Hello, My Little Chickadees--From Redding, California

Hello, hello! I think I'm somewhere I've never been before. I'm not really sure, of course. Since we lived in California for a couple of years, and since we once spent several weeks driving up and down the length of the state, I may well have been here at some point. As you might guess, I have absolutely no memory of this.

I can tell you nothing of Redding. We arrived about 6 pm. It was 108 degrees, according to the thermometer in the truck. We unloaded the stuff we needed, ate almonds and cheese and drank a bottle of sparkling Spanish wine from Trader Joe's in Portland, and didn't set foot out into the hot world. Holy moly. Normally one would have to go to Midland, Texas, for 108 degrees.

Today we go to San Francisco for a couple of days. It's not very far, and we hope to find some wineries along the way. Or, rather, not too far out of the way along the way. But, since it's Monday, and since lots of places are closed on Mondays, we may be out of luck. There are some other places we hope to find and visit, but that's always sort of iffy. I'll let you know.

Art Fiber Fest--it was fabulous. Four days of riotous creativity, people from all over the world (one woman flew in from Taiwan; there were a lot of Canadians--those marvelous Canadians!). A lot of walking--Reed College is perhaps the most beautiful urban space I've ever seen. One afternoon I went down and walked along the creek, a lovely place that took me right back to the creek in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and the endless summer days I spent there.

Do I have photos? I have no clue: one morning I was standing at the espresso cart, paying for my latte, and I looked down and saw my camera on the ground. It was in its little case, so I thought nothing of it. But later, when I tried to take a photo of something fabulous, I discovered that the LCD screen was shattered. It has no alternate viewfinder, so although it appeared willing to take photographs, I had no way of knowing if that was, in fact, what it was actually doing. So I put it away. I need to get the card out and see what's on it, but eh. Later. I'm just thrilled it was my little camera and not The EGE's Official Camera--which was the whole point of the trip: for him to take photos of Art Fiber Fest.

There were lots of great things--the Wine Bottle Installation, wherein I artfully arranged all the empty bottles of all the wine drunk in our dorm over the 4 days: 38 bottles: so cute! So empty! The last night, after show and tell, I spent several hours serving as hostess, pouring wine (we took a case and bought another case from Trader Joe's) and passing snacks. Much more fun (for me) than actually drinking the wine or eating the snacks: I was happy playing hostess, plus I felt great at 5:30 the next morning, whereas some of the other celebrants were wearing their sunglasses at breakfast. I tend to be sort of an enabler A Feeder, really.

Perhaps my favorite thing was meeting the fabulous Judy Wise for lunch at The Cup and Saucer on Hawthorne Street, or, maybe, the next afternoon, when I sat at a table with Teesha and Tracy and their daughter Tiphoni, Judy, and Theo Ellsworth--that's three people (Teesha, Judy, Theo) who are in the next book, all in one place at one time. Yowza. [They were journaling; I was asking nosy questions (duh) and recording with the little recorder. Oh: and stitching. I've been doing a LOT of stitching.]

[That link for Judy's blog has some photos for you.]

There's more, of course. Lots more. But goodlordalmighty, it's a pain in the butt trying to do stuff on a laptop. Sure, I have my plug-in keyboard. But the laptop mouse! And the slowness! I get grouchy every time I have to use this. Just ranting and ranting. So I'm going to leave you to enjoy the various websites of the various cool people while we go off to see what there is to see between here and San Francisco. After that, we're off to Bakersfield, Flagstaff, and then a couple nights in Santa Fe. And then home to get a new roof, new siding, and a new internet provider. Yay!

XO