Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A Day in the Life ...

Mrs. G of Derfwad Manor suggested a photo essay about a day in my life and that's what follows.


Gary is up at 5:00 am, makes his lunch (unbelievably filthy construction lunch box is noted later by Linda) and before he leaves he wakes Linda up. "Time to get up, I'm leaving". Linda says, "I'm getting up right now". Gary says, "Sure, I don't see any lights on when I drive away". Linda lies there for a brief time and she gets up after she hears Gary's car drive down the highway. Linda thinks - that's why he doesn't see any lights - I get up just after he drives away.


Linda fixes her daily drug - that's what Gary says about her coffee - since he doesn't drink it. He says he's still too young to drink coffee. Gary is approaching retirement age. Wonder how old he thinks you have to be to drink coffee?


Later Linda has her breakfast of champions - low fat granola with some milk while she is checking her emails, reading some blogs and doing some blogging. She notices the cat is still lounging around.


When the sun comes all the way up, Linda lets the cat out. Great horned owls are heard every evening, so the cat can't go out till the sun comes up.


Next Linda does some watering and weeding in the yard. Linda tries her best to keep things green due to high fire danger and weeded in hopes they will sell so they can move to a smaller place with less yard work and more time for a dedicated clay studio. If only the rains would come, Linda thinks she would have much more time to get all the errands done, like the DMV, taxes due in two days, and smog her car which is due in less then 10 days so she can re-up the registration.

Later Linda takes a shower. Next Linda loads her sculpture very carefully into a box in her car and adds Styrofoam peanuts to cushion it. Linda also loads some extra stilts for the glaze load at school as there aren't enough small ones, and she puts some ware boards into the back of her car.


Later Linda heads off to school in her car loaded down with all her clay paraphernalia and all the tables and finished ceramics from the last show. It's easier just to leave the stuff in the car so she doesn't have to load it up again. As Linda leaves, she notices the indoor cat is taking a nap on the couch. Linda drives very slowly to class - pretty unbelievable for her - but she has her sculpture in the car.


Linda always promises to come home early after class, but she always gets home late due to her addiction to clay. Linda spent 12 noon till about 6 p.m. at school today. Linda glazed a teapot, helped her classmate load the kiln for a glaze load, cleaned up and organized all her green ware, and made a clay canister while she was at class today.


Linda also took a small trip to the grocery store during that time to get some cat food for some stray kittens hanging around the ceramics classroom. Linda made a note to herself to call animal control to come and get the kittens. When Linda's instructor arrives, one of the classmates tells him there is dead kitten in the courtyard. Linda feels real bad even though she's been leaving cat food for the kittens each day. Someone tells Linda they think the kitten died from disease not malnutrition. When Linda gets home she sees Gary has left the light on for her.


Linda plies Gary with a glass of ... white grape juice when she shows up late again from her night ceramics class.


She fixes something easy for dinner due to the late hour - pesto over bow tie noodles and perhaps a salad to go along with.


Gary lounges around while Linda makes dinner. While Linda and Gary are drinking their grape juice, Linda tells Gary about loading the kiln, what she made in class, and tells of showing her instructor her sculpture which she, thankfully, got to class in one piece.


Gary says he has something made from clay to show Linda. Gary brings out a car magazine and shows Linda a full size Rambler made out of clay and explains to Linda how car manufacturers used to make their models completely out of clay before they manufactured them to see how they'd look. Gary is amazed at a full size car made from clay and Linda is too. Gary is so supportive of Linda's clay pursuits.



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Gary goes to bed early since he gets up so early. Gary can't be seen in bed since he has a habit of covering up his head.


After Gary goes to bed, Linda checks the emails again while listening to music on the TV. Linda writes about her day and thinks she should have gotten much more done that day.


Linda makes a sketch of a blue heron which she would like to sculpt next. Even though Linda has only done one sculpture in her life which she completed yesterday, as Linda drifts off to sleep she's dreaming she's a seasoned sculptor working on her next sculpture - a blue heron!

7 comments:

  1. thanks for the window into your life! I love your cats, and I love your yard, even if there are baby rattlesnakes ::shiver::

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  2. This is an interesting post. Maybe you will inspire more of us to do this.

    About your last post-I hope you make your work a priority for getting into the kiln. I too was one of the constant kiln loaders and firers, and at first I used to try and be fair and not prioritize my own work, but then one day I just realized, you know, I'm the one standing here doing this, sally-sue never does-why am I worried about getting her stuff in before mine? She was free to help and chose not to. After that day, and a general consensus with the other regulars, we stopped worrying and our work became a priority, what space was left was doled out.

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  3. Hi Gary, I'm lucky to have my cats, they are all so special.

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  4. Hi Deborah, actually I brought the stilts to school because I have plates and platters. If I didn't bring the stilts I wouldn't have gotten some of my stuff in the kiln. This time I actually didn't get all my stuff in there because there wasn't enough room due to the reglazing of the last load which didn't turn out. We set the cones so they can actually be seen through the peep holes this time and hopefully looked at so we will get a good firing.

    I do have a somewhat selfish motive for helping to load the kiln each time and that is to load my stuff more carefully and to be sure more of it gets into the kiln.

    Writing about a day in your life really makes you think about what you have or have not accomplished during the day - I am thinking I need to do much more. This post was really helpful to me for that reason.

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  5. Thanks for joining in! Your home looks like a loving and cozy place to be.

    You potters are the best.

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  6. Busy and beautiful life! Thanks for sharing a peak into your day.

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  7. Thanks Mrs. G. You blog is a hoot!

    Hi Patricia, hope you are having fun on your vacation.

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