2017: The End OR Penultimate ?

I don’t have a great reason or motivation for this year-end post. Call it another visit to Procrastination Station if you are psychoanalyzing from home. DO NOT expect an image today. If the lightest news and opinion does not EXCITE YOU, you are free to move on.

I am CONTEMPLATING a 'Year in Review:2017' but this MIGHT be either password-protected OR premium Platinum club members only OR as a membership subscription 'reward/'prize.'

Probably most if not all of the other 7.5 B co-habitents of this planet are ready to launch 2017, as I am as well, the degrees of readiness and plans for 2018 vary just that much. IOW ... WIDELY.

Still working on the decision of what to do with Silver. Everything and anything is on the table from putting her (OK, IT down) to not replacing AT ALL. This is why it is taking so long.

During the past week, it is becoming more evident & apparent a car just may NOT be a necessity of life and the pursuit of Happiness.

In this particular case, MINE, the case for either walking or taking my bike to ESSENTIAL places is covered. Applying costs and utilization, time & dollars, the gap grows larger. So this is what is taking so long.

This day is a Saturday, Mass is out. Warmer but still cold and the gloom of overcast continues.

I slept in for no reason and let a day plan develop in the process.

I decided to save the firewood, paint on the beach scene commission and simply go about my business.

Yesterday my student Nancy came over for a session. She is making progress and very excited about the process. She brought communion as a Eucharistic minister which was great. At mid-day we broke for a trip out to the library where I was able to exchange some dvds for new one and had some lunch.

Of all the people on the planet, as I was walking into the joint, I literally collided with Oscar, the service agent at the local Chevy dealership I was working with (!). After each of us had a chance to run the recognition algorithm, gathered wits, I informed him that Silver, aka the 2004 Trailblazer to him, was in Ennis and I had received a quote of $5k for a new engine. I told him I contacted JBailey but he said to call & speak with Pete. This MAY BE a preferred routing but nothing is going to happen AT LEAST until Tuesday and then it could be a couple of days before things got prioritized & serious.

So that saga & drama continues.

Nancy left a Family photo album and a folder of old Japanese prints for me to look at both of which were very cool.

The photos were labeled and from the early 1900’s (a few) but more from her Father’s travels to North Africa, Algiers and Egypt in the 30’s & 40’s. One caught my interest with the image of a shiek on a movie set.

The hand-written label was ‘Conrad Veigt, Movie Star’. Well, I ‘googled’ the name & found Conrad VeiDt who was in fact a very famous star with a lengthy career ranging from silent German films in the pre-20’s, emigrating from Germany with his Jewish wife (his 3rd) prior to WWII, thru the UK and finally to the US where he starred in Hollywood films in the early 40’s before dying of a heart attack at the Riviera CC in 1943 playing golf.

Earlier on, 1910-12, there is an old photo of a lad in an old flannel 'Boston' baseball uniform. Her Father was a bat boy for the Boston Red Sox. There is another photo of a player in a Boston 'Braves' uniform. I need to look up that name after I uncrypt the scribbled name.

As I said, this report is more motivational and theraputic and I am now ready to apply paint to the beach scene.

A GOAL for 2018 is to DELIVER the commissioned painting and carry on with others. I started one similar (same size & subject) to work along with my student to demonstrate & experiment concurrently and so far it seems to be working well.

Also, in a move that seriously questions my sanity, I have started the very early stages of not ONE (1), but TWO, dos, (2) hummingbirds. One will be finished as a ruby throated (boring) but the second will be a Cuban emerald. Sounds sexy, exciting & exotic doesn’t it?

Well, just wait. I am sensing these two will be better & BEST from the first one and yes, you CAN get a delivery DATE for $500.

These are NOT easy to do and as the days click off it is becoming more & more apparent yours truly will NOT be making a ‘living’ such as it is as an ‘artist’.

God knows writing skills & income so generated would cause me to let the pool guy go.

Wish me luck with this AND PRAY … por favor.