I added a chicken. The Queen Anne's lace lost a tiny floret, ah, we'll say a bear ate it |
Too high now and cord isn't hung correctly |
Wire correct length and cord swagged. Now I need to introduce more fuchsia to this corner |
I added a chicken. The Queen Anne's lace lost a tiny floret, ah, we'll say a bear ate it |
Too high now and cord isn't hung correctly |
Wire correct length and cord swagged. Now I need to introduce more fuchsia to this corner |
It was a beautiful weekend full of nostalgia. I didn't get to spend the day with my mother, but the next best thing is the charming Auntie Bernie and I got a double helping of her! Too many people Bernie and I loved have passed and she witnessed my beloved Gramps go. I had the honor of witnessing my mother bear untold misery with joy and with her philosophical outlook not ceding an inch. I have had a miraculous life, thanks to her, and I need to commemorate her after an eventful Mother's Day.
She skated. I don't know her record, and I don't know who to ask, but I do know that she attended regional sectionals in the old ice rink in Flushing Meadows Park. She and her mother drove down from Boston and I can just picture the two of them on the Parkway missing the exit over and over again. After all that effort, she did not compete in the national competition that year because it was held in California. She also qualified in pairs and quads, which needs to make a comeback. My passion for ice skating is from her.
Things went wrong in my childhood, naturally. I once was sent to the principal's office for successfully scaling a drainpipe to the 2nd floor. I carved "I hate Mom" into the softened wood of our window sashes when I was deprived of some long ago forgotten luxury. She absolutely could not deal with my grass stained knees. Normal stuff. So I was woefully unprepared for when, at 10, the wheels came off the bus and I moved from my idyllic New England town to Cleveland. Poor Cleveland is finally failing on its own merits instead of its poor comparison to Rhode Island. Puberty timed its entrance perfectly, making this life's earthquake all the more difficult, but as much as I was up against, I had a secret weapon: my three ladies. My sisters seemed like my world, because we were on a different level than Mom, but I'm the oldest, and Mom and I had a special friendship that was kind of unhealthy, I am realizing now. We built up a boogey man for our problems, and he had a face and name: Dad. Despite the fact that she was brutally ripped from her home and family, she faced the Midwest with her typical spirit of total dominance, done with a beautiful smile.
I had my struggles with her, of course. Most notably, London. Oh, my, how we argued over that! I broached the topic one night of maybe trying out London for a summer because my roommate was, not because I actually wanted it. I paid for school on my own and was practical, and so it wasn't really an option, until my parents went code level orange because I floated an idea. Then my mind was made up and I was going to London whether I felt like it or not. Three months later, when I told my parents that we needed to talk, she said, "You're not going to London." I can be dominating, too, Mom, so it was too late. The tickets were bought, passport obtained, and it wasn't as if they could threaten to cut me off. Quite the chess move on my part! I was going to be self-made and visit abroad! And, so, I did.
So, I did do it solo financially the minute I was an adult, but whose idea was this? As long as I remember, I was going to college. Then I realized there was no money for it, but that was okay, because I'd been working hard at school which came easily to me, so I got grants and scholarships. A complete success story and I did it alone. I went back to London, then Paris. I got a frantic phone call one night from her because there was a problem with the lines and she made me pick a date to return and so I did: Thanksgiving. I wish I could have lived out my little adventure on my own time instead of artificially truncating it, but I was breaking Mom's heart.
So I returned to fucking Grand Rapids, Michigan, to live near Mom and Dad. It was a memorable year! Dad insisted on going to swim with me and always wanted to race. Mom did her pristine breast stroke so as to preserve the 'do. I introduced her to my date and she said, "Nice to meet you, Kurt". We left and he said, "That's weird! Your mom called me by my brother's name!". I had no idea what my date's first name was and had to look him up in the phone book. It turns out, he was unlisted, but not his brother! In any case, I had a true friendship with both of my parents, I guess you could say. Although, if you do say that, I'll have you know that Dad was a friend of my real friend. I hated that they were a package deal.
Picnic at one of Mom's secret beaches and a custom summer dress for Lucy. |
It is not fair that my friend is gone. I was planning on at least 10 more years. But, I have to look at the bright side which is that I had her for 53 years. And as for self-made, there is no such thing. Everyone once needed help. But there is such a thing as society-failed and it is only the luck of the draw that makes us one or the other. Many of my students were facing puberty without a solid parental figure helping. It is of course usually the female that helps these "self-made" individuals. I am fortunate. I had the best.
I just celebrated my daughter's 17th birthday at a wonderful Peruvian restaurant. Reminder: I have a minimum wage part-time job. She has a pretty awful parent, but I like to think that I am the parent she chooses to align with. I know that 95% of the rationale for that is our shared female connection. She is as independent as it is possible to be at that age but still in that weird area where she relies on us for cash and rides and food and - basically we're staff. Then we're vacation rentals and ATMs, I get it. I want to make college easier than it was for me, at least financially. She did the real work, though, which is getting her education and taking it seriously.
I may be the only generation who got to sort of envision a future that actually panned out. Mom thought 4 years of college was impractical, because lengthening college shortened the amount of time she'd need to work, which would just be until she became a mother. Until me. But, ten short years later, she was back in the work force and I had to "prepare" dinner twice a week. She could have been the leader of the universe, but she constrained herself using the information she had available at the time. I lived the dream for a moment: I had a career in a male-dominated industry and I made a killing. I made a nest egg and now I can enjoy it. I did it, Mom! I wish you were here to celebrate your success. I wish, I wish, I wish...
Rugs these days are pretty cheap, and I use both meanings of cheap. I found a beautiful looped pile ocean themed rug in yuppie central's garbage night, but upon unrolling at home, it was pulled by cat claws and, well... more cat activity occurred sadly. If I'm being honest, though, an underwater theme is great for my hall, but maybe a bit too predictable for this Ocean Stater. I need something quirkier and less practical than sparkly corals. I needed custom.
Top, left most orange flower looks like Chicken Little in profile |
I've been lowballing tri-state residents for years before someone accepted! |
Most tutorials say to just switch out the ceiling end connection with an outlet, wrap the correct wires into the screw socket, and voila! But, I don't have an outlet on my ceiling and so I needed a longer cord. I originally bought the clear kind, but didn't realize that the Sputnik is grounded and the transparent kind I bought only had the 2 prongs, so back it went. The second time I went for something special, since I realized after I bought the transparent cord that it didn't have an on-off switch, it wasn't grounded and the fixture was, AND I found much prettier cords. Everything at ColorCord.com is beautiful!
So pretty. I need an extension cord in this color! |
It took forever, but I figured out how to get the canopy off. Luckily, the chandy has a wire to attach it to the ceiling so that the weight doesn't pull out the wires. But the canopy wasn't just attached to the bar, but also to the wire that holds the weight, which prevented me from getting it off, until I figured out that there's a button on the bottom of the wire attachment that allows it to come off. If I hadn't figured that out, there would be an extra piece at the base of the wire, because I could only manage to move this adjustable canopy finish cap forward to make the wire shorter and shorter. I backed it out okay eventually because it had a hidden button. For a moment, I thought I'd need the jaws of life or a blowtorch to remove the canopy. And, since this is a knock off Sputnik, the wiring was not standard, and my electrical skills are weak. It is a 24 light fixture, and I ended up having to take each arm's wires out and marking the hot wires. Just like in Electrical Engineering 101, I thought my first attempt was golden and the second! I even visited the hardware store to purchase a current tester, but they were double what I was willing to pay. This was the incentive I needed and I did it right finally! If everything was easy, there would be no sense of accomplishment. It works!
In the end, I got the chandelier for $50, plus I had to buy the cord with the switch and a grounded outlet, which cost me $43.93, and new wire nuts cost $2.99. Labor was free but not inexpensive. Under $100. Not including 24 light bulbs. And, a ceiling hook, which, I already had, but I bought another - oops! I will probably eventually find wire nuts - it might be time to organize my hardware. And, a plug converter that I need now because my outlet isn't grounded! Such a rollicking success!
On the one hand, it is not within the vernacular of the room... |
Glimpse into my in-process home and future starburst area |
Ah, she took it down! She CAN be motivated to do things in her room! I never tightened the ceiling hook in her ceiling because I was meeting resistance; not the type of spectacle I want to try on my own - and I tried DIY electrical! Sputnik starburst will live over our refrigerator. Now I regret the cloth cord, because kitchen surfaces should be non-porous. Oh, well, this can be swapped out again for the transparent cord when this bright, cherry pink is coated in grease and mystery sauce. For now, we have more than enough task lighting and my electrical skills are back up-to-date.
Starting on the repeat |
Yarn and conspiracy theories. The more logical explanation is that companies decided to dupe the consumer because they can. Well, no more from me.
Nice to imagine, but I think this junks it up |
Let's plan our next major project while still in the midst of current one! |
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What I like about Harry and Sally is the realness of it. Love is complicated. You don't write your phone number on a dollar bill and then send it into circulation. What you do do (ha!, I said doodoo) is keep running into that guy that you were forced to interact with and that you cannot stand. Relatable. And because you don't see eye-to-eye with this dude, you feel okay being authentic. They put on a front when they are set up with each other's best friends, and true love is hiding in plain sight as a buddy that they are just bouncing ideas off of and getting the opposite sex's perspective. Yeah, it's a great movie because they are both clueless that they're in love. Like Moonstruck, love doesn't solve your problems: it just creates a mess. Embrace it.
We get a glimpse, just one moment, where we get the happily ever after! This movie is genius!!!! His love of her OCD when it comes to food is everything! And that, my friends, is love. Love is being annoyed to the point of insanity and still being attracted to this soul. Not the blue eyeshadow and not her alphabetized VHS tapes (yes, this is somewhat of a delayed review. I'd also like to congratulate Brian Boitano on that phenomenal free skate = just great!) but how she spends hours on her hair and too much money on shoes and other nonsense that makes her Sally. Harry, where are you? You're late...
These two went to the same Midwestern college and moved to NYC. They disliked each other immediately, and were honestly themselves in an age where it is much easier to be annoyed than find the good in someone. But love will find a way. Sex is easy; it's intimacy that's hard. They are equals until...
I love New York. It really doesn't deserve me and I am too good for the Big Apple, but there's just something about it. Love it or hate it, you probably have an opinion. Like me. Take it or leave it, but I am what I am and I love it, so, Harry, I'm ready, and it helps if you don't bring that coffee table. That stupid, Roy Roger's, wagon wheel coffee table!
What do we do with this feeling of being a stone let for blood? We have short-cutted and streamlined our way into this mess and it shows no sign of stopping. It is impossible to save the planet when I cannot even talk to a human about issues I am experiencing. We are all in crisis. Racing to the bottom isn't working any longer.
Please stop taking this out on Jane and John Q. Public. We are weary and suspicious and we're tired of our only choices being stepping on or being trod upon. Civility. It is time.
We cannot wait for someone else to do it. Society is too cut-throat as it is. Don't add fuel to the fire - the world is already burning.
Carry on! Help out and carry on.
Men and PTSD. They have it, too. Do they cause most problems? Yes. Are they entitled? Uh-huh. They're also hurting, and it is nearly impossible to empathize, but I am trying.
We send them into war. Be successful but don't flaunt it. They aren't allowed to cry. I think I'd be pissed, too. I have been courting a man, and it is hard! Until this, I'd be the first to judge a man for not having his lines rehearsed or poorly navigating my weird sense of humor - but be careful! One wrong word and you will not hear the end of it!
Setting yourself up for rejection is a hard lifestyle, but trying to impress is all-consuming. If I keep this up, will I eventually become a Proud Boy? It seems like my string of success with men will never end, despite the grey hairs - not just the ones you can see! - and non-symmetrical lines that cannot be classified other than "fold wrinkles". That, or I am telegraphing somehow that I am easy. I am not, but I must be broadcasting otherwise. I could not be trickier.
In any case, I need to come to the conclusion that these men are people. I know this intellectually, but the anecdotal evidence leads me to different ideas. Those loud pompous facades just mask their own insecurity, no matter how repulsive. It is well and good for me to think I'd do it better, and I'm sure I would, but so many men are getting it so wrong, I cannot help but wonder why. I can weave in and out of my imagined position of power, so is it the non-stop incessant nature of it that is making them nuts?
I was mocked for missing the kickball. That's fair, and I was a scrawny girl. And, it had to be comedy gold to witness, very Charlie Brown! But, imagine if I was a boy! The outfield moved up and everyone, including me, expected I'd miff. When I was bullied, it was just fulfilling the prophecy. There was a boy that was the male counterpart of me that had to do an insane amount of pullups to get credibility. I was allowed to remain a weakling. Boys are forced to toughen up. Pressure.
I can flounder, as I am currently, and society doesn't have a problem with me asking for help. Men cannot do this. They have to act. Too much pressure and doing it yourself are a recipe for disaster. I do feel bad for them. Almost. As I write this, my white trash male neighbors are throttling their ATVs around and around my block. In Queens, NYC. The cars that use my 2-block street as a drag strip come about once or twice an hour. I nearly felt compassion and they make a huge spectacle with so much noise and exhaust, windows rattling in the car and in our homes, but who cares? They're enjoying themselves!
Guys want women to come out and say things, and women want men to read their minds and stop acting like fools. Neither is going to happen until we get some perspective. Enjoy the communication gap in the meantime, because sometimes the assholes can be entertaining. But, be careful! Because, they can also be killers.
My wacky arm is rising up in protest |
Inch by inch |
I will let you know how ordering more yarn from other color lots goes. Let me finish the two cheesy flowers I started and I will address this problem later. Maybe Jesus will perform a miracle and fish occurrence and it will all go to plan, tee hee hee!
Will I persevere and finish or will this languish in a closet while my arm recuperates? Stay tuned!
Almost convenient, the auto- resizing by my video editing software! |
Vintage wool precut yarn in yellow on a 5 gauge canvas. The knots are on top of each other and it is nearly impossible to pull this thickness of yarn through |
After testing my yarn and lengths, I can report the following:
Up until now, I reviewed one movie, Inside Out, which is perfect, and one most unlikely franchise, the "Before" triology. And here is another film made just for me: The Holdovers. If you don't like this film, then you should turn in your humanity card because you're a droid. It is lovely.
What can I say? Da'Vine Joy Randolf won the award, yes, and even if they rolled the credits after her introductory eyeroll, she deserved it. That eyeroll said the whole story AND I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out the story! Oh, this movie will punch you, leave you for dead, and it will make you laugh alone like a crazy person. Which is part of the story, but I don't want to give it away.
Skinny boys with hidey hair are not new. |
Every teacher's nightmare: losing control |
And, I feel like I'm giving an acceptance speech of my own, thanks to the director, Alexander Payne. I'm not an actor and I need to work with him! The boy in this film was a first-time actor, so there's hope!
So now let me tell you about the film - not! I will tell you how applicable it is to me and my life, because, it's all about me here. So, it is set in December 1970-January 1971 in a snowy New England prep school over Christmas break. A tumultuous time, for certain, and it's the time and place where I came into awareness. I was born in, gasp!, 1968, before the moon landing which is referenced in the film. It also shows Mary, the recently widowed black mother whose son died in Vietnam, watching the average television program full of white people. The Jeffersons and Good Times are still in the future here. There is obviously still a hierarchy, and this movie explores in part the inequity of our culture. In some ways it has changed and frustratingly it has not changed in far too many others. And, yes, three oddball leftovers with fraught lives form an unlikely alliance and see each other as people, just like themselves, and that is tired territory, or is it universal? It doesn't matter, because this is art, and even if one million people sing the same tune or paint the same picture, the results will always be unique, just like us.
Looking back on my life, I feel it is these very differences and misunderstandings that keep us from knowing that underneath, all those individuals feel exactly the same as we do. As a former teacher in Queens, NY, in a time of great migration, it was pandemonium, yes. Absolute and utter chaos. So is our world. Embrace it and stop silo-ing yourself with only like-minded folk. Society is crumbling, yes, but the world's always been on fire, and I guess the good news is the poor and disenfranchised are no longer paying for the sins of the rich by getting shot in a jungle or putrid trench. There will be suffering, and perhaps if we all shouldered the burden equally it would be a bit more tolerable. We are truly in this together; why compound the problem? Life is like a henhouse ladder, afterall...
So much wisdom to impart. So, I documented here on this blog my health scares that resulted in my attention to every moment of every day. Nothing is guaranteed, and I am now on my 3rd major health scare, and, even if it doesn't actually get easier to deal with fear and pain, it is my fear and pain and I am feeling something. That's life. It can be sublimely ecstatic or dreadfully painful, but it's an experience! Feel the wonderful life that is within you; let nothing be lost upon you - Oscar Wilde
I look to the greats for bits and pieces of my philosophy. I also look to travel to broaden my mind and see things in a way I never would have expected. I cannot plan travel for quite some time due to my health issues, but I can still read the greats, who did travel. Here's some of their unattributed wisdom:
- The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people - people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behavior, just as money frees people from work.
- And there is another feeling that is a great consolation in poverty. I believe everyone who has been hard up has experienced it. It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs — and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it.
- It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.
- He might be ragged and cold or even starving, but so long as he could read, think and watch for meteors, he was, as he said, free in his own mind.
- Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
- Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
This is one of my favorite books, by a famous author, but I bet you can't guess the author. No cheating.
Right now, my convalescence that was a gift from my sister and father is coming to a close. I need to get back to the grind and yesterday, sick or not. I have used this time, amongst other things, to travel back in my mind. It has been one of the best trips I have ever taken. I have an old friend to thank for that: a very, very patient friend who may not have pure intentions but neither do I. I am very lucky. Even not feeling well, I am enjoying myself. And, hey! if this great author can be cold, ragged and starving and yet broad and free, I can do it warm, ragged, and starting to finally fill up.
Well, sometimes doubt and procrastination equals savings. In my deliberations, I found the perfect palette (I am hoping) AND it's cheaper than my two prior options. But, I do have to increase my yarn length 12.5%, to at least 2.25". That makes it 121,500" in total, minimum. So, now we have:
Decisions, decisions. So, now that I sourced my colors, let me rethink the design. So, this is my inspiration art, by Bjorn Wiinblad, and that inspired my bedroom color palette. Now I'm using this as my design, but it's looking a little stark. Here they are together.
As much as I'd love to patronize an actual store, this is proving futile. |
How much of a rip- off of this, how much of Marimekko? |
My beautiful mother, Jean. |
That was five and a half years ago. Two years ago, she got sick, and a year and a half ago she died.
We never made it to Rhode Island. That breaks my heart.
I went back last year to my village in RI, for the first time in 45 years, one year exactly after she passed. It isn't fair. I am still not divorced. That, too, was scheduled for 4 years ago, so 5 years ago, it seemed entirely likely that we would get to take that trip back home together. I had to do it alone, but she was with me. OH! How I wish she could share in my joy in a tangible way! I want her ashes to go to our local swimming hole, where I learned to swim and my sister outsmarted the instructor and didn't learn! She ran to shore to grab the wet sand rather than go under to retrieve it and no one was the wiser. Except Mom, who pointed it out to me. It was funny and I will never forget it. She would call me over often to share in the adorableness of my youngest sister, and I thank her for this. I felt maternal looking at my poor, left behind sister who would pretend to read magazines but upside-down, or make up sad, nay, pitiful songs about being the youngest. Otherwise, I'd always probably just see her as a peer, but I dutifully admired her angel wings and dark (for us) skin like a mother would.
Little sister just came for another Linda emergency (there are many) and is now my confidant. And I love her and marvel at her ability to juggle her life and mine, but she is not a replacement for Jean. My father, forget it! She is smiling, though, Mom is. Because something wonderful is going to happen!
Working in my medium, confusion and misunderstandings, I managed to put together a mini-reunion of my elementary school friends. Personally, my life has been painful and, I know no one reads this, not even worth maintaining at times. My life is on the edge. I really miss Jean...
But this reunion, and I don't want to put too many expectations on it, is giving me a reason to go on. I knew in my heart for years that I over-romanticized my RI childhood, but now that I've gone back again, I don't think I did!! It truly was special and magical and amazing. But, my real home is now in my heart, where Jean lives. I miss talking with her, but she is inside of me, and we talk all the time. Home is where the heart is, and mine is with her. Love you, Mom...
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