Vet visit and another mini

I finished this little fella last night. This piece measures just under 1.5" x 1.5", and was done with watercolors along with sepia pen & ink. It's called Mr. Elf's Butterfly Kiss, and I put it up for sale on eBay. I'm fairly certain it won't sell, but doing the eBay thing keeps me off the streets. Actually, I have sold two things so far there.

Today was Luna kitty's visit to the vet. She had this lump on her belly that I thought at first was a tick. The lump had grown to the size of a large pea, or small marble.

The vet took one look at it and said the dark spot was actually a nipple. She wanted to know if Luna had been spayed later in life, and starting mumbling stuff about mammary tumors...I nearly died. Then she started squeezing the lump gently--not a peep out of Luna--and, as Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up--this long thing started coming out of the nipple, first brown then white. She continued to squeeze while I stood there with my mouth open and John helped hold Luna, and this thing about an inch and three quarters came out of the nipple! "Oh, that's good, it's just a cyst", she said, while I tried not to cry.

Well, I guess Luna got her back...after her shots, the vet took her in the back to see if they could get some blood and a urine sample. The tech came back to the room and said they needed the carrier. "Is she like this at home?" they wanted to know. A few looks and comments got passed around. We took the carrier, went out the door, and I burst out laughing. Just so you know, we had warned them.

That was draining. I had this irrational sort of flash where I thought maybe I had somehow given her breast cancer. Naturally, since I'm guilty of every evil the cosmos has ever been host to.

But my little bitch Luna is going to be fine.

Ooooooo.....

Merci, beaucoup (bowing) -
.
May

talent knows no bounds!

May's art is really quite good for someone who swears to not have any artistic ability. I love the labyrinth lady! She is unbelievably excellent!

Just another day...

Here are a couple of miniatures I just finished.

The first is called "Walking the Labyrinth", and is a 2" x 2" pen & ink/watercolor. The second, also pen & ink with watercolors, is called "Blue Vase" and measures 1.5" x 2.5".

I spend many hours doing these little things, and am inordinately proud of them.

I spent the day today re-registering my car, after having found an old letter from the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles that showed me my registration expired approximately six weeks ago. (If you're not a Connecticut DMV hater, you can skip this part.) The renewal form noted that I owed delinquent vehicle taxes in Pomfret. So I called the Pomfret Tax Collector, and they said I was paid up. They suggested I stop by (about a forty-minute drive) and get a release showing the taxes had been paid.

So I called DMV, and waited on hold for approximately 25 minutes. When an "agent" was finally free to take my call, she informed me that no, I did not owe motor vehicle taxes in Pomfret--I owed them in Norwich. So I called the Norwich Tax Collector's office, and they said, nosirree, you're all paid up. I decided to take a drive to Norwich, which has a DMV branch in it anyway. The nice lady in the Norwich tax office stamped my registration form, filled out a little receipt, and wished me good luck with big soulful eyes.

The line at DMV was almost out the door, but it went quickly. I amused myself by pointing out to John (who, blessedly drove me around all day in his Miata) that the "agent" behind the counter had an extraordinarily bad toupee. When I got up to the counter, I said, "Hi, my name's Mabel Terry and..." "I know who you are", he said. Moment of dead silence. Is this the Grim Reaper? I pictured better hair.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" he said. "Fifth grade?" A blank look on my part. "I'm Mr. D!"

Oh, my God. Mr. DeBartolo.

"You were the smartest kid I ever saw," he said.

Yes, you are in the twilight zone.

Easiest time I ever had at the DMV.

Haiku

.
.
Voice a high thin cloud
Snowflake words drift down, are gone
In certain weather.
.
Voices in one ear
(Whisper) cold bitch blown to breeze...
Find that sleep draws near.
.
.

This and that--oh, and Happy Ostara!

I want one:



That's Jake, a bobcat who lives at the Sierra Safari Zoo:

http://www.sierrasafarizoo.com/index.htm

Jake seems quite friendly. Some humans have all the luck.

Luna, my wild girl kitty, has an appointment at the veterinarian next week. I thought she had a tick on her belly, but it seems not to be...at least John is convinced it's not. It's a teardrop-shaped brown thing, and there's a lump under it. I wish I could check it again, but I'm not up for a repeat of yesterday's mayhem. Luna don't brook no invasion of her personal space.

I went this morning to the Hartford Hospital Dental Clinic, where an impossibly sweet dentist spent an hour and a half filling a wisdom tooth. Yes, that's right, a wisdom tooth. You see, since one of my treatment drugs is Zometa, a bisphosphonate used only for cancer patients with bone metastases, I can't have any extractions. One of Zometa's side effects is that it can cause a condition called osteonecrosis of the jaw, which is exactly what it sounds like--a situation where bone won't heal, and the jawbone begins to die. Exposure of the bone is one of the risk factors, and I've been told that I'm already at higher risk than many because of my historically less than stellar dental health. If the filling doesn't work--the decay was very close to the pulp of the tooth--they'll try a root canal. I guess it's a good thing that I have a high pain threshold.

The good news is, I found a Splenda-sweetened Starbucks ice cream called Coffee Fudge Brownie. Like all artificial sweeteners, Splenda is controversial, but what's it going to do to me? Give me cancer?

Here's a recommendation for you:

http://tinyurl.com/qpq6h

I don't know how long those tiny urls last, but if you're reading this in the year 2011 and looking for a totally unique piece of music, go to amazon.com and do a search on "Hymnody of Earth" by Malcolm Dalglish and the Ooolites. Dalglish, a hammered dulcimer player I saw decades ago with the folk group Metamora, put together this suite, which combines his settings of Wendell Berry's poems with some original stuff and a few things like shape-note hymns thrown in, all sung by himself and a teenage folk choir. It's one of those pieces of music that makes me feel like I'm floating above the earth, looking down and feeling real hope.

Then again, if you're into Britney Spears, you may not like it.

Time for ice cream.

Happy SPRING!!!

A new day and new art

I finished two new pieces that I'm rather proud of. The first is an assemblage I did for the Art Squared theme week on eBay. It's called The Miracle of Four, and it's an exploration of the symbols and associations of the number four. It was almost as much fun to do as Carrie's box was. It was actually very educational; I got very involved in doing online research, and came to the conclusion volumes could be (and possibly have been) written on the subject. Anyway, I'm pleased with the way it came out.

The other is a 5x5 inch collage called Gaia. It was the most satisfying thing I've ever done.

Ostara was great, by the way. We descended into our own inmost cells, then floated above this one, the big blue planet. I brought home an egg and a seed to plant.

Yeeeeeoowwwww!!!!! It's spring!!!

May

Spring really is coming!

Thank you, Carrie, for your words. I'll try to keep them in mind.

Tonight I go to an Ostara ritual that's being put on by Christiana Gaudet of http://www.tarotbychristiana.com/. I'd like to say a few words about Ostara and my beliefs in general.

I am a pagan, which means essentially that I apprehend divinity in the natural world around me. Deity, in my view, is a sort of anthropomorphization of that divine principle. In other words, Artemis (to use an example) doesn't exist "somewhere" as a physical being; she is real because I give her reality in my way of relating to her. She reminds me to pay attention to the ways in which the cycle of the moon affects me; she brings up a wildness in me that I am apt to forget in my daily existence. I believe that all religions anthropomorphize in this way, and that it's a fine thing, as long as you're careful what you project onto the deity figure.

Many pagans celebrate the turning of the seasons, or the wheel of the year. Many followers of "Wicca", a subset of paganism that I've never really been able to define, claim that of the eight pagan holidays, the four cross quarters, i.e. the holidays that fall exactly between the solstices and equinoxes, are the "high holy days" of the year. Some "green witches", in which category I arguably fall, tend to pay a little more attention to the solar holidays of the solstices and equinoxes. They are the most important and deeply felt days of the year to me.

Ostara is the spring equinox. According to Peg Aloi, "Easter gets its name from the Teutonic goddess of spring and the dawn, whose name is spelled Oestre or Eastre (the origin of the word "east" comes from various Germanic, Austro-Hungarian words for dawn that share the root for the word "aurora" which means " to shine"). Modern pagans have generally accepted the spelling "Ostara" which honors this goddess as our word for the Vernal Equinox." Many of the roots of modern Easter celebrations come from our pagan ancestors; for example, eggs and rabbits are obvious fertility symbols. When I was a little girl we attended an Easter "sunrise service"; Eostre (another cognate of Ostara and Easter) is a goddess of the dawn. People buy new clothes at Easter because they have an urge to put on new clothes, just as our Mother Earth is doing in the springtime.

The fact that the date of Easter is still set by calculating the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the equinox is clear evidence that the Christian holiday has not escaped its pagan roots: that resonance with Earth's rebirth once celebrated by our ancestors. To my mind, that's a wonderful thing! So brightest blessings on the turning of the wheel to spring, and happy whatever you celebrate!

P.S. I think it's a myth that the snakes St. Patrick drove out of Ireland were actually the pagans. And if they were...well, he was just doing his job.

do what makes you happy

Truly. You should do what makes you happy, content, joyful, exultant, ecstatic, jovial and full of beans (my thanks extended also to Roget). If I know anyone in my life who deserves to just ignore "shoulds", it is certainly you. Shoulda, coulda, woulda-- who cares? You have no obligation to them or me or anyone else to do anything outside of what you want. Let's be honest, hedonism is everyone's ultimate motivation! You, at least, have the right to indulge yourself!

Be Not Afraid

Another old poem from the moldy, musty folder. Uneven. Derivative.

I still like it.

MARCH

(Noli timere)

.

Close!

.

Almost the vision

.

1 2 3 times in the fading light:

like fish in frozen stream

moving toward evolution.

.

Restless in this waking season

I'm drawn once more to trails and woods

still bare of green and slick with snow.

I come upon a doe, and

startled, half-starved,

eye to eye we know

that we have both survived.

.

I ask the elusive Giver, hovering just beyond reach--

what power have you brought to me,

unrecognized--

imperceptible shining--

my only answer:

sudden golden gliding wingspans in the pouring light;

bare, toothless smiles of old men

grown gay with waiting.

.

I am a singing fool.

Even the peepfrogs know

but say amen at the water's edge

to the shape and sound and smell of things:

to endless march toward what's to come.

Moral obligations

I don't know if it's so much that I'm a BAD blogger; it may be more that I'm an inadequate blogger, or, to be less negative, an artless, guileless, ingenuous, innocent, natural, simple, unaffected, unsophisticated, unstudied, unworldly blogger (thanks to Peter Mark Roget). I need more time to grow.

If you insist, Carrie, I'll tell everyone what I've been thinking the past few days. As you may recall, those of you who have not come unawares upon my blog, I have Stage IV breast cancer. Every now and then it occurs to me that if I had it my way, I would not have this condition. I rarely, however, say anything, not wanting to disabuse the world of a common opinion about me, as a brave and courageous individual who has accepted her terminal lot and vowed to dedicate herself to altruistic and selfless endeavors.

When I was in my thirties, I used to do what I called driving therapy. When things got really bad, I would get in my car and drive aimlessly, screaming, crying, and cursing without cease. Occasionally I would pull up next to some unsuspecting fellow sitting at a traffic light, waiting to turn and not expecting a madwoman to be ranting and raving loudly in the next car. Sometimes the situation was enough to turn my crying into fits of uncontrollable giggles.

Tomorrow I SHOULD go to the state Capitol and smile at local legislators, so they might take pity on us poor, helpless, disabled mental cases and put something remotely resembling an adequate sum of money into Connecticut's Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services budget. Here's the problem: I don't want to. I want to sleep late and have my coffee in bed, next to my kitties. I want to read email and forward things. I want to indulge myself.

If anyone actually reads this blog, please feel free to post your opinions about what I should do. Even you, Carrie.

may

May is a bad blogger; I'm not sure why she doesn't post more regularly. She really should. May is also becoming very obsessed with sending forwards. I don't know how I feel about that.

Laughter is good for the soul

I found a wonderful website today. The url is http://www.stupid.com (of course).

My favorite thing on it is the insane cow keychain. You can purchase it here:

http://www.stupid.com/stat/INCW.html

If you need a laugh (like me), you'll have fun browsing on this site.