Month: December 2007

fog

December 23, 2007


Dec 23
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Coming home today the air was warm and wet and there was snow still over everything. The view everywhere was foggy, with things recedeing into the mists at no distance at all. It made things feel very far away, and quite intimate. I was experimenting with making trees and houses vanish behind curtains of mist, using layers and layers of silk organza. I could have gone for a couple more layers, I think….

It is nice to be home.

duo trapeze

December 23, 2007


Dec 22
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

There were two duo trapeze pieces; one was my old boss’ daughter and her partner in crime, doing a fabulous thing in red and gold, the other was Elsie and Marina doing something that got faster and funnier as they went along. I very carefully forgot my camera, but the space is so horrible for taking pictures it wouldn’t have mattered anyhow. Someone with much better camerage and more experience was working on photography and even she was having issues with sight lines.

Saturday was actually spent in the car and visiting people. We caught up with Al’s sister and her kids, in NH. The kids are adults now – in their 30s – with babies of their own. Al was dandling his nephew’s baby and having major flashbacks to dandling the nephew. We crashed with the Other Kate for the night (thank you again) and had a great time hanging out and making poor puns and following extended tangential trains of thought.

lyra

December 23, 2007


Dec 21
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Friday was completely crazed, but good. Aerin and I ended it by driving to Brattleboro to help with a show at Nimble – the mid term for the professional track kids and selected students, plus some of the instructors.

Happy birthday Al

December 21, 2007


Dec 20
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Al’s birthday was yesterday. He turned 49 for the first time. I mention this only because we both lost track of his real age, and thought he’d gotten a year older than he had, so he turned 48 two or three times, we kind of lost track. But this one we are sure of.

He had cake, and lunch out, and a flute recital. Not a bad deal.

strippy

December 19, 2007


Dec 19
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

The muse continues to push the skinny strips. I thought of one more yesterday looking at the back door of one of the giant trucks.

I was auditioning the red spots in different places and realized it made a kind of little animated film. But, with all the great toys on the new mac, I don’t think I have something I can use to make stop motion animation. If I figure it out, I’ll post a (very short) animated clip of the dot(s).

Aside from people with octopi on their heads today was pretty calm. Alice had a friend, we walked to the library for their book group, hit the candy store and the video store on the way home and then decided pizza for supper was a good plan. So we did that too, before we finally straggled home.

why flickr rocks

December 19, 2007

And also why flickr sucks up waaaay more time than it should. Not only can I see what my contacts are posting for photos, but I can browse around and locate THIS.

Which really cracked me up.

happy feet?

December 18, 2007


Dec 18
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I’ve been catching myself dancing in the kitchen. Al looked at me and asked if I was happy. I didn’t think I was, but apparently my body is happy. It jumps and spins and shuffles through the kitchen, doing plies and demi-kicks and little leaps. I couldn’t begin to tell you what this is about.

This postcard is more of my muse’s tiny strips, this time with a big white block in it. The part to the left of the block is vertical strips with the ragged edges showing, but it is hard to see in the photo.

I had a great visit with two women after yoga today.  One is new to me, one I found again after losing track of her for six months. It was very nice – tea, laughter, life stories… exactly what I wanted.

Circus is daunting. I can climb, but I get worried about being too high and having my arms give out. I can do ugly straddles and splits, and a foot lock, but my strength to weight ratio is still not so good. I am working on both halves of that – decreasing weight, increasing strength – with what feels like limited success. And yet, I can do what I couldn’t six months ago. Probably I need to take a longer view.

Alice had the end Holiday Solstice concert for her school. The Montessori school is mostly a pre-school, with two smallish class rooms of grades 1-3 and 4-6. The concert had a range of songs mostly sung and shouted by tiny adorable children torn between waving to their parents and staring at all the rest of the strange adults in the room. They sang. They signed Twinkle. They brought down the house.

The Upper El class sat primly at the back, taller than anyone else, with Alice in the middle singing where she knew the words, smiling gamely at the songs many kids had been singing for years. I was proud of her. Al and Aerin came and cheered her on too, just as I promised. That is what families do. When someone is competing or performing, the rest go along to cheer them on. It is part of the deal. Alice hadn’t experienced this end of the deal much – I think she liked it.

short days

December 17, 2007


Dec 17
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

The winter solstice is roaring down upon us, and my world is very white. I was waved off the barn today, which was nice actually. I spent extra time at the Y (I am becoming a yogi, more or less unintentionally) and then came home and spent extra time at the sewing machine. I was following my muse, and she seems intent on lots of thin strips of fabric with whiffly edges. I got the horizontal strips stitched down and was trying to set the vertical blocks so that the loose edges fluffed out around them. I have more strips ripped on the ironing board, so clearly the muse is still chasing this idea.

Dec 16

December 16, 2007


Dec 16
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Anyhow – here is today’s snowy postcard. I managed to resolutely stay inside all day long. It was sybaritic.

It won’t last either. Tomorrow is a full day, with ponies and etc. and then Tues is a last circus day, with a mad race home for Alice’s school solstice assembly.

let it blow/glow/snow/go

December 15, 2007


Dec 15
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

The forecast is for a couple inches of snow followed by freezing rain and rain on top, with temperatures plummeting and solidifying it all into one giant skating rink. sounds exciting.

Alice and I went to see a kids’ production of The Reluctant Dragon. It has always been one of my favorite stories – i have a recording of Boris Karloff reading it aloud on an old LP my dearest Dad kindly digitized for me. Now Alice knows and loves the same story, with the same cadences.  Anyhow – our neighbor was in it, and we needed to cheer her on. Alice was riveted, and wants to take to the stage. She was also interested in  the tech – lights, music, special effects – which is closer to her genetic heritage. At least now we have something to sign her up for.

I am feeling ambivalent about reaching the end of my year of postcards. I realized I am stuck between kid time and grownup time. A kid year is forever. A grownup year is over in a flash. This has been one way to stretch out the year, and make sure I see each day. 

In two weeks, I’ll have to give myself a review and a grade for the year. I also need to think about what I might do next year. I definitely need to do something (smallish) every day, or I get out of the groove. If I give myself a break I don’t come back refreshed, I just don’t come back, at all. If I keep stooging along, then more and more interesting things happen, and more work opens up for me to choose from.

I probably need to sharpen up my goals for the next year too. I’ll worry about that over the next couple weeks.