Santa Elena Canyon, Big Bend, Texas

Remembering….

Remembering Paris With Collage

Vogue Goes to Versailles, MMH Adds Oysters

Too Many Flowers, Too Little Time

Giverny Sans Tourists

On Top Of the Hill,
Sacre Coeur

Père Lachaise Reverie

Guerlain Meets Sainte-Chapelle

Women and the Best Figs Ever

Dreaming of Versailles at My Kitchen Table

History Repeats

Under Duress: An Installation

Home Is In the Details, Perhaps?

Glimpses of Second Seating

Second Seating is coming to life.  Seven artists are at work creating a fantasy space of recycled products and found objects, filled with references to Houston’s East End culture and industry.

Food To Love In Turkey

So many kabobs and grilled vegetables, so many glasses of tea with two sugar cubes, so many honey soaked desserts. We savored every mouthful. What is not to love? Turkish food is wholesome. Their tea is like rocket fuel. Their sweets are divine. When can we return?

Dinner at Karen’s

Work In Progress: Second Seating

Second Seating, the art installation on which I am now working, received a grant in January from The Idea Fund, a program of Diverse Works ArtSpace, Aurora Picture Show and Project Row Houses made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation. The grant was a terrific boost for the project and we’re well underway toward the late September opening. Here are some photos of work in progress – or at least some of the materials that will go into the fantasy dinner tables and chandeliers that will make up Second Seating.

Following My Shoes

Remembering Christmas

Here is what I remember about the Christmas holiday season. This year Christmas was celebrated in bits and pieces and came in fits and starts.
The holiday season was strange, unlike any other. There were the snow storms and icy roads that kept our five family households from gathering for Christmas plum pudding and foamy yellow sauce and an exchange of gifts. Then there was Mom’s trip to the hospital where she’s stayed throughout the holiday.
Layered between the snow and Mom’s afflictions, were the bits and pieces of Christmas.

Kelan and Lauren frosted cookies and sprinkled colored sugar over them. Their cookies were quite beautiful and tasted yummy too.

Kelan and Lauren’s Mameau (that would be me) played in the snow with them and even slid down the snow packed street. I use an old phrase to describe sledding, “It was very fun.”

Caroline and I found little silver and Lucite shoes for the girls and they clattered around the house on Christmas afternoon, with always a slip and a fall about to happen.

The McGrady’s tree held an ornament given to Jeanne some 35 years ago when she was three. Looks just like her.

Lovely bottle of wine that evening in Caroline’s kitchen. Exactly what night was that?

Christmas table setting. I missed the dinner which included The Silver Palate’s Chicken Marbella and went instead to see Mom in the hospital.

Lulu Bell and her mom played on the kitchen floor on Christmas afternoon. More fun than anything.

Jeanne made blueberry pancakes for the kids the morning before Christmas. Mameau had some too.

John and I shopped at Pike’s Market. It was raining when we left.

Dad listened to a tape of Mom’s 1958 Christmas concert and then we took the tape to her in the hospital where she listened as her hands moved ever so slightly, conducting a fifty year old choir.

Cousins in the kitchen the evening that we all got together for tamales and pecan pie, among other things.

Denny made black eyed peas on New Year’s Day. What will this new year bring? Mom and Dad are frail and 91 and something is always happening to them. The great grandchildren will all grow bigger and talk more and more. And we, in the middle? We will follow our paths toward fulfillment, but only if we keep our minds focused.