My family and I instituted a twist on gift-giving this year: the ugliest gift contest. Avid yard sale shoppers, we knew other people’s treasures (ahem) would yield plenty of contenders on the cheap. My mom, with no hesitation, nabbed hers in June: squat Indian corn candle holders. The $1 price tag seemed exorbitant, but she could hardly bargain using the truth. And it was hard to lie. “Oh, these are just daaarling.” 

I wanted to share a picture with you, but the candle holders have mysteriously disappeared (interesting), so you’ll have to use your imagination. The candle holders have turned up, so now you can judge for yourself:

I knew immediately when I spotted mine:

But the showering elephants never made it to the Christmas gathering. It was so ugly it was confiscated at the airport. I know, I know: “ugly” is not on the prohibited list, but you know what is? Snow globes.

“Seriously?” I asked the TSA agent. “That’s way less liquid than my trial-sized shampoo.”

“Yeah, I think it’s the liquid they use,” he said, giving it the once over, and, to his credit, not sneering.

“It’s distilled water!” I may have made a snow globe once in my Martha Stewart days.

“Come on, that is not on the list,” I tried.

“Actually, I think it is,” he said.

I fought on despite the fact that I knew there was no way he was bending federal law for me, but at some point, I started to enjoy it. This guy had to wonder why this God-awful snow globe was so important to me when it was ugly.

“My mom’s gonna be so disappointed,” I sighed.

“Do you want to check it in your luggage or do you want us to dona–” I’m sure as the words came out of his mouth he realized even the TSA wouldn’t be so cruel as to donate a tacky elephant snow globe made in China, and so I let go, into the world of misfit toys and the bin of dangerous items.

Turns out the TSA agent was right. Not only are meat cleavers, hammers, and ice axes prohibited, “Snow globes and like decorations regardless of size or amount of liquid inside, even with documentation” are a no-go.

Still, I’m having a hard time picturing a terrorist on a plane wielding a snow globe. Listen up, Samuel L. Jackson: there’s a movie just begging to be made.

I can’t say I was looking forward to reading Salvage the Bones, the 2011 National Book Award winner for fiction. The subject matter, Hurricane Katrina, was an ugly period in American history. But I was intrigued when Jesmyn Ward won the award over Tea Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife, a fantastic book that critics felt was a shoe-in. Well.

The Tiger’s Wife was fantastic. Loved it. But it would have been the movie with the big studio behind it winning the Oscar. You can’t help but root for the little independent. I had heard Ward, the underdog, on NPR saying how she was thrilled just to be nominated for Salvage the Bones. She sounded so sincere that I wanted her to win. When she won, I committed to read it.

The writing is harsh in the most beautiful way, punched-up to a poetic level, and tight. You like the protagonist, her brothers, and even a pit bull so much that you’re worried from page one about the storm that’s coming. The tension builds like the winds that sweep across their Mississippi land.

I read 30-odd books this year and found it hard to choose a fop five from among the many contenders. And then I remembered that no one’s making me choose five. I just like to put five in my book widget, but that I can choose 10 if I want. And I want, so here’s a recap:

I finally got around to reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a fun flight through the philosophical that everyone read when it cam out in 2008. I’m slow to the table, OK? Plus, I put it down twice when I tried reading it back then. This time it stuck and I was duly rewarded. If you’re not feeling pressured to read the most newly minted novels (The Marriage Plot, The Art of Fielding, enough already), read it.

I also brushed up on a classic or two, reading Jane Eyre at last (very slow to the table). Jane and I would have been fast friends had I lived in the English countryside way back when. We could have roamed the meadows bundled in our layers, arms linked, stopping to talk about books and our crush on the quirky Rochester.

Forging on with my resolution last year to read books I might not normally pick up, and failing by page two of The Hunger Games, I gave in to the critical acclaim for last year’s National Book Awards nonfiction winner and devoured Just Kids by Patti Smith a memoir of her years spent with Robert Mapplethorpe. Oh, to have such a supportive artist and quasi-lover who champions your growth and creativity, while coming of age in New York City. What a power duo.

Under the category of titles I’d rattle off while awaiting laughter, I read and loved two books. The first was The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. Seriously, if you don’t go out searching for snails to love after reading this, you are not human. The second, while not as lyrical, was Wesley the Owl by Stacey O’Brien. If you don’t go out looking for your own owl to mother after reading this, you are definitely not human.

Dog Years: a Memoir by poet Mark Doty that interweaves the loss of his partner  and dogs, another not-so-new book, was phenomenal and heartbreaking. And I’m not even a dog owner.

And finally, the most entertaining read, judged by how much I have to suppress laughter on the train: This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper.

Go forth and read, people.

I baked some double chocolate chip pumpkin cookies for an amazing cookie swap and almost—almost—went home with more cookies than I could handle. I tried some strange and tasty cookies (cardamom, green tea, goat cheese), gave some away, and shared some at our unusual office Christmas swap.

My co-worker and I chair a fun committee at the office (we’re serious about fun) and this year instituted a white elephant Yankee swap. Gifts could be small, preferably lame, and must be derived from one’s office. I wrapped up a CD and a skull and bones eraser and unwrapped a plant that was whisked away in the swap. I ended up with a testy wireless mouse that I had unloaded months earlier on my co-worker. Ah, the circle of office life.

I read more issues of Rachael Ray’s Every Day magazine than I care to admit. She’s chipper that one, but she puts out a good magazine.

Every year I make my sister a calendar with photos I’ve taken, surreptitiously, of her dog, Molly, in various states of ridiculousness. This year’s theme was “What’s on Molly’s head?” What was on Molly’s head, you ask? A colander, apple, myriad stuffed animals, coffee filters, salad bowl, and a hat. Doesn’t it seem like she really, really enjoys it?

On yet another mild January day, I walked through the near-barren orchard and watched a hawk pluck a mouse from the field, the scent of sour apples lingering.

I read some good books over vacation but the best one by far, Salvage the Bones, took me through the last days of the year. More on that in my upcoming book wrap-up.

I pressed my face to the window watching for deer in my sister’s backyard. She and her husband spot deer posses traipsing through the yard, their hoof prints pricking the yard. I’ve yet to see one of these phantom deer.

My sister and her husband took me on a hike through the woods in the backyard where the famed deer live. Sometimes a hike can be a walk.

I Christmas shopped with my mom, a near-70 Energizer bunny, and had to sit, more than once, with the old people on the bench of the outdoor shopping center while she forged on.

I rented a million movies and finally saw The Muppets and appreciated the numerous nods to the 70s and 80s and the fact that there are enough lovers and dreamers who welcome back the Muppets with a big furry hug.

Whenever I leave the house, Maple is usually gazing out the patio door checking out the squirrel situation. It’s rare that she’s not at her post when I head out, so I have a habit of doing a quick check on her location to ensure she isn’t accidentally trapped in the closet as was the case once when she tiptoed in when I wasn’t looking.

So, the other day, after checking the closet and confirming that she wasn’t behind the couch (her go-to hiding spot), or behind the wardrobe or under the bed, I was worried that she had vaporized—until I saw the corner of the armoire curtain was amiss. A cursory looked turned up nothing, but a second look deep into the recesses of the assorted linens and pillows revealed a surprised Maple, nestled in mosquito netting.

Brooksby Farm in Peabody with its barnyard bevy, autumnal offerings, and quiet orchard is a treat to wander now that the apple picking vultures have disappeared. Wedding guests spilled out of the barn, a spot some people might think of as odd for a wedding, but that I find charming. Rest assured the shindig was taking place in a renovated barn—not the one where the sheep hunker down for the night.

So I’m watching the bucktoothed llama and the irresistible, angelic-faced goat when a tuxedo-clad gentleman wanders over to the fence where I’m standing. It’s true that most men look good in a tuxedo, but this man looked especially good. And then he opened his mouth.

“Do you know what kind of animal this is?” he asked, pointing to the ostrich. The ostrich. Not a wooly mammoth or a zebu cattle that might be hard to identify on a little farm in Peabody, but a run-of-the-mill ostrich. Who doesn’t know what an ostrich looks like?

Before I could answer, he was out of the running despite the aforementioned very nicely tailored tuxedo.

“It’s an emu,” I said.

Please. Like you can tell the difference.

He snapped some photos with his iPhone.

“Fleeing the wedding?” I asked.

“Looking for a date, actually,” he said.

Now, this is where one might come up with a clever retort (“Might I apply for that job?” or “Give me two minutes; I have a dress in the car.”) before an adventure ensues. Others might insert the phrase “opportunity missed,” but I would like to reiterate that the man could not identify an ostrich. Also, his boutonniere suggested he was part of the wedding party, and what kind of friend wanders off and leaves his buddy at the reception?

I glanced from him to the ostrich/emu.

“Looks like the emu is free,” I said.

On the holiday, I headed to New Hamster for a horseback riding lesson that I was sure would catapult me into a life of trail riding in Montana. Too many memoirs of the West of late. So I met Dove, a Morgan horse, in his stable where the trainer explained we must first brush the horse. When Dove kicked his rear leg—a powerful kick for a horse with a gentle name—the trainer said, “Actually, I’ll brush Dove today” though I had already backed away. Another handler told us Dove likes to be out in the open for grooming, so we hustled him out there, but I still took a tentative brush to his muscular body. Didn’t want to anger the beast that I’d be climbing on in a few minutes.

“Now comb out his mane,” the trainer said. “He can’t feel it.”

Dove’s mane rivaled Medusa’s. I know how I’d take to someone dragging a comb through, but Dove was a trooper.

Minutes later, I had my boots in the stirrups, heels down, and was being led around the arena like a kid on a pony ride. A dog with a feather in its hair, ran around the dustbowl, pretending it was a horse. With the reins, I steered Dove around some cones but got the sense he’d done it a million times and my steering was just slowing us down. I did a lap perched like a jockey—half standing, knees gripping the horse—and then a bit of trotting, which involved that bouncing motion that looks so effortless but is not. Just so we’re clear, I will not be riding the range alone or breeding show horses anytime soon.

Not me

Definitely not me

More than 15 years ago, I bought this white, chippy bureau at a yard sale and convinced myself it was shabby chic. I mean, it kind of was, back when shabby was chic. But as my friend once muttered under his breath, More like shabby crap, I began to think that yes, the less-than-white chippy-turned-chipping bureau with the faint outline of an angel applique was ready for a makeover. And then I let it sit in my bedroom for another few years.

But moving to my modern pad made it stick out like a sore bureau and demanded that I drag its bones (and it has excellent bones) into the current decade. This is the candidate:

Before I went all Nate Berkus on the bureau

Cringe-worthy rosebud knobs

Despite keeping and eye on the feline lest she leave paw prints on my shiny new paint job, Maple was curious about the whole endeavor and kept sneaking off upstairs to smell the paint. She’s weird like that. I, however, did not enjoy the smell of oil-based paint and slept with the windows open, which, in a New England October is crisp. The result: a freshly revived bureau that keeps my sweaters snug and warm; just don’t look at the makeup remover pads I put under each leg to protect the floor that are now irretrievably stuck to the bureau.

After: a subtle lilac color

Fancy green glass drawer pulls from Anthropologie, which frankly cost more than the bureau

It’s been one year this week when I moved into my very own little house with its very own naked walls. I love a great photograph or painting but I’m also discriminating. You can’t just slap up motivational posters like it’s college. So, the art collection to rival the Met is slow in the making. But slowly I’m finding pieces that I love. And given that I have a fixation with owls ever since reading Wesley the Owl, I practically hooted when I discovered this treasure at a yard sale.

A little research turned up the fact that Ikki Matsumoto is the artist and that he features a lot of whimsical animals in his work, inspired by his mentor, Charley Harper. Who (sorry) could resist these stick-legged owls gazing at the night sky with comets in their eyes? Come on! How awesome are these little guys? $5 worth of awesome, though I would have paid a lot more.

The next weekend’s sale brought in this vibrant print for $3, a beach scene I snapped up, ironically, hours before the first snowfall.

Accessories were practically begging to go home with me, so I gave in to temptation and scored a horsehair belt, which is probably not horsehair, but I don’t know how else to describe it, two dangly pairs of earrings, and a Scotty dog ring that makes me feel like I have a dog without all the hassle.

      

Only Salem, home of more witches per capita than any other place around, would kick off its Halloween celebration with a midweek parade weeks before Halloween. School night or not, kids showed up and demanded candy from the passing floats. I had a nice perch in my friend’s condo that overlooks the pedestrian mall parade route where we watched marching bands and choreographed lawn chair routines (really). This festive city has been ready to celebrate for a month.

And you thought those blow up lawn decorations were just for Christmas.

The carnival at night

But the other morning, when I woke up to see not tourists in the cemetery but a witc—well, judge for yourself—I knew Halloween was on.

It’s dusk and Maple is on the lookout for the funny-looking black and white cat that slinks under the gate and into the patio every night to nibble on pods that fall from the tree.

The treats are pink and bulbous and the squirrels go to town on them too, so they must be tasty. Animals coming from miles around for this delicacy, apparently.

Tasty

Still, I don’t want my furball sprayed by Pepe, so I ease over to the door to scoop her up only to find a second skunk waddling by to check out the flower pots. An infestation.

At dinner, PBS is generous enough to air a show on the crafty world of skunks, illustrating close up how they secrete that spray. Not exactly dinner fare. And while the narrator insists that skunks retreat first and spray only when surprised or threatened, I can’t help but think a human and cat inches away through a screen door might signal danger and an upturned tail.

In a moment of sheer betrayal, the amiable weatherman, who has so far delivered delightful fall news and reports on the waxing and waning moon, has uttered the “s” word, and not the short “s” word that one associates with California, but the other “s” word that made me scream at the TV using yet another unkind “s” word.

The “s” word. In October. As in before November and December. I have only just put away my summer wardrobe this week after storing my sandals with a muffled sob.

After remembering that I do live in New England, and that a flurry is a flurry and it will be gone tomorrow and that this is really an opportunity to buy a new scarf and glove set, despite the fact that I can never find a decent scarf and glove set and will inevitably settle on something from Target that will last exactly one winter, I just read the revised forecast: potentially THREE INCHES. Excuse me while I have a nervous breakdown.

Ah, fall. Apple picking, jackets, cider donuts, and dead, dried cornstalks. Never understood that one. This weekend was as crisp and perfect as a Macintosh, even a Macintosh picked from a barrel rather than a tree because apple picking is winding down in these here parts. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to pick out the perfect plump pumpkin for my patio and had my eye on this one, but I couldn’t fit it in the car.

I settled on one less mutant gourd from the patch at Russell Orchards in Ipswich, a sweet orchard by the ocean where the salt adds a little something extra to the produce. It’s so close to Crane Beach that once global warming kicks in, there just might come a time when you can enjoy a morning dip in the ocean and then head off to pluck Honeycrisps in the afternoon.

Check out my fine feathers, ladies

I tried a drop-in ballet class this weekend and let me tell you, it’s a lot more fun when you’re six and in love with your pink slippers—your every awkward move praised by Miss Susan, ballet teacher extraordinaire, than when you’re thirtysomething, refusing to wear tights and wishing you had taken French so that you could understand the orders being barked at you. And you assume (incorrectly) that intermediate is a fine level because it will all come back to you, won’t it?

Plié

Relevé

Jeté

Glissade

What, what?

I’m concentrating so hard on copying the experienced dancers but I’m still two steps behind and not at all graceful. I’m pretty sure the teacher is talking to me when he says, “Do not fling your arms about!” and “Do not grip the barre like you want to hurt it.”

I remember, eventually, to point my fingers in that silly, affected manner and that a plié is like a squat (“Do not squat!” Or not), and I take solace in the fact that the one male dancer in the class knows what he is doing but has almost fainted from the exertion. Miss Susan, I need you.

For year, I’ve had wild animal dreams. I’m walking through the woods and spot two lions or a cougar pawing the ground. I bolt and make a narrow escape indoors, slamming the door behind me. Fear dreams, I suppose, but I don’t know how to read them. Wild animals = fear or Escape = conquering fear. Not sure what the fear is, but today the people of Zanesville, OH are living my nightmare after the owner of a small zoo there was found dead—the animals’ cages open and empty. Schools are closed and the town is in lockdown as lions and tigers and bears (say it) roam the neighborhood. Let’s hope they have an accurate count or someone could be mighty surprised when a lone wolf trots by around Christmas.

Aside from the sad reality that the man committed suicide before freeing his animals, and that many of these animals have been killed, and that children could be eaten while playing in the backyard, it is kind of funny, isn’t it? The thought that you could be walking to your car headed to work, coffee in hand, when a cheetah springs from the bushes to swipe your muffin—or you. Death is hardly funny, but these feel like my dreams, manifested. And you can’t help but root for these animals that have known only a cage and that at last are enjoying a taste of freedom. Go, giraffe, I want to yell. Run on your spindly legs!

So tonight, I lend my wild animal dreams to the people of Zanesville and hope that they find a permanent home in slumbering Ohio.

Reality shows make me sad, but I do adore one: Project Runway. And I must not be the only one because cable execs have gone spin-off crazy: On the Road with Austin and Santino; Christian Siriano: Having a Moment, Project Jay; and coming soon Project Runway: Masters, not to mention those vapid model shows and After the Runway.

Enter, Project Accessory.

Really?

Is it me or is your first thought when you see this promo: Saturday Night Live skit?

Every Columbus Day, my friends and I drive to the White Mountains to twist ourselves into pretzels. Yoga and hiking dominate our annual retreat, and on the hikes at lesat, hats are generally involved. It’s rained on our hikes, even hailed; this year, I couldn’t strip off enough layers and contemplated plunging into the cold river.

We did yoga in the morning, chowed on breakfast, hiked, collapsed, did restorative yoga, ate dinner, read, and hit the sack at a luxuriously early time. We’re always a smidge late for the foliage, but this year, we were a smidge too early; or the rainy season has thrown the trees off their schedule. But the views weren’t too tough to take.

This hike was so strenuous, I barely made the .9 portion before turning back and opting to lounge in the sun with a book about an owl, which seriously, was riveting and a lot easier on the calves.

Barely an hour into our first night, and safely ensconced in the dining hall of the AMC Highland Lodge, we were up and out of our chairs, pressed to the window to watch a black bear ambling by. Its dark furry coat and tan snout was quintessential teddy bear. Two arriving yogis outside, unaware of the bear 20 feet away, thought those of us at the window were waving hello, leading us to invent the universal sign for “bear” (hands raised like claws while snarling).

Columbus might have worn a fuzzy, cable-knit sweater and thick woolen pants when he cruised the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria up to these here shores. But on this Columbus Day in New England, more reminiscent of August, boxers would have sufficed. It’s hot. The windows are open and the beach was packed with celebratory sunbathers. Global warming, we welcome you.

Good Harbor Beach, Gloucester

People swam despite the water temp and dogs frolicked and romped, savoring the surprise summer day. Clouds took the day off.

Even the kites got into the holiday.

Not hours into October and already the throngs have descended on Salem. It’s as if people were sitting in their cars, costumed, just waiting for the calendar to flip. All of a sudden there’s smoke coming out of the witch museums and vendors popping luring even the locals (apple cinnamon buns?).  Overnight, in an abandoned lot in a prime location that always puzzled me, a sign goes up: Parking $20. I remember waiting for my real estate agent on the day of my home inspection last October and grinning when he cruised in on a scooter, parking his car for the month to avoid the traffic. A smart man, that agent.

At Target, before the shelves are even half-bare, I buy a boatload of Kit Kats to satiate the neighborhood kids—all two of them; the odds are good that the loot will be mine. And I don’t have to go around collecting it with a pillowcase.

But living in Salem levies a certain pressure to be outlandish when it comes to Halloween. My friend needed two days to decorate. But I eschew the skeletons, witches, the homemade graveyard made from cardboard and decorate for my first Halloween in Salem by refusing to sweep away the cobwebs that spiders have sewn in the corners of the house. I’m going for the natural look.

I will also be picking from a patch, or more likely buying, a plump pumpkin for my front step, but that’s as far as I go. No orange lights strung along the garden; no skulls resting in a flower pot; and absolutely no candy corn-colored decor wrapping around the dying shrub. I’m a minimalist.

If people want the full treatment, I’ll point them in the direction of the cemetery haunted by the old sheriff. I pay him 20 bucks to scare the hell out of people taking pictures with their iPhones.

In my hood, the neighbors' house is the color of a jack-o-lantern. Decorating? Check.

I found my old, felt Cookie Monster ornament in the basement and wanted to spruce him up with a quick trip through the washer—on the gentle cycle, of course. But after the spin dry, this was all that was left:

The late Cookie Monster

Just when I was kicking my Anthropologie habit a couple years back, they went and opened a new store in an old building known for its design roots in Harvard Square. I resisted. Purchasing a home and the economy made it easy to keep resisting. Goodbye funky, flowered, patchwork skirts. Goodbye heavenly nightgowns and $238 wedges (OK, I never bought these, but I coveted them). Farewell delicate, handpainted teacups and saucers. I don’t need you.

But after more than five years of intending to switch out the uncool knobs on my white, chippy bureau to chic modern ones, I finally steeled myself to buy eight new pulls that, for the same price, might have paid for a new bureau on craigslist. I had a gift card, so it eased the pain.

Before hustling to the check out, I lingered over sweet notecards and dangly chandelier earrings, interior design books and more shoes worth a car payment. Then I hit the cramped sale room (seriously, it’s so small that finding a bargain is earned; patience tried) and found one awesome pair of pants (zipper pockets, zippered cropped legs), the only one of its style and in my size and marked with in beautiful red ink with the unbelievable: $9.95. Ten-dollar pants at Anthropologie? I’m back, baby. I’m sorry I ever left you.