Preview: On the Red Carpet at the Hall of Fame

If you read tomorrow’s (Monday’s) paper, there’s an article about Marysville’s ties to several inductees into California’s Hall of Fame.  To get that story, we went to Sacramento last week to attend the induction ceremonies, which included the obligatory “red carpet” parade of notables.  Click back here later for some behind-the-scenes tidbits that didn’t make it into print.

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Home for the Holidays.

Today marks the beginning of my second year of full-time residence in Marysville.  Jet and I moved in Dec. 20, 2007, and spent the first month in the living room, with no heat and little plumbing.  No working kitchen meant that if it couldn’t be microwaved or eaten raw, it just wasn’t on the menu.  At least the downstairs toilet and sink worked.  Showers could only be taken upstairs, in a room that came to be known as “Finland.” Since you could wash your hair and see your breath at the same time, the only thing missing from the full sauna effect was a bundle of birch twigs.  Sleep came courtesy of two down comforters, knit caps, ski socks and mittens, and 24 pounds of warm puppy.  Despite there being so much left to do to make the house liveable, I was determined to spend Christmas in my new home.  And I did, complete with a big fully decorated tree.   It’s been a wild year since then, but as I sit here looking at this year’s tree, whose lights glow through the shutters to the front yard to greet passersby,  it’s been worth all the mess and jumbled living.  I love my old house and my new town, and all the wonderful friends I’ve made.  Sure, there’s still a bathroom to tile, bookcases to build, and stuff still to be stored. But, despite wishing my family were here instead of across the country, I truly feel I am “home for the holidays.”

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Tile Management

As a diehard Scrabble™ fan, I got a kick out of a remark made by someone who was asked the secret of his success in life; he replied, “Just as in Scrabble, it comes down to tile management.”  In other words, play the hand you’re dealt.  Good advice.  I actually have been dealing with several kinds of tiles lately; the different ones that are going on the floor in different rooms in my old house here and the ones I am trying to use to get Triple Word Score. 

I have been playing email Scrabble games with one of my dearest friends — in fact we sometimes have had two games going at once.  Joanie now lives in Pennsylvania and before that she and her husband were living all over the world, most recently in Mumbai.  So having a face-to-face game became a rarity for us.  She found a great website called Scrabulous where you can play in real time, via email or various other ways, including solitaire.  And…it’s free!  Lately, I have been totally on the schneid. Despite the availability of official tips on improving one’s game, it is hard to apply tile management techniques when your rack is U U I I I O O.   So who here in Marysville likes to play Scrabble? 

On the other front, tiles have been going very well. I think I now have the most beautiful floors in the world.  Have I mentioned how I revere Tom Boots, III, the craftsman who owns Sierra Classic Tile?  Genius.  And a patient one.  We’ve re-created floors (and some walls) that look like they were installed in 1920 when my house was built.  This meant a lot of little tiles (mostly 1×1 inch) in different patterns.  Now that’s tile management.  John Davison worked with Tom on the project with similar patience and precision.  Jenna and Joel over at Tile City have been a great help in finding the right materials at a good price for the looks we were trying to achieve. I also got one tile from Lowe’s and did make one “out of town” purchase from Anchor Bay Tile in Arizona. They have, among other beautiful products, a small vintage-crackly subway tile that matched the little ones I saw in the Julia Morgan house now occupied by The Helders photography studio on Sixth St.

I’ve alluded to cleaning the (mostly white) tile floors before; that is my ultimate tile management challenge.  My budget for Swiffer refills has been blown to bits. 

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A cuppa history

Sunday I stepped back into the past at the fifth annual Women’s History Tea at the Yuba County Library.  Organized by the library and its Friends, the event’s $10 tickets raised money to help the library continue its many excellent programs, and was a fair price to pay for the wonderful history lessons we got.  Each table was hosted by a different historical figure (played by Friends and volunteers) — from first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to first American female architect Julia Morgan (who built several homes and public buildings in Marysville) — with teacups and decorations to match the person and the era.  Photographer Dorothea Lange was there, acting as a genial emcee, along with Rosie the Riveter, Mother Jones, and even Princess Di.  I sat with Ellen Clark Sargeant, suffragette and wife of Aaron, the U.S. Senator from Nevada City who wrote the Constitutional amendment that gave women the right to vote. Of course, it took 40 years for the 19th amendment to pass. (And more than twice as many more for us to have a woman be a serious contender for the presidency.)  So, ladies, don’t take the vote lightly!  Well, that applies to gentlemen, too!

When I finally got to Marysville two of the first things I did was to get a library card and update my voter registration.  There’s another election in June and then the biggie November 4.  If you’re not registered, put it on your to do list.

Then bop on over to our library, check out the very special California Room, chock full of local history, and while you’re there, consider joining The Friends.  It’s just five bucks a year! Or as Len La Barth would most likely calculate it: just 1.75 lattes. 

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