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Shamash

The rush to produce in the shop has ended as Christmas is almost here, and New Year is when I usually work on designs and new projects. So this is the natural time that I turn my mind loose thinking about projects I might attempt. Looking at my calendar book this morning, I saw that the first evening of Channukah is tomorrow at sundown, and I was reminded of a winter long ago.

The very end of the seventies was a rough time for me. I had left grad school and was back to work in the operating room. As winter set in, my soul felt like it was about to break. My cat and I were living in an apartment that was a converted porch with an attached bathroom and tiny kitchen. We could hear the wind whistling beneath the porch floorboards, and staying warm was a question of many layers. My upstairs neighbor was a young woman named Ellen, and we frequently pooled resources to create better meals and maybe just a festive moment. My cat, Clancy, was friendly with her black cat Samantha and watching them play together was an entertainment we could afford. Unfortunately, this was the most extravagant we could get on minimal resources.

One night we wound up discussing holiday traditions. I talked about how my family decorated the Christmas tree with tinsel and colorful ornaments. And Ellen told me about the old Menorah her family lit at Channukah. I had a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree in my place that a friend had given to me, and her Menorah would be some votive candles in a row.

One Saturday, I was shopping in Boston’s North End and found some small metal cups that I realized could work as candle holders. In the garage behind our apartments was an assorted pile of wood that I figured I could scrounge through for something that could work as the menorah base.
I was fortunate to find two pieces of walnut that had once been part of a cabinet. Gluing these together, I had a piece that could be drilled for the candle holders. This was the most challenging part because all I had was an old-fashioned egg-beater drill and a few very tired bits. Once the holes were drilled, I fitted the cups and began working with my gouges to shape the wood into a sculptural form. I had no way of smoothing the piece beside a pattern of fine and small gouge cuts. The old walnut had a dense grain, and the patterning looked perfect. A rubdown with some wax finished the Menorah.

Ellen had made me about a dozen tiny folded paper ornaments for my tree, which the cats promptly began to play with, and I gave her the walnut menorah.
Not too many months later, the landlord renovated the entire building, and we all moved away with no regrets. I never saw Ellen again.

But I’ve thought about that Menorah. Sometimes the simplest things are not only the most sophisticated but are the most elegant. As I move into a January full of design notes and sample pieces, I might draw up a Menorah design as a carving project in cherry. The Shamash, or servant candle in the middle, and the others ranged to either side around it. Brass candle cups sunk into a blackened, charred wood for contrast. And the form of the Menorah itself looks like a range of gently folded hills surmounting the rubbed varnish of the natural cherry wood.

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Perpetually Yours

For a joke, I give people who get my spoons a small slip of paper, the Fine Print. It contains all the information needed to care for the woodenware. But not perpetually.
Perpetual is the sort of word that raises alarms. “Yes, sir or madam, the guarantee is perpetual, dependent upon…and the fine print in faded lettering on tissue-thin paper follows.
I mistrust what promises to ensure or protect against things you can’t predict—acts of God, extreme climatic events, or human stupidity.

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The Heating Pad

A Flashback Friday Presentation

When we had the stunning black double-pawed Smidgen as our cat, she was always very businesslike about how the sleeping arrangements were ordered. If my wife was at work, she slept between my ankles, either above or under the covers. She insisted my hygienic standards were deficient, so I’d often wake up to a pink tongue cleaning me. Besides, I needed to get up to feed her and the dog.


She used another ritual if my wife, Mom, was at home. My wife, a night shift nurse, has popsicle toes. So she would often use a heating pad to warm her feet. Smidgen discovered very early that the heating pad was about as long as she was stretched out. She understood that although Dad had purchased it at Christmas for mom ( a selfish act to be sure!), It was meant for her. At first, she was willing to share. I’d walk through the bedroom and observe Smidge and Mom cuddled comfortably together. That escalated the day that I discovered her stretched out upon the pad when my wife was at work. The look she gave me was pure “if you love me, you’ll turn it on.” No deal.


Smidge had an alternative source of warmth. I had an old-fashioned flatbed scanner. The lamp in it produced enough heat to warm a small room in the winter. And when I worked at the computer, she would lie on it to supervise me. To me, it looked a lot like she was sleeping. But I was diplomatic; she was double-pawed, and that means double the claws.
As lovely as the scanner was, she coveted the heating pad. She began to monitor when my wife would go to sleep. She would then wait until my wife was soundly sleeping and get into bed for a cuddle. Gradually the cuddle turned into her arching her back with claws dug into the covers. She was gently pushing my wife toward the edge of the bed. As she pushed, she claimed more of the bed and heating pad. Over months the little brat became more and more aggressive.


At last real victory was hers. I entered the bedroom, and Smidgen was stretched across the bed’s width and in full possession of the heating pad. My wife huddled on the edge of the bed, holding on to the final inches of mattress.
Locking her out did no good. She’d somehow take those big double paws to the knob, suspend herself and twist the knob open. When I showed up to scoot her off the bed, there was a display of innocence. That cat could have won an Academy Award for her acting. Didn’t I know that it was her heating pad – part of the Divine Rights of Cats, guaranteed in the Consitution? She needed it; how could I deny her?


The next Christmas, my wife received an electric blanket. I had supposed the war for the bed to be over with room for both of them. But she turned up her nose at the blanket. She outrightly refused to sleep on the bed if it was on. She retreated to the flatbed scanner with ill-concealed distaste.
The issue seemed settled until the electric blanket failed one night, and the heating pad came out of storage. A victorious Smidgen strolled slowly into the bedroom to assume her proper place on the bed. The message seemed to be – never attempt to thwart a cat in her pursuit of pleasure.

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Jack of All

Inauthentic is probably the thing I’d least like for people to say about me. A hellacious master of BS; OK. A journeyman rather than a master? I’m OK with that also because I move around to so many things. So neither of those things bothers me. 

Being authentic for me is all about doing lots of different things and exploring. And yes, I know that being a sort of grab-bag person makes people who only do one thing uncomfortable. In their lights, mastery of “the one thing” is everything. And I’m OK with that, too. Just as long as they don’t try to get too damn stuffy about their perfection.

Having multiple interests is an insurance policy against boredom and the vicissitudes of life. Can’t pursue one passion, you can start working on the other.

No one can call you inauthentic, you won’t be bored, and you may always be able to make a dollar too.

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The Cashbox

It might have been Peter Drucker who mentioned that most people leave their jobs due to problems that crop up and persist from their first six weeks on the job. In other words, your fate is sealed early on.
I think it’s worse than that; the first day or week can reveal all the sticks and stones in your path. Some you can detour around, others climb over, but there can be one thing you stub your toe on daily that will eventually drive you to spruce up the resume and look at the job listings.

After working for many years as an applied anthropologist, I found myself a quiet posting as an executive director at a tourist information organization. We ran a kiosk that provided maps, brochures, and guided tours. It was a volunteer-fueled outfit, and a large part of my job was caring for and feeding around fifty volunteers.

The organization provided many services for free and was the first stop for many visitors. The problem was that not all products or services were free. Volunteers took in cash for brochures and fees for tours. In those days, nothing was computerized, and all recording of sales was on paper forms. Money was placed into the cashbox, and I collected the cashbox and the paper tally form every Monday.

The form, the cashbox, and the behavior of the volunteers were the issue that could not be surmounted. Some volunteers are very accurate, some less so, and some did not even try for accuracy. Voluntary contributions to the organization were freely mixed with sales receipts. Sales were not accurately recorded or recorded incorrectly. Settling the sales account and reconciling it with the sales receipt that first Monday was hell. therre was about three hundred dollars too much. Not knowing what to do, I put the excess aside. The following Monday, I was glad I did because the numbers were negative by about two hundred and ninety dollars.

My predecessor had not briefed me on this issue, so I polled the Board of Directors. This was not the wisest course of action. Some of the volunteers were friends or relatives. Did I doubt their honesty?

I lasted one year before accepting a job back in the government, where accounting practices were tight, and I never handled even a loose dime. The weekly juggling of money got to me.
But the amazing thing was that the organization closed out its fiscal year not long after I left. And there was a rather handsome surplus in the budget.

I fielded a few congratulatory calls and felt relieved that someone else would be figuring out the cashbox on Mondays.

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Sandra

It wasn’t Madrid. And it wasn’t the Restaurante Terete.
But it was an OK Cuban restaurant way back down behind Harvard Square. Sandra knew that lunch there might appease my anger; every little bit would help. It wasn’t every day that a fiance informed her promised one that the STD she had given him came from her new boyfriend.
I ate the meal silently, not trusting to speak with anything more than an occasional grunt. But then, Sandra finally gave up trying to find excuses for the infidelity but continued to brazenly insist that she had never meant to give me the Clap.

She fumbled with the check and admitted I’d have to pay. I excused myself and went to use the men’s room. Passing around the small rebate in the corridor, I entered the kitchen, greeted my buddy Carlos, and exited the kitchen door.

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Of Course!

Have I ever performed? My dear, a cat’s life is always performance. Being cute to garner attention while a kitten and elegant for admiration when mature.
Now, excuse me. I am tired from my exertions. Entertaining humans does take so much energy.
It is time for my midday nap. TTFN ( ta ta for now).

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Blackened Bowl Cherry Spoons

Reinvention in craft is one way to keep old things new. Sometimes the new something does not require racking your brain for the technique or approach. Instead, it’s something old that you redefine.

Last year I experimented with charring the interior of a cherry bowl with a carefully applied propane torch. I liked the contrast between the cherry and the black charring enough that I decided to “cogitate on my veritabilities” ( in the words of my best friend while I was on the road). Having initiated the process, it promptly went nowhere until I started my annual fall spoon-carving frenzy.

Sometime in the fall, I’ll go into a craze and whack out forty or fifty spoons, spatulas, wooden forks, and a few cherry bowls. First, I do rough shapes, bowls, and final shaping and finishing. At any point, you might see buckets of treen ( an old word for wooden kitchenware) waiting for the next process. While finishing, I decided to scorch some spoon bowls and see how the finish would look.

Well, I spoiled the first three right away. Too much scorching and char and too much heat on the wood resulted in split spoon bowls. After that, I did the scorching in small increments to avoid over-burning or heating the wood. Afterward, the ash and profound char must be removed. Since the bowl was shaped and sanded beforehand, you do this by lightly sanding and buffing the bowl. You are left with a blackened bowl that stands out against the bright color of the cherry. You can now finish the bowl with mineral oil and beeswax.

I can assure you that I did not come up with this idea. I just decided to refine the technique for some of my treen. So, I’ve gifted some of these spoons to friends this fall, and the “Carreras Test Kitchen” will try out the new “old” product.

I am rather pleased with the look. Also, the process of charring, sanding and buffing leaves a super smooth bowl interior that feels pleasant to the touch. Not all the bowls wind up uniformly blackened. Variations depend on the char’s depth and the wood’s nature.
I’m not through with this technique, and I’ll continue playing with it.