IWS Dinner

Christelle gave me paperwhite bulbs for Christmas and here they are sprouting away,


The basil is hanging on to life. Despite the seemingly sunny window, this spot is really pretty cold. My friend Coco sent me links to his gardening blogs. He lives in Italy and unfortunately I cannot use any of his useful gardening information in Idaho. I wondered if I still needed to water outdoor plants here during Winter and I have two plants in pots, so I tried to water them. The soil in the pots was too frozen to absorb any water, so the water I poured in just sat there on the top of the soil surface for hours until it just froze over into a sheet of ice. I'm thinking that means you do not bother to water plants in freezing temperatures in Winter.

I like my 2011 horoscope:

Aries Year Ahead 2011
Aries: (Mar. 20-Apr.19): this year you become the hippie of our generation, the earth mother, the father who gives up corporate America to find himself. Making life simpler, healthier and finding your bliss Aries radically changes lifestyles. It's not about pleasing everyone else, it's about pleasing yourself. How surprised or shocked will those around you be to see your transformation?

I disagree with the hippie analogy and the selfishness reference, but like the general idea. I would call it finding my center, rather than bliss, and being a pioneer, rather than a hippie.

The IWS (Idaho Watercolor Society) dinner was just great. It was held at someone's house that must be in the Beverly Hills of Idaho. It was a huge custom built house in a neighborhood of the same in a northern part of Boise. The host did not appear to have a husband and I asked someone if the host paid for her house with her art. Nope, it was paid for with a healthy insurance settlement. Oh well, one can dream.

I was, as usual, probably the youngest person in the room, but mostly had a great feeling of "these are my people." They were a friendly, welcoming group and I, once again, got to practice my new openness. I met Dwight Williams, who also shows at the Eagle gallery, and who reminded me of Dad. He told a great story about he and his brother growing up in a tornado-belt of the mid-west. They see a tornado coming, but it's not touching ground, so they decide to lay down so they can look up and watch the tornado overhead. Watch a tornado overhead?! They couldn't even open their eyes due to all the flying dirt and debris. He said he was about 13 then, sounds like 13 year old boy stuff.

The IWS dinner included a painting exchange. You bring a wrapped painting, matted but not framed, which gets a number. Everyone picks numbers and you get someone else's painting with that number. I brought the Hazel looking through the fence study. It was hard to pick something I was willing to part with for free, but that I also considered good enough to impress. I got a painting by Mark W. McGinnis, who is also new to Boise and here after teaching for many years at Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota.

http://www.markwmcginnis.com/index.html

He appears to have many styles, but my painting is similar to the iris in the series he calls Watercolor Sketching, except it is a yellow calla lily. It is dated 6/26/2010, which I thought was remarkable, since that is the date my lease expired on my TO apartment and almost the date I move out of Thousand Oaks.
http://www.markwmcginnis.com/watercolor%20sketching.html

I met several people that teach and give workshops and other artists that exhibit at the Eagle gallery and learned about other art societies and places to exhibit. There is an art gallery in the Meridian City Hall (Meridian is next door to Boise) and many IWS members also belong to the Meridian Arts Commission. I met Laurie Asahara, who came here from Hawaii and has been in Idaho for four years. She encouraged me to keep quiet about Idaho, fly under the radar, and she appears to also know how to paint people,

http://laurieasahara.blogspot.com/

Between eating chocolate pudding cake for someone's 90th birthday at noon and the warmth of the IWS dinner, I ended yesterday feeling content, humble, and hopeful. Even after eating chocolate again at the dinner, and drinking too much coffee all day and night, I went right to sleep.

Safety Razor and Humility

It snowed a bit overnight on Sunday night and the snow honestly cheered me up. If it is going to be so cold, there might as well be a quiet blanket of snow. The weatherman was predicting snow for several days that never happened, and is predicting snow today, except the sun is out with not a cloud in the sky. Being a weatherman in Idaho is a tough job.

My brother Dave sent me a check for Christmas and with it I bought that safety razor I've been wanting for more than a year. You remember safety razors? The razor that opens like a butterfly and you put the double-edged blade in? I figured since I was using a gift check, I could break my "no shopping in January" vow. I had to order it on-line, since they do not sell these in stores anymore.

When I went through the lesson of having no credit and having to pay cash for everything and not having much cash, I noticed how expensive replacement blades are for razors now. 8 blades for $15!? Besides being expensive, and despite now having 3 or 4 or even 5 blades-in-one, these do not seem to work as well or last as long as they used to. When did this change? I guess the new kind of razor is called a cartridge razor and they are now a rip-off. I thought this might be due to some safety regulation, except I did not have any trouble ordering a safety razor, so now I figure it is a corporate profit thing. (Why let people buy 10 blades for $5 when they can convince them to buy 8 for $15?) So now I have a razor that will last forever, 10 replacement blades for $5, and hey, I'm being "green" and throwing less away. (For the record, the razor was made in India and the blades in Japan.) It is going to take a while to get used to the safety razor, though. I got used to not being very careful with cartridge and disposable razors, since they are so dull, but these are sharp!

I heard recently that cats can make up to 30 different sounds and I think little Spit makes all of them. I've never heard a cat make so many different noises, from a squeaky purr to chirping to big sighs, but it used to be just Cruiser that made the whole-hearted, lowd, whiny howl. That is until this week. This week Spit decided that if she does not have her brushing by 6 pm she will wander around downstairs howling as if in a panic with brief looks at me as if the world is coming to an end. Yesterday I was finishing a job application when she started. Once I finished the application and sat down to brush her, it only took a few minutes of brushing to calm her down and then she was purring and laying across my lap and content. I'm hoping this is a "I am super bored with Winter" phase.

I thought that I was approaching this new round of job applications with some humility, until someone brought it up yesterday. I think that it is impossible to talk about humility without sounding less than humble, but I thought about the idea of doing the footwork and staying out of the results that I've heard so much. To me, that means always doing your best and then letting God, or the universe or whatever you believe in, take care of the results. Always doing the best that you can at the time prevents regret (or a resentment against yourself) and keeps you from trying to control results that you really have no control over. It keeps me in self-esteem and out of pride. With this next round of job applications I was really feeling like I should not have to do the footwork, I've done enough already!

Mahatma Gandhi associates Humility with Truth,

What is truth? A difficult question, but I have solved it for myself, by saying that it is what the voice within tells you.

All that I can, in true humility, present to you is that Truth is not to be found by anybody, who has not got an abundant sense of humility. If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth, you must reduce yourself to a zero.

Truth is within ourselves. There is an inmost centre in us all, where Truth abides in fullness. Every wrong-doer knows within himself that he is doing wrong for untruth cannot be mistaken for Truth. The law of Truth is merely understood to mean that we must speak the truth. But we understand the word in much wider sense. There should be Truth in thought, Truth in speech, and Truth in action.

[From the book, "Light of India or Message of Mahatmaji" by M. S. Deshpande.]

Today I am continuing with job applications, with a break for someone's 90th birthday cake and the Idaho Watercolor Society's welcome dinner, with a more humble attitude. My friend that went back to Bellingham, Washington worked for a guy here in Boise, who has more work this month. I called him and he is back in town on Thursday, so hopefully we can meet later this week. Tomorrow I am letting myself paint.

Failed Experiment and Inspiration

The insides of the kitchen cabinets are even cold. I've learned to warm up the coffee cup with hot water before pouring coffee in it, otherwise by the time I add milk to my hot coffee it is lukewarm. When it is really cold (below 20 degrees) I leave the cabinet door under the sink open to keep the pipes below the sink from freezing.

Cruiser was overweight, now he is just plain fat. I have to admit that he is really whiny about the cold and I tend to feed him to shut him up, but that is going to have to stop soon. The idea of Cruiser whining through a diet while we are all cooped up from the cold is pretty daunting, though.

I stole a half used watercolor block of 140 pound hot press watercolor paper from Dad and tried an experiment with it this week. I had somehow intimidated myself with the idea, so I finally had to start it firth thing in the morning this week before I could think about it too much. I made good progress on it yesterday, but I just hate the result. I tried doing a painting of my cats as kittens for my possible children's book and I don't know if it is the terrible composition, the leaning towards sentimental fuzzy kitten illustration, or my dislike for having to work differently on hot press paper. On hot press paper I can't work wet to wet, the water just beads up, and I can't layer like I usually do, so the color looks too flat to me. I went ahead an finished the experiment this morning, but I do not fell like I have time to experiment right now and I feel discouraged. Or maybe I already feel discouraged and that is reflected in the painting. I am moving on to something else today, getting back on the horse after being thrown, so to speak.

Every once in a while I check my blog stats. I was a bit mystified that my post with the 2nd largest audience was "Light Bulbs" and the only post commented on by someone I do not know was "Chaos is almost here." The post with the largest audience was "Registered to Vote." It was October and I can kind of understand why people cared about registering to vote, but why did so many people care about light bulbs? Why did someone comment on a post on my blog that had not much to do with what I usually write about and how did he find the post? (It's not like I have a huge readership.) So, I learned the other day that people have reverse searches set up on-line. They set up the topics and the search engine sends them an email of the link for everyone that posts anything on that topic. Then they must go in and check up on what you wrote and try to discredit anything they don't like. Pretty creepy, eh?

The next enlightenment topic is Inspiration, with a poem called IF by Rudyard Kipling,

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

I guess Kipling wrote poems to his son, but I'm having a bit of trouble with all this good information leading me to be a Man. Otherwise I am surprised at all of the inspiration in this poem, that I have never read. I am also surprised that I like the author's suggestion on using this poem in your life. (I usually don't.) He says, "keep your head, trust yourself, be honest, be a dreamer, be detached, be a risk-taker, be independent, be humble, be compassionate, be forgiving." Many of these things seem impossible to do simultaneously, but I think that is the point, you need to be all of them.

It is Still Cold

I went to pull up the outdoor mat and it was frozen to the ground. I ripped it up and tried to shake it off, but it was too stiff, so I dropped it a few times on the ground and it hit like I dropped a board. It is so cold here, even the horses are wearing coats,


Dad sent cloisonne hummingbird ornaments for Christmas,


Even if they were on time for Christmas, they would not have made it onto the tree, because I took it down so early. I have some branches in a vase and they are hanging on the branches for now, trying to perk up Winter.

I went back to the Bird of Prey Museum, but it was really too cold to enjoy. I bought a membership, so I can go back when it is warmer. This is a peregrine falcon,


This falcon is almost blind, which is why he's there, and he did not mind the flash. And what are these? Starlings? They were making an incredible racket,


I finished True Grit, the book. The movie is fairly true to the book, but the movie left out some things I thought were important to Mattie's character and showed her independence. At 14 she already keeps her father's books and she ends up owning a bank, which is one reason why she never marries, and the movie leaves that out. Now I finally started the book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, that Dad bought me years ago. I was going to start Far From the Maddening Crowd, that Dave gave me even longer ago, but it sounded pessimistic and January in Idaho is not a good time for a pessimistic book.

2011 is the Chinese year of the Rabbit. It is not predicted to be a good year for me. I am a Black/Metal Tiger. This is a Metal Rabbit year. The animals have elements, too, based on your birth year. Rabbits don't like Tigers, probably because Tigers eat them, and Chinese astrology likes complimentary elements, it's all about balance, so Metal Tiger in Metal Rabbit year is too much metal. Next year has good fortune for me, it is a dragon year, good for tigers, but I have one more year of hard work, at least according to Chinese astrology. My lucky element is earth/soil, which means it is the element needed to balance out my other elements. That is why I need to have a yard and a garden and felt like I was going to die going through the whole day without my feet ever touching the ground or my hands getting dirty. At least here in Idaho I have added more earth to my life.

2011 Chinese Astrology - Year of the White Rabbit
http://www.chineseastrologyonline.com/ChineseAstrology2011.htm

I called my friend in Bellingham, Washington about working for the guy she worked for here for the month of January and I should be able to catch up with her tomorrow. Idaho is not posting any new jobs that apply to me, so this weekend I am applying on-line at St. Luke's and St. Al's (both big hospitals), since both have part time office and tech support kind-of jobs. I went by CostCo to pick up a few things and everyone working at the one here looks pretty happy. I know someone that worked at CostCo in CA and liked it, so I may apply there, maybe they will let me make cakes or work in HR. Maybe it would be better to leave government anyway.

Tonight was the Artist's Way meeting and tomorrow night is First Friday in Eagle and I will probably go again. Next Tuesday is the Idaho Watercolor Society's newcomer's dinner. This weekend I am also feeding my neighbor's cats. If the weather stays clear, next week I may take a trip up to McCall to take pictures of horses and farms in snow.

Too Cold and Work

No need for ice during winter here in Boise, really good ice cold water comes right from the tap. Even the Idaho native grocery checker was complaining this morning about the cold. She agreed with me that there could at least be snow on the ground if it was going to be this cold so it would look pretty. It's been 10 degrees below normal and has not reached 30 degrees for a week and I'm tired of it. I have to admit the cold is affecting my discipline and motivation.

Probably because I licensed my own business, I received a solicitation from the National Association of Professional Women. If you receive one, it is a scam. If you make the mistake of sending them a response with your phone number before you find out it is a scam, like I did, be sure not to send them any money. The solicitation says free membership, which it is not.

Next film was Secretariat. It's not an award winner, but I cried through half of the movie. Horses mixed with following your heart or your dreams was too much for me. Then, How to Tame Your Dragon, which was a nicely animated film with a good story. I had trouble with the dragon main character, which most of the time looked like a fish to me, but I loved all the dragon drawings at the end.

The next enlightenment topic is Work, with an excerpt from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran,

"Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:

You work that you may keep pace with
the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger
unto the seasons, and to step out of life's
procession, that marches in majesty and
proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through
whose heart the whispering of the hours
turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and
silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is
a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work
you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream,
assigned to you when the dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you
are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labour is to be
intimate with life's innermost secret.

But if in your pain you would call birth an
affliction and the support of the flesh a curse
written upon your brow, than I answer
that naught but the sweat of your brow
shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told that life is darkness,
and in your weariness you echo what
was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed a darkness
save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind
yourself to yourself, and to one another,
and to God.

And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads
drawn from your own heart, even as if your
beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even
as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap
the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved
were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with
a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead
are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking
in sleep, "He who works in marble, and
finds the shape of his own soul in the stone,
is nobler that he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it
on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more
than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-
wakefulness of noontide, that the wind
speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks
than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice
of the wind into a song made sweeter by
his own loving.

Work is love made visible."

The author of Wisdom of the Ages reduces this poem to three lines. The above is most of the poem, although I cut off the end after, "Work is love made visible." I love The Prophet and am supremely annoyed to have one of Gibran's poems reduced down to three lines in a book that is supposed to include appreciating poetry, but maybe that is partly because this is a touchy subject for me today.

How many of us go to jobs every day that we hate? Is having a job that you love, or doing work that you love, a luxury? I got my first job at 16 so I could get that car and then I needed the job to afford the car, and so it began. I loved my job at Westwood Studios, it never really felt like a job and I never set the alarm in the morning and I never checked the clock at work. My favorite job was my mural painting job, although that was partly because I never saw my boss.

I suppose if I was a good Buddhist I would do every job with love, or at least mindfully, but hey, some jobs just suck and the best you can do is your best while still holding on to your soul. If you do not like your work, the author points out you have two choices, change what you are doing, or change how you feel about what you are doing. Boy, I already heard that a whole lot. I think the best I did in a job I hated was to find some humility. Once humility turned into humiliation it was time to go.

You do what you have to do in order to survive. I learned enough humility to go find any job today that will help me pay the rent and stay here. But if work is love made visible, then my painting is my work, and it needs to make me an income. But then, I need to be practical, I need to get out there and maybe one thing will lead to another, oh no, I already did the humility lesson, I don't want to do it again, round and round I go.

Boise Sunset on Snow

The cats lined up in a patch of sun,


An hour later the patch of sun will move upstairs and so will the cats.

I went for a walk late yesterday afternoon. I wanted to catch the pink sunset on the snow behind Boise, which only happens for a few minutes after 5 pm. I decided to walk over to the rim, past the graveyard, since I really needed to get out and walk around. I'm glad I decided at the last minute to take my warmest hat, because I can't begin to tell you how cold I was. This is the old Boise train depot,


Near the depot they built these ugly houses,


The train doesn't run much anymore, but I still would not want to live in one of these.

These shots are about 10 minutes apart and don't nearly do the scene justice,



These failed luxury condos have this view,


These must be on some expensive real estate and they are completely empty with a chain link fence around the property.

It was my legs that were cold, maybe caused by the bottom of my coat flapping against my thighs while I walked and creating a breeze. I started dreaming about flannel lined pants and wondered if a shorter jacket would have been better. I hurried home after taking the pictures, partly because I was cold and partly because Mary Kay told me not to walk past the graveyard at night.


My legs were still tingling after being home and inside for a hour and the walk in the cold completely wore me out. I ate a big dinner, the cold makes me really hungry, too, watched the end of The Stand on TV, took a hot bath, got in bed and read my book until I fell asleep before 10. No one ever accused me of being a night owl.

Happy New Year!

Kimber sent some pictures from Winter Garden A Glow, that is Kimber in the tall hat, Christelle is on my right in the first picture,




I thought that Sacajawea looked very strange so over sized and with such a big head. Anyway, that is the cross all lit up on top of Table Rock in the background. Trying to take these pictures inspired Kimber to get a new camera.

Yesterday morning when I went to the store it was 13 degrees. Right now it is 9 degrees. I went out to meet some friends yesterday at noon, but they could not convince me to go out last night. Even at noon yesterday it was too cold to stand in the shade and talk, forget about going out once it gets dark and driving around with all of the amateur drunk drivers. I stayed in and did my inventory, a gratitude list, my goals for 2011, and watched Black Swan.

I figured I would rather end the year with the Black Swan than start the year with it. I'm still not sure if the movie was about schizophrenia or a dancer becoming too much the part. Barbara Hershey played Natalie Portman's mom and I kept wondering what happened to Barbara Hershey's face? Her collagen lips are trimmed down, but her chin is all lumpy. It was another well acted, well crafted film, but very dark.

It was fun to do an inventory on a good year for a change. The dramatic change in my life and myself in a year is remarkable to me. My very favorite part of the year was July with Dad at his ranch. One of my goals for 2010 was to finish 12 paintings and I completed that goal in the month of July alone. In the year, I painted 25 paintings, although most of them were studies. I learned to enjoy painting landscapes, which I did not used to like. I learned how to change my life and move in a planned, thoughtful manner, rather than as running away. I learned how to make new friends while still cherishing the old ones. My friend overheard a conversation I had yesterday and afterward she described me as tactful. Tactful! Me? Ah, that is progress. I am not going to put everything down again here, but it was a wonderful year.

After the inventory, I wrote a gratitude list. Again, this is easy to do after writing an inventory on a good year. I remember the times I wrote a gratitude list and could barely think of anything to write, so I just kept writing the same things over and over again.

Then I wrote a list of 2011 goals and a separate list of 2011 wishes. The 2011 goals list is awfully long, although many of the things on it are simple, and getting an income tops the list. I think that it is interesting that I looked at my goals/wishes list for 2010 and I could not see any indication of anything that I ended up changing in 2010. I think at that time I was so beaten down with all of the hard things I went through that I was afraid to hope for anything in particular. I suppose knowing when to find acceptance, when to try harder, and when to walk away is always a dilemma.

I am off to Kimber's this afternoon for our year-end inventory workshop and a few more hours of holiday eating, then the sugar-fest is over.

Happy New Year to all!