Happy Canada Day!

Created these for church because it's July 1st tomorrow and Canada's 145th birthday.  After the service TwinB and I will join Connie 'Cross The Street for the parade and extensive festivities.
Hoping for decent weather....

Standing Against

Enbridge's northern pipeline that is.  TwinB and I joined with approximately 200 other concerned Kitimites in opposition to the proposed oil pipeline.  I also lugged around the head of Sea;Sick for visual effect.  The handiwork of several local artists was present...would be nice to have a website devoted to all the art that has been created in response to this looming threat.  Might put that idea out there...

It was cold and wet but that just serves to make us all look that much more determined.

A Great Kindness

At one p.m. TwinB and I went over to a seamstress who I know from church; she measured each of the four pairs of pants on TwinB and decided on what types of hem would be suitable for each.  She phoned me at 5 p.m. to let me know they were finished and  added that they would have been done earlier but had gone for a walk.  When I arrived she handed the pants to me and refused payment saying that she likes to do that once in awhile.

I felt very, very blessed.

New Life Forms

The kitchen table is brimming over with new life in the form of various humanoid hybrids that TwinB has producing over the past few weeks.

Image #1 is Shell woman, parked at the edge of the ocean, listening to ... something.  I really do like the...irony?... of a woman in shell listening to the ocean.

Image #2 is The Slug Woman:

Wonderful perspective and as intriguing as all get-out. I love the combo of human and north coast creatures...I am rather sure that TwinnyB has discovered her north-coastie roots and identity with these pieces.  They kind of go with my own Sea:Sick.
Kewl....!

Ticking Off The To-Do List

1. Embrace the fact that you’re young. Accept that you don’t know what you’re doing. And don’t listen to anyone who says there are rules and limits.
2. If you know your calling, go there. Stay on track. Keep moving towards it, even if the process takes time and requires sacrifice.
3. Learn to accept failure. Know that things will go wrong. Then, when things go right, you’ll probably feel like a fraud. It’s normal.
4. Make mistakes, glorious and fantastic ones. It means that you’re out there doing and trying things.
5. When life gets hard, as it inevitably will, make good art. Just make good art.
6. Make your own art, meaning the art that reflects your individuality and personal vision.
7. Now a practical tip. You get freelance work if your work is good, if you’re easy to get along with, and if you’re on deadline. Actually you don’t need all three. Just two.
8. Enjoy the ride, don’t fret the whole way. Stephen King gave that piece of advice to Neil years ago.
9. Be wise and accomplish things in your career. If you have problems getting started, pretend you’re someone who is wise, who can get things done. It will help you along.
10. Leave the world more interesting than it was before.

So, there's some advice from author Neil Gaiman to a grad class of 2012 regarding making your way in the arts and I do believe that me 'n TwinB have followed it to a 't'.  We mine our difficulties and ailments for all they are worth and I'm pretty confident that my little gal already owns numbers 2,3,5,6, and - especially - #10:

She's made the world immensely richer and more interesting for me, anyway...  (not to forget TwinA or My Boy...both creative and entertaining individuals themselves)

Excavating Angst...Accidentally

Our usual leader at Writer's Group has been away so I offered to head up the June meeting, held yesterday.  For our writing exercise I offered everyone the choice between 'Can you go home again?' or 'what was your first significant pet?'

I had been reminiscing about my two gerbils, Ticky and Chi-Chi who gave me nothing but happy memories and many, many litters of brand new gerbil babies which were the easiest thing in the world to give away at the time.  I would spend hours with them out in the dirt patch, digging channels and pits for them to roam.  My weird, little 10 year old brain invariably got a big kick out of imagining infractions that would result in the gerbils being sentenced to solitary confinement until one by one the gerbils would wind up all together in 'solitary' confinement...get it?...get it??
As I said: strange little child.

But for the rest of the group?
Oh. My.
The assignment uncovered a world of hurt and unresolved loss.  The first person to read her piece presented a beautiful, warm, sensory account of her first morning with a new puppy...'kay, that's kind of where I though we would go...  Writer number 2 jumped in right after with a decidedly different tone; hers, from the perspective of a dog who cowered beneath a sideboard between beatings.  Very dark and riveting.
From there, every single account and anecdote became increasing sad.  One person had to surreptitiously dispatch a rapidly ailing pet on a camping trip...another informed us that our town has a bylaw against burying animals in town (read: backyard) and had conscientiously complied which meant taking his beloved cat to the dump in a garbage bag and having to pitch it into the large pit reserved for animal carcasses.  He can still get choked up when passing the dump.  Another situation involved disinterring the bones of their dear family dog while replacing a fence.  The final person given a chance to read declined since she felt she would become too emotional but did add that it was nice to be able to write it out.
Quite a few tears and a completely different tone than I'd anticipated.

Like the father of a recently deceased young person stated "With great love comes great loss".

Finding Fraser Lake

Spent the past 3 days at Fraser Lake looking at properties.  TwinB and I were very taken with this rustic cabin   that sits on four acres with 374feet of waterfront.  It has electricity.  It's also very, very private and would have offered so many opportunities.  TwinB was exceedingly bummed out when the Brother-In-Law decided that we could buy him out, thus giving him the option to go seek new properties.  Still it's probably for the best that we keep our lot on Little Simon Bay; there will be far less work to do, the view is amazing and we're right there on the waterfront with a front row seat on all the nature that walks/trots/swims/soars by.

Grebe Drama:

Mating season was in full frenzy, everything pairing up, trying on the new relationship.  Some seemed to harbor a bit of ambivalence though...
The pair on the top right were firmly bonded and proceeding with their Grebe Romance but the fella who'd originally been with his gal on the left had other plans.  He kept trying to infiltrate the duo, forcing them to flee several feet away in an effort to maintain privacy.  Then our unfaithful fella tried stealth mode, swimming low in the water and finally diving down to surface right behind partner he really wanted.  This caused the pair to energetically drive him off several times until he finally got the message and turned back to reconnect with our temporarily jilted gal.
The Husband was yelling at her not to go for it, "he's not worth it! You can find someone better!" but to no avail.

Ah, the heartbreak and drama we've witnessed over the years there...