Being Good (Napping Even)

Egyptian licorice tea in the Montreal skyline mug, the morning quiet of the house for music. I am pain free this morning! I was pain-free last night too. And contrary to popular belief, I AM taking it very easy. I worked a total of two hours in the studio yesterday over noon (with an assistant), and then I came home, was served lunch (on the couch) and took a nap (a long nap, also on the couch). The biggest problem I have had is swelling--the leg is tightly splinted and dressed and there isn't much room for it to expand, as the left leg especially is wont to do. Just have to keep it up on the couch or on the bed.

_______________

Several hours have passed, the day is almost over, and I finally took a pain pill. Kay drove me to Grainger today to pick up the sandblast abrasive so Lee can etch the awards this weekend. I received the stencils for etching the awards from Rayzist this morning (they sent them overnight), and the last awards are coming out of their fusing cycle this afternoon. Unfortunately, because I work with clear irid morceuax and colored frit, there are a lot of areas where the irid came to the surface of the blood-red glass and those pieces have to be fired again with a layer of fine frit over the the irid bits. Good thing I have allowed extra time in this process, but looks like we won't be etching this weekend. Wonder if Becky will come in again for an hour? Or maybe I can get Elaine or Bill to help me load the kilns... Or maybe Dave! Of course! My own Igor! His price isn't too steep.

MUCH better today!

A glass of water and a half a bagel with peanut butter start my morning (the bagel is to better keep the Celebrex down, doncha know). Pain today is much better--though I did take one pain pill when I got down to the couch. Wow. There is a decided difference in the effect of pain meds when you have a lot of pain vs when you take them as you're supposed to (which is as the pain is building--before it gets to raging inferno). The pain is pretty much gone, but so is my leg, and, oh look, I think my head is missing too. This must be the "Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery" part of the morning--and here it's time to head to the studio!

Today is a studio and computer day--more computer than studio. I have the last load of the healthcare company awards to fuse, a random piece to slump, and four or five orders to ship. Well, I won't actually be doing anything much other than laying out the glass for the fuse load and entering the shipments into the UPS online system. The assistants will be carrying all the glass to the kilns, packing and putting out the boxes to ship, and generally performing all toting of barges and lifting of bales. Then I shall nap.

Thank you to Mom and Dad Griffith and to Keith and Mike for the lovely flowers. My parents are off kayaking and I haven't even been able to let them know I've had surgery yet.

Like the Caterpiller In My Leg?

Water in a Tupperware plastic 'glass', "Love Will Come To You" by the Indigo Girls on iTunes. This is going to be a short post as the otherwise ineffective pain meds keep my fingers from working right. Yesterday was a full and happy day--right up until I woke up from surgery. Becky worked in the studio from 8:30 to 12:45, I was there till 1:45, Kay was there from about 10:00 on (she headed to Commerce and met Bill to exchange work first at 6:30 am), V the bookkeeper stopped by get bills to mail and the deposit, and Lee brought the second load of refractory material he will need to build the kilns and the gloryhole. It was a busy, productive morning.

When Dave came to the studio to pick me up and take me in for surgery, I felt like I was headed off to vacation! Several hours later when I woke from surgery I was panting and crying from pain, and they were pumping as much dilaudid into my IV as fast as they could. Getting into bed once we got home was managed in stages. First there was getting up the front porch steps (backwards on my tush). Then I scooted backwards into the house and took a left into the office where I sprawled on my back on the big round rug (the site of the original injury) for another 15-20 minutes. Finally I had enough together to scoot myself backwards down the hall, across the livingroom and up onto the couch for a couple more comatose hours. Finally about 10:30 I had enough equilibrium to crutch my way upstairs and to bed.

And there I remain. D just brought me lunch, and now it's time for a nap. More tomorrow!

Under the Knife

Just drank a second glass of milk, the hum of the air conditioner and the sounds of J finishing up her dinner for music. I need to take a pain pill--the ligament or tendon or whatevermathingie on the inside ankle bone of my broken ankle (the opposite side from the break) is really hurting. But I have another couple of hours of work to do tonight and I don't want to be impaired. What to do, what to do? I think I'll opt for the milder pain pill and hurry up the work.

Tomorrow at 3:30 pm I go under the knife. Surgery pre-op starts at 1:30, and they expect me to be wopken up and ready to go home by 7:30. I'm sure I'll be going home to sleep. That'll be kind of weird after virtually sleeping all afternoon and evening already. Maybe I can con D into watching a movie with me... or I'll just sleep.

Today I got one kiln load in, the assistants tasked for the next couple of weeks with broad brush strokes of tasks building to sweeping studio storage, organizational and operational changes. Also met with Lee (the gaffer) and purchased the materials for him to build the annealing kilns, the pick-up kiln and the glory hole. The hotshop will continue to become a reality even as I recuperate. Finally, I put together the last details for the health company awards I need to fuse and etch this week (mostly fuse tomorrow, and Lee will do the actual etching at the blast cabinet for me this weekend). Before I lay me down to sleep I need to touch bases with Morganica about staying with her in Portland the week after next, and I need to get the rest of my BMAC display materials ordered and sent off to Black Cat so Bill can put together our preliminary set-up (again while I recuperate).

I am not looking forward to the surgery, but in a perverse way I actually AM looking forward to staying in bed on Wednesday and reading, sleeping, playing a board game or two, watching a movie, just relaxing. I can't think of the last time I stayed in bed all day... Oh wait, yes I can. It was right after Thanksgiving when J and I got that horrible virus and were sick as dogs. I spent my one day in bed not being too happy to be alive. I expect Wednesday will be MUCH more enjoyable--pain or no!

Sunday Funday!

No thing to drink, no sound in the house but the tapping of the keyboard, the ticking of the clock, and the light whir of the ceiling fan. It's Sunday, but the studio is in full production mode as I prepare for surgery Tuesday. Becky came in for a full day of work yesterday and we got in three kiln loads--two fuses and a slump. The fuse kilns were Bertha and Bettina so I fused 18 sq ft of glass yesterday.

Today we have a fire polish and a slump scheduled (Becky will be back). But before heading to the studio to work on them, I am putting in a full digital morning doing the occupation formerly known as paperwork. I need to finish all my prep for the Buyer's Market show (I just looked at the calendar and realized the show is less than three weeks away...) including putting in my Hargrove order--for one I'm not waiting till the last day. I also need to get all the paperwork ready for Becky for the orders that will ship over the next month--orders that will all be fired by Tuesday... Yep, I'm that far ahead with production.

Last night's sleep was, thankfully, NOT plagued with nightmares about death and the roads not taken as the night before's was. Presurgery fears anyone? Ever since the accident I have had weird, vivid, mostly horrible, twisted, often violent dreams in dark colors almost every night--and that's without taking any pain medication. Not that my dreams are usually all sunshine and light, but they have been especially grim and morbid over the past ten days.

Okay, enough chatter. To work! To plan! To organize!

The MUSTN'TS

Nothing to drink, the sound of panting dog and happily playing girls (J is have a friend spend the night) for my music. In five minutes I am heading to the airport to get my spouse! Three weeks of spouse! He wasn't supposed to be home for so long, but I am having surgery on my ankle on Tuesday (outpatient and I plan to be back to work Thursday--I'm taking Wednesday off :-) and then I am non-weight-bearing on that leg for at least two weeks. I still plan to go to Portland for the Bullseye Instructor workshop. I still plan to go from there to the Buyer's Market in Philadelphia (I am sharing a room with Dee and she is asking for a handicapped accessible room). I still plan to fly to Montana for two weeks the day after I get back from Philadelphia. Now, however, I am adding a doctor visit in on the day I get back from Philly.

Yes, it's a bit like shaking my fist in the face of fate, but if I don't think positively and optimistically about my prospects, all that is left is to cower in fear of the Mustn'ts (or climb in bed, assume the prenatal position and turn the electric blanket--assuming I had one--up to nine). I am not so pollyanna that I don't have contingencies in place for less-than-optimal outcomes (I plan to have all my current orders done before going in for surgery except for the big medical awards job, for example) but I remain hopeful that all I have is a glitch in my hitch (or whatever that expression is). I close with my first favorite poem that I just last week shared with the J. Thank you Shel Silverstein.

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES.
Then listen close to me -
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.

The Nioght Winds Down, and So Do My Eyelids

Nothing to drink, the sound of the dishwasher for my late-night music. I am tired down to my bones--but not as exhausted as I was the last time I posted. For those sending me concerned emails, I have not been posting because everything takes so d*mn long to do on crutches that I have to work twice as long to do half as much--just keep up with what I have urgently due!

Tomorrow is the follow-up doctor's appointment for my ankle. Keep your fingers crossed that they are going to look at my ankle and say, "It's a miracle! You're well!" or even just, "It's healing, it'll take another several weeks of staying off of it and being good, and you probably won't have to have a plate and screws put in."

Today I got the news that we (Siyeh Studio and Black Cat ArtWorks) have been selected to create the sales awards this year for a pharmaceutical company's annual event. It's a good project--and nice to see a company springing for art glass and metal instead of another etched chunk of crystal. The downside for me is that I have 60 more pieces to do (and sandblast--you can't get away from etching them, after all) in the next two weeks. This job is on top of preparing a new display set-up for the summer Buyer's Market, ordering all the components for it, fusing the extra pieces for it, finishing the custom pieces for the Museum of Fine Arts Boston that were created to be offered in conjunction with the Greene & Greene exhibit that opens there next week, and completing a solid number of regular orders. Did I mention staying off the ankle and scaling back a bit?

Don't get me wrong, I am THRILLED to have all the work, I'm just... tired. And now I'm off to bed to rest more fully. News from the orthopedist's office tomorrow.

A Day of Battles

The sounds of one of "The Magic Treehouse" books on J's iPod, the toilet flushing, and the shower coming on from upstairs for my background music. I finished the last of my pinot noir before beginning this post. It was a hard day for me--the hardest in mid-recent memory. I'm almost tempted to run through the blog archives to see what days have been worse, but I'll forbear.

Yesterday afternoon I became concerned that my ankle was moving around too much in the boot thingy (mostly at night while I slept), and I called the orthopedist's office where I was treated last week so I could speak to the PA (Physician's Assistant)--the person who actually treated me for my injury to ask him some questions. I was told he no longer works there... Full of a lack of confidence for this particular physician's practice, I spent over an hour this morning trying to get an appointment with an orthopedist in Atlanta. I would have liked to see someone who specialized in treatment of fractures, ankles, sports injuries even, but I was not picky. Was I able to get an appointment with even one doctor out of the many practices I called? Not likely. The earliest I could be seen would be late Friday--and most of them were closer to the 17th of July. Well if I am already concerned that I am irreparably damaging my ankle with the thing-a-ma-jiggie I have on it and the course of action prescribed by the PA, Friday is probably going to be a little too late to do anything to avoid surgery.

Fortunately I have my friend Dr. Bill--whom I trust more than any other medical professional I know anyway--who calmed me down this morning, and supported completely my treatment so far. No, I shouldn't be in a cast because my foot and ankle swell a lot and I could develop compartment syndrome. Yes, the foot sloshes around in the boot. It is normal and I am healing. Healing is going to take time--maybe three months. It's going to hurt, sometimes a lot. I may need surgery at the end of it. Put on my big girl panties and deal with it. I felt MUCH better after chatting with him.

Then there were sandblast etching travails (why did I commit to doing these awards again?), fusing issues from yesterday's loads, and a host of other petty things that just made my exhausted body Want to curl up and cry. Come to think of it, I did do that a bit this morning before I slapped myself out of it. Everything takes at least twice as long as it should, and even after cutting my commitments and schedule in half, I am still pressed, rushed, behind and tired beyond belief at the end of each day (well, all two of them so far).

The evening ended well as Stacy (the friend and former wunder assistant) brought us dinner, served it, opened the wine, listened to my whine--and then cleaned up the kitchen for me! I have SUCH good friends! Christie dropped off a load of garden stakes from Todd this afternoon so I can have Becky pack them up to ship them tomorrow, and on the way over to the studio she grocery shopped for me so I didn't have to get OJ and grape jelly for the J. Dee even made a trek back down today from her studio with more stencils because the ones from yesterday didn't stick right. At this rate, it doesn't take a village, it takes a country!

Now I'm going to hie myself off to bed (by 9:30), take a pain pill, read a chapter of The Mousehunter to my daughter, and fall asleep with her as we listen to another of the Magic Treehouse books on her iPod. Everything else will just have to wait.

It's All About the Journey... Really

Nothing to drink--though I was tempted by a glass of wine, the sound of crickets and few stray leftover neighborhood fireworks for music. It was a day. I tried very hard to Be Good and Kind To My Ankle. Last night I made up my firing schedule for the week, and today I cut it in half--and it was still a very tough day.

But I am truly blessed with wonderful friends (it takes a village). Becky the Wunder assistant and Dee both came and helped me get the kiln loads in late this afternoon and Dee stayed to help set up the sandblasting equipment in the early evening. It was too hot and humid outside to test it out tonight (and far too late after far too long a day)--and besides that I have to run to Home Depot in the morning for a hose adapter to connect Dee's compressor (kindly on permanent loan to the studio) to the blasting pot. Tomorrow is another day.

Mel took J after camp for a playdate and dinner with her daughter Kyla. When she brought J home, she also brought me a dinner of spaghetti and fresh-baked bread. Tomorrow Stacy is making us dinner. At this rate I won't even have to call Zifty (thanks for the tip, Mindy!).

Tonight, after a big glass of water and a pain pill, I relax and remember the wondrous week I spent in Linda Ethier's studio in Portland being initiated into the mysteries of lost wax, mold-making and kilncasting of glass. Ahh, those were the good old days. The pre-broken-leg days...

There were six of us in the class all with diverse backgrounds, interests and tastes. We spent an intense five days bonding over Liberty wax and plaster silica--oh, and glass too. And let's not forget Cuban lunches at Pambiche across the street from the studio, or the rich exotic chocolates at Alma around the corner and down a couple of blocks... It was a week of dorm living, bus riding, perfect weather, and a slice-out-of-time.

Taking a workshop like this is, at its best, a peek into the mind of a master. I could spend months with Linda Ethier and--as open and sharing as she is--I would still only be able to learn a fraction of what she knows about glass casting, mold-making and lost wax. And even with as much as I still don't know and have to learn, at the end of my week I have a piece of which I am already incredibly proud. In addition, I have the beginnings of the knowledge I need to continue my exploration of the technique, and I have my map and compass from my week with Linda to guide me in.

Too often you can end up in a class where the instructor is very enthused and energetic about the subject material, but his or her knowledge of it is not much deeper than your own. In those instances the experience is still enjoyable, but it feels almost more like an adventure together to see what lies around the next bend, rather than a journey with a master who knows every rock, creek, and wily raven along the way.

I didn't take this workshop with the goal of incorporating a new technique into my production work. I love and respect Linda's work, and Ellen Abbott's, and Delores Taylor's, and Leslie Rowe-Israelson and Melanie Rowe's (Twin Vision Glass), but this is not something I think I could feed my family on. No, I am eagerly looking forward to making more cast pieces (I am particularly interested in casting objects from nature--flowers, shells, bones, what-have-you), and these pieces will be for me. They will be all about the journey--not the destination--and it won't matter if I spend an hour fussing with a leave to get the curl just right. There won't be anyone to care how long it takes but me.

Soon I hope to get all the pictures I took from the week up on the web, but for now I present my partners in crime, and snippets of our week. I am trying to lure Linda out to Atlanta to teach a workshop in the spring. Keep your fingers crossed.

Moving Sheets of Glass With a Broken Leg

Pull one sheet of glass out of the crate. Reach as far towards the cutting table as you can and set the sheet of glass against the wall there. Pick up another sheet and repeat the action until you have sufficient glass in the stack (about 5 sheets). Crutch towards the table past the stack of glass until you can just reach the stack of glass behind you. Pick up one sheet of glass and move it as far towards the table as you can reach and set it against the wall there. Repeat all actions until you have moved the entire stack of glass four or five times and it's next to the cutting table...

I need a nap. Lucky for me Becky got here before I had to do the whole thing over again!

Hello From the Apple Store!

Nothing to drink, the chatter of Apple buyers for music. I am so glad it's Saturday, I cannot tell you! It is (by my reckoning) the last day of the week, and, thus, with a new week I have an expectation of New Luck. Tomorrow (the beginning of a happy new week) I shall post a happy post (finally) about my incredibly lovely experience in Linda Ethier's Lost Wax class--complete with photos. But today, today I shall indulge myself in one last ranting bout of piteous whine. Topics? Department stores (and other corporately mired clients), and breakage (yes, the Apple Store at the Mall of Georgia ties into the breakage part of the story...).

I was very excited after doing the Dallas Finds show in January that I picked up a department store for a customer. It was a bit daunting (well, more than a bit) to go through their vendor requirement hoops, but I did with an eye to a bright and profitable joint future. The first thing I had to do was to research, acquire, and incorporate into my packing and shipping procedures real UPC codes (not just any barcodes, but real registered individually purchased codes--one for each piece of a different style or color). It was time-consuming, but not too expensive, and I stepped up to the plate.

Another "requirement" for doing business with this customer was that I use an electronic document interface (EDI) system to receive PO's, send advance shipping notifications, send invoices, and receive electronic deposits for payments. The EDI system is a technological dinosaur. It is large, slow, has very big teeth, and is expensive to feed. I balked, and I was lucky: Because they were used to dealing with other dinosaurs (sloooow moving) I was given 90 days to implement the EDI system so I had a little time to evaluate them as a client and to see if the volume of work they were going to order would merit the volume of work they were going to require.

The initial order was nice, but not handstand worthy. A subsequent order (really, the addition of another store to stock the same basic pieces as the other three stores) was nice, but I still wasn't overwhelmed. Part of my reticence in dealing with them came about because it was the Vice President of Home Furnishings and the Director of the Tabletop division who were so excited about carrying my work, but the sales rep assigned to take the order from me, interact with me, and send me ongoing orders was less-than-enthusiastic about it. Call me spoiled, but I like working with people who like my work and see the value in it. He eyed it dubiously and yawned. I bristled.

(Please forgive the length and ramble of the post, I have a lot built up and also took a painkiller for my leg so I'm a bit woozy.) Okay, I ship the first order out. It is comprised of 33 pieces split up between two PO's for three stores--one PO for one store through one distribution center and the other PO for two stores through another distribution center. Each of the three stores got 11 pieces in identical sets of three boxes each--same size, same weight, etc. Each store was sent two 12" bowls, two long rectangular platters, two 10" square plates, and two 8" square plates. So far so good, right? Oh heck no!

Payment came for the invoice on the PO for the two stores. They claimed that the shipment was short one bowl, one long rectangular platter, one 10" square plate, and one 8" square plate and, thus, their payment in commensurately short. I look into it and discover that I had inadvertently not put one of the tracking numbers for the shipment on the invoice. I apologized, and sent the correct documentation. I also point out that the two bowls, two rectangular platters, and four square plates were all shipped in the same box for each store so it was physically impossible for an odd number of pieces to be missing--they were either short 0 or 2--they couldn't be short one of each.

A month later I get a form letter telling me they looked into my dispute of the chargeback and, they're sorry, I'm still wrong, the shipment was short, they're not going to pay me. I call. I explain verbally. I fax my documentation again and provide further backup for my assertion that each store got the exact same pieces by showing them the documented weights of each of the three boxes for each of the three stores (nine boxes total in sets of three with identical sizes and weights ERGO identical contents!). It was NOT POSSIBLE for them to be short 50% of the contents of one box and have the box come out weighing the same as the other two boxes in the shipment with identical contents.

Another two weeks pass and today I got another form letter telling me they're sorry, I'm still wrong, they're still not paying. I'm done. I will not be implementing the EDI system. I will not be accepting anymore PO's from them. I WILL be writing to the VP, the Director AND my buyer and letting me know how disappointing my experience with them was.

Now about the Apple Store. On this blog recently there has been much expression of the sentiment that I need to Slow Down. Maybe the universe enforcing that edict through the sleeping deerhound whom I tripped over and broke my leg earlier in the week. If that is the case, the universe is still talking to the deerhound because today when she was heading outside for her morning ablutions she caught her leg in my laptop's power cord and pulled the laptop off the coffee table onto the floor with a thud. It died with a whimper--the battery was dead and the power cord connection (that I had replaced a couple of months ago) broke (again) so the laptop wouldn't boot up anymore (again). Something in the display was also broken and the screen is very dim. Clearly the universe thought I just wasn't working to capacity with my current laptop.

So now I sit at the Apple Store in the Mall of Georgia cloning my old laptop onto new laptop with the help of a borrowed battery. There are three minutes (approx) left in the exchange process (of an hour and a half) and their battery is showing almost dead (redlining). My fingers are crossed that I get everything across!!