Wexford Girl

Head Man

The other day I spilled black ink on some patterned paper, and I thought it was an interesting shape, so today I made a little head man from it, with a pet snake!

A little Edward Lear-ish, I think.

As I mentioned, this week, I tried to do something every day that I had never done before. Let's see how I did so far.

Tuesday: Saw a personal trainer for the first time and visited Perch in Glen Park.

Wednesday: Took a brisk 40-minute walk around North Beach at lunchtime, and went to Bourbon and Branch for the first time. (It was awesome).

Thursday: Mmm, I didn't do so well on Thursday: Same bus ride to work, same sandwich, typical evening at home with a delicious Eric-made dinner of couscous salad, grilled chicken, and fava beans. (not to make you jealous, but dinners like that often await me from my husband who loves to cook. How lucky am I?)

I did get the 38AX bus home instead of the 31AX on Thursday and walked down the hill the four blocks from Geary, admiring the care people put into their small outer Richmond gardens - hardy, salt-resistant plants and native flowers and grasses. (But that's cheating a little, because I have done that once before.)

Friday: Met with the awesome trainer, Rachel, again, and beforehand walked around the skyscraper-building, Bridge-construction area of Fremont and Howard.

Saturday: Hosted a CAbi party for my friend Erin at the studio. Small turnout, but fun. Got some great clothes too.

I will continue the effort and see how successful I am next week. It's hard, which makes me realize that I need to break out of my routine a little.

Glen Park

Yesterday after work I headed down to the Glen Park neighborhood of the city. I had the motorcycle so it was a quick hop on 280 to get there. The reason for my field trip was Perch, a new-ish store that I've been hearing a lot about. (I linked to Victoria's post there because Perch doesn't yet have a website, just a placeholder).

Perch was wonderful, filled with all kinds of treasures - cards, cushions, notebooks, bath products, jewelry, prints, baby items, and more. Everything reasonably priced, beautiful, and fresh; I hadn't seen most of the items in other stores, or even online. I chatted to Zoel, the friendly owner, and he reminded me that we met before at last December's Appel and Frank event, when he was just about to open his store. I bought a gorgeous straw tote with wooden handles lined with gingham, and it was only $35! If you haven't been to Glen Park for a while, I would definitely recommend a trip there to visit Perch. And it's such a cute neighborhood.

My goal this week is to do something every day that I've never done before. So yesterday was my visit to Perch, PLUS I met with a personal trainer to start getting my sorry butt in shape. (More on that progress when it starts to happen.) Tonight I am going with some friends to Bourbon and Branch, the speakeasy bar. We had to make a reservation and get a password for entry. How clandestine!

No more news, except these great endpapers from an old children's book I got in Ireland:

 

Happy Birthday John

Here is my brother on the trampoline at my sister's house with the kids. That thing just wore us out!

Have a great time in Lanzarote Johnny!

Capsule and Iron Men

We had a great time at Capsule and sold lots of paintings. Eric's new Linoprints were particularly popular - our stuff was flying off the shelves.

The wind in the afternoon was relentless though - our stuff was flying off the shelves!

Here we are. I was going to draw a windy version too, but then I got tired.

We had lots of visitors drop by, including Ashli (taking a break from training for this), Balin and Howie, Sharon (looking super foxy), Shawn (who brought kettle corn, yum!). Evany and Marco came towards the end and proved themselves stellar friends by buying a couple of prints, and THEN totally helping us break down and pack up the booth.

Last night: exhaustion, pizza, and Walk Hard (hilarious!)

Today we took it easy and went to a matinee showing of Iron Man. Robert Downey Junior was perfect for the role. He's looking really healthy and extra sexy these days. Then we had a delicious lunch in Fresca and wandered a bit on Fillmore Street. I bought Eric a robot in Paper Source for his birthday and he's playing with it now while watching American Gladiators.

Brain

I woke up this morning with the word foolscap in my head. That's what we called legal-sized paper in Ireland. I remember it particularly from primary school when we would have to write essays on foolscap sized paper. According to Wikipedia, "foolscap was named after the fool's cap and bells watermark commonly used from the fifteenth century onwards," so that's something I didn't know. But why was I thinking of it? What caused my brain as I emerged from sleep to find this word, that I had not thought of for years?

The brain is so amazing. My theory of God and the afterlife is that it all comes from the brain. I think that when we die, the dying brain creates the illusion of eternity, and it's our own lives, memories, guilt, peace, goodness, and badness that creates heaven or hell in this eternity. Wow, that's some heavy stuff for a Saturday morning.

By the way, if you haven't read "Bullet in the Brain," Tobias Wolff's beautiful story, do so now.

Another mesmerizing story I learned about it from Kelly Rae is Jill Bolte Taylor's eloquent and moving TED talk on what she experiences as she went through a stroke. "How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out?" It's an 18-minute video, and you will be transported.

All this makes me think of my brother, Michael, who recently and mysteriously lost his sight in his left eye. His doctors haven't given him hope that his sight will come back. This is horrible of course, and the whole family is worried and scared for him. But what's amazing is that his other eye is adjusting quickly, allowing him to create depth perception with one eye, using size and speed of objects, parallax, and other variables instead of stereoscopic vision. He no longer has the breadth of his previous field of vision, but he's driving, working, and navigating through the world with the help of his miraculous brain.

Chocolate Pudding

Kaylin and Chloe really like this dessert.

This week, we're getting back to life in SF, and we're busy getting prepared for the Capsule Design Fair in Hayes Valley on Sunday. It's going to be a lot of fun. Last year I went as a shopper and I just loved it. It will be good practice for us in preparation for the 2-day Renegade Craft Fair in July. We happened to be in NYC last year at the right time and went to the Brooklyn one, and it was like a greatest hits gathering of my favorite bloggers and artists. I am thrilled we got into the first San Francisco Renegade, because they get twice as many applicants as they can fit. So yay for us!

We are lucky enough to have Stephanie and Michelle, our nieces from Florida, visiting us right now. They are cool girls and Eric is already putting them to work.

Happy Birthday Jordan

Funny, artistic, rough-and-tumble, dinosaur-mad nephew Jordan is 8 years old tomorrow. Here he is after his brother's confirmation last week demonstrating that he's a true Irishman.

Happy birthday Jordy. We miss you.

Lauryn and Kaylin

Remember the jigsaw I sent to Kaylin? Well, It was a poor choice. Here is Kaylin recalling the traumatic gift:

Thankfully, I didn't ruin jigsaws for her; here she is playing with Lauryn. They are the best of friends. Kaylin was in tears parting from her cousin.

Today is Sunday, and I am in the studio catching up on orders. It's nice to be back, but I had such a wonderful time in Ireland. My mom's birthday celebration was lovely, as was Aaron's confirmation. Here are a couple of shots from the latter. It's shameful I didn't get any photo of the boy himself in his new outfit, but Liz and Dave - his own parents - didn't either!

Dad and Eric at the church, and a couple of shots from the inevitable trip to the pub after the holy sacrament.

Heading Back

I'll be back in SF in 24 hours. What a great trip. Stories to come!

Teacher on a Farm

Here is a pic from the mid '50s. To the far left is my grandfather; the two in the middle are a couple of relatives helping out with whatever the work was that day (It looks like they just packed in a load of turf for the winter, but my dad says the hammer and bucket makes him think they were building something.) On the far right is my dad in his early twenties. He's a farm boy but he has an air of the school teacher he's in the process of becoming, I think.

Weather is still warm and sunny here in Ireland. This is my second week here, and it's going to be a busy week. Tomorrow is Leigh's birthday dinner. Wednesday is Aaron's confirmation and celebration barbeque, and on Thursday my mom turns 70. We are having a lovely dinner out that night; just the grownups, which will make the evening uncommonly civilized. Lovely!