Mail

I like to get things in the mail. Since I don't write letters (I am a terrible correspondent) I order things on Ebay. It's the best way to keep a steady stream of packages arriving on my door step. My neighbors must think that my life is full of friends that I constantly correspond with. I've got them all fooled!!
I really like ebay. I hate to shop. The mall...egh!!! I will go to the occasional store to try on stuff to figure out what size I am then I head on home to ebay. I have found over the year that I have been ebaying that I must have discipline. "Yes grasshopper, do not get sucked into the auction. There will always be another to bid on." I am a thrift shop ebayer. I go for the bargains and only what I really want. Well, I go for the bargains. There has been an occasional "Why did I get that?". Because it was cheap is usually the answer.
I buy books for girls (I like half.com too) and gadgets for the home and shoes and clothes. God, I love to buy clothes. I like Flax, Sacred Threads, Overalls, and Blue Fish and games (don't forget the games!).
Just today we got a game called "curses" and a book for Artie. The former from ebay the latter from half.com.
I like to sit at the computer and look at all the offerings. I call it being on the love lines. I'm connected to other humans. I'm purchasing useful item for my family. I'm contributing to some other human's household instead of a huge corporation. I am so full of goodness I just might go up a pant size!!
It's good come out of the closet and announce to the world that I like ebay!! I love the ebay commercials on TV. I, too, do it ebay!
Blessings....V

The Out House

We have payed off our property. An achievement that I never thought that I would attain.
Now we are getting a loan. We may be poor but we have great equity! Getting the loan, we now have a line of credit, was easy. What has not been easy is getting the home insurance that we need to have in order to finalize our loan.
We live in a dome. Michael designed and built it. We live off of solar and wind power. We do not a toilet inside our house. We have an out house. We have a post and pier foundation and we have torch down roofing. We don't even tell the insurance agents anymore that we have a woodstove.
Well pardon me for living creatively and thoughtfully!!!!!
I like our out house. Lot's of people on Lopez only have out houses. Our out house is built to look like a shed. On the inside there are shelves in the back that have paint cans on them. I must admit that wasn't our doing...it was one of our caretakers. I can live with the shelves and paint though. Years ago I started stapling postcards on the wall. Our friend Andy sends us the classic artists on 4x6 and I dutifully wait until I've got a stack of them and then out there I go to staple them on the wall.
I like to sit and do my business with the door open. I get to look at the meadow and the tree line in the distant. During the day I hear birds and crickets. In the spring we are serenaded by frogs. In the mornings sometimes the mist is ethereal and enchanting. In the night I can hear the deer snorting. In the rain I dawn a light rain jacket and sit in the dry and watch the rain splash as I splash. I see Humphrey Head in the distance. It looks like a cliff, rocky and majestic. Sometimes our neighbor is using his air strip and a plane is going overhead and the out house rattles.
We have a book of jokes there for the one who likes to sit and sit and sit. We have toilet paper. We have peat moss for when you poo. We always sprinkle a can of peat moss over our poo. It keeps the out house smelling of dirt instead of feces.
I like our out house. I've been using an out house now for 10 yrs. It makes me feel connected and ancestral. For all the women that have squatted in the fields and on the trail I honor as I sit in my shed looking out over the meadow into the plum trees.
When we have off-island visitors we tell them that we live rustically. If they sleep over they need a tent ( our dome is too small), our shower is in the kitchen, and we have an out house. We have a large garden and the most amazing blackberries in season. I think that my out house is in paradise!!!
So, screw the insurance agent who is speechless at the thought of no indoor toilet. They are dumb founded when the word dome comes rolling off my lips like melted chocolate. But I don't want to get started on my insurance issues!! I hate( and I mean, HATE! Like getting shingles, hate. Or having a roach infestation, hate. Or fingernails on the chalkboard, hate) insurance and I'm right in the thick of having to deal with getting it.
Oh the woes, the woes, the woes.
Blessings....V

Voodoo

Something weird happened today. Michael doesn't like me to tell people about his "voodoo" but I'm going to because no one reads this and I want too.
Today Michael was by himself in our booth over at the Anacortes Arts Festival. I stayed home with the kids. He got a volunteer booth sitter to stay in our booth while he went to the bathroom. After he gets back and the booth sitter has left Michael discovers that someone has gone into his backpack, leaving it open and stolen our digital camera. He immediately calls me and tells me that it's gone. He knows because he NEVER leaves his backpack unzipped. He then says that he has got to find the person who took it. It was obviously not the booth sitter. I ask how are you going to find this person and he says he is going to use his "voodoo".
Michael is a telepath and very psychic. He calls me a couple hours later to tell me that he found the culprit. It was a middle aged woman, well dressed, with long brown hair. He saw her walking on the opposite side of the street from our booth. He caught up with her and invited her into our booth to have some privacy and confronted her. He told her that he knew she had the camera and she could either give it back or he would get the police. At first she denied everything but then she gave him the camera and two pens that she had stolen. It was kinda funny...like the pens mattered. And off she went ... a criminal at large. I bet Michael scared the hell out of her. He is really intense and who knows what he actually said to her to make her believe that he knew that she had the camera. I imagine that he told her some dirty little secret that she had hidden in her mind. He probably blew her socks off!!!
I don't know all the details yet, we didn't have time to really chat about it. Michael said that he had a whopping headache. Poor guy, he really put himself out there to catch this person. He was determined. He was so distraught because it would be such a struggle for us to replace it.
Even if he did the call police what would he have said? "Well officer my psychic vibe says that this woman has my camera" or "I know what she's thinking and she's thinking about my camera".
We did agree that the promoters of the show need to know that a thief is around and to let other vendors know. So he was going to call them and let them know.
Weird huh?
Other than that I feel like I'm fighting off a cold.
Blessings....V

How to mend a broken heart and other parental challenges

Today my daughter, Xan calls up one of her buddies to wish her a Happy Birthday. I had seen said friends Mom in town yesterday and she told me that today was her birthday. Well come to find out said friend is having a Birthday Party and Xan was not invited. Said friend's Mom felt pretty awful about the whole thing. She is a yacker and went on and on about how bad she felt. Finally I had to tell her that I had to get off the phone and take care of my daughter who's feeling I could tell where hurt.
Poor Xan. She has a broken heart because she is feeling left out and not liked. Poor Me. I have a broken heart because Xan's feeling were hurt. I want to make it all better for her. I want her to be well liked and feel secure in her friendships. I don't want people to blow her off and have her feelings hurt.
We talked. Xan expressed how that in the last month her friend has not been returning phone calls and has snubbed Xan when she has seen her in town. Xan cried and went upstairs to be alone. She came down later and when I asked her how she was doing she said that it felt really good to say out loud how she had been feeling about her friend. We got Xan on the phone and called around and got her a playmate for this afternoon. Someone that she really wants to play with summer and our schedules haven't worked out. So all seems good. But is it? Xan has a few friends in Saratoga and less here on Lopez. All my buttons are being pushed. Are we doing the right thing? Do we need to move back to Lopez , like yesterday, so that she can get involved in the public school so that she can socialize? My baby is lonely and I don't know how to fix it. What a crappy situation!!!! Because we were gone from Lopez for four years she lost all the connections that she had with other kids her age and the reintergration for her has been challenging. Artie remembers all her old friends as they do her but Xan was only 4 when we left and remembers none of her old playmates or they her. Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!!!! I worry for my children's' well being.
No one told me that with mothering came such intense emotions and the desire to slay any mere human that would cause my children emotional turmoil. Maybe I need to heed the cliche that rolled off my tongue yesterday like dew off a petal..."Whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger". Loneliness, not belonging, feeling like no one likes you, these are all feelings that we all have at all stages of our life. I can't make these things not happen or the hurt to go away...I can only let her know that she's a good person and well liked by more than the few and help her to love herself.
I am going to buy her an address book and let her get the addresses of all her friends here so that while we are away she will keep in touch and keep the friendships going.
Parenting is a difficult task and somewhere along the line I lost the directions!
Blessings.....V

It's not a small world after all

It's been a long time since I blogged. I needed to spend some time away to figure out what is this that I am doing. I've decided that I will continue to blog. It is good and cleansing to write.
This weekend we went to the Faerieworlds Festival at a place called "Hornings Hideout" in North Plains, OR. It was attractive to us because we sell M's artwork at the Florida Renaissance Festival and we thought this would be just a fun. It was. I do not know how to do links yet but the web address is www.faerieworlds.com.
Anyway it was a weekend of music (Celtic and ethereal), faerie artists (Brian and Wendy Froud, Amy Brown etc...), and a craft village (people like us). I went with the expectation of learning more about music and making a lot of money. Well, the girls had a blast!!!! They mingled with the faerie artists, got autographs and danced up a storm. Michael and I worked very long hours, we barely slept, and we made a moderate sum of money. Two stores approached M about wholesaling and that is good and exciting. These two stores made our weekend. I learned some about some new bands. I listened to Solas, Woodland, Taarka, Rasputina, and Trillian Green. All of which I liked. Music for some reason is not one of the things that we spend our money on and it was a treat to hear so much of it!!
Now I am back home and today I went to the Froud's website. I learned over the weekend that they are one of the promoters of this event. Ahhh, a light goes on in my head. That is why the festival was the "all about Brian Froud show"! I was thinking it a bit odd over the weekend. Michael had had a conversation with one of the promoters a couple of weeks before the show. They talked about him making commemorative mugs. He did and they were a bust. All that work for not..because everyone there was into getting there Brian Froud print or book signed by Brian Froud. We have about 24 Faerieworlds Festival mugs (with dragon skin and dragon handles) if anyone wants one. We need to have a talk with that certain promoter about the whole thing.
So today I am thinking that it is not a small world after all!!! I spent just about an hour at the Frouds website and that led me to the Mythic Journeys website and I also went to the Desert Sin website. Desert Sin is a dance/performance company in LA that focuses on middle eastern dance and performance art...very cool!!! They look like a bunch of blue Krishnas in their publicity photos. And then I was Comic-con a comic book conference. All of this came from the Frouds and where they have been and what they are doing. There are a lot of people out there doing and experiencing things that I very rarely think about. My world is puny and hopefully not insignificant. Right now my brain hurts with the expanse of humans and thinking of all their puny lives like mine. That's a lot of lives and worlds and experiences. There are so many of us. So many who know and experience so much that I can't even imagine. I feel really, really small at the moment. It's a humbling, good small.
I'm back.
Blessings.....V

The Take It Or Leave It

We have a recycling center here on Lopez Island. We call it The Take It Or Leave It and we call it Neals' Mall.
Neal is the guy who works for the county waste department and he runs everything at the dump. He is very tall, thin, has a really long beard and long hair, very quiet, soft spoken, wears glasses, and always has a pair of overalls on. We love Neal!!!
A part of our very cool dump is the recycling center. We are way into recycling here! And a part of the recycling center is The Take It Or Leave It.
The Take It Or Leave It is housed in a huge shed closed on three sides and open the whole width of one side. Most stuff is put into categories, by whoever brings it in and by volunteers when the dump is closed. We have clothes: baby's', children's', women's', men's', tons of jeans, coats, dresses, shoes, boots. You name it, we don't take it to the thrift shop we take it to the dump! We don't buy things at the thrift shop, we go to the dump!
We have books, bikes, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, pots, pans, games, dishes, old fencing, couches, chairs, anything and everything.
My husband loves to go there every Sat., Sun., and Wed. He's sometimes gone for hours. Sorting, waiting for someone else to bring in a load, chatting with friends. It's his coffee clutch. Everyone at the dump knows Michael. He's a true scavenger. He keeps a list on our desk of things that he wants to have appear at the dump. There are many like him on Lopez. They have a friendly competitiveness between them...they are always wanting to be the first person there when the dump opens and the last person there when it closes.
Sometimes Michael will go two or three times a day to see what has been brought in.
Today I was suppose to meet Michael at The Take Or Leave It at noon when it opened to pick up something he saw on Sunday but couldn't fit it in the car. I waited, he was late. While waiting I picked up 5 pairs of jeans for Xan to try on. Someone came in with a Uhaul and unloaded a bunch of stuff from their house that they just sold. From them I got two shucking knives, a silver ladle (I even went to them to make sure that they wanted to give it away. They did. Yay me!), a pair of scissors, a silver serving spoon and two boxes of ziploc storage bags. Oh, and a really good small knife.
Michael just walked in the door from his second round of recycling. He brought home Artie some professional hair dyeing capes and glitter for Xan.
Life is full of stuff. I love our Take It Or Leave It. We collect stuff and we leave it for someone else to collect. Stuff! Wonderful, wonderful stuff!!!

I've had the flu...

I've had the flu. A yucky, on the couch for days, flu. I am now going to attempt to finish this 100 things thing so I can write about more important things!

More of me...

36. As I child I would sit in my closet in a white frilly dress and smoke cigarettes. Somehow is was a sacred place for me.
37. I gave up smoking when I was in my twenties. At the time I smoked 2 packs a day.
38. I do not find myself very interesting and it is very hard to write this.
39. I was once asked by a therapist if I felt alone. My reply was, "no". They said that this is uncommon of people who have suffered abuse. In my case, incest. Maybe I have angels or spirit guides who stick close enough to have their presence felt?
40. My favorite charities are The Heifer Project and Food For Life. I give to them both.
41. I am a democrat who has voted for Ralph Nader for years. This year I will not. I am sad about that.
42. I want life to be an adventure. I don't want to blow the only chance I'm getting as me, Victoria.
43. I believe in reincarnation.
44. I was in the hospital room with my Grandfather when he was dyeing and I did not tell him that I loved him because I was feeling self conscious. I regret that.
45. I love to walk on the beach in the rain.
46. I like food...all kinds.
47. When I gave birth to my first daughter I was terrified. Really terrified!!! I was beside myself with anguish over her being a girl and I would have to be her Mom.
48. When my second daughter came along we invited some friends to her birth and we had chocolate cake and champagne after she arrived. I'm getting all weepy thinking about it. It was great!!!
50. My love for my children overwhelms me. Nobody ever told me it would be so big!!
51. Sometimes I wonder what planet my husband came from.
52. Sometimes I wonder what planet I came from!
53. Most of the time I think that we are each others' salvation.
54. Before moving to Lopez Island. Michael and I lived in Tucson, AZ for 5 yrs.
55. I miss it there sometimes. I particularly miss the smell of mesquite burning in peoples' fireplaces in the winter.
56. After Michael and I were married we traveled to Mexico. We bought a Volkswagen "thing" and drove it back to MA. It took us about 5 months. We were looking for a place to live. Tucson won.
57. I love the Mexican influence in Tucson.
58. I believe that when I am cooking I infuse whatever I make with love.
59. I like my lifestyle of traveling, selling artwork, and homeschooling.
60. I am starting to learn about permaculture.
61. I drink a spirulina smoothie just about every morning. My mental health needs it!!
Spirulina has natural lithium in it.
62. I have an ulcer.
63. I think that people view me as really nice and always happy. Most people don't know me very well.
64. I very rarely confide in people.
65. I like my own company.
66. My mothers' voice rings in my ears whenever I am getting dressed. It says, "Are you wearing that?".
67. We own a van called, Motor Yacht Trixie.
68. When Artie was a toddler she use to run up to our Volkswagen van, Aunt Tobey, and give her a big hug and a kiss. I think the kids at the Montessori school thought we were weird.
69. Life is a trip. I just keep wondering when I'm going to get there!
70. I love to go snorkeling.
71. I like to meet people. People are very interesting to me.
73. I believe that everyone has an incredible story to tell.
74. I have some wonderful extended family.
75. My very dearest friend is a man.
76. I believe in the Goddess and that Jesus Christ was an amazing prophet.
77. My favorite Holiday is Passover.
78. Birthdays are a big deal in my house!!! We love to make birthday cake creations!!
79. My husband moves at warp speed and sometimes I get tired just thinking about all the stuff he does!
80. I like to watch "Gilmore Girls" and "Judging Amy" on TV.
81. As a family we watch Star Trek.
82. My favorite movie is "Time Bandits". Well, one of my favorites.
83. When I was a girl, I belonged to The Partridge Family Fan Club.
84. I'm glad this is almost done. It cuts my chances of total humiliation down.
85. I like to make people feel good about themselves.
86. I coo over my cats. I think I make a complete fool of myself trying to get their attention.
87. Michael met and got married in NYC.
88. When we lived together we would head over to Times Square and see what movies were playing right then and there and go see one. We called it, Movie Roulette.
89. Now I play Check Roulette.
90. Michael and I were married at city hall. The Justice of The Peace held the doors open an extra few minutes because Michael was running back from the Judges' chambers with our exemption (not to wait 24 hrs. after getting our marriage license). We were married at 11:37 AM on August 17, 1987. Nobody except us has been married at that time. As far as I know.
91. I'm sure you can do the math....but, I've been married for 17 years.
93. Xan is really forward to me being done with this so that I can pay attention to her. She keeps asking me if I'm done yet. Can you relate?
94. I collect shells. I've got boxes of them. Someday I'll put all to some use.
95. I own an old upright piano that was my solace as a child. I have dragged that piano to several locations. My father calls it "that god damn piano". It would have easier if I had bonded with a teddy bear. But I didn't so where I go...it goes. Right now it is in storage here on Lopez.
96. I have a stuffed animal that I made as a child. His name is Ricky raccoon. I love him and he sits on my bookshelf.
97. I have had all my furniture in storage since we moved to Lopez. It has been 11 years. We plan to move everything out this summer...or next.
98. I tend to be impatient. I like immediate results.
99. I have a desire to create mosaics. I want to work with tiles and stones and mortar.
100. Life is good!
101. I like to sing.

Eagles and other island life

I heard my first Eagle this week. For those of you that have never heard one. They sound earthy and primeval. It's the sound of home. We have one that lives in the forest behind our house and circles over our meadow looking for something to eat.
This week I have been playing "Safari Jane" out in my garden. It's a trip! The grass is breast high. I go out with my trusty weed wacker and my clippers. I wack and clip until my muscles ache and my face is beet red. I won't tell you how long that takes...I'd be embarrassed.

More stuff about me....

24. Hard to do this when you've forgotten what the first 23 were.
25. I was 25 when I finally figured out that I had a "self". Until then I was looking at myself through my parents eyes. I was a late bloomer.
26. I like to bake. When going to potlucks I usually bake something.
27. I love to travel!!!! I have a dream of global schooling my girls.
28. I spend time at the travel websites for fun. I love to plan trips.
29. I like to weave. I own my loom. I haven't had an opportunity to weave in a long time.
30. I live in a dome home. Michael designed it and built it. It is small and we are planning to build another.
31. When I close my eyes I can feel a millions of other beings on the planet. Been that way since I was a kid.
32. I believe that there is a force greater than ourselves. It binds us all.
33. I love the ocean. It is the blood of our planet.
34. I cry at movies. I am emotional.
35. I have traveled a lot. When I was in high school my parents moved to Saudi Arabia. I went to a boarding school in England. I have been to many places...but never Paris. I find that strange.

My grumpy daughter is in from raking and I must read with her. I promised. Gotta go... Blessings...V

100 things about V

Well I'm waiting for Michael to get home from the dump. We have a recycling center that we call "The Take It Or Leave It" and we also call it "Neal's Mall". Neal is the guy that runs the dump. Michael is the guy who is a "Take It Or Leave It" junkie. Sometime I will have to tell you all about it.
But, until he returns (he's been gone a while) I will do some active self indulgence.

V's 100 List
1. I am 42 yrs. old.
2. I have two girls Artie, 15, and Xan, 9.
3. I live part of the year in Saratoga Springs, NY and part of the year on Lopez Island, WA.
4. Michael is my husband and he is an artist, ceramicist. We sell his work at Art Shows and thus we get to travel and live in two places.
5. It seems that we are always scrambling for money. I married for love not wealth.
6. I was born in MA and don't particularly like it there. Too puritan, too New England, too something that has always given me the willies.
7. I had a pretty crappy childhood.
8. I have a very difficult relationship with my Mom, then my Dad, then my 2 brothers.
9. I was raped by one of my brothers for years.
10. As a result I'm sexually uptight. It comes back in haunts me at odd times and in weird ways.
11. I'm always in need of therapy and never get there!!
12. We homeschool our girls. It works really well for us. I am an unschooler and pretty liberal in my thinking.
13. I became a Unitarian Universalist about 3 yrs. ago. I love it!!
14. Lopez is home and everytime I set foot on our property here I could just burst into tears of gratitude.
15. I have my degree in Theater Arts. An emphasis in performing.
16. I worked as an actress for many years. Did some commercials, a few movies, and lots of stage work.
17. I gave it up when I realized that acting was never really my dream...it was my Moms'.
18. I do a few acting gigs now and then but it takes up so much of my being that I am very selective!
19. I love cats!!! They are great entertainment.
20. I like to garden. Here on Lopez I have a big one and when we were living here full time we ate out of it year round.
21. I know lots more about vegetable gardening than I do flower gardening.
22. As a homeschool Mom, I figure that I won't have anytime to myself until I'm 50. It will be my Crone present to myself.
23. Our bumperstickers say: "Expect a Mackerel", "God is too big for one religion", "Pro Child/Pro Choice","If it's not fun why do it?"(I got that one at the Ben and Jerry's Factory) and "Celebrate Life". I think bumperstickers say a lot about a person.

He's home, gotta go and get the kids. Blessings...V

It's about time

I can't believe that it has taken me so long to figure out the whole comment thing. This is my test run....Is anybody out there?
I read all the stuff at the blogger website this morning and maybe I can even stick in some links and photos. Photos would be nice. Wouldn't they?
Both the kids went off for overnights last night. It's so very unusual for Michael and I to be alone. We made ourselves a nice dinner of local salmon, mashed potatoes and cabbage with gorganzola cheese. We watched "White Nights" a good movie from the eighties. Too bad I'm having some yeast and ulcer problems...otherwise the evening could have been very romantic indeed!!
I find myself just blabbering on so that I can get this up and see if anyone leaves any comments. I'm tingling with 21st century excitement. Blessings....V

round and round we go....

I remember that soon after our dome was built the girls would race around the downstairs. Round and round they would go. I love being home!!! Michael designed and built us a great sacred space. Right now a friend of ours is over having a glass of wine with Michael. They are talking about other artists on the island and basically catching up.
Michael has a piece of artwork up at the Community Center and tonight we went to an artists' reception. It was fun to chit chat with our friends. It was funny that the only people there were the artists. It's a good thing that artists have a lot to talk about with each other.
It rained all day yesterday and two of our sky lights leaked. I guess it's good that we know but yesterday I wished not to know. We had to move our bed and set up a pot to catch the slow drip. It brought me back to the days when we lived in our travel trailer while we were building the dome. I remember one very wet winter night when the trash bag that was covering a drip in the ceiling collasped on us while we were blissfully slumbering. It was cold, it was shocking, we were disgruntled, and it seems like such a long time ago!!
Blessings.....V

Speedy Little Demons

Xan and I boiled up some sugar water for the Hummingbird feeder that I found. She measured out the sugar and the water in a nice 1 to 4 ratio and set it on the stove to boil. She got to do the "clicker" to light the burner.
After the sugar/water cooled I put it in the feeder and set it out in its place outside our window. After about a 1/2 hour Xan notices that a Hummingbird is there doing its thing. I am sitting here at the computer doing my usual Ebay thing and listening them zipping about out there. They sound like bullets!! I say, "Don't stand near the Hummingbird feeder our you might end up with Hummingbirds sticking out of your skull". They are fast speedy little demons!!!
I am in my element...home.
Must go to do my daily read aloud with Xan.
Blessings....V

The Grass Is As High As An Elephants Eye...

We came home to an unmowed (is there such a word?) lawn. Thigh high to be more to the point. It's ok though. We couldn't find anyone to mow it and we gave up in April figuring that it's only grass and we can deal with it. Well, we are dealing with it.
For the first week home we decided that we needed down time and every day I took a nap. I needed some recovery from packing up our apartment and from Mom's birthday party. Now I feel recovered and am ready to face the idea of doing things here. Yesterday was yard cleaning day. We all spent the day weed wacking, pruning, raking and few minutes to jump into our new ponds. I sat outside with the girls and it was wonderful. I got some good Mommy juice watching them play in the water. We made some steps on one of the sides of the our ponds and they sat on the steps catching tadpoles and daring each other to jump in. Artie was the bravest and went for the first plunge. She jumped in and landed on the next level of steps. We had forgotten about those! She didn't hurt herself...was just surprised.
Last night we went over to the community center and watched a movie. It was "Fleeing By Night". A Chinese film with subtitles that Michael read to Xan. Very good movie. It seems that we have to travel 3000+ miles and take a ferry to an island to get some culture.
Another travel story...
At the beginning of our trip we stayed with our friends Ken and Cassie in Appleton, WI. Appleton seems to be about the same size as Saratoga Springs. It has a very hip downtown. We walked downtown on a Saturday and went to an Art Show. It was a show of 35 ceramicists from WI. How nice for Michael to get a chance to walk around and look at other peoples art!! Next to the show there was an Art Center and they were having a gallery show. It was all recycled art. It was "way fun"! I particularly liked the "cereal box woman" made out of cereal boxes. We saw lots of instruments that the kids could bang on. Max (Ken and Cassie's son) really liked the bang away on part. It was a great day!! Our time with Ken and Cassie was too brief. They have a daughter who is 7 months old and really loved Michael and I. She would make all sorts of smiles at us. Of course we couldn't pick her up. Xan and Artie could..but not the grown ups. Only Mommy. Not Daddy or Michael or Victoria. Ah well we'll be visiting them again....
Blessings.....V

Home is where the sheep are......

We arrive home (many adventure stories to come...) and there is a gate across our driveway. We undo it. We can't think of why it is there. It seems that our neighbor whom we had an agreement with to run his sheep in our meadow totally forgot the part about agreeing to fence off our yard! There was/is sheep poop all over our yard and driveway. The mistake was soon corrected and the sheep are happily grazing "over there" in the meadow and I am left with a nicely fertilized yard. Ahh, it's good to be home!!!

A few road adventures....
Last year we traveled to Lopez in June. It was quite warm and I had everyone pack accordingly. We hit two thunder and lightning storms. We saw some amazing lightning!!!! Very up close and personal. We also hit snow and sleet in Montana. We saw way too much of that up and personal. I am thankful for the heater in the car as we all only had our Tevas and no socks. I brought a light jacket and no long sleeve shirts. We were all ill prepared and luckily in good humor.
I will over this week relate some funny travel stories.
Story one...
It was late at night and Xan had fallen asleep in the back. She and Artie set up in the back with the cat carriers above there heads and behind them. We let the cats have free run of the car while we are driving and we keep a kitty litter box between the carriers and open it (it has folding lids) up a few times during the day so that the cats can....you know. Well, Xan is asleep and Godiva seems to need to do her business so I tell Artie to open up the litter box. Artie does and we discover that the box we chose is a little to deep for her to get her chubby self into. For some unknown human reason ( probably a well know reason to cats) Godiva stands on the outside of the box and starts scratching the kitty litter all over the place. It's flying. Artie and I are watching this and we are busting our guts. We are laughing uncontrollably and the litter is flying all over our sleeping cherub, Xan. What are women to do? Cats are funny creatures. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breath. Artie had to manage the brunt of the situation since she was the one in the back and had to hold the box because Godiva was moving it all over the place. Michael kept a firm control of the vehicle with these two hysterical ladies laughing their asses off. We were laughing too hard to tell him what was going on.
We got the box under control. Godiva finally got in and did her thing. We let Xan sleep. We told Michael all about it through our giggles. Off we went into the night with Xan slumbering under a layer of fresh scent kitty clay.
More later......Blessings....V

You say What You Need To Hear Most

On Monday morning M turns to me in bed and gives me all sorts of friendly advice about how not to stress out about leaving on Wednesday. "We don't have to leave on Wednesday. Nothing is set in stone. " Phrases of that nature. So, who is the one stressing? My poor husband is a bear. I remind myself that he is my bear. The chosen bear in my life!!
Ahhh, the party!!
*All went ok.
*My Mom was manageable.
*I didn't have the opportunity to talk to my brothers or their families too much.
*My Dad put a lot of work into this shindig and I made an effort to tell him that he put on a great party for my Mom.
*I got to see some long lost relatives and friends of the family. That was very nice!!!!
*My Mother-In-Law got a much more intimate peek into my family that I cared to have happen. We'll see how that filters into her "amateur psychologist's" mind. And how it will filter into her thinking that she knows me more intimately now. That should prove to be way more fun than I want to have.
*I made the birthday cake. We all (M,V,A, & X) presented them to her with sparklers in them. She never thanked any of us. Lord only knows if she liked them. There were four. Four Mocha Pecan Tortes. Very chocolately, very yummy...what was not to like?
*M wrote a poem for four voices that we performed. Mom liked that. We gave her a copy of it. It was about her and the theme, through line, was quilting (she's quite a quilter). It was full of us repeating the word "stitch" and full of the fabric of her life. My beloved Bear did good...real good! I chose good!!
We leave for Lopez sometime soon. We are all anxious and working hard to get our apartment ready for a Track Rental. I hope the gods bless us and get us some rentees.
Blessings...V

In A Tizzy

I am reminded of the expression "Don't get your panties in a twist". We are leaving next Wednesday to drive across the country and as usual I am not prepared. My panties are pretzels!

Today we leave for four days. We are heading down to MA for a 75th birthday party for my Mom. I am in no mood to play "happy family".

Good Things
*My husband and children are still talking to me. I've been pretty cranky this week.
*I have been working on my back splash in the bathroom. It looks earthy and organic...way cool!!!
*We went to a wonderful dinner with good friends last night.
*It's much easier packing up the apartment this year because I never unpacked last year.
*My tulips from Lopez (a wonderful X-mas gift) are starting to pop their wee heads out.
*My flowers that I planted last year survived the winter and are sprouting. For the life of me I can't remember what they are called.
*We are going to the "bare breasted women of Tahiti" exhibit at the Boston MFA tomorrow. Can you guess who the artist is?
*We are closer to getting to Lopez than we were last week, yesterday, a moment ago.....
*I had a wonderful snuggle with Ethel M this morning.

I won't even go into the stress or troubles that I am trudging through. They are as big to me right now as a mighty redwood and I am pushing them into the recesses of my being in hopes that they can be ignored. I am fragile and full of power a synergy known only to the borderline insane.
Blessings....V

websites

I thought that I got these websites added in but...not!!
Here they are: www.caffelena.com and www.jupitercircle.com.
Don't forget to read the blog below. Blessings....V

Performer X and Teenager A

What a week....X had a shining star moment and A has turned 15!!!
I have been sick with a cold, a chesty one, and I have gurgled my way through many an event this week.
Where to start...Yesterday, our admittedly self involved and most wondrous A turned 15.
Teenager A
Fifteen; one year away from a learners permit. Fifteen; three years away form eighteen. Fifteen; six years away from 21. Wow. I look at her and think that this young woman is the babe that suckled my breast. That bit it too! That this is the toddler who use to dance out in the yard with nothing on but her pink cowboy boots. That this is the little girl who divorced Curtis Dengler on the spot because he cut in front of her in Ian Finneran's birthday cake line. That this is the first grader who came home from school one day and asked never to go back. That this is "The Alternative Classroom" third grader who everyone came to for mediation. That this is the young girl homeschooler who really wasn't interested in much more than playing with Barbies. That this is the same pre-teen who finally was picking up a book and getting involved in it. That this is the same teenager who discovered she has a talent for art. That this is Artie. That this is my Artie. I was afraid that I would give birth to a girl and that we would be as estranged as my mother and myself. Oh, how wrong I was!! A is one of the best friends I have. She is as wondrous and beautiful as her namesake the Aurora Borealis. She is wise, and kind, and thoughtful, and loving, and talented. I am so glad that I gave birth to our girl, Artie. Afraid of what? There was nothing to fear...Artie was here.
We had a nice dinner with her last night. She had her usual dessert of Tri Color Mousse. She got some ear piercing thingies, a Borders Books gift certificate, a gift certificate for glass rods, and other stuff.... good booty. After our guests left we all sat on the couch and watched a movie. I held her hand and gloried in being next to this amazing human who lives in our care.

Performer X
X took up piano lessons last September. It goes well and she likes her teacher, Elizabeth Woodbury, very much. As you all know, we leave for Florida every winter. We left as usual this year. We come back and X resumes her lessons. Before the winter X had written a song. Well to make a long story short and to get to the more exciting details...Elizabeth arranged for X to perform her song at Caffe Lena here in Saratoga Springs.
Elizabeth calls me up a couple of weeks ago and says that X has been on her mind. X is going to miss the recital that would happen in June because we will be at our West Coast home. Elizabeth and X have a great relationship and Elizabeth has been thinking about X's song and how incredible it is. She wants to get X to perform at "Open Mike" at Caffe Lena. The Caffe Lena! Caffe Lena is the oldest Folk Coffee House in the U.S. My daughter X gets to play on the same stage as the likes of Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and hundreds of other legends.
Our little Miss Xan (on piano) performed with Elizabeth (on drums), a guy from Jupiter Circle (on bass), and another guy who works at Caffe Lena (on the percussion eggs). She was introduced as one of Elizabeth's students and that she was soon off to the West Coast. After she was done, the host asked her if she would come back after her West Coast tour. It was great!!! X was great! The song she wrote is amazing!! Elizabeth is a generous and loving human! M shot a video and we bought X a Caffe Lena t-shirt for our little wonder!! X was so vibrant up there playing and singing her own song. Did I mention that she has the voice on an angel?! It was a great evening to be in the company of people being creative.
After all that X says she wants to write more songs. I'm glad to know that she survived her stage fright. May her developing spirit soar!!
Check out these websites: This is the website for the ensemble that Elizabeth started. She is a composer and amazing!!!
This is for Caffe Lena. Check it out and see what's going on there.
Blessings.....V

M's Humor Weekend

We were set up at the "Humor Project Conference" this weekend. M volunteers there every year. Last year we set up our booth and did quite well so this year we set up again. The Humor Project is one of M's passions. He is very generous to them and designs their bookstore every year. Every year he spends a lot of his time creating something magical for them. One year it was a huge papermaiche smile. One year it was these wire pedestal things. And this year it was giant plugs. He spends the weekend tending the booth and attending the workshops. This girls and I bring him food and booth sit and get to see a keynote speaker.
This year M, X, and I got to see David Hyde Pierce (he plays Dr. Niles Crane on Frasier) on Sat. night. He spoke for about an hour. He is very funny and seems to be a very dear person. David H.P. grew up here in Saratoga Springs and had many funny stories of elementary school. He also shared some personal stuff with us all. He was very human and personable and we had a great time!! Anyway, when he was done there was a 1/2 hour set aside for people to have their picture taken with him. The photo area was set up in the same room that the vendors and bookstore is in. M, X and I went back to our booth to open it up. The line for the photo opps was long, long, long!!! After a while X and I left (the poor kid has a cold and wasn't feeling to good). We left M to work and I took X home for bed.
Apparently, David H.P. had a plane to catch in Albany and needed to keep to his 1/2 hour schedule but pushed the envelope on his time so that they could get everyone in the line done. Toward the end someone told M he should go and get his picture taken. So on impulse he got into line with a new goblet that he made this week. It has a brand new saying on it that he just came up with. M gets to his turn with David H.P. and tells him that after his talk tonight he feels that he needs to give him (D) this goblet that he (M) made. It says on it "laughing anticipates your next adventure". David H.P. looks at it and reads it. Takes a moment. Looks at M and says, "This is some good booty." He thanked him of course.
Pretty Wow...huh? So David Hyde Pierce has flown out of NY state with a goblet that M made. It seems like it was a really sweet moment for them.
You see what I left out was that David H.P. talked a lot about death and humor. He shared his own personal experiences of losing his mother and then his father. And how at odd times in the the middle of such sadness there was some funny something that brought about healing. I think this really touched M because he too has lost a parent. Who knows why he gave it to him. Maybe it had to do with David H.P. talking about how the show "Frasier" was ending and how sad it was and what was to come next. Maybe is was everything he said.. Who cares why...it was a very tender thing to do.
Blessings.....V

Ball Jars

I like to drink out of Ball Jars. I don't know why. I just do. I am a Ball Jar purist. I don't like the ones that they sell with handles on them and are designed as drinking glasses. I like to drink out of the actually jar. M says that the rim on them is bothersome to his lips. You know, the swirl that the lid can screw round on to come on and off. I doesn't bother me...I just really like it. It's my comfort object...A Ball Jar full of water is a heavenly thing!!
I think that the first time I drank out of a Ball Jar was in a bar in Peterborough, NH. I'm not a drinker and have never been into the bar seen. But, for some reason I liked this place. I don't remember the name. I barely remember what it looked like on the inside. I don't remember what I drank in my Ball Jar drink. I do remember that I went there with Trey.
Trey was a high school buddy and we both ended up at the same college. I haven't talked to him in years. He was one of my first best friends. I told him my first real deep dark secret. And I loved him, not "attraction" love, but a real "dear to the heart" love. He was the first person in my life that really made me laugh and the first person that I didn't feel self conscious with.
The last time I talked to Trey (after having lost touch with him for 12 yrs. or so) I found out that he is one unhappy guy. It makes me melancholy. To be so incredible and not realize it. We soon lost touch again...he wasn't ready to have a friend.
I hope that life is better for him and that someday we'll cross paths again and be friends again.
I drink my water from my Ball Jar and it makes me feel better to know that I was really cherished. You just don't forget that kind of love. Maybe Trey drinks from his Ball Jar too.

A Mystery.....

A spent the afternoon with my mom-in-law on Monday afternoon. I found out yesterday that mom-in-law was telling A to be prepared to stay here in Saratoga because her mom (me) likes it here much better than Lopez and most likely we are going to end up living here a long time. I guess mom-in-law is telling this to A as she is driving here to Swing Class and as soon as she gets to the nearest corner to the building A tells mom-in-law it's close enough and she wants to get out. She wants to get out of the car because mom-in-law has no foot in reality here!!!! Who knows why, how, where she thinks these things up!!
I spent all last night looking at M and saying, "I know this is a lesson in futility...but how did she get this idea in her head?".
M says I really shouldn't go there.
Ah well, just needed to get that off my chest. Just for the record...I do not love it here. I like it...but don't love it.
And, yes, I do know why she's saying it. I feel bad that she wants us to stay so badly that she creates this story. We can't stay here forever when our hearts are on Lopez. It will be hard when the time comes.
Later....I will figure out the comments thing.....

Another Day In The Life Of......

Well Easter passed without much event. It was a relief to us all. We do not celebrate it and since we've living on the East Coast we get coerced into spending it with my Mom and we all end up miserable. With her over indulgence of candy and the wanting us to go to church it ends up being a stressful day. We did have a very nice dinner with our neighbors and M's Mom. It was full of the promise of summer foods to come. It was so nice and what we think Easter (the coming of Spring) is all about. The kids asked on Saturday if we were getting some Easter Candy. Of course, I can imagine them asking....but we have been on a celebratory roll this week. We started with Passover (twice), and had A's Birthday party, and a wonderful dinner with friends on Saturday night, and not to mention that we were making all the desserts for these affairs. Uh, uh said I!!! Don't you think we've had enough. So we will do what we always do...buy the candy after Easter when it is on sale. Someday some descendent of mine is going to wonder why they celebrate Holidays after they happen and some wise Mom is going to say, "Because your Great, Great Grandmother Victoria, God she was GREAT, married an Artist honey".

A's birthday party was fun. Sushi for dinner. We were rolling and cutting a long time. Then we got to do hair. The girls were a riot and we took lots of photos. A insisted on photos for her friends on the West Coast and some especially for her buddy Julian, who is a very dear friend in Oregon. A certainly won the "best hair" award. A few days before she dyed her hair dark brown with intention of adding some hot pink strips to it. Well, after she bleached the strips it looked so cool that she left it. The streaks came out a tawny orange brown. It looks so cool!! M's hair never took to the bleach so no polka dots this time. I have bluish purple hightlights. I like it!!! One girl got her tips bleached, one got red streaks (we think that she's going to be back for more!), one got red hightlights, and one got got two purple streaks at her face. Oh, I almost forgot X and one of her buddy got purple streaks and tips. It was alot of fun and let me tell you...it takes alot of time to do all those people. I was up to 3:30AM and then up at 9:00 to make the breakfast pastry. I think a great time was had by all. A has now announced that she wants an ear piercing device that we saw at the beauty supply store for her birthday. I say she just wants to be the most popular kid in Saratoga Springs. We'll see about that one. I'll let you all know how brave Mom and Dad are. I did mention that I'm married to an artist.

Everyone is eating breakfast. We are all getting and slower and slower at arriving on the planet in the morning. Gotta go...Blessings...V

Finishing up my quiz.

Today I figured out how to make letters bold and M helped with a few additions. Like I now have the correct time and stuff like that. And...I think that in a few days I will know how to let people comment. Thanks Mani!!

If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?

That we all think of everybody as fellow humans and make sure that everyone is ok.

Do you like to dance?

Yes.

George Bush:

Too scary, I don't want to go there.

Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?

She is and her name is Artie.

Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?

Alexander, Xander for short.

Would you ever consider living abroad?

All the time. We come up with all sorts of ways to get there. The current is to get our apartment in Saratoga fixed up nice and then do a house swap. I think that Glastonberry, England is high up on our list of places to live. We want to travel
just about everywhere!!

Ah, the quiz is done. Today A is having a birthday party. For party fun the girls are going to dye their hair. We went out and bought pink, purple, blue, and red. I am now in the posession of a nice big tub of hair bleach. I think that I will get purple streaks. A is very excited about doing M's hair. She has come up with the idea of braiding his hair and then putting the bleach on whatever hair shows...then after you bleach it you put on a range of colors. After he unbraids his hair it will polka dotted. He is much braver than I. I will let you all know how it comes out.
A rented "Night of the Living Dead" for some fun watching. The kid has good taste...she likes the classics.
Blessings....V

Maybe someday I will figure out how to let people make comments about my blog and maybe I will figure out how to get some links set up. Maybe......
I got these from my friends blog. I do appreciate her so!!!



Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says.

...up to two days ahead of time, but postpone adding the bell pep.... "Still Life With Menu" by Mollie Katzen.

Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?

X's Yamaha electric piano.

What is the last thing you watched on TV?

Law and Order. It was a repeat I went to bed.

With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?

M is cooking dinner in the kitchen. A is asking him all sorts of questions about his grandparents and what they were like. I hear part of him telling her that they were nothing like my parents. (Thank God!!!).

When did you last step outside?

This afternoon I drove X to her piano lesson. Then we went and borrowed a vcr from a friend for A's birthday party tomorrow. She is having an outdoor sleepover and wants to watch movies in the tent.

Before you came to this website, what did you look at?

www.utterchaos.blogspot.com.

What are you wearing?

Jeans, black shirt, and black slippers.

Did you dream last?

Most likely. I very rarely remember them.

When did you last laugh?

In the car today. X and I were listening to the Prairie Home Companion Joke show from 2001. How many dull people does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One.

What is on the walls of the room you are in?

A golden wheat paint that I mixed myself with my friend Vince. I love it!! A shit load of ceramics...this is M's studio. And three paintings by an artist buddy who has a great sense of humor. M traded for them.

Seen anything weird lately?

Yeah. One our tenants brought her adult son over to meet us. Not once during the whole time he was here did I see his teeth. Even when he smiled his lips just sort of spread out not up. I thought it was weird.

What do you think of this quiz?

I'm doing it aren't I? I like the glimpse of someone that you get.

What is the last movie that you saw?

XMen 2. Watched it with the girls on our new DVD player. I can honestly say now that I don't think DVD's are so great!!

If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy first?

First...what would I buy first. I would want to buy airline tickets!! Probably it would have something to do with our house on Lopez.

Tell me something about you that I don't know?

I am such a blabber mouth anyone who knows me...knows about all there is to know. At the moment....I am done with living on the East Coast mostly because of my parents. They are very disrespectful to me and my family and basically just a pain in my psyche!!! I have an ulcer..Definitely because of them!!

It is "games night" and Mark and Terry are here. I'll finish up the quiz tomorrow. Blessings...V

Today I give you the recipe for that great Passover cake that hit the deck on Monday night.

Chocolate Orange Torte for Passover
I make this torte every year for Passover and we all love it!! It’s from a recipe book called “Cocolat”. It’s a bittersweet chocolate torte with lots of freshly grated orange zest, lots of ground almonds and some matzoh meal. This recipe can easily be doubled to fit a 10” round. Enjoy!!
Preparations…
1. Preheat the oven to 3750F
2. Line the bottom of 8 X 2” round cake pan with a circle of parchment paper.


Ingredients:

· 4 oz. Semisweet or bittersweet chocolate cut into pieces
· 4 oz. Butter at room temp.
· 2/3 C. sugar
· 1/8 t. almond extract
· Finely grated zest of one orange
· ¾ C. (3 oz.) ground blanched almonds
· ¼ C. matzoh meal
· Chocolate Honey Glaze

· ½ C. sliced toasted almonds (optional, to use to press in sides of cake after you have glazed it)

Process:

1. Melt chocolate. Either in a double boiler or in a microwave.
2. Beat butter, sugar, almond extract, and orange zest with an electric mixer until light and creamy. Add eggs, one by one, beating well after each addition. On low speed add chocolate, beating only until incorporated. Stir in almonds and matzoh meal until combined.
3. Turn batter into prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 min. until a toothpick plunged into the center of cake shows moist crumbs. The torte should be neither dry or runny in the center.
4. Allow torte to cool completely in pan on a rack. After you have unmolded your cake you can freeze it for later use or glaze it for dinner.
5. To glaze the cake I put it on a wire rack and put that over a sheet pan. I pour my glaze over the cake and whatever drips off lands onto the sheet pan. Remember that you never want your chocolate glaze to be used while it is still really hot. I let mine cool a bit so it is not so runny. If you use a glaze while it is too hot, it won’t stick to your cake.

... and the glaze....

Chocolate Honey Glaze
This is a very simple chocolate glaze to be used on cakes and tortes that are stored at room temp.


Ingredients:

· 6 oz. Bittersweet or semisweet chocolate cut up into pieces
· 4 oz. Sweet butter (1 stick) cut up into pieces
· 2-3 T. honey

Process:

1. Melt all the ingredients together in either a double boiler or a microwave. Do not overheat the glaze, there is no need to warm it above 120 degrees F.
2. Allow the glaze to cool a bit. When the glaze is at 90 – 92F. it is time to glaze your cake.
3. Gently pour the glaze over your cake. I like to have my cake set up on a wire rack over a sheet pan. Start in the center and in gentle circles work your way to the edge of the cake. To get the top to look uniform gently jiggle the rack, side-to-side, so that all the glaze on the top is even. If you are decorating the side of the cake with nuts or whatever don’t worry about how the glaze looks because it is just there for glue. If you are not decorating the side of your cake then pour glaze down the sides.
4. As you are working with your glaze you can scrape whatever you need off the sheet pan and reuse it. I like to work with a bent spatula to manipulate uncooperative glaze on the edges.

Blessings Y'All...V

I just got back from our first of two Seders. I just love this holiday. The ritual eating of food, the remembering of ancient events, the discussions of how not to repeat history, and the ritual eating of food. I made a chocolate orange torte to have for desert and had some left over so I brought it home. There I am standing in front of our door and someone has left us a gift in a plastic bag hung on our door knob. I lean in to look inside the bag and swoosh, the chocolate torte disengages from the plate and lands glaze side down on the floor. It was classic. And it was a damn good torte too!!! Thank you who ever you are that left us a well intentioned gift on our door!!
It was very cold today. I packed up all our winter clothes this week. I am standing upstairs in my mud room donning on a polartec vest and hefty sweater and my winter coat is keeping all the other winter coats warm and snuggy in a plastic bin in the basement (which is now a little more slightly flooded). M and X and I walked to the post office shivering and talked of our golden days that we spent in the sun just two weeks ago.
Last night M brought out the road atlas so that we can plan our trip to WA. We have friends that we want to visit on the way out. I want to stop in Butte, Montana. We stopped there last year and we all really liked it. It's an old mining town and it has a bit of the ol' ghost town feel to it. The last time we were there we found out that you can buy buildings there for about $200.00. Yes, it's a bit depressed. But, the buildings are old and brick and rather beautiful. M keeps telling me that we are going to stop there and get us our very own Butte building. We'll start an artists colony. Nope, no Butte building right now for us, but maybe someone out there wants to check it out. We like Butte, you might too.
I had a cup of tea at desert and now I'm wide awake. I don't do caffeine and I knew better but I was driving and thought it was a good idea at the time. I shall now retire and go read my Clive Cussler. Clive is good because I can read him when I'm half asleep and still understand what's going on. In my house we call books like that "mental popcorn". Sweet Dreams!!

Today I arrived at church just in time to open the front doors during the moment of silent reflection that happens after the sermon. YES!!! We forgot to turn our clocks ahead. We had a very nice time at coffee hour. Next week I think I might show up for the service.
I found out today that a house/store front building that is a block away from sold for $280,000.00 just this week. My word, we bought our three family house about 3-4 years ago and now its tripled in value. I feel the kahching - kahching of money rolling into my upturned palms. I am in a sweat of anticipation. I want to sell this house and move back to Lopez!! We decided last week that in 2006 we want to sell our East Coast home and move the brood back to Lopez where our hearts are. Something happened to us while we were at the Florida Renaissance Festival. I can't put my finger on it yet. Maybe it was hanging out with alot of alternative minded people that reminded us of our friends on Lopez. Whatever it was/is we find ourselves feeling detached here in Saratoga. Michael didn't even want to go to church this morning and I felt indiferent about it. I went because X wanted to go. We enjoy our UU church and M & I have great philosophical discussions about the sermons. Something is amiss if we don't even care about going. I, personally, am feeling stuck in a place I don't want to be. I am here waiting to leave. The kids like it here very much and have good buddies that they connect well with. M & I have some very good friends here and we have M's Mom (the whole reason why we are here). But I feel like the ghost of me is going through the motions and Goddess only knows where the other part of me is!!
Tomorrow is the beginning of my favorite holiday, Passover. We are going to two passover dinners. How fortunate to do it twice!! M just told me that the soup is on the stove so I can have my turn to make the chocolate orange torte for tomorrow.
Funds are low. Spirits are about average. Sense of humor is in full Spring. And my love for M is constant.

I find myself in the throws of some major procrastination. I tell myself that fooling around with this cyber journal is a good thing. I should write more, journaling is good, I am setting up a discipline, and I am giving my friends an opportunity to know what we are up to because I am terrible at letter writing. All of which are good and notable things in themselves. To me, they are just monoliths of avoidance. I am creative and artful in ways that even I don't understand.
We have just returned from 2 1/2 months living in a tent, mostly, and selling M's artwork at The Florida Renaissance Festival. Since we travel so much and live on an island I realize now that I thought my life was soooo alternative and fringe. Well I was wrong!!! I met people way more fringe than us!!!!! It was a good mind expanding experience to meet people who live on the road all year long and call some extraordinary vehicles home. Anything from the conventional RV to converted transit busses to carports that can taken apart and stored in vans. What a community, it was glorious!!
Ah, but here I am back living in our apartment in Saratoga Springs in a very "neighborhoody" neighborhood. I walked to the post office last week and was struck with how routine life is for most of the people I was passing on the road. It's strange to be back here and living inside and being surrounded by many other people living inside going to work every day and sending their children off to school five times a week. I feel like I'm a alien stuck in an ant farm. I harbor no ill feelings toward my fellow human. I just feel disoriented and wonder how I slipped out of the mainstream.
I am suppose to be packing up the apartment, prodding the children to do the same, cleaning out the cellar (which is slightly flooded), and creating back splashes for the bathroom and kitchen. I am suppose to wake up ready for the days challenges and what am I doing?! I am creating a blog. Just so that I can creatively procrastinate and not do all the labor that is mine and goes with my life on the road!! We leave in 5 weeks for our Western home on Lopez. As always there is too much to do before we reap the awards of being there!!!! Blessings....V

Well I have gray hair and at 42 I have become contemplative. As I see my peers rush to their hair dressers and to CVS for the latest quick fix in age reduction, I think. Why be ashamed to show the world that you have had life experiences? I know that my gray started as we (husband know as "M" and I) naively thought it would be fun and creative to build our own house. I think that I've gotten grayer every month that I've balanced the check book since. A few really white ones have popped out over the worry and stress I have experienced with my girls (they are "A" and "X"). And how about the white streams I have coming out of my temples..they are directly related to my not so great relationship with my mother.
I have buried a wonderful father-in-law, a superb feline friend, a handful of friends, and a loving canine. I have been to many blissful weddings, scores of fabulous parties, family camping trips, sat by dozens of bonfires with my marshmallows in hand, had lots of great orgasms, and have traveled alot..ALOT. I have had my share of really embarrassing moments and have been known to really stick my foot in my mouth to the tune of some great grey whoppers. Every adventure, every high, every low is an array of gray atop my head like an ethereal halo of honor. It says, "Hey, look at me. I've lived and am still living."
I wish there were more women out there with their own personal badges of gray. Besides if I did color my hair, I know that the day I stopped and saw my true color I'd probably die of the shock.