Sheltering with the Alaskans

Lady B made the drawing below of her situation (that’s Baby Brother playing with trucks nearby). But I’m a little doubtful that her speech bubble contains a meaningful comment, because we hear tales and see photos and videos of a giant pile of snow in the back yard for snow caves, and of great cross-country skiing.

Lady B is learning to skate ski, but on the downhills, she gets her skis in the tracks, tucks, and hurtles around bends. Baby Brother rides in a trailer behind his dad (a handle on the back allows Lady B to also catch a ride). Luckily, good weather and plentiful snow fill these quarantine days!

She sees her class on Zoom – she tells us they each log in with something to share and the big screen fills with the classmate talking, the others appear in little boxes at the bottom. We are all pixels now.

But there must be moments like below.

December Days

Bustle – and I hope it is cheery bustle for you all – not just the stress of “to do” lists!

Music and lights and evergreen garlands, flashes of red and green and gold interrupt the dark, wet gloom outdoors. I always love this season, and this year more than ever in my gratitude for life and mobility. But am I behind in all I’d like to do? Oh, yes!

In Hawaii, Lady B, her brother and Sweet Baby added their creative touches to our Christmas cards – between swimming in pool and ocean, they sat at a table outside the sliding door and used watercolors (including swell metallic ones), colored pencils, and rubber stamps to make every card unique and colorful.

So, before I begin to mail them off, I’ll post a handful – though it’s hard to select just a few – I love them all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day on the trip, I found Sweet Baby and her parents at work – brushes in hand – so I can’t resist adding two of their cards.

December Days

Bustle – and I hope it is cheery bustle for you all – not just the stress of to-do lists!

Music and lights and evergreen garlands, flashes of red and green and gold interrupt the dark, wet gloom outdoors. I always love this season, and this year more than ever in my gratitude for life and mobility. But am I behind in all I’d like to do? Oh, yes!

In Hawaii, Lady B, her brother and Sweet Baby added their creative touches to our Christmas cards – between swimming in pool and ocean, they sat at a table outside the sliding door and used watercolors (including swell metallic ones), colored pencils, and rubber stamps to make every card unique and colorful.

So, before I begin to write them and mail, I’ll post a handful – though it’s hard to select just a few – I love them all!

One day on the trip, I found Sweet Baby and her parents at work – brushes in hand – so I can’t resist adding two of theirs.

 

Ann Patchett’s “The Dutch House”

A list of books for Christmas gifts occupies the front of my mind this time of year – they please in many forms (beautifully illustrated books, a graphic novel of the Mueller report!), but finding the right book is still challenging.

So, I enjoyed reading Ann Patchett’s piece in The Guardian books newsletter about her habit of giving books for all occasions (she owns a bookstore).

And her new book, The Dutch House, belongs on the list. It’s the stuff of fairy tales: a mother disappears leaving two children with a distracted father in a haunting, enormous house. The father remarries, then dies, and the wicked stepmother casts out the children. (It’s also a modern tale of real estate and sibling devotion.) I’d saved it for a concentrated time of reading, the book rewarded the wait, and made a long flight pass quickly!

One day on our trip after a library visit, Sweet Baby asked me how books are made, and I gave an overlong explanation of signatures, endpapers, binding, printing.

And then we just made a book – sketchbook paper cut and folded into pages sewn with dental floss – with a story dictated to her mom and illustrated admirably!

 

A Little About Thanksgiving

Before it’s lost in the December rush!

We spent the holiday with the whole family under palm trees – kids in the pool and ocean all morning, and, with the sound of waves in the background, gathered around the table in the evening. In my long (and I mean long!) life, I’ve never been warm on Thanksgiving and that seemed strange – and very good. Kauai provided crazy stormy days with torrential rain but lovely sunny days.

In many ways, it was just like any Thanksgiving – planning, repeated trips to the grocery store, and cooking ahead. And a homecoming for us all – back to a familiar place, where we have been so often at so many stages of life.

The day before Thanksgiving I turned 75. Holy Moly is what I say. It seemed a miracle to walk up the beach at sunrise, and to climb down a steep incline to our favorite beach few days earlier. In the bleakness of last February, I wondered if I’d ever see that again. So now I feel a renewed lease on active life along with a sense of time running out, and a stronger determination to enjoy and appreciate every single bit.

Watching this family have fun together in a tropical setting made that easy. Sweet Baby attaches herself to Lady B – they duck and bob and torment their parents with splashes in the pool, ride inner tubes and boogie boards in the tidal “river” that forms in front of where we stay, and read books from frequent trips to the library. Lady B can really read, and Sweet Baby hangs on each word her idol utters. Baby Brother also loves books and the beach with limitless opportunities to be absorbed in the work of digging and rearranging sand.

Earlier this fall, I resurrected the moose T-shirts I used to screen print in our basement. (So much easier now with modern technology, draw the image, scan to my computer, and send off for printing.) I brought along one for each, all different colors and sizes and styles – party favors on my birthday night. And, at Thanksgiving dinner, we sat around the table with many moose in the candlelight.

Lucky and thankful!

Borrowed Flowers III

 

Recap About A Kneecap

My best laid plans for the January break got upsot – as did I. Foolishly rushing down our driveway, my foot slipped back, and my knee crashed straight down on asphalt, causing my femur to split my patella in two. Repair surgery was a week later on the 17^th, and I’m no weight bearing on that leg for at least six weeks. I asked the physical therapist this morning about my knee bending, he said yes, but it will be a six-month project.

So with a walker I clump around on my good leg with my injured leg in a full length leg immobilizing brace, gratefully accepting a lot of help from my good-natured husband (who in the last three weeks has learned much about household matters and care giving), the Trail Boss who came for surgery and aftermath, and Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson, who came separately more recently, and friends – all of them bringing good humor, kindness, and competence.

And now it’s February, the little paintings I’d been working on still sit on my table, and the Photoshop for Illustration class I began online in early January paused at Week Two. The assignment that week provided dummy magazine articles, which we were to illustrate after making little drawings and chunks of handwritten text to manipulate and move by the instructions. We had a list of subjects to choose from – kitchen madness, studio madness etc. Now the title of my attempt seems appropriate.