She's done. And P and I think we'll keep her.
If she'd been around this afternoon she might have told little Gus to "slow down!" before his face collided with a railing. He's got quite the shiner, but he tells us he's okay. And since that railing prevented him from falling six feet into the river below, I'm okay that he's got it.
Gus has inspired me to paint again. He prefers to watercolor his arm, but I'm finding paper works fine for me.
I'm going to layer this with colored pencil and marker and see what happens. Lynda Barry tells us to doodle images of our past to unlock our creativity, and at some point in college I took comfort in doodling "Magic Babushka." She isn't afraid to say the hard things and never makes you feel bad about your sensible shoes. I'm having a Babushka revival living in near-Eastern Europe. She continues to know just what to tell me.
I wish I had a Magic Babushka to send my sister K right now. Her family's beloved Pete passed away this weekend, and these are sad times. Pete was a good kitty (and sometimes Facebook friend). He is missed. Babushka would be full of comforting things to say.
All of Prague was in a good mood and too many layers today. The weather soared above 50 degrees, the horse stables put out their beer garden benches, and despite collective bronchitis we hit the trails with Gus on his Strider bike. Everyone in town had the same idea, and we all grinned like sun-bedazzled fools in a sea of dogs, horses, bikes, scooters, walkers, strollers, and shockingly white arms.
The elation that taking off our coats brings us is only slightly above the elation this recipe brings us. It cleans out my fridge and allows for rampant substitutions. No sour cream? Try buttermilk or tvaroh or cream cheese. No basil? Cilantro, spinach, parsley, whatever. I grate in carrots, sweet potato, and zucchini. I double the broccoli and toss in pine nuts. I add whatever cheeses need finishing. I use spiral noodles and shells and whole wheat bow ties. It comes together in a jiffy and is one of the very few vegetable laden dishes that inspires Gus to praise.
As we sat at our little table in our little kitchen with our little man eating our mac and cheese today, we were awfully grateful for these little lives. It could be the delirium from seeing the sun for the first time in five months, but neither P or I knew that we were the kind of folks that would find joy and satisfaction in a long morning spent keeping a wild balance biker out of the river. We dig it. We dig it a lot.
Our Prague time is winding up, and we'll soon both be employed on a new continent. I've been thinking on whether I will continue to capture these little goodnesses in this personal blog while balancing writing about my work and also balancing just working on my writing. I'm in balancing conundrum. This blog existed to help me find joy in the ordinary and to keep me artisitically productive here in a new life in Praha. It has served me well, but it was never really intended for an audience. There are other things I need to write. I teach writers and believe very strongly they need to see me actively producing. Yet, it alarms me to put all my time into a blog for their benefits and not into the writing I hope may someday turn into a something. I'm just not sure how a teacher balances modeling writing while protecting his or her own writing space. One could wear themselves a little thin with too many blogs or too many articles or too many whatevers spread out in all directions for all audiences (and really...let's be honest...how many folks really want to read what's being said?). Neighbor B was kind enough to listen to me process earlier this week and she assured me I'm not the first teacher to ask these questions, but I cannot think of what to type into Google to find the answers: "How can I write and publish things I don't want to show my student communities and yet have the energy to professionally blog and offer writing samples that my students can read and also still feel like I have artistic direction and maybe maintain a personal blog..." Hmm. Thoughts, teacher friends? This will sort itself out. For now, I don't know what will be being typed next Spring, but for today, we are happy in our record of the littles.
Digital coloring of the last post's drawing. I think I prefer it.
The friendly designers at Tiny Tales added words and layouts to my illustrations and came up with these cheerful cards.
I'm happy to see what came of this process and happier yet that it ended in something they could use. The TT folks were very patient with not-knowing-anything-me.
Recent flurries of organization and sorting and discarding in this house have led to humorous incidents. These incidents have led to bad poetry (as suggested by Neighbor B):
Donation Regrets
One of the risks of leaving things by the dumpster
is that you might see your former bra in the middle of the road.
Four blocks away.
And you will have to wrestle with wondering if you are
an unsuspecting litterer
or an accomplice in the unsavory.
Lauren of North Africa is here! (Hey, L.O.N.A. is not a bad acronym for someone that Gus calls Aunt Lola. It just might stick!) Her arrival brings many things:
To begin, she got us out of the house in the afternoon. I can't remember the last time I saw the 4:30pm skies. Normally at 4:38 dinner prep has reached a delicate point and Gus is snacking on playdough and delivery men are buzzing and people are texting and I am running to the window to see if my backpack-wearing husband is on the corner and twenty seven seconds away. Once he's home, I don't like to mess with a good thing and we stay put. And today, after leaving Gus's play date because "if you are not going to treat your friends nicely we are going", I wasn't feeling too spunky. But Lauren brought revival and got us walking (or rather, we drug her on an errand in an effort to be fun and hip Prague-sters). The result was beyond our fathoming----a new and better beer store. And by beer, I mean Aventinus (Tap 6! Tap 6!) from Munich and Delirium Tremens from Belgium and gigantic Kocour bottles that we all carried home in floral shopping bags with glee.
She also brought this:
How can you not befriend someone that juxtaposes French champagne, canned mechouia, and halvah? It's not a complete photo. There was fierce and lively textured art created by one (or both?) of her talented young men. There was also a bag of macarons from a French bakery that Gus and I frequented last week near her Tunisian seaside home. And then there's her. Lauren is all goodness and real conversation and things familiar and deeply loved. She is family, that wicked-smart L, and we are happy to host her in the evenings while she visits Patrick's school during the daytimes to get even smarter.
Lastly, she brought a little organization. I spent Friday's naptime not napping and instead cleaned up a bit and made meals and snacks (I was all about leeks and spinach, so it's Rebar cookbook's Apple, blue cheese, spinach tart and SmittenKitchen baked potato--with leek and added spinach--soup). It's good to have weekend foods and someone with whom we can share them. Lona got me planning ahead, so Monday's sketchbook deadline is met, and we've nothing but free evenings (and possibly a few brews) to savor. Yippee!
