark your calendars now.

Oh, I’m So Glad You Asked

June 12, 2008UncategorizedMusings from the Dream HouseMrs. Blandings

Tagged, and “it” are horrible left-over memories from my childhood. Gym class remains the bad dream I continue to have and I’d describe the adult form, but Erika did it so nicely yesterday, I’ll send you there. But, I love all those forwarded group emails about favorites and “or”s as in, “cake or pie?” and this is kind of like that. Megan, who is not the kind of girl to hit you in the head with a playground ball, tagged me yesterday so here we go:

What were you doing ten years ago?

Ten years ago almost to the day I was quitting my job at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation where I worked in Grants Administration. I was doing my little part of saving the world until my world was turned upside-down by the arrival of the eldest Blandings boy. Suddenly youth and entrepreneurship took a back seat to independent play and the number of words an eighteen month old should be stringing together. (One of my best friends and I quit the Foundation almost simultaneously; I’m sure our husbands must have bemoaned our postpartum panic, the loss of steady income and the unbelievable benefits.)

Five items on your to-do list today.

I operate so much better with lists, but I’m sometimes lax about making them:

1. Take two of my children and two of their friends to Oceans of Fun.

2. Do not lose any children at Oceans of Fun.

3. Father’s Day gift for Mr. Blandings

4. Bill clients (I very, very bad at paper work.)

5. Pack for Flint Hills weekend. (Stay-tuned, more on this next week.)

Snacks I enjoy.

My day can sometimes entail moving from one snack to another, but if I have to pick one (and I don’t) it would be Dark Chocolate M&Ms.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?

Well, the “b” certainly opens up the possibilities. Travel more. Start my own little jewel-of-the-month club. But don’t forget, I worked in philanthropy, and if my bank account ever looked like Oprah’s, I have always said I would focus my giving on neighborhood development. You need to love where you live.

Speaking of, places I would live.

I lived in Atlanta until I was eight, then moved to Tulsa, but visited my dad in Dallas. As a by-product of my highly anxious nature I never felt exactly home. In Kansas City I became a grown-up, got married and had my children, not necessarily in that order. I have an undeniably outstanding group of friends. I could get a ride to the airport, emergency child care or a casserole with one phone call. Sometimes without. I don’t just live here, it’s my home. (Mr. Blandings and I have an inside joke about my going to Santa Fe, but that is another story for another day.)

I do have a bit of that last one picked feeling. Give me your thoughts on who you’d like me to tag and I’ll choose from there. Oh, and between cake and pie? Always cake.

(Don’t miss Megan’s profile on 1st dibs this week!)

My Mother Was A Crazy Person

May 9, 2008UncategorizedMusings from the Dream HouseMrs. Blandings

I could have also titled this “A Tale of Many Sofas” but it seemed important not to bury the lead. My mother was, indeed, crazy. Not, she always said, “Healthy people take the stairs!” (like I do) but really crazy. I’d love to put a name on it for you, but there doesn’t seem to be one. Clinically depressed with a soupcon on paranoia, or something close. I’m going to tell you now that she died sixteen years ago. I always hate it when someone asks a question about my mother and I have to say she’s dead. It’s not upsetting for me, but it’s so awkward for the inquirer. You know, because people are generally nice and mothers dying is bad.

She was aesthetically focused for sure. The picture, above, was taken in Atlanta and I have no memory of it ever being that cold there. Clearly, this was all about the look. My mother loved clothes. A lot. And shoes. She was a smidge taller than I am, close to 5’10” and she wore a size 6 shoe. Like her feet had been bound as a child. When we cleaned out her closet after she died she had beautiful shoes from size 5 to about an 8.5. I mean, a deal’s a deal.

She read a lot and she read a lot of magazines but I don’t remember any shelter magazines. She was creative and stylish, but I didn’t think house stuff was really her thing. I sort of had an impression that she got things the way she liked it then left it alone for five or ten years or so. Then I started going through pictures.

The picture with my dad, above, was taken in “the apartment.” That squarish sofa with its jazzy geometric upholstery very nearly screams 1965. It made the move in it’s original fabric to the new house.

Within a year it was recovered, maybe slip-covered in this solid, nubbyish linen. I think it’s sporting a contrast welt. (I jumped off of a couple of pillows and hit my head on this coffee table. I still wear the scar.)

I have no memory of the floral chair in the background and it is never seen again. Banished. (Note the Victorian crystal lamp; it resides in my living room now.)

Ah, Spring. Apparently blue floral was the way to go, but in the curtains and not the chair. That was all wrong. So, curtains up, nifty new chair. And, yes, jazzy p.j.’s if I do say so myself.

This is my birthday, mid August, 1970. Same sofa.

And then, within two weeks, gone. Black leather, with a chair to match is in its place.

My parents got divorced and we moved from this house in ’72, so a new set of sofas appeared within two years. And curtains and a rug.

And this floral chair, which I think might be ingrained in my subconcious, because I think I love it. But I don’t remember it or any of its predecessors. I do, however, remember receiving that Scarlett O’Hara Madame Alexander doll. She graced my shelf for years.

The sofas made the transition to the townhouse in Tulsa and stayed the rest of her life. They were recovered maybe twice in the next twenty years. The thing about being crazy is, it didn’t necessarily diminish all the other things she was. Smart, funny, creative. She was fabulously unstable, but she was also just plain fabulous. She came by her craziness naturally as her mother was crazy, and yes, I do understand the implication. I just hope someday one boy takes the time to sit down and sift through the pictures and take note. Of themselves, of my craziness or the sofas. Moms are like that. We need to be remembered.