For the past couple months I’ve been chipping away at a little art project, inspired by Rubén Guzman’s Oaxacan woodcarving class and by Pat Tong, who is ever doing creative things that pique my curiosity. I finally finished painting it yesterday. It is sort of a frog-turtle.
With all the free time I have, you’d think I’d be cranking out artistic creations like there’s no tomorrow. I still knit the occasional unneeded item now and again, but that’s about it. Here’s something I finished yesterday, for Emmy.
Let’s see. Last night I used the gift certificate to Chez Panisse that my brother gave me for my sixtieth. Jill was my date for the evening. Here’s what I inhaled: a salad with fried goat cheese, salmon with a pile o’ veggies, and a chocolate pavé with peach ice cream. The waiters have issues. They take their jobs way too seriously. I’ve never seen a more humorless bunch. I mean, it’s just food, for Heaven’s sake. Expensive and famous food, indeed, but still. You’d think they were officiating at the funeral of a fallen dignitary.
We had a lovely time up until our departing visit to the restroom, at which time Jill’s phone leapt from her pocket and into the toilet, which caused it to lose its utility as a communications device.
Speaking of presents, this is one of the things my sister gave me: a portrait, in her inimitable style, of me when I was a teenager.
Last week Emmy and I walked down to the Albany fire station for an informal tour of the place. An adorable young firefighter named Paul showed us the ropes, from the beautiful, shiny hook and ladder to the industrial kitchen to the dorm rooms. I was far more impressed than Em, even though she got to see tires that were significantly taller than she.
Here is another three-year-old who was not, at the time, impressed with her surroundings: Molly in the arms of Saint Bill Monroe, in the early 1990s.
How sad that I have to reach back twenty years for something to say. Time to quit.