July 2005 Memo

The reason this memo is a little late is because I’ve been taking it easy, obviously, a little too easy. J

In early July when I finished Too Many Speed Bumps: A Journey of Healing, I found a break from the computer was in order. I decided to finish something I started five years ago! That’s right, five long years ago. When my ceramic career came to a screeching halt some years back, I was in the middle of a Normal Rockwell dinner plate. That is to say, after scribing the imagine of a Hobo cooking his dinner over a fire in a pail, I began painting it. I really like this scene as it shows the love this down and out man has for his best friend – his loyal, trusted companion – his dog, who is sitting patiently but eagerly waiting their feast.

This particular project was restarted the day I decided my back room needed a little tidying. Not remembering what was in a box I had sitting on a chair that I figured could be moved out of the room, I started to dig through it. It wasn’t long before I found my half-finished plate. At that very moment I decided to finish it!

Just as I was going to take it to my kitchen table to work on, Mom came past the room and saw what I was doing, she asked, “Oh, are you going to do that there?”

There, meaning, in that room. Well of course, that’s the only place to do it! There’s a desk in front of the window which provides lots of light – it was perfect! And seeing as though that window is the only one on that side of the house, I don’t often get an opportunity to enjoy that view. 

I got out everything I needed, with my favorite music playing, a hot cup of tea waiting for me – now I was ready. Not being really surprised how much I enjoyed painting again, it wasn’t long before I was totally lost in the moment – thoroughly enjoying the experience.

It only took four or five sessions to complete the plate. Originally I was going to give the plate to Mom, but since she doesn’t have any place to hang it, it now hangs in my TV room, where we can both enjoy it.

With that finished, I devoted more time to reading. Some time back I heard an interview with Lawana Blackwell, one of my favorite authors. Someone asked what her earliest work was. She mentioned she’d written two books for Hearts♥ngs, cute way to write it isn’t it? Anyway, she gave the titles and as soon as the interview was over, I checked Amazon and to my delight, found them. You will find my reviews of, Shores of Promise and Shores of Deliverance here as well as a couple of other reviews.   

I’ve also been doing my homework on meta tags, anyone familiar with maintaining a Web site will know what I’m talking about. Meta tags are a code one uses to apparently raise your ranking in the search engines. This is a good thing as the higher your ranking is, the more traffic that is driven to your site. The more traffic your site has, the more sales you have. Or at least that’s the theory. I’ll let you know if it works.

With the release of Too Many Speed Bumps there was a flood of orders coming in the mail, I love when that happens. I soon realized not all mail is delivered by the Post Office!

One Friday night a little after 9 p.m. our doorbell rang, I was in the middle of something didn’t get to the door in time. As I drew closer I saw through the smoked glass that who ever was there, was bent down. Strange. Then I turned to put some lights on before answering the door. I heard a strange noise which at first, sounded like they were slipping a key into the lock. This was not a good feeling.

With my heart beating a little faster, I went closer to the door. The person’s shadow was gone, but there was something on the floor. INSIDE! Huh?

I guess what I heard was them sliding two envelopes between the door and the doorjamb. As I got closer to the door, Mom was just coming down the stairs to see what was going on. She’d looked out her front window and saw what she thought was the neighbor’s daughter’s van stopped in front of our driveway.

She picked up the two envelopes and saw they were both orders for Speed Bumps.  Both were from different provinces. This was very strange, who could have had them? Why weren’t they in our mail box? The addresses were both clearly written.

Thinking it was the neighbor’s daughter, I e-mailed her. She explained it hadn’t been them. So we were left to wonder who delivered the letters and stranger yet, how did they end up with them?

Monday morning when Mom noticed our mail lady across the street, she waved her down. When she was finished delivering the mail she headed over. I showed her the two envelopes and explained what had happened. The only thing she could say was that she must have slipped them into the box next to ours.

This made sense as the people across the street usually get home just after 9 p.m. and they also have a van like the neighbor’s daughter. Mystery solved!

The middle of the month brought an e-mail I wasn’t expecting. It was from a good friend’s husband! My first thought was, something happened to Rose! With some trepidation I opened the e-mail – then – relief! Rather than being bad news, it was great news! Rose’s 50^th birthday was the following week and he wondered if Mom and I would like to attend her dinner coincidence.     

You see, Rose said she didn’t want a party. So, Rick figured if twenty-five or thirty of her friends and family just happened to be at the restaurant having dinner at the same as them, well, that’s not a party … it’s a coincidence. This was going to be exciting, how would Rose take being surprised?

I asked Rick if he had the cake, when he said he hadn’t thought of that yet, I asked if we could bring one. He was thrilled not to have something else to think about. We decided a marble cake would do nicely. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a bakery that makes marble cakes? We settled for half white, half chocolate.

Finally the day arrived. We made sure we were at the restaurant well ahead of time. When a lady walked in we swore was Rose’s sister, we were surprised to learn she wasn’t related in any way. Rather, she was the mother of Roses’ daughter’s boyfriend. Can you imagine if they should marry? I’d love to see those wedding pictures. These two women could easily pass for sisters!

As Rose entered the dinning room, we all held up our menus to hide our faces. Rose later said she thought that was odd. She was surprised, and everyone had a wonderful evening. Rose made sure she spoke to all her guests. Yes the entire evening was quite the coincidence! Well done Rick!!

Well, that does it for another month. I hope you’re enjoying your summer as much as I am enjoying mine. Until next time, stay happy, read much and be well! J    

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