Day 81 (Or: An Antiques Roadshow Roadtrip)

First of all, an update regarding the state of affairs in Leckenby-Ville: You should know that there's a mollusk on the loose in the house. That is to say, there's a snail, and he's been wandering about for several weeks leaving his...leavings...and then evading all attempts at capture. I'm seriously considering letting the chicken loose in the house to see if she can find him. And eat him.

This should be a pretty decent indication of the kind of mood I'm in today: Exasperated, with a hint of hilarious.

And I've got a confession to make: I actually enjoy these moods. I think these moods are some of my best (even though there are occasional exclamations of words containing the hard K sound), and are not to be wasted. I might need to find some outlet for this mood other than blogging. Perhaps a nice rant directed toward one of my many pet-peeve-people? And there are MANY, I'm happy to say.

All of this being said, let me tell you how totally fabulous Day 81 of One Thousand Days was.

So fabulous. There. I told you.

More? Oh, okay...

Day 81 of One Thousand Days was spent with 6,000 other people on the set of the Antiques Roadshow at the Convention Center in Seattle!

Pause for effect.

When one is at the Roadshow, One MIGHT see Mark Walberg!

Here's what happened:

1. We forgot the tickets, and turned around about 20 minutes into our road trip in order to retrieve them. HOWEVER, we made it STRAIGHT onto the ferry, and arrived in Seattle 50 minutes before our 11 o'clock entry time. We were rather pleased with ourselves, but perhaps too pleased, because...

2. We promptly got lost. Twice. Our excuse: Downtown Seattle is engulfed by a series of "detours" which are designed to make the country bumpkins lose their minds, and their way.

This is what one of the four lines looks like

3. Missing our original ferry and getting lost were EXACTLY the right thing to do. Arriving at the Convention Center four minutes AFTER our check-in time, meant that we parked about 2 feet from the entrance, avoided one of 4 horrendously huge entrance lines, and were that much fresher than all the other roobs who had been waiting an hour and a half to get in.

4. We then waited an hour to get in.

5. We then waited another hour to get in.

When you get into an event like this, please be aware that (None of the literature will tell you this, so take notes):

1. The crowd, and each individual comprising the crowd holding precious tickets (which, for some reason felt like the Golden Ticket into the Charlies Chocolate Factory), is PRIME people watching fodder. I was a little bit stunned to find that about 40% of people were in wheel chairs, but the remainder were people toting precious possessions ranging from a $50 pistol lamp, to a $45,000 bell. And by god, spend as MUCH of the 2 hours that you'll spend in line waiting to speak to an appraiser getting to know as many of the fabulous people around you as possible. They just might be holding a $7,000 Stieff Teddy Bear, or a worthless Japanese battery operated barking dog. Fun stuff.

2. Know that someone in the room has a $100,000 something they found in the attic, but that someone is not you.

Someone Hit it BIG!

3. Yes. The appraisers are wearing fabulously tailored suits, wild ties, and some of them may or may not even be wearing a pink satin vest. Maybe. If you spot any of these appraisers, stop, stare, and make sure your mouth is a little bit open, and that you look appropriately awed.

4. Know that your big butt will appear several times on film when the show is aired. Because you're in the crowd, and you've been waiting in that line for 2 hours, and while you're standing there, some lucky lady with a series of 1950's mall advertisements is being filmed RIGHT BEHIND YOU for her tearful reactions - and you're standing there looking gormless. But that's okay.

5. That photograph that you had hanging casually in your bedroom? It's an Orotone (a photograph beautifully processed on glass), by one of the pioneers of the Orotone process. And it's worth upwards of $1,000. And you'll meet the collector of the photographers work, because he's spotted your photograph from across the room, through the masses of people, and will leave you with his card in case you ever want to sell. Charlie McCarthy may give your 14 year old son the creeps, but he's in really good condition, and he's worth about $100.

Creepy, but oh so worth it!

81 down, 919 to go.

Day 80 (Or: How Do you DO This?)

Kew Gardens via

This is the garden I strive for

"I'm in a garden. My own. It started as nothing - in fact LESS than nothing - a barren, compacted, dust-bowl of a yard, with drainage issues..."

If we're going to describe what it's like to live a creative life (and we are - blame it on Kiera, she started it), this is where we begin. A creative life, for better or worse, is like tending an unruly garden...

This barren patch of nothing is, I realize, where every other yard-owning-wanna-be-master-gardener starts, but MAN is it tempting to move to another house, one with a garden already installed, one where there's security in knowing that all you have to do is show up, pull weeds, and reap the harvest of other people's work. And then you get to go back to "life" - whatever "life" is...but importantly, you're not tarrying in the dust-bowl that's a stand in for a yard.

I move piles of dirt around, I break my back, I spend hours imagining a French country garden, or a formal English garden, or a wild-flower garden. And I battle slugs, and I wrestle bushes, and I hack away at that persistent, thorny and invasive blackberry. And I try to keep myself from looking over the fence at the neighbors garden, where the grass is inevitably (and so cliche!) greener, and the hedges are preposterously polished, and even though I know they've taken all the shortcuts, hired big earth moving machinery, had the professionals in, planted the "easy" plants, used copious amounts of Round-Up and Sluggo, I want what they have.

This is the REAL state of affairs in my ACTUAL garden

My meager patch of weeds will NEVER be the glory of the neighbors yards. Never. What the hell was I thinking, imagining that you can be a...gardener... I notice the sideways glances from people driving up the street, and I think "if I could JUST manage to move that weed pile, and at LEAST have the boulevard in shape, maybe they'd all approve."

And then it happens. The worst thing imaginable. I'm tending a bed, doing as I should, and I kneel on a slug. Slime's everywhere, and trying to remove it just makes it MORE everywhere. I hobble around a corner, heading for the house and BAM straight through a spider web, and now there's spider and slug everywhere, and those little spiky seeds have invaded my socks, and I'm slimy, and itchy and completely discombobulate by nature's attack on me.

That's it! I can't stand it. I give up! Must-have-chocolate-and-Hulu! NOW! Ignoring is a management technique, right? And what horrible-slug-infested-thing isn't just a little bit more tolerable with chocolate? And if I'm watching re-runs of the x-files, I can't actually see the impending-doom-in-dandelion-form.

And then, two things happen:

(1) That rose bush? The one that's given me fits since I planted it two years ago? The one that I've shaped, coddled, clipped, de-mildewed and de-spotted (who knew plants mildew)? The one which causes me daily to wonder "what was I thinking, planting this fuss-pot of a plant?" It blooms. It's a delicate white, multi-blossomed glory. It's EVERYTHING I've ever wanted in a flower. And more.

and...

(2) Unbidden, un-noticed, a little pineapple strawberry plant has made inroads, and is producing the most divine, soft white ripe and delicate strawberries. I didn't even know it was there, and I did nothing to specifically love this particular plant, it's a gimme. It came about, simply because I was caring for the plants around it.

The garden: Blank canvas, work-work-work, doubt, judgement, work-work-work, frustration, envy, work-work-work, nature fights back, work-work-work, procrastinate and dally and indulge in chocolate, work-work-work, produce something incredible, work-work-work...and back to the beginning, work-work-work.

80 down, 920 to go.

Day 77 (Or: Earth Without Art is Just "EH")

I'm an artist. Sort of. I'm an aspiring artist? A wanna-be artist? A pseudo artist? Hmmm...

Okay. Maybe it's not fine art, but I do occasionally produce drawings/paintings/design/collage. Never sold any of it (other than monkeys). I do sell my design capabilities (as in...interior design, web design, graphic design - at Leckenby Co.), but never art. Yet.

I don't exactly have plans to become a visual artist, although I definitely have plans to continue artistically living my life - viewing, creating, appreciating, befriending... BUT! I live in this delightful artists community, where you can't swing a dead sable without hitting an artist or an aspiring artist, and as it happens, one of my besties runs a cooperative gallery.

THAT means that I get to shmooze with local artist appreciators, rub elbows with several seriously talented fine artists, and help disseminate art in the world. Generally.

Last month I started helping my friends on Gallery Walk night (the first Saturday of the month, new shows debut, artists are available for discussion, and generally, art is celebrated with food, wine and good company), and now, on the first Saturday of each month, and in particular, Day 77 of One Thousand Days, you can find me at The Red Raven Gallery, helping my friends Laurie McClave, and Sarah Fitch to make the world more beautiful and interesting.

Hints, should you wish to enjoy/partake of/or serve at a gallery walk:

1. Although gallery walk is known as a bit of a walking booze fest, never serve more than two fingers of wine, as you want people to be precisely smashed (not overly, and not underly) in order to effectively help them to appreciate/buy art.

2. By god, you'd better know what you're talking about, or believe that you know what you're talking about, or have an intention to know what you're talking about, if you want to talk about art.

3. Take that last little hint and stuff it in the toilet, because EVERYONE, and I do mean everyone, has something important to say about art. That's why there IS art. To get us thinking. And even if all you have to say is: "That looks like my cat!", it's a valuable assessment, in my book.

4. Do not - DO NOT - be a snob. Damnit. Yuck.

77 down, 923 to go.

Day 59 (Or: The Great Monkey Maneuver)

You've been hearing about it, and now it's happened!

No, I didn't lose my mind.  And no, I haven't started a speed dating group...and no, I most certainly haven't finished my novel.  Geesh.  There's a whole lot that I haven't done.  But what I HAVE done, this morning, Small Business Saturday, is launch The Great Monkey Maneuver!

What's this, you wonder?  "Frankly, I think you HAVE lost your mind, darling." You mutter under your breath.  I heard that. 

Here's the thing.  Sock monkeys.  They're totally adorable.  And enjoyable.  And they make me laugh.  Seriously. 

I made one monkey, every stitch by hand, loving the feel of the sock and the thread, and loving the funny ears and the hillarious red butt.  And he charmed my boy and I in ways that we hadn't imagined.  And then the most amazing thing happened.  My favorite 2 year old boy came over, walked straight to the monkey, picked the monkey up by the tail, poked at a button eyeball, and immediately took the sock-turned-monkey to show his mama.  The monkey clearly belonged to him, and now he has a name - "Hoo-Hoo-Ha" - and a premanent home with a most delightful boy.

I WANT MORE OF THAT!  I want monkeys to be EVERYWHERE and I want to be the one to make that happen!

The Great Monkey Maneuver, I'll have you know, is a sock monkey and 40th birthday initiative. I will be 40 years old in one week, exactly. And in honor of my 40th birthday, I will sell 40 sock monkeys!

In case you're curious, here's the original, the loving, the adored-by-favorite-2-year-old-boy Hoo-Hoo-Ha:

And I donated this monkey to a service auction, to raise money for QUUF:

And I'll donate THIS monkey to my favorite non-profit kid place and coffee house, The Boiler Room, for their auction, coming up in December:

And the rest are yours! 

So, The Great Monkey Maneuver, is a sale of 40 monkeys, to be housed in 40 homes with 40 loving children or children at heart.  All in honor of turning 40 years old.  Because when you get old, it's important to engender the joy of being young. 

And what's more, the first 40 monkeys will come with a $4.00 discount when the lucky purchaser uses the coupon code: 40MONKEY
Yes. 

Day 58 of One Thousand Days may just be the most wonderful yet.  Monkey business.

59 down, 941 to go.

Day 53 (or: Now THIS is a Contest for Me!)

Literati!! 50 ways and 100 words to leave your lover! Our new contest “SIMON SAYS”

Hehe. I've got about One Thousand Days worth of ways to leave my lover.

Day 53 of One Thousand Days, I fancy myself a writer. I curbed my tongue (er...fingers) and wrote only 100 words about the Leaving of the The Bad Relationship, and I'm going to submit it to actual authors for their...er...approval? No. That's not it. I don't care about approval. Perusal.  Yes. That's the word. 

My entry, exactly 100 words on one of the 50 ways to leave a lover, and feel free to use this the next time you're leaving someone:

Food For Thought
The pancakes pleaded: “Please leave?”  The alphabet soup sounded out: “get out!”  The spaghetti, in cursive, politely told you your time was up.  Last night, the chocolate sauce you licked off my belly read: “I’m done” – granted, it was dark, and I didn’t really expect you to be able to read it.  But I had hoped…I burned the word DEPART into the toast, and between the grill lines on that steak, one could clearly read the anguish of all these years. This evening, in joyful, succinct and unmistakable terms, I’ll leave you with this one last thought:  An empty plate.

53 down, 947 to go. 

Day 52 (or: I've been Called)

Alright.  Hold onto your hats, because it's about to get a little weird up here in the blog.
Woo-woo weird. 

But life's like this sometimes, and one of the things that I've realized, slowly, since letting go of The Bad Relationship, and Corporate Life (alright - both of those things let go of me, but who's counting?), is that there's a message in the silence, in the moments in between.  We can listen to those messages or we can ignore them, and on Day 52 of One Thousand Days, I chose to listen.

Okay.  That last paragraph was only slightly woo-woo, but NOW it's going to get positively bizarre, so I really can't blame you if you want to skip down the page a bit.  Here's what's been going on:  I belong to a fellowship (read:  "church"), where I have been a volunteer youth educator on and off throughout the years, for various ages of kiddos.  This year, I agreed again to be an educator for the Middle School kids.  Ever since I made that agreement, I've been having all of these near-ESP-ish moments of synchronicity, in which someone repeats something I've been thinking on for a day or so, or I dream something that then happens the next day, or my thoughts settle on something that eventually is reality within the week. 

If you read through that paragraph, I TOLD YOU SO!  Weird.  Eventually this strangeness convinced me (hold on to your boots!) that I was being "called."  Called to be involved with the kiddos, and specifically involved with the kiddos QUUF in my sweet little home town. 

So I offered myself (weird ESP story and all) to our "church" Youth R(eligious) E(ducation) Director, and came home with the promise of more Middle School Madness than is healthy for any sane person (as I've demonstrated here, my sanity may be in question, so I'm PERFECT for the job!), and a craft project!  I LOVE CRAFTS! 

Day 52 of One Thousand Days, I'm going to put together the scrap book for the Youth Coming of Age program my son (that's him in the upper-center of the photo, below) and about 15 other kiddos went through last year.  Hurrah!

52 Down, 948 to go.

Oh, and I fluffed up the logo...it's not drastically different, but it's different!

Day 38 (Or: NaNoWriMo)

November, sweet November, is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, for the experts in the crowd), and yesterday I actually wrote almost 2,000 words of a novel that is destined to be...well...50,000 words long.  Not a good novel.  Not an interesting novel.  Not even a gramatically correct novel.  Just 50,000 words long.  Or more.

It's off to a great start, and if I actually continue to write 2,000 words a day, I'll probably be able to make 50,000 words by the end of the month.  Interesting?  Meh.  Probably not.  But today, Day 38 of One Thousand Days, I'll write another 2,000 words of the Un-Great Novel.

38 down, 962 to go.

Day 11 (or: To Write Love on Her Arms)

Day 11 musings:

Note to kids who filled my house with food and laughter and music last night: You are incredible, and I admire the heck out of you. Make noise, make joy, make your voices heard, make your mark on the world and make us proud!

Note to self: You know it’s a good party when there are Twinkies and Doritos left over to snack on the next day.

Note to cat: Don’t think I don’t see you hiding behind the curtain in the bedroom, waiting for me to leave the room so you can have the freshly made bed all to yourself.

Note to weatherman: Stop predicting rain. I’ve got yard things to do.

Note to cat again: You’d better vacate. I’m about to run the vacuum. It might eat your tail.

Note to bad relationship: I’m too much work? Really? I let you ignore me for a week. Not a week and a half, that pissed me off, but a week was pretty okay. And that’s too much work? You so don’t deserve me. At all.

Note to self again: Figure out how to block numbers on the cell phone.

I’m finding it easier to be happy instead of grumpy and sad. Today. Wednesday I thought seriously about jabbing my eyes out with a plastic fork, but today I see some joy in life. Even if it’s soggy, wet, rainy joy. There are things to remember when we’re feeling like the world is at an end (she says, stepping up on soapbox and giving an “ahem” in her best preachy voice). Things like girlfriends who would never say you’re a waste of time, and Elevated Ice Cream’s Swiss Orange Chocolate Chip ice cream, and furry cat bodies, and little boys who love you, and a world that is full of “yes” in so many ways – even in the face of seemingly doom-filled “no.”

There are new babies (thank you, dear ladies, for enduring 9 months of indecent bodily functions, several hours of agonizing pain, milk stains, diaper fillings and horrendous bed-time battles) and there are people in the world who write blogs like this: yesandyes.org (because Yes is more fun than No!). And there are people in the world who start foundations like this To Write Love On Her Arms (if you do nothing else today, read this story and vision and be moved). And there are people in the world who care enough to pay attention to the Science of Happiness and how we can all become scientists (from my favorite folks again, Yes! Magazine). It can’t be all bad if these things are in the world, can it? Even if they occupy the same space as earthquakes and floods and wars and poverty and corruption.

I love my friends dearly. I love my friends who hurt even more dearly. I love my friends who hurt themselves more than I can possibly say, and today, Day 11 of One Thousand Days, I write love on my arm for you. And hold you in my heart all day and every day.

11 down, 989 to go.