Spirit of Bees

Many years ago my friend gave me this chalk-ware baby head. I immediately placed it in the birdcage where it has been hanging amongst the plants ever since.

She always catches people by surprise. When they come into the living room they don’t immediately notice her hidden behind the Shefflera, like the wallflower that she is, yearning to be free. Maybe this will be her year.

New Year’s Eve is always very quiet around here. At our age are really not up for much partying. As a matter of fact we have never been up for much NYE partying. Most of our New Year’s Eves were spent with kids or grand-kids hanging around. We’d play games or watch movies, and at midnight we would bang on pots and pans. And lot of times it wasn’t really even midnight because we’d often set the clock ahead when the grand kids were little and it was getting close to their real bedtime, tell them it was midnight, do the pot banging and then shuttle them off to bed.

Now the older grand daughters are way too old to come over, one’s a Freshman in college, and the other a Junior in high school; and the youngest, at 2 1/2, is still a little too young for the overnight.

So for the last two years we’ve just gone out to one of our favorite Chinese restaurants for dinner. Sun Wah has Chinese barbecue, ducks and pigs, and ribs and such hanging in the window. Tonight there was also a cuttlefish. But it is probably best known for it’s duck.

We love this restaurant because the food has always been top notch and cheap, even if the ambience leaves a lot to be desired. We always thought of it as one of those undiscovered treasures, a hole in the wall kind of place with great prices and excellent food. But, in the last three years or so, more and more people have discovered it so it’s on the rise.

Part of this is due to food critics finding out about it and part due to the owner’s daughter who graduated from a culinary school couple of years ago. She is now working hard to update the restaurant, adding dishes to the menu, one of which is Beijing duck which has gotten a lot of accolades and publicity. We have not had it yet, but we plan to try it soon. There is a great pod cast with an interview with her and her father, called “Duck School”. You can find it here at Sky Full of Bacon.

If you are in Chicago, you should try Sun Wah now, before it gets more expensive and crowded. That is, if you are not bothered by the complete and total lack of ambience. Or, wait until they move to a new location next Spring.

Sadly, for us, I think our little restaurant is going to land on the map, and their prices will go up and a bazillion people will come and I fear it will not be the same for much longer. While I do wish them the best, selfishly, I still wish it could have remained the little secret it was, especially since we were right in the middle of establishing a new New Year’s Eve tradition. I wonder what the restaurant will be like next New Year’s Eve?

Then again, I imagine next year we may be just as happy to get out the pots and pans to resurrect the old tradition with the new grandchild. And there’s always take-out.

Happy New Year! Oops, did I set the clock forward again?

Today was a bit hectic. Definitely not a day I’d like to relive.

We agreed to watch the downstairs neighbor’s dogs, since we were not having our family over until the 26th. Which would have been fine if the weather had not been so bad. We had a couple of days of very cold weather after the snow, and then we had a brief warm up, during which the snow on the roof of the back stairwell started to melt. Because of flaws in the construction of the walls around the stairwell, the water started dripping in, and then flowing down the walls as the snow melted on the roof. As night fell, the water started to freeze on the stairs.

C. went down to let the dogs out yesterday, and slipped on the bottom flight of stairs. He fell down four steps and hurt his shoulder blade. Other than bruises, he was not too bad, just sore. Then, today, he went down to let them out this morning, and in spite of my suggestion to put salt on those stairs regardless of the fact that they are psuedo-interior stairs, he did not do that as he thought he could manage OK.

So he fell again and got a nasty cut at the base of his little finger where it attaches to the palm. We had to go to the emergency room and have it sewed up. The doctor said that if it had been cut any further around he might have lost his finger. Three hours, eight stitches, and a prescription for powerful antibiotics later, he got sprung. It will probably all be OK, but it’s especially concerning because of his diabetic issues, so we are crossing all uninjured fingers.
 
Kind of put a halt to all preparation for the family gathering tomorrow.

When I got home, I made a ginger cake with fresh ginger. While it was baking, a fuse blew. I didn’t realize the fuse impacted the gas oven, but it did, and when I went to take the cake out, it had fallen so badly that I thought there could be no resurrection. I turned the oven back on anyway and cooked it again, hoping I could save it. I let it cool, and while it could not be served to company because not only did it look like hell, but I could also not get it out of the pan. However, it tasted fabulous, so good, in fact, that I am going to try to find time to squeeze in making another one for tomorrow.

Falling was the mode of the day, and now I am going to fall into bed.

The weather has just been horrible. Snow then slush, then frozen slick ice, then snow then slush, etc. With the wind chill factor, it was supposed to be -25F in some areas today. I believe it. It was bitter when we went out shopping this afternoon.

As I mentioned earlier, our landlord put some new windows in last week. That has kept us busier than we planned to be. Once we moved all the furniture out of the way to accommodate the window installation, and cleaned up the resulting mess, we had the urge to re-arrange all the furniture.

If you had ever been here, you would understand what a daunting task this is. We are collectors, and we own a lot of stuff. Stuff is our downfall; sometimes, literally, when I trip over it, as happens more and more these days. I sometimes wonder if I may have an issue with my peripheral vision but, more likely, I just have too much stuff. I’m pretty sure my death will involve me tripping over something, falling and then being buried among my stuff until my body disintegrates and becomes one with the stuff. One of my fears is that, at any moment in my attempts at stuff acquisition, I may cross the line to become one of those people who needs an Oprah intervention.

Have I used the word stuff way too many times in that last paragraph? Yes. Why? Way too much stuff.

Anyhow, we wanted to grab this opportunity free up some space, especially since the holidays are here, and people will be coming over. More accurately, I had the urge to re-arrange, but C. went along with it in good humor.

We have two desks.

One is huge. An old bankers desk, which has belonged to C. since before I met him long ago. He spent many hours refinishing and restoring it, so I’ve understood his reluctance to sell it, even though it is way too big for the space it occupies. It’s always been his desk which he has been unwilling to share all these years. So we’ve always had another shared desk where the home computer sits. This new opportunity to rearrange became a real milestone, since he actually agreed that we really only need to own one desk, and he was pretty sure that he could adjust to letting me share the big desk.

In fact, he even cleaned a drawer out for me.

So we got rid of the other desk and a table, and managed to open up an area at one end of the room, which can be used as an additional sitting area when people visit.

Of course, I got carried away and also started moving other stuff and cleaning up a lot of other little areas which needed attention, as well. It really turned into a much bigger job than we had in mind, originally. We’ve discovered that, at 64 and 67, it takes a whole lot longer to move furniture than it used to

We had to fit all this in, in between work, which has been unusually busy this year. I’ve been pushing myself to keep up with making things and shipping them quickly. This new busy-ness makes me remember why I hated having a store. When you sell jewelry, you never have time for your own Christmas.

Somehow, though, we managed to do it all as we had the time and energy to work on it. It looks pretty nice, actually, and it will definitely be less crowded in here when the family gathers.

Of course, the best thing about all of this is really that we are very, very grateful to have the new windows, especially with the weather as it is today. The other windows were so loose and leaky that it would have been impossible for me to sit in here today without freezing. We would probably have had to huddle under our down comforter in the bed with the cat.

Now that I’ve written that, I’m thinking maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad way to spend the day at all. Possibly better than furniture re-arrangeing.

On the other hand, I am now officially part owner of the desk. Took me 31 years.

I am completely out of energy.

All the work we have been doing connected with the window installation and the moving of furniture and the stuff has finally stopped us in our tracks.

I still believe that I am able to do all the same stuff I could do when I was younger. But when I try and push it too far, my body finally rebels and refuses to cooperate anymore.

Last night, when my knee locked up, I think it was a clue that I should stop. But did I take heed? No. This morning when it unlocked, we were back at it rearranging the furniture and moving heavy house plants.

We had to carry a lot of stuff we were getting rid of down two flights of stairs. Then, the snow had to be removed from the car before we could go to work. Next, I had a bunch of jewelry to make to fulfill the Etsy orders.

When the work day was over we were also just about over.

Came home. Fixed and ate dinner and collapsed into my chair. Finally, I forced myself to get up so I could sort out some stuff on the computer and write something here. That’s when I just came to a crashing halt, mentally and physically.

By the time you reach 64 you should know when to quit. And this is it.

I looked over Broadway and what did I see?
Comin’ for to carry me home.

I wondered at the possibility that an Our God, and Our God 1-6 already existed before this person got their vanity license. Then it dawned on me that this owner must have been a Creationist.

Swng low the chariot’s coming.
Comin’ for to carry me home.

We’re having new windows installed in our apartment tomorrow morning. I hope we won’t have an unexpected snowstorm.

The back story is that we have had crappy windows ever since we moved in here, and the landlord has never been too keen on replacing them. Because the rent is very reasonable – in fact it has never been raised since we moved in about 9 years ago– we have just learned to live with the inadequate windows.

We get by during the winter by jamming wacky foam insulation strips around the edges and taping them up around the perimeter with clear packing tape. I know that sounds beyond tacky, but it really didn’t look like the Beverly hillbillies lived here because all that was hidden by the blinds.

Anyhow, the windows finally gave out. In September, we noticed that one of the windows was dangerously close to falling completely out of the casement when we tried to open it. In another one, only the storm window was separating us from the elements, as the top part had fallen to the bottom and we could not raise it at all. So there was really no way the landlord could deny reality any longer. It took some time to get around to getting things all in place so he could get it taken care of, and so now window installation in December in Chicago it is.

It is now 11:00 at night. We have done nothing at all about moving the furniture and stuff away from the windows. You would think we could plan ahead for something like this, but that would tarnish our reputation as the ultimate procrastinators. So now we have to wedge ourselves out of our chairs and begin the midnight furniture moving.

Sometimes I just can’t stand us.

It’s been a long day for me. I spent most of it making jewelry to fill the orders I got in the last couple of days on my Etsy site, so I can’t really complain.

Last year around this time I decided to list some items on Etsy to see if it could become a viable market place for me. The short answer is that I’m pretty happy so far. Despite it’s problems, I like selling on Etsy. There is definite potential for Etsy to become a good alternative to the art fair venues for retail sales.

Sales have picked up steadily over the year, and the holiday season has brought a real surge in orders. I’m selling enough in two of my Etsy shops to supplement my income quite nicely, enough to encourage me to be more serious in my efforts to upload new items and to promote myself a little more. I definitely won’t be quitting my day job, but, then, my day job is making large quantities of my jewelry to sell to the accounts which I’ve built up over the last 30 years.

A nice little bonus has been that my interest in making jewelry is being re-kindled, and I have even been designing new things. That’s a big deal because I have gone through a really long period of hating jewelry production work.

And I also find that I like the interaction and feedback that comes with having retail customers. Hearing or reading that someone is happy with their purchase or that someone loves my jewelry really goes a long way to make my day. Skinner sure had it right about that positive reinforcement.

The only downside is that all this new busy-ness sure cuts into the time I have to waste on the internet.

I’m planning on having a very good Sunday with my family. My younger son from Seattle is in town for 4 days, and yesterday he and my older son helped us make some major changes at the studio, which included moving a huge movable wall, and then transferring a huge workshop area from one place to another and reorganizing same. Exhausting, but very satisfying. I was so grateful for their help.

Today we are all going to older son’s to attend my oldest grand daughter’s last piano recital. She graduates from high school this year. Afterwards, a big family dinner. All three of my kids, two of their spouses and other two grand daughters, one 16 and one almost 2, will gather to celebrate my older son’s birthday and everything else.

Good food and good company. Even though it is rainy and gray, it will definitely be a good day.

I was lying in bed awake due to insomnia very early this morning when I felt the bed shaking. I was kind of groggy, and I thought it must be the cat scratching and making the bed shake. But I realized she’s too small to make the bed shake like that. Then I thought it might be my husband having nightmares. He was sound asleep, not moving at all. It went away, and then started again, and I got up and walked around the bed to see if I could figure out what was happening. I was stumped and got back in bed, and then noticed that it felt like it might be coming from under the bed. In my dazed stupor, I idly wondered if this could possibly be what an earthquake feels like, not thinking for a minute that it really was one.

Woke up to the news of the quake, realized instantly what all that shaking was about.

Never been in an earthquake which I felt before. Glad it was only a mild one.