Back east, missing blooms

Shir took me to the Japanese Garden after a lovely outdoor breakfast on Sunday. YAY. Lots of people, though our favorite was when we were leaving and heard a child yell as he ran into the garden, "The sooner we go in, the sooner we can leave!!"

We had a bit of a time figuring out what to do for eating afterwards and ended up back in St. Johns and back at Proper Eats after a few missteps. Emily met us and then we went over for one final walk-through in the gallery before I packed my things and we took Shir's dog for a walk. I was sad to say goodbye to her at the airport, though we were both really exhausted from the last two weeks.

[These are TINY.] I did ask for a pat down at the airport because I had plenty of time and find those backscatter rape-y scanning things really demeaning. Then I became the super high maintenance person and asked for a private screening on top of that. It was kind of like a light massage because the PDX TSA folks are much milder and nicer than back east, and I got an older woman who kept repeating herself and it didn't feel invasive at all. So nice to have some quiet time in the airport!

Here, I'm practicing the pose I learned from Marci last week. The piece reminds me of a story Shir told me about a guy who came into the show when I wasn't around. He was struck by the little woven things and said that when he was in jail, the men would make toilet paper flowers dyed with food for their ladies back home. That was the perfect story for me to hear on my last day, and I'm not being facetious.

Here, I'm being ridiculous. The front glass doors let in a lot of light. I don't know how I survived that red-eye (or the two Benadryl I took to help me sleep, which just extended the hours of my zombie state once I landed), or all of the things I've already done in Eastern Standard Time, because I'm nearly in tears now that I see the schedule I've overbooked for myself from Thursday to August. I'm going to just keep posting pictures of blooms while I try to remember how good they smelled.

But if you want to help bring me back to the Portland area in June: I just need a few more students to guarantee that my 3-day hanji workshop runs (June 26-28). It's the first time I've gotten THREE days for this workshop, so you'll get a lot more out of it than the shorter versions, even though it seems like the same thing I've been teaching for years. I like to think it gets better every time, but you decide if you want to learn to turn bark into lace and thread, or felt paper, or make cordage and baskets and books and yarn and so on out of hanji. Spread the word! I'm not on FB but I'm sure everyone else is, so let them know.

In the meantime, taking a break to dream of flowers.