Four’s Flights

 have  again allowed myself the unholy amusement of destructo-dialogue which have got to stop as it does my conscience no earthly good. My old college/grad-school friend H. used to warm me about my scimitar tongue and what it would do to my immortal soul, and he was spot on though I know he was chuckling along the whole time. In fact, I learned the habit and technique from him, the old fart, but he has toned his rhetoric down these days due to a softening of the brain from having raised a daughter. Pretty soon he’ll have to enlist my aid when it comes to writing cutballs letters. Used to be the other way ’round, but his apprentice has turned the worm. <g>. It’s not so bad using it with him and his cronies as they have the intellect to parry as well as thrust, but very bad of me to unleash the thing on the unsuspecting and ill-prepared.

Fortunately for my local friends have never been exposed — F. kicks me under the table when I start my motor.

    Speaking of Saint F.:  so far he’s gone back and forth to the nursery five times this morning with his pickup truck. I haven’t even counted the shrubs he’s carted over: Clethra, which unfortunately sounds like the endangered part in a recent message board posting, and more and more Viburnum, though have been busy hosing and pruning them.  Some are in sad shape, but with a little TLC they should survive, and am already in the planning stages of the dinner we’re going to make for Steve to thank him for all this great free stuff. He’s single-handedly  just about populated our whole two acres!

   PT my elusive friend, since you always read this blog (without comment, I have noticed) : one of the message board people whose writing I’ve begun studying has posted a brilliant article on depression, so if you want me to email it to you, speak up. And no, I don’t have a portrait in my attic, you dawg.

It’s so gorgeously sunny and bright and breezy and cheery here it’s impossible not to smile — Hope all of you (in cluding Mat) are having an absolutely splendid day.

am not allowed to go to the dumps anymore because I never fail to come home with more stuff than we throw out and the house, according to all who see it, is full. There’s a tented area on the side of the dumps where people bring still-usable stuff that they don’t want. Many townsfolk lie in wait for the cars and pull stuff out ofthem before the engine is shut off — there have even been fights over cast-off car-loads. It’s quite a scene.   When I used to go it was pretty quiet — don’t think I’d want to be part of a scuffle (too old, for one thing), but I did get some great things there. Got four silk plants, two really huge ones, in perfect condition (great for dark corners of rooms where real plants won’t survive), a many-times-painted stepladder I heep in my closet and love, and some great big terra cotta planters for outside. That’s in addition to all the rusty metal bits I used to use to make lamps, but that was another part of the dumps which I think no longer exists, very too bad.

 One of my clients came and bought eleven pots !!!!, paid in cash, helped me pack up them up (only one of which I still miss), and I managed to make it to my Curves workout in time to meet my workout buddy. Came back after to pick F up and go down to Two Mile Hollow for the first ocean swim — so exhilarating! It was bloody cold but absolutely wonderful. I was a little worried about the waves — F. said he’d rescue me if I got caught in an undertow … in August. Ha. Big Love. 🙂

   Ate a huge  salad (good) and a bellyful of turkey dogs (BAD) which ruined all the good calorie burning of the day, though managed to get through dinner with no wine in spite of my inexplicable love affair with Jamesport 2000 S. Blanc. Turkey dogs just don’t seem to lend themselves to anything more exotic than seltzer with cranberry and lime.  

   Made two pots after dinner and got caught up on the new season of Big Love (and I thought my life was complicated!), and woke up bright and early to go downstairs and roll out slabs for after my tea and chores. Very Big Love.

    Earlier, had spent most of the day on chores, including 9 loads of laundry !!!!!! because the guests last weekend snuck in a cat (very adorable), so every piece of fabric in their room had to be washed (bedspread, couch covers, throws, quilt, blanket, duvet cover,  rugs, mats, etc.) along with the other room’s linens and two loads of F.’s stuff. Got it all done in time for Nellie The Wonderful to help me make up the rooms, then watered the houseplants and a few of the new garden transplants, so it was a busy day.

   The great new news is F’s pal Steve (the nursery guy F. flies back and forth to Conn.) called to tell him he has a few truckloads of plants he knows he won’t be able to sell and that F. should come and get them!!!!!!! Viburnum and other  stuff — can’t WAIT!!!!! Talk about Big Love.

lazy Friday — didn’t do much today. Made a newer version of a vase I used to make years and years ago(this one tall and skinny, oval base, with an asymmetrical opening) which is what I do when stuck  for ideas — at least it keeps the juices flowing and I ended up liking the new spin on it. bent the rim inward on the downward slope and outward on the up. Will send a pictures later or tomorrow, depending on how much wine I have with this icky dinner: leftover pasta with spinach and onions which sounds good, but isn’t 😦 — should let F. cook. He uses pots of cream and butter but at least when we lie dying of clogged arteries in the hospital we’ll remember all those great meals.

    Another bummer: had an antique-dealer couple, former upstairs guests, show up for the basement room and cancel on the spot. They knew all along they’d be staying the  basement this time as the upstairs was already boooked, but all of a sudden they couldn’t stay there because of the damp. Jeeze. We’ve had a dehumidifier running in there for three days straight. But good riddance. The woman was nice enough, but the guy was a real piece of work — nothing but complaints about everything last time they stayed here about a month ago (not about our place though — they stayed in the Ivy Room which is gorgeous and airy): everything in the Hamptons was too expensive (it is), they sold next to nothing at the fair, the drive was terrible, they hated the weather, hated the people, etc etc. Glad we’ll never see them again. They asked for their deposit back and I’ll send it to them because the room is a slightly extra-legal guest room I offer specially to antique dealers and really beloved guests who need a room either on the cheap, or last minute when we’re booked, but really wanted to ask them what did they think I asked for a deposit FOR? They run a B&B in Mass — I betcha they don’t refund deposits when people cancel last minute! Not worth the animosity to keep the $100 though.

   The upstairs guests (a family of four) are absolutely wonderful people — friendly, appreciative, 3 great rescue dogs, full of fun and stories and lovely, so that makes up for the grumpy guy. The woman who booked the rooms for all of them has an 80 acre farm near Atlanta  !!!!!  with 30 acres fenced in  for the dogs  !!!!  and has been studying art in Florence all spring (am dying of jealousy) and is head back there for the summer !!!!!!!. Will give her the names of apartments and restaurants in Venice to put on her Deve Visitare list, and ask her if she needs an assistant.  They’ve been showing me all kinds of neat video clips, one from Europe about how Europeans behave as opposed to Italians, very funny clip. Her niece has been telling me how great Macs are — will see if I can corner her long enough to see what the big deal is about those laptops — hers is very nifty.

Have to get supplies for popovers. More later

Sunday SUCKED!!!! F., whose truck is still in sick bay, left me my car while he spent the early part of the day playing golf so I took off in high spirits (my car! my car! hooraw!!) to get stuff done.Tried to return overdue recorded books and pick up new oneordered for my book group only to find (after crawling through obscenely congested town) the library was closed till one oclock. Got half my errands done, then tried to go for a workout only to find Curves was closed. Okay. Walk dogs. Tried to anyway, but tripped over Rosie who was being, as usual, WAY too rambunctious instead and fell with a graceless thud on  the brick path, skinning forearm and getting a bang on hip, yes, the bad hip. Gave up on that. Was going to go back to library but thought better of it as the day had begun to seem cursed, turned around, and came back home. The good part: the guests with the two fabulously well behaved goldens (ENVY!) were very happy with their stay, I managed to broil up some delicious flounder with an Indian spice mix had made up without hurting self, and  got two new pots made.   Am trying to work out a new series specifically for the new glazes, some kind of interesting bottle shape that will show the outside really well but be closed enough for me to line with epoxy so people can use them as vases. The epoxy’s too plastickly ugly to use in the open shapes where you can see into them,  which is too bad as these glazes am using now look absolutely spectacular on the insides of the forms. The air flow is very different inside and out, so the chemical magic makes them look as if they have wildly different glazes on them, very exciting to see. The downside it that the outward sloped surfaces on the outside of the forms becomes harder to see — you have to hold them sideways to really get a look at the outside walls of the pots. Decisions.

Bright and sunny here, lovely swim in freezing pool this morning. Don’t mind not having a car today as am doing a bisque and have to stay home anyway. F. will bring the car back around 5 so I can go to Curves and the beach. Need an ocean swim!

   The great thing about this blog is, as no one reads it, I can say anything I happen to think. Will have to think of something outrageous so I can surprise myself.

🙂

 am beginning to worry a bit about this new website person. I couldn’t figure out how to use the pay pal thing so asked her for her address and wrote it down in an odd way, so had to email her again to ask her to repeat it. Okay, annoying, but what’s the big deal? She got snippy and insisted she’d already sent me her address twice, in the pay pal form. Nope. It was in neither of the two pay pal requests she sent — I checked till I started seeing double. Hmmm. Will sign on with her anyway .and hope for the best — it’s only a 6 month thing, so not the end of the world.

    The last-minute couple checked in and paid up, very nice, Australian, in the clothing biz, designers, great stuff (they had pictures with them). Gorgeous dog with one blue eye and one brown, slightly crosseyed and very silly. A luv.  The guy smokes — told him the house was a non smoking house and now all I can do is pray. He seems very respectful though, so am not really worried.

🙂

 had two people doing Raku here all day last Sunday, so had to clean and organize studio before and after.Mopping, so much fun! Had to go over the floor five times before giving up, and the water was STILL brown! Hard to understand, when we all use white clay 🙂   Everything came out great (relief!), wonderful lusters and white crackle to beat the band. They had a good time, and I made a$100, not bad. Walked dogs, did laundry, cooked seared tuna, broccoli, and a mixed grain side dish, and then collapsed in exhaustion, could barely open the computer to send out a few B&B replies and some brief notes to make sure no one thought I had died. Went to bed at 8 and slept till a million oclock.

had dinner guests the other night. These are Frank’s clients/friends who are deep into golf (I feel obligated to be nice to them since Frank likes them so much), but it wasn’t as awful as I’d thought it might be. Took the easy way out and had Frank and Al go pick up pizzas and salad from Sam’s, while Linda (not my cousin — another Linda) and I took a tour of my studio. She’s a painter, paints portraits and landscapes, kids at the beach, very nice work. She fell in love with one of my reject pots so I gave it to her and she was thrilled. Al came equipped with his super duper camera and took some pictures of my Blue Fire series (what I’m calling the new pots) and will print them up for me. Costs him almost nothing at his camera store so I don’t feel guilty — very nice of him to make the effort.

     On a very sour note, some friends invited us to dinner last minute and  — GAK — both F. and I forgot all about it!!!!! I felt absolutely terrible. These particular friends are probably not going to remain friends — they take mistakes very, very seriously. Well, so it goes.

went wild at the wholesale nursery (what the picture’s about), loading up the truck with andromedas and ferns, and immediately planned another trip the next day — greedy thing that I am — and yes, a bit too greedy. Came face to face with credit card balance  😦   and cancelled the nursery trip. No matter –we have enough to deal with as it is for now, and there’s always next month.

Friends have asked me why no flowers. Having grown up in The City, I just really so very love green. First of all, the deer eat all the flowers which I don’t much mined but what’s the point of planting them? Two: I don’t really want flowers in the garden. Is that odd? I just love green. I want mostly evergreens, and then when we’ve packed the borders with them, I’ll layer in groupings of Russian olives, ground covers, ferns, and exotic grasses. I’ll put some flowering annuals in pots an on the deck, and weave them in on my raised bed herb garden.