Happy Birthday, Suehyla!

Suehyla is another year older today. As a friend who now lives outside of Atlanta, I was among those who were challenged with sending photos to Suehyla of ourselves doing something we LOVE, RIGHT NOW.

After a disappointing Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday), I was nervous that I would not complete my assignment.

However, with 2 hours to spare (Pacific time) I offer you all a little photo essay I call "The Things I Love to Do, Right Now"

As we view, please lift a Makers on the rocks and let's all toast Ms. El-Attar on a great year and an even better one yet to come.




Every Wednesday and Saturday in Central Park, Davis, there is a Farmer's Market. It was one of the first things that made me smile about living here. I live only about 3 blocks away and I love heading over there at least once a week to see what's fresh and to sample some of the best fruit around.


These photos were shot the day before Thanksgiving. The market was a bit quiet, but there were tons of baked goods for sale. Too bad I was traveling across the country.

Dude is that bok choy AND a scarecrow? How festive!


And how can we skip the kettle corn guy?


I took the red-eye on Thanksgiving day to spend the holiday with my family in New York. Many thanks to Randy for watching my little nuggets while I was gone. I usually make the journey from Long Island into the City (Manhattan, that is) to see friends or theatre each visit. The photo above is from the drive in to have some fun with my mom and sister-in-law. I believe were were going through Queens.


Right before heading to the airport (JFK) last night, my parents and I went to a great local family-style Italian joint. My parents and I dined on stuffed artichokes, angel hair with white clam sauce and chicken parmesan. We ended the meal with a delish fresh cannoli. Um, yummy!




Due to the fact that one of my classmates commented on the fact that my pants were too small, I signed up for a CORE fitness class during my lunch break. I usually drag my bum there each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This is my teacher, Chris and me doing one of my favorite exercises at the end of class today.

yeah, thank you very much

As I sit here in my parent's house after eating left overs of eggplant parmesan, garlic broccoli and green bean casserole (with those yummy crunchy onions) I am trying yet again to gain perspective. Yesterday was not one of the most memorable Thanksgivings -- both my sister-in-law's brother and mother were sick, my parents had a silent freak-out in the kitchen because the turkey was still raw and the sweet potatoes were hard at serving time and football was the only thing showing on the television despite the fact that only 3 people (of 12) actually cared about the game.

Did I have high expectations of the day? You bet. I flew on the red-eye across the country and put on a sweater and velvet pants when most everyone wore jeans.

I love Thanksgiving and I love spending it with my family, but my new digital camera never left it's case. I was not drawn to remove it, because there were no Kodak moments. Well, there were tons of my brother and sister-in-law's nephew, Sam, but he's really not MY family. So I don't take any family pictures for Suehyla's birthday photo request. I have until Monday to photograph something I love doing right now. Maybe I won't make it.

I am also in the process of examining my last CORE devised piece. You know the one about anatomy with Zac and Sylvie? What I constantly return to is the fact that I am disappointed in how things go and how I want to take control. I write a section of the evaluation for my journal, listen to the dissatisfied tone and hit delete. Am I too picky? Do I need to lower my expections? Do I need to try harder to get things the way I want?

At the end of the evening last night, I sat with my grandmother at the dining room table. The rest of the family sat in the great room watching TV. I drank a cup of coffee and my grandmother sipped her 4th cup of tea. She also ate 2 little cupcakes and commented that she couldn't beleive she ate so much. She had no recollection of eating 2 earlier in the day with her first cup of tea. In fact she doesn't remember much. We spend lots of time repeating. However the questions change slightly. Lately she asks how work is and I mention that I'm back in school. I teach for work but I take 4 classes. When I tell her what my classes entail, she always follows up by saying, "no math?" "No grandma, no math. I did that in undergraduate. I don't have the same requirements getting my graduate degree." She told me that she asks her caregiver Herminia what day it is at least 4 times in the morning alone.

So over coffee and tea and little cupcakes I asked her about her most vivid memory. She tells me a very interesting tale that I had not heard before -- of her Aunt Becky. The gist of the story is that Aunt Becky lived with her husband and daughter and the husband started fooling around with the next door neighbor. He eventually left. My grandmother loved her Aunt Becky very much and was very appreciative of her when my grandfather was away during WWII. When I try and change subjects when it seems like this one is exhausted, I ask about her favorite vacation. She does not move on, but continues to talk about the running theme of disappointment with the women in the family. This story is occasionally broken by her dislike of her current mop, as she watches the woman my mother hired to help serve dinner mop the entry way.

Maybe my dissapointment is hereditary? Or maybe I need to stop whining and be thankful for the amazing things in my life...

* a great set of friends both new and old
* a family that loves me for me
* being healthy despite being "middle aged" as labeled by one of the health center doctors
* a great educational opportunity
* a place to share my thoughts and photos without judgement (or at least a place to comment!)

Why gospel why?

My buddy Tony gave me a copy of the music from the film Across the Universe. I have not seen it, but I believe it's a trippy (in the best possible way) piece using Beatles music. I am sitting in the library and Let it Be comes on over my ear buds and I start crying. Yes, the sound is heartfelt and all, but the water doesn't start until the gospel choir lets loose.

I tend to get teary at all things gospel.

Why is that?

The anatomy of a sidetrack

For my 4th devised piece in our CORE class I am working with Sylvie, one of the PhD students and Zac, the set designer I worked with in week one. I tried to work on a duet with Sylvie, but the rest of the class revolted and sent Zac out to find the two of us slipping away in the hallway.

This week I wanted to create a visual piece (as opposed to a performance piece) based on whatever Sylvie wanted to do. It seemed to me that she has been unhappy in every collaboration thus far, so I am letting her have her way. Sort of. Zac is not feeling well and is on pain meds therefore he is just going with the flow. Sylvie set me straight by saying that she is in fact not unhappy (catch those double negatives) with the process, but would like do a piece on anatomy. Cool, that sounds fun. And she wants audience participation. Double fun!

So I am currently researching elements of anatomy -- the anatomy of dreams and the brain. Kinesthesiology and illustration. And of course, I stumbled upon an vulva puppet on my way to the anatomy of nonsense -- which of course opens up that whole dada door.

Sylvie mentioned a goddess named Anatomie, that I am trying like hell to find any reference to her whatsoever. As I googled "anatomy and myth", I was forced to stop on this. There's nothing like the drama of Grey's Anatomy for a little distraction.

More shout outs!

Hey there, it's November and I have been shout-out-less for about two months now. With that in mind today I have two -- or technically 3 today.

In my pre-Davis life I worked at Souper Jenny, a cute soup cafe in a pretty ritzy area of Atlanta. One of my gifts to my super generous boss was to help her write a cookbook. I got photographer Joel Silverman on board and he recruited Tami Hardeman to do the food styling. Food styling's an ART folks. Hence the first shout out. Tami is a foodie extraordinaire. I like to consider myself a foodie, but have since stopped because NOW I know what a true foodie is. Check out her blog and her facebook group, and prepare to salivate. Not only that, but don't she take a purty picture?

While the cookbook is at a complete halt -- I have since stopped sending messages to Souper Jenny asking for recipes and text -- the website (number 2 project I spearheaded) launched today. I passed off this project about a month ago, but got tired of seeing the placeholder image on the test website. I stepped back in 2 days ago without letting Jenny or Marcie know and gave my final bits of feedback. Check it out. As you can see, the site looks great and is easy to use. This is due to the skills, expertise and creative eyes of my second hoorays -- Chris Aquino and Angela Mitchell. There is so much they each do that completely goes over my head. And that's fine with me, because I would trust them each with my life. These pictures are not the best, but are from when Chris taught me to make sushi. See talent, folks! Angela also got commended at her job this week which came with a title change and a nice raise.

Yay them!

Friday, the day of the domestic

Today was my day to catch up on all of the domestic things I have not done in a while. Laundry (um, 4 loads!) grocery shopping, eyebrow wax. I did manage to get to my CORE fitness class to balance things out.


I started my day however at one of the laundromats in town. When my parents were here they insisted that we take my rugs and blankets to Suds to have them wash and fold for me. That gave us time to tool around Sacramento and drink great sangria at Tapa the World -- get it top of the world...tapas...

Anyway, when we picked up the 2 rugs and 3 blankets (which came to a whopping total of $38!!) my lovely white bathmat was GREEN. See, they washed it with my green kitchen mat. Can we say dumb ass?

So, the next day we went into complain and were met with a lovely man who apologized for the mistake, took the mat and our ticket and said someone would call. Five days later and no call, I marched back in there, pointed at my mat on the shelf, wrote my number down AGAIN and was promised a phone call from the owner. Since I had yet to receive a call I went in today with a receipt for a new mat and just asked to be reimbursed. No problem, right?

The girl on duty was the same as last time. She could not believe that the owner had failed to call me. She rang him, but he didn't pick up so she left a message. There was no way that I was leaving there without a resolution.

My side: I have been back here three times and no one had the courtesy to call me. I had to not only buy a new mat, but matching towels and accessories since I no longer had a matching set. I only asked them to pay for my new mat which was $20.

Her side: I don't have the authorization to give you money.

So after asking repeatedly what I should do, because I knew if I left no one was going to call me -- she caved and gave me $20 out of her own pocket. I left my receipt so she could get the money from her slacker of a boss.

As I walked out, I thought I heard her cry.

Am I going to hell?

Shhhhhhh

I am in the library reading one of the THIRDeYE plays and doing research for my vocal pedagogy presentation. I smuggled in my coffee and a pizza bagel.

Mum's the word.