health care

happy birthday eiffel tower!

travel

Travel, usually on my mind practically all the time, has been on my mind even more than usual lately.

Even doodles end up looking like compasses.

I draw maps, I make plans.

Like most people who love to travel, I love to travel. 

Unlike most people (at least, as far as they let on) who love to travel, however, I also dread it. 

It's so hard!

Who goes on one of those travel shows and talks about how they had to get to the airport in Rome for a plane at 5 am and there was no train that early so they had to take a taxi at 11 pm the night before only it wasn't an authorized taxi because those were all already off-duty, it was a very sketchy unofficial taxi and the only language you shared with the taxi driver after running through all the options was French, and yours is patchy at best, and you decided on a price before you got in and it was all you had but it was less than he wanted so you thought he might try to extract the remainder from you some other way (horror) and sure enough the whole way there he told you how "belle" you were and at one point even looked like he was about to exit the highway in some deserted location and you had your hand on the car door handle the whole time, gripping it, ready to fling yourself out of the car if need be, and you got there, to the airport, and then spent the whole night on an upper floor looking down at the people cleaning the floors below, and reading most of Anna Karenina...

Or about how they got stuck in a small room in a youth hostel with two young women with the longest and most mysterious night-time beauty regimens in the history of womankind and a serious case of jet-lag, the combination of which had almost murderous results?

In my complicated wanderlust, I dug up some old drawings that made me smile:

Eating is complicated for me when I travel. I want to eat everything. If I could, I would have 5 or 6 meals a day. Plus snacks, and coffee breaks.

Of course, I LOVE to travel.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

christina's tart

Here is my (at least a thousand-word-long) ode to the chocolate tart that Christina made yesterday…no, it wasn't purple and green, but I think these colors express how each part tasted to me. 

Dark chocolate interior, pastry crust with ground almonds.

Thank you, Christina!

You are an inspiration.

jake

This cat and I have a storied past. 

He used to have an intense, deep, undeniable yearning to BE OUTSIDE at every moment. 

His owner, however, wished him to stay inside. We live in a city; it's probably not safe for a kitty to be sauntering about on the streets at all hours. 

But still the desire lived inside Jake; this was his jungle cat existence manifesting itself despite his temporary outward circumstances. 

Every time the door opened, his muscles sprang and he was there; only the quickest of human reflexes could shut the door again before he was out. 

My reflexes were not always so quick. My mind was not always on the task at hand (closing the door).

So: we were engaged in constant battle. One summer night at about 1 am, he got out on my watch. I sat on the back stoop, waiting for him to tire of taunting me (exploring) and come back. After almost an hour, my weary eyes caught a glimpse of him sliding around the corner of the garage. 

Ah! I thought, I will just go catch him. 

I wound my arms around him and made to escape towards the house, but in a flash I saw his angry eyes glint and he was all claws and teeth. One piercing snarl and he was gone. I still have a scar on my arm from that night. (He did eventually come back ("what, you've been waiting for me?") around 2:30 am.)

 Jake passed away about 2 months ago, and we miss him terribly. He was a good cat. He was spoiled and haughty and loving and beautiful, all those things that a cat should be. 

crafting time

Time happens to us, but we also shape it.
I like to draw my calendar, to viscerally remind myself of this fact.
And because it's fun.

home

I've been participating in a new sketch blog with a wonderful group of inspiring and encouraging artists (see button at the right on this blog: Paper, Paint, Pencils and Pens!). 

Here's a new painting of my cup… which jumped out of the cupboard and broke its handle (I glued it back together but couldn't find one little piece):

My guitar, hanging out, looking out the window: 

And a clipping from a plant, growing roots in a champagne bottle...

…and finally finding a home in a pot (at the left in this picture) next to a very lengthy sibling (I have to coil it up as it grows) and a little jade plant.

several scribbles

What have I been doing? Well…singing! And playing!
We (at the Kanack School of Music) had a wonderful chamber music concert last weekend, so much fun, playing Ignaz Pleyel (a trio I'd never heard) (before playing it of course) and the Brahms sextet in B flat. And I got to turn pages for Paul Schoenfield's Cafe Music, a hair-raising and wonderful experience!

Andy made a beautiful poster for the event which unfortunately I don't have in digital form or I would display it for you here.

So…

I have been learning and singing some Italian songs, and in order to help me keep all the parts straight, my teacher (the stupendous Teryle Watson) suggested that I find some way to visually represent them. I thought you might like to see some of these funny little scraps of paper that I come up with:

That was my first attempt, for Alma del core.

A little more squiggly, Sebben crudele.

Here, "just" w o r d s:

Amarilli, mia bella

(I dropped this one at work and Andy found it and said he knew it was mine because of the star at the top)

And here's a kind of hybrid, for Brahms' Wie Melodien zieht es mir:

Many of them are the worse for wear, after being toted around in wind, rain and snow...

And finally, a little scribble of me and Michelle playing a few weeks ago (yes, by me - how did I draw and play at the same time, you ask? :) )