Author: Sandy Webster

Another lovely sky here in the neighborhood.

Then back to the bar to see if the bartender actually made the Turmeric/Ginger drink I gave her the recipe for. I also took two journals for the waitresses who were so kind last week. I must say that I used to be faster when making blank journals, but age and long swaths of time have made me slower. Anyway, we were greeted with this:

and this:

After our visit the drink will be called The Webster from now on. How fun is that! Not quite like having a planet or bird named after you, but close…. Then a great salmon and crabcake combo dinner finished the evening.

Back again next week to meet up with the fellow who was interested to find out I was a writer. I will give him a copy of my short stories book just for being kind.

Still working on poetry and went to a monthly meeting this past week. I raised the question of using the “F” word in poetry readings. And after the initial sweet ladies’ gasps, I was told “if it is necessary to the poem, and not for simple shock effect. ”  I have noticed that since the election of a total incompetent for president by mindless voters, the word comes so much easier. It could just be age, but I suspect it is like the red tie on my punching bag… an expression of complete despair.

This morning I took some photos of the yard out back. I think I am losing the dogwood and had the opportunity to tell my yardman when he too showed up at the bar while I was there. The leaves are all curling in on themselves and have spots.

After I sanded out all the exuberant sand blasting marks in my bench out front and blew off the walkway, I settled in with a paid for movie…the second adaption of Jane Harper’s books, Force of Nature. The first being The Dry. She does write a good story and  I am pleased another one will be released in April.

I am listening to Jeffry Archer audiobooks as I get my steps in. Lovely to hear proper English pronunciations in a male voice.

Not much else new…I might just thaw some shrimp to have with pasta and aging spinach.

More later when something else seems worthy of sharing.

Til then…..

The days just keep coming, over and over again.  Tuesdays don’t so much roll into Wednesdays as they roll into the following Tuesday. By the time I push to get my minimum 7,000 steps in, it is time for a drink, dinner, and bed. Only to start all over again the following day.

Speaking of drinks…here is the latest turmeric/ginger old fashioned.

Start with a simple syrup of one cup sugar to one cup water and boil until sugar is dissolved. Cool and add one tablespoon turmeric and one teaspoon ground ginger. Stir and sieve through fine strainer. Now in an old fashioned glass with ice pour 2 oz bourbon, 1 oz turmeric syrup and garnish with a slice of orange and a dash of Peychaud’s bitters…give a stir and get comfortable.

I have been working with the illustrations of drawing and stitch for my next book. And decided to make them black and white and only 3×4 inches centered in the page. Too large and they become too important and the important thing about a book is the text…not the illustration used as breaks in sections. So here they are with an extra for the cover.

I still want to write a couple more short stories, etc. but just needed a break with heat and humidity. On thinking about one of these illustrations being used on the cover, I got to thinking about the back cover. How the back of my books only have the obligatory author picture and brief bio.

I looked on the back of the paper backs on my shelf and was somewhat intrigued by the glowing remarks by “readers”. Do author’s ask friends to do this? Could anyone (author) just make up these glowing comments? Could I say that Annie Proulx loved my writing so much that she has quit writing just to go over my words again and again? What about Stephen King tossing his two cents in? Why not? It all seems so self-aggrandizing, so ego-driven. Can’t people just do what they always have done? Hold the book in their hands and thrum through to catch a bit of writing here and there to decide whether to invest $10? Or, if the book is not in a book store, couldn’t they just look it up on Amazon and read a description?

Maybe it is just an agreement between authors…”you say something nice about my book, and I’ll say something nice about yours.”

Anyway, I find it just a bit off. So will keep my books as blank as possible on the back so whoever bought it, read it, has plenty of room to write their own review before passing it on.

Here is a line from a short story….“Elderly single men who have either annoyed previous companions or watched them die off are rarely equipped with the ease their wives had for making new friends.”

It might be fun to pop a line or two from stories or poems into this blog.

I got to talking with a fellow in a bar last week. My friend was telling him about me being a writer. I told him I would bring him the short stories book this week, and keep it on hand in case he came in again while I was there. I like that he seemed mildly excited at the prospect.

Steps to get in before my physical therapist shows up to time my balance exercises.

So up and at it. Here is a picture of Sadie and Dily keeping me company.

Til later…

It is close enough to three o’clock in the afternoon on a Sunday here. So far today I have balanced the books, cleaned up the kitchen, participated in the family call, and done my balancing exercises. That was all before noon. Since then I have worked in the studio, listened to a novella on audiobooks, done all my workout exercises plus the balance ones again. Now I have a glass of wine and am seated back in the studio.

While we (or at least I) are talking alcohol, let me show you my negroni from two nights ago.

What I have finally settled on for a recipe is as follows:

Over ice in a Tom Collins glass pour

1 1/2 oz gin (this is a good place to use the “flowery” ones because then you won’t be tasting the flower bed in a more martini-type drink.

1 1/2 oz sweet vermouth

1 oz Campari (if you go with most recipes this would be the same amount as the vermouth and gin) But it tastes like chewing on grapefruit peels if you go with that recommendation.

One hefty slice of orange or a carefully shaved peel.

Sit down, sip slowly, and don’t even think of fixing another!

Yesterday and today I worked on an idea for illustrations for my next book by S. Webster. I am titling it Connections. So far 35 new poems, 6 essays and 5 short stories. I would like to have a couple more short stories but find heat and humidity are not conducive to staying on track. We will see how it goes.

Anyway, here are the first illustrations which may only be used as breaks between three sections of the book and another for cover art. I enjoyed the process of combining graphite, watercolor wash, and stitched textiles. I like the stone’s dependency on both the support of sticks and comfort of cloth.

 

 

When I finish and photograph each one, I will adjust contrast and see how well they can be reproduced. The scraps of cloth are quite fiddly to hold onto but stitching bits together is so comforting a pastime.

I will do several so I have a good selection because once photographed and looked at closely, I can see better choices could have been made. It will keep me busy for awhile. After that, it is all about putting the book together.

I have managed another couple of pages in the leaves section of the six-way book.

On another note:

It is hard being optimistic in the United States anymore. We have reached such a new low every day with no way of digging our way out. The world as a whole, finds us much less than what we used to be. More than half the population here is disgusted with the ignorance and arrogance of those who continue to support their choice to lead our country. It doesn’t seem to matter that he is a sex-offending felon, has a deplorable cabinet of sycophants that are hell-bent on protecting their golden calf to line their pockets and promote their Nazi-like agenda. Who in their right mind is not physically sick at the look and sound of Stephen Miller pushing an agenda of pure evil? Thank you, Scotland, for your opposition to his being there. Only thing better would be to send him off to the Hague for crimes against humanity. Thank you to those in this country who ask Maga hat wearers where they get the nerve to eat in Mexican restaurants. And thank you to the women in Home Depot parking lots trying their best to help and put ICE agents in their place while grabbing workers out of cars to send wherever they choose.  Thanks to our less-than-stellar Supreme Court decisions to protect the president, only he will escape culpability….all those around him should look to getting a lawyer lined up for when this nightmare ends. “I was only following orders” does not work. Just ask the last group of Nazis.

I need to fill my wine glass and punch the bag again today.

Til later….

 

 

 

“Whatever you’re disappointed in can be upgraded by lowering your level of satisfaction.”

Without fail that is what I told my students who were forever complaining about the outcomes of their efforts in class. Most of the time it had to do with skills not yet mastered.

Improving one’s skill level takes time….lots of time….and effort that week-long workshops on personal expression did not have sufficient time to master once a commitment had been made. So, let’s say a student with no book making experience wanted to make a book to record visual ideas for a series of work. There is no time to teach them how to make a perfect book, but there is time to get them to understand that progressive sheets of paper held together by any means necessary, say, stitch, staples, glue, etc., is exactly what is “good enough” to get on with recording ideas.

As I age and watch my own skills succumb to accumulating limitations, I am happy to truly believe in the merits of lowering my level of satisfaction. My former skills in drawing are not going to suddenly reappear. If it is just a graphite pencil, there is always the eraser to help. But light pencil sketches to lay in unforgiving water colors is another matter. Remember the six-way opening book? First a section on wildflowers.

Then 72 pages of butterflies in the next section…

Then on to a section of just leaves.

And I keep going with this section…..now as of this morning up to page 44 of the 72 in this section…..and I am beginning to see a bit of decline in acuity.

But here is the good part. I love trying to get the leaves onto a page. And I always find something good about each one. Not least of which is that I did it! There is still one more narrow section to fill with 72 images of something and then the two full square sections (one of which has been committed to nests and eggs and probably feathers. I am determined to fill this entire book of pre-gessoed pages that began as a promise to myself to fill with Nature images.

The weather is hot and humid. Both those physical conditions paired with the total desperate insanity of leadership in our slowly tanking country keep me mostly hunkered down here at home in my sketchbooks and writing. I wrote about the weather and myself in this latest poem.

My View           S. Webster

 

It’s raining

Again.

Hard, heavy, wet.

Much like buckets

being emptied

just outside

my window.

Until the sun says,

“Stop!”

And forces the water

underground

or into rising steam.

Then

just as the sun

claims victory,

clouds conspire

to fill

their buckets.

Plans are

altered by

disappointment

to all but

those of us

inside,

looking out,

and trusting

nothing.

 

Friday night a friend took me to dinner and we started with double servings of Tom Collins cocktails. The dehydrated orange slices add nothing to the drink but a pleasing appearance. Cut wedge or peel would have done more for these very sweet drinks.

The view needed no improvements.

So that is it for now. I need to get on toward my step goal for the day and try to get a balance/confidence workout in before stopping for the day with a scotch and slow trip of memories.

Til later…..