More miscellaneous

 

Miscellaneous

 

I want to add a tree but maybe I should stop now.

I really hate this but will post it just so I remember what not to do.

This started with some twigs from my yard. Coated them with brown paint and slapped them against the paper to create branches. Too faint. Added leaves, flowers, and a bee.

Can't decide about this one. Awful or acceptable.

No painting, just flowers and leaves from my yard hammered onto paper to release the colors.

My girls.

City girl goes to day camp.

Brooklyn girls on ship in East River, Manhattan in background.

Learning to paint.

Pressed (actually hammered) flowers. Nature's paint.

Soap bubbles. Experiment.

Soap bubbles with starfish and fish. Not one of my favs.

Just soap bubbles. 

More pressed flowers. Odd but interesting colors.

Just dragonflies. 

 

One of many fails, but I give myself an A for effort

 Here is the original photo, found on this blog. 

Below is my attempt to re-create it. I am not, not, not fishing for compliments. It's very so-so but I'm not unhappy with it. Next time I'll make sure the horizon is horizontal and I may ditch the foreground shrubs/trees/etc. This blogger keeps posting photos that make me want to paint. 

More paintings

 From the talented Margo of San Francisco.

More of my efforts.

More of my painting efforts

I’m not trying to be perfect or even good. Not ugly is all I’m aiming for. And relaxation. 

I’m so in!

 

First I cried a little. Then I gave the Dems $$$. Now I’m excited and hopeful. We can do this!

More beautiful paintings from painting friends

 

The top card is from Margo in San Francisco, my good friend since 1977 who is trying out our group. She's a busy lady so she might not continue but we've all enjoyed her contributions. She's been studying watercolor painting for a quite a few years and it shows. I've posted her paintings before. The second card and bookmark are from Zazzy who started this whole business. The bubbles are so delicate, light, and airy and the flowers are just right, not overdone. I've found that overdoing watercolors is a mistake. 

Not sure this will take, but I'm going to attempt posting every day. It's my way of dealing with the current state of affairs in my country. I MUST stop following politics. It's so depressing and demoralizing. Maybe if I direct my energies into blogging I can block it out.

Watercolor with friends

Here are the three wonderful cards I got from each of the three [other] card traders in Zazzy’s Great Art Project. I love them all! Humor, beauty, and whimsy.

I just mailed off my next three artistic attempts, which I’ll post after they reach the recipients. 

Lessons learned: my general style of life, in many ways, is to improvise, act impulsively, and not follow instructions. Watercolor painting does not lend itself to that particular set of traits. Can I change? Doubtful, but I’ll try. On the other hand I’m not a perfectionist which helps immensely.

The four of us, one in Australia, one in the UK a bit southeast of London, one in Missouri, and me in Maryland, are also chatting via WhatsApp, which I'm using for the first time. I guess it's a little like (or even just like?) texting with a group.

So far, I'm a little surprised at how often I pick up a brush and do a tiny bit of painting. I'm not very happy with most of my efforts. Some are OK, even fine. Some are not. But I'm stubbornly not going to reject any attempts I make. Watercolors are unforgiving. Correcting or changing something is almost impossible. I'll be half-way into a decent picture and then make one color choice that doesn't work and it's too late. So I plow on and finish the card. And send it off. 

And I stubbornly refuse to practice. Silly.

Zazzy’s Great Art Project

Zazzy, a blogger friend, invited me to join her Art Project. Four bloggers will attempt some watercolor painting and we’ll trade hand-painted cards. I recently  mailed my first attempt, floating balls, to Zazzy in Missouri, and today I’ll send my simple fish and my desert scene cards off to the other two traders, one in Australia and the other in Kent, UK. 

It was fun! We’ll see if I get any better with practice. I’m not counting on it. If this is the best I can do so be it.  Looking forward to cards now coming to me. 

My current obsession

When JFK was killed I was in high school, just the right age to remember everything like it was yesterday. I remember the announcement -- I was in gym class and the PA system was scratchy and hard to hear but we got the message. Then I went to my World History class and probably heard some meaningful words from Miss Katie Keen who was an excellent teacher but I don't recall one word of that class. Then I remember the bus ride home, where so many of my friends cried for the whole trip. I didn't, but I was stunned and scared. I remember my father, especially my father, watching news non-stop that weekend. I remember on Saturday morning going to my parttime job at Lansburgh's Department Store in the women's dress department. That Saturday was cold and rainy in DC and there were very few customers. Everyone was in shock. Kennedy wasn't just our president. He was the guy who lived just down the street a few miles away, a neighbor. 

As the years and decades rolled by the assassination was in the background of my mental life, way in the background, but always there. By the 90s I was probably among the many people who just didn't know if Oswald acted alone. But we sure had plenty of reason to assume that our government wasn't going to tell us what they knew and they lied to us pretty routinely about a lot of things.

Fast forward to 2023 and here I am, with Rob Reiner, convinced that Kennedy was killed by a number of people who had different, overlapping reasons for wanting him dead. Not only am I convinced, I'm a little obsessed with the subject. Reiner has released 7 of his 10 podcasts reviewing all the details. He says that when the final episode is aired, on January 10th I think, he'll name the likely shooters and their likely locations. He doesn't claim to have any new information; he's just collected all the massive details others have uncovered over the past 60 years. The podcasts are each about 30 minutes and he tells a thrilling, but very confusing story of how it all probably happened. 

For anyone who wants to become fixated on old politics, as a relief from new (and frankly much scarier) current politics, you can find Reiner's podcasts here. 

NOTE: the picture above shows the moment when Kennedy was hit in the shoulder and neck by a bullet from behind, probably from Oswald's gun. Kennedy reaches his hands up to his neck. But two seconds later (and I will not publish the photo although I could) you can see his head struck from the front, obviously not from Oswald's gun. 

 

Hahahahahaha.

 Yes I suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I'm of sound mind and average intelligence so of course I have TDS. This photo is so soothing. I especially like that he's denied his cans of diet Coke. Evil, wicked, dangerous man. Check out those two guys on the left in the front row laughing.

When DJT is on trial in DC I could, if I wanted, try for one of the public seats in the courtroom. I won't because it would take an early morning effort and a lot of luck but I too would like to laugh in his face. 

Maybe if my parents had forced me to go to Sunday School more often I wouldn't have such hatred in my heart but they didn't and I do. 

I'm losing my mind. So I'll start blogging again.

Onnie at Christmas.

Onnie yesterday in Brooklyn at a friend's house.

My dreams are out of control. Too vivid, too Fellini-esque, too long and too involved. So I awake each morning with my head so full of ideas and thoughts that I'm now convinced I'm losing my mind.

It doesn't help that I use earbuds all night while sleeping. I listen to C-Span radio or NPR so I hear lots of book reviews, political commentary, Senate/House hearings, interviews with various interesting people. Husband Doug logically reminds me that I shouldn't listen to this stuff at night. Maybe I'll try to stop because of course he's right. It's a very old habit and will be hard to give up.

This morning, in listening to the C-Span call-in show, Washington Journal, I realized that lots of people in this country are fascinated by and obsessed with the balloon story -- Chinese (possibly) surveillance balloons being seen and shot down over the US. Our government has been aware of this for years. 

Here's what the US Office of the Director for National Intelligence reported in June 2021 and below is how the New York Times covered that story: 

U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alien Technology in Flying Objects, but Can’t Rule It Out, Either

A new report concedes that much about the observed phenomena remains difficult to explain, including their acceleration, as well as ability to change direction and submerge.

WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have found no evidence that aerial phenomena witnessed by Navy pilots in recent years are alien spacecraft, but they still cannot explain the unusual movements that have mystified scientists and the military, according to senior administration officials briefed on the findings of a highly anticipated government report.

The report determines that a vast majority of more than 120 incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology, the officials said. That determination would appear to eliminate the possibility that Navy pilots who reported seeing unexplained aircraft might have encountered programs the government meant to keep secret.

But that is about the only conclusive finding in the classified intelligence report, the officials said. And while a forthcoming unclassified version, expected to be released to Congress by June 25, will present few other firm conclusions, senior officials briefed on the intelligence conceded that the very ambiguity of the findings meant the government could not definitively rule out theories that the phenomena observed by military pilots might be alien spacecraft.

 

2005 movie Romance & Cigarettes

Feb 18, 2008

When it succeeds, it soars with great abandon, and when it fails, it fails so grandly that we still want to applaud it. This is a madhouse of a movie.

David Cornelius
DVDTalk.com

We watched this movie on a whim. I'd never heard of it before. Produced by the Coen Bros, written/directed by John Tuturro, great cast. I loved it. Not for everyone but I'll watch it again for the zany dancing, lip-syncing, and music.

One-handed adventures

It took trial and error and a few days but I finally figured out how to cut oranges and apples into quarters with one hand and two steak knives. Scissors action. I can peel clementines with my left hand but not a navel orange. (I eat 2-3 bags of oranges a week.) Apples of course are a hand fruit as George Costanza would say but I like them cut up. So there’s that to be said for learning to use my precious left arm, which I’m protecting like the valuable and irreplaceable  appendage it is. I've taken it for granted all these years. I’m so tired of asking for help from my very patient housemates.  

I was just feeding the birds and then this happened

In brighter news here’s Miss Onnie upon awakening in Brooklyn. She’s holding a crocheted snail that my sister made for her. I don’t think it has a name yet other than Snail. Snail is always in bed with Onnie and stays there during the day. 

Breaking my right arm stinks. 

I’m blogging from my phone. An experiment.