I met a friend for a parking lot picnic yesterday. We need to do this more!
First christmas gift and first Christmas card. I'd better get with the program!
I met a friend for a parking lot picnic yesterday. We need to do this more!
"Well those drifter's days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
While waiting for an apple pie to bake, I soaked up some fine music and experimented with new ways to cover ground with the dirty threads. Finishing it just now while listening to Charlie talk himself to sleep was the perfect bookend to my day.
A fine traditional meal with our small family circle. Plates packed and dropped off for those working double shifts or living alone.
Then sharing a first look at an older movie with Charlie who gave it 10 stars. "Chicken Run" has my thumbs up too.
It was dark by the time we brought Colin his dinner. An idling freight train was blocking a gated crossing. Police vehicles strobing silently on both sides. We circled around for a better view of the airfield, tiny blue lights stretched into the distance. Then we made our way through town. Every other crape myrtle swathed in Christmas lights. Charlie had a good view from his booster seat in the rear of my coupe, the seat he's about to outgrow. He went quiet.
"I feel like I could cry."
I checked him in the rearview. "What's making you sad?"
"Nothing. The night is just so beautiful."
I'm so humbled and grateful to spend time with this child.
There is a real possibility that I will be joining the ranks of the unemployed in the near future. Having more time for family, writing and art make that idea more appealing as the days pass.
This a piece of the softest damask. It was part of a small tablecloth. To be whisked out of the Maitre'd's jacket pocket to freshen a cocktail table with a flick of his wrist. The yellow freckly places stayed under soywax during a ill-advised overdye.
There were also places where I used softscrub to discharge some of the color. Much of this after the design was stitched down to the backing. The very bad design could not offset the colors that I must have been besotted with. It was ugly and I had no qualms about chopping it up.
Three types of cloth so incongruent. The base, a griege cloth. Some mongrel cotton/poly blend by the way it refused the dye. The teal? An IKEA dishtowel.Jim's been gone seven years now. We used to sit together and watch TV. He watched. I stitched.
As I'm studying this one now, I remembered him asking, "What are these evil little fuckers up to?"
me and Nelly, 1951 |
I have to "go to" the time and place I'm writing about and it takes full focus. Prolonged concentration.
Has anyone got a couple gallons of that to spare? Didn't think so.
At this moment, 99% of the ballots in GA have been counted. 49.2% for Biden and 49.6% for the incumbent. It probably won't be Georgia that decides the outcome of the election. But to think it might, by such a slim margin.
I requested an absentee ballot partly due to COVID concerns, but mostly because I wanted to hurry up and have my say. Vote as early as I could. I filled it out and took it to voter registration way back in the middle of October. Dropped it into the formidable-looking hopper outside while people cued up outside on the first days of early voting. My county did the blue team proud. 58%.
Thinking about it now, my ballot could have been one of the last ones counted, buried at the bottom of the dropbox the way it was.
My thoughts are about how to broach the "Why..." conversations with people that matter to me.
How do we move forward because there is no going back, the way back being guarded by that miserable 800 lb. gorilla who must surely be sick of that job by now. Aching to retire. Like me.
The perks of being the creator? You get first dibs! I got mine. These are two views of the same scarf. They are like kaleidoscopes that warm to your touch when you wrap one around your neck.
There are only a few left. I am still trying to figure out how to make these indoors.