If I’m dreaming, please don’t wake me

We spent the night in the new house last night. I woke up at the usual time but had oodles of time for myself. I made coffee and got to have a cup. Before it was grab coffee, hope to get a few sips before rushing out the door chanting "I'm late." I took more than 2 seconds to pick out clothes for the day. I flattened my bangs even though with this humidity, it's an exercise in futility. I made notes for myself in my journal. Then I left for work. It took me a whole two and a half minutes to get to work. Holy cow. I can certainly deal with that!

While at work today, I received a very nice compliment. A couple of regulars are moving to North Carolina this week. One of them told me the other said the only thing he would miss about New Orleans was "the really nice lady who always wears black." I said I was glad to know someone would miss me and I would miss seeing them around too.

The exchange tickled me but made me kind of sad at the same time. I have a bunch of Thank You cards given to me by customers. In my eyes, I didn't do anything special. Just being nice. Just being a decent person. In their eyes, it was such a rarity, special enough to take the time to write a message in a card and send it to me. Whatever happened to being nice? Most people here are so rude. The bad part is they aren't aware that their behavior wouldn't be acceptable in the rest of the civilized world. Hold the door for others, help the person in the wheelchair by getting things from they can't reach, greet people with sincerity, make eye contact when they are speaking, and for chrissake - SMILE!! Your face won't break, I promise.

In our new home, the room that is to be my new crafting space was  wallpapered in something you just had to be on acid to have said, "Oh yes! That's what I want on my walls!" The horrific shade of teal painted under the chair rail was pretty ugly too. The room is now white above the chair rail and purple below it. When I get the black and white striped stuff in there it will be my own twisted slice of heaven. I love the tub in the master bath and looking up at the chandelier while soaking is silly fun!

But I have to get going and stop rambling. Load the truck and make another trip to our new house.

Home Sweet Home

It’s been awhile since I posted anything, lots of stuff going on. I have wanted to move back into the city for quite some time for many reasons. The absurd amount I was spending on gas every week, the lost 2 hours a day in commute time, and lack of a social life topped the list. Beloved was less than thrilled at the prospect of moving back into the city. Where we live is quiet and the crime rate is zero. We discussed moving back many times and he said it would have to be perfect. I thought perfect was something we’d never find. Form a mental picture of me sitting at the table, bib around my neck, knife and fork in hand with a large plate of crow.

We found perfect. We found beyond perfect. We both said that if we’d made a list of everything we wanted in our respective ideas of “perfect,” this place has all of them and many more. It’s a cavernous old Victorian with a detached garage. Finding anything here with a garage is quite a feat. Not only is the garage big enough for Beloved’s workshop, it has a home gym in the back end of it. It has a lovely and very private back yard and covered patio. It has a hot tub! The wrought iron fenced front yard is adorable. The kitchen has tons of cabinets, counter space, and a dishwasher. I won’t know how to act! And closets! Closets everywhere! BIG closets! And stained glass! And ornate fireplaces!

Needless to say, we signed the lease are in the process of moving. We are so excited. Since the new place is less than a mile from my work, my commute time and gas bill are negligible now. My friends can actually visit me now. Beloved has a place to grill even if it’s raining. We have sunny garden space. This is going to be so good!

If I were any Greener I’d be a damn Leprechaun

I have some friends, well more like acquaintances since we don’t actually “hang out” (and I’d probably end up smacking a few of them if we did), who have gone all out about Earth Day and being green. Please don’t lecture me. I made it all these long years just fine without a bunch of idealist minded twenty-somethings explaining life to me.

I was raised by my grandparents, two people who were seriously scarred by the Great Depression. They recycled EVERYTHING. Nothing was ever thrown away until every last drop of its usefulness was exhausted. We lived in a modest house built by my grandparents. We grew our own fruit and vegetables. We had bees for honey. Our food scraps went to the compost heap. We tore down old houses and barns to recycle the wood. Some of my best loved treasures came from the dump. We’d haul off our garbage and end up dragging someone else’s home. Being wasteful was a serious sin.

When I was 12 I got my first glimpse into our family’s finances. My grandparents were pretty much rolling in it. Filthy Stinking Rich. Their lifestyle was choice not necessity. Our life wasn’t all frugality. We never wanted for a thing. Christmas morning at our house was a jaw dropping experience. I got a full sized rail dune buggy for my 11th birthday. And I was certainly the only 16 year old riding around town on a new Harley Davidson.

My grandparent’s frugal ways became permanently etched into my being. I look at everything and ask myself how I could use it before passing it over or tossing it out. Even at work, my boss will ask me if I want an item before he takes it to the dumpster. My dress form (homemade at that) rolls around thanks to a recycled store display. A few of my mates, Beloved included, were initially horrified by my penchant for dumpster diving. Once they learn that I can make something really cool with whatever I drag home they come around. And it was FREE! That’s the best part! I save and repurpose everything.

Since my boss creeped into this rambling tale, I have to mention something amusing. Everyone is always asking me why my boss is so unfriendly and hardly ever talks. He’s just standoffish if he doesn’t know you very well. But if he likes you, he likes you. He tripped me out a bit this last week with my friend Teresa. He bullshits with her, laughs with us. When some of my other friends come in, he asks me questions about what’s going on with them after they leave. He doesn’t speak to them directly. For some reason, Teresa is different. He talks to her. She loves our ice cream and was let down when the machine locked up on me one afternoon. As soon as he got the machine fixed, he asked me to call her and let her know it was back on. Crazy.

Sam, my former co-worker got back from Algeria last Friday and came to hang out with us yesterday. He brought me back a darling hanging incense burner. Last time he went, he brought me back an awesome Moroccan lamp. My boss looked at the incense burner and said I needed the charcoal tablets to burn the incense on. I said I had plenty. He got all happy and asked where I got them. The voodoo shop. He laughed and said “The voodoo shop! You would say that.” Yup. Got the incense there too.

Immaculate Conception and Other Lunacy

I watched one of the most astounding programs on TV last night. Stories of women who gave birth without knowing they were pregnant in the first place. Some of the women had given birth before, some not. Most of the women were overweight but a couple were skinny. One of the doctors on the show kept reiterating that every pregnancy is different, even with the same woman. Yeah, I get that. Been there, done that. But still . . . it’s hard to believe that you wouldn’t know.

I understand that some babies move a lot, others not so much. We joked that my eldest would make a great soccer player since all she did was kick – visibly! My third child wouldn’t move for weeks sometimes. She was even two weeks overdue. It’s no great surprise to us that she turned out to be very lazy. I didn’t get very big with the first child until the 8th month. I wore regular clothes until I was 7 months pregnant. But still, the round little potbelly was a dead giveaway. With the second, I went from a size 4 to a size 12 by the time I was 5 months pregnant. I was huge! I waddled!

I’d heard comments most of my life about the “glowing” pregnant woman. I was never that woman. I was the miserable woman with the green face who looked like she was going to puke at any moment. I should have named my youngest daughter Mylanta because that’s all I could keep down for 5 months.

My first pregnancy was the easiest, probably due to a complete lack of stress. Labor lasted 24 hours but never became more painful than a bad case of gas. I even fell asleep. The doctor woke me up to tell me it was time to push. The second one was the exact opposite. I screamed, kicked, and bit. The pain was so intense I really started to believe I was going to die.

All of the thoughts on pregnancy and birth takes me back to Friday. That’s the day all the anti-abortion idiots descend on St. Charles Avenue. Most of the time they steer clear of us since their run in with my boss. They must have forgotten because they started coming in last Friday. I was less charitable than my boss was to them. I have one of their pamphlets around here. I need to scan it and post it. The only thing they left off was alien abduction. It’s such far-fetched conspiracy crap you just scratch your head and say “What?”

One of the protesting men tried to label me as feminist and insinuated that I was a lesbian. Feminist, maybe. Lesbian, not even a little. No, my bitch is that YOU – a MAN – have no place in the discussion. You cannot get pregnant. It’s not your CHOICE! He said something I didn’t catch all of but apparently he thought I didn’t have any kids. Whatever. I have a slew of kids. None of them were planned and I didn’t abort any of them – because it was my CHOICE! That’s the issue you retard – CHOICE!

A female police officer assigned to guard the protesters gave me a little tidbit about some of the protesters. Many of the males have recently been released from prison, two of them for RAPE! They were recruited through a “Christian” outreach program while in prison. WTF? Don’t even get me started about the Bible beating freaks in the South. Somewhere around here I have a cartoon I clipped out of an Arabic newspaper of Bin-Laden sitting in a cave reading the Holy Quran upside down. Southern fringe Christians are no different. 

Fell Off the Earth for a Bit but I’m Back

My tattoo is finally complete! Hooray! I went to see Mike last week to fill in the missing parts. I was going to post a picture of the finished work but after a conversation with Mike about original works, I decided not to. It’s mine. My artwork. If someone copied it, I might be induced into some Ed Gein-like behavior.

I'm still knee-deep in trying to get my craft room in order. I have way too much stuff and the bad part is that I've already taken some of it to storage. I did manage to get the magnetic panels hung on the walls (after my Beloved routed out a channel in the molding for me) and they look fantastic.

My boss bought a huge box of random items for next to nothing. None of the things are really what we ordinarily sell but what the hell. In the group were some photo albums that piqued my interest. My boss, being the generous person he is and knowing how I love to alter everything I come across, gave me one. The design on the box and album have a seashell design with little shells in the bump out window and the most tragically translated poem I've ever read. Anyway, it ain't me. So I took it home and took it apart. I recovered everything and spooked up the little window. I like it much better now.



I got another one for my daughter. I printed out little pictures of my Granddaughters with fairy wings and put them in the window with the caption, "The Princess Chronicles." The front inside page has "Once Upon a Time" and the back has "And They Lived Happily Ever After." I decided that I'd add some of the cool glitter I bought a long time ago and never used. I'm just not really a glitter person but the girls like it. I smear glue on the cover in an organic, marble like pattern and pour on the glitter. All was well until I stood the album up to tap off the excess glitter. Poof! This stuff is micro-fine and doesn't behave like normal glitter as I sadly learned. It flew off in a mushroom cloud spurred on by the ceiling fan. Was I in my craft room when I was doing this? Hell no. I was in the living room so now my entire house is sparkly. There's glitter in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, computer room and all points in between. My pirate pajamas may never be the same. Beloved came home and asked me why there was glitter all over the house. Uh, because I'm a dumbass.


In other news, my neighborhood is flooding. My Beloved and I rode down to the river last night to see how much the river had risen. It was all the way across one lane of the road. The little creek next to our street was touching the street. When I left for work early this morning, they had the street blocked off. The creek was all the way across the road and 30 feet wide. Okies – take the long way around. Beloved called me later to say that they’d just closed down the exit off the interstate closest to the house. The river was all the way across both lanes and rising. And it rained again. And it’s supposed to rain some more. Lovely.

Back to Normal

Mardi Gras is over. I survived another one. There was a prize at the end of the torment – I’m back on days only now. That makes me very, very happy. It took me a few days to rest up and adjust to the new schedule. All better now and looking forward to “normal” life.

I took this picture of a tree draped with beads but the sky had clouded up and it didn’t turn out that great. I wanted to retake the picture the next day when it would be sunnier. While working the next day, I glanced out toward the tree. Horror! Workers were removing all the beads from the tree! Oh well. C’est la vie.

Hardly any of my pictures turned out like I’d like but what the heck, you can’t expect Ansel Adams results when you’re using a Blackjack cell phone instead of a real camera. I didn’t get much opportunity to run out to the street like I did last year.

King Arthur. Pretty cool float. I have no idea what their theme was this year.

The Jester from Rex.

Confetti and bubbles from Bacchus.

Bacchus.

It wasn’t a totally horrible Mardi Gras this year. The shootings certainly soured the city. No one peed in the cooler this year, so that’s a good thing. I did manage to catch some bling for the granddaughters. And I got them some silly hats for cheap by means of haggling with the Pikeys.

Thoughts on Creativity

The ever delightful Ricë has been running a new series of artist’s answers to the basic questions:

1. What is creativity?
2. Where does it come from?
3. What can people do to access it and make the most of it in their lives?

Since I have a little time before I have to return to the madness that is work during Mardi Gras, I thought I’d give answering those questions a shot.

1. What is creativity?
An innate desire to change our surroundings, to put our own stamp on things, to tell our stories. From our ancestors painting on cave walls to painting our walls something other than white, from fashioning rudimentary clothing from animal hides to dressing like Cyndi Lauper, from the first person to say "Hey, this weed smells pretty good, I think I'll throw some in the stewpot" to making smiley faces in pancakes, it's our desire to make our world our own.

2. Where does it come from?
It's a force inside of us, something we are born with. The desire, the force to create is stronger in some than others. Some just like to have small touches of creativity in their lives while others like to have it pour out as if a dam burst.

3. What can people do to access it and make the most of it in their lives? You just need to let go of perfection and fear of screwing up. Don't be afraid of the white page, the blank canvas, or to cut the fabric. It's not that special and if you screw it up, they'll make more. I promise. Even if that piece of fabric was woven with hairs from sacred goats by isolated monks in Tibet, honestly - it's just fabric. Experiment. Go outside your comfort zone. Try something safe and easy to build skills and confidence. Then try something you think you can't do. You'll be amazed. Sure, we all want our creative pursuits to turn out great but sometimes they don't. If you never mess up, you miss invaluable opportunities to learn. Think of how many wonderful discoveries have happened because of mistakes.
People also need to realize that creativity comes in many forms. It's not just the ability to make pretty marks on paper or canvas, sewing or stitching, making a form in clay, etc. Planning a garden, cooking, arranging your living space - creativity exists in all aspects of everyday life. A key to being happy with your creative pursuits and continue to grow creatively is to know yourself. What do YOU like? A you drawn to small and dainty or big and bold? What screams "This is ME!"? If you are trying things just because everyone else is doing it but it's not "you", change it until it is YOU.

Just my two cents worth.