Some things that were brought to my attention

First, driving around town yesterday we saw a rainbow up in the clouds on a day with no rain in sight.  The photo is poor, but you can see the circled diagonal streak that didn't translate from the magnificent colours that I tried to capture.

We took it as a sign of much needed hope.

I recently received an email from an organization (who will remain unnamed since they are now seeking less publicity) asking me to unlink a link in one of my blog posts  After a little investigation the link was in a post from almost three years ago and appeared in a spam comment which I had ignored.  I thought it was pretty ballzy for an organization to hire people to leave comments on blogs to link their business and then to demand their own thin sort of advertising be removed.  I found myself with an earworm of that old Monty Python song, "Spam".

And I'll leave you with my latest pet peeve which is reading things like "c if u"  and "b4" anywhere that isn't a text message or a tweet.  I'm really not as crabby as I sound.

This Post Has No Title

This was not the blog post I started to write a week ago.  Last Friday I was going to talk about Halloween,  the nasty weather, friendship and finding community.  Then a vicious wind storm ripped through, breaking what would not bend

creating an electrical fireball and exploding  transformers, leaving behind crop circle burns on lawns

 melted lava 

and other Rorschach-esque metallic splotches etched into the sidewalks.

This was followed, on a personal level, by an allergic reaction to medication for a root canal gone wrong and on a global level, a painful awakening to what has been going on in Fukushima, the black rhinoceras being declared extinct and typhoon Haiyan rearranging innumerable lives.  

I no longer have the ability to make sense of a day, find platitudes or comfort at all.  The only thing I can do is witness.

Yikes, Blogger!  What did you do since I last wrote here?  I can't find anything!  It's as if someone came in and moved my furniture around.  Where is my sidebar?  Where are my options?  And I thought I was dropping in to open the windows, brush away some cobwebs, spruce the place up a bit, you know... And now I'm wasting precious time trying to find my "stuff".  First Facebook lets everyone see what news articles I read (honestly, it feels as if someone has walked in on me in the bathroom), now Blogger hides my "stuff".  It's enough to make me crawl back under my rock and hide or move over to wordpress or squarespace, but that would mean I am actually paying more attention over here.  Now, since I'm here, I'll share a few crazy things that have been rocking my world these last few weeks.

First of all, I dropped, and broke, my camera, my little Canon point and shoot and, shoot, I have missed it more than I thought I would.  My Big Girl camera is heavy and hard on my neck and back and so I tend to not take it along in the same way and the camera in my phone is...well...not my point and shoot.  And speaking of shoot, before it broke I discovered the first mint shoots up in my garden

and a stupendous beetle.  

 

I had breakfast with Marge 

and Homer

coached on how to blow bubblegum bubbles.

I scored some soccer shoes

hung out with a moose

despaired about graffiti on our school - spelling, anyone?

I have taken exquisite care of myself, said good-bye to the brother of a dear friend, and to the dog of another dear friend (f*ck you, cancer).  I have felt a little prickly

had a hissy fit or two

washed my hair

and spied on the neighbours.

I ordered two bathing suits online and found they both fit - or fit as well as any bathing suit will on this morphing menopausal body (alas, no photos).   I have purged clutter and paid my taxes, laughed one-sixteenth of the way around the block

slowed down

made peace, if not friends with the bandits

and taken a giant leap into the future, with one big toe still back "here" on the ground.  

I have committed to two adventures these next two weekends which will find me travelling near and far(ther).  

I have been absent, present and changing faster than a chameleon could accommodate his own cammoflage.  And it's all been good and overdue and necessary.

$300.57

$300.57 of groceries. Not including the turkey.

Thanks Ted!

If you have ever had the feeling that Big Brother is closer than you would like him to be, I invite you to watch this Ted Talks

I Ask You...

...OK, it is mid-June here in the northern hemisphere so why, why, I beg, are the maple leaves turning this colour NOW????

Do they know something I don't know?

Journeying

Ahhhhhh. Retreats. Funny enough my trip to Kripalu did make me retreat into myself. I was never a very social person and going off to a place chock full of people I would have to hob-knob with is very much out of character for me. I love to isolate myself, am happy as a clam all on my own, I crave time by myself and have always been like that. Immersing myself in a crowd of 700 people is the last thing I would do if I was in my right mind.

I had been drawn there to do the first level of a course in animal communication with Penelope Smith. In preparation for the passing of my sweet, old dog, I had read Smith's, "Animals in Spirit" book earlier this year. That book changed my way of thinking about pets and animals by 180 degrees. It was an immediate and never-going-back shift. When I put the book down I felt that I had to meet this woman, had to be in her presence. Things all came together when I found the offering of the first stage of her instruction at Kripalu on the dates when I had extra hands on board for my son and I was off of work. Kripalu is a mere 5 hour drive from where I live, completely do-able. It was a words-cannot-describe experience. Naturally, I met like-minded people, equally excited with similar hopes and shared one of a kind experiences. A room of 20 strangers gathered, opened up, learned and hopefully will go out and share. Oh yeah, there was quite a bit of crying too. And a good share of laughter. This little-big guy, Speed, had a few special words for me, thanks Speed, what you gave to me will stay with me always.

Kripalu is a yoga based retreat center with classes for all levels offered multiple times a day. The days I was there it was hot, especially hot and humid for the mountains and it was flooded with yoginis. Nice people, yoginis. I do yoga regularly in my home, even wake up at an ungodly hour to fit it in, but I felt a bit like a geek in high school. I don't wear the yogini clothes, don't speak the yogini speak. The difference between now and that high school awkwardness is that I was there as a seeker and none of that differentness mattered.

I did take one early morning yoga class. It was full to the brim, we bumped elbows and toes and the whole room smelled like feet. It's kind of hard to find your Om under those circumstances. And I am so very grateful there were no random farters in that class. Every other yoga class I have taken there is always one person who really feels free enough to let go. With no judgment meant to those free and unselfconscious farters. There are even times I wish I felt that kind of personal freedom. I'm just not there yet.

I left only one rock behind, deep in the woods.

And speaking of rocks, I ended my journey with a side trip to the Queen of Arts at her home. I got to see her studio, meet her animals (hi Dave!). Even her garden has royalty.

Ever the graceful Queen, she left a beautiful bouquet of freshly cut flowers from her garden (the blue hydrangeas may or may not have been stolen) in the room where I slept.

Even the kitchen window was be-flowered.

I got a candid silhouette of Cosmo the Cat.

But wait a minute - what is that I see, in her garden?

Let me get closer...

Is it..... is it... a large, unpainted rock?!

Is It Just Me?

Am I the only one who finds this math problem that was a part of Riley's homework tonight a wee bit, oh shall we say - morbid for grade one?

Translation: There were 7 fish in the bowl. 6 of them died. How many were left?

And don't get me started on the book these little wankers have to read, "Mon Chien Balou". A cheery little story about a boy's dog who gets hit by a car and dies.

I swear I don't have to make this stuff up.

P.S. I think there is also a grammatical error in the math question.

Spreading the Love

Some days it's hard to believe that someone as like minded as me is up and spreading the love in my neighborhood, but here's the evidence - a not-so-little magic tulip petal heart we found down by the water this morning.

I wonder if other people who are finding our rocks are also wondering about us.

I don't know about you, but I really needed to see this this morning.

Living Large

One of our homework assignments in Patti Digh/David Robinson's LIAV telecoaching class was to do some rock balancing as an exercise to be fully present in our lives. For almost two months now I have looked for the opportunity to do this and it's a lot harder than it looks. My Tuesday morning walk down by the water netted this photo:

And this detail:

Larger than life, three formations of rocks balanced. It wasn't me who did it, but it really threw me for a loop. In September I had sat on the same shore, attempting to balance a handful of small rocks, my best attempt made a pile about two inches high. I didn't see any larger rocks even though they were right under my nose. In the spirit of Patti's writing, and in the spirit of being open, I took this to mean that I need to start thinking large. It's time to let all possibilities in, especially the grandiose and the impossible. I had a very vivid daydream a few weeks ago, something else that knocked me for a loop and I knew it would be a pivotal point in my growth. I need to realize that dream. Over at Beth's place at Be Yourself, she was talking this week about choosing her word for the coming year. Last year my word was "peace", this next year my word is "dream". I am going to dream big.

Qs 31, 32 & Synchronicity

I spent today catching up with *e*'s questions, specifically numbers 31 and 32. I re-worked 31 a number of times, I just couldn't seem to get it right, but I'm satisfied with it now. What three words would someone use to describe me?

Synchronicity is a recurring theme in my life. It's probably been two weeks that I have worked on this, re-worked and re-worked it. Two weeks ago one of my homework assignments for the Patti Digh/David Robinson telecoaching class I am participating in was to interview a number of people asking them what they thought my greatest strengths and best qualities are and what they think my work in the world is. It's no co-incidence that I was working this question on my tag at the same time. Isn't the world an amazing place?

And question 32, "Why did I do that?" There were any number of bone-head things I could have chosen to answer this question but I wanted to keep a positive light on it. Last week I spent an afternoon doing some self-portraits inspired from an article in an old Somerset Studio magazine. I set up my camera on the tripod (in my studio), set the self timer and then just danced around the room. Some of the photos were incredible. I want to re-do this exercise outside before the snow flies, probably at the crack of dawn because of the neighbors and what may be left of my reputation. This one I cropped and ran through Befunky.com for the sepia tones and lines. I inked the edges too heavily, but what the heck.

The journaling on the back reads: I danced, in my solitude, only my internal music playing. I spun and leapt, dipped and waved like a tree in the wind. And it felt good.

In yet another example of synchronicity, I worked all afternoon on my card for the recipient I received via Se'Lah's Gift of Jewels post. I had decided to do a postcard because I had ready a stack of gessoed 4 x 6 watercolor cards. I was thinking crow, red, full moon and three panels. I digress, but I have been learning about cicadas, katydids and crickets and have wanted to do one piece combining each one in their own panel. Anyway...this idea of three panels spilled over into this crow, red, full moon piece I started. While blog surfing later in the afternoon I discovered Lisa at The Wright Stuff had just completed a triptych involving a crow, the color red and what looks like a full moon (although it might be the sun). Lisa and I were co-wreckers on Jamie Ridler's wrecking crew and we are both signed up for Julie's Art Journaling class starting in a couple of weeks. If this kind of stuff didn't tickle me so much, it would scare me.

Birds in the Belfry

The strangest thing happened tonight walking my dog. We came upon a bird in the middle of the road, just sitting still. I approached it, thinking my movement would make it fly away, I was hoping to get it out of traffic. It didn't move so I nudged it with my foot and it just took a little hop. I nudged again and it flew up and landed on the dog's leash. I gently walked it back to the sidewalk and tried to shake it off in the grass near some bushes but it held on. I shook a little harder but it held fast, it even swung around like a gymnast on the leash. So we took up walking, I walked all the way home, hoping to get a picture of it but it flew away just as the camera came out. I believe it was a baby cardinal, it had little tufts of baby feathers, a fledgling. I was so relieved to see it fly and it did go high, right up into a tree. I had started to wonder what the heck I was going to do with it. And that white bush on my neighbor's property? It is bridal veil spirea. I thought it was called that because it would make a beautiful cascading bouquet but it also turns to confetti at a certain stage. Here, after my dog walked under one of those bushes, she even got some in her eye:

Found Objects

The day is young but it started off rather poorly. It was little things, but just too many of them. Example: 8:05 a.m. I had just withdrawn some cash from the bank machine and one of the 20's that came out was only half a bill. I'm not kidding. At 8:05 the bank isn't open. Just one shining example of how my day was headed. And that wasn't even the beginning of the weirdness.

Yesterday was rather challenging and I'll admit that lately I've been asking for a lot of - for lack of a better word - guidance. In fact I believe I shouted it out in my meltdown around 8:35 p.m. last night, likely multiple times. Imagine my surprise when I got in the car this morning and found a little note. A little post-it yellow flag stuck on the INSIDE of where my car door meets the frame. Impossible to not notice. I don't own yellow post-it flags and this is definitely not my handwriting.A cryptic message, for sure. "Let My Prayer". In all the questions I've had lately, "WTF?" is probably the most frequently posed. So I'm just going to throw this out there, WTF?

And because this day is apparently going to be one of those astonishing ones, up there beside the post-it is what I found beside my car parked outside the vet's office. It's seen better days, the center piece has almost come out of the base and it has a unique curve to it. But it hardly makes up for the half-twenty I'm out from the ATM. I hate to sound ungrateful.

Tickled

First off, I will say that today was a much easier day than I've seen in a while. Some things fell (potentially) into place, which is to say that some barriers and obstacles that were on my path earlier this week have inched over. But I was whole heartedly tickled to find a comment in my post from this morning from none other than Patti Digh. !!!!! Sorry, but that deserved each and every one of those exclamation points. I've been reading her, "Life is a Verb" for the last ten days or so, finding times when the house is quiet and I can really absorb her words. I was/am going to give it its full due when I have turned the last page but I mentioned the Juan Mann video this morning and how it helped get me off a negative tact I had tried to not be on, but one I found myself stuck with one foot in nevertheless. Her comment will be added to my claim to fame, along with my two published letters to the editor.

Haiku Friday

OK, this was too weird to not record. Walking my dog this afternoon I found a third penny lying in the grass. Again, the year of Riley's birth. Maybe they just minted a lot of pennies in 2003. I'm choosing the positive side of all the possibilities my rampant, superstitious mind has run up. My genie in a bottle - three wishes today.

Unbelievable
A third penny, it found me
An omen today?

Eye On The Prize

Oh, who am I kidding? I can't do this without words. Something very strange happened yesterday. Or maybe it was today. I won something. I still can't believe it. A few days ago I came across a blog called Got Art? and the first post I saw, Sherry was giving away a piece of her mixed media work to the first person who could guess what was the object of a photo close-up she had up. It was a hard one, plenty of people were guessing all kinds of things, my first guess was coffee beans dropping in a glass of milk. It turns out it was a photo of the inside of a cherimoya. Which I got only because someone else had guessed an exotic fruit and then Sherry gave another clue that it began with "ch". I must admit I got a little frantic at one point, shouting out all kinds of exotic fruits that begin with "ch". So it turns out that one of my guesses was right. I think the last thing I won was $5.00 when I was 5 years old - we used to have a kind of lotto based on horse racing and I remember when I won, I had to put the $5.00 in the bank. Now there's a good pastime for 5 year olds - gambling. Look where it got me!

Strange Co-incidence

One of the funniest blogs I read is Eat My Yard. Recently the author posted a picture of some old valentine balloons stuck in a tree near her house. I couldn't believe it when I saw this in a tree down in Florida last week. Naturally, I had to take a picture and post it with a link to the other one. What are the chances, huh?! File that under "Life is Stranger Than Fiction".

Days of Forts and Roses

It has been a day of playing with things like rope, long tubes and building forts. Good old fashioned kind of wintry fun. I'd like to say I have some roses but the closest I came was buying a bunch of tulips. But it was a measly bunch and they were asking $15. And since I'm on an austerity program, I declined. I like the ones you get in earth, bulbs and all for around $8 or $9, then you can plant the bulbs for next year. It's spring break here, as I've mentioned, and with a lot of Riley's friends either away or sick, it was just the two of us, getting up to shenanigans today. Early morning bedhead and a shot of today's fort:


We scored well at the library this morning. I was hoping to find something in paperback to take on our upcoming vacation at the end of the month and lo and behold they had a Picoult softcover that I haven't read yet (Plain Truth) and it looks like splendid vacation reading. I also picked up Edeet Ravel's, "Your Sad Eyes and Unforgettable Mouth", Sue Miller's, "The Senator's Wife" and Joan Barfoot's, "Exit Lines". Right now I'm well into Jan Wong's, "Beijing Confidential" and I also have in paperback, "Letters from the Dhamma Brothers". Lots of good stuff to read, I like having a fresh stack of books, I feel like I have a security blanket. Of course I also have the slightly stale stack of books, the ones that I know I should read or ones that have found their way to me via some route or other.

I managed to sneak in an hour and a half in my studio today, working away at Owl Owl (which is becoming less and less about the owls) and my second OWOH piece. Some minor disasters with the distress inks, but it was just nice to get my hands dirty. My earlier days this week at work left me so depleted of energy it was ridiculous. I had to fight to stay awake until 9:30 last night and only made it that late because I was languishing in a hot bath with my Jan Wong book and didn't want to put it down.

I'm hoping tomorrow will give me even more time in the studio, I'd love to start a tag or two, which I am now behind by three, and I have some high hopes for my OWOH piece. I might even be able to mail them out next week - yippee! I was reading a blog recently (I forget which one) where the artist was saying she was working on about 7 different pieces all at the same time. I also find myself working on a few concurrently. I've been experimenting with different techniques and papers sometimes I just need to let it dry before moving on. Or sometimes I hit a wall but am still churning with imagery that begs a new piece of paper or canvas. I find creating such a fascinating process.

I am also feeling quite grateful that a lot of awful weather to the south and the east of me seems to have just grazed my town. As hard as the middle of winter can be with short, dark and cold days, I find this time of year some of the hardest to bear up under during storms. You know it's not going to last with the warmth of the sun melting things even on days that don't go above the freezing mark, but it's just such a slap in the face to get dumped on NOW.

But something did rattle my cage this morning. I saw an article, and a photo, in the newspaper about someone I went to art school with, someone who I was very good friends with then and stayed friends with after we graduated, although we hadn't been in contact for a number of years. He had been arrested last fall (and is still in prison) for indecent exposure in a playground and possessing child pornography. His recent roommate had found the material and blew the whistle and she was quoted in the article about how important it is to not be passive in life, how we need to stand up and do the right thing. So true.

Oreneta Made Me Do It

This is all Oreneta's idea. She wants us to take a picture of our bathroom cupboards and drawers. It's based on Lulu's idea of taking a picture outside your kitchen window. Now, I have no bathroom drawers so here's one of my linen closet which takes the spill-over and one of my cupboards, this one consisting mostly of hair products. Now that's a slap in the face! It's funny this subject should come up because recently I was rooting around in my linen closet realizing how fossilized it had become. I have started throwing out (read: rinsing out and/or recycling or taking back to the pharmacy if the date is expired) something every day. You can imagine how much crap was in there if I'm still managing to find something to get rid of. In all, it has made me feel quite liberated.

My First Award!

I'm still picking myself up off the floor. Who knew? The amazing Brenda has nominated me for my first blog award. And it's a goodie (as Wall-E would say).


The Marie Antoinette,
Real Person, A Real Award

I love the idea that I'm a real person as I frequently have doubts.

Here are the rules for the award (which I have stolen word for word, or copy and paste, as we say in blog land from the aforementioned Brenda):

1. Put the picture of Marie Antoinette on your blog.
2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.
3. Nominate at least 7 or more blogs.
4. Link to those blogs from your blog.
5. Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know you've shared the award with them.

I'm not sure I know seven bloggers worthy of this award, which is not to say they don't exist, only that I don't follow that many. But I'll start and see how many I can ferret out. So, in no order of importance, but in the order that they appear in my bookmarks:

Kal - [i] love life
Karen - karenika.com
Snap - tales from twisty lane
Oreneta - orenata aground
Beth - books etc.
Garden hoe - eat my yard
Mama tulip - where am I going and why am I in this hand basket


These ladies inspire me, make me laugh, make me feel - well, human. So what better way to honor than to give them this Real Person Award.

(Brenda, I would have put you up there too, but didn't know if it was within the guidelines to re-gift it!)