10:18 a.m.||||2004-05-03
Hi there. Hope all had a weekend. A good weekend, a stellar one, a relaxing one, an industrious, but one, at least. Did you have a weekend?
I did, and what a one.
DAve and I finished a mural over at the home of a guy he used to work with. The mural is one the bedroom wall of a two and a half year old...actually shared witht the one year old....
Dave started this room several months ago and then for some reason it stalled....good thing these people have been understanding. Sometimes Dave takes liberties with people's time and unless they're wealthy contractors/ wealthy homeowners - which is most of the time - there can be some negative fall out from that sort of procrastination. Because Dave is brilliant at what he does and he is in a trendy and competitive market, he does well, even when it takes a long time.
This mural is done on all four walls and they go accordingly: wall on right upon entry: two dogs (beagles who look like the family - one balancing on a ball and the other perched atop a unicycle)next to a huge, soft-looking, wise-seeming elephant - the elephant being about three quarters of the wall space. Next wall to the left: left of window: two monkeys - one swinging from a trapeze and the other hunched holding a bag of peanuts. I got to work on the monekys - give them more noticable fur and outfits. On the swinging monkey I painted a little blue military-like coat - double-breasted with big red buttons and brass chains. Epaulettes (sp?) (Remember in school when you'd get back papers marked in the margins "sp?", meaning "is the correct spelling, you young victim of 21st century American grammar?") I gave her (had to be a she once I femmed her up with the crazy coat - I could see the look on DAve's face when I painted it, like is it going to look so queer when you're done? Yes! She is) a roundish hat - green with orange stripes and together we fixed her face and her facial expression. DAve only has one small brush and it's kind of not small enough to do fine detail. The monkey looked at first like she had been reanimated.....zombie eyes. Right of windoW: life-size, really warm and surprisingly friendly seeming bear. Next wall: two big tigers window-right; two huge and smiling lions; Next wall: big-ass, slightly scary looking clown - primary as hell.
All the animals either sit on or behind the waist-high border made to look like barrels - springy green and blue, criss-crossed, circusy. It's a cool layout. Getting to work with Dave is a lot of fun, cause he's so sweet - later he said to me "way to step up to the plate, baby...I didn't even have to ask for your help - you just did it!" I was amazed - cause I'd be reticent inviting just anyone to work on a mural for a client. But he trust me. I was like, "I'm not the artist" and he said "oh yeah you are." Interesting I know. Interesting enough to quote? Forgive me - I'm tired and kinda plugging away here half-steam.
The thing with muralling is, you gotta decide up front how much detail you're gonna have cause that's what you have to commit to in the rest of it, then. I think dressing the monkeys was a good idea - all the animals looked base-coated but their fur wasn't real detailed. And the monekys in particular looked malevolent when naked. What kills me overall, though, is that all the big, potentially nightmare-producting animals, looked really wise and friendly, although still foreboding. There's an intelligence in their faces that could be hard to explain much less paint.
Anyway!
As this was all going on, we had Josh with us - he played with their two little kids, Michael and Derek. That's a weird situation, theirs. Rudy has custody of the kids after his ex-wife decided that she couldn't handle them, the stress of raising them. The littlest one was just born, I think, so he didn't really get a chance to bond, but the older one was raised by her for a while.
She's bi-polar, apparently in a way that has collapsed her whole life. It seems she keeps vacillating about whether or not she wants to stay a part of the kids lives, and in the past she has requested to spend time only with the older one, not the younger baby.
In the meantime, Rudy has this really nice, down-to-Earth girlfriend who seems intelligent and hip and able to deal with the ridiculous reponsibility of raising two very young, closein age to each other, toddlers, who aren't hers and for whom she would have no rights at all should she and Rudy split up.
If it were me, having that hanging over my head would sicken me. Can you imagine? If he breaks up with her, that's it for her stint as mommy and especially with the littlest one, she's the one thought of as mommy. There's a little palpable tension in their house - to make things worse - his mom lives with them. I know from experience that living with a parent is the first step towards death of intimacy.
The odd thing about the two year old - Michael - is he calls everybody - female, that is - mommy and all males daddy. Not accidentally either - he followed me around for about a half hour going "Mommy? Mommyyyyyy! Hey, mommy?" When I answered him, he was satisfied - I told him my name is Karen and he said it just fine and then later was calling me mommy again. Trying to get Dave's attention he called him daddy.....this started to get really weird and I felt really sorry for Emily, who, after sacrificing so much for these kids - she's a stay at home mom to them and sits for two other kids as well during the week - has to hear Michael confusedly calling many people mommy.
He's a funny kid, though. Smart and quck. Tempermentally he and Josh are a lot alike - friendly and easy-going with other kids unless overtired or irritable over a particular toy (yesterday it was trucks, always, that led to skirmishes. I only had to get involved twice. Before one or the other smacked the other. Almost.) and before we went we were able to use Michael as bate - this works well with Grandma Linda and Hannah as well - mention their names and suddenly he's putty in our hands. Josh likes Michael and Derek nad Michael in particular is happy to have this new friend.
What really is funny and neat about Michael too is that for two and a half his verbal skills are really advanced. He speaks mostly in complete sentences and has an easier time with certain words and sounds than Josh. I love it when Josh is playing with older kids or kids with good language skills because his own pronunciation picks up speed and accuracy.
And then there's Derek. Little, doe-eyed, slightly bigger than a minute. I love this baby - Treya you know! Pretty easy-going, and friendly, but thoughtful - kind of a worrier, I can tell. (And who wouldn't be?) He has this look of one who is perpetually run over/knocked down/pushed out of the way. If you start suddenly in his direction he ducks and cringes a little cause he's used to his older brother just bulldozing him.
OK - gotta go to lunch - more later, possibly