Back to normal

Leif brought home a virus and got sick, too.

By the time the man got home, I hadn’t been to work in nearly two weeks and was running on fumes. At the airport, I tossed a piece of banana bread and a drink at him as he got in the car, and he said, “Wow, thanks! How did you know I’d be hungry?” I held my hand up like it was squeezing a melon, "I'm a WOman!"*

Usually, not much changes in the daily routine while one of us is away, but that is not what happened this time. This trip was supposed to test our relationship progress by giving him a chance to collect some wins, while giving me a chance to see if I was happier without him, and nature was like, well that’s obviously a bad idea, and flipped on SINGLE PARENT DISASTER MODE. 

I passed off parenting duties like a football to the face and slept for 10 hours. Went back to work, got weird about planning a weekly series of miniature art activities and a tiny gallery show with mini refreshments for summer reading program. My boss tried to nudge me into volunteering to organize a big art show for the adults, too. Nope. When he drops hints, I watch those hints fall right to the floor, where I step over them. Ask directly and I'll do projects outside my position description, but I am not volunteering; there are no promotions or raises for people who take on extra work in our field, only complaints and trouble. Glad he's on board with my plan for a children's mini art show, though.

The kids are better now, routine is back on track. I got my shit together for Lent (workout every day, knock it off with all the baking), the girl is turning 12 next week (birthday cake doesn't count), and my mother is traveling to Australia with her sister for Spring Break (which gets me off the hook for not bringing her to Scotland). Appreciating the good things as they come.

* In 1997 - 17 years old and unaware of the dangers of Florida Man - I decided to walk down the busy main road in Sarasota from my dorm room to the Dollar Store. I was wearing jeans, a hippie halter top, and my oversized letterman jacket, trudging along with my hands in my pockets, when I stopped to cross a side street. A man in a pickup truck stopped and leered at me, leaned out the driver's window, made a hand gesture like someone weighing a cantaloupe, and said in a voice like Cheech Marin, "You're a WOman!" No shit, I thought, and crossed the street. He followed me in his truck, pulled into a parking lot in front of me, waited with his head and arm out the window, and finally realized I wasn't a prostitute when I stomped past without looking at him. He waited an awkward beat and then drove away (my peripheral vision was dialed all the way up). I never walked to the Dollar Store again.

"I'm a WOman!" has been a running joke for so long, it's just part of our lexicon now.

edit: sorry, I had to turn my blog on and off a few times to shake a bot. Also, yes, I went to Ringling; I have a degree in Computer Animation that I never used because every single interviewer without exception asked about my plans to have babies, and one even went as far as to say, "We don't want to hire mothers - erm, parents."

A week off

The boy flew to Canada with his robotics team, the man flew to North Carolina, and Zenny immediately came down with a high fever. She has a history of seizures with fever, so I've had to keep a close eye on her and keep the meds on schedule, which has meant NO SLEEP. My brain can't shut off if it knows I have to get up in a few hours to check temps/medicine, and I've been keeping the bedroom door open at night to listen for sounds of distress, so the cats have been trampolining off my face every time I get close to sleep. My mother came up to watch the girl on Saturday so I could go to work and perform story time. Some weeks the story time group is small and sweet, with toddlers singing and clapping. Some weeks it is a huge mosh pit of screaming and biting, with staff scrambling to find extra crafts because we planned for 24 (the average number of kids is 22) and 60 showed up. It was the Mad Max kind of story time, and I ran for it as soon as the last craft was snatched up.

The boy's team won the Canadian regional, qualifying them for Worlds, and he flew home with a suitcase full of Aero bars and Smarties in the middle of the night. The highway was pretty empty at that hour, and I was screaming along to Black Sabbath to keep myself awake. He was waiting by the curb, sweating in the puffy jacket he was too cool to take off, and on the way home he kept me laughing with stories about how the robot jammed in a critical match and everyone panicked, the autonomous mode went awry and shot projectiles everywhere except the goal, and how good a hot shower felt after freezing to the bone. (It was 40 degrees. The Canadian teams were enjoying the warm weather in shorts and t-shirts, and our kids were in puffer coats, excited to run through every melting puddle of slush.) I love having him home. With the extra set of ears in the house, I was able to close the bedroom door and sleep 5 hours uninterrupted. I am as fresh as the day-old bread bin at the grocery store.

No red flags from the man so far. His brother flaked and didn't join them, but Mike and his sister have been making their dad laugh hard enough for his wife to get upset that they might rupture his aneurism. The man has MS, cancer, and ballooning arteries; he hasn't walked in 15 years, and he's spending the end of his life far from family in a VA hospital. Let him die laughing if he wants. A few weeks ago, their dad had talked to his sister on the phone about his favorite memories of them growing up, and how much he missed the apple pie and cheddar cheese their mom used to make on holidays. His current wife won't let their mom see him or call him to say a last goodbye, so MIL baked an apple pie and sent it along with his sister. When they sliced it up and gave him a piece, he leaned his head back and said it was just as delicious as their mother's pie. He cried a bit when they told him it was from her. That piece of pie said everything. I remember the good times, too. I love you. I forgive you. Goodbye. I think that is pretty beautiful. 

He gets back in a few days. I think it'll be a green light to book those tickets soon.

non-hypothetical

I GOT THE GRANT. Heavy in planning mode now. Ordering supplies, securing house sitter, planning tickets and visa, browsing B&Bs. It's going to be Aberdeen in April, I'm excited! 

To balance out the good news, father-in-law has had a terminal diagnosis, so Mike is flying out this week to meet his siblings and visit their dad in North Carolina. It will probably be the last time they will all be together. I have nothing to say to that man that he would want to hear, so I am staying out of it. I just want the drama report when his wife tries to stop them from talking to him without her in the room (all phone calls have to be on speaker so she is included, and she controls the phone) and his brother finally has enough of it and throws her out by the scruff and seat of her pants.

Here are some of my practice pieces to test out canvas and get the hang of the 18th century color palette (vine black, lead white, vermilion [cad red light], scarlet sienna, raw sienna or yellow ochre, and Prussian blue):

No detail for this one, it's still drying and there was too much glare for a good shot

It's hard taking pictures of a painting at the correct angle, sorry. 

These are from 2 cameras; the detail shot is more accurate for color.

Painting my husband has been part of my therapy homework. When we were in college, I used to draw Mike all the time. I'd sketch him while he was doing schoolwork, or lying on the bed watching tv. He would let me drape him in sheets or put flowers in his hair when I needed illustration reference. I imagined having a home someday where we could hang art, and I would see him aging across the walls as the years went by. 

That didn't happen. He broke my heart and I threw all those drawings away. After reconciling a couple years later I tried to draw him again, but it brought up a lot of bad feelings and I threw those out, too. From time to time I would try again, but it didn't go very well.

Things are better now though (or different, anyway), and I was able to stare at his face for a lot longer before the bad feelings started resurfacing. Then we flopped down with our therapy workbook to fill out this week's chapter and ended up having a really good conversation. If his trip to NC goes well and he collects some green flags, we'll plan to travel to Scotland together. We haven't traveled alone, just the two of us, since having kids. If I get a bouquet of red flags next week, though, I'll go to Scotland alone and then start looking into moving to Canada. I am cautiously optimistic, though. He's a fun and easy travel companion.

Should probably gift this painting to his mom, though, just to keep it out of the trash if I get mad.

further adventures of the amateur detective

On Thursday morning, after dropping the boy off at the high school, Zenny and I parked by the library and walked down to the elementary school. We said hello to the family of yellow finches we see every morning, looked for snails in the wet grass by the fence, and waved at the pickle ball ladies at the tennis court. At the gate Zenny gave me a kiss and ran to class, and I walked back up to the library. By the gym I stopped to look at Ward, one of our homeless guys who collects cans to recycle. He was sleeping in his usual spot, lying on his back with a hand on his chest, and he looked like an accidental renaissance painting. I wanted to take a picture of him, but that would be rude. Also, he swears a lot when he's grumpy, and he wouldn't be happy if I woke him up. I might have risked it anyway, but some kids were passing by, so I kept walking, thinking that I should keep cash in my pocket to pay people to take pictures of them. And maybe to bribe them not to call the police for propositioning them for photos like a fuckin weirdo. How do street photographers get people to pose for them? Do they even ask, or do they lurk around with telescopic lenses and pretend to be journalists? I walked up the hill, turned off the exercise tracker on my watch (damned if I'll walk 10 minutes and not get credit for it), got my lunch out of the car, put my badge on, and unlocked the library for another long day of helping people print shit and then get their money out of the copy machine after they ignore all the signs telling them it's not the printer. 

After school, Zenny walked up to do her homework. "Someone died at the park," she said. "There were police, and a sheet or something covering something on the ground, and an ambulance, and they were all just standing around talking. Maybe whoever was lighting the trash cans on fire finally lit themself on fire and died."

"Huh, I don't think so, the guy who was burning the trash cans is still in jail for robbing 7-11 with a fake gun. I wonder who... OH NO."

Yeah, it was Ward. He was dead. I stopped and stared at him and thought about taking a picture, then just walked away and let him lie there for another 6 hours. You know, just like Nancy Drew.

Hark! A Vagrant

After walking by that other dead guy a few years ago, I started nudging people with my foot and asking them if they're alive when I see them passed out in the middle of the day. Dead people tend to look pretty dead - they kind of sink flatter, and your brain picks up on them not breathing, which gives you the creeps. But it was 7:45am and he was in his normal sleeping spot, and the last guy I tried to wake up went on a screaming rampage, so I just didn't bother. I feel bad about it.

Ward was 57, a skinny guy who always wore a baseball cap and cargo shorts. He joined the military as a young man and came back from deployment with some pretty serious trauma that went untreated. He stopped talking and started pacing everywhere. He tried to self medicate with drugs at some point, and wouldn't accept help. For the 11 years I knew him, he speed-walked back and forth from our town to the recycling station a few miles away, pushing an old baby stroller full of bagged aluminum cans. He'd buy lunch with the recycling money and sit behind the library eating out of take-away boxes with chopsticks. He never spoke except to swear to himself if he was having a bad day, and always accepted the bags of recycling we saved up for him. Never saw him smile, but he wasn't a scary or dangerous person, and he didn't cause any problems. I'm sorry he died. He looked peaceful, at least. 

Keep busy

It’s February? Why? 

I have been sneezing and coughing and feeling useless, so here is a bulleted list.

* Made Z pose for a painting. I’m still planning for the hypothetical grant and wanted to practice recreating a Henry Raeburn portrait. The girl only gives me 2 minutes to take a picture nowadays because she is tired of my shit, so I threw a snuggie over her shoulders, told her to make a face like a cat with only one brain cell, and snapped the shot. Nailed it. 

Now I just have to find time to paint the thing.

* Called out sick for a couple days and came back to discover someone had put a big OUT OF ORDER sign on the copier and called in a work order to fix it, all because some guy put $10 in the machine and then got mad when it only gave $3 in change. It has ALWAYS given a maximum of $3 change, that is why I have spent the last SIX YEARS warning people not to put in anything bigger than a $5. Also, it is WRITTEN ON THE COPIER. Had to explain all this to the patrons who were complaining that the copier had been "broken" for two days, and to the service guy who showed up with all his equipment and nothing to fix. "Maybe you should make a sign," each person said. It made me think about a recent dream I had where I was shoveling horse shit at a stable, and I was so happy until I woke up and realized I was still a librarian. 

* Went to Staff Institute Day. Ate a free salad, got high on Dayquil and accidentally led a round table discussion on self defense.

* Made a chocolate tres leches cake for family dinner. I was skeptical about dumping a milk bath over a perfectly nice cake, because that seemed like a good way to end up with a pan full of wet cake, but, you know, trust the process. Well! It was wet cake. Maybe I did it right? Maybe people like eating wet cake? That would explain cake pops. And people who eat cake with ice cream even though it melts and turns everything to mush. Anyway, I'm not writing that recipe down in the family cookbook.

* Gave permission for a university to use my picture books for an open access translation project, and they sent me $25! Never mad at surprise checks in the mail.

* Found where the chickens were stashing their eggs (garden shed behind the shovel). Dumped a bunch of papaya seeds into a pot of dirt and now I have about 20 little tree sprouts that will absolutely destroy the back yard. Feeling like a goddamn pioneer. 

* Still have not bought a truck. 

Time to get through another Valentine's Day. Good luck, folks.

Burns Night 2025

The news is a shit show, but Saturday was fancy dinner night with the Caledonian Society. The RSCDS was performing, so Zenny and I came along for the haggis. (Leif has the flu, so we ditched him.) The Caledonia Society is the group that awards the scholarship/grant for project proposals, so it was also a chance to show my face and make a good impression on the committee members.

The bagpipe band had been playing since 9am for the funeral of a fallen firefighter and they were exhausted, but they powered through it and got to sit down to a slab of prime rib afterwards. 

Celtic Pipes and Drums

There was an entire portion of mashed potatoes and asparagus under that thing.

Z standing in for a RSCDS dancer during the walk-through

Oahu Country Club

Whoops, wore the same dress as last year because I forgot to buy boob tape for the new dress.

"long-suffering painter's model" face

cousins and aunt

After the walk-through, Zenny and I went up to the bar to get a Shirley Temple and a beer with our drink tickets.

As I was trying to pick my way down the stairs in my stupid 4 inch heels without spilling my Stella, one of the grant committee members called out my name and came over to talk. How did she know who I was or what I looked like? Who cares! This was my chance to pitch my idea and show her why they should pick me. Your 15 minutes are almost up, Quincy Jones is in the fourth row, now SING, bitch.

My mind went blank. What is art? Who am I? There was smiling and nodding, and I think I said "cool" and "awesome". Oh no. At least I did not fall down the stairs. She said they'll get back to me in a week or two, which is a lot sooner than expected. Fingers crossed.

Theater students reenacted Rabbie Burns poems with some pretty alarming stage fighting, and the singers hit most of the right notes. Zenny managed not to fall asleep on my lap this year, and we stole all the leftover bread pudding on the table to bring home for Leif. It was a nice night. 

And now I get to plan a hypothetical painting trip until I get the final word on the project. Take small bites of optimism where you can find them.

Better

Our therapist did, in fact, sort things out. Evidently I was intended to lose my shit over that homework assignment so that she could stick her hands into my pain/anger, pull it up by the root cause, and be like, “See? That’s how you do it.” 

Then she said, “Okay, so I’m going to have you move on to the next chapter, and then we’re going to come back and do this chapter again.” 

Mike:

So that's going okay. 

Meanwhile, my painting/research proposal* got a soft nod from one of the Caledonia Society grant committee members (won't find out for sure until May), so I'm busy gathering info and trying out different painting surfaces. Most 18th/19th century artists painted on linen, so I ordered a couple small linen panels mounted on aluminum, which is the modern version of the traditional canvas; light enough to travel with and sturdy enough not to get smashed in a suitcase. I'll figure out which one I like best and then get bigger ones for the project. Spent about 2 hours researching field easels, looking for something portable and lightweight, and narrowed it down to a folding French easel I liked before realizing it's the same one I already have. I am smart.

Anyway, when I wasn't doing that I was painting miniatures and Squid Game on my lunch break. 

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. 

― Kurt Vonnegut

*The proposal is to study historic Scottish art, travel to sites depicted in selected landscape paintings, document how the scenery has changed over time, and paint the modern view in the same style as the original - then come home and use the same techniques/color palette to paint a similar landscape here (eg, coastal rocks, cloudy mountain, etc), thus linking Scottish tradition with Scottish descendants in Hawaii. This is the year I win my fight with landscape painting, damn it.

January is fired

Double root canal. New crown. Hemorrhaging money. Aggravation at work. Dead pigeon tangled in a rope dangling from the huge tree over the library (how?!), and no way to get it down without a cherry picker, so it is just going to decompose and fall apart like the very worst piñata. I tried, though.

You know what you should not do while you are angry about endodontics and money and work? Therapy worksheets with your spouse. “Revisit a rocky moment.” That went about as well as a fork to the chest. 

Therapist can sort it out tomorrow. 

Should probably take a vacation or something. 

January is a speeding truck

The boys have gone back to the mainland, the kids are back in school, and the house is slow and quiet. My car has gas again, the cups are back in the cupboard, and we're going through the normal amount of toilet paper (I understand now why people with multiple young men in a household stockpile toilet paper like they're prepping for the apocalypse). I'd rather have the people than gas, clean cups, and toilet paper, but it's okay. I’m glad they had a good visit and got home safe. 

Other news:

* Got a new storytime rug with Elephant and Piggie all over it, and I was so excited to show my library kids! They did not care, because it is a rug. But their parents were super impressed, I could tell.

* Saved a bird! It died. Disinfected everything, because bird flu has hit our town and I wasn’t actually supposed to save any birds in the first place, but I thought it might have just gotten chewed on by a cat or something.

* There are no eggs anywhere on the island (see: bird flu). People are lined up in mobs to get into the egg farm, rushing the grocery stores for whatever they can restock, hoarding eggs like they’re rolls of toilet paper. I am not taking an elbow to the face for eggs. It’s time to practice some vegan baking until I can figure out where our chickens are laying their eggs this week.  

* Dental adventures. Today I learned that if you go to the dentist to investigate a mysterious tender spot on the roof of your mouth, the dentist will stick a metal pin directly into it like a thumb tack so it’ll show up on an xray. Result: referral to a dental surgeon because there’s a problem in there, oh yay. It's going on your performance review, skeleton.

* Still have not bought a used truck, because ever since paying off my car I have been handing that money over directly to our dentist every month. Add anything to your take-home pay and a sink hole of expenses will immediately open up under it. 

* Tried to take a picture of the full moon in a deep blue sky over silver-rimmed clouds with a single star and two pointy trees - "wow so pretty, this could be a nice painting" - and walked through a wall of crab spider webs in the dark. 

* Movies: Nightbitch. Please Don't Destroy: the Treasure of Foggy Mountain. I've got "Hundreds of Beavers" queued. 

* Art stuff: I've been working on some small paintings, and submitted an application for a scholarship to travel to Scotland for a painting/research trip. Also re-joined the Association of Hawaii Artists so I'll get emails about local shows to participate in. Throwing some mud at the wall to see if it sticks. 

Joyce

The new year is off to a rocky start. 

On Saturday, 10 minutes before storytime, a man we know came up to the desk, looking upset. Ivan is deaf, and the long-time partner of one of our best library friends, who we knew was having a long and difficult recovery from pneumonia. We hurried over to him, and he held up his phone, where he had typed: Joyce died this morning at 12:43am at the hospital. It was a punch in the gut. We all started crying, my coworker came around the desk to hug him. He vocalized and gestured, trying to tell us how it happened - he was sleeping... he got a call... he was not with her when she passed - but his hands were shaking too much to type out more. Joyce has been part of the library family since before I started working here, she organized the library art shows, made beautiful scrapbook-style book marks to give away at the desk, and gifted us books of stamps at the holidays because she worked as a postal carrier until she retired. She loved Ivan fiercely - they found each other later in life, after their children were grown. She was with him through his fight with cancer last year. Surviving all of that and then losing your partner is unspeakably cruel. 

He sent this picture:

Joyce, you will be deeply missed.