all things neat & saccharin sweet

Susan and her ol' pal art prof Bruce Hixon Smith.
The Springville Museum of Art is soooo polite with its disclaimers.No me gusta hot dogs but i LOVE paintings of them. Especially when rendered by Mr. Wayne Thiebaud (who was at the Springville Museum this very day!).
Oh! I could slurp up his thick heavy frosting paintings. I feel a bit diabetic just from looking.

In session

Sundance Author Series
Environmental Defense Fund

the woman delivers!

this pic was taken after O'lover and I already chowed some of the delicious home made lemon cookies.
Zina thank you thank you thank you! The handwritten note, the lemon wedge watercolor, the divine cookies (how'd you know they're my fav?!!!) the promptness & prettiness of it all! you are the best!! Seriously warmed my heart and filled my belly.

So now Zina avert your eyes!

Dear everyone else: If you ever want to do an itty bitty special anonymous nice thing for someone DO IT FOR ZINA. it's a wise investment with generous dividends.

thumping the hive

i love where i live. i love my cordial neighbors, the mountains, the tree-lined streets, the river and lake. sometimes i want to gather up all the provo goodness and give it a thankful squeeze. and when people say "crap" about Provo i used to want to put up my "tiny ineffectual fists" and defend it. But not anymore! Provo can steady its own ark (i can be so old testament).

my fling with provo is ongoing despite A WHOLE LOTTA THINGS which have been coming to a head recently. i hate the culture of obedience. wait. before this is a full blown vent...really all my fuming botherdness about provo comes down to...

...the small-minded contingency of elected leaders (one in particular) at some of our reVISIONing downtown meetings that can't stand the "artist-types". but of course these sorry citizens of whom i speak tell me this while saying, "except for you raquel" and I'm thinking "I'm so embarrassed to NOT be included with the artist-types whom you show such great disdain." and i'm also thinking, "Uh, VISIONS are artists' specialty. LISTEN to the artists!!"

signed,
O- that i could be considered a dangerous, subversive artist-type!

downtown provo gallery stroll

O'lover keeps reminding me how indebted i am to him.
it's very annoying.

(but i deserve it.)

we took our dog Farmer on the gallery stroll again. We're supposed to be taking turns waiting outside with the dog while the other one quickly looks at art and then comes back. The key words are "comes back". to trade off holding farmer tightly so he doesn't slather-lick kung fu kick every passerby.

but time has no meaning while looking at art. well, for me. o'lover, on the other hand, never leaves me in the cold for more than two minutes. and he always saves the last bite for me whenever we share food. and he always opens the car door. all the thoughtful courtesies.

and he never gets mad (at me.) unless we're designing something together in photoshop and then he threatens to dangle me out the second story window.

Yay for thoughtful people!

and i don't know if this is for good or ill but i think i'm rubbing off on him. he's more demanding and has a lower tolerance for the high maintenance folk of the world. So when O'lover is reminding me that i owe him big time...

i'm annoyed. but also secretly ECSTATIC that i can't get away with everything.

(maybe this would make sense if you personally knew us?)

*******

back to losing track of time because i'm having such a freaking fabulous time on the best evening of the month...

Mike Kelley (from college), Danny (a fellow PHS alum), and gorgeous Kim (Mike's wife whom i've only met briefly twice but who exudes coolness). Mike and I were able to gossip about some Krazy Kids we know. good times.
Cindy writes a great blog that takes you on all sorts of clever adventures. in fact because of her jet set ways, and my avid reading of her blog, i just got back from a fabulous month in England (but she's the one with the jet lag).
Ruel is-debonair Brown. We took a pic of me standing next to him but if i posted it you'd think i was eighteen inches tall when really it's Ruel who is exceedingly large of stature. He made Monsters Rule at Mode Boutique. It's up for the rest of the month. Please check it out!! Some people have the prettiest shoes...(those people are cindy and janelle.)
This was the last pic before my camera's battery gave up the ghost. I took it while waiting outside with the dog while O'lover was sprinting through the gallery so he could then relieve me from my wiggly social doggy duties.

signed,
next gallery stroll we are getting a dog sitter.

lonely in advance

So the O'lover just got his dream job! the one with the dental benefits and matching retirement fund. with a well-respected progressive firm that is loyal to their employees and wants O'lover to get his masters degree. and most importantly fits his definition of right livelihood.

It's like we're growing up?

and EVERYONE is so happy for him, nay, giddy as spiked punch. (they took us to tucanos to celebrate!)

i'm happy too. uh. but since i live in the opposites world, i'm also a bit like...reticent to give up hovering near the virtuous poverty level (the real poverty level, not the U.S. defined poverty level which to me is RICH...)

and now we'll be able to save a bit of $, pay off debts, and contribute to causes? still computing...

then there's the issue of his being gone. a lot. (he used to telecommute from home.) i'm rather attached to the O'lover. The word "co-dependent" comes to mind.

on the bright side... since i won't be Velcro-ed to O'lover's neck anymore...

maybe i'll have time to crochet...preferably like this:
aren't these house sweaters cool?

Spring Fever

It's still chilly but we're working up a sweat in the garden.
We chopped the dead pyracantha into bits and hauled two trailers worth out to the green garbage. We're all scratched up and glad that's over.
It's time to plant! So we prepped the soil by raking in bone and blood meals. This isn't really needed since we have chicken and duck manure and loads of compost but we might as well use up all the bags we bought a couple years ago on sale at IFA. Plus it makes us feel kinda witchy cool to be working with blood and bones (of fish). Seeds of Change has some of my favorite heirloom varieties.
We went to Momma Mia's house and she was very glad to give us thornless blackberries, everbearing strawberries, grape vine starts, raspberry canes, and other random flowers transplants. Jason helped plant a box of garlic. Suz added more raspberry canes to our patch.

We made teepees out of the 8 foot tall bamboo. We planted sugar snap peas around the outside of the teepees and mustard greens, mezclun mix, and lettuces on the inside of the teepee so that when the peas grow the heat hating lettuces will have some shade.We planted the grapes next to the roses. The Italians have a saying that roses are the doctors of the grapes.
And now that we've done our part it's up to the seeds and the weather.