Yesterday was my birthday so I celebrated by spending the day doing exactly what I wanted to do! I guess this whole summer I've basically done just what I want to do so it has been a good month.
As always, I took a morning walk and yesterday Leiya and my niece joined me. I don't think either of them really want to go walking in the morning but they do it to keep me company. We took a harder jaunt than usual up to the hills over looking the city. Every year I come up to this point at least once because I love the scenery. If I could just get here a little bit earlier I'm sure I could catch a spectacular sunrise but I draw the line at walking the Southern California streets while it is still dark.
Marcy and I decided to cash in all the change that we found in Grandma's drawers during our cleaning. I'm surprised the bottom of the drawer didn't fall out! We could hardly lift the drawer from the dresser! Mother has just been dumping her loose change from her purse into the drawer for the last 10 years and the total was $404!!Takumi turned up suddenly to take me on a birthday date! I am so surprised that my son remembers my birthday, comes to surprise me, and will take me to lunch! My son has become a man!
But I guess he still is a kid at heart because he wanted a Blizzard (you know, those thick ice cream things that can be turned upside down and they still won't drip) after lunch.
And in the afternoon I did some sewing. Yes, Brenda Lou, you did spot a sewing machine right off my mother's kitchen. Marcy picked out some fabric and a pattern for me to make her a table runner so I sewed that up last week and did some random machine quilting on it. My mother found this a fascinating process and spent over an hour peering at sewing machine. She also found it absolutely hilarious that I concentrate so hard that I stick my tongue out while I quilt. Hey, I didn't know that! Thanks for the information Mom. I'm glad I added some humor to your day! (Unfortunately I stitched in a big tuck in the backing but Marcy promises not to show the back to any experienced quilters.)
And Kiana also picked out some fabric and a table runner ALL BY HERSELF!!! I think I've got a budding quilter!! She wanted four-leaf clovers quilted onto it so I am still in the middle of that project.
In the evening Marcy's family came over to help me celebrate and my family gave me a Willow Blessings figure, t-shirts and gift cards to Barnes and Noble, Jamba Juice and JOANN'S!! Let's see how much sewing I can get in this last week!
And I guess my birthday gift to myself was another blog book. I am desperately behind on this endeavor (this is still the latter 6 months of 2007!) but I am very satisfied with the Blurb book making website and I guess I'll continue in this vein. This is why a few days ago I was philosophically pondering (while I went through all my mother's stuff) why we humans feel the need to record our history for posterity. Ah well.
Yesterday I spent the whole blessed day in the kitchen (this is a three foot square kitchen by the way!) and tossed and washed every single piece of dishware and changed the shelving mats. And when there is any spare time I've been going through photos and cleaning out the desk and bedroom drawers. Still have a ways to go on those.
I’m a sucker for these kinds of things. The cement is soft and wearing in places and the windows have been cut into parts by the division of the room horizontally to make two floors, but the window boxes are still kept up. The building was designed by A.E.Doyle, who designed the downtown Public Library, and will be 100 years old in 2011. I figure by that time, I may have finished this series.
That bicycle is inside the room, leaning against the glass while sitting on the “new” flooring which truncates the window glass. The leaves are reflected from the trees outside — horse chestnut trees in this case. I like imagining this building as full of people who ride bikes to work, but in fact, I saw one of them loading batches of stuff into a Zip Car and another on a little red motor scooter which matched her helmet.
I knew she'd been connected with the Fluxus movement in the 60s. Or thought I knew that, but apparently she didn't want to promote Fluxus, she wanted to be independent.
Jan and I continue our explorations of color (Color Exercises for the Painter by Lucias Salemme), and, glory be, we have reached Exercise 4. Exercise 4 calls for a painting rather than samples (see the photo above) of what you can do with various pigments. Because Jan (daughter) and I figure this is a good 5 year project and excellent for mother-daughter bonding as well as gathering of gossip, we make slow progress — we work only on Sundays when both of us are available and we don’t try to do too much in any one session.
Note that there’s nothing on the boards on her easel. She’s holding the instructions, which tend to be the opposite of Betty Edwards, our last artist companion. Edwards spelled everything out in such detail that we were left gasping; Salemme is pretty cavalier about what to do. “Paint a landscape. Use a rag to wipe out the light spots. Don’t use anything but earth colors until you near the end of the process.” OK, we can do that.
Already her sense of color seems to exceed mine. I’m going out today and copy what she did — but hush, don’t tell her. After all, I am her mother and supposed to be the expert in all things. I wouldn’t want her to know otherwise. –June
