Why my back will not heal

    Sibley (the blur on the left) is a pit bull/boxer mix, yet another of my son's rescues.   Sam (the jaws on the right) is a leaping loon and has been discussed at length in previous posts.  Sibley is exceedingly sweet unless she comes across a smaller dog, then she becomes a threshing machine.  They actually get along well.  The above fray, with gnashing of teeth, usually is in good fun.  The kind Cain and Abel had.
    My son is away in Istanbul, Budapest and Vienna, leaving the little dears in my care. The double leash my son supplied extends six feet in opposite directions.  Using this,I  become the object of a truck pull.  Or the rack.  Then they run laps around me as if I were a May Pole, neatly ensnaring me.  One good push and I am down for the kill.
    In anticipation of their two week stay, I purchased a combination "wacky walkr" that claims to reduce pulling.  It does keep them abreast but that intensifies their ability to drag elderly objects. 

Rant

   How much backup is too much backup?  As a person who spends most of her waking hours searching for lost items, I believe in backup. I wish regular life had a search engine.   Last year I bought a 2 tetrabyte external hard drive.   (Mathematically speaking, I think that means a gazillion-willion bytes, more that a mortal could possibly use.)  I admit I was smug about my backup.  To free up space on my hard drive (I have an extraordinary number of images stored), I would just transfer files to the external hard drive and put the originals in the trash. 
   It will come as no surprise to anyone but myself that my external hard drive died.  The tech said, 'well you have backup for it, right?'
   'Back up for my backup? How could I, every damn portal on the computer is filled, where would I plug in another back up?'
   'No,' he replied, 'backed up on your computer.'  This  rapidly devolved into a bad "who's on first?" routine.
   It has not been a good day.

Minimalist Me

                         The Shape of Things #1 ©2013

    No one of my acquaintance would consider me a minimalist.  In any regard.  It is probably too late in life to try to curb my 'enthusiasms'.  The other day, Sheep Jones, a friend and an artist of the first rank, was looking at a photo of an intended subject:

I wanted to make the composition more cohesive.  I had the red of the life jacket in one, the red of the oar handle in another, and the reddish wood in the third.  But how to introduce the green into the other two?  Sheep suggested I remove the green altogether.  Remove the oars, ropes and life jackets.  Go minimalist.  Be more contemporary.
    "The Shape of Things #1" was the result.  Sheep agreed if that it doesn't sell in six months, I'm allowed to revert to detail. And if it does sell, I have to do a minimalist series.  Win win.

Unexpected Physics

It's an odd day, violent rain and a husband home, furloughed by the government shut down.  As I exercised in the basement, I listened to a Jay Mohr podcast with "E" of the band  Eels.  Turns out "E's" father (Hugh Everett) was a quantum mechanics physicist, who, at 24,  discovered the concept of parallel universes.  The theory was shot down by a contemptuous Niels Bohr in the late 50's and Everett's academic career ended.  Hugh Everett died at 51, before the parallel universes theory gained stature.   "E" never knew his father was a "physics rock star", in fact knew little about him.  Disconnected.  His search to understand his father's life and work resulted in documentary "Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives".  Like "E", I knew nothing about physics.  This film,  available on www.eelstheband.com, explains quantum mechanics in a way that even I understood.  His journey is fascinating and endearing.  Towards the end of the film, "E" finally looks through the boxes of his father's papers that have  been moldering in "E's" basement and discovers tape recordings his father made.  It's been 25 years since he heard the sound of his father's voice.  He is reluctant to listen.  He hits 'play' and hears his father talking about the theory to a visitor and, in the background, the sound of "E" playing drums in the basement.
   You never know where exercise will lead you.

Revenge of the Chipmunks

    After four months of tending the vines and fending off hordes of chipmunks, we harvested the tomatoes.  Or rather the forty percent of the tomatoes that hadn't been gnawed or dragged off to the provinces.  Victory was ours!   We gorged on the tomatoes, noon and night.   Turns out my innards are tomato intolerant.  Acutely so.
  There's a lesson to be learned here, but I'll be damned if I want to think about it. 

More than Enough

                            "The Bend, Again"  ©2013

   Years ago, I had an epiphany of sorts, courtesy of a piece in The New Yorker.  It told of a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller at the home of a very wealthy man.  Vonnegut asked if it bothered Heller that the host had made more money in a day than Heller had from all of his Catch-22 royalties.  Heller replied, 'No, because I have something he'll never have.'
   'What's that?' asked Vonnegut.
   'Enough,'  Heller answered.
   I have 'enough' but I need to remind myself periodically.  In my frenzy to sell more paintings, I have ignored Heller's message.  It isn't what I want to sell, but that I can paint.  Fifteen years ago, I was a writer.  I dabbled in art to feel closer to my recently deceased mother (herself a professional artist).  My whole life changed.  I studied at the Art League of Alexandria, never allowing myself to hope I would be good enough to make the leap.  Years of classes, encouragement and passion, drove me.  In 2006, I was juried into the Torpedo Art Center. I am a resident artist.
   Even though I grouse about nearly everything, I can write and I can paint.  And, surely, that is enough.

BATS!

The tenants called. There are bats everywhere in the Vineyard house.  The men of their family are away, and the ten women and babies are not up to shooing bats with brooms.   The animal control warden, called by the tenant, exhorted them to abandon the house. There aren't a lot of places to seek refuge in the high season of August.  Odd  things happen whenever this family rents the house. The caretaker helpfully asked them why they keep coming back.
 Replacing the ajar attic hatch would not be too much to expect from a caretaker.  But alas, ours has a bum leg and will not climb a ladder. Reputable repairmen, (though not apparently animal control agents), are loathe to wait in ferry lines to come over to Chappy.  Obama is at the other end of the Vineyard but appears to jam traffic at our end as well.  We called everyone who has worked on the house with its storied past but no one can get there for 'weeks'.
One sister in-law thought we should explain what a vital role bats play in the environment.  Did I mention that one of the tenants had previously been bitten by a rabid bat?