Pimp My Wheelbarrow.

Adoption Freaky Scale- This Old Tree

Time to check in with The Adoption Freaky Scale. This month I'm ditching the usual Adoption Freaky Scale. Let's face it, after 21.5 months of waiting for a referral that Adoption Freaky Scale is getting a little...old, and it's being replaced, for the time being, with this tree.

But this tree? This gigantic old Poplar that grows along the river, this tree is where I'm pinning  the remainder of my sanity. You see, when the call came in telling us about Dew Drop we were down at the river. Sitting under this tree. Talking about our adoption. Truthfully, I was not sitting- I was lying down. And I wasn't talking- I was weeping. I couldn't take the wait anymore. Back at the ranch, the phone was ringing, and an answering machine message was being left for us.( Ring! Ring! Mindy and Baldwin, this is your social worker. There's a little baby we want to tell you about. She's very small.)

Just by chance we sit under this tree quite a lot. Dew Drop likes to play restaurant there- picking grass and flowers to create salads and sushi for us, the customers who pay for their dinner with rocks that get swiped like credit cards. There, under the umbrella of its leaves, my mind treks through the quagmire of ethics in adoption, the possibility of this adoption never happening at all, the urge to re-visit Ethiopia as soon as possible,then a spark of panic thinking that we should just quit this whole process and get serious about living a cool life filled with adventure- a life with Dew Drop as a single child. Then, using both hands and both feet and one extra hand, I count off the months we've been waiting.

Part of the craziness of being in the adoption process is that it could easily lead one to becoming superstitious or, quite frankly, off your rocker. I revert back to my seven year old self with all sorts of magical thinking. "If there are 2 Canada Geese on the island in the river today rather than just 1, then I know that this adoption is going to happen. And that it will be a boy. And that we'll live happily ever after."

When I was taking pictures of this tree I kept getting beautiful light orbs from the sun. That means something- I just don't know what.

Reason # 9,765,412

....that summer is the best season of all.

Bits and Pieces of The Whole.

This is whhat we're reading.
 Babba just started the biography of Rimbaud. So far he's really enjoying it.
 I just finished Dark Star Safari last night. What I can say about the book is that it makes me want to buy a plane ticket and travel. I say it so much that I annoy myself, but seriously, I love to travel more than just about anything there is. Give me a window seat on a sweaty old chicken bus going somewhere and I'm about as happy as I ever get. That said, Dark Star Safari was really challenging for me- mainly his ideas about foreign aid and charity- what Paul Theroux calls "The Agents of Virtue." I struggle with this. What are we supposed to do if supporting charities isn't the right answer? (The "we"  being me and you- the people who were born inside these palace gates of opportunity and privilege? What's the answer?)

 What we're eating: Babba continues to make his amazing bread. He's vowed to not buy store bought bread anymore because Dew Drop eats so much bread he can't bear to see her eating it.
He's baking bread once a week.
I support that.
 Especially since it has chia seeds, flax seeds,corn grits, millet,  and sunflower seeds.

 The month of May brings forth its own kind of melancholy because it's so damn beautiful.

 It's so beautiful that it will make you sad if you let it- if you think about how it wont last.

Or if there are too many rainy days all in a row.

 The garden is growing beautifully, and we're already feeding ourselves. 

 Earlier in the season I didn't have enough time or energy to mention how we've doubled the size of our vegetable garden (no wonder- it was a lot of work). It's pretty exciting to see our new garden come to life.

 And the flowers? Just glorious. This time of year always makes me want to host weddings even though I hate weddings.

 Beautiful strawberries. 

  More random garden beauty.

 The chickens have no idea that next week we're expecting 10 BABY DUCKLINGS. I tried to explain it to them but they seemed thoroughly uninterested. 

They have to see it to believe it ,I guess.

 Mojo thinks this blog post is a yawn.

 Maybe you're right, old buddy, but a yawn is better than the complete misery we had when we lost Alaska McGillicutty. 

The mundane is what this family is craving after that  exhausting grief.

Dew Drop just keeps growing and growing. Every single day.

Fresh asparagus! 

 Dew Drop's been chosen to advance to a much more technical gymnastics class- an invitation only class, people! I'm so proud. Not because I care whether or not she succeeds in gymnastics, but because I'm so glad that other people (her teachers) see what natural grace and strength she has. Whether I'll still be proud after having to sit through 2 gymnastics classes a week is another story. Stay tuned for that.

The Lost Planet-Tee's have been a big success.
 Please look at the top of my blog, click on my tee shirt tab and check out my designs.
 I worked so hard last weekend fulfilling my first orders.
 Also?
 I have a donor who's matching my 10% contribution to Tesfa to build schools in Ethiopia.
 That means that each shirt will have 20% of it's cost donated to schools. 

The Lost Planet-tee-sta says, "Wear Art! Build Schools!"

 I've been busy in the studio. 

I haven't been working on any big "serious" paintings.

 I have, instead, been creating t-shirts for my friends and family. 

The whole tee shirt making thing grew out of my constant disappointment  trying to find cool tee shirts to wear, and I realized that I just needed to make my own.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

I'm an inventive mother. 

I'm giving 10% of all sales to Tesfa to build schools in Ethiopia. 

 I have adult's shirts, children's shirts, and  infant's onesies. If you look at the top of my blog you will see a button to open a page called Lost Planet-Tees. 

 Go there. 

Check it out. 

Let me know what you think.

Alaska McGillicutty 1996-2012.

 Our cat died. His name was Alaska McGillicutty. He was also known as Bill, Billy, Rascal, Mr. McGillicutty, The Good Doctor. Dew Drop called him Whoa-Whoa Cat.

 He looked like an Oscelot. We always told him that he didn't look like he should be out of "cat-tivity". He measured 3 feet from toe to tail, and he was sleek and lean.

 I can't tell you how heartbroken we are. There are no words. The grief is overwhelming.

 He'd been part of our lives for so long. Basically our entire adult lives. We got 2 kittens- we each picked one out- I picked Alaska and Babba picked Alaska's beautiful sister, who he named Sometimes. I remember bringing them home in our old baby blue Volkswagon Fastback- it seems like a movie it was so long ago. Sometimes (who we called Sissy) and Alaska were with  us when we were still building our house. Before the walls were closed in, as kittens they would leap from one rafter to the next. He's been with us forever.

  I remember when we brought Dew Drop home from Ethiopia, how she was so much smaller than Alaska. It was that moment- of comparing her tiny little self to his 14 pound body- that it finally clicked in my mind how malnourished she was. I needed to compare her to him to have some context to put it in. He was my baby.

   Losing him has cast this pallor over everything I love- over my entire life. I can't help see how each thing that I hold dear will eventually die. Everything is so temporary. A blink of an eye.


  I always told him he was the Brad Pitt of cats.

 If you were talking to him it was recommended that you would use a John Wayne accent. He was a cowboy like that. Using this John Wayne accent we prefaced most remarks directed towards him with "Man," As in, "Man, why are you following me around again? You want more food in your bowl or do you want me to hold you?"

 I think he was part Siamese because he had the loudest meow we'd ever heard. Sometimes that
voice would be annoying as hell- like if Dew Drop was napping and we needed a quiet house. I'd scold him and say "Stop BARKING at me, Rascal".

 If he was feeling really spunky he would bat our ankles when we walked by.

 We told him that if he'd been a vehicle he would have been a motorcycle.

 I had a voice I used that was slightly Irish sounding, and I'd tell him "Alaska McGillicutty, I love you with all my heart and all my soul- ever since the first day I met ya, I loved ya, Billy". And he would purr so much and get tiny rivulets of drool down his chin.

 He was the most affectionate cat there ever was.

 I don't know what to do with his old cat food bowl and water dish. I can't even look at it.

On the morning that Alaska passed away, Dew Drop woke up telling of a vivid dream about Alaska and Sometimes. We hadn't told Dew Drop yet that Alaska was sick or that we were worried about him. She was very excited to tell her dream: that Alaska was standing in a doorway and there was another cat there- Sometimes. Alaska died later that morning.

I'm pretty sure we started calling him Billy from this Toots and the Maytals song. It was his theme song with Sometimes, his sister. Take a listen.

It feels so empty around here without Alaska. We are devastated. We feel so thankful that our lives intersected with such a beautiful and kind creature as he was. Only wish it could have lasted forever.

Jumping For Joy

Our little family recently had a string of very intense days. 

Things were not going easily around here.

 Moods were not being managed. 

Being three years old is not easy.

Neither is parenting a three year old.

We were in a family funk.

We were at a loss about how to get our family's groove back on.

We tried every good parenting technique we knew, none of which were working.

Finally, in desperation, I started educating myself about sensory issues and how those can play out in behavior and moods.  

What I learned about sensory integration stuff is that we all have some sensory stuff going on to varying degrees. Maybe my thing is that I can't concentrate in a room with competing noises. Maybe your thing is that you rock back and forth just ever so slightly when you're uncomfortable. 

Living isn't easy, folks, and we all have coping mechanisms that we learn over time. 

Turns out, one of the best remedies for kids who have sensory integration difficulties is a trampoline!

By the end of the first day of jumping it became very apparent that jumping was working.

 Bed time was easier.

 Mornings were easier.

 Everything was easier.

 Our family was laughing again.

 And there was a tension in Dew Drop that I didn't fully recognize until it was gone- a tension that she's always had but I just thought that was part of who she was. 

 Gone. 

Just like that.

A burden lifted.

There's something about moving through space

and

 landing and jumping again

and 

bouncing

that has transformed my girl into a new kid.

I don't say this lightly- she is a new kid.

I even waited several days to announce it on the blog for fear that I'd jinx it. 

But this is real now- I'm sure of it.

The research I've done talks about how if you heal sensory integration stuff early on-

 when kids are little-

 you can actually reset their neurological function.

 Jumping is literally changing her physiology,

and teaching her body how to deal with stress.

When I was a little girl I had this little promise I'd made to myself about how my life would be when I grew up. 

My pre-requisite for having children was that I would have a trampoline and a pet monkey.

Trampoline? Check.

Pet monkey? No freakin' way.

Adoption Freaky Scale- Inertia

Our agency hasn't had a single referral in 10 months. That's almost a year. They keep saying there will be referrals soon, and we want to believe them, but weeks turn into months and nothing ever happens. We're stuck in some kind of weird vortex.

Inertia.

I needn't try to explain how it feels to be stuck in a vortex- we all know that feeling in different ways. But inertia is something quite foreign to us Lost Planeteers. We're artists. We make things happen. We create change. That's our shtick. But not in this shit-uation.

In this shit-uation we wait and wait. We try to believe our agency isn't a broken organization barely hobbling along. We attempt to live in the moment and not worry about the future. We think of cool ideas for small businesses then quickly shelve them- being in inertia means your dreams have to go on hold. Without things to look forward to life gets tedious. It's hard to even be excited about adopting again- we dare not let our minds wander there. I steer clear of the baby aisle like it's a Parana infested lagoon. The baby names lists were shelved months ago. Now when I count the months that we've waited I have to use all of my fingers and all of my toes.

Inertia sucks.

It really

really

really

really

sucks.

A

lot.

Portrait of the Artists as a Family on a Rainy Day.

When you're a family of artists you sort of feel like a loser if you don't, from time to time, actually make art with you family.

Together.

But how?

The basic rule of thumb for us is to get out all of the kid's art supplies, as well as some yuppy kids catalogues destined for the recycling bin, and to just get started.

We put on some Bee-Bop, drink some tea, and act like weirdos.

Acting like weirdos is key.

The day just passes by like this. The word "bored" has yet to be introduced into

Dew Drop's vocabulary.

I hope to keep it that way.

There's always something cool to do.

Two finished family collaborations. These happen to be greeting cards. We each take turns working on it, then we pass it around. We can glue, draw, whatever.

When I'm left to my own devices, and no one works on a card with me, it ends up looking more like a bereavement card.

I'm goth like that.

This question gets asked a gazillion times a day- so of course it should turn up in art.

Babba and Dew Drop. Intensely creating and so focused.

I love being in this family of artists.

Mummified Bear Head Quiz

(not for the squeamish)

Mummified Bear Head Quiz:

1. Upon returning to your home, there is a large mummified bear head in the center of your driveway. Do you:

a) Immediately try to imagine who your enemy might be who did this.

b) Jump out of the car to get a better look at those fangs.

c.) Reprimand your guilty looking dogs who are waiting on the porch.

2. Rank your reaction to seeing this mummified bear head for the first time:

a.) I vomited.

b.) I didn't vomit, but I felt like it.

c.) I wanted to touch the skin to see if it feels like leather.

3. True or false: This bear was likely killed by a hunter.

4. Contemporary art likes shock value. In keeping with this, what should we do with the mummified bear skull that not only creates a dialogue with the viewer about modern society, remarks upon the history of bears in cartoons, and still preserves the integrity of the bear and the mummification process itself?

a.) Install a viewing platform in the garden that the viewer can witness the mummification process. Make the platform like a little shrine house complete with a metal roof.

b.) Hang the bear head from a tree in order that it may not be carried off by any other scavengers. Every two to three weeks photograph the head.

c.) Create a grotto in the garden with the mummified bear head as centerpiece. Display statues of Winnie The Pooh, Paddington, and other pop culture bear icons.

5. Analyze this dream: There are two bears stalking you in the woods. You hear a dream narrator voice that tells you to make yourself as small as humanly possible as if to resemble a pebble.

6. The amount someone would need to pay me to be paid to pick the mummified bear head up while not wearing gloves.

a.) $50. I'm cheap like that.

b.) $2000. Two grand is nothing to scoff at.

c.) Not going to happen. Remember flesh eating bacteria?

What Works While Waiting(Something works? Really?)

Claudia asked us to answer this very important question:

"What's working?"

My initial response was to avoid the assignment like the plague. Seems to me as soon as you say something's working it immediately

stops

cold.

Especially when you're thinking about

what works while waiting.

And since I'm waiting that's how I interpret everything.

Still, it's nice to think of things working.

"Better than the alternative,"

Eeyore says.

I'm a broken record. I know that.

But what works for me?

How do I keep the semblance of sanity after all of this waiting?

The answer is:

subjecting my family to photography.

Following them around like I'm some whacked out paparazzi, which makes them the unwitting

stars.

"It

could

be

worse,"

Eeyore

grumbles.

Indeed.

It sounds so trivial. I realize that.

But following my family around with a camera gives me this sense that I'm doing something. That I'm still an artist even if I haven't worked on any big canvases for a while, let alone finish anything worth a damn.

Taking pictures forces me to live in the moment.

It's not much.

But it's something.

I'm recording our days

instead of just

living

through

them

like

it's

a

sentence

(because that's one of the curses of waiting- that you begin to see time as something you've endured. Gag.)

All that said- if you've read this far into my post can you stop

for one second

to

knock

on

wood?

Because

I just

jinxed

myself.

I'll

probably

suck

at

waiting

tomorrow.

Spring Garden Toil