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.

Quilt Factory: UFOs Turned Into Finished Quilts

Over the last year, I’ve been working to tie up some loose ends. I've got way too many UFOs. If you’re not a quilter, you may be asking what I’m doing with alien aircraft, and where do I keep them. In quilt language, UFO stands for un-finished objects---meaning quilts that were started, but not finished. I prefer to call them WIPs—works in progress.

       One day in a burst of organization, I gathered all my WIPs together, and hung them on hangers. I had 12! A couple of them were still in the piecing stage, but most were quilt tops that needed to be quilted. They ranged in size from bed sized to table runners.

I made a list and separated out the ones that I needed to finish quilting by hand. I’d work on those while I watched TV at night.

Top priority in the hand quilting pile was a Hawaiian quilt wall hanging that was supposed to be a wedding gift for my sister and her husband. In a nanosecond moment of delusional hope, I thought I could finish it in time to enter it in the Puyallup fair.  I missed that deadline by more than a month, but I missed the wedding deadline by a lot more. As I was stitching the finishing binding on, I thought “Looks like it’s going to be a fifth anniversary present instead of a wedding gift.”

Ulu quilt made for Cynthia and Bruce Iverson.

The bed sized quilt tops would be a lot easier to quilt on a long arm machine. Shoving a queen-sized quilt through the 7” throat of my sewing machine, while trying to keep my stitches even in a creative quilting motif is not an easy task.  I’d need to make an appointment at one of my favorite quilt shops, Trains, Fabric, Etc. to rent time on their long arm quilting machine.

Everybody always asks why I don’t have my own long arm machine.  I’ve got the room, but not the cash. They start at about $10,000 and go up to $30,000. That’s several semester’s worth of tuition, or a car! And owning a long arm is similar to owning your own swimming pool—lots of complicated maintenance for a little bit of fun. For now, I’d rather rent. When I win the lottery, I may feel differently.

Back to my WIPs. To get through them, I needed some discipline. I made a rule that I couldn’t start a new project until I finished three WIPs. I didn’t go overboard and say “until all the WIPs were complete,” because that would just turn quilting into drudgery and punishment, stifling any new ideas. Of course, making the rule guaranteed that I’d have to break it, but, it sort of wasn’t my fault.

Last year around this time, my Zumba class had a fundraiser for a Zumba gal who was going through a really tough time: cancer, no health care insurance, two small children, and a husband who left her.

My contribution was to make a quilt to be raffled. It could raise some money for her, and use up some of my Christmas fabric. Another one of my quilting goals is to shrink my fabric stash. It wasn’t really breaking my new project limitation rule, just bending it a little. Besides, it would be for a good cause. I’d have to complete it, and it would be quick.

I was pleased with how the quilt, “Home for the Holidays” turned out. It hung for a couple of weeks in our gym while people bought raffle tickets. Other people must’ve liked it too because it raised more than $500.

"Home for the Holidays" raffle quilt

I got back to my WIPs. I finished two of them.

Then Sarah requested a music quilt (new project) to hang in her apartment. It was done in time to put it under the Christmas tree for her. But, as often happens, one quilt leads to another. Sarah’s quilt led to Jerica’s quilt—same quilt, different fabrics. (More on this in a future blog).

Sarah's music quilt

I’m finishing up Jerica’s quilt now. Even though her quilt was a “new project,” it helped me knock two WIPs off my list. When I packed my bag to quilt Jerica’s on the long arm, I also optimistically tucked in two wall hangings in case I finished hers, and still had time.  The long arm was all mine from 10 am until 6 pm.

The owner of the shop helped me load Jerica’s 48 x 70” quilt. I don’t get on the machine often enough to remember what goes on which roller, and which way to crank those rollers. I chose the thread and quilted until 1:00, then took a break to eat the lunch I’d packed.

Jerica's quilt on the long arm quilting machine.

There wasn’t much left to quilt, so I was sure that I’d get to at least one of the wall hangings. It would be “That Fall Feeling,” a wall hanging. I designed it after taking a reverse appliqué course from Nancy Lee Chong a few years ago.

At 2:30 I asked the gal who was quilting on the other long arm to help me load the fall quilt. It measures 42 x 42. It’s not big but I hadn’t planned how to quilt it, so that slowed me down a little. I never seem to get inspired with quilt designs ahead of time. I always try to plan ahead, but nothing comes to me until I’m standing there gripping the handles of the machine. And it did come to me: swirls on the night sky, echo quilting on the pumpkins, and pumpkins in the border.

"That Fall Feeling" on the long arm machine.

At 4:15, it was done. Just the binding and label to go, and it would be hanging before Halloween! I was pooped, but enjoying the feeling of accomplishment. Two quilts done!

I was unpinning the orange and black quilt from the rollers on the machine, when the other quilter came rushing in, “Oh good! I came in to help you load your last quilt. Hurry up!”

I’d convinced myself that I could quilt the last one, a fourth of July wall hanging, on my home machine, later. It was a long time until July. I was tired.

I took a deep breath, and tried to rise to her expectations. We loaded it up. I found a spool of red, white, and blue thread and wound some bobbins. My pressured “inspiration” was to quilt loops and stars. Some of the stars aren’t twinkling very brightly (maybe they’re dark holes), but they’ll do. I’ve always said that I don’t make perfect quilts, I make good ‘nuff quilts. At 5:30, I was done and had a half an hour left to do a little shopping.

Fourth of July quilt, just needs the binding sewn down

Four of my WIPs are now officially complete! The stack is shrinking, only five left! What’s that? I think I hear a Christmas quilt calling my name.  

If you click on the photos, they'll get bigger and you can see the quilting. 

Laura Keolanui Stark is eyeing her stash of Christmas fabric with glee! She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Grandma's Hawaiian Quilt

          Near the end of August, I went to the Pacific West Quilt Show in Tacoma with my friends Carol and Margie. The quilts in the show were stunning. We couldn’t believe the level of artistry and the quilts that didn’t get ribbons. As we strolled along admiring hundreds of quilts, we went from being amazed, to inspired, to humbled, and then discouraged about our quilting skills. 

         After the show, I leafed through the show pamphlet and saw that there were quilt appraisers there. I decided to go back the next day to have a quilt appraised.

         My grandmother made the red and white Hawaiian quilt in the 1930s or 40s for my Aunty Lorna her youngest child. A few years ago, Aunty Lorna passed it on to me.

         I parked a few blocks away from the Tacoma Convention Center and walked in carrying the precious quilt folded up in a pillow case. When I got to the ticket desk, the lady asked me if I had an appointment. I didn’t. I’d pictured a line of people holding quilts and waiting like on “Antique Roadshow.” An appointment made a lot more sense.

 She walked me back anyway, and asked the appraiser if she could fit me in. Luckily, she had an open time slot right then.              

There were two appraisers. One was supposed to go on her lunch break, but when she heard that I had a Hawaiian quilt, she said she’d wait because she rarely got to see a Hawaiian quilt.

          When I spread the red and white beauty out on the table, their faces lit up. They couldn’t resist gently touching it.

          The appraiser asked me lots of questions, many that I couldn’t answer.  I couldn’t tell her the name of the pattern, but I could tell her that my grandmother created it herself, and that my grandmother was Hawaiian. I didn’t know what year the quilt was made, but estimated that it was in the 1930s or early 40s.

I didn’t mention this to the appraiser, but I also don’t know how my grandmother did it. She hand stitched a full/queen sized quilt for each of her five children. She passed away in 1995, so I couldn’t ask Grandma for the answers to all these questions.

         While I was talking to the appraiser, quilters were drawn from all over the show and even from the outer concourse toward the quilt. At least twenty women came over to admire it. My grandmother would have been very pleased—bashful about the attention, but pleased.

         My father’s mother was a quiet lady. When I get shy, I know who that came from. She loved to quilt, and I obviously got some of that from her too. I also think that some of my love of writing came from her. While I moved all over the world as an Army brat, Grandma Keolanui was my pen pal.  I was always so happy to spot an envelope for me with her handwriting on it.

         The appraisal wrapped up. She had taken pictures of the quilt, and written down the information I gave her. She would mail the official appraisal to me after she did some research.

Next door to the appraiser, was a woman who specializes in quilt restoration.  She advised me not to replace the binding on the quilt. She also approved of my storing it in a pillow case, and said that it would be all right for me to add a sleeve to the back, so that I could hang the quilt up for display in my house occasionally. I will also add a label to the back of the quilt with my grandmother’s name, and an estimated date of when it was made, once I figure out what the name of the quilt is.

         I walked back to my car hugging that quilt a little tighter, and trying to look nonchalant, as if I wasn’t carrying something so special.

         At home, I emailed Aunty Lorna on Facebook to ask her if she knew the name of the quilt. My guess was red ginger. She said that she thought grandma told her it was “The Queen’s Comb,” but she could never see the comb. I spread the quilt out on my bed. I couldn’t see the comb either.

         Then Aunty Lorna posted a picture of her older sister, Lani with her daughters and Grandma holding up a red and white Hawaiian quilt named “The Queen’s Comb.” I did a double take. The quilt they were holding wasn’t the quilt I had.

 It was time for some detective work.  Aunty Lorna also had also given me Grandma’s patterns when she gave me the quilt. I got the box out. Right there on top, was a letter from Aunty Lorna passing on a letter that Grandma had written to her about her quilting days. I got that same happy feeling when I saw Grandma’s familiar handwriting.

I unfolded the letter dated Nov. 6, 1983. Grandma gave detailed illustrated descriptions of how grandpa built a frame of two 2 x 4’s on sawhorses for her quilting. She also included instructions, and drawings about how to roll the quilt up as it was quilted.

She gave me clues to another mystery. Years before Aunty Lorna gave me the red and white quilt, she gave me a partially complete quilt top. I finished appliquéing lavender onto a white background. In the letter, Grandma says, “the Lavender and white is the Orchid? . . . Maybe it’s not the Orchid but a Kauai pattern.” Kauai is the Orchid island. I’ll compare it to her patterns.

She then explained how to match it to the pattern, “So, please look at one corner of the quilt (which is the pattern).”

As if that wasn’t enough valuable information, she identified the red and white quilt top that she gave to my sister to complete. I had forgotten all about that one. I need to call her and see how far she’s gotten.   

But the best part was that Grandma also solved the mystery of the quilt I took to the appraiser, “The completed red and white one is the Leilehua.”

It touched my heart to hear from Grandma again. She answered all my questions and shared her quilting world with me. Mahalo (thank you) Grandma! 

And mahalo to you too Aunty Lorna for keeping me connected to grandma. Like you said, "I really like it when the ESPn is working!"

Laura Keolanui Stark is carefully sorting out grandma’s patterns. She can be reached at lkstark@gmail.com.        

Hemingway Summer

This summer was our Hemingway summer even though technically it started in the winter.

Johnny called me one day when I was in Hawaii with my mom after her heart surgery. While my dad drove us home from a doctor’s appointment, Johnny told me that he was reading The Sun Also Rises and he had questions.

“They’re out drinking and they keep saying they’re ‘tight.’ What does that mean?”

“Well, it means they’re drunk, not falling down drunk, but buzzed.”

My parents listened to my half of the conversation with some curiosity.

“What’s an ex-patriot? Why were they in Paris? Why were they called the Lost Generation? Why were they disillusioned?”

I explained as best as I could off the cuff, and told him I hadn’t read Hemingway since I was in college. Nothing like a pop quiz decades later. I told him I was sure his professor could give him better answers than I could.

Then he told me that he wasn’t reading it for a course. He called me so that I could be his teacher. No pressure there! He also said that he’d convinced his roommate to read it too, and they were having some good discussions about it.

I promised him I’d read it when I got home, and then we could talk some more.

       Back home in Washington, I pulled The Sun Also Rises off a dusty shelf and started reading. It was slow going, especially compared to the fast-paced, action packed plots of books and movies now. The slow pace made me wonder if it would get published if Hemingway tried to get it published now. Once I settled in, it got better. It was as I remembered it, lots of drinking and bullfights.

John decided to read it too. When the sun also rose over our back yard, he’d be out on the deck reading. He agreed that it was really slow.

Ernest Hemingway

When I asked Johnny why he liked the book so much, he said that he really liked how simple things were back then. People weren’t in constant communication with texting, cell phones, and the internet. His favorite part of the book was when Jake and Bill went on a fishing trip in Spain. At one point, they decided to take a nap on the grass, out in the open. Johnny was amazed that they could be that relaxed.

He also said that people often discredit Hemingway saying that his writing style was overly simplistic. Johnny thinks that is a strength. Hemingway chose each word carefully and made each one count to describe scenes vividly.

In mid-summer, I discovered a movie called Midnight in Paris playing at an independent movie theater in Tacoma. I convinced Sarah, and eventually Johnny and John to go and see it with me.

Owen Wilson plays a writer who is visiting Paris. Wandering the streets of Paris one night, he is transported back in time to the 1920s and gets to hang out with Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, and other artists from the lost generation.

Sarah didn’t read Hemingway this summer, but she’s spent two summers writing a novel set in the past, so she could relate to Gil Pender (played by Owen Wilson). She also got a kick out of Pablo Picasso and Salvadore Dali, since she’d learned about them in an Art History class.

We kept shooting looks at each other over our popcorn whenever actor Corey Stoll delivered a classic Hemingway line. Directed by Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris captured how it must have been back then. It fit in perfectly with our Hemingway summer.

Laura Keolanui Stark probably has her nose stuck in a book. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.