The Trees Will Bend*

I got up this morning and both Kitten and I were looking around for Satch. Hard for the non-awake brain to remember shit…like where I put my phone and the fact that a cat died. Sigh. Kitten…it’s hard to explain it to her. She’s been coming out more, but she’s still super cautious, looking for him around the corners.

I’m up early for a parent meeting…plus I need to get my class in order for today. We’ll have two teachers out on our team, plus my science co-worker is out, so there’s some chaos on campus. Yesterday had a bit of that as well, the day after the mood-checking lesson, some people (mostly 12-year-olds) had forgotten how to behave. This is a hard year for behavior, certainly. It’s just nonstop. And parents don’t seem to be helping.

Tonight is the full opening for Metamorphosis, the Mingei/Allied Craftsmen exhibit at City College downtown. I’ll be going down with one of the other artists, hopefully to see a bit more of the exhibit. Maybe I’ll get a picture of me with my art! Hopefully to see all the students in there too. It does make for a long day, though. Yesterday was a union meeting, plus the gym. I really enjoyed having time for exercise and reading my book, plus I posted a few things students had done on my teacher Insta account in between weight machines. I’ve been lax with that. And I haven’t been able to figure out how to link it to the correct Twitter account. There should be an easier way. There doesn’t seem to be, though. Technology…making an intrusive mess since 1990. Or so.

I was hoping to get the cutting done last night, but I had guessed that pile had more pieces in it than it looked like it had, and I was right…

He did sit by me for a little while. He’s fussy about couch sitting. But you can see why it took longer…them’s some fussy little pieces.

This is after two hours. The pile on the right is all that’s left…

But it’s probably another hour. Maybe less. So tonight. And then I’ll sort them. Does that mean I could be ironing Friday night? It does. That’s nice. Because I’m running out of time. Sound familiar? Yeah. I know. Every time. Iron it together, stitch it down, quilt it, bind it. Deep breaths. This is how I roll.

Another view of Swallow Me Whole in Beyond the Surface…

I love that piece.

Boychild has been chopping away at the backyard bushes, trying to make sense of them, plus retain the not-view of our neighbors as much as possible. Need to work on that part, I think.

He’s still walking around with a boot on his foot…hopefully the toe is healing. There’s a hike at the end of the month. Plus I miss our weekly dog walks. I’m freaked out about trying to take the dogs out alone with the coyotes who have been around.

Anyway, need to leave. Go to work. Keep my cool. Get them through it. Hopefully.

*R.E.M., So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)

At Peace…

A really sad day yesterday. Poor kitty. Satchemo is finally at peace. Hard day for the rest of us. I prefer to remember him well…

In my stuff, sneezing in my face, claws in my leg, begging for food, silent meow. That’s 4 cats we’ve lost in less than 5 years, I think. All older cats. It’s been rough. It’s a weird house now with only one cat in it. Don’t know how long that will last.

Ironically, we are doing a Check Your Mood presentation in science today all day, so I’ll be sitting through that, checking my own mood, which is sad and slightly weepy. Yesterday, I had a few kids offer me free kittens. Strangely, it’s always the kids who are the loudest, most needy bastards who are ready to go find you a kitten or beat someone up for you. I guess that’s how you know you have a connection with them. At my old school, they wouldn’t have asked first…they would just have shown up with one and handed it to me at the door as they walked in. That’s how I got the pet tarantula (no, I didn’t put my hands out for that one…be aware that a 7th grader with closed hands outstretched toward you is never a good thing). I’ll sit and grade all day while the counselors present. I have a lot to get through.

In good news, my dearth of SAQA exhibits has ended finally. Each Piece Belongs got into Opposites Attract and will be traveling to Australia in the spring.

Hopefully they’ll hang it right side up. Better make sure it has a label on it. I shipped the two sold quilts to Texas yesterday. Hope their owner enjoys them. I’ll miss them, but it’s good to be able to pay off the big ugly bills.

One of my art friends sent a picture of Swallow Me Whole at Beyond the Surface in St. Louis, MO…

It looks good. It was a good quilt to make…no theme, no show in mind…just make what’s in my head. I really just want to stay home today, take a mental hell day…wait, a mental HEALTH day, draw all day. That would be nice. Not an option. OK. Noted. Like yesterday, boychild texted me a picture of a jury summons, because the universe sucks. It’s for November, when we’re in the middle of a huge project that’s full of labs that I really really can’t leave for a sub unless we want explosions. So you know what I’m doing on my first day of Winter Break? Two days before Christmas? Getting my ass up early and going to the damn courthouse. What I will need by then is a break. Hopefully it’ll be one day because no one will want a trial right before Christmas and then I can go on my break. I can’t push it out to summer…it’s too far. Fuckers. I want to go see my kid too, so hopefully going to be able to do that at the end of Winter Break, if she doesn’t come home. We’ll see.

I did grade last night. One kid’s doodles led sad us to K-pop and weird Korean animations. It was something to watch to keep our brains from being sad. Then I cut stuff out…

It doesn’t look a whole lot different than it did before, but I’m out of the body pieces and into the background…so there’s a lot of bigger pieces that cut out much faster than the small ones. I’m still not close to done, I think, but maybe after tonight. OK…off to the workplace…

Exploding Blueberries

There’s a blood bath in my breakfast bowl. I forgot what happens to blueberries when you nuke them. Do people still say that? Nuke them? Would my students know what I meant? It seems really old school. Anyway, the berries exploded. I wonder what the inside of the microwave looks like. I’m not looking.

Well I have an extra week on the copyediting. I did finish the last section (minus the hellacious bibliography) last night. I need to do the second and third readthroughs on that, but that won’t be until Friday, I think. Then put the whole mess back together. Do you think I can persuade him to write the next one so it needs copyediting in June instead of August? There are two more, at least. We’ll see.

Hey! I’m going to be sitting the SAQA booth at the San Diego Quilt Show Saturday morning. Exciting stuff. I don’t usually go to this quilt show, because they won’t actually let me show my own work in it. Plus it’s very traditional. At least when I used to go, it was. Who knows.

I was reading the Surface Design Association’s email last night, and clicked on the link to see the website for the Beyond the Surface exhibition. I did get into that show, but was happily surprised to see part of my quilt in the page header.

That’s my baby :-). Serious smile when I saw it.

It’s good, because I’m not making much right now. Not until Sunday probably. I did draw last night, though. I need to do a Patreon drawing, and that’s a good excuse to make myself draw…so after eating, while still watching the very disturbing Black Mirror episode and mourning all the stuff that was on my Tivo extender drive thingie that just died (sigh), I drew with the puppy’s assist…

I think he’s getting a belly rub there. Not from me…so he’s really not assisting at all, except by being cute.

I have a 2-1/2-hour meeting after school today, so hopefully I’ll have the brainpower to finish it. I actually got much further than that.

After dinner, I went in to copyedit though…two hours of that…

Kitten and Pandora assist on that one. It was pretty easy reading, though. The Bibliography is next and it’ll be hard. Formatting. Alphabetizing. I guess it’s easy in that I don’t have to read much for sense…just catch all the commas and semicolons.

I’m ALMOST DONE. Oh hallelujah. I do like to copyedit. I just don’t like to do 17 things at once. Eventually Kitten went to the green fabric drawer (it has green fabrics in it. I’m aware the drawer is not green) and Calli came in to keep me company.

I always have some furry beast with me. Her hair is coming back slowly from her surgery. I just realized both dogs have a rectangle of shaved side. I wonder if they’re cooler this summer because of it? Can’t ask them. Because they’re dogs.

These guys don’t really like each other. But they did not fight this morning. That’s a plus.

Kitten tried to play hide and seek and playful paws around the corner, and Satch was completely clueless. Sigh.

OK, teach all day, then 2 1/2 hours of science training (training. ha. You mean we sit and listen to you tell us why your stuff is so awesome that you can’t give us editable files and then say some shit about copyright which is so unhelpful in a school setting. And we mutter to each other about how annoying you are as a publisher.). Then dinner, which I hope I’m not cooking, but someone just realized they have a dental appointment, so who knows. I’m rolling with it. I can explode some more blueberries for dinner maybe. Finish that drawing! Collapse somewhere soft that is bedlike. Do it again.