Happy Thanksgiving

Mom's Christmas cactus is struggling. I have to find the right kind of soil and a decent clay pot it can become rootbound in. Any advice from experts would be welcome.

The turkey is in the oven. Our tribe is very small this year. Jake, Missy, and Charlie are over the river and through the woods. Colin has the tail end of the flu so guests were warned off. I could allow for melancholy but there's too much to be thankful for. Balance, even now. Happy Thanksgiving.

Time for work in the studio. Peel a few potatoes and then beck to revisions.

plans change

As small as our Thanksgiving celebration was going to be, it's going to be necessarily smaller. Colin seems to have the flu and I wouldn't want to guess at when he is no longer a danger to people at risk.

I've made some sense of the cloth I have and hand and have started free-piecing a new "Picnic in Hell", but I think I'll come up with a new name for it. It's going to get big and I have no plans on finishing it by Christmas. Sometime in the coming cold months will do just fine.  My phone camera is seeing pink and purple where there is almost none..this is a very warm quilt, colorwise.

Trying to find a balance between writing and working the cloth because the next book will incorporate both.

catching up

 I spent an entire week in a strange city in close proximity with 100+ strangers and ate all manner of food and did not get sick. So much for my Howard Hughes syndrome. I had to go shopping here at home to find a bag of cut-up lettuce that seems to have missed getting washed.

TWO DAYS of Montezuma's revenge later (no pictures, please) I've sworn off lettuce unless I grow it myself. I must be feeling better because I just finished cleaning The Oven That Had Never Been Cleaned and, necessarily, washing the kitchen floor and I'm not laying on the couch. There will be Turkey this year.

Here are a few more random pics from Salem. A lot of the storm drains are fabulously arted up like this to remind people that the ocean is just a few blocks away and the denizens there would rather you didn't dump nasty shit down the drains.

These payphones were in the hotel lobby. I regret not giving one a try. I sat on the bench across from them  for a long time remembering how central these were in my life long ago. Everyone's lives.

They will still work when all the cell service goes down, but they can only call each other and land lines. Will they know how to find each other?
 Do you know any land line numbers?
Mine is 770.925.0138. I might just answer.

I have so many story lines waiting to use the phones. Remember?

This photo was on a shelf in the nook where the grand old dame read my cards. Furio is either one of her regulars or she's a big fan.

And this mess. Just like I left it although I'm going to have to kick it into gear because  there are Christmas gifts to be made.  Onward.

WUUCON 16

Salem Commons

thanks to everyone who ordered a fat baggie this past week. I've been away at the WUUCON writer's conference in Salem, Ma learning how much I don't know about writing. I'll be filling those orders once I get home and sleep 12 hours straight.

It's been great being in the same boat with a lot of fun and interesting people who are all afflicted with the compulsion to write.

Salem is a unique small town, it's dedication to it's tourism makes for a comfy, friendly, if expensive, vistit.
New England in the fall is everything I remember and love. Tomorrow is the last day and I'll savor every minute.

Mr./Ms.? Tag up there in B&W is the waiting room concierge at Magika where I had a most wonderful and encouraging tarot card reading today. As if I needed the cards to tell me how lucky I was and how I am loved and protected from beyond. Still, how in the heck did she know that Salvador was my first choice for a first name for my first born? Jimmy was not amused and I conceded. Madam Bruno knew.

shop stuff

All this is one fat baggy about to be packed and shipped. I found another  large tub of exotics!  I'm going out of town for a week, so if you order today, I won't be shipping until the 15th.   You know you want one.   Let me know.