I Would Like to Hold My Little Hand*

Happy mom’s day y’all…unless it’s not a thing for you. I admit to having a troubled relationship with the day, because I never had my kids on Sunday mornings due to the divorce agreement, so no breakfasts in bed, no kid-oriented stuff in the morning…I guess I had the ultimate mom break on those mornings (other moms would tell me that), but generally it just made me sad. Today, both kids are 3000 miles away (well that’s better than 11,000 miles away, for sure). One doesn’t acknowledge these things; the other is working 11 hours today, but texted me and then called me. They’re good kids. I think they’ll only need a little therapy to get over my influence on their lives. Tonight I’ll hang out with my own mom, who remembers every time I drive her bonkers that she raised me to be an independent thinker. My cohabitant is currently out buying breakfast burritos, because we don’t want to deal with the Moms Day brunch crowd. Sounds good to me.

Yesterday, I went to Pepperland, the Mark Morris dance group performance of an interpretation of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Group Band, the album. There were a ton of visual inputs at this show, both from the color of the dance costumes to the movement of the dancers. I don’t watch a lot of dance, but I do appreciate it. Plus there was a theremin, and that was cool…very much used as a voice in the music.

Otherwise, I spent yesterday ironing a quilt together…I had the legs already…so I started working on the rest of the figure…

It needs outlining and shading in the hand area…

I found this piece, but I don’t think it belongs to this quilt. Seriously. So I don’t know what quilt it belongs to or how it ended up in these boxes.

His head and chest…

Imagine the dark background behind him that’s not there yet…

Then I started working on the other female character…I’m missing the one black dot on the yin/yang. I’m hoping it shows up…if not, I’ll cut a new one.

I left it there yesterday afternoon…need to do the head and heart for this one as well, and then start on the background. It’s taking a long time…and I have stuff that has to get done today, so I was hoping to be done this weekend and I’m not sure I will be. I just laid out all the 600s, I think…so that’s 400 pieces left to iron. Maybe today? Ugh.

Then get it down to the background and stitched down…I’m running out of time. Deep breaths. It’s OK. I’ll figure it out.

*Rusted Root, Send Me on My Way

Not Today

I have been looking forward to this weekend. No real events…just something tonight. No things I really HAVE to do, except work on these two quilts…which I should probably get going on. I slept in (but went to bed really late too). I need a swathe of unplanned time to just sit around in my pajamas and drink tea and maybe do what I want. Think what I want. Not really though. That’s what weekends SHOULD be…but I’m stressing out about school and getting stuff done and whether or not to give kids more time to finish something when I can’t really afford to give them that time. Because I need to grade it. Aargh.

Anyway. I don’t know who let all that shit in, because I was trying to keep it out. Deep breaths. Sip the tea.

I worked on both projects last night. I also wasted chunks of time doing hell I dunno what. Seriously. I really don’t know.

A student gave me a rose for teacher appreciation week (his mom made him)…I don’t pick yellow usually, but it’s pretty.

I traced Wonder Under for about an hour while my show was finishing up…I’m in the 300s? I think? All the way up both legs and now starting to do the stuff around that.

Then I moved into the studio and worked on ironing the second figure. He’s got legs…

And I did his hands (one hand is literally just the tips of his fingers)…

That hand was complicated. I like it though…and the arm attached to it.

I numbered the fleshy bits before the box he’s holding, so I guess I’ll iron all the body parts and then the box and then insert the box? Not sure. That was midnight last night and I was tired, so I quit…and then stayed up too late anyway. It happens.

Today I am braindead. So I’m going to eat, shower, drink more tea, and then start ironing I think. I have an event tonight, but I should be able to get a chunk done this afternoon. Kinda looking forward to it. Then tomorrow I can make a decision about whether to extend kids’ time or grade stuff or whatever. Not today.

Not Remembering My Existence

Well at least it’s Friday. That’s a plus. By the end of the week, I’m really tired, so I sleep better. I think. At least I don’t remember waking up to vivid dreams of coyotes or previous lives. I hate waking up and not remembering my existence.

I started ironing yesterday. I did a bunch of other things too, but really, the most important one was the ironing. I ironed for a long time too. Because it was nicer than other things. It’s often nicer than other things. I was going to write it’s always nicer, but that’s mostly not true…I do occasionally like to hang out with humans. Interactions are nice. But sometimes I still just want to be making art instead of socializing. Sad but true.

I ironed a backpack…it’s a little beat up.

Some pens…

Some books of some sort…really just a place to put some of that hedgehog fabric.

That might be all of the hedgehog fabric I ever use. That one piece. The kids will be getting rid of my fabric after I die and they’ll pull that half yard out with the one tiny hole cut out of it and go…WTF mom. Seriously?

Yup. Seriously. It was worth it.

A camera…old school.

Those were easy. Super fast. Then came the first of three bodies in this quilt…here’s all the 200s and the tail end of the 100s all laid out.

The two piles on the bottom left are all the fingernails and other pieces that were too small to cut up before…I’ve learned to cut them out right when I need them so I don’t lose them.

Now this would have been a good stopping point if I’d wanted to go to sleep at a reasonable time. However, I am less about the reasonable time (obviously) and more about getting to the point I want to get to…so I wanted to finish her and get her onto her rug. So I kept going. There’s not much left here…just one arm and her face. The rug was done already.

So I persisted. I could have stopped here too…but no.

On the rug. Good. Well done. About 250 pieces in, close to 4 hours.

Now that was satisfying. More of that tonight please. There are two more figures and a fireplace. I want her (the whole quilt…not the her that’s in the picture above) ironed down this weekend…ready for stitch down. Yeah that’s crazy. Have you seen my schedule for the next few weeks? Better that you don’t.

I ordered some threads I saw online on a whim…Dirty Threads from Deb Lacativa…and wow, they are gorgeous…yes the fabric came with it…gonna be using that somewhere too.

Lots of color in those strands…fun stuff.

And then this thing. Wants to be in my face. On the couch.

Hi Calli. You’re a dork.

Well at least there’s no testing today…except of my patience. More ironing tonight. I’m excited.

Definitely No Logic to Human*

Summer weather creeps in with a headache and beautiful skies. The headache is mine. I think it just needs more caffeine and for the drugs to kick in. My weekend to-do list is feeling overwhelming at the moment. Gaming was cancelled last night, though, so I finished ironing the fabrics down, but then I looked at a calendar and panicked. It’ll be fine. Really. It will. The last one I made for a show was rejected this week. It’s OK. It’s an awesome quilt and I’m glad I made it. It will find a place to be seen. They all do.

This one I’m working on is a bit different from most of what I do…not by much, but it’s different enough. I think that’s a good thing. It was always a drawing I knew I would come back to…it needed time to be drawn. Yeah, so like 4 years of time. Ironic…it’s for a show about time.

It took about 12 1/2 hours to pick all the fabrics. I think I estimated 10-12 hours, so that’s not bad. There’s a ton of grays in it, so that was hard. I still think I have gray fabrics hiding somewhere…I guess that’s a sign that the studio needs a deep clean (it does).

Before dinner even arrived (hell…my previous dinner plans disappeared and I was too tired to do anything else, so pizza it is), I had ironed a small cat down (it’s not a quilt without a cat, is it?)…

And then after dinner, while still watching Lost in Space (Dr. Smith-not-Smith is evil…and my favorite character is the robot), I cut some more pieces out. No rest!

It looks like I’m almost done, but that’s just because I only took some of the pieces with me…the rest are sitting in my office in a big bin. Nowhere near done. It’s OK. I have a good start.

Then after dinner, I started on the fireplace. The plus was that it’s a limited palette, even though there’s a lot of pieces.

Got all of them ironed down. It’s funny that I bought a yard of the bottom left fabric, the main stone color, and I only used a tiny piece of it. This is how I ended up with this crazy stash in the first place…it takes forever to use up a half yard, but that’s what I usually buy. Might need to rethink that…but then there are sometimes pieces that need the space. You never know…

This is the last 50 pieces or so, all the stuff on the fireplace mantel.

I was repeating fabrics in the key and the clock and the teapot etc., so I just laid them all out in one go. Then looked at a real clock. Almost midnight.

Organized all the pieces…yeah I ironed for almost three hours last night. Pretty good for a tired old lady on a Friday night. There were 127 fabrics, mostly browns and grays this time.

Here’s the other box that needs to be cut out now.

I have about 2 1/2 hours into the cutting…there’s gotta be at least 5 more to go. Hopefully done this weekend, so I can start ironing. I have a chunk of time next weekend laid out for this…but honestly, I need to be ready to stitch down next weekend. Sounds a little crazy. But I can do it. I’m parceling the grading out at work, realizing with state testing, I can get a bunch done at school, so I should use that time wisely.

Yesterday, I was sitting here at the computer and heard a scuffle outside on the slope. I peeked out through the window and saw this snake trying to swallow a lizard. A large lizard. A lizard that had already lost its tail. Interestingly, the snake was vertical on the tree trunk, and the lizard was still hanging on at this point…it hadn’t given up.

I’m processing the video now…for you science geeks out there. I know. Weird. I’ll post it here eventually…YouTube is being cranky.

This morning was the vet with the old lady. Her foot still bugs her, but it’s getting better. The doc confirmed our treatment (which was to use up all the meds from last year, because we already paid for them and they are not expired)…

She is finally improving…I didn’t see any until Thursday. Gotta keep her quiet though, so no walks for a good dog this weekend. The puppy needs one though.

OK, to-do list is calling. I need to pack a box for the girlchild and mail it to Boston to meet her there. She’s back in the big city of Tana in Madagascar, ready to fly out in a couple of days…or NOT ready, probably. She’s got work for next week or the week after, then graduation with us in Ithaca, and then a summer job at school. I’m personally looking forward to NOT having a job for a while. Well. You know. Vacation. 28 days. Aargh.

*Björk, Human Behavior

Tomorrow Might Be Good for Something*

I have my Star Wars shirt on for school. Wait. No I don’t. I have somebody else’s Star Wars shirt on for school (mine is not necessarily appropriate for school, so I borrowed). May the Fourth be with you. I’m prepared for being a hella bitch today in class to keep kids on task. I’m going to engage my inner General Leia. I will only have to do that in two periods…the other three have figured out that they need to work and are doing so. Then we have a talent show at the end of the day. I have no stage talent at all, so I will be in charge of standing over kids and using sign language and my piercing glare to get them to behave (strangely, it works). I’m already cranky and tired, like almost every teacher at my school…it makes you wonder how we survive the last 29 days. I’m never really sure how we do it. With spit and alcohol and an occasional donut. But we do it. State testing starts next week, so the world gets a little wonky for a few days. I think there’s only two kids in my homeroom that might drive me bonkers for 3 1/2 hours of testing. Wait. No. There’s three. Maybe four. Fuuuck. It’s OK. I’ll feed them and use that piercing glare again and more sign language. It’s doable.

I had my monthly stitching meeting last night, but I am feeling a need to get this quilt done ASAP, so I cut things out instead of stitching…

I got a good chunk of the pieces done…and then I came home and ironed more…although I was tired, and that doesn’t ever help. I finished ironing down the heart-shaped box and started on the hearth.

Picking the fabrics for that was harder than I expected. The grays of the fireplace are going to be a pain in the butt. I guess the plus is that once I figure out what four fabrics I’m using (stones, shaded stones, grout, shaded grout), I will just have to pile the pieces up and get them ironed. That first part though, picking them? That sounds really exhausting to me at the moment. I bought one gray I thought would work, but now I’m looking at it and I’m not so sure. I guess at some point I will just make a decision about it. It never seems to be as crucial once I get the quilt ironed together…it’s more like, why did I worry so much about that one piece? I guess that is in my nature.

When I was done with decisionmaking, I hung out for a while. There was a cat for a while in there too…

But the other cat is nervous about hanging out…so she was still in my office. With an ancient art quilt.

Girlchild was traveling around. She sent me a lemur…

I still have most of the last 300 pieces to iron down. I have 9 1/2 hours into the ironing, so I underestimated how much time I would spend staring at bins of grays…because mostly that’s what I’ve been doing. I keep thinking there must be another drawer of them somewhere. I have a fabric I want to use and I can’t find it. I’m not sure if it’s in the grays or the blacks…it runs right in between…but I just can’t find it and it’s one of my favorites. Yup. I have favorites.

Anyway, I’m not busy this weekend (yay!). I have gaming tonight, so I’m not expecting much out of myself after that and school…but maybe? And then tomorrow, after taking limpy dog to the vet, I’m hoping to iron. Like until I’m done maybe. And then I do need to grade stuff, but that’s always a thing. Ugh. Maybe that can wait until Sunday. It’s nice to have an unplanned weekend, because the next three are kind of a mess. What’s new? Yeah. At least I can still make art around all that.

*Matchbox 20, Unwell

Then You Can Start to Make It Better*

Well good news this morning…my foot wound from last week did not grow anything heinous and flesh-eating, according to the culture they took…this is particularly good news, because I keep forgetting to take the damn antibiotics, so I would probably be really sick by now if there HAD been something in there.

The second piece of great news is that my mammogram has not been scheduled for July 7, 2022…the scheduler typed it into the email wrong as Thursday, July 7 (go ahead, look at a calendar. I did.)…she really meant July 5 of this year. Now I just need to have no jury duty that day (I figured the day after a national holiday midweek was a pretty good bet). I was honestly OK with waiting 4 years, even though the letter they sent suggested more often than that.

Also, it’s Thursday, and although the theme of the day yesterday was apparently “I don’t get it” and nobody let me know ahead of time, so I could prepare for it, in general, the kids are doing their stuff. Sure, there’s a kid here and there who is just sitting there clicking keys randomly and pretending they know how to use a computer for something besides active shooter games and sending butt pictures, but mostly, they’re doing it. Now if they could just do it without my amazing babysitting prowess, because when I was a babysitter, I got snacks and an extra bump in pay if the kid was a pain in the ass. Like the parents knew it and wanted me to come back, so they’d slip an extra dollar in there (back in the day, a dollar was a big thing, you know?). None of my students’ parents do that. Maybe they should.

I was home late. I finished my book. It was OK. I don’t know if I care enough to read the sequel. I read it for book club. Eh.

Ironing happened, but there was a break in the middle for ice cream, because the decisionmaking part of my brain just stopped…right in the middle…like, there’s no way I can decide what color to make the lungs because I have officially used up all the decisionmaking nodes and I must recharge. Apparently ice cream is an important factor in that process, because I got up and did another hour and a half before stopping. The lungs ended up being a blue-green color…more on the green side of that range. I realize you wanted to know that.

This is a giant heart. There are 3 hearts in this quilt that are visible…

I stopped right after that, because it was midnight and the next thing was large and complicated. I can do that tonight. I have about 350 pieces left to do…so here’s the pile to be cut out…

I moved them into a bigger box. I have the heart-shaped box (yes, for real) and then the whole fireplace and all the stuff that goes with it. That’s it. I don’t think I will be finishing the ironing before Saturday. I can try, but I don’t think I can.

I didn’t feel like organizing these last night. I was too tired.

Girlchild disappeared off the net for about 24 hours without warning. It’s OK…she’s alive. It always freaks me out though. I know better than to freak out, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Turns out that they’re showing them around the country, so internet is spotty at best.

Plans for today? Hope nobody says “I don’t get it” because I might lose it. Literally, we made sample student website templates to show kids what theirs needed to look like, but then the kids thought they were supposed to copy them and mine were like a;klsdhgf;aklsdhf; for the answers and they were like, so what are we supposed to write there? And I’m like, where’s the website with the QUESTIONS and the TASKS and the VIDEOS and the ARTICLES. The one I told you to open AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS. It does not help that I have zero patience at the moment. I guess I must have an infinitesimal amount more than zero, because I don’t scream.

After school? Chiropractor. Not sure I like the new new one. Will decide today. Then stitching meeting. I finished stitching down all those balls! I have 7,000 palestrina knots to do next. So I might just take the quilt pieces and trim them instead. Then come home and hopefully iron for a bit.

I had a floating dead little animal in the pool, but the pool guy destroyed my net, so I couldn’t get it out. Luckily, a crow has pulled it out of the pool, but has rejected it, because it is too disgusting for a crow to eat. Sigh. Nature.

*The Beatles, Hey Jude

I Doubt She Does Receipts*

There are nights when I just want to keep ironing (or tracing, or cutting, or sewing)…when looking at the clock makes me realize an hour just passed and I didn’t even notice, and now it’s after midnight, and if I don’t stop soon, I might never stop. That was last night. I think I was in bed around 12:30. Not sure. I had the next two figures to iron down; I had decided they would be a different range of flesh colors than the other figure, but not different from each other, so that meant choosing all those pieces in one go. It took a couple of hours. This is what it looked like at about the halfway point; I had the entire male figure laid out…

And this lying on the table…the pieces up at the top are for later. They need to be ironed onto non-flesh colors…there’s a chair and a box and some bones and lungs and eyeballs and hair. The male doesn’t have much in the way of hair.

Then with the female figure added…that was probably 45 minutes later. It’s not a fast process. I look at every piece number, figure out what part it is, what it’s next to, does it need to be light or dark, etc.

Here’s all the number 1 pieces…the lightest ones…feet, arms, heads, knees, legs, butts…

That’s all I have left of that fabric…it’s obviously made it into a bunch of quilts. The biggest pieces tend to be out of the lightest colors.

Here’s the current pile ready to be cut out…probably need a bigger box soon.

I know I ironed pieces from the 300s, 400s, 500s, and 600s, but not all of them. That will be tonight…all the little fussy pieces that belong to the body but aren’t flesh tones. I’m about 6 1/2 hours in…I’m not sure how much is really done though. I can’t definitively say I’m halfway…too many loose pieces…after tonight, I should be halfway.

These are the current fabrics I’ve used. You can see the first figure’s flesh run on the bottom left, and the next two figures are in the top left box, on the bottom of it.

One’s more peachy than the other. It probably doesn’t make that big a difference in the long run, but in my head it does. I might be the only one who notices.

So today is a long day, with a 2-hour curriculum meeting after school (I tell you, this week sucks), so I’m hoping to get at least an hour done of the ironing, but I can’t guarantee another 2 1/2 hours like last night. Last night, I was on a roll. It was hard to make myself stop. Even when I’m tired, art brain shuts all that off and wires my brain off normal time and onto art brain time. I seriously remember looking at the clock at maybe 10:15 and then it was almost midnight. I love that…until I have to get up to teach the next morning.

Calli’s foot is still bugging her, so I’m going to try to find a vet appointment for her in my crazy schedule…not sure how. She does still sleep well…

She’s a goofball.

*Arctic Monkeys, When the Sun Goes Down

Tomorrow Gets Me Higher*

I’m very much in my head these days, with one quilt in progress and another drawing that reappeared on the light table so I could finish drawing. My brain is trying to schedule everything else around the artmaking so I can get two quilts done in the time it takes to make one. I still don’t know for sure that I can do it, but I can try. The drawing is rolling around in my head, because I know it’s not done, but I don’t know exactly what it needs. Something came to me the other day, but I was driving, so that’s not the best time to record ideas, and though I thought I could totally hold onto that idea (and in reality, it’s stored in my head somewhere), I lost it in the moment. It happens. It will probably come back. I do a lot of drawing and coloring in my head. It’s like art brain is at an easel in one of the cleaner corners of my brain, pushing the to-do lists aside, ignoring the demands of my job, and it draws…colors…stares at the paper for huge chunks of time until something is decided.

So somehow my art brain thinks it can work on both of them…and I’m not sure it’s wrong. I know at some point last night, it hurt to stand any more (a lot of standing happens in my job), so I sat…if I had the second project at a sitting stage, I could have gotten another hour of artmaking in last night.

After grading and making dinner and then more grading, then into the disaster area that is my studio. I have a plan for fixing this corner, but it requires a chunk of money and time that I don’t have at the moment. There is a cat in that photo though…can you see her on Batting Mountain?

I think the other cat was in there too…he tends to stalk Kitten a bit. He has a few places he likes to be in here.

I picked the first of two flesh runs. The two old people will hopefully be more beige or gray. This is the younger figure, the one on the rug.

I ironed for a couple of hours…and got about 200 pieces done. Way more efficient than the night before…

I didn’t add much to the pile…just flesh tones and the rug…which ended up being dark green.

I have about half the 200s to iron down, but that was the next figure, so I quit. That’s a big chunk of time to do the next figure. My feet hurt, I was tired, and I need to finish my book before the library ends my digital loan again. Without even asking me. How rude. So I read for a short bit and then gave up and went to bed.

I have to cover the pieces I’ve laid out when I’m not ironing, or I will come back to a cat lying on them, with Wonder Under stuck to their fur and chaos everywhere. The top right box is what I’ve ironed down. Not enough…

Gotta keep going. So much standing today in my future…

It’s a crazy week. But this is progress, and I like progress. I like to report on progress. Really, this blog is just to make me do stuff every night. It’s my motivation.

Calli has hurt her foot…she’s limpy. I don’t get home early enough from school this week to take her to the vet. I’m hoping her grandpa figures out his work schedule and takes her, or it will be Saturday. She’s sad about it.

She did this last year around this time too. Foxtail? Arthritis? Sprained not-ankle because dogs don’t have ankles? I just don’t know. Poor puppy.

OK, off to school for an early meeting that will inevitably be frustrating because of a certain staff member who’s definitely not in it to help kids, and then teaching website stuff and plastics all day…we moved the tables in both science classes yesterday to try to deal with some behavior issues. My 8th period pretty much freaked out about it. So the rest of the classes today should probably do the same. Exciting stuff.

Then home to ironing…

*Queen and David Bowie, Under Pressure

Gonna Go to the Place That’s the Best*

A mostly efficient and appropriate weekend: some personal time was had, a personal goal reached. I graded a bit and performed some school-related activities. I dealt with the giant-ass pile of leaves in the driveway, said pile containing the damn bougainvillea-thorned branch that sent me to Urgent Care last week. Groceries, laundry, dinner with parental units…all complete. I even did some ironing on the new quilt (more about that below)…but then sleep…sleep is so hard some nights. I kept trying to relax my brain enough to go back to sleep after something woke me up. It was rough. Sunday nights are bad for sleep. Anticipation of the week? Of the pace of the week? Who knows. Not conducive to good sleep…that’s all we do know.

I think the girlchild is officially done with all her school stuff in Madagascar. She comes home next weekend. That was fast. Or was it? I’ll be glad to have her back in the US, although I won’t see her until the boychild’s graduation in New York the end of May. She has a job for the summer in Boston, so that’s alternately good and sad. We’ll survive. But we’ll miss her. Boychild has another week and a half of classes and then goes into finals. I’m sure he’s stressed about the future. I would be. Hell, I am every end of the school year, worrying that my district or principal will do something stupid and move me to 8th grade science or move our principal to another school and give us someone horrible. Again. But interspersed among that worry is anticipation of sleeping in and making art and getting stuff done around here…slightly dissipated by the jury duty crap, but whatever. I’m supposed to be making a mammogram appointment…normally I’d do it in early July. Now I’m not sure what to do about it. Sigh.

Maybe that’s what’s keeping me up. Who knows. Trying to remember to do all the things…that causes some anxiety. So I made the mammogram appointment and I’ll cancel it if I have to. Reschedule. Whatever.

So my office…I put all the fabric away from the last quilt and then straightened up a bit so I could start on this one. I’m watching the second season of A Series of Unfortunate Events…it makes me laugh. The ironing board moves around the office…when it’s here, it’s totally in the way. There’s a chair in front of it for computer access, so I have to shove it back to sit in the chair, then push it up to fit behind it for ironing.

I generally pile fabrics all over the board when I’m picking them…but only ones I’ve actually used get to stay up there. I leave them on the ironing board until I’m done, so I can reuse them throughout the quilt.

Then to the right, I hang the drawing, so I can refer to it…figure out what number is what piece.

Behind me is the table where I lay out the Wonder Under pieces in order by 10s and 100s. I haven’t even finished the first 100 so far. It’s a backpack and a pile of books and other stuff. For some reason, it felt very complicated to pick the fabrics…a lot of consideration of lights and darks and contrasts. I’m two hours in and this is all I have done…

The next batch should go faster…the rug and the first figure. I pick the run of 6-7 fabrics for the body and then I can lay out all those pieces fairly quickly. My brain is still arguing about rug color (it started last night…maybe that’s what kept me awake).

Here’s the pile I had by the time I needed to go to bed…lots of grays…

It’s easier for me to see them all organized, and eventually, by color…I even managed to use the tiny hedgehog fabric. That makes me happy.

But I still have another 900+ pieces to iron down. Hopefully it will start going a little faster than it has.

Ugh. I’m really tired. Sigh. Well. Can’t do much about that. I don’t ever seem to get the right amount of sleep, do I. It might feel better once I get this whole cup of tea in me. Hopefully. Because there’s a 2-hour staff meeting in my future…could be ugly.

*Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky

Sinking Is All I Had Planned*

Took a day off from all the things. Looking ahead to May, I can see some stressful events and lots of meetings (three in one day? Really?), so I wanted to do a hike before all that. We originally were looking at a short one, but the weather was right and I had this hike that had been bugging me. Last June, I tried to do a hike with the boychild, but I had recently started taking a new medication, and it fucked with me…so I ended up having to get helicoptered off the mountain (that was a fun experience actually). The situation was scary, though, in that when that happens, you get paranoid that it will happen again, where you’ll feel like you can’t control or trust your body and do the things you want to do. So it’s been on my list since then to do the hike again (it’s one I’ve actually done 5 or 6 times anyway), just to prove to myself that (a) I can do it and (b) it was the meds, not me.

We go out Sunset Trail, then pick up Big Laguna back…pretty simple, not too much climbing, gorgeous views and a meadow.

It was a gorgeous day, weather was warm but breezy, not too bad. Probably better than last June, which was hot. The fires came through here however many years ago, so there are always new trees that have finally succumbed and are lying around.

This was a perfect time to go…lots of meadow and mountain flowers, plus the oaks have all their new pinkish growth coming in.

Seriously, there were flowers everywhere…

We didn’t see any animals, except lizards and birds…not even the cows that are usually in the meadows!

Looking down at Water of the Woods, which had quite a bit of water in it. There were only about 4 hikers on Sunset Trail, but a lot more (mostly bikers) on the Laguna trail. Bikes aren’t allowed on Sunset…that’s a plus.

This bird is loud and weird. Pretty sure it’s a
Red-winged Blackbird.

You can listen to one here…but the one I was listening to seemed to have been listening to a bunch of electronic music. He had a definite electronic twang to his song.

Walking up from the pond, that tree was just leaning there, most of its bark gone, just perched on its stump.

Some dead trees, some burned trees…

A view of Cuyamaca Peak, Middle Peak (to the right), and Stonewall.

Then we come to where I sat for about 20 minutes or so last June, waiting for the helicopter to show up. They had sent out the Forest Service guys who were already out there to check on me, and then the official rescue people hiked in from Penny Pines. Boychild and I had debated if I could hike another mile, mile and a half, to Penny Pines, but I was barely able to walk more than 10 steps without feeling like I was gonna pass out by then.

So the helicopter landed there. I had plenty of water, had drunk, had eaten. And yesterday, I was fine. No problems at all.

So we kept hiking.

A view of the meadow from Sunset Trail…

There were pinecones all over the place.

We kept going around the meadow, avoiding the mountain bikers…

Nature at its best…

And there’s water in the lake!

I’ve actually never seen this much water…then again, I didn’t hike there right after the rains last year…I’m sure there was more than this.

But it was nice to see this much anyway, along with the swathes of color across the meadows.

No cows. Girlchild would have been disappointed.

Heading back…

A little over 8 miles. Definitely tiring…I zoned out most of the afternoon, but it was good. It felt good. I’m glad to have conquered that.

Meanwhile, I did buy fabrics for the background of the new quilt. There’s a contrast challenge between bodies and fireplace and floor and background wall. The left is part of the fireplace, the middle is the wall, and the right is the floor.

I got these too. Maybe if my kids ever have kids, they will realize what all the alien fabrics are for. Or not.

These two are still nervous about each other…

Friday night I finished cutting out all the Wonder Under with Simba’s help…

This mermaid with two tails was in the Starbucks in the morning…

I finally got off the couch yesterday afternoon and sorted the Wonder Under…it didn’t take long.

We got dinner at the new Mexican place in town. I don’t believe that Frida actually said that.

And then I started ironing.

I didn’t get very far, because I was tired and it was late and standing hurt my feet at that point, but it’s a start.

Some blues for a backpack…

I’m expecting the ironing to take at least 10-12 hours…so all week, really. Hopefully I’ll be cutting pieces out by next weekend. That’s the plan anyway. Stay on task. I might need to grade some stuff sometime soon though. Sigh.

Today has a long to-do list, as always. Better get on it…

*Aimee Mann, Humpty Dumpty