Cabin Fever, Anyone?

Bob and I (and I'm certain nearly everyone on the east coast) are sick of winter. Period. And yes, there are warming glimmers of spring in the longer days, the songs of returning birds and the increasing angle of the sun's rays. But we are still locked in frozen luge runs from here to the barn and we are awaiting this week's installment of mid-western storm front. Hopefully we get rain, not that white residue.
But yesterday, I correctly ascertained that a change of venue was called for, so Bob and I bundled ourselves off to New Haven to view art at the newly and wondrously enlarged Yale Art Galleries.
For anyone who has been, you know just what a treat it is. There is three times the space to show art, and accordingly, there is three times the amount of Yale's amazing collection on view. We had visited the galleries in an afternoon spent with several friends from the Boston area, but as we were visiting, Bob and I had felt we'd probably missed a lot. And we were right. Every where we turned yesterday, we saw more rooms and more work that we had previously missed. It is a great way to spend the afternoon on a gloomy day. We ran into a couple of friends and had a cup of coffee and generally came back revivified.
Any artist knows that it is important to get out of your own head and space and see other artists' work. Sometimes, being immersed in your own work is wonderful and just where you need to be. But yesterday was one of those mini-field trips that cleared up quite a few dark crawly corners.
And for those of you who have not been (deranged by cabin fever or not!) drive down to New Haven and see art... for free. We are so lucky to have this resource and so close to home!
Favorites yesterday? For some reason, I was hit by a couple of Stuart Davis' large sorta abstract paintings. They're geometric and playful, hard edge and wiggly at the same time. Bob admired two nice Kara Walker pieces with silhouettes super imposed over black and white prints. Also, funny things caught our eyes: ancient coins and a Tom Wesselmann that Bob liked. Something new everywhere we looked!

It's Not Easy Being Clean

Gee, I do get to air our worst moments on this blog, don't I? I have no shame!
If you remember my previous blog, I was opining about the state of our house and how it was singing out for a good cleaning. An unfortunate chain of events forced me to have to wash the bathroom floor. And no, that picture above isn't BEFORE; this picture was taken AFTER I washed the bathroom floor... But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I went out this miserable cold, windy, icy morning to feed and water our beloved mare Maggie. With her looking on, I raked out and re-bedded the barn. In all this winter awfulness, she's taken to pissing mightily in her stall. It smells like an accident at the ammonia factory and there are plenty of forkfuls of piss soaked bedding to contend with. (I am seriously considering getting a hundred or so of those little trees that people dangle from their car mirrors and festooning her stall!) I am piling this debris sky-high onto an
emergency manure pile. In all the ice and snow, it has been nigh on impossible to transport the manure offerings to the official pile, so by the gate it resides. It really is hard to be as tidy as we usually are- our horse pasture typically looks pretty spic-and-span. Now it looks like one of those farms condemned for
unsanitary conditions.
So I went back in the house to prepare for my morning walk with Jules. Instead of shedding my boots and carrying them to the other door, I left them on. And then I went upstairs. It hadn't occurred to me that my boots would thaw out and all this lovely horse piss scented snow would dribble behind me, up the stairs and pool in an odoriferous brown slurry beneath my hooves at the bathroom sink. Until I was brushing my teeth and this really bad smell hits me and I realize that it's me.

(Where else on the Internet are you going to see piles of horse shit?)
Anyway, while on my walk, Bob cleaned up the stairs and I when I got back, I vacuumed and then Pine Sol-led the floor. And it gleamed and I felt very righteous. So happy was I that I thought as a finishing touch I would empty the waste basket and all would be fresh and nice. Instead, the above accident occurred and the garbage bag didn't open all the way and all those nasty Q-tips and kleenexes and used dental floss strands stuck together with bits of yesterday's spinach came spilling forth. What is the story of no good deed going unpunished? More shit!

A Brief Exploration of Time- That Leads Nowhere

(I fully expect that this post will be tedious for anyone except the narrator, much like other people's dreams. I accept the fact that most of what I say here will be hackneyed and predictable and provoke a well-deserved yawn. Therefore, you have my tacit permission to simply enjoy the pictures (of two objects I got for free from work! They were to be tossed out!) and get on about your day's business and ignore my purple prose!)
Ahem. I can't help but wonder all the cliched things about time- like where it goes. I think I'm a pretty good manager of time- MY time- and yet lately I seem to be experiencing this remarkable lack of time. I have heard that that's a fact of growing older: that time passes more quickly. Part of me is sure that the acceleration of time occurs because "they" have thought up so very many way to spend it. (I suspect I'm considering Facebook, oil changes, going to work, posting to one's blog...)
Perhaps worthy of contemplation here is the anecdote (by way of John Cage) about Arnold Schoenberg. Apparently he had a piano student that hadn't finished her assignment. When asked why, she responded, "I had no time". Arnold Schoenberg asked her, "How many hours are there in a day?" She answered, "Twenty four". Schoenberg responded, "There are as many hours in a day as you put there". Nice!

But small things do chew up the day. I should be cleaning our house; both bathrooms will soon be condemned and the kitchen floor is giving me nightmares. But would I rather get into my studio and try and accomplish some of the thirty thousand ideas and projects that are swirling around in my head? Or have a clean house... No, that's too easy a question. When do other people do things like purchase dental floss or organize the last five years worth of tax documents or strip wallpaper or sort their socks?
So instead of cleaning the house, I made silly computer drawings and tried to work on a collage project. Somehow I never feel like I've done enough. I was awash in the awful sensation that I hadn't accomplished a bloody thing in months. Then I came across several completed projects that should have allayed my insecurities... but did it? No. I found myself feeling doomed and condemned to grind away in obscurity.
I suppose frittering away one's day worrying about where the time goes is the opposite of a Zen approach where you are so in the moment that you never project onto every other bloody thing you could/should be doing. But isn't that what anxiety is all about? The inability to "be here now" because you're preoccupied with what ifs and why me-s and whens.

Anyway, I really liked the dragon plate and the weird little Italian sculpture of a knight and horse falling. I would have purchased either one but free is a-okay. And odd objects help to distract and redirect all that scattered energy. I guess we all worry that things (like our lives) stream past in a blur... and we're supposed to make every minute count. I know I'm not solving any of this here and now, but I guess it was worth spending twenty minutes putting up a post.

Happy Valens Gras/ Mardi Tart's Day!

Because I had to rearrange my work schedule (again) due to freezing rain and because I thought I was having a yoga class on Tuesday night (cancelled due to continued snow removal), Bob and I chose to celebrate Fat Tuesday and Valentine's Day as a sort of ComboHoliday last night (that would be Wednesday). We had this truly beautiful and utterly delicious quiche that Bob whipped up. I can think of a few other things that Bob wanted to whip...
Like the Price Gougin', Fast Talkin' Pugnacious Snow Plowin' A- Hole that tried to rip us off. Don't get either one of us started! The punchline is that after several calls from me, the neighbors and Bob, this little creep actually showed up at our doorstep and returned our check. I seriously suspect that he was worried that we'd report him to the better Business Bureau or the Attorney General's office. People who take advantage of people suck. I think we'll try and buy a snow blower. Or maybe teach Maggie to drag the driveway; isn't that what they used to do?
Of course, now I'm pulling phone numbers out of the local paper for snow plow possibles if we're unlucky enough to have more excrement fall from the sky this winter. What about that stinkin' groundhog? Didn't he predict that spring was right around the corner? And we're supposed to have very cold temperatures this weekend and maybe more snow early next week...

The Whiteness of the Whale of a Snow Storm

Yuk yuk yuk! Bet you thought I'd put up a couple of pictures of snow, like everyone else? That's further down the page! For now, you have to be content with a peculiar computer drawing I did during the blizzard.
Our friend Nemo did not disappoint. We had a good (bad?) two feet of snow, but we hear Trumbull and points south had almost 40 inches... that's a whole lot of snow. Bob and I spent most of the day shoveling, an endeavour that I suppose almost everyone we know enjoyed today. The driveway is still virgin driftiness.
No, I take that back. We were finally plowed and then it became clear that the snowplow man was reneging on his agreed price; 50 shades of extortion. He took our check and then got loads more money from our neighbors- we were supposed to be splitting the cost. Needless to say, many phone calls have flown back and forth and we have yet to resolve this satisfactorily! I'm sympathetic that there is a lot of snow (A LOT OF SNOW) but you can't just change an agreed upon price. The perfidy of plowmen!
Here are some requisite photos. I know; they're redundant as we ALL have too much snow.

Or then there's this stunning shot of the truck:

I'm certain this does nothing to improve our humor. We also shoveled the path all the way down to Bob's studio. That's no mean feat as his studio is way past the barn. No pictures of that! We did manage to emerge from our crystalline squalor and go to the supermarket and secure things like milk and eggs. People were parked rather randomly in the parking lot; a scene of snow-induced psychosis. We are very tired now!

Finding Nemo (On Your Doorstep)

Villkommen Nemo! Yeah, we're ready... we've got provisions. Bob filled plastic containers with water, and made bread and pea soup. I secured crunchy things in bags and a box of wine (seemed provision-y). We have two gigantic canisters of Trader Joe's coffee of which Bob thoughtfully pre-ground a goodly supply, just in case the power goes out. (That famous October snowstorm of 2011 left us with pounds of coffee that we tried to grind in a mortar and pestle. It took an hour to get the grounds fine enough.) We have a full bag of Doggy Wellness for Jules and a fresh bag of pelleted beet pulp and Equine Senior for Maggie. So bring on that snow.
I watched a few apocalyptic prognosticators on the weather channel, upping the ante as to size and shape of this storm. (Stop with the "Snowmaggedan" already!) There was an over-excited young woman in an oddly fitting green top, flailing and flapping her arms describing what may come. Her male counterpart was bald and stoic (with a zaftig mid-section) who kept drawing upward thrusting arrows to explain the path of the storm; they looked like sexual diagrams. One computer model had Boston being blessed with 60" of snow. They had to add that this was a program that meant this wasn't likely but COULD occur given just the right (or wrong) conditions. They still aren't certain what we're in for. It's snowing here, but not blizzard-like.
Not yet...

But our stream looked nice; all kind of partly froze up yet still flowing. The snow was too fine to photograph well this morning, but I'll try for a late afternoon white-out shoot out. I trust that all my beloved friends and family and fellow artists are at home in their studios and not driving around into some snow bank. Stay safe!

Accidents Will Happen...

On returning form our morning ramble, this is what greeted me and Jules in our driveway after a light snowfall. Bob swept a magical checkerboard into the dusting of the evil white stuff- making it almost tolerable. Somehow this winter, I am just NOT in the mood for snow. Or cold.
Jules and I have a had a few interesting mini-disasters on our walks recently. The first episode occurred when Jules decided to not pick up the giant log and instead opted for an innocent appearing twig. In typical canine enthusiastic form Jules chomped down on said twig, which promptly snapped off, lodging itself firmly between Jules upper teeth, all across the roof of his mouth. I suppose it was the equivalent of having a giant piece of food wedged in between your molars and no dental floss in sight. As he was obviously in distress, I gingerly pried his lip up and immediately started gibbering unhelpfully, "Oh poor Jules; omigod, omigod that must feel awful". I was trying to insert a tentative forefinger into his mouth, all the while aware that in pain and  terror, he could easily bite down on my tender digit. We made it home, all thought of a pleasant walk abandoned. Jules was so uncomfortable and was looking to Bob and I to assist him. Bob suggested he procure pliers and attempt to wrestle it from Jules mouth, but at that very minute with my now leather glove clad finger, I was able to loosen one side and Plonk! the stick was freed. No harm was done as Jules immediately wanted to go chase snowballs.
The next incident was of my own making. I do a good deal of what I term "wool gathering" on my walks with Jules. That is, I am lost in thought and absentmindedly do stupid things, like walk into trees or fall down unexpectedly. This particular adventure falls into the latter category. There was a small rock, no bigger than a lump of coal. It was in the middle of the dirt road and I thought to be of service and kick said stone out of the way to prevent a jogger or walker from stubbing their toe on it. The problem was that Mother Nature seems to have Super Glued that stone to the ice so that I caught the toe of my boot and went "tail over teacup" so to speak. The next thing I know, I'm cheek to cheek with the dirt road and Jules is bounding over and hoping to rouse me with wet slurps of his tongue (which three second previous had no doubt been licking something delicious like raccoon feces). It did the trick, though, and revived by my canine savior, I righted myself with nothing damaged.
This is what the driveway had looked like earlier: