And here is the egret, in it;s final form, I think...

I also diddled away at this painting, doing a Monet thing, little crescent shaped strokes, and this may be the final product, because I am really tired of dippy-dabbing at it. At least for today.

A whole lot of trouble here...

I really thought this painting would be easy. I had this small canvas, already primed in a kind of nondescript green, and a picture of a bird . Then I started, and it just got nutso. The bird was too bland, the background too light, the whole thing just kind of said BLAH. But I had a palette laid, and I am pretty cheap about that, I need to use up that paint before it dries up into little ugly nurdles. So I kept poking away at the canvas, a little every day, and here it is at the moment, looking not at all like the original picture. The bird appears bigger, the atmosphere is more, well, atmospheric, the colors are now much more vibrant than they actually were in the reference. But I like the bird's expression, it feels more rich and it ever so much more fun than it was. It may be done. That would be nice.

The proof is in the brainwaves!

When I was new in sobriety, I felt like a big fat phoney. For about the first two or three years. I was acting like I was a)spiritual, b) kind, c) compassionate, and d) wise. And then it kind of happened, one day I was all of those things. Because I practiced, one day at a time. I also lost my ability to sleep through the night, so I have been meditating a lot in the wee hours. Or, at least, I think I was meditating. I did what I learned in classes, and what I read in books. But, because I don't have a PRACTICE where I sit for a requisite number of minutes at the same time every day, I thought maybe I wasn't doing it at all. Or at least, not doing it right. Then, today, I went in for an EEG. Surreal experience. She gooped up my head in 26 places and applied electrodes. I must have looked like the bride of Frankenstein. Thank HP I didn't have to look at myself till afterward. Anyway, Carla, this sweet woman, tilted me back in this big reclining chair with my feet up and told me to relax, with my eyes closed. I must have been nervous, because my eyes were way to busy even though not open. So I thought I would just meditate a little. And Carla yelled "Hey, no sleeping during the procedure!" I explained I was meditating, and she said my brain waves all just flattened out like a calm day at the lake. Wow! I really AM doing something right! I know I feel more centered than I ever have before. I have always attributed that to my somewhat unorthodox and extremely varied, non-scheduled and non-scripted attempts at calming my mind. Now I have evidence in black and white. How cool is that!

Confessions of a closet drama queen...

Have you ever noticed how the rough seas of life are often followed by the doldrums? That is where I have been, marooned by my own inertia, following a series of big blows that left me foundering and lost. For a while. And I felt like I had been run over by a steamroller for a while. Funny how depression can immobilize one, and the only way up and out of it is ACTION. I didn't go to the gym for almost two weeks. And then I got up and went, almost like someone had pushed a button, and it was miraculous how great I felt. Well, duh. Endorphins kicked in, yay. The regime is firmly in place again, gym 2-3 times a week, gardening when weather permits, lots of meetings to stay spiritually fit, time with friends who let me gripe, if that's what I need to do. Tonight is an abalone feed, and for those poor souls out there who have never had abalone, well, God didn't make anything this yummy under Her sun, not even lobster. I've already been to the gym, so I can chow down, too. Strange experience there today. I always keep an eye on the pool through the window as I do my little circuit around the major muscle group machines, and as soon as I got into my suit and all showered up, it filled to beyond capacity. I went into the hot tub, instead, thinking, oh well. Then a lane cleared, sort of. So I jumped in. It was a Biblical experience, painful and rewarding at the same time. I floated up and down the lane, pausing only ever so briefly to let this little round woman toodle by on her floaty tube that she rode like a hobby horse. I think my mother invented those. We had an old Navy flotation devise like a sausage, and she would ride it like that when cleaning the tile of our pool. Anyway, this was one of the most mystical swims I have ever experienced. The water felt so healing. I came away cleansed and strengthened. Not back to full capacity yet, but on my way. Oh, hell, I am always on my way.

The new one, redux...

It is always exciting when I get an idea, and begin to realize it in paint. Paint is such a forgiving medium, oils, that is. Watercolors remember every little booboo and you can never, never do anything about it. But here, I can just keep putting layer on layer on layer, and it can get better. It can get worse, too, so the primary decision, the one that makes or breaks a painting, is when to quit. I am not quite there, yet, but my Monetesque painting is looking pretty wonderful, if I do say so myself. I am not unhappy. This is such a wondrous creation, the egret. We had scads of them at the coast, but fortune smiles and we have them here, in town, too. I have seen them standing by the side of the freeway, in Novato. And I love when they wing over me, great white ghosts, so streamlined. I want to do my egret proud.

Bill has left the planet...

An old friend died a couple of weeks ago. I say "old" in the context that I knew him many years, since he was only three years my senior, and I do not consider myself old, not yet. I am still a baby senior citizen, after all. It was too soon for Bill. Just goes to show we never know. It was an interesting experience, the memorial service. Bill was a lifelong Espicopalian. Now, this is really the Anglican church, and being at this service was like being in Four Weddings and a Funeral. There were hymns, the numbers up on a billboard so we could look them up in the hymnals. And though they supposedly don't do the smells and bells, I detected the telltale hint of something incensey in the air. There were stained glass windows and an arched ceiling, and lots and lots of candles. The homily was presided over by Bill's lifelong friend, Carl, who I had met at the reunion I attended with Bill last year, his 50th. They played together as boys. It was stirring. And in some ways, it was old home stuff, too, since that old gang of mine was present in droves. We ate cookies and slurped coffee and reminisced. Bill embodied that old saying that if you can't be a good example, you'll have to be a horrible warning. Actually, he represented both sides of that equation with equal aplomb. What a guy. I will miss him, his crusty wit, his inner sweetness, the music we shared, the generation we grew up in. I will never hear the theme from a Summer's Place without his face rising before me, and wherever he is now, I hope he gets to meet up with Elvis, and John Denver.

Some bright morning, when this life is over...

Things change. Sometimes, there is no going back. My friend Bill died last weekend. I am devastated. He was just always there, kind of smirking, flying in the face of convention, griping, grumping, arguing for his limitations. Beneath that crust there was a sweetness that was beyond compare. He let me see it a few times, so I kept looking for it, always. Somewhere, there should be a banner that reads "BILL HAS LEFT THE PLANET". That is the impact he had on our little recovery community. Okay, sometimes that impact was negative. He was that kind of guy. And there is a lot of goodness in his wake as well. Most of all, I am pissed off at him. He never knew he was precious. He didn't take care of himself. I wish he could see all the sadness at his passing, and know that he was loved by many. And let's all take a lesson from this. There are folks here who would be crushed if we were to leave today, folks who count on us to show up. That is my focus today, to show up, even if I feel like eating worms.

Road trip!

My friend had a trip planned to see her folks in San Diego, could I give her a lift to the airport? Sure, good for blowing any crud out the tail pipe after short sojourns around town. Of course, I thought she meant SFO. I can find that just fine. But, no, she meant OAKLAND. Now, it is my opinion that the freeway system in the East Bay was designed by either idiots, or people who are so smart they didn't feel we lesser folks should be in on the joke. No problem getting there. Smart friend had a GPS system on her phone, and it treated me like the mental moron that I am when it comes to directions, with lots and lots of repetition. One thing I noted was that there were no signs indicating the airport exit, just a little plane symbol on the 98th Street exit sign. Must be an inside kind of information thing. And then my friend bid me adieu, and she and her phone went off. Now came the true test. How well did I mark my route there, so I could retrace it back north? Invariably, I get lost and stuck in some lane that deposits me in downtown Oakland. This is actually not a bad thing, because I know heading east will bring me to Martin Luther King Parkway, and north on that big street will end up on Ashby Ave., in Berkeley, and west on that goes to the freeway I need to get to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and the more familiar climes of mahvelous Marin County. Fortune smiled on me, and I made it to my right road without getting forced onto the Bay Bridge, which goes to San Francisco. That is not bad, either, because I know my way around that City pretty well, too. Well, there is the $6 bridge toll to consider there. I find it interesting that you have to pay a toll to get out of the East Bay no matter what direction you are going. Says something, I think.

Naked people and I...

I really love my figure drawing class, especially this morning, when we had a new model, this really buffed out, young, handsome black guy, Walter. No this is not Walter. I also had my midterm review with Kevin, sweet guy, and this was one of the drawings he praised, even though the shoulder area is too small, and probably the shins are too short. Both are areas I need to pay attention to. There is just so much to think about there, the areas where the bone should be evident, non-parenthetic limbs (the muscles are off-set, in case you haven't ever noticed), the size of hands and feet (much bigger than I think they are, actually). And there has been some improvement, and far less major disasters than the last time I took this class. Actually, I think I just want everyone to see me carrying my ever so artful black portfolio I bought myself a few semesters ago. After all, I am an art major, and it is good to look serious when being reviewed. And I am, really, I am. I just want to be ever so much better than I am. Practice, you say? Yes.

Please, no applause...

I got my car serviced today. No gold star this time. I had diddled around way too long and it was past its miles allowed. Probably this was because I knew it was going to be expensive this time. And it was. Flushed fuel injection system. New wiper blades. New (gulp) battery. No wonder it was kind of clearing its throat every time I turned the key! Anyway, this all took a long, long, long time. And, foolish me, I neglected to throw in a paperback or even a newspaper, and there were none on the little stand in the very cold waiting room, where every time someone came or went, the north wind kept the door open, chilling us poor slobs to the bone. Very nice flatscreen TV. Tuned the the GOLF channel. Imagine that, a whole channel about pudgy guys in Izod shirts and pleated trousers hoofing around on impossibly green grass, hitting a little white ball with a stick. Okay, those sticks are pretty chichi. The Golf Outlet store sold them for (gulp) a mere $299! I didn't even want to ask how much the Fred Astaire shoes were, saddle oxford clones with imitation alligator leather insets. Tres interesting. It got kind of repetitive, the action, so that when one ball landed in a sand trap, I gasped. Ditto the poor schmuck who hit it into the lake. After a while, if the ball missed the fairway, things got terribly tense. You would think that golf could go the way of tennis, you know, everyone could have a DayGlo colored ball of their own, make it all more colorful and easier to tell the guys apart. I like that idea. At the end of my hour's wait, I paid my $224, and brought my baby home, all purring and happy. Life, it is an education in itself.

True confessions of the slothful gardener...

The backyard is a mess, again. Now, every year I swear this will not happen again. And every year it takes longer and longer for me to get my motor started. In prior years, I hired someone to work with me, and that got it off the ground just fine. This year, funds are pretty paltry after taxes, so it will all be on my sweet shoulders. Do you know how difficult it is to wrestle a bucking lawnmower through that great wasteland? And the nifty Sterlite chest I got to store my garden tools leaked and got filled with rainwater. My gloves are toast. Ach! These are the days when I yearn for a MAN, to prune and mow and edge and dig. Then he can go home.

The weather did a 180 and we are now basking in 70 degree sweetness. I optimistically moved all the sweaters, wool scarves and hats, and heavy jackets to the back closet and got out the tanks and shorts and capris. Shoes are next. Certainly I can pack away the Ugg knockoffs. Probably I will still need socks for a while. Mornings can be chilly, and it is bound to rain a bit more. But the world is in blossom, or at least budding. Would like to be out in it, but woe is I, that is contraindicated by the prescription I just got filled, for yet another UTI, and if you don't know what that is, lucky you. This antibiotic makes one photosensitive, leading to instant sunburn. So I will continue my swimming indoors at the gym, looking up at the ceiling tiles instead of the wild blue yonder that was over my head Tuesday, when I sojourned once again to the aquatics center in my neighborhood. Sigh. Only three days of medication. It seems my immune system got all balled up with the stress of my eye surgeries. Hope to get back to my bulletproof self, any time now.

Sore here...

Okay, I admit it. I've been feeling sorry for myself. This is never a good thing. And I have had such good reasons, like: it is cold, my eyes are still mega-sore, I am not sleeping well, Boo was sick, they took away that hour again, I have to mow the lawn, I'm afraid of my taxes, etc. etc. etc. This is a self-perpetuating state of mind. The more I engage with it, the more disgusted I am with myself, and the more I sink into the mire of ooey-gooey gunk. My friend Nancy called it dancing with the Tar Baby. Hard to sit one out, you know. Well, today may be the day to rise from my self-made pain. The pain in the eyes is dialed down significantly. Boo seems perkier. Sun is shining (although that can be deceptive, it's still CHILLY out there). I slept better. And I have decided to ignore the lost hour. After all, it is spring break, no one is expecting me anywhere, I have a week to adjust to getting up at 6:30 AM which is now 7:30 AM. Yes, we can rise above all this adversity. It is, after all, temporary. As usual. I may even dispel the mystery and figure out how much I owe the dreaded IRS. Ouch.

Are my molecules dancing or what?

I love that my molecules dance at the same frequency as sound. This means that I am tuned in to music at the cellular level, and feel the resonance all through my being. When I sing, I can feel the vibration in the mask, and stay on pitch. My ear is one of the best my piano teacher ever worked with. Like, I didn't do any of this. It is all a gift from HP. I got born with it, like my little toes that wiggle and my short, fat eyeballs. I just watched Impromptu, a smarmy period soap opera of Georges Sand's pursuit of a somewhat reluctant Chopin, while Lizst's wife procreates abundantly in the background, and launches her own abortive campaign. Whatever, I got to hear a lot of wondrous chromatic pieces hammered away on the Steinway, rubato, of course. And the young Hugh Grant did a great job of portraying the frail, shy guy that Chopin was. Judy Davis was at her bitchy best, and Julian Sand played Lizst, who was the very first rock star. Really, women threw themselves on the stage when he performed. Funnily enough, he ended his rather long life in monastic garb. Not sure if his life reflected his dress though. I hope to meet up with these folks in the afterlife. As with most artists, authors, and composers, they all appeared to be well marinated in wine. Spirits for the free spirits. It was all satire and sexual sabotage. Not much has changed, except that we are now an awful lot less civilized. Maybe it was the starched collars?

A good idea, in principle...

Reality is always a little more complicated. I have had three cable/satellite providers in my five years here in the little yellow house. We began as a "dish conversion" special with Comcast, then the introductory price went up, like a rocket. So we got Dish Network, and again, the wonderful bargain got really expensive, so we got Direct TV. Ditto. Now we are back to Comcast, who is doing the cable, phone and internet for a dynamite price that cuts my cost in half. For a year. And even then, it will still be $80 cheaper. Wonderful. Except I scheduled the installation for Saturday, and I had an event to attend immediately afterward, so I didn't get my inaugual introduction to the ins and outs of the new stuff. I managed to screw up the TV in the bedroom totally. Nothing worked in there. The internet thing had me totally confused. I finally got an email account set up, nervously as I did not want to lose the old one before I got my addressbook into the new one. I wasn't sure the process had worked, and finally figured out how to print out the damned thing, only to find them all there, after all. I am using the same browser, so I still have all my favorite places. Yay. I bit the bullet, put on my hair shirt of humility, and called for a technician to come unscrew what I had done, and show me how to work everything. It is all kind of perking along, just a little limping during the learning curve, and that is probably good for me. This is kind of a downsize thing for me, and I am not good at deprivation. Oh, well, someday I will laugh about it all. Just not today.

My head is bloody but unbowed, redux...

Because I was feeling kind of fragile, I wrapped myself in a super long, super soft white sweater and fluffy white scarf to go to the eye doctor yesterday. My dear friend drove me there with all the care she could summon. Another friend met me there and brought me a little tulip plant and a muffin. I felt loved and treasured, what a joy. And the second procedure was about how I imagined the first would be, and was not. The drops to constrict the pupil hurt a lot, the laser did not. I thanked the doctor, the nurse, the friends and I took my wounded eyeball home where I put on my warmest sweats, curled up with a cup of suisse mocha, my muffin, my puppies and my DVRed soap opera. Then, the anesthetic wore off, and there was another oh-my-God moment before the Tylenol kicked in. I guess you really cannot drill holes in an eyeball without some consequences. However, I woke up on my left side in the night, not even a twinge, and I could not sleep on my right side for a week after it was operated on. And it was all worth it to know that I will never wake up blind from sudden onset glaucoma. It was all a miracle to begin with.

Things change, Opus 94

Ouch! I saw my parent's yesterday, on the occasion of my mother's 89th birthday. Dad has lost his driver's license and his life is over. Mom is up on her cross again, nailed there by her own stubborn resolve that it is all up to her. Help? She doesn't need no stinkin' help. It all goes to show that what we have about us is refundable at any moment. What we have within us is a renewable resource, if we are flexible enough to let go, when needed, and create a new reality that incorporates the changes about us. The image I put up today was the view from our deck at the house on the edge of the world. I miss that view. And I would not trade it for the serenity that lives here in the little yellow house. Life on life's terms, folks. And if you cannot get over yourself after nine decades of one day at a time, well, how tragic is that. Praying for these fear-bound, angry people who served to usher me into this universe.

She puzzled and puzzed...

Here is the deep thought for the day - you can't be where you're going until you get there. Well, duh. But, gee, I hate that travel time. I am halfway to my final destination, when I can lay down any fear that my eyesight will be damaged by this surprising and exceedingly inconvenient condition that was laid on me at birth. I don't like waiting for anything, you know. Sometimes I eat nothing for dinner but dessert. That should illuminate things for anyone who was wondering if I had passed my sainthood test. Not there, not even close. And sorry to say, my eyes are no longer a matched set. The right iris, the one that got zapped, is wider than the left. In fact, the left looks more like a three quarter moon now in comparison. And the pupil on the right is more open, too. That probably means that, like the right eye, the iris in the left eye is convex as well. This is not good. So I pray that on Monday, when Dr does a look-see, he will decide to do the second procedure SOON. Even though it hurts, and is totally unpleasant, I will be thrilled to put my chin in the little rest and let him thump away with his fancy green light. Let us hope it only takes a few little knocks next time.

Terminal uniqueness...

I have always been different. First, I was the only girl in my generation, for 16 years, that is, until my youngest uncle began his family. And I was the tallest person in my sixth grade class, even taller than the teacher, Mr. Magill. Now, in my latter years, I am the oldest in most of my classes, even older than my teachers. Some could be my kids. And yet, I was unprepared for the experiences I had at the eye doctor's. First, there is this rare condition, an inherited anatomical anomaly that threatens to close off the drains for the interocular fluid, allowing the pressure to build up amazingly fast and produce blindness within 48 hours if not attended to. Except that I had little "dips" in the angles, sort of little troughs that helped keep them open. Nevertheless, pressure was building, so we scheduled the laser surgery. I had the first one (one eye at a time) yesterday. Now, I was led to expect that this was kind of a snap, a little zap that opened a hole in the iris to allow fluid between it and the lens and keep a space there, forever. My iris in my right eye was actually bowing out due to the pressure. Scary. I did all my pre-operative chores, getting my prescription for drops filled, and made a special trip to the drugstore for Tylenol, the requisite painkiller recommended, even though I had Aleve and Advil and Excedrin and ibuprofen and aspirin. Sigh. I took 2 Tylenol and headed out, chauffered by a dear friend as I would be pretty blind in one eye afterward. It took an hour for the drops that shrunk my pupil down to a period to work, then they plopped in the anesthetic drop, and we began the procedure. There were two lasers. The first produced a brilliant green light and served to charbroil the area where the puncture would go. It wasn't supposed to hurt. But it did. The second was supposed to hurt. But it didn't. Lucky me, I got extra pokes, lots of them, because my iris bled. This never happens. Except to me. Happy to say the Dr got around that pesky little drop of blood, and managed to consummate the procedure. And I came home with a post-operative instruction sheet that said use your drops, sight will return in a day or two, and otherwise, no restrictions on activities. Sounded like a walk in the park. Except I woke up in the night with scintillating pain. It felt like someone had shishkabobbed my eyeball and was turning it on a spit over hot coals. Nothing on my instruction sheet about this. I had left the Tylenol bottle by the bed with a glass of water, so I took a couple and propped myself up, giving it a moment before I decided if I was dying or not. And it subsided, slowly, but completely. Now I know to keep the Tylenol going on a regular basis. I am guessing that this does not happen to others who have this procedure, either. Just me. Must be another of God's little jokes. Good news is that, though my eye still feels like someone used it for a hockey puck, my vision cleared up and was perfect this morning, just 15 hours after the procedure. Bad news is that this was just the first of two operations. Don't know if knowing what to expect is a blessing or a curse. Probably, it couldn't get too much more complicated. Probably, the second one will go smoother. Please.

Tha little ofd lady valentine, ME!

All day yesterday I thought I should be doing something special for my valentine. What to do? I already had a fluffy white turtleneck sweater. My new Speedo had arrived, so I took it on its inaugural lap swim. Was that special enough? Since I got home and felt like I had broken my body, I decided no. I am not going to make my three requisite trips to gymlala this week due to eye surgery coming up, so I kind of pushed the workout a little. Then I was so sore, I couldn't think of much else than a hot soak and some aspirin. And today, I am tired from a long night of wrestling with Morpheus, a frequent occupation lately. Before I crapped out and laid down with my current novel for a little siesta, I took a trip to Safeway, and while there, plied the bakery aisles, looking for something bad for me, to soothe my sweet heart. Nothing leaped out at me. Then, as I threw yet another tub of Lite Cool Whip in my cart, there it was. This year, my valentine's name is Sara Lee. Lemon cake. Oh, joy in a yellow box! I had it for lunch, and then, for dessert, too. Do I feel guilty? Is the Pope Catholic? But it is a lovely, soporific kind of guilt. Now for that nap.