Catching Up (part 2)

A few additions to the “What’s been going on?” post from last time. Less art, more airplanes…

… Miss You, Mad Dog! …

Back in May I went with John on his last trip as captain of the McDonnell Douglas MD-88, lovingly known as the “Mad Dog.” Delta had been planning to retire the fleet at some point, but with covid rendering air travel almost non-existent this spring, they retired early. It made me so sad. This was the plane John was assigned to fly when he first got to Delta, and he loved it because it was so old school: computers didn’t fly it, pilots did. You had to pay attention to the plane, not listen for electronics to tell you what to do. It had cable-and-pulley surface controls and, at over 72 feet from nose to mains, the one of the longest wheelbases of any currently active airline aircraft. In his farewell announcement over the p.a. John even said, “If you want to make an MD-88 captain nervous, ask him or her to turn around on a runway.”

The Mad Dog was quirky, made you a better pilot, and it took a unique personality to enjoy flying it. John was one of those. I’m glad I got to be with him on that trip, as surreal as it was with masks and a practically empty plane. He’s now flying the 737 and it’s fancy and just not the same.  And the tail cone won’t fall off if you accidentally pull the lever that looks like the emergency staircase release… sigh.
Miss you, Mad Dog!

… BROKEN TOE …

On that trip, I happened to stub my pinky toe so badly on a hotel room chair that I could not wear my shoe on our flights home. I could barely even walk. I used my spinner suitcase as a rolling cane and after a while couldn’t even do that. John wound up pushing me around in a wheelchair. What fun! A handsome guy in a uniform taking me places. (I could get used to that.) After another week of my toe still hurting, I went to urgent care for x-rays and found out it had a tiny fracture. I got a surgical boot which totally helped and it took a good month and a half to be able to wear a shoe again. It’s the first bone I’ve ever “broken.”

… FLYING …

Last fall, John took the Starfighter apart so that he could strip the paint off, clean and inspect everything, replace worn parts, repaint it, and basically have a new airplane once it went back together. This summer the painting part was mostly finished (there was a lot of infrastructure to construct: a painting booth in the hangar, tools and equipment to buy, figuring out a way to get water up to the hangar, etc etc) and now things are slooowly going back together. More about this crazy project in another post.

In the meanwhile we are flying the Champ when we can…

… with several trips to the nearby Urbana airport diner for picnics on the tarmac.

I count my blessings daily.

Catching Up (part 1)...

Ooof I know it’s bad form to start off a blog post saying, “It’s been awhile!” but I don’t care. It has been awhile. I think I just needed some time off from feeling like I HAD to post something. Some of you have texted or emailed to ask if I’m okay—I haven’t been on social media either—and I appreciate your reaching out. It did make me realize, though, that I do miss my blog and keeping in some sort of touch with the world.

I haven’t been feeling terribly creative lately, especially after the show came down a year ago, and I could chalk it up to covid and the election bizarre-ness but I think those are surface reasons, not what’s underneath. Really, I think it’s that I’m changing, and I’m in that wait-and-see phase. I’m just kinda wondering how long it will last, because it feels like it’s taking forever.

Anyway, here are a few bits and pieces of news from the last year…

… Pippin! …

I sooo want to start with my favorite piece of news: We now own a horse :-) I don’t know quite how this happened. I used to ride when I was a kid, and then on and off again when I could over the years. Last fall I started taking lessons again and knew it was something I didn’t want to give up this time. I knew I wanted it to be a bigger part of my life. The thought of riding more than once a week on a “school horse” crossed my mind and I started poking around online (which came naturally during spring lockdown, right?) Well... a few months later and there was a horse in our lives. He’s a rescue, he’s an Arabian, he is this girl’s pony-dream come true. We named him Pippin. What I love is that John loves him just as much as I do and he has spent a lot of time at the barn with me.

More to come about this whole new adventure, because it was NOT an easy start. In fact, I’ll probably start a different blog just for Pippin’s story. Stay tuned.

… GCAC WRITING GRANT…

I say I’m not being creative but that isn’t entirely true. Earlier this year I received a professional development grant from the Greater Columbus Arts Council (thank you, GCAC!!), but with all the covid closings, workshops were being cancelled and I didn’t really want to take a Zoom art class. They graciously allowed me to extend the deadline and work on my writing instead. I am thrilled to be working one-on-one with Janet Flora, the writer I’d taken a workshop with in NYC a couple years ago (read about my day in NYC here). Janet sparked my interest in writing personal essays, and I am plugging along, very grateful to the GCAC for funds to make this possible! I’ve gone through all the usual writing ups and downs, including wondering if I really want to write—why is it so hard to sit down and do it sometimes?—but Janet threw a great Dorothy Parker quote at me which I’ve pushpinned to my wall: “I hate writing; I love having written.” Part of my “homework” is to get my blog going again, because it gets me thinking in words, gets my fingers moving, and gets me paying attention to even some semblance of a deadline. That’s my desk in the photo above. Sadly it is too cold to open the courtyard french doors anymore, but that’s okay, the sunshine fills up my spot in even more in the winter.

… ARTIST IN THE SCHOOLS …

Last fall and winter, until covid hit us in spring, I was a visiting artist at three different schools through TeachArts Ohio grants from the Ohio Arts Council. At Harding High School in Marion I worked with the art, craft, and photo classes on bookbinding projects. Also in Marion at George Washington Elementary, I worked with k-5th graders on basic bookbinding skills and simple book structures. Our final projects were cancelled when schools closed in March, so we put out a call for student artwork and writing in response to the pandemic and I put a Blurb-published book together for the school library to keep as a record. Take a peek HERE if you’d like to see the inside.

Also, through a separate TeachArts Ohio grant from the Ohio Arts Council, I’m still currently a visiting artist, albeit virtually, at the Ohio State School for the Blind. I’m working with students and a group of faculty on researching the history of the school and responding to it in creative ways, while also creating work based on experiences of their own currently-happening history.

Many thanks to the OAC (shout-out to Jarred Small!) and to the faculty and staff of these schools for making my first experience with TeachArts Ohio so rewarding.

Speaking of currently-happening history, it’s election day, and no matter which way it goes, things will be interesting! Stay sane, remember things that make you happy, do good in the world.

More news on the way!