the Big Dream
December 21, 2025
I have edits! I have clips! I have links to videos with lyrics!
It took me almost a month to get here, learning to edit with Quicktime, easy, but losing sync once it is saved; then fighting my laptop to update a corrupted iMovie, consulting chatGPT (stupid), chatting with eight different people on tech support (clueless, but thanks for trying), and a visit to the apple store with no resolution. I finally erased my backed-up laptop and set up a ghost account for Nellie Wilson. I upgraded to the latest OS and was able to download a fresh iMovie to edit and add titles. Saving to my external drive I was able to keep Nellie Wilson as a separate partition , and go back for a “final” edit. After all that I can’t find way to change the aspect ratio and keep Grif from getting the top of his head clipped off, but decided to go ahead and post this version with song titles.
Art for a poster by Grif from one of our many little gigs and appearances around the Bay.
Edited with Comma-Blocker, professional punctuation reduction software. 😉
Flashback
11.12.25
I guess I was waiting for the posed photo to come through, but it never did. The Polka Cowboys played Sunol, we got band photos, it was great, I had a neat outfit. I had gone to Canyon on the Friday to load gear because Art had had emergency surgery and wasn’t supposed to lift more than 15 pounds–Art made dinner, I spent that night in my Westyhaven, we carpooled in the big Tesla to the gig, then got to set up and play, break down and load, and back to Canyon for another night, because we were too tired to pull all that equipment out. It was pretty sweet tho. Sputnik was recovering from shoulder surgery too, his arm in a sling, and played drums through it. Woah. Trooper.
A great band photo to come . . .
A couple of weeks ago I heard from Grif that he had found a VHS tape from our November 1990 performance on La Val’s downstairs stage–I forget what we called Down There. During two broken strings I shirked the opportunity to tell the very long story of how I worked at La Val’s from just after they opened in 1976 through early 1979; before I was playing music, when I was breaking up with Pilmer and hence nearly homeless, and via some strange interactions out in the street around a protest over the cancellation of Tim Yohannon’s show on KALX met up with the Frank Mooreons and thereby found myself playing drums at the Mabuhay Gardens weekly Thursday night dinner shows for four months with the Outrageous Beauty Review and the Superheroes . . Thus began my music and stage career.
After playing in some funky little garage combos I met Grif on Thanksgiving of 1984 at the new home of our ex-neighbor and mutual friend. Grif had brought about a dozen LP’s for entertainment, and I pored over them with surprise and delight–oh! yes!–HP Lovecraft, the Incredible String Band, and Oh, what’s this?? Robin Hitchcock! the Comsat Angels! He played guitar and wrote songs, so we arranged for me to bring my little Yamaha traps around the corner to his place and see what’s what. We hit it off, and found a bass player, and that was Tiger Swallowtail, which became Wingfinger, until Lou left after some random couple of years.. We designed logos and cassette covers and fliers.
La Val’s kitchen is where I met Melokie, and when they opened the basement as a venue we got to wait tables and see the music events, and when there was zero business we would hang out by the backdoor and smoke Export A’s. She and I would take off after work for San Francisco and the clubs on Broadway and thereabouts, or around campus to Cloyne Court or Barrington Hall or Berkeley Square or the International Cafe to see some really great bands of the era, the Mutants, Tuxedo Moon, the Avengers, the Jars, friends of ours. And then there was Rather Ripped Records, a small record shop where live bands would play, I think the Police played there, maybe Patti Smith? And on campus where there were free shows like the time Talking Heads played to a spillover crowd in Sproul Plaza. All this before I was a Musician per se.
Meanwhile I played with other groups as well, the bluegrass-influenced Magpies around 1985, and a jazzy trio where I met Stevie and joined him in the band INCHES–which would eventually become the Cavepainters, and further down the road, the Lost Hippies.
And there was Spent- a thrash combo of 22-year-old college students, who all graduated and left town that spring after a trip to Portland to play the Satyricon, and Gilman Street. And there was Zenarchy, and the Waterdogs, and a couple other opportunities to make the drums-to-bass transition.
Around the time of this gig at La Val’s Grif and I had been playing little cafes up on College Avenue or University, and too bad, we felt like just us just wasn’t enough. I had always wanted to play bass, and it appeared to be easier to find a drummer than a bass player. So it was sometime in spring of 1991 that I took $150 cash to Guitar Center and waved it around, and ended up with a pretty neat Japanese fake-Fender Jazz bass, gig bag, strap and cord. I taught myself to play–heck I knew these songs by heart, I played drums and sang harmonies on them for five years–so I plunked it out until I felt up to speed. I think the first tune I learned was Grif’s Big Dream. Then we did get a drummer, and another name, Hoddyman Dodd, after an English counting poem–and we put out a couple of cassette tape albums.
Somehow, another misspellable name on a marquee lead to a name change, and then we were the Ravines, with a key board player, and eventually another drummer. But that’s all written up elsewhere, perhaps.
Then there were the Silver Kittens, and that crazy year 2009 when everything broke up and the Possum Family Singers were born, and then the Lost Hippies . . . and that sad story. I could have gone on and on.
Looking back, though, this was a good show. Tight harmonies, good stage presence, catchy material. I could have told a good story in the break, or I could have mumbled inaudibly for three minutes, I dunno. Coulda been somebody, y’know. Still are, really.
Shout out to my friends John and Linda on cameras and master control.
lost n found
10-16-25
I visited Buslab about yet another clunk heard rarely and only under odd circumstances, namely a sharp turn, or driving over the two gutters in Vikki’s driveway–they said, yeah, drive it over and we’ll take a look. Well, it’s that stripped bolt on the upgraded swaybar–again? Thought we replaced that. Okay, whatever. Funny how a scary noise can disrupt things.
I had dropped it off and walked to the nearby bakery for a cup of coffee and oooh, pumpkin cheesecake! which they put in a little box. I was carrying my book on German silent film, a pastry in a box, and a cup, and must have shoved my wallet into my back pocket. I walked back around the corner to sit under a tree and read, and at some point noted the zipper pocket in my little purse was open and—–NO WALLET! Reminiscent of the day I stepped out of my studio with my hands full, and broke my ankle, yeah. I searched all around the tree, and walked back to the bakery, scanning the sidewalk and gutters full of brown leaves for a brown leather walled tooled with a design of brown leaves.
Long story diminished, after two trips, and while Jonathan follow me out to search again where I had been sitting, my phone rang. It was my dentist’s office calling to say someone had found my wallet with an appointment card and their phone number. My van was ready, I drove off without paying, took several wrong turns before I found the address just two blocks from my starting point. My offer of an unopened box with a slice of pumpkin cheesecake accepted, we exchanged stories–she found my wallet while looking for hers, which had jumped out of her pocket to rescue mine.
I had just got back from another thrifting trip to Santa Rosa, and stopped at the Antique fair on the way back to buy a couple items of silver jewelry, and a small porcelain cow. Back home with holiday lights, waiting for the rain. Next gig, the Sunol Regional Wilderness Heritage Festival, two sets with the Polka Cowboys. It’ll be a hoot. Saturday October 18–A free event. Bring your dusty dancing shoes.
Cotati 2025
8.21.25
Posting on Steve’s birthday, he would be 77 today. So, we have cake! I am going to The City tomorrow to have birthday dinner with my first beau Pilmer, carrying a mid-price Bordeaux and a gluten free chocolate cake that is about to come out of the oven. He will make Beouf Bourguignon once his roommate leaves for Burning Man today. I’ll pack a stainless steel flask to decant the wine lest he has no appropriate glass container for the job. It’s my birthday dinner: his birthday was this week, the delay comes from my reluctance to hike home from Bart past twilight vs the awkward kitchen scheduling of roommates.
Saturday was the long-awaited Cotati Accordion Festival, and all kerfuffle aside it was splendid. A few people dancing to almost every tune we played, and my friends of Stony the Cat fame came and took photos. It’s so great to be onstage again, and I attribute my current relaxed demeanor to having this creative outlet. I went all out on my outfit, finally wearing the blue beaded and fringed flapper dress my niece had sent me in 2021 (which had needed some poorly placed details removed). It was spectacular. Afterward a change of costume, and a barn dance near Petaluma.
The previous weekend we hosted the International Musical Saw Festival, and I helped set up the stage and run the sound board. It was a 180 from last year when I was so bedraggled and out of sorts, still bruised and baffled from the separation. I felt quite welcome and at home, and quite enjoyed myself.
I had Westied out to Canyon early on the Friday to sort and pack the sound system Art had set up in his music room. I spent some time in the Roofing House, now replete with rodent droppings. I swept up a bit and picked out a couple of keepsakes. It was sad, but not terribly so. I hadn’t been to Canyon since the unhappy April of the previous year, and the Petaluma parade. Nothing had changed except for the mysterious arrival of a large gold-framed mirror, almost a welcome-back gift, which I set up in the little window bay.
Art made dinner, and I spent the night in Westy in our old parking space. Saturday we drove separately down to Santa Cruz and I spent an hour in a traffic jam from bridge to beach. I got to the Saw Jam at the statue just after 2, and Art showed up right behind me. I had a yummy crepe and we played until 3 when we headed to Roaring Camp for a picnic with all the sawyers, and a sleepover in the parking lot for the (two) sound crew (us). Up at 6:30 AM, I made coffee, we got to the stage at 8 and were mostly set up by 10:00. All went well, great fun had by all, and I was home by 7 PM. It’s all good, I am looking forward to the Sunol Harvest Festival October 18, with two sets, the full band, and yet another spectacular costume. Plus, I’ll get to sing a couple or so of my songs . . .
photo credit: Laurie Brook; except selfie, me.
Back at it
8.13.2025
I’m SO TIRED lately. I have a decent social life, accepting many invites, and when I get home I just want to crawl into my cozy bed with a laptop and a big mug of creamy decaf. Maybe I am over-decaffeinating. Something astrological, yes. It will pass.
My drawing practice had gone a bit fallow. Tho i recently picked up a quantity of watercolors and tombow pens at a yard sale I haven’t done much but swatch and clean them. I wish I had asked what her story was, two palettes of tube colors totaling about 75 full half-pans of expensive paint, a full set, unopened! of Arteza brush pens, among some kid’s paint boxes which I gave away. Just in the last few days I have felt pulled to my sketchbooks again. The table had been taken up with the sewing machine/ seat cover project, after two jigsaw puzzles I wanted to vet before packing them off to my sister for her birthday.
It gets too hot and bright in the afternoon to sit at the table, but when the sun drops behind the house next door I open the windows from the top down to let the heat out and I draw into the wee hours. I’m really enjoying my Derwent watercolor pencils even though I don’t use water with them. I have so many screenshots in files on my laptop, and with a podcast playing in the background I just copy, copy. There is often that pesky little threshold to get over, but I am feeling freer, faster, looser in my technique, always learning something new. Each one of these is in a different sketchbook. Some tiny, some huge.
Solsticial
June 23, 2025
It has been a long time . . . life is very strange lately, and I like it. I recently spent four days in Santa Rosa, visiting a human, and a dog who is enamored with me, shopping, making a pot roast, the usual. So happy to be home with my bed, my garden, my silence, my local routines.
I am seeing an acupuncturist, adjusting my diet, finally getting the diagnosis that concurs with my suspicion that my mercury fillings are the source of my tinnitus, ear infection, and leg discomfort. I am attempting to contact a recommended dentist to remove the leakiest of the three amalgam fillings that still remain. The dentist I am calling is Iranian–more’s the pity, with the war at fever pitch now.
I did a big detox, a fast, and was living on smoothies for a week. I returned to solid foods in anticipation of the Meadow Muffin, and thereupon helped kill three bottles of wine with my two invited guests on the first night. I also recall storming the stage with my Martin bass and jamming with Maaatt and another bass player for an hour that night. The next day Art and I played some of our repertoire, and Maaatt joined us to steamroll some Lost Hippies material. He takes all my vocal parts, so I can’t harmonize. If I do, he jumps the track and sings what I am singing. Ah well, just as well to be rid of it. On the Monday after, I went up on the bare stage alone, with my Martin, and sang a bunch of tunes while folks rolled wires and packed the sound gear away.
Art and I are getting on, as friends. We’ll play two festivals in August, the International Musical Saw Festival on the 10th, and the Cotati Accordion Festival with Greg on the 18th will pay for the gas it takes to get there. Oh yes, plus the yummy chicken BBQ lunch. I didn’t think there would be a time that I would be Okay with it again, but here we are.
There have been some odd dreams of late, as suggested by the current Jupiter/Neptune square. James had a wonderful NDE type dream of angel people who basically said, it’s all right, don’t worry. I had a dream about my studio at Howe Street. There was an actual ARTIST there (me??) taking up the full half of the two-car garage that I had 1/4 of, climbing over dog shit, furniture, paint cans and storage bins to access. An older (like me) guy, dramatic landscapes, must have been acrylics (or pastels?) because I don’t recall the smell of turps. There was a doorway, and a woodworker in the other half, so yay! Framing! and sawdust? I don’t recall that smell, either. Then we walked out to the street, which had become a road, overlooking the bridge through trees, and sparse traffic driving through knee high mist, with the City in the distance. At some point, he (me??) kissed me! Did I receive a blessing from the pastel gods?
I’m pining for those studios, sad to recall how appropriate both Howe Street and the Roofing House were for pastel dust, which I never realized. I had so much fun with my acrylics then, and just painting walls and building shelves and hanging lights and stenciling floors, all the prep work that goes into having a working space, only to be ejected, and abandoned. So frustrating. What can it all mean?
So I’m airing out my pastels, I bought some board to try, small panels that fit in a pouch I can carry about. I have a sheltered space and table in the garden to clear. There is so much junk I have been getting rid of lately, it’s groundbreaking, making space for me–even Steve’s circular saws and MAAP gas, out on the curb and snatched up in moments by someone who might actually use them. Not letting go of the jigsaw and Sawzall tho, yo.
So much time in the garden, and it’s feeling really settled. It’s all about letting things unfold, following the whim, letting the Crows be the birds in my garden, I can’t fight them. I put in two more raspberry plants, two more high bush blueberries, two thornless blackberries my neighbor had put on the street. I have cut the Insipid Pink Pearl back to three fruits, and there is more wood to take out to make room for the Pink Lady, which has its first apple this year. Every day I get out into the garden I make huge progress, with my worm box in place, and new attempts at weaving the patio chairs underway.
23 Window Deluxe
What date shall I publish? Now or in the past?
My first car was a 1957 Volkswagen Type II, with every possible window, safari split-windsheild, a sun roof, skylights, chrome rails inside the back corner windows intact, in pristine condition. It had been living in the desert near Tucson, sandblasted by desert winds, and rats had completely stripped the upholstery and horsehair down to the metal frame and springs. The interior paneling was pretty much gone, and shortly before I took possession, some kids had ridden through the property on motorbikes and broken half the windows. I really learned HOW to drive in this van, and got my first license at 23.
The interior ceiling had been painted for the previous owners by my cartoonist boyfriend, a cobalt sky of stars and planets and various underground comic characters of the time (1973). Those friends had some connections to, or knew of, local resources where I got nearly everything repaired and replaced for a pittance. I had the bench seat reupholstered with gray “Cadillac” upholstery for $35. I had all the broken windows (thankfully, not the windshield or the skylights) transferred from another van for $45. I found a beautiful English wool Persian-style carpet on the street, and used it to replace the interior paneling.
It was a miraculous thing. The whole creature was a frankenstein: the chassis of a 1969 van that had been rolled while navigating a sharp curve, a 1971 engine, something about 1966 from the front end. The body was found in a field, I don’t know what happened to the undercarriage that was left behind when it was transported onto this frame.
My friends had some shady shade-tree mechanics work on the engine, and it never was right. Apparently the top end was not a match. I spent the spring of 1974 on unemployment and foodstamps, planning for a trip to California. My recently reunited boyfriend and I were leaving Arizona after a 3-year residence for the beautiful, affordable Bay Area, and some friends we had there.
Shortly before our departure he was in an automobile accident in a 1951 Chevrolet pickup- and was suddenly afraid to ride in my van, where there was 1/4″ of sheet metal between you and oncoming traffic. At the last minute, with the van still in the repair “shop”, he suddenly bailed, bought a plane ticket and left me, my cat, and everything I owned, in the little converted garage of a house I had already given notice on.
I spent the next three weeks parked at my friends’ adobe house beyond the edge of town. It was the best time of my life. I had my van, my cat, a bed, books, a little stove, tea, a few clothes, and access to a kitchen and indoor plumbing. There was a view of mountains, the wide desert and distant lights of town, a little vegetable garden, saguaro cactus, sagebrush, ocotillos, bats, owls, peccaries, rabbits, quail: a wildlife refuge far from the impending urban development on the horizon. I left the windows open, and would wake up to birds flitting in and out of the cab, avoiding my cat as she prowled the area.
That van never had a name. I still try to make one up. It had an AM radio, and I installed a cassette tape deck and small tuner and speakers. When it was time to go, I left in the cool of the night and listened to Taj Mahal all the way to California. We would stop on the side of the road for a nap, I would leave the windows open and my cat would come when I called. Somewhere on the road she climbed to the open sunroof and jumped ship at 65 MPH. I never went back to find her.
I pulled into Redondo Beach on the morning of July 4th, and spent the day with my brother and his not-that-soon-to-be wife. We went to see the fireworks, and I fell asleep in the car.
In Oakland I parked and lived in a driveway on Hillegass Avenue where the boyfriend had landed, until we found an apartment in Berkeley, with parking in the back. I kept the van for a while, and kept it up, but the engine was never right, and he talked me into selling it to a friend for a pittance. Said friend painted it yellow. I later heard that it broke down and was abandoned on the road, then sold for $100. That broke me.
We got a new kitten, made some friends, learned to cook. I got a bicycle, went to college, installed an amazing french intensive garden, I’ll come back with that photo– we worked in restaurants, went to see bands and danced at ashkenaz. We fought, my creative spirit stalled, I languished, rudderless. One day he threw a brass ashtray at my head that left an imprint on the wall, and I moved out.
I wish I had stayed in Tucson. It was magical.
But then, I wish I had stayed in Redondo Beach.
Gallery hopping
March 2025
I was morose last week, pining for my lost life as a musician, and all the peeps I will never see again. Sad, sad, blue beret. I didn’t know how deep it went, until a long phone call with E brought me near tears more than once at the memory, how hard it is to process or follow through. I have no urge to jaunt about to open mics, hang out in bars or drag myself home in the dark with gear, all alone. It does not spark joy. I have been sitting up at night in that same dark tho, playing the old toones on my reconfigured Stella Toy Bass. I remember it all, sing better than ever, even over the sketchy intonation and sometimes hitting a wall–what key was that in? and no muscle memory will save it without an intro by Ann.
I knew, the next day, that discharging emotion like that usually results in a breakthrough, and in fact is the only way through. So surprise, no surprise when I got a call out of the blue from PMav inviting me to a gallery show in San Francisco and nearby SFMOMA afterward. Looking into the gallery I am utterly shocked to see it is a show of Leonora Carrington, not so much for herself but because the gallery also represents Remedios Varo, and has had THREE solo shows of her work in the past decade or more.
Crazy coincidence, Grif had turned me on to her years ago (she had lived and died in Mexico City around the time he was there) and had used several of her images for band fliers for the Ravines. Full circle, somehow. There is also another link to Gordon Onslow Ford, who drifts in and out of my vision in odd ways, such as the book I was reading about poets that mentioned him living and painting on a houseboat owned by Alan Watts in SF Bay.
After the gallery, and an excellent Hunan lunch, we stopped in at SFMOMA, somewhat disappointing until we got into the permanent collections, and the book store, where I found they stock my favorite $3 paintbrush/pencil combo. Then off to Bart, and home by dark.
PMav asked me if I was painting, as he does, and I lapsed into my cover story: rebuilding sewing machines, the bobbin wheel adventure, constructing ski pants, that I just cleared from my work table. I have almost repopulated the watercolor layout and have empty pages open, and have got most of my vehicle paperwork cleared away, so here is hoping I will kick my own ass and start a new surge of painting, with an eye to something new and, maybe, original.
Sometimes it’s a struggle and doesn’t come naturally. It’s sad to scroll through my phone to see screenshots, ideas, other people’s work. It’s that bugaboo of originality that I beat myself up over. Ow! Stop that! There is the sense of being screw-tin-eyesed, or being graded. When I was young, drawing was a place to hide. Now it has become homework. All I want in life is to be able to goof off and get away with it. If I am painting to be judged, or to avoid being judged, what is the fun in that? I think the previous binge was a result of the practice of Bad Painting. That seemed to kick the dust off, and derail the demon at my ankles. We’ll see. . . Meanwhile, here is some old journal filler from the before times, endpapers, from Canyon, and maybe even BSPco. Horrors!
awander
Feb 8,2025
Reporting from Santa Rosa again, where we ended up in our separate rooms somewhat under the weather from the stress of several aborted projects. I am trying to up- or down-load some cajun music from V’s collection, but my laptop refuses to play nice.
Seems I’m on the screen all the time lately. I have only done a couple of drawings, I know not where they are. I have been decluttering my mounds of paper, and sorting categories in the studio. I used the fabulous new bobbin winder to transfer thread from about 2 dozen old Kenmore bobbins (from about 40 years ago?? When did I have that machine?) to the 301/featherweight, and model 66 bobbins. I was inspired to make some hotpads using the refurbished 301A and some charming quilting squares my hoarder neighbor had left out on the curb to moulder in the rain last year. I washed them and dried them in the sun and packed them away last summer. Suddenly overcome with the thrill of the smoothly-functioning machine, I tore apart and remade two hot pads from new fabric and old padding.
Bear has a little flaw on her head. I think I will embroider her a little orange party hat.
I also got some brown wool-poly fleece on sale and copied a pair of fleece pants from REI that I have been wearing for 20-some years. They have zippers at the ankles to pull over snow boots. The new fabric made the same pattern larger, although I copied the pattern exactly. Interesting. Much seam ripping and resewing ensued, but they turned out great, for pulling on over leggings or pajamas for a quick trip out to the van, to the trash cans in the cold mornings, or just loafing about.
Meanwhile, some gear upgrades. I updated the OS on my laptop to Catalina, I think I am now living in 2016. I have been wanting to do this for forever, but I was so deeply triggered by the very word–the fact that I can do it without hyperventilating now is a testament to the last two years of work and struggle to find my center. I will miss you, Mojave, but those changing desktop photos of the Eureka Valley dune are always available. This is a life lesson. Also I found and purchased a clean iPhone 8, though I’m still using the 6 as a phone for now–so at last we have electronically achieved 2017. Somewhere back there things went sideways, or was it ever straight? So long ago, so strange, no?
And then, my vehicle is early 1983 . . . so there’s that. Ah, Emerson Street, before CCAC. Probably my best Art year, drawing at Laney College with Jean Steingart. Sorry to have left, another mistake.
After blowing out the new 30-watt speakers in the van I wired in a “pair” of mismatched (40 watt Realistic, 50 watt KLH) bookshelf speakers I had scrounged to replace the lost speakers I had for my Stanton turntable and LP setup. Days after i got those set up behind the driver and passenger seats, I found a matched pair of KLH, marked 0-100 watts at the St.V. de P. in Rohnert Park. They appeared to be priced at $6.99 each, but the clerk charged me that for the pair. Good deal! All of these are clip attachment style, so I can easily switch them out to see which ones sound the best.
Another Oregon
November, 2024
I left home not very early on Monday, November 4, because AGAIN with the bad battery, AAA, and a replacement, under warranty. In fact, the same guy, Don, came to switch it out. I hosed the van off, stopped for gas, didn’t waste time at the carwash because I was going to stop at Varmint’s for coffee and to see the new foster kitten. I made it to Van Damme by 3:30 PM. I was heading for Jughandle, but the Ranger said there was no camping there. Just lucky I pulled in. $38 + $1 for a 5 minute shower.
In the morning I had wifi but no phone signal, so I emailed my safe arrival, and regrets that I would not be in town for dinner. There was a beach, a forest, a hike, and my little sanctuary. In Eureka I stopped at a thrift store and found a perfect shirt, and texted my cousin a song about it I made up on the spot. Up the coast at 5 PM I had a guy riding my bumper, so I turned in at Humbug Mountain campground, where the nice camp host brought me a bowl of chicken and pasta in homemade tomato sauce, and I gave him one of the large pink tomatoes I had bought at a farm stand. Camp site $18, free showers, plus a snack. Only drawback, I had to sleep with an eye mask to block out the light shining through the curtain.
By Wednesday afternoon I hadn’t dawdled long enough, my cousin was not yet home. I had driven all the way to Pacific City and could not find camping, so I turned around and headed south, past Lincoln City to Beverly Beach. I hiked all around and took the first photographs of the trip. What a beautiful campground, with a big marsh in the middle, $21. More than half of it was closed for the winter, and it took some backtracking to locate the open (free?) showers.
Up the coast again, I stopped at a little antique store in Bay City where two little chairs sat on the sidewalk, $19 each and I considered I would (not) be able to put them in the van and still camp at my cousins’. I decided to risk it, and they were still there when I drove back five days later. I also bought a little graniteware pitcher for heating coffee, as well as the cashmere scarf in a thrift store in Lincoln City.
My cousin texted that they were home, so I headed up to Hammond. I spent five days there, and hiked through nearby Fort Stevens almost every day. The herd of Elk were sometimes tricky to navigate around. My cousin has vast quantities of family memorabilia, old photos and documents, and I found some surprising information and filled a memory card with files to sort through and try to remember who was who. On Veteran’s Day I drove to Astoria and wandered through thrift and antique stores, found some gift items, and brought home dinner from Mo’s for everybody.
Then I was off to my Sister’s for a few days, which turned into an extra week when a huge storm, a “bomb cyclone” came through. I spent days doing five 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, fixing my sister’s gate, and navigating around the electrical installation that had delayed my trip since before October. One day we drove to Depoe Bay to see the king tide splashing over the sea wall, and to eat chowder.
There was still a bit of storm on my return trip down the coast, but I made good time, camping at Floras Lake, and Standish-Hickey, which was empty except for the camp host and me, and some deer. I was home Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and enjoyed the holiday curled up in bed with a nice steak.
Inbetweenium
September 23, 2024
I’m planning on skittering up the coast again, thinking time is running out, how many trips do I have in me, how many times can I do this? My health has been a little sketchy lately. I had a very bad reaction to a polenta overdose shortly after the last trip, and it took me almost a week to recover. I am removing grains from my diet for now, to see if that is the trigger.
In between trips to Oregon I have been copying art, grabbing screenshots from Youtube videos. I’m currently fond of a so-generous artist named Helen Wells, who does vivid, stylized trees and vses of flowers on large paper and on panels. Copying these is transfixing, fills pages in my very large 11×14″ sketchbook, two at a time, often in the space of a day. I’m using watercolors, caran d’ache water soluble crayons, inks, whatever. The brushwork and color mixing are so satisfying. I have released my sense of dismay that I am not doing anything original–it’s an atelier, it’s a salon, I am copying art I enjoy, oh well. It’s hella fun.
High Summer Art Escape
August 2024
I’m just back from a near-week in a far place, I am ready to go again. A stack of paintings, a sense of freedom, practice, stability, direction . . . well-fed, and wonderful friends I may never see again.
On the first, very hot day we did a nature walk-and-talk through the red fir/mixed conifer forest, stopping to check out the name tags on many alpine plants. I was mildly alarmed by a huge pyrocumulus cloud off to the north, which turned out to be above the nearby Gold Complex fire, ignited by lightening. On day two we woke up to dense smoke, and N95 masks were handed out at breakfast. Several people left camp; it was pretty unnerving. News was hard to come by, not only because we were off grid, but the enormous Park Fire, still raging as I write, was just taking off. No problem for us, though, because we headed out to hike to a nearby lake, Sand Pond, to paint, swim, eat lunch, and paint again. On our return the smoke was much abated, and the wind had shifted, though the fire appeared to be 0% contained for the first two days. It was Taco Tuesday, and after I snarfed my meal I went back to the classroom to fill several sheets of paper with washes of ink and color, and then to bed. The moon was orange that night.
The next day we hiked from Gold Lake to Big Bear Lake, to paint, swim, eat lunch, and paint some more. I did a picky version, then after lunch I did some quick studies of the same scene that I like better. A lesson! Study first, then paint. I was worn out from the excitement and tucked in early.
Some evenings we would paint with acrylics, inks, on canvas, with stencils and materials we gathered. Fire was a constant theme, some people did deep, moving studies of the devastation.
Up at Yuba Pass we hiked through a forest decimated by drought and pine bark beetles, so extreme that the campground had been closed due to falling trees. We hiked to the ridge, where high winds and falling limbs had us turn and leave before we had a chance to get settled. The sad sight was cheered by the crops of young and baby trees, hopefully adapting to the severe conditions.
The last day we took a hike to Grassy Lake, and I painted the view from where I sat near a dry creek bed. A side trip took us to beautiful Red Fir Trail, where we saw a pair of Goshawks overhead.
I stayed an extra day, one more night with Westy in the quiet forest. Heading home Saturday morning after some goodbyes, and back into the traffic, with a pile of paintings and some new ideas, I was happy to see my plum tree still full of fruit.
This week I have been back at my sketchbooks, filling pages with owls and birds and copying ideas from screenshots of painters on Youtube. More about that in coming episodes. Also this week I pulled out my flat files and reorganize them: ancient archives, a portfolio of 14×17 photos and large prints, calligraphy, watercolors. It makes sense, for now.
Meanwhile, I’m heading up to the River tomorrow for a couple of days, hope to continue painting there.
Into the Forest
July 2024
Planning to head to the mountains for a painting retreat, seeing how many unfinished sketchbooks I can cram into my luggage. How much will I share? I feel like I struggle to be original, I don’t know why. I don’t post images that are basically renditions of other people’s ideas, hence the lag time between postings–yet isn’t that how one learns? Is anything original? I’m just trying to fill pages.
My goal is to paint faster, looser, brighter, louder. I’d rather copy than not paint.
These are my brushstrokes. Sometimes I work from photographs. Maybe the key is to do the same thing over and over until the sense of your own being is the only thing left, like repeating a mantra, saying your own name until it becomes something foreign. I’m just not there yet. I’m still gathering.
deja wha?
June 2024
Here at my work table I am frequently of the illusion that I am at my old “penthouse” apartment on on Emerson Street. I had a three-bridge view there, before that big Y-shaped condo tower in Emeryville blocked out part of the City. I picture the little kitchen nook behind me, the parking lot out the window to the west, and the big redwood tree Wilson the Escaped Amazon parrot used to visit. I was there the night of the 1989 earthquake, watching the Marina burn, and the lighted tree on the blacked out hills to the east. I was there the day of the big fire, before it was a thing, I saw smoke at 8 AM, when it was 80 degrees and windy., and called 911.
It is only 2-plus blocks, .2 miles, though thirty years away. The sensation first came up some months ago when I suddenly realized that I was not on the third floor, in what was actually my bedroom there. The second time it happened i couldn’t dispel the vivid sense of the kitchen behind me, the memory of my little closet, and the niche that was a perfect fit for my LP’s and audio equipment at my elbow. I never actually had a table in that room. I think the refrigerator backed up to the foot of the bed
One day I got up from the table here, and almost walked through the doorway to my current kitchen. In my mind’s eye the bathroom was through a door to the main room and to the left. Even writing this I stop to switch tracks, the memory train wants to take that familiar option. I’ve become really fond of it, not looking up from my journal or painting, imagining myself there, another episode of timeline jumping, making a foray into the past to upgrade and heal some past trauma or imagined inadequacy. Even now I can clearly conjure up the illusion that I am there.
That was another dump I moved into and transformed into a glorious mirage, the tall victorian windows and the fireplace with a huge mirror that reflected the moon rising over the hills, walls I painted to match the glazed green tile, circa 1906. I had my cat Betty there; where is that drawing of the mouse-mouth?
What is the purpose of that memory? It was a previous time when I lived alone, not the first, relationship free–after Ed moved back to The City. I had the same sense of complete centeredness and fortune in my choice of home and surroundings, OMG to the extent that I once had my drums set up there! Poor neighbors!
Solar Return
5.2.24
It’s not my birthday, but the sun crosses 13 degrees 01 minute of Taurus at 4 PM today. It’s Thursday, Ganesh has brought cake, so we are planning a celebration in the garden. It’s the peak of the season, the yellow orchids are blooming, tiny Violette just opened, Joasine Hanet is covered with buds, the grapefruit tree and the mystery pink rose are perfuming the air, the apples are cross-pollinating. Since rain is predicted for my actual birthday (again) I will do an end-run by celebrating today.
I have been inspired to putter in the garden, and have worked all week since the rains stopped. I have a space of time after Texas, Petaluma, Page Street, before I head out for a week re-treat, a gift of a parkup at a “cabin” in the Gold Country, where I hope to reboot my watercolor practice. I bought a thick pad of Fabriano watercolor paper and some Pitts pens to add to my pile of unused materials, sigh, so busy.
I have been productive in other realms–the template of the backyard is decades wide, a sort-of miracle. Somewhere around 1994 I salvaged flagstones from the yard at Emerson Street, and we laid them around the legless Weber grill we used as a portable fire pit. There is another patch of flagstones near where the shed used to be, where the propane grill Peggy gave me lives. There is a rectangular brick spiral floor Steve installed in the corner to make a little room for the clawfoot bathtub we had found on the street. He also built the bamboo fence and gate I patched and stablized a few posts back.
I have a number–nay, a plethora–of patio chair frames, and have tried several means of reweaving them. Some have not been successful, like the neon pink landscape tape that wouldn’t hold a cat, and faded instantly, and the multicolored strands of landscape twine that were too stringy and unwieldy. I tried a couple of methods of restoring the hoop chairs, including copying the original canvas–I now recall that I got those from Grif in torn condition–that had to be 35 years ago. They have been wandering around the yard as ghosts, even as the rope-on-wire contraption I attempted sat un-damaged through many years of sun and rain exposure. The clothesline I wove onto the foot stool has also stood the test of time, but I haven’t found that exact type since.
Last week I stopped into O’Reilly’s looking for some 80’s era 8 amp fuses for Westina’s cigaret/interior/stop light circuit, after replacing and rewiring the socket, and in the sale bin I found a 50′ roll of orange cord for a measly $3. I have bought cord before, wildly unsuitable, uncomfortable, or worse. This was all I needed, appropriate materials in neon orange, to inspire a new attempt. Stringing, unstringing, restringing errors, it took bits of two days to get to this point. I left the hoop and the center ring (where did that come from?) in its current shade of rusty metal, which took on a satisfying purple tone against the green and orange. Might still move that knot to the left . . . right leg. Why knot?
Late yesterday I pulled the old rope-and-wire version apart and reworked it, 12 loops instead of 16, with a salvaged plumbing slip-nut, or whatever it’s called, as the center ring. Oddly, I had begun to paint the rope orange at some point. It has been living in the elements, poorly attached to the hoop chair frame for many years, and the rope is still strong and not too shabby (chic).
I remember Steve’s comment that inspired me to start my garden business over thirty years ago: “You’re never happier than out here with the worms!” Yes, we are.
Triggered, the deets
late april, 2024
I had come from the parade in cowboy hat, twirl skirt and boots, already dressed as if for the Roundup. People were glad to see me. We sat and talked, it was warm, lovely, friendly. Erik asked when I was coming “home”. It was like a shock. They said they could sneak me in, but, it felt sketchy. I would have been illegal, unsafe, an intruder, again.
I left to turn in for the night. It was late. I had planned to sleep in my van, then putter in the roofing house and pack some things out the next day. I was moving out. Moving on.
When I thought they had gone I went back to get a bubble water from my big galvanized tub, now repurposed as a beverage cooler for the Friday Winos. But no, they were still there–waiting? All in cowboy hats, dressed for a party- I was in my pajamas, no longer one of them. Not ever, really.
We hugged goodbye. I watched as they all walked down the tracks, and realized I had been given a choice, and taken a final fork in that road. I watched that chapter come to a close, my old life sputtering to a vague, unspoken, bitter end.
I was up all night, in a terrible agony of panic, regret and confusion. An angel texted and invited me to visit. At dawn I woke, made coffee, opened the gate and drove away.
An old sketchbook of beadwork belts and bracelets, circa 1970-1990.
Petaluma
4.22.24
We were booked to play the Petaluma Butter and Egg Days parade–a hinky affair, but super huge, a reported 30,000 in the audience. Lots of hokey costumes, robot chickens, hay bales on trailers, classic vehicles, high school bands and wrestling teams, and local dairy and poultry producers. Art and I were invited to represent the Cotati Accordion Festival, playing jigs and polkas while riding on the ragtop mechanism of a 1952 Chevrolet convertible.
I hustled back from Texas in time to decompress and have a rehearsal, and gathered a costume from some possible items I had laid out before I left. Learning the Chevy was gray, I chose the red twirl skirt, black and white striped leggings, and a black bodice and cowboy hat. Sitting in the sun for two hours, I ended up with quite the sunburn on my upper back. I had a super fun time, and when we got to the end I said, can we go around again? As if it was a carnival ride. Nope, the parade was over–we were near the end, #169 of 178 entries.
We packed our gear into Art’s Tesla and headed back to Canyon, where Westy was waiting for me. I stopped in at Misty’s and had a beer with the old gang–it was a bittersweet moment–they were on their way to the Redwood Rodeo, and I was dressed for it, but I let it pass. A rough night–super sad, really. I slept fitfully under the full moon, then made coffee and slipped out the gate just past dawn.
Texas!
4.17.24
Over the weekend we spent mornings hanging out at Central Market where Grif likes to go for coffee and a breakfast taco. At RADIO there is coffee, beer, food trucks, more tacos, and grackles, one of my all time favorite birds. On Monday after watching the cloudy eclipse from Grif’s back balcony we went to the open mic at Bhodi’s Hideaway, where no one (else) shows up to play, and did a two hour showcase, minus a beer break for a Pinthouse Brewery Electric Jellyfish hazy IPA. We mostly did songs one or the other of us barely knew, plus some oldies we miraculously remember after 15?? years.
We went to see friends perform at a hotel cafe and a winery, took home some Rudy’s BBQ, walked around a bit, listened to music. We met Grif’s old room mate for more tacos back at RADIO, with heat lightening and pouring rain coming in. I slept on his couch a couple nights, then decided I was happier and cooler at home in my van, with the lightening and soothing sounds of a hail storm!
Austin is so green, water and little lakes everywhere, and the for miles around hiways are bounded by wide swaths of wildflowers, pink Indian Paintbrush, Bluebonnets, Blanket Flower, and yellows, yellows, yellows everywhere. On the way out I hit the road early and drove west via Rt 71, marveling frequently that I might have been driving on sketchy tires at 75 MPH, thanking my lucky star or two. Wednesday night I ended up at a rest stop near Roswell by a quirk of my electronic navigator. Steve would approve. I stopped to pick up some provisions, planning to hunker at another rest stop on I-40/66, when a local suggested I turn toward the free campground at El Morro National Monument. I ended up staying there for two nights. It is designated a #3 Dark Sky site, with the “enthusiastic support” of neighboring communities, and the Zuni Pueblo.
The hike was closed due to a washout, but just hanging out, reconfiguring my string and solar lights, cleaning, sorting, puttering, and reading Bruce Catton’s The Coming Fury made for a perfect day. Slowly thinning out the excess, the van is overly-outfitted for two people and dinner guests, with cribbage, dominoes, books, multiple cups, plates, glasses, candles–when what I really use is three coffee mugs, two forks, a frying pan, coffee pot and a spoon. I haven’t touched my art supplies. No WiFi for days, no access to email, and my inverter won’t charge the laptop. I did watch a youtube video on my old iphone 6, by gosh. How cool is that.
Then it was back to Gallup where I decided not to wait in line at Jerry’s Cafe, another recommendation by a local, maybe some other time. I had errands to run, then headed west to see how far along I could get. I wanted to hit that taco stand in Seligman again, and there I got a burrito bowl made to order, refritos, cheese on top please, then rice, carnitas, hatch chilis, mexicorn, jalapenos, and crema: perfection. It took three days to finish it off. I made it to Mojave NP that night, almost no thanks to the wacky app that put me at the Goffs 4×4 entrance via Bullhead City, 47 minutes out of my way on a Saturday night. Luckily Mojave is a relatively unsung park, not crowded, and there I decided to stay another night rather than join the Sunday rush home. Why go back to street-sweeping day? I moved to site #17 up the hill and watched as folks packed and left to go finish their taxes, or the retired jeepers maybe heading further into the desert. Westina stalled while re-parking, and as she does after a short drive, would not start, and it turned out she found a better vantage than I had planned, 360 views, unobstructed out each window. Relaxed and rejuvenated, I woke at dawn to finish the long bleak drive back to dreary civilization, traffic, my beloved home, and the tasseling box elder out my window.
Adventuring!
4.6.24
Well, it’s that anniversary again. Almost at the last minute I decided to drive to see the total eclipse from the balcony of my old music partner’s apartment in Austin Texas. Truly idiots have angels, and likely, angels need idiots to exist. I had packed out not-that-early on a Sunday morning, but the van battery was stone dead, would not jump, would not charge. AAA sent a guy with a battery that almost fit, he made it work and got me on the road. I tried filling my tires the day before, but there was one tire that wouldn’t cooperate. The inflater valve squealed in terror, but, idiot that I am, I decided to have it checked out “later”. Now I was actually walking distance from my tire guy over the holiday, and intended to drop in to have it checked then, but, well, here we are.
Crossing the CA/AZ border at Needles after a night at Mojave National Preserve I stopped into a place that said TIRES, and TIRE SALE, to check the pressure and get 2 gallons of $7/per gas, when Johnny approached and said my FRONT tire looked a little low . . . distracted, oops, I ended up filling my tank, and pulled up to the air hose. He proceeded to show me the indicators, and the rot, and said, these aren’t safe on the highway–he showed me the date on the one I was having issues with–2015. I ended up with a full set of fresh new tires. He also pointed out that my shocks were original (1983) equipment, and leaking, and down the road in Kingman I could have them replaced, and called the guy to see if they were in stock.
Well, it could seem to be a scam, but then, even I could see they were not what I wanted to be riding on, and worrying about. Honestly, road angels exist. Somehow my work truck always had up-to-date wheels, but my van guys only go so far.
I stopped for a scrumptious carnitas taco at what appeared to be a Subway/truck stop/gift store in Seligman, so it was well into afternoon when I was back on the road, driving through an ice storm and searching for a campground. I pulled into the lot at Petrified Forest and recognized clear signs of Boondocking, chose a spot with a view of trees, and tucked in for the night.
The next morning I woke to ice half-an-inch thick on my windshield, and remembered the ice scraper I somehow had the sense to acquire and squirrel away in the back of the van. I shivered and watched as mothers hugged and hustled their tiny children through the freezing wind onto a school bus idling nearby. I pulled out early, but the fog was so thick I had to pull over and wait until I could at least see the trucks rumbling by. I felt blessed, so at the New Mexico border I bought myself a vintage Navajo Sterling cuff as a birthday present, what the hell I had emergency cash, the emergency was averted, plus now I am a genius.
Through Albuquerque, and after a sweet boondocking rest stop near Santa Rosa, New Mexico I turned south and through backcountry Texas. One more stop at a spendy RV “resort” (the blue dot) where I plugged in my laptop and got some email, then off early on Thursday morning, arriving in Austin (the red pin) in time to join Grif on his flower delivery route. Not before getting rerouted, not for the first time, by an inane map app that sent me to a completely different address with almost no relation or reason to where I was destined, a 27 minute delay . . .
Sketchy and squirrely
3.3.24
I ordered some handmade black squirrel brushes online, on the advice of a youtube watercolor tutorial. I recently also got an assortment of fine liners and riggers, they are fun. Turns out the #3 hand made squirrel brush is my favorite. Fat, fluffy, and a nice point, although I have pulled a couple of hairs . . . The point is so fine, I could add hair lines and detail and shadow to this old drawing circa 4.16.2020. It’s the view out the window in Canyon from my old chair by the woodstove, a month into the lockdown.
A friend once commented that I have a Hoard of brushes. They are not a hoard. I use them. Well, some of them. I have been looking for a chopstick rest to lay damp brushes on, and somehow came to the realization that a wooden soap dish would do the trick. I found two different hand made versions, one in cedar, one in poplar.
I’m also doing a few portraits here and there, getting over my acquired shyness about pencils and yes, the forbidden eraser. I’m working three different sketchbooks at the moment. I have been slowly filling an old Moleskine. Nicknamed “Squirrel”, begun circa 2012, it has a lot half-baked ideas that I am attempting to make sense of from here in the future. There is the $2 Goodwill hand me down from the 2022 post-Christmas thrifting binge, and this mustard paper ring-bound sketchbook I got from Viki.
I’m not putting much effort into getting decent photos. I feel it’s all works in progress. I plan to paint multiple versions of this landscape. I have other paintings of that era, the trips to Diaz Lake and Lone Pine, on the way in and out of Saline and Death Valley, the Panamints and beyond. It is a magical place, at a magical time of year, the Eastern Sierras in October, and the cottonwoods turning golden. Perhaps I’ll go there again, maybe soon.
trepidation
2.9.24
don’t know what it is exactly that stops me. planning or thinking about a drawing or painting sometimes spooks me, the idea of going out and being sociable is just an enormous struggle. reticence does not describe it. times were I would sit at my drawing table, frozen in anticipation of actual pain. somewhere in my shoulders was a cruel memory, a fear of erasers, a death challenge.
sometimes inspiration comes, and i just get up and follow through. i have a studio setup where there are pencils and water and brushes at the ready for any contingency. the doom falls when i stop to figure out or plan, all the what ifs start to gather, thoughts get in the way and i am in a muddle. there are times when just the thinking about doing something creates a wall. a threshold. a meniscus i can’t puncture. oh, that threshold i stepped over when i broke my ankle, ow, that was a thing. but i know that if I think of a task, and do it now, it gets done.
the morning gather:
e.g. just spent two hours deciding to go out and get some things out of the van, it was a struggle to get my boots on, i ended up washing my hair. finally i was ready for the long walk (what, about 45 feet) and down the stairs. glorious day, fresh air and sun after the long long rain, and there i was, in my element, checking oil, checking tires, pulling crocosmia before it spread along the fence, hauling a box and a bag and a chainsaw and a few things on hangers into the house. curious.
ah. there’s the new moon.
the Dawning
The End of All, Gigs, Venues, Cafes, Films
Jams, Parks, Beaches, Hikes,
Restaurants, Shows, Friendships
After I had already lost
Everyone
No Center, no Ideas,
Certainly no room for me except
a parking space, a chair
a drawer, a small studio there
Invisible
small
diminished,
so as not to incur
wrath
or jealousy
Not knowing how to drive to a place,
to not be welcome,
in your home, your life, your bed.
I slept with one eye open
How do I say what happened
to those who thought
we had a thing?
He won’t tell me why
he pulled away
like Lucy and the football
again and again
except to recount the story of how he
Almost
didn’t get born because
his father
Almost
escaped the wedding.
Like I did . . .
He had a habit of getting Yelly
while I sat with
Head cocked
a puppy, trying to sort
word from meaning
a language I don’t understand
While he held a
rolled-up newspaper
behind his back
Sent from my <“m~ fone
year’s end
late december, 2023
Clearing my desktop of clutter, sketches from the unknown past, some from the roofing house studio journal, summer of 2020. It makes me happy to see how loose and free and un-precious these are.
It’s close to a year since i closed my business license and sold my truck, it will be three years since I actually gave up the business, after I broke my ankle and lost interest. Sometimes I wake up feeling palpably calm and free, no longer obsessing over what was. I do miss the exercise, fresh air, hands in the dirt, a sense of purpose, cash, check, human contact.
Quality time at home, but making a point of pushing myself out of the house; new friends and groups and nutritional inputs—I think I am feeling more like myself than ever, wearing colors, not so black and brown–and did I say I cut off my possum tail? Don’t be alarmed, just a haircut.
I have no long-term plans. I take things day-to-day. My MC in Sagittarius needs a goal, to fix things. I am an optimist, I don’t consider failure. It’s all about what can I do, what’s next to put back together. Mow the lawn, clear vines out of trees, tighten screws, make a pudding, find things, give things away. Draw, spill ink, see what it does. Full circle.
Ant-lers
Merry eXmas
12.25.23
Truly Exmas this year, as our annual non-family get-together was cancelled due to unspeakable side effects of the unspoken poke situation. I don’t know what it will take to break through this madness, but I have another booster friend today who is going for another in spite of the return of her thyroid cancer. But, hey, why ruin everybody’s mood, okay?
As an upshot of the cancellation I was able to expand my cat-sitting commitment to include Christmas Eve through to the previously-agreed-to New Year’s Eve Eve. The cat is a much needed respite from human contact. The house I am staying in is a lovely, ingenious, converted two-car garage, quite a step up from the one where I lived on Stone Avenue in Tucson, circa 1974-5. In many ways, it’s just a straight trajectory, as that was where I had my first solitary home, my first 1957 VW 23-window Deluxe, my first organic garden.
This neighborhood has delightful adventures a short walk in every direction, and I plan to take advantage when it isn’t raining. An art supply store, a chi-chi shopping zone with eggnog latte option, a natural food grocery, a place where I can pick up a half-pint of carnitas, the place where I bought my tires. I want them to check some damage I sustained hitting the newly-installed concrete bicycle barrier up the road before I take off again.
Tonight, a brilliant pink-stripey sunset. I brought sparkle snowflake ornaments and a short string of colored lights to spice things up, as the cat people didn’t deign to decorate the place they were not going to spend the holidays in.
I’ll return for a night at home before picking up the now-New-Year’s-Day presents and heading up to see my friend at the Mobile Estates. We will likely have Margaritas, I’ll pick up some Chicken Jalfrezi and Prawns Biryani to bring in the new year, then as soon as possible indulge in some thrift shopping and friendship.
I have lately been playing with ink and brushes, and here is a little holiday-inspired invention.
ant-lers
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