Rollin' On The River

I've been skating the bike-path almost every day it doesn't rain and even once when it did.  It's 4.5 miles-ish and it's taking me about a half hour.  I enjoy looking at the river and seeing how the waves are.  Some mornings it seems to barely move, it's all reflective and glassy.  Other days there are waves and I know going into the wind is going to be difficult.  It'll feel like I'm a giant kite battling the wind with my legs and I'll hear my heart beating in my ears on those days.  I'm enjoying seeing the sames sorts of people each day.  There's the regular runners with workout gear and headphones moving on down the road.  There are the walkers in business attire and tennis shoes on lunch/break gabbing with each other in pairs and threes.  There are the new mom's looking frazzled strollering and pulling and adjusting their clothes uncomfortably.  There's a dog who always barks at my skates and at the other end of the leash a pet owner who looks surprised by the outburst. There are the fishermen/women sitting in folding chairs and pop-up tent shades along the banks, they smoke and have some sort of game their listening to and a five gallon bucket for the catch of the day. There is usually a biker looking seriously stoic under a helmet going by in a gust.  Then there's me, wearing all of my derby pads because if I fail to jump or dodge an erratic goose and I it takes me out, it'd be a long sore embarrassing walk home covered in scrapes and goose feathers.  I'm swish swishing along red faced, sweating and listening to Proud Mary, the Tina version of course.

"This Is My Ninjit-Suit"

I took the kids to see the TMNT movie in the park downtown last Friday.  To the disappointment of the people in the lawn chairs behind us, Jack rolled, kicked, ran and did somersaults for 90 minutes. I'm not even sure he actually saw any of the movie.

Thick Days

These are the thick days of mid July filled with humid sunscreen and stinging bug spray.  Every cool pool of water has tiny feet begging to sneak in, though the well worn swim suits, sun faded, stretched from chlorine and slightly grayed on the underside from lake mud are at home on the floor of the front hallway.  Left over fireworks and grilled beer soaked meats waft through the neighborhood replacing the tiger lilies and lilacs sweet redolence. There is barely time for the free waterpark ticket, the theme park coupon, the ten hour air conditioned sleep and the last canoe trip.  Back to school supplies loom in frigid grocery store aisles.

sky 2

sky

Link Storm Saturday

Saturday morning, it was overcast and beautiful for sitting at Sinnissippi Rose Gardens to paint watercolor roses with 317 Studio & Gallery.  When the air is thick and humid you can push paint around for a long time before it dries on your paper, it's perfect.  After class I meandered down to Rockford Vintage Market where we sat down over Vintage 501's hand cut french fries and heard Swingbilly RFD playing an earnest rendition of Folsom Prison Blues before stopping by Toad Hall's booth and picking up some superman comics for the kid and a Rockford Cabinet Company T-shirt from Bygone Brand's Booth.  Then we made a run for it through the light rain to the car and over to the Bee's Knees General Store, Yolo's Cupcake Shop, Salvanged by Sonya's & RAD. I ended up my day of local fun at Culture Shock looking to hear King of the Demons play some all ages goodness.

Groundhog

It snowed over the weekend.  The park ranger even sent the Girl scouts home from their camping/ski trip early for fear they'd have to stay until they were plowed out today.   Luckily I was the drop off end of the the carpool and didn't have to go out and get them at the beginning of the storm.  I spent a good deal of time yesterday digging out, but just like cleaning house before the kids are asleep, it just kept coming and by the end of the day I was under another foot mess.  It's hard to believe tulips will start poking up through silvery ice water in just six-weeks. But thus says the groundhog.

Waiting

I was watching snow fall to the left, swiftly change direction and flit right on the endless breath of wind responsible for the biting chill in my hands.  The old mechanic scurried to and fro past the open door, grabbing potions and oils, tools and rags while I rubbed my hands together trying to warm them.  Boat propellers and trap shooting trophies filled dusty shelves next to a pot of coffee I'm sure hadn't been washed since my last oil change. I spent a long time looking at the tall cardboard tube of Domino Sugar imagining it being grabbed several times a day dispensing into thick cups of burned and sour coffee.  It's letters rubbed off and the dark oil of machinery and human fingers layered into a fine shiny amalgamation across the side.  I recognized my car's engine running in the next room and looked up in time to see the mechanic rushing back and forth again, raising my hopes. It was another thirty minutes of watching the snow agitate through the glass and uselessly rubbing my hands together before I would make my escape.

C.J. Campbell

Have you ever heard a song on the radio, gotten goose bumps and thought... that song is going to be big?

I went to my local story night.  I went by myself.  Just like the first time I went to roller derby, all the people I asked to accompany me backed out or got sick before I went, and I wanted to go so bad - I went by myself.  It was fun.  It's always been a treat to me to put my headphones in and cue up This American Life  to listen to before I clean.  I imagined some of the people would be good and some would be nervous. That was true, but I was not prepared to hear someone's voice and get goosebumps. I did.  This chap told a story that made me laugh, genuinely hard, and think, genuinely deep.  I was happy about having gone.

I went back the next month to hear more people and there was the guy again.  I was sort of excited to hear him tell another story.  I wondered if he was a one hit wonder or if his voice was going to hold and what would come out would give me goosebumps again.  This time he made me cry.  Sitting right there in the middle of the back row, trying to be all inconspicuous and cool, he said things that reached way down into the bottom of my belly and made me want to jump out of my chair and scream "ME! He's talking to me! That's me!" I couldn't wait to see the video later of the story he just told.  A week later I messaged the curator of the space and asked when the video would be up.  He said they had problems shooting and the videos wouldn't make it to the light of day.  I spent time trying to remember the story he told and no matter because it's the voice that does it justice.

There's nothing like watching an artist do what they do well, no matter how many time you re-sing it... you just want the artists' voice. So, I went and heard him tell stories a third time and this time I asked if he wrote them down. I asked him for a card, or a blog, a something. He did write. He has a blog.  He has a book.  That was the beginning of this...

   


I'm helping with this campaign and I am honored to say I'm making the book cover.  As you can see the project is fully funded and then some. So what.  Buy a copy.  It is really excellent art coming out of this desperate place here in the Midwest.  This is the flower that grows in the crack of the sidewalk, the beautiful that grey cement, empty factories and honking cars can't stop.  It's the guy that can make the most hardened middle-aged lady with mascara on, both laugh and cry in the middle of a small crowd of strangers. Go buy it.

***

The Zen of Beard Trimming: Stories of Punk Rock, Poverty, and the Search For Peace by C.J. Campbell

"Like a modern-day Candide, writer C.J. Campbell started his journey to achieve peace in the bosom of a safe environment with a well-meaning adviser to guide him, and like Candide, he journeyed out into a world where everything went wrong, sometimes in hilarious ways, sometimes in excruciatingly heartbreaking ways, but always in entertaining ways. Seven years of his travels are painstakingly detailed in his memoir The Zen of Beard Trimming. Punk rock meets leaving Christian Evangelism meets Scandanavian models meets a mismatched cast of unlikely characters and scenarios in a fearless, brutally honest chronicling of the time-honored search for (meaning, love, peace, an apartment, food, and a damn microphone that works)."

List of Minor Complaints

1. When your socks fall down inside your boots and bunch up on your feet.
2. Wind-shield wipers that only wipe a few stripes of clean.
3. Empty wiper fluid with salty roads means you have to get out and throw snowballs on your own wind-shield every stop.
4. Chapped lips.
5. Iced car door.
6. Snow in the sleeve.
7. Fogged up glasses

Fight for 15

I support the fight for 15.

Not only are the fast food workers trying to strike and raise wages but the home health care workers have joined in and are trying to be a part of the union too.

52% of the families of front-line fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public programs, (compared to 25% of the workforce as a whole.) The cost of public assistance to families of workers in the fast-food industry is nearly $7 billion per year.

96% of restaurant workers do not earn paid sick days, forcing 76% to work WHILE SICK.

 57.4% of low wage workers are over age 30

|***

I don't care what you're doing at your job - if you think it's worth more and you want to band together and bargain for more... I am not you supervisor, I don't know what you do at work... I say good on you! You get more!   Because when you fight for the rights of the worker, you fight for us all.

***

"The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough." Louis (CK) Szekely

Sick Pirate

I have the cold Jack just got over.  It's not serious just icky and achy.  I'd like to sleep through it but there's a long list of things happening today, including treasure hunting.  My Dad is working on a salvage job at an old truck terminal. On the racks and racks of steel shelving he's taking apart and scrapping and inside the many semi-trailers sticking out from each side like appendages are the left overs of a hoarder extraordinaire who passed away.  I'm told the man bought out the remains of businesses gone under and resold what he could, what he couldn't was laid to rest there in the truck terminal.  I went last week to help dig through the mounds of dusty items in the offices and warehouse.  I found some old illustrations, lithograph gels and original paintings from the late 70s that I fell in love with and intend to get framed and install in our bedrooms; Sports illustrations for Jack's rooms, a Pegasus and Unicorn for Ella and Whales for me.  I'll post pictures when they are done.  I also managed to procure an old steel machinist's cart that I plan to clean up and put in the living room. It's pretty beat up and rusted and so I need to wash, sand and oil, maybe even paint it a tad before it comes to live here next to the computer, but it's pretty cool. (again picks to follow.)  I want to go back for a few picture frames and some reams of office paper today, so I need to borrow a truck.  All this in between a dentist appointment, a lunch date and preschool drop off and pick up and another construction call with my Dad. OR I could just call it all in sick and miss out on the lunch and the reams and the frames and pearly teeth and go back to bed.

***

I think the militarization of our domestic police force is dangerous for our citizens.  I'm against Rockford having a tank.  We have neither the funds nor the training to utilize nor maintain such a thing.  Sell it and turn the street lights back on.

***

Fall Art Scene deadline for artwork is just two weeks away and I want to do three new paintings before then. They're going to be wonderful.  I'm really stuck on the dusty palate of WPA art.  I feel like it matches not only my mood but my surroundings.  This is utilitarian, serious art.  Art made for working people.  It's not art for the sake of flinging haphazard party colors into your brain, it's art because it has to be.  I have to make it.

Sometimes I think about what it would be like to be a window or a sign painter and have everything hand made, hand drawn.  Remember the old number painter clips on Sesame Street? I think I really just wanted to grow up and do this.  Wildly finding a place to put an eight on my off hours. When I wasn't putting "Exit" or "Slow school" somewhere in the city.   I think making a lovely "Pork Chops .19 ¢/lb. " in red on a grocers window would be terrible zen for me; just as rewarding as painting "Little Red's Little Black Heart" and possibly easier to get paid for.  But, sign painters are gone.  Illustrators too, there are many artists in the collective I belong to who used to be illustrators.  They fondly talk about inking something perfectly one time and how fast they were and who they trained under and how many they could get done in a week and how meagerly they were paid.  These pieces I found in the truck terminal are the last remnants of hand painting original layout and velum overlays.  I want to keep it and frame it all.

I want to go back to when an artist was needed in daily life to paint murals and signs and numbers on random sunbather's heads.

The End of a Good Summer

This first week of school is the hottest of all the summer.  We were waiting for this week so that we could go swimming up at the springs.  It was one of the last few things to cross off the list of 50 things to do this summer. So, no swimming in the icy blue water of Pearl Lake and for the 3rd straight year we were not able to hear any live yodeling.  Apparently it's just harder than you think to find a good yodeler in the summer.  We also did not roller skate outside due to the rampant growing of children's feet around here and we also never made it to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison.  Not too shabby for finishing a list.  Some of the highlights of what we DID do:

#25 Pee in the ocean. (Not pictured)

#8 Eat Something New

 


#5 Use the wagon #12 See a parade #6 Get up early



#17 Family painting

  

There were regular things like find a penny and roll down a hill, and there were regular things that will stick out to me forever now.  I put walk the dog on the list.  We hadn't been doing this very often any more because our dog was very old, 119 to be exact. She didn't really feel like walking much any more, she mostly just slept.  I had to lay her to rest over the weekend.  I'm glad we spent time with her. I'm glad she was on the list. There are so many things to say about a beloved dog of 17 years, but I'm not together really enough to say them yet.

This is Wednesday and Ella and Jack in the backyard.



It was a good summer.

Red's Little Black Heart

Temporary Public Art outside of Bennie's Cleaners in Rockford, IL.  This is part of Rockford's ART ATTACK series going on all summer.  This is one of three I've done down-town. The unofficial title is "Red's Little Black Heart", it's acrylic paint on glass.  

Polar Ham

It's eighteen below zero, that's -39° F with the wind-chill. School is closed. The dog refuses to go outside to pee and I'm not even mad about it.  I'm going to bake a ham today for a really long time in the oven.  I'm putting it in at 11am and putting a can of 7up on it like my Mother-in-law used to and then I'll put it on low and slow and often go in the kitchen to lean against the stove and see how it's doing.

Sat night memorial for a friend who passed

July 4th 2013

I said to Jack "You gotta wave your arms and yell "Right HERE!"" and he did.  He waved his arms and yelled "I RIGHT HERE!" and they threw candy and he picked it up and said "I did it!" followed by a happy candy dance.

Then we saw Grandpa ride by on his motorcycle. 

And we picked cherries in Grandpa's back yard.

Later, I went to the butcher shop where I ran into the mayor and saw these two stray dogs hanging out waiting for people to drop a package of fine meat on the ground.

A very nice young lady grabbed them and called the dog catchers and then I wondered if I was stuck in a Tom & Jerry cartoon.  Maybe I am the lady who's feet are featured in all the episodes... Nope, can't be, I still have a splint on my leg.

Later tonight, we'll go downtown and sit on a blanket and watch fireworks. Ella will soak it all in, Jack will cover his ears and hide his face in my lap.  I'm sorta glad that explosions scare him.  He's too much of a daredevil to love fireworks without giving me a heart attack.

Preparations

I open the front window just a few inches.  Bird song and cool morning air hit my bare legs while I sip coffee and unfold the paper. Two days of school left before the kid is running home from third grade. One week left before I do a jig up and down the halls of the orthopedist's office sans clunky cast, I hope. Then, we'll get start ticking things off the Fifty Fun Things To Do Summer 2013 List.  I'm putting roller coasters on the list.

Those Are Called Jobs, Your Supposed to Pay People To Do Them.

In December of 2012 Unemployment in Rockford was double the unemployment rate of Arlington Heights, IL. That's on average, how we are, with comparable cities across the nation.  Often there is public lauding of a business who is adding as few as ten jobs to the market.  People have to move away to find work.  Crime is on the rise.  Forbes pronounced the city Miserable and our idiotic Convention and Visitors Bureau, in forgetting they were talking to visitors, agreed in a colossally failed inside joke that went over the heads of everyone who's wasn't from here.   The help wanted ads in the local paper simply no longer exist.  They've been replaced with people selling puppies and having garage sales to scratch out extra money. So when I do see a job in the paper, I read about what it is, I feel a little excited that someone is hiring. Just this week I saw this one:

Wait.  Go back and read it again... I did.  I had to read it four times.  Then I checked their website FlyRFD.com.  To get one of these positions one must comply with a list of requirements; 

"...must work cooperatively and courteously with diverse groups of people; be able to access multiple references in a timely manner in response to customer requests for information; demonstrate oral and interpersonal communication skills, and have the ability to respond calmly in emergency situations. A basic knowledge of the internet or the ability to learn basic computer skills is necessary. The ability to travel to/from the airport in all types of weather conditions is required..."

The website goes on about dress code and age qualifications, minimum education requirements and finally gives you a link to an application... to apply for one of these volunteer positions... where the pay is a shirt and a nifty airport jacket.

Holy shit-balls RFD! Are you sure you can get off the ground with balls that big?!  That sounds a whole lot like jobs you are trying to fill without paying anyone to do them. Is this what we're doing now?  Asking for Volunteers?!  If so, Hey, I'd like to offer up the wonderful Ambassador Lawn de Bombadee Position for the summer.  Applicants must be extremely proficient in lawn maintenance, know how to repair small gas engines in case my mower sucks, must adore weeding as well as  laundry and taking out the garbage.  A basic knowledge of tree houses and tomato plants is a plus.  Volunteers will receive a brand new sharpie-personalized fruit of the loom t-shirt and one PB&J.  

Or here are some other places you can volunteer your time this summer: 

Rockford Food Pantry

Rockford Habitat for Humanity

Remedies - Emergency Domestic Violence Shelter

Rockford Rescue Mission

Noah's Ark - Animal Sanctuary

Big Brothers Big Sisters YMCA

I would even bet these organizations don't have $122,568,336.00 in international airport assets for 2012. 

Vertical Lawn

I saw a man nearly chop himself in half while driving down Riverside Blvd.  With four lanes of traffic whizzing by, I think I was the only one in the world to notice the whole ordeal.  The homes on Riverside face the inner street exposing back yards to all of us who are trying to drive forty-five through town getting some place way more important than any place you are going.  I was hurrying from the store straight to the bus stop to meet the kid after her first day of school.  I saw him trying to push that lawn mower up the steep embankment.  His crippled left limb hung off to one side and his leg limp just seemed extra cruel in the afternoon heat, but that lawn mower piling it's weight down on him, at that angle, was absolutely scary.  I slowed the car, full knowing I couldn't get out fast enough, and wondering what sort of reaction a young man would have to an old lady pulling her car over, in the middle of four lanes of traffic, to ask if he needed help mowing.  I watched his scrunched up face turn red with effort just before his only good arm gave out and the large cutting machine rolled backwards, grass clippings flying every direction.  I held my breath and watched him jump out of the way while the machine hit the bottom of the ditch and sputtered out into a pile of sharp smoke.  He shook his head and leaned over to catch his breath and I drove on to the bus stop and thanked the Universe.