Everyday Attic

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Deferential, glad to be of use...

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!	75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?	80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,	85
And in short, I was afraid. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" T.S. Eliot

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Another Television Program, One I Support Without Caveats This Time

I love Dhani Tackles the Globe! We just watched his episode cycling in Italy. He's a professional football player here in the States, but on the show, he travels the world and gets to know various cultures by playing their respective national games. The production is a little slicker than last season, but it's beautiful, and he's funny. He always has this endearing, bantering camaraderie with his local coach, he loves to eat and drink the area's specialties, and Dhani loves the ladies.

The feeling is mutual.

Uncomfortable or Awesome?

Concerts in the Attic

Photo from JeffCam Photo Blog

"Concerts in the Attic is a not-for-profit house concert series hosted by Steve Long, Sarah Goodall and Ed Rogers. Held in the attic (that's right, the attic) of Sarah's one-hundred-year old house in Fort Worth's historic Fairmount neighborhood, the series features top-notch singer/songwriters performing in an intimate setting for an appreciative and attentive audience of music lovers.

Concerts are usually held on Sundays beginning at 5pm*, and are followed by an acoustic song circle until 11pm. Guests are encouraged to bring acoustic instruments, potluck dishes and their beverage of choice. A suggested donation of $15 is collected during each show, all going directly to the performer."

P.S. One of their February performers, Matt the Electrician, looks very similar to a bearded Matt who Carter knows... and since we're here, who also looks very similar to bearded Jack Shepherd from Lost.

Oh! One other thing... The idea of Concerts in the Attic reminded me of the IFC show Dinner with the Band, where I usually love more and more the chef/host Mr. Sam Mason and then feel sort of vicariously awkward about the band's performance and interaction with everyone. The episode with the vegans of Yacht was so painful that I could hardly watch. 90% of the time I find vegans to be laughably pompous and just generally absurd. I can say this as a former veg. Even with all that said, I support the concept, and the host is sharp and ... cool, for lack of a better word. It's worth watching, at least until the band starts spaz-robotically dancing and thrusting in front of their 5 person audience.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Touching

Blog chronicling a couple's journey through the Russian adoption process...

Friday, April 16, 2010

I surrender.

griege

Portiere Project

I have been considering a dining room project. I posted about some of our dining room's flaws a long time ago. Some of these issues have been remedied. (Hello, trestle table and pew/banquette, I'm looking at you.) However, others--specifically a shallow built-in hutch--have not.

Here's the old view of the dining room--new table and pew have replaced these featured here, and future hutch to be built on the left.

The project I have in mind now tackles our issue of cooking and entertaining in a very open space. I love the idea of an open-concept home. I love the freedom to see out into the living room while I'm cooking and the theoretical liberation of cooks from their solitary confinement kitchen-y prisons into the arms of family and friends... but practically and personally speaking, when I'm cooking for a dinner party, and we get to that moment when people begin to arrive, and I'm scrambling to finish garnishing the hors d' oeuvres or, you know, whatever, I need to get down to business, (being very liberal with the italics today) and sometimes that is more difficult with the distractions and demands of an open space.

Is it just me, or is it really hard to multitask in these situations? There's my guest. I can't just ignore her while I'm finishing up. I want to stop cooking and give her my total attention. I mean, that's the whole point of having people over, right? But, oh no, I'm burning the chicken now. Now, everyone will eat burnt chicken and giving them something good to eat was part of the point of having them come over, too. It's quite the conflict. As you can see.

I find myself most stressed when I want to be most gracious, and sometimes I think that a private kitchen, one where I could step behind a curtain, speaking sort of in the Wizard of Oz sense, might be more logical for entertaining.

Not to mention that as we sit down in the dining room, most of the time I have dishes in the sink and on the counter from cooking the meal that are now staring everyone in the face as they eat the meal. No one wants to see the dirty implements of culinary war, the baked on casualties and violent smatterings of olive oil and cream. Not so appetizing. It would be nice to pull a curtain across and allow my kitchen a shroud of modesty.

This is where the portiere comes into play. A portiere is exactly what I need. It is inexpensive, and it allows for options.

I could mount a track or a curtain rod to the ceiling, and when I want to hide the kitchen and establish a more intimate, separate dining space, then I could pull the curtain across between the two rooms, drawing a boundary. When it's not needed or I want to cook and still see the TV in the living room, then I could push the curtain back so that it just hangs in front of that bank of cabinets to the left (which is something of an eyesore anyway, and probably would be much better off with a dressing of pretty fabric over it).

Something like this...