Hap hap happeee New Year

Talk about enthusiastic over the snow!

And compare and contrast that with this UNhappy leopard:
This is Snookie on some publicity stunt or other, relegated to some suburban ball-drop instead of Times Square where the stunt was supposed to happen. I bet they would have let it go if the ball could drop ON her instead of just carrying her. Someone handed her the to-go cup to keep her quiet up there. Notice that no one cares? Oh nevermind, the people around this stunt were cropped out because of their boredom.

I, on the other hand, had a much more exciting New Years Eve than I had anticipated. TY was rushed to the hospital by a friend directly from the golf course while I blissfully played in the studio with a dead cell phone in my purse. I arrived home to an empty house and a friend calling to tell me to get to the ER. He was there with internal bleeding so they were racing around looking for the source. I eventually left the hospital and came home when they decided to keep him. The GI guy showed up and scoped him at about 9 PM and found a big ole bleeding ulcer in his stomach so fixed it right up while giving him some nice new red blood. He was in the ICU all night while I was here pulling Molly out from behind the toilet where she was hiding from the fireworks. She had her anxiety jacket on, but was still freaked out over the noise. Basically I got about 3 hours sleep between worrying and taking care of one or the other of them.

This morning he was doing better and they were going to move him to a room but the doc showed up and said that he would probably do just as well home in bed as there so released him directly from the ICU to me, Nurse Rached. And I thught I'd be out of that job for a long time. He's on that awful low residue diet for a few days but expected to be himself by maybe Tuesday.

Oh oh, Here we go again!

You're feeling quite creative, but you might be more interested in watching a football game today than doing something productive. Nevertheless, it's difficult for you to just let go of your routine responsibilities. Once you step beyond your current world, your life becomes more fun because anything can happen. However, the window of opportunity won't stay open long; jump out while you can.

There goes three more days in the studio. Sure hope I can go over tomorrow for a hour or two because my old Jupiter friend Diane Wright is coming Monday for a visit and I really REALLY need to do a quick clean-up of the place. I met Diane 15 years ago when I joined her little crit group here . She was a full time resident, I was just sort of in and out of town but I was so happy to find a group that was interested in more contemporary work. Shortly after that Diane moved to Connecticut but still visits family here and I get to see her on those short trips. Meanwhile her work has just gotten better and better and I always look forward to seeing her new pieces.

So, yesterday with my dead cell, I managed to get two steps forward with a visit to the art store and stock up on some boards for future work. I also bought one of those fishing tackle-like boxes to store the encaustic equipemnt all together but got the damn thing home and opened it to discover that it was broken in several places, now must take it back. That's my one step back.

So I was at Walgreens waiting for TY's prescriptions tonight and found one lone bag of chicharrones, God's Gift to the Low Carb Diet. Yes folks, pork rinds. I snatched them right up and ripped them open in the car. Just finished off the whole bag, and could eat another one if I had it. My dad did one good thing for me as a kid- he got me eating some weird foods that I continue to love to this day. Jerky and pemmican, pickled eggs, offal of various sorts, home brined pickles, pork rinds, tongue, 'blind robins' some form of dried herring I think, liverwurst, smoked fish, venison hearts, pumpernickle and day old baked bean sandwiches, ketchup on my macaroni and cheese, and straight horseradish on saltine crackers. And we would make 'Indian candy' at the first snow- pouring hot (New York State Grade B dark) maple syrup on fresh white snow and watching it harden to chewy slabs of deliciousness. I never picked up his quite advanced bourbon habit, thankfully, but am very happy with my need for extra sharp New York State cheddar and bushels of fresh peaches. My mom, on the other hand, was a bit more conservative in her tastes. She would never try pizza, and even spaghetti was too exotic and foreign! Forget Chinese food- she wouldn't eat sauces or things she couldn't identify. She liked fish from fresh water, not so ocean varieties. Her favorite fancy meal, uncharacteristically, was frog's legs, but her lamb was well done and beef was only ground up. She would split a bottle of Coke amongst four of us, and until I was at college I never had a whole bottle to myself. But I also never had a cake from a bakery or cookies from a bag or Wonderbread or sugared cereals. She only bought canned vegetables, frozen were too expensive- I never knew beans were green and snappy, not limply gray as I knew them.

Guess I wil turn in with my book tonight and see if I can clear the four hours point of sleep- I could use a few more, the black and blue eyes are showing some wear and tear.

I had better take up the Horror-Scope and go JUMP while I can!