I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.  Sharkey is a remarkable little dog.  It’s not often that you find a dog that will allow you to pose her, dress her, and photograph her endlessly, much less a Jack Russell.  But when you point the camera her way it’s as if she just knows to pose.

This dog has great patience, and a powerful faith in me.  I don’t think, as a dog, that ‘faith’ is something upon which she meditates.  But she trusts me to care for her and love her, and in return I have her undying devotion.

Sharkey brings a smile to most everyone she meets.  I take these ridiculous photographs because it makes people laugh and brightens their day.  Emails come through daily that relate what a horrible day someone has been having and how Sharkey’s photo made them laugh.  I take great joy in those small moments because it’s a privilege to share the smiles that are a routine part of my day.  I believe it was Mark Twain who said:  the best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer someone else up!

I’ll be posting these free e-cards every now and again for you to share!  So – take this and mail it to someone you know that may need a smile or a laugh today.

Cheers!

Sharkey and Susan

Finally mom moved into action and we all walked down the hall past the galley style kitchen to the bathroom and then three rooms in a row.  None of them had ceilings – too much mold would grow without significant air circulation.  Everything was open to the dark beamed roof above us.

As we made our journey back to the other side of the house we heard what seemed to be a knock at the front door.  Expecting that perhaps the neighbors had stopped by to see the new residents Dad opened the door with a smile on his face and looked about.

“Hm, nobody there,” he said shrugging his shoulders.

We began to unpack our meager belongings.  We’d have very little until our crates arrived from the mainland.  Suddenly again… BANG.. on the front door.  Dad traveled down the hallway along the open screens and checked outside the door again.  As before, nobody was there.

Mom and Cathy began to make the beds and Eric and I peeked under every piece of furniture, into every drawer in the kitchen and even opened the refrigerator.  We wanted to know everything about this strange new place.  Dad began pulling up the canvas ‘sails’ that covered the screens for privacy at night.  It was a big job as there were twenty of them along the front of the house and almost as many along the back.  As he was tying another down we heard it again.  BANG.  Eric and I raced to the door and threw it open.  There was nobody in sight.  The concrete porch was narrow with strange looking tropical vegetation on either side.

“Maybe something is hiding in the plants,” Eric exclaimed with wide eyes.

We quickly shut the door least whatever it was that was hiding there leap out and eat us alive.

Suddenly there were multiple bangs at the door.  It sounded like rocks being thrown by more than one person.  We could tell Dad was mad now, probably suspecting some prank by kids.  He threw the door open wide and ducked just in time to miss an enormous rhinoceros beetle on a trajectory straight for his head.  As it flew into the room and landed on the floor Eric and I screamed in horror.  We’d never seen such a giant insect in our lives.  They were flying everywhere and aiming for the porch light.

“Jack, shut the door and turn off the light,” Mom yelled.

Dad slammed the door and switched the light off.  The banging stopped almost immediately but we still had one errant prehistoric beast in the middle of the room trying to launch its way up to the overhead light.

We didn’t have a broom or a mop or anything to get the offensive insect out of the house.  Dad finally took off his shoe and scooted it out the back door.  This was a fairly monumental accomplishment since Dad’s idea of camping was to go to a hotel and leave the room door open.  Experience with bugs and nature was not his forte.

We all looked at each other, heaved a mutual sigh of relief, and wondered what this small island would hold in store for us the next day.

I realize we all have different beliefs and different opinions about greater and higher powers.  My particular conviction is, that for me, God has a plan, and I’ve spent very little of my life actually listening to what that plan might be.

My life has been interesting, full of adventure, excitement, tragedy, and accomplishment.  Happiness, satisfaction, and peace?  Not so much.  I have had more lows than highs, more failures than triumphs.  I often ask myself why this seems to be and I’ve taken the better part of five years to really sit down and analyze why so many of my decisions have ultimately led to unhappiness.

I always took pride in the fact that I could overcome massive obstacles to get what I wanted.  I didn’t consider that those obstacles being thrown in my way might be telling me that this is ultimately not the correct path to take.  I never even considered that what I wanted might not be what I needed.  My emotions always played too big a part in my decision-making, thus rendering heartache and unhappiness in the end result.

Sitting back and waiting has never been a forte of mine.  It’s been difficult to let opportunities go by without acting upon them knowing I could make a success of the venture.  It’s been equally problematic to sit tight and wait for that inner voice to let me know that I’m ready to make a decision, head a certain direction, or to stay right where I am.  The voice is even more difficult to recognize when I’ve ignored it for half a century.

The past five years have yielded a new direction, and new perspective on how anybody can rationalize what he or she might want with excuses and/or justification to defend what they feel they need.  Often the more we struggle with a decision the more our God or Universe is telling us that this isn’t the way to go despite the cheering squad around us telling us to ‘just do it’ and ‘don’t worry.’  Bad advice from people who mean well but have no clue.

In this particular time of transition in my life “sit back and wait” has become my mantra rather than “go forward and conquer!”   I’m blossoming from the female version of Attila the Hun – a force to be reckoned with – to a lesser insightful form of Yoda.  I must unlearn what I have learned.  Wait I will.

I was truly shocked to find that 50% of the spices in my cupboard were housed in plastic, and not only that, plastic that was full of BPA’s or bisephanol A, a chemical used in making plastic of all kinds that is known for it’s ill effects on the human and animal endocrine system.  And to top it all off, if you’re like I am, some of those containers had been around for years and years giving those spices time to really absorb everything cancer causing out of that plastic.  So every time I cooked I was adding a not-so-healthy dose of BPA’S directly into my food source.

I also found some spices in metal tins; much preferable to the plastic unless they are dated ’1989′ and ’1974′ as were the ones I fished out of the bins and shelves.  And just as a frame of reference – I didn’t graduate from high school until 1975 and we all know how long ago THAT was!  Spices retain their flavor if they are fairly fresh -  these were probably harboring all sorts of moldy spores of one kind or another.  I estimated that 70% were past their usefulness.   In all I found 147 spice containers.  It was time to purge in a very big way.

So I began with a few rules of thumb.  Anything in plastic over a year old went in the garbage.  Those spices I had that were in plastic but purchased recently were transferred to glass containers and labeled appropriately.  The old, or should I say, ANCIENT (and I mean so ancient the Egyptians probably used them in their mummy making), spices also went in the garbage.  I had made an effort in the past twelve months to purchase organic spices in glass containers, so I did have quite a good supply of those on hand.

I did find some spices in glass containers that had an expiration date that far exceeded the average life of a dog, and some that were so old no expiration date was even present.  I dumped the spices out of those jars and washed the glass, and saved them for future use.  Unfortunately the plastic caps on almost every single one of these jars had to remain, but I will replace them as they are used up with organic product in glass jars with metal caps.

It took approximately 2 hours but the final result: an organized spice cabinet without a single plastic container present.  Everything is re-usable thus eliminating future plastic waste and less exposure on a daily basis to the ill effects of BPA’s in my diet.

We left Los Angeles, and I must say, as a child I really had no idea why we were taking such a journey, but I embraced it with enthusiasm, an enthusiasm I still have today for new adventures.  Pan Am gave us these great little square carry-on bags and each of us had our own stash of ‘things to do’ on the plane. We had a flight from LA to Hawaii and a layover there of several days so that we could explore.

As our plane circled the little island of Samoa I can remember Mom and Dad being very worried that it didn’t have enough room to land.  From the air we could see that the runway ended with an abrupt drop-off into the sea, and from our birds-eye view it looked very short indeed.  Mom gripped the edge of her seat in fright and we all wondered if our adventure would be over before it started.  I was too young to really be afraid but when I look at the photos now I’m certain I’d need a bag to throw up in if I flew there today.  As we landed at Pago Pago (pronounced pahngo-pahngo just to set the record straight) and disembarked onto the tarmac, we were first struck by the humidity, and secondly by all the friendly people waiting for us with lei’s and flowers.  Tired, hot, and completely overdressed in our ‘palange’ finest (palange is the Samoan word for anybody who isn’t Samoan) we were met by the man who was to be Dad’s vice-principal at Leone High School and we drove to what was to be our home for the next two years.  Little did we know that we were literally driving from one runway to another as our little compound of houses was built on the old air force runway from the second World War. Known then as Leone Airfield, it was a secondary strip to the larger Tafuna Airfield, which is today the International Airport. Nine months were spent constructing the runway, which may have the distinction of seeing the least use of any in the Pacific!  Only two planes ever landed there.

As we approached the house we were all a little dumbfounded.  It only had two walls.  It was a long narrow rectangle with cinder blocks on each end.  The long sides were covered with screens that had canvas ‘sails’ that you raised by pulling them up by a rope and tying them to a wooden rail down below for privacy or to keep the rain out.  You could see straight through all five houses.  There was no carpeting, and all the closets were open as anything enclosed mildewed quickly.  There was, however, a front and back door, rather sturdy as compared to all else, but they were painted a lovely aqua sort of blue and looked pleasant enough.  It was furnished with furniture that had seats woven of coconut jute, a few mats on the floor that were made from the palm fronds.  Out the back screens we saw nothing but dense jungle with the heads of tall palm trees looming at us from above.  We could hear the roar of the ocean somewhere beyond the tangle of palms, breadfruit trees, vines, flowers, and papaya. 

What we didn’t know at the time was that we weren’t the only occupants living within those two walls.

The glass on the boards.

As with all artists you learn the intricacies of your medium if you want to be as outstanding as you can.  Blending paint, brush technique, color, texture, and style are all part and parcel of being creative.  An artist will continue to progress and perfect as they grow and challenge themselves.  The same is true with glass.  As different light changes the

quality of a painting so it goes with glass to an even greater degree.  Glass has two major qualities – how it reflects with and without light behind it, which drastically alters the ‘picture’ at any given moment.  In varying lesser degrees the quality or brightness of the light shining through it will also change the colors, reflection and intensity of the glass.

Most don’t realize that as an artist is building a window they have no light behind the glass.  Although it’s held to the light before cutting to ensure quality, color and effect, it’s not until the window is completed that the artist can see the consequence and end product of their efforts.  An experienced glass artist will intuitively know exactly how the light will travel through the color, opacity and density of the glass. 

Here are a few photos of a window I recently created for a charitable auction.  As you can see, as the window sits incomplete on the workbench the colors and texture of the glass are completely different than when the light shines through.  It’s always a great surprise to the glass artist when that window is complete, so different from a painting or the shape of pottery where the steps toward ‘finished’ are seen along the way and the end product is a known entity.  Notice the difference in the mountains and the haircoat of the elk in particular.

The Kit Faragher Foundation: The Faraghers are exceptional people, wonderful friends and started this foundation in honor of Kit Faragher, whose life was lost in the disaster of 911.  As with the completion of a stained glass window you never know how the light will shine through and illuminate the world when your life is complete.  For more information about the scholarships this organization provides and to donate you can follow this link: http://www.kitfaragherfoundation.org/