Roses Are Red, and So Are a Lot of Other Things

Here's the second of the two paintings I finished last week. I painted this one for our friend and beloved church secretary, Pattie Mendez. She wanted something bright and colorful. I think this meets the criteria. I don't think impressionism is my strong suit, but it sure was fun to paint anyway.

It's a copy and I don't know who did the original. If anyone out there has seen it before and knows the original artist and can let me know, I'll add an attribution. (i.e. "S. Perkins, after John Doe.")

Why Buy the Farm When You Can Paint It?

Back in mid-September I started two new paintings in my painting class. This week, almost four months later, I finished them both in the same class.

This one is a painting of the boyhood home of a good friend of mine, Mr. Dennis Gnadt -- the farmhouse he grew up in in Minnesota. The painting was commissioned by his daughter-in-law, Dawn, as a gift for him. I had hoped to have it done by Christmas, but classes ended mid-November and I don't get much painting time when I'm at home -- so I was a little slower than I anticipated. I guess that makes it more of a Happy New Year's gift...


I'll post the other one as soon as I can.

Meol Call

L has taken to intercepting the day's mail and sorting it by addressee. I think she's either making a thinly veiled attempt to secure a position as a personal assistant, or is just plain nosey. In either case, she had this note waiting for me when I got home tonight.



(For the spelling unchallenged, it reads, "Dad, You have all of the mail, Daddy.")

Becoming Botanical

We are now a highly botanic family. Over the Christmas break we finally broke down and got the family membership. The South Coast Botanic Garden is just a couple of miles away on the up-slope of Palos Verdes, and the memberships are much cheaper than the more renown Huntington Library and Descanso Gardens, and the best thing is that it is usually almost empty. Stacy has been bringing the kids here for a couple of years, usually on their occasional free admission days, and they love it. I'd been there once before many years ago (in my pre-Stacy days) to attend a "Shakespeare in the Park" type production. I remembered being impressed with the size of the garden, considering its rather urban setting.



It's not particularly in-your-face dramatic (especially not last week, a few days from the drab winter solstice), but it is big and peaceful and has a lot of trails and huge trees and you can get momentarily lost and pretend for a few minutes that you are not in Los Angeles. There's a good sized duck pond, a children's garden with little fairy-tale figures and constructions scattered about; there's a large rose garden, and several wide open manicured lawns. While there are a few of these "maintained" areas, in general it isn't an English garden where everything is trimmed and tidy, but a botanic garden where dozens and dozens of species are preserved and pretty much allowed to grow as they see fit. It's pretty in its unkemptness. I'm looking forward to seeing it in the spring and summer to see what the gardens hold for color.

The kids are most excited about the duck pond. They make a point to hit the lake each time they visit and go "fishing." This basically amounts to getting a long stick and dipping the end into the pond and just standing there. Can't say it captured my sense of adventure, but hey! - L and N have unique tastes.

The garden is a particularly good place for N to indulge another of his hobbies: stick hauling. A visit to the garden with out dragging a large piece of wood hither and yon is a visit sans point. He acquired a couple of good ones that day and carried them proudly. It is especially fun, he found, to run ahead of the group and get to a narrow spot on the trail and to whip around and bar the way with his stick, yelling "Caution! Caution!" I'm not sure if he thinks he's a railroad crossing, or a knight guarding some remote access to a hidden castle. At any rate we are not permitted to cross until we identify our favorite vegetable. (And evidently we don't get much of a choice for favorite vegetables either, since the right answer was already decided upon for us by the valiant Sir N before the query was given.)

"Caution!"

At one point in our walk around last week, we rounded a bend in the trail and came upon a stunning evergreen of some type that was glistening silver. On getting closer I realized that the dew of the morning had totally bathed the tree and, for some reason, wasn't evaporating away. The picture does not do it justice: The tree looked positively bejeweled. Everyone else somehow managed to walk on by it without much ado, but it floored me.

There may not be a world class art gallery adjacent to a world-renown tea house at the SCBG, but it's quiet and laid back and the kids can run and holler and (don't tell) even pick a leaf or two without Mommy and Daddy being swooped up by security guys in dark suits, sun glasses and ear pieces. It's more our caliber.

End-of-visit Burnout

And despite what Sir N might think, my favorite vegetable is not broccoli.

Charmed by Chipotle

I am subject to the occasional food fad. I'll get on a kick where something will inspire me, some ingredient or spice, or sometimes a cooking method, and it will obsess me and I'll use it over and over again until someone calls in an intervention. It's happened with curry -- all my utensils turned yellow. Once it was horseradish -- still have to put horseradish on each and every sandwich. Right now, it's chipotle. Not canned chipotle ("in adobo sauce," whatever that is), but ground chipotle powder in all its deep, red, velvety loveliness. Hot and rich and smokey, a Mexican mistress in a flamenco dress - it is scandal in edible form.

It's been making quite a scene at our place. It's gone into soups and stews. I put it in a cream sauce I commandeered from Stacy. It made an appearance in the cocktail sauce we served with the shrimp on Christmas. I sprinkled it on fried eggs this morning (the kids amazingly didn't notice) and it dusted a turkey sandwich this afternoon (making good friends with the smear of horseradish sauce already installed). My mind is ever racing for new and novel chipotle applications. I'm thinking of mixing a little bit into some melted chocolate for fudge sauce with a kick. Maybe on some of those baked squash Stacy's always making - hmmm, yes. That has potential.

Stacy, not a big fan of le cuisine fumé, has endured this little culinary outburst with good grace, but I can tell it's wearing thin. I have a feeling I may overextend my chipotle welcome and she'll have me feeling the heat when she gets all smokey on me. Silly girl. Doesn't she know she'll always be my favorite spicy pepper.

Messiah Mayhem

Feeling festive, I dusted off the iPod, plugged it into the speakers, dialed up The Messiah and cranked up the volume. Initially the kids were shocked and annoyed. Zero sleighbells and there were no references to reindeer or sugarplums anywhere to be heard. I had N on my lap and L standing at my side and I could see their interest cresting the edge of the cliff and heading sharply downward. They were about to dismiss the oratorio all together when I said, "You know, this is really good music for singing... LIKE THIS!!!" And I launched into my most absurd accompaniment to the hapless tenor trying to deliver "Comfort Ye." Subtlety of performance was hardly a concern. Pitch? - Bah Humbug! It was all about volume and pomposity. I very soon had a willing trio.

Poor Georg Friedrich was never so sorely but joyfully abused. We belted "And the Glory of the Lord," bopped to "And He Shall Purify," and reached down to the depths of our beings to join in "Thus Saith the Lord of Hosts," even simulating a California 6.0 when the bass promised that "He shall shake the Heavens, the Earth, the seas, the dry land..." Stacy kept peaking in from the kitchen, rolling her eyes and going back to whatever she was doing to give the impression that she wasn't a part of this desecration. Fortunately we never got to the "Hallelujah Chorus." It was pretty painful, I'm sure. Come to think of it, it's probably a good thing you couldn't hear it. I would venture to say... you probably couldn't Händel it. (Ho! Ho! Ho!)

Merry Christmas!