Drink & draw is back

The time is approaching for me to ramp up my exercise so that my heart can malfunction properly at my cardiology appointment in November. My doctor said that if I pass the treadmill test and the 2-week heart monitor, she's going to strap me to a swiveling table and roll me upside down until I pass out. And if I don't pass out, she'll drug me with something to make me pass out, and maybe also vomit. Pretty sure that if I pass all these tests, I qualify to be an astronaut. Or an illustration in a medieval medicine textbook.

But I don't have to start jogging until next week, so this week I learned to make the perfect White Russian, laid around reading Project Hail Mary, and ordered a bag of vampire teeth and wigs.

“I’m going to do some yard work,” the man said on Saturday. I thought this meant a bit of raking or weed whacking, but I came home to find the yard completely buried in tree branches.

“I’ll put it in the green bin,” he said. 

At least it wasn’t rocks this time.

(Btw that swinging rope isn’t anything sinister, it’s for hanging up stalks of bananas so the rats don’t eat them. I should take it down before the chickens start using it as a trapeze.)

Drink & draw has been reinstated. I put out a bunch of seasonal objects and Zenny drew her drink, instead.

Leif got mad at the gouache and threw his picture of a bleeding pumpkin away. I painted a skull in black and white for an hour. I’ve been ruining a couple of lucky cats and feeling like a garbage artist and a fraud, so it was nice to just smash some paint around and not worry about it being any good.

The new I Know What You Did Last Summer is out on Amazon Prime, if anyone wants to see my library dressed up as a police station and picture me standing 10 feet inside looking really annoyed.

never-ending detention

Recent selfies.

This is a waste of my life. 

The past few months have been tough. I've been trying to deal with that by focusing on the upcoming gallery show and pulling off one last lucky cat, so I moved all my painting stuff into the bedroom (the basement studio has been taken over by pottery, which it's more suited for), but so far it hasn't resulted in any more time in the day to paint. Huh.

 

underpainting

We're still doing rounds of diagnostics to prepare for Zenny's surgery plans. It's a slow process, nothing major has been scheduled yet.

My grandfather has improved a lot with the hospice care and hot meal delivery my aunt arranged, but he still has two tangerine-sized aneurysms waiting to burst, if the cancer doesn't get him first. He's his old self again until then, now that he's not being slowly starved by an alcoholic. Food! Amazing, who knew we needed nutrition for brain function? Not Drunk Wife.

One of the chickens had 4 more babies yesterday. I am 100 percent certain there have been zero roosters in the neighborhood for the past 2 months. How long can they store DNA? They are witches.

Horses, goats, and name calling

On Thursday, I was still wrapping my head around the surgery news when my home life suddenly hit a bump and spilled me on my ass. On Friday, the governor announced 60 more days of getting cussed out at the library door. On Saturday, my boss took off for two weeks, leaving me the librarian in charge of police reports and angry shouting patrons. Made it half an hour before a big guy got in my face and called me a totalitarian. I said, “okay, thanks,” and closed the doors between us.

On the plus side, Zenny had her first riding lesson, as a reward for being brave at the hospital. She loved it, even though they did not teach her the bit about politely standing up in the stirrups while your horse takes a massive whiz.

Her horse’s name is Speedy, and he is the horse most likely to fall asleep mid-lesson. This also makes him the horse least likely to dump 8 year-olds on their heads, so he’s perfect.

Speedy also has cool pixel-outlined shoulder spots

A very handsome goat who speaks in burps

She’ll earn another hospital reward lesson in a week. At this rate, she’ll be a professional jockey before she hits middle school.