The Von-Trappings of Success

Last spring, I Von-Trapped myself a new dress out of an old bedspread. 

I didn’t think it would be that tricky.  I mean, I had it WAY easier than Fräulein Maria.  She had to make seven unique but thematically-cohesive outfits for children ranging in age from Holding-Up-Five-Fingers to I’m-Sixteen-And-I-DON’T-Need-A-Governess.  I just needed one dress for one girl who was otherwise unemployed.  I figured I’d have it done in about 2 hours.

Someday I will learn that what I figure and what actually happens are never the same thing.

Let’s start at the very beginning.  (A very good place to start.) Years ago I made myself a bedspread, but it never looked that great with the rest of the decor, so as my most loyal readers [parents] will recall, I replaced it back when I tarted up my drawers.  (That story here.) But the fabric still had plenty of wear, so for a few years it sat in the back of the closet, taking up space and waiting for the Von-Trapping to commence.

Then March rolled around and I, like a lot of other folks, started my own little mask-factory.  Those of you who were doing the same will recall that it was nearly impossible at that point to procure elastic or bias tape.  So I cut the lining out of the bedspread, ripped it into ribbons, and began the boundless tedium of sewing make-shift mask-ties. 

But then the bedspread was out anyway, so (a needle pulling thread) it was time.

I’ve always wanted to be Fräulein Maria.  In fact, when I was about six years old I decided to become a nun.  But then my mom pointed out that 1) we’re not Catholic, and 2) most nuns don’t marry handsome naval officers or become professional folk-singers, so I sort of lost interest in nunning.  (But I will say there’s a convent not far from my house, and once in a while I see all of the nuns going into the Chipotle, so I think I might actually be very good at it.)  It didn’t take me long to figure out I didn’t want kids either.  Especially not seven of them.  Nor do I particularly want to get married.  (Although as far as men go, Captain von Trapp plays guitar, rips up Nazi flags, and disappears to Vienna for months at a time, so he’s really pretty ideal.)  Regardless, play-clothes seemed like the Maria-part I’d like best.  I mean, that and the marionette theater, obviously.

Now, I’m a pretty decent seamstress, but my skill at draping is limited (as any actor who’s had to wear a costume I made sans pattern can tell you.)  Fortunately, vintage sundress patterns are one of My Favorite Things, and I had a whole box of them that I’d been saving for a rainy day.  True, March in Minnesota is NOT sundress weather, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to wear it for a while, but I had confidence that spring would come again, and so the dress began.

My mental acuity and emotional temerity being what they were at the time, I thought I’d best choose a pattern that looked pretty simple.  I picked one I’d purchased at a thrift store.  It had once belonged to Mrs. Ernest Boots, who was named Janet. Or who planned to make the dress for someone named Janet. Or who decided to give the pattern to Janet? In which case Janet may have been taken aback to find that the pattern is not for the dress pictured on the envelope.  THAT dress appears to be the standard logo of the unnamed-mail-order Pattern Company at 243 West 17th Street in New York City.  It isn’t until you open the envelope that you see what the dress will actually look like, which appears to have been an unpleasant surprise for Mrs.-Boots-Who-May-Or May-Not-Be-Janet, because she never even cut out the pieces.

But me? I cut out the pieces.  THEN I pinned them to the bedspread.  I AM A SARTORIAL GENIUS.  I’d surely be done before dinner.  Except…

I’d forgotten that I’d had to piece the bedspread together in the first place, so there was a giant seam where I’d pinned the front of the skirt.  I hadn’t started in with the scissors yet, so no harm done.  It would just take a little longer because I needed to unpin it all and rearrange the pieces. 

Also, the scalloped neckline was a little tricky.  And then I accidentally stitched both of the pockets shut, but that’s okay.  When the Lord closes a seam, somewhere He finds seam ripper.

Additionally, I had a little trouble with the sleeves.  You might be thinking “But Melanie!  There AREN’T any sleeves.”  I know, right?   Who’d’ve thought that no-sleeves could be so tricky!?  The problem was that when I set in the armhole facing, it turned out to be GIANT and made me look like I had enormous armpit-goiters.  It’s possible that the Unnamed Pattern Company designed it poorly. It’s equally possible that I did something wrong.  In any case, I decided to rip out the facing and finish the arm holes with bias tape instead.  (It’s okay. The poor didn’t want THIS bias tape.)

So only the hem to go and then the dress would finally be done!  Just in time for dinner.

…except it’s a reasonably full skirt.  I was clearly going to be working on it until late.  And I can be late for everything…except for every meal. I decided there was no reason hemming couldn’t co-exist with a dinner of schnitzel with noodles, and a viewing of my taped-from-TV-by-Aunt-Delores-in-roughtly-1983 VHS cassette (which is holding up perfectly well, thank you very much.)

And finally the dress was finished.  Nothing left to do but try it on!  And…

Oh.

Turns out my bedroom gets more light than I thought, and after years near the window, the sun had bleached the fabric until it was pretty see-through.  So the next question was, how do you solve a problem like a tranluscent dress?

Obviously, it ought to have been lined, but it was too late for that now.  And anyway, I’d already turned the lining into mask-ties.  I could always wear it with a slip, but because of its wrap-around nature, the slip would show. (This dress is Governess in the Front, Baroness in the Back.) 

Another possibility would be to only wear it places where there is very low lighting, or where I can stand with my back to a wall.  Option four is not to care. 

I decided to go with that one.

To be frank, the pale color doesn’t look great on me.  I was hoping it would make me look like a Blossom of Snow, but really it just makes me look like wet cement.  But whatever.  It will look FABULOUS climbing the trees of Salzburg.

And as a final touch, I made myself a kerchief.  WITHOUT A PATTERN.  (Genius.)

Perhaps someday I’ll get around to making a nightie out of Grandma’s tablecloth, but in the meantime, so long!

(…farewellaufwiedesehengoodbye)

Calendar Girl(s)

In my rumpus room, sandwiched between the filing cabinet and the radiator, is a box of calendars in which I am the Girl-of-the-Month.  In fact, I am the Girl-of-EVERY-Month.

Life sometimes surprises the heck out of me.

Here’s what happened.  Last March, I suddenly found myself with a lot of free time.  So I started making masks to donate out of scraps I had accumulated from being a person who sews sundresses and pillow cases and things, and also from being a person who is abysmal at knowing how much fabric those sundresses and pillow cases and things actually require.  Then, because I thought it would be funny, I took a few photographs of myself wearing the masks…with the matching sundresses and pillow cases and things. 

I really had so much free time.

I texted the pictures to my family, thinking the trail would likely end there.  But my sister also thought they were funny, so she fed me some wine and set me up on Instagram.  (This is incidentally also how I ended up on Facebook and OKCupid.  Andrea and Wine make a very persuasive team.)

Turned out, a small-but-vocal segment of the internet also thought they were funny, and folks began suggesting there ought to be a calendar.  I waffled for a long time, (I am a world-class waffler), but finally decided that if I DID make a calendar, I could maybe sell it to benefit other artists who also suddenly had way too much time on their hands.  I dug through my scraps and sundresses and pillowcases and things and decided that I could indeed come up with twelve.

And so, here we are.

Presenting: The Adventures in Hostessville 2021 Matchy Masks Calendar Girl(s)!!!

“Matchy Mask No. 1: I mean, what else do I have to do right now?”

“Matchy Mask No. 2: Isn’t quarantine so relaxing???”

“Matchy Mask No. 3: Is it April or December? I don’t know! WHAT ARE DAYS???”

“Matchy Mask No. 4: Happy Earth Day from me and the only friends I’ve seen in a month.”

“Matchy Mask No. 5: Coronavirus is spoooooooky!”

“Matchy Mask No. 6: The Essence of Elegance…matching your furniture.”

“Matchy Mask No. 7: SIX FEET, BUNNIES!!!!”

“Matchy Mask No. 8: The Lonely Harmonica”

“Matchy Mask No. 9: The Moral Quandary of Cleaning Supplies”

“Matchy Mask No. 10: How is never going anywhere SO EXHAUSTING?”

“Matchy Mask No. 11: Masks are for EVERYONE, Olivia!”

“Matchy Mask No. 12: Remember, as regulations relax, that can is not the same as should.”

There it is!  Twelve months of SO MUCH ME.  If you were one of those vocal calendar-demanders, your moment has come.  Click here for details; fill out the submission form, and I’ll set you up. 

But if you’re a super fancy photographer trying to contact me about my Very Likely Next Gig, (modeling for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit/Mask Edition)… you’ll have to contact my agent.

Interested in purchasing an Adventures in Hostessville 2021 Matchy Masks Calendar? Click here for details!

The Office Valet

I live in a House of Wonders.  My building was built in 1907 as a rooming house, and since I moved in, I’ve discovered some amazing things in the basement, like this defunct boiler…

…this sticker from someone’s box of cherries…

…and this honest-to-goodness SAFE. 

And one day, on an exploration to the back of the gas meter room, I found this.

The Office Valet.

I knew at once I had found my trusty right-hand-man.  There, standing forgotten in a dark concrete corner, surrounded by old boards and dead bugs, was the Jeeves to my Wooster, the Bates to my Lord Grantham, the Kato to my Green Hornet.

I had found my personal assistant.

The Office Valet™ was manufactured by Vogel-Peterson, founded in 1925 as a specialist in coat racks and garment storage, and sold to another company in the late 1960s.  I learned that much from an article on officeinsight.com, but after that steamy cliff-hanger, I was required to “log in to continue reading”, and I’m just not much of a joiner when it comes to the Workplace Furniture community.

But a little more internet digging unearthed a 1965 brochure for the entire Office Valet line, and I think you will agree it is magnificent.

Now, obviously, the boiler, safe, and sticker are permanent residents of the basement.  And for a long while it didn’t occur to me to remove the Office Valet from its domicile either.  After all, it wasn’t technically mine (although based on my neighbors’ lack of initiative, I’d be surprised if any of them even knew it was there, let alone cared.)  But also, I didn’t really have an office.  I had a hand-me-down desk shoved against the wall in my rumpus room, but I couldn’t devote any additional space to office furniture, because I needed the room for rumpus-ing.  That’s just the sort of life I led.

Until March.

Covid did a number on my industry.  Plays were cancelled, film shoots shut down, teaching artists no longer required, and museums shuttered.  All at once, not having a day job went from being an accomplishment to being a liability.  Fortunately, there was still some voice-over work to be had, but not in recording studios.  If I wanted any work at all, I needed to be able to create broadcast quality digital content from my home. 

Now, a House of Wonders does not necessarily make a fabulous recording studio.  Mine is an old, creaky building, and it is the opposite of sound-proof.  A person whispering on the street below may as well be Ethel Merman screaming into a megaphone.  I was looking for something tall to hang a quilt over to make an ersatz sound booth, when I remembered The Office Valet. 

It was time to take him into service.

I’m fairly inexperienced in hiring domestic help.  Still, as an independent contractor myself, I know it’s best to have clear expectations set, so that both parties are in agreement.  I admit that when he is not serving as a sound booth, I don’t really know what a Valet does.  Therefore, I went to the obvious resource, the 1861 classic, “Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management” (officially titled “The Book of Household Management Comprising Information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen-Maid, Butler, Footman, Coach, Valet, Upper and Under Housemaids, Lady’s Maid, Maid-of-all-Work, Laundry Maid, Nurse and Nurse Maid, Monthly, Sick, and Wet Nurses, etc. etc.: Also Sanitary, Medical, and Legal Memoranda: With a History of the Origin, Properties, and Uses of All Things Connected with Home Life and Comfort by Isabella Beeton.)

I wasn’t sure how much of her information would apply to an OFFICE Valet, but based on the title, I had to assume Mrs. Beeton would at least be thorough. 

“The Duties of the Valet” start on page one-thousand-forty-five, and there I found a useful list of responsibilities I could expect from my Office Valet.

• “The Valet is placed near the person of the master…”  I had already hauled him upstairs. Done!

• “…receives orders only from them…”  It’s quarantine and no one else has been in my home in four and half months.  Check!

• “…dresses them…” He’s got coat hooks, hat racks, and umbrella holes; we’ll call that close enough.

• “…accompanies them on all their journeys…”  Um, I’m going to take a pass on this one, since I had to unscrew all the rusty bolts and take him apart just so he could accompany me on my journey to the second floor, so I don’t think I’ll be taking him to the grocery store or anything.

• “…and is the confidant and agent of their most unguarded moments, of their most secret habits, and of course, subject to their commands and even to their caprices. (So the Valet has to do whatever I say, but he will know that I sometimes walk around my apartment naked, drinking hot sauce out of a tub, and singing the score to Brigadoon at the top of my lungs.  Got it.)

• A Valet is also supposed to possess “Quiet unobtrusive manners, a modest demeanor, good sense, good temper, and some self-denial.”  I mean, mine sat quietly and unobtrusively next to the gas meter for 50 years, so I think the self-denial is a given.

• “The Valet’s day commences by seeing that his master’s dressing room is in order; that the housemaid has swept and dusted it properly; that the fire is lighted and burns cheerfully; and he will do well to throw up the sash to admit fresh air, closing it, however, in time to recover the temperature which he knows his master prefers.”  Well, since he’s an OFFICE Valet, he can’t really be expected to see about the dressing room.  I’m the housemaid, so if it’s not swept and dusted, that’s on me.  I don’t have a fireplace so a fire burning cheerfully seems like a poor idea.  And there’s no AC, so the sashes are basically thrown up from May until September.  My Valet is going to have it so easy!!!

• Next we get to the morning routine: “It is now his duty to place the body-linen before the fire, and to lay the clothes intended to be worn, carefully brushed and folded, on the back of his master’s chair.”   I assume that body-linen means underwear, so that would be lovely in January, but it is 88 degrees outside, and I don’t need my undies any toastier, so we’ll revisit this one in the winter. 

• “All articles of the toilet should be in their places, the razors properly set and stropped, and hot water ready for use.”  During quarantine I’ve gotten REAL casual about shaving, so no need for setting and stropping.  But let’s take a moment to discuss the hot water.

My poor Valet, very frankly, needed a bath.  No judgement here; I probably did too.  But I’d only been sitting in my own despair since March, whereas the Office Valet had likely been doing it since Nixon was in office.  So the Valet and I did a Freaky-Friday role reversal, and I gave him a much needed bath.

Here is the bath water.  (This is the second bucket.  There was a LOT of dirt.)

Bath attended to (albeit his and not mine) I took a look at the rest of the expected duties.  Mrs. Beeton says he might also help choose my clothes if I am indifferent to my appearance, cut my hair as needed, attend my moustache if that appendage is encouraged (it is not), wipe the inside of my hat with a clean handkerchief, tidy up after I leave a room, convey notes and messages to my friends, deal with tradesmen, polish my boots, clean my collars, and at the end of the day “have the study comfortably arranged, with the fire lighted and candles prepared, dressing-gown and slippers in their place and aired, and everything ready that is required for the master’s comfort.”

Can’t lie, that last part sounds pretty great.  But I’m not real good at asking for or taking help.  So instead, I followed up his bath by making his workplace a little more pleasant. 

I started by turning the desk away from the wall.  That made space for the Valet, but the desk was of the box-store particle- and cardboard variety, and when I pulled it out, it became evident why I’d had it there in the first place. 

So I figured I’d just take the cardboard off the back.  Except then it looked like this.

But with a couple of new baskets, some dollar store wrapping paper, wood grain tape and a hearty dollop of Mod Podge and audacity, it now looks like this! 

I’m not the office-y sort, (I’m the rumpus-y sort) but it reminds me a little of the office Doris Day designs for Tony Randall in Pillow Talk, with Katherine Hepburn’s Desk Set philodendrons thrown in for good measure.  I like it.

I even have my daily to-do list on a vintage Optum Magnavox chalkboard rescued from the Science Museum’s trash.  I think you will agree it’s the perfect Maid-of-all-Work for my Office Valet, and I hope they will be terrific friends.

But why so much time and effort on the office?  Well…can I tell you a secret?  Are you, like my Office Valet, ready to be the confidant and agent of my most unguarded moments? 

The real reason is that after months of depression and anxiety and ratty pajamas and tubs of hot sauce, I’ve started to accept that my acting career is going to be on hiatus for a lot longer than any of us would have hoped.  It’s true that I’ve had the odd voice gig and commercial shoot, but live theatre has always been my bread and butter and it may realistically be years before I’m in a show again.  Unlike the Office Valet, I cannot sit by the gas-meter for decades waiting for my career to come back.   My unemployment is going to run out, and so I have to do something else, and one of the only non-theatre something elses I know how to do is write.

I mostly write plays, actually, which doesn’t help.  But I also write this.  This silly blog.  Folks have been suggesting for years that I could expand it into something for-profit, and although it’s really, really hard, I am trying to believe that I could.  I moved the desk because I’m trying to take myself more seriously, and I thought maybe I’d feel more like a Real Writer if I had a Real Office, and if I wasn’t always facing a wall.  Literally AND figuratively. 

I’m super self-conscious about all of this.  I mean, it’s not like an acting career is steady and reliable, but this feels like the equivalent of trying to make a mid-life career change to Professional Bassoonist.  It feels unrealistic.  It feels dumb.  It feels impossible that my silly ramblings on things like vintage office furniture and domestic compendiums would be interesting to anyone but myself.  It feels ridiculous, nonsensical, and capricious. 

BUT… I do have an Office Valet now, and as Mrs. Beeton says, it is his job to be “subject to my caprices.”  So he’s got my back…and my sweater and my umbrella.

And if you’re reading this, I also have you.  I mean, you wouldn’t have gotten this far if you didn’t like my silly ramblings, right?  So…can I ask you a favor?  I put together a survey (with jokes) to help me find my way forward with this.  Would you take 5 minutes to click on this link and give me your input? (I mean, look how serious I am! Surverys! And Links!) I’d ask the Office Valet, but he doesn’t have hands (or frankly, very strong opinions) so I’m asking you instead.

And in return, I promise never to ask you to attend to my moustache.

The Cherry Party; Being a Treatise on Tart Cherries, Unnecessary Labor, and BuzzFeed

I have a confession.  Often I am very smart with my internet time, but occasionally I get suckered into those ridiculous BuzzFeed quizzes. You know the kind: “Can We Guess Your Eye Color Based On Your Favorite Pizza Toppings?”, or “Tell Us Your Top Passwords and We’ll Reveal Your Favorite Bank Account Information!”  

Normally I just scroll past them, but sometimes they hook me.  The gateway drugs are the “How Many of These Two Thousand Famous Novels Have You Read” sort, because they allow me to revisit my favorite books, and also to feel superior to the 67% of Respondents Who Scored Lower Than Me. 

But the problem with the internet is that now they KNOW me.  The other day a quiz showed up in my feed entitled “Tell Us Your Favorite Desserts and We’ll Tell You Which Strong Female Literary Character You Are.”  COME ON.  Books AND snacks?  I AM ONLY HUMAN, PEOPLE.

I took the quiz, knowing it was bunk, but still hoping for Elizabeth Bennett or Hermione Granger or even Miss Havisham (it’s a short road, y’all).  Instead I got a character from some fantasy novel I’d never even heard of.  Maybe she’s great, and maybe I should read it, but that is not the point of a BuzzFeed quiz.  I do not need something that thinks Cookie Butter is a dessert to make me feel poorly read.  So I did the only thing one could do in such a situation. 

I took another quiz.

I know, I know, but I couldn’t leave on that note!  (This is why I don’t go to casinos.)  I scrolled a bit further, looking for one that seemed reasonable, and then, there it was: 

“Tell Us Your Ideal Date and We’ll Tell You Which Male Literary Character You Should Go Out With.” 

I didn’t need the quiz. I already knew the answer. 

I was sure I was gonna get Tom Sawyer.

Now, I’m not saying I WANTED to get Tom Sawyer.  Gross.  For starters, he’s a kid.  He’s also kind of a jerk, not just a little bit racist, and Becky Thatcher could totally whoop my behind. 

As it turned out, I didn’t get Tom Sawyer, I got Gilbert Blythe (swoooooooon) but that was only because the choices were all wrong for me.  BuzzFeed’s ideal date options were things like “A Moonlit Stroll on a Beach” or “He Asks You to Dinner and a Movie.”  There was no option for “He Takes His Ill-Gotten Marbles and Gets the Hell Out of the Way So You Can Get On With Whitewashing This Fence Already.” 

THAT’S the date I’d be totally down for.

Here’s the thing…I LOVE chores.  Not the kind that actually NEED to get done on a regular basis, like making the bed or emptying the dishwasher.  But anything old-timey and more difficult than it probably needs to be?  I’m your girl.  Do you need some water pumped?  On it.  Anything need hand-cranking?  Here I come!  And if I saw Tom Sawyer at work, I wouldn’t just offer him an apple and ask to take a turn.  I’d make him a homemade strudel with fresh whipped cream and then shove him the heck out of the way in my haste to get at that paint.  Unnecessary chores are one of my most favorite hobbies.

Now as you may recall, I’m fond of combining my hobbies with food, which is why any sort of U-Pick situation is a win-win for me.  CHORES! AND! SNACKS!  So imagine my delight when I found out my friends Julie Ann and Scott had a cherry tree, and that they would allow me to pick as many cherries as I wanted!

Now, I know some folks would say it’s easier to just buy the cherries, and their arguments are as follows :

1. Cherry season in Minnesota typically happens to fall on the hottest and most humid week of the year, which means you spend a full day covered in sunscreen, bug spray, and sweat.

2. Cherries have pits.  So you have to pit them.  One at a time. FOR HOURS. 

3. Even if you have an exciting spring-action cherry pitter that you can screw right to the top of a mason jar (surprise: I do), you will not catch every pit, which means you run the risk of cracking a molar with every piece of pie.  It’s like getting the prize in the Christmas pudding, but instead of a gold ring you get a hard seed and a piece of your own tooth.

4. Every time you pit a cherry (which for 4 gallons is roughly 1706 times) juice splatters onto your face, your chest, your hair, your table, your floor and your feet.  So you can add sticky red juice to the sunscreen, bug spray, and sweat combination.

5. Try as you might you will never get all the juice cleaned up and you will soon have an extended family of fruit flies hosting a reunion in your house.

6. If you are getting free backyard cherries, you are probably also getting organic cherries.  This is amazing and means they would cost approximately ONE BILLION DOLLARS if you were to purchase them at an orchard.  But it also means there will be worms and you will have to check each cherry for little wriggling white larvae and their attendant trails of poo.

7. Cherries will not wait for you.  Once you pit them they start to rot immediately, especially if it is 92 degrees in your kitchen.  So even though you are tired and sweaty and smelly and sticky and your back hurts like a son-of-a-gun from leaning over the pitter all day, you now have to process them.  Freezing is fairly simple, but canning puts you over a vat of boiling water, and drying means having your oven on in your 92 degree kitchen for 8-10 hours.  Did I mention the sweat?

8. The juice will stain your nails, and no matter how much you scrub (“Out, out, damned juice!”) by the next day they will have turned black; a black that is somehow oddly reactivated by every shower.  So for at least 4 or 5 days you will look like an Actual Zombie.

All those points are valid.  BUT…it’s also really, really fun.

To be fair, once a year is plenty for me.  As Mark Twain said: “If Tom had been a great and wise philosopher (like the writer of this book) he would have now comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” If I had to pick and process cherries all day, every day, I’m sure I’d hate it, and it makes me give a lot of thought to the folks who pick our food for a living. 

But I am not obliged, except in that I’m much obliged to Julie Ann and Scott for letting me near their tree (because I’m sure they know there’s probably not one boy in a thousand that can do it just right.)  And while they don’t ask for anything in return, they totally deserve it.  So lacking an apple, or a marble, or dead rat with a string to swing it on (I REALLY don’t want to date Tom Sawyer) I once threw them a Cherry Party in my side yard.  Which is another win-win, because throwing a party is my number one favorite chore of all time.

HERE IS HOW YOU DO IT.

1. Cherry-Themed Table Setting

2. Cherry-Themed Party Favors

3. Cherry Menu. (Pickled Cherries with Cheese and Crackers, Tart Cherry Spritzers, Kale and Walnut Salad with Dried Cherry Vinaigrette, Sautéed Chicken Breasts with Thyme and Sour Cherry Butter Sauce, and of course Cherry Pie, because what are you, a filthy Communist?)

Pro Tip: Do not google “Cherry Party” for inspiration.  In slang it means something VERY different than this, and those are not the sorts of BuzzFeed quizzes you want to be getting in your feed.

Because of Covid, there could be no cherry party this summer.  All they got this year was Jerry’s Favorite Cherry Cake, a whole lot of gratitude, and this silly dissertation. 

(“Jerry’s Favorite Cherry Cake” is an amazing recipe, btw.  I got it out of a thrift store Door County cookbook, from whence I also got Cherry Cornmeal Waffles and Cherry Cheesecake Ice Cream.  I don’t know who Jerry is, but his taste in cake is impeccable.)

Now I’m off to try to hull the bag of buckwheat my Uncle Lester sent me.  The internet tells me that really the only way to do it is to back over it with your car and then carefully pick out the hulls and the asphalt.  Chores!!!  

But if anybody has some raspberries that need picking, or some seed corn that needs shucking, or some clothes that need washing on a washboard in a creek by a Conestoga wagon, you know who to call.  I’ll be there with bells on, and you’ll probably get a cake out of the deal.  Especially if you’re Gilbert Blythe…