Pumps

Pumps

Pumps

He picked a table in the wrong room.  I’d driven my own car and looked for him first in the old rooms.  I loved the old rooms in Mother’s, the ones with the low lights, small cubbies and slanted floors.  He picked the bright new room, like a gymnasium or a school cafeteria.  It was a disappointment, but I’d survive it.

It was our second date.  We met at a bar a few nights before.  Each of us had come with someone else.  We left with each other.  He was a good kisser, and wanted more, but I made him wait.  “I don’t do that,” I explained, “on a first date.”

I studied him.  He was a little fleshy in the jowls.  Otherwise handsome, with bright blue eyes and shocks of blond hair.  He wore jeans, a cowboy shirt and cowboy boots.

He studied me.  I was a little overweight, but not bad.  Not then.  I was running, dieting, taking care of myself.  And I was tanned, not from salons or laying on the beach, but from a long hike through the mountains, solo.  I was proud of myself.  I felt strong and capable.

He looked at my feet.  I wore jeans and my battered hiking boots, a trophy from 125 miles in the Adirondack Wilderness.  “Next time, you’ll have to get rid of those boots,” he said, “and wear some nice pumps.”

I hadn’t finished eating; I’d barely gotten started.  I got up and walked out.  I had a pair of old pumps in my trunk for emergencies.  I hadn’t worn them in years.  I took them out and put them on the hood of his pick-up truck and drove away.

From a photo-prompt given in the Cowbirders' Poetry and Flash Fiction Group #7 (my second response to that prompt.) The photo, by my husband Keith, manipulated by me, was taken at the Heidelberg project in Detroit. I have lots of shoe pix also, but my computer isn't working well. While I labeled this as fiction, it is based on a true story. A guy I was out on a second date with at Mother's in Liverpool told me I had to wear pumps on our next date. I made absolutely certain there was no next date.

Only Shoes

Leopard-skin Shoes, by Diane Jardel
(A photo prompt
for the Cowbirder's Poetry and Flash fiction group #7)

Only Shoes

"You can't go up on stage and get your diploma wearing those shoes!" Harrie hissed. 

"But they're the only shoes I brought!" Jannah said.

“How could you not have brought something other than those beat-up, falling apart sneakers held  together with duct tape?  You weren’t planning on wearing those with a dress, were you?”

“I didn’t bring a dress.”

“You’re not wearing that threadbare flannel shirt!”

“I was going to.”

Harrie brought her royal blue Beetle around to Jannah’s dorm.  “Come on,” she insisted, pushing Jannah toward the door, “We’re getting you some duds.”

“I can’t afford them,” Jannah objected. “And graduation is in an hour.”

“It’ll be my graduation gift; and it will be fun.”

“Yeah, like pulling teeth!”

“Oh Jannah!” Harriet sighed.

 “If we have to go, let’s go to the Goodwill.”

Jannah picked out a jean skirt and loose blouse, but Harrie vetoed them.  “Too casual,” she said.  Instead, Harrie bought Jannah a classic shirtwaist dress in a leopard-skin pattern with matching shoes.  Jannah blanched when she saw them. 

Harrie did Jannah’s hair in a French twist and arranged the dress and shoes and produced a matching handbag that Jannah hadn’t seen her buy.

Jannah tottered up on stage, nearly twisting her ankle climbing the stairs in the unstable shoes. She clomped awkwardly over to accept the rolled parchment with its blue bow and shake the hands of all the dignitaries.

Then she fell down the stairs on the other side, landing in a heap at the bottom.  The pins came out of her hair and it cascaded around her face.

A young man in the PhD section rushed over and lifted Jannah from the floor.  Before he picked her up, she saw ratty sneakers and beat-up jeans under his gown.  Then she looked up at his face. He had a sweet shy smile and hair that curled over the top of his ears. 

As he carried her out the door, she said, “What about your diploma?”

“Those aren’t real,” he said, pointing at her now mashed tube of paper. “They mail the real ones to you.”

“What about your parents?”

“They couldn’t come.  Yours?”

“No.”

As he strode down the sidewalk away from the gym, Jannah laid her head on his shoulder.  She wiggled her toes and the leopard-skin shoes fell to the ground. The young man took one look at them, leaned over, gave her a small kiss and kept walking, leaving the shoes where they fell.

The Storyteller, by Jodi Picoult

I finally finished The Storyteller (it's a very long book), and my final verdict is that I liked it.    There are horrifying parts, much struggle, physical, mental and emotional, and many bad choices.  It's about a Nazi SS man, age 95, a holocaust survivor, the survivor's granddaughter, the granddaughter's married lover and her new boyfriend, a Catholic nun, estrangement, redemption and failure at redemption, and hard hard choices.  It is engaging and compelling and heartbreaking, but still very very good.

There IS a plot twist at the end,* which makes the book even more heart-breaking, BUT it is not entirely contrived, as some preparation has been made in the book to make the plot twist possible, believable and realistic.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with a strong constitution.

I am angry at Goodreads for eating my first attempt to write a review of this so I had to do it over and it may not be as good this time. Grrr, this has happened to many times in the past, and it infuriates me.

*Some Jodi Picoult books have very contrived endings (annoyingly so).  This one is good, even though unexpected.  I think it's her best book so far (by which, I mean, so far of the ones of hers I've read.)

I wanted to post this to The Sunflower blog. but it isn't functioning for some reason.  The reason I wanted to post this there is because the Sunflower is a blog that examines forgiveness, and ultimately, that is what this book is about.  There is much discussion about who can and should forgive whom about what, and why.  Excellent thoughts on the subject.

Working on Mike Kline's Moleskine

Spoonbill, Hornbill and Duckbill
Acrylic, by Mary Stebbins Taitt
Click on this or any image to view all of them larger

Spoonbill and Duckbill
with their friend Hornbill
Rode a red wagon downhill
with glorious freewill
past the sawmill
and came to a standstill
at Frankie's doorsill.

 Frankie is my grandson.  One of four.

I can't find the paper with the "poem" on it, and I'm not sure I'm remembering it right.

Roseate Spoonbills envelope
acrylic, Mary Stebbins Taitt

Pumice Fish
Acrylic, Mary Stebbins Taitt

I never went to art school, so I have to learn everything by experimenting.  I bought some pumice medium and played with it on the envelope for the first time ever (dumb, I know).  It was so rough, like sandpaper,only worse, so, worried about the mail carriers and postal employees injuring their fingers, I put a couple layers of matte medium over it, but that made it look dull.   :-(  It has lots of texture!  But less than before. (I also used a tiny but of the pumice medium on the rocks and on the road in the Spoonbill hornbill duckbill painting.)

In the Pocket:

Twin Poppies
oil on Graham Cracker box treated with acrylics
Mary Stebbisn Taitt

Flute Practice
oil and Arches Oil Paper
Mary Stebbins Taitt

Flute practice, side view
showing topography of oils

Mike, take the oils out and let them dry some more.  I hope they survive the journey to your house!!!

Cassandra Elise Lapwing revisited yet again (I'm probably still working on this):

Riding the Storm

Riding the Storm
painted collage
Collab Andrea and Mary
click image to view larger.

When we were in Colorado, a number years ago, driving south on the east side of the mountains, a storm sat over the mountains and funnel clouds, sometimes a number of them, kept snaking down out of the clouds.  It was creepy, scary and fascinating.

Andrea Martinez added the house.

I made a college and then painted over parts of it.  The witch is my friend Gail Slaughter and Dorothy, the scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion are all friends of hers.

Working on Mike Kline's Moleskine in the wee hours

I had a bout of fairly severe insomnia the night before last and was up for several hours between 2 and 6 AM, and spent my time painting. First, I covered the backside of the painting of Frankie and the spoonbill, hornbill and duckbill with a painting of Cassandra Elise Lapwing, in profile. I THINK she is played by Julianne Moore. This is acrylics, and it is an "extra" painting, to covered the bleed-through. Since there seem to be MANY pages in this Moleskine, I didn't think Mike or anyone would mind my doing an extra.  I used 3 "colors," black, Payne's grey and neutral #5 grey.

Cassandra Elise Lapwing profile
acrylic
Mary Stebbins Taitt
Click images to view larger.

Now I was really into Cassandra Elise Lapwing, so I did another HALF portrait of her for a collaboration with Mike.  This is entirely done with one black gel pen and some Faber-castel PITT artist pigment pens in 4 colors, black, sepia, sanguine and grey.

Cassandra Elise Lapwing collab
gel pen and Faber-Castelle PITT pigment artists pens

Mary Stebbins Taitt

Click images to view larger

Here is the two-page spread:

Two-page spread

Mary Stebbins Taitt

Click images to view larger

Here is the collab image doubled.  This is not what I expect from Mike; I'm sure he'll be much more creative.  Doubling it like this tells me there is something wrong with the original that I couldn't see (or didn;t notice) in the half-image.  That is one weird-looking chick, LOL!!!!  (I did not complete the process of doubling her because my main computer has died and the Cintique is still attached to the dead computer.)

 

Cassandra Elise Lapwing half doubled.

Cassandra Elise Lapwing half doubled
and slightly fiddled with

I really need to get the Cintique on the piece of junk I have to use for a computer now, since my Mac died.

I need to stop playing with this, pointlessly, and get back to the actual Moleskine. What remains to be done is finishing the paining of Frankie and the spoonbill, hornbill and duckbill and the collab with Andrea, which I have started on, but not completed.

Continuing on my painting

Session 4

I worked on the mountains plus trying to get rid of the stupid white lines from my sketch.

Session 5, Monday Night, August 12

I worked on Frankie's Face, the trees on the hills, the logs, some of the clouds and fog in the mountains. I'm very slow--each session is a couple hours long.  You probably can;t even tell the difference.  None of the photos quite look like the actual painting.

New Moleskine Painting, SLOW PROGRESS

I decided to post my slow progress on Mike's book because I'm afraid I won't be ready to mail on the 15th,

Session 1

First I searched for reference photos.  Then, because the paper is so thin, I sprayed it, then drew on it with a white "soufflé" pen. (I tried pencil and ballpoint, but they didn't show up.) I intentionally made Frankie and the animals proportionately a little extra big relative to the porch and door etc.

Session 2

I worked on the boy first.  He is my grandson,  Unfortunately, the ballpoint pen ink keeps coming through the paint, and unfortunately, I only used it on Frankie, on his face, legs and neck!!  :-(

Session 3

Frankie's face was too short in the beginning, but I overcompensated and made it too long.  This is a very slow process.  It will be a while before I finish it, and I have two collaborations to do--I started on one, but not on the other yet.  I've had some health issues and family crises (including a kid in jail, a kid with a concussion, etc).  But I am plugging away.

"What if Everything I told you was True?"

"What if Everything I told you was True?"
Golden "Open" acrylics
in round 3 Moleskine
click image to view larger

I did this on one of the blank pages in my round 3 Moleskine sketchbook.  I bought some open acrylics and thought I should experiment in my own Mole rather than Mike's, in case I screwed it up.  The first thing I did was lay down cobalt blue, red and yellow and blend them, then painted the forest scene over that--it is almost entirely painted with the primary colors, with just a little white and black added at the end.  (I only bought 3 tubes of paint to try out.)  The "open" acrylics are supposed to stay workable significantly longer.)

I am thinking of the scene as something from dream shamanism.

I am slowly recovering from my surgery.  My eye seems to be recovering as well.

"When the Bleeding Stops"
by me, Mary Stebbins Taitt
click image to view larger

I'm still bleeding.

I mean physically, from the surgery.

My belly is still all bruised and purple. The healing is up and and down.

Last night, I made dinner for the first time in months--for my husband and myself. Not something simple, but bouillabaisse. It came out great. This is cause for celebration, even though at the moment, I am not so well.

I request forgiveness from Jaga for making art/story somewhat similar to one of his pieces. This is NOT what my earlier, also similar work was like. I may post some of that later, another time.

This story is for yesterday, I did not have time to post, I am way behind, more apologies!!! (It is for yesterday because I am hoping to have another story for today. )

I was playing. I like to play. The abstract art piece at the center and the one around the border are mine.

This story is dedicated to Jaga. It's yesterday's, 7-9-13.