A Thursday In August

I am just so interested in how I can take these moving images and tuck them in my picture file and then when I insert them in the blog--they start moving.  Icy cold images on sultry August days.

Make more ice.

The tile guy didn't show up yesterday, but he is here today.  Tiling the wall in the hall bath.  As much as he can get done today.  I was called upon to make a half dozen or so "decisions" on the placement of tile and grout colors.  I must have "aced" the test because I chose all the right answers.  Last one was multiple choice.  Tile guy says they always give customer choices but have already decided which of the two or three they prefer.  I chose the one he preferred.  He's happy.  I'm happy.  Life is good this morning.

I signed up for a hands on workshop that "enhances" the local college art museum's drawing exhibit. Some of the drawings are from the 1600's.  It is an amazing display, mostly from the archives of alumni donations.  I recognized most of the names from my days at college taking Art History classes. I am wondering what we might be doing in the workshop--but whatever it is--it will be me trying to open myself to new experiences.

My friend tells me the BUS SERVICE to the big (for us) city of Portland starts next month.  That means I could actually take a bus to Portland and shop or visit the museums. library etc and then take the bus home again.  Like when I was 13 or 14 and took the bus, alone, into Cleveland (the race riots were a few years later).  The bus dropped me off in the center of downtown Cleveland by Terminal Tower.  I then would walk to the central library--a huge marble building with iron gates on the rooms with special book collections.  I once spent the day in such a room reading The Sheik, a book no longer in print and a first edition and valuable.  It may have been August.  And the marble room was dark and cool and quiet.  So unlike my situation at home.  I stayed and read the entire book.  Then the 30 to 40 minute bus ride home.  No one missed me.

That tells you more than you need to know about my life at home.

After high school and before going away to my first year at college, I worked for the Cleveland Water District and took the bus to work each morning and back home in the early evening.  Everyone was happy at home that summer.  I was away at work.  Gone.  Out of sight, out of mind.  I was 17.

I was out yesterday with a good friend (we went to the Art Museum) and then I got my new glasses adjusted.  Very good today with the screen and keyboard.  I also stopped in at the local, downtown quilt shop.  Lots of patterns and things for sale but very very little fabric.  They did have a skein of the exact color of floss I needed.  So that was wonderful.  I visited with quilters working on sampler blocks.  and in doing so--saw a background fabric that looked fabulous with the same type of prints I still have in my stash.  So I purchased a yard.  Just enough.  Not too much.  They used the fabric with half square triangles and the background as the triangles sewn to the corners.  I still can't get access to my sewing machine so I will cut pieces and have a "hand work" project hand sewing the pieces together.  I think I prefer doing it that way, these days.  The cutting will be intense.  As I have to really think about how to cut the shapes.  It's been a long time.  Exercise for the brain cells.