BIZARRE BAZAAR THIS WEEK!

Do you live in or near Portland, Oregon? Come do your day-after-Thanksgiving where it will benefit local artists! I'd love to meet you, if we haven't already met, and love seeing you again if we have.



In case the type on the flyer is too small, here's the pertinent info:

When:
Friday, Nov. 28, 2pm-8pm
Saturday, Nov. 29, 10am-5pm
Where:
SMILE Station
8210 SE 13th
Portland, OR

FRIDAY FENCE POST #11

So, I recounted. Last week was #10; this is #11.

Two fences this week. They are both nearly invisible, one because of what's in front of it, and the other because of what's piled behind it.

I nearly laughed aloud when I saw this first one. For some reason, it just strikes me funny. I find myself wondering whether it's a fence or a loosely-woven basket. This fence was not, by the way, hidden in some back area on an unpaved and pot-holed alley. Nope. Right on the street, in someone's front yard. But I have to admit my yard sometimes gets away from me, too, so maybe I shouldn't say anything more!



Don't make me release the flying debris!


Now, the next one, I'll have to confess I was hoping there was a fence in there somewhere, because I loved the color and form of the yellow bamboo. There is!





Look closely. The fence itself was about four feet high, but almost completely hidden.





Oh, man. I want a "fence" like this one.





Yellow sticks, walking





Yellow, green, blue--like angular flowers, or cranes' legs

TUNE 1: VARIOUS STAGES OF DECLINE

I've been wanting to put some of my music online for years now. I decided today was the day, in spite of the difficulties I was having. I don't know how to have an mp3 hosted somewhere, although I know for a fact that I could do that. YouTube takes only video files, so I couldn't just upload the music there. Finally, it occurred to me to play the tunes in the Windows Media Player and record the randomization with the music with my camera.

My apologies for the clicking noise. It's my camera, and I can't seem to keep it from making it.

This tune is titled "Various Stages of Decline". It was written by my dear friend Paul Lerman, and you'll hear him on bazouki (picture a mandolin with 8 strings and a very long neck), and me on flute.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

BURGUNDY LEAF, POETRY FOR AUTUMN

A brief entry today. One poem that I wrote, and a more visual one, by God.

Harvest Time

August sings a turbulent song
That rustles the grass as it tumbles along,
Then harvest comes to lay the fields bare,
And October weeps for the stubble there,
'Til Winter, in mercy, covers it o'er
And holds its breath for the Spring in store,
When Earth drinks joy as storm clouds sigh,
And fields sprout life as old seeds die,
And the head of grain in dust bowed down
Will rise up green, with a spiky crown.



Burgundy, Black, and Gray

FEATURED: STORY BEADER

This month's featured Etsy Blogger is Story Beader. There's a reason for her name: Each of her creations comes with a story. I know that if I were wearing her jewelry, I'd be thinking of the story behind the piece each time I put it on, which gives a dimension to her work you don't usually find.

I just clicked through all the offerings in her Etsy store, and chose six favorites to show you. Here they are:



You can click on any image and be taken right to it in her shop. You can also read and smile through her blog here: http://storybeader.blogspot.com/ It's a pretty, and pleasant stroll through an artist's life, one I'm sure you'll enjoy!

THANKSGIVING A NEW WAY

I'm thinking about Thanksgiving. It will be different this year. It's our first Thanksgiving without Dad.

What are my favorite Thanksgiving traditions? We don't, didn't, really have that many. Get the entire family together, mix in a few compatible friends, usually people who live far from their own families, cook an enormous dinner amidst considerable hubbub and confusion, eat too much, and then play.


An after-dinner game of spoons

Mom and Dad have the biggest house, and it's always made sense for all of us to gather there, but Mama, now eighty-three years old, is finding the commotion a little hard to deal with. It isn't so much the cooking, I think, it's all of her kids, and the spouses, and the grandchildren chattering at once, and the lovely but inconvenient fact that we all tend to cluster in the kitchen.



You can't see them, but there are at least 3 other people in this kitchen, all busy!


Picture a kitchen, large enough, to be sure, but a kitchen where a feast is being prepared. The turkey. Giblets simmering on the stove. Potatoes being peeled at the sink. Sweet potato casserole being put together at the counter. Veggie Dessert, home-made cranberry sauce, gravy, dinner rolls, and more, all in various stages of preparation by at least three cooks at a time. Now add a couple of men and women standing around or sitting at the kitchen bar, drinking coffee, nibbling whatever they can get their hands on, a phone call or two from miles-distant friends and relatives, and three or four toddlers dashing through or clamoring for drinks, hugs, or attention. It is, in a word, pandemonium.


Typical scene from the next room

I called Mom last week, knowing her stress level was already ratcheting up as she played the memories in her mind, no doubt adding the weight of Dad's absence, and said, "Mom, I have an idea. Bob and I will be there a couple of days ahead of time. Let's make a list of..."

"Anitra, I always make lists! I have a menu list, a shopping list, a list of which dishes to use. It just doesn't help when there are so many people!"

"Mom, that's good, but I'm talking about a different kind of list." And I explained, "When I chaired the Revels auction, I knew that once we were in the space there'd be dozens of people coming to me, wanting to know what they could do, and I needed to not have to answer questions about it all afternoon, so I could get my own work done. I made up a list called, 'What Can I Do?' and taped it to one of the tables."

"Ohhh," Mom said. She was getting it.

"If anyone asked what they could do," I went on, "I said, 'Check the list on the table; take a task; and mark it off.' We're going to do that for this Thanksgiving. We'll put, 'Set the table' on it, and specify which dishes to use. 'Ask people what they want to drink' will be another, and 'Put ice in the glasses'. We'll just list everything that will need to be done, and then you won't have to answer fifty million questions on top of everything else."

She liked it! She liked! Makes me smile to think I may have taken a teensy bit of the work off her shoulders.

But traditions. Is what I've written a tradition, all that commotion? It's a loving and happy laughter-filled cacophony, but I'm not sure that's a tradition.

The traditions I can think of center around Dad. Dad at the head of the table, Mom holding sway at the other end. Dad asking, "What are you grateful for? Let's go around the table, and everyone say what they're Thankful for this year." Dad leading the prayer.




Dad carving the turkey. Dad helping himself to ham, his "favorite fruit". Dad getting a bunch of us around the table in the evening to play cards, keeping score in his elegant handwriting, using his own system of columns and initials. Dad. After the food, it's all about Dad.






This is not going to be easy.

MY BOOTH TAKES FIRST PRIZE

Yesterday was Holiday Faire at Cascade College, their, oh, I don't know, forty-somethingth annual sale, and my third at the college. It may be the last one for both, all, of us. The college will close at the end of the spring semester. Feels weird, to think the college I attended won't exist anymore.

This being my third year, I knew one very important thing: The gym, where they hold the sale, is large, but quite dark. The first year I did it, it felt like having my booth set up in a garage. Off-putting atmosphere for shopping, and I didn't want to repeat that.

Last year I brought an LED light strip and a couple of battery-operated LED spot lights. It wasn't enough, and the batteries died before the end of the day.

This year I was prepared. At every estate sale I went to for weeks this summer, I kept my eyes open for those clamp-on work lights. I now have five, and paid a dollar each for them, and when I set up my booth Friday, one went in each upper corner of the booth, and then a string of mini-lights went the length of the two tables, the red bulbs surrounded by "silk" poinsettia petals. That was a Goodwill score--$2.99, and really pretty! Oh, and I didn't put the canopy on, to let even more light in. The organizers like you to set up an actual booth, to create sort of a "village" look, so I put up just the frame, and wrapped tinsel garland on the front and open side.

I was glad I took my camera, to get pictures. Here's the booth:

Long shot of my booth




A stand of China and Mega Blossoms




The Gift Bags table




Gift Bags, closer


They really do encourage decorated booths at this event, to the extent that they give awards for the best three. Guess what? Mine took First Prize! No actual prize attached to that, but the ego stroke works nicely for me.

The last shot shown here is of the new gift bags. They're lying flat in big flat baskets (another Goodwill find, and again, just $2.99 each. Yay!), but I put items in all three bag types to show how the gift bags looked when you did them up. I was a little surprised to see how many people still needed an explanation/demonstration, but was happy to give it, of course, and later one of the other vendors came by to tell me that a woman who'd bought several of the bags was so enthusiastic about her purchase that she pulled them out to show off and demonstrate herself! Cool!

Now all I have to do is get them photographed and up on Etsy.

The sale went well, and three of Mama's aprons sold (YES!!) as well as a goodly amount of my own stuff. It took several hours on Friday to set up, and I had an unexpected VERY late night, got up early and was at the venue by eight am, without benefit of breakfast or coffee (thank goodness they had coffee there!). I subsisted on coffee and cheese sticks until the show ended at four, with tear-down afterwards, but enjoyed the day.

Three of my grandkids were there, which was wonderful, and we got to visit for a while. Justin cracked up when he saw the tag line for the Coffee Pot People--"Inside every coffee pot is some poor soul standing on its head"--and I turned one of the little guys upside down for Adrienne, because at eight years of age she wasn't quite getting the joke.

"If this coffee pot were in someone's kitchen," I explained to Adrienne, "it would be like this." And there was this "person", coffee pot now right side up, but face and body upside down, standing on its head. "Imagine spending your whole life like that!" I said, eliciting a delighted exclamation from her.

There were other people there from my student days, which was sweet, and we visited. In the background of each conversation was the knowledge that we usually see each other only once a year, at this sale. The school is closing. Will this be the last visit in a long while?

By the time I got home, I was too tired to fix dinner, but Bob wasn't hungry, so I ate reheated soup, wine and cookies, and was so tired I went to bed before seven. What a day!