I got out in the sun today and got the rest of the bigger sticks off the lawn in preparation for the long-overdue first mowing. By 230 it was nap city.
All the windows were open. Soft warm breezes were lurking in the curtains. The deep chimes on the high deck were very soft, almost apologetic. I didn't drift off, I dropped like a rock. Good sleep.
When I woke up, I realized how warm it was. 79 degrees out at the peak today. Warm enough to start thinking about the first dye fest of the season. It may not happen tomorrow, but soon.
As I work the phones tonight, I'm winding thread between calls. Tonight, I'll dream in color.
And did you see these wonders? Huzzah The Bucklings of the Hill!
At first, I wished that I had planned this one better. Now, I'm forced into a way to insert some really rich profanity. White on white, maybe.
I never really minded the hermit life because it was by choice and I knew there was all manner of crazed doings going on out in the world- parties, parades, flash mobs, drive bys- you know, Life.
Now it's disturbing. Our town has a curfew.
I don't want to dwell on imagined outcomes, but I inherited a lot of hard times angst from that same grandmother who taught me embroidery. Not that she ever complained.
They did what they had to do. Tenant farmers during the Great Depression. She would take slivers of soap, soften them, then press them together into a multi-colored lump to keep on soaping. Teabags used all day long. Real rag rugs.
This morning I set up online shopping for two different grocery stores. It took two to find the things I wanted.
It was good to see the stores limiting the quantities of things people can buy. You pick a time window, they bag it up, email you when it's ready, you pull up and they drop it in your trunk.
Two twenty pound bags of their favorite dry food and another forty pounds of cat litter was the find.
Knowing that at least Salem (the black and white one) and this demon know how to kill stuff and go to the bathroom outside is comforting. He gets very pissy when I try to pry him out of the sewing chair.
I learned very young to never say "I'm bored" out loud or you'd find yourself sitting at the kitchen table polishing silverware, cleaning the parakeet's cage with a toothbrush and Windex, or hand whisking the stair carpets - all three floors worth. There is no end of tedious housekeeping tasks that a five-year-old can do if her Grandmother hears those dread words. Being bored was unacceptable.
Aside from forced child labor, I still have Nelly to thank for introducing me to needle, thread & hoops.
So here's the nearest reading pile. TV has too much temptation to drop in the news. We all know what's going on and what we need to do, I hope. Not that I'm putting my head in the sand. Just not letting the sand clog my eyes, ears, nose, and heart.
More about things to read soon.
Thanks for the tip, Dee. The heating pad is my new best friend.
No particular injury to my back, but my job (Yay! I still have one and will as long as there are lawyers) and my avocation keep me in a chair way too many hours and I'm paying for that.
I miss walking and hope to get back to it soon. New sneakers arrived just the other day. I went to the park yesterday, but couldn't even find a place to park for the families with SUVs fulla kids. Good for them. I have a yard that needs picking up and a street to stroll.
This, a reminder of Things I Used to Do and Look Forward to Doing Again, soon as Spring starts thinking about Summer. Big and Batik.
He pulled the dusty cassette player off the shelf. I cleaned it, put in batteries but the tape playing mechanism was dead. The radio worked though and he was spellbound.
We had a great long day together today. His school has closed for the upcoming weeks. But I won't have much hand in his care.
I'm going to welcome Spring here at home, lessening my exposure as much as possible. I guess, statistically, I'm in the risk group. I spent the big chunk of January with a respiratory infection that had me pissing myself with every damn cough.
So, not much will change. I work from home as it is. Have little to no social life and no travel plans to cancel.
I'm a little annoyed that it's probably smart to not pick up a book that I held at the library. I hate e-books, but I guess I better get over that.
Like everyone, hard emotions are running deep and wide. Last night I put on the movie "Yesterday". A piece of fluff to play in the background while I stared angrily at the manuscript, not really focusing. Even though the film is overly sweet and gently lame, hearing bits and pieces of the Beatles music was enough for me to leave it on. Then, there came a scene that hit me in the heart like a brick and I cried full bore, ugly for ten minutes. If I'd been in a theater, I would have been asked to leave.
Eye candy is all I have to offer for the moment. Soul candy is what a lot of us are craving, but that's going to take some time to uncover.
My disappointment in the way the patriarchy has swept aside the best-qualified candidate is like a toothache. I can only hope that the smarter of the two old white men living on borrowed time will call her to be the VP.
Here the tangible work from the past year. A few other things, those crossovers with text, have gone on to new homes.
The shirking lizard-brained part of me wants to start a new piece, but I have a lot of other things that need my attention now. Maybe, if I get quarantined.
Not technically necessary, but strangely satisfying.
I needed to see how it was going to break down into 'seasons'.
Now that it's on paper, I'm reluctant to go near it for fear of finding something that needs correcting, which is foolish and unrealistic. But I do have other things to do first.
.
And there was good company. Have you ever had anyone tell you that they remember everything you say? Frightening and wonderful.
I am watching the PBS Nature program "Cats". I am not alone.
One of the two new cats has brought dead squirrels into the kitchen. Two yesterday. I disposed of the first and thought I'd slipped a cog when I found another in the exact same spot not two hours later.
I suspect Bailey is the killer. I've watched him hunting. Young and inept, he's learning as he goes. We have plenty of rodents so I'm not all that worried about the birds.
And speaking of watching, the head movie critic of House Lacativa just had me sit through "Midsommar".
I'm supposed to be doing a half-dozen different things: getting up to speed with my coding. learning how to interface with potentional cover designers. prospecting the web for images pertinent to the same.
Instead, I'm trying to keep a mild cold from becoming a spring behemoth. Thinking about looking at the ProChem site for new dye colors. Stitching alien instructions. Listening in on conversations between my characters. Shaping the plot of the next book with each stitch (telling my phone the details so they won't spin off into the ether). Worrying about distant family. Thinking about distant lives.
Low tide stuff, but action is required. Library. Orange juice.
Six am alarm. I drove through the dark to get there like when he was a baby. It was very foggy and I zoned out and almost missed a turn.
It's been a while since we've had a whole Monday. Screw all the presidents, we had a great time. Charlie informed me that Herbert Hoover kept pet alligators. Who knew?
What a relief for me. No news or politics. No reading, no writing, no research. No stitching or cloth. As little phone as possible. Just focus on him and the doings.
Late in the day, we watched a movie together that had us both laughing. Of all things, Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon, probably the funniest thing on Netflix right now.
Then his Dad picked him up and I signed on to my shift, humanity restored.
.
My sleep/wake cycles have been sacrificed to family duties for a few days. I keep asking myself if this is Sunday.
Charlie stayed overnight Thursday. All the cats see these sleepovers as an invitation to Circus. With all four of them, kid and cats, in my bed I got about two hours of sleep. I dropped him off at a friend's house for the day on Friday and was home by mid-morning. A twenty-minute nap turned into two hours and that awful "what day is it?" lost weekend feeling that persisted through my shift at work.
Saturday dawned sharp and cold. The sunlight by itself almost too harsh to work by so I balanced it with the task lamp, but I was restless. Couldn't settle into a stitch or sequence. There was editing to do and reading for a friend.
I'm resigned to let this take it's sweet time to manifest. Let it rest and not get obsessive with progress.
Gifts came. The best kind. On the bottom, a long-coveted treasure from afar. Thank you!
Colin is busy reclaiming the living room from a cluttered hoard. "Cutting for Stone", I thought I'd lost. Yet to read and want to.
The two books on the top of this pile were from deep in our disordered stacks. I'd say they've come from beyond, including a note, a slightly delayed valentine. One of my first Tarot books and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, provenance unknown. The note was between them.
It's interesting how some people seem to be afraid of secret messages. Rest assured, if I have something important to add to the conversation, I will stoop to crude language at a third grade level to accommodate those who need it.
In the meantime, I watch my country try to eat itself alive . Notice the word "try".
I believe that the oppressors will choke to death on their own agenda because there are far too many good people who oppose the self-serving ugliness of the current administration. Those who support that evil agenda will forever bear the stain of their fear and greed. We see you.
What to do? Only what one person can, one moment to the next. Be kind. Vote. Keep your knives sharp.
Just a scrap from the floor while I was rummaging through a pile of finished pieces. Still wanting to take some to the copy place to make prints.
Just a scrap but it has magic.
It was so warm out today. If I had believed the weather report and planned for it, I could have dyed thread!
As it is, I'm going to be pilfering from my inventory tomorrow for whatever greens I can find.
The work in progress is needing a lot of green.
And thrilled to have finally found my six-inch maple hoops. I started updating the holiday tablecloth back around Thanksgiving. It's been buried under a pile of miscellany since then.
Those starts. I was supposed to NOT watch the news today. Instead, I watched and listened to history as Adam Schiff gave his stunning summation to the senate.
I did get out and walk the back trail at Ron Reagan park. A whole seven-tenths of a mile if their signs are to be believed. Next time, I need to bring my own folding chair .
Taking charge of things that I can affect in real time.
I've donated, made calls, and will vote. Other than that, I'm out. Social media outrage, no matter the platform, is a waste of time. It's certainly no place to get valid information.
I know who my people are and will stay in touch.
This is one of my Dixie Minks, really no longer fit for wearing in public, but it's like a favorite cardigan. The right elbow was worn through and there was a "lose your glasses" hole in the chest pocket. Fixing it up was time well spent today. Worthy.
Shocked? Don't be. I won't have a gun in the house for a lot of reasons, but it's good to know that I can use this tool should the situation arise. The bullets were expensive and look like jewelry. Crows would steal them.
This was my first time firing a real handgun and it was pretty much as I expected. Noisy, even with ear protection, and pretty quickly, boring. You can't see it in this image, but I got him in the carrot. That is a dead snowman. I have half a box of bullets left over.
I asked for a .45, which is rather large, but I have big hands, and this was the gun I used in a scene in my book. I also needed to know if it could accidentally discharge if dropped and had that confirmed by a very knowledgeable person.
I think I know why fake gangstas hold their guns sideways. They have no intention of shooting anyone, just making a lot of noise.
This morning I was reminded of the magic of making reprographs of finished work. Maybe a trip to Fedex/Kinkos over the weekend to make some prints from new work.
Note to self - do not forget masking tape for removal of cat hair, etc. This method is SO unforgiving of the messy life of a studio.
And (drum roll, please) my editor finished reading my manuscript and I couldn't be more encouraged to go forward as a self-publisher.
There is still so much to do. I have to convince myself that production and marketing are as absorbing and interesting as writing.
This piece is evolving around the theme of secret messages. Evolving because I am winging every bit of it. Even the basted substrate cloth has been cut away and shifted as I stitch.
To let you in on those secret messages, all of this stitch activity is, for me, a very useful misdirection of brain activity. Others may meditate while stitching, but while my hands and eyes are busy making second by second choices at the warp and weft level, my mind is gathering up the threads of a book I'm working on.
One of the devices in the story is a young child who has been taught embroidery to keep her busy and out of the adult's hair. There are strong paranormal and magical elements in the story; irascible ghosts, talking animals, demons walking around in everyday bodies, people possessed by evil. Evil itself writ large and loud, a pillar of his community.
The child takes it upon herself to help the afflicted by stitching hidden messages in clothing stolen from clotheslines by her familiar, a cigar-smoking Barbary Ape named Ace.
The messages? Simple, childish directives like "sleep good" or "be nicer" go unnoticed until she steps up her game to stronger messages and bigger magic comes into play. The working title is "The Monkeytown Murders".
It's tough switching between editing one book and writing the next one. Needle and thread are helping me find the way.
There was no school for MLK day, so Charlie and I made plans.
Plans that were quickly derailed when I heard a funny noise as we pulled away from McD's with breakfast. Fortunately, the flat tire found us in the parking lot and not whizzing down the highway.
Clear and cold outside, I felt full of myself and decided I could still change a tire. What did I tell you, Grace? Get them to manually tighten the lug nuts? Did I follow my own advice? NOT.
With all of my might, I could not crack any of them. We called Jake, he came and rescued us, and Charlie got a lesson from the guy who matters most.
While we waited for his dad to arrive, Charlie worked on his backseat journal, asking me how to spell this and that. FACTORY. He printed the letters, frowned, and said, "That can't be right. Are you sure?"
And so today, I presented Jumping Jack Flash at Discount tire. Made myself comfy in their immaculate waiting area. Sunlight streaming in. I was ready for a long wait. Blessed silence! For once a public waiting area with no TV.
Several men wandering around, too engrossed in their phones to sit. They looked at what I was doing like it was somehow suspect, not approaching, but obliquely curious. Time flew and the work was done. I was off to an oil change, then shopping. By the time I got home, all I wanted was a solid nap.
Someone else decided that twenty minutes was plenty.
