The Votes

Donald Trump received 62,979,879 total votes.  The total number of Americans registered to vote is 146,311,000.  That means only 43% of the people voted for him.  If you voted for Trump you are in the minority.  

This Ninth Day of January Two Thousand and Seventeen

This morning my teenage daughter got herself out of bed and fed and off to school on her own, while I gave my first grader a ride to his new school.  He finally got into Montessori (there's a wait list.) After I dropped him off, I went to my neighborhood library and started a mural for the toddler room.  It's a big elm tree and I used three ladders and three colors to get it going today.  It's magnificent and I may paint trees in my own home after this.  The new Montessori school gives the kids each a 'job' at school and today my son's job was to do dishes.  He loved school so much that when he came home he wanted to show me how he can help.  This day is one for the books.

The Last Day of 2016

I mostly liked 2016.  Yes, the election sucked, and some baby boomers I liked passed away, but on a personal level it was pretty good.  I taught watercolors all year and got a mind boggling amount of work done.  Jack learned to read words and Ella learned to read music.  Thomas published a rich and entertaining book by a writer we like this year and we have irons in the fire to work with more folks we enjoy.  I almost managed to paint a wall in the new house... I think I'm almost ready. Painting a wall is such a funny and dreaded commitment for me.

Busy Busy

Here's a thing I painted with watercolors.  I'm super happy with the way these eyes turned out looking so round and bubbly. I sketched this one before I painted it so it's a little less free form than usual.  I like the teal color next to that macaroni and cheese orange color.  

Rainy Day Puppy

It's cold and I have a cold and this new puppy we have likes to be walked a bazillion times a day. When she's all worn out, she's very well behaved, just like children. Today I've spent a truck load of time working with her on her nippy behavior.  Mostly it's going well.  On the advice from my vet I bout Dr. Sophia Yin's book "Perfect Puppy in Seven Days" and it makes me sad for all the other dogs I've know in my life that could've been better dogs had I read this book sooner.  This book is amazing and they should give a copy of it away with every puppy that changes hands ever.

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My toes are cold.

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I'd like to pick up some gold leaf to put into some of my paintings in the next wave of things I make. I just want to.

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There's never enough time in any day accept the rainy ones, these days last forever.

Mighty Pens Autumn 2016 Episode

I'm enjoying listening to the media put conservatives feet to the fire regarding Breitbart.  They're pushing and pushing and correcting and fact checking and it's not only good reporting and it's entertaining as hell.

As is with All Awful Things

We still have to get up at 6 and run the garbage to the curb before the truck makes it up the street and pour out the cereal and pack the lunches and brush our teeth and sort out the socks and go to work.  Very little ever changes those things we have to do every day.  Even winning the lottery, even electing a misogynist, even loosing sleep.  The earth still spins and hurtles through space. We persist.

On Mom Time

Why when you ask if I've watched the new episode of anything I just laugh. aka Why watching a one minute video actually takes me forty minutes.

Hit play on new Jon Steward video I was tagged in, watch 4 seconds.

"Mom, can you help me pour milk?"

Pause video, pour milk, one minute later hit play, watch 4 seconds of video.

"Mom I gotta tell you something...."

Pause video, enthusiastically listen to a two minute story about farts, hit play and watch another 10 seconds of video.

Realize the puppy needs to go out.

Pause video, walk the puppy around the yard for five minutes, bring her in for praise and treats, hit play watch 4 seconds of video.

"Mom! I need help! My ipad is out of battery! I need to plug it in!"

Pause video, plug in ipad, put Sponge Bob on the tv, a minute later hit play and watch 10 seconds of video almost hear a whole joke.

"Mom this dog is too bitey! I'm gonna just put her in the laundry basket!"

Pause video, separate bitey dog from feisty child, tell child not to jump on the couch, put dog in crate, three minutes later watch 10 seconds of video, hear punchline of joke set up four minutes ago.

"Mom, I'm hungry"

Pause video, walk child into the kitchen, select a snack together, put it in a bowl, wash three dishes and empty the trash, make a cup of coffee for myself, feed hungry puppy and remember I wanted to watch that video I was watching fifteen minutes ago. Hit play, watch 30 seconds of video.

"I need a swipe!"

Pause video, for the next ten minutes, go swipe soemone's butt, wash hands, tell child to wash hands. Run to the basement to locate a clean hand towel, run it back upstairs to hand to child who is now standing there with wet hands and pants around ankles. Re-tie draw string pants at the waist of child, so they stay up. Hit play on video watch 20 seconds.

Pause video, answer phone. Talk for a minute, hit play on video. watch 20 seconds when the credits roll, realize it's over. Bookmark it to try to watch it again later.

All of These Good Things

Last Thursday the 20th I drove over to the next county and picked up a puppy.  Just when I felt like I was paying all my bills on time and flossing regularly I threw a puppy in the gears of the house and everything when sproinging and springing out of the box. I can't help but be reminded of my old dog, 'Wednesday', whom I received in October of... jeez maybe 1997? She looked just like this pup. Wednesday was a great dog.  I needed a couple of years between her and this one to just be helpless mammal-less. 

Lately though I'd been wishing I had someone to bark when the door bell rings, someone to walk the bike-path with me, someone to chew on my shoes. Then Dad came over and brought a friend's dog with him.  My young son showed that big old lab around our house like he was royalty. "This is the hallway, this is the bathroom, this is my room... and if you ever spend the night you can sleep right here..." he said.  It wound me up in such a way that I knew this boy who's brought a stuffed dog to school with him every day for three years, needed his own dog. My mind was set.

I made myself one promise, I'd not have a house that smelled like dog. So potty training is number one and this pup understood in the first two days where to go and what to do. She's super smart. we taught her stairs, we taught her to go in and out, we taught her how to walk on a leash, tomorrow we're going to teach her to sit. But she's a nipper. She's part border collie and that makes her want to herd things. Including children.  We're working on it.  I bought books. The kids are helping. She's learning, but her teeth itch and she wants to chew things and every cell in her body is saying run and steer.  She can move a soccer ball around the yard like Pelé. My boy says he still loves her even though she chews his pants and his toys. So we're far from having lil' Pelé sleep over in his room, but we'll get there.



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It's mid-October, the leaves are falling while the wind rustles the trees in the early afternoon.  That sweet autumn smell is wafting in the open windows.  Dinner is simmering.  Both children are at the dining room table working on their homework, and chatting about funny things. Thomas is making tea. The puppy sleeping on her tuffet, rolls over and her fat little belly is exposed as she yawns. The Cubs are on their way to the world series and Hillary Clinton is up in the polls.  I stand in the middle of the house sipping coffee and quietly soaking in all of these good things.

Infinite Geometric Progression

If you were trying to explain infinity to a six year old boy, you might say that it's the biggest number that goes on forever.  You might say things like you love him infinity much. You could talk about walking around a circle or explaining how small things can be or how far space goes.  Then you might hear him explain it back to you by expounding that if you farted two butts and those butts farted their own butts and those butts farted their own butts and it just kept going you would have infinity butt farts.

Hermit Crab

I haven't left the house in two days. It's glorious. I've been painting and illustrating and watching CNN. I'm at the end of the groceries and just stood in the kitchen figuring what I can still make without adding anything.  I have dinner figured out but every day I but a cookie in the lunches of the people that leave the house and I'm out of cookies.  We'll be going to karate class tonight and I'll run next door and buy some cookies and coffee, so briefly, for a bit this evening, I'll have to put on a bra and talk to people. The hard part about working from home though is that I'm never really off work and it's always looming there in the room wanting one more line one more swipe of the brush. Though I can go to work in my pajamas I'm still compelled to work after the day is done for just a few more minutes.

Hand Powered Mulcher

Why has no one invented a hand powered mulcher.  Seems like it would have gears like crazy so you could really crunch up a good sized branch pretty quick.  It'd fit right over a lawn bag and in really high gear you could have your kid crank the handle while you feed in the leafs and sticks.  I found a few plans for building your own and I've seen a few reviews for "leaf shredders" that say they stink in general as they're always getting clogged up. But it just seems stupid to fill lawn bags with all this plant material and send it away with the truck once a week and then in the spring go out and buy mulch to replace the natural mulch we all just sent away.  I get that it's not convenient to spread because it's not all chopped up into a uniform size... thus the mulcher, but I just want one less gas powered/electrical powered noise machine in the neighborhood.  I'm an old fashioned rotary blade push lawn mower and rake kinda person.  I did find one vintage shredder called a Rotocrop, but have not found a single one for sale in the whole world wide web. It's vexing.

Stop Pretending

The Bush administration erased millions of emails illegally sent by 22 administration officials through private, RNC-owned accounts, in order to thwart an investigation into the politically motivated firing of eight US attorneys.

 Mitt Romney wiped servers, sold government hard drives to his closest aides and spent $100,000 in taxpayer money to destroy his administration’s emails.

 Colin Powell intentionally bypassed federal record-keeping laws. using his personal computer, hooked up to a private phone line to communicate without it going through the State Department servers, to do business with foreign leaders and senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts.

Stop Pretending You Don’t Know Why People Hate Hillary Clinton

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working on the house

I put a new front screen door on with the help of my brother who actually added two inches to both the top and bottom because I have insanely long doors.  It's working out pretty well, but I need to order new screens as I don't care for the shape of the screen border on the one I have for it.  This makes me feel persnickety - but it's not very often I insist on spending extra money so something can be just how I like it.  I'm pretty thrifty and usually if a thing works and sorta fits in I use it.  This is how I ended up with mismatched cabinets in the kitchen all painted white.  I like them, they're all at differing heights and each one has a good use.

I want to remodel the bathroom.  I know I'll have to hire plumbers and electricians and carpenters and tilers.  I want to hire a general contractor and just write a check and come home to a new enlarged bathroom but I'm thrifty and coordinating people is something I'm sorta great at.  So there will be permits and a full gutting and a wall coming down a reinforcement of the floor to hold an iron and enamel vintage claw footed tub filled with water and I know the project is going to be over budget by 30%. I haven't saved up enough and financing it scares me. I have enough for a new car or a bathroom but not both.  In the mean time the current bathroom and the current (paid for) car are just fine, so I'm just in stasis wishing for a washer and dryer in my bathroom.

I still haven't painted a single wall in my house.  They're all white.  I just can't commit and I have so much artwork and chotchkies, that if the wall was any darker you'd feel like you were living in a little hollowed out portion of a hoard of books and art and music and toys and art supplies.That's not really the case... well just before big art show deadline it can be, but I can't stand clutter and so it's opposed to what I'm trying for.  I went to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright - Laurent House here in town last week and got all bummed out about my very full clutter place. In an effort to be uncluttered, I haven't much in my own bedroom, but how this really translates is my room looks like a college student lives here.  A mattress on the floor, a dresser, a pile of books next to the bed and clothes flung in all directions. I should at the least get my own nest in order for good sleepings. Maybe after Fall Art Scene, I'll paint a wall.

Frank Lloyd Wright - Laurent House

Restless Legs, Exploding Head, Hey Sleep - WTF?!

Last night, smack dab in the middle of a really great, cool crisp September air, fluffy down comforter, whole bed to myself sleep, I was immediately awakened by five sharp and very loud knocks on the door. I laid there for several moments listening to the neighborhood through the open 2nd story window contemplating whether I should get up to investigate or just go back to sleep.  My front porch light is always on and I wondered if someone was looking for help in the middle of the night.  I heard the usual crickets and nothing else.  No wind.  No steps on the wooden front porch.  No more knocks. No voices. I chalked it up to one of those loud noises that I hear in the night sometimes just before I fall asleep and sometimes right before I wake. Like an auditory hallucination along the lines of feeling like you're falling before you sleep.  One time it was someone yelling "HEY!" right in my ear, another time it was an explosion, another sounded like either an earthquake or a truck hitting the house.  All episode are followed by utter silence proving to my sleepy self - nobody else hears it, not the dogs on the block, not the crickets, and certainly nobody else in the house.

This morning I looked out onto the front porch and made sure everything as it was yesterday. It was. I decided I ask the internet and about loud knocks in the night and to my dismay the hoodoo is that it's a "death knock".  I clicked the link and read three loud knocks in the night are a harbinger of death. Nah, I had five knocks and it didn't seems scary when it happened outside of laying wide awake in bed and having a lot to do today.  So I moved on looking for something far more scientific.  There's a thing called "Exploding Head Syndrome" in which folks hear an extremely loud noise just before falling asleep or just before waking.  The causal theories include small frontal lobe seizure and involuntary movements of the inner ear.  I always thought it was an auditory hallucination but either way I was happy to see the phenomenon addressed scientifically. I was excited to read that people who have this happen also complain of their body jerking before falling asleep, restless leg syndrome, insomnia, and a feeling of the entire bed vibrating - all of which I have! So hey all the sleep oddities killed with one stone.

The cure? less stress, yoga, meditation, clomipramine (an older class of tricyclic antidepressant used for narcolepsy.) I don't know about you but just knowing it's a thing and not having to read about ghosts and dead relatives and demons makes me less stressed out to begin with. I think I have to get a dog and then if I hear things and the dog isn't barking I can save a few seconds of laying in bed wondering before stop caring and go back to sleep... or this is a thinly veiled attempt at justifying getting a puppy!

Vagenda of Manocide

Please take the time to check out www.vagendaofmanocide.com also #VagendaofManocide

August

When school starts I'm going to schedule three days of nothing.  I'm sure those days will quickly fill with leftover school supplies that are needed and a hundred hours of cleaning summer out of the cracks of the couch and finding moldy swim trunks from behind doors.  I will most certainly not have all the electronics that can possibly make noise tuned into to various cartoons and shouty commercial programming.

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These last two weeks we're trying to fit ALL THE THINGS in.  We'll have three concerts including two performances by the kid and one where we just get wear earplugs and scream and cheer at Weird Al. We have a ghost tour, a solo art show, a camping trip, a Pow Wow, a Pokemon walking tour, school supply shopping, two doctors appointments and a dental appointment, three birthday parties and at the very least one sleep over and we still haven't used the free water park or Six Flags passes.  Did you get tired just reading all that?

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I gave in and turned the AC on tonight.  It's not super hot it's just humid, it's hard to move through the air, it feels like there are velvety curtains to push through all the time, everywhere you go. At night the sheet feel like they came out of the dryer 15 minutes too early and I'm perpetually flipping the pillow to the cool side.


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Here's a photo I like.

Running Running Running Running

Life is moving too fast.  I think this every summer but it's super true this summer.  I've got a solo art show up and I'm teaching two classes and adding a third in August in addition to another solo show at a different place and of course getting ready for art scene and working on layout and cover for another book! We just finished the last one in June. I still haven't sent out all the copies of it. The summer is half done and I just put the air conditioners in the windows for the first time last week.  I can't even dedicate the proper amount of time to blogging about any of these things because there are soo many.

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I took everyone to the Ren Fest and sword fighting has taken priority at out house.  It's awesome. I'm inspired to try to find a fencing class but then I remembered I'd much rather find a belly dancing class and then I remembered that I barely have any time already and what the hell am I thinking. Also I'm thinking about getting a puppy because I don't feel busy enough and all the mammals at my house are no longer helpless and so I thought I'd add one. (sarcasm! wooo!)

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Totally going to see Ghost Busters tomorrow night.

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The statistics are this - one in five women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.  Why do we spout this statistic putting the emphasis on the victim instead of saying one in sixteen men is a rapist, or that one in three men would rape if they knew they could get away with it?  So after this statistic is repeated we can all look around the room and try to figure out who's perpetrating instead of who the poor victim is.  It's time to shift the focus.

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I love Hillary Clinton. I'll vote for her.  I'll work for her if she needs me in IL or WI. This isn't open for debate. My choice is made.

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I want a puppy this fall.  One who is middle sized, smart, dark fur that doesn't shed, barky but not bitey, likes to mostly hang out laying around on the floor, one who's ears stand up and are pointy and has a long tail. I want this dream puppy to be super cute and be a rescue.

The Kid Sings

Just Before Turning Six

"How do dinosaurs drink milk? Do they use a straw?" "If you had a ballet sandwich in your lunchbox, then you can't eat it. You have to watch it dance."

-Jack age 5 ¹¹⁄₁₂