I Saw

 I saw a poem. 

          I thought of you today,

                    but that is nothing new.

          I thought about you yesterday,

                    and days before that too.

          I think of you in silence,

                    I often speak your name.

          All I have are memories,

                    and your picture in a frame.

          Your memory is a keepsake,

                    from which I’ll never part.

          God has you in His arms,

                    I have you in my heart.   

          I was painting and needed a break. I checked the email and this poem was in an email from Pinterest. Someone had taken the poem, varied the fonts, arranged it on a sign, and had it for sale.

          Pushing back from my desk, I got up, took up my empty coffee cup, and went to the sink to fill it with water.

On my windowsill, above the kitchen sink, is my picture in a frame. Momma and Kat. Taken just a couple of months before Kat died.

Could I paint that? I wondered and let it rattle around in my head for a few more days while I finished my current project; a WELCOME porch sign with the funky chicken on it.

Oh my gosh! I have to tell you what happened!

I transferred the letters and the chicken to the board, got my paint and my fancy-schmancy plastic oatmeal lid palette, and settled in to paint. I started on the W and struggled with the paint. It wasn’t flowing very well. I finished the W and the E before I decided to stop torturing myself and making the job harder than it had to be, got up to get some water to thin the paint.

          I get back and see I have a tiny little smudge of black paint beside the E.

          How did that happen? I wonder, grab a baby butt wipe and try to erase it. It sorta worked. I sat back to see how it looked from a distance. That’s when I saw it. That’s when my eyes bugged out of my head and my mouth dropped open. There was a huge — I mean HUGE smudge of black paint all along the side. I quick grabbed more wipes and tried to get it off. The board is rough-sawn and I don’t sand them smooth. The paint seeped into all the texture of the board.

          Aye-yi-yi!

          My board was on the table on my paint towel, the palette on the other side of the board. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how paint got on my forearm or my sleeve but the evidence was indisputable. There it was. Now what was I going to do?

          Paint a flower? A butterfly? I thought.

          I shelved the project till the next day and looked at it with fresh eyes. I shook my head. It’s gonna have to be a big butterfly, trailing off the edge of the sign. I didn’t think much of that so I decided to sand it.

          Luckily, I’d only lightly stained the board. Mike and I thought stuff would show up better if I didn’t make my boards as dark as I usually do and as it turns out, that saved me. I was able to sand the spot and dab a little light stain back in. Unless you knew where it was, I don’t think you could pick out the spot.

          The WELCOME porch sign was finished Thursday. My next commission is for Valentine Gnomes. Valentine’s is February 14 and I only need one day to make three stained glass gnomes but I’ll block out two days for the project which means I had a full day Friday to play.

          And I wanted to try to paint a portrait.

          I have no experience painting portraits but my new-found talent had me inspired to try. Rather than trying to tackle painting two people, Momma and Kat, I decided to try one first and see how it goes.

“Just paint what you see,” Me tells Myself.

          I printed the picture and transferred it to my board, got my paints and settled in.

          I started blocking in color and thought that knot in the wood could’ve been in a better spot but since this was just practice, I decided to go on with it.

          At the end of the first day of my first ever portrait, I had a face — but it didn’t look much like Kat.

          I put it aside and turned to You Tube.

          Did you know there are tons of tutorials on portrait painting on the World Wide Web? There are. And there are just as many ways to paint a portrait, too. It seems like everyone had their own style, their own method.

          I learned that the whites of eyes are not white. I learned you should vary your shading between the inside and outside corners of the eye.

          Some of the other things I heard and saw were things I was already doing. Blocking in my colors. I usually start with a mid-range tone and deepen or lighten the colors from there. But again, everyone had their own way of doing it and mine’s not wrong.

          I also learned that background color can make all the difference in how you see your colors. I’m guessing that’s why I thought my skin tones were too pale.

          The first thing I did the next day was to “set” the eyes with some shading and it worked pretty well. It definitely improved it. And I thought I had her chin too long. I shortened it. Both those things were good things.

          Then I got over-confident.

          I grabbed a fresh palette, added colors, and started to block in darker shades.

          I went too dark and I don’t have good transition between my lights and darks, which I could fix, but frankly, I gave up. Just quit.

          I know it’s awful and I’m embarrassed to even show it to you, but here at Peggy’s Jibber-Jabber we keep it real. You get the good, the bad, and the ugly.

          I don’t know for sure, but I think I can still work on it. I don’t have to trash it, although I may.

          Something else I saw this week was the movie A Man Called Otto with Tom Hanks.

          On Wednesday, those sweet, wonderful neighbors of ours picked us up before noon and drove to the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannock for the old fart showing.

          The trees on the theater property were still decorated for Christmas.      

 

          I thought it was so sweet that this couple, married 52 years, still hold hands.       

          It reminded me of once when Mike said something to an old-er couple about still holding hands.

          “I have to hold her hand or she’ll fall down!” the man said.

          “Is that why the Kipps hold hands?” you ask.

          I didn’t ask. I’ll just hold on to my romantic notions.

          Inside the Dietrich.

          The movie was so, so very good! I highly recommend it.

          A couple of scenes made me teary-eyed whereas another scene nearly threw me into a fit of hysterical laughing. I could feel it coming on and had to work really hard to control it.

          “How does it compare to the book?” you ask.

          I thought they did a great job paralleling the book and can’t pick out anything different, but it’s been a long time since I read the book.

          Leaving the parking lot of the theater, we got stuck in a straight-through or right-turn lane when we would otherwise have gone left.

          “We’ll just go straight through,” Lamar said.

“And take the shortcut if we can remember where the turn is,” Miss Rosie added.

          And that’s how I found myself on a road I’ve never been on before.

          You’d think I’d’ve taken more than one picture but pictures of this one barn is all that I took. It was only a two- or three-mile detour that took us back to roads I’ve been on tons of times.

          Something else that took us on new roads was a trip to Dushore to have Raini’s nails cut.

          We tried to do her nails on our own. I’m afraid to use clippers since I made Itsy’s bleed when I did hers. Since then, I’ve switched to a doggie nail grinder and Bondi doesn’t mind it at all. Raini does. The sound freaks her out and we can’t hold on to her.

          The Kipps take Tux to a gal down in Dushore and gave me her name and number.

          Raini gets car sick. An internet search said they usually outgrow it by the time they’re a year old but some dogs never get over it. Raini’s nine months old now.

          “Should we be taking her on short trips to get her used to it?” Mike asked.

          “I don’t know but we can try.”

          The last time we had her in the car was for a short trip into town for milk. Four miles down, four miles back. We got into town okay but she got sick on the way home. I’m so glad she knows to go to the floor when she’s gonna puke. Rubber car mats are a lifesaver.

          “Let’s have lunch at Marybeth’s after we have Raini’s nails done,” I suggested. Mike likes her bacon cheeseburger and I like her cheesesteak.

          “What are we gonna do with Raini?” Mike asked. “We don’t want her chewing up the seats while we’re having lunch. Should we take the kennel?”

          I thought that was a good idea. “Plus, I won’t feed her Friday morning either.”

          The lack of food didn’t keep Raini from being sick and she puked before we reached the Marsh road. But I was prepared. Mike pulled over and I used paper towels to clean up the mess and throw it into a plastic shopping bag.

          We got into Dushore about twenty minutes before our appointment so we drove around a little.

          I didn’t know Dushore had a recycling center.

          Back on main street, Raini starts retching. It freaks Bondi out and she tries to climb out of her car seat into Michael’s lap.

          “She can’t have much left in her,” I said as Mike pulled over behind a now vacant grocery store. I cleaned up the mess and we went on our way.

Bobbi Jo’s is on a street I’ve never been on before but we didn’t have any trouble finding it. Our GPS took us right to her door.

          I remembered Miss Rosie telling me that Lamar picks up Tux and puts him on the table for Bobbi Jo.

“Do you want Mike to put her on the table for you?” I asked. 

“Nope. She’s small enough I can get her,” she said. She picked Raini up and put her on the grooming table. Then Bobbi Jo went on. “I’m not taking on any new big dogs. I’ll take care of the ones I already have but my back just can’t handle it.”

She went on to tell me that after bathing them, a lot of the big dog work is done from the floor and she just can’t get up and down anymore like she used to.

In less than two minutes Raini was done. Best nine bucks I ever spent.

Raini went back in the kennel for the ride to the restaurant.

Rather than turn the car around, we made a big loop going on past the old pajama factory.

           We rounded the curve and came face to face with this behemoth.

          “What do you think that was?” I asked Mike but he didn’t know. Looking at the pictures on my computer I see it’s on School Street. Is that a clue?

          We’re almost to the one and only traffic light in the whole of Sullivan County when it turns red and we stop. We can see the Jolly Trolley on our left on this end of the block and Marybeth’s a couple of blocks down on the right. As we watch we see people park, cross the street, and go in. Another car parks in front of Marybeth’s and more people go in. Then two more people head to Marybeth’s from the parking lot of the adjoining grocery store.

          “Holy cow! We’ll have a long wait by the time we get in there,” I said to Mike. “I don’t wanna wait. The Jolly Trolley doesn’t look busy. Let’s eat there.”

          The light changes and Mike proceeds through the intersection.

          “But you like her cheesesteaks,” Mike said.

          “So. You like the bacon cheeseburger with egg on it from the Jolly Trolley,” I pointed out. “I’ll find something to eat.”

Then from nowhere, a group of six people appear and are heading into Marybeth’s. That was the clincher. Mike turned around and we parked in front of the Jolly Trolley.

“Are they open?” Mike asked.

“I saw someone go in when we went past,” I answered. “And there’s lights on.”

We got out and fed the parking meter a quarter. At the door, a sign.

CLOSED FOR REMODEL

We went back to the car.

“And you put a quarter in the meter,” Mike said.

“Oh well. I don’t guess a quarter’s gonna break us.”

Mike backed out and we were now headed away from Marybeth’s. He turned at the light and two gas stations were ahead of us on opposite sides of the road from each other. Both of them have food.

“We could eat at Subway,” I suggested.

“Nah.”

“How about pizza?”

He didn’t answer right away. Then I remembered there’s a little place on up the hill just out of Dushore.

“We could go to the Mad Bakers. They have sandwiches.”

“No. We’ll just go to Marybeth’s and wait.” Mike made a turn-around and we headed back to Marybeth’s. He parked on the street and we fed another meter another quarter.

          We ordered our food and it didn’t take near as long to get as I thought it would.

          Heading for home, Raini got sick AGAIN! It was just a lot of water. This time, instead of wiping it up, I layered the bottom of her kennel with paper towels. Poor girl.

          The old school in New Albany. Someone’s replaced all the broken windows and given it a paint job. There’s a trench dug in front like they’re repairing, replacing, or installing a utility line.

          Speaking of Raini...

          A couple of nights ago she woke us up three different times with barking. I don’t know if it’s one of the cats she’s barking at, a strange sound, or the light of a passing car.

          Mike can doze off watching TV or waiting for me in the car. And as a general rule, he falls asleep pretty quickly. Like any rule, there’s always the exception and the exception to this rule is if he’s woken up in the middle of the night. Then he can’t go back to sleep, or maybe I should say it’s hard for him to go back to sleep. So having Raini wake us up with barking and getting Bondi rousted from slumber to join in, makes a hard night for us — him. Me? Not so much. I’m used to being awake several times in the night with hot flashes.

The very next night, just before midnight, she took off barking again. Bondi dug her way out from under the covers and joined in.

Mike was disgusted. “Not this again!”

“I don’t know what she’s barking at.”

“What are we gonna do about this?” Mike asked.

“What’s there to do? We’ll have to wait it out. Maybe she’ll outgrow it?”

“You could put her in the kennel,” he suggested.

“She’d just cry — and it wouldn’t stop her from barking. She’d just be in a different room.”

“Put her in the garage.”

“No. She’d cry.”

“Get rid of her,” was his last and worse suggestion.

“I won’t do that.”

When Raini and Bondi didn’t come back to bed, I got up to check on them. Bondi was sniffing around under the table leg, Raini hovering.

“You got a mouse?” I grabbed a flashlight and got down and looked. Sure enough, there was a little brown mouse hiding under there.

I got the fly swatter and tried to scare him out. It wasn’t working. No way was he coming out. I finally had to put the handle of the flyswatter right on him and push him out. Raini got him before Bondi could.

“OUTSIDE!” I commanded and Raini went.

Bondi and I went back to bed.

A few minutes later, just as I pulled the covers up, Raini came in the bedroom.

That was fast, I thought. She stopped just inside the door. I took the headboard flashlight and shone it on her. She dropped her mouse and looked at me.

“OUT!” I told her.

She grabbed her mouse and ran.

The next time she came back she didn’t have the mouse and it was a quiet night from then on out. But it was too late for Mike. Somewhere in all of the excitement, he went to the recliner to watch TV for a while.

In the morning I find this guy on the dining room rug. Raini didn’t eat him. Look at those long back legs and tail. It’s a jumping field mouse.

I picked him up by his tail and tossed him over the back fence.

          I don’t like it when Raini wakes us up. But I guess it’s her job to alert us to dangers, even if it’s just the danger of a little jumping field mouse.

          I’m almost finished with my third book of the year. I’m reading The Lincoln Lawyer, the first book in the Mickey Haller series by Michael Connelly, the same author who wrote the Bosh detective books.

          “How do you read so many books?” you ask.

          It’s like anything else. When you love to do it, you find the time. For me, I read when I get on the treadmill. I read when Mike’s watching a TV show that I don’t care about, which, considering the fare on TV these days, is pretty often. I read while I’m waiting for my lunch to come at Marybeth’s. I read when we’re waiting for doctor’s appointments. But the majority of my read time is after we go to bed. I may read for two or three or four hours. It all depends on how tired me and my eyes are. And because I read electronic books that sync across all my devices, iPad, Kindle Fire, cell phone, I always have my book with me.

          When I finished Where the Crawdads Sing, I did a library search for the author’s other books. The library didn’t have any but presented me with ‘similar’ options. One of those was Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera. I’ll tell you what. This book grabbed me from the very first pages and I read a hundred of them that first night. I finished it in four days. It was really good.

          As much as I enjoy Michael Connelly’s Haller and Bosch detective books, I’m thinking I might sample a little Will Trent next. It’s a whole series of at least ten books written by Karin Slaughter and available at the library. I watched the first three episodes of the TV series and they’re good, but because of the time of night it comes on, it cuts into my reading time! 

With that, let’s call this one done!

          Done!