Life's a Stitch

Some of you will remember that satirical David Frost news show, circa 1964, one of my dad's favourites. This will be one of those minutiae of life posts, a genre I generally don't appreciate, so popular on social media sites such as Facebook. But it was an interesting week, to me at least. 

Monday: after a fun weekend with Blogless Marsha and D, I  was anxious, as in nervous, to attend my first meeting of the local art society, having been admitted while we were away last fall. There was a painting challenge with food being the subject. There were maybe 75 people present and about 25 entries. Long story short (all the better when having to endure another's minutiae) I won second prize for my olive painting. The cash prize will go toward a fancy brush. 

Tuesday we worked a 14 hour day on set of another greeting card company's Christmas movie. I think I read that they produce 17 new Christmas movies per year. Once again C and I were hired as artists to display our wares in a craft fair scene. There were plenty of soap suds snow squalls and truckloads of real snow shovelled about. I felt bad for those production assistants, whose job it was to shovel snow all day. They worked us hard, too, 12 hours on our feet. It was fun, though, reuniting with seven of the eight artists from last year's film shoot.

Wednesday was my birthday, a write off. We retired folk were wiped out after a 14 hour work day. I took a rain check until Thursday.

Thursday: C, the reluctant geocacher, accompanied me to a nearby park in our new neighbourhood for the obligatory birthday geocaching expedition.

Dinner was crab night at the local pub, with C, B, and Footloose (our boarder from our last house), a bargain at $12.99 each. 

Friday morning was my biennial mammogram. New to this health region, it was my first experience at this particular clinic. At the point when they asked me to grab the handle and turn my head to the right, I noticed the quilt on the wall, the perfect distraction:

Saturday started with a dental appointment at 7:30 a.m. followed by breakfast at a friend's new condo. Then it was a painting day with my instructor back in North Vancouver followed by a delicious birthday dinner at my friend Lynn's, complete with my favourite Boston Cream Pie.

That was the week that was.  

 

 

Remember old cartoons that depicted First Nations settlements with a circle of tipis and a totem pole in the middle? A cultural anachronism for sure, as those two items belonged to Native American groups located in completely different regions of North America. I live in the region known for its totems, constructed by Northwest Coastal Aboriginal people. Totems are intended to document important events or family stories and are treated with great respect. If one starts to lean they can be braced, but when it falls to the ground it is left to be consumed by the earth. 

In last week's painting class the subject was a portion of a totem I've walked by, in one of our three trips to Juneau, Alaska, called Harnessing of the Atom by Amos Wallace. We painted the man (in the middle) who was holding the sun, but the depiction of the Russian Priest, under the eagle, kind of reminds me of C. Here's the story:

 Here's my painting:

 

Driving from the Coachella Valley to Phoenix, we stopped for gas. I asked permission to take a picture of the sign at the cash register:

The clerk said boob money is a major issue. Who knew?

Then we saw a massive building complex way off in the distance in the middle of nowhere. Next came the sign that explained it all: 

I wondered how often that sign has done its job of deterring prisoner pick up.

 Not a sign sign as in something meant to provide information, but a sign of the times. Walking in our California neighbourhood, amongst the post-Christmas trash, there were boxes for Hatchimals, Superstar Buddies and a Quick Access Biometric Pistol Safe.

I guess I should feel safe?

Another commentary on today's lifestyle reminded me of this scene from the Robin Williams "Moscow on the Hudson." It's an entire grocery store aisle of cookies and chips. 

Back home, B and I went for a walk along the main street of our new town. A charity thrift store displayed this one:

Looks like you'll have to wait until those children turn three before you can donate them. 

Living in our new-to-us soon-to-be partially torn down and rebuilt house has been an adventure in waiting, but it looks as though demolition will happen in May. It's a good thing.

Fiction:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fact: Here, it's time for a new roof, siding, insulation, drywall…. During the recent snow melt the neighbour told us that he could see our roof sheathing flapping in the wind, hence the indoor water feature, clocked at 45 litres per hour:

C & B couldn't wait until May to reduce the master bedroom suite to this:

Anybody want a bidet?

The shocking part, besides the fact that we are currently living in said house on a temporary basis, is that the date on the drywall and fixtures confirm that it was built in 1995. If you've ever wondered how long it takes for an neglected houseful of problems to rot away to the point of no return, you have your answer: 22 years. Don't ignore the issues, call the repair person right now.

There are saving graces in this story. We don't have to replace the foundation or the drain tiles and when we come back it will be covered by a new home warranty. And the deck view continues to reinforce that we've chosen to do the right thing:

Packing disasters, the more you travel, chances are you've had your turn with a suitcase spill or some other packing mishap. A burst bottle of non-aerosol hairspray? A broken zipper spilling your dirty laundry onto the carousel for all to see? I've had a few myself:

I packed a hostess gift for my friend,  two bottles of British Columbia wine, something she wouldn't find in Florida. You know how, when waiting at the baggage claim, and you see a telltale trail of red liquid and you think, I'm glad that's not my piece of luggage leaking red wine. Wrong. This time it was mine. And why does it happen when you are breaking in a new suitcase? Her sweet husband, not a wine drinker, mind you, spent an hour the next day pressure washing my bag. It would have been a lot easier if the bottle of white was the one to break. 

It kills me to waste good food. Upon leaving our winter's visit to California one year, I had some spare weight available in my luggage. What should I pack? A five pound bag of fancy brown rice or the jug of pure maple syrup? For some reason I chose to bring the maple syrup home to its country of origin. That should have been reason enough to leave it behind, but I opted to bring coals to Newcastle, sticky liquid coals. Again, it was a new piece of luggage. No wonder I go though suitcases so quickly. I still have issues with the interior compartment zippers caked with dried maple syrup.

Then there was the time I hand carried ten bags of Canadian-only catsup flavoured potato chips on a flight from Toronto to New Hampshire, a request from my niece and nephew.  The flights were booked on points and included this last hop on a propeller plane where the pilot was younger than the aircraft. He nicely offered me space in a storage area behind the cockpit. During the flight we heard a number of ominous loud bangs, but we made it safely to our destination. On our arrival the pilot informed me that I could expect some potato chip casualties due to the non-pressurized cabin. And right he was.

 This year:

What possessed me to pack breadcrumbs? We have breadcrumbs in Canada and they are as cheap as in the US. I knew they wouldn't last through the summer's heat and I didn't want to take up precious freezer space, so they came along. At least           they vacuumed up easily. Those that didn't adhere to the syrup clogged zippers.

Here's a link to other packing disasters. I especially liked the one about the dead ducks. I know, though, that in my case I couldn't bring them over the border without attracting the attention of the airport canine unit.

My baby blue bike was a gift from my daughter and husband a few years back.

Totally unexpected, it brought back exciting memories of my first two wheeler Schwinn in the same colour. Complete with plaid seat, basket and rubber bulb horn, what a wonderful surprise. They thought it would be a good means of transportation from our place to the community pool, a ten minute walk away. That worked for awhile.

I'm like a caged creature in this gated community. This year we began the expansion of our cycling horizons. By no means hard core cyclists, two days prior to leaving the desert, we did a 20 mile loop to my favourite Lake Cahuilla and back through the polo fields. I was transported to fifth grade me, on my second bicycle, a 26" Raleigh. Happy memories of my bike, book in basket and breeze in my hair. Not really, today the breeze was through the 18 vents of my turquoise helmet, something not required way back then, but appreciated now.

Fifty (!) years later you can add three more b's to the alliterative experience: boyfriend, beer and bathroom. To be more accurate I'd have to say husband (still my boyfriend), two light beers and an appreciation for the lake area's bathrooms rather than portapotties. I admit to being a sacrilegious Pacific Northwesterner who doesn't appreciate the flavour of micro brews and drinks decaf coffee, and as a woman of advancing age, my fondness for flush toilets.

Three hours flew by, picnic lunch and time to read in the sunshine, punctuated by a couple of trips to the aforementioned facilities.

The final B's were encountered as we rode through the El Dorado Polo grounds and saw a BIG Brown Bear.

This is the first year in seven that I have seen significant rain in the desert. Truthfully, we have experienced rain here once or twice, for part of a day, but this year we've had six rainy days. Not in a row, but often enough to interrupt with the usual sunshiny routine. Without the walking, hiking and geocaching we've had to plan for occasional indoor activities. 

Last week though, on a beautiful afternoon, we accompanied B on a fishing trip to little, but beautiful, nearby Lake Cahuilla. We saw plenty of fish jumping, and the swimming storks seemed full and happy, but the boys were skunked.

The rain does encourage painting. Palm trees were the subject of the week. I finished one that I started with artist, Diane Morgan:

 

The second one was a quick palm tree study painted on top of a sky exercise I kept from the past. I like the way the palms here sparkle in the sunlight.

Hoping for sunnier weather as I'll have plenty of time for indoor activity when we get back to the soggy Pacific NW. Ironically, today it's dry back home.

While cooking together over the holidays we shared mixed messages from our grandmothers. When you're baking:

1. To save eggs (no doubt from the days of rationing) use one fewer egg and you won't notice the difference.
2. And probably a form of post war overcompensation, my grandmother's rule: always add an extra egg for a richer cake. 

It looks like our eggs made the decision for us. Jumbo eggs were only .10 a dozen higher in price than their extra large sized siblings. Jumbo is definitely an American thing, having never seen them north of the border. Even extra large eggs in Canada seem smaller than their American counterparts. Yesterday's eggs:

They big ones surprised us with double yolks.

A boiled one revealed two yolks nestled together, crowded as identical twins sharing a sac. 

As Lene left for her return flight to Denmark we said our "until next times" and "see you soons"avoiding the finality that is conjured by saying goodbye. She soon discovered that her flight to SFO, originating in Chicago, was iced in with no hope of its arriving in time for her connection to Copenhagen. We treated it as an opportunity for a fun bonus day together, allowing us to get in one more watercolour tutorial, dinner out and another family game of Play Nine. B, who shares his mother's lack of enthusiasm for card games (not including this one, which is quite fun), even enjoyed himself.

Rocks were the subject of the day, starting with pebbles like you would find on a beach. Not quite done yet, but what a fun exercise. You wet a piece of paper, drop in four colours randomly on the page and let it dry. Next you use dark paint to outline the splotches of colour and turn each into a stone. Very relaxing, not unlike the meditative feeling we had using the colouring books M made for us for Christmas.

Next was a jumbo rock – a desert rock face, appropriate for our location. I added a teensy tree and a huge time lapse milky way.

Good thing these are indoor projects. We're getting frustrated with the high rainfall/low temperature patterns that have been happening over the past month here in the desert. The past six month's precipitation is almost what is seen in an average year!

 

The weather in the desert has been unseasonably cool and grey. We've even had several occasions of rain, one for twelve hours straight.

Better than the frigid and grey back home that has kept a solid sheet of ice on sidewalks and roads for weeks. There was a video on Vancouver's news of two guys skating down their street, something unheard of in Vancouver's typically mild climate. When we moved to Vancouver, more than half a lifetime ago, people couldn't believe we were leaving Nebraska for even colder Canada. They were unaware of our mild climate similar to Portland, OR or Seattle.

In lieu of pool time we've spent lots of time painting. Both cousin Lene and daughter M are avid painters, acrylics being their preference. Since the watercolour class of the last post, we completed an online course in botanical illustration featuring a wild rose. 

The third rose was a different version of one I recently sold. Here it is, awaiting the last touch ups:

Time to move on to another subject. A dog maybe? Landscape? Stay tuned.