Sunday, June 6, 2010

IT'S A RAINY SUNDAY AFTERNOON

Here it is, Sunday June 6 ,,,I can't believe I was away the whole month of May, or was I...????

Been busy down here in Mt. Morris...Grand daughter Liz asked Pappy if she could do some "potting" out in the barn and once we explained things further, he said ok and started to do some preliminary cleaning and pitching of junk out of the bottom of the barn....

Since I was a potter, a long while ago, I kept ALL my Stuff, hoping that one of the grandkids just may want to play in the mud sometime. I did offer to sell my stuff to a woman down in Fairmont, but didn't hear any response from her, so I just let sleeping dogs lie regarding selling the STUFF. Then along came Liz...some say she is a version of me, and I do see some resemblence at times, but she is her own person and right now she is definitely into the mud...

We continued to clean out the barn and got the pottery reasonably set up...looks pretty good...we have shelves that we brought in from out under the pine trees, Pap did some wiring and got us the proper plugs for the kilns...(we have 2)...we set up the wedgeing table with the plaster surface (to wedge the clay)..shoveled out tons of crap from the floor of the workroom, and I mean shoveled out tons, moved the clay bats onto a shelf within reach , washed off everything that had STUFF on it, found the shimpo potters wheel under a pile of STUFF, ..if I keep saying STUFF, it's because there was an accumulation of it everywhere.....as we plowed thru it, I found things that I thought were gone forever. ...tons of tools, pottery, drawings.....I'm not going to go into that for now, but anyway it was fun having the grand daughter really pumped up about mud. We found a box of clay..50# of it that was still soft and in working condition after laying on the bottom of things for about 30 years....yesssss, it's been that long since I had mud on my hands. Liz did some wedging and we were in business...she happily turned out some pretty neat mugs. One of her friends came down and they played a bit with the mud and so did Leah, who didn't seem to do too bad. Her pieces are still out there on the bats..they are dried by now, so she will have to work a little to trim them, but it can be done.



Liz and I went on a road trip to Standard Ceramics down in Carnegie and picked up more clay,

had breakfast at Pineras and lunch at a neat little restaurant in a building under "Before and More"...a shop that sells used clothing...had a great time there also...(got some Chicos) ....while we were at the ceramics store, we also picked up some neat glazes that we both are anxious to use. We had previously ordered a splash pan for the potters wheel, I worked all those years w/o one, and the woman that managed the store found one in the back that was probably as old as my wheel and she gave it to us to see if it would fit...IT FITS!!!! and works perfectly....so our heartfelt thanks go out to her...I sat down at the wheel on Wed. and played a bit...it was as though I had never left throwing pottery...we both had a lot of fun as I explained a few things to Liz...showed her how to make handles for her mugs, and a few of my techniques that just came flooding back to me as the wheel turned ...I always did like to play in the mud.....



more news....



about 7 or 8 weeks ago I was giving our small horse of a pup a bath and he decided he didn't want to get into the tub, and as I lifted his front legs to get him into the tub, he reared back and knocked me off balance and I twisted my right knee...DAMN!!!!..the pain almost knocked me over and when he saw I was kinda pissed with him, he jumped into the tub and I proceeded to bathe him...he does like the water and stood there while I soaped him down and rinsed him off, then he jumped out of the tub, dripping wet and shook...yeah...the bathroom was flooded as he stood still for a second while I toweled him off...he has lots of fur, so he was really dripping wet....anyway, he finally went out into the house and let me dry him further and then he laid down while I finally got to take care of the knee....I thought I had just pulled a muscle, and took some motrin for a couple of days, but it didn't get any better...not being a wuss, I just tried to ignore it for several weeks, Syd and I went to Artiscape and then to a workshop with Dayle Doroshow and thanks to Aleve, (no motrin )I plodded my way thru things...also I went to work down at the gallery in Morgantown during this time.....finally I realized the pain wasn't going away, only was getting worse, and so I made an appointment with my doctor...another 10 days went by and when I finally had my appointment, he thought I had done more damage to my knee than twisting it....to make a long story short and avoid elaborating on my experience with the could care less office staff at my physicians office, I finally had an MRI...diagnosis...torn miniscus...what a blow....so after another 7 days of waiting, I finally got in to see the specialist and he took exrays of my beautiful knees and found them riddled with arthritis....trying to avoid surgery, he suggested that we do the Syn-vest treatment...injecting this gluton thick like viscous solution made from Rooster and chicken combs into my knee...3 treatments in all...supposed to really help,( I did run the risk of crowing at dawn though).... so, after an injection of cortozone into the knee, I was to come back in 3 weeks and begin the treatment....HOWEVER, my knee had different plans...while going up the stairs, (very carefully) something gave out in my knee and I had PAIN...like never before...oh wait..!!!!...I did have that pain ..back in 2001 when I had my other knee scoped ...this was on a Sat. night, so I lasted thru Sunday, & Monday..(Memorial Day) thanks to drugs and using crutches the whole time...I got in to see the Dr. on Tues...after looking at the swollen knee, he decided that we would have to have surgery after all...so on the 8th, I will be in the OR. at S.W. Regional Center having the deed done on the knee...KNEEDLESS to say, I missed Nathan's graduation and may miss Joel's also if I don't behave and heal ...so for now, thanks to vicodin, I'm dealing with things...not looking forward to the surgery, but to the end of all this misery of not being able to walk...what a shame, I won't be able to play soccor, run any marathons, bike in any races, etc...too bad Annie, just stay off the knee for now....and get better, ...we have our PCCMMRetreat in July that You have to go to.....something to look forward to.....so you better behave yourself.....

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