Tribute to a Chicken

Dear Liza passed away in the night. I am relieved that her suffering is over, and I will miss our daily conversations. Liza always got in the last word. Always.

Anniversary

Today my husband Jim and I celebrate our 35th anniversary. Legally we have been married for 35 years, but I don't know for sure if I should say 35 because I have evicted him twice. Once for almost three years and once for almost two. Nevertheless, three decades is a long time to live with someone who is your polar opposite, so I feel somewhat proud that we've weathered our lives together. Whenever I ask Jim why he wanted to marry me or why he was attracted to me, he says the same thing: "Because you were so funny." Needless to say, this is not exactly what a romantic wants to hear. You may wonder why I ask Jim about these things that couples who are in normal relationships converse about easily. I ask because if I do not, Jim would never talk about anything. At all. Really. One of Jim's mottoes is - never volunteer any information. I kid you not, we were married for thirty years before I learned that he does not like beets, and the most amazing thing I learned about a year ago is that he actually had a dog when he was a kid. A german shepherd. Prince. That's all I got out of him about Prince, but I am fascinated. You see, Jim was raised in an orphanage where he was deposited at around age nine or ten. Since he was 21, I've been his family. Just me and our three children. And Jim remains a mystery man. But we have developed a relationship that works most of the time. I've learned not to expect emotional intimacy from Jim, although he says, and he may have a point, that guys who do that well are not sincere. Hmmm, I say. Very interesting observation from a stoic fellow like Jim.

I could write a book about this odd relationship we've had for so long, but it's our anniversary, and I thought our conversation first thing this morning kind of summed up our odd couple partnership. Here's how it went...

I was in the kitchen, everything clear, just starting to make more candy. (Yes it's becoming an obsession.) In scuffs Jim in his perpetual slippers, holy tee shirt, and his nod to the holidays, his candy cane pajama pants. Any other time of year he would be wearing Cubs pajama pants.

I said: "Hey, get outta my way, I'm making candy."

Jim replied: "Hey you, get outta MY way I'm making my coffee."

I said: "Dammit Jim you always do this stuff when I'm cooking."

He said: "Hey I see your tumbler came in the mail."

I began to dance and sing, "I'll tumble for you, I'll tumble for you, ...."

I said, "Did Boy George sing "I'll tumble or I'll stumble?" (I'm hearing impaired - for years I thought Eric Clapton was saying, "Captain Midnight" instead of After Midnight.)

He replied, "It was 'stumble.'

"Oh," I said, and began singing "I'll stumble for you..."

Then I saw his shoulders shaking - when Jim laughs he shakes all over silently - and I knew he had messed with me. I believe at this point I told him that he was an ass.

He got his coffee stating that I was going to have to turn off my Pandora mix of Patty Griffin as he was going to watch TV. (Do you know how much I hate TV - he loves it of course.)

I said, "Jesus Jim, I turned on my TV this morning since it's a holiday, flipped through the channels and turned it off. I've never seen such a bunch of trash. It's disgraceful. How do you watch that? I hate America. I'm moving to Great Britain."

I heard Jim muttering about how I wouldn't really get good health care there, it's damp, and the Brit-ish aren't funny, and then he became one with his idiot box.

I shouted as I finished a beautiful batch of toffee for my favorite pharmacist at the local drugstore, "FINE! I will send you a LETTER from there!"

A singsong voice came through the television blather, "O.K."

Jim and I have grown up together. We have very few like interests other than our children, grandchildren and our two dogs. He is my rock and a perfect counterpoint to my fly by night ways. And I am his personal jester and the one person who never bails completely on him. We have supported each other through sickness and in health. We have held each other up through the nightmare of losing one of our precious children, our son Nicholas. We've also spent some time apart. But guess whom I called every time I had a problem, or needed to tell one of my funny stories? So I think it's fair to say that we've been married for 35 years. I still crack him up and he still shows his affection by doing things like filling our freezer with way too many bags of brussels sprouts because long ago I mentioned I like them. Geez I get sick of those damned sprouts. But I won't tell him because I know that those silly little cabbages are love letters from the Mystery Man.

Two Butterballs in a Tub

I said that I'd explain my blatant nakedness with a turkey featured in my last post. Here goes...

Our family laughs all the time. My mother's family depended upon laughter to get them through winters where they dug frozen potatoes out of the ground with mittenless fingers in order to have a bit of supper. These were the children doing this task mind you. Despite hunger and poverty they sang often and laughed much. So I received part of my sense of humor from this stalwart group. My father also had a wicked sense of humor, and when I say, "wicked," I mean it. Unfortunately I absorbed some of his ornery ways, love the practical joke, and have had to apologize numerous times when I've gone into paroxysms of laughter over someone slipping on ice. You are supposed to ask if they are O.K. before you double over laughing. There are worse things that make me laugh inappropriately that I will not elaborate upon lest you judge me of ill character. I am working on being a better person, really I am, tee hee.

Two friends that have brought an enormous amount of joy and humor into our lives, Timmy and John, are kings of the practical joke, and have done more things to me than I can go into here. Really, it would take a book. Just one example here should do. One Christmas I came home to find that these boys had completely dismantled my Christmas tree and re-decorated it in a completely GOP theme. (I am a liberal and proud - surprised?) There were pictures of George Bush all over it, everything red, white and blue imaginable, including enough patriotic tinsel to decorate, oh, say ten trees. So thanks to them, that year I had a "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" Christmas tree. Just what I always wanted.

The turkey incident was just one of my little attempts to keep up with them and retaliate. They were coming for Thanksgiving, and both are just a bit fastidious about food. So I got this idea for a little movie that would gross them out. Disclaimer: I have a food service sanitation certificate so I do understand the proper way to thaw poultry and would never do this for real. I ran a tub of water, plopped a turkey in and started my film. It began with the faucet, then water running - pan to my razor on edge of tub, soap, other hygiene items - then slowly pan down to turkey. I sent the little movie to them saying that I couldn't wait to see them for dinner. Thankfully this got a good yuck, turkey went into refrigerator and all was normal - until next morning. Then it hit me. A brilliant idea if I do say so and I will. I said to my daughter Tess, "Wouldn't it be funny if we put the turkey back into the tub and it looked like it had been in there all this time and I was just taking a bath with it casually?" She didn't even blink, told me to soap up my vital parts and ran to get the bird and her phone. She snapped the pic and that was that. Rub a dub dub, two butterballs in a tub. Now does this all make perfect sense to you? I thought so.

The moral of the story is: Laugh. Laughing like fools has carried my family through some of life's mightiest storms. Laugh with friends and family, or just at yourself. I crack myself up several times a day. And I can still hear the distinct laughter of people that I've know that are no longer with us. Think about that. Our laughter might be creating a powerful and memorable impression for someone else. Can you hear someone too?

JOHNNY, TIMMY AND ME

(Geez, are those puka beads Timmy???)

Making Rings and Male Anatomy - Worlds Colliding

Some of my jewelry friends will not make rings because they consider them to be too hard. To an extent this is true, because this little piece of art has to fit perfectly on a person's imperfectly shaped finger.  So why am I so attracted to making them?? I love the whole process, but the sizing part can be really tricky. Precious metal clays are pure metal in combination with an organic binder that burns off in firing. Therefore, as George Costanza used to say, "Significant Shrinkage."

And, to make matters worse, each material: bronze, silver, copper, etc., shrinks at a different rate. If that's not hard enough to deal with, here's the clincher: The piece also shrinks in response to placement in the kiln, size of piece, thickness, width...you get it. Like I said...tricky. There are some ways to get around this, and I've tried them. My favorite is the product called "Hatties Patties." (I like these so much that I named one of my hens after the designer - Hattie Sanderson. To make a ring Hattie tells us to make the ring two sizes larger than needed and insert one of her patties into the middle when firing. The metal shrinks to the patty and no further. When done you just drop the whole thing into a cup of water, and the patty dissolves like an alka-seltzer. I don't know what these things are made of, but you are not supposed to dump the solution down the sink. Hmmm. And then there is my pride. Something about using them makes me feel like I'm cheating. I keep thinking that real artisans don't have to use a crutch, that they can become one with the material and intuit its behavior. But the currently outrageous price of silver makes proper experimentation too costly. I'm working at learning though, and hope to eventually be patty-free!

The first rings I made for Heather and Fran were too small. The second ones worked out.

My friends love nature, so the choice of tree bark bands was perfect for them. The tree represents fidelity and fulfillment - what could be more perfect. I am now selling these bands, along with a few other fine silver rings, on my Etsy shop. They are a lovely gift for anyone, and the ideal 5th anniversary gift of wood-related symbol. 

Other rings: 

Tree knot with bark band, 6 mm laboratory gemstone CZ (I use lab stones for humanitarian and environmental reasons.)

Little Leaf on Vine Ring

My rings are handcrafted in fine silver, (pure silver) - as opposed to sterling, which contains base metal. Order one up, and I promise it will be perfect! Guaranteed.

Hooey Batiks

The next couple of posts are going to be about friendship. I was going to write about my friend Heather this week, but now that I have had a couple of glasses of Sleepy Creek Vineyards "Hen Pecked," I've realized that I'm not up to the job. So--Jill Miller at Hooey Batiks...an amazing talent. I used to pooh-pooh Facebook and still think it's a bad thing for young people. That being said, I have met some of my favorite friends on FB, and Jill is one. We usually talk chickens, and something she doesn't know is I've named a Dominique "Hooey" in her honor.
 (I bought an aqua tank with chicks and it is wonderful.)

I finally met Jill in person at the Art Festival that was held at Sleepy Creek Vineyards a couple of weeks ago. By the way, I highly recommend this little vineyard, an artful atmosphere, live music and really good wine. I was very pleasantly surprised by the flight that I tasted!!

Before I met Jill, I saw her great monkey shirt when my friend Heather wore it. Then I bought a few of her things at The Wooden Hanger in Urbana, Illinois--fantastic clothing...and nice wrap bracelets when a certain artist gets around to making and taking them to Ginny Gluege, the creative and artistic owner.

THE SQUIRREL KILLS ME. I NEED ONE.

So what I'm getting around to in my red wine haze is: Jill is a creative force and a neat person! Check out her work and buy some stuff for gifts, and for all that holiday stuff. Buy Handmade!

Hooey Batiks