Gardening is Not Our Thing

Cindy is the master gardener who planned and landscaped our yard two years ago. We recently called her in to tame the wildness of our black dirt garden, which has gotten so overgrown that we can barely make it out the front door and down the walk. 

Gary and I had ‘words’ over who would be here to greet Cindy; we always have words over this and he always wins because he works full time and I do not. He also pays the bills, so he has clear moral superiority here, as we cannot pay her unless he works. A lot. She is expensive. And did I mention scary? We are both afraid of her (hence the need for ‘words’). Cindy is a tall, slender, seasoned by the sun woman who piles out of her vehicle and heads straight for our bushes, clipboard and pruning shears in hand. Sometimes she even remembers to say hello.

This visit was even scarier than most, not helped by the fact that Bo and Wally, our two wild doodles, jump up and happily paint her pants with mud. She is not so happy, with them or me, but after only a question or two about our inability to train our dogs, says, “Oh, my God. What the heck happened here?” (Translation: can’t you two boobs manage your own garden?) “I left instructions.” I nod wordlessly and a little quiver starts in my feet. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “Gary was supposed to get the instructions out for me this Spring and he didn’t. “ (HA! Take that, Gary. She is gonna hate you worse than me before I’m done.) “And it’s our black dirt,” I add. “ I kill plants. I really do. But everything just grows here. I can’t stop it. I can’t. Really.” I launch into a funny little story about my plant killing tendencies. She is not amused, not even a little. “Hmph,” she says.

She walks around the house, shaking her head in despair. “THINGS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO GROW LIKE THIS!” The quiver moves from my feet into my legs. I look at my watch, thinking our hour must be almost up. Five minutes have passed.

“Oh,my. Oh, my. Oh, my.” She began waving her arms over the irises. “These are not supposed to grow like this! What have you done?” Nothing, I think. That’s the problem. I don’t say it though, because I am afraid of her. I nod again, hoping it is a meek nod, one that will gain a bit of sympathy from her for the poor stupid part time social worker who had better be more effective with people than she is with plants. I hate Gary. Arm waving continues over the viburnum, the Redbud tree, the asters, the peonies.....

I do not understand why this hour is taking so long when whole days of my life fly by in seconds. But eventually we work our way around the house with exclamations and head shakes from her and protestations of innocence from me.  I sigh with relief when I notice that our time is almost up. “OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!,” she suddenly screams. I turn quickly, wondering if it’s a bear or a rattlesnake or even, this being Chester, NY, a Bigfoot. My heart is pounding. She is standing with her head clasped in both hands, “Oh, no, no, no. This can’t be.” She sounds like she is going to cry.

“What?” I yell, scanning for whatever danger is waiting to get us. “What’s wrong?” 

“You have an invasive species of grass in your woods. It will kill everything back there.” She moans softly. “This is just terrible. You need to take your weed whacker out there and hack it all down.” Mind you, ‘out there’ is filled with snakes and ticks and bear poop. No way in hell am I going back there. As a matter of fact I think I may transplant some of that stuff to the front to kill everything out there. Problem solved.

A few days later Susan brings her husband back to help her dig out some over our overgrown plants with Latin names I can’t pronounce. He shakes my hand so hard I almost drop to my knees. Nope, I decide after I stop crying. No way am I gonna tell her no, about anything. She can do whatever the hell she wants, which I am sure is going to cost a lot of money. Which Gary will have to pay for by working, which means I have to stay home with Cindy. I really do hate him.

Why I Hate to Clean

This morning I rediscovered the reasons I hate to clean. I often fantasize that I will one day become the keeper of an immaculate house....a place for everything and everything in its place. Ha! After breakfast today, I decided to clean out the medicine cabinet in our kitchen. This is a good thing, as I've been accumulating medicine since 1975 or so, as one never knows when (s)he will need some dried up cough syrup or yellowed pills of indeterminate purpose.

As I pulled open the cabinet, I noticed that Gary had left a number of empty almond butter jars on the microwave, at my request, as I hate the way he fills them with water and leaves them soaking on the edge of the sink until I complain. I can't throw them in the recycling bin until I clean them, because who wants to send that mess to some poor soul who has to sort plastics for a living? It only took me about half an hour to clean them. (Please don't tell me there is no poor soul sorting almond butter jars, because I really hate cleaning them.)

Then I began organizing pills, checking expiration dates, and tossing old meds. As I emptied pill containers into the trash (yes, I know, one is supposed to flush old meds, but we have a septic system and I figured medication would eventually make its way to our well water. As I write, it occurs to me that human waste might be able to do the same thing, and....well, you can see that I have a tendency to veer off track. Stay tuned for another blog about our contaminated well water. And another to ponder the legality of tossing pills into the trash. Will a bear eat the trash/pills and die? Will a sanitation worker find them and sell them, with my name on the bottle, resulting in my arrest and imprisonment? Yes, I actually think these things.) Anyhow, as I was tossing things in the trash I noticed that the trash was full, so I pulled the trash and recycling bags out to empty, and realized that the bins were long past due for cleaning. I pulled the bins out, and decided to take them outside where I could use the hose to clean them.

When I went to the garage to get the hose, I noticed that there were way too many cardboard boxes waiting to be broken down for recycling, so I decided today is the day. I tore and folded my way through half of the boxes, stopping only because I filled the recycling bin. Oh, yeah, the hose. Since Gary always puts things away in illogical places, I spent nearly half an hour looking for the hose in all the illogical places before discovering that he put it in the most logical place. He is so darn inconsistent! I dragged the hose outside, hooked it up, cleaned the bins, having to stop every two minutes or so to let the dogs in/out of or out/in to the house. The hose was leaking, so my pant legs and shoes got soaked, and I tracked water and mulch into the house, which meant I had to dry and sweep the floor, and why would I only sweep one floor, I might as well do them all.

The hose. As I put the hose away in the garage, I knocked over the plastic bags and bottles that need to be returned to the grocery store, so heck, I might as well put them in the car and take them back, too. But first, I should probably finish up the cabinet reorganization, and straighten the boxes that wouldn't fit into the recycling bin, and as long as I'm taking care of things needing to be recycled, there's that stash of paper bags in the laundry room that has been annoying me for weeks, and as long as I'm dropping off recycling at the store, I might as well cram in some Christmas shopping and....

I am exhausted. And when Gary gets home tonight, he may or may not notice that I reorganized one cabinet, but either way he'll think that's all I did today.  And this is the way I clean. It's a good thing we have a real cleaner, Brenda, who comes once a week. I love you, Brenda!

Metal Smithing

Metal smithing has been a longtime hobby. I began making jewelry as a lark, then found the workbench a place where I could get into "the zone," experiencing the process as meditation, a place where I could forget everything and my brain would stop its frenetic thinking.

Since I began metal smithing, I've also delved into pastels, collage, felting....somehow I always circle back to metals, though, and in the past year I've put renewed energy into my 'creative' process. I have been working on carving wax models which are then cast into metal. And in spite of my fear of fire (you may remember the instructor I almost torched), I've been trying my hand at reticulation, and most recently, etching. Etching uses acid that costs an arm and a leg to ship because it is so dangerous. It comes with warnings and skulls and crossbones and giant red letters, which of course (being me) I didn't notice until I had been splashing it around for half an hour or so. It actually eats metal, and is often done in large trays. We were using a very small Pyrex bowl, though, so I didn't need to worry about falling in. (I'd have a hard time fitting in a large tray, too, but I could probably manage to tip it over and scar someone else.) We did have to run outside periodically to breath fresh air so our lungs wouldn't get scorched. Life on the wild side.

I am always the one in class who forgets you aren't supposed to put tweezers in the pickle (a solution that cleans metal) because it contaminates the pickle and ruins whatever is already in the pickle. (My classmates were not too happy with me that day. Come to think of it, they are often not too happy with me. And for sure they quickly learned to avoid me when I have torch in hand.) I am also the one who cuts herself, and drops TINY little gemstones on the floor, necessitating that the whole class spend an hour on hands and knees looking for the damn things. Occasionally I might knock over a ceramic treasure, or sneeze while a classmate is absorbed in a tiny, tricky maneuver that requires great focus. I am only human.

Today I decided that I needed to relax, and retired to my craft room, where I have enough equipment to do a few simple tasks at home. Here is how I relaxed: I had already laid out my metal and tools, and I knew how I wanted the finish piece to look. All I needed to do was rivet some reticulated silver and hammered copper together to form two pendants, and epoxy some tiny pieces onto both. Simple. The first rivet got a little complicated, as I tried to align the holes so that the pieces fit together the way I wanted. Finally, after fiddling around for an hour or so, the holes were lined up and I was ready to place the rivet. My rivet was too short, so I had to go downstairs to the garage to get the vise which holds the metal tubing so that it can be sawed.

No problem. Done. (Although that vise is heavy and I think I may have tweeked my back a little.) I then went back upstairs to search for my saw. I located it in the back of a cupboard, and in the process found a lot of stuff I had forgotten I had, so of course I had to stop and look at all of it, and that got me thinking about what I could make with it, and wondering how I could forget all that good stuff, and...). That took about 1/2 hour. Saw in hand, I gathered my equipment and returned downstairs, where I discovered that I couldn't get the saw blade into the saw. I needed the pliers to tighten the saw, but the pliers live in the basement and I just finished a book about a serial killer who dismembered his victims, and serial killers might be in basements, right? I waited until the dogs came in and made them all come to the basement with me to get the pliers. While down there, I remembered that I wanted to bring a piece of exercise equipment upstairs, and since I prefer not to tempt the serial killer in the basement twice in one day, decided that I should bring it up today. It was heavier than it looked and I think I tweeked my back a little more. Pliers in hand, I fixed the saw and sawed my tube rivet and went back upstairs.

The rivet was too short, I discovered after I had dropped it 5 or 6 times on the carpet which is the same color as the metal which makes it very hard to find but I found it anyway dammit, and then dropped it again, and again. Back downstairs I went to saw another piece, which fit nicely. One little rivet tap tapped in place. Process repeated for second rivet, except I dropped that one more and well, to be honest, I said some bad words, too. Did I forget to mention that I have a little problem that means every time I put something down I can't find it and have to search for it? It goes like this: pick up metal, oops dropped on floor, get down on hands and knees, find metal, now I can't find my hammer. Got the hammer but realized I have to use the tweezers to place the rivet. Where the hell are the tweezers. Found them, place the rivet, now I can't find the hammer again. Find it downstairs because I had to go there to cut another rivet, go back upstairs where I drop the metal, then can't find the metal, tweezers or hammer. Getting into the zone is exhausting. I think I need a snack. Now it's time to epoxy (epoxy being industrial strength glue that tends to glue me to everything). Mix epoxy, search for toothpicks to place epoxy on tiny metal pieces, find toothpicks, getting a little woozy from the epoxy fumes, lose metal (same color as carpet, etc., etc.), find metal, epoxy dried out, have to mix again, mixed, now where is the metal. Find metal, work really, really hard at getting it onto metal, which I do, but also get a lot on me....and the tweezers and work table and hammer and metal and now we're all stuck together. More swearing. Getting hot in here. FINALLY get metal off me and onto pendant. Tweezers and Kathy still very sticky, pendant a little crooked, can probably file off the crooked parts. I need another snack.  Frustration 10, Zone 0.

It's not easy being me.

                                                               Felting

Recently Kate and I participated in a workshop on felting, a process in which wool fibers become wool material, which is often bonded to other wool and silk fibers. The workshop was interesting and quite fun, and we both produced something we liked. I left the workshop inspired to create (always a dangerous moment in my life and the lives of those around me). I came home and spent hours shopping online, buying wool fibers and wool and silk yarns; I had a great time thinking of the wonderful creation that was heading my way. Every day I sorted through the yarns, coordinating color schemes and thinking of possible designs. I spent weeks mentally rehearsing the steps in felting and preparing myself emotionally for my creative process. (This is where I would play Beethoven, if I could hitch music to this blog. You'll have to hum along on your own.)

Last Friday I decided the day of creation had arrived. I carefully assembled all the necessary materials and meticulously arranged them on the counter. I KNEW this was going to be fun. Huh.  I prepared the water with soap.  Spread out the plastic on the table. Unwrapped the wool batt and layered it on the plastic. I realized I was not quite sure what constitutes one layer of batt and, not wanting to bother the felting expert with a question, decided I could figure this out on my own. I tried pulling the batt apart in layers, until I was surrounded by little chunks of batt. Oops. And then our Tibetan Terrier proved that she is truly Tibetan by diving into the wool like she was cornering a Yeti. I spent the rest of the day alternately yelling at her to "drop it!!" and picking up little bits of woolly fluff all over the house. I did not let this deter the felting process. I continued layering batt, although I suspect each layer was probably more like 3 layers thick, but I figured that would make for a hardier final product.

The next step was layers of wool roving, long fibers placed perpendicularly in another three layers, interspersed with chasing Izzi and fishing wool out of her mouth. Of course I started out large, because wool shrinks in the felting process and my very first piece ended up being about 2" by 3", and I didn't want THAT to happen again. After layering and shingling, I was pretty sure I had used up enough wool for an entire herd of sheep. I had what looked like a dead sheep on my kitchen table. The layers were about 18" thick. It looked a little thick to me, but at that point there was no place to go but full steam ahead, so I placed all my embellishments on the wool base and stood back to admire my work....and chase Izzi to fish wool out of her mouth.

The workshop lady had cute little watering things that cost $25 apiece. This seemed expensive to me so I bought a watering can at Christmas Tree Shop for $1.69.  This might have worked okay, except it wasn't painted very well, so big paint chunks kept pouring out onto my sheeplike creation. (It was beginning to feel a little Frankenstein-ish here.) I gamely plucked them off and kept watering. The idea is to saturate the wool with water. I guess I got a little carried away with the saturation thing...before I knew it, there was about 5 inches of water on the table (and the floor and the dogs and my clothes). I covered the floor with towels and kept on working. I pushed more water out of the wool, spread more towels, yelled at Izzi, squeegeed water off my pants, and...at this point I was a little breathless. I didn't remember our felting workshop being an aerobic process, but hey! who can complain about burning off a few extra calories?! At least now my fleece was only 4 inches high. It still seemed a little high, but maybe my workshop memory was a little faulty. 

Okay. So now it was time to roll it in plastic and towels. As I rolled, water sloshed out of both ends of the roll. I spread more towels and squeegeed my pants again and kept rolling. After a few minutes I had a roll that was a tad larger than my workshop roll. I estimate its weight at about 85 pounds, and come to think of it, it looked a little like a body rolled up in a rug. I expected Robert DeNiro to pound on the door. I hauled the stupid thing (Have you noticed that all my creative products at some point turn into stupid things? There's a message there, I'm sure.) into the laundry room, bent over by its weight. I opened the dryer and pushed and grunted until I got it in, turned the dryer on and returned to the kitchen to sop up more water.  I let myself feel just a little satisfaction...and the dryer made a funny noise and stopped. I pounded on the damn thing, punched buttons, swore and...nothing. 

I fished wool out of Izzi's mouth, toppled out to the car with the sheep roll, and headed to the laundromat. People looked at me kind of funny when I staggered in under the roll but I pretended I didn't see them and threw it into an extra heavy duty super duper dryer, drying and rolling and drying and rolling, resolutely pretending there was no one else in the building (the other people were trying to pretend I wasn't there either. Huh.) An hour later I hauled my body in a rug back to the car and heaved it into the trunk. A few more rolls and it was FINISHED!

That was two days ago. The felt still isn't dry (perhaps I used a tad more wool than necessary), my back and hip and shoulder hurt, and I figure that between a herd's worth of wool, gas for the car, laundromat charges, getting the dryer fixed, and doctor's bills for my pain, I probably spent about $1,000 producing something that I could sell, on a day when buyers felt generous, for about $1.29.  And this was one of my more successful projects. Wait 'til I write about my metalworking with torches (who knew propane tanks could leak like that?!! Geesh.)

My Creative Muse: Why I Can't Quit My Day Job

Creative inspiration often comes to me while I'm driving, or lying wide awake in the middle of the night, or mopping the kitchen floor. And yes, occasionally, even when I'm sitting with a client and forget for a few moments that I'm supposed to be paying attention. I love it when that happens: my brain envisions the beautiful piece of art I'm going to create just as soon as I can get my idea on paper, how I can hang my masterpiece on the wall and feel that little ping of satisfaction every time I pass by.


As soon as I can, I retreat to my creative space, my computer/art room, which I try to keep tidy but inevitably is overcome by piles of paper and scraps of metal and lists of things to buy to enhance my creative spirit, and piles of art books, and--oh, yes--the sauna (I am convinced the infra red heat rays stimulate the artistic part of my brain--or maybe just kill off the rest of my brain so the creative part seems bigger). Once a month or so I don my hip boots, grab a shovel, and clear a path from the door to my art table. I sort and save and throw, papers and paints and brushes swirling everywhere, until I have piles of things to save and throw away and hide and recycle (hoping that Gary isn't crippled by the weight of the recycling and garbage bins as he hauls my stuff to the curb. Well, we don't really have curbs here in Chester. I wonder if bears eat art supplies.) For a day or so I pause every time I pass my art room, huffing with satisfaction at my ability to organize. By the second day it once again looks like a hoarding nightmare. Who knew the creative spirit would be so messy?


Then there are my forays to the craft stores. I want to tell you I travel into the city regularly to peruse the high end art supply stores, but the truth is I go to Michaels and AC Moore at least once a week. I know it's difficult to imagine me stooping to such second rate fare, but I do wear a disguise when I go, just in case I run into any buyer kinds of people from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Occasionally I go to a real art store and buy all kinds of wonderful paper in a variety of textures and hues, my mind a creative whirlwind of ideas.

Okay, okay. The creative process. Finally, I am sitting at my little art table, surrounded by paper and paint and brushes and scissors and metals and tools, and....not a creative thought to be found. I sit. And think. And try to remember just one of those wonderful ideas I had standing next to the paper rack at Peart Art Supply. Nothing. Nada. Not even a wisp of memory. So okay, this happens. All artists get blocked at times. I will soldier on. I root through my little pile of papers and choose an inspirational color. Brown. Okay, so brown isn't inspirational, but it looks good with inspirational colors, so I pick a few of those colors and spread them out in front of me. Still nothing. I pick up my scissors and cut out a shape. I like it, so I cut another one, and another. One falls on the paper and I like the way it looks, so I spend the next 4 hours arranging my three little shapes on the paper until my hand goes numb and I decide I like the last arrangement. Okay, what else can I add? Wait! I have some fabric so I throw a piece or two on the paper and then I remember a button popped off my coat yesterday and it's brown and it matches the brown paper. And then while I'm looking for the button I find an old piece of rusty metal that just has to get on the paper and while I'm at it maybe I'll throw in a splotch or two of paint because I'm in a splotching mood. And oh, yeah, now I remember this technique I read about last week and I think I might as well try it. It doesn't really go with what I'm working on but if I don't use it now I may never remember it again, so I throw it onto the paper, too. By now there isn't much brown background showing, but I didn't really like the brown anyway. And wow! All those colors. Who knew it would take so many colors to make a masterpiece. Okay, now I think I'm finished. I have to glue everything on the paper, so I carefully pick it up to move it to my glueing area, but....&^%*$#!! I dropped it and all the papers slid off. It takes me another hour to figure out how to get everything back on the paper. It doesn't look as good as it did before but by this time even I am getting tired of looking at my masterpiece so I decide to begin glueing. (What a funny word 'glueing' is. I wonder it that's how you really spell it. I used to be quite a good speller, but lately...oops. Back to the glueing process.)

(I didn't really want to make a new paragraph just when I was on a roll, but I know all readers are not blessed with my reading fortitude and long paragraphs might discourage some weaker souls. Besides, a new paragraph might create hope that I am almost finished. NOT!) Anyhow, glueing. I get my bottle of pH balanced glue (stop laughing!) and I'm ready to go. I have to glue from the top down (you will remember that I have been working on this for hours and there are a LOT of layers). Usually the little things are on top, so I pick up a microscopic button and oops--it fell on the floor. I put the glue bottle down, stand up and move my chair so I can find the button. Soon I am on my hands and knees, with my nose three inches from the floor, trying to find that damn button, which refuses to be found. So I find another button which doesn't really match but I am NOT spending any more time looking for that button. I return to my seat but I can't find the glue. After 5 minutes I find it on the computer table where I put it when I started looking for the button. Now I've got the glue, but I lost the second button. Fortunately, I now find the first button under a stray scrap of paper, so I dip it into the glue and it falls on the paper, but not where it's supposed to be. I try to remove it but it leaves a big splotch of glue so I have to leave it where it landed. I decide it looks okay there. I then pick up the second button and realize I forgot to put the cap on the glue and now the glue has hardened so I can't get any glue out until I spend 10 minutes removing hardened glue from the bottle.


Okay, so now I AM almost finished (the story, not the art project). I repeat this process multiple times. I finally work my way through the layers. Everything is glued sort of where I want it to be and all I have to do is put the layers on my brown paper, which I do. I congratulate myself, but then I notice that one of my shapes is glued on crooked. I try to slide it over but the glue is setting and I have to tug the sheet, until, of course (this being part of the creative process) the brown paper tears. Now everything but this last piece is glued on the brown paper, which is ripped. Being creative, I develop a creative solution. I throw the damn thing away.

Now (last paragraph, I promise!), I want you to know I made my Christmas cards this year. Yes, there are some glue splotches, some buckled paper, some crookedness, they will probably require extra postage (all those layers!) and I have said bad words while creating them, but they are mine! Or rather, yours, when you receive them. Please remember my creative process as you throw them away! Sigh.

I'm WAY too old for this

Wow. A trip to Montreal to sightsee with our two exchange students. What could be simpler? Drive up Saturday, wander the city for a day or two, then drive home. I would get to check out old haunts, meet with an old friend, the girls would see a new city and visit another country. Right. Except someone forgot to check to make sure that the girls took the appropriate paperwork. And they were only missing one little paper. No problem getting into Canada.
So we had a great time in the city and started back this morning. We pulled up at U.S. customs, where we found out that the little paper we left behind was a very important little paper indeed. We were directed to the outlaw area where they pull your car apart and treat you like a criminal. Now, I always feel guilty even when I'm not, so you can imagine the impact of parking in a lot full of men in uniform (which by this time looked pretty much like Nazi uniforms to me) who were barking staccato orders at us: park there! turn off your car! put the windows down! take off your sunglasses! unlock the doors! get out of the car! open the hatch! While we waited for our next order, I took a few steps away from the car...WHERE ARE YOU GOING? one of the gestapo yelled. (He really yelled. I was sure I was a criminal. I was pretty sure I must have done something terrible that I couldn't remember...early onset Alzheimers, maybe?) We scurried back to the car, and without a word, one of the uniforms pointed to the customs office. As I walked away from our car, I realized the hatch was still up. "Should I leave the hatch up?" I politely asked. 'WHAT ARE YOU ASKING ME FOR? IT'S YOUR CAR! DO WHAT YOU WANT!" the closest uniform replied, his nose about an inch from mine. I closed the hatch. The man inside the customs building silently took our passports, pressed a few computer keys and said. "You're all set. You can go."
Whew! That was easy. I was relieved that this whole thing was going to turn out well. No paddywagons today. We calmly returned to the car, got inside and I started the engine. A new face appeared at my window. "Turn off your car," this uniform said. I complied. "Roll down your window." I complied. "We're just doing a drug check," he said.
Oh, well. A drug check. No problemo. This will just take a second. WooHoo! Go for it, boys! (Good thing the government hasn't developed the capacity to read minds. I would have been in the slammer for sure.) Yet another uniform lead a huge German Shepherd around the perimeter of the car, the dog sniffing intently. As he rounded the front of the car, I put my hand on the ignition, ready to be on my way.
The dog paused by the front tire on the driver's side. He stopped, sniffed at the tire, then sat down, quivering with excitement while he stared at the tire intently. My hair started falling out in clumps. "Good boy," the uniform said. He bent over, peered into the wheel well, and said to uniform number one, "There's a bag of ecstasy underneath there."
By this time, I was practically bald. The ground was covered with fallen hair. (Well, not exactly covered in hair, as my hair has been thinning in recent years. But it's still soft, and quite--oops, back to the story). I put my head out the window. "WHAT???" I yelled. My voice sounded like I had just sucked in half a tank of helium. "WHAT? DRUGS!!! I DON'T DO DRUGS!! I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THEY CAME FROM! OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. DRUGS. DRUGS. DRUGS. OH MY GOD. DRUGS. OH MY GOD." (I am quite articulate under stress.) My thinking process is slightly faster than my speaking process in a pinch. I tried to imagine life in Dannemora, picking rocks, working in the laundry, being some big old woman's girl toy. I wondered if the exchange students would be in prison with me or if they'd be deported. I briefly toyed with the idea of turning to the girls and saying, "What did you do? These must be your drugs." My better half won that battle.)
Uniform number two thanked the sniffer team, took a latex glove out of his pocket and very slowly and carefully pulling it onto his hand, leaned over and reached behind the front tire. The hand came out holding a baggie full of white powder. The entire time I continued to sqeak, "OH MY GOD. DRUGS. DRUGS. OH MY GOD." I wonder if they'll put me in a high security prison, I thought. Is it possible to escape from one of those? I wonder if I could outrun the dog. Do these guys have guns?
The uniform straightened slowly, the baggie of white powder in his hands. He glared at me and said, "Just a training exercise for the dog, ma'am. You're free to go."
I opened the door a crack to scoop up my hair from the pavement (I hear they can do great things with wigs these days), started the car, and drove away at a speed lower than the posted limit, every nerve in my body singing. It was a long ride home. For the first 30 minutes I drove 30 miles an hour because I thought if I got pulled over for speeding I would die. Then I drove about 100 miles an hour because I couldn't control the affect of the adrenaline on my gas pedal foot. I alternated fast and slow for all 300 miles. I feel much older tonight, but at least I'm not in a 6 by 10 cell with a roommate named Bertha.
And I'm pretty sure up at the border crossing tonight, there's a group of customs agents gathered around a TV, eating popcorn and drinking beer, hooting at the video of the old lady with the babes getting pranked by the drug in your tire routine.

Art Lessons

"I just want to tap into my creative potential," I said to Caroline when I called to ask about joing her adult art class. "I want to experiment with color, motion, the energy of creation. I just want a place and time to flow, to pour myself out on paper."
"Well," she said. "Your children are certainly creative. I've enjoyed teaching them, I guess they get their talent from you."
"Oh, I don't know about that," I chuckled modestly. "My husband is more creative than I am. I've never thought of myself as an artist, but I'd like the chance to see what's inside waiting to be expressed."
I arrived at the first class, self-conscious, hoping that the room was big enough so that I could sit far enough from my fellow students so they couldn't see my work clearly. There were four other women in the class, three of them artists and one, like myself, there to try her hand for the first time. I carefully placed myself as as far as I could from the artists.
"Okay," said Caroline as she approached my chair. "Let's see some of that creativity in action." She placed paper, pencil, several tubes of water color paint, a palette and a fine-bristled brush on the table in front of me. "This is just to play with. Have fun!" She turned to the others and began to question them about what they would like to do with their time. I sat with a pleasant edge of expectation, waiting for creativity to arrive.
And sat. And sat. After half an hour, creativity nowhere in sight, I sighed with an air of melancholy, picked up the pencil and placed its lead tip on the center of the drawing paper whose massive white expanse taunted me quietly. The other students chatted and laughed around me, talking about their families, their previous art experiences, their lives, as women do when gathered together.
'Okay,' I thought. 'I'll draw a flower. Flowers are pretty. I can do that.' My pencil tip remained on the center of the paper. "How are you doing?" Caroline asked as she leaned over my paper. "Oh, dear. I guess you're having a little trouble getting started. What would you like to try?"
"A flower," I said, speaking with conviction, hoping I would be better at drawing flowers than I was at keeping them alive. How hard could it be to draw a flower?
"Alright!!" she said. She snatched the pencil from my hand and with a few broad strokes a flower appeared on the paper in front of me. "Good start! You take it from there." She handed me the pencil.
I sat. And sat.....and sat. The flower she had drawn looked so pretty I hated to ruin it. 'That was pretty easy to draw, though,' I thought. 'I should be able to do that.' I placed pencil to paper and began to move my hand, aiming for her bold confidence, achieving instead several shaky lines. I erased them, tried again. My hand didn't appear to be working very well. My flower looked more like a dead animal than a creative expression. I quickly glanced around the room to see how my fellow students were faring. One had nearly finished a small farmhouse in miniature, the other was working on an elaborate bouquet of flowers that looked like it belonged in the Louvre. A third was sketching in ink, her paper covered with small likeness of the people in our class. It even appeared the creative muse had visited the only other non-artist in the group as she spread pastel watercolored clouds across her white page. I hunched over my drawing, pulling my shoulders in to cover my flower animal.
Magically, Caroline appeared at my elbow. "How are you doing?" she asked again. "Oops, I'm having a little trouble seeing your work." She leaned forward to see around my shoulder, which was having a little spasm as I hunched it up further to block her view.
'I hope she gets a crick in her neck," I thought as I again glanced at the colors appearing on paper around the room. 'Serve her right for torturing me like this. This place is too hot...it's interfering with my creative flow.' I pulled at the collar of my turtleneck.
"Well," she said. "I can see you're still having a little trouble getting started. We have a few minutes before the end of the class. Let's forget about drawing and play with color." She whipped the tops off the paint tubes, splashed gobs of color onto a plastic Dixie plate, and plunked a glass full of water on the table. "You wet your brush," she said as she stirred the brush through the water. "The color will only run in the wet areas on the paper. Like this." She splashed and splotched with water and paint, and a multi-hued flower magically appeared. It was beautiful. I started having an asthma attack. I don't have asthma.
The idea that I might return home empty-handed spurred me to action, however, and I began to paint with grim determination. One small, grudging flower after another appeared on my paper. They were small and tight, but they were flowers! I left class with my soul singing. "I can paint. I can draw. I can do art!" Later that evening I proudly presented my creations to my husband. "Oh, wow," he said. "Those are great. I don't think I've ever seen mushrooms in so many different colors, or so skillfully drawn. Nice job!"