A Swirly Eye

So because these beautiful ladies came to visit a few weekends ago I made this:



I painted this backsplash (and a) this photo doesn't do it justice- you can't see the purples, greens, blues and b)just ask my friend Jen how cool it is, she'll tell you) because a) the white wall behind my stove was so greasy no Magic sponge could have taken it off, b) I can't figure out what color to paint the walls in my kitchen because I ain't no interior designer, c) their beautiful mother (see above) is a very very neat and clean person and I was embarrassed to have my white wall so greasy and so in her face (because a) I knew she would cook for us and b) I knew she would look), d) I'm really an oil painter, or at least I was in a previous life, and e)Paul Bunyan didn't believe I could paint anything cool on canvas.


Now because we had so much fun eating, drinking and making jokes about this video all weekend long:





I had no time to take any photos of their visit except for a few of these bad shots of their amazing new dog Ronan. He's a love-amuffin. A giant love bug who had never jumped over a creek bed in all his life. I'm very excited to say he did it first here. Although I'm not very excited that we have running water for him to leap over.

Now everything on this blog, as of late, has been about what's being done around here on weekends because who really wants to hear (and for god's sake who wants to remember) the minutia of our weekly grind. Who wants to remember the ten year old who grumbles every morning on her way to school- picking for fights in the garbage like a street cat looking for scraps? Who wants to hear about the untrained dog who goes chasing chickens around the yard trying to fit them into her mouth and the woman who is so angry about not training said butt head that she goes hoarse from screaming at said butt head with a stick flailing in her hand? Who wants to hear about the stomach bug virus that got sprayed in my face by my little Scarlet dear on Monday- a death sentence for me that was executed 24 hours later on Wednesday....every hour on the hour for twelve hours? Who wants to hear about my Lysol brigade? No, not you. No, not you either. And neither do my children who will one day read this.

However, I'm not sure they'll want to remember last weekend when I made them stay all day on the bay of the big lake while I and their father attempted to play pond hockey on some sort of surface called ice, on which you could neither turn nor stop, much less do anything with the puck besides lift it to a team mate who was not moving. We should have played in our boots and drank more Labatt's Blue. I probably shouldn't let them know that as they hung out in the car for a few hours I stood by the fire to have a few beers in the beer tent after the last game of the day. Shhh. They said they had fun. And I did too, despite global warming.

The swirls in my mind's eye that came out on that canvas is a good image for what my life has been like lately. Weekends swirling into weekdays- all the colors (browns and purples and greens) coming together. And it all mixing together to make a fairly palatable print.


Today is my daughter's birthday. She is ten. My head is swirling with this number. Ten years. I can't for the life of me understand where she comes from. She is doll house and fishnet stockings at the same time. She is nail polish and stuffed animals. She is still sniffing her blankets and wearing her extra high All Stars. She is instant gratification and Wizard of Oz. She is the lead in the school play and holed up in her room with her i-pod on. She is sweet and rude. Tender and mean. She is generous and selfish. She is emotional. It's a swirled up mess. It's my mind's eye.

Tonight after rushing everyone off to bed, too late, I stepped outside to load the green monster. It's cold tonight. I like when it's cold. We've had nothing come from the sky but rain. No snow. And I'm tired of the browns. I either want it white or green. So I look up. I look up. And the stars- they're bright. It's clear. I can see every single one, separate from the next. They do not merge. They do not run together. They do not swirl. And so I stay. Because at least out there- there is sense. And it's not a greasy mess.

I wonder if she'll remember...

This young lady turned ten last Sunday.




And because her mother and I are crazy we decided to celebrate the last ten years of their tiny lives by taking our daughters to the BIG Apple for the weekend. Here we've just arrived at JFK.




I wonder if Claire will remember this moment.




Or if she recalls that the hair dresser doing Rebecca's hair couldn't quite complete the "do" she requested because Claire had been brushing Rebecca's hair all wrong and now SHE HAS NONE!




I wonder if she'll remember the hissy fit she threw when I said I wasn't going to pay for a new wig quite yet. When she's ready to box that shit up for her daughter, yea, then I'll pay the 50 bones.




I wonder if she'll remember that Medora told her the smoke coming from the sewer was the devil mixing a toxic concoction.




Or if she'll remember waking up laughing on our first morning in the city. The fire trucks were right outside our window. Or so it sounded like.





I wonder if she'll remember all the cute dogs being carried in baby slings.




Or how many Shirley Temples she drank? Her pee was red.




I wonder if she'll be able to remember the silence at ground zero, even though there were thousands of people there and still lots of construction.





Or if they'll remember getting their nails done by women who made fun of us in the Chinese they knew we didn't understand.




Will she remember the fat pigeons?




Or all the bubble gum on the sidewalks?




Will she remember the smell of roasting nuts?




Or worse, the giant fish at the fish markets?




Will she think she spent the whole time looking up?







And how they walked down the street with a little more swagger after this happened at the Bobby Brown make-up station in Macy's?




Will she remember these lights which gave the illusion it was day time?





Or this amazing show?




Will she remember refusing to stand next to any street actor?




But yet she gave a dollar to the man playing his saxophone under the ground?




Will they recall loving the tamarins at the zoo?




Or not being overly impressed with Central Park?



Will they remember being excited to see the huge boats going up and down this river- the one right outside Mud's step-mother's apartment?




I wonder if she'll remember that it was this trip that made her claim the city as part of her?
And that is was upon her return that she started researching acting schools in the city?