I Don’t Get What They Do It For…

I think I’m officially in panic mode…and it’s because we were proactive Wednesday and started planning the first science unit of the school year. But then you start thinking about what you need to do, what needs to be set up, what changes you want to make from last year. And you start to panic. You think about how many hours a day you will have to be grading and planning, on top of the hours at school, plus meetings etc. And how are you going to get everything else done? And new schedules and students and realizing you’re getting ALL the little brothers and sisters of the kids you happily said goodbye to in previous years. And then yesterday (I didn’t even have time to write yesterday), you have a nice luncheon with teacher friends, and it gets worse. I know I do this every year. I freak out about a week or two before school starts, because I realize how little I got done and how much is left to do, and I’m losing days left and right to school crap. Plus the kids will be leaving for college at about the same time, and that sucks too.

And the art stuff has been difficult to get done this summer, between working another job and having machine issues. And today I found out I have another project that has to get slotted in there. I mean, it’s a good thing, it’s something I wanted to do, but I’m hyperventilating.

Stop. Deep breaths. Manage.

Thankfully, all the construction noise that surrounds me at the moment didn’t start up until 9 AM this morning. They actually let me sleep a little. It’s been a sleepless summer.

Yeah. Gotta get my head out of this crazy.

So Wednesday, we hiked, and then I quilted a little bit Wednesday and Thursday nights…I’m up to 10 hours in. And I’m hoping to get it done sometime tomorrow.

I originally hoped to be done today, but it’s already 10 AM and I have errands, plus gaming tonight, so that ain’t happening. But hopefully I can get significantly into the background today.

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There’s a lot of detail on this thing, and some fussy little stuff for quilting, like those passion flowers, but they look awesome now that they’re done.

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I got the whole lower torso done Wednesday night…

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And even moved on to the heart…

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Then Thursday night, I did the right breast, covered with cat…

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Strategically placed flower for nipple…and then did the tiger (hid the nipple in the fur pattern) and the cactus and the seaweed to finish up the left breast and arm, except for the octopus. It was midnight. I was tired.

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So today, I’m going to do the head and the right arm, plus the very top of the torso. And then start the hours of background. This one has a lot of it.

So I had been wanting to do either a Cuyamaca or Lagunas hike all summer, but it takes a while to get out there, plus weather, so this last Wednesday was the first one I felt organized enough to pull it off. I have to make dinner ahead of time and figure out the leaving time based on sunset and hike times, etc. I wanted to repeat a hike I did in January 2015, but that was full snow. I read the organizer’s description, but there was one section I couldn’t figure out, so I emailed him and he sent the GPS map, which actually turned out to be way more useful than all the Afoot and Afield pages I photographed. In the end, it was a well-marked trail and we only had one minor crisis of direction. It lasted about 2 minutes.

It was a gorgeous day for it…nice and cool for most of it. They threatened thunderstorms in the early afternoon, and the clouds definitely looked like they could pull that off, but we didn’t start hiking until 5 PM.

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I love the mountain vistas, the pines, even the dead grass.

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And the views. Smartass.

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There was some minor bouldering, just because.

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I like hiking with my kids. It’s gonna suck when they’re gone. We did see a deer, but I couldn’t get a photo of it in time. We thought we’d see more when we got to the meadows, but the cows were out and so were the mountain bikers, so just the one. And girlchild didn’t see it, so she was pissed.

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There’s something about climbing up…

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Lots of bugs and grasses on the back end of the trail, the Sunset Trail portion.

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And then we came out into the cows…and the Water of the Woods, which still has water. Last time I saw it, it was mostly frozen over.

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The meadows are gorgeous, even without water in the lakes.

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We came back via the Big Laguna Trail…there weren’t any other hikers that we saw…just one pair of bikers on this end, and then a group of about 15 of them near the end, and we could outwalk them on the slopes.

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Big beautiful pines that survived the fires. You can see the burn marks on the trunks.

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The sun was definitely on its way down. We had a couple of really slow miles due to…um…chaos. Let’s just call it that. But we sped up on these last miles (and we had headlamps, worst case).

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We figure some virus or something causes these giant ball-shaped things on the old oaks…

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And this has to be woodpeckers…or something. Such perfectly placed holes, all the way up and down the trunk.

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This low-lying plant (not the grasses) had all these weird giant pods all over it.

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We saw morteros galore in this rock…would have been a nice place to hang out in the summer. Much cooler than East County is at the moment.

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I think this was officially sunset. We did think we should have gone BACK the Sunset Trail, so we could have seen the actual sunset, but this worked…

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These tiny flowers were everywhere…

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This was watching sunset hit the trees to the east…

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And the last bit of the path, as dusk fell around us.

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We drove off in the dark, 8 miles, a good hike…probably the last long one before they leave. We’ll see.

And yesterday, while talking to the garden guy who came out to help me figure out my yard, we watched the raccoon who has been hanging out in our yard walk right across in broad daylight and climb the tree…about 30 feet up. He’s sleeping in a fork of the tree up there…

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If you can’t figure it out, the left circle is one of his feet and the right circle is his head.

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I didn’t have my phone when he walked across the yard, unfortunately.

So I’m quilting today. Lots of hours. Need to get done. Construction noise has started up again. So distracting. Oh well. Turn up the noise.

*Amanda Palmer, The Killing Type

Just Get My Head Into It…

Morning is never really my strong point. I’m one of those late-night people. I don’t really get much done in the morning. And currently I’m sitting here in my office and I can clearly hear people at my door, plus Simba is going ballistic (Calli is in Arrowhead), but they haven’t figured out that my doorbell doesn’t work (oh hallelujah…I live in the boonies for a reason) and apparently they don’t want to knock. I’m OK with ignoring them because I heard them at the neighbors and it’s selling something, whether product or religion, and I don’t need either.

Yeah, my attack dog is a Pomeranian-chihuahua.

Last night, I had to text pictures of him to the girlchild, who missed cuddling with him. Huh.

So yesterday was kinda wishy washy. I copyedited for a while. Need to finish that up this morning and send it back. It’s the last chapter, so I hope there’s another book coming, but who knows…no guarantees. Then I was supposed to go to my stitching meeting, but I still don’t really have anything portable. The quilt is huge, so transporting it to quilt on it somewhere else is not realistic. So I took the last of the birds…

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I didn’t actually finish stitching it until later last night, but it’s done! A miracle! Well, until you realize that now I have to trim them all down, stitch them together, add the borders, and then do 96…NINETY SIX little balls with fancy stitching in the borders. Well. That’s gonna take a while. There’s no shortcut for that.

The birds are Sue Spargo’s 2013 block of the month project, and I’ve been working on them…well, since 2013. Mostly at soccer games, honestly, and then stitching meetings after that, because they’re nice and portable. I’m thinking the whole quilt is not gonna be so portable, and probably uncomfortable to stitch on in summer, being totally made of wool. But I’ll try to get to the point where I can stitch balls on.

I call it Bird Crazy, but it’s actually called Bird Dance…

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See all the balls? Yeah. So I’ve finished 30 birds…in about 3 years. I’m rocking it. Seriously, though, people always want to know why I’m working on other people’s patterns, and the reality is that mine are often not portable, or not something I can work on at a soccer game (I’ve spent a huge part of the last 10 years at soccer games…really until the last 12 months). And I like the embroidery on wool. It’s relaxing. And enjoyable. So it’s my hobby. I’ve always enjoyed embroidery…I just don’t usually have time to do any of it on my own quilts, because the deadlines are so tight, or because I’m so mentally done with the piece by the time I get to the end.

I do have one top I started quilting where the plan is to add a lot of embroidery…and I did a memorial quilt for our last dog (who yes, died in 2012? I think?)…by DID I mean that it’s a bunch of wool pieces and a background, but I haven’t gotten any further than that yet. Things I’m making for me don’t get priority on the sewing list.

So after stitching meeting, I came home and played with puppy for a while, but I know I have a bunch of deadlines to deal with, and many of them require drawings, so I thought I would do that thing I always WANT to do, which is sit out on the deck and draw…so I did.

It was after 5 PM, but still not cool…but the sun is on the other side, so that makes it bearable. And I played some music and drank some milk (of course)…and did this.

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Now straight up, I like the body but hate the head and the bird. So they’re gone. But I think I can work with the rest of it. I’m probably gonna enlarge it and cut the head and bird off. There will be a head and a bird. Just not those two. Sometimes when I haven’t been drawing for a while it takes me a bit of fudging to get what I want. So that’s a start.

I love that prosthesis, by the way.

Then I had told Simba, who got left behind from the Arrowhead trip (not enough puppy supervision), that I would take him on a walk, because he got stuck inside while I was gone. I waited until it was cooler, much cooler…in fact, we were racing the dark back (I’m OK with that, except for the coyotes and the snakes).

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We saw a horse…twice…and Simba was sure he could kill it. I think. The horse was more intrigued than scared, luckily. Like…what the hell is that tiny growling thing? Exactly.

I was trying to tire him out, and it worked for a bit. Midnight is very tolerant of him, but she’s also bigger than him…and he truly doesn’t know what to do with her…except sometimes clean and/or nibble her ears. Which she doesn’t seem to mind.

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Hiking made me tired, but eventually I managed to come back into the sewing room. I recently finished the last little bit of embroidery on the 2012 Spargo quilt, Earth and Twig, after letting it languish for a good long time (like probably 2 or 3 years…see, I do that too). Yesterday, I finally found the backing and other pieces, then pieced the backing (hanging in the background)…then ironed the front and cut some batting. It’s ready to be sandwiched, hopefully sometime today.

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I’ve never quilted wool before, and honestly, it will be on the back burner for a while, but it will be ready. So that makes it closer to done.

Today I might have an art opening, if I feel like dragging myself to it. I have a few other things I need to do before I can start quilting, but that’s the goal…to quilt a lot. Don’t think about lesson planning and school supplies and deadlines and crap like that. Just get my head into the art and do it.

Easier Said Than Done

Yesterday was somewhat disappointing in the art arena, but I did finish the first major run through the chapter I’m copyediting. I can sense the author’s attention to detail waning in later chapters. That’s always the way it is, right? It might be why I haven’t yet finished writing the sci fi novel I started a few years back…I’m not sure exactly how to end it. And I don’t want it to flail at the end. I’m sure there’s a way to deal with that, but I don’t see having the spare time to do so in the next year. Maybe that will change.

I also dropped off my sewing machine for cleaning and fixing, so hopefully that will be quick and easy, and I can pick her up tomorrow. I’m not going to be done ironing by then though. I suspect. Although I guess I might be surprised. If last night is any indicator of how I’ll be working today, though, there isn’t a lot of hope of finishing today. Maybe with tomorrow as well. I don’t know…I haven’t been doing a great job of getting work done during the day…whether it’s the heat or too much other stuff going on…I can feel summer slipping away and it’s kind of stressing me out.

All the more reason to go on hikes with the kids, though, because they’ll be gone soon enough. So I’ve never hiked the Fortunas in Missions Trails Regional Park. I heard horror stories about stairs (and I’m still not sure where those are…and honestly, I’m OK with that), but I figured I could try South Fortuna. Unfortunately, the park closes at sunset (I really don’t understand all the parks that close early in summer…it’s too hot until after 6 to be doing this), so we had to start hiking at 4:30 to make sure we’d get out in time. As it was, we had an extra hour (well, unless you believed the parking lot we were in, which said 7 PM, but was chock full when we got back there right about 7), so we could have gone a bit later…maybe parked out on the street, like other people were.

The hike starts out nicely enough near the Old Mission Dam and through Oak Canyon, but pretty soon, we were out in hot and dry…

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There were a few trees in the beginning.

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This bug was amazingly colored…bright blue and orange.

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And then after about a mile and a half, we start up this. It’s not too bad to start, but it’s hot and dry. So I rest when I get dizzy from lack of oxygen. It’s half a mile and probably most of the 900-foot gain this hike claims. Girlchild is up there, then the boy, and then some other guy, who got passed by the boychild. Long legs and youth help on these things. Unfortunately the girlchild had a muscle issue, so she was in pain. But she wouldn’t stop or take meds.

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I forgot my poles. They would have been useful on the way back down. Here I looked back down. It never looks as bad in photos as it feels going up it.

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In this picture, the top of the hill is right below where the transmission towers are. This is facing North Fortuna, which we didn’t do…but you can see the trail for it winding up.

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The actual summit of South Fortuna is pretty low-key. Just this sign…

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And facing south, there’s Pyles Peak and Cowles Mountain…which we’ve done multiple times.

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Girlchild is truly irritated and in pain, so she’s throwing rocks. The trail continues south, but we weren’t sure how far, so we went back the way we came.

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I saw one of these bushes last time, with the feathers, but didn’t photograph it well…

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And a blurry picture of a rattlesnake disappearing into the brush. Not a young one…nice long rattle at the end.

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It was just under 6 miles and plenty hot, but we did it. I can’t seem to beat the heel blister this summer. I’m really frustrated about it. I’d blame the boots, but I wore them for three months with no problems. Blisters suck.

After dinner (which I made in the afternoon, like a smart woman…see, I do learn from experience), I flailed for a while, because the thought of standing and ironing was daunting, but I eventually overcame it and started ironing…a pine branch for an arm…

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And the fingers beyond it. All this will be better delineated once it’s quilted.

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And then I had hoped to get the whole crane ironed last night, but my SIL called after the 21 Pilots concert, and I talked to her and my nephew, who is kind of a crack-up. And after that, it was midnight plus, so I went to bed. Crane half done…

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It’s hard to see on a white background anyway.

So I have both arms and the upper torso and the head to do. Quite a lot, really, although I’ve now passed the halfway mark in the pieces…just started the 1100s. I have just under 16 hours into this. I think I guessed 24 hours? Or 26? Can’t remember. Probably closer to the latter. Although at some point, the pieces get bigger, so they’ll be easier to iron. An equivalent quilt from last year took 27 hours plus to iron together, so that’s a good estimate. If there’s another 11 hours, I’d have to do a serious chunk today and tomorrow to be done. It’s not like it’s impossible. I just need to get my act together (wake up!) and do it.

Easier said than done. Last run through on the chapter? Then iron. Maybe. Yeah. Do it.

Head above Water

Yesterday. Was good. Although a little frustrating in the first half. Jackhammering continued (none this morning!), starting too early for me…and then, because editing was going so EASILY…the document turned into a Frankenbeast of formatting headaches. I made one change, moving something into a list that needed to be there, and it literally screwed up the formatting in the entire document. And I didn’t notice until I’d made another 50 corrections or so, so I couldn’t just undo without losing all of that. Aargh. I searched for ways to deal with bulleted lists, and got nothing relevant…probably because I didn’t know exactly what words to use. Formatting can be such a bitch. So I had to redo a chunk of it, which lost me time and money. Sigh. It happens.

After that, I managed to finish a book, hike 7.34 miles with the kids, make dinner from scratch, and cut stuff out. Yup. This is how I relax. Seriously. Look under the definition for workaholic and you find me.

OK. I never really relax like this…

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That puppy is spoiled.

So the hike…we did over 7 miles of Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve, leaving from the Black Mountain trailhead and hiking out to the waterfall in a roundabout way, trying to avoid trails with bikes on them (although the bikes appear to just ignore the signs that say stay off, because they’re assholes? Or illiterate? Or special? I’ve never understood that.). There was poison oak everywhere…the wonders of a high-water winter and spring in Southern California. This is cactus overrun by poison oak…which you can only find here.

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The weather was much better than last week, and honestly, this isn’t a hard hike. There’s no up and down…just long.

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We made it to the waterfall and hung out briefly.

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But we had to be out of the parking lot by 8, because they lock it, so we were motivated to keep moving.

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There’s a few river crossings…I think we did this one twice.

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And the oak groves are always my favorite.

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A grave of a former ranch cook…

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And this sign amused us…because really? The trail to the right was pretty poison-oaked as it was…

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But whatever. We just didn’t touch the stuff.

After dinner, I managed to cut for another couple of hours…wait, make that three hours. So I think I’m over 11 hours in right now.

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There were lots of little pieces last night…some I didn’t even try to cut out (you can see a few on the bottom left), because they’re too small and I’ll just lose them. I’ll cut them out as I iron.

This is all that’s left…

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It doesn’t look like much, until you see how many of the pieces are small. It took me about 30 minutes last night just to cut out the giraffe’s spots. All curvy and weird.

This was my scrap pile from last night…

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You can see the color changes below…four different scrap piles from four different nights.

I’m getting there…slowly. Too slowly, I think sometimes. But I’ll get there. I do have to copyedit again today…and tomorrow. But I’m hoping to leave the weekend free. That would be a plus. It’s hard knowing that what would really help me relax and be ready for the upcoming (stressful) school year is not having to work NOW…but also needing to work NOW because of college and cat payments etc.

A friend sent me a link to a gallery in New Orleans where she saw stuff she knew I’d like (and I did)…and I’ve been thinking of trying to do an actual vacation trip in the next 12 months, but the money is nonexistent, and then girlchild tried to guilt trip me about coming to visit my kids instead. Ah. OK. That was discussed at one point. So we’ll see. Price it out. Work some more hours. And I have a quilt going to Houston, but I won’t be there…which sucks, but again…money kicks me upside the head. Keep making art. Keep working. Head above water…

The book I finished (and I will be reading the next one, once I get through the three I have checked out from the library) was The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch…very good, although in George R. R. Martin style, he likes to kill my favorite characters.

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I should make time to draw today I think. I believe I need to do that. I keep saying it and not doing it.

Turning the Music Up…

Oh my. The jackhammer is back. Of course. I took 4 days off working (not art…although I did take a bit of a break on that too) because I NEEDED it. I was hitting that braindead stage where I just get irritable and don’t want to do anything but sleep, and I suck at that. So I ignored copyediting for four days. Today was my planned return to the Sitting-in-Front-of-the Computer crazy. But there’s jackhammering. Sigh. So I turn the music up loud. But it doesn’t make me feel particularly friendly toward this neighbor, I must say. He’s also the one who wants to trim my trees so he can “reclaim his view.” The view you never had, dude. (Kathy goes to buy new trees to plant…seriously…so I don’t have to see or hear you.)

Yeah. I’m in a mood. Whatever. I did relax a bit…but you know, one of the things I do to relax is read, and my book took a particularly dark dive last night while I was reading (in the dark, on a blanket, waiting for the fireworks to start). I’m sad about that too. So maybe I just need to work my brain into the hole and then climb out again.

I’m still cutting out tiny pieces of fabric. No change there. I just didn’t do as much as I’d planned over the weekend. Oh well.

I was trying to organize the wool projects I do for “fun” (no really, they are pretty fun to stitch on), because during the school year, things got out of control. So I pulled everything out and tried to figure out what the hell I’d been doing.

First of all, this one has been almost done for ages…

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It’s Sue Spargo’s Earth & Twig. I decided it was missing a flower, so I had started sewing it down and never finished…

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So I stitched it down and found a center, but not the thread that I used on the others (probably because there isn’t any more). I thought about buying another skein of it, but shipping is almost as much as the skein. So I’m still considering a solution to that. I did wash the backing and binding that she had sent as well, so I could get to that stage. Maybe.

It’s a fun little quilt…

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Then I found all the Bird Dance blocks (I’ve been calling this Bird Crazy since I started it).

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I’m working on the last three right now. Well. Not right this second. But anywhere I have to wait. But then I realized the borders are a bitch and a half. So yeah. Not gonna be done with that for a while.

I then tried to organize the rest of it. Went through and labeled boxes and consolidated stuff so there were only two places I could find any block: in a master box for that project or in a travel box for working on stuff. OK. Three places, because the ones I’m doing embroidery on are in these zip bags I got from the Container Store.

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I also cleared off most of the piano and the chair, trying to get stuff organized for when school starts, and then organized the stuff that lives on and near the couch. And continued cleaning off the table (desk?) in the office. I really want to achieve organization. REALLY.

Then we hiked…

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It was a little warm, but not too bad, compared to last week. The dogs can’t do more than 3 miles really, so that was it…beautiful day for it though.

Saw this…mostly everything else is dead and dried out by now. But this wasn’t.

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The dogs even ran for a bit. So did we. Possibly a mistake. But it felt good.

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The family hike is set for Wednesday. That means I need to copyedit today and tomorrow before the hike. Ugh. I will still cut stuff out, but I probably won’t get done. It’s OK. Stuff gets done when I can deal with it. Honestly, trying to concentrate with the jackhammer is challenging enough. Turning the music up even louder.

Going Solo

So I have some really good news I’ve been sitting on for a few days, just letting it percolate. I’ve been invited to have a solo show in the VALYA gallery at Visions Art Museum next July. It’s the smaller gallery space in the back and there will be another show (which sounds cool too) in the front. I will be making some new work and using some already-made work as well…as I get closer to the date, I’ll hopefully figure out what that might look like! As I’m sitting here with three quilts ahead of anything for that…

But I’m excited! My first solo show and in Visions…it’s a good thing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood in that gallery and imagined my work up on the walls (and I’ve had plenty of pieces in there, but never more than one at a time). So expect to see some work coming for that…and because of the timing with Comi-Con, you might see some of this…

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Or this, minus the lame costume. Really I just want to use Bif, Bam, and Pow in a quilt or two.

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With my own take on superheroes maybe. We’ll see. I’ve got months to think about it.

Meanwhile, yesterday was no art, just work…and then a hike that seriously kicked my butt. We did Mt. Woodson, but went up the back way, via the Fry-Koegel trail. We picked it because we knew it was going to be hot most of the week, and the kids are working Friday, and this has mostly shade going for the first two miles. We left around 6:15 PM and the heat was intense for me. I don’t do heat well, being pale-faced Northern European, and my legs were like wooden blocks for miles 3 and 4. But I did it.

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We missed sunset on top…we were about 20-30 minutes too early, but that was better than hiking down in the dark. I think. Maybe.

It was still beautiful, even if it kicked my ass. I taped up the blister really well and it didn’t get worse (it’s not healing particularly quickly, but probably hiking before it healed was not the best thing for it!). We won’t hike again probably until next week…maybe a short one with the dogs…but that’s not too bad.

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This is finally on the way down the front of the mountain. There were about 17 lizards on this rock, so the girlchild was checking the warmth…

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Yup. She’s a lizard-in-training.

OK, back to copyediting so I can get this chapter out of my hair and continue with ironing and maybe drawing for the next one. Ha! Crazy. It’s because as July approaches, I feel school looming…especially this year, it seems an incredibly early start. Trying not to think about it. Too much to do…

Today’s Word: Iron

I’m barely functional this morning. The dogs were up early and hyper, ready to play before 6 AM. I’m never ready to play that early. I’m not playing until they learn to bring me a cup of tea and let me sleep a full 6 hours at least. Not happening.

So now I’m sitting here nursing a headache and my first cup of tea after trying to go back to sleep and flailing massively. Birds are too damn loud, dogs barking, Kitten trying to headbutt her way into getting me up to feed her. I did feed the dogs. I’m sure it seems unfair.

I did get to the ironing stage yesterday though…I cleaned up, put all the fabric away, and hung up the giant-ass drawing so I could see what I was ironing.

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It’s people-sized. Seriously. It’s 64″ tall…and so am I…on a good day.

Here’s all the stupid fusible web that released. Yes. I am a little OCD about my pieces…

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You can see all the shapes this way. It makes it easy to figure out what’s what. For instance, I know that the piece that is 4 from the right side, up three pieces, is in the 1600s. I can’t remember what they are, but they’re all in the 1600s. Ahh…this is what the drawing is for…it’s part of the snake wrapped around her arm.

Then I laid out the first 100 pieces, which are mostly big because they’re part of the earth at the bottom of the drawing…

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I ironed some and then (ironically) we went and hiked Iron Mountain.

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Really, that wasn’t on purpose. And no, I didn’t try to put the mountain in the sign on top of the real mountain, because if I’d waited any longer to take the photo, you’d have the version where my son is flipping me off because he doesn’t like his photo taken. And it’s been much cooler the last two days…so the high-heat advisory? Maybe over.

We aimed to get to the top by sunset, but we also forgot the headlamps. You know, the ones we checked earlier in the afternoon to make sure the batteries were OK. So that was kinda stupid.

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The purple flowers were beautiful. Julie will know what they are.

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Sunset was a little marine-layer-affected, but it was nice anyway.

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Then we headed back down in the dark and didn’t have dinner until 10 PM. Not necessarily the best plan, but whatever. It was a good hike, although for the first time in 3 months, my boots gave me heel blisters. I don’t know why. Annoying.

Then I eventually got my tired butt up off the couch and ironed some more…while watching Longmire. Those are the fabrics I’ve used so far…

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I did the earth and the mountains, but not the volcano. I didn’t even get 100 pieces ironed…

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Which is fine. I’ll get more done today. Although I have to go to a meeting first. And to the gym at some point, probably later. I do better at the gym at night. Anyway, I’m getting art stuff done…that’s a good thing.

Weighing in…on…

So I’ve had a few days to process all the crazy around the shooting in Orlando. I think it’s true that we have now seen so much gun violence and gender and racial hatred, and we’ve seen so little change in our policies, that it’s hard to even say anything, to even think…well what DOES need to change and HOW do we make it change, when we so obviously can’t even agree that a huge part of the problem is the gun itself and access to it, and the other huge problem is how much hate there is in our country. And there’s one presidential candidate who seems to be making that intensely worse. It’s hard to have any hope when you’re staring at all of that. My students were asking me who I voted for in the primaries, and I won’t tell them, but I do tell them that if Trump is elected, me and all my smart women friends will be in an internment camp (I read that somewhere)…because the likes of the Donald doesn’t like women who say no or argue. Hell, I’ve been around men like that in my life. One was a boss. That was a hard few years.

Anyway. It’s weighing on me, as I’m sure it’s weighing on many of you. I don’t see an easy solution as long as people are convinced weapons are necessary to their safety. And that a religion they don’t understand is at fault…I am amused at the anti-Muslim sentiment from people who are also anti-gay. You hate both? And yet you use the deaths of one group to try to oust the other? Fear is such an ugly stupid thing.

So yeah. Trying to survive the last few days of school with all that…and yeah, we will be talking about that and Brock the Rapist and consent during sex ed this week.

Meanwhile, hiking seems a good solution to the feeling and stress parts…we’re down to one car and it’s not particularly large, but we piled three dogs and three adults into it…then Simba tried to tie up the boychild.

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This is one I haven’t done in a while, Old Sweetwater Bridge…because I think of it as a mostly flat and not very long trail.

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There’s been a lot of water this year, so there are new plants…

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And eventually, they showed me the hilly part, which I didn’t know was there. We came in through that river valley. So now I have another hike to add to the local within-a-5-minute-drive options…

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They’ve gone in and fixed trails and added signage in the last year or so, which is why it’s easier to find existing real trails that don’t just wander off into the side of a hill.

Coming back, dogs were tired and hot…so were we…

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But it really does help clear the brain.

Grades were apparently due yesterday (it’s always Tuesday except when it’s not!)…and everything is done except for one kid, who may show up with stuff today. This morning hopefully…

I traced the small owl onto Wonder Under…

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Then I cut out Wonder Under pieces for the big quilt while we watched Deadpool as a family. It was just as good the second time around.

Simba as a neck warmer…

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He is a very lovey dog, when he’s not trying to bite you. Still working on that part of the training.

OK. Maybe a drawing will come out of the other stuff…not that it solves anything except the chaos in my brain. Still working on the other part of the solution. Because Australia’s version isn’t staring us in the face or anything. Sigh.

I Need a Demonologist

I needed to get outside and walk hard, hike fast yesterday. So I did. With the dog. I had to wait for temperatures to go down below 90 first though, but it’s a crapshoot, because some hikes I don’t want to finish after dark. I wanted to be out out out, nowhere near houses if I could pull it off, far away from people. We had to drive a little, but then it was three miles with only one old guy and his old dog, who wanted to beat us up but couldn’t move fast enough to pull it off (arthritis), and then an old guy on a bike. And a dead snake…in pieces. But otherwise, nothing but bugs and plants and birds and clearing your mind and breathing in the dust and walking it off. Cuz you can walk a whole day off, you know. Harder to walk a whole week off, but a day? No problem.

Wilderness refuge near my house. It was still warm out, 86 degrees at 6 PM, but there was a nice breeze. Good pace. Tired the dog out too.

Then I made dinner, spaced out for a bit with a book, graded some assignments I needed to get out of the way, and then communed a bit with animals. They all followed me into the living room. Mommy! Mommy!

Pet the dog and the cats. Kitten settles down into her favorite place. On the drawing.

And the brain just spilled. Oh yeah, you’ve seen the eye in the uterus thing before…in the last quilt. The REAL third eye, the all-seeing one. The one that rules the woman’s roost.

I pushed and pulled and the drawing ended up still being under Kitten. I started on trying to fit a crane around an elbow. I look at pictures and try to imagine how to move the wings and feathers around where I need them to be. Kitten starts flicking her tail in the middle of where I’m drawing and that’s it. I poke at her until she leaves. Petulant beast.

I made it work, turn the corner. Then drew the hand and some pine-tree-like things on there. You can see I don’t have much left…just the main torso and it already has a bunch of stuff on it.

Closeup of the arm.

So I need to connect the arm to the shoulder with something and then do the rest of the torso. It’s going well. Peaceful brain.

This is from last night’s grading, where a student suggested a demonologist to test lung function.

I laughed a lot. A LOT. Because you’ll take anything humorous at this time of the year. Anything. Calling a demonologist to take care of my class.

More drawing tonight, although there’s always grading and I think I have to write a test. Not sure what I’m drawing next anyway, so it’s OK to let the brain percolate for a while. Like all day. I didn’t start drawing last night until 10:30 or so. I’m about 8 1/2 hours into this drawing. It’s time-consuming, but good. I write about the hours because I want people to get that it takes a long time to make art and even if some of it is standing around, staring at the piece, it’s still part of the making. I know some people can just whip stuff out, but I’m not one of them. This is big and complicated. But I think it will be worth it.

Running Away to Anza Borrego…

So I’m back. A short trip to the Anza Borrego desert, only one night of camping (honestly, with the wind trying to pick the tent up, I’m glad we only had to deal with it for one night. Vacation shouldn’t be sleep-deprived.). We saw about a million metal sculptures by Ricardo Breceda…OK, there are apparently only 130 of them, but we saw all of them.

I liked the dinosaurs best…especially the ones where you had to drive way the heck out into the desert to see them. This post is photo-heavy…mostly a picture journal of the trip. The wildflowers were apparently “gone”, but there were plenty of things blooming for me…

I took photos of almost every sculpture we saw, but some of them were definitely better than others. I was amused by the eyelashes…Brecedo definitely likes eyelashes…

Harvester ant holes…we didn’t actually see a lot of wildlife. Even birds were absent the first day, mostly probably because of the crazy winds.

The dinos I liked the best were way off the road. We didn’t see many people out here. This is a newer one…he hasn’t rusted much.

After a while, they all look like they’re dancing.

Teeth abound…

It’s actually a little frightening seeing these guys and thinking about them wandering around…

Humans would not have survived, I think.

You look tasty, my dear.

These guys were wobbling in the wind. Then again, the bursts were pretty strong.

Definitely all about the teeth.

More flowers…I missed the pink cactus. Never remembered to stop for those.

The details on the skin/hide were kind of amazing.

And all the pieces of metal. Breceda wasn’t an artist until his daughter asked for a T Rex.

Ocotillos were in bloom all over the place.

This thing had a name. Most of his creatures are prehistoric, although honestly, there’s one group that wasn’t on the maps, and we’re pretty sure they’re made up things.

Yup. I brought someone to conquer the angry beasts.

That cloud stayed until sometime in the middle of the night. The winds above must have been competing for air space.

The scorpion…that reminds me…Yup. Scorpions have two eyes on top and 2-5 pairs along the sides. Yick.

So this thing. Not on the map. Big curved claws. Carries its young. Furry as heck. Looks like a cross between a beaver and…something.

Here’s one who fell over…

Making shit up. Don’t know what that is.

The famous serpent, which goes across the road. Awesome. Need that for my yard.

Llama with serpent in background…

Indian Head right near the opening to Indian Head trail.

The caterpillars were around…some much bigger than others. The wildflowers come, then the caterpillars try to eat them all, and then the Swainson’s hawks migrate here to eat the caterpillars. More on the hawks later…

One of the few furry beasts we saw…HUGE ears. The rest we saw were dogs. On leashes.

I swear they’re dancing…

These guys were up a road that was misnamed on the map…

The tortoises were all a little feisty too…

Peccary with babies…

An entire wash of bighorn sheep…which was nice, because we didn’t see any in real life unfortunately.

The wind is still scattering the clouds.

An ironic metal saguaro in the middle of the desert without saguaro.

We were sure it was a cutout from a distance, but it was in fact 3D when we got there…

A ha! A hawk! So we headed out to one of the hawk counting areas and saw a kettle of hawks scared off the ground by three coyotes. These hawks migrate from Argentina to Canada…

There’s the kettle settling back down after being scared up.

I’d never seen so many hawks in one place…over 60 of them flying together.

Camping in the high winds…the ice chest kept the tent from taking off.

The campground was nice and quiet, despite quite a few children. There are bathrooms and showers and running water, and even shelters over the tables. Definitely a nice place to hang out.

The next morning, we were tired from the windy-night’s sleep (or lack thereof), but planned a hike up into Borrego Palm Canyon.

It wasn’t a long hike, but there was some chance of seeing bighorn sheep, plus it was supposed to be pretty. And it was.

It was a bit warm, but bearable.

A stiff breeze (and sometimes serious wind) dried off the sweat as we hiked.

There were plenty of flowers still around.

But the wash was dry…at least down here it was.

As we went up the canyon, there was water. It must go underground at some point.

Still no sign of sheep, but I caught this guy in a photo…

The palms grow naturally here…

When we got to the oasis, there were about 100 6th graders there eating lunch. Wow. So get the hell outta there before they leave! They probably scared off all the sheep.

We’ll have to come back to see them (the sheep. Not the 6th graders).

We took an alternate route down and promptly got lost and were wandering through the wash.

A quail led us back home (not really).

After a change of clothes, some food and drink, and a relatively easy ride home, I took my second shower of the day and fell promptly asleep on the couch. The dog woke me up for her dinner. Mine was a piece of toast. So not motivated to cook!

I couldn’t find my brain for the rest of the night, so I just messed around with the wool projects I have lying around. Tried to organize them and cut stuff out so that I could sew things down, but never found the energy to actually sew.

It was a good, albeit short trip. Maybe there’s a longer one in my future. Who knows? Meanwhile, I have plenty of work to get done here, if I can just get my brain to come online. I’m in recovery mode…