Teaching art with itty bitty students, exploring creativity, finding new passions and purpose, and enjoying the progress of my three greatest works of art out there in the big world.
Fans of the Monopoly iron wept in their beers tonight after Hasbro announced that game piece was voted off the board. There were no reports of protests or rioting, but my choreographer sister expressed fans' indignation in a text message:
This is an outrage. The iron slid across the board with grace.
So well said. It's unlikely my epitaph will be so uplifting. It will probably be more like:
She languished half-charred in the greasy hell at the bottom of the stove burner drip pan.
My little students are unlikely to be able to identify an iron, steam or flat. They don't even know the word "stove".
The Monopoly iron slid along the board, as did the cannon. The other pieces had to be tapped along to count out one's roll of the dice. I flopped down on the floor and peered under the bed, but my Sixties era Monopoly game was not there. Seems like after Norton the rabbit hopped under the bed to nibble the box and eat the $500 bills I moved the game somewhere "safer". But where? Probably under the stairs and beneath the boxed up fake Christmas tree. I blog for truth, freedom, and vintage game board pieces, but I'm not moving the sofa to haul out the Christmas tree to find Monopoly.
Clue was under the bed instead. Will we be voting to change the deadly weapons next? Or will we send Colonel Mustard into exile?
On a different tack, my tie dye experiment results were underwhelming.
My calm and bright student is working through the silent e words for the fifth, and lowliest, of the vowels. The words with their illustrations make a peculiar group:
mute butte cure pure rude fume prune tune flute cute
What image can illustrate "pure" for a five-year-old? The picture that goes with the word is a child in a winter coat and hat starring up at the stars.
The image for "cure" shows EMTs unloading a patient on a stretcher from an ambulance.
"Mute" and "butte" present problems stretching from here to Montana.
"Tune" shows a kid whistling, and "cute" is a baby, although not the cutest grandbaby on Earth, with whom I'm acquainted.
Gave myself a stern talking-to about finishing the pile of ironing before putting up the Christmas tree. The pile is still there, should you need a silent e illustration for the third vowel. The lights are untangled, and most of the strings still work. Maybe I should pop "Hunt for Red October" in the old VCR in honor of the USS Enterprise, and fire up the steam iron. I'll just let the lights blink on the living room floor.
Employee overheard at the copy center in a national chain office supply store patiently explaining to a customer who might have been off his meds: You need Dobe to print those puddiffs.
[In this case Dobe does not rhyme with Kobe Bryant.]
Long ago I taught a girl who sang "Dudolf da Ded-Dosed Deindeer". Dudolf could never get his pdfs to print with or without the latest version of Adobe, and my Christmases have never been the same since.
Dad is beginning to experience pain, or perhaps be less able to handle discomfort. "U V W X Y 2 3 4 5," he said several times. It took awhile to sink in, but his facial expressions helped me know he was suffering.
"Are you uncomfortable 3 4 5, Dad?"
"No, six."
This it a guy who never ranked the pain after his second hip break higher than a 3. Howard is not a whiner.
"I'll get you some help for that, Dad."
"Waiting," he replied.
After a couple hours with Dad, I went to the fabric store for retail therapy. Two old-timers were training three new employees at the fabric cutting tables. I drew a number, A30. The cutters were assisting customer A12. Waiting.
Father's Day was not a big event for Dad. He slept through the whole thing, although he let the aide spoonfeed him breakfast with his eyes closed. If not for the miracle of hot coffee, an aide would have to spoon my breakfast, too.
When I told Dad there was nothing in my fridge but watermelon, he got out a whisper that he never got watermelon. So I took him some today, and left it on his tray next to the homemade cookies and card from my son and daughter-in-law.
Unsuccessful connecting with my father, but I've been in touch with my siblings and with Mother Earth. Read the news. Relaxed with my muse, making photo connections between student art and my 365 Project photos.
So, that is the first and last time I watch Rachel Ray make Moroccan mini meatballs while I iron. The fresh mint and garlic and lamb and zucchini and tumeric and coriander just sounded so rich I had to go spend fifty bucks at Kroger, but I had to substitute ground beef for the lamb.
The mini Moroccan meatballs played billiards in my gut all night. My stomach muscles are in the corner pocket. Little sleep to start the school week.
I got to Dad's room about 3:50. He was watching Judge Joe Brown at high volume and talking very softly. He was back on oxygen with a different machine now from hospice. He was all cattywhoochee in the bed with his feet hanging off, so I went to find his aide to help me pull him back into the center.
Realigned, Dad told me he'd "been selected", that he was "perfect to be interviewed". Then he kept saying, "I think we can go anytime," but also asked me to get him some coveralls. I said he didn't need coveralls, so he asked for a shirt and slacks. He wanted me to pull up with the big red car so we could go to the Home Office. Amen.
Dad's nurse says he is now on two antibiotics, oxygen, and breathing treatments. His doctor saw him on Friday and ordered another chest xray. She saw him again today, according to the hospice social worker. I always seem to be two days behind with information about xrays or meds. I suppose it's the lag between the xray and the results, combined with the weekend staff change.
The nurse said that after the breathing treatment she was suctioning Dad's throat trying to get out a "big glob". Dad didn't want her to get it out. She said he would be able to breathe better. He said he didn't want to breathe better.
In the middle of all this the little old lady who always asks if I have seen Neil started ranting because the bus wasn't there yet. She thinks the nurses station is a bus depot. There is a certain similarity with all the people speaking in tongues, but the floor is less sticky and I'm not so scared to go in the restrooms.
I went back to Dad's room. He was watching Judge Judy and saying how much he liked Judge Judy and Judge Roy Bean and Nancy Grace "even though she is always wrong." Then I got a call from the hospice social worker whose name is, drumroll please:
Eden. I kid you not.
Eden was concerned because we do not have a Texas Out of Hospital Do Not Resuscitate form on file, but now we do. Also, The Five Wishes, Dad's advanced care preference document is not recognized in Texas. Eden says it should be because it is the most detailed directive available.
Eden told me the hospice chaplain had visited Dad today about the same time as his doctor. Maybe the chaplain visit turned into being "selected for an interview". Dad wanted to tell his aide about his "selection" after supper.
I asked Dad if he saw the doctor today. "No time," he said. "I got on the train very early to come to Plano." At some point he also told me he "drove to Schuyler and Plainview". Maybe the sound of the oxygen machine makes him think he's on some mode of transportation.
Dad's supper was the ugliest meal I've seen since we brought him to Plano. Boiled purple cabbage, green peas, gooey bread, red juice (thickened), a scoop of ground ham with yellow gravy on top, vanilla ice cream, and a frosted chocolate brownie. This makes up for the meal with minestrone that looked almost good enough for me to request.
When I tried to feed Dad he slapped at me, so I let him struggle along. It was very sad to watch. He kept flopping over to his right, so he could hardly suck the juice through the straw. I kept propping him up.
I had a little chat with Fritzi and told her I'd done the very best I could for Howie. I just pray that he will get on the bus, Gus, with or without coveralls.
I feel like a poster child for Behinder I Get. Maybe Jerry Lewis could host a telethon for me.
We had a pretty good turnout at school Open House, and I'm mighty glad to say no staff members wore gingham kimonos. The carwash and elephant art looked good. Parents discussed the comparative therapeutic values of coin-op and ride-through carwashes. I prefer coin-op, spraying and foaming the Skylark on a sunny day. It makes sense that moms with small children prefer escaping alone to the ride-through on Ladies' Day for the two minutes trapped in the tunnel with no demands. These options should both be included in any health care coverage.
Tuesday I had to stomp my little feet and insist that the nurse call the doctor and report Dad's decline. Both the nurse and aide were substitutes and didn't notice any difference in Dad. Now Dad's had a chest xray, is on oxygen, and receiving breathing treatments. By Wednesday evening he looked almost human and sounded much better. It is still time to arrange hospice, but I have some time to compare the providers available. Plus, I've mobilized an army of grandkids to write letters and send cards to their Gramps. I can go check on him before our staff in-service.
Blogging, 365 photos, taxes, power of attorney aggravations, housework, and the search for comfortable-shoes-to-stand-in-all-day-everyday-and-wear-on-the-playground will have to wait. That is not a heap of clothes waiting to be ironed in front of the t.v. It's interior decorating.
My inner junior high guidance counselor has finally given up urging me to "make good use of my time" on these snow days. I just want to sit here in my Van Gogh starry night fleece robe and stare at the freezing precipitation. I can't psych up to turn on the Weather Channel, even with the remote control, and I sure don't want to iron while I watch tv. Just paging through the Sudoku book to find a fresh puzzle takes more zip than I can muster. Thank heaven I don't have to drive a Magic School Bus full of kids on a learning adventure today. Make the bed? You must be kidding. I'm climbing back under the covers and pulling them over my head so as to miss the end of civilization as we know it.
Digging into the clay soil with my garden trowel, ever so sweaty last Sunday afternoon, I pondered the concept of permanence. My two tomato plants needed bigger pots on the patio, so I went on the rampage creating space "out back".
The condo "backyard" is about 7' x 11', with maybe thirty-five square feet of dirt, and the rest concrete. When we moved in as renters, I stuck some red canna bulbs, myrtle groundcover, ivy, and wandering purple stuff into the mud around the four silly shrubs. We were "just renting," aka "temporary," but I couldn't live with the mud and dead leaves out by the patio slab. A mismatched collection of pots holding miniature roses, dusty miller, and eighty-eight cent mums and Home Depot lantana gradually encroached onto the patio slab in the years since. When you feel temporary, you don't plant things in the real ground.
"Permanent" in the early Sixties meant something briefly stinging, drippy, and smelly "given" to you by your mom to cause your hair to break off and frizz for several weeks. I received the occasional Tonette permanent wave on weekend afternoons while sitting on the tall kitchen stool watching roller derby, Mr. Wizard, Jon Gnagy drawing lessons, and Green Bay Packers games on the small black and white t.v.
"Permanent press" was an advertising phrase of the early Sixties. Women's sportswear maker Joseph Koret developed the permanent-crease process in the late Fifties. Fabrics were coated with a resin solution and baked to set a crease. Koret used this marketing phrase to proclaim the emancipation of homemakers from their ironing boards. My mom sewed our clothes, so they were not "permanent pressed". She spent two or three hours every week ironing clothes for our family of five.
Digging and sweating, my tomatoes are in the big pots, and my herbs are replanted together in a dish-shaped pot. How will the mums, dusty miller, and lantana cope with being plunked into the seriously unimproved soil around the patio?
Kelly Girls temporary services were advertised on 1960's KFOR radio. It's strange to consider the heavy load of baggage packed into the words "Kelly Girl". My gosh! Bad enough that a woman wouldn't have the time to iron her family's clothing, she might have to get a job, but not a real job, just a temporary staffing job popping in and out of offices to do typing, and having to buy permanent press clothes and nylons! Sheez! This was the sort of woman who might phone in an order to Chicken Delight, the only delivery food in town. "Don't cook tonight! Call Chicken Delight!"
In college I used Permanent Pigments paints. The Permanent Pigments Company developed the first water-based acrylic gesso in 1955, and called it Liquitex. Like permanent-press store-bought garments and temp service stenos, acrylic paints weren't considered the proper way to do things!
In Gail Butt's composition and watercolor classes we used the combination of cadmium red #2, cobalt blue, and permanent green light to solve many creations. This green paint is semi-transparent due to it's recipe of phthalo green and hansa yellow.
I've never given myself a permanent green traffic light. But I've replanted the mums into the unimproved dirt of my "out back". It's been six years since I became an owner instead of a renter, but I still feel temporary. Maybe the experience of divorce makes my inner understanding of permanent vs. temporary less clearcut.
I'm going to a big happening tomorrow, by my standards, so I had my hair repaired last evening--sort of a lube and tune, with a Maaco $39.99 paint job. It's sad that I put beauty treatments in the same mental category as oil changes.
Under the hot dryer for prolonged periods of Hot Carnuba hair reconditioning, I got to fantasizing about a Sam and Janet Evening with Prince Charming and glass slippers. Across a crowded room Emile de Becque asked me, "What's that fragrance you're wearing?"
"What's that aftershave you're wearing?," was the slogan for Hai Karate t.v. commercials back in my Wonder Bread years. Nerdy guys wearing dork glasses required martial arts training to fight off over-sexed chicks in a memorable ad campaign. Hai Karate was up against the Mennen Skin Bracer ads involving a slap, and a "Thanks, I needed that!"
That fragrance I'm wearing is actually Aroma de Fabric Crayon Drawings. My students use Crayola Fabric Crayons to make a drawing, and I iron the drawing onto their tie-dyed camp t-shirts. After ironing fifty-six transfers, I can't get that smell out of my head..., or my clothes, or my hair! Will Emile de Becque whisper in my ear that I smell just like an unairconditioned first grade classroom when second semester used to last well into June? Grilled Binney & Smith with hints of dried bath towel! Great. I could probably attract some sixty-ish male who never quite got over the crush on his first-grade teacher!
My hair looks like it was transformed with Crayola Multicultural Washable Markers (aka brown felt pens). I've got your raw sienna, burnt sienna, raw umber, burnt umber, and yellow ochre!
Turn crayon drawings into colorful fabric art. Simply draw with these special formula crayons (on paper). Iron onto fabric for brilliant, permanent fabric designs. Works best on white fabric, synthetic blends.
Use to make personalized T-shirts, fabric quilts, tablecloths, pillowcases, banners, kites, aprons, scarves, kitchen accessories, and holiday decorations. Drawing, rubbings, stenciling and lettering techniques are easy to do.
8-count box contains: magenta, violet, burnt sienna, blue, orange, green, black and yellow.
Please have an adult use the iron.
I'm that adult.
Knock! Knock! Who's there? Sam and Janet! Sam and Janet who? Sam and Janet evening?
Emile: Some enchanted evening When you find your true love, When you feel her call you Across a crowded room, Then fly to her side, And make her your own For all through your life you May dream all alone.
Nellie: Once you have found her, Never let her go.
Emile: Once you have found her, Never let her go!
Collagemama: Once you have colored it, Never let it grow!
The sights, sounds, and especially the temperatures of fall bring a satisfying form to my life. The cooler weather* gives me more energy, and the earlier darkness sends me into my cocoon at a healthier hour. The crunch of acorns under car tires in the parking lot, and the galoomphing of crazed squirrels across the roof propel me to the grocery store for baking potatoes, brown sugar, flour, nuts, Old-Fashioned Quaker Oats, and Tollhouse chocolate chips. Since much of my autumnal wardrobe needs ironing, I spend time with the t.v. tuned to football and soccer, even if I don't actually give it my full attention. Just the smell of the steam iron is soothing on a Sunday afternoon.
My striped shirts are shifting to charcoal, maroon, rust, pimento, salmon, olive, camel, and dark chocolate. No more cotton candy, Starburst, and gumball colors. Fall stripes have tang, and dirt, chili powder, sauteed mushrooms, molasses, and simmered meats.
Thank God for corduroy and Chex Mix, plaids and crimson, garlic and red-tailed hawks! Sing praises to suede, barn jackets, flannel, sage stuffing, and great aunts who pressed pretty leaves in the complete works of Shakespeare.
Amen, and please pass the Rice Krispy Treats.
*It still gets up in the eighties here in the afternoons. At least it cools down more at night.
What location is to real estate, balance and harmony are to interior design. Some people have a natural gift for creating balance and harmony in their spaces. Others consult feng shui experts. Many check out the large, heavy, gorgeously illustrated interior design books from the library about French kitchens and Santa Fe living rooms as a guide. Some use computer programs to rearrange without sweat.
In my own unbalanced way, I strive to move the pieces in my home to achieve a harmony of color, pattern, density, openness,antique, and contemporary. I like a variety of textures, which means some surfaces aren't covered with dust just to act as accent contrasts to the rest of the arrangement.
What sets me off fenging the schwee all around the condo is cords. Cords AND cables. They make me nuts. I can't sit down and watch a movie in my "home entertainment center" if I can see the electrical cords squirreling around in my peripheral vision. My plan for the day was to do the mountain of ironing while watching some tv and videos in the living room, but the cords behind the tv were taunting me.
Before long I had all the books off the shelves, all the entertainment devices unplugged and on the floor, the aquarium drained and headed to the dumpster, and a cold Miller Genuine Draft to aid the search for balance and harmony. At least I don't have a couch any more. And, by the way, complaining about the lack of a couch gave my two sons and their friends a safe, harmless, meaningful teen activity this summer when they could have been out on the streets rabble-rousing and leaving chewed bubble gum under the table at Taco Bueno! Just another free parenting tip...
After a couple hours I reached living room nirvana. Every chair, table, and framed photo was perfectly positioned to exude sheer bliss to anyone who enters. Unfortunately, I missed Lesson One of the class. Lesson One was when I should have learned not to achieve balance with the ironing board in the corner and the pile of wrinkly clothes plunked in the middle of the floor as part of the serene equation!
I love to play with paint color chips. Still. Yeh, I know, I'm nearly fifty. I still pick them up and stuff them in my purse at the paint department of Home Depot or Elliott's Hardware. I hope no one will ask me what I'm planning to paint, how many gallons I'll need, or whether I want flat or semi-gloss latex. It's hard to explain that I just want to spread the samples out on a table and rearrange them in different designs.
A friend at the ballet last night asked me what else fun and exciting I had planned for the weekend. "I'm not the parent-on-duty this weekend, for a change," I said. "I can stay wrapped in blankets and read, or write. I can fool around with my Photoshop program. I can eat burritos for breakfast if I choose. I can smell freshly ironed clothes while I watch the Bogart movie my son gave me for Christmas. I can play with colors, textures, and lines." I don't know if she understood that I considered these options fun and exciting. Play and contentment are sometimes about being instead of doing. Sometimes in the game of Life we recharge with champagne bubbles and fireworks, and other times with purring cats and simmering soups.
I'm especially fond of the paint chip books with perforated pages. The pages are dry to the touch, and the chalky scent catches at the back of my throat. Fold on the perforations, and carefully tear the little rectangles into Candy Land sidewalks, carnival tickets, Chance, Community Chest, and Monopoly play money. Lie on your stomach on the rug in the living room on a rainy day, arranging a color mosaic, and listening to "April in Paris". Plan gardens of colors separated by gray flagstones that need no trowel. Quilts that need no sewing. Be still and dream.
We had lots of color samples for paints and tiles growing up. I always considered them treasures and BIG perks of my dad's job as a structural engineer in an architectural firm. Kids felt sorry for me because I didn't have a Chatty Cathy. I felt sorry for them because they didn't have tile samples.
My students of all ages have been playing with circles inside squares this week to create magic maps based on board games. The inspiration comes from two books I love to read aloud to kids (even twenty times in one week), Circle Dogs, by Kevin Henkes, and You Are Here, by Nina Crews.
So many wonderful winter hours spent with board games at the family dining table--checkers, chess, dominoes, Chutes & Ladders, Candy Land, Monopoly, Memory, Chinese checkers, pop-a-matic Trouble, and my mom's beloved Scrabble. Visualize tic-tac-toe and Twister, too. You sank my battleship!
Flashback to 1981The Reagan administration calls for cuts in the school lunch program, prompting the USDA to allow ketchup to be counted as a vegetable.
Flashback even furtherto those fiendish SAT analogy questions that went: X is to Y as (a)Z is to Q (b)C is to D (c)Q is to M or (d)K is to J?
Well, I propose to you that Catch-up is to Vacation as Ketchup is to Vegetable.
I have a week off. That is not the same thing as a vacation. I have so many things to catch up on, and tasks I have just postponed until this week. During summer classes my schedule doesn't allow for doctor appointments, comparison shopping of colleges for my youngest, deep-cleaning, major financial considerations, rejuvenating treatments for chlorine-damaged hair, chatty phone calls or long-overdue letter-writing. Most evenings by the time I get home from doing my dancing art fairy routine and buying groceries, I am pretty tired and brain numb. Big jobs like watering houseplants, feeding the aquarium fish, and toasting a bagel take the rest of my energy. So, I set even greater challenges aside...
And now, VOILA! It is Catch-Up Week! I don't want to catch up. I want to lay around reading fluffy fiction, or sunbathe on a pool float. I want bronzed natives to bring me cold beer, although, in the interests of health, I am willing for it to be Lite beer. I think other bronzed natives should vacuum the condo, do the ironing, and balance the checkbook so I can just drift off into my island fantasy. Maybe I will ponder what books and music I would like to have with me on my desert isle...
Today's Vocabulary Question If I clean up something disgusting, have I de-disgusted it? We are talking about teen boys here. Is de-disgusting a double negative? Have I actually gusted? Or maybe even regusted? And who was this Gus anyway, and why can't he ever clean up after himself???
A Cautionary Tale
In the mid-Seventies I worked in a hospital kitchen and wore a white uniform. In the summer I either worked the six a.m. to 2:30 p.m. shift, or went to work from 3:45 to 7:30. Once, after a leisurely morning and sunbathing all afternoon in my bright blue bikini, I had to go to work at 3:45. I needed to iron a uniform. The ironing board was in the basement, and it was comparatively dark down there after sunbathing. Somehow I managed to iron my stomach. The burn was about four inches long, and right where all my bell-bottom hip-hugger waistbands hit. It took weeks to heal. Please be careful when reality intrudes on your island fantasies, especially where small appliances are concerned.
Now put the lime in the coconut and shake it all up!
You sank my battleship!
