Wind chill 33

The Playhouse is temporarily closed--until Will comes to take the heater out of the storage room and put it in the casita.

I must say, I slept for 8 hours straight last night, my first night in the Real House in a long time But I woke up wondering: What do I do in the Real House?  All my toys are in the Playhouse!

Obama did a PSA about voting: Be sure you BUBBLE in your vote; don't check the box, bubble the box.

Joy on MSNBC informed us that we can call and "Cure our vote" if we did anything wrong.

So I started obsessing: did I check or did I bubble?

They couldn't have been nicer, or more efficient.  My vote passed muster; I'm fine. 

"But what if you find out later there's a problem?" I asked.  "I'm sort of paranoid about it."

She told me the state of Texas (like lots of other states) does NOT require contacting a voter about an incorrectly marked ballot--but Bexar County does do that anyway.  YAY for Bexar County!

But if you, like me, feel like maybe you left the house  ten minutes ago with steak frying aond you have to turn around and go back home to check, there is the option of calling the elections office in your county and double checking.  It's called "curing your ballot."  (checking to make sure you dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's.)

Every vote counts this year in Texas as we just might turn our state blue.  So if you have any questions, call the elections office and double check.  

 

Sunday in the Middle of the Night

At 2 a.m. I was at the window of the orange and white, holding out two dollars to my pal, the night manager.  He's funny, bright-eyed, personable.  "You know your money doesn't work in this place," he says. 

Persephone motions him to come to the window.  "It's your girlfriend," she says.  Until the next customer comes, we three talk and joke, and when I drive away we blow kisses through masks.  

The yoga Nidra class I took online yesterday calmed my mind.  I was, for the rest of the day--as the Hippies said in the 60s--"blissed out."

An "On Being" interview in the car with a Nobel Prize winning physicist was enlightening and inspiring, and seeing my two young friends lightened the heaviness of 2020. 

3 a.m, Cutting circles colored Japanese paper  gel printed with vibrant Golden paints, in a trance, listening to podcasts. I see  planets, the moon, breasts, bowls, flowers, slices of tree trunks, and sea shells. 

4 a.m., Reading a book called Claiming Ground by Laura Bell--a memoir about a woman who herds sheep, the only woman among men, in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin. Every single sentence is gorgeous.  

⚡️ Sparks, #1

I'm making this up as I go:

                Sparks: flashes of happiness, peace, or uplift, no matter what, no matter what:

So here are three of today's sparks.  Please send me yours.

1. A youngish man, possibly homeless, crossing Austin Highway with brace on his leg, obviously having difficulty walking, but smiling.  He was wearing--a Super Man shirt!

2. The car ahead of me was a Red Kia Soul with these bumper stickers:

     Be Happy

     MEOW--and a trail of kitty footprints

     Namaste

3. A friend invited me to a Zoom Nidra Yoga class--a deep and relaxing meditation.  It was over an hour ago and I'm still not entirely back from it.  When I opened my eyes, I didn't want to talk or do anything, just hold on to that feeling of peace. 

"What the Constitution Means To Me" by Heidi Schreck

Trying to think of the right word to describe what I watched last night: remarkable?  hilarious? poignant? terrifying? captivating? 

It's hard to find the word because this performance was uniquely compelling and emotionally nuanced. Heidi Schreck wrote and performed a  stage performance of "What the Constitution Means to Me"--and Amazon filmed it.

This is a gem, a timely one, that should be required viewing for anyone voting in 2020--or any other year. But this year especially--

When militias are threatening war if the current resident of the White House loses,

When the current resident of the White House is threatening not to leave if he loses but to take it to the courts,

When science is discounted to our peril and the peril of Mother Earth,

And when voter suppression, racism, discrimination, and bullying (over mask wearing and other things) are more apparent than ever in our lifetime,

This is a must see!  

I loved it.

Today has been one of those get 'er done days--buying tires, getting stuff repaired, and getting a hair cut. And as cool weather starts with gentle breezes, leaves falling, we are feeling the end of Texas summer at last. 

It should be against some law to have this much fun--but on this particular day, I'm happy to break whatever laws might be on the dusty old books and begin a weekend of making things. If anything else breaks, it will have to stay broke. 

(Pam told me about a vacuum cleaner shop at West and Blanco--Austin Vacuum Cleaners--that did an excellent job of fixing my machine.) 

The twinkly lights are twinkling, the bed is comfy, and I have birthday (and even a few Christmas) presents that will need mailing on the floor along with tape and ribbon and colorful papers.

I have Gessoed two panels for my cabinet, glued some canvases together with foam, mixed up some paste for attaching mulberry paper to them (from one of my Lyn Belisle classes) and put the first coat of varnish on the cabinet.  

Circles circles everywhere--on the cabinet, on the wall, in jars, and set to music....

From the day we arrive on the planet

And blinking, step into the sun

There's more to be seen than can ever be seen

More to do than can ever be done 

Some say, "Eat or be eaten"

Some say, "Live and let live"

But all are agreed as they join the stampede

You should never take more than you give

In the circle of life

It's the wheel of fortune

It's the leap of faith

It's the band of hope

'Til we find our place

On the path unwinding

In the circle, the circle of life....

Elton John

A man named Everett

Everett raised beagles and went to church four times a week.  He lived on property with his wife and family, six of whom got COVID.

Just before the virus hit, Everett's father's doctor told him, "You are ninety!  And your health is that of a man of fifty. You are the poster child for senior citizens." 

Everyone else in the family had symptoms so mild they thought it was seasonal allergies.  They all survived, even his wife with dementia who still lived at home and was cared for by Everett--all, that is, but Everett.  He died in the hospital, alone. 

His tearful daughter told this story on NPR this morning. 

When the interviewer asked her how she felt about Trump's handling of the virus, she said, "Now you have moved me from sadness to anger. He has done an abominable job!  He is responsible for the death of my father and thousands more."  

She cringes every time she hears him say COVID is no big deal, when he says the media "bastards" like CNN are running it into the ground and that we're tired of hearing about COVID.  

Instead of minute by minute news about Trump and his latest grievances and polls, the media should cover more families of victims of this disease.  I wish we'd hear their names and stories and realize that every one of the 223,000+ fatalities are linked to real people, people like Everett.

A day or two ago, scientists were interviewed about the treatment Trump had--which he promised to "give to all Americans for free."

"That's not going to happen," one doctor said.  "Trump 's treatment has to be administered intravenously.  Everyone who gets it would have a co-pay of two to ten thousand dollars. It is totally impossible to think that it would ever be free--or even available, to thousands of people who need it."

Special TINGS

When my children and the cousins were little and we celebrated Christmas together, sometimes we'd let them open one gift on Christmas Eve.  My nephew Andrew chose the one that had socks in it.

"THIS IS NOT A SPECIAL TING!" he said with a disappointment that made us all laugh.

So it was Andrew's little boy's voice that rang in my ears at about 3:15 in the morning as I was wrapping a couple of birthday presents.  Will this be a special "TING" for the recipients?

I also thought about it because I got some extraordinary gel prints using a mix of pearlescent colors (gift from Joy) and Golden paints.  They were so special I decided to cancel my day's car plans and keep doing this all day.  I mean, brakes and tires and fender work can wait--if there is a special TING!

Gel printing is my favorite thing to do in the middle of any night, especially when twinkly lights are glowing in the casita and the room seems magical.  You spread paints on the gel press with a brayer, add some texture with various things, maybe throw on a stencil, and pull a print.  You never know exactly what you're going to get and sometimes the result kind of takes your breath away for a minute.

Socks are good, but colorful pages are amazing! 

I will, however, take to my bed for a bit and try to get a little shut-eye before I start the next round. 

Boundaries

I didn't hear the beginning of the story, but what the woman was saying captivated me.

"Our people have no word for borders," she said.  "The deer cannot migrate this year because of the wall." The routes to food and water, the ones they have followed for generations, are blocked by Trump's wall. 

"The wall divides our people, too," she said.  "It cuts right through the middle of us."

I hope to track down the story in its entirety, but what I heard, just that, is enough to haunt me for a long time.  

If viewed from Outer Space, this beautiful planet has no artificial boundaries between tribes, nations, and states.   

Trump's wall, like his thinking in general, is an antiquated idea.  Based in fear of Others, it's a half-baked way of keeping Them out and Us in.  

In the past year, three readers whose opinion I respect, have recommended Braiding Sweetgrass, and I'm just getting back to it this morning after starting it some time ago.  It's the kind of beautifully written and interesting book I prefer in paper instead of a Kindle version.  

Two other recommendations by a friend: David Abrams' Becoming Animal and The Spell of the Sensuous. 

I just downloaded samples of both  along with What It's Like To Be A Bird by David Allen Sibley. 

Small children don't recognize boundaries between humans and animals. When Elena was little, she'd make the same sounds the birds in my yard were making.  It was incredible to me, how uncannily similar her sounds were to theirs.  And they would answer back!  This could go on for several minutes.

"How do you do that?" I asked her.

"Do what?" 

 She didn't even know she was doing it--it was as natural as talking to humans. 

Morning in the casita

When I woke up, it was still dark--all but a string of lights I'd found and plugged in last night. Instead of hanging them, I just lay them across the table where I do gel prints, and they twinkled like Christmas morning.

They illuminated the piece I'm working on, circles and circles everywhere on what used to be a drab armoire.  

I felt--happy!  

I hadn't taken a drive to see Persephone and Andy in a while, so at precisely 3:15, I took courage (surely the skunk is sleeping) and walked through the back yard, then through the house, then to the car--and took a cheerful drive to my middle-of-the-night equivalent of a drive-through bar where my two friendly bar tenders know me. 

Ironically, on the way home, the podcast up next and playing on my phone was by Ingrid Fetell Lee, the author of the book, Joyful.  She happened to be saying, Circles make us joyful, and multiples make us joyful.  So no wonder I felt joyful in the middle of the night with multiple twinkly lights and circles circles everywhere!

She wondered why buildings and rooms for the most vulnerable people are so drab.  Nursing homes and hospitals and homeless shelters.  What if people were given spaces to live and heal and recover that were expressions of joy instead?  

Sharp angles in our ancestry represented danger while round circular objects evoked a sense of safety.  So we humans, without even knowing why, feel comforted and happier when we look at round objects instead of angles.  Who knew?  

Remembering a Real President

MSNBC's film about Pete Souza, White House photographer for President Obama, should be seen by everyone, especially children too young to know what a real President looks like.  

Obama's humor and compassion, the gravity with which he made hard decisions, his love for his family were all captured in Souza's photographs and in his narrative.

If you feel homesick for The Way It Used To Be, this film is a poignant reminder--and an urgent call to vote, act, resist, protest, and whatever it takes to change How It Is Now.