grass seed, maps, small towns & big cities

The weather's been pretty sweet. I mean, cool (under 70 most days) and dry (probably too dry).
Today it's raining, which is excellent.

Yesterday I, with help from a friend, moved a bunch of gravel from just beyond my porch into the driveway, so I can have a little piece of earth to wiggle my toes in (on?). Today I bought some grass seed (mostly rye and clover) and spread it over the patch of earth, and then occasionally went out and watched, with great pleasure, the rain soak down on the grass seed. Soon there'll be green shoots sprouting and my toes are wiggling in anticipation.

Earlier today I spent a couple hours mapping my family and childhood homes, schools and places of birth in Philadelphia. I called my Dad to get specifics on addresses. I was only off by one number on the house I spent my first 8 years in (11764 Brandon Rd). I thought it was 11762. My dad said that would have been the Taylor's house...which I would not want, because they had this german shepard named Major who snarled ferociously if anyone got near their front door, which was right next to ours.

I also found out, by asking the name and address of the hospital I was born in, that my older brother and I (we have the same parents), and my three younger half-siblings (same dad, different mom) were all born in the same hospital (Albert Einstein) and delivered by the same doctor. The doctor delivered my older brother in 1964 and my younger half-brother in 1984. Apparently he, the doctor, was the youngest partner in the family practice he belonged to. Go figure. 

I think of Philadelphia as a large city (it is), but relationship-wise it feels like a small town. All five of us siblings being delivered by the same doctor feels so small town-ish. But maybe it's not as unusual as I think?

Don't know, but it's one of the many questions I ask myself as I pour over the map of my home town (which is really a big city).


 

signs

line dried candy colored clothing!



my bike - equipped with air in the tires and a new lock.



snow retreating from the back yard...it IS all gone now...this pic was taken a few weeks ago

Full On Spring

It's for real - no turning back; Spring's Here.

West and east views over the Winooski River, respectively.

And a pot of brown rice, because I like the pattern it makes when it's cooked.

bright cold SPRING!

Look what I got!!! A thank-you post card from Lynda!Barry! I sent her a postcard a few weeks ago telling her how much I love her work and how much I'm looking forward to her next book coming out - scroll down to The Gorgon and feast your eyes. So!Utterly!Cool!



Hey, yeah!

Even the snow seems to know it's spring; when it does snow it's not as deep, thick or persistant as it was a even two weeks ago.

The sun is super bright, although it's been very windy the last few days, but never mind, in another little while I'll be writing about crocuses and robins and then peepers and dragonflies. Just you wait and see.

almost spring

We had a big melt yesterday. Here's two views.

Snow, Love and Posting Update

Thing A Day has totally inspired me. I have a friend in New York City (one of my oldest friends because her mother and my mother met when they were in undergraduate school together) who is also an artist and she's participating in the thing-a-day thingy linked above. I just talked with her last night and was noting how I haven't been posting very much the last few weeks, partly because I feel like very very few people come to the site, and even fewer post comments. It's kind of discouraging, but after going to thing-a-day I feel a lot better and I'm ready to post my heart out once again!



Above is a photograph I just took of my back porch (the chair is for scale) to illustrate how much snow we've got around here. Too crazy. I've reached my AAA limit in free service calls (until August or something) so now it's $45 everytime I need to get dug out of my own parking space. Really frustrating and I'm counting the days until I can park with impunity again. Or, I should say, get out of my parking space with impunity.

Meanwhile, Valentine's Day came and went, without any genuine activity here in Eva's Icons land. But wait, I have to show you this "dark" valentine I got as a consolation prize (from a friend, Rachel Rice, who makes art that's dispensed from an old cigarette machine now known as the GLAD-iator).







Nice, eh?

Oh, I almost forgot. Dr. Love did have a space walk (read all about it here), but not on Feb. 14th. Everything, it appears, is subject to rescheduling when it comes to outer space.

white, many shades of gray, blue & purple (a snow storm)

I've been trying to find statistics on how much it snowed in December, but lacking factual information I'll fall back on the anecdotal: WAY TOO MUCH!

I know it's beautiful, I know. But I'm overwhelmed. Then again by tomorrow night it's supposed to get below zero, and by then it'll probably stop snowing. So, which is it gonna be, snow or cold? Cold or snow?

January 1, 2008. Welcome to winter, folks.

EDITED 1/3/08: It snowed 47.2 inches in December. WAY TOO MUCH, INDEED!

today

It's Friday. I woke up at 6:21 AM. I had been dreaming I was telling my friend Gina all about a crush I was recovering from. It was true to real life detail for detail (except I haven't talked with Gina about any of this, yet). The only thing that was different (than real life) was following Gina from room to room while I told her what had happened between me and my crush-ie.

Thursday morning my therapist asked me to think about how dreams effect real life, and vice-versa. Or, did he ask me how dreams and waking life interact? Or what it means to have dreams, and how they effect us, whatever is going on in our waking lives? Now I can't remember.

I do remember responding to his suggestion with sarcasm, as he knows I have issues about this subject, since my late mother was a Jungian psychoanalyst. Dreams and all that hoo-ha. Interestingly, my dream life seems to be effecting my waking life, despite my mistrust of psychoanalysis. But when my dreams act like my waking life one quarter step removed? I'm sorry, that's just weird.

My weekend is on Fridays and Saturdays. I spend a fair amount of time wandering around the internet during my time off, and today I've been spending some time on Maira Kalman's blog: here

I also ran into an aquaintance who is a bookbinder, who also has a blog and a website: maydaystudio

Both very cool, in totally different ways.

At 7:45 AM I tried getting my car out of my snowfilled driveway. It's only December 21st and I've already gotten stuck three times (front wheels spinning on ice under the snow). My next door neighbor took pity on me and helped me back out. But she said she's gotten stuck just as many times. WTF?! Winter is less than 12 hours old.

Mercifully this didn't take very long, so I made my appointment at the mechanic right on time. He replaced the purge valve, but first listened to another customers's engine, and then, while working on my car, took two or three phone calls and a visit from a potential business insurance provider (who he apparently knows personally...he kept making references to some awkward voice mail messages from someone they know in common). All this in less than an hour, and no more "check engine" light on my dashboard!

I park my car on the other side of my apartment building (where the traction is better) and walk downtown to mail a birthday present to my niece, who will turn 11 on December 24. I got her a little leatherette covered blank book and a graphite pencil. Last year I got her 12 Prismacolor markers and a big sketchbook. I am the art aunt.

I wander into my beloved independent bookstore, which can also be accessed at Bear Pond Books and I page through the 2nd edition of the cream of the crap, "The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker" by Matthew Diffee and Robert Mankoff. It's awesome, partly for the cartoons, but mostly for the seriously silly questionaire all the artists fill out (or ignore, or cover with graffiti, depending). They also have all been asked, apparently, to provide a photograph of 1. a self-portrait; 2. the inside of their refridgerator; 3. drawing a cartoon; 4. their feet; 5. their studio/work space. I love seeing all these artists riffing on the posibilities in these requests. The guy who photographs himself drawing a cartoon, with a handcuff attached to his wrist, also abligingly provides a photo of his foot drawing a cartoon with a (foot?)cuff attached, made my bookstore visit. It's 9:45 AM.

On my way home from downtown I start thinking about posting more of my mom's story on the blog, but first I pop some biscuits and chicken in the oven (I kind of skipped breakfast). I usually check out my main e-mail account, Doonesbury, dykestowatchoutfor, Found Magazine, my hotmail account, alas, a blog, and drawn!, before doing anything else on the web, including look at my own blog. And look at the personals hosted by my local free alternative weekly, Sevendays Personals.

Yeah, that's where I saw the ad for the guy I've had a crush on. He's the sweetest, but not for me. Oh well.

I did a little shopping at the food co-op a few hours ago, which was pretty busy at 3pm, but I knew it would be even busier later. Holiday frantic energy. Two advantages to being single and a Jew at the end of December: a short gift-giving list and it's all done before Dec. 25th.

I did write a bunch of holiday well-wishing cards to my co-workers earlier this week, though. I work at the Red Hen Baking Company, which just moved to Middlesex, VT (from Duxbury) a little over a month ago. I also work for Anne Davis, who is the artist who creates the greeting cards, calendars and now children's books for her company Anne Made Cards, which I used for the aforementioned holiday greetings.

Time to log off and relax on the couch with the latest issue of the New Yorker magazine.

Happy Solstice everybody!