Off on a 'Challenging Situation'

Feeling emotionally lighter may be difficult these days, but it's your only sensible option. Today, a challenging situation gives you a chance to demonstrate a new and improved you. It's ultimately your choice, so surround yourself with fun-loving people who can help you remember the healing properties of laughter.

I'm going to go to visit the babies today, my own and my-own-once-removed-  that must be my 'challenging situation' referred to in the Horror-Scope.  And OK, I admit kids have always been a challenge to me, one that I fail over and over.  I'd rather enter a cave.

Do you know about Me and Caves?   Oy.  Go get some coffee and turn off the phone ringer-  this could take some time!

(Frankly I hated the colored lights!)

We'll start with Carlsbad Caverns, circa 1968 or so.  We were visiting my aunt and uncle who lived in New Mexico at the time and the caverns were a big draw.  My dad and I took an elevator down into the earth and I was feeling pretty spiffy getting to finally see stalagtites and stalagmites in their natural habitat, not in a book, for the first time.  The door opened to a brightly lit huge 'room' with a gigantic pit in the center that was so deep that the light didn't go all the way down.  We signed onto a walking tour and off we went.  At first the path was great-  dirt and tightly packed, through amazing areas with colored floodlights illuminating the formations we passed.  All of them had names and stories attached.  The path got narrower, the lights became fewer.  We were now single file and I was holding onto a wall on my right side.  The gravel became bigger and more difficult to walk on and the row of people slowed to a crawl.  As we were navigating a switchback turn my foot slipped on gravel and I lost footing.  My leg went right over the side of the path and my dad grabbed me and hauled me back up.  The drop was so deep we couldn't see the bottom and I was a basket case fo the rest of the walk.  There were no guardrails, the path was way too dangerous for today's nanny state and I am sure it's been recitfied, but caverns are not my thing.  Fortunately there aren't many occasions that I need to deal with this state of affairs.  I gradually forgot about my fall to my death and being pecked to the bones by bats and albino creatures.

Bats?  Oh yeah, they have a thing every evening at dusk when the bats wake up and head for the entrance-  imagine THOUSANDS of bats flapping their way to the outside-  amazing sight but not something I want to ever be in the center of again.  Here is another more current picture that shows guard rails and paved paths-  much better for attracting normal tourists and not just those people who enter caves with their little miners hats lighting the way and swimming underground bottomless pools on their agenda.

This one shows scale and also how much better things look in regular white lights, and see the railing?  Whew!  Guess that after 40 some years improvements have been made.

So flash forward 20 some years and see me and TY and the kids on a summer vacation to the DC area.  And while he was showing us the Smokies we passed a sign for the Luray Caverns.  Of course that is right up an 11 year olds alley so in we went.  I was assured at the ticket gate that it was safe and easy walk, asking more as a caution for my son who tended to always push the envelope on safety issues.  I had mostly forgotten my fear at Carlsbad, long past.  And this cavern was much smaller and contained than before.  Down we went.  We even had a tour guide/college student giving us a running spiel as we trotted along behind her.  There was a formation they called the Organ Room that was about halfway through the tour- and the gal was talking about how they have had weddings there (ugh!).

And that's where I had a full fledged anxiety attack.

Yup, I lost my land legs and all I could do was the breast stroke...  it happened when she said that we were at 'the point of no return' and we had about a mile to go to the exit.  I needed a bathroom stat.  I couldn't talk, I couldn't think of a thing but getting out.  It was as if the reptilian brain took over and I had NO common sense left.  I don't remember the trip out after that, but obviously I did it-  exiting explosively directly into the GIFT SHOP.  Like I would buy mementos!  I remember that I bolted out of there and landed face down on the grass like a woman possessed.  It took some deep breathing to rectify myself.  Since then I have avoided caves at all costs.  On several occasions we have seen signs for Luray and it is endlessly fun for my family to threaten me with another visit.  Bless their damn hearts.  I just KNOW that one day one of them will sprinkle my ashes down there.

Had a day off from foolishness yesterday and sat in one chair all day knitting on the Noro coat.  I finished the back and cast on the front, got bored with untangling the wound up sticky yarns, and exited to the hand embroidery on the purple blouse.  I can't say that I love the rayon threads, as beautiful as they are, they are not fun to work with.  They get very shredded in a few passes through the cotton.  Thankfully I still had one embroidery hoop left here, a large one, so it works well for big stitches, but not so well fitting a blouse over it with the sleeves and button placket always seeming to be in the way.  I may have to spring for a smaller hoop at some point, or abandon the project until I get back to the studio.

Amazon came through yesterday too-  I got my copy of Pictorial Websters finally and love it!  It's a  collection of old 19th century engravings used in the early Webster's dictionary.  The author, John Carrera, is a local book artist which also attracted me to his project.  He says, in the preface, that this was an experiment to test his theory of creativity- that new ideas arrive with the recombination of old ideas.  Which is of course MY theory too!   Not to mention he is a meticulous researcher, which is of course NOT me.  The original editions were hand printed and bound and if you check YouTube I believe there are several videos of his process.  All in all, it's a very fun collection of the original old engravings.  And some good fodder for the alphabet book I'm doing now for the babies.  Several letters have eluded me for illustrations and now I have some plans for them.

I also got what initially looks like a pretty good book on more advanced image altering in PS Elements,

but I will reserve talking about it until I have gone into it more thoroughly.  This may be a while since my computer seems to happily fold itself up whenever I open anything bigger than TextEdit.  I really should't buy books, I really should buy a new computer!  And most of all I REALLY SHOULD hang up this post and get on the road north to Clam Town and the babies...  Stay out of caves.