Leap Day

Today Mike, MoJo and I enjoyed a sunny spring-like Leap Day with Joy,  Frank and Max.

From Joy's studio window, we watched Frank feeding apples to seven deer, three of them hand to mouths!

Frank and Mike are both avid collectors, and they love showing and talking about their finds and treasures--from antique guns to old rusty restorable carnival rides.  Some money was exchanged and Mike drove away with a rocket from the old Playland Park that used to be a big deal in San Antonio.

Joy made us a delicious lunch and we stayed til 3:00 in the afternoon.

Their house and lakeside property is a fun showplace of art, blooming  plants, and antiques; for me--lucky friend and recipient of their hospitality for over 40 years--it's also a place that feels like a second home.

My First Art Class

I won't count the one in first grade.  The one in which I colored the courthouse purple--after which the the teacher walked me to the end of the hall to show me it was "really red." The  one in which the teacher held up my colored mimeographed courthouse to tell the class "not to color hard like Linda."  (She then leaned over my hard-colored one to show me that "light wispy strokes were more ladylike.") When I got a fresh mimeograph to start over,  I painted the red courthouse so light and wispily that it was almost pink.

But wait, there's more: "Color in the lines, Linda.  The lines are there for a reason."

Most of us probably have similar art, music, and word wounds from elementary school days; that was my first and most potent one.   I wonder how many potential talents and curiosities are destroyed in the bud in classrooms.  I saw it every day when I taught writing in college--kids so frozen and shy with fear of mistakes that they loathed writing.

My first actual art class was yesterday's one at at Lyn Belisle's studio: Composition Camp and Transfers.  She opened with a slide show of works she'd made to demonstrate the layers of techniques we'd learn: using graphite paper, ironing on images, and incorporating white tempera paint, watercolor pencils, rubber stamps and stencils.  At the end of the class, we all had a piece matted and ready to frame.  We were asked to name our pictures, tell what we were most proud of and what surprised us most.  What surprised me most is that I managed to make a face!

Lyn uses all kinds of techniques to create her paintings and three-dimensional pieces--and I was inspired to learn them all.  She teaches lightly, encouraging what works, suggesting ways to improve--the essence of good teaching.

When Lyn held up my work today and said something positive about it, I recalled the holding up of my courthouse in first grade and felt a little teary with gratitude.

"You're channeling Anne Morrow Lindbergh," she said--pointing out that my finished piece had a feather and a shell in it.  I hadn't consciously thought of that, but when she pointed it out, I realized that much of what happens on a page is unconscious, one thing leading to another.

"I don't like this horse," one student said--and Lyn showed her ways to work over it.  "It's still in the history of the piece even if you can't see it," Lyn said.

Visual art is like writing that way.  The work that goes into a piece isn't always in the finished product, but it leads to what we want to keep.

Tea

Mike went to Harbor Freight to get a saw this morning to work on the screen we're building outside my bedroom window.  He also brought home the yellow enamel table--which he got for a lot less than the original price--and a railroad teapot, white with a silver-plated topper.

After a morning of running errands, he felt that he was getting a relapse of his bronchitis and spent most of the day in or near bed resting.

So here we are, having Teavana tea, on the beautiful yellow table, listening to Pandora (Nina Simone channel is great!) and I'm pretty sure he's going to be well tomorrow.  Lemony hot herbal tea in china cups (another thrift shop find) and good music will cure whatever ails a body, I think.

MoJo and Me

How to Dress for a Blind Boys Concert

If you have tickets for a Blind Boys of Alabama/Dirty Dozen Jazz Band concert, here's what you do:

Go to the thrift shop and buy black jackets.  My 100% wool blazer was $2.99.

Lay them on the floor the night before.  Go outside and get paint left over from past paint jobs and splatter it all over the jackets with a knife.   If you really want a cool tie, go to Boysville and buy a hand-painted one.

The Dirty Dozen band and the Blind Boys were terrific!

Where to Invade Next

Imagine sending children to public school knowing that their meals are prepared by chefs who take nutrition seriously.

In Michael Moore's newest movie, "Where to Invade Next," Moore pretends to be a one-man "invader" of Germany, Finland, Italy, France, Tunisia, Slovenia, Norway and other countries--not to conquer them or teach them anything, but to learn what they can teach us. It's a thought-provoking film, to say the least, and I highly recommend it.

In France, American Michael Moore sits down with a quiet group of children eating family style, passing the vegetables and fruit and cheese trays to each other.  They are served things like scallops and cabbage and Camembert cheese.  He offers them a sip of his coke, which they politely decline (all but one girl who takes a tiny sip and says "it's okay").

He shows the chef texted-from-home photos of American school lunches and the chef says, "That's not food!" The children in the French school don't eat french fries but once or twice a year, and are never served sloppy joes, pizza or canned vegetables.  And the cost of their fresh meals at school?  Less than American schools spend!

Happiness and fulfillment are viewed in some countries as top priorities, and education is as challenging for poor kids as kids whose parents have means.  Teachers don't teach to standardized tests and the kids don't take multiple choice tests.

Prisoners are treated well in Norway, and prisons are meant for rehabilitation. The mindset in so many countries offering workers extensive paid leaves for vacations is that those on the lower rungs of the corporate ladders should be given the same time off for relaxation and rest as those at the top.

"How can you Americans go to sleep at night?" one woman asked, "Knowing that your friends and neighbors are struggling to eat and get health care?"

Wednesday

Today Mike and I shopped thrift shops, and then Pam joined us for more.  We're painting black jackets to wear to the Blind Boys concert tomorrow night.  At this point, they look rathe like Jackson Pollock paintings on black canvases. Tomorrow, I'm going to sew on brightly colored buttons.  Mike got a great hand-painted tie at Boysville and a string of fake pearls for me.

Mike took us out for the best spinach enchiladas ever at Lisa's.  Then we went to Pickers Paradise and got some wood for a project we'll be working on tomorrow.  Mike's building a screen outside my bedroom window for plants and bird feeders--and to block the view of the house next door.

It's been a fun day.  We're heading out in a few minutes to see the new Michael Moore movie at the Bijou.

Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

Today, Gerlinde made a delicious lunch of gumbo and pie with ginger snap crust in honor of Charlotte's birthday.  Here they are, three of my best diva friends, Gerlinde, Charlotte, and Kate.

After lunch, Gerlinde's sweet husband Tim made coffee for these coffee lovers.  Even though they were all oohing and aahing over his coffee, I said, "No, I don't drink coffee, never have."

Here I am drinking my first cup of coffee ever--Tim's Americana with whipped cream.  Yummy!  Such a nice drink for our first chilly day.

The wind is howling tonight as a cool snap finally makes its way to Texas.

Full Moon and Lightning

Finally, we got some rain--and it's a beautiful light show tonight with the full moon.

Mike and I spent all afternoon at the rheumatologist's office.  The previous doctor way back had diagnosed "minor scleroderma" and a very strict diet.  This new doctor said I only have one of the five markers for that and that the all-over body aches I've been having don't add up to fibromyalgia either.  So he's prescribing a medication for the body aches, avoiding stress, getting plenty of rest, and exercising and doing yoga three or four times a week.  I can do all that a lot easier than a diet of all celery and cabbage and coconuts.  He still wants me to get a couple of other tests this month, but for now, I'm relieved that I apparently don't have scleroderma.

So tomorrow, I'll get back to the gym and go to yoga on Wednesday--and I'll be on the road to wellness.

It was so good to have Mike with me for the doctor's appointment!  I'm squeamish about blood work and he stood right there with me and made jokes, rendering the whole thing almost painless.

Sunday in San Antonio

After the flea market, we did the Bil Haus Studio Art Walk.  It was so much fun to meet the artists and watch Mike converse with them all.  We met a fiber artist--Jane Dunnewald--who gave us a tour of a beautiful house on Woodlawn that she has taken from trash to treasure in four years.

Then we had a delicious dinner at Lisa's,  an excellent Mexican restaurant (Bandera at Woodlawn) recommended by Pam.

Then went to AT&T and got the phone fixed.  Turns out I'd locked it by mistake.  To fix that, you simply push down the home key and the power key at the same time and it reboots and all is well.  This is my fourth of fifth iPhone and I never even knew it had a lock function on it.