buttercream

Here it is… the first fun gem from my Scary Box of Ephemera. For this to make sense, you have to know that one of my odd college part-time jobs was as a cake decorator. Actually, a cake decorating apprentice would be more accurate. Or maybe, Hey You Come Over Here And Wash This. On the whole, it was lots of fun, but utterly exhausting. I am still convinced working with food is one of the toughest jobs ever. I came home every day reeking of sugar. You might be thinking that sounds like a good thing, but you would be wrong.

Anyway, although this gig was most certainly what Wayne Campbell would call a “joe job,” my friends Lindsey and Alane were still way proud of me for landing it, as evidenced by this rad inkjet-printed and glue-stuck card wishing me well on my foray into cakedom:

Don’t ask me, I have no idea.

With support not only from the two of them, but also none other than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., how could I possibly fail?

And so it was that I entered into a period of cake-obsession. My friends, it was a little sad. There was a Sesame Street cake (featuring Ernie) for Alane’s birthday. There was a disturbing bloody heart cake for Halloween. There was the Union Jack bon voyage cake for when my roommate Michelle ditched me for a semester abroad. This was all going on in the late ’90s — IMHO, the golden age of the medical drama ER, of which I was also a little too fond. Behold:

That would be Noah Wylie, AKA Dr. Carter. I think Lindsey and Alane must have needed the calculator to determine exactly what level of dork they were dealing with.

Sledding down 26th Street at UT, MLK Weekend, 1997

I now live so ridiculously far away from these two, that we haven’t kept in touch as much as we ought to. But Lindsey recently called us out on it, inspiring their trip up to Seattle in January for a fun-filled faux-bachelorette weekend (Alane just got married a few weeks ago). We celebrated with a really great night out at The Pink Door, a late night horror movie and obviously… cake. Can you guess which one I made, and which one was at the wedding a few months later?

Miss you,
Love,
Tara

ps. If any of these end up on cakewrecks, I’m gonna be very upset.

things we keep

Awhile back I posted a little bit about my long-neglected box of funny / sad / incriminating / treasured ephemera, and wondered what I should do with all that stuff.

Since then I’ve decided it belongs in some kind of unique hand-made book. I hesitate to use the word “scrapbook” because I’m picturing something more interesting and artistic than that… something like this beautiful handmade accordion book by Sylvia Yang made just for holding letters:

Pockets = genius.

I plan to document my progress here, slowly, one part of the story at a time. This means some of it will be going on the internet, and if you know me, you might find a little bit of yourself here. (Don’t worry… I’ll be very nice, and I’ll even ask you first.)

Yes, it’s a little personal, but I think it will be fun and cathartic too. I’ll still post most often about our recent projects and happenings, but I like to think this blog is evolving. And it’s starting soon.

Here goes nothing / everything,
–Tara

N-E-WAYZ

Well that took a dark turn, didn’t it?  Not to worry.

I think I’ve figured out what to do with all my ephemera, but I’m still mulling it over a bit.  Stay tuned.

***

When you’re feeling a bit low, there’s nothing better than getting a little lost.  As luck would have it, Dave’s company’s holiday party was Saturday at Maximilien downtown — it’s a sweet little French restaurant right inside Pike Place Market.  I am a sucker for pomegranate martinis and good company, so plenty of that plus a lovely 3-course dinner made me feel lots better (and only a little fat).

Dinner was amazing… French charcuterie, foie gras, fromages and other things I don’t pronounce properly.  Dungeness crab cakes, fresh salmon, fall vegetables, crème brulée, chocolate, and plenty of wine.

To make it even more of a treat, we got a room at the boutique-y Inn at the Market for fun.  May I just say that the Inn is totally AWESOME?  If you are visiting Seattle and can swing it (pricey), or looking for somewhere fun to spend the wedding night, I highly recommend.  At just one block uphill from the hustle and bustle of our world-famous public market, the location could not be better.

The market is always cool, but this time of year there are lights strung everywhere.  There’s a Christmas tree vendor, another selling evergreen garlands, and this one booth that had these gorgeous herb wreaths with lavender in them.  I really should have gotten one… I’ll have to go back.  Plus, about a million great gift ideas.

Then on Sunday, we hit the Hatch Show Print exhibit at the Experience Music Project in Seattle Center.  We’ve been here for almost 7 years, and I had still never been to the EMP.  Oops!  It was good to learn more about the Seattle music scene — particularly the grunge I was so into in high school.  I think I may have worn some flannel shirts.  (Yeah, I totally did.)

I just loved the Hatch Exhibit — there’s a pretty big Chandler & Price platen press on display inside.  (I don’t even want to know how they got that thing up to the 3rd level of the building… moving mine from one ground level garage to another was enough drama for me.)  Nashville is now on my list of cities to see — a road trip around that area is definitely in order.  It would be so cool to visit the Hatch shop and splurge on a monoprint.  I’m especially digging this one:

“Type” (source)

And then it was north on the I-5 to Edmonds!  Twenty minutes later I was at home, refreshed and relaxed.  Back to my messy studio, weddings, printing my Festivus cards, getting ready to go home for the holidays, blogging.  It’s good to be back.

–Tara

All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone*

Something pretty terrible happened.  On Sunday I found out one of my good high school friends, John Biasiolli, died just before Thanksgiving.  I still don’t know exactly what happened, but it seems extra shocking because we had just gotten back in touch online about 2 or 3 weeks ago.  When I heard, I was still looking forward to his reply, and reconnecting with him whenever Dave and I got around to taking that trip to Colorado.

Then I remembered the present John gave me for my 15th birthday — a book of his poems.  It would be pretty adorable if I could find it, but I haven’t come across it just yet.  This would be circa 1992, so we’re talking about a gloriously cringe-worthy dot matrix-printed anthology, most likely fastened into one of those folders with 3 brads in the center.

This is the part of the story where you find out I was big into letter-writing as a kid.  BIG!  I remember the day we learned to address an envelope in the 3rd grade, and what 25-cent stamps looked like.  My favorite Christmas present from the year I was 9 was a box of pink floral stationery sheets with matching envelopes.  If you got a letter written on that, you were pretty important…  I really hoarded those sheets, worried I may never have such lovely paper again.  Funny the way things go.

I am not overly sentimental, but I somehow had the foresight to keep pretty much every letter ever written to me.  And every one was thoughtlessly shoved into an ugly pink and black cherub-covered box I keep on a low shelf in my garage, almost begging to be washed away in a flood.

I found a few things from John — not enough really.  A typed letter from the year we went away to different colleges. A home-made birthday card that jokes about how at 15, I could not have kept a secret to save my life. I’m especially glad I held onto a couple of postcards from a trip he took through Europe in college.  He was so excited to finally go abroad, and no one deserved it more.

As you can see from this beautiful mess, my own ephemera has been long-neglected.   I said “thoughtlessly shoved” above, but the truth is it wasn’t thoughtless at all.  I haven’t wanted to look at it for quite some time — I’ve been ignoring it.  Ignoring a few things.  Because while most of it is hilarious, a little is way too sad.  The rest is so embarrassing, I literally cannot look at it yet.  But it all tells a too-true story, and it’s time to do something with it that does it that kind of justice.  I’m not sure what.

I mean, some of the things I found in that box?  There are no words.  Notes passed to me in the 7th grade — you know, with the ridiculous hot folding action?  A letter typed in November 1991, which references Linda Hamilton hosting Saturday Night Live that weekend (with musical guest Mariah Carey, and had I ever seen this Chris Rock guy because he’s pretty cool).  A valentine from Sir Bumblefickle.  My creative writing journal from Mrs. Griest-Devora’s class senior year.  Love letters I’m not sure I can ever read again.

One of my favorites is this ripped piece of the San Antonio Express News from 1994 advertising the first concert I ever went to: Tori Amos at The Backyard outside Austin — tickets were a whopping $16.50.  I can’t believe I kept it!  It was her Under The Pink tour.  John was most definitely there — he’s the one who turned us all onto her, after all.

I’m not sure where this post is going exactly.  All I know is that I haven’t been sleeping.  I can’t stop thinking about John and his wife, and family.  And that he was only 31 — a Taurus.  That’s just a month older than me.  What his face looked like.  How it could have been any one of us. The night he introduced me to my first love. The fact that I’ve burned a few bridges I’m wishing I could cross.  How I’ve reached the age where I’ve realized that this whole time, my parents were just people.  And how none of us are exactly what I thought we were.  That it’s been way too long.  And I’m wondering, why haven’t I been to Colorado?  Dave tells me it’s beautiful.

Tick-tock,
Tara

*All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone — Explosions In The Sky.