Boston Comments (Get it? :-)

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to post my comments about Boston while they are still fresh in my mind and I've had two hot cups of coffee (and one sip of cold. Ugh. I'd rather eat cat food.)

We took two tours via a bus equipped with one seriously noxious potty - one to Plymouth (which they spell "Plimith" everywhere but on one government building as far as I could tell) and one to Salem. There were two common factors with these tours. Both drivers were named Bob, pronounced "Bwaahb" if you are a native. They both had a penchant for sharing macabre bits of info unrelated to the tour. After the 2nd tour, Bwaahb #2 was delivering tourists to their respective hotels, pointing out such attractions as a former prison where they were known to put quite a few people to death, or noting that the raggedy faux flowers near a train track were in honor of the young lady that watched carefully as a train passed before crossing the tracks, but sadly failed to look the other direction to see THAT train coming, at which point she was sqwooshed. I believe I am quoting Bob accurately here.

Another observation about Boston is that those little illuminated "Walk" and "Don't Walk" signs at lighted intersections just don't have the same meaning for those folks as it does here in California. I do believe that with their particular form of dyslexia, what they see is "Step into traffic whilst you give the stink eye to the guy with the right of way that could sqwoosh you too!" We were freaks, pressing the little button and waiting forever for the illuminated permission to step in front of the worst drivers in the contiguous 48 states.

Our trip to Salem was amusing. When I was a kid, I remember my older sister Lisa being somewhat over-the-top in her interest in witchcraft. I felt like I needed to sleep with one eye open for a couple of years. The spell book under her bed made me the most nevervous. That, and the fact that I had humiliated her by collecting my younger sister and best friend and sporting Lisa's half slip-with-legs on our heads while conducting a horrible little dance down the stairs in front of her boyfriend Chuck. Of course, we were sure to inform Chuckiepooh that these lovely crowns were, in fact, Lisa's undergarments. We would never wear such silly things but as a crown. This only inspired her to read her spell book with greater passion. Her interest waned eventually, and I never actually saw any eye of newt or frog parts in the house. In Salem, we visited the scene of the witch trials in 1692, the burial ground of the accusers, and saw the area where the accused were hanged (and one poor soul killed by "pressing" with a pile of rocks). We expected serious, macabre tales and visions of ghastly reenactment of the trials. While the museum promised a "dramatic history lesson using stage sets with life-size figures, lighting and a narration," we got a pretty darned silly show of illuminated giant creepy looking statues (I think they were paper mache over balloons) reminiscent of a giant dioarama. The second room was filled with little posters and blurbs about witch hunts around the world. As soon as I saw Dorothy and Glenda the Good Witch on the wall (seriously), we left. It was good for a chuckle, and "Bwaahb" enchanted us with amusing tales from his youth, as well as stops that weren't on the tour.

I was grateful that it rained lightly for all of ten minutes during a period of time where we'd been promised daily thunder showers. The only drawback to New England is the humidity. For someone with curly hair who is trying to get through the growing-out-short-hair stage, this was a challenging week. I looked like a dandelion. There was no amount of hair product meant to make curls look fabulous that was worth its weight in advertising. It was futile, frustrating and downright fluffy. I was the official "Glamour Don't" girl of MA for a week. Worse, my husband can NOT seem to get control of the camera and discover the "slim" feature. Add the poof on the top of my head, and it was a week of photography nightmares for moi. I'm going to be investing some serious time with Photoshop this week. I'm also not going back to Boston until I have either very long hair, or very short hair. I don't look good as a dandelion.

Inspiration by Surprise

I got a phone call last week from a dear friend (and amazing artist) that I hadn't seen or talked with in a long while was visiting from out of town with her sister and was invited to get together. We were getting ready to head out on vacation, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to reconnect, as I feel we've really drifted with the miles between us. I had a wonderful day filled with loads of laughter, very little talk of kids, husbands and jobs (great girl stuff!) and lots of discussion about creativity of all sorts. I was revved up to get back to work, stop being such a baby and to stop feeling like I have to make excuses for my inadequacies as an artist. We fit into such different categories. I've known my friend Susie since I was a teenager. I remember seeing her "homework" in art school and being blown away at her creativity and skill. Our foyer is home to one of her magnificent watercolours. Her sister Amy is fabulous - full of amazing energy, funny, skilled in so many areas. The best part was that both of them were so positive and encouraging with me, and I appreciate it more than they could know.

As odd as it may sound, I was also significantly inspired by the headstones in the many burial grounds (they don't call them cemeteries) in Boston this past week. The artwork on the tombstones and markers was incredible. There was one in particular that moved me, that of a young woman with a message carved on the stone that spoke to the person reading it and noted that at one time, she too had stood there looking down at graves before death claimed her to join them. It was much more poetic than that, but I'm exhausted and sleep deprived and must review my photos after coffee. Having seen so many graves of so many young people, combined with the remarkable number of celebrity deaths this week of folks my age (Michael Jackson, Billy Mays...), I am reminded that life is short. Time to make art! After grocery shopping, picking up the pile of vacation mail, etc. of course. Ugh, the real world beckons.