Thanksgiving 2009

I took the week of Thanksgiving off from work. I don't work Fridays so my vacation started on Thursday night.  I went to pottery class and then dinner at The Cup with Betty. Friday Rick and I went to a poetry reading at The A-1 To Go Café in Gardiner and Saturday was back to the pottery studio for a few afternoon hours. Sunday the NitPickers played at The Cup and I took Jared and Chris there for dinner. I guess they’d heard the band play one other time before but I thought they’d enjoy hearing them again. I think they did.


Monday my official vacation started and Rick came down with something and ended up coming home from campus sick. By Wednesday I was feeling sick and Wednesday night I woke up from a sound sleep about 3 am with severe chest pains, nausea, and sweating. I walked a bit and decided I’d better go to the hospital. Rick took me in and after about 5 hours in the ER and even though they couldn’t find any evidence of a heart attack, they insisted I get admitted until they could do a stress test. So here it is 11:30 on Thanksgiving evening and I’m in a hospital room next to an 80ish year old woman who recently had a knee replacement and has been having diarrhea all night in a commode two feet from my bed. She had the thermostat up to 76 until I asked a nurse to turn it down. Of course there’s the incessant beeping from unknown machines out in the hallway and the nurses continually coming and going. I’ve slept for about five ten minute segments throughout the day. I’ve got a splitting headache and I’m just waiting for the snoring to start.

The Hour

This piece seemed to be a hit at the poetry reading last night at A-1 Cafe.


The Hour
by Crystal Bond

Today is the beginning of Daylight Savings Time.
Or is it the end of Daylight Savings Time?
I’m never sure but it’s inconsequential.
It’s when it’s time to turn the clocks back an hour.
I never turn them back till I wake up the next morning.
That hour is a gift from Chronos;
One must relive that hour with vigor.
Just savor the thought of that hour,
Wait until the opportune time,
And voila . . . turn em back and enjoy!
I can do anything in that hour because that hour doesn’t really exist.
It’s already passed.
It’s much different than the spring where you turn the clocks ahead.
You’re frantic;
you’ve lost a whole hour and you’ll never get it back!
That might have been the hour you meet your one true love
Or found the elusive G spot
Or both
And now, the hour is gone . . . forever
And whatever might have happened in that hour
Will never happen
Gaining an hour in the fall doesn’t make up for that hour you lost.
It’s too disconnected. It’s been too long.
In fact, it would suck to think of the fall’s extra hour as just a quid pro quo
for spring’s loss.
Deal with the loss in the spring and celebrate the gift we’re given today!
Forgive me Mary Oliver, when I ask
What will YOU do with your one wild and precious hour?

Laundry

I brought my pottery garb home this weekend to wash it. It was all so caked in clay that I'd get more clay on me than off me when I'd use it. Pulling it out of the laundry I noticed that it mostly consists of hand me downs. I have a big green shirt I wear over my street clothes that I saved from my youngest son's throw away pile, a green towel wrap with his name on it given to Rick by a former girlfriend - he prefers to walk around nude :-) - pulled from a similar pile that I place over my lap to use when I'm at the wheel, and a ragged white towel another student left at the studio that I try to keep clean enough to dry my hands when I'm done for the day. The only new piece is a canvas apron with a split in the center, to cover my jeans when at the wheel. Regardless, I still come home with clay in my hair, on my clothes and white clay dust up and down my arms. I guess that's just part of the charm.

Closed camp down for the winter

Last weekend we went out and closed up camp for the winter. Drained the pipes, emptied the fridge and the cupboards, shut off the pilot light to the gas fireplace. I will be without my fortress of solitude for the next five months. Usually we are able to open it back up by early
April, and then the peepers will start up again, and the loons will reappear, and the universe willing, the marsh will once again be filled with abundant life.

Maybe we'll actually get around to painting the interior one of these years.

I probably should have raked some leaves but just didn't have the time or inclination.

The new bathroom

I'm VERY pleased to report that our new bathroom is 99% completed. Here's our old bathroom. Rather messy, granted, but it really didn't clean up much better than this.


And now our new bathroom:

Painted cabinets, granite vanity top, ceramic tile floors, new shower and lots of new shelving/closet space. It's so much more pleasureable to start my day in here than in the old, ratty bathroom with the cramped shower that had no water pressure. Ahhhhh. I guess it was worth living through 45 days of construction.

Now the question is whether we continue with construction in the rest of the house. I want to paint throughout, pull up all the wall to wall carpet and put down either hardwood or laminate flooring. Replace some of the windows with sliding patio doors - three probably - and remodel the kitchen. I would definitely need a commitment from our carpenter to spend more than a couple hours a day here. He does good work but the bathroom project took just too much time. I think he basically tried to fit us in while doing several other jobs and that's just not gonna work if we move onto the rest of the house.

Pottery

A couple mugs I made last week. My shapes are getting better.
And a couple of unembellished bowls

And some pieces I worked on today with embellishmentsn - funky handles, pedestals, etc.