While I Wait....

This waiting thing is twisting me in half.

Reading other of my favorite blogs, they write about the usual things they always write about, crafting, writing, living with non-creatives, work, family, online life, kids, politics. It's comforting to read and know that these blog-pals are forging ahead, spit to the wind, writing when they can, and knowing why they do what they do.

Talking to my landlady last night, I saw the smiling webshot of the new Brittany dog coming home tonight from the shelter, and it is heart-warming to know the house will have a big lovey dog in it again. I have been doing dog-watching more frequently, and that has eased some of my dog-envy, but it never goes away. My cats love me, I love them (little beasts), but the space in your heart for a dawg is a specific place, like for a mate, a kid, a horse. Nothing else really fits that space, and you make the best of it, and love the hell out of what you do have. My life would have to completely change some more for me to fit a dog into the mix, and I don't know how much more utter change I can handle this year. Hanging tough with what I have started in motion feels like the way to go for now, and focus on school.

And wait some more, send polite emails with a slight edge of urgency, double check my paperwork and deadlines, and wait some more. Oh yeah, Thanksgiving. Sure, happy happy, whatever. Do not tell me the admissions office is taking this week off or I will run screaming down there to lodge a protest. Since when did Thanksgiving become a week off like Christmas?
It's a one day holiday, maybe two if you're lucky, but the whole week? WTF?

I am working through some of the frustration by swimming laps at the gym, with the occasional Mr Torso sightings keeping me motivated. Sometimes it's great to be half-blind in a swimming pool, you just don't care how you look because you can't see them either, so you're invisible. Except for the Mr Torsos, they're all a sodden blur, and I just make another turn in the lane and head out for the other side, odd number out, even number back, 19 out, 20 back, 21 out, 22 back, keep going until 30 then stop counting. Collapse into the steam room, inhale eucalyptus clouds, leave the gym a new woman. Come home, still no letter or email from the admissions office, grind teeth, continue job search. My gym is open the morning of Thanksgiving, so I can go swim off the feast I will eat later, excellent! There's a rhythm to this, and it's working so far, and I look forward to enjoying my first non-retail, non-restaurant business Thanksgiving and Black Friday in over 20 years. I remember working in a family owned deli in 1986 where they closed for the four day weekend...I believe that may have been the last time I was off.

Little things...I checked out of the Multnomah County Library a series of DVDs featuring classic Russian paintings, produced by a brilliant Russian director who won an Oscar in 1996(?) for best foreign language film. His name is Nikita Mikhalkov, and he made this series for Russian television and schools, but the subtitles are poetic and he presents each artist with passion and intelligence. I had never heard of any of these painters, and Mikhalkov delves into their biography, presenting each painting with an audio setting of what the painter may have heard surrounding him while painting and perhaps chatting with the subject of the portrait. The music is haunting, evocative, and pulls you into romantic era of these artists, from early 18th century portraits through early 20th century Impressionists. Delighted to see this DVD set is available on Amazon for @ $50, now I need to find some big Taunton or Rizzoli artbooks with these painters, because unfortunately PSU has no History of Russian Painting classes in the catalog.

This morning, a break from the rain, a splash of sunshine, but the chill is here to stay. Gloves and wristmitts to keep the damp out, and my craft room is too cold to use comfortably. So it's time to move the desktop computer back into the livingroom, rearrange the furniture again, vacuum like a madwoman, toss more stuff into the crawlspace, set up an area to study for school. The cats try to help, but I wind up shutting them in the bedroom for a few hours so I can actually get something done. They always sit just where you were pushing the couch to.
One of my favorite bloggers lives in Australia and is at the "too damn hot to knit anymore" stage of summer. I am building little nests of wool sweater for the beasties to sleep in on sunless days, every old wool store-bought sweater is a potential pet bed to me, and I have the nerve to felt a sweater I didn't knit, cut it up, and make it into something new and wooly-smelling. The beasties approve and don't have to fight over who's bed is who's anymore. It's the little things...

Hot hot hot historic telenovela will be starting after Univision's Gaviota concludes the first week of December. These are great series of Colonial Mexico, with carriages, horses, swords, duels, gowns, haciendas, rancheros, chaperones, nuns and priests, Generalissimos, mysterious spinsters, etc. Should be 9pm, maybe 8pm, depending on whether they overlap it with the finish of the Gaviota novela or not, check your Univision channel. Here in Portland it's Channel 31. What writers' strike?