I fought the mold...

... and the mold won...

Phase two of spring cleaning: put away my winter clothes and haul out my summer clothes which have been hibernating in the basement all winter. Now a wee bit of background here-- our basement has flooding issues... which we only discovered AFTER the fact when we moved in last summer. We had boxes of stuff piled on the floor-- one of those projects we kept meaning to get to, to organize everything neatly in our alloted storage space and get stuff off the floor... Well, these things have a way of getting away from you until its too late, until you are forced to deal with them because you HAVE to, which in this case was after our first torrential rain when we came down to find our mess sitting in four inches of water. We lost some stuff, but managed to get our selves organized finally-- plastic rubbermaid trunks on the bottom, cardboard boxes on top- other miscellaneous items on our shelves. Beautiful. We could rest easy through more storms and more floods knowing that our stuff was safe and sound down in the basement.

HA! Not so my friends...

Yesterday morning, I headed down to the basement, threw a load of laundry in and set about sorting through stuff in search of my summer clothes. I discovered the massive, half full bag of potting soil, I'd "lost" behind a large box on top of our stack of trunks. (woohoo, now to get some plants to plant... perhaps NEXT weekends project) I pull down the boxes and unstack the trunks. Whats in this one? Oh yes, heres my tabla case, an old frame I have big plans for (its like Christmas re-discovering long lost treasures!), that sweater I bought in Boston freshmaa......huh? .... WHATS THATT?? I pick the sweater gingerly pinched between my thumb and forefinger and hold it at arms length. It is covered in what looks like... suds... with a sinking feeling I continue to pull out progressively damper, soggier, smellier, less recognizable pieces of clothing... till I have a pile of grossness on the floor- bright orange and green and white.... and a trunk with a layer or sludge at the bottom. This is where I SHOULD have taken a photo... you'd have been mighty impressed... But I was too busy trying to figure out what on earth to do.

KJ was no help- up to her eyeballs in her own mess of papers and deadlines... Call my mom: "well, try washing it..." Ok... So I fill up the washing machine... though I can't really imagine this stuff is going to just wash away... I come back half an hour later and open up the machine to find what looks like I'd accidently thrown a large, long-haired grey cat in with my clothes. My grey sweater had disintegrated, and everything was fuzzed up with grey wool... and I find myself with yet ANOTHER mess to clean up... *sigh*

So after the fact- I took photos to document this impressive event so I could share on my fabulous blog. Sadly it doesn't really look quite as impressive as I'd hoped (as it WAS)... but I thought someone might find it mildly amusing.

This shirt WAS white...

All thats left of the sweater I got freshman year in Boston....


So long sweet stuff...

PS- it wasn't actually my summer stuff that got ruined. thankgoodness. And I decided if its down in a trunk then I probably don't need to hang onto it anyway. Now I'm on a mission to purge all my unused and unneeded stuff. WOOHOO... Goodwill here I come!

Such a Saturday...

That the weather is such a huge influence on my state of mind is both not-so-good, and fantastic! Lately with endless grey days that barely crawl up into the 50's, my soul has been dragging. But today... TODAY the winds blew in balmy and warm, I woke up to golden yellow sunlight filling my room through the blinds and I could hardly contain myself! The warmth of spring has been such a long long time coming this year, which maybe makes it all that much more glorious on a day like today.

Spring calls for cleaning: mopping long-overdue floors; organizing a cluttered pantry with the windows and doors wide open; dancing to loud happy music and the neighbor cat peering in to see what the fuss is all about; moving plants out to the porch; hauling our recycling to the recycling place- with my heart in my throat the whole way for the sheer joy of the day... oh glorious warm, sunshiny day!


(yes, I may have had the peanut butter and chocolate out with me too...)


This evening I decided not to do any of my work- not even to think about it. I ambitiously took my sketchbook, my journal, my water, my phone and my book out to the back porch... I made some tea and I sat. I did read some, but mostly I just sat. I looked out on Barclay Elementary and watched the line of sunlight move slowly across the playground. It was quiet save for the noises of the end of a day... the breeze gently knocking the wind-chimes now and again, the little boy crying next door, a dog in a yard across the way sitting expectantly at the door waiting to be let in. Birds twittering about. A group of high-school boys moved into view and walked slowly across the playground. As I sat drinking my tea from my perch on our second floor porch, I had had this feeling of being at Tarangire-- washed up and sunkissed after a full day of swimming and being out on top of landrovers-- sitting on those blue chairs, feet up on the wall, quietly watching a herd of elephant move slowly in, stop for a drink, muck around a bit, and move on... Two girls came out of the house next to the one with the little dog with a frisbee and a soccer ball.. kicked it around while their grandpa stood by. It was the first time in a long time I just sat, and soaked in where I'm at, and just appreciated the moment. Many moments, I couldn't bring myself to come in staying till it was dark... until my phone finally rang and my happy solitude was interrupted by a happy conversation with my mom.







I was thinking of all those moments of sitting-tea-drinking-contentment in my life, in different places all over the world with different people at different times. Time is a funny thing, and some day soon, this place that I am in will join all those other places fondly in my memory. Somehow that makes me sad. Its exciting too, to think about the new places around the corner, and the new people I have yet to drink tea with. For now, I simply want to be fully in and thankful for all that is.

"Each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and its consequences and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a time like this, between act and act where you may stop and simply be."
~Ursula K. LeGuin, The Earthsea Trilogy

KJ is 29!

She got a beautiful rainy spring day... and her own special rainbow to order...





We took her out to Iggies for pizza,











...five and a half bottls of wine (BYOB)...












... and a super fabulous choclate cake with whipped cream frosting and fresh black berries and rasberries (if I do say so myself...)

A comes to B'more!

Truly I am blessed with amazing friends... and somehow, over the past year I have had the great good fortune of being visited by/gone to visit many of them. This past weekend my dear montana moutian girl flew all the way out to Baltimore for a rockin' good time...



I wanted to give her the full "baltimore experience," despite the wretched cold snap...




Ft. McHenry (you have to do at least one historic outing, right?):
(A,me and her friends T&B visiting from Toronto)

I laugh at the silly impotent cannons...

...and find much more interesting things to look at...

and photograph...



We made the best pizza EVER...








Met up with friends from our EGYPT days in DC...



Drove around and saw the cherry blossom fireworks, while our poor toes froze... (but were soon warmed up again by a visit to the Hawks and Doves pub in southeast..)



Easter morning we made a luscious bruch of Mimosas- complements of K, wholewheatbuttermilkpancakes and strawberries before heading to a beautiful easter morning service at the Cathedral...



Sunday afternoon found us chatting on line and on the phone with a couple of very important people:









And working on various and sundry projects:

A reading novels
K writing papers
And me sketching plans for an upcoming installation...



But the most exciting (and painful) part of the weekend... I FINALLY fulfilled my lifelong dream of getting a tattoo, and managed to drag A along with me...






Thanks for coming all the way here to visit, A!

eat that..

Winter simply refuses to leave us this year... its April and we are having temperatures in the 20's and SNOW! ... SNOW!?! What the...? But this little guy in our porch in our planter is strong, resilient and refuses to be swayed from his mission of growing and holding his happy little head high. He laughs in the face of the cold... and defies it! Rock on little fellow..

Even our African Violets know its spring!