Reflections on the Eleventh Week of Fall - My Cups Runneth Over

Janet in the Jane Austen T-Shirt

Wednesday morning, snowflakes splattered the windshield while Jerry Nadler summarized the case for impeachment over the radio. I sped south on I-79 doubting my sanity. After spending the first seventy-one years of my life hiding cleavage—what little I had—I drove toward Grove City Premium Outlets in quest of a push-up bra which would enhance my breast size and accent my cleavage.

This push-up saga, though I didn’t know at the time, had started on a breezy day in August. I sat with other Pennwriters around a line of six end-to-end picnic tables on Presque Isle and gazed at three tall ships sail in the bay. 

Kristie, wiggling her toes in flip-flops, brandished a forkful of salad to point at my Jane Austen t-shirt—the one with a picture of Jane writing at her round table. The t-shirt advertised the 2020 Annual General Meeting. “Are you wearing a costume to the conference?”

“I don’t know. I’m not confident enough to sew a gown and . . . ” Well, buying an expensive gown to attend a banquet and ball seemed extravagant.

Kristie waved her empty fork dismissing my doubts, swallowed her bite of salad, and, louder than elementary school students shouting on the playground, said, “You have the Crawford County Grand Champion seamstress right here! Catherine can sew the dress for you.”

Six people down the line of munching writers, Catherine leaned forward and turned her head toward Kristie. “What?”

If I hadn’t been squeezed between other writers, I would have crawled under the table. So impertinent to ask for such a favor.

Kristie laughed. “You can sew a gown for Janet to attend the Jane Austen conference next year.”

“If she buys the material and lets me fit the dress, show the dress in the fair, and keep the blue ribbon, sure.”

Great deal!

After the picnic, I drove into the sunset—no snowflakes that day—to my friend Jennifer’s house in Novelty, Ohio.

She showed me a rackful of regency dresses she and her daughters wore. Stepping away from the rack, Jennifer straightened her back and centered her fists under her breasts. She pushed to force them upward. With a stern face and a low-pitched German accent, she said, “Poo-oosh-up bra. Poo-oosh-up bra.”

I giggled.

In her normal voice Jennifer explained. “You won’t have to wear a corset like they did in Jane Austen’s day, but you’ll need a push-up bra so the dress fits right. Julia Bennett, who sewed some of these dresses, told me that.” Jennifer repeated the poo-oosh-up routine, and we both giggled.

After much dithering and multiple internet searches, I chose a dress pattern, bought regency print fabric, and consulted Catherine. She didn’t have a German accent.

At the end of summer, I drove to her farm house where she leafed through thin pattern pages at her dining room table. A long-haired black cat circled Catherine’s feet while she read directions and studied which pieces to cut. “I’ll make a mock-up out of a sheet and fit it on you before I sew your dress.”

And before Catherine had the mock-up dress ready to fit, I needed to buy one of the push-and-restrain contraptions.

The thought of trying them on kept me delaying the task week after week.

Regency Fabric and Pattern

On an early October morning, with his fingers poised over his computer keyboard, my husband glanced up from his internet news-cruise. “Want to read about the ten most supportive sports bras?” 

“No.” Spence often emailed links to articles, but I didn’t need this one. “My next purchase will be a push-up bra.” 

Spence rubbed his mustache with a finger. “That’s the last step before the senior citizen bra.”

“The what?”

His eyes and finger lowered to the computer. The ends of his lips quivered. “The pull-up bra.” 

I’d guffawed then and again from the memory while the windshield wipers swiped snowflakes and I slipped into a parking space at the outlet center. 

A tinny version of “Winter Wonderland” blasted from speakers. I walked past Christmas decorated storefronts. Stuffing my stocking knit cap in one pocket of my winter jacket and my gloves in the other, I opened the door to HanesBrand. An array of underwear made from snowflake, reindeer, and Christmas wreath material greeted me. A fitting assistant, about the height of Santa’s elves, popped from behind a bikini panties display. “May I help you?”

No music. No other customers. This wouldn’t be so bad. “I need a push-up bra.”

She peered skeptically at my overstuffed jacket. “That could be a problem. Push-ups come in small sizes.”

Feeling old and hopeless, I whispered, “I’m size thirty-six B.”

“Oh.” The fitting assistant strode to the side of the store. Over her shoulder she called, “Maidenform might have one.” She lifted a hanger with a dangling, lacy white push-and-restrain contraption. Before I caught up to her, she hustled to the front of the store and pulled three more hangers off hooks. She paused with her hand on the hanger of a skimpy, red restrainer. “Why do you need the push-up?”

“For a Jane Austen conference next year. I’ll wear it under a blue regency dress.”

Eyebrows lifting, she let go of the hanger. “This won’t do. Too bad. It’s the one I wear because it’s so comfortable.” 

Giant stepping to keep up, I followed her to the dressing room. 

She opened the door. “You should have brought the dress to try with the bras.”

The cubicle had stark lighting and a six by three foot wall mirror. I stepped inside. “My seamstress wanted me to have the bra when she fitted the dress.”

The fitting assistant smirked. “Well, leave the tags on. You can bring it back before March if it doesn’t work.” She handed me the hangers. “Call me if you need anything.” She closed the door. Her footsteps hurried away.

I hung the bras on a hook and undressed from the waist up. Thick padding lined all the cups making them so firm I could use them for jello molds. I took the Maidenform off the hanger, slipped my arms through the straps, and pulled the cups over my breasts.

The breasts slipped out of the cups.

Sheesh. Spence was right. I needed a pull-up bra.

I eyed the cups. The bottom had a curved wire—no band to hold the contraption tight against my midriff and to keep the breasts in place. I leaned toward the mirror and pulled the cups over my breasts.

They slipped out again.

Double sheesh. Should I ask the fitting assistant for help or buy a corset?

I leaned further forward making my back level out at a ninety degree angle from my legs. Like wielding a net at darting butterflies, I scooped my dangling breasts into the cups. Fastening the hooks at the back, I inched up to standing and frowned at the mirror. My breasts bulged out of the top and nestled against each other. Yuck. The others might fit better. 

The tan contraption created fat bulges over, under, and around the bra.

The black one had small cups and exposed, not compacted, my floppy breasts.

Like a north pole magnet against another north pole, the second white push-up repelled my breasts. It couldn’t, wouldn’t capture them.

Sighing loud enough for the clerk to hear me back at her register, I tried the Maidenform again. No fat bulges. No escaping flesh. Pushed-up. Comfortable. 

I squinted trying to imagine if these cups, fuller than the other three sets, would show in the rectangular regency neckline. Maybe. Maybe not. Since I didn’t have another choice, I took the Maidenform off, dressed, and paid twice as much as I did for my last bra.

On the way home, sunshine glinted through lumpy clouds. I let the droning voices of testifying law professors on the radio and the humming of tires against wet pavement drown my worries about the push-up bra. I could tuck lace in the neckline to cover the bulging breasts and cleavage. But I’d keep the tags on the push-and-restrain contraption in case I had to return it and repeat the breast-slipping, fat-bulging, breast-repelling ordeal.

Push-Up Bra

Reflections on the Tenth Week of Fall - Sparking Celebratory Spirits

Charlie's Cupcakes Chopped and Mixed with Blueberry Pie Filling

Mid October, my husband stomped through the front door and splattered mud from his garden boots and soil-caked jeans. “The garden’s been crap this year.” He toed off the boots. “A groundhog found a gap in the fence. It ate the squash.”

“Not the butternut squash.” Imagining teeth marks marring the smooth outer skin and yellow-orange flesh, I would have clapped both hands against my cheeks if my hands hadn’t been wet with soapy dishwater.“ I can cut the bites out and freeze the rest for Thanksgiving.” 

“No.” He strode to the sofa and pounded computer keys to record garden notes. “There’s nothing left but seeds.”

Sheesh. No squash for Thanksgiving. I celebrated our Wells Wood harvest by serving as many homegrown vegetables and fruits as would fit on the table that day. I glanced through the sliding glass door to the winter rye covering the unproductive potato patch. The seed potatoes, though planted three times in three different months, rotted in the soggy soil. No Wells Wood spuds for the table this year. Since we’d eaten the asparagus and since the summer heat frizzled the pea crop, that left frozen pole beans to represent our harvest. 

Pole beans didn’t spark my celebratory spirit. 

Thanksgiving morning, sounds of plastic crinkling rose from the basement. Spence transplanted kale from four packs to bigger pots and set them under grow lights.

In the kitchen I grabbed the handle of a cast iron skillet with a potholder and stirred slivers of store-bought onions in a pool of olive oil. The bunching onions Spence had planted in Mr. Hooper, the hoop house, didn’t thrive. 

When I carried the pan to the table and poured caramelized onions over the mixture of bread cubes, celery, and spices, kittens raced between my feet. “Your lucky I didn’t trip and scald you,” I explained in my teacher voice. 

Gravel crunched in the driveway.

I shoved the dressing pan into the oven.

Grinning, Charlie stepped into the house and held a plastic food container aloft. “I made cupcakes this morning.” He set the container on the table. “They’re crunchy. Maybe I left them in the oven too long.” 

Squealing, I opened the container, pulled out an uniced cupcake, and sniffed. Vanilla. “They smell great.” I tore off the paper and bit. The texture had a slight crunch. The sugary vanilla flavor reminded me I hadn’t eaten desserts for six weeks in hopes of passing my mid-December, cholesterol blood test. “They’re sweet.” 

Charlie slipped out of his jacket. “I thought you could cut up the apples Dad bought.” He whirled his hand as if mixing ingredients. “Crumble the cupcakes and make a kind of apple cobbler.”

Apples. Spence and I had harvested a total of ten apples this fall. And they had bruises so I couldn’t keep them for Thanksgiving. “I baked a pie with Dad’s apples last night.”

“Do you have blueberries?” He stooped to pet Ande then, cradling the kitten in his arms, stood. “We could use blueberry pie filling.”

One by one over the summer, I’d picked a quart of blueberries and two cups of strawberries. Not the best fruit year. But the idea of consuming Charlie’s cupcakes with Wells Wood blueberries triggered ample celebratory spirit for Thanksgiving. I hugged myself and decided to freeze the apple pie for later. I fetched the bag of frozen blueberries. 

Ande jumped from Charlie’s arms to the table and sniffed the cupcakes.

Reaching around the kitten for the top, I covered the cupcake container then cooked blueberry pie filling. Fragrance of blueberry mixed with aroma of dressing in the kitchen. Not wanting to wait until dinner, I served our cobbler-concoction after lunch.  “The dessert’s not sugary-sweet.”

Charlie snickered. “Didn’t you taste the blueberry filling while you cooked? It’s tart. That cut the sugary taste.”

An hour later my daughter’s cheery voice yelled “Happy Thanksgiving!” through the phone. Ellen answered my questions. Ellen and Chris’s new tile floor should be finished in a week. They would celebrate Thanksgiving with a friend who mixed plantain and chorizo into the stuffing. I handed the phone to Spence, lifted the fresh turkey out of a Malady’s Meat Market box, and set the box on the floor.

Three kittens circled the box. They sniffed. Gilbert jumped in first. The other two crouched—waiting for turns to jump inside.

After Spence handed the phone to Charlie and went outside to play in Mr. Hooper, I nestled the cold bird on a rack in the roaster pan. Sticking my hand into the bird’s cavity, I pulled out the giblets and neck. Slippery stuff. 

While I set them in a pan of water on the stove, a kitten scampered across the great room—pitter-pat-pat—and thumped onto the table behind me.

Rills Licking the Uncooked Turkey

I peered over my shoulder.

Rills crouched beside the roast pan and licked the pale breast. 

Giggling, I dashed to fetch my camera.

When I jogged back, Rills still licked. His eyes darted my way then back to the turkey.

I took three pictures before lifting him off the table. With a wet paper towel, I wiped the licked spots—though roasting in the over for the afternoon would kill any kitten germs. Monitoring Rills’s circular trips around the table, I slathered olive oil over the turkey’s skin, put the lid on the roaster, and shoved it into the oven.

Spence stomped back, kicked off his muddy boots, and stretched his hand toward me. “Look what I found.” He held three beets—two the size of golf balls and one the size of a lemon. “Since they aren’t that big, I’ll pickle them next week. You’ve got beans to go with the turkey.”

A garden vegetable harvested on Thanksgiving Day would be a first. My celebratory spirit surged through me and escaped in a “Woohoo! I want fresh-from-the-garden beets for dinner.”

Spence flashed his patient, whatever-makes-her-happy smile.

While the fellas sipped Beaujolais nouveau, I savored the beets—boiled then seasoned with Spence’s special spices. Pickled beet flavor exploded in my mouth, and I anticipated the sweet-tart blueberry-cupcake cobbler dessert. 

Homegrown beets and blueberries.

Kitten shenanigans. 

Family. 

Despite a disappointing harvest, our Thanksgiving celebration surpassed my expectations.

And I saved the pole beans for the leftovers.

Thanksgiving Nap

Reflections on the Ninth Week of Fall - Rainbow Lady

Stained Glass Rainbow Wall Hanging

Wednesday afternoon, I bent over my sewing machine, squinted, and maneuvered a stained-glass rainbow wall hanging under my sewing machine’s walking foot. The machine crept at its lowest speed. The jabbing needle formed a cat outline in black thread. 

Outside the loft window, bare branches scraped the November-gray sky. Below me, sleep breaths resounded from the sofa where, after my husband’s back to back trips to Cleveland, Spence napped with our three kittens. Over the NPR live stream on my computer tablet, Adam Schiff questioned Gordon Sondland’s assertion that “Everyone was in the loop.”

The thread looped forming a cat paw, and I stared at the bright red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple stripes. Despite the disharmony coming through the speaker, I chuckled remembering Rainbow Lady, a nickname given to me the third weekend of October at the Whitehall Camp and Conference Center in Emlenton, Pennsylvania.

Amid the chatter of twenty-three quilters and their twenty-three zinging sewing machines, I had sewed strips of bright colored fabric to form hand-size rainbows—straight not arched—while other quilters created queen-size quilts.

Unfazed by her two hour drive from Pittsburgh, Beth, a guest of the guild, walked between sewing tables in the long, rectangular conference room. Standing taller than the other quilters, she greeted everyone she passed with a never-ending smile that glowed through her cheeks and brightened her eyes. After she plunked her gear three tables over from me she called, “Did you get a seat by a window, Janet?”

I’d only met Beth once, a year ago at a quilting retreat. How she remembered, that I liked sewing by a window to gaze at nature, flabbergasted me. 

  

Throughout the retreat, her sunny disposition constantly shined down on other quilters and me. When she saw my Halloween sweatshirt, Beth cooed, “You look so cute.” When I dashed to the kitchen to fetch paper towels for a quilter who spilled coffee on her rooster material, Beth shouted, “Look at her go! Wonder Woman.” When I wielded my rotary cutter to slice the rainbow strips into blocks, she commented, “How do you get your lines so straight? They’re perfect—not wavy like so many people sew.”

Peering at my project. she dubbed me Rainbow Lady.

Rainbow Blocks

Mid Saturday, I set the rainbows on my sewing table and reached underneath into the Styrofoam box for my pill tin and two cloth napkins. Clutching them, I strode to the kitchen—off the middle of the sewing room—and fetched the slice of chicken pot pie I’d left in the refrigerator. While the pie heated in the microwave, I made a side trip to the ladies room. 

I carried my lunch to Diane’s table to chat with her while I ate. Diane, who had arranged the retreat for guild members and friends, moved patterns and her cutting mat to make space. I spread my napkin, set down the pie, and reached into my pocket for the pill tin. Handkerchief. Phone. No tin. Sheesh. I am the Wonder Woman of losing objects while sitting in place. Where had I lost the pills?

I searched my sewing table, the Styrofoam food box, the kitchen, the bathroom, and my pocket. No pill tin. I returned to my sewing table and searched everywhere two more times.

Beth looked up from her coral colored quilt top. “What are you looking for, Rainbow Lady?”  

“My pills.” I stooped to reexamine the Styrofoam food box.

Beth stood. “What do they look like?”

“They’re in a green tin the size of a needle case. The tin has a cartoon dinosaur on the top.” 

Tammy, the quilter across from Beth and owner of Fox’s quilt store in Meadville, stopped her machine. “Where did you see them last?” 

“In my hand.” I held up my empty hand. Then I reached in both of my pockets again. One empty. One with a handkerchief and phone.

Beth looked under rainbow blocks on my sewing table. 

Leaving her, I trudged back to Diane, crouched to peer under her table. No pills. I lifted my napkin. Still no pills. 

I gave up. 

The tin would turn up sometime. When it did, I could take the pills. I take vitamin D because I don’t eat dairy products. To lower my cholesterol, I take fish oil which my friend Diana, who writes “The Medical Insider," says I don’t need. Nothing necessary. Not life threatening. No worries.

Beth shouted. “Nobody eats until Janet finds her pills!”

Machines stopped zinging.

Quilters walked through the sewing room with heads bent toward the floor.

Double sheesh!  

Swallowing a mouthful of warm pot pie, I jumped out of my chair and thrust my hand into my pocket for the umpteenth time. I pulled out the phone and set it on my napkin. I pulled out the handkerchief. I reached in again, and my fingers touched the tin. I pulled it out and waved the tin over my head. “I found it. Thanks everyone. It was in my pocket.” 

Guffaws erupted in the sewing room.

Face heated from blushing, I sat and took another bite.

Diane looked over from her Halloween cat quilt. “I lose things like that all the time.” 

Machines zinged. Chatter resumed. Beth returned to her quilt.

That had all happened a month ago. 

Back in the loft this past Wednesday afternoon, my mind returned to the skeletal trees outside and quilted cats on the stained glass rainbow hanging.

Thud. An unexpected kitten attack.

Ande, our biggest kitten and the one who chews every wire he finds, scampered between the sewing machine and the thread holder. He opened his mouth wide and bit the dangling thread.

I pulled soggy thread from Ande’s sharp teeth, set him on the floor, and rethreaded the machine with dry thread.

While I quilted another cat outline, Devin Nunes’s voice boomed through the tablet. “Aren’t you just guessing, Mr. Sondland?” 

The House impeachment hearings could use a person like Beth, someone who spreads sunshine wherever she goes—the true Rainbow Lady.

Beth and Janet

Reflections on the Eighth Week of Fall – C-C-Coping with the First Winter Storm

Grasses in Snow

The fall parade of all-black woolly bear caterpillars didn’t prepare me.

The week of ten degree below normal temperatures didn’t prepare me.

Even our kitten’s antics observing their first snowflakes didn’t prepare me. 

A week and a half ago, the kittens stared through the sliding glass door while snowflakes drifted from lumpy gray clouds and colored the deck bright white. Rills pointed his nose toward the offending clouds. Ande flicked his tail. Gilbert chittered and squeaked—his bug hunting vocalizations—then pounced on the glass.

Forecasts flooded the airways last Monday and finally prepared me.

Winter Storm Warning

 Monday 7 p.m. through Wednesday10 p.m.

Hazardous travel conditions.

Neighbors made sure I’d heard.

Kathy’s voice questioned through the phone. “Did ya hear we’re getting five inches?”

Dave sliced meat behind the deli counter at Millers. “We’re in for it. Hopefully it’ll melt, and we won’t see any snow until December.”

Leslie lamented in the Meadville Area Recreation Complex locker room. “My daughter wanted me to babysit tonight so she could go to parent teacher conferences.” She slipped her arms into the sleeves of a pullover sweater. “I hate to be a wuss.”

“Does she live in Meadville?” I pulled long underwear up my legs.

“No. Erie.” Leslie stuck her head into the sweater. “Highway driving after dark in a snowstorm isn’t safe—especially around Edinboro.” Her head popped out, and worry etched her face. “And it’s the first storm of the season. People will still drive summer fast. I’m going to cancel.”

Spence didn’t cancel his trip to volunteer for lead safe homes in Cleveland.

I peered through the sliding glass door at rain washing the deck and hoped he would get back to Wells Wood before freezing rain or snow started.

His 2:08 p.m. text shattered that hope. Cleveland radio predicting 12 inches.

Yikes! My fingers pounded the phone screen. Come home now!

Silence from Cleveland until a few minutes after six. At St. Augustine’s waiting for the block club.

I tempered my plea. Come home as soon as you can.

This time he answered in seconds. OK. No snow here. New forecast is 2 inches overnight. No worries.

Thanks. I feel better about your drive. I hugged all three kittens—one at a time—to celebrate.

Because his meeting ran late, I fell asleep before he got home. 

Tuesday morning, he tossed off three kittens and two afghans. “Snow made the roads slick.” Yawning, he booted his computer. “I drove forty-five miles per hour. At least there wasn’t much traffic.” 

I dreaded him making another slow, slippery trip to and from Cleveland. “Can you cancel today’s trip?”

He squinted at weather maps on his computer screen. “I’ll be driving into the teeth of their storm going to CLASH.” (Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing)

Gilbert climbed onto Spence’s shoulders.

Gilbert Watching Snow

Without taking his eyes off the screen, Spence petted the kitten. “And I’d be driving into the teeth of our storm coming home.” He set Gilbert on the floor and tapped computer keys. “I’m canceling the trip.”

Wind howled.

Snow piled.

Temperatures dropped to twenty degrees below normal.

I still drove to the rec complex for lap swim. Frozen slush speckled back roads, and an orange tire icon glowed on the dashboard. Low air pressure in the tires from the cold, no doubt. Maybe the twenty-eight-mile round trip would warm the air in the tires and shut off the indicator, I kept driving. The light didn’t turn off Tuesday. Not on Wednesday, and not on Thursday. 

When I told Spence about the indicator, he crouched beside the driver’s side front tire and stuck his air pressure gauge into a tube. Psst. Psst. Tire after tire he measured pressure. “You’re three pounds low in the front. Six pounds in the back.” He tucked the gauge into his padded vest pocket. “Drive me to Matt’s. I’ll put air in your tires.”

Neighbors had the same idea as Spence. Vehicles occupied every parking place at Matt’s auto shop. A sedan and a shiny new pickup parked parallel to Matt’s office door. Sucking in my stomach, I steered around them to the second bay. By the last bay, a cable connected a charger to the battery in a battered pickup with its hood open wide—like a patient ahhing for a doctor to check for a winter flu infection.

I stayed in the heated car while Spence wove through vehicles to find Matt and borrow the air pump. 

A minute later, the bay door opened. Matt strode to my car with coiled tubing in his arms. He crouched by the driver side tire. Psst. “Yeah. We’re busy today.” He moved to another tire. “People need their winter tires. Batteries died. All the things that come with the first deep cold.”

Matt’s words—all the things that come with the first deep cold—triggered images in my mind.

• Grasses and river willow branches bending with the weight of snow.
• A lone chickadee fluttering past the sliding glass door to scout for the bird feeder.
• Cabbage, broccoli, and beets wilting from stress under their cover cloth.

Nature coped with more grace to winter storms than us vehicle-dependent humans. 

The first winter storm ended leaving not five, not twelve, but three inches of snow.

Friday the snow melted and dripped from the roof. 

Gilbert strolled to the sliding glass door, sat on his haunches, and stared.

Handfuls of snow slid off the solar panels and, whoosh-plop, splattered on the deck.  

Ears flattened, Gilbert jumped back. His paws scratched floor tiles, and, lowering himself until his belly scraped the floor, he scampered under the coffee table.

I giggled, reached under the table, and gave him a reassuring pet. I’m prepared for avalanches of snow thundering off the solar panels and crashing onto the deck. 

Given time, Gilbert, a creature of nature—not a vehicle-dependent human, will c-c-cope with grace to the wonders winter storms bring.

Beets