(______)

Where else do you keep ’em?  A spot of protection against canine antics last weekend, the last day I was mobile, while a friend made paper and her sweet dog and Lupe tore around the house and yard together.

Ugh. Popping in to explain lack o’ blog: our outdoor temperatures dropped back to a more normal spring but my own decided to rise, and I’ve been knocked flat with some respiratory thing since Monday. I thought it was better when I woke today but am going back to bed immediately after publishing. Not good for all the projects but not much I can do about it either. Still Waiting for Words as well as waiting to be able to function again. At least this 3-now-into-4 day sleeping marathon keeps me from impatience, even if it keeps me from everything else.  Be well out there.

I may be down, but Himself has finally recovered enough to return to the wood shop after way too long: these are now gorgeously finished with several coats of real (not water-based) sealant, and as soon as I’m better, they get their blue poly mesh. They are sitting on my cherished wee Mother Dwarf Smith cabinet.

The heat intensifies…

‘You Never Know #1’ – Melissa Jay Craig, kozo drawing, 2012, 18″ x 13″

(Same below on a different background)

As of yesterday, I am a finalist for two different, conflicting opportunities. There are only four possible outcomes: (1) I receive one, (2) I get both and need to choose, (3) I get neither and fall back on a solid plan C, or (4) something totally unexpected occurs.  In the meantime,  I am still working relentlessly on three projects that all seem absolutely  endless in spite of their deadlines, and Chicago is the warmest location in the nation today at a projected 86 degrees. I’m fine with it all.

Things are heating up over at Women’s Studio Workshop as well; this year’s benefit auction goes live at noon today!  I warmly thank them for this lovely shout-out (the feeling is utterly mutual), and you are just a few clicks away from owning this lovely kozo drawing while supporting one of the finest supporters of artists – particularly women artists – there is. Go for it!  I hope the bidding is hot, hot, hot till April 5th.

Feeling the heat

I went to Zia for the opening of Anne Hughes‘ lovely show; it was great.  Anne is the director, and she keeps samples of all the gallery artists’ works installed in their back rooms. This is her placement of Zia’s inventory of (S)Edition – which I loved.

2012, at least this first part of it, has become both a slow, plodding waiting game and a breathless, relentless scramble to keep up with far too many enterprises.  It’s also extremely odd in terms of weather: a string of 80 degree days we’re currently in the middle of.  I’m trying very hard not to think about how the summer will be if this is early spring. Last week I learned that my physical therapy exercises definitely need to be maintained lifelong. Backsliding (as I did in January and February) is more damaging than the original problem.  Now I’m trying hard to re-incorporate it into my copious workload, and to find ways to keep up while on the road. Tomorow, I head to Iowa very early in the morning and back again in the afternoon, and, well: one can’t do PT while in the driver’s seat, and I’ll be in that position a lot this summer.

Harbingers, local and global

Harry Potluck and The Source O’ The Scones by Melissa Jay Craig 2005
Currant scones, Vermont cookie house dough (w/currant jam, lemon curd, butter).

I still think of this blog as a device to keep (vaguely) in touch with a few friends, so I was stunned when I looked at a new-to-me WordPress statistics feature which lists views by country. The number and range of international visits was amazing (and rather mind-boggling.) To put it accurately if less than articulately: Wow…Thank You!

While I’m processing that information, I’m absolutely pleased to share the news that the lovely ladies of Evanston Print & Paper are hosting their very first Edible Books event!  It’s an essential rite of spring for me (as evidenced at Penland last year). Definitely, I’ll be cooking some books, to eat locally and to become part of the eye-feast globally.

Harbingers

That massive restructuring I wrote about two and a half weeks ago?  Barely begun.  Unexpected things emerged, good but unresolved, requiring my attention.  And tomorrow’s continued warm weather mandates a day in the garden, a different sort of restructuring.  I laughed out loud when I read this post of Aimee’s; I feel the same way about not having paid for this weather, and I also didn’t quite trust the first few warm days.  But the crocuses and other wee shoots are proof that, even if there’s a relapse into the winter we didn’t have, spring is determinedly on its way. I need a day in the garden for more than a celebration of warmth; life right now parallels what’s happening out there.  I cast out a few random seeds over the winter, and some of them are sprouting, but I won’t know till later in the season which will thrive.

 

Nemesis

Yesterday I had a pivotal conversation via captioned iPhone. Short tests with the app were wonderful, and I’ve used it successfully (and with a sigh of relief) for things like appointments. I really thought it would be fine. But the long conversation was simply ridiculous on my end: the app suddenly became agonizingly slow, misinterpreted words, and froze. three. times. I backed it up with headphones and cranked-all-the-way volume that just barely gave me the speaker’s voice, yet disconcertingly fed back loud, distorted,  delayed echoes of my own. I can do most anything but have an effective phone conversation, so I’m rather frustrated by the fact that so much, so often, seems to hinge on just that.

And now I’m left to wonder: do I become my own arch-nemesis when I attempt to accommodate the hearing world instead of relentlessly insisting on the other way around?

Memento

The only way you’ll take it with you.

I started March with a bout of intense internal wrestling; wrote of it till it boiled down to something succinct, then decided it’s best kept to myself. But during the thick of it, I finally visited this great show. My reaction was not at all a feeling of morbidity; instead, I left with a much, much lighter step than when I entered.

In the sad areas of the world driven by greed, injustice is as inevitable as death. It’s important to look it squarely in its face, then choose to turn back to life.