the Luckiest

I have recently found myself in the odd position defending my lifestyle to strangers. (Not that lifestyle-that's an ongoing process started a decade ago, and will follow me to my grave.) Rather, the act of being a modern-day irregular.

With today's economic crisis, people struggling to find jobs, pay their Johnson County mortgages, and keep the tanks of their s.u.v.'s filled, I realized I am in the proud position of my single greatest asset-knowing how to do "poor" well.

My parents were my first instructors in this phenomenon. As a child, my Dad and Mom were Nazarene Ministers, and, I rarely realized we lacked for anything. Unconditional Love is a wonderful insulation against bruised egos and damaged feelings. Even with higher-paying jobs and better benefits now, they still live as they did when I was growing up. When you don't crave the newest, the shiniest, the most fleeting material things, it becomes supremely easy to live well.

In this time of our nation, when scaling back, cutting corners, "making ends meet", is the norm for a vast majority of Americans, I am the luckiest. I live a beautiful life, a life that remains relatively unchanged by fiscal struggles. I don't seek the new and expensive, but rather embrace the time-worn and tried. Chestnut House is the perfect example...I am lucky enough to be partnered with Ron, someone who actually enjoys growing vegetables and blackberries in a little side-garden on the west side of the tower, who knows how to "stretch" meals with a little bacon grease and ingenuity, who can zone-heat a 3000' house with space heaters better than anyone I know.

I used to crave a "normal" life...a "grass is greener" mentality- 9 to 5, shared cubicle walls, BMW, the works. But, as I matured, so did my thoughts on "things". I find more joy in watching our primrose bloom, or the fall bulbs peeking out near the porch, or Atticus chasing an invisible specter around the side yard, than I do watching television. My whole life is presented in HD with Surround Sound...no commercial interruptions! When you have nothing to lose...when you realize what's truly important...when your friendships and family are your most treasured possessions...when you get your satisfaction from what you do rather how much you make...that is the truest wealth, and I am a wealthy man.

Until next week-

Jon (and Ron and Atticus)

Blog, interrupted...

One of the first creative writing assignments I was given in middle school was to choose what superpower I would want to possess, and to give examples of how I would use it to better mankind.

Sequestered in a florescent-lit room with twenty other "gifted" students (insert: "nerds"), I wrote a seminal dissertation on the topic: "The Ability to Stop and Start Time". Dorian Gray, Mrs. Havisham, Sleeping Beauty, even dear, dead Eva Peron, lying gooey-dewey skinned in a state of perpetual youth, all did their part to make me feel this was the penultimate super-power, second only to "Bring About World Peace". (Of course, I didn't want to write about "World Peace". I knew several of the brown-nosers in class would choose that topic - BORING!)

I remember getting a 'B' or 'C' on the assignment simply because, as selfish as I was (well, am), I couldn't figure for the life of me how I would use this power to "help mankind" - though I did cite several ways I would help myself with my super-ability.

This week at Chestnut House made me wish I really had developed the ability to magically start and stop time. While designing costumes for four shows at three theaters in two weeks, several times I wanted to reach for a magic pocket-watch, punch the big button on top, and scream "STOP!"

As the dirty laundry piled up, the dishes stacked in the sink, and the detrius of daily life, dog, and husband threw themselves into piles in every corner of the house, I plodded by, half-finished costumes in hand. Trading mundane reality for glamorous stagecraft is easy at our house. There's never a question of what comes first here...theater pays the bills. The only price for ignored chores at home is a little bit of our well-being and sanity.

The most magical thing about Chestnut House, though, is that time does slow down here, even if it won't stop completely. No matter how hectic, how hurried, how hapless we are, there is always ten minutes to do the top seven lines of the crossword puzzle over a morning cup of coffee, or five minutes to hang out with Atticus on the front porch, or even an evening hour to watch Masterpiece Theatre on PBS, huddled and cuddled under our electric blanket.

Were I given the same assignment today as I was two decades ago in school, my topic would be a little different. I would choose from "The Ability To Embrace and Enjoy the Time I'm Given", "The Ability to Appreciate Every Moment Spent With the People I Love", or "The Ability to Spontaneously Produce Botox Around My Eyes and Forehead."

Until next week...

Jon (and Ron And Atticus)

This Just In!

When moving into a new house (or a really old one in our case) the unpacking of one's belongings can take some time. We have been unpacking now for six months. I start to wonder, well, if you haven't seen something for a long period of time, do you really need it? If it has been in cold storage (this is how I refer to our third floor, because it is cold, and it stores things) this long, was it ever important in the first place? Today I answered my own question. Yes it is. I just unpacked a large box with a label that read "old radios". The box was a treasure trove of vintage radios... Bakelite, wood, and transistors set in a pool of bubble wrap. Yes, I needed this collection out! What was I thinking? As I unpacked this plethora of vintage items, I plugged one in. The resistors, tubes, and electrolytic capacitors started to crackle. It worked! This old-time radio stirred my imagination and creative spirit. I started to imagine my family (me, in a 1960s bespoke dress of blue brocade lamé with a pink sash at the bust and ribbed bodice with a simple kitchen apron over it, Jon in a red brocade smoking jacket with a pipe in hand, Atticus at our feet) huddled expectantly by our living room radio, discovering the joy of imagining each scene in the real-life Technicolor theater of our own minds. I couldn't wait to hear the soft, methodical voice of Steve Walker on NPR, or the Lauren Bacall-like sounds of Charles Ferruzza on 90.1. I started hoping Fibber McGee and Molly would come on so I could explain to people why we keep so much of our junk stuffed in closets, that my name has become a great vernacular catch-phrase synonymous with household clutter. Jon constantly tells me (much like my beautiful mom used to say) "'tain't funny MEGEE!" when I jump out from behind a door and scare him.

I kept turning the Bakelite knobs, wanting, praying for something to tune in. I wanted the sounds of Burns and Allen to come through the radio with George proclaiming to Gracie:
"Gracie, where did you get that bouquet of flowers?"
"Well George, you told me to take Mrs. Jones flowers, so when she wasn't looking, I took these off her table! Aren't they pretty George? Later we'll take these Carnations into the kitchen and milk them!"

These radios remind me of my late mother, who in the early 70's repaired T.V.s and radios when they still needed tubes from the TG&Y counter. She had repaired a small black transistor radio for me to carry around. Many times her and I would listen to an Angels baseball game on the long pier in Long Beach. The sounds of the ocean, "fire-baller" Nolan Ryan on the radio, and my Mom.

I finished unpacking the box. Playing with the knobs, I realized these were treasures that needed to be out. They were provoking the sounds of my past, filled with static and laughter. Exactly the sounds I wanted to hear in our home! Just then I tuned to a station and heard:

"This just in! Hog and Pig Report...down 2%...the U.S. swine industry continued on its course of retraction in the last months of the year. Swine inventories in nearly all..."

Well, hopefully by Friday I will have figured out how to tune in a F.M. station, so my family can huddle down and listen to the raspy sounds of Charles Ferruzza's "Anything Goes" show.

Until next week,

"Say goodnight, Gracie"

-Ron (and Jon and Atticus)

...I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm.

This past week reminded me why we were once a race of nomadic people. As it dipped below zero for several days in a row, Ron, Atticus, and I huddled for warmth in the "hot pockets" we have created to make us comfortable in the relatively drafty, open space of Chestnut House. For those of you who don't know, this house, like the loft we lived in before, has no central heating system.

Had we been as smart as our ancestors, we would have folded our tents, herded our buffalo, and headed South at the first sign of Autumn. Since we haven't gotten around to training Atticus in the art of Buffalo herding, we decided to stay put behind our brick and mortar edifice and haunch down against the impending winter.

Winter has made us full-fledged members of an elite group of pioneers, proving our prairie stock by staying put while Nature told us to get out, that she didn't want us here, to go away...see you in the Spring. Work and social commitments have made our disappearance out of the question.

There are always ways to cope, and the three of us have become clever at attaining something approaching comfort here.

Ron puts his day's outfit under the heated blanket the night before, so his clothes are warmed before he dresses. He tried the microwave to achieve the same goal, but I stopped him with a gentle reminder about the deadly combination of zippers, rivets, and microwaves. Atticus has made a nest out of a pile of hundreds of clean socks dumped on a couch in the living room. When we go to retrieve a pair to wear, Atticus protects his fort like a crazed beaver. The look he shoots us as we try to reduce his collection is itself enough to melt ice.

There are perks to having no heat. If your dish soap is frozen solid, you don't have to do the dishes. If your sewing room is too cold to work in, you can put off impending projects in favor of your own health and well-being, and instead snuggle under an ancient quilt watching t.v. all night.

We've accepted gracious invitations all season based on one fact alone - heat. Every gallery, theatre, club and residence we go to has one common luxury - heat. "The art wasn't my taste, but it was sure nice and warm in there." "That band sucked, but what about that central heating - unbelievable!"

We are not just surviving, but thriving in this weather. Our Vodka stays the perfect serving temperature, our ice cubes don't melt and water down our beverages, and Atticus looks rather dapper in his full-length Sherpa parka.

Continue to read the blog...soon enough I'll be complaining about Summer.

Until next week-

Jon (and Ron and Atticus)

Bumper Cars and Polar Bears

"The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened."
-Peter Berger

I am curious about Kansas City 124 years ago.
Kansas City in 1884.
Our House was built in 1884.
Our house is 124 years old.
Intrigued, I headed to the Library.

The downtown Kansas City Library has a special room on the Fifth floor. The Missouri Valley Special Collections room. (M.V.S.C. to it's friends.) This exceptional room boasts an enclosed, climate-controlled, archival records space behind 5 inch thick glass. I never got to go into this room. I just stared in at the historical findings like a polar bear exhibit at the zoo. The Missouri Valley Special Collections Librarian placed me on a archival computer. I sat there for 3 and 1/2 hours. This is what I learned:

A street car ran by our house.

Streetcars are dangerous.

A horrible street car accident happened close to our house in 1907, reported by the Kansas City Journal: THANKFUL FOR HER ESCAPE...Devout Expression of Little Girl Struck by a Car.
"God was good to me that time," was the comment of a 5-year-old girl when she was taken from the fender of a rapidly moving Northeast car at Locust street and Independence avenue about 1 o'clock yesterday afternoon. And while a dozen grown-ups, who had witnessed her narrow escape from death, were yet struggling to recover their equanimity, she calmly caught hold of the hand of her uncle, John Reed of Kansas City, Kas., and walked away.
The child had become separated from her uncle and, in attempting to catch up with him, tried to cross the car tracks in front of the car. Before the motorman, C. M. Johnson, could stop, the car struck the little one, who was caught by the fender. The car was brought to a quick halt and Johnson and the conductor, H. L. Moe, ran to the front, expecting to find her mangled remains beneath the wheels. Instead, she was seated on the fender, not greatly disturbed by the accident. She left the scene with her uncle before her name and address could be ascertained.

There was a carriage house for the horses behind our home.

An identical house sat next to ours, where a 1950's ranch house sits now.

The library computer is hard to navigate.

Our neighborhood was one of the first "sub-divisions" of Kansas City. People started to move to our neighborhood to escape the wild area known as "downtown."

There is a special link on the Missouri Valley Special Collections room computer called the Sanborn Maps page. Sanborn Maps were originally created for assessing fire insurance liability in urbanized areas in the United States. The maps include detailed information regarding town and building information in approximately 12,000 U.S. towns and cities from 1867 to 1970.

Our house is on the map from 1896. I can see it. The 8 houses across the street from us did not exist. The lot where the Honduran Restaurant, the post office and nail-hut sits had only one big mansion on it.

That's it. That is all I learned, so far. Konrad Adenauer said "History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided."

I probably could of avoided this trip to the Missouri Valley Special Collections room.

But then I probably would of never known that we, like our friends in Olathe and Lee's Summit, live in a suburb rife with dangerous public transportation.

Until next week, watch for streetcars!

Ron (and Jon and Atticus)

The Garret

“Arrange whatever pieces come your way”
-Virginia Woolf

I have never embraced small spaces in a home. Give me a swing, a stage, and room to roller skate in the living room, I say! Loft living changed me-for better or worse-to love "wide open spaces". Then came our move to Chestnut House.

Even before I lived with Ron, I was drawn to open floor plans. My last "bachelor" apartment was a studio with no walls impeding me, unless you count the four holding up the ceiling. Light streamed in from a big bank of West-facing windows, and my furniture "floated" happily about the space, oblivious to the fact it was somewhat contained. Small spaces remind me of prisons. The Man in the Iron Mask, the Tell-Tale Heart, even Marie Antoinette, sequestered in an eight-by-eight cell, longing for her Manolos, stripped of her children, her panniers, her hair, her bonbons, and eventually her head. Rooms, history taught, never treated royalty well, and were to be avoided.

Then came our move to Chestnut House.

Our first order of business was to knock down every wall that stood in our way. Ron, sledge hammer in hand, would crash through the drywall as I ordered "take it way!" With gusto and glee we opened up our living space. Walls fell, ceilings disappeared, even a few bathrooms and kitchens were erased. As the destruction ensued, I felt the house start to breathe a deep sigh of relief.

Previous blogs have focused on the public areas of Chestnut House. By now, you've read about our attempt to "open the place up", but that's only two-thirds of the story. The third floor, formerly stanchioned off and relegated to storage, got it's first taste of freedom this week - and, in the process, taught me the value of "rooms".

An odd concept, rooms. John Fowler said, "It is the Sun itself that creates the shadows." In our attempt to turn the the house into a "lofty" space, I forgot the very "Gothic-ness" of a room of one's own. Wonderful art happens when you sit, confined with your thoughts, your walls, and the tools of your trade, to create. For me, those tools are sewing machines, beading hoops, and yards of fabric and trims waiting to become something. For Ron, a pen, a pad of paper, a comfortable chair, and an enviable imagination.

We chose "our" spaces this week. Ron set about turning the third floor "tower" room into his sanctuary-his place to read, write, and escape. His desk. His chair. His sun-filled study. I meekly knock on the office door when he takes his refuge there, conscious of "his space."

For me, a room at the back of the third floor is now being turned into the design room of my dreams, complete with the items that inspire me most, and all the tools to turn my ideas three dimensional.

Walls are no longer my enemy. I am still convinced most of them need to go...but some of them are more cocoons than cages.

Until next week-

Jon (and Ron and Atticus)

'TWAS THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS

'Twas the week before Christmas and all through the Victorian house... Creatures were stirring, including many "mices"...

Alright, I cannot channel Clement Clarke Moore. Don't get me wrong, Clement was a clever man, but he does not capture life in Chestnut House at all. I mean, stockings were hanging from the faux Chimney with care, but our world in this house moves on a whole different axis: We can see our breath in our unheated house, there is no electricity in our bedroom and our dog is constipated - case in point:

Atticus received a new bone for Christmas. (Well, he received it the week before the big holiday, a pre-gift.) It was a huge bone. So big, he could barely carry it in his mouth. We could hear him walking with it, dropping it every few feet with a very loud "thunk". Walk, walk, walk, thunk. Walk, walk, walk, thunk. He worked on that bone for four days. At times I would take it away from him when he would gag from shards. He kept eating, chewing, devouring his bone, until it was a stub. And then he stopped going to the bathroom. No poop. No pooping before Christmas. He would go outside, play in the snow, smell frozen trees, mark a bush. Done. This was a problem. I even commented to Jon: "Honey, our son is constipated before Christmas. How are we to have a good Christmas with a constipated dog?" Jon assured me that it would work itself out before 32 tiny reindeer hooves would be heard on our rooftop. I prayed that he was right. (I also prayed for goodwill towards men. I didn't want to pray a purely selfish prayer.)

Two days before Christmas, a miracle happened. I was getting ready to bake a pecan pie from scratch, wrapping presents in brown paper (tied up with strings), and making lye soap in copper kettles in the backyard, when Atticus barked at the front door. I sat down the socks I was mending and ran to him. Just then, a hard, cork-like item shot out of his back end, hit the brick wall, and bounced off. I looked at this Christmas Miracle-a bone shard "plug". Well, no wonder he was having problems! He barked one more time and a diarrhea explosion shot out. I gasped, picked him up with his back-end facing out, and ran towards the front door, the entire time liquid dog matter shooting out at a rapid pace, splattering the walls and Christmas ornaments. I fumbled for the front door, trying frantically not to slip in the liquid waste. I kicked the door open and ran out into the yard, a squirting dog-butt facing out (see example at right.)

Snow turned brown, the porch turned brown, my night shirt turned brown. Just then the neighbors walked by bundled up in their winter garb. They stopped and stared. I tried to look nonchalant, holding the squirting dog butt towards them, and smiled. They smiled back, and said " Merry Christmas, new neighbors!" I sat down the diarrhea-dog and proclaimed, "and to all a good night!"