On Not Sleeping

Last night, in yet another failed attempt to sleep, I got up and accomplished quite a bit on the above piece. I sewed around all the inner edges of the letters, where the intersect and overlap the insert of horizontal fabric. I'm glad I had something to do, but I sure would rather have been asleep, leaving the artwork for day time.
Do I need to tell you that not sleeping sucks? Of course not. I'm tired, I'm not thinking clearly, I've lost some of the edge of my sense of humor, I'm probably not making a whole lot of sense and hell, I worry that my judgement has gone out the window. (Someone stop me if I consider voting for Ted Cruz. That's what lack of sleep can do to you. Snark, snark, snark.

That mug would wake the dead!! My eyes! As Robert Reich cogently pointed out in a 4 point presentation, Ted is even scarier than The Donald.)
So here I am again, at 3:21 in the a.m. wide awake and posting a blog that leaps from my latest art work to weirdo republicans in a single bound. But I guess this beats lying in bed, debating the (un) merits of getting up versus restlessly turning from side to side, trying to convince yourself that you're almost a sleep. Surprise! You're not!
There is that mysterious moment when you feel immersed in pool of almost not-consciousness and you just let go and slip into sleep, if it's going to happen. The "if it's going to happen" is crucial because if it's not happening, you spring back up like, "Hello! I'm actually wide awake!!" I've become really good at that part. Contemplating that moment of suspension and surrender is not helpful because if your twitching monkey brain is busy analyzing the threshold of sleep instead of simply crossing it, you're not sleeping.
So here I am, the only being awake for miles around, hoping to finish up this blog posting so that I can go back to the bedroom and drift off. I know that since Jules the Dog died, my sleep patterns have gone to hell. In the past if I occasionally couldn't sleep, Jules saw it as his duty to keep my company. Now, even not sleeping makes me miss Jules...
I am hoping that the impending (some time mid week?!?!?) arrival of our latest bundle of canine joy will assist in recovering the ability to sleep soundly. But I do need to take into consideration the fact that small puppies who are not house trained need to be taken outside every two or three hours. That'll do wonders for my not sleeping!

A Eulogy for Jules 2010-2016

What can I say about Jules the Dog now that he's gone? I loved him; we loved him. He was a wonderful dog. It is too terrible contemplating our present lives, without Jules. He was our constant companion and a vital force of nature. The house is too quiet and very empty.
Jules loved snow and tennis balls and chasing squirrels and carrying large sticks. He was silly and funny and smart and tolerant of my off-key singing of atrocious songs in his praise. (I know he secretly loved hearing my nonsense tunes, extolling his virtues, even though he rolled his eyes and acted embarrassed.) He was a truly handsome dog. He wasn't even six...
He has been gone almost a week. I have left a bowl of water for him in case some spirit incarnation of his is thirsty and needs a drink. His tennis balls are here, buried under the snow. I haven't been able to go for a walk yet without him. I have cleaned up all his silky black dust kittens (and he did know how to shed constantly!) but I would gladly have fur-encrusted stairs if it meant that Jules was here. Fuck a clean house!
As is apparent to anyone who follows this blog or was fortunate enough to have met him, Jules was a star.

Things to be Thankful For

I don't know about you, but I'm plenty thankful for lovely mushrooms like the ones above that are growing on a stump in our back yard. They look like constellations. Here's the whole group of them:

I think they're as nice as anything I could have planted.
So here's a bulleted list of reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving season:

• For Bob! He's a great guy and a good cook. Plus, he and our good friend Joe finished my studio ceiling the other day. Yaaayyy!!!
• Jule the Dog; the perfect dog who's only psychotic like .09% of the time.
• Maggie the Mexican Pony who may have soundness issues of late, but is a very nice horse.
• My studio- with new ceiling or not, one of my absolute favorite places to spend my time.
• Good friends and family members. They don't vote republican and they're not total weasels.
• A car that got me home yesterday. Although it threatened to leave me screaming at the side of the road, it came through and made it into the yard.
• For Stop and Shop being open today, although it is Thanksgiving. Bob and I sort of didn't really plan ahead as our family wasn't celebrating until later in the week. So we didn't consider that maybe other people (like the ones that work at stores) should be with their families. We were able to purchase ingredients to make Quesadillas and pumpkin pie for tonight. (Frozen, on sale pumpkin but pie none the less!)

So there! That's my 2015 list. Happy Thanksgiving!

Wildlife Tragedies and Mysteries

Last Sunday morning was truly awful. I fed Maggie and was on my way into the house to eat toast with Bob, when I spied Jules standing stock still over by the fence, staring intently at something. I say "something" as I wander around outside quite often with no contact lens in my good eye and I miss things. I had to get very close to Jules and I'm thinking he sees a squirrel or the neighbor's dog.. But then I realize, with my nose almost on the fence, that he's looking a grey think IN the fence. I think it's a leaf or a mushroom (I am half asleep) and I'm on top of the fence and Jules before it dawns on me that it's the hind end of a bunny, stuck at a really weird angle. I realized this poor bunny is stuck in the fence, and probably hurt. Poor Jules was very good and realized that I was upset as he followed me without a protest straight into the house.
I retrieved Bob, safety glasses, two pairs of heavy leather gloves and a pair of tin snips. Bob and I set to work, trying to free the obviously badly injured rabbit from the fence. When he was finally free, he slide in a pathetic little heap of bunny fur on the other side of the fence and Bob and I agreed that there was only one humane thing to do.
Bob went and got a sharp shovel and I carried the badly hurt rabbit to a clear spot on the other side of the fence and finished him off. At this point, I'm crying (it was very sad!) and it's raining and it couldn't have gotten more gloomy or tragic if we'd scripted it. I buried the bunny and put a small bouquet of late chrysanthemums and yellow amsonia leaves on his grave. So much for Sunday morning.

And today, the next Sunday (and a time change one at that: I'm confused, as usual about what time it REALLY is) I go outside with Jules to feed Maggie and there's another wildlife mystery. There's a large pile of some kind of poo in the yard, right by the long border. I almost stepped in it- isn't that what piles of shit are all about? Anyway, that's it in the picture. Obviously some wild thing as it looks nothing like neatly formed dog poops. This is someone messy who eats seeds and god knows what else... maybe a bear? I got a shovel and disposed of it (heavy!) and then realized that Maggie's fence is bent right by her water basin, like something heavy had climbed over it. Later I discovered another section of bent fencing. I have to deduce that some sizable beast scaled the fence, no doubt terrifying our horse in the mean time, and took a heroic dump on the yard. I hope they had fun!

Spring and Normal (What ever that is...)

Here's Maggie curled up in the sun and enjoying the first warm weather like a cat. She even tried grazing today, although I think she's betraying a healthy dose of wishful thinking as the grass hasn't begun to really emerge just yet. And every hair on that horse's body is falling out- an avalanche of shedding! I considered saddling up the splendid palfrey and trying to ride, but the wind was so fierce I decided against it. (Wind makes horses very high!)
We heard peepers, tentative, but peepers sounding off last night after I got home from work. I could hardly believe my ears. I think the only one sorry to see the snow recede is Jules who prefers snowballs to almost anything- even tennis balls. There's one small patch of snow by the horse barn that is my reservoir for snowball activity, and Jules is making sure that none of it goes to waste. He and I took a super long walk today; we just kind of kept going. I'm sure the suddenly nicer weather has put me in a better mood about being outside.
And I had my first "normal" day of working in my studio in a while. I bought paper the other day as I feel a collage series coming on. Today I just got into my studio and it felt like home. I began to make a mess and sort of fool around. That's what it takes! I think the extreme weather this winter (remember all that cold and snow?) and my showing in NYC and the hectic schedule of work... all of it contributed to my feeling a bit out of alignment. But now that the weather has changed, I feel like creativity is reawakening.
And Bob and I are starting some seeds tonight! That's a sure sign of a Spring full moon!

Jules was getting jealous that I hadn't featured a picture of him, so here he is. The funny thing about this photo is that Jules looks so small... like a little tiny puppy. Maybe it was the angle.

A New Leash on Life

People don't believe me when I say that Jules and I wear out our leashes. This is the one I "retired" this morning. We go through a new, twelve foot long leash every two months or so. Reliably! I should have bought stock in this company. But what with dragging the leash every day along the paved road, and the dirt road and it gets wet and muddy and covered in snow; I'm honestly surprised we don't wear them out more frequently. By the time I notice that we need a new one, it's been knotted and re-tied in an effort to reinforce the frayed wreck that it has been reduced to. At this stage, I'm always afraid that Jules will run after a squirrel or something and simply break the leash. Tomorrow, we start on a new one.
Here's the little weasel himself:

A shot from this summer that I never used- I thought we could all use a picture of warmth and green. No, I promise, I will not mention rain, snow, fog, and weather what- have- yous.Suffice it to say, Jules is always happy no matter what the weather. Look at that smile! I don't know what he's graduating from, but I'll bet he aced all the tests. (A random balloon that blew into Maggie's pasture last summer.)
And on a rather different note, my artist's book proposal, "Better Guns and Gardens" was selected for inclusion in a show this November at Artspace in New Haven. I need to send a big "thank you" to a good friend, Joan Fitzsimmons (a wonderful photographer) for persisting in suggesting that I submit to this show. I had read the call for entries and had been dismissive, until a great idea for a quirky mash up presented itself to me- hey presto! on my morning walk with Jules. So you see, there is a circular logic to this posting. I get the best ideas on my morning walk with Jules, wearing out those leashes.