Tripping Part 1

We got home late last night. Okay, about six, but it felt later than it was. I don't know why, but the drive home always feels longer than the drive out. (Actually, I do know why. Duh. It didn't help that my boss found me on my cell phone, just as we were hitting the far edge of town, did it?)

Ah, but the trip! My first real adventure since I began this quest. Yes, I have taken risks. Yes, I have had fun. But to take an actual week out of my schedule, to do nothing but play in the world ... for me that is the scariest thing on the planet. I like my rut.

Not any more.

We allowed two days in Corning, NY, on the way to my conference. We stopped nowhere on the way, no antique malls, barely any restaurant time. Why? Paranoia. The Big Lug likes to take back roads, get off the interstate as much as possible. I can't calculate drive time on back roads. For all I knew it would take us ten hours.

It didn't, and it was beautiful. Lesson number one - go back roads. The food availability is iffy so carry lunchmeats and fruits, but it's well worth the inconvenience.

We spent half a day (the next day) at the glass museum, and the other half at the Mark Twain Exhibit (with the actual building/study in which he wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and other masterpieces) at Elmira College. I forgot the camera for the Twain stuff, but I have some doozies from the glass museum.



This boat is one solid piece of glass, made up of several individual pieces surrounded by more glass.
The detail is amazing!

And look at the artistry of this, nearly 300 year old piece.
From the time of the Pharohs, glass makers were considered high-end artisans, and were paid accordingly. Times have changed, haven't they?

This is the stuff I love - milk glass.
"N.E. Glass" is New England Glass, and about 130 years old. I've seen this piece before. I didn't know what the mark meant. How depressing.

Now, just because it's old doesn't mean it's valuable (glass doesn't decompose, remember) but pieces like these are, usually, because - like the above pieces - intricacy of design and execution, and - unlike the above pieces - beautiful mold work instead of handmade quality.


Then there's Tiffany. Even though I love milk glass, I would give my left arm for something like this.

I remember when his lamps were selling for pennies on the dollar of the cost now. And windows were unheard of! Seeing this all lit up was even more amazing.

The museum also has exhibits on the science of glassmaking that were just all-around cool. The special exhibit right now is about alchemists and glass. "Turning lead into gold" has new meaning after realizing that their experiments took us into "lead crystal," which, of course, is the most expensive you can buy. Nicholas Flamel never found the "sorcerer's stone" in our universe, but he probably earned his keep.

The conference was so much fun ... but more on that later.

Still Travelling

Seriously. I'm actually on vacation - not the kind in which I go to my sister's and hang out and have fun and write like a maniac but the serious kind, in which I'm hiding from the world, soaking in a hot tub, and hunting my brains out.

Really. I'm relaxing. I'm having a great time.

Wish you were here!

Travelling

Billed 90 hours. Caught up on work. Power steering pump fixed. Staring at nothing, flinching at everything. Wiped out. Must be time for a vacation.

Hold the paper and mail. Finish catching up on work (and hide the cell phone). Set up timers for lamps. Pack (clothes, shoes, toiletries). Get the dog to the kennel (along with food and old blankie). Get Head Trip to look in on the cat (and not hiss at him). Do dishes. Vacuum. Pack some more (loupe, UV flashlight, jewelry). Leave sticky notes all over the door so I won't forget. Anything.

I need a vacation from my vacation ...

Hiding Out

I'm puttering today. I like to putter. I like to be by myself. I like to flit from useless project to useless project all day long. I like simple sentences, too. Even fragments. Because that's all I can think in sometimes. Like today. It's my day off. I'm hiding out from good grammar. Okay, I'm hiding from the world.

Life is complicated these days. People want to make things harder than common sense tells them to. Me? I see solutions (plural) straight out. Sometimes they hit me like a barrage of hailstones. But when anyone asks me, "Doesn't that make sense?" or "Do you see any reason we shouldn't do this?" I've learned the code - she's not asking for my opinion but for my agreement. I heard both questions this week, and they didn't make sense and I saw plenty of reasons not to do them - from my point of view. From the company's point of view, from her family's point of view ... not so much. And so I have learned the fine art of shutting my mouth.

It's not my default position. I am the Bunny With The Big Nose, and I was born to Stick It Everywhere. But I bite my tongue now, so often I could strain plankton through the holes. This means that once in awhile the unsaid answers build to critical mass, so I must either go away for awhile or go Vesuvius all over everybody's ass.

And so I putter. Funny thing is, I get a lot done, but fun stuff. My metal detector told me (in beep language) there are at least three likely spots to find a quantity of deep silver, and about a hundred places that either contain gold or, yes, iron (they read the same to my poor, brainless baby). I marked the silver with big red X's (spray paint) and the others with dots. My yard looks like it has the measles.

I also made reservations for our trip next week. We're going to see more Mark Twain stuff for a couple of days before we go to the conference, and then take our time getting home, too. I marked all the Salvation Armies and Goodwills with X's, too, just for the heck of it.

And I got to watch the Big Lug practically hyperventilate with excitement - he collects pipes, and he just now (as I sit here) deciphered the signature on one he bought. It's from a maker on his A-list, one he didn't think he could ever afford, a Tiffany of pipes. Apparently the seller hadn't recognized the artist, either, for the Big Lug got it at a bargain basement price. I'm glad I was here to see his face when he realized what he'd bought - that smile is my eternal addiction.

I'll fix us a nice dinner, and I'll snuggle with him, and I'll watch some more recorded things from a week I don't remember (because it was so full of work). I'll maybe clean jewelry, or maybe wash the dog, or maybe shave my legs. I don't know. The day is mine to do with as I please. And I choose to let all the words unsaid wash away. I choose to hide out, just for awhile.

That's not a bad thing. Especially if you can do it with your best friend.

Saying It

I had a conversation with my boss yesterday. Well, not so much a conversation as a question. Well, okay, less ask and more acquiesence. She said, "do you have any time to watch a presentation from a potential teacher?" and while my brain said "I have no life and I want to break this $%##*&@ phone," my mouth agreed to spend an extra half-hour at work tonight. My first tutorial is at 10 am. Now I'm not home for good until 9 pm.

Why did I do that?

Why did I schedule any of it in the first place?

I'm just a Bunny who can't say, "no," that's why. Not to a favor, not to "I have no one else I trust" - even if I were falling down a flight of stairs I'd probably agree to try to reset the banister as long as someone offered me a down-on-her-luck story. Y'know what that makes me?

A nice person.

Eeooo, gross. I've worked so hard on my crusty outer skin, too. I aspire to be a curmudgeon yet I persist in being a marshmallow. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just growl and huff and scare people off like the Big Lug does? Nobody asks him to do anything they don't think he'll do. Nobody can fool him with a sad tale. Well, most people can't. Well, people he doesn't like can't.

But me ... well, I'll say "yes" to the nastiest, meanest, most unreasonable customer in the world because maybe - maybe - I can turn that frown upside down. This morning, before I even left for my first student, I spent twenty minutes I didn't have speaking with a parent who scheduled four remaining tutorials for September. I scrambled in here to edit this posting (then head back to work), and found a message that she wanted to reschedule all of them, for days I'd told her I didn't have open (just this morning!) and times I never mentioned. I called her back, reminded her of this, and she said, "well, he can't do weeknights anyway," then proceeded to take my Saturdays from me. What did I do? Comisserated with her about the vagarities of teenagers' schedules with a solemn, "Yes, I remember," and pencilled him in.

I remember squat. I told my kids early on I wouldn't be their full-time chauffeur, that they'd have to choose one activity, and ride share more often than not. Not that I actually stuck to that, of course ... but the thought was there. Yet truly they never took advantage when I did say "yes" - they never made me into the mom who had no life of her own because her kids' schedules were so insane.

Nowadays, though, I can't say "no" to anybody. I want to speak softly and carry a big stick, but the club I wield turns out to be made of peppermint.

Ah, well, it could be worse. Everything I do, I do for love, and that seems to come back a hundredfold (even when I'm cranky about it), whether it's a request from my kids, my grands, or crazy parents - who refer other unreasonable parents, who somehow always have the most wonderful and reasonable children, by the way. Suddenly I have more students than I can handle, and all because I said, "yes" to them.

I do need to learn to say "no" to my work schedule, say "yes" more often to myself.

But not today. I have too much to do.