Tomorrow morning I was scheduled to have a colonoscopy, which is a medical test where a flexible tube is slowly run through the large intestine and biopsies can be taken as well as polyps removed. I've had 3 or 4 of them already & must have one every couple of years to check the condition of my u.colitis. Though anesethia is given, my anxiety burns it off & I need larger doses to knock me out. The preparation for this test is also icky: drinking large quantities of cleansing fluid to empty the digestive system. The whole process is just incredibly stressful for me & I am constantly battling extreme nervousness. Plus, I need someone to drive me home after the test, which means my sister has to 'waste' part of a day off, so she's certainly not supportive.

    This year I was managing to keep a grip on my anxiety & was dealing with it  better than usual. Today I was dutifully staying away from solid food & just about to begin drinking the icky stuff at 4 pm, when the doctor's office called(at 3:50!) & said that a water main had broken on their street & the entire medical building was without water. They didn't know if it would be repaired in time for the procedure in the moring, so they advised me to reschedule. Now I'm to have it done Feb. 2nd, Groundhog Day. It kinda annoys me, since I was psyched up about getting it over with & now I'll have to go through all of this again. When I called my sister to tell her, she was angry & acted like it was my fault. As if I sabotaged the water main myself.  Oh sure.

    But I can still finish off that delicious pineapple jello.....

I've watched a couple of good movies on TV lately. The better one was "Prime", with Uma Thurman as a recent divorcee who begins a relationship with a much younger man. He's attentive & sweet, but also the son of her therapist. Meryl Streep is the frumpy psychologist/mom and is probably the funniest person in the film. How they all find out their connections to each other prove entertaining. It's a romantic movie, even erotic at times and there's a lot of humor, but it's done realistically, in the way people converse & relate to each other. It's also very poignant and thoughtful. But if Uma Thurman has problems making a relationship work, what hopes do the rest of us have?

Another one was "The Island", a sci-fi film that wasn't nearly as bad as the reviews said. Set in the future, Ewan MacGregor & Scarlett Johanesson are clones who escape a factory farm where people are duplicated for organ transplants. Rich people pay to have themselves cloned to prevent aging & health problems. Sean Bean is the cold CEO of the profitable corporation & is frantic to capture the clones. Filmed liked a music video, the action scenes are too long, though the flying motorcycles are cool. They tarted Johanesson up to resemble Pamela Anderson & she jumps off buildings in spike heels, but aside from those quibbles, the movie raises some interesting questions about something that could very likely happen in the near future.

Both of these films are availible on video/DVD as well as airing on HBO, so if I've piqued your interest, you can check them out too.

    A long time subscriber recently brought to my attention that the music on my site was causing lots of problems; freezing her system, interrupting her own music and generally being disruptive. I was appalled & removed the music from my xanga at once. I wondered how many other people it had disturbed without my knowing.

    Anyways, I wanted to apologize to anyone who was affected in a negative way by the musical background I used to have on my blog. I had no idea it was causing such troubles or I'd have taken it off long ago. I'm terribly sorry.

Whether you are celebrating Turkey Day or not,  don't forget to count your blessings.

      Most of my income from the craft show went towards paying off repair bills for my 20 year old car, but I decided to take a tiny amount & buy something fun. I was at a pet shop getting Rufus snackies & decided to go on up to the mall & buy a CD. When I was walking into Best Buy, an electronics store, I saw a row of tents to the left of the door. There's a sporting goods store next to it, but it seemed a weird time of year to have a sale on camping gear. Then I noticed a couple guys carrying bags of food & handing them to others. When I got inside the store, I asked a clerk about the tents & he said they were waiting for PlayStation 3 to go on sale the next morning. I wondered aloud how they could miss  their jobs & schools and he said they must not have any life. For myself, I puzzled why I thought doing the same thing for concert tickets seemed more logical.

     For months I've loved that song "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol. You might've heard the acoustic version on the TV show 'Grey's Anatomy', but I like the original one with all the music swelling in the middle of the song.It puts me into a wonderful dreamy trance. Finally I was able to get the CD "Eyes Open" & have been playing that song excessively. I've heard 2 others that are nice, so I'll probably like the rest of the album, but will wait til I'm sated on "Chasing Cars".

    On Friday I was at the grocery store picking up some of the Thanksgiving supplies for my mom who is cooking the holiday dinner. She's supposed to go with my sister to choose the turkey, so I just wheeled past the turkey freezer. As I did so, one of the employees was filling it up & he was surrounded by a group of women of all ages. He could've felt like a rock star in the midst of them, except all of their attention was focused on the frozen turkeys. It reminded me of hyenas around a kill on the African veldt.  He barely got out of the way before they dived into the bin, grabbing for which one they wanted. A half hour later I passed again on my way to the checkout & only an elderly man was there, rolling through the leftovers.

  It's cold and rainy today in Cleveland. I need to go to the library, but will wait til a nicer day. Of course, it could rain all week & then I'd have to get wet anyways, but I'll think positive. There's been a lot of fog recently, but it hasn't gotten terribly cold since the beginning of the month, which is alright with me.

   With the internet, I've been able to get my artwork to a larger audience & have paintings in collections not only all across the U.S. but in other countries as well; Canada, Finland, Switzerland & now England. It's very thrilling to think of my paintings travelling to places that I can't.

   This one is the latest to make a journey & that was to London, where it arrived last week. It's an emerald toucanet bird(a smaller version of toucans) eyeing an emerald boa in a South American rainforest, so I called it "Emeralds of the Forest". The person liked it even better when she got it than online, saying the colors were  gorgeous. I'm always apprehensive that people won't like the actual painting, but so far I've been lucky. It's also very humbling to think that people like my work enough that they are willing to pay to have one of my pictures shipped across the ocean.

    When looking at a catalog my sister lent me, I found this owl painting by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), who is most famous for that big wave painting. I knew he painted birds, but had never seen this particular one before. I'm not sure what species it is, need to look up Asian owls. It's available as a holiday card at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , which is why I found it in their catalog.

     Yesterday I went to a library book sale with a discussion group pal. They didn't have as much as they usually do, but everything was half price, some books were as little as 10 cents. I got 16 books for $4.50 ! My friend got a big bag of paperbacks for $2. How the library made much money with prices like those, I don't know. There were a lot of people there too, all crowded into a small room filled with tall bookcases and bumping into each other.

     Besides animal books, I also bought anything that looked even remotely interested to have on hand when I'm too sick to get to a library. I'm addicted to books, reading more than 200 a year, so I get panicky when I don't have something to read. All of the other books I got were historical, either nonfiction or novels of Ireland, the Crusades & Ancient Egypt. I'm fascinated with history, which is ironic for someone who doesn't really like humans in general. Obviously I prefer them in the abstract or as individuals.

     It was cold & rainy, at times the wipers couldn't keep the windshield clear enough to see much, so I drove slowly. After our book spree, my friend & I went to Subway & had a sandwich, before we drove off in opposite directions in the drizzle.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

                      -Lt. Col. John McCrae (1918)

  The Big Craft Show yesterday went well. My assigned spot wouldn't have worked with my display panels, but the crafter next to me was nice enough to change places with me. All of the organizers & vendors that I talked too were quite pleasant. The crowds were not as large as I'd hoped,possibly because the show is only 3 years old,  but most were buyers, not just lookers. A wide variety of crafts greeted them, everything handmade: from quilts, candles, soaps, clothing, pottery, stuffed toys, woodworking & jewelry. There was even food treats for sale, the busiest table by far being the homemade chocolate. People were lined up at that one, carrying off huge bags of chocolate turtles, snowmen & turkeys.

   There were 2 other artists besides me, we all had quite different sorts of work. I was getting reactions from oposite ends of the spectrum; people would either spend time studying my paintings & complimenting them or else would walk by with barely a glance. It was disconcerting. Surprisingly, my bat painting got more attention than expected, but the polar bear was the one most commented on. A couple of people had seen me at other shows & recalled my work, which pleased me. A few of my regular customers stopped by & bought stuff. One lady put a deposit on 3 paintings, I was thrilled! In addition, I sold a scratchboard, notecards & a bunch of small matted paintings. By my reckoning, a very profitable day!

    This Saturday is the Homespun Holiday Craft Show and I'm busy rounding up everything I need. Thursday I'll load my car, Friday put in the small stuff, set-up is 8-10 Saturday morning & take down after the show(my sister is helping with those parts, thank goodness). The show runs from 10 am -3 pm & is at the Wellness Center, which is connected with a local hospital & offers all sorts of health classes, physical therapy, lamaze & senior citizen activities.It's about 5 minutes from my apartment, which is handy.

    I've never done this particular show before, so I'm rather nervous about it.I'm not even certain what way I'll be able to put my display panels, so I'm trying to stay flexible in plans for arranging my pictures on them. Some of my regular customers have been notified & will hopefully turn up, but I'm looking forward to showing my stuff to a whole new audience. I'll report back & tell you how it goes. Wish me luck!