snatched from the jaws of defeat!

I trust everyone who celebrates Christmas had a lovely day. It was quiet and peaceful here. If you've been reading me for awhile you know it's not a holiday I participate in. If you are new here and are curious I wrote about it most recently here and here. If you want me at my cynical best read the last two paragraphs here. And so as is the tradition on the day after Christmas, millions of people flocked to the stores yesterday to return all those gifts you bought so lovingly or thoughtfully or just grabbed in desperation.

Trump's Christmas present to civil servants was, of course, to shut down the government putting them on furlough days before the holiday denying them the ability to, you know, pay their mortgages, all because he hates brown people. Trump and his administration's cruelty and heartlessness knows no bounds. I'd say that it couldn't get worse but I know better than to invoke the gods and so on Christmas Eve, ICE dropped off hundreds of migrants, that they could no longer hold in detention, at a bus station and a park in El Paso and hundreds more on Christmas Day with no money, no food, no blankets, no guidance, and without alerting the charities, shelters, and churches in advance that help integrate these people so they could be ready for them with beds, food, and advocates. Yes, we want them released, not held indefinitely in detention or until their hearings come up but we want it done in a compassionate manner, coordinating with the agencies and organizations that help them with the transition. You would think that even Trump's minions would have a modicum of compassion on Christmas Eve but apparently even that is beyond them. Not, of course, that it would be any more acceptable on any other day of the year but because of all the hype that goes into Christmas in this country, it seems a little more callous.

I imagine all the hard hearted right wing commenters on immigration stories and posts were chortling with glee...you liberals wanted them all released, well, here ya go, put them up in your home, you feed them and clothe them, how many are you volunteering to take? I can't tell you how many times I have read that in response to someone who is against a wall on the border and against tearing families apart and placing them in detention. How do they go through life like that...fearful, jealous, ungenerous, uncaring, angry and hateful. Compassion helped us survive as a species, when we were small groups and needed everyone to survive in order to survive. And that same need caused us to engage in hospitality, welcoming friend and stranger alike with food and drink and shelter for the night if need be. What has happened?

Ah well, there are good things happening out there. The citizens of El Paso stepped up, the twins, back from their respective colleges, and their mom came out to visit yesterday, the grandboy has a new puppy, the sun is shining after two inches of rain last night accompanied by lightning and thunder which kept the dog and me awake half the night while she trembled and panted in my face, my neighbors waved as they drove by this morning while I was in the front yard, the chickadees and cardinals are helping themselves to the sunflower seeds in the tea cup, and today is Marcmas! He was moaning yesterday about flipping over to 67. I have little sympathy since I'm facing 69 in four months. Birthdays around here usually mean a movie and dinner out but so far no plans have been made.

So, one more week of being mostly unproductive and lazy that I justify because holidays, treading water while the last of this year comes to a much deserved end.

the 'to do' list continued albeit with much less energy and a quiet day

Monday:

you can get up if you want but I'm staying in bed

  * Plant the peas

√ * Vacuum the rest of the house – I even beat the two small oriental rugs (cough cough) and then I ordered a robot vacuum cleaner

  * Mop the floor in my studio and kitchen

√ * Rake the Little Backyard - oof

yes, I know it doesn't look like I raked but you did see the 'before' picture, right?

  * Clean off the work table in the garage

  * Wash the car (now that all the windows are clean)

Stuff I did that wasn't on the list:

Morning yoga routine - yay, 2 days in a row!

Washed 3 days worth of dishes

Used the 4 long S hooks (previous estate sale find) to temporarily hang the 4 bird houses (also estate sale finds) I have accumulated (I had 5 but I used one for the present exchange at the garden club christmas party last week after I spiffed it up a bit), probably not where they will stay but at least they aren't on the work table in the garage anymore

two of the four

Went and picked up the gift for my sister that I had to order because I waited too long and they were sold out that finally arrived!

Walked the dog – the short walk today, very quiet in the neighborhood

Sat my butt on the couch and settled in for the evening

Tuesday:

A quiet overcast day with no expectations, stuff nothing to do, or places to be. It's a good thing too because the body is groaning.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.

the 'to do' list that has nothing 'to do' with christmas

Saturday I drove into the city and visited with my daughter while she and Jade wrapped presents then Jade and Robin went with me to run my errands, one of which was to add to the set of 24 colored pencils I have (I now have 48). We were going to have a late lunch but the place my vegan granddaughter wanted to eat at and the place she was willing to eat at were both closed so lunch was a bust as I was ready to head back.

Today I slept late, did my yoga, we had our late Sunday brunch and then I started on the chores that have been piling up around here.

√ * Clean out the gutter across the front of the house (the only one we have left) - had to drag out the big ladder and if I'm not covered with bruises later from banging that thing around it will be a miracle

√ * Climb on the roof and clear off the big branch, small branches, and leaves - did not fall off, big plus!

√ * Rake the leaves away from the foundation and off the concrete apron - fantasizing about a leaf blower

√ * Clean all the glass inside and out on the car and the coverings on the lights front and back - of course the entire rest of the car is dirty

  

  * Plant the peas

√ * Cut the small trees down growing next to the fence over at the shop - did 5 today but still several more and a butt load of wild grape, it's an ongoing job

√ * Vacuum the house - well, half of it anyway but I had to sweep the studio first

  

  * Mop the floor in my studio and kitchen

√ * Put the bird feeder up – I actually did this the other day

√ * Rearrange the shelving unit and bakery rack to get all the frit and powder off the floor - though now I think I should move the frit to the bottom two shelves

 

    

  * Rake the Little Backyard

√ * Walk the dog - it was even the long walk!

  * Clean off the work table in the garage

  * Wash the car (now that the windows are nice and clean)

Guess I'll work on the rest tomorrow. If I can get out of bed.

an autumn sky and the last adult leaves the room

The banshees were back. The wind howled and shrieked all day yesterday. It was a beautiful day otherwise, clear sky and pleasant, well except for the wind which had a bite to it. 

I'm having a hard time getting motivated this week. I've done nothing with the modeling glass samples I rolled out and dried, or the one feather that I keep having to repair. Tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow I tell myself every day. I did scrape the kiln shelf and applied fresh kiln wash to it.

There's so much stuff that needs to be done...vacuuming and mopping the floors, clearing off the table in the garage to give me some work space, raking the leaves off the concrete apron outside the garage and the little backyard, getting a container to keep my balls of modeling glass in, reorganizing the garage after all the construction, acquiring more shelving units, cut down the small trees growing against the fence over at the shop, it just goes on and on.

I'm headed into the city tomorrow because I guess the last three weekends there just wasn't enough. But the twins are back from college for a few days and Jade is going to photograph my drawings with her fancy camera with an eye to getting note cards printed up and I want to go to the art supply store and get more colored pencils, colors I don't have, with an eye to doing some more little drawings and one or two other little errands.

It looks like the last adult is leaving the White House completely giving the asylum over to the inmates, not that I have any admiration for Mad Dog Mattis, or Kelly for that matter, but they, at least, are intelligent and understand the issues, unlike any of Trump's other appointees who don't have even a basic idea of what their jobs entail or what they are supposed to be doing besides getting a paycheck like Kirstjen Neilsen, director of Homeland Security who didn't even know how many legal ports of entry there are along our southern border, had no knowledge of the studies that show immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than native born, or know how many people have died while in the care of her department. And now Trump is getting ready to shut down the government over a boondoggle while Republican Rep. Mark Meadows tells those getting ready to be furloughed or expected to work without pay that they 'signed up for this' as a civil servant. Of course, he is still getting paid. And the stock market is nose diving, people are being laid off, factories are closing, black lung disease is increasing, interest rates are rising, prices are rising as Trump's policies finally start to show their effect while he hands the Middle East over to Russia and Iran and thumbs his nose at what is left of our allies.

But, hey, Happy Holidays y'all.

the county at work

Thank you for all the kind words about my small rescue though I couldn't, in good conscience, have done anything less. It's a sad statement on the prevalent atmosphere in this country that what I did is considered remarkable.

Our open house is over for another year and some of us agreed that 3 weekends was too many. I doubt we had more attendance, it was just spread further out. We have some different ideas for next year though our location is our main problem, if our hosts decide to do it again. It's a lot of work on their part and they are aging along with the rest of us. Frankly, I've expected the last several years to be the last time.

Everyone had some good sales except us which at the end of the day on Sunday was still just the one $50 sale. I don't know how the handweavers made out. This was the first year for them to join us and they were only set up for this last weekend but oh, they had some gorgeous stuff. 

Not just loom woven items 

but some beautiful dyed scarves, some in the Japanese shibori tie dye style and some, my favorite, that were dyed using natural materials like leaves and flowers and seeds.

Well, our weekends were dismal until we started to pack up and Kathy of Dick and Kathy, our hosts, told me to wrap up the Tea Box. 

I gave her a skeptical look, really? Yes, she said. I put my arm around her shoulder, gave her a hug, and asked, this isn't a pity buy is it? This box was not cheap, the most expensive thing I had put out. No, she said, she's had her eye on it for a couple of years and it's the last box. Actually, it was the very first one. And I am working on another but they take so long to make, not just the hours in the making but the time between sessions of actually working on it.

The Tea Box has always been one of my favorite pieces and I have not been sad at all that it never sold. Ironically enough, one of the visitors to the show had asked me that very day if it was hard for me to sell my work, to let them go after all the time I have in them, and my answer to this question has always been 'no' because once a piece is finished, I admire it but then I'm working on something new, that it's the process of making that I enjoy. So as I'm wrapping it up I'm feeling a little melancholy, I had expected after all this time that I would have this piece in my personal collection. I'm glad, at least, that it went to someone I love. Dick and Kathy have an amazing art collection and not just glass. This isn't the first or even the second piece of ours that they have bought.

So, I didn't get pictures of everyone's work or even good pictures of those I took. For instance, you can't really see any of Gene's fused glass work here

and I should have just taken a picture or two of individual pieces like I did of this lovely piece of Chin's

and some of Tom's acorn boxes.

Got a fair picture of Liz's frit and powder paintings

but none of Bob's crazy stuff, everything from marbles to some fused glass pieces to turned wood to metal sculpture, the guy just does a little bit of everything. Nor did I take a picture of Eric the young glassblower's work or any of Dick and Kathy's new blown glass pieces all of which they sold.

Liz came in about mid-day on Sunday after hosting the life drawing class at Archway Gallery, the artist's co-op, that they offer every Sunday morning that I attended yesterday (but not the other two Sundays though I should have ) with this coat she borrowed from a friend which looks like the pelt of the abominable snowman all wired up with blinking lights (this is not Liz in the photo but one of the handweavers).

End of day yesterday after wrapping up the Tea Box, we broke down our display, loaded it in our pick-up truck cleverly disguised as a car, dropped into Trader Joe's as we passed by and picked out something for dinner, picked up the dog from my sister's house when we got back, and slept late this morning.

putting some good out in the world, new stuff, and banshees

Last Sunday morning while we were waiting for someone, anyone, to come in, Chin (he has a longer name that is hard to pronounce and so he just goes by Chin), the classically trained in Japan ceramicist who makes beautiful elegant forms, and I were talking about the dearth of the arts in our culture. Most the people who buy his work are older, same for us. He also did the Saturday show in which the jeweler basically sold out but didn't do well, maybe sold two pieces. Our experience seems to be that anyone younger than 50 or so is not interested in art or even quality. They have been raised in the Mass Production of Cheap Goods from China Age with art mostly missing from school curriculum and museums no longer free and a government that doesn't really support the arts as important to our culture (as opposed to Japan, for instance, where artists are considered national treasures). Chin recounted a looker asking why his work was so expensive when you could buy the same thing from Walmart to which Chin replied that the guy should go get it at Walmart. There is no appreciation for handmade or quality. One of the reason galleries are dying...the older folk have all they need or want and the younger folk aren't buying. And it's not that they aren't spending bundles of money, they do, but they spend it on $1,000 phones that they'll replace in a year or hundreds for a pair of shoes with a name that will wear out in about a year but a piece of art that will grace their home with beauty forever they aren't interested in. And art isn't the only fatality of this lack of appreciation for quality. I have read that many household goods manufacturers have stopped making their top of the line quality products because no one buys them anymore. For instance, washing machines that are worn out beyond repair after about 7 years now as opposed to the 30 year old machine that came with the house that we still use. We, as a nation, have fully embraced the throw-away culture.

And speaking of expensive shoes, did you see the bit about Payless Shoes opening a pop-up store in a mall, Palessi, charging hundreds of dollars for the same shoes that normally cost about $50, and people bought them! Many people.

Well, once again I remind myself that I make this stuff because I enjoy making it and so I've made some progress in playing with this new technique, several line drawing of various feathers and 7 balls of modeling glass with two more colors, a lighter gray and opaque white (the white in the picture is white opal, also opaque but not as bright as opaque white) to mix up before I start rolling out some of this stuff to make the bases for a coupe of feathers and some squares to experiment with color mixtures and transparent powders over opaque colors.

yes, this is glass powder mixed with a binder and a liquid medium

We've been on a warming trend since the cold wet rainy weekend. I checked the rain gauge Monday and we got 5 1/2” between Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon. After two days of sun, it's overcast again and while it's supposed to get up to 70˚ today, tomorrow another cold front blows in. The weekend should be nice though, sunny and not too cold.

my peas are sprouting!

And did you see the Toddler in Chief threw a tantrum yesterday live on camera and in color, constantly interrupting the adults in the room and then stomped out after declaring he would be proud! to shut down the government if he doesn't get his way and then reportedly went into an adjacent room and threw a folder full of papers scattering them everywhere in his pique. It's going to be a bumpy two years, if he lasts that long. Here's some advice for Donald...you want a wall, you promised a wall, you also promised Mexico would pay for it. You want the wall? Then keep the other part of your promise and get Mexico to pay for it. Other toddler news, he has decimated the Clean Water Act after boasting that our air (whose anti-pollution regulations have also been slashed) and water has never been cleaner. Perhaps so, but now not for long. More MAGA!

So as not to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, here's a picture of my silly dog trying to stand on her head.