random blather

I’m must be gettin old. I missed 5 weeks of my exercise class that I go to on Monday nights. I was teaching at the studio for several weeks, then it was my Dad’s 67^th birthday, and I couldn’t miss that. Then, it got so bleeding cold here, the last thing I wanted to do was slip and slide my way to class to get all sweaty and then go back into the cold and have my sweaty hair freeze. Anyway, I went to class last night and then went to bed early (is 8 hours and 53 minutes of sleep too long?). Today, my back is killing me, my left ankle and foot hurt and I have to go teach a pottery class tonight. Wow, I sound crabby, I’m not, I’m just sayin, getting old sucks! I’m not even that old, but I sure feel every one of my 39.5 years today.

There is a pretty strong Chinook arch today, so the weather should be mild (0 Celsius?)...much better than the -29 Celsius last week (It makes you feel like wearing shorts when the temp rises 30 degrees over night) but the Chinook related headaches are a pain. I never used to get them, but I started getting them last year and now I know what everyone else complains about.

The mountains are very clear today, they are right there, in your face and bright and toothy.

Not sure what I am going to demo tonight. Lately I have been making a mess of my demos instead of inspiring creativity. My bowls have flopped, my facets have ripped open, the elongated platters rip in half as I am “dramatically” stretching them out on the canvas table, and my slip trailer develops a case of gas and barfs slip all over the freshly decorated plate (at the very end of course so that I have to try and scrape it all off or just try to blend the burp into the overall pattern). Maybe I will stick with what I do best (bowls), how boring....I need to replenish my stock of everything, so perhaps it will be casseroles tonight, or pitchers with fancy rims....who knows, I will find out when I get there. I need to buy some clay too, so first thing after work I will be off to CC and pick a box or 2 up.

On a non clay note, my computer should be here in 3 days (Yippee!!!). Can’t wait!!!

I have been reading a few discussions in the blogosphere regarding the pro’s/con’s of selling via Etsy. I posted a while back that I was thinking of starting up an Etsy account, but the master procrastinator that I am, I never got around to it. Now that I will have some enhanced technology, and if I can get around to setting up a mini photography studio in my condo, I might give it a try. I will take all the sage advice that is being offered on this topic and hopefully put it to good use when I get my shop up an runnin. I really need to get some proper shelving in my “store room” at home. Right now it is a disaster zone with pots all over the floor amidst wrapping paper, painting supplies, an easel with an UGLY painting on it, and other sundry crap.

Enough rambling and babbling,

TTFN (What?, Did I just say that?)

Maybe I should say something like:

Make pots purposefully and make purposeful pots.

Nah, how about:

Go get dirty...

A Sadness

I was teaching last night for Dave, and unfortunately I had my phone on vibrate in my purse, so I did not hear it ring. I didn’t check my messages until I got home around 10:00pm. My mum had been trying to call me since about 5:30 to tell me that my Grandfather (Keith George Angus) had passed away. This is my mum’s Dad, and although we knew his time was coming close, we did not expect him to go before my Grandmother, as her situation seemed much more precarious (Go to my Mum’s blog “Short Musings” for all the details on why they were in the hospital etc...www.bebopher.blogspot.com)

Anyway, I am still processing it, and thinking about him.

Just to leave this on a somewhat happy note, one memory I have of my Grandfather that describes him to a T (thrifty, resourceful, not fashion savvy) is when my sister Erin, my cousin Shelley and I were out visiting my Grandparents in Burnaby for a week or two when we were kids. I have no idea how old we were. I am thinking that I would have been about 12, Erin 8, and Shelley 7? Anyway, my Grandparents were not ones to let children sit inside and watch TV, or be lazy, they would have us out trimming hedges, or canoeing, or hiking. This particular day was no different, it was a typical rainy day in the Lower Mainland. It was Grey, the clouds were low, and the rain was not ending anytime soon. My Grandparents were bound and determined to take us out hiking in the UBC Forestry Reserve, but none of us had packed rain gear, so we improvised. Grandpa got out some old plastic sheeting that he had used as a drop cloth for painting, folded it in half and cut 3 panels from it, and at the fold, he cut a head hole. We wore them like ponchos, and we tied them at the waist with old rope. The plastic still had paint on it, and it flaked off as we walked.  He never threw anything out, because you never know when you might need it. We must have looked like a troop of Hobos.

just stuff

So my grandparents are in the hospital (see www.bebopher.blogspot.com for the gory details). Needless to say, I am a little torn as to whether I should go out there or not. I live in Calgary, and they live in Port Coquitlam BC (ie: the greater Vancouver area). I love driving to the coast, but it is too long to do if it is just one person, and I grew up learning the fine art of long haul driving from my Dad. Get in the car and drive, don’t stop unless you are on fumes and might run out of gas before you can coast to the pump. “Pee break? I don’t need no stinking pee break.” You say that now, but have you ever been on the Trans Canada coming in to Hope and you know you gotta go, but you know that there is a rest stop on your side of the highway somewhere around Langley. But then there is a delay on the highway, there was a land slide and it’s taking a really long time, and now you really gotta go. Then there is the fact that you lose at least 2 days traveling, and if I went out for the weekend, I would only really be there for 1 day if I left on a Friday. Anyway, I could fly, but my job situation is such that I only get paid for the time that I am there, and it is not cheap to fly, and then you have to get someone to pick you up, but they are all at the hospital. So, you rent a car, and the last time I did that It cost me a fair chunk of change, but now that I think about it, that was for a week, and this would only be for a Friday afternoon to a Sunday afternoon, so 2 days.

Aside from the time and money aspect, ‘cause that is a cold way to think about this, there is the fact that 1) they are pretty out of it, and may not even know that it is me there. 2) I watched my other Grandmother die in the hospital 2 years ago, and that is not something you really want to watch again. If I didn’t like hospitals then, I really don’t like them now. The staff are great, it is just the setting, don’t get me wrong, but It’s full of sick people. 3) I saw my grandparents not too long ago when we were all out there for a family reunion last year, and they were both upright, and doing “ok”.

So, now that I hashed it all out here on the internet, I think I am leaning closer to going out by plane and then renting a car when I get there. The only thing that would get in the way of this plan would be accommodations. I am not sure if my relatives have the room for me out there if all the Kazakoff's (or most of them) are going out right now (These are my cousins), and my mum and aunt are there as well.  So if I decide to go, I will have to put some money on the ‘ol Master Card so they don’t decline me when I book the flight and the car. Still not sure, but we’ll see. I am just waiting for updates from my Mum as she is out there right now, and has the most sense to think of posting updates on her blog. Now that I have said all this, I have checked my e-mail, and my mum doesn't think I should come out, as both my Grandparents are out of it now, and it looks like they are both going down at the same time. This makes it harder

Now for something pottery related. I will be teaching tomorrow night for Dave again. I guess he had to create a new musical group in order for a musician friend from Ireland to be able to play at the Water Valley Folk Festival, and now they need to rehearse. So, I taught for him last Thursday, and the request was tall sectional pots. I have not thrown these in a while, so I kept it to a 2 section pot. Didn’t do a bad job for being a little bit rusty. Last night, someone wanted the same demo, as they saw the result from Thursdays demo and wanted to know how the heck I got it so big (not really big, but bigger than he had thrown so far). So I kicked it up a notch and made it a 3 section long necked urn/bottle/vase (pictures to follow. I never think of them until I start writing about the pictures I didn’t take). So tomorrow night I teach again, and I am not sure I have anything as “exciting” as a 2 or 3 part sectional pot. I need to consider kiln size when throwing these things. The gas kiln was easy as it was a 40cu ft kiln, and could pretty much take whatever we threw at it (no pun intended), but these electric kilns are only 10 cu ft and so require a bit of restraint when throwing large pieces. Maybe I will do some stretched out platters that are thrown as a thick disk, and then peeled off the bat and thrown down on the table to stretch them into an oblong shape.  Who knows, I have a day to decide.