There's Nothing Like a Little Light Plumbing in the Evening...

Funny the things that get a person to write. For instance, this evening as I was fishing about with a clothes hanger in our disgusting basement utility sink, searching for the ancient drain - or more specifically, whatever nasty bit of muck was keeping laundry water from draining through said drain - as I was doing this, I was inspired to jot down some recent happenings here. I really can't say where that connection formed, but here I am (C went for the drain cleaner).

I have been living the glamorous Arts Festival life for the past two weeks - early mornings, cold fingers, running noses, lots of coffee and disgruntled artists... and then the ones that are so happy to be there, the ones that actually enjoy what they do and have beautiful work that they are inspired to share with the world!


And then there are the customers; they grumble about the weather and make the same jokes over and over and over and over and over (you get the picture?) and they ask the same questions and complain mainly the same complaints (there is always someone who comes out with a new way to complain, that can be counted upon) but then they go through the show and they have a glass of wine and taste the chocolate and fruit crepes, they walk through the tents and talk to the artists, and maybe have a nibble of chocolate or taste the maple candy, and when they come out they are exclaiming what a fabulous day it was, how they should plan their Vermont holiday around this festival next year and maybe the year after that, they take me aside to compliment the management on the gorgeous bathrooms, and, my personal favorite, they comment to no one in particular - perhaps even just to themselves - how very much fun they had. And they don't want to leave (the wives, that is. The husbands, weighed down with purchases, have no problem getting themselves through the exit).


So, over all, its not a bad way to spend a few weeks. Tomorrow we head out to another, our last of the fall season and what looks like it might be the chilliest yet. I can't say I am particularly looking forward to spending the weekend in a cold and most likely wet fairgrounds in central New Jersey, but at the same time I really do enjoy knowing that what we do makes possible what a lot of other people do, and what they love to do, and gives so many other people the opportunity to become inspired by this handcrafted creativity in such a real way.


And those are my evening plumbing thoughts. I will be back for another installment when the sink clogs up or the toilet overflows... or hopefully not.

Seeing the Details

These gradations of grey caught my eye as I was moving the camera from "sunset landscape" to "dog in the park portrait". I am making a conscious effort to live more in the moment, to see and appreciate smaller and seemingly simpler things, while at the same time learning to not stress out over the details.

This is the first picture my grandparents ever made together, taken in 1937. On the back my grandma wrote "Just buddies!" - but I have seen her highschool text books where she practiced writing "Mrs. Harold Wright" and "Meryle Wright" over and over.


My grandfather was a wild youth in the back hills of Kentucky. Mommaw got her hands on him and straightened him out, a job she never gave up on for the rest of her life though he turned into the sweetest, most God-fearing man you could hope to find. They were such a pair, after 65 years of marriage I think they really felt they were a part of each other. The year and a half after Poppaw passed away, Mommaw seemed to have lost her will to live. I think all the difficult health problems she had dealt with for years had been tolerable when they were together, and then when she was caring for him, but without him there she gave in. We all knew that she was ready to go when she died peacefully in her sleep this past March.


I think I am lucky that the last few years my grandparents were alive I was old enough to know them for a little while as people, rather than as only my grandparents. Now I am able to look back and admire my grandmother's courage in living alone with her young daughter while her new husband was off in WWII. I am able to understand the hard work my grandfather put in to move his family from Kentucky farmlands to a comfortable suburban life in Cincinnati. When I remember them now, I remember my grandmother telling me of the latest historical novel she had been reading; I remember my grandfather staying up late at night to read his Bible; I remember my grandmother's beautifully elegant hands and my grandfather's hands skilled at carving and other wood crafts. As I grow older I understand the little bits of them that have passed down to me, and I am hopeful of continuing their tradition of strength in adversity, of hard work and perseverance and the basic - and to me admirable - realization of the American dream. My grandparents thought this country the best in the World, my grandfather fought for these ideals. I am much more cynical, but when I think of what they were able to accomplish, and the life they were able to build here, I am hopeful as well.

Entrance to Heaven?

Artwork v. Housework and an Important Cause

Unfortunately, in this match I am afraid housework won out. Not so bad, however, as things are now so much more comfortable 'round these parts. Not perfect, but a great improvement.

Now that I've spent one whole day at home, I am planning to head out again to visit some dear dear friends all the way in Wisconsin. I am intending to drive, which I realize is completely insane, but so are airline prices. And this gives me a chance to stop off in Ohio and do a bit for a cause in which I believe so very heartily:



Wish me luck!

Cactus

Wouldn't these textures and patterns be interesting in ink?