Sunday, July 22, 2012

I am a Steel Magnolia

A perky sauvignon blanc accompanying a plate of Dee's chicken livers on some just-past-al-dente pappardelle with a lovely saute of mixed vegetables on the side for dinner. A perfectly appropriate southern meal on a perfect southern summer night as I watch the quintessential summer southern movie, Steel Magnolias, for the very first time. Wow. Watching Dolly Parton do Julia Roberts hair was an experience all in itself. I need my people around me now. Where's Stacy? I can't believe I am watching Steel Magnolias without Stacy! Or Todd! Where are my girlfriends?
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The movie is over now, the tears are almost dried. Guess it wasn't the best movie to watch alone. Maybe I should have gone for Death Race 2 after all. *sniff*

More tomorrow. Maybe even about glass, and the book, and why I'm in Atlanta instead of Montana.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Alone In Atlanta

Upon scrounging, I found one, cold, Wild Blue and about six Blue Moons in the fridge (I only drank the Wild Blue and one of the Blue Moons). Also dug up an 1/8 of a bag of Doritos and a rice krispy treat in the pantry. Added them to the half roast beef sandwich, the banana, and the dregs of a bag of roasted almonds--all purchased at the airport in Salt Lake City this morning--and I had dinner! 


I meant to get right down to writing tonight, but instead I vegged in front of the tv and ate and drank watching Les Demoiselles de Rochefort and then The Decoy Bride. Now it's time for bed. The house is very quiet with not a living soul but me in it. I haven't been this alone at home in over 20 years! If not a person, there has always been at least a dog, a cat or a bird around (and I do have the chickens and bunnies here, but lonely though I am, I'm not inviting them in for the night). The dogs, Mom's bird, and all my peeps are cosied up in Montana tonight. I am in Atlanta to get a big commission and some other orders out, and to escort a couple of Jessie's friends back to Montana on the plane next week. I don't like it here alone, but maybe I'll get some good writing done.


Tomorrow night I'll order pizza and open a bottle of champagne. Saturday night there'll be chicken livers up at Dee's. But tonight, it's just me. Think I'll go borrow a stuffed animal from J's room to sleep with.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

A Breather

I come up for air today after several very intense weeks of writing, researching, experimenting, and hypothesizing. Who knew mucking about with hot glass was so much like science? A few weeks ago I was delving into physics with the study of thermodynamics and electricity. Recently it's been chemistry with a focus on what pigments are how they react with heat (temperature and time), each other, glass, air, etc. I've been trying to beat colored things of different natures into shape and make them do my bidding, but so far they just keep laughing in my face. Cadmium is especially annoying. (Yes, I am mucking about with cadmium, chromium, cobalt, selenium, and a bunch of other um's that could probably end my life spectacularly if I did not take sufficient safety precautions. I am taking such precautions.)

The reason for the post today after such a long hiatus is that I had another official slip in the book deadline and we are now looking at October 21. October seems simultaneously safely far away and terrifyingly near. It won't be easy to finish even with the extension, but at least I can envision finishing.

....I sat down to write this post over an hour ago and now after all the distractions and phone calls I can't remember what more I had that I wanted to say. Guess I'll just go back to writing my tome.

Sunday, July 01, 2012

Let July Begin!

It's a coolish and rainy morning. I have been up for an hour writing, and the rest of the house slumbers on--even Dave. I'm glad the weather is inclement today as yesterday it was so beautiful I ended up playing hooky with the family and heading out to the Lake and then on to dinner at the East Shore Smokehouse.

Yesterday was a challenging day in the Atlanta studio as the crucible in the glass furnace finally gave up the ghost and cracked, spilling molten glass into the bottom of the furnace. The floor of the furnace is made from soft firebrick and it took the glass almost no time to eat right through it and start pouring out onto the cement floor of the hotshop. I have yet to see the gruesome photos of the carnage, but I did get a wake-up call first thing with a description of the damage. Tadashi has the weekend off which left Domenick on his own to deal with it (and Judy to deal with the people scheduled for dates). All dates in the hotshop for the weekend, of course, had to be rescheduled or refunded (at the participants' option). Fortunately the furnace was designed to handle this kind of failure as it has an inexpensive floor that is a separate piece from the rest of the furnace, attached with a couple of latches to the sides. Domenick even thinks he can replace the firebrick in the floor himself this evening and have the furnace up and running (with another crucible) by tomorrow. I hope he can as the timing--4th of July holiday coming up, Dee leaving for here, etc., couldn't be worse.

Now I need coffee. I had a hard time sleeping all night, and though I felt impelled to get up and write this morning, I can barely keep my eyes open.