The show went amazingly well.  Unfortunately I developed a case of camnesia and didn’t take a single photo to prove it. Seriously, it’s the first time I have ever done a show that didn’t have some problem to overcome, lighting issues, blizzards, invitations that got lost by the post office, some sort of disaster. The weather forecast was dire, but that didn’t stop a sizable crowd of people from keeping the place packed for the duration. Actually it may have helped, because the periodic downpours kept people hanging out longer. We have an offer for the three of us to show together again at another place in a few months. So, yay!

The husband took charge of the boy and a friend of his, and left early with them. I got home and discovered they had used the time to bake me a birthday cake. The flowers were waiting for me when I got to the show early in the afternoon. I almost forgot them, and rushed back after everyone had left and they unlocked the door for me to come back in. I buckled them into the front seat and headed home. On the first turn, I heard the sound of rushing water, and realized the vase had dumped into my bag…the bag containing my phone, my camera, and my PDA. I pulled over and fished them out of the soggy bag before they were drowned.

So, thanks to everyone who came out in the rain, and thanks to all those who live far away but sent me good luck wishes. I am going to spend my birthday eating cake, watching old movies, and recovering from spending two days in constant motion while wearing tall shoes and bra. Trying to appear taller than you are, and keep the girls from making guest appearances while wrangling artwork is tiring.

Also, there is a double jalapeno cheeseburger in my future.

Can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve posted anything. So long that I left all the vowels out of the previous sentence.

Last weekend was our annual Idiot Girls Retreat. We initiated some new young IG recruits into the rites of Idiocy. Some of the original IG’s are starting to let their party chops get rusty, and some have reformed, declared us heathens, and left the organization all together. Head IG and I thought we needed to add some fresh blood to keep things moving forward. Lauri and I were getting tired of being the last ones standing. The young IG’s didn’t believe us when we told them that our standard procedure after a night of drinking and booty shaking until nearly dawn is a vigorous hike up and over some killer hills. What does is say about the twenty-somethings that they can’t drink until 4:00 and then get up at 7:00 for a hike? Kids these days. They better start training for next year.

Also, because of recent warm weather, on the hikes we encountered four snakes. One was nearly five feet long. I’m not good with slithery things, especially when they are very nearly my height. (My height if I were laying down, which would then be my length.) I vote we move next year’s festivities to January.

Payback for a weekend with my girlfriends was that I had to cram Art Show Preparation into this week. I know I said earlier that I had lots of stuff ready to go, but I have this weird habit of looking it over, and deciding that I hate it all, and adding lots of new stuff at the last minute. So now my studio looks like this…(the sensitive may want to avert their eyes. It’s gruesome.) Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Only Big Head Ned retains his zen-like tranquility. All that remains is to schlep it over to the space tomorrow and hang it. Then sit back and wait for the admiring hordes.

Or the three homeless guys who heard there were snacks and wine.

I am narrowing down the work I want to show at the end of the month. And last week I got asked to weigh in on my ideas for a project that has the potential to be quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever been asked to work on. If they go for my idea, and the production cost doesn’t freak them out, I will be one busy happy woman.

My friend Athena gave me a blog award, actually she gave me two blog awards. I have been meaning to post them, but I always seem to be posting from the wrong computer when I remember them.

The Lemonade Award is for a blog that shows great attitude or gratitude, so I pass that one on to Kathleen at Parlez-Moi.  She has gone through a year of tremendous ups and downs with astonishing grace and always written about it beautifully.

The Passionate Blogger Award I pass on to Jane at Hillbilly, Please. Her photography astounds me, and she is passionate about lots of things, like baseball, Appalachian culture, science, and sandwiches (not necessarily in that order). She and her cast of commenters are funny as hell, too.

I feel better knowing people as smart as these three friends of mine are out in the world. It sort of makes up for the fact that I Krazy Glued my tongue to my teeth the other night.

Here are a couple of photos I took in Saskatoon. We came in out of the cold to visit their art gallery, which is really nice. There was an amazing installation from Jean-Pierre Gaultier who builds these spidery looking machines that move based on the noise in the room around them.

There is also a conservatory, where I took these photos. The first one looks like it belongs in a Tennessee Williams play, doesn’t it? Can’t you see some fragile-looking young woman, visiting the South from some more sterile and civilized place, wild-eyed from nightmares that the foliage is out to get her? While her fiance’s mother sits in here in a huge wicker throne, sipping a mint julep and waiting for her to go off the deep end and be proven an unsuitable match for her son.

Careful you don’t get retinal whiplash.

“I Call BULLSHIT!” Declares Disappointed Customer.

A woman appearing to be wearing little to no eye make up at all declared Jane’s claims that their new* mineral eye shadow is both fade-proof and crease-proof to be blatantly false. Emerging from the ladies room in a local restaurant, where she had met friends for cocktails, Carla Lankford was visibly disgusted with her lack of eye makeup. “Look at this.”, she said bitterly. “I bricked this stuff on like a drag queen two hours ago. According to the package, I should have had to scrub this stuff off with a brillo pad tomorrow morning. Happy Hour isn’t half over, and I’ve got no make up on at all. What did they test this stuff on, those plastic Barbie heads we had when we were kids? Is there some kind of fine print disclaimer that says ‘Will not fade or crease…unless used on human skin, in which case fading and creasing will be accelerated.’ ”

I could have spent that money on another blackberry martini.

*this is doubly annoying since Swapna gave me their previous mineral eye shadow, which does an admirable job.

are blowing through around here. I am feeling intensely crabby, and I have a ferocious headache, but I had better post something here before people start wondering if I have gone off and done myself harm.

Last night we ate dinner on the patio, watched the moon rise, and I took pictures of the branches against the sky. Not a bad way to spend an evening. I love the way this tree grows, bent down the hill as though it’s trying to touch the ground

There were horses in the clouds, I saw them anyway…

Ummm…housekeeping and so forth.

I hoped my contest would bring a few lurkers to the surface, but it was my faithful handful of commenters who left their usual uplifting words. So Jane, Kat, Sharon, Athena, Megan will all get a print. Let me know what you’d like to have, and I will send it out. (Or deliver it in person, for those I will be seeing in the near future.)

This one has been all I have been able to think about lately. I’ve been working on her for a while, and I think she is ready to see the world.

Edited: Okay…I think this image is too small. Three people have looked at it in an email and referred to it as an abstract. So I am adding a close up view below this one.

I didn’t want to crop the image because I really like her tail. Unless you see the whole thing, she’s just some green chick, could be an alien, could eat too many leafy greens, who knows?

Also…you can tell this mermaid was created by me because her hair is neatly restrained and not floating all around her. I can’t stand wet hair in my face.