Making and Breaking

Some things I make are more easily un-made, or broken, than others. I think it may be a question of how much pre-planning goes into the thing.

Quilts, I plan and draft and redraft and fiddle and rearrange, long before I even touch [or buy!] a piece of fabric. My quilts are rarely broken once made. Even then, they are often only rearranged and reassembled, not re-purposed.

Pottery, I am still so new to the process that often it is difficult to achieve fully how I want the finished pot to look. My hands don't yet have the skill to produce what my mind has conceived. Sometimes my pots are broken, inadvertently or on purpose, at any stage. Broken unfired pots are crushed to become reclaimed clay and get to start over; broken bisque fired pots facilitate drainage in my flower pots; broken glazed pots become mosaic tiles for stepping stones.

Friendships, relationships, are not objects; not so easily made, but sometimes too easily broken. How much planning and preparation goes into making a friendship? Words, written and spoken, can help; but thinking and reflecting and planning are usually not part of the process. We jump into friendships, relationships, and think, "I've been making friends since kindergarten. This is easy." It is so easy to make, so hard to maintain, so easily broken.

Where do the broken friendships, relationships go?

Four years ...

Four years behind us;
Forty years ahead of us.
(But who's counting, eh?)

Happy anniversary to my Love, my Partner, my Soul Mate.

You make my heart sing, you make my spirit soar, you make my soul happy.

Tell me; Don't tell me

Tell me what I need to hear.
Don't tell me what you think
I want to hear.

Tell me what I want to hear.
Don't tell me what you think
I need to hear.

Decompression

Decompression
Compression
Depression
Expression

This time was not as difficult as the return from Black Rock City; but some of the same mechanisms work to make it happen.

Friends, food, hot water, cool wine:

• Dinner with Kate and meeting her new friend; 
• basmati rice under *anything* but especially the chicken and cranberry sauce; 
• hot tub shared four ways last night and two ways this morning;
• 'nuff said?

Some of my best thinking and creativity happen between the white lines, particularly on I-5 through the Central Valley, particularly on the return trip.

I have a "maybe" solution to the couch pillow problem at the Palm Springs house; ideas for some other sewing projects; plans to slab-build a set of coffee mugs for the desert house; and that was only this trip. Who could forget the board game we invented, a sort of spin-the-bottle meets strip poker meets Truth or Dare? And the metamorphosis of Silicon Valley Computer Support Services into S.V. Couples Sexual Services?

Day Last

Thoughts and observations on my way back to the default world--

It really is the Very Best Way Ever to wake up.

I get teary-eyed every time we start to drive away from the desert because it *could* be the last time.

The sky along I-5 today looks like an aquatint or a watercolor wash painting.

The older semi rig drivers are the best to draft behind because they know how to keep a constant speed for miles and miles and miles.

The Pleasant Land of Counterpane (go look it up) lies on the west side of I-5 between Lost Hils and Avenal. Really. After you look it up, drive there and see :-)

Quote of the day

"I was so royally fucked that now I am wearing a tiara!" Stolen, blatantly, from MTW

On the Fifth Day we rested

Formula for a lovely day --

Start by sleeping in, past 8AM if you can manage that, until 8:45 is even better. Then, when you DO wake up, let it be by the sweetest, hottest, most loving manner you and your partner can dream up. [I'll leave the exact details to you ;-) ]

Stretch, shower, and enjoy a leisurely breakfast: fried eggs and Canadian bacon on English Muffins. Don't spare the Cajun Sunshine hot sauce either.

Make only one trip to the hardware store for the parts to fix the gate; instead of the usual three trips. Clean, vacuum, straighten, rearrange the RV. Finish those chores at exactly the same time and celebrate with fish 'n' chips lunch at Fishermans Market Grill (http://www.fishermans.com/palmsprings.php). Be sure to get an outside table and people watch while gorging on perfectly fried cod and chips with malt vinegar.

Home after lunch, one (me) weed side yard and pick up detritus from backyard and the other (he) vacuum through the house. Yawn. Both go take a nap