Last Market of the Summer

I spent a very happy weekend with B., who is visiting for a few days before Art & Soul. I picked her up at the airport on Friday night and Saturday morning we got up and headed out to the last market of the summer (for me---there is one more next Saturday, but I'll be at A&S in Portland). It was a riot of color---peppers, apples, blackberries, flowers in autumnal colors, blue skies and jewelry galore! I bought lettuce and tomatoes, fresh basil, fingerling potatoes, pears, bread and pepper jelly to take up to Grant Creek. Because of the Market, we feasted on Saturday night. It's a long time until next May, when the Market resumes. How I'll miss it during the bleak, cold winter!

The son of one of the flower & vegetable vendors was hiding under one of their display tables, peeking out at the shoppers and giggling up a storm. He let me get a snap of his wonderful little face!

B. and Nonie did a little ceramics decoration while we were up at the cabin. I will be very interested to see how Bee's plate turns out as she used a crystalline glaze and then overprinted a leaf onto the plate, adding the last coat of the base glaze with the crystals after the leaf was printed. It looks great, even unfired!

Sunday Bee showed me how to nature print using water soluble ink and found plant material. Most of it had been flattened overnight in a phone book, and we used mostly newsprint as this was a learning experiment for me. GREAT fun! Bee was getting great results with a piece of lavender and I especially liked a cedar frond and one of the little Japanese maple leaves that are so abundant at the end of the deck.

The weather was picture perfect while we were at the cabin. How will I convince B. that this is not normal Pacific NW weather?

Vegas!

Nonie and I had a fast, two night trip to Las Vegas last week. The highlight was seeing two performances of Cirque du Soleil. We saw both Mystere and O, and both were spectacular. I always just sit, slack jawed (but grinning----not an easy look to pull off, but I somehow manage it every time!) and utterly gobsmacked by the spectacular and amazing things happening in front of me. If you ever have a chance to go see a Cirque du Soleil performance, I urge you to run, not walk! It's about the best entertainment money I have ever spent.

Other highlights were seeing all the fancy casinos and the fine dining we did. We had dinner at Michael Mina one night and we opted for the tasting menu. It was wonderful! We were served a Dungeness crab soup that was out of this world. We had a great lunch at Olives, a Todd English restaurant and the panzanella salad I had was fantastic. Real tomatoes....sigh. A real tomato is so rare these days, one that tastes like it grew outdoors in sunlight and was fully ripe, oozing flavor and juiciness when it was plucked. We just don't get them any more.

Our suite at the Bellaigo was all you could ask for----and more! 33rd floor with a stunning view of the mountains, three bathrooms, plasma TV and all the bells and whistles these country girls could ask for....and it was very nicely decorated, not over-the-top Vegas glitz. I felt very pampered and very comfortable.

To be really honest, I do not like Vegas. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time and Nonie was lots of fun to roam The Strip with, but I just don't like it there. I do not gamble and did not see anyone who was gambling who looked to be having a good time. I don't drink much and so I wasn't interested in the bar scene, either. (Besides, the cigar smokers drove us out the one night we did stop to have a Pisco sour at one of the Belliago's bars.) It's just not my sort of town. I'm glad I went but glad I don't have to go back, either!Man, was it hot! About 100 degrees each day. And, no, the fact that it was a dry heat did not make it any more comfortable!

NW Bead Society Bead Bazaar

Saturday morning Nonie and I attended the 20th annual Bead Bazaar. It was fun! Be both spent more than we'd intended (but when was that not so?) and had a great time doing the spending. I got some great Thai Hill Tribe charms and three old Chinese carved wooden beads that are truly lovely. I also found Eunice's Christmas gift, which is always a worry as she's very hard to buy for. I found a very unique porcelain bead at the Off Center Productions booth. They had all sorts of wonderful porcelain pieces and they were kind enough to let me take some snapshots at their booth. I found the color range of their beads wonderful. Just looking at the colors all set out made me want to go home and paint something.

Many of the booths had displays that were a feast for the eyes. Everywhere I turned were more and more gorgeous beads, many of them I really wanted to buy, but I held back rather well (for me....)

We spent Saturday night at Grant Creek. I was disappointed again that the blackberries still aren't really truly ripe. I even saw a few blossoms. I fear I won't get any good berries this year. I do have ONE fig on my little fig tree and a pretty good crop of apples, at least two pies' worth, as my maintenance man likes to say. (I think he's mocking me. We'll see how he feels when I pull the pies out of the oven and eat them all myself!)

Sunday afternoon we headed home to Edmonds via the Port of Everett. We had lunch out on the deck at Anthony's. It was a perfect afternoon---sunny, great breeze, lots of marine traffic and the scenic gull or two. Great lunch, good company, wonderful "summer" day. I am grateful that we are having such wonderful weather now, as most of the summer was not so great. Too bad for all the children back in school, but lovely for we old folks who can really enjoy it. I fear it'll be short lived and then the rains will start again.

Nonie and I are off to Vegas tomorrow morning (5 AM!) for two nights. I am really excited as we will be seeing a different Cirque du Soleil each evening. We also have late dinner reservations at Michael Mina at the Bellagio, where we are staying. It should very interesting to see Las Vegas up close. I've never been and probably won't go back, so I plan to make the most of my short visit. I know I won't be a big winner because I don't gamble! I have 75 cents my friend Susan gave me to play in a slot for her. She might as well have thrown it down the storm drain for all the return she's likely to see from her "investment". Well, who knows, maybe Luck will be a Lady!

Sippy Cup

My daughter, Annie, sent this You Tube video to me and I howled. While I do not need to pack up any small people and head off to Play Group, I do need a cup with a lid like the video features. Perhaps you need a 'sippy cup', too?

September 11th

In remembrance

Another canvas

It's been a busy, busy week. And, while I'm thinking of it, how on earth can it be September already???? My little baby boy is about to turn 30.

Gulp.

My baby is nearly 30. He is the father to three darling little girls, the husband to a beautiful wife and son to a woman who must be old enough to have a 30 year old son. I guess that means I'm, what, 30+? I don't feel old. I look old, I know, but I don't feel old! It's a weird thing to realize that I am much more upset by my baby boy turning 30 than I was to turn 30 myself!

I know. Get over it.

I did another painting over the weekend to be the other cover for a sketchbook/journal I am planning on making. This one features a fish (a honeycomb cowfish, I think) and some sponges. I loved painting this and adding some dimention with fabric scraps and some edging (the green stuff around the sponge openings). Thanks again, DJ Pettitt! GREAT technique!

A dragonfly was lying on the deck Sunday morning, almost dead. It was beautiful and sad and a forecasting of the autumn to come, all mixed up together. I had read in Nina Bagley's blog this summer about all the moths she kept finding, day after day, and seeing this large dragonfly on my deck reminded me of her Luna Moth post. It's a magical gift to find something as lovely as a dragonfly waiting for you to discover it.

My favorite clematis has set a spectacular number of seed heads this year. Backlit in the late afternoon, they are amazing.