Tedius To-Do's and Fun Fun Fun

It has been over a month since I've written a new post. My week in Oakland put me behind with getting done the various tasks of everyday life. I finally caught up at around 2 a.m. on Saturday. I'm now current with all the tedious to-do's, but expect this to be a temporary state. Spring has sprung and I am dazzled by all its offerings. I've been taking the time to walk on local park trails where wildflowers are in abundant bloom. I have also been pretty busy planning the upcoming months. Soon I will be in full on festival mode. I've got multi-day tickets for a number of music festivals. Also some special interest festivals like the Maker Faire in San Mateo. Unless I find a way to get by on three hours of sleep, I don't expect to be spending much time on-line.

So, . . . about that week in Oakland: My experience there was frustrating and rewarding. Glass flameworking, which is what the workshop that I attended was about, is different both in process and materials from the glass fusing that I've been doing. The type of glass used is also incompatible with the kind used in fusing. I was the slow learner in a class of three. I don't have the hand-eye coordination that is needed for that first crucial step of bonding one glass rod to another in a 4500 degree flame. (I learned that it is far less painful to burn yourself with a piece of glass that has just been in a 4500 degree open flame than with a pan that has been in a 450 degree oven.) At the halfway point, I decided to concentrate on the processes that we'd learned the previous two days rather than move ahead with more advanced projects. Despite my difficulty learning these new techniques and dealing with an instructor who was clearly frustrated working with me, I'm glad that I got to experiment with the process.

More recently, I spent Mother's Day week-end in San Jose. On Saturday, Rachael and I went for a 4.1 mile walk in Almaden Quicksilver Park. About an hour after we returned to her house, we were joined by Ben, Wendy and Maddie. Ben and Rachael took charge of dinner, while I got to enjoy Maddie. I am amazed by how much her language ability advances from one visit to the next.

On Sunday, Rachael and I played with her Mother's Day gift to me. A bit of history: When my kidlets were young, the three of us made group drawings. The project would start with one of us drawing something on a piece of paper then passing it to the next person who would add their touches. After a number of go-rounds, we'd have a completed picture. Rachael and I continued with these drawings long after Ben stopped doing them with us. Often we would get into "wars" where she would draw something to attack my drawing (or vice versa) and I would respond with my own attack or lethal defense. I can remember Rachael and I doing these kind of drawings when she was in Colorado teaching snow boarding and kayaking (in different seasons). We may have done them even more recently.

Rachael's Mother's Day gift to me was a set of acrylic paints, a blank 14" x 18" canvas and the experience of once again combining our creative impulses. This time we stipulated that there would be no wars.