The Doorway in the Studio

I've finally started finishing the doorway I knocked in in the studio way back at the beginning of August. Remember my Asbestos drama? Yeah - that was it. I don't know if I've been inspired by what has been happening in my bathroom or if the raggedy doorway is just driving me nuts - but I decided this was the weekend to tackle it.
I forgot that I was gallery sitting for our show at the Icebox on Saturday for six hours, that was a major crimp in the plans - but I ended up pretty much finishing a sweater I'd started after getting back from Germany. That was nice.I started by cleaning up the raggedy edges - and then remembered I had bought a new drill last night! :) I pulled it out and knew I was in trouble when I saw the packing tape keeping the drill's box closed. Sure enough, this drill was bought, used, and returned. There were scuff marks all over it and wood chips in the packaging. Some people have a lot of nerve.
I was really at a loss without the drill. So I headed back to Home Depot. I've had a little Black and Decker job for over 15 years. (A very good Christmas present from my dad) Unfortunately, it landed in the hands some someone who was not very nice to it - tightening the drill bits by running it, rather than just closing the chuck by hand, and so one of the teeth was sticking way out and there is now no way a drill bit will drill straight. Argh. I've finally realized I need a new one. I bought an 18v Rigid:You know, I finally understand Tim Allen and his stupid manly grunting over power tools. My little Black and Decker was a 7.2v. It's kind of like going from a Yugo to a Porsche - (I'm guessing on this one). The screw just melts into the wood like butter.

While I was at Home Depot I asked it there was a wider Miter box than 4". Nope. So I had to invent a new way to saw my 10inch boards. Necessity is the mother of invention! :) So I took my cast iron irons, plastic triangle, and my mini clamps (these things are the best), scored the wood with a box cutter and started sawing away. It works fine - and I'm not buying a massive saw to do this job. And since I sawed everything by hand today - I know I'll be hurtin' tomorrow. Ah the price we pay for what we want.

First board up.

Second board up.
All three boards up. And then start on the molding. More clamps to help get that in place.

I'm really glad I don't do this full time. Wood is finicky. It twists and turns and bends and I know I'm going to have to use a lot of spackle.

But it really cleans the space up nicely doesn't it? Tomorrow evening I'll finish up the other side. And then the spackling can begin.

Bathroom Diaries; Day 4

It's a good thing I had these today. It rained buckets all day long! I was supposed to go to an opening tonight at the Ice box for one of my last Center for Emerging Visual Artists shows, but you know - I'm still sick - on the upside of sick, but sick none-the-less and it was cold and pouring. Two of the women that run CFEVA are highly pregnant and I decided - not going. I have to sit in the gallery for 6 hours on Saturday watching all our stuff, I'll have a better chance to see everything then. I got a lot done here though, cleaned up the studio a bit (two hours worth). That on top of meeting with my financial advisor (I feel really grown up!) meeting with one of my great students, strategizing with Jeff the Contractor throughout the afternoon. . . I'm really tired.
So I'll just wrap things up quickly (well I'll try)
My orange walls have sustained some damage. I'll have to repaint them when the saga is over. I'm going to have to paint in my bedroom too so, no biggy.
Jeff spent most of the day being irritated with my house. Nothing is square - apparently the bathroom is 2" out of square. You can even see by the vertical piece of wood in the picture above how much he had to fix. That's not perspective - that's literally how much he had to cut off of a 2x4. or whatever he's using. But the ceiling is fixed and "it's not coming down now," he said smugly. Well good.
He also framed the door in and now my door jamb will be 6in. on one side and 5 on the other. Okay then. As long as the door shuts - I'll be happy.

And yes, for those of you who would like a better idea of where we are going - here's the vanity. See the last blog entry for the faucet. I will have a very big beautiful mirror over this as well - and behind it will be the mural.

NOW - it sounds like everything is going along hunky dory - right? Wrong. Well, things are pretty good, but not ALL good. On ? Tuesday he cut the water lines to the third floor. Then they cut the lines to the kitchen sink on the second. When he came on Wed. Morning to touch base - the kitchen sink was leaking through to my first floor studio. Thank goodness it had just started to leak - and we caught it before it gushed on some of my stuff. But the thing is - I thought he'd fixed it last night - so this morning I used the sink again - and came downstairs to find a pretty good drip. :( There was nothing underneath it anymore - but still. Now I need a new ceiling in my studio. Which could be a blessing in disguise because that is the one and only horrible-badly-plastered-ceiling in the whole house. So I get a new ceiling now rather than later. However - at the end of the day today, Jeff says, "Can you move out of that room?"(meaning soon) UGH! It is a really good thing that he is so nice - he really is (and that he looks like Patrick Swayze) because otherwise ...... aarrgh!
But as I was cleaning up the studio and thinking about all of this- the answer is really - no I can't. Not until mid-January. I'm teaching a new class in the spring at Moore - and I need to pull the syllabus together in a space where I can find everything. They're not coming back until Tuesday with the plumber so we'll see what he says about that then.

Bathroom Diaries; Day 3 - the mission

The first thing we do when I get home in the evening (after letting the cat out of upstairs confinement) is to go check out what happened in the "bathroom." It always needs a lot of inspecting - Jacques is much more thorough at this than I am, maybe because he can fit into practically every crevasse.


Including that one (below) next to the yellow ladder. That leads to beneath the kitchen sink - which I know is a mouse condo. Hopefully they've gone on vacation for a while. Fabulous Jeff spruced up the joists (below). That's a shot of the ceiling by the way. And in case that still doesn't clear things up for you - I'm thrilled - that's all that matters. At least I can believe that I can jump up and down in the bathroom on the third floor - and not fall through into the bathtub on the second floor. :)

So - today's drama started at 8am sharp! Jeff showed up and laid down the law - he needed the faucet, toilet, tub and fixtures TODAY! He probably would have said yesterday if he could. I tried crying him a river about all I've had to do in the last few months but he wasn't havin' it. So i took the day off work and ran around like crazy and bought everything.
When I left to run around this morning - I was still trying to accept a blue toilet/green tile possibility. My only option for a blue toilet is a skylight color. Hmmmm sort of a light periwinkle. It looks fine - but very very specific. I really would have had a hard time accessorizing the thing.
I went to Restoration Hardware first. That was the first adventure - it is on the Main St. of Manayunk - a place I always got the impression was a yuppie-bar-hopping street. Turns out - there is alot of cool stuff there. Will have to go back. Anyway, the lovely ladies from California gave me a very generous gift certificate and I have bought some great stuff with it! I got a beautiful glass shelf for under the mirror - and a mirror to make everyone jealous. It's 24x30! I tried to order one that takes 10lbs off every time I look in it - but the salesclerk said they were out of stock. Huh - what a surprise.
Then it was off on the mad hunt for fixtures. I stopped at two Kohler "showrooms" before I gave up and went to Lowe's. On the drive to Lowe's I made a final decision. I'm going back to what I originally wanted in my bathroom. The flower mural:

Before the cobalt blue toilet - I wanted a flower mural in my bathroom. I like this one. I sort of became attached to some lime green tile - and I think this would be really cool. So I also gave up any blue toilet or bathtub idea - and it will have the flowers on the wall with sink, and mirror and the floor and back of the tub will be tiled: although, I hope your screens are calibrated better than mine - this is not showing up too well. It really is lime green - not avocado green. That's the next thing I have to order. But that's tomorrow's project.
So I got to Lowe's and unfurled my list of demands from Jeff. Mr. Italian Tom - who has been so great in helping me throughout the process - wasn't there, but two other young guys were and they got the ball rolling. First I ordered THE tub that had Jeff's approval. It's 20inches deep! Yippee!!! - I'm going to be able to swim in it! I may have to get a second water heater to fill it - but well, we'll tackle that bridge when we get to it. Then we started looking at faucet fixtures - and then I realized - Holy Mackerel - I have two final crits to give!
So off I raced to Moore - collected all kinds of interesting final projects - had a very interesting discussion with my goofy second class (whom I loved - but they are goofy) discussing "What is a book?" Some very good ideas which led to a big argument about books vs. ebooks. One said, "Nothing on the Internet is a book!" Ok then.
8pm hopped back in the car to race back to Lowe's - and Mr. Italian Tom was there. Yeah!:) So I picked out THE MOST EXPENSIVE faucet imaginable. Ugh!!! I hemmed and hawed about whether to get it or not and since I'd saved $150 on the tub and just got a plain simple toilet I decided to splurge on the faucet.

Did I mention I have a vessel sink? It will sit on top of an old oak night stand. This is a wall mounted faucet. Great. Decision made.
WELL.
Those bastards at Kohler just keep adding required parts to the original faucet. So what was already a stab in the heart - almost made me toss my cookies because it practically doubled the price once I got all the required parts. Oh well. I'm going to have the coolest faucet on the whole planet - just you people wait. I also got a very standard shower fixture that will probably need the detachable-over-head-shower-thingy, and the toilet paper rack and some towel racks. OH - and I even got the light fixture for over the mirror.
And now it's 12:30 am - I have a meeting in New Jersey at 9am - and then I have to meet with a student at noon and somehow grade those final projects and hopefully be able to clean some more in my disastrous studio.

Bathroom Diaries; Day 2

Came home to find there is no water on the third floor. Too bad I found this out after I took care of some business. sigh. It's like my entire life is being invaded. Even though I'm completely beat - (because, I came home and left immediately to get the "vanity" from storage, did little grocery shopping, ate dinner, cleaned studio and graded projects for students) I feel the need to do the dishes so the contractors won't think I'm messy. And the real me - doesn't want to do the dishes. :( I want to go to bed. pout pout
But blogging? Absolutely I have time for that. . . .
Through what used to be my closet we can now see the hole where the mirror used to be or medicine cabinet I suppose.
Above is the floor I could stand on yesterday. And below is the new framing for the new tub. When I called Jeff this evening to say, "um, hey, I don't have water on the third floor?"
He said, "Oh, yeah, no you won't. We had to cut the lines. But you have water on the first and second floor."
Thanks for the heads up on that.
Well then he also told me there was no way a claw foot tub was going to fit into the bathroom. :(! But he's coming tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn to talk about how much room I do have and so that I can start looking at some possibilities. Ugh - why does this have to be so hard? (read: why do I have to have such peculiar taste?) If I could just be satisfied with a white bathroom - things would be very easy and done.
But that's soOo boring! I may have to settle for a sky blue toilet.

Oy Vey - a little catch up - and NEW BATHROOM!!

It's really embarrassing how I shut down in November - it was just all too too much. So the list of things I've done since Nov. 15:
1. Work - conserve stuff for the Plastic Club, for Lea & Febiger, and manage my intern Posse - including attending a few of their art openings.
2. Work on making stuff for Book Paper Scissors - the big book arts fair held at the Free Library in Philadelphia. Very successful!
3. Finish the edition for our book exchange: (image courtesy of Julianna Foster)
4. Laundry (several times).
5. start planning bathroom.
6. drop work off for the next show at the Icebox.
7. Go to Germany for the Thanksgiving week to visit my Great Aunt.
8. Come home to find that the ignition to the heater has broken and the temperature in the house is the same as outside - about 45° - consequently:
9. Catch massive cold.
10. Move out of bedroom and bathroom for the contractors.
11. Neglect a lot of other stuff including the blog, friends, grading, the cat etc.

No more looking back: Here's what's going on NOW:
1. be shocked to discover I have two people following my blog! - i don't even know one could do that! :)

So yes: I went to Germany for a week to visit my Great Aunt who is 97. She's doing pretty well, it has finally come time that she get a hearing aid. But other than that she's pretty chipper. I set up my digital camera and took some "film" of her. Her talking by herself, talking with her Partner of 57 years, Erich (who is 82 - nope not kidding), and then her talking to me.

(yes they are speaking German - but I don't know how to put subtitles in yet - anyone?)
I spent the night with some wonderful friends in Mainz before I came back home. We watched the videos in delight. My Aunt is still really with it and can give anyone a piece of her mind. In fact, she was glad I was sitting in the video because the blouse I was wearing didn't match with my jeans. I should have been wearing slacks - light colored slacks.
We had some great conversations, I stayed in a beautiful little apartment in the center of town, which was good. They have so much energy - it makes me a little crazy. The energy is mostly for arguing with each other and I just can't take it for 24/7 straight, so I had my peace and quiet. It also gave me a chance to go shopping in town. :) I found a really great coat. SUPER WARM!!! Probably the best coat I've every had . . . and I discovered the best knitting store. Oh boy.
I came home with an entire duffel bag jammed full of the most beautiful yarn.
I'm half way through knitting a sweater. Well, you know, if Americans are responsible for the recession, I see it as my ambassadorial duty to support foreign economies.

Upon returning home, I couldn't neglect our own economy, so I went out and started shopping for bathroom stuff. I'd met with Jeff the Contractor before going to Germany, and he said to me, "So you have everything right?"
I said, "What "everything"?
He said, "Toilet, tub, vanity, sink etc."
I said, "What?! - You didn't tell me I had homework!"
He said, "Well you'll need that." Captain Obvious.
I've been in a bit of a panic about that ever since. sigh
I WANT A COBALT BLUE TOILET.
Is that really too much to ask? Kohler discontinued making them THIS YEAR! How can this be? I found a Rhapsody Blue one online and wonderful Roberta at American Standard sent me a test tile of the color. yuck. It's kinda blue grey - who would want go potty on that?! So I'm back to square one. I've also made a friend at Lowes - Mr. Italian Tom. He's really great, has been checking on things for me, and took care of a return for me so that I wouldn't have to come to the store. :) Cross your fingers for me - I want a blue toilet.
As if that were the only issue. Jeff started this morning. Ripped out everything so that they could start reframing everything. And whoever did the plumbing before did a lousy job to say the least. I'm not going to say what they did in case any inspector are reading this, but let's just say it's amazing that the third floor is still up. Jeff said he'd fix it - but he doesn't look happy about it. Let's hope chocolate cake works on contractors too.
Think that's all to the saga of the new bathroom? - ha ha - not by a long shot. I already bought my dream piece - a cast iron claw foot tub, painted cobalt blue on the outside. Gave Jeff the measurements - today he says it's not going to fit into the bathroom. Ugh. This is a real bummer. The guy at the antique place is not going to be happy. Hopefully, he'll have something else that will fit - but I don't think he will want to give me a refund. :(
The one thing I have that I think will be okay is my vessel sink. It's quite beautiful. I'm going to put it on an old nightstand and Lee - the Quaker electrician - will put a plug behind the drawer so that I can put my hair dryer in the drawer. :) Let's hope this will still work out.Oh yes - I had to give up my bedroom for the contractors. This is very difficult as this is my little "nest" and I'm not happy about sleeping on the air mattress upstairs. But it could be worse - I could be sleeping on a sleeping bag in the basement - or in my car - (shudder).

And finally - with help from Jacques - I replaced the toilet seat on the third floor. I'm not really sure what happened, but the toilet seat was cracked! And I had guests! How completely embarrassing! Ugh. sigh. They were very kind and didn't mention it. I bought another funky toilet seat. Why be boring?There, that should get us all up to speed.

Okay, I'm going to bed with my new copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Hermione did a great job translating, don't you think?

Catch-up Blog #2 - Our Grand Day Together

These images are a bit out of order but - I guess that's okay. Those who were there know what order they should be in and for those who weren't, it doesn't matter anyway!

Monday was a fantastic day. I had to work in the morning, and the ladies joined me at HSP around 11. I showed them some of my favorite things including, Martha Washington's cook book, Waldseemüller's map from 1507 - the first map which labels the continent "America" (well it's a facsimile - the only known copy is at the Library of Congress), Chew papers, and the Alfonse Mucha print. Then our wonderful library director, kindly opened some of the drawers of our "special" collection and showed them the first written draft of the Constitution, the two printed Emancipation Proclamations, our partial Declaration of Independence, a lock of George Washington's Hair, and ?? oh, right, a diary with the account of Mr. Washington's death. I think they enjoyed it? :)
Then we picked up lunch at Letto Deli - the best little deli in Philadelphia. Strolled down to the Center For Emerging Visual Artists and looked at my show. Then we sat in Rittenhouse Square and ate lunch. This is a spectacular place to eat lunch at any time, but with the golden leaves lying around everywhere, people half winter dressed, half not, and a brisk breeze - a drippy chicken melt on rye really hits the spot. Then we wanted to go to Valley Forge, but not before stopping by Naked Chocolate - the best chocolate place in Philadelphia, if not the entire U S.

Valley Forge (for my international readers, and anyone else who needs a little brush up on US history) was the site of the camp of the American Continental Army over the winter of 1777–1778 in the American Revolutionary War. The troops were lead by General George Washington. It was a place of bitter cold and we all have visions of soldiers in threadbare clothing half freezing to death. However, as we found out, winter was not when most died. They died in the spring when disease became rampant.
We got there in the afternoon around 3pm, which means at this time of year the sun is already starting to sit low in the sky. We still had two hours of light, but it was late afternoon light, the kind which sets already vibrant colors aflame.

However, it doesn't make taking back lit images very easy. Here are the four of us in front of a cabin in which 12 men lived. I had put the camera on a stump and set the self timer. Had I just made us face the other way - we would have had deer in the background of the picture: The deer were everywhere. At one point Linda made me stop the car so she could lean out the window and take more pictures. :)
It was so beautiful to be out there. They were impressed with the size of the place. We drove all around it and stopped at different points. It was windy and chilly but it was quite beautiful.

Since Linda is a late October baby we went to Susanna Foo's for dinner. I think they liked it. :)
Marsha had the duck, Judy had the shrimp and Linda had the Moo Shoo Pork and I had the fillet minion - after - the dim sum platter and before the desert. YUM. Oh yummy. That place is a real treat.

On Tuesday everyone went their separate ways.

Jacques and I both miss our ladies. It's very quiet now that they are gone. Every morning I let Jacques out of the apartment and he walks out, looking up the stairs with his ears perked up listening intently to see if anyone might be upstairs. It was a wonderful visit - so much good conversation, such easy house guests - and really wonderful companionship. I'm so happy they came and I really looking forward to the next visit. They gave me a very generous gift certificate to Restoration Hardware… I'm pretty sure I will be able to use it right quick like. :) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Catch-up Blog #1 - My big award

I have received the International Bug Lovers Club of the World award!
I have lots of things to catch up on, but this one is really the most pressing. Several weeks ago - I believe after the second debate - there was a comment on the blog that I had received this award. It came in the mail several weeks later (and several weeks ago), in a neon yellow envelope. I have not acknowledged it yet - so would like to take this post to say, Thank you!!! I am truly honored to have received this award! I am delighted to know that there is another group of people who think bugs are really cool. I was hoping to be able to post images the big spider who kept making a web on my front hedge. I kept walking into her web in the morning, and she finally decided to move higher up, over the top of the hedge. Unfortunately, Mr. El had been eyeing my hedge and hounding me to trim it. I waited too long and he did it for me while I was at work one day. No more spider. Sigh. Stay tuned - I love bugs too - and will most likely post more about them.

And to the rest of you bloggers, handing out blog awards… neener neener neener … I got a bug award!

Beautiful Fall

I owe you all a long blog about all kinds of stuff. I want to talk about our trip to Valley Forge, my show, Pyramid Atlantic and the surprise of Monday Morning. :)
But for now - all I can manage to post (at midnight) are two of the beautiful fall images I took at Valley Forge on Monday. We got there in the afternoon and had afternoon sunlight for about 2hours. Spectacular.

Wonderful Visitors

Three of the fantastic teachers I taught with at La Serna have come to visit for the weekend. Linda, Marsha and Judy. It has been a wonderful visit so far. I feel terrible about having to leave them on their own on Saturday for Pyramid Atlantic, my fault - for not making sure I wasn't scheduling a thousand things at once.
Jacques was not so thrilled with the visitors. First thing in the morning, Jeff the contractor came to look at what we were going to do with the bathroom, they will start maybe next week. Leah came - bless her - and cleaned. Then Mike the knife sharpener came with the blades for my board shear and guillotine. (Yippee! Now I'm in business!). And then the three ladies showed up. It was a tough day. So to let me know this, when we were upstairs looking at the last room in the house, he sat on the bed with the brand new sheets and covers I had bought for the visit and peed all over it. It was amazing. They were so nice about it though. Thank goodness. That could have been really awful. Sigh.
By the time I got home from the fair the next day, they were all on the best of terms. Jacques and Linda seem to have really warmed up to each other. Here he is on her lap. Animal love is good - especially for someone who had had their wallet stolen that day. :(!

Today - Sunday -
We took the Mural Arts Tour. This is a two hour bus tour to look at just a few of the over 2800 Murals that are in Philadelphia. We had a terrific guide and I saw parts of Philadelphia I'd never seen before. Some fantastic murals too. It's like visiting old friends. We stopped at the Underground Railroad Mural on 7th and Chestnut - and here you can get an idea of the size. This is a mosaic mural, the most expensive mural. My ladies are standing in front of it.

We went to Redding Terminal for "lunch" at 3pm, and then went to look at a few more murals and we stopped at Isaiah Zagar's Secret garden which one can now go into and look around. It's fantastic. Here are the ladies looking down in one of the little grottoes. Zagar is a local artist who is continually working on this place, everything, the entire house, is covered in this style. It's fantastic.

But maybe the highlight for me this time was going over to Girard and 40th to look at the little girl reading a book with butterflies flying out of it. There is a new mural there as well and so we drove around the block to try to get an idea of what it looked like in the twilight. And lo and behold, the mural did exactly what they are supposed to do, give people pride in their neighborhood and bring people together. Dante - a block captain - (a young person maybe 16 - 18?) came over and talked to us about both murals. His younger brother was on one of them and the little girl was another friend of his on the same block. His pride in the murals was evident.
More adventures tomorrow - HSP collections, my show, Valley Forge and Susanna Foo's.
It's going to be a great day.

Culmination

The reason there have been so few blog entries about what I'm doing in my house is because I've been madly working on my two-person show. The opening was tonight. I have mixed feelings about the work, but the response was generally positive. Here are some of the pictures.
Zodiac
Adrienne and Mary too. Adrienne was the first person to see this work, since she was the first to install it during the show she invited us to have in Venice - thanks Adrienne!

Perennial
This book has stitched text and contains an abalone shell. I promise to write up a better blog entry with the entire book and the whole text. This is the piece I have the most mixed feelings about.

A Single Seed
An accordion book with an image of an orchard. The trees have been stitched with gold thread and there is a yellow pearl hanging at the end of each tree.

Planted
Will also send more images of this. This one was popular.
Interns, volunteers and coworkers extraordinaire!
Cathleen was supposed to be in this picture as well, but she was making a face that if I had been making, I would have been upset that someone else posted, so I cropped her out. Sorry Cathleen! We'll have to do an honorary post later. Cathleen is the Archivist for the Chew Family papers. To see her handy work, check out the blog: www.chewpapers.blogspot.com.
Mike (left) is our front desk guy (Visitor Services I think?) and exhibitions guy. He also graciously volunteers in the conservation lab on his day off - way to go!
Leah (center) is our fantastic Conservation Technician for the Chew Papers. She started with an internship - conserving a wedding certificate album which took over 300 hours of work. Thanks Leah!
Christopher (right) is our amazing volunteer who is rehousing all of our nitrate negatives. A super boring job, but he's still here. :) Lots of good karma for you.


Hedi Kyle and Katie Baldwin - two fantastic book artist to whom I owe a great debt for many different things. Thank you!


Nodin and me. Nodin's mommy is my Swiss friend Nicole, Nodin is four month old with the fattest cheeks. Yup, he's adorable.


And finally, the two relieved artists - well, I can only speak for myself. Caleb seems unfazed by the whole thing in a calm sort of way, (do I look a little green in this image?)

Now! Back to the house . . . 8am tomorrow, a contractor is coming to start looking at the bathroom so that we can re-do that.

It's been a heckuva week. Lots of stress, emotion, ups and down and the time-change didn't help either. Three of the amazing ladies I taught with in California are coming for the weekend tomorrow. I am really looking forward to spending time with them and relaxing.

Then it will be back to the house. I have tulip bulbs to plant.

What a Beautiful Day

I woke up this morning with a feeling like Christmas. Giddy excitement - a general feeling that today was a special day. In spite of the grey rainy wheather, it was such a beautiful day. The greyness amplified the vibrant fall colors. I waited until 9:30 to vote - waited in line for 45 minutes, and proudly pushed the VOTE button for Obama. There was a feeling of good will everywhere. A conversation in line in front of me talked of a woman who was driving up from DC to make sure her 85-year-old parents could participate in this historic election. People who had participated in the '60s and never thought they would live to see a black president.
Around 3 I started driving people to the poles - well only one people, the others were picked up by someone else. I then drove campaign info to different places and was finally sent out to canvassers up in north west Philadelphia. I knocked on doors of one block - everyone said they had voted except for the nut who opened his door and told us they put their faith in the kingdom of heaven and they wouldn't be participating in what was going on down here.
At 7:30 the canvasser in charge got off his cell phone and said quietly, "they called Pennsylvania for Obama." We couldn't believe it - everyone said, "really?" YES! Group hug, 6 complete strangers hugging each other - a car on the corner started flashing its lights and honking at us, the contents screaming "OBAMA!"
I went to a late dinner with friends - the restaurant was empty. 10:30 got back home to work on the artwork I still haven't finished that must be installed tomorrow.
At 11:03 - the city went crazy. I could hear people screaming, cars honking. It's two hours later and cars are still driving down my street honking. I am thrilled that this victory is receiving the same response as the Phillies victory less than a week ago! I was hoping for this. I am so proud of us. Obama's speech was wonderful - and as I listened, I thought, what will he do after his presidency - well, I think he'll just have to win the Nobel Peace price for something, right?

The song running through my head as I write is Louie Armstrong's, What a Wonderful World…oh yeah.

Phillies Win!

I'm a day late in posting what I wanted to post. Will post later this week about WHY! My show opens on Thursday and it has completely consumed me.

However. . . in other news, the Phillies won the World Series! Philadelphia is euphoric. I didn't work on Thursday, and the big Parade was on Friday. I took the train in to work, and it was packed. Phillies fans were already wandering around, clogging the Starbucks - so I had to drink work coffee. And it was just a mass of people. I've never seen so much red and white in one place in my life. We were hoping the library would be closed, but no such luck. It might have happened if it wouldn't have been for WHYY, our local PBS TV station, filming for a spot about the Chew Papers. They were around until 3:30 and the powers that "were", decided we couldn't close on their behalf. That's okay. We wouldn't have seen much of the parade anyway.
Leah, two interns, and I tried at 12:30 to get to the parade route. It was simply tides of people. On Spruce we couldn't get within half a block of Broad St. So we snuck around to Cypress, one of those little bitty streets and we did get much closer. We pushed into the crowd as far as it was possible to go. We'd push some more and there was no where for anyone to go. So we were stuck. I did capture an image of the Philly Fanatic. (the Phillies mascot (!?)). We landed in front of the Kimmel Center which was crammed with people. We did get to see the floats go by, and we saw a few of the team. I just thought it was great to be with so many happy people.

On our way back to HSP we saw this gentleman with his pipe and I had to shoot a picture of him. It's amazing how old men love to have their picture's taken. Then he told me about going to Reading Terminal that morning and since it was Halloween - I should be careful going home. He also said, wouldn't it be great if we were this happy 365 days of the year. Yes, wouldn't it. We got back to HSP to find Tyrone (one of our Facilities guys) filming all of the millions of people coming off of Broad St. We sat on the front porch to eat our lunch for about a half hour, and the waves of people did not let up. There is a PATCO (New Jersey Transit) entrance right next to our building and at one point it there was no place for anyone to go they just mobbed the street waiting to get down the stairs.
When we went back inside, Dr. Dan told us they heard in the news that SEPTA (South Eastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority) gave up on getting people to center city. They just stopped running trains. This is after they had already doubled and added more cars to their usual number of trains. Pretty amazing.
The people just didn't stop either. The stadiums are sort of walking distance from center city, so after the parade half of the 2million people that apparently came went to the stadiums. At 5:30 when I was headed over to UArts, all of those millions were headed back up Broad. They didn't stop coming. What a great day for Philadelphia, I know all of the businesses in center city go a great financial boost. Our favorite lunch spot was jammed. And I am very happy for them.
I just wish that if Obama wins, we would have the same euphoria and the same celebration.