Lumbering (I got dissed!)

Yesterday Mr. A was at our local big giant lumber store and saw a bunch of “farm lots” of various sizes all trussed up and ready to go, for about half what you would pay for the same wood off the rack. The boards are fairly rough, though, and some of them are a little twisted, so rather than just buying them he asked me to run in there this morning and check them out. I did that, and then I had some questions, so I went into the contractor’s office to ask about them.

I guess because I grew up around people who are always building things, and never felt like being a woman was any kind of issue when it comes to construction – let alone a detriment – I easily forget that there are a lot of people in this world who believe the building of things is a task – possibly even a sacred duty or privilege – properly executed by men, exclusively. The man who “helped” me this morning falls into this category of person. While he never came right out and said, “Come back tomorrow, and bring a man with you,” he did basically refuse to answer my questions (answering them with more questions, subtly indicating that he believed I didn’t know what I was talking about) and I just generally got the vibe that he didn’t want to deal with me.

Was it because I was wearing lipstick, and a dress? Or because I made the mistake of telling him that my boyfriend had sent me in to look? Was it (and this I could kind of understand) because he has four people out sick today and an office full of burly impatient guys with lists in their hands, and was not in the mood for a leisurely chat about lumber with someone who didn’t seem clear about what she (I) wanted?

Whatever. In a past life, or on another day, I would’ve seriously considered making a stink over this. But today, I had to get to work. And he was right about one thing, anyway – I’m not ready to buy anything today. If nothing else, I don’t like the idea of buying a big bundle of boards without being able to look at each one and make sure it’s reasonably straight and not sloppily cut, hideously splintered, full of knots, or otherwise unacceptable. They might be half price, but half price is not a bargain if you can only use half the wood in the pile.

So I’ll go back with Mr. A tomorrow, or Friday, and we’ll take a look and possibly buy some boards. I have a lot going on this weekend though, and even if I didn’t, they can’t deliver anything until next week – and then, the weekend after that is the bluegrass fest – so maybe I really will try to take some time off for a working vacation, instead of trying to get it all done on weekends.

Luckily, this is not a race. And slowly but surely, progress is being made.

P.S. I did not get that couch, by the way. It was too new, too "nice," and too expensive. We are possibly getting something else that's old though – a 1973 Alfa Romeo GTV! It looks kind of like this, only it's silver and it's a convertible. I'm not all that interested in cars but Mr. A is what you might call an aficionado, and he thinks it's the cat's pajamas. The question of why two people (one of whom hardly ever drives) should own three cars is ... well, that's a question for another day.

White flowers

The mariachi party was definitely the highlight of the weekend – among other things, we ate delicious food (the caterer specializes in seafood – my favorite!), sampled yummy wine, heard lovely, heartfelt Mexican music from a trio of guitar guys in white embroidered shirts (even better than the big brassy uniformed horn section I had been expecting), and fell in love with these lovely, clean pure white flowers with green and yellow centers. Japanese anemones, I now know, are hardy, enthusiastic, and self-propagating via runners that can spread up to a couple of feet a year. I want to try some next spring in one of the hard-to-grow areas at the back of the yard.

The rest of the weekend was mostly devoted to seasonal chores around the house and in the yard, which might sound boring but actually is supremely satisfying, because you know the entire time that it's going to feel So Good when you're finished, and that's a highly enjoyable kind of anticipation – and then when you actually are finished, and it really does feel good, you get to enjoy it all over again.

For instance, I spent a couple of hours crouching and waddling around to gather a whole wheelbarrow's worth of apples and walnuts that had fallen on the ground (which Tater loves to bring into the house to eat, only I don't allow him to do that anymore because walnut mold is toxic to dogs!). My back was killing me the whole time, but I was also enjoying the smells and colors of the fruit, and the coolness of the air, and the geese flying by honking. I also loved discovering that not all of the apples are bruised and withered and not all of the nuts are pecked – which information gradually transformed itself in my head as I continued to gather them, into a plan to set aside the firm, not-too-worm-ridden apples, and cook them up, along with some walnuts from last year (this year's aren't ready yet), into an appley crispy thing for desert tonight. Thinking about that was so pleasant that before I knew it the ground was clear and I had moved on to promising myself that next year, I'm going to pay more attention to all the trees – peaches, pears and persimmons too – and not let another year's crop go to waste, ever again.

So now in addition to beekeeping, I'm reading about fruit trees. My first goal is to figure out how to save a 30-year-old apple tree that is splitting down the middle. Probably the tree should just be replaced, but I like having a mature tree in that spot, and aside from the split it seems healthy and still has great flowers and fruit. So I'm looking into various forms of securing the two sides together with bolts, cables, etc. and may also consult a neighbor who owns a tree service (though I'm afraid he'll just tell us to take it out).

Anyway. Just sort of rambling now. It's fall. We're still getting fresh flowers, tomatoes and fall fruit, but production is definitely near the end. Everything is balanced at that point just a shadow past its peak – not in decline just yet, but looking over the precipice in pleasureful anticipation of a long slow season of winding down, then settling into cozy winter rest in just a few more months again. I'm ready.

Inch by inch

Earlier this week I had an epiphany about the studio project: I realized that the reason I'd been having such a hard time getting started was because the design was wrong. Staring at my pallet of French doors, I'd been unable to envision how they were going to work with the roofline. Finally it occurred to me that what was bothering me was the symmetry of the doors as they would look set into the side of an asymmetrical building. It didn't feel balanced, because it isn't balanced.

So I've come full circle in my vision for what this building is going to "be," and am now back to seeing it as a simple, gable-roofed, four sided, symmetrical building more or less like the one pictured here. This kind of building will be much easier to build than the kind I had been thinking about, and it also will fit into the landscape better, I think, because the lines are so similar to the lines of the house. Click on the photo to see my notes at a more readable size.

Anyway! There really isn't any great rush to get this thing built, but then again, it would be nice to have it roofed before it starts raining again, which could happen any time now. Probably I have about a month before the weather really turns. Another thing I've decided, at Mr. A's suggestion, is to go ahead and buy some project plans and adapt them for my materials, rather than drawing my own. Although I have total confidence that I could come up with plans that would be almost exactly like the ones I'll buy (it's a very simple kind of building), it would be nice to see how a "professional" draws them. And they're not expensive to buy.

These folks have some basic plans that would probably be just fine. Plus, they have some nice step-by-step instructions, with photos, of a person putting together a building very much like the one I'm going to be building. Just going through their photos has reinforced my confidence that I already know how to do this – anyone can look at the inside of a similar structure and figure out exactly how it was built. Once you have it in your head, the actual process of construction is just a matter of lining up some brawn to help with heavy lifting, and taking it slow enough to avoid the most obvious mistakes.

This weekend we're going to another estate auction (I might get this chartreuse couch for the studio if it's funky enough, and if it goes for under a hundred bucks, which is entirely possible). The rest of the weekend I'll be spending getting things cleaned up for some house guests next weekend, and going to a seed saving workshop at the community garden, and labelling a few more flats of honey, and oh – tonight I'm going to the opening night gala for the Mariachi festival! At some point, though, I hope to also spend some time doing something tangible toward building my building. A nap would be great, too.

Speaking of technology letting me down

What is with the iTunes music store? They only have three versions of Nick Gilder's classic 1978 hit "Hot Child in the City" – a muzak-like karaoke version, a lame remake by some band I've never heard of, and a droopy, boring re-recording by Nick himself that makes me feel like I just drank a quart of half & half. Where's the original? I want the original!

Luckily they have a whole slew of Peaches & Herb, in which I am drowning my sorrows. Shake your groove thang!

P.S. As long as I'm kvetching I might as well mention that I have a new obsession to keep me busy at my office: figuring out who is making a mess of our new break room. Example: The other day six people from my department had a takeout feast/fiesta from our local cheap Chinese buffet, after which I wiped down the table cloth, wiped and labelled all the containers and arranged them on the table with neat piles of plates, chopsticks, napkins and forks. I saw a few people go in there over the next hour or so (the door is right next to my desk), and the next time I looked in, it was like a hurricane had blown through! Oyster sauce flung far and wide. Dirty fork on the floor. Empty containers lying sideways, dripping garlic-smelling ooze onto the table. Two soy sauce packets ripped open and left to bleed their contents into the stack of napkins. A greasy fragment of green onion on the cover of the new InStyle magazine.

I guess it doesn't really matter who did it. I'm not the break room monitor! But I am curious to know who owns a set of such atrocious manners. If nothing else, at least throw out the empty containers! The garbage can is literally two feet away.

Waltonspalooza

Love 'em or hate 'em, everyone seems to have an opinion about the Waltons. I agree that the show is corny, didactic, and idealistic as hell. In fact, that's probably why I like it so much – because it reminds me of myself. Personally, I don't have a problem with any of that. To people who say that nobody's family is really like that, I say – actually, some families kind of are like that. Not that there are never any real problems, or that everybody always acts the best possible way (whatever that is) – but that there's a conscious effort to be honest and generous and kind with each other, and that when things go wrong, redemption is always possible.

Anyway. Here are the answers to the trivia questions:

1. According to Ike Godsey, the Waltons' house is "about a half a mile up the road" from the store. That blew my mind, now that I know how far a half mile really is – not far at all. I would've guessed the house was at least a mile or two away. No wonder those little barefoot Walton kids were always walking down there to hang around.

2. Under his nightshirt (and glimpsed as he leapt out of bed early one morning, through the magic of the stop-action button on our DVD player), John-Boy wears ... are you ready? BLACK UNDERWEAR. My land! I never would've expected that, either. Did teenage boys really wear black briefs in 1932? I don't know how to even begin checking on that.

Moving on: My brother has bravely confessed to having been in love with Olivia Walton (the mother), and also with Caroline Ingalls, the mother on Little House on the Prairie. He didn't like Elizabeth, the youngest Walton girl. And Rozanne didn't like John-Boy and his sanctimonious attitude. This got me thinking about who I liked best, and least.

More guesses? I'll write up the answers later.

Also: On the website of the Waltons Museum in Schuyler, Virginia, there are pictures of the sets for the Waltons' kitchen and living room. I hated seeing all the familiar furniture and walls, and then this big black open ceiling – as if the whole thing had been built inside some giant warehouse or something. Which, for all I know, it probably was.

I hope Kim is right about the actual house, though. It has to have been a real house somewhere, right? How else could they have taken those pictures of it?

Please stop, before it disappears altogether!

Am I the only one who's broken out in a sweaty, nauseous panic attack over how tiny the redesigned iPod Shuffle is? I love tiny things almost as much as I love cute things, but this is going too far. It's downright alarming! Plus, it's always bugged me that the Shuffle doesn't have a display. As an extremely text-oriented person, I demand words on everything. If there aren't any, well, that's what Sharpies are for.

As for iPods, I am still using my vintage first-generation pink iPod mini with no problems whatsoever. Sure, it lacks the bright and beautiful full-color display of the spanking new video iPod I got for Mr. A (as a surprise to go with the mp3-player hookup in the new car), and it has a scratch or two I wish I hadn't inflicted – but it works great and with its baby blue pleather jumpsuit on, you can't even tell about the scratches.

In other news, Mr. A gave me a surprise the other day and launched my latest home film fest early, by sneaking several DVDs to the top of our Netflix without telling me – this announcement by way of letting everyone know, in the most understated way possible, that the first annual Extreme Waltons-Palooza Schlock Fest of the Gods is now officially under way.

I have to be understated, because it's embarrassing to be so excited about something so silly. But I really love the Waltons! They're one of my guiltiest pleasures. The stories remind me of the stories my dad's family tells about growing up during the Depression, and I love the details in the sets and costuming. The Waltons' house is my ultimate dream house of all time. Their cars are simple and dusty and square. The roads are dirt. The women all wear those great homemade Depression-era dresses. And they all wear aprons! The shoes, I'm not so crazy about – but half the time they're not wearing shoes anyway, so that's okay. And I love the stuff in their house, especially the enormous old-fashioned kitchen, with the pile of firewood next to the stove and the funky bullet-shaped water heater hooked up to the back. I also noticed, watching it this time around, that there's a cool little landing behind the kitchen, with a sewing machine table, a bunch of paper patterns pinned to the wall, and a dress form stashed in that awkward-shaped space under the stairs.

There was a scene the other day where Grandma is ironing in the background – not even part of the main action of the scene – and the iron is plugged into the bottom of a light socket that also holds one bare lightbulb, all dangling from the ceiling on one of those long cloth-covered cords. The light casts wildly moving shadows around the room as her ironing swings the whole aparatus back and forth. It's a great detail I never would have noticed as a kid watching that show. Since then I've lived in houses from that era, where the electricity was installed by people who had not lived with electricity before, and therefore the outlets end up in strange places, and you have to turn off some of the lights before you vacuum or you'll blow a fuse. I've always loved those funky details, and the way they make me pay attention to my house. I miss them in the place I'm in now.

Searching around on the web yesterday I found out that the Waltons' house isn't a real house after all – it's a set. I wish I didn't know that.

Also, from watching the first three episodes I came up with two Waltons trivia questions:

1. How far is the house from Ike Godsey's store?
2. What does John-Boy wear under his night shirt?

Answers tomorrow!

I got in!

Usually if I don't recognize the number when my phone rings, I don't answer it. If it's important, I figure, they'll leave a message – then I'll know who it is, and whether I want to talk to them. Does that seem unfriendly? I don't think of it that way; it's just one of the habits I've developed in an attempt to limit the amount of stimulation in my life. Getting phone calls from strangers, or wrong numbers, or the blood bank or whatever – this stresses me out.

Anyway, this morning my psychic feelers must've been extra-sensitive, because I answered a call from a strange number and it turned out to be the lady from the junior college, calling to let me know that someone had dropped the beekeeping class and if I wanted the spot, I could have it. Hooray! I had decided last night to just let it go and register early for the spring session. Now I'm IN!

This is the first official class I've taken, at an actual college, in more than ten years. In celebration of going back to school (even if it's just a community education class) I bought an apple and sharpened all my pencils. Yay, pencils!



This is an actual pencil from my actual desk at work. I love new yellow pencils. I love pencils, in general. I have about a million different kinds, including some unpainted round wooden ones with grooves carved in them, and some thin black square ones with a beautiful satin finish, and a couple that are black with white markings like on the cover of those black and white mottled composition books, and of course the obligatory glitter pencils, holiday pencils, advertising pencils and souvenir pencils from interesting places like NYNY! and the Art Institute in Chicago. But the best ones are plain old yellow number 2's, with a pink eraser and a green metal ferule (that's the metal thing that holds the eraser on). Much as I love all pencils, I find it hard to actually write with any other kind.

(Fun fact: The worst pencils in the world are the ones that are shaped like a regular six-sided yellow pencil, but are plain unpainted wood. They look so ... nude. It makes me blush me just to think of touching one.)

I also have some really cool pencil sharpeners. My favorites are a plastic one that looks like a very realistic pear (with the sharpener in the bottom) and a blue glass one shaped like an inkwell.

Maybe I should just admit it: I'm obsessed with office supplies. I hoard them. Pencils, pens, notebooks, photo corners, binder clips ... I love it all. And I love this time of year, when "back to school" season provides a perfect excuse to buy a fresh box of Dixon Ticonderogas, or a brand new datebook with clean, empty pages. Pure possibility. I love it.

On a different and totally unrelated note: Julie just tipped me off to the presence, on the American Apparel website, of a pair of gold lamé leggings that I had to order the instant I learned of their existence. I had to have them, even though it's more than likely that the most action they will ever see will be on the occasional days when I squeeze into them and walk around the house for a few hours before returning them to the underwear drawer, where they will spend the next 20 years (until I'm 60!) languishing and lamenting their unfulfilled potential.

Then again – maybe I'll get into a groove sometime where I'll be wanting to wear them every day, and wishing I had bought two pairs instead of one. It could happen! Look at this fabulous woman, for example. If I look like her at 60 I probably will wear gold lamé leggings every day. Why should I deprive the world – or myself – of such a glorious spectacle?

Praying for peace(or maybe just feeling maudlin)

Every year for the last four years I've sworn I would not spend this day with a lump in my throat and my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. Every year I've been unable to keep my promise.

I just can't help it. The enormity of that day is still so present for me. Not to mention the enormity of social and political changes that have been seeping and blasting their way into our lives and consciousness, to the point that it's hard to remember that things were ever any different. Even though I know they were.

It's hard for me to believe the whole thing even happened. I have come right out and asked my friends in NYC, more than once, just to confirm – was it really real? Did it really happen? Was there really fire and destruction and a millenia's worth of dust and debris in the air, and all those people just ... gone? I never visited that spot, or saw those buildings. I never knew any of those people. I only saw it all on tv. And every time I see it again, I get that lump in my throat. And my heart opens up so big I feel like I can hardly contain it.

It isn't despair I feel. It's more like an enormous opening, a universe-sized space that wants to be filled with something that makes sense. And there isn't anything. I guess I could call it awe.

There's also a lot of anger and sadness. Not so different from what millions of other people feel – from what all people feel, I guess, at some time in their lives.

We were watching Miami Ink the other night and this kid came in to get a memorial tattoo of his brother, who'd been like a father to him since he was small, and who had recently died. Mr. A was saying, "How sad to have lost his brother." And I was thinking, "I know – and also, how great to have had a brother like that." Not everybody is blessed with such a gift.

Beyond the experience of simply feeling the way I feel, there comes a time when I want to actually DO something. Even just the act of figuring out what to do is useful. One thing I have decided is that when my term on this current board is over next month, the next commitment I make is going to be at a much deeper, more personal level than that one has been. I have a friend who's a hospice chaplain, who told me about a new program that provides volunteers to sit with people who are actively dying and who have no family or friends to witness their passing. I worked in a funeral home as a teenager and have had lots of experience being around death, and some experience supporting people and animals who are dying. Right now this feels like something I'd like to explore. There's also the possibility of volunteering with this organization, which provides support for grieving children, and then there's the Threshold Choir, which I've been interested in for a few years now, but never had the time to go to practices. Maybe now I will.

Anyway. My motto for today: don't look away from what you feel today – or any day! There's always more than what you see in front of you, and it's never all just one way. For instance, even with all the heavyosity of this anniversary, I woke up early this morning and the light in the trees was all golden and rose-colored, beautiful. The air felt fresh. Tater was stretched out with his legs in the air and there were English muffins for breakfast, and a new kind of jam to try, and yesterday we spent an obscene (for us) amount of money on a carved silver bracelet Mr. A insisted I should have, and I'm wearing it today and every time I look at it I'm reminded of how he encourages me to go for it in life despite my anxieties and hesitations, and that's what I want to do as long as I'm here. When I'm gone, that'll be okay too.

I read in a classic zen text recently: "There is no problem. One year of life is good. One hundred years of life are good." That about sums it up for me today.

Or, if you don't like that one, here's Mother Jones: "Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living."

While waiting for something to print

As I sat staring at this comic, which we're publishing next week, it occurred to me that the copy didn't seem to reflect what was actually going on in the picture. So, since I had a few minutes to kill, I did a little update. This frame is a tinarama exclusive – you'll never see it in print! Click the image to see a larger (easier to read) version.

Happy weekend all.

I {heart} hydraulics

They say wood warms you twice – once while you're cutting it, and once while you're burning it. In my case this weekend I would add: "and once when you spend four hours standing in front of a hot engine exhaust, operating the log splitter."

We picked it up early in the morning, as soon as the equipment rental place opened. The unit we got looked more or less like this, only yellow and a little bit beefier. That vertical piece at the front is the blade. To use it, you lie a section of wood on the long horizontal part with the grain end against the blade, then push the handle and the hydraulic arm pushes the wood slowly, firmly and relentlessly into the blade until it splits into two pieces.

(As an aside – we stopped at the Starbuck's across the road from the equipment warehouse, something I have done only once before in my life, and I have to report that everything we ordered was utterly disappointing. Mr. A's coffee was watery and acidic, my decaf latte was as bland as warm tan milk, and the texture of the baked goods was all wrong – the pumpkin "scone" was more like a damp triangular muffin with too much sticky frosting, and the chocolate in my chocolate croissant was grainy and overly sweet, with tough pastry and a day-old feeling in my mouth. It was so inadequate I didn't even finish eating it, and that's saying a lot. I ended up feeling semi-giddy after the experience, though, upon realizing that what it really means is that I've succeeded in training my palate to accept only really wonderfully made, healthy, delicious fresh food. And in finding a place to live where that kind of food is plentiful and easy to find.)

So we got home with the splitter and drove it out into the back field, where we unhooked the trailer as close to the woodpile as we could get and started piling up rounds of wood to be split. I'd been envisioning that long trunk of eucalyptus that fell out of one of our trees last winter, and had somehow forgotten that there was actually about a cord and a half of white oak and various other salvaged mystery wood piled up back there, which Mr. A had been given by someone he met at the Christmas tree lot last year who had just finished cutting up a downed oak on his property and didn't have the time to split it up before moving it out of the way for some other project. Or something like that – I wasn't there for that part. Anyway, the wood was free and there was a lot of it, but it was all in large, odd-sized sections. The biggest piece we had was a little over two feet across and almost three feet long – a very heavy, solid chunk of oak.

The first couple of years I lived here I was in a house that had no furnace, so I got pretty good at wielding a maul. That first winter I split probably around a cord myself (not including what was already there, and what my ex-husband split) and came to really enjoy that kind of work. You're outside in the cool fresh air doing something useful and necessary, the colors and textures of the wood are beautiful and various, the wood itself smells wonderful, and when you're done you know you just got a really great workout.

I'm going to guess that working by hand it would've taken me several weeks to split up all the wood we did in about four hours this weekend. I had the easy job – operating the splitter. Mr. A and his brother staged the pile, loaded the splitter, and threw the split pieces onto a new pile that we'll be stacking over the next few weeks (I didn't get the other pile re-stacked, either, so now I have two to do). It wasn't as much of a five-senses kind of experience as splitting logs by hand, but there was something strangely satisfying about seeing that machine just effortlessly break an enormous hunk of hard wood into two perfect sections. I liked watching the way the different kinds of wood split, too. White oak has a very straight, tight grain and snaps into clean, even pieces the way a Triscuit breaks when you bend it. Eucalyptus is softer and stickier and more likely to have weird swirls and knots inside that cause it to twist in the splitter or splinter into bizarre, ruffle-edged shapes. Other kinds, I don't even know what they were – possibly some redwood and various kinds of fir and pine, which I don't mind burning along with the hardwoods sometimes, just to get things started.

Anyway. Firewood. I love doing this kind of work and am looking forward to stacking it now, and of course to having our first fire of the year. Usually that happens in October.

I didn't get any sewing done but I did filter the honey, twice. I didn't find out until Saturday that it's supposed to sit for a week or so after filtering and before bottling, so that the air can work its way out. I took some pictures of the honey going through the filter, which causes it to move into beautiful bubbles and swirls. I'll post those if any of them turn out.

Other upcoming tasks: Going to the first day of the beekeeping class at the community college and begging to be let in even though enrollment is already full. Putting together a bee sting first aid kit to keep with the rest of the beekeeping supplies at the community garden. Washing all the bottles for the honey. Designing labels for the front and back of the bottle, so we can sell it at the Saturday morning market. Looking into one more form of "hobby agriculture" that I can try at home this year – either chickens again, or possibly a couple of goats. Buying lumber for the studio and figuring out how to build it. Finishing and mailing those aprons I promised everyone.

It's funny. Sometimes (a lot of the time) I look at my lists of unfinished tasks and think, "Man, I must be the laziest person in the world!" Just lately though a new thought is starting to occur to me instead: "Wow, I am attempting to do an awful lot here!" Frequently now I even remember to give myself appropriate credit for what I've accomplished, instead of only feeling guilty for not doing more.

It feels good to see that attitude changing in myself. There's always going to be more to do.

P.S. Tater is fine – I guess it was just his paw again after all. Also, the boots are perfect, just what I needed. Durable, comfortable right out of the box and no laces for twigs and foxtails to get caught in.

Heavy nesting

While others may spend their Labor Day weekend sunning at the beach, picnicking in the park or shopping til they drop, I have other plans. I gots me a date with a log splitter.

We'll be reducing a downed eucalyptus tree and other various assorted trunks and limbs to sizes suitable for burning, and while we're at it I intend to also finish stacking the remaining cord and a half or so of hardwood we bought last winter (which has been languishing in a heap for almost a year) AND run the sticks and twigs I cleared from the studio site through our chipper, which Mr. A's kind, generous and talented brother has recently restored to working order. Also, tomorrow morning we're inspecting and cleaning the community beehives, and at some point we'll be filtering and bottling, in our own kitchen, the midsummer harvest of, I think, just under a hundred pounds of honey. I have set myself a goal of completing the entire operation without introducing a single dog hair into the process. Wish me luck on that one!

So yeah. Labor Day!

In other news, Tater seems to be ailing again. He's not lethargic or out of it, but he doesn't want to get up out of bed or walk around much, he whines if I try to make him walk, and he wouldn't eat his dinner last night. On the other hand, when I took the garbage out last night he felt good enough to wander out to the street with me, with his tail relaxed and wagging and an easygoing expression in his walk. He even drank some water and took off down the road exploring a bit, which I took as a good sign. This morning he was slow again and wouldn't take any dog food, but when I offered him some chicken he wolfed down as much as I would give him.

Usually whenever anything seems wrong with him I take him straight to the vet. This time, I haven't. It seems like I never get out of there for under a hundred bucks, even when it turns out there's nothing really wrong with him. In this case he doesn't really seem sick, just in pain. So I'm keeping a close eye on him and hoping it's just his poor injured ankle getting worse, as I've been told it will as he ages.

Sometimes I have thought of suing my ex-husband for all the money I've spent over the years, and will continue spending, to take care of that injury, since he was the one who caused it. These are some of my final (I hope) lingering bitter thoughts about the man, and I know that acting on them is out of the question. But every time I hear Tater cry or see him limping along on his ruined leg, a little anger comes up that I still have to deal with.

Moving on: With everything else I've committed to doing this weekend I don't know if I'm going to have any time for the studio, but I'm hoping that if nothing else, wrapping up some of these other projects will clear out some mindspace – not to mention physical space – that I can use to start at least moving in that direction. I love this time of year and am looking forward to doing a little nesting before the weather really turns.

In preparation, this morning I was reading the Home and Garden section of the San Francisco Chronicle and ran across this wonderful paragraph, in an article about living with color:

Those who are comfortable living entirely in candy colors, meanwhile, find renewal at every turn. "When I get up in the morning, there is a feeling of joy," said May Baratta, 80, who sleeps in an alarming sunflower yellow bedroom. "My living room puts a smile on my face," she added, attributing her good mood to the periwinkle blue curtains, chartreuse linen walls, psychedelic floral upholstery and cyclamen pink throw pillows. ... "[Adding color to my home] has been the best thing that has ever happened to me," she said with fervor. "It makes me very, very happy."

Periwinkle blue curtains? Chartreuse walls?! This sounds like my kind of pad. Right now I am living in a room that is a nice medium shade of blue – nice, but not really my style. The rest of the house is basically beige. Then there's the clutter, most of which is not even mine. It's kind of depressing.

All of this is coming to the forefront of my attention right now because I have a house guest coming In a few weeks and I know I'm not going to have the house together by then, not even close. It's good motivation to get a few things done, I hope – but my greatest motivation for working on this house is the fact that I feel myself shutting down emotionally every time I look around, and that's not the way I want to live.

So the color article was inspiring! A clean, uncluttered white room with lots of light, mango-colored floaty cotton curtains and shiny kiwi-green wooden floorboards would be enough to make me happy for the rest of my life. Or maybe bright green fabrics and a watermelon red floor. Yellow walls. And something soft to sit on. And flowers.

A place to play with colors, especially during the cozy gray days of rain and winter. Something to look forward to – more than look forward to, to actually create and enjoy.