"Jail"

Last week a grand jury reported 300 Catholic priests in 6 Pennsylvania dioceses sexually abused 1,000+ children over 70 years.  The church hierarchy hid this information and abetted the criminals.  If there are records of 1,000 children, you know there were many more who were abused but not recorded.

None of this is a surprise.  In 1993, it was known the Church paid about $50 million per year to settle such problems in America.  Between 2003 to 2010, $1+ billion was paid in settlements in the U.S.  In 2002, a U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) report showed that of 195 dioceses and eparchies in the study "all but seven have reported... allegations of sexual abuse."  Published Vatican documents bare policies of secrecy and destruction of evidence.  As recently as 2016 the Catholic Church told newly ordained bishops they didn't need to report abuse allegations to the police.¹

This isn't an American problem.  Catholic clergy has spread its abuses across the world.  Irish orphanages were filled with hideous stories of abuse, neglect, and deaths.  Canada, Africa, South America, Asia, Australia, you name it, the same stories with different children and priests with a self-interested and/or indifferent Vatican to rule it all.

It has to stop.  The priests need to be put in jail.  Catholic parishioners need to stand up and say "No more!", and the first thing I'd suggest that you do is to stop donating money.   Do you really want to pay lawyers and hush money to victims?  Jesus is crying.

I'm also looking forward to the time U.S. political traitors are put in jail.  Maybe Paul Manafort will be sentenced this week?  That's a good start, but there are more where he came from.

I was a kid during Watergate.  I rushed home from school to watch the congressional proceedings every day.  Those events have had a life-long impact on my beliefs and votes.  I suspect current events will have a similar impact on another generation.  How ironic that "Lock her up!" was a campaign rally in the last election.  Lock them all up.

At the same time, this week's prompt reminds me of heroes imprisoned while trying to make the world a better place: Jesus, Gandhi, Mandela, civil rights activists in Russia, South America, China, and America.  I admire their bravery.  Most of us aren't as brave, but we can support the heroes.  I wish for the day when these kinds of sacrifices won't be necessary because we've become a better society for all.

To lighten things up on a dour word for the week, let me tell you I'm related by marriage to the guy who designed better handcuffs.  I want to say he was Grandma's first husband who was serving time for non-payment of child support, but I feel a bit wishy washy on my facts.²  It was a long time ago and before I existed.  I think he designed them because he didn't like getting manacled with heavy irons.  I have to chuckle about his problem-solving ingenuity.

Though... it seems a little ironic that I'm writing of heroes and sacrifice when I've obviously been pretty lazy drawing this week's word.  Hey, it's summer.  And hot.  Maybe next week?  :)

¹The Vatican released these guidelines prepared by French Monsignor Tony Anatrella, consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family.  Some links you may find interesting on the topic of Catholic clergy abuse: bishopaccountability.org, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Frontline: The Silence 

²Cousins, feel free to correct me if necessary.

"Rainbow"

I've changed themes.  My first series was to think out issues in my work history.  I've moved onto romance.  This is basically a portrait through symbols.  Like the first series, all of the images are specific to me, and I made the painting for my own reasons, but now that it's done I'm curious what other people think of it.  Bro2 walked in my house the other day and burst out laughing at Darth Vader.

It would portray "rainbow" better if all the Trivial Pursuits wedges were in it, but that wasn't the point.  And maybe it would be more rainbow-like if it weren't so black, but obviously wasn't the point either.  It has all the rainbow colors and a prism, so it counts.

All of these paintings have a pretty limited palette.  Two hues each of red, yellow, green, blue, and brown.  One hue each of black, white, orange, and metallic gold.  I could do it with less if I had to, but I don't see a point in making life harder.  The quality of the acrylic paints are both expensive and cheap.  My favorite brush cost $1.  I had to break open a new one for this painting because I wore out a couple on the last series.

I met a friend for lunch and took the painting with me.  I propped it on the wall of our booth and we talked about it and other things.  The waitress came and went quite a few times before she asked why we had Darth Vader.  My friend told her I had painted it.

"Wow!  I can't paint a straight line.  I don't have any talent (imagine much more along these lines...), but this is great!  It's like as good as you can buy at Hobby Lobby!

I give my friend credit.  She didn't burst into laughter until we left the restaurant.  For those of you who don't know about Hobby Lobby, it's a store that sells really cheap arts and crafts stuff and fought against women's access to contraceptives because of the owner's Southern Baptist religious beliefs.  They were also fined $3,000,000 for smuggling religious artifacts from Iraq and Caesarea and ordered to return the items.  I won't shop at this store no matter how cheap their stuff is.

While I bemoan the fact that too many people are like the waitress and don't get the difference between a Chinese printed image on sale for $9.99 and a real painting, I do appreciate the compliment.  I'll probably always remember it (and laugh).

This incident reminds me of another time with another woman whom I had shown a painting.  I asked her how much she thought I should charge for it.  She said $20.  I asked her how much she earned per hour and how many hours did she think I'd put in the painting?  Didn't matter.  "I can buy a real print by a famous artist from the store for $20.  I was giving you a compliment!"

Thanks.  I appreciate compliments, I really do.  I'd like some money too.

But for all that, I haven't been painting these for the money (though I'd sell them if anyone gave me a good enough offer).  They are visual reminders and meditations of lessons I've learned.  I feel lighter every time I finish one.  I'm going to keep making them and looking for the rainbows within.

To give you a sense of the scale of this 16" x 20" painting, that stamp is smaller
than the USPS stamp of Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World"

"Bumblebee"

I play computer games while thinking about how much I dislike lazy people, specifically my neighbor, pushing aside thoughts of the illustration I need to finish.  I give myself freedom to procrastinate while remembering more lazy people who don't do their fair share.  I try to whip myself into writing a blog post and play more computer games.

The neighbor issue is simple.  We had a storm.  Her tree came down in her yard.  The electric company cut up the tree (free!) so they could get their equipment in to free up the line.  Tree was piled on my lawn.  I glared at the pile for a week.  The neighbor sat on the front porch for days watching other people clean up after the storm.

The night before the city's last pick up of storm damage I dragged the pile to her tree lawn.  She came out when I had the last limb in my hand to spew negativity.  The neighbor 2 doors down (2DD) cuts her back yard.  I cut her side yard.  She does nothing and the world accommodates her.  I could go on, but you get the point.  People like this make my blood boil.  I have to cut her grass and move her tree or I'll have to look at it forever with elevated blood pressure.  It's easier to mow and move the pile.

Lazy people depend on people like me and 2DD.  Why should they do anything when they don't have to?  2DD says our hypocritical church lady has never said thank you or offered him $10 for gas for cutting her grass for years.  Come to think of it, she's never thanked me either.  She's entitled.  She doesn't care if other people are put out or that her weeds migrate to our yards.  I'm not even getting into the mess of her far back yard that has wrecked the drainage for the rest of us and is a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

This is all recreational bitching over what is a recurring but insignificant inconvenience with occasional peaks of irritation which provide bonding moments with 2DD.  The greater point is that I'd like to think of people as a hive of bees, each doing what they're supposed to do for the benefit of the hive.  What do bees do when they have a lazy member?  I bet they just get on with the work that needs to be done.  I wonder if they get irritated about it too?

Sometimes I think I should keep bees, and then I discovered I'm already keeping bees since a bumblebee is living under my front step.  I suspect that if there's 1 there's probably more.  I don't know if I should be bothered by this or not?  (Please advise if you know best actions.)  The brick steps are attached to the front of the house, not really part of it.  Bumblebees pollinate the flowers and garden.  I feel only mild concern for the mail man since bumble bees are pretty mild, but I'd hate to be responsible if he got stung.

Are you lazy or a busy bee?  What do you do when you have to do the work of someone who won't do their bit?

"Dog"

I look at my curled up lump of a dog at my feet and search for inspiration.  She sighs.  An ear twitches.  She sinks deeper into sleep and twitches a foot.  I watch her belly go in and out with each breath.  That's it.  She isn't offering any more inspiration than that unless it's for me to take deeper breaths and relax too.  Course if I got up and said "Let's go for a walk", she'd be up and bouncy in a split second, which I think is pretty incredible since she's ancient.  I hope I'm doing as well when I'm her equivalent age.

I couldn't think of what to write next so I got up to refill my glass of iced tea.  I bashed the glass on the doorframe, sent glass and ice flying in a noisy crash, and my puppy lazily got up to see what I'd done.  She sniffed an ice cube and wandered outside.  The glass didn't break, thankfully.

I was making a sandwich when she came back inside.  She hovered hopefully underfoot.  I dropped a bit of cheese and pointed at it before carrying my sandwich back to the computer and everything became as it was before.  Old dogs are so easy.  We have a rhythm.  We understand each other.  She leaves my art piles alone.

Lacking any blog inspiration, I go back to watching her breathing.  In out, in out, I match my breath to her's and get myself into a dopey hypnotic peacefulness.

In this relaxed state, I remember recently painting a portrait of my cousin's cat.  A cat is close enough for a "dog" post, right?  I sent the painting as a congratulations gift because she recently finished her law degree.  I'm impressed.  She's roughly my age and clearly is still tackling new challenges.  That's inspiring.  Makes me want to quit watching my dog breathe and do something inspirational too.

I also painted a portrait of my niece who recently graduated with her masters degree.  She likes Asian things and bleaches the ends of her hair blonde, or blue, whatever.  This isn't my usual kind of painting, but I enjoyed making it.  I hope she enjoys having it.

Shaking myself out of my hypnotic dog watching, I did have weather excitement this week with a microburst of tornado like winds, hail, and thunderstorm.  Trees and branches came down.  The top of a tree came down next door, flying over their garage but stopping short of their house and cars.  Really, it could not have come down more nicely.  It even just missed flattening my gooseberry bushes and hibiscus.

The neighbor next to them had a tree take down the electrical lines and we were all out of power for a day.  When the electric company came they asked to saw up my next door neighbors' downed tree so they could bring their equipment in the back yards to rescue the electric lines.  This was a huge relief as they're 2 older sisters who don't do chainsaws.

I thought the excitement was done, but no, I woke up to fire trucks and lights flashing.  The grounded wires sent electricity into the ground which traveled into the garage of the neighbor 3 doors down.  The garage smoldered and smoked, but no serious damage.  Really, I think everything turned out as luckily as it could for a micro tornado and it caused the neighbors to socialize when they were out with their dogs.

"Camping"

I moved the train and finished my latest painting.  I was feeling pretty darned pleased with myself when I got out the bottle of Liquitex acrylic medium to finish it.  I put on 2 coats of gloss varnish, and went to the store for a new bottle of matte.  When I got home that night I used the dregs of the old bottle of matte on my painting. 

Just so you know, matte finish isn't as durable as gloss which is why I applied the gloss first.  It's helpful too because you can tell if you've missed a spot with the gloss.  Don't fuss with acrylic finishes.  Put them on and leave them alone -- but I noticed some specks.  I fussed it a bit to get things right before setting it aside to dry and going to bed.

Next morning, it the harsh light of day, ohh noo!!  I didn't get all the specks out.  A couple areas looked misty because I'd overworked the finish.  I tried to scrub a couple of the specks and went from misty to cloudy.  This turned into continuing and deepening disaster.  I read online help.  I called a retired chemical engineer.  Nobody offered hope.  I scrubbed, dabbed chemicals, hosed it down in the kitchen sink.  Eventually, I ruthlessly scrubbed the thing with an old toothbrush.

After a while, everything looked fine when the painting was wet.  It looked horrible when dry.  With nothing to lose, I applied the gloss finish over the damp painting.  Success!!!

So, should you ever be faced with the same miserable situation you can try this when all else fails.  You may also be pleased to know that I didn't slap the chemical engineer when he told me to just repaint the whole thing.

After all of this high drama, I was next to a busy road weeding the city's flower pots when a good looking guy waved at me and yelled, "Woohoo!  Beautiful!!!"  It's been a long time since a good looking guy has woohooed me and this lifted my spirits.  At a certain age this doesn't feel like harassment.  Of course it's entirely possible he was praising my flower pots, but whatever.  I'll take it.

And yes, my painting does address camping.  The name tag tucked behind the wash cloth is from my days as a teenaged camp counselor for "slow" kids.  The kids were sweethearts and they weren't slow in any of our activities.  Teaching them to draw and study salamanders was fun.  I applauded at their somersaults off the diving board.  We skipped down the trail and sang.

My duties got expanded to include lifeguarding institutionalized developmentally disabled ("retarded") adults.  This was more challenging because they don't remember instructions.  Rule #1: do not go in the pool before the lifeguard gets there.  I can't tell you how many times I found an obese person on the bottom of the pool, and I still wonder about the other counselors who would leave them by a pool unattended.

I don't know why the skinny people didn't drown themselves, but it was always a 300-400 pounder at the bottom of the pool.  To make things worse, the rest of the class had a hard time understanding I needed help getting that person out of the pool.  They all agreed it was really, really funny when the drowned person puked on me after I gave them mouth-to-mouth and got them living again.  I was puked on too many times to count.  Character building, right?  I loved that job, and I loved all my kids and my kids in adult bodies.

I'm especially proud of my apple!

"Icon"

Last night I happily settled down to what someone called "food porn", in this case, The Great British Baking Show.  The theme for this competitive cook off was "pie".  I love pie, and TV is a great way to enjoy it without calories.

I was confused right off the bat.  The contestants made Wellingtons.  That's interesting, but it isn't pie in my mind.  One of the hosts took a side trip and ate eel pie.  My face still screws up painfully at the thought of it, and I wouldn't call that a pie either.  It was kind of like a hot pocket.  Then, the contestants made a molded meat pie.  Okay?  I sort of see the "pie" in this, but not really.

I was feeling very unBritish about this point when they said the grand finale was to be "American" pies.  Yay!  I sat and ate rhubarb gooseberry sauce (which is good, but not quite as yummy as rhubarb mulberry) and scowled as the British slammed American pies as "too sweet".  Well!  They should try some of my rhubarb.

I'll admit, I didn't realize my pies were "American".  I thought a pie is a pie.  Maybe I should've realized "As American as apple pie" is often said because pie is an icon of Americanism?  But you can say the same thing about hot dogs and Germans make sausages.  I imagine they make something hot doggish.  I figured the same was true for pies.  French make tarts, and that's fairly similar, right?

I've made a lot of pies in my life.  I should go over there and teach them how it's done because British ideas of American pies is just wrong (though Ryan, the winner, clearly got it right with a key lime and ginger beauty).

I'll also admit that the more I thought of British ideas of American sweetness, the more I remembered pies that were disgustingly sweet.  Okay, if all you've ever had is that kind of thing I can understand a preconceived distaste for pie.  Block those images from your mind.  Think of the natural sweetness of fruit in a flaky pastry.  Mmmm.  I've even blogged about pies before which you can see here.

I am not about to touch the subject of current political relations with the US and Great Britain and other NATO allies because it's just an embarrassment like too sweet pies.  Just let me offer my continued apologies and express appreciation for the big balloon and your protests.  I don't think pie could even make the president behave properly.

On happier news, despite the deer and other vamints repeatedly mowing down my garden I got my first tomatoes.  Hooray!

"Funk"

I saw the word and thought, "but I'm not in a funk!" -- which made me wonder what a funk is in the first place while singing Play That Funky Music in my head and chair dancing, physically demonstrating that I'm in a decidedly good mood for no particular reason other than the weather is spectacularly pleasant after a blisteringly hot week.

1. noun, North American, a state of depression

2. noun, British, a coward. verb, avoid (a task or thing) out of fear 

Oh funk.  I like to write about happy things when I'm feeling happy.  I took time to wash gooseberries.  The bushes have sharp thorns and are one of my few deer-proof garden happinesses these days.  Have I mentioned one doe has twins??  Not to be confused with that other doe with a single fawn.  My only competition for these berries is from song birds, and I'm willing to share with them.

I use gooseberries in chocolate cake because then it's health food (obviously).  I put in cranberries and/or currants sometimes too.  Chocolate cake is clearly the best way to get vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.  My latest, best cooking discovery is combining rhubarb and mulberries.  I cook it into a thick sauce to mix with plain yogurt.  The berries make it possible to drastically reduce the amount of sugar usually used with rhubarb.  I added cinnamon and ginger with just a touch of cloves.  Oh, oh, oh!!!  Mmm.

I suspect many, maybe most people don't know about these foods.  I've never seen gooseberries in the store, but I spent countless hours of my childhood laying on my back under my neighbor's bushes, carefully plucking berries off one by one and stuffing them in my mouth.  Sun warm, tart sweet, and delicious.

Perhaps I'm being a funk not to write about being in a funk?  I've been depressed.  It sucks.  I've been seriously, chronically depressed.  That sucks even more.  I found the best solution to that state of being was divorce.  It's amazing how quickly I got happy and healthy once my ex was out of my life.  This solution might not be advantageous for everyone, but I bet there are some who could benefit from it.

I've been reliving that period of time in my head recently to see what I can learn from it.  Simply, I put up with too much, waded past warning signs, allowed myself to be put down, ignored, overworked, and other unpleasantness.  I tried to resolve issues with someone who wasn't interested in resolutions.  It's no wonder I got depressed.  I was shoving every reasonable instinct and thought deep, deep underground.

I'm lax about showing works in progress so I thought I'd show a bit of my latest.  Sometimes I think showing finished pieces ignores the struggle to get there.  I found reference photos of baby food and UNICEF from the 1960s, which didn't exist the way I wanted so I pieced parts together for accuracy.  I'm not happy with where the train is so I quit working on it and will start over and repaint it -- despite putting the layout together in PhotoShop in the first place.  That stupid form in the background caused me all sorts of misery getting things to line up properly.

I'm not perfect.  I make mistakes.  I try to learn from those mistakes and persevere.  Then, I chair dance and revel in my happy days!