Here's what we managed to get done in the short amount of time we were at home...
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZcartbeforethehorse
Yes, we've been living at the baseball field it seems. Our son's team has been playing a tournament all weekend, so he has several days worth of sliding documented on his uniform. No time to wash it...just send him through the sprinklers between games.
During the brief moments when we were at home, I swear I could hear the art on the walls talking...or arguing, to be more precise. It sounded something like this...
"Well, I'm a hand-made, one-of-a-kind original." (Nose in the air)
"Oh yeah, wise guy? Well, there's a hundred of us, so I'd button up that hood a little tighter if I were you."
Back and forth, back and forth...until finally we decided that we need to separate these two camps.
We've set up a new eBay account that will strictly be for reproductions of our art, such as prints and other "Buy It Now" items. We're calling it artbeforethehorse, and it should be up and running within the next few days. It's empty right now, but should be fully stocked within the next couple days.
Thanks for listening, my friends.
-Dylan
We really make very few pieces that don't end up on eBay. There's a painting Jo did of a skeleton that's strategically hung in our bathroom to cover a hole in the wall, but that's about it. We spent the better part of this week working on some portrait dolls of famous composers for some family members who are big fans of their music. Since these pieces won't be on eBay, I figured that I'd put a couple pictures of them in the newsletter. Here's Igor Stravinsky...
And here is Aaron Copland...
I miss the Muppet Show. When I was really young, The Muppet Show was my measurement of time.
"How many Muppet shows until we get there, mom?"
"Six more Muppet shows, Dilly-Duster."
I've told you too much now.
-Dylan
and Happy Father's Day to all the dads in the crowd!
The newsletter is going out on the ticker tape a little late this week. We're just returning from camping...or something resembling it. Our son's baseball tournaments will be taking us on more of these outdoor adventures soon. When I say "camping," some of you are picturing backpacks and babbling brooks....but it was the other kind of camping. The kind with the babbling neighbors. If you haven't sampled this form of outdoor living, just picture a parking lot full of people and cars full of junk. Now sprinkle in a few trees and don't change your clothes for three days.
To help me sleep, I brought earplugs. They did manage to filter out a few beer fueled stories, but they gave my head the sensation that it was slowing expanding like a balloon. I discovered that the only way to get a good night sleep in a camp ground is to be so exhausted from your first night's sleep in the campground.
Our son's team played incredibly, and it was a pleasure to watch him and his friends, all of them teetering on the edge of adolescence, still playing like a bunch of little boys on and off the field.
I spent a lot of my spare time reading a book that my great grandfather wrote about my grandfather, who died young before my mother or her sister could know him. The book was written to them in bedtime story length chapters. Maybe these newsletters will some day be read by my great grandson.
"Hiya, Tom!" You see what I just did there? I just forced them to name him whatever I wanted... and I say that the world could use another Tom.
-Dylan
Jo and I went our separate ways this weekend. Jo and her mom took our daughter to Body Worlds in Portland to celebrate our baby girl's 15th birthday. If you're not familiar with Body Worlds, it's an exhibit that features real human corpses that have been preserved and posed to show all of the muscles and other innards normally hidden under the skin.
I wish I could have gone. I was looking forward to wandering around the exhibit eating a drumstick. Our son and I had other business: baseball. We camped for two nights in a little beachside campground so that he could play four tournament games. Camping was easier for me this time around having learned what not to forget last week. But our boy still has packing issues. I drove him crazy before we left asking him over and over if he had all of his baseball stuff. He assured me (while rolling his eyes) that he had everything. But as he was dressing in the tent, I kept hearing, "uh-oh." He forgot his team sweater, his long sleeve under shirt, and his belt. I had to buy a men's adjustable belt on the way to the game, as well as a pair of scissors to cut it down to size for his skinny little waist. Next time I'll do his packing myself.
-Dylan
Well, friends...I'm beat. Earlier this week I went swimming in the creek in my wet suit and a pair of flippers that I nabbed at the thrift store. My daughter was snapping pictures as usual to document my every move. These pictures, along with the scale in the bathroom, convinced me that I need to drop about 30 pounds. Rather than cutting off my head, I've begun to run up this nearby logging road twice a day. It's pretty steep and really gets the heart thumping. In the past I've seen coyote, deer, elk, and a porcupine up there. So if I ever fall to my knees clutching my heart, there will be plenty of critters for me to send for help.
"What's that, girl? Dylan's in trouble?"
-Dylan
For a month now we've been traveling out of town every weekend for our son's all-star baseball tournaments... sleeping in tents pitched by our old Volvo wagon at night, and debating the precise location to place our folding chairs by day. Balancing shade and a good view of the game is a dying art form.
We come home each Sunday more exhausted than the week before. I laid catatonic on the couch this evening watching the reflection of the TV in a mirror I held on my chest. Turning my head to see the actual TV would have been out of the question.
Last week I mentioned that our daughter had taken some unflattering pictures of me as I swam in the creek. I've received numerous requests to share these pictures with you. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm afraid that flash photography is not permitted inside this exhibit. However, I do appreciate everyone's efforts to share in my humiliation. I'd have done the same.
But perhaps these newsletters do need a face, so I'm sharing a drawing our daughter did of me on a page from an old book.
-Dylan
Another baseball season has come to a close for our son. This one ended dramatically with one of his friends hitting a homerun in the last inning to give them a much needed victory. That hit also marked the end of camping for the Curry family this year. We were in the car and heading for our own beds at home before the ball even landed. Two nights ago we laid awake in our tents at one in the morning trying to ignore a nearby game that seemed to revolve simply around rolling some dice and laughing. Last night pushed the boundaries of sleep deprivation even further with the help of a crying baby that sounded like a hand cranked air raid siren with odd pauses of silence. "Jo...what is that?" I whispered.
"It's a baby."
"Well...what are they doing to it?"
It seems that I wasn't fully awake, and unable to wrap my mind around this noise. I pictured them stretching the baby out like a gummy worm and passing it back and forth like a football. When I told Jo the next day what my exhausted mind had hallucinated, she wondered why I hadn't then taken action to save the baby from such treatment. It's really a no win situation. If I had jumped into heroic action, I'd have gotten, "What were you thinking?"
And I'd have been hard pressed to explain it.
-Dylan
Harry Potter has kidnapped my wife and daughter! Ever since the last installment of the Harry Potter series came out, I haven't seen any of the females that usually walk the floors here at the Curry house. They've been sitting silently under reading lamps, dead to the outside world. Our daughter slept in today until 2 PM, having closed the book and her bloodshot eyes at 4 AM this morning.
Our son and daughter actually went to a Harry Potter party at the library Friday night, where the book was sold after midnight. It's tradition at these things to dress up like characters from the books.
I tried to talk my daughter into going as Yoda, but was unable to convince her.
"Out of place I am."
-Dylan
I took my kids to a hidden beach this week. The beaches here are never really crowded. If you can spot 50 people in a one mile stretch on the beach, then the locals are sure to complain about all the tourists in town. But you're not likely to find any footprints at all on our hidden beach. You have to walk a LONG way up the beach towards what looks like an impassable cliff that juts out into the water. Once you're there, it's a good idea to knock the sand off your shoes so you don't slip as you jump from rock to rock, climbing over pools of water that hold hundreds of sea anemones and starfish. As you turn the corner you'll spot the beach, which you'll have to make a run for in between waves. The beach has no sand on it and is covered entirely with smooth rocks and pebbles. The waves going out across them sound like a rain stick. There's a small cave you can walk in where your eyes will slowly adjust to reveal giant potato bugs crawling on the walls.
Shattering the notion that we alone knew about this beach, we did run into one fellow human out there. He was an obviously active old man that spent his time meticulously lining up marshmallows on logs for the uninterested sea gulls. He adjusted his suspenders almost neurotically as he waited for the feeding frenzy to begin. All the way back to our car we saw his handiwork sitting untouched on logs along the beach.
-Dylan
Here's our eBay auctions...
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZcartbeforethehorse
Much to tell, much to tell. If you're on the fence about whether or not you want these newsletters, now's a good time to turn back. This here's bound to be a long one.
We just got back from five days of vacation in Seattle. We met my Floridian parents there to explore the city together. We caught an Amtrak train in Salem, which was a new experience for our kids. Our son is a worrier sometimes about how things will be. "If one of us has to sit by a stranger, I don't think it should be me." he announced. He once postponed seeing a movie because the people in line for the same movie looked "chatty."
But we ended up with four seats facing each other together, so strangers weren't a factor. My eyes were glued to the passing scenery, and I went into what Jo calls "tree mode." Apparently, I'm not much company when we're traveling. I was just transfixed by the abandoned barns and decaying buildings that hugged the railroad tracks, which were at one time in the hub of modern life.
My parents picked us up in Seattle in a rented minivan with New Jersey plates. They give you out of state plates, I suppose, so that the locals will extend extra courtesies and guidance while visiting their town. My dad used to drive a cab in Washington D.C. almost forty years ago during college. I guess these big cities bring those nearly forgotten skills out in him. He fought for the right of way and kept the pedestrians guessing. I had a hard time convincing my right foot that there wasn't a brake on the passenger side, and Jo had a hard time convincing herself that she wasn't about to die.
We did in fact live and had a great time. We took the ferry across Puget Sound and explored the various islands there. We went to an art museum where I abandoned the audio tour device around my neck to just follow Jo instead. Apparently, she paid close attention in college as an art major and remembered everything. No stuffy explanations from her... "Oh, DeCooning was a jerk! He really hated women. Look how he makes them all look so hysterical." We also took in a Mariners game at Safeco Field. Our son danced like a mad buffoon for ten minutes in an attempt to get on the big screen. No luck.
Both of the kids got to try out some new contortionist moves back at the hotel playing a game called Knotted Navigators, which my mom designed to teach geography to students. Jo took some pictures of them playing it for possible publicity shots.
The train coming home was delayed three hours, so we rolled up our driveway at 1 AM Tuesday morning. We had an incredible time in Seattle, but I don't think it will ever lure this country mouse into living there. I like the slow pace of our little coastal town. If someone here honks at you, they're probably just waving hello.
-Dylan