A Creative Escape for a Rainy Day

Turning off my cellphone, neglecting e-mails, ignoring unopened mail, I turn on the stereo and lights, while grabbing ingredients from the cupboard.

Butter, more butter, brown sugar, flour. And chocolate.

All ingredients mixed to make chocolate chip cookies. Need I say more?

It's raining outside and what better way to spend the day then to huddle inside with a warm steaming oven and the smell of melting chocolate wafting in the air, a glass of wine (or wine cooler, a cheaper version, but still effective) and French music softly cooing in the background.

Baking is a form of creativity and helps to get me in the mood to paint. It frees the mind of all distractions and worries.

Putting you in the moment. All senses connected.

Concentrating on one ingredient at a time. Mixing, folding, spreading melted butter onto each baking sheet.

Feeling spontaneous, I add a touch of almond extract and honey, letting the liquid drip onto the side of the dish, running into the thick batch of dough below....let's see what happens...how it sweetens the cookies.

I save what I like to call my "secret cookie technique" for very last, which ensures each bite has oozing amounts of dark chocolate melted into milk chocolate.

A silky combination.

The plan is to pile a plate of warm cookies and go into my studio, and start mixing colors on my palette.

Swirling white and crimson red to make a vibrant skin colored pink.

My brush will lightly flutter from piece to piece, laying down a layer of paint. One canvas is of a little girl in a multi-colored skirt with a pouting smirk on her face, while a new piece is of two girls on a bright purple scooter.


Color. I could swim in it.

It's days like this, that I can escape all the distractions of my life and lose myself in the quiet creative corner of my mind.

And with each bite of cookie any tension just.......melts away.

The Tedious Things

It happens just when you are about to fall asleep, you hear a slight buzz in one ear. I'm thinking....

"It's Fall there aren't any mosquitoes." But then I hear it again.

I jump up this time, madly searching for the culprit.

"There it is!" I shout out loud to myself, as I see it's slight body tapping against the corner of the room.

I stretch to reach it. "Damn I'm not tall enough," I whisper, still stretching my short arms in the air.

The chase ensues for about an hour.

Sneaky little bugger.

But at last I capture it's body in an old t-shirt. Problem solved.

After finally falling asleep I wake up to the sunlight coming through my window. I'm in a pleasant mood and I hum to myself as I take a hot shower.

As I put my favorite sexy bra on I notice that one boob is hanging lower than the other. I realize the boob is not doing so well because I lost an under wire in the right cup. I'm stubborn and unbelievably cheap, so I refuse to toss it out. I come to terms with having a lower right boob. No one will notice. Or I guess just the guy at Blockbuster, who is always taking numerous darting boob glances. He will notice since he's done numerous inspections.

"Oh well. Life goes on." I say to myself again.

Still in a slightly fabulous mood, I apply my new concealer only to realize that "fair" is not fair enough. So I decide to take on the task of going back to Wal-Mart, one of my favorite places, and get a different color. This time I will get translucent. Apparently I have no skin pigmentation.

As I go to get in my car, I glance in horror as my eyes freeze upon the front of my car.

I curse and scream. "Where the Hell is the front of my car! "

I had completely forgotten that a large piece of Sh*@ took out the front bumper as I was driving home last night.

To make myself feel better I vowed to find the piece of sh&*, Google how to trace finger prints, take the prints to the police, who will casually give me the person's address, then track down this person that kindly left this piece of sh#@ in the road!

This absurd lie makes me feel temporarily better.

It's days like this where I wished I smoked or had some bad habit to alleviate my growing irritation. But then I come home, put on my comfy gym shorts, open a bag of any type of chocolate containing goodie, and pop in a comedy to watch.

Then all seems right as rain.

That is until I attempt to sleep again and I hear that slight buzz in my ear.

The Wild West

I was feeling a little stir crazy this past weekend, so I figured, why not drive to Colorado? I have been talking with a gentleman that lives there for the past six months. We always toyed with the idea of finally meeting each other. I was sick of waiting and I was curious to actually meet. His pictures on facebook displayed a solid six pack which helped in my decision making process. So I put on a diaper and drove straight through the seven hour drive. (a discreet joke for those of you that know the astronaut story).


Part of living at home, is that everyone knows where you are at any given moment. So I knew when I announced that I was taking off for Colorado I would create a shit storm of questions. I was in mid discussion with my mother, when my grandmother came over, and then my sister, and then my brother and his wife. All starring at me wanting to know why I was driving to Colorado.

How do I look my family in the eye and tell them, I'm driving all that way to check out this new food place that serves chicken wings?


He looked exactly how I pictured him; tousled hair, sly smile, blue jeans, and a tight white t-shirt. Cowboy confidence.


My family, especially my mother, were concerned about me meeting some unknown cowboy in the middle of Colorado. I was relentlessly grilled on all his vitals. They were worried that my body would later be found in the woods, murdered.

They always have a way of sucking the romance out.


He made me feel comfortable in his home. It was clean, shiny and new. Not a scary hoarder and bodies in the closet as my family had warned. He actually cooked me dinner and gave me a tour of his.....tiny town..... with it's cute old fashioned buildings. I had a good time....but.....

He had a few yellow flags.

Here's the variations of flag warnings-or the levels.

Red Card: Do not continue contact. Psycho, smokes, doesn't want children.

Red Flag-serious deal breaker, which takes some serious consideration to continue the relationship (nasty temper, mean to people, bad hygiene, no job, etc.)

Yellow Flag-A concern, a small annoyance to take note to form the whole picture ( drives fast, curses too much, doesn't floss, etc.)

We will see with time if this cowboy's yellow flags turn into red flags. It's his turn to take the seven hour drive.

The Shirt Pocket

When does slightly strange become too strange? I usually shrug must people off when they come into the gallery and may seem to have a few quirks, but what happens when they don't just pop into browse but have now made it a regular visit?

A gentleman has started to make the gallery his home. He seems to have appeared for no reason, like he blew in with the wind. Now he comes in three times a day and never seems to have the desire to leave. Or any sort of a home or schedule.

Besides talking your ear off, he loves to show people a newspaper clipping in his shirt pocket.

He slides it out and whispers, "I keep it close to my heart."

Ssstrange!

This is not just any clipping, but a picture of a very young violinist for the Utah Symphony. I wonder if she has any idea that he carries it around? Maybe it's best to remain in the dark?

I can understand liking a celebrity and starting a blog, but hey, even I don't carry Stanley's picture in my pocket. If I start, I pray my family has an intervention.

I just hope one day he doesn't slide out the clipping and I glimpse that the girl has been replaced by my face.