I get it. Really.

Hey JT, in NYC,

[Mid-life crisis] I get it. Really get it.
The other day this guy insulted the needle books that I'm trying to sell on ETSY (Ugh. Long story.) Suggested that I'd sell them for, what?, $5.00 each. I'm thinking +$30.

Then a b*tchmom at ballet asked me if my GRANDDAUGHTER was in the class. I looked pretty damn hep that day too. She was sloppy & preggo but I wasn't going to be so classless as to ask her when she was due. Then, when she found out that darling M is my DAUGHTER she crassly said, "So, tell me about M. What's THAT on her head?" Young idiot.

At a party for the Chinese New Year every single conversation descended into yet another laundry list of C's heath issues. I kept excusing myself, finally just waiting in the car, big day the next day.

On Thursday, coming home from the hospital with C, I saw a huge billboard advertising Blue Oyster Cult! They are playing Wendover, NV. I am NO fan of BOC, nor Wendover, but suddenly it seemed like a great idea. Just get me outta here!

The 40's are rough. That feeling of relentlessly putting one foot in front of the other is wearing on the bones and soul. Greatness though, is wasted on the young and also not exclusively theirs. Keep writing. Keep loving. Keep moving forward. 

xoxo
H
Glad you liked the card. Would have liked to see you more while in UT.

K is for Kerfuffle.

ker·fuf·fle/kərˈfəfəl/Noun: A commotion or fuss. 'There is a kerfuffle in Hailey's brain.'


Plates -- screwed up 3 this MORNING, is this going to work?
Calendar
Plane tickets? GET ME AWAY!!
Kitchen
Laundry
Mow the lawn
Sell stuff in Garage
Office
Bills
Paint with Julian, solo
Taekwondo Black belt papers
  K & J write commitments
Bills
Get gas
Change oil
Clean out car
Take a shower?

FUNNY true story

One advantage of not sleeping is making discoveries while not making any noise in the house... can't vacuum, might as well clean up my computer's desktop. Realize that I've never posted this. It is a sketch of a night a year and a half ago:
26 May 2007
6:40 p.m.
Roll Camera! Action.

Higgin-s drive up in a full Suburban. Steph, Dave, 4 children and one friend, Tatum. The plan is to do some tie dye.

H is asleep in the van, lost track of the time. Crashed there after a Long day. Even in the van 4 people have come up to her and talked to her, before the friends arrive.

One little boy w/o his CI starts out the evening with a time-out in a closet. Freaking out in family room.

Adults at counter calmly eating fruit, bread and cheese. Roses on the counter, v. smelly.
Conversations about high school senior parties/trips. Drunk kids.

Amy, Jay’s wife, walks in with the wee bitty baby. Asking if it’s OK to change the baby’s diaper. Fine, fine. That means that Jay is here to get the llamas, all 7 of them? Just having a little party, did you call to say you were coming by? An hour later she is seen feeding the baby in the dinning room. No one sees or hears from her the entire evening.

The children are playing out side, they take the taekwondo kicking target outside and fill it with water, first time in 1½ years.

Wee bitty baby crying in the back ground.

Jumping on the trampoline?

The children start helping Jay get the llamas. Karl gets kicked in the hip. Joey, Karl’s friend in a tie dye shirt, was not out there at the time.

Julian’s animated friend Jared is visiting. They start making a movie.

Tie dye starts, can’t get the kids to come in to soak their shirts. Stephanie mixes up the die.

H starts to clean out garage, extract a second table. Gets a phone call about needing to pay $1.50 for Nathan’s school lunch account. Never mind that it is a Saturday night and he doesn’t ever take school lunch, and the one day (practice for 1st grade) he did he brought the money but the school never got it. Will send it again.

Sick boy in hammock: Gabe. Oh dear.

3 little girls, 2 w/ hearing loss. Running around squealing. Flashes of cuteness.
Gama (from California, didn't even know she was in town!) shows up with a very elegant silver cake server in a humble, crumpled brown paper bag. Talk about family reunion of sorts.

Neighbor Jeremy, C’s friend, shows up on a racing BMX bike riding wheelies. Tries out C’s grandpa bike, does wheelies on that too! (Later we found out that Jer's wife (also a close friend) was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and that same week his sister had passed away, to cancer.)

Husband of the house, C, is cleaning his mountain bike?
Jay & Jeremy talk.

Ann Maeser drops by mail from old house (we moved 4.5 years ago)
- announcement: random (unknown) ugly girl getting married. Good for her.
- K’s scholarship certificate $100.00, for string camp.
- Precious niece’s birth announcement!

Random neighbor with a dog shows up, we don’t know her but her dog drives our Ginger nuts. Must put G in studio. Bark bark bark.

Tie dye squirting all over.
S’s friend Ashley shows up. They start to tie dye. Will wear shirts on yearbook day.

Llamas in a trailer, some in the road. (K got kicked here) Some llamas attached to trailer, others loose walking in the road. Cars going by some slowing down, some going fast. Tatum combing baby llama -- it rears up scarring her and H.

Ice cream treats. Can I have seconds? NO. Push ups, drum sticks, fat boys.

More tie dye. More shirts, plastic bags, drips.

A cel phone rings.

H is wearing some favorite clothes, a linen shirt. & A tie dyed apron.

N is coughing.
Dave is coughing.

C takes girls on bike ride in trailer.

Children spinning around fast fast in hammock chair.
Dave sitting with Gabe, who is really not feeling well.

They are about to pull out when it looks as though Gabe is going to puke. H dumps cute plastic tub of rubber bands on to table. He doesn’t puke. She swaps for not so cute hotel ice bucket.

S and Ashley are sitting in a car, anxious to practice. No license.

All the lights are on in every room of the house.
9:40 p.m. Fin.

F is for FINI.

Last Wednesday C turned over the business to the general manager, who was chomping at the bit to be known as "Mr. President." Often feelings of respect, and the lack of it, are reciprocal. A deal was struck and we are now 100% outta there. There is some financial baggage (less than what it could have been) and there is (a lot) of physical baggage. 14 years of work, collecting, saving, creating, receiving is difficult for one house to digest.

My feelings are torn between elation that we are out of there, dismay over the state of our affairs (Our house is not a house of order at the moment. Grrr. And it was so close!!! My studio! Sniffle sniffle.). I am happy that I personally am not responsible for anyone else's poor financial judgments and arrogantly hoping the future of the company continues on its grim path. Quotes, scriptures and sayings about pride, revenge, the natural man race through my thoughts. Not knowing who reads this blog, I need to leave it at that.

While thinking about all of this I was struck with the fact that a "natural man" is a very different thing from a "natural woman." Hmmm.

S is for 72 hours.

Someones' 42nd birthday is just around the corner... This is the birthday of the 72 hour kit since C is anxious that we are not as prepared as we should be.

I've found some very unusually practical things for his backpack. A huge match that is a lighter, a mini saw, elegant paper soap, a cast iron dutch oven for weight-lifting and cooking with weird ingredients (7-Up/ketchup)... but in dark times how are we going to cook the rabbits that we are raising, in case of an emergency? (True: our end-of-the-world neighbors did that. Their rabbits were part of their food storage.)
Wouldn't this be lovely? http://www.greenergrassdesign.com/to_go_porcelain_table_grill_by_evasolo.html

-200

Anyone notice that Bush has less than 200 days to go?

~Grin: slow, wide, lip-less, UM, UH, goofy grin.

As a very conservative friend wrote recently, "God save us all."
Amen.

Happy 4th of July!

YES THEY ARE FINE.

Thanks for wondering. :) C & S are in Beijing and did not feel the earthquake. They are both doing well. Went to the Beijing opera for S's 16th. (Wow.) Talked to them today.

That area of the world has been hit extra hard lately. My prayers are especially for the many families that lost their children in the school collapse.

H

O is for Oooof, what a way to wind down a day.

GET THIS: (This helped to pull S out of her Self (Ugh.))
M KNOCKED OUT/OVER TWO OF HER FRONT SIDE TOP TEETH TONIGHT. With help from K's pal's foot and the trampoline. Just an accident. After a fast visit to Dr. Pitts they are back in place. She can't eat any thing hard for two weeks. Thumb sucking is actually good for her.
She was a perfect patient. It hurt quite a lot and she didn't create a scene. Bapa called her a "special dish" today... not the "regular #18"?

Tomorrow I hope to post my police report! (I called 911 to report a reckless driver. The 911 operator asked me to pull over too. M and I saw the guy tested and arrested...! Crazy.) It has been some day. April 1st.

S is for Snow & Go.

This was driving 2 Mondays ago on our way to speech therapy in SLC. Didn't happen. When I left Orem the weather was fine by the time we made it to Lehi it was a a white out, and it stayed that way for several hours. My phone miraculously worked and I was able to cancel speech and tell C what was up. Cars were pulled over to the left and right with their hazard lights on. Wondered if I stopped would we just get hit?
M, N and I were trying just to get home and wound up hanging out at Thanksgiving Point. That place has no "place" (to paraphrase Gertrude Stein). Is it a museum, garden, restaurant, theater? No matter, we were glad to finally get there and hang out. 2 child size ice cream cones and a fat free cone for $1.25. Some Valentine glitter and candy for SKJNM & C.

Thankful for making it home a bit later.

C is for Calamity Cake and NO COOKIES.

Dr. Daniel visited last week along with my cousin Vivian (!!!). It was great to see and sorta ski with both of them. Thanks DG for tuckering out your mother. :\

Told Dr. Dan about the exploding squash and then he commented on my wrap that self-imploded. The kids brought up the volcano chocolate cake several years ago (the picture haunts me from the pages of the cook book). Now I found this gem. I made the cake last August for J's 10th. It might have been a mess but everyone loved it. Except for Steph's cakes and cupcakes, the rule is: the uglier the better.

2008 has been declared the NO COOKIE year. A dr. pointed out to me that even one extra cookie (100 cal ea.) eaten everyday, would wind up adding 5 lbs over the course of a year. And, he added, few people eat only one cookie at a time. This is not a dieting blog. I will not go on about this. Just to say... I took down the +5 cookie recipes hanging in the pantry; I caught his drift. Everyone does appreciate homemade cookies on ski days and they are major barter in school lunches. I made the healthiest (wholewheat, oatmeal, applesauce, chocolate chip) I could for Dr. D & V, J & DFM's ski day. Also I packed several extra in S, K, & N's lunches. Perhaps 1 batch a month is do-able. K has Valentine cookies in mind.

TRUE TALE: K was at lunch. His school gives out vegetables, free, to all the students. He and a friend of his like to trade vegetables. K asked, "Have you had one of my mom's cookies?"
"No."
"Here."
Munch. Munch. "I'll trade you my broccoli for another one."

S is for Star Mill Antiques fire.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_7655704

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695233686,00.html

Last night my sister-in-law MVL told me that she saw on the news that there was a big fire the Star Mill Antique store in American Fork. My heart sank. Daniel Copper is a friend of ours, he has always been very kind to our children, us and very generous. What is he feeling? What will happen to his store? How is he doing?

I read that the main building, the mill itself was not harmed. Yet... smoke is an insidious neighbor. I will go visit today with some fruit and a note from all of us. K especially loves Daniel's place! It is a treasure trove of beautiful old things, lots of wonder and great combinations. In one corner of a warehouse he might but a collection of globes, hanging upside down from the ceiling. One room is white. Doors on doors on doors. Jars of old bottle caps, pennies, rubber balls, random mystery relics of past simple consumer goods.

Daniel Copper is an architect and a very nice man. He reminds me of a starling (the bird). Simple and practical on the outside and then with closer look you see all the colors and depth, talent and grace, strength, and the fragility of a bird. He has restored the mill and several of the surrounding houses. I was also saddened at the possible loss of another historic structure in Utah, especially one so cool. Old buildings are torn down here like the owners/cities are swatting flies... witness downtown Provo in 2007.

Another reason my heart sank: What about the 15th? A while ago I bounced into Daniel's store and told him that I was painting our living room purple! and our handrail red, and our entry green, a bathroom yellow, the kitchen gray, the outside blue... Without a pause he said, "Then you'll be on our Christmas home tour right?!" I said, "Sure!" before I knew what I was getting into. Every few years he hosts a home tour of/for friends of the store, of homes that decorate with antiques, or "junk" as he sometimes calls it -- especially "junk" from his store. I prefer Nanette's reference to my "authentic" style, a combination of Daniel's style of junk and my sense of humor & history. The house is shaping up into a glittery house of ORDER! Complete with cupcakes, and gingerbread, on the 15th.

For Daniel, who has told people if you only go to one house go to [ours]... I have been dolling (literally), lighting, glittering, gingerbreading this place up. My studio, with a large shelf from his store, is even scheduled to be cleaned up for the tour! And I'm serious about the cupcakes. Until he tells me otherwise I am still planning on an open door on the 15th, it might be a good way to help him out.

Since I don't know who is reading this blog, the good, the very good, the bad and the ugly, I'm not posting the details (addresses) here. The other homes are far flung about Utah County. If you want more information leave a comment or contact me.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to include Daniel Copper in your prayers.

M is for Minneapolis and Mary Esch

I have been pouring over the images of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. How can that happen? My heart, recently returned from San Francisco, is Aching for that city. The photographs show such complete destruction. "Calamity" is the word for the scene. Sudden, complete disaster.

My college (CCAC, now CCA) friend Mary Esch lives in MN. She is a great artist. C and I went to Minneapolis to she her show at the Walker Art Center in 1997. It was great to spend time with her. Strange that it has been 10 years.


We spent a lot of time together at CCAC. One, of several things, that she taught me is how to listen more carefully. The cadence of her voice was thoughtful and yet light. She didn't seem to pause to think just thought before she spoke and chose her discriptive words carefully. I loved collaborating with her. I think of her often. Wish I heard from her more...hope that somehow she is well tonight.