Acrylic painting and old photos for SLD's 39th B'day

Luckily she doesn't read my blogs.

I vowed that I would paint her a b'day card, as I did last year.

First I flipped on my excellent audio book



Then I got out my acrylic paints from downstairs. Three years ago I took a class at Abington Adult Evening School so I had all the supplies and remembered what teacher Chris Wells told me.

I had absy no idea what I wanted to paint. Last time I painted a Coffee Cup.

With my supplies spread out on a sheet - no way was I gonna get paint on my new carpet - I spied my Tiger.

Yes!

First, I outlined in pencil the shape of the Tiger. Unimaginably difficult. I am quite definitely not a good drawer or painter either.

There's a message there. You can do a lousy job and still make it look good!

Earlier I had gone thru some old and very faded photos and chose a couple to include in my painted card.

This darling photo of Sarah shows her in Gram's downstairs cupboard. When I showed it to Scott, he thought it was Dan.

I ran over to Scott's twice to use his hole puncher - which you can see in the upper right - so I could rig a string thru there and have the Tiger carrying the pic in his mouth.

Thother photo was Sarah on the Beach, which reminds me of the wonderful Philip Glass piece "Einstein on the Beach." 

I think they call Glass's type of music Minimalism. It's not for everyone but I dig it!!!

Here's the completed card, which I just drove over to the Huntingdon Valley PO. There's never a line there. Got my credit card out to pay - but it only cost $1.12 to mail it to Brooklyn!

It'll take about 3-4 days to get there even tho I mailed it first class.

Before I left for the PO I took my blood sugar. It was great - 84 - so I popped in some food to keep it reasonable.

And now, at last, I can tell the tale of dealing with Abbott Labs when something dire happens to my Meter, made by them. PS - They also make Depakote for bipolar d/o, which may cause birth defects and autism when taken by a pregnant mom.

Thother nite my meter failed to work. Usually it oinks when it has my number up on the screen, but there was only silence.

I was certain my meter was broken.... again.

When you call Abbott, the highly trained idiot on the other end asks you the most ridiculous questions and repeats your meter ID like this: R as in remainder, D as in division, L as in Lincoln. And she does that with me too, checking my name and address.

Maddening!

Then she asks me questions like, "Where do you do your fingersticks?"

"On my fingertips," I said. What? I should say my butt-hole?"

Turns out, Reader, the meter wasn't broken. I had accidentally pushed one of the buttons on the meter which rendered the instrument Silent.

She taught me how to get the beep sound back. Then she asked me to repeat how to do it.

For pete's sake. I told her I was in a hurry and didn't have time.

Actually I was certain my battery on the meter was low and I wanted to get to Giant before the pharmacy closed. I asked Scott to look in the fridge to see if my battery was in there and he couldn't find it.

I KNEW I had a battery in there.

The reason we couldn't find it was b/c it was in the wrong drawer.

It was in the veggie drawer instead of the battery drawer.

I quickly called Giant with 10 minutes to spare, told Bobby I'd be there in 5 minutes. When I got there the pharmacy was dark, so I yelled thru the door: Are you in there, Bob!

And there he was, coming out and finding me the correct battery.

Actually, this is when he gave me a flu shot. AH-CHOO!