Apologies

Oh my, I feel like I have lost you guys from my negligent blogging! My errant ways. My neglectful and slothful lack of attentions...

You may have watched your plans fall apart as circumstances changed substantially over the past few weeks. Thankfully, mischievous Mercury is now done retrograding through your 9th House of Big Ideas and today's turnaround can send you off in a new direction. It may take a day or two for you to review what went wrong and to formulate a different approach, but don't get discouraged. You should be back on track soon enough.

See? It's not ALL my fault. So I'll start again as of today. I think I started out around Easter back all those years ago, so it's a good time for renewal of commitment and yet another fresh start.

Yesterday morning at 4:30 o'dawn clock a driver arrived to haul us to the airport for our flight back to Boston. We arrived before friggin breakfast with three hours of television reruns under our bleary eye lids. We were in the condo searching for car keys, out the door praying the car would start, and on our way to breakfast at a reasonable breakfast hour. We tried the new diner which is very cute and holds so much promise, but unfortunately the trouble starts when you think maybe settling in for actual food is a good idea. I'm warning you, sit there, have some good coffee in their huge mugs while you look around at the steampunk Jules Vern-ish cool rebuild of the old depot, and then go elsewhere to eat. Fortunately for you, Johnny's Luncheonette is only a short walk away so take my advice and go there. I was SO much looking forward to this place, SO disappointed that the eight foot snow drifts kept me from trying it on my last trip. SO bummed out this trip.

But it was a nice spring day and I went on about my business gathering provisions for our stay and putting the dishes away that were in the dishwasher since January. TY found a golf game and I actually fell asleep in a heap in the afternoon. I never nap, never ever, but something hit me over the head and made me do it. I think it was the fleece blanket I pulled up around my ears...

Today I made plans with a few of my crit group and one other friend to go to The Davis Museum at Wellesley College to see the El Anatsui exhibit. It's there until June 26th and if there is any way in hell you can make it there, GO! I was amazed at how his intricate joining of small metal pieces from alcohol bottle tops could be formed into such textile forms. These are huge free-form pieces that he allows each curator to hang as they see fit. He was at the hanging at Wellesley and gave some general directions but left the crew to manipulate the forms as they wished. From across the halls they were map-like with their three dimensional undulations, from acoss the room they were quilt-like with their repetitions and color blocked sections, from up close they were amazing in the variety pulled from such lowly materials. One piece had a large center section that was mostly metal pieces from bottle necks flattened out and wired together. But even thought these pieces had started out all the same, they had each seen different histories and different handling so their black color would vary from piece to piece, adding depth and movement through the subtle changes.

Nancy Natali on her blog gave a great review, much better than I can do, so go read all about her visit to the opening.

My favorite piece, even though you didn't ask,was an installation on the floor of thousands of small tin boxes. Each had been painted black and had red inscriptions on their open lids. Each had been lined with different advertising posters cut to fit the bottom and the lids. From one side you looked into all the open boxes and saw the riot of color. As you walked to the opposite edge, you saw only the box tops with their similarities of pattern and color in orderly rows. This represented the African marketplaces to the artist, and it conveyed the excitement, the sounds, the color of a market day.

I*wanted*so*badly*to*touch*this*stuff! Now I understand why 'the ladies' are always getting so close to our quilts- putting their noses against them, trying to finger some part or another, wanting desperately a bit of the tactile sensation that we, the artists, get from close association with our materials. It was a very cool exhibit and Lisa took us around showing us some of the other important things in the museum too. Don't miss it.

Then we went to a great little Turkish restaurant* that I am paying for this afternoon with garlic overload from one piece of lehmajun. Sure wish I had about a pound of parsley to chew on so I 'don't offend'. But the food was so good I couldn't moderate. Can't wait to get back there for dinner soon. This was the same space that I made curtains for many years back. Then it was a little cafe and they wanted, what else, cafe curtains in the front windows and hired me to make it so. It was fun, I got paid, and never even tried the restaurant! Since then there have been a whole list of different restaurants in that space from sub shops to coffee bars to Thai take-out and lord knows what else. But this one is a keeper- I hope they do well. I can't wait to take TY back for dinner some night.

So, after running around today in the pouring rain, the bone chilling cold, and miserable wind, I am going to go sit in front of the fireplace and see if I can dry out my clothes and my bones so we can up and out again tonight. Ugh. And that is all the news that is, from here.

*Update: the garlic smell coming from my every pore is overwhelming, even I can smell it and am gagging. I've eaten a whole can of cinnamon mints, then on the way out to dinner tonight I asked TY to stop at Whole Foods for some parsley. Bought a bunch, stood in lines of people shopping for their big family Easter dinner, spent 99 cents and ate as much as I could in the car on the way. It was terrible- I hadn't washed it and it was full of sand and basically tastes awful on it's own, but it helped somewhat get me through the hello-closeness-kissy part of meeting old friends. Dinner was better until I got back in the car and started smelling myself again. I brought the rest of my little parsley bouquet inside and washed it, now am nibbling at it like an Easter rabbit. Couldn't taste worse. Guess I will google to see if there is something better. Don't come near me...