My (perhaps controversial) thoughts as a "newbie" to CA.

Thanks, DisneyGirl16! t

Hi JBeans--- They're 1 and 1/4" square.

It just occurred to me today that I've not actually had all of them laid out at once. The photo shows them back in 2012 when I submitted the idea of showing them at a local art organization and they numbered 2,016. At that time they were arranged on a strip of art canvas that was about 54" x 8 1/2'. I found I had to stack most of them and just keep some laid out as people who came to visit etc couldn't get around the whole "sidewalk." But I kept on doing them regardless and did about 1,000 more...have sold or given away about 250.

If I didn't have a complete renovation of my apartment coming up I'd put the whole group down on the floor just to see what it all looks like!

Do appreciate your appreciation!

t

Hi all--

Dear Korky482, your mom's passing is heartbreaking and I'm so sorry you had to endure this much pain and suffering....and not to be with her in the end. Wow. I hope the rawness of your sadness is easing a bit and that you find some answers and comfort here. I'll say a prayer for you tonight.

Hi BusiaX4! I hope you get things sorted and that you find help here, too, as you progress. Waiting, waiting-- probably the hardest part! My thoughts and prayers are with you...

Am finally back into my newly-renovated apartment...Returned here Friday a.m. Pantaloon has been in a tizzy...she didn't know where she was during the days spent in the Hospitality Suite...no landline there and no internet! Boy how I missed the internet! Now that we're back it's the same--yet all is changed. New wall to wall, new paint, new sink and cabinets in kitchen, new stove, new fridge, all new doors, new heating/cooling system, new front door, new toilet, new vanity...aye aye aye.. the only thing that didn't change was the tub.....

I'm so sick of fooling with things and locating things and unpacking...but am glad for the newness and know this grrrrr-grumble-grumble time will pass...

One bad-ish change is that we all lost our medicine cabinet. A nice vanity with a big overhead mirror and good storage below doesn't quite cut it for holding teensy, tiny bottles of Visine, etc. So they all have to go into some sort of container and then found a new home for. I liked that medicine cabinet--everything at eye-height, small items snugly fitting....ah, well, it's a trade-off.....

Thanks, dear JBeans, for your kind comments about my blocks, which are at the moment en-boxed (my word) waiting for me to summon the patience to arrange them on the floor . And beekeeping! What a great hobby! Sometimes I wish I didn't live in a high-rise, where such hobbies are, naturally, off-limits. (When I was writing that an image came to mind: a cartoon drawing of a high-rise, sideways view, most windows filled with the expected interior items: curtains, plants, lighting, shelving, etc. But smack-dab in the center is one apartment whose large front window is dark with five million or so swarming bees..)

The only "tidbit" that comes to mind re the subject is that poet Sylvia Plath's father was an expert on, of all things, bumblebees, those masters of flight...

Molly50--love the photo of you cuddling your grandson....what a sweet image...

T

Hi ruthbru--

Yes, it's quite a refreshing encounter when I come inside and don't know where I am...either that or totally discombobulating. I feel positively like one of the rich and famous with THREE drawers for utensils! I've never, ever had a set of decent utensils drawers...truly. When i moved in here, one of the two was warped and would only open halfway. So I had to keep a little Mag-lite handy to see to the back and learn if I did, indeed, HAVE matches. Or toothpicks....or a straw or two.... And the other drawer was so shallow it wouldn't accommodate things like potato masher, wide-bowl ladles, so those had to find dwellings elsewhere, which meant I never knew where they were if I needed them.

The ancient apartment I rented in Salisbury didn't have even a poor drawer. I had to jam everything into mugs and jugs...

The carpet is a darker hue than the cocoa carpet that was here....this is a nice blue but does show every little bit of light-colored fluff etc that falls. Am just glad I invested in a good vacuum.

The toilet seat flushes so swiftly and almost silently, I almost forget I just went. It's all down--whish!!--and the tank refilled in about fifteen seconds. Must help immensely on the H20 bill. It's some inches higher than the old, which is fine except it leads me to "over-sit" it....I keep going south and the seat is already plenty north, so I tend to land with a more decisive thud than the bladder was asking for. It reminds me of how Pantaloon "over-jumps" onto the bed, putting more boost into her little legs when she jumps up, so she hovers, mid-air, above the bed a second or two and then, in a weird way, descends....it took me a good while to figure out just what she was doing that made her, uh, landings look so humorous...I try not to let her see me laugh when she does this...she's sensitive and I just KNOW she knows what I'm laughing about...

Do invest, though, if you can get the $$$ together. It's very, very nice to have all fresh. Even a coat of paint is like an instant (well, almost instant) makeover. My mother taught me to love the smell of fresh paint. And it's so nice to not be sorry for the tenth time--this MONTH!--that you haven't the energy to pull that shelf out and vacuum behind it...

t

Greetings ruthbru, molly50, and jbeans--

Oh, ruthbru, you can do it! Your painting arm is just warmed up!

This renovation was mandatory--I think they were spending so much on repairs they finally just buckled down and went for it.

They had a problem getting in the total order for the kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors and supposedly those are coming in tomorrow, so to that end I've cleared away things so they can get them installed. I'm prepared for an eight a.m. knock, pulled out the only robe I possess to throw on and run to the front door to tell them they can come in and then duck back into the bedroom, as they arrive so, so early--just as I'm turning in. I'm most decidedly am a night owl!

I also brought into my bedroom a plastic jar that once held fancy rice (you know the kind that Safeway sells--seven bucks for about ten ounces--has a weird name you've never heard of--great package graphics--when you cook it it tastes like papier mache. But the jars are nice!).

I brought it in because the workers will be occupying the bathroom as well as the kitchen to install the doors. (Spanish-speaking, all tiny-seeming to my 6-foot-tall-self, all incredibly sweet-natured and indefatigable workers, God bless 'em... ) (the workers, not the doors).

I learned about the jar trick when last year they had to install a new bathroom heater and I didn't realize it would take as long as it did. Sadly, as soon as I closed my bedroom door, I had to use the bathroom. Numbers one AND two. Boy, that nervous stomach! I was in big trouble! "Being in deep doo-doo" was about to be made literal.

One nice thing about owning a pet: you never know when they'll come in handy. No, Pantaloon didn't "use the bathroom" for me (although I did ask her. "No way, Jose," she huffed.) But just then, while I was in my agony, hearing the jovial workers just feet from my closed bedroom door and envying them their laughter, Panty walked into the closet and used her litter box, which I keep in there. So carefully she raked and raked behind herself, such a lady.

I, of course, couldn't share in her calm as I sat perched on the edge of my bed in misery, rocking as I intoned to the God of Lavatories, "Please, PLEASE let them hurry up and finish!"

It was then that an idea dawned. I didn't even bother to think how "weird" it was, just got up off the bed, opened the closet door, cleared out Panty's litter box of her recent elimination, held onto the closet door, and squatted.

I was instantly reminded of camping out in the woods one summer when I was a kid, and how we dug this latrine and ran a pole from one tree to the next right over it, and then had to balance ourselves on it and, um, somehow go. Even though we'd hung a sheet up, I was certain the boys' side could see us, or at least see me. Plus I almost fell off at one point. When I got home I was so constipated my mom had to give me an enema.

Pantaloon looked at me funny all the rest of the day. Even after I'd completely replaced her litter with fresh and batted her favorite ball around. Even though I explained to her what "any port in the storm" means.

I urge you to not forget this handy resource in times of great need, as I never have.

But I do have my little fancy rice jar handy, just in case.

Just in case I only have to go number one.

t

Hi JBeans and Molly50--

So glad to hear I'm not alone!

One last little bit of remembered angst:

I went to the U of MD Dental School here in town to have some dental work (very good, very thorough, lots cheaper...) but encountered a problem when I learned how glacially slowly the students tend to work. We're so used to our hurryhurryhurry up society, I don't think we know how to act when encountering 19th Century graaaaddddduuuuaaaalllllnnnneeesss.

Anyway, Bayonne (my student's name, not the city) got me set up for a filling. She attached a mouth dam kind of rubber thing that was something Hannibal Lechter might have found intriguing--or any s/m gal or guy. This covers the mouth and allows just the tooth to be worked on to be exposed (I learned that if you pluck it just the right way with your finger it plays "Froggy Went A-Courtin"). I was numbed, the light aimed down at my tooth. Bayonne looked down at me like a new mother with her helpless infant. I could tell she was proud of her rubber damming efforts but I could do no more than mumble and nod by way of appreciating them also.

It was kind of like claustrophobia of the mouth.

Then my bladder suddenly tired of being silent and not-notice-able. That pinching began. I squirmed. I blinked my eyes. I couldn't speak without disrupting the most impressive engineering feat by a 20-year-old since, well, since Noah's nephew wielded a hammer.

But there was no putting off the bladder.

I managed to mumble enough that Bayonne understood what was up.

I saw the cloud slowly glide across her face as she accepted that she'd have to let me go. She pulled off my napkin and withdrew the light. I climbed out of the chair and began to make my way through the circuitous hallways toward the bathroom, the rubber dam still in place, my mouth wide open. I'm sure the students and professors and patients I passed on the way KNEW what was happening, but they still stared in wonder as I passed, some of them frowning, as if to say: "You mean you couldn't wait another little silly hour till your tooth got filled to use the bathroom? Baby! Why didn't you wear a diaper??"

After that experience I learned not to drink lots before an appointment and to decline the rubber mouth dam.

Thanks, dear ruthbru! When the renovation had me in the internet-free Hospitality Suite I did begin the penultimate chapter of the book. It was fun working on it. This ca thing has made me appreciate life's fragility and is a tremendous wake-up call....

t

Thanks, DisneyGirl16...

As a matter of fact, I'm reminded of an event that happened to me back in 1990...

As preface: yesterday I attended a memorial service for my first cousin, who died in December. As her family is scattered, it was decided to have a Celebration of Life service in the spring on the old "family stomping grounds," beginning with a scattering of her ashes down at the river, then a service at our church, then to the church hall for food and visiting and sharing of stories, etc.

I didn't attend the scattering part, but heard an amusing bit from her son. Yesterday fierce winds were whipping and as Phil was tossing his portion of his mother's ashes toward the river, the wind blew it--you got it--right back in his face. While everyone was waiting for him to begin his comment about his mom, he said, rubbing his eye, "I will. Just as soon as I get mom out of my eye."

I'd written a small memory piece about my cousin that I'd asked her husband to read for me as my sinuses are so full and I have a cough with it and didn't trust myself to be able to speak well. But when they all urged me forward and I got up and the mike was turned on, I had to submit and go for it the best I could...

I read and then it was over and was I relieved. No problems!

But the last time I'd had a run-in with speaking-in-public difficulties it hadn't gone as smoothly. This was back when I was in graduate school. Every semester MFA students got to read from their own work in the very posh Katherine Anne Porter Room at the U of Md library, my turn arriving the spring of 1990.

I was the last reader. Not feeling too nervous, I gathered my two-page reading selection from my thesis and headed for the podium at the front of the nice, warm, oriental-carpetted room, replete with photos of Ms Porter, first editions of her works, piano, parquet floor, panelling....

I'd been reading pretty well for about a minute when I felt that distinctive sensation of a huge glob of mucus about to enter my mouth.....this kind of thing, now part of my new normal, was fairly uncommon then--and never something one would wish while reading in front of 40 strangers. Or, for that matter, 40 non-strangers,

There was no stopping gravity's dropping into my mouth what felt like a three-tablespoon-er (like a three dog night but wetter).

What to do? Stop, hawk, swallow? Ask to step from the room and hawk in the hall?

Katherine Anne looked at me from one of her stylish, 40's-style silvery photos, non-blinking eyes telling me to be brave, be strong, be courageous, be a modern woman and not a silly child.....

Yeah, I thought to her, and do WHAT? What does brave and bold do--hawk and swallow? Stand there, frozen? Turn around, bend forward, and back out of the room as gracefully as possible?

I don't know where I got the idea.

I paused in my reading and looked up at my respectful, attentive audience.

"Um," I said in a voice that was quavering, and honesty so. Somehow I'd held back the deluge, which lent my voice this choked, strained sound, sort of like somebody strangling herself. "Does anyone have a Kleenex?"

But I barely got the words out because the glob, a discrete lump about the size of one of those Easter candy turkey eggs we all hated when they appeared in our baskets, chose that moment to enter my mouth.

A woman in the front row almost fell off her chair, her searching hand seeking out a Kleenex in her purse. I went toward her and took the Kleenex and dabbed at my dry nose with much feigned emotion, then returned to the lectern.

What luck! I'd chosen a portion of my story that was sad. It explained my hesitancy, my dabbing-at-my-nose, dabbing at my dry eyes...

Phony choked-up, I continued, hesitantly, my reading. Somewhere in all that, the glob, in a gulp, was handily dealt with. Swallowed.

I finished my piece. I looked up.

Eyes were moist, chins quivered, heads were feelingly tipped. How glad I was to have an audience of Katherine Anne-type women and a scattering of poetry-loving male students!

That day's readings concluded.

As I made my way back to my chair, people stood and came toward me, took my hands, looked deeply into my lying eyes.

"You're a real writer!" one woman exclaimed.

(As opposed to what? I wanted to ask. An un-real one?)

Another stepped close.

"What a moving piece that was!" she said.

"Yep," I wanted to say. "It moved a hunk of snot down my throat like you wouldn't BELIEVE!"

I nodded.

"It does get me a little misty," I admitted, so glad I'd chosen that portion of my thesis, a novel called Diesel Mornings about truckers and truck stops, where the narrator is talking to her Parkinson's-ridden father and not the selection where she's asking two burly truckers what makes good truck stop chili and do hookers really hang out there...