the week that was - or the blog i write because i forget to take pictures

I told myself I would write more this weekend.  And here it is already nearly noon, and I’ve squandered away the morning on Facebook and another episode of my latest Netflix binge.  To be fair, I gave myself this weekend to lollygag after the frenzy of the last… but maybe that’s where I will start.

There is definitely something to the present that makes me want to take note of it.  One thing I will say Facebook allows on occasion is a chance to surf through past statuses and get a comprehension of where I was at a year, two, three ago.  But it is only with a sentence… and knowing my passion for enigma, I thought maybe I would indulge in a weekly blog post to describe all that is worth noting in the passing days of the life.

Especially if I worked so hard as I did for them last weekend.  A hosting double feature.  On Saturday, I had my March Supper Club.  The theme for 2014 is Shakespeare.  March 15^th fell on a Saturday, so I had to seize the opportunity and make the play Julius Caesar.  The menu was the Roman Empire… which could be a loose interpretation or a literal one.  There was a mix of offerings from both, creating quite a plentiful feast at the dining room table that reached its capacity with two leaves.  Olives and cheeses and wine and beans and nuts and dates and tarts and lamb and spices and shrimp and rice.  I prepared a couple dishes from a blog I found where an enterprising chef has been translating recipes out of Latin and into modern instruction, as well as ingredients.  From this I made a chicken and a cheese bread.  My cheeky, if somewhat twisted, addition to the menu was to pay tribute to the fate of Brutus’ wife, Portia.  She committed suicide by swallowing hot coals when everything began to fall apart in act four.  So I made double chocolate chili cookies.  They really were so good… and I’m glad I was able to take them to the Museum the following Monday where any potential of leftovers was eliminated.

I have been trying to ‘direct’ supper club a bit more this year.  Not so much with the meals… although certainly I probably get a little more into the theme than everyone else.  And that isn’t a complaint, just the acknowledgment of the fact I choose to spend my time geeking out about this stuff.  It has also become important to me this year to have fruitful, positive conversation.  I have a rule about cell phones, that predictably gets abused (I forgive the addiction, though I hope someday my evenings will be compelling enough to make disregarding a blue screen  a no brainer).  I also have a rule about gossip… which inevitably I have to pull back every time.  Sometimes I find myself sinking into the conversation… but the positive is that my guests now realize this and put up the warning flag.  This time around I asked everyone to linger at the table and give an example of how they were creative in the week that passed.  My guests are a collection of actors, directors, cooks, writers, entrepreneurs, musicians, and so much more.  I love that we were in our seats until well beyond the point we rested our forks – oh wait, never mind… spoons.  I forgot to mention the fact we ate like the Romans, without forks, but with a spoon.  In any case, the energy around the table was quite good as we all talked about plays, gigs, and the projects that made our eyes light up with excitement.

Then things got weird.  And I’m not going to get into it, except to marvel at the full moon or the spicy food or… the very real fact that no matter how many rules or tones one hopes to set as a hostess, people always have their own rules or tones.  I choose right now to see this as a lesson – and a huge test in my willingness to work towards that Lenten goal of listening.

But I really didn’t have much time to dwell on that.  I stayed up to wash all the dishes so I could rise early the next morning and get the house ready for the annual Brennan St. Patrick’s Day.  This house used to host these guests at least twice a year, at Epiphany and 4^th of July.  But just a handful of cousins have visited since I moved back.  The adrenalin of my Saturday prep dragged me out of bed after a restless sleep and motivated me to make my annual batch of soda bread and a vegetarian shepherd’s pie.  As most gatherings with my family, it was a whirl of eating and drinking and marveling at the genius of all the chefs in this family.  Lots of noise.  Snippets of conversation about what is new (mine seemed to always be about the Museum).  And of course, my niece’s proud ownership of a basket full of mardi gras beads.

The afternoon had a nice ending, though, as the last guests sat around the dining room table.  Among them was my mother’s priest.  The conversation was one I expected more from my friends and less from my family and an older Catholic Father.  About immigration and gay marriage… and acceptance of human and human happiness.  It really goes to show that no matter what your expectations of a conversation, they – like children and the weather – will surprise you.

I would have liked nothing better than to spend my Monday on the couch recuperating.  But, back to work I went.  And while certainly my day is much more sedentary, it had its own fury of activity relative to anticipation of guests.  I am aware, in between calendars and spreadsheets and meetings, so many meetings, that the fact I am at the WAM this year is a unique moment in Worcester history.  Indeed, one could even extend that to museum history.  It shows the way we (as a society shifting from old white men) see and use museums is changing.  It has to be user friendly, multi-lingual, and exciting enough to capture loyalty beyond an initial glimpse.  But the fruition of that has its own problems.  A museum that is huge and magnificent but unfamiliar with the audience it hopes will create the necessary change.  Conversations about this all week provided many other lessons about listening and seeing the big picture.

But on the more basic level, there are these moments… of walking down the hallway or peering into the mostly closed gallery and seeing just one object.  And the object is a weird touchstone of memories deeply buried in my mind and heart.  No matter how excited as I am about what is to come or how much I understand why things happened the way they did, Higgins Armory is knitted into my history.  And it isn’t about the empty building that’s for sale, or the etching of Jesus on a cross that I saw up close on a breast plate… but about the friendships, my youth and all the highs and lows of that part of my life in the mid to late 90s.  It is curious, then, to think… really… how we latch our sentimentality onto things that are really separate from the memories themselves.  But they reside there… and it is creepy and amazing to think how many other memories have been absorbed into the Teuffenbach armor.  Or the memories yet to reside in those steel pieces configured around a mannequin.

I can’t think what other memories I need to stuff into this blog post.  I’m not too keen to remember discussions of budgets or the fact I watched more episodes than necessary of the mediocre but addictive Chuck on Netflix.  

But maybe I’ll just say this, as I look out the window at the buds on my lilac tree and the grass that shows where I left footprints in the snow.  Spring started this week.  And that’s a good thought upon which to end.