S is for a Sofa in the Sunset.

The Saga of the Beloved Sofa from San Francisco

Down, down, down the stairs.

Into the sunset ...

Down, down, down the stairs.

The cushions went down, down, down the stairs.

The Beloved is in the truck.

Arrived in Lindon.

Unwrapped.

Landed in a room that seems designed for the +8 foot long, beloved, Oma Stella blue, modern, low sofa.

M & favorite pal SP playing in the sofa's shell.

Once the shell was completely kaput, the cardboard was used for tie dye. No part of the sofa and the souvenirs of its saga were wasted.

Oma Stella had great taste. She collected beautiful minerals, ancient (art) glass, rugs, stamps. She loved her friends and was amazingly open minded. She once told me about meeting the leader of a Satanic group (!?) who slept in a coffin. As hard as that is to believe I think it is true. She was familiar with the Dadaists. Everything was worth knowing about. I remember reading the encyclopedia with her, she kept them by her bed.

I wondered why she didn't have more antique furniture. She wasn't interested in collecting it. All of her furniture was new in the 40-50-60's. When she and my grandfather moved to SF they took a lot more than most from Germany, but that didn't include any furniture. She had a friend (Freilander?) who was a carpenter and I think she had him make several of her pieces. None of it was reproduction. All was very modern, streamlined. Her eye was toward the future!

I miss her a lot.

Yesterday was Grandma Ream's birthday! I miss her too! I put up pictures of her in our entry way. So vivacious. Gorgeous. Smart. Way ahead of her time. More about her another time. I have a rocker of hers... it needs to be re-reupholstered, so that it looks more the way it did when she reupholstered it with loud flowers and bright colors. Brilliant!

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.

S is for SPIN.

This is where I am heading. If I can leave in a minute or two I'll ride my bike there. ..only seems fitting.
I hope to catch up on Rona/Spin posts in the next few days. These shots are from just before Mother's day. I tie dyed a bunch of towels (IKEA $.49) and put one on each bike... they were well received. (Didn't do tie dye with Taz last week.)

I love the dark room, loud music, distracting teacher, friends, sweat. It is no longer about weight loss, it is 100% for my brain. About an hour after class I am so much calmer, not really relaxed. It is just a clean feeling, even when I look sick and don't get a chance to shower until late in the afternoon. Perhaps that is the definition of an addict... showers become secondary to the drug.

T is for Thursday & Tie Dye.

If you are reading this and you want to enter some clothes in the Utah County Fair's 4H's Decorated Duds category then you might want to be at my house this Thursday. Call first. I am going to be working on some hooded baby towels for an amazing woman who is pregnant with twins (due in about a month) and goes to SPIN classes 3x a week. Wow. Also "Taz" from the class should be here.

These images are from my foray into tie dye last month. -- Needed a new work out shirt and also made a batch of exercise towels for the class, kinda a funny Mother's Day gift. They were $.49 at IKEA and were very well received. :) Loved doing them. Love that class. Something doesn't seem right about walking out of class with a chocolate cupcake...