Storytorch

Before I retired last night in the "Elinor" room on the second floor of the inn, I unplugged the candlesticks on my windowsills. I moved the small, antique table into the wedge-shaped space between the wall and my diagonally-positioned bed. I hoped the little lamp, with its quaintly beaded lampshade and dim bulb, would cast enough light for a little bedtime reading.

After relocating the many ruffled toss pillows from four-poster to tufted vanity chair, I slipped between satin sheets and stared at the ceiling through artificial vines draped across the canopy high above me. "I'm just not a good B & B person," I admitted to myself (recalling a line from a great little movie called Flirting With Disaster).

Arriving earlier in the day, I followed signage from the parking lot to a side door labeled REGISTRATION. In calligraphy, a note card taped to the glass directed guests (with their luggage) around front and up the steep steps of the Victorian porch. Another pretty note on the oval-windowed main door told me to use the telephone on the wicker plant stand nearby to call the innkeeper, who let me in.

At my registration interview, I received the list of rules. Since I had an 8 a.m. meeting next day that included pastry, I signed a slip of paper officially declining breakfast (an extra $10 is charged if you don't say so the night before). I asked, and was granted, permission to come down to the kitchen in my robe in the morning to get a cup of coffee to take back to my room.

Bumping down the stairs next morning with my bags, I was greeted by the aroma of bacon and eggs.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will get some exercise.

Central Pennsylvania could not be more lovely on a mid May day. As I write this late afternoon I hear, periodically, the clip-clopping of a horse's hooves outside, and I lift the lace window curtains to see an Amish buggy pass by on the street below.

My audiences yesterday near Mifflinburg and today in Ephrata were attentive and kind as they listened to me recount the many reasons why we quilt. They paid attention as I shared images of both spectacular and ordinary quilts from museums all over the US.

I prepared a half-sheet of paper (pink) printed on one side with Web sites of further interest (Quilts of Valor, My Brother's Keeper, Quiltology, the Quilter's Hall of Fame) and on the reverse with the words to my little ditty, "I Gotta Quilt." Sadly, the sheets for Ephrata were left behind in Mifflinburg, and so, as promised, I share them here.

International Quilt Study Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, www.quiltstudy.org To help me reach my membership goal by becoming a member, go to www.quiltstudy.org and scroll down on the bottom left side of the home page to "Marianne Sent Me."
Quilts of Valor Foundation, www.qovf.org
My Brother’s Keeper, www.thesleepingbagproject.org
Museum of the American Quilters Society, Paducah, Kentucky, www.quiltmuseum.org
Quilter’s Hall of Fame, Marion, Indiana www.quiltershalloffame.net
Quiltology, Chicago, Illinois, www.quiltology.com
Madison County Iowa, www.madisoncounty.com
Fons & Porter, Winterset, Iowa, www.fonsandporter.com

I Gotta Sew!
(Original lyrics by Carol Leigh, from “Peter Pan” respectfully revised by Marianne Fons)

I gotta sew!
At my machine I can dream I’m the queen of the biggest quilt show!
I applique my way right to the stage of Quilt World Tokyo!
I gotta sew!

I gotta quilt! I cut and stitch, and I simply can’t quit, it’s the way I was built.
When one is done I start in on another. it gives me a lilt.
I gotta quilt!

If I had a bobbin with no stoppin’, I’d be in cream!
I’d stitch quite a while, on a perfect seam long as a mile.

So, naturally, when a design that occurs in my mind is appealing to me,
How can I ditch it, I just have to stitch it, it calls to me so,
That I’ve gotta let go, and sew!

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune
You will hear an amusing song. 

Becoming full-fledged Master Gardeners via the ISU Extension program requires 40 hours of community service in addition to the course work my husband Mark and I have already completed.

Our service project is beautifying two weedy corners at West Jefferson and Second Avenue, next to the Post Office and just a block off the town square. One afternoon last week, we loaded our wheelbarrow with spades, shovels (different from a spade!), rakes, forks, a plastic bucket, and a bag of fertilizer. For four hours, we pulled weeds, turned earth, and broke clods.

As we worked, we entertained a constant flow of traffic. Dozens of Wintersetians walking or driving through this busy intersection threw out comments like "You guys are working way too hard!" and "When you finish here, come on down to my place!"

When the zoning officer came by, we asked if the city had any extra topsoil. Shortly, a front-loader arrived with a bucket of black dirt. The operator tipped a perfect pile on the south corner and three times too much on the north. Passerby comments changed to "Nice mountain!" and "Building a berm?" As we raked, we offered the extra to all.

Next morning, our too-full bed was down to perfect size. As far as we know, our dirt has been spread all over town.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
Your reputation will not be soiled. 

In just a few days, I launch a slide lecture I've been working on for two months. Titled "Why We Quilt," my presentation examines the motivations of American quilters from 1776 to the present day. I'm speaking to over a thousand quilters in southeastern Pennsylvania, and I'm eager to finally discover the impact this new lecture, a project that has so preoccupied me, will have on my audience.

A successful lecture, like a beautiful piece of music, contains a range of emotions, the slow, perhaps sad, adagio sections balanced by brisk, hopefully humorous, allegros. An ending fugue is not a bad idea, either.

Speaking to large audiences doesn't worry me. I locate a few friendly faces in the front rows and speak in their direction. Those listeners who make eye contact with you and hang on every word, nodding in agreement from time to time (rather than nodding off to sleep), have no idea how much we public speakers appreciate them.

My only concern is about the power of my quilt visuals themselves. Some of the images, and their stories, are so moving I get emotional just viewing them at home on my computer. What will they do to me on the big screen in a darkened room? My goal is to move my audience without choking myself up.

One of my best friends, a gifted soprano who has sung at many joyful weddings and sad funerals, says she pinches the back of her hand, hard, to snap out of it if she starts feeling teary.

As professionals, we do what we must in order to deliver the goods.

 
Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will receive a round of applause. 

After years of carefully building charcoal fires in an old, three-legged Weber, we invested last summer in a gas grill. Mark and I chose a conservative three-burner rather than a big, SUV-style stainless steel one.

Mark became the expert blender of rubs and marinades, and I the actual griller. By the end of last year's outdoor cooking season, we'd perfected steaks and burgers.

I'm not a fan of fish, but have been ordering salmon lately to align my cholesterols. Mark, who loves everything edible from the sea, brought home a nice fillet and a slice of cedar so we could attempt the tasty-sounding Planked Salmon with Honey-Lime Dressing pictured in our grilling cookbook.

In order to put a short piece of lumber in a 500º grill without creating a fire, you soak the plank for either an hour or 24 hours (research varied). The wet board goes on direct high heat for 5 to 10 minutes to smoke and char it. Happily, when we opened the grill, only one edge of our plank was aflame. On went the fish fillet, skin-side down, sauce-side up; down went the burner dials to "low."

Indeed, 25 minutes later our fish was pink in the center and brown on the edges. Oven mitts on, I brought salmon and smouldering plank inside, where it set off a smoke alarm. Now we know to transfer fish to platter outside.

This morning, trace aromas of cedar, pepper, olive oil, and garlic remain in the kitchen. The sauce was so delicious it can't have been good for us.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will stop smoking.