Into the Swing of Things

Well, it finally happened. I finally broke through my mental barrier and was able to screenprint. It took a lot of time, a lot of half assed excuses and a bit of space in the outbuilding, but I'm back in the game! At my mom's house we have this outbuilding, which used to be Jack's disgusting boy hovel, but which i converted into the most badass studio ever! i've got an old ping pong table as a huge surface, tons of wall space, tons of junk to use for art, running water, and hella wind and sun. It is pretty, pretty good. So i've been drawing, crafting, sewing, and printing and it is incredibly amazing! Me and my mom have sewed some pretty cute skirts, and she made me the cutest apron ever, and I also made some earring/necklace holder things, from a DIY recipe in bust, and i've been printing the shit outa some clothes too! The first day was a little tricky though, i used wayy too much ink and didn't use a blotter so it went right through the clothes, but after that i got the swing of it and rocked the casbah! I did some drawings and ended up with one of some lavender from the garden for the stencil that you see printed on all of these, and I can't wait to do more and more before I leave. I need to do some major thrifting though cause i'm running outa crappy clothes to print on... Yay for the outbuilding, aka my new studio!

Seattle

A little late I know, but oh well. Seattle was radical. I was able to spend tons of time with the Berger and watched waay too much Olympics. Enough to barf at the mention of Michael Phelps. I don't care if he's hot, i wanna see another sport already. Sean and I spent my first weekend in Seattle at his cabin on Lake Kushman. The weather wasn't so hot, but we got to go traipse into the thickett, canoe to a tiny island, swim, lay on a hammock, read hella, and eat even more hella. On our way back we even got to take a ferry which was awesome as we rolled into Seattle at Sunset. Other activities included: Many movie watching, go see Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder NOW! you won't regret it i swear! Also, good food eating; Wayward, Flowers, Than Vi, Vegetarian Bistro, PCC, Musashi, and much much more. We also rode bikes to Mathew's Beach, Played Tennis at Magnussen, read at Gasworks, shopped at H&M, swam in disgusting Washington beaches, and drank tons of coffee. We also got to celebrate our 3 1/2 year anniversary by going to Solstice, where we met and read and hang out. It was a really fun and relaxing time and I'm so happy to have gotten to hang out with my baybe as long as we did!

I Wanna Move to Mancos

hella land and that's how everyone ended up there. Oh, andWell, I've just spent the last week rocking the fam and it couldn't have been more awesome. Last friday me, mom, Eric, and Grandpa Whis departed to Colorado to spend some time with my Aunt Bonnie, Uncle Ron, my cousin Debbie, her hubby Turn and my second cousins Courtney and Cody, and MaKettle came
along for the ride as well. We flew into Durango, where of course my bag was lost, then drove into the town which is this cutesy little hippy-ish mountain town with many a breweries, shops and beach cruisers and had lunch. Then we drove up to Mancos, which is where they all live. In a nutshell, Debbie's husband Turn is from Mancos and his mom owns it's fucking awesome and like totally peacefull and relaxing.

Ron and Bonnie live up by the Mancos State Park, i wanna say but could be wrong, which has a big reservoir for fishing and such, and some good trails to run around as well. Plus their neighbors breed alpacas and had a newborn the day before i got there which was hella cute. There are also hella cows just chillin under their trees and deer families galore.

On Saturday we drove out to an even bigger reservoir where we had rented a pontoon ? boat and boated around the lake all day. Debbie and crew brought like six jet ski's and Mabel, which is this huge raft that you attatch to the back of a jet ski and then you get dragged all over the place, which is what happened to me when Debbie took me out for a spin. And jet ski'in is HELLA fun, and the water was nice for swimmin and synchronized at that. Then later on we had a bad ass dinner of tacos and such for mamasita and Grandpa Whis's Birthday. We also took part in a pretty hardcore game of gestures that i totally killed.

On Sunday we got up and took the ATV's out on a ride up the mountains to this little cabin that Turn's Mom owns. Again for a first time ATV-er it was a little weird at first but i got the hang of it, and courtney and cody totally smoked me, as per usual. And we rode all over the place through these gorgeous aspen groves up the sides of mountains and into wintertime avalanche areas and back again, and i was doing pretty, pretty good. Until, after about 4 hours of nonstop riding my hands started to get sore and i started to get a little tired. And as we're crusin down this rocky ass trail i get goin a little crazy and crash the ATV into a tree and feeling it tipping, jump off the side and to a tuck and roll bail to avoid getting crushed. Needless to say the bruises are ADEQUATE. But the ATV was fine, and we i thought it best not to tell ol mom, she'd just freak and i was fine anyways. So i let someone else drive for the rest and we went to the awesome cabin/old schoolbus hang out. Where we had some BBQ, beers, corn and a heated game of horseshoes.

ON Monday we drove up the enormous mountains to Mesa Verde, the US's second largest archaeological find. Which is where these old school cliff dwellers lived and basically rocked the winter and hot summer by building their cribs in the side of cliffs. There are tours you can take but you kinda have to be a badass, like not afraid of heights or afraid to die. So for the first one, Balcony House, we had to climb down the side of the mountian and up a 32 ft wooden ladder to get up into the cliff dwellings, which was the easy part. The dwellings themselves are really cool, there's lots of storage space for them to store up for winter and really cool Kiva's which are large circular dwellings in the ground that would've been roofed and where they kicked it during winter time and gave birth, and had religious ceremonies and stuff like that. Then to get out you have to climb more ladders and crawl through this tunnel and then climb up a crazy ladder and then on these foot holes that are left from the original inhabitants up the freaking cliff, with just a wiry fence protecting you from plumetting to your death. My mom kinda freaked, but she pulled it together and we all made it up. It was intense. We went to another one, Cliff Palace which was cool too, and no one freaked. That night we had some awesome BBQ and a game of Risk where Cody totally dominated, and a Gin Tourney that i was losing so badly at the beginning it wasn't even funny. But good times all around.

I was very sad to say goodbye to Mancos, Colorado. It was beautiful, peaceful, dirty, mountainous, and so much fun. I can't wait to go back very soon. My family was always a joy to be around, my Uncle Ron is as awesome as ever and seems to know about everything going on around town, Bonnie and Debbie seem to love living in Colorado and it must be so nice for them to be close to each other. Cody and Courtney are going to grow up to be the coolest kids around, that's for sure. And Courtney especially has some badass qualities that are no doubt a result of having such rad experiences like i had this last week for her whole upbringing. My Grandpa Whis didn't say much, but when he did, I think he was having fun.

On Tuesday I was off, out of the lovely country life and into the city. Los Angeles to be exact. The culture shock was definitely there. LAX isn't the finest Southern California has to offer, and it's charm was lacking, but I made my way out and shuttled as quick as i could to lovely Ranchos Palos Verdes where my other Grandparents live. The rolling green hills bountiful flowers in all colors, palm trees and ocean view are quite inviting. My grandparents are 90 and 92 respectively and they are still living together in their house with their german shepard Honi, and my Grandpa Jack makes them culinary delights every night and always remembering the martini night cap with three olives. Although they nap more frequently and are in bed by oh, 8:30 or so Grandma Fritzie and Grandpa Jack are very much a spectacular pair. Grandpa Jack took me out to the Post Office and on various errands, (and he drove) yesterday and they let me make dinner which was oh so nice, and i think its the first time in a while that my grandpa didn't cook it up. It is very relaxing now that I've come to grips with being in LA. Sun and newspapers and the trickling of the garden fountain are most of what's been going on here. And tomorrow I'm off again to Seattle to see my much missed boyfriend.

Pics to follow. Whew.