Jerica's Quilt

One quilt often inspires another. That was the case with a quilt that I made for Sarah when she moved into her first apartment. After she chose a pattern from my quilting library, we hit the quilt shops in search of brown, gold, and cream fabrics with musical undertones. The quilt turned out beautifully and Sarah hung it proudly in her apartment.

          That’s where Jerica saw it. Sarah and Jerica have been friends since they were in elementary school. They were roommates their freshman year at WSU.

           Sarah told me that Jerica loved that quilt, and admired it whenever she visited. Eventually, Jerica asked me if I’d make the same quilt for her, out of different colors, if her mom bought the fabric. It would be a gift from her parents for her 21^st birthday. Of course, I said yes.

          In the spring, my favorite neightborhood fabric/quilting store, Pacific Fabrics went out of business. Jerica, her mom, Sarah, and I took advantage of the big closing sale. We grabbed a shopping cart and filled it with eighteen bolts of purple, brown, and cream fabrics. Jerica and her mom hadn’t ever shopped for fabric before, but Sarah and I showed them the ropes and they caught on quickly.

          Spring turned into summer. I had planned to work on the quilt over the summer, and just barely made that deadline, by cutting all the blocks out as August ended. That’s also when I panicked and remembered to make an appointment for time on a long arm quilting machine.

The first time available was on October 4. That would work. Jerica’s birthday is in December. It would also light a fire under me to get moving.

Sarah and Jerica left for college. I wish I could say that I got right back to work on the quilt, but I didn’t. The blocks sat neatly stacked on my sewing counter, while other things took priority.

In mid-September, I started slicing the curves into the blocks, then stitched along the curves to create new blocks.  I sprinkled the smaller accent squares onto those blocks. Karla Alexander author of Color Shuffle, explained her process simply and accurately. I slapped the blocks up onto my design wall as I finished them. I sent Jerica and Sarah pictures of the quilt in progress.

Once I got all the blocks up on my design wall, I was glad I hadn’t waited until the absolute last minute. Over the next week, I’d arrange and rearrange the blocks almost every time I walked past them on the way to my car, trying to get it balanced, and trying to make sure that the same fabrics weren’t right next to each other. Sometimes it felt like one of those square puzzles that you slide numbers around in trying to get them in order. At last, my Rubik’s cube of a quilt top was arranged to my liking.

Let the piecing begin! I joined the blocks into rows, and then joined the rows into a quilt top.

          Next step, I started doodling possible quilting patterns to quilt on it. I had quilted Sarah’s quilt with swirls. That went well with the music theme, but I wanted something different for Jerica’s quilt. I went to sleep with no plan. I woke up with a few very tentative possibilities.

At Trains, Fabrics, Etc. I helped the quilt shop owner load the quilt top, batting, and backing onto the long arm quilting machine. I picked out a variegated thread of browns and cream. I looked over the diagonal rows of curves. Should I echo the curves? That seemed too obvious. Should I quilt angular, geometric lines to contrast against the curves? No, I liked the curves. I wanted them to stand out.

I grasped the handles of the quilting machine, and relaxed, confident that something would come to me. As always, it did: vines with curling fronds climbing up the diagonal rows. They would be flowing and curvy, and simple enough to be forgiving. But best of all, this design would match the mood of the quilt.

As I quilted, other quilters who came into the shop came by to see what I was working on, and offered their compliments. It’s not a traditional quilt, definitely more contemporary. Brown and purple are also not usually paired together, but in this quilt, they play well together.

Two layers of fabric with batting sandwiched in between, held together with thread. It really was a quilt now. It looked fantastic.

I had to keep reminding myself that it was Jerica’s quilt, not mine. I continued reminding myself of that as I stitched the sleeve and binding on. The label reminded me again.

On Saturday, we celebrated Jerica’s birthday early (she was a Christmas baby) at Stanley & Seafort’s restaurant overlooking Tacoma. When she pulled her quilt out of a matching pillowcase, her face lit up with a big smile. Happy birthday Jerica!

Laura Keolanui Stark is glad that so many of her quilts have found happy homes. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Another Cat Story

          In July, we had to put Velvet our beautiful black cat down. We found her when she was a kitten abandoned under our house, and she lived with us for thirteen years. (See the blog titled “The Story of a Cat” posted on July 6, 2011.) She was notorious for trying to escape from the house anytime someone opened a door, especially in her younger years.

Velvet

 On Halloween night, as I stirred a pot full of pumpkin sausage soup, I thought out loud wistfully, “Well, at least this Halloween, we won’t have to worry about Velvet getting out whenever we open the door for a trick-or-treater.”

Ten minutes later, Sarah K. and I thought we heard costumed candy collectors coming up onto our porch. She went to answer the door since I was cooking. I heard her gasp, and then she came back in with a strange look on her face.

           I was puzzled, “Were there trick-or-treaters?”

           “No,” she said and hesitated a little, “There was a black cat sitting on the porch, right next to the pumpkin. She looked at me and then took off. She was skinny, like Velvet when she was young.”

           We looked at each other with goose bumps. I welled up a little, “It was Velvet. She must have come back to tell us she was OK in cat heaven.” It was spooky that she came back on Halloween.

           A couple of weekends later, John and I went to Ellensburg because daughter Sarah was in a piano competition. It was a stressful weekend. On their way from Pullman to Ellensburg in Sarah’s car, she, her boyfriend and another friend got a flat tire. She called to tell us they were stuck somewhere outside of Othello at 10:00 at night, in below freezing temperatures. There was no lug wrench in her trunk to get the tire off to change it.

          AAA to the rescue. They changed the tire and Andy drove them 100 miles into Ellensburg on the little doughnut spare tire. While they were driving, we got online and made elaborate plans on where to get her tire fixed based on which tire places would be open on Sunday in Ellensburg--none, and how close the nearest Costco was-- 40 miles away.

The next day we drove 120 miles to Ellensburg. While they played their pieces in Central Washington University’s music building, we opened Sarah’s trunk to look at the tire.  It was totally blown out, shredded. I was thankful Andy had gotten them off the road safely.

Long story short: Sarah played well.  Andy and the other friend who’d driven over with Sarah placed in the competition. We ended up having to get two hotel rooms to stay overnight. On an icy Monday morning at 8:00, we had our noses pressed up against Les Schwab’s doors. I was impressed with how fast they could put four new tires (4-wheel drive) on her car. It was like a pit stop in a race. We barely made it back to the hotel, a block away, when they called to say the car was ready.

After breakfast, Sarah and Andy got on I-90 headed east back to Pullman. We headed west toward Puyallup. On the west side of Snoqualmie Pass, we saw the signs for Snoqualmie Falls which we usually whiz past. We hadn’t been there in over ten years. It would be nice to exhale and relax a little, so we took the off ramp.

Snoqualmie Falls

The falls were magnificent! We wandered into Snoqualmie Lodge, where lots of scenes for the creepy TV series Twin Peaks were shot. We ate burgers at Twede’s Café (formerly known as the Mar-T Café), also a Twin Peaks hangout. Of course we finished off our meal with a piece of their famous cherry pie, but skipped on the “damn fine cup o’ coffee.” The pie lived up to its reputation. We stopped at the outlet mall, and then continued home.

Johnny and Sarah K. weren’t home when we pulled in. I wheeled my overnight bag into the house. A sign taped on the downstairs bathroom door warned, “DO NOT OPEN DOOR!” John asked, “What do you think that’s about?”

I clomped up the stairs, “Either the toilet over-flowed and now we’ll have to clean that up, or there’s an animal in there.”

Walking down the hallway John said, “Hey, maybe it’s one of those German Shepherd puppies Sarah was talking about the other day.”

 “No, if it was a puppy, it would’ve let us know it was in there right away.”

We unpacked while we did not open the bathroom door, and waited for Johnny and Sarah to get back from wherever they were. Sarah got back first, and told us the story.

She and Johnny met some friends, Adam and Samantha, for dinner the night we were gone. Afterwards, the plan was to meet back at our house. Their friends beat them here, and when Johnny and Sarah pulled into the driveway, Samantha was standing on our front steps, petting a black cat. “Is this your cat Johnny?”

The cat that wasn’t ours was the reason for the bathroom door sign. They had looked on nearby mailboxes--no missing cat fliers. They checked the animal shelter website—nothing. They had even taken him to the vet to see if he had a microchip--nope. He wasn’t neutered either.

They assured me that he was a REALLY nice cat. Then they backed off and relied on the oldest sales technique ever: a good “product” will sell itself.

John opened the bathroom door and went in to meet the mysterious cat. I was reluctant. Neither of us wanted another cat. We want to travel. Pets tie you down.

A few hours later, I finally went in to look at the stray. He came right up to me to say hello. He was so thin, you could see his ribs and spine. He wasn’t a fluff ball kitten, more like a lanky adolescent. He was sleek and black except for a little white patch on his chest. But his most striking feature was two orange eyes.

Our new cat, Pippin.

He saunters around our house like he’s been here forever. He’s not cowed by T-Bone, our 90-lb. Lab-Shepherd mix, at all. On their first encounter, when T-Bone got a little too close, the new cat calmly, but firmly raised his right paw up like it was a stop sign. T-Bone stopped, wagged his tail and backed up. He is fluent in "Cat."

The new guy and Suzie, the dachshund, are great buddies. She tolerates him swatting at her tail, and biting it on occasion. Those two have also been known to nap together.

Pippin and Suzie

The only one who hasn’t been won over is Java, the Manx. That’s not surprising. She has never gotten along with the other pets, including Velvet. When he gets within six feet of her we know because we hear her hiss. He doesn’t understand why she won’t play with him, and he won’t take no for an answer.

Pippin and Java in a stand-off.

Mr. Big Personality follows us around, soaks up affection, and attacks, but never has his claws out. He thinks nothing of jumping up on the 1-1/2” wide rail by our stairs and walking it like a tightrope. He has climbed to the tip top of my china hutch, and clawed his way up the bricks of our fireplace. He sleeps stretched out full length on his back. I don’t know how he survived sleeping like that outside, but I do know how he ate. He’s a good hunter. This morning I found a ball of fun fur yarn on my chair. He “killed” it down in my sewing area, and brought it upstairs to share.

Pippin and his "mouse"

One night, we still don’t know how, he got out. We worried the entire night, and looked for him repeatedly. It poured through the night and into the next morning. Finally, we cracked the garage door open. Fifteen minutes later, on my way to the laundry room, I heard rustling on the workbench in the garage. There he was, bedraggled and sopping wet. That was at least the third time that he found our house with his feline GPS.

When I called Sarah S. to tell her the story after we got home from Ellensburg, I told her I didn’t want another cat. She told me to give it up, we had another cat. He chose us. We don’t know why. That is how he became our cat. We named him Pippin.

Laura Keolanui Stark is trying to train another cat not to jump up on kitchen counters, but when she spritzes him with water, he doesn’t jump down, he just looks like his feelings are hurt. Laura can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Apple Cup Blues

If you read this blog regularly, then you know that on Black Friday, my family got a new 55” HDTV. One of the first things we watched on it was beautiful---LSU beating Arkansas.

But all good things must come to an end. The next day the Apple Cup played out on that big screen, and we watched WSU lose to UW, 38 -21. It was not a pretty sight for a Cougar fan.

John had had it with Coach Wulff years ago. I held out hope that the team would improve with time, until the Utah game. WSU was on the one yard line with the clock running down in Martin Stadium. Wulff didn’t go for the touchdown. He decided to kick a field goal to tie the game and go into overtime. We lost, in the snowy heartbreaker. 

Wulff seemed detached. There was no urgency to him, no inspiring the players, no leadership. I’ve watched him several times, walk out onto the field before games were over, accepting defeat.

This season we’ve had three quarterbacks injured. In our second to the last game of the season against Utah, redshirt freshman quarterback, Connor Halliday, passed for 290 yards and two touchdowns in his first college game. After the game, they found out that he had a lacerated liver. It’s not like our Cougar players lack heart.

On Tuesday, three days after the Apple Cup loss, WSU’s Athletic Director Bill Moos fired Paul Wulff. He said, “We either got to run with the big dogs or just admit that we're a doormat. And, I believe we can be a contender for championships. But, we can't wait and embrace mediocrity. That's not going to work. I was hoping this season would take us there. But, it didn't. So, I had to make the tough decision to hopefully find a way to get there with another person in that leadership role.”

On Thursday, there was another big announcement. The News Tribune reported that Moos said, “I have spoken about the need to re-energize our fan base and take Cougar football to the next level. I believe the hiring of Mike Leach accomplishes both of those goals.”

Leach, 50, compiled an 84-43 record at Texas Tech. All 10 of his teams posted winning records and went to bowl games. Leach’s last two teams produced 28 all-academic players in the Big 12 Conference. (Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/12/01/1927866/cougs-get-leach.html#ixzz1fQaR4zPO)

If you’ve been reading this blog for more than a year, you know that I have a standing bet on the Apple Cup with my friend Carol. In 2006, her son Tyler went to the University of Washington. My son Johnny (and later daughter Sarah) went to Washington State University. The rivalry between Washington’s two biggest universities is intense. The bet between our two families is that whoever loses the Apple Cup has to give the winner some food with apples in it.

Brand new WA2 apple developed at WSU Wenatchee.

In the six Apple Cups since Carol and I started this, I’ve had to come up with apple recipes FOUR times! I’ve made apple pie, apple turnovers, apple muffins, etc. Yep, I’m just a little sour apples (instead of grapes) about all the apple cooking that has had to go on in my house.

This year, I refused to cook. I gave her a gift card to Applebee’s and told her to treat her family to some Appletinis, although we were the ones who needed a drink after that game.

So I’m really pulling for Coach Leach to get those Cougars fierce and fired up to beat the Huskies next year! Maybe in her Senior year, Sarah will finally get to join in the Cougar victory dance over the Huskies next year in Martin Stadium. And maybe, just maybe, WSU will go to a bowl game for the first time since 2003. Get ready to Gooooooo Cougs!

Laura Keolanui Stark is feeling a bit crab appley. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Black Friday

          My Zumba teacher, Kristyn, always hits Black Friday with her sister. Over the years, she’s shared her adventures. This year she said she couldn’t get out of it even if she wanted to because it has become an annual holiday tradition that she and her sister “celebrate.”  

Another friend who dances with us, Ruth, was excited because after being a stay-at-home mom for years, she’s back in the workforce with a seasonal job at Macy’s. She asked if I’d ever done Black Friday before. I said no. Although I love to shop, I’m not big on early mornings or crowds. She told me that this year, Macy’s would be open at midnight, and she would be working in Men's Fragrances. Her enthusiasm proved to be infectious.

I kicked off Thanksgiving with 90 minutes of Zumba, and then spent the rest of the day watching football and cooking. It was low key because I was only cooking for John and the kids. Johnny and his girlfriend Sarah ate at her house at 3:00, then joined us for “second” dinner at 6:30. By the time we finished eating and I got everything cleaned up, it was well after 9:00.

I put my feet up, and started looking through the newspaper. It was impossible to avoid the Black Friday inserts and fliers, so of course I flipped through them. With my Black Friday friends in mind, I thought out loud, “Maybe we should go just to see what it’s all about.”

My family answered with a loud, collective groan. I was confident that I could get both Sarahs to jump on the Black Friday bus, so I concentrated my efforts on John and Johnny. I pointed out that this year some of the stores would be opening at midnight, in just a few hours--no need for an early morning wake up. Some people got all their Christmas shopping done in one shot. There were some unbelievable bargains out there. They weren’t swayed.

Our old Sony Trinitron Wega.

So, I pulled out the big guns, or in other words, the flier from Best Buy. (Some background history: two years ago, Johnny saved up his money and bought a Samsung 40” LCD HDTV. When he graduated and moved back in with us, our 12-year-old, 36” Sony Trinitron Wega was cast down into the basement. We’ve all been watching his TV.)  I flipped to page 5 in the Best Buy Door Busters and pointed, “Hey, look at this. Isn’t this Johnny’s TV? It’s $427. Isn’t that less than half, maybe a third of what Johnny paid?” That got their attention.

The flier was snatched out of my hands. Suddenly, there was a very animated all male TV conference in full swing. The flier was dissected. They found a better deal on a bigger TV than the one I’d pointed out. Tape measures were unfurled.

The ad said “Minimum 12 per store.” Imaginary ratios were calculated. How many people would want that particular TV? Strategies were mapped out. The next thing I knew, Johnny and Sarah K. were driving over to Best Buy to see how long the line was.

While they were gone, daughter Sarah and I rifled through the rest of the fliers. Since we were newbies at this, we eliminated Wal-Mart immediately. No sense in getting trampled our first time out. Macy’s looked like it had some good deals.

Johnny and Sarah K. returned from their reconnaissance mission and reported that the line at Best Buy wasn’t that long. It only reached to the next store. They rushed through the house gathering gloves, hats, and jackets.  I told them that if they didn’t get the TV, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. They nodded, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” as they ran out the door. I’m pretty sure my voice was just static, background noise.  At 10:30, they called to tell John that they’d be giving out numbers at 11:00, so he better get over there with the truck.

At 11:30, Sarah S. and I drove over to Macy’s, a block away from Best Buy. There were long, thick lines at both doors into the store.  In the car parked nose to nose with ours, two women were reviewing their sales fliers. They looked like seasoned Black Friday shoppers so we decided to follow their lead, and stay warm waiting in the car.

Sarah and I worked out our plan of attack. There was a Fossil leather purse that had been calling Sarah for a few months, and she also had something in mind for her boyfriend’s Christmas present. I wanted to say “Hi” to Ruth in Men's Fragrances. Sarah also wanted to go to Express, another store in the mall.

Our cell phones were charged. I rolled up the sales fliers that were more like booklets, and joked that if I had to, I could use the heavy roll as a billy club.

Just a few minutes before midnight, the gals in the car in front of us made their move. We jumped out too, and were crossing the street when Macy’s opened their doors. The crowd cheered and surged in. We merged into the line, and crossed the Macy’s threshold. I hustled over to the purses. Sarah went to look for her boyfriend’s gift.

Of course, the purse Sarah wanted wasn’t on sale, so that was out. But when we met up again, she had found what she wanted for her boyfriend at a great price. I looked for Ruth in Men's Fragrances, but couldn’t find her. However, while roaming through the aisles, I did find two gifts at door buster prices, and three good stocking stuffers too.

It was crowded. People had smiles on their flushed faces as they raced around. Other than one woman who flapped her flier open in Sarah’s face, everyone was very polite, and in good moods. We helped explain rebates to two foreign men buying a mini muffin maker. The sales lady who rang us up, was pleasant, and patient. The line we were in was short--only two customers ahead of us. We spent about $100.

At Express, the line was much longer, winding through the store like the line for Space Mountain in Disney World. We didn’t see anything worth the wait. Back out in the mall, we debated about going to Target, but decided to skip it. We’d gotten a good taste of our first Black Friday.

We wondered how things were going at Best Buy. When we pulled into the driveway, Johnny’s car and the truck were still gone, but not for long. Before we got in the door with our bags, they pulled in, with a big box and grins on their faces!

As they unpacked and set up our family’s Christmas present, they told us how organized Best Buy was. Sales people went down the line handing out tickets for door buster items that customers were in line for. So, if you weren’t going to get what you came for, you could leave and go to another store.

The couple in back of them worked at Best Buy and had come on their night off to get some of the bargains. When they found out what our group was there for, they went up and asked for a ticket for that TV to give to Johnny. In the end, they would’ve made the cut off anyway, but it was nice that strangers would do that for them.

There was a feeling of camaraderie in the line. A vitamin company came by handing out free coffee. Bed, Bath & Beyond employees from a few doors down passed out coupons for their store and reminded everyone that they were open at midnight too.

After a short night’s sleep, I went to Zumba Friday morning. My Black Friday friends weren’t there. They were probably resting after working the midnight shift, or still shopping. Another woman, who I’ve spoken to a few times, asked me about my Thanksgiving. I made the mistake of telling her that I’d shopped Black Friday for the first time. She gave me a mini-lecture about the evils of Black Friday: greed, downtrodden retail workers, and commercialism. She finished up by telling me that she just wasn’t much of a buyer. Wow, nothing like some light, small talk before Zumba.

Later that afternoon, I watched LSU beat Arkansas on our Samsung 55” LED HDTV. Clumps of grass in Tiger Stadium were kicked up by cleats, and strands of purple and gold waved in the cheerleaders’ pompoms literally bigger than life on our new LED TV. A few times I wanted to dodge players as they ran across the screen. Sarah said it seemed more like a portal than a TV. We all watched, spellbound.

Yesterday I saw our TV at Costco. It was $2700. We paid $999.99. Was it worth some quick planning, standing in line for a few hours, talking to some nice strangers? Oh yeah! Am I glad that we did Black Friday? Definitely! Will we do it again next year? Let’s just say after my piece of pumpkin pie, I’ll be carefully studying those Black Friday sales fliers.

Laura Keolanui Stark is trying to wrestle the remote away from “the boys,” and is still mesmerized by the new TV. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Fences

        If you stood on the deck overlooking our backyard and did a 180 degree turn from left to right, you’d see that our yard shares a fence with five neighbors. I’d call them a motley crew, except that it’s highly unlikely that this group of oddballs would ever band together.  

This is an older, established neighborhood. When it “opened” in the late 1970s, Manorwood was the premiere development up here on South Hill. Our house was a stop on the “Street of Dreams.”

The former owners of our house told us that when they bought it, there was a heart-shaped hot tub in the master bedroom/bath. That was long gone, thankfully, when we moved in twelve years ago, but the neighbors on either side of us, original owners of their houses, are still here.

I met the neighbor to the left of us, first. She knocked on my door two or three weeks after we’d moved in, and didn’t waste any time with warm, fuzzy introductions. She informed me that my dog Lucky had gotten into her yard, several times.

I nodded and apologized. He was an escape artist, and could have easily jumped the four foot fence, or dug under it. I never got called by a principal about my kids, however, he had called me about my dog. They “saved” Lucky from the students at recess, and could I please come up and get him?

Within seconds, the neighbor lost my support when she added that Lucky had not only gotten into her yard, he had also taken her dog up to the school. In my mind I tried to picture him jumping into her yard, then jumping over the other side of the fence holding her dog in his mouth by the scruff of his neck, and leading him up to the school. Lucky was smart, but he just wasn’t organized or diabolical enough to come up with that complex of a plan. That’s when the Crazy Detector went off in my head.

She went on to tell me that she was a widow, the fence was falling down, and my husband needed to get out there and fix it. Sooo, she was nuts, and she thought she was the boss of my husband. I’m not the boss of my husband, so if she thought she could be the boss of him, good luck with that. I closed the door. So much for the welcome wagon.

I nicknamed her the witch because she looks like the wicked witch in Snow White, but with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth all the time. She has remarried, and cracks the whip on her poor slave handi-man of a husband. He’s constantly out in the yard doing repairs and adding more and more decorations to their yard while she supervises and calls him her first husband’s name.

The next house on the 180 degree tour, belongs to the mystery neighbors. We never see them. They must work some strange shift. Their dog has gotten into our yard a few times. He’s kind of mean, but at least he’s never taken our dog up to the school.

As soon as they moved in, the witch and her husband went over and cleaned up the new people’s backyard: cutting down trees and hauling yard waste out. The witch told John and Johnny all this as her husband helped them replace the fence on our shared property line five years after she demanded that John fix it.

The house next to that one is on its third set of residents since we’ve been here. It was a rental and the first renters were happy having a mud pit for a backyard. The second renters fixed it up, and eventually bought it.

The husband owned a landscape business, so they did a great job with their yard. The only problem was that he was overzealous with the blower. If a single leaf or pine needle landed on his deck, he cranked the blower up. He usually did this before he went to work, at 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning, and on the weekends too. When his daughters became teenagers, he’d get up on the roof and blow it off at the crack of dawn. Maybe he was trying to wake them up creatively?

I’m not sure if he woke them up, but he regularly woke us up. One morning I stormed toward our back sliding door, pulling my robe on, to go out and yell at him. John pointed out that Blower Guy wouldn’t hear me over the blower. That sort of took the steam out of my wrath.

His most famous claim to fame in our house was that he was out there blowing one day in the middle of a 40-50 mph windstorm. Aren’t you supposed to clean up after the storm has passed? Was he trying to out-blow the storm?

They sold the house this summer and all I know about the new neighbors is that they had a wild “housewarming” party with loud music capped by a drunken guest screaming a 45-minute rant at 3:00 a.m. Someone must’ve said something because it’s been quiet over there since then. I’m pretty sure I know which neighbor did the complaining. She’s coming up.

The next neighbors, directly behind us, are the only normal ones: our friends Carol and Michael. Carol is the one who told me about our house when it was up for sale. We call our combined properties, in the middle of the wackos, “the compound.”

         There’s a gate in the fence between our two houses. Lots of good things have passed through that gate: kids on their way to and from school, baked goods and meals, fabric and quilting tools. We’ve kept an eye on each others' houses and pets when our families have gone on vacation, helped each other when we’ve locked ourselves out, and slipped through the gate for graduation parties or to just say “hi.”

The last house sharing a fence with us, in what is definitely not Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, is the neighbor to the right of us. She calls herself “Ms. Manorwood.” A divorced, and now-retired real estate agent, she’s the nosy, grouchy old lady of the neighborhood, and the self-appointed homeowner’s association police. She forced the former owners of our house out because they were running a daycare, and it was against the covenants.

She never gives out Halloween candy, or answers the door to children selling stuff for school. She has to mow her lawn or scoop her dog’s poop anytime we decide to barbecue or do anything out on our deck, especially if we have guests. Even though John has shoveled and sanded her driveway when it snowed, she doesn’t know our names, so she starts all conversations with us with, “Hi neighbor,” and then dives into some sort of scolding.

Most recently, she reported us to the police because Sarah K. parked her car facing the wrong way in front of our house. She parked that way because her car was broken and would only start when it was facing uphill. Ms. Manorwood couldn’t have any dis-order in her neighborhood.

Her Husky, Morgan, finds a way into our yard a few times a year. When she comes to get the dog, Morgan won’t go to her. Ms. Manorwood is always shocked that Morgan comes to me when I call her. That’s because Morgan is penned year round a few feet outside my kitchen window, and when she howls out of loneliness, I talk to her to calm her down.

We are the neutral zone between Ms. Manorwood and the witch who hate each other. We’ve gotten the dirt on each of them from the other one. 

The only positive thing Ms. Manorwood has ever done for us is to warn us about the witch’s son. He’s in his forties and a convicted felon and drug addict. He terrorized neighborhood kids as he was growing up and burglarized all the houses around here.

He and his alcoholic father fought all the time. The police were called regularly, I’m sure by Ms. Manorwood. One night when the cops showed up, the father was dead. The story is that in the heat of an argument, he had a heart attack.

        Ms. Manorwood told us that the felon has been in and out of jail. She assured us that whenever he got out, it wasn’t long before he’d offend again and go back in. He did show up one summer. He had a shaved head with a spiderweb tattooed on it. He was so pale, he kind of glowed in the darkness of the witch’s garage where he’d lurk while smoking.

The last time we saw him, he was spread eagle on the front of a cop car getting handcuffed. The rumor is that he’s in for life now—three strikes you’re out. We don’t miss the used needles he’d throw over the replaced fence into our yard.

As for fences, part of the fence shared with the mystery neighbors blew down last winter. We rigged it with ropes tying it up until we could fix it in the summer. Then we spent the summer trying to contact the mystery neighbors because their dog can be mean.

John and Johnny finally gave up and just started fixing the fence while keeping an eye out for the dog. One day they spotted a car in the driveway and knocked on the door. They were wearing their fence-fixing clothes, and heard the frightened voice of the daughter call out, “Dad! There are two men at the door!”

He answered the door holding a broomstick for a weapon. Once they explained who they were, he relaxed, and seems like a nice guy.

While the cement hardened around the fencepost on that side of the yard, Morgan showed up in our yard again. This time, when Ms. Manorwood came to get her, she told Johnny that the fence on her side of our yard was falling down.

He helped her tie it up until she can get it fixed. She told him that the original owners of our house had put up a fence between their yards, and that when they moved, they took the fence with them. But she didn’t tell him the whole story.

The witch had filled John in on the gaps in that story years ago. The original owner of our house asked Ms. Manorwood to split the cost of a fence between our houses. She refused, and gloated that she got a free fence. That’s why he took it down when he left, to spite her.

The broken part of the fence is fixed between us and the mystery neighbors. We’ll replace the rest in the summer. Mr. Mystery called to say he appreciated us fixing it and would like to split the cost of repairing it. I’ll give him a copy of our receipts today, and move him into the easy to deal with side of my neighbor list.

When I was young, and first read Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall, I agreed with him---

“There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines . . .

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.”

I’m older now and understand exactly what I’m walling in and walling out.  I’ve come around to agree with Frost’s neighbor, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Laura Keolanui Stark is just trying to live a quiet life on South Hill. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Tricks or Treats?

          There’s something about me that makes some people uncomfortable. I hear, “You’re having way too much fun,” a lot.

In quilting classes before class even starts, I’ve had people make that comment because I’m sitting with friends talking, and dare I say it, laughing! One teacher separated me and my friend Carol before we even sat down. I guess our crime was showing up together with smiles on our faces.

       I went for a job interview once to be a teaching assistant. I thought the panel interview with two teachers and the principal was going well. The teacher that I would be working with asked me how I’d get a group of first graders who were struggling more engaged in learning. I answered that I’d try to make learning fun with games and enthusiasm. My reasoning is that if you can set them up to enjoy learning in the first grade, it will be a good foundation for learning the rest of their lives.

        As the interview closed, we shook hands all around and I thanked them. I told them that I hoped to hear back from them, and turned to leave. That’s when one of the teachers said sarcastically, “Yeah, because we’re all about FUN here.” I knew they wouldn’t be calling me back.

         It made me very sad for her students, sadder too because it was the elementary school that my kids had attended. When I go back to that school every year for my reading assessment job, her first graders are always a glum bunch, well behaved, but very solemn as they march in. I wish I could bust them out of the jail that is the anti-fun teacher’s classroom, and I hope that they’ll get a better teacher for second grade.

           The latest reason why I must be reined in is that I had feathers put in my hair. The reactions are either: “Cool! I love it! Where did you get them put in?” or “Oh, you have feathers in your hair. Are those permanent?” with the face you make when something smells bad. It surprises me how uptight some people are.

         Halloween also seems to divide people into two groups: those who love it, and those who think it needs to be squashed. I’ve always been in the I-love-Halloween, bring on the costumes and candy group. It has always been my favorite holiday because it’s so much fun. There’s even “fun-sized” candy!

          However, after careful consideration, and under the influence of some stern feather disapproval, I decided that maybe I was too wild, too out of control. This year, unlike every other year in my memory, I would not dress up. I would be low key. I would grow up, and be an adult.

         So, this morning, in a serious very mood, I got ready for Zumba. I pulled my black workout pants on, and put my hair up in its usual workout pony tail. Then I went into my closet to find something, and a gray t-shirt with a black bat and the silhouette of a leafless black tree fell at my feet.

It was a sign! I ripped off my “grownup” t-shirt and pulled the spooky one on, then ran downstairs to a box that I keep costumes in. Cat ears headband, and black gloves with the fingertips cut off came flying out. Ran back upstairs to paint some heavy eyeliner on, and my batty cat costume was complete in 15 minutes.

Halloween Zumba at Vision Qwest.

At Zumba, there were a few other FUN people scattered on the dance floor in costumes. I got many compliments and high fives. I even managed to keep the cat ears on for the whole hour while I shook my tail (and hair) feathers.

Sorry boring party poopers, I just couldn’t do it. To all the other fun souls out there: Happy Halloween! Keep your costume about you, your candy close, and party on!

Laura Keolanui Stark will be handing out candy in her costume along with Suzie in her dachshund costume. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.