Thanksgiving Break

It was a break all right. All of the food for our Thanksgiving feast was prepared by our daughters and guests. I didn't do a thing except open the front door.


At the last minute I started whipping the cream for the pumpkin pie right before someone took a candid photo of everyone in the kitchen. Erin quickly took over whipping duties so that it didn't look like I contributed to the meal. Go Erin! Isn't that how it always is, though? Everyone ends up all crowded in the kitchen together? I love it.


Mimi and Papa came to town for a few days. We only remembered to take a group picture after Reese had gone back to work on Friday and before the girls went off to Agora to study. Our daughters have been patrons of Agora for years and now Anna also works there. It's a groovy gathering place that serves coffee, tea, wine, beer, Greek pastries, free wi-fi, and friendly fellowship.

Mimi and Papa are seen here posing with their granddaughters and grandpoodles.


We borrowed Hilary's laptop to Skype with my little brother, Stephen, in Hawaii. That was fun. He's out there working behind the scenes on the new Hawaii Five-0 TV show.


All of the university students had papers to write and studying to do. It was a quiet end to a wonderful break. I am full of thanksgiving.


Thank you all!

Via Colori #6

The most interesting thing about the Via Colori experience this year was how much extra attention the art got because Saint Arnold was the sponsor of my square.


Plus, there was a tent that had Christmas Ale on tap. Draw your own conclusions.

Hair Don't

It's not very often that I actually pay to have my hair cut. (I usually cut it myself.) But with Via Colori this weekend, my 48th birthday on Sunday, and family in town for Thanksgiving next week, I though it high time to treat myself to a professional cut. I made an appointment for today at noon.

At noon on the dot, I knocked on the door, which might seem unusual except for the fact that I get my hair cut at the hairdresser's house. She's quite wonderful, creative, full of exuberance, and very much a free spirit. From inside the house, I hear a stream of expletives as she stumbled her way to the door. Another expletive as she opened the door, and a quick apology. She had forgotten our appointment. On top of that, she had had a very bad day, and looked it. It was only noon.

She suggested that her highly charged emotional state might not be in my best interest as far as a hair cut was concerned. Would I mind coming back tomorrow? Same time? I halfway thought that it would be fine if she cut my hair anyway. After all, I had scheduled my day accordingly. Then I asked what had happened that morning that was so distressing. She told me. It's seriously messed up and complicated. Her idea of rescheduling seemed both good and bad. Do I really want to go back tomorrow? Will she be able to pull herself together? When she's at the top of her game, she's awesome. But there are several extenuating circumstances in her life right now that might not make getting a hair cut from her at this moment such a good idea....

Thinking back on the handful of times she's cut my hair and it looked great, I'm actually considering it. Bless her heart. Mine, too.

Preparation

Next weekend is Via Colori, the street painting festival for the Center for Hearing and Speech. Yesterday, I picked up the artist packet and found out that the sponsor for my square is Saint Arnold, which is a huge thrill, as I'm a big fan of the Saint.


The Amazing Reese is helping me by overlaying a grid on the image of the painting I'll use this year. Not on the actual painting, on a photo of the painting, which we will then get laminated at Kinko's, which I just found out is not Kinko's, it's now Fed Ex. How do I miss these things?

The last few years of Via Colori, I've worn the same pair of stretchy jeans, which in anticipation of this event, I tried on the other day. They no longer fit. This is an eternal dilemma -- do I go buy the next size up? For this event, with all of the bending involved, it's imperative to be in comfortable, movable clothes. I had debated going to Goodwill to buy some old scrubs -- those would be comfortable -- but who are we kidding, they are NOT attractive. And by golly, since I'll be on display all day, I want to look good. Ah, what to do what to do?

The last things to gather for next weekend are a chalk line, tape measure, masking tape, non latex gloves, baby wipes, a hat, sunscreen, a small whisk broom, and a back brace.

I'm still debating whether or not to paint a practice square in the driveway....

Limbo

For some unknown reason, I'm in creativity limbo.

It's a poor excuse, but instead of going to a hardware store to buy plywood for the new mosaic project, I've been looking at construction sites around the neighborhood hoping to find leftover scraps. Well, that's not entirely true. I've gone to two hardware stores looking for various supplies so that this project can get rolling, yet have bought nothing.

And honestly, my brain can't think of another thing to say.