Watercolors—botanicals 9

Almost done with my Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon.

“Lady Monstera” and her little dog 🐶
Berries and Cyprus

I painted the center flower as one big wet boundary, but I think it might’ve looked cooler if painted each petal separately. Would’ve taken longer though!

Hamnet

Even though I was still kind of upset about Ilia Malinin’s implosion at the Winter Olympics, we went to see what I knew was going to be a real heart-wrencher of a film the very next day.

If a film gets eight Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, my husband and I are definitely going to go see it, even if we have to drive a ways and go at an odd hour like 11am.

So, off we went to Hamnet on Valentine’s Day.

All I’ll say is this (no spoilers)—it’s a real stunner of a film. The accolades are well-deserved, especially for leading actress Jessie Buckley.

I was enough of a theater kid (and theater adult) to understand that the plays of William Shakespeare have impacted the development of the performing arts like nothing else. They are singularly important.

If you’ve ever been deeply moved by a play or a painting or a song or a poem or a novel, you know the feeling of not really understanding why it hits you so close to the heart. It just does.

This film, Hamnet, is about the why.

EPIC sports fail

I have a confession to make. We didn’t have a lot going on yesterday. We met with our financial advisor in the morning. (He annoyed me by referring to Kamala Harris as Ka-MA-la—mispronouncing her name in that dismissive, racist, sexist way that Republican men do.) Once we got rid of his bald ass, I decided to settle in and watch TV for hours. I really wanted to enjoy my favorite Winter Olympics event—figure skating. Live.

The men’s finals long program was starting at 12:30 and I was psyched. My husband, who is still strapped to a chair with a polar ice machine on his knee a lot of the day, watched with me. We really got into it. Yes, there were a lot of falls, but there was a lot of gorgeous artistry and crazy athleticism too. I cried when Max Naumov, the skater from Massachusetts who lost both his parents in the DC plane crash last year, went out and skated poorly, but made it through. For him, just being there at all was Gold. It was so, so poignant.

The entire afternoon was leading up to the “Quad God” Ilia Malinin who was definitely, positively going to win the Gold Medal. There was no way he wouldn’t, especially since the other skaters had fallen so many times and he is a once-in-a-generation talent. Even my childhood idol Dorothy Hamill was there to watch.

It was approaching 5pm, so I went ahead and had a gummy, just to enhance the experience of watching this young man WOW us—LIVE. I even texted my son at work to let him know that Quad God was about to skate. Ilia looked great—so relaxed—as he skated out to win his gold.

Oh my GOD.

I have never seen such an epic sports FAIL on a bigger stage in my life. (Granted, I’m not much of a sports fan, but still.)

Just Google it.

The Olympics can break your heart, if you let them.

Watercolors—botanicals 8

Garden bouquet. I was trying to paint in the “loose boundaries” style here, but then my husband said the middle flower looked boring so I put some table salt in a few areas.
Another anonymous woman from the workbook. She is called “Lady Wisteria.“
“Lady Banana Plant” is very shy indeed!

Designs from Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon (IG: @themintgardener)

Missing white lady!!!!

I’m sorry that Savannah Guthrie’s mother has gone missing, but GOOD GOD. The media coverage is ridiculous. They actually broke into primetime Olympics coverage of the men’s figure skating—with “Quad God” Ilia Malinin on deck—to tell us that absolutely nothing had changed.

How many Native American women go missing every single year and we never hear a peep from the media about them?

While Nancy Guthrie has been receiving 24/7 coverage, it sounds like things are still really bad in Minneapolis.

Copied and pasted from “The Other 98%” Facebook page:

Minnesota is still very much under assault by Trump’s private ICE army, even after the headline friendly withdrawal of 700 agents. You would not know it scrolling through your feed, where posts from Minneapolis residents about raids, beatings and shootings keep getting flagged or buried while the national press treats the state like a backdrop instead of a crime scene. And now there are early reports that ICE agents may have killed yet another person, adding to the sense that this crackdown is only getting deadlier, not winding down…On the ground this does not feel like “enforcement,” it feels like an occupation that has simply swapped helmets. The numbers have not really drawn down, they have just changed tactics, leaning harder on pre-dawn home raids, unmarked vans, so called “collateral” arrests of bystanders and courthouse stakeouts meant to snatch people when they show up to comply with the law.

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On the bright side:

Randy Rainbow’s latest is a real gem—a perfect Ode to the Sycophants. 😂

Last weekend my church raised over $2,500 for a local non-profit social service organization that supports refugees and immigrants with a fantastic concert by Emma’s Revolution. We also raised $4,500 to buy a used car for a hardworking immigrant family from Afghanistan that several church members know.

Letting go of anger

How do you let go of anger when you feel—very strongly—that you are owed an apology, but you know it will never come?

I think trying to “be the bigger person” too soon was a mistake. It made me more angry.

Thoughts on Super Bowl LX

Coincidentally, I’m LX too—same as the Super Bowl.

Last night was a bummer for Pats fans, but hey…nobody ever expected them to make it to the Super Bowl this year. It’s just too bad they were never really in the game. Husband disappointed, but not crushed.

On the bright side, Bad Bunny was awesome. I closed the activity ring on my Apple Watch dancing along. No, I didn’t understand most of the Spanish, but I liked the vibe. My favorite part was the ending where they came dancing straight towards the camera flying all the flags of the Americas.

“The only thing more powerful than hate is love” was the message on the screen above the flags.

It definitely felt like a big F U to Trump and ICE and all that they represent—white nationalism, hate, fear.

And apparently Trump took it like that.

It’s rich that a man who has been credibly accused of raping a 13-year old is complaining that salsa dancing is too “disgusting” for children to watch.

I took my family to Puerto Rico in 2016, because I really wanted to see it. We liked it a lot. Ahead of that trip, I tried to learn some Spanish with an online language learning program through my library. I gained a lot of words, but no real fluency. I did the same thing before a trip to Mexico.

Bad Bunny made me want to give it another shot at some point.

My kids and me on a street in San Juan in 2016
A very hot kitty resting in a tree trunk in Old San Juan in the summer of 2016
A stop on the way to El Yunque National Rainforest in Puerto Rico

Final thought: Brandi Carlile did a beautiful version of America the Beautiful—it would make a much better national anthem.

Watercolors—botanicals 7

This headless design is called Lady Sweet Pea in my workbook.
Poppies
Blueberry branch. I think this is my favorite page in the workbook so far. I really like how the blueberries came out.

Designs from Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon (IG: @themintgardener)

Today is my husband’s 64th birthday, which is significant to GenX and older because he’s officially reached the Beatles definition of old age:

“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I’m sixty four?”

Also, I hear there’s football a game going on during a Bad Bunny concert tonight. 😉

Go Pats!

Yes or No

I asked ChatGPT two Yes or No questions. I was pleasantly surprised by its honesty and inability to dodge.

After that, I got carried away:

Is Donald Trump racist? Yes or no answer only.

Yes

Is Donald Trump a sexual predator? Yes or no answer only.

Yes

Is Donald Trump a liar? Yes or no answer only.

Yes

Is Donald Trump senile? Yes or no answer only.

No

Is Donald Trump unfit to be President? Yes or no answer only.

Yes

Is Donald Trump self-dealing? Yes or no answer only.

Yes

Is Donald Trump a narcissist? Yes or no answer only.

Yes

Is Donald Trump a traitor? Yes or no answer only.

No

Is Donald Trump stupid? Yes or no answer only.

No

Is Donald Trump making the world less safe? Yes or no answer only.

Yes

Is Donald Trump bad for the US economy? Yes or no answer only.

Yes

Thursday Doors—Milan’s Duomo

With the Milan-Cortina Olympics about to start, we’re going to be seeing many shots of Milan’s iconic Gothic-style Duomo.

This reminds me that I visited Milan in 1985 with my friend Julie during our semester abroad in Italy. We climbed up to the rooftop terraces of the Duomo. Back then, you didn’t need reservations or special tickets to go up.

I love it when photographic evidence of my foggy memories actually exists!

Here’s a photo I took of Julie taking a photo through a doorway atop the Duomo in Milan 40+ years ago. Julie is a great photographer so I’m sure she got a wonderful, artistic shot. But I like my pic too. Her red coat looks cool. And you can see some of the over-the-top decorative elements of the roof. Those endless spires remind me of wet, drippy sandcastles.

Posted for Dan’s Thursday Doors.