REDONDOWRITER'S SACRED ORDINARY

Hair Salon Women Gone Wild - Michael Allan Redondo Beach

When I went in to get my hair cut and colored yesterday, Sharon, my beautician (she's at your left in the back) told me that one of the patron's husband had taken a video of them and put it in YouTube. Michael Allan Salon in Redondo Beach's Riviera Village is a neighborhood salon and you never know what will be going on in any given day. 

I actually look forward to my monthly visits there. This may be one of those kinds of events that you had to have been there to get the full effect of this video. But, I know all the beauticians and the customers. I wish I had been there. 

Please Meet Chippie the Cat

There are dog people and there are cat people and then there are those people who love both. I'll admit that I only had a cat once; she walked in the door during a journal night. I named her Sufi and she stayed for a few years. My daughter and her family begged to take her home with them and she willingly went. Later she started staying at the house next door to Christy's house and wouldn't come back. I guess she was a travelin' cat.

This is a new member of my son's family--Chippie. I am feeding Chippie for a few days while they camp and just came from playing with her for a while. She was part of a litter of a momma cat belonging to the former owner of their new home. She came when she was eight weeks old and Henry immediately named her Chippie. 

To say I am smitten would be the understatement of the year. She is so small; I imagine about five pounds. Like all kitties, she is extremely playful. Tomorrow night when I go over I'll stay longer to play. 

I love that she and Cookie are the same color. She is a very friendly kitty and both Henry and Fritz carry her around like a little doll. I don't know much about cats, but do any of you know what kind of cat she looks like? 

Sophia, the Art Mannequin: Speaks Her Own Mind at Last

Finally Fran changed me out of that wedding gown! I wore the darned thing for six whole weeks while she went gallivanting around, pretty much forgetting all about me. It's really bad form to bring a mannequin into your family and then ignore her. The worst of it was that she never found a groom for me, although she says she’ll have one for me when I wear the gown next year. I can only hope it’s the James Dean full size cut-out that Fran keeps in her TV room.

If this is your first time here, I’m Fran’s art mannequin and my name is Sophia. Fran has always loved dolls and I suppose I’m just another steppingstone to reach back into the childhood she says she would love to live over again. Fran grew up in a family that had limited money and her mom made most her clothes. She's always had a thing for fashion so I think I help her live that fantasy, too. Ironically, she dresses way too casually for my taste. 

As for me, it’s better that I stand perpetually in Fran’s living room than in the warehouse where I was kept after my last store closed down two years ago. I’ve lived at Fran’s for a whole year already and she dresses me differently each month, depending on her mood and what she finds at the thrifts and estate sales.

I lived for several years in Ultra Bettie’s vintage store in downtown Torrance and then the economy went downhill. But, there’s a story in my family that I used to be one of the mannequins in Saks Fifth Avenue in Palos Verdes; it moved away from there many years ago. My cousin Rafaela says we both used to be in the old May Co. on Wilshire Blvd. in L.A. before that. So, for a long time I was dressed in posh designer outfits and I had a sense of mystery about me, or at least that is what I’ve been told. One sales girl at Saks gave me a surprise scent every week; she worked in Perfumes. My favorite was Michael Kors and coincidentally that’s Fran’s favorite scent, too.

The thing that Fran doesn’t know, although her dog Cookie does, is that my life is a little like the toys in The Velveteen Rabbit—or the artifacts in that movie “Night in the Museum.” Fran is a very late stayer-upper, but when she finally shuts off her light between midnight and 2 a.m., I come alive. I have a lot of adventures—some in Villa Redondo where I live, but I’m also able to visit a lot of the hot spots in the South Bay.

Fran loves this brown-red wig on me best, but I have three wigs actually and many, many disguises. One of these times I’ll tell you about the time I got to go on a party boat out of Marina del Rey.

This dress is from the Redondo Beach Salvation Army and it’s actually in Fran’s size although she has yet to try it on. She says her glamour days are over, but I think she is wrong. I’m working on helping her to see herself as I see her. She’s very hard on herself.

 That's a photo of my face and my arms in what appears like an awkward position. My permanent stance does limit what Fran can dress me in. I wish I were more flexible, but this is how the mannequin factory made me. What's a girl to do? Now, when the lights go out---

So, do you have any mannequins in your family? Do you have any questions you would like to ask me? I am Sophia, and Fran says I am her own Goddess of Wisdom. 

Moments In Between: The Art of the Quiet Mind

Any book I've ever read published by Conari Press gives me inspiration and insight, but this week I received "Moments in Between: The Art of the Quiet Mind" by David Kundtz as an early birthday present from my friend Mary Lou.  

It is such a wonderful book, beautifully written with gorgeous graphics. The author refers to to "one-minute retreats that can be yours at any time of the day or night." Each entry takes one page and is very easy to read and implant in your mind. I was first introduced to space between thoughts, or the bardo, many years ago when I read "The Tibetan Book of the Dead." I've come to believe that the space between thoughts are the basis of meditation.

In this busy world, Kundtz offers a page a day to help us observe things in our lives that we might simply slip by if we haven't set intention. He asks us, for example, he suggests w go about our day noticing the rests in the rhythm of the day. 

This is not a scholarly text, but a companion to living each day more fully. 

Thanks, Mary Lou. I'm going to order some of the books from Conari for some special people I know that will appreciate it. 

Art Journaling A Novice's Practice

Many of you know that I took Teesha and Tracy Moore’s Play art journaling workshop in Port Townsend, WA three weekends ago. Teesha’s style is very distinctive, and because I am a novice, she recommended we follow her directions exactly so we would have a chance to practice all the techniques and use the mediums she introduced. We could bring in some images from home, but the majority of them were pulled from the magazines the Moores provided us. 

If you click on the link above, you will find Teesha’s directions for making this kind of journal. Mine was 20 pages long and at this point, I only have five pages completed, although I have elements pasted down on several other pages. The directions will tell you about the papers, backgrounds, binding and other instructions.

Below are four of the pages I’ve more or less completed. If you click on the scans, you can see more of the detail work. The fourth page came from an Arabic fashion magazine. If anyone can translate, I would like to know what it means. This was a real out-of-the-box experience for me and I am my own worst critic. Thus, my motto for journal keeping workshops that I conduct are on the front page:

No judgments, no comparisons, give up our need to understand. 

Local Artist Pays Tribute to Michael Jackson

I'll admit that I wasn't a Michael Jackson fan, but I did think he was a gifted musician and dancer. I was shocked by his untimely death and was surprised when so many stories swirled around the cause of his death. I even watched one of the tributes to him on TV.

But, I also knew that he was a very unusual man with unusual behaviors, but what did I base that on? What the media provided for me to judge. And now the death is being viewed as a manslaughter, the toxicology report hasn't come back, and each day something else is revealed that is more disturbing than what was reported the day before. This is the stuff of Greek tragedies.

Addiction to drugs and alcohol, or certain toxic behaviors, is very familiar to me. But, I guess I never thought about how easy it is for celebrities and/or rich people to become addicts. I bet a lot of people in the medical community are quaking in their boots at this point. Before Jackson died, I had never even heard of the drug profopol. Now it's a household word. The lowest moments post-death was watching his father, Joe Jackson, and the former business manager on Larry King's show. We all come from dysfunctional families but the Jackson family might be one of the best known at this point. How I hope his children, however they came into this world, fare well as they continue to grow.

My neighbor Jianulla is an artist and she found a way to remember the happy, talented Michael Jackson. She painted a watercolor portrait and it was juried in to the South Bay Water Color Society's current show. She, another artist friend, Orma, and I saw the show this afternoon and it is a wonderful exhibit, if you are in the area. I've decided to remember Michael Jackson as Jianulla has depicted him. My camera, by the way, did not do justice to this portrait, which was much more vivid than it shows here. But the happiness and joy is there in his face, isn't it?

A SoulCollage Birthday® for Barbara and Mary Lou

For many years,  Barbara, Mary Lou and I, have celebrated our summer birthdays with a luncheon and exchange of simple gifts. Our birthdays are within a six-week span although I’m a little older than the two of them. For the past few years, we have also started meeting sporadically to do SoulCollage® together.

So, after lunch at Jerry’s Deli today, we will go to Mary Lou’s house for our gift exchange and we’ve added a SoulCollage component.

This week I made a SoulCollage® card for the three of us which I’ve called The Divine Sisterhood and it could go in Community or Council. I will probably use it in the Council suit because our long-time friendship becomes more sacred to me as the years pass. I have made copies of this card which will be part of my gift today to each of them.

I am the one who met Mary Lou and Barbara in 1968 through the Sunday School program at St. Catherine Laboure Church in Torrance, CA.  Though our beginnings were in Sunday School, we soon found that we had a lot in common beyond Sunday School. All of us were raising young children and we began to chum around as couples. We soon found ourselves together in Christian Family Movement (CFM), a very avant garde for-then couples discussion and social action group founded in Chicago post-Vatican II. I am the one who, when I was to separate and later divorce in the mid-1980s, joined a singles CFM group in another parish, but our friendship never waned. I am the one who rarely attends the original couples CFM group, but I credit my friendships made there to be the foundation of who I am today. I am the one with three grown kids; Mary Lou and has three and Barbara has four. We are the ones with many grandchildren between us.

Barbara’s husband Dale passed away ten years ago and she has happily remarried a man named Jerry. Mary Lou and Larry will celebrate their 50^th anniversary soon. I am the one who stayed single, but wishes we all had more time to spend together. As a single person, my own life revolves mainly around a separate set of friends these days, but these two women are one of my stabilities in a constantly-changing life. I am the one who could keep a separate journal of memories of the times we have spent together. I am the one who feels extremely grateful for their friendship!

Though I feel more like saying thank you, thank you, thank you rather than ask a question of the Divine Sisterhood, I shall ask one. In the coming year, how could we meaningfully honor our friendship more regularly?

 

 

Giving Up Secrets the Mystical Way

This past week has just sped by with tasks, appointments, catching up, reading and my high continuing learning curve on the art journal. I am reading a book by Mindy Friddle, author of the Garden Angel, which I loved, "Secret Keepers." It's hard to put it down, but I'm trying to balance a lot of the tasks on my "to do" list and I'm rationing and keeping track of time spent on each. I have a tendency to become totally immersed in some task and then I leave everything else behind. Or, I hop all over the place and don't get anything done. So, I've been neglecting the blog.  

But, here's the heading in one of the sections of "Secret Keepers" along with a photo picked at random from my 9,000 iPhotos that reminded me of little boys and secrets. The guy in the middle is my grandson Fritz.

"Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough." 

----- George Washington Carver

Going to the Dogs in Redondo Beach

For dinner tonight I met my friend Chris and her new rescue dog Maggie (who Chris has dubbed a chihuahua-poo) on the sidewalk in front of La Playita Mexican Restaurant in the Redondo Beach Riviera Village. The weather is idyllic, to say the least, and there are lots of people in the Village and at the beach. This is Chris and Maggie. This kind of weather is what California is famous for. 

Dogs are incredible ice breakers when you are out in public, so many people stopped by to talk including a lady who is looking for homes for three chihuahua-Jack Russell Terrier mixes. Chris stopped then and there and made a phone call to a friend who is looking for a small rescue. 

When I got home, the sun was just setting and I took Cookie out for a walk. Only yesterday I serendipitously met some next-door townhouse neighbors whom I've never met before because they were so interested in Cookie, her breed, her markings, her characteristics. Here is Cookie on her walk tonight. 

I was sharing the history of the building of our two townhouse complexes on the site of what used to be the Seventh Day Adventist Church, but referred them to our across-the-street neighbor who is active in the Redondo Beach Historical Society and has lived in her house since 1970. She has photos I've scanned before of when the church was still here, so the couple were going to introduce themselves to our other neighbor today. 

How I love this going-to-the-dogs synchronicity. In actuality, because I've been hyper-aware of time each day lately, I could make a large list of synchronicities. How about you? 

Back in Sync in Redondo Beach

I got home from Washington on Tuesday night and so far I have not been able to get back to my art. In fact, I feel a little bit like this octopus and I don't even go back to paid work until August 4. Lots of odds and ends we all have to accomplish when we're traveling seem to make time speed by.

By the way, this is an octopus sculpture in the Port Angeles, WA harbor. He has fascinated me for the past few years. I'm trying to take photos every day at home just like I do when I travel.

A LIST OF REDONDOWRITER STUFF IS GRATEFUL FOR

• I came home to a very happy dog, dear Cookie. She was cared for by my family; at least one of them slept over every night.  

• The So Cal weather is spectacular, but I've had little time so far to bask in it.   

• I completed my Mac Users Group newsletter (SBAMUG) and sent it on to the proofreader. That's always a load off my shoulders. I'm using Mac's Pages for this newsletter and love the application.

• I've completed all my laundry, grocery shopped, returned several phone calls, opened mail, paid bills, run errands, read e-mail, and am finally posting this extremely mundane post to Sacred Ordinary. But, almost everything is sacred ordinary to me these days. 

• I drove to the Hilton Hotel at the Anaheim Convention Center this afternoon to visit a friend who is attending the Episcopal Annual Convention. It was good to reconnect--and there was Disneyland right next door. Have a good trip home, Ann.   

• The freeway was open at 1:30 p.m. and again at 7 p.m. when I returned home.   

• I will have time tomorrow to do some art. Hooray! And I promise to visit your blogs more regularly now that I am home again.