I’ve Placed Faith in Geography*

I’m on hold. This is not a philosophical statement, although sometimes life feels that way, eh? I’m on hold with my online prescription service because there’s been a problem with putting things in my cart, and I feel like that’s kinda rude on their part, judging my ability to pay for my meds, so I’m calling to fix that shit. Oh yeah, they’re not fixing that shit. They want me to clear my cookies, and I don’t do that for just anyone, assholes. The nice woman who is the interface between me and the web folks says that THEY say if I clear my cookies, it will only affect their website. OMG you fucktards. So untrue. Absolute bullshit. Sigh. So the other option is that I call back the next time it happens. Great. So that will be in weeks. Someone remind me to do that and have the TIME to call in and walk through something like that. Not happening on a school day, is it. It’s OK, I can order meds by calling, but they ask all these questions and want responses and I just don’t want to deal with that crap. Especially before tea.

Well good morning all! It is the last day before Spring Break, hallelujah, and I am ready for it! Nope. I’m not. Not at all. I did work my butt off yesterday and created all the posts we need for the project when we come back from break. And realized I hadn’t copied one thing that we needed. Oops. Fuck me. Then I delivered my quilts to the photographer, so I should have those back in the next few days. Deadline met! Then I headed out to San Diego Mesa College for the opening of Subterranean…here’s me and Grace Gray-Adams with our respective pieces.

As another friend said, they put the person who makes lint and the person who uses lint together. Nice. I had good feedback from people…so no one came up to me and said they hated them, which is always a plus.

I did have an interesting conversation about thread and holes from the needle with one man, who knew a lot more about sewing than most men (or even people) do. This show is only up until the 25th. That probably means I will need the boychild to pick up the pieces, because I might not be back yet. I’m not sure I have pickup info yet. One more thing for the to-do list. Sigh.

I was exhausted by the time I left the show. I came home and read for a while, then exercised, and then tried to be functional. This is an issue right before break. I’m mentally done and my body keeps telling me how tired it is. Meanwhile, we’ve been trying to get everything figured out for our trip. The plus is that the nighttime temps in Bryce have come up 10 degrees (still not enough). The minus is the snow has increased.

Well OK then. I’m going to obsessively watch this for the next week. I’m hoping it stays 28 and the snow goes away, but this is better than it was. Although 30-mph winds during the day is also an issue. Apparently the road is currently closed because of trees down on it. Worrisome. I think we’re camping under trees. IT WILL BE FINE. Dad came through on a passport holder that I can shove under all my clothing that is the right size to hold all my diabetes crap so it doesn’t freeze. As long as I have blood running through my core, that is. Which is the ultimate goal.

The man, meanwhile, is totally excited and hyped and into all this trip stuff, so he can go pack and organize everything while I race around with the to-do list and grading. Uh huh.

I do need to finish a drawing before I go, at least…if not start tracing. Last night, I managed to cut a piece of paper out that is the right size for that. That was all. Then I worked on the first embroidery for a while.

So far, so good. I’m using chain stitch and backstitch so far. I’m also keeping track of stitching time, because I want to know how much time I’m using (a lot more than you would think) for whatever I get out of it. Anyway. It’s also relaxing and meditative.

I’m already nervous about how much thread I’m using. I can only use what’s on the bobbin. It seems like a lot? But not? We’ll see. If I weren’t limited to 5 colors, that would be fun. So far, it seems to be turning out OK though.

OK, so survive day, which includes a talent show (ugh). Escape room with coworkers tonight (seems ironic in some way). Come home and attempt to function. Ha! Finish all the things on the to-do list before Wednesday at 6 AM (double Ha! So not happening.). Enjoy trip. Do not freeze to death, have low blood sugar three miles out on a trail, or break a leg. Or crash. Do NOT call Emergency Services. Have a good time! Finish my book. Or books. Stitch a bit. Draw a lot. Hike a lot. Take cool pictures. Don’t hang out with any 12-year-olds. At all. OK, that might not work. Campgrounds tend to have 12-year-olds. I’m gonna try though.

*Death Cab for Cutie, Gold Rush

To Arizona and Back Again…

We’re back. Quick trip. More driving than anything else, I think. It was worth it…I wanted to see the whole Things That Matter exhibit in one place…although now I think I might be able to see it in St. George as well! On the way to Zion for Spring Break anyway. We’ll see.

So I had some pieces left to cut…my plan was to cut in the car, so I set this up…double-boxed. I’ve done this before. It’s a little crazy, but it works.

Arizona is so flat. This might even be the flat part of California.

Cutting while not driving…

We try to do 2-hour shifts…after that, you need a break. This section was pretty, through the Sonoran Desert National Monument. It was the short way around Phoenix to get to Chandler. We never went into Phoenix.

So we went to see the official opening of the entire exhibit of Things That Matter, an exhibit I was invited to be in last year. The preview exhibition, which didn’t include all the work, was at Visions Art Museum in Spring. I really thought I had done a good job of taking photos at that exhibit, but it turns out I didn’t take hardly any…and this trip was no different. Honestly, my phone camera sucks for this stuff, and the sun was going down and causing issues with lighting. So go see the exhibit or get the catalog on Amazon. Because I suck.

But here is Virginia Spiegel’s Boundary Waters 90 on the left and Pamela Blotner’s Miss Pustelschwein Regrets, a fascinating piece.

Deidre Adams‘ Connections and Susan T. Avila’s Time to Relax, which needs a front view to see the words.

My piece Not Less Than, with Rachel Meginnes‘ Don’t Tell Me It’s Raining, then Catherine Kleeman’s Clean Water and Linda Colsh’s And the Deep River Ran On, on the other wall.

Paula Chung’s PTSD: Betrayal…amazing stitching in this piece.

Betty Busby’s Let Your Light Shine…

And another view of my piece that includes Susan Else’s amazing and terrifying When? on gun violence in schools, and Alice Beasley’s very cool From Russia With Love.

Obligatory photo with my piece…

Elena Stokes‘ Horizon XII-Peace and Quiet…

And another Blotner piece, this with Elizabeth Addison…Hanuman’s Journey.

Please remind me if I go to the St. George installation to take WAY BETTER PHOTOS. Sheesh. And all the pieces. Seriously.

So then we ate and went back to the room and I finished cutting out the quilt pieces. California, Massachusetts, California, Arizona. Impressive.

It took 13 1/2 hours total. Kind of long.

Back in the room, interesting accent wall, especially this bit, which is totally out of reach, even if you’re standing on the bed.

But don’t hang anything on it with a coat hanger. Warning noted.

I drew…this is a baby start for something that’s in my head and is much bigger and fancier. Or more detailed anyway.

I haven’t been drawing much lately. Need to work on that.

The next morning, after a solid American breakfast, we drove back.

There was crankiness. Sigh. 10 hours of driving does that. I finished the owl’s eyes though! And the giraffe, but I forgot to photograph him. I still need to finish the hut for that block to be done.

Now that I’m home and ready to work on the quilt that has to be done in like 7 days, the wool stitching is not really a priority. So yesterday afternoon, I sorted all the pieces…

Less than an hour for that…

And then I started ironing…a snake before dinner…

Then the landscaping starts…hard to do because the water goes over and under the feet, and the water is in the 0-100s box and the feet are in the 400s box, so there was searching and I lost a toe so I had to recut it.

Then a couple of birds went together…

And the background behind them…

Here’s where I’m at so far, with about 150 pieces ironed…well, more because of the toes.

There’s a hill behind the legs, or two hills really, that have to be done, and another bird in the sky. My goal today is first to bang out the 17 errands I need to do, and then iron until the cows come home. Except also go to the gym, make dinner, and grade at least one assignment. Not a small list. But I’m glad to be ironing. It would be good if I were done with ironing sometime tomorrow and then stitching down. I think I need to be quilting by Wednesday. Seriously. You think I’m joking. I’m not. But first, groceries. There’s no food here. Can’t sustain artistic focus without food.

Back.

I’m back. Ready for school? Well, no. But I’m going anyway. My blood sugar is trying to figure out what time zone I’m in. It’s massively confused. I fed it, hoping that would help. Really I should be wide awake right now, being three hours ahead, but I’m still recovering from traveling, I think. Why sitting on a plane is exhausting? No one knows. Actually, there are probably multiple scientific studies about it. None I have time to read right now!

I miss the girlchild already. I guess it’s easier when I don’t see her all the time to forget that I miss her. But I do. She’ll be home for a little while over Winter Break…but that’s always a crazy time of year. Then I’ll see her at graduation. Then who knows when…

So there’s that. My cat was very happy to see me…slept with me all night. Haven’t seen the dogs yet…that’ll be later today. I suspect the man who lives here also missed me…

So three days of school before a short break. I can handle that, right? I hope so.

So Monday, girlchild had classes almost all day, so I headed into Boston to go to the Gardner Museum…it had a small weaving exhibit, which included this piece by El Anatsui, and some other cool work as well.

I didn’t really know what to expect from the palace side of the museum. I only knew it because of the art that had been stolen. It was interesting…

I walked along the water for a bit afterwards. Honestly, it was a bit chilly out.

So I drove to Cambridge to this fabric/yarn/maker place. It was cool…

I didn’t buy much…just a few fabrics that caught my eye and a small embroidery pattern.

Life in a college apartment is always loud, it seems. Mine was not so…although the year I spent in Britain was a bit. I shared a floor with all guys, though, and they don’t impulse-cook like women do. I cut out quilt pieces while they made pumpkin vegan (were they?) chocolate chip cookies.

Tuesday, girlchild sacrificed two classes to take me to the New England Quilt Museum, where I got to see Salley Mavor’s work for the first time in person…plus Susan Carlson, who came to my guild, and a SAQA show. So that was cool.

We were both tired and it was pouring rain. So we went back to the apartment and I cut out pieces while she watched a French movie for class.

I would sit at the window and watch squirrels all day if I lived there.

Getting on the plane was a piece of cake…no line anywhere. And the plane was almost empty. I had a whole row and more. And when the in-flight entertainment wouldn’t work, they comped me internet, so I watched Stardust on Netflix while stitching. This was after reading most of a book.

I was missing the eyes on the owl (whoops) and the hut instructions were in Block 3, which I didn’t have (I hate it when she does that), so then I worked on the giraffe…

So I need to find this guy some eyes so I can finish him, and then find the Block 3 instructions so I can finish the hut.

Preferably before Saturday, when we drive to Arizona for an opening. I should be able to handle that.

So. School. Cutting more pieces out…hopefully getting them done and sorted before we leave Saturday, so I can iron a whole quilt together next week, AND quilt it and bind it (sounds impossible from here). But first kids. Yeah.

Worth It…

I’m pretty sure these pictures are all gonna be backwards, but I can’t deal with that right now. I’ll see what I can do. Going from phone to computer and back is problematic. I’m posting from Boston. It’s 11 PM and one college kid is in bed while the other 4 are presumably at the same party, or maybe another one is on her way to a party? I don’t know. I opted out. My introvert self needed some quiet time and some mental space to catch up with some grading and then this and maybe some drawing, if I feel up to it. Or maybe I’ll just READ. I finished a whole book yesterday. It was exciting.

So first of all, this is Quilt+Resist at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, which opened last night. You can see my anti-gun quilt Rooted in America in the far back.

Looks like an interesting show.

So yesterday, I flew across the country to visit the girlchild in her senior year at college in Boston. I haven’t been here since she moved in Freshman weekend, so it seemed time. Plus it was my Christmas gift from last year. I read a lot on the plane, but also watched a video or two and stitched for a while. It was a trouble-free flight, which was nice. She picked me up from the airport and I’m sleeping in her bed, which is comfortable, although she is still messy. I can’t really judge. I am too…messy, that is. This is the view from the bed…with the quilt my mom made her (and a few more, because shee-it, it’s cold here, and that radiator doesn’t come on).

Then this morning, I had persuaded her that it was OK to go to a job networking conference on conservation employment, which was at Harvard. I sat in Tatte, a cafe that is anathema to diabetics (holy crap, I forgot to post the food picture…damn…), but makes a decent cup of tea…or in my case, 4 cups of tea. Yeah. Well. I needed it, because 3-hour time difference not in my favor. I graded National Park assignments for a good three hours. Ugh. But it’s progress. And it was an interesting place in which to do it.

Floor. Feet.

Then I wandered all over Harvard looking for a bathroom, because 4 cups of tea and line at Tatte was horrific if you don’t have a penis (I don’t), and Harvard doesn’t seem to want the masses to pee. I don’t blame them, but eventually found the science center and a bathroom. Partay! Seriously. These things are important. Harvard, as always, is beautiful and old school America, plus it’s Fall and it stopped raining (did I mention last night’s rain? More than Southern California has had since last Winter, basically, in one night)…so it was really cold and beautiful, once the sun came out.

Then I tracked down girlchild’s friend in the Student Center (I just happened to be there eating my second bagel of the MONTH in the last two days, because Boston easy food is bagels and cream cheese…everything else was sugar)…and we went to the Museum of Fine Art, oh so fine, yes. I absolutely sucked at signs and figuring out who made what art, but this was cool…

And the one on the left is styrofoam cups.

Plus is that a Bernoulli? I know it’s a Van Gogh on the right…

And an exhibit in the contemporary section had this beautiful old weaving…

Here’s the contemporary part, although the video kept moving across these giant batting knots and it was making me ill. This piece is by Cecilia Vicuña; I know that. These knots hang from the ceiling. They are not small.

Girlchild twirling like a Fall leaf.

We were at a fundraiser after that, and then hanging out. I graded for a while. Two full assignments down so far. I know we have stuff planned for tomorrow, so I’m not planning on getting much done…although I need to send the parent email. Maybe I’ll do that tonight. I did get some pieces cut out for the new quilt last night…while we were watching (deep breaths) a Christmas movie. In November. And not even after Thanksgiving. OK. I can hang. There was wine. I’m going to attempt to stay up for another 30 minutes, maybe reading my book, maybe drawing, and then to sleep. Sleep is a good thing. My brain is confused by the times I eat and sleep right now, but I can handle that. It’s nice to be with her. Totally worth the chaos I will return to at school. I say that now! No, really. Worth it.

The Last Day of Summer

I sort of disappeared for a few days. Not really, because Instagram is easy and I was there, but I feel like it’s hard to write the blog if there’s no real art progress and all I’m really going to say is that I read a lot and hung out a lot and ate some foods. Not that those are bad things…we should all do that at some point in our lives. I just wasn’t motivated to write about it. I find that writing here does motivate me to get stuff done, though, which is mostly why I do it. Plus the whole family knows that if we can’t remember when an event happened, we can just check the blog. Which is how we know Kitten is 10 and not 9 (my phone thinks she’s both 9 and 10, and that’s not possible). Most important use of my blog? Figuring out how old the animals are. Yup.

So we were only at Lake Arrowhead for two nights…a short trip. The girlchild isn’t here for long and I have a pile of crap to deal with before school starts, which officially is tomorrow. We have Shakespeare tonight and a birthday dinner tomorrow night, and then she leaves. And school starts. And life continues.

So here’s three days of Arrowhead in no particular order. Lots of blue skies, cooler temperatures, and lake water.

Oh yeah, and sleepy dogs. Very sleepy dogs.

And not dogs. Also sleepy. This is what the week after working 10-hour days all summer looks like. Plus maybe some jet lag.

She claims I took this picture last year. I did not. It must have been her other mother.

Views of the lake.

It was beautiful.

That’s a huge acorn cap.

We don’t have a regular boat. We have access to a canoe and a kayak. It works.

Calli plays in the water, as always…

There’s a bit of a hike back up to the car…

I’m obsessed with manzanita at the moment…want one for the front yard…far away from the house.

We have to haul stuff to and from the dock.

Like dogs.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these in the water…

More dog entertainment. We do a lot of that.

Girlchild in the kayak…

While me, the boychild, and my ex all canoe. Yeah, it’s weird that I vacation with my ex, but when your kid is only home for a week, you do shit like that.

It was a little rough out there…

Hogging the shade…

Grandpa comes too…he’s in charge of keys and dogs and boat maintenance. Like the 17 spiders we had to kill in the canoe.

Everyone reads. Well. The dogs don’t.

They mostly sleep.

Even with concrete as a pillow.

We all had a chance in the kayak in the afternoon…there’s the boychild wandering off.

Dad sits on the dock with the dogs. I got pulled over by the Lake Association during my kayak trip out. He assumed I didn’t have a boat license. Bam! I did. It was in my bra. I pulled it out. It was exciting. No one else got pulled over. He was probably worried about my technique.

Whatever. Sitting around on a dock reading is not a bad thing.

I did finish one binding and started another very-not-important one while watching a video.

While guess who slept.

At night we attempted this musical game…and then poker.

With marbles, because we couldn’t find poker chips.

We had two cars because of the dogs…who found ways to sleep on the way back…

Home.

I did a final steam iron of the big piece in the afternoon, but then was fighting tiredness and significant nausea all evening. The new meds may be the problem…hard to say. I did finally start stitch down at around 9 PM…and fought the machine for a while. It took about 5 or 6 tries to get the tension right. Aargh. It’s different every time I do it. I had the spool horizontal, but the thread was catching on the spool edge and feeding irregularly. So now it’s vertical and threaded differently than the manual tells me, but it’s mostly working. Remind me to take it in after I finish this one.

I got most of the water parts stitched down…I still have a little bit of it plus the mermaid’s head to do.

See? Good tension. Not a rat’s nest. Such a relief.

I went to bed early because I was tired, but the nausea was still pretty bad. I gave up on water and tea last night and found a ginger ale hiding in my stash. It helped. But it’s way too high in sugar to drink regularly. It’s better this morning, but I’m afraid to eat anything. I barely ate last night.

Anyway, today is full of tons of things…need to find two quilts and ship them out of here, and then copyedit, and stitch down…plus be ready for school tomorrow (ugh. So not ready. Positive attitude! Um. Really. For tomorrow’s conference of random professional development? I don’t have any. Really. Can’t.). Last day of summer. It’s the last day of summer. Sigh. It’s OK…last year, I also felt like I got nothing done all summer. Seriously something wrong with that.

Hope

Blargh. Yup. Made it home. Functioning on very little sleep, due to small puppy thing asshole who doesn’t know how to let things move around at night without barking his head off. Kitten finally came down off Batting Mountain because her mommy was home. She whacked the crap out of her substitute parent while I was gone. Ahhh, calicoes. They are the devil incarnate sometimes.

The boychild has officially graduated. He is no longer a student. Now he is an unemployed wayward adult child (he really isn’t the wayward one) who hopefully will solve all his transportation problems today (the state of New York is truly anal about its car registration process), pack up all his shit, clean his apartment because all his roomies have left, and eventually head out to see his sister and maybe even come home. I don’t expect him soon, which is good, because I need to clean up all the quilts on his bed. I’m really proud of him for getting through 4 years at Cornell and hope he eventually figures out what to do with his life, although I have never been the best role model for that, for sure. Save the world! Cure cancer! You promised when you were 10 to build me a robot that would clean the house…WHY HAVEN’T YOU DONE THAT YET???

Girlchild is back in WALTHAM…she doesn’t live IN Boston, just near it…she has a few summer jobs, the major one starting on Monday. She’ll be busy, for sure. She’ll be home for a week in August…long time away, but we saw her this weekend. She was the main cook, which was nice.

I have early stuff at school every day this week. I have a quilt that’s at the photographer for a show I’m entering later this week. I have another quilt that probably can’t get done in time…but I’m going to try. I also tried grading all those kid videos, but had absolutely shit WiFi in Syracuse Airport and on the plane this time, so I was unable to get any work done all that time…which is frustrating, because really right now, it’s either work on school stuff or the quilt, and I obviously couldn’t trace Wonder Under on the plane. So there we are. I’ll get through whatever I get through…as always.

So here was our dinner and post-dinner gathering every night, which explains each one of the 40 or so mosquito bites I have…although most of them seem to be ankle biters…

Here in San Diego, our mosquitoes bite all over…so I find that intriguing.

Yet another of the awesome waterfalls we saw around Ithaca…this is Taugannock Falls.

We didn’t have time to hike down, unfortunately. We had to be out of our rental place and people were slow-moving, so we went back and saw this tree fungus for the first time (it had obviously been there all weekend)…

And then we separated. My ex went home to the Boston area with the girlchild (some worry about the car, we suspect, although he claims one-on-one time with her…also a plus), boychild went back to his apartment to figure all the packing and cleaning out, and I drove the parentals back to Syracuse, where we sat in an airport for a while…

Wishing I could get work done. It was an efficient trip back…just enough time in Philly to grab food and get on another plane, where I couldn’t work even more, so I read a lot. Which is fine…

As we started to land in San Diego…

I did one drawing on the plane, but it’s way over THERE and I don’t feel like getting up and photographing it right now.

Damn, my right eyelid is twitching like crazy today. I basically got home and had a glass of wine to shut my brain up and tried to go to sleep…about 17 times. Ugh. I’m tired. But happy for the kid. I’m sure NOW WHAT is looming large in his brain…hell, it looms large in my brain on a regular basis. I hope he has a cool and mostly trouble-free drive home, and gets to see lots of interesting stuff. I hope I survive the last three weeks of school and grades and finish that quilt. I hope the girlchild finally gets to move into the house where she’s living for the next year and she likes her new job and being able to eat something besides rice. I guess that’s the theme of today then…hope.

I’m Back…Physically…

Hi. I’ve been gone a while. Well. I’m back. Not READY to be back, but what’s new, right? Still need to clean out and patch the tent, but the sleeping bags have been aired out and packed up, the man’s head has been shaved, and very little grading is done. In fact, yesterday, while I’m trying to sit out on the deck in the lovely (not windy) weather, ready (sort of) to power through some grading, the app that we use to sign in to all our other apps decided I didn’t exist…

OK then. I still needed to grade. Luckily my phone and iPad still let me in to the app I needed, but it was slow and fussy, so I didn’t get much done. Oh well! This was the view…

No gusty winds, no 10% humidity or less…sleeping in my own bed. All good. Travel is nice, but it’s also nice to be home.

I have a drawing in my head. This isn’t it. This is the drawing I did to remind me that what’s in my head is better. It may take me a while to get there.

This is the pile of science units that I did manage to grade over break…so that’s not a small amount.

But there’s still a ton sitting around here that needs doing.

I worked on this on the trip…got all the wool bits sewed on. It actually took a lot longer than I thought I would to do that.

And that hut is significantly crooked. But I’m OK with that.

Mostly I worked on those two not-so-crooked huts and the warthog, who just needs his tail finished.

The instructions were like “use the instructions from January to complete this stuff” and I didn’t bring those. I couldn’t figure the flowers out, but for the baby warthog, I just looked at his parents and figured him out. So I didn’t get much done.

I did drive about 2500 miles though and went to a bunch of cool places, which will pop up in posts over the next few weeks, because it will take me forever to find all the photos.

But today, I go back to school…I just spent 20 minutes actually talking to the girlchild in Madagascar, so that was cool. Nice to hear her voice. And now off to work. Hopefully my brain will follow.

A Title Would Be Nice

Not much time for writing these days. Internet is one of those things that many of us have easy access to (unlike the girlchild, who’s definitely missing it in Madagascar), but this trip has been out in the middle of nowhere for goodly chunks of time. Which is fine…we’ve been doing real-world stuff (well, some of it is NOT so real world), so the online world takes a back seat.

I think when last I wrote, I was sitting in a tent town that was a wheeled spoke of wooden walls in a KOA, which was a blessing against the 50-mph winds that mostly died down overnight. It was a rough night…being a light sleeper, road noise kept me awake, as did the wind kicking back up at 1 AM. There’s something about your entire tent trying to take off while you’re still in it that affects your ability to sleep. The plus is that we had to be up and out early, because we had a tour booked at Carlsbad Caverns that morning, and the elevators are currently out. Some poor souls were stuck in them for 3 1/2 hours last week and they’re still trying to fix them.

I just kept comparing the climb in (not what worried me) and out (somewhat more challenging) to Cowles Mountain, our local San Diego most popular hike for the non-hiker. 750 feet down in a mile and a quarter? Your knees will notice…

Going back up? Well they said there was food at the bottom, we were doing the Kings Palace tour (which ended up being very easy but totally worth the money for Ranger Mark’s story of the crazy-ass kid Jim White who discovered this cave), and then there was no food (being diabetic often sucks). But honestly? It wasn’t as hard to climb out as we thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong…there were quite a few happy dances when we made it to the top.

The caves themselves are freaking amazing. I have a ton of pictures, but it’s nothing like being there.

I suggest you go when the elevators are working, although the hike in is also a very cool experience. Those cave structures will definitely end up in some drawings…oh wait, they already have.

So after all that amazingness and natural splendor, we drove to Bottomless Lakes State Park to a very basic campground where the showers couldn’t decide on a temperature OR stay on more than 10 seconds at a time…we were the only tent in a sea of RVs and other smaller camping vehicles. And it was cold and windy…we gave up on cooking (no open fires with the wind) and ate out for the first time on our trip…

It was a cold night, but this is where I drew…fleece on, blanket wrapped around me. I get why no fires, but damn, fires are warm!

The next morning, it was in the 30s, so we packed up and went to breakfast at the Cowboy Cafe, where there was a taxidermied deer butt in the bathroom…

So I don’t remember ever being in New Mexico as a child (I must have been…I was almost everywhere else in the US), but here’s what I now know about this state: most popular vehicle: big white truck. Second most popular vehicle: any other color truck. New Mexicans run red lights with wild abandon. New Mexico is a lot flatter than I imagined.

And there’s a lot more Southern drawl than I expected. My phone thinks we’re in Texas half the time though, so maybe that’s related. Plus we’ve only been in the southern part of the state.

We were going to try to go to Cadillac Ranch in Texas yesterday, but decided to roll that into a future trip to Colorado…the thought of a day with 8 hours of driving was too much. So we headed back into Roswell for some alien fun.

Well you know…I like me some aliens…

And I think they like me too…

And then we headed for Santa Fe…more about that later, because today is all about Georgia O’Keefe and my WordPress app has decided I can’t see what I’m typing. Minor issue. Just know I’m alive and well and fed and showered and warm (ish…it is a high elevation here)…and more will follow.

Someone Let Me Drive…

So internet access has been sketchy at best…or when I have it, I seem to be doing other things, like driving, hiking, zoning out in a natural mineral spring, or sleeping. These are all good things, of course. I have no complaints. Well. Hmmm. The super high winds that greeted us this evening in Carlsbad, New Mexico, rumored to be anywhere from 30-50 mph gusts, well those were a little overwhelming, but true to my weather app, they have now died down to a reasonable breeze and my eyeballs appreciate the lack of dust pummeling them. As I type on my iPad, my new friend Mothra hanging around on my thumb, I smell an illegal fire in a nearby campground as bugs dash their tiny bodies against my clean face. Hallelujah for showers…I’ve taken three in the past 26 hours to make up for missing one Sunday morning. Hopefully the showers in the next campground will delight as well, because the elevators at Carlsbad Caverns are broken…so we hike in and out. At least it will be underground. In fact, that’s kind of cool. I usually hike up the mountains, not down into them.

I have about 3,000 pictures so far and probably not the internet to publish this (I’m gonna try anyway). Saturday, we drove a long way to Chiricahua National Monument (some bug just divebombed my wine…poor drunk little sucker), where we saw lots of birds, two deer, a skunk, three lizards, and the butt end of a coatimundi, just as we’d given up on seeing one. We did some hiking at over 6500′ and camped overnight in a gorgeous space that was unfortunately also peopled very closely by an incredibly loud family who said Shut up Don’t Touch That about 17 thousand times.

I’m trying to put photos in…who knows if it will work. It was an awesome place. More photos later when I have better internet.

We then drove to Truth or Consequences, NM, to Riverbend Hot Springs, where the draw was multiple soakings in mineral hot springs, based on a friend’s photo from last year…where I was like I Must Go There (I was right).

We spent time in three different pools, both in the evening and the next morning before leaving. Goodbye muscle aches from the hike…and a goodly amount of stress as well.

Our somewhat kamikaze trip continued today with a side trip to White Sands National Monument (never assume you can buy gas on a missile base) (I know how to coast a long way downhill). The wind had already started up by then, but not as bad as later, or we would have seen nothing…I’m pretty sure there’s white sand in everything I own right now.

It was REALLY WHITE…and soft, but not hot. Definitely glad we risked an empty gas tank on that. Really, I need a gas tank that realizes how much gas is left, looks at the map app for where I’m going, calculates my gas needs, and starts telling me about last-chance gas stations well before I need them…I’m imagining a high-pitched squealing voice getting louder and more hysterical until I can do nothing but pull over and fill my tank.

Until that happens, I will probably continue to space out on that shit until it becomes a desperate issue.

Then we drove over this pass that was about 8700′ and quite gorgeous…

And yes, about all I’ve managed is to finish one book, sew some wooly animals down, and attach 7.5 eyeballs. I don’t think we’re cooking much from here on out, so hopefully I’ll get enough sleep and downtime (ha!) to maybe draw. I’ve talked about drawing. It just hasn’t happened. And because the elevators are broken at Carlsbad Caverns (tomorrow’s adventure), we just added two hours of hiking up and down 75 stories to the day. I think the original plan allowed for one of those, not both. But what can you do, but put on your boots and rest when you need to? I’m looking forward to the equivalent of a Cowles Mountain hike, but down into a cave and back out.

When I’ve finished my glass of wine tonight, I’m going to head across to the very clean bathroom one more time in the dark…then consider tossing the ice chest back in the car for faster packing tomorrow. I’ll take a last look at the beautiful stars in the sky (there are way more than in San Diego…at least to my eyeballs)…damn, even all the moths have gone to sleep now…and then crawl onto the air mattress, bouncing my travel companion up and down at least 14 times until he cries for mercy, rolls over, and falls back to sleep. Seriously, this place isn’t Chiricahua, but it isn’t half bad when the wind stops.

I Can’t Control What I’m Going Through Now*

OK. Well the girlchild is on the first of three planes over the next 36 hours or so. She comes back in 104 days (she actually goes back to Boston, not San Diego, but that’s way closer than Madagascar). Hopefully she has what she needs. Certainly we tried to make sure she did.

She was in here, the office/studio, last night while I was sewing, practicing her French. She can introduce her husband and her sister (she has neither) and ask where the bathroom is. She should be fine.

Me? I’ve been up since 4 AM and have work with 150 7th graders today. I will be fine. I went a whole year and a half where I only slept like 4-5 hours a night (that is actually more than I got last night, honestly though).

Her bag is only 51 pounds. There’s a backpack in there, a tent, a sleeping bag, and a ton of useful crap. I think.

Sending her off. She does not want me to take her photo this early in the morning. I don’t blame her…but there’s proof I got her in the TSA line.

Last night, I guess my brain finally stopped stalling and let me finish the stitch down.

It did not take long…only about an hour over what I’d already spent on it.

Two hours and 13 minutes total…so short on a little quilt!

So then I found some backing fabric…I was going to use something extra and ugly, but I used the full width of a batik for the front, so honestly, batiks are usually the widest…I couldn’t find anything non-batik in the stash that was wide enough. It’s OK…this was a background for some other quilt.

I don’t usually lay them out on the studio floor. I used to iron on it…hence the holes here and there. But this was small enough.

Pinned down…ready for quilting. Maybe tonight? We’ll see. I should have graded something yesterday and I didn’t. Too wired.

Someone posted pictures of the Threads of Resistance show at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. The show is there until February 18. I think we’re behind a curtain again…Tanya Brown’s piece hanging with mine (presumably pooping is an issue for little kids to view? Not sure.).

Mine always hang together. I’m not even sure they like each other. They’re all feminists though, so that’s OK.

OK, I’m going to make myself go to school and make sense, or get some shit done, or something. Certainly with both kids gone again, I have fewer excuses. Just those in my head. The commission piece will come back in a bit…so I should be efficient and get the other binding on that other quilt…and get this small one quilted and bound, so I have something done in January. That would be a good plan. Do some of the drawing that’s kicking around in my head. A Frida Kahlo-esque piece of the girlchild is in there…the boychild as well (they love it LOVE IT when I put them in my stuff. Absolutely. Sarcasm there. Lots of it.).

*The Alarm, Strength