chance meeting

I'm still working on the hallway illustration. But I couldn't resist a quickie in colour.

UPS

The UPS folks finally got their act together, and sent someone to verify the damage they did to my computer.

The man who checked everything out said he's approving the claim, but he didn't know when the check would come, so I still don't know when I'll get it repaired. I'm hoping like hell it's this week.

Meanwhile, I've been sketching out a piece depicting my floor and one of the people living there...but it won't be ready for another few days.

...feelin' nostalgic again.

I was walking down SW Higgins, and noticed that the Senior Center is having Pinochle Night. Damn, but I miss Pinochle. I’m still too young to join the seniors, and folks my age are busy cruising the chatrooms or watching CSI.

I miss the sound of people chatting over the kitchen table. I miss the power going out at least once a week, and mom heating coffee over a candle flame.

Growing up military, everybody's parents played Pinochle. It was the poor man’s Bridge. They played partnership when men were home, and cutthroat when they were gone. And if the power went out, that didn’t matter. They’d play Pinochle by candlelight.

Pinochle for our parents always included refreshments. The table was always crowded with victory mugs, open beer cans, cigarette packs, Zippos, and ashtrays. Back in the day, everybody smoked. Cigarettes were practically free to GIs. I can still see them all talking with cigarettes in their mouths, squinting against the smoke burning their eyes!

My dad used to smoke 4 packs of Pall Malls a day, and my mother, 3. I can’t remember a single adult who didn’t smoke at least 2 ½.

Remember when ashtrays were a part of the décor? Ceramic, ironstone, and glass…and some even of crystal. There was at least one in every room. I remember some butt ugly ones carved and polished from granite and marble. Some even had matching lighters. I think they came from Italy. Very, very large. Of course, no one actually soiled them with cigarette tar and ashes. They were just for saying, I was stationed at or near Italy.

And you could pretty much tell which family’d been stationed where. People who’d been to Germany always had an over-carved, Black Forest cuckoo clock. People who’d been to Turkey had the requisite, decoratively engraved, matching ensemble of brass bells, brass decanters, brass ashtrays, and brass end tables. And people who’d been to Japan had geisha dolls and silk lampshades – pagoda shaped, of course. (These are the days before Japan started dominating the electronics market.)

And every house on base had a hideous, gigantic wooden fork and spoon hanging on its dining room wall. I don’t know where they came from. We had to be the only Air Force family in 50 states that didn’t have the set. Although we did have an obscenely large wooden bowl my mom served salad in, with its own too-large wooden fork and spoon. And yes, I think they matched the set hanging on those other walls!

Odd Ducks

This morning I watched some 30 odd ducks standing around on the Rattlesnake waiting for the ice to melt.

Yep. Gonna happen any minute now…



This drawing is of the Rattlesnake, looking north from Finnegan's. (if one were standing on the roof, that is...the perspective should be flatter, since I sketched it while sitting at one of the window booths.)

heroes

I remember once when I was struggling with a heavy box of books - my arms were in such agony, I was near tears, and a man in a little scooter came up beside me, and offered to drive the box to “wherever” I was going.

I remember another time, I was paying for groceries at Albertson’s, coming up a dollar and 20 cents short. The cashier pulled 5 quarters from her pocket. She added it to the money in my palms, and said, “I know you’re good for it.”

Then there was the time, the windchill was a good 30 below, and I was waiting for the bus, bundled in a hooded parka, 2 scarves, earmuffs, and thinsulated gloves. The young woman next to me stood shivering her stylish blue silk jacket and no hat. I gave her my earmuffs, my glove liners, my scarf, and a good talking to about cold weather injuries. She hugged me, and I wanted to cry.

We breathe for the trees around us, and they breathe for us. A fragile stem pokes out from the snow, and a bird settles there, suspended from the icy ground. And as he lifts his wing to fly away, his talons pierce a pod of tiny seeds.

We give, and we accept. We need, and we are needed.

[the linework is with couple of pencils, and using my thumb and an eraser to "emboss" the bird into relief. the hill behind him is mount jumbo.]

Finally, Snow.

Today,
it would be better
to be four years old.
If I were five,
I would be forced to stay
in kindergarten
forsaking angels
waiting in the snow.

8 Ts

For this week's IF prompt (Eighties), I made this quick sketch with a bic pen on graph paper. I found some change, and went straight to Kinko's to scan and upload it to photobucket.

I came here to the library (where it's free) to post it to here, and to upload a couple of photos I'd saved to disc...of Rusty and Elizabeth. (I named her for the movie star, cuz I put purple in the threads I used to embroider her eyes.)

My Pooter is broken!

My computer was damaged enroute back to Missoula. I've filed a claim with UPS. I was only able to afford 500 insurance. So if they honor their contract, and pay me the 500 they owe me for damaging my computer, I will be able to afford to have it repaired.

I'm devasted that I can't work on my illustrations. I do have some older ones saved to discs, so I'll be able to upload some of them. These library computers only have paint...and they have no scanner for me to upload any drawings or sketches on paper.

waaaaaaa!

I'll be back tomorrow to do some more catterwauling. I promise!

And boy o boy, I gotta tell you about one of my neighbors. He must be schizophrenic. He makes noises like animals, and then starts yelling, "this sucks!"

So it sorta went like this for about 3 hours last night (starting around midnight). "Meow, meow, ruff, ruff, ruff.....ribbet, oooOOOoooo. THIS SUCKS! ----"meow.....THIS SUCKS THIS SUCKS THIS SUCKS ooooOOOOOooooo." Over and over! (I hope I got the punctuation right.)

Buzzed

Now Entering Winter

Even though I landed in Missoula a good hour and a half late, I didn't mind, cuz I felt like I’d already been home for hours.

Eager to get started, I made it to the Sacramento Airport 3 hours before my scheduled flight. Once my bags were checked, and my toiletries confiscated, I headed straight for the Alaska Terminal.

I guess in January, nobody’s heading north unless they live here. No California tourists were waiting for the flight to Winter.

The first thing I noticed was a yellow Carhartt lying over the back of a chair. Then I saw a pair of mukluks on a tall, bearded Nordic god. And then there were the two laptops in the corner, lying open, unattended in empty chairs, their users probably sitting in the bar watching the game.

No one was wearing a suit. But there were heavy jackets and winter coats everywhere, piled 3-high on seats, draped over carryons, and tucked under barstools. There was an easy, neighborly atmosphere. Everybody was expecting snow. Some were wondering if their connecting flights from Seattle were going to be cancelled. Certainly, most would be delayed.

Folks were heading home to places like Anchorage, Sitka, Juneau, Vancouver BC, Kamloops, Boise, and Missoula. It was as though I’d already left California. These were my people. This was my neighborhood, my culture. Nobody here was talking about whose baby Angelina Jolie was adopting, or Schwarzenegger’s steroid-weakened bones. The conversations floating and mixing here were about snow, keeping dry, and the unfortunate possibility of missing a day of work.

[if anyone can tell me the name of the image i've parodied, i'd be grateful. i wanted to give attribution, but cannot for the life of me remember the name of the work, let alone its creator....shattered spheres?...i googled that but got zip, and that's what i was thinking the name was.]

I've found the image. It's called, L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire by Camille Flammarion (1888),

and I've posted a little something about it, here.