she's just saying...

Who isn't reading

I guess I'm into lists this week. These are some of the people who don't read my blog:
1. My parents: that's OK, they're in their late 80's/90's, so maybe they'll sit out the blogging thing. Though they do surf the web and email competently.  Really, do I want them to read it?  Not so much.
2. My sisters: one's too busy and the other doesn't use the computer much. That's my best guess, as they haven't really acknowledged that I write a blog. Why am I not surprised?
3. However, thanks, Steve! My big bro reads it.
4. My best friend. Busy busy busy. Or not that interested. Dunno.
5. My ex-boyfriend. He says it makes him miss me too much. You know, he doesn't have to miss me - I'm right here. Just saying.

So, I guess I can write about them all without worrying how they'll take it. That's something.

Anyway, I want to acknowledge and thank all of you who are reading. I appreciate your interest, support and comments.  This blog thing is challenging on many levels: creative, personal, technical, and emotional.  Who would have thought?

Someday has arrived

I have a bunch of old quilts and coverlets handed down (or passed off) by my mom, made by a great-great aunt. She's also had other ones made for me and I've collected some myself over the years. I've kept them carefully tucked away in an armoire with the thought that someday I'd have a house big enough to use them and display them.

I was moving things around last week and realized I could really use that armoire. I pulled out the quilts and had an epiphany.  "Someday" is never coming.  It wasn't a sad or depressing thought. It was the realization that this IS my life - I can't keep waiting for it to start.

So I washed the quilts and put the less-fragile ones out on beds. I'm sending one of them off to a sister who likes pink, and will store the others to pass down to Henry's family. There's one that is in overall bad shape that I'm hoping to give to a quilter who can use the old squares. It's tied, not quilted, so they're easy to disassemble. It's the blue and red one on the bottom in the photo.

Anyone interested? Amber? Kristen?

good kid

This will be brief as I have a major presentation Thursday (for BendFocus) and need to keep nose to grindstone(or fingers to keyboard).

Here is one payoff to raising a child:

eventually they vacuum. What a good kid!

in memory of Jay Zemotel

I didn't realize til just this moment that it is May 25, the 24th anniversary of my husband's suicide. What a long time ago that seems. Truly another world, another lifetime.

Jay was a bluegrass guitar player and singer from Boston. He and his friends had a band that was very popular in Fairbanks, the town we lived in in the late 70's. When we met, it was love (or something like it) at first sight. He was wild and smart, funny and fatalistic. He did everything to the extreme: music, motorcycles, drugs, alcohol, love. He had a ponytail and a crazy dog and I thought he was everything I'd never experienced. I was a sheltered, suburban, private college girl and he was the real world. He could walk into any bar and be at home. At the time that seemed like something.

I grew up during our short time together. Learning to live as a couple, on my own truly for the first time, trying to mesh very different backgrounds and values. There was love, fighting, fear and finally awareness. I was in way over my head and was going to drown with him or remove myself from that quicksand. Before the divorce was final, he  succeeded too well at one of his occasional attempts at suicide, something I still believe he didn't mean to do.

For years I couldn't listen to a certain type of bluegrass without crying. Now it brings me closer to him. I have nothing left of our life together except some photos, and the only people I know who remember him are my family. He lived hard, tried to be happy, and loved me the best he could. I remember you, Jay, and you live on in my heart.

the Orpha C. Fox

My maternal grandmother was a avid horticulturist. She raised begonias in her basement under grow lights. These are not the beautiful tuberous begonias you see in hanging planters in the summer - these were cane begonias and quite ugly, to my child's eye.

She actually cloned a new begonia which the Begonia Society named the Orpha C. Fox in her honor. One greenhouse on the web describes it as: Striking med/large dark leaves with large silver markings on a compact 'Angel Wing'. Almost constant pink flowers. Choice.

I love that use of the word "choice." It reminds me of her, discussing her plants with my mother and aunts.

Here is a shot of my Orpha C. Fox, growing happily in my bedroom window.

Labels: plants and flowers