Just Around the Corner

It's just past the 4th of July, and I can sniff the beginnings of hurricanes and marching bands practicing for the fall. I have a personal request for you high school band people out there--I want to hear a version of Kelly Clarkson's " Walkaway" from a marching band on a grassy field on a warm autumn afternoon. With all the pings and heavy beats. I dare ya.

I'm finishing up a new piece, called "Backstage Pass" which may define my slightly fantastic yet colorful way of looking at underwater scenery. Just can't take the world close up. More on that soon, I will be getting prints of this one...

Ok, I'm just gonna say it. Sometimes being a military mom sucks. All the parades and the fireworks and nobody's at the table this Sunday night. Don't know if I will get to see them before the end of the year, or next year or ever. I just ache to hold them and smell their necks and run my hands over their hair. And to see them come home from work still in their uniforms tired and frustrated and proud and hungry.

I am missing my sons and daughters a whole lot. Just makes me busier. which is good, but I would trade in my brushes for an afternoon with the gang around the table..... with all the dogs, past and present. With the stormy season coming I think back on a night in Denver when Johnny Depp's "Sleepy Hollow" was on. It was raining and windy, the downdrafts were chilling through the open windows. We watched Christopher Walken ride his horse into the tree trunk and I wanted the night to go on forever. Of course, Chris and Sky probably don't remember that night, preoccupied with other things going on, but I am so glad to have had real Halloween weather and really cool kids to eat popcorn and scarify with. Life has gotten scary for real now. Wish I could eat popcorn with them now...

Hmm lotta this is about eating. hmmmm

Further Adventures!

Exciting news, People of the Spring! Manysisters is on the way to earning her tail! I went down to find out about scuba classes and get a time for possible snorkeling, when the divemaster at Weeki said how 'bout now? and I said yes! (having all my gear with me just in case, and no, I wasn't wearing flippers in the park) So I went fresh from my snorkel initiation from my husband, Chris, an aquaman from the Miami days, and happily walked the plank into the DEEP HOLE!!!!! It was gorgeous! So refreshing! COLD. and clear, so clear....the second picture is the edge of the mermaid stage. It is kinda hard for me to hold a camera still, so bear with me until I get it figured out. Lotsa material for art work! Okay, so now I have to get a great bathing suit and work on diving with the snorkel. Allen, the dive guy, may be giving Chris and I some scuba lessons in the near future. At 57 I am finding a whole new world. Right down the street! It was so beautiful, so natural, All I kept thinking was why hadn't I done this before?!

Calm down and breathe...

Men in Black (Wetsuits!)

Thinking about being underwater...I watched the new trailer for 2012 and it scared me. Really. I think it's because I have a fear of drowning. Too many sisters dunked me in the hotel pool, I guess. But that leads me to my latest heroes, the Karst Underwater Reasearch Group, or KUR. They are the people that explore the caves under Weeki and and elsewhere around the world. They are a non-profit, a far cry from the resources of NASA, and their investigations into the unknown are amazing and important. Here is a pic of Brett Hemphill and Paul Heinerth. They are the intrepid duo that go way down under the Spring and explore the rough silent regions that makeup of our water source . Their gear is complicated and bulky in those tight, sharp spaces, yet they push through and stay at great depths for hours and hours. Brett, Paul, Becky Kagan (from Liquid Productions), Walt Pickel---they are so knowledgeable about diving --they make me want to get scuba qualified . Brett spoke at length about the cutaway view of the spring, as I pumped him for info for the new art project I have been working on. Paul has actually been diving inside, yes that's INSIDE an iceberg. The water was beautifully clear from the recent cleanup. Got me a new snorkle and fins...

I wrote to DC comics and asked for some issues relating to child safety for the campers at the Children's Advocacy Center. It is so easy to ask for stuff on behalf of other people! I learned to read by studying Superman and Lois and Katy Keene. To this day, the word "origin" makes me smile when I see it. I thought it meant organ, like someone misspelled it . There was an annual Superman issue with past stories in it called "Superman's Origins" or something like that . I was so concerned about his organs after that! But that eventually led to learning about dictionaries and encyclopedias. Life, with the help of reading comic books, was good!

Okay. Gotta say it . Five puppies cloned from a German Shepherd named Trakr. Couldn't spell the name right, yet they manage to copy him FIVE times! Still, they are beautiful... Long healty lives, I say. If you wanna see, google Trakr clone puppies!

Aqua-me

Reinventing myself is fun. Today in my head I am an aquanaut. (no, not like Aquaman...orange and green are not my best colors...) More like a mental diver. Ummm still not right. Okay, like I am astrally projecting myself through the big crack that makes the Weeki Wachee Spring all bubbly and powerful and possible.

While trying to imagine what it is like to dive 178' down to the beginning of the huge cave system under US 19, I am almost drowning! In happy! I've been fortunate enough to have seen some great footage of some dives. It is mostly limestoney karsty stuff, very little in the way of fish or plants, and some very sharp edges and narrow spaces . Then when they get to the caves a whole new world opens up. Huge and mysterious. VERY deep. Dark. Unknown. These guys are like astronauts, only with the Wet Right Stuff. So brave, and careful, and calculating. And patient! the decompression takes hours of hanging around underwater. I get to meet some of them this coming week to get some question time in. I guess you'd say I am a lot like a remora, which is

any of eight species of marine fishes of the family Echeneidae (order Perciformes) noted for attaching themselves to, and riding about on, sharks, other large marine animals, and oceangoing ships.

The idea is to be able to show what that journey down to the caves might look like if you could see it from a cutaway.

And tomorrow morning, speaking of astronauts, is one of the last shuttle launches. Chris and I will be up trying to get it on camera and running around the street in our pajamas. Ok, he will be dressed. Hey! History!

Exploration is in my blood...note my son, Rocket Boy. Now he is Rocket Man. Sky, RM, is bodybuilding in Korea and learning lots about nutrition and poker. Chris Jr. just told me he will be taking a Martial Arts Instructor course for the Marines. I sleep well.....

And tomorrow, who will I be?

...it's full of stars!

For your viewing pleasure--My friend Michele T. sent me this--I had to watch it all the way through to believe it, and she was right; it is just so typical of our sense of humor. ( We go waayyyyyyyyyy back. She's just gotten back from Santa Fe and I am so jealous...last time I was there was our trip back in '75. Ask me about sleeping in a church yard sometime...

more unrelated news--so many of my friends and fam are complaining about gaining weight. So we are headed into a planetary alignment thingy and our gravity is getting suckier and causing such frustration on the scales! I hate it when we align! When we emerge on the other side of 2012 I just know I will have rid my self of at least a few pounds... Look to the skies!

And congrats to Julia Royal for sticking out the hair competition.--In the top quarter of finishers and I am so proud. Hey Jules! I need a trim!!!

So what is full of stars, you ask? Why it's Weeki Wachee! Underwater, that is. I have been checking out video that was given to me by D over at SWFWMD to use as inspiration and reference for my new project. I am looking at footage to get info from for a cutaway view of the spring. There is a scene at the beginning where you can see the rain falling into the water, like stars or diamonds. It's just as I remember it . The water was so cold and yet up top the rain felt so warm. And there was a part where the mermaids had signed their names under the stage. So amazing to get a look at that area!

Spent the morning with Lynne and Karen H. at POP, the new studio space in Bville. Lynne was creating a leathery floor with polyurethane and brown paper with Karen. I mainly complained and mopped. (so stressful, watching them work!) Then we had pizza and I left to meet Masao at the City Hall. Rhonda was not around so we went to the printers after I gave him 4 bags of cans. I make my friends recycle my stuff. So easy.

Chris, my darling, was watching the Guitar Heroes, Themselves--Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood and then my fave Eric Burdon. Burdon...wow. Now where did that guy get IT from?

I relieved him of dog watching and cuddled up with the girls. Then I proceeded to figure a way to remove DVD scratches. Toothpaste, check. DVD cleaner, check. Scratches still there, check.

*sigh* Anyone with more ideas in that direction, send me a line!?! I swear, that video is worse now...

June 10th is an interesting asteroid day as well.... Let's all get up to see the launch of one of the very last space shuttle missions on the 13. To Boldly go....

The Incredible Adventures of Julie Komenda!

Okay, so they are slightly credible, if not fantastic.

Note the Woman in the Tail...Thanks to Evie Harper's great restoration project and my thanks also for allowing my art in the park!  Dreams do come true! And the lovely people below are Myrnita, Dad, Stefi, Cory, and leni & Moi.

Today I spent the morning updating and reinstalling applications on my mac, and trying to get fingerprinted at the Children's Center.  The afternoon was spent getting fingerprinted at the Sheriff's Department (yay! it was the sex-offender's day to report!) and then off to Swiftmud to see if I could get info on the Weeki Wachee Spring.

Why?

I needed to be fingerprinted in order to work at the summer art camp and for some mysterious reason my fingertips do not appear on electronic devices. ("Tell the High Commander it's working!)  The Swiftmud thing is all about my latest project detailing the interior of the Spring and geology around it.  It's just all leading into

The Adventures of Juan Ponce De Leon, otherwise known as Ponce Upon a Time.

You know who going to discover the you know what.  Time to contact my hydrologist friend, Mr. Anderson, who is Corn Mother's Son.

Chris Jr is a certified Lifesaver !  Perseverance and persistence!  Constant Vigilance!

Sky Skyped us and he is looking wonderful and somewhat restless, if sleepy.  Some great stories and insights from him.  We discussed the passing of David Carradine, Sky having had many suicide prevention information sessions, courtesy of the USAF.  I am not buying it.  I remember the first time I saw him, in "The Longriders" .  He had his brothers with him and there was a bar fight scene in which he fought over Pamela Reed as Belle Starr.  What charisma he had!  And nobody will ever say the word "grasshopper" without me thinking of him.  Mr. Carradine will be missed.

I was shopping the other day and came across some ruby slippers.  Well, not exactly slippers, more like sparkly red loafers.  If I clicked them together three times I would probably wind up right where I am, only I would have all my family here with me, and we would be sitting at the table eating and laughing and snorting out orange juice or pepsi through our noses, such fun we would have.  If only.

2001 FE90, passing through our neck of the planetary neighborhood on June 28th....Not so close!  We hardly know you!  check it out at JPL or Nasa.  Just sayin...

Like We Never Left

I am so happy because I get to be with my sisters this weekend.  We could be meeting under happier circumstances, but just being together lifts the occasion.  How wonderful it is to be with them, to get high just from eating together!  Dad and Myrna complete the picture of this particular circle...one day I would love to have a huge reunion with a gazillion Adler sisters and kids.  The Eagles (meaning Adlers) have landed.

After several hours wrangling with Apple, I am getting a live technician in my actual office/studio to fix my Mac.  I am so relieved .  He is bringing a new optical drive thingy and some other goodies to fix this machine.  Saves me a lot of grief, and I may just record the visit for posterity.

Bandit's lesions are back again on her nose.  More meds and we will keep an eye on her.  So far she seems comfortable, but I know she may not be.  Seven years old and still awesome.  She actually got under the bed yesterday when it rained....

PAY ATTENTION.  According to Spaceweather.com, the magnetic flux stuff is higher so I am predicting even more earthquake disturbances for the upper and mid latitudes.  Say 4-5 on the Richter scale.  And there will be a Near Earth Object flyby on June 28th, the closest.  Don't ask me how I get this stuff.  It's what I do.

Birds will fly backwards, whales will beach themselves...oh wait. That's a movie.