Week 9 - We've made it for over 2 months now, it feels like "home"

View I see from my desk

Can't believe it's Week 9 and we are starting on Week 10 already.  I feel like we just got here, but have been here long enough to feel like we're at home.


Still working hard...















John continues to work on his chapters for his book and continues to read, religiously, his NY Times on his Kindle.

 I set up my “kitchen/studio” for printing my “Obazawa” woodblocks.  I’m trying out the “extender” that I bought in New York.  Finding working with these water-soluble inks in this heat, I need a mister to keep the paper damp and inks viscous enough to get good color.  It’s a lot of fun – do something regarding this art every day – read about it, look at pictures, sketch or just ponder what’s next – I’m enjoying having time to think and work out and test things.  For a better, closer look at the “proofs”, you can check out my Facebook page if you are a FB friend.

Obazawa means:
Horsetail
Feather
Swamp
thus the 3 blocks

A scattering of proofs

It's Wednesday! Cirque du Soleil's  "TOTEM"!!!

Fabulous, fun and fantastic.  We’ve been to many traveling Cirque du Soleil shows over the years.  The "Totem" theme was understandable and very basic – evolution, love, nature – from the spark of life to reaching for the stars – it was all there.  As usual the costumes were fabulous – not so outrageous or mystical as we’ve seen in the past, but you could see where each costume fits into the theme of life. This one was one of the best.  It certainly didn’t disappoint.  It made me smile – a lot.

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Sad news brought to us on Thursday.  John’s cousin, Pete, passed away – said he was hot, went to turn on the AC and collapsed after turning on the air conditioning in the room he was in.  We are waiting now to hear about services in Detroit.  We will probably drive to Detroit to be with all of those loved ones, there.
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The weekend brings the enjoyable and invigorating French Class with Professor Ben and now all the committed students.  It seems that we are half way through the course and only half the original class is left, so those of us who are left  are animated, involved and we are having a lot of fun as well as learning how to communicate in French (Quebec style.)  In the evening we stroll into Parc La Fontaine and find ourselves at the Theatre de Verdure - a folk song trio is singing the songs of Felix Leclerc (a Quebecoise poet and songwriter) - it's a free concert and we find out there's something happening almost every nite at the open air theatre in our park; next Saturday at 8:30 pm, Shakespeare's Macbeth (in French, no less - maybe we'll skip that one.)

Theatre de Verdure

L'Espace La Fontaine
Bistro tables under tree - good spot

On Sunday, we decide to take another walk through the park to stop at the L'Espace La Fontaine for wine, beer and a cheese plate.  Sitting at our bistro table under the tree in front of this historical building that houses the restaurant, we people-watch taking advantage of the park on this warm, balmy evening.

We are now waiting to hear about what's happening in Detroit - next week, Detroit???