Fun Friday Again Already?

Coffee in the Montreal skyline mug, "Where are you Now" by George Winston on iTunes, about 384 words written yesterday. Considering that I had Jessie home all day so she could go to the doctor for immunizations, vision and hearing tests and her annual exam--followed by lunch at McDonald's as a reward for being very brave for the shots--and then go to gymnastics for the first time, I got a lot written.

I also got the first of the PopArt sushi sets in. Though I am not doing the colors as a set, I am doing the equivalent of 8 sets per fuse load. Last night I had a surprise waiting for me in the kiln when I went down after dinner to finish loading. If she comes back again today I will name her. I had to take her out of the kiln twice. I took her out and she went right back in. I guess the bright lights made for good hunting for her. She is small compared to most of the ones we are seeing around here right now. Jessie has one in her preschool class that devoured a locust the other day. Those were two big bugs. The mantis is still big. The locust is... digested.

I was up till midnight last night venting the kiln. The BE opals get a weird milky white coating on the bottom from the burn-out of the organic binders in the shelf paper if you do not vent to almost 1000 degrees. Since I started firing at 10:00 pm and I ramp at 400 degrees/hour... it was a long night. I blearily got everyone out the door this morning and cleaned up all the dog poop on the driveway so the Roadway trucking guy can get my order from Bullseye down to the studio door (it used to be the garage door, but it is official now: we no longer have a garage, we have a two-room studio.

A short survey of the rest of the household shows everyone to be pooped this morning. Baxter ate a little breakfast and went back into his crate for a snooze. The deerhounds (big grey rugs that they are) are zonked on the livingroom floor, the cat is curled up in the livingroom chair and the ferret is in his hammock.

Gaa. It's a short day. It's Fun Friday for Jessie at the YMCA, aka cheap date night for Mom and Dad. She goes there from 5:30-9:30 and swims, does art projects, has pizza and watches a movie all for $20. We go out to dinner and maybe squeeze in a movie. Bottom line is I have a hard stop of 5:00 on work so that I can pick her up from school and get her ready to go. There's a lot to happen between now and then and I am moving sloooooooooowwwwwwwly.


Today I must write until my fingers bleed and I also have another full PopArt load to get in. In a spate of early realism I am going to say that I will not get the load in and fire till tomorrow morning. I am okay on production schedule (20 Art Institute pieces to do and ship next week and the PopArt pieces don't need to ship for another week), it's the book I need to focus on.