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.

Annual Questionnaire 2024

1. What did you do in 2024 that you’d never done before? You think at 44 you're all done having new experiences, and then life says "lol watch this".

At least I didn't have to experience my first colonoscopy - which they just lowered the age for by 5 years. You have to catch me first, doctor.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions?  I wanted to get more fit, so YES. I FINALLY DID A RESOLUTION. This means I win and don't have to do any ever again. 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? A cream pie? In this economy? 

4. Did anyone die? No, despite all my mental energy. 

Nonhuman: I think I killed one of my chickens by making friends with a monarch butterfly caterpillar, which she might have eaten. I'm so sorry, Tiny. 

5. What places did you visit? I went to Baltimore and took a lot of pictures of embarrassed-looking statues covered in snow. Spent a weekend on Maui with friends B & G, which was very wow. Tried a new restaurant near the airport that was pretty amazing.

6. What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024? My kids are almost all grown up and I still haven't taken them to any of the places I used to live - Molokai, Arizona, Newfoundland. I will get on a plane with these children this year, somehow. 

7. What moments from 2024 will remain etched upon your memory?  HEY, maybe don't leave a motion-activated camera on the table while your husband is home alone. 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?  I got two paintings into the annual juried gallery show, and illustrated two books. Did book signings at Barnes and Noble and everything. 

9. What was your biggest failure?   I still have not finished painting the house. Also we didn't trim the lychee tree, so when fruit season hit, the branches got so heavy they broke off and crashed on the roof.

 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?   Only emotionally. And physically. Thought I was going to get murked by a tree, for one.

 
11. What was the best thing you bought?   A computer, so I can finally write a book! Also I paid for a 10 hour video of Carlo Russo doing Dutch floral painting demos, and it changed my whole year of painting (and had me walking around the neighborhood with pruning shears down the back of my pants to poach flowers), so that was money well spent. Got a pair of novelty articulated bat wings that flap when you pull the strings, and it was the best Halloween trick ever.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?  Leif got a paying job as a CNC machinist with his robotics team, making him already qualified to earn more than me when he gets out of high school. Annoying. I'm proud of him. 

Gavin had a girlfriend and took her to Niagara Falls. It's long distance, and I think they might have broken up already, but I'm glad he met someone he connected with. Long distance relationships are hard, you get burned out from texting constantly and realize you're basically having a relationship with your phone, so sometimes the breakup is just one person dumping their device. Maybe they can reconnect in person after university.

Zenny joined two extra-curricular groups - cheerleading and a girl's gaming/coding club - and went to overnight summer camp for the first time. She hit her tween growth spurt, shot up 5 inches, and started reading manga. I'm having feelings about my last baby turning into a teenager, but she's pretty great.

 
13. Whose behavior made you appalled? lol

 

Honorable mentions:

    

Drunk Wife crashed my grandfather's walker AGAIN and broke her wrist. Then she decided to cut back on drinking, so she switched from beer to whiskey. 

Back in January/February one of my longtime friends (Mike the Marine, who boarded in our house for a couple years when I was in college) disappeared; we usually exchanged memes and short texts a couple times a week, but then suddenly he went silent and his social media was deleted. Last time that happened my friend had died, and I knew M. had a medical condition, so I was worried, texting "Are you okay? Are you in the hospital? Getting concerned". He finally called and explained: he had been cheating on his wife, got caught, and wasn't going to talk to women anymore. Oh. It was a big disappointment, because I didn't realize I was a woman, I thought I was a friend of 30 years. And I thought he had a code of honor. 

14. What did you get excited about? The "under $5" fancy cheese bin at Whole Foods.

15. What song will always remind you of 2023?  

Here are some of the songs I listened to while painting out my feelings:

Before therapy:

After therapy:

 

16. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? Both. Rolled a 20 for confusion.
b) thinner or fatter?  Kind of a lot thinner. My stomach looks like an empty nutsack. It did its job and accommodated 3 babies, so I'm pleased with its performance, but I'm trying all the firming creams anyway.
c) richer or poorer?  Paid off my car and Zenny outgrew afterschool care, so I'm two monthly payments richer. Still can't afford all the household bills on one income, damn it.

17. What do you wish you’d done more of? I wish Past Me was better at making money, because Future Me and Present Me have zero interest in hustling, we just want to paint and bake fancy desserts.

18. What was your favorite TV program?   The latest season of Fargo. Also Mrs & Mr Smith, and Insecure. Favorite single episode was Demon 79, from season 6 of Black Mirror.

19. What was the best book you read? 

The Circle, by Dave Eggers, messed me up. I had to buy my own copy. And delete my twitter account.

The Eyes and the Impossible, a kid's book, also by Dave Eggers. 

Really liked Starter Villain, by John Scalzi, too. I'm reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi right now.

20. What did you want and get? A beverage fridge. I was listening to Morbid and Ash said they were a "beverage household" with a selection of fancy low-sugar sodas, bubbly water, and bottled teas so guests could just help themselves to something nice, and that sounded like a pretty damn good idea to me. I always liked going to friends' houses and discovering their parents stocked up on snacks and drinks. So I did that thing, and it is, in fact, pretty great. And the kids are making bank on the recycling. (Had to quit buying coffee to make room in the budget, but I was only drinking decaf anyway.)
 

21. What did you want and NOT get? As of this writing, I still do not have a truck. 

22. "So! How's your love life?"

I don't know. It's doing something. 

23. What was your favorite film of this year? Fall Guy.

 

 

 

24. Did you make some new friends this year?   I think my therapist likes me...?

25. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? A raise that matched the cost of living.

26. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2024? The futile search for all the outfits Mabel and Loretta wore in the latest season of Only Murders in the Building.

If anyone sees a Simon Miller "Wendel" geometric mesh top, DM me

Settled for cheaper mesh tops and giant wide leg pants with pointy boots.

Work toilet fit check

27. What kept you sane? A huge stack of handwritten notebooks that I cockroached from my mom's house.

28. Which celebrity/public figure were you into? Oh no, it was Ryan Gosling.

 

29. What political/news issue stirred you the most?  LUIGI. Also Moo Deng and Pesto. 

Here is my collected list of stupid headlines that somehow made it onto the front page of CNN this year:

  

KPHO/KTVK: Husky escapes kennel for midnight snack

WLS: Rat imprint on sidewalk becomes viral sensation

WBBH: Suspect steals Snoop Dogg bobblehead

CNN: Rescuers believed pair of vultures were dying but they turned out to just be drunk

WJCL: Emotional support gator disappears in Georgia

KGO: Dog surfing competition saved by donations

CNN: I just don’t get why people enjoy eating chicken

KPTV: Posters ‘ban’ ghost summoning in park

ABC: Chicago's famous 'rat hole' removed and preserved from neighborhood sidewalk

Border Patrol intercepts 700 pounds of bologna

WHSV Family discovers 84-year-old biscuit

KSHB Tattoo artist uses ink to raise money

30. Who did you miss? 

I missed my college kid, and I worry about growing farther apart as he starts his own life. 

I missed an old boyfriend a bit. (Not you, S, get off my blog.)

31. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024. If you're feeling overwhelmed and confused, go with your gut, not your brain or your heart. 

Christmas 2024

We've finally got the hang of this thing.  

Christmas Eve is my big day. Cinnamon rolls for breakfast, holiday movies, music, card games, baking. I hit the kitchen as soon as the breakfast dishes were done. Our new fridge had been delivered the day before, and I was happy every time I looked in it, even though it's a narc and reports to an app exactly how many times you opened the doors throughout the day (162). You can lock it remotely, too. Might have to find its brain and put an ice pick through it.

The trick to making a bûche de Noël is to fold in the meringue gently so it stays light and fluffy, be careful not to overcook it, roll it up tightly in parchment while it's still hot enough to burn your fingerprints off, wait until it cools completely to unroll it, and then watch as it breaks apart anyway. Well, shit. I glued the pieces back together with cream filling, covered it in ganache, smashed chunks of chocolate "bark" all over it, and dusted the whole thing with powdered sugar. It looked like a rotting log that someone sat on, but I served it anyway. Cake is cake.

Well it looked worse while I was assembling it

The roast beef and Yorkshire pudding made up for the yule log. Every month I put money in the Christmas dinner budget until I have enough saved up to buy the biggest hunk of prime rib at Costco, and it is probably the best financial decision I make all year. 

The elves had a hard time hiding pajamas under all the pillows with people crowding the house, but they came through while I herded all the kids to the table for dinner. By 10pm, everyone was fed and full of eggnog and shut into their bedrooms, and we got down to business.

The kids slept until 5:45am, a holiday miracle. We had two extra people this year; Gavin's best friend, visiting from Idaho, and my aunt, who shipped her sons off to visit their dad. My mom was very happy to sit by her sister, open gifts, and watch everyone laugh over their presents. It was probably the noisiest, busiest Christmas morning we've had. It was really nice to have everyone all together - even though I decided it was a good idea to give people things like an Aztec death whistle, shrieking Tesla coil, and motorcycle bells. Sorry, neighbors, that’s what you get for blowing off aerial fireworks at bedtime. 

I thought the Tesla coil was a speaker that made electricity dance to music like one of those cute lightning balls that reacts when you touch it. Instead, it SCREAMS the music at 100 decibels in buzzing electrical pulses and shoots lightning right at you. I was cry-laughing with my face in my hands while the boys played sea shanties on it.

In the afternoon we drove over to my mother's house for meat pie and plum pudding. She knocked everything out of her cupboard, broke the gravy boat, and started swearing and throwing things, so I had to chase her out of the kitchen with a broom and put her in time out on the couch while I cleaned up, but after that the evening went smoothly, and we used the last of the high-octane rum to blast the pudding off the table.

After dinner, Leif and I walked to get the car, which we had parked across the street by the shopping center, and a stray cat came trotting up and flopped at Leif's feet, purring. "It's Baby Jesus!" Oh no. There is a cat colony in the parking lot, cared for by a lady who comes by with food every night, and this guy must have been late for dinner. I ran back to get a can of cat food. Baby Jesus really likes wet cat food, or he wouldn't keep showing up like this every year. In Newfoundland, Baby Jesus was more into whiskey, and snuck in with the mummers to sing at doorsteps.

It was a really good Christmas. We're feeling time run out on these days, knowing that in a few years we'll have to travel to be with the kids instead of waking up with them all at home. I want to keep them all, including the extra 21 year old. 

Back to work. It's all explosions and drunk neighbors until NYE now. Happy Holidays, everyone.