Balloon Handling in the Parade!

I was a balloon handler in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this year!
I have never even been to the parade. Being in the parade, however, is different than just standing around and it was ridiculously fun.

You have to have a sponsor to do this.

Boathouse friends hooked me up.

Kedrin and I were on the Uncle Dan balloon together.

Eddie H2O was a clown.

Uncle Dan is from a movie that hasn't come out yet- it's abut a family of ducks who are going on vacation to Jamaica, but end up in Jamaica Queens... which is NOT the same thing... I have to see the movie when it comes out!

My friend Grace was at the parade and took this picture.  Uncle Dan's left wing popped right as we were in the lineup to start marching! He lost some altitude and kicked me in the head once... but he still flew!

After the parade was over I headed home.  Daya was working in the morning til afternoon.

I made my wonderful salmon chowder at her request.

Egg Tempera at the Draw-A-Thon

The High School of Art and Design had their draw-a-thon today!

I decided to take egg tempera and sit in the all day pose in the costume room.

Next time I might have to go back to the nude room, it's a lot less crowded (no kids allowed, 18+ only!)

Janae was with me, David was there too. It was fun to see everyone.

We stayed from start til finish, and the painting time total was probably around 5 hours.

Here is a 9x12 egg tempera painting. 

Aside from the very cramped space which hurt my back after a while, my travel egg tempera setup worked out very well!

18 Part 2

Tonight we went out for birthday dinner.  It's an all you can eat in 2 hours sushi place a few neighborhoods over and it was really great. It was a nice time; we talked and walked home.  I really love when we have these nice conversations.  It doesn't happen a lot.

Daya ate an astounding amount of food- I don't know how she can physically do it. It's truly baffling.
She dances it all off but a person still needs physical space in their body..... it's a mystery.

Cat Hill, Central Park & Exported Cat Puke

There is a cat statue in Central Park and it has been on my painting list for several months.

This morning I decided to go paint the cat.  I had previously scoped out my exact standing spot, so there I went.

8x10 oil

So, I set up all my gear and did all my normal things when I noticed there was something in my solvent jar.

It was cat puke.

Like, a LOT of cat puke.

Wet food cat puke!

HOW GROSS!

I always keep my solvent jar empty in the window to dry out, and I guess someone had a puke... IN the jar.

So I had to fish out three rather large chunks of puke.  They are now in Central Park near the cat.

This was disgustingly ironic.
Another plein air first!

I have now officially exported cat puke from home to Central Park, 

by the Central Park Cat.

18

Today Daya is 18.

Today I lay down the massive burden of not knowing what would happen to my child should I die.

Yes I have a will but the people named in it have long-since disappeared and there is no contact.  I have no one else to substitute for that, so I have not been able to update it. Now I can.

She can legally receive funds in place should I die now, and she also has succession rights on the lease on this apartment according to rent stabilization laws. She will have a place to live and the means to pay for it, should this happen.

The eventual hopeful plan is to purchase my own place, which she will inherit. I'm nowhere close to that but it's my goal. I need to control my housing expenses... right now it is uncontained with the rent increases. It's scary. In the meantime, should something happen to me, she'll be ok even if she's not ready yet to move out on her own.

This has been an immensely difficult journey and there are things I am now glad to lay down and no longer deal with.  It's time for Daya to officially launch into adulthood. And I do expect and require her to launch into being a stable and functional adult.

I do think I have done a good job in the ways that matter.

My child:

*can make and stick to a household budget- especially in the last few years I have been very open with her about actual finance numbers. She has a realistic insight into expenses vs income.

*knows what is in a household budget

*can do math (I absolutely cannot take credit for this one)

*can grocery shop and price compare- she cares more about that than I do sometimes....

*has a job

*has a wonderful work ethic

*is an amazing artist

*is doing well in college

*can do her own laundry (I taught J to do laundry in college)

*understands the risks of credit card interest

*can self-rescue if she falls out of a kayak (important life skill)

*can bike all around NYC

*can cook

Oh she can do so much more that I am probably forgetting......

She's a wonderful capable person and I truly am confident she will do well as an adult.  

I think she's had enough exposure to not be completely shocked by the reality of it as so many are.

*******

For her 18th birthday I am giving her a funded Roth IRA.

Yeah, that's so boring-adult... Daya is a difficult person to find gifts for, and this is an important birthday, it needs something lasting and meaningful. Daya will probably really appreciate the IRA, it's kind of right up her alley. And I am happy to start her adult life with the gift of starting compound interest and growth.  She has already shown wonderful financial responsibility; this is a good gift for her. 50 years from now my hope is she'll look at this account and think about how she still has $x her mom gave her when she turned 18.

Yeah, it's a bunch of boring adult stuff.

But once you handle the boring adult stuff you may have the freedom to live the life you want... I want her to have a good functional foundation.

Here is Daya right after she was born at 1:02pm......

And exactly 18 years later she is in class at Juilliard.

**********

Tonight after school she is going out with friends, and I have mandatory suicide hotline training.

She has an early morning tomorrow.

So later tonight we will have cake and presents... I had one made for her, strawberry shortcake, I hope she likes it.

Yag Laser Part 2

I have a big flare in my vision after cataract surgery again, it was expected.

The fix is the yag laser, which I already had done on my left eye so I knew what I was in for.

It's not a big deal.

Eye dr took a picture of my lens capsule and showed it to me... it looks like wrinkly saran wrap inside my pupil. The yag laser is used to punch holes in the lens capsule (behind the implant) which helps the wrinkles flatten out and the flares go away (or change to being less-bad).

(I still have star-streaks around some lights at night in my left eye but it is definitely better than the flares.)

This is considered to be a surgical procedure even though it is done in-office and takes about 7 minutes.

It does not hurt, during or after.

I'm on prednisone drops for a few days, the same bottle I used in August so that's convenient.

Also, I got to say something I have never gotten to say before to the doctor: "Thank you for punching holes in my eye."

It is my fervent hope and wish to now be done with eye surgery for the rest of my life.

The Day of Broken Junk

Today I went down to the boathouse to help clean and store buoys.

The plan was to power-wash them, which I am told is extremely fun.

They were pretty gross.....

There are 2 power washers at the boathouse and they are both broken.

PRO-TIP: Duct tape does not fix a broken power washer.

Both power washers are broken.

The toaster oven is broken.

The dryer is almost broken.

The hose nozzle is broken (again).

Everything is broken at the boathouse and it is filled with unnecessary junk, which was the main subject of much griping and complaining yesterday. (Junk includes but is not limited to a broken fridge, a computer monitor circa 2003, a broken disemboweled computer probably also from that era, a metal bed frame, and there are rumors of a chandelier in there as well, which are probably true.)

The boathouse is like one of those scenes from those hidden object games people play.

Apparently efforts to get the city to collect this junk have been denied because it is not a residential location. Which means paying for junk removal. Which is difficult for a program that is run solely on grants and donations.

Ah well.

We rinsed and hand-scraped and bleached the buoys and put them away.

I did not take a picture of the clean buoys.

Reign helped.

The sky was gorgeous.

Thoughts on Losing a Friend

I'm pretty sure I lost a friend today, a 4 year friendship, someone I would call a very good friend.

It's someone I still care about and wish well, but perhaps the friendship is either done or on pause, I'm not sure.  But time and space and leaving it alone right now is necessary.

And it's ok.

Being very honest, I have been holding onto anger and resentment towards this person, but I have also been able to have meaningful positive exchanges and good experiences with them.

Maybe I waited too long to say something?

Or maybe I waited because of the time they said something I found to be outright insulting I did say that directly and they dismissed it completely?

Maybe I waited because I knew that saying something would be a turning point in the relationship and I needed to be ready for that?

I do think we rub each other the wrong way sometimes but the positives outweighed the negatives, to me at least.

The issue I have with them is mostly about their pattern of pain-comparing in a way that minimizes mine in order to emphasize their own. Mostly they do it (often) when complaining about their job- they need to bring mine up as a comparison that I don't have the workload/stress/problems/etc they have.  Two weeks ago in the office I said I was leaving at 3 and they said- out loud publicly- "I envy your workload." It comes across like they have so much to do and I don't do shit.  My job has nothing to do with theirs, not even a little bit at all. Comments and comparisons like this happen a lot. I don't like it.

So I have been right on the edge of addressing this.

But Saturday evening they called me to talk about something very painful that is happening with their brother. He is back with a girlfriend my friend can't stand and they are getting married. I practiced my suicide hotline communications model and kept the conversation 100% focused on them and their thoughts and pain and  feelings for 38 minutes before I ended the call.  All good and fine, but in that conversation they brought up something I told them a while ago about my father, when I once asked him for help in a bad situation and he turned his back on me. They brought that up just to tell me their situation was "like that but worse." 

No.

I could not let that go.

I sent an email airing my grievance on Sunday morning.

They responded like I thought they would, using my note as an opportunity to tell me things I said that they didn't like, saying I'm opinionated (which is true but unrelated).

Anyhow, I got no sense that they think pain comparison is a problem, they said I was now making their painful situation about me, and they don't have the mental space to think about how they have offended me.

Ok.

Fine.

I wished them well and that's that.

While I am sorry to lose a good friend I am glad to have this resolved one way or the other.

Terre Verte Obsessions & Blind Sculpture

Janae took me out today for a really fun day- blind sculpture and dinner afterwards!

We met at the red tree on the High Line.

I was stupid-early so obviously the only thing to do was go to Vasari.

They are having an earth sale this month.

I am in need of a Terre Verte Anonymous support group, I have had a years' long dumb magnetic attraction to tubes of naturally-sourced terre verte oil paint despite rarely actually using it. (I also have a longstanding turquoise addiction but I actually USE my turquoise variants.)

I have probably all the Williamsburgs and all the Rublevs and an Old Holland and some Maimeris and a Russian Volkonskoite one a friend sent years ago and I think some others too but those are the Important Fancy Natural ones.

I do NOT have Vasaris except for their Mesa Verde, Nancy gave me hers so many years ago.

(I miss Nancy. Last I spoke with her right before the pandemic her dementia was getting very severe.)

So anyhow I went to Vasari to check out whatever Terre Vertes they might have.

Turns out, there were three that I don't have.

I think they are somewhat recent additions to the color line because I'm positive I would have known about them. It has been 4 years since I was at Vasari.

I did specifically ask for the Nicosia, which is naturally sourced from Cypress and is a blue-leaning natural green.  Usually they are warmer or more neutral.

They had it, along with 2 others from Italy.

Of course I got all three.

Honestly I should do a Terre Verte series, I'll really have to think about that.

They make me so happy.

Tinted with Flake White

******

So I met Janae and we took pictures by the red tree on the High Line  

This would be an excellent painting spot.

And then we went to the blind sculpture thing, which as it turns out is in the same building as Vasari!

Janae did a wonderful job on hers.

I got all serious and decided to do a technical anatomy recall.

How boring and uncreative...

Janae named my head Gregory and I named hers Wilfred.

Afterwards we went to dinner at what I call the Pepper Light Place.

On 6th Street and 1st Ave there are 2 Indian restaurants that have hanging lights in a ridiculous array that hang in your face.  I don't think it is very authentic food because it is not spicy at all... but we have been coming here since the 90s and I'm glad both sides of this wacky restaurant are still in business.

East 6th street used to be completely all Indian restaurants, a lot of them closed.  The joke was there was one big oven under the street.  They all had callers on red carpets calling for people to come inside to eat. I have been to several, a long time ago, over the years and they were all good.

The Pepper Light Place is special though.

__PRESENT

So Scared

Ok so I have my intro shift on the suicide hotline tonight and we really aren't supposed to talk about it at all but I am literally terrified, it is exactly the same level of fear I had on the way to the hospital for cataract surgery and being prepped for surgery.

Yes it's going to be ok but wow yeah I am scared.

Even had anxiety nightmares last night.

That is all.