The Multi-tasking Norwegian

Posted on April 5, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Madonna and Toddler, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Multi-tasking is such a big thing with some people.

I mean, I think it’s impressive if a person learns another language — like whatever it is that they speak in Uzbekistan — but for some of those who operate on 36-hour cycles instead of 24, listening to Uzbekistani fairy tales in the car while meditating (eyes open) and doing one’s nails (hands at 10 and 2) is the norm.

These people are not.

Normal, that is.

Now the Norwegian Artist, who, when he uses a chain saw to chop wood, does not text at the same time, does multi-task when he paints, namely by listening to an audio book while he dabs.

This isn’t really possible when you’re writing, by the way.

(Try it sometime — it’ll drive you nuts.)

Given that the Norwegian Artist, however, is one of the sanest people I know,  his digital reading habits in conjunction with the wielding of his brushes apparently don’t mess with his brain as much as living in constant contact with me.

Months after completing a painting, he looks at the image and remembers what he was listening to while he was working — “Jason Bourne was driving through Switzerland as I was putting the finishing touches on that sail,” he’ll comment.

Crall Hollow Late Afternoon, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

With my ability to read and re-read Agatha Christie novels because I never remember whodunit, much less what was done, I find this memory feat amazing.

When he isn’t “reading,” the Norwegian Artist listens to music, a frustrating activity in our household since none of the progeny knows how to work the plastic CD caseholders enough to put CDs back in them, and every shiny disc we own is scratched, dented, clawed, marred, and burnished bronze.

So, in the effort to save money, I troll through the Dollar Delight Store in search of paintable music, and some of the time I come back with tunes worth listening to, which means that, most of the time, I don’t. The Norwegian Artist has a stack of shiny discs, in their cases, that he listened to once, if that, and put away because he felt as if he were stuck in an elevator, out on the beach, with birds chirping in unison to Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

I am learning, however, and I would like to impart to you my wisdom, accrued in a dollar by dollar fashion:

If the disc title has the word “relaxation” in it, then the background behind the music pulsates with wave sounds, wind whispers, or those wretched birds — sometimes all three.  The resultant cacophony of noise overshadows any melody, and you find yourself with a tension headache and the desire to go off somewhere quiet — like a treeless, waterless, cat-infested desert — and relax.

Castle Rock, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

The word “spiritual” in the title is no better, especially if the disc cover has rocks on the front: this means that there will be a series of knock knock and clanking sounds (the rocks, apparently) superimposed over a toneless and tuneless base.

Italian Cafe Music is a big, big mistake. Disconsolate, weeping Italians with accordions trash vaguely familiar rock songs from the 1980s.

Favorite Hymns — any of you who spend Sunday mornings in cavernous rooms with long benches know how many verses the average hymn has — and while it’s bad enough struggling through the whole pile, plus the chorus, eight times, with the words — it is far, far worse with a piccolo and a tambourine.

Smooth jazz — you know, for a dollar you don’t get Euge Groove or Grover Cleveland. At some point before unconsciousness hits, you think you hear birds.

One time I struck gold with a virtuoso performance by some anonymous genius in Spanish Guitar. I loved this disc, so much so that I played it in the car — over and over and over and over.

Until one of the progeny — none of them would admit to it — pulled it out, couldn’t figure out the plastic case contraption, set the disc on the seat, and sat on it.

On the bright side, it was still shiny and unscratched — both halves.

And the Norwegian Artist has never painted a picture to it, because he has never heard it.

Dory Beach, by the Norwegian Artist, Stve Henderson

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Reading the Last Page of the Book Is Not a Crime

Posted on March 29, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Break in the Weather, art print from Steve Henderson Collections.

I regularly indulge in a dreadful habit.

Actually, I am a teeming mass of bad habits, but it’s best to address just one at a time so that you won’t be overwhelmed and give up on me.

This one involves picking up a book, reading through the first several chapters, and then flipping to the back to see how things turn out.

Now to my mind, this is no worse than my bookkeeping technique of estimating how much I’ve spent this month, subtracting that from what I’ve started with, and calling it good if the bank says I’ve got more money than the number I approximate.

I mentioned this to an accountant friend of mine and she gaped in horror.

Granted, I expect higher standards from an accountant (she probably uses a calculator), but it’s not as if I let the dog lick the baby’s ice cream cone or anything.

Similarly, checking out a book’s ending isn’t cheating so much as it is protecting myself from undue emotional harassment – looking ahead, planning for the future, all that positive seminar type stuff. It’s certainly not a crime that warrants a visit on the porch by a couple of deputy sheriffs and a piece of official paper.

September, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

And yet, by many people’s reaction, it’s as if I admitted to letting that baby back there eat flies out of the dog dish – while the dog snuggles in the blankie.

Look at it from my perspective: we’re talking about a 500-page book involving Roberto and Gwendolyn, and the three of us are going to be spending a lot of time together, as night after night on the sofa I allow their miserably chaotic and unrealistically audacious lives intertwine with mine.

I know that – in the process of averting nuclear meltdown in a remote South Sea Island that has been secretly taken over by vampire zombie aliens – Roberto and Gwendolyn are going to deal with some major issues, especially when Norman enters the picture (chapter 6), Gwendolyn’s dog dies (chapter 8), and somehow Roberto gets convinced that Gwendolyn and Norm were working together to bump him off when they accidentally shot the dog.

This is all fine, actually, and no less than what I expect.

I also, however, expect for everything to tie up neatly at the end and for everyone who is supposed to be happy – namely Roberto and Gwendolyn – to truly end up blissful, together, with a new dog. I don’t care what happens to Norman.

Al Fresco, art print from Steve Henderson Collections.

An increasing number of writers, however, delight in stringing along the reader for 498 pages with murky promises of eventual closure, only to spend the last two pages ravaging the lives of their characters beyond repair or care, all in the name of authenticity and truth.

(I’m not sure if they’ve noticed, but vampire zombie aliens aren’t real.)

For some reason, many self-professed deep thinking intellectuals define reality as unmitigated desolation, despondency, and despair, broken up here and there by the occasional smile, sunny day, or successful birthday party.

As an English major in college, I had the unfortunate experience of having to read novels by these people. I almost switched to physics.

Now I am not naïve enough to think that bad things don’t happen. Bad things happen to all of us, every single day, and for that reason I look for the total opposite in my reading pleasure.

That’s why it’s called reading “pleasure.”

And if you’ve never done it, it’s more challenging than you think to check out the last page of a novel without learning too much, especially in a mystery story.

“I can’t believe Roberto did it.”

NO!!!!!

Not Roberto!

“Poor Gwendolyn.”

Poor me as well. How am I going to finish this book?

“I love you, Gwendolyn.”

“I love you too, Roberto.”

Sigh. That’s all I wanted to know. God is in His heaven, and all’s right in my little world. I can go back to chapter 3 now.

Cascade Head, art print from Steve Henderson Collections.

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The (Dressing Room) Walls Come Crashing Down

Posted on March 22, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Clearwater Revival, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

I’ve just come back from a shopping excursion.

I don’t know what Paris Hilton buys when she goes on one of these jags, but I splurged on under-the-clothing-torso-region-support-wear and sensible shoes.

Whoo-hoo.

I’m guessing that Paris’ boutiques don’t end with the word “Mart,” but then again, my name doesn’t sound like a French city and my last name has nothing to do with the hospitality industry.

One thing that I did share in common with Paris on this trip is that I didn’t cart along any progeny, and for you mothers out there who haven’t figured this out yet, shopping’s a lot easier without the kids.

Have you ever thought of leaving them home next time?

Just joking — I know that you’ve thought, dreamed, ached, wished, hoped, aspired, coveted, and lusted — although that latter emotion is part of the reason why we lug small people around with us in the first place.

So I roam in splendid isolation through the intimate apparel section, grazing, picking up purple things and spotted things and stripes and flowers, which I know don’t work with white. As a concession,  I toss in a boring beige and arrive outside the dressing room, but the attendant’s plastic number cards don’t go up to 13 and I have to leave some of the animal skins outside.

Actually, dressing “room” is a misnomer, since the try-on area is a free-standing series of boxes set up in the middle of the store, and while I’m in my rat cubicle, I hear a wail accompanied by a bump against the “wall” of my “room,” and I think,

“Dear God — this isn’t going to come crashing down around me while I am totally topless and trying to fit the straps back around the flimsy clear plastic hanger which just broke, is it?”

Becalmed, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

For some reason, I look up (was I praying aloud? Did the kid hear me?) and am comforted to see that the half-inch plywood barrier extends 10 feet in the air, but am baffled at a wire mesh screen that spans the top of the enclosure.

Is this to prevent kids — like the one whose sobs I can hear just way, way too close — from climbing the structure and tumbling down to the bodies below? Maybe I should have just bought socks.

Those chauvinist males out there who joke about how long it takes women to dress have never seen one re-attire herself in a panic in the middle of the Mart rat cubicle.

Thank God for that.

But I bagged my hooter loot, and in the rush of adrenaline that hits mothers when they’re able to buy themselves something, anything, I scooped up a cute piece of nightwear that balanced precisely between baby doll risque and flannel swathing and headed to the check stand, where I only had to wait 10 minutes for the person ahead of me to swipe and re-swipe his debit card before he decided to pay with cash, which he didn’t have enough of, so he had to trot out the debit card again.

Convergence, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

And naturally the clerk was a 19-year-old male.

Poor guy. He tried to matter of factly find the bar codes embedded in substratums of wispy chiffonerie — leopard spots in diaphanous pink and tiger-striped transparent tiffany that clung to his skin and draped over his arms. I am so glad that I didn’t make a stop in the pharmacy section as well.

But, unlike the guy before me with nary a strip of lace, I was able to swipe my plastic card once, press the correct buttons, grab my shopping bags and sashay out to the car.

Just like Paris.

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The Uncommon Cold

Posted on March 16, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Cascadia, by Steve Henderson, at Samarah Fine Art, Whitefish, MT. March 16-19 at the Western Masters Art Show and Sale, Great Falls, MT

Lately the Norwegian Artist and I shared a cold together.

I mean, he had his, and I had mine, but we did it as a married couple.

And, as is the case with most things that married couples collectively accomplish, The Norwegian Artist was very male about the whole thing, while I opted to tap into my interior and external female.

At the first sign of any disease, I morph into Catwoman, stealing to the bedroom as soon as my work obligations are behind me, shutting the door, nesting under the covers, and sleeping. If I can find an actual cat, I bring one up for company and illustration, but the important thing is that I am screened from view and human interaction, blissfully alone with my tissues and my snuffling, and . . . sleeping.

Any progeny distributed about downstairs knows better than to expect anything recognizable for dinner, as, when I do descend, I drift to the sofa, collapse, and announce that tea and toast sound delightful, and will somebody who is not ill please arrange to bring me some and don’t forget the milk, thank you.

Tired of Being Youngest, knowing from experience that it’s easiest to get the tea and toast thing out of the way, indulged me, and I was agreeably sipping when the Son and Heir burst in, breathing hard.

“That’s a workout,” he puffed.

Sip. Nibble. Sip.

“Have you been running?” I asked.

“No, we’ve been shoveling chicken manure from the coop into the garden beds. We got in quite a few loads.”

“We?”

“Yeah. Me and Dad.”

It’s Dad and I, actually, but that’s not the point.

“Your Dad has been shoveling chicken manure?”

“Yeah. We’ve been at it the last hour.”

And therein, my friends, lays the difference in how the Norwegian Artist and I approach the standard cold virus.

Evening Shadows, Room 140 March 16-19, Western Masters Art Show and Sale, Great Falls, MT

My theory is that, while the body is under the influence of attacking microbes, the white blood cell cavalry need all the help that they can get, and distractions, such as extra oxygen for physical exertion, should be kept to a minimum.

My snuggle time on the king-sized battlefield, while seemingly indolent, is part of a calculated military campaign to strengthen and support those valiant white cells.

Perhaps it has to do with years of staying at home with a series of very young children who suck the life and energy out of a female when she is healthy and robust, but when my energy wanes, I long for silence, darkness, peace, quiet, isolation – actually, the attributes that the average cat seeks all the time, sick or not.

The Norwegian Artist, however, believes that the Enemy Cold Virus needs to be attacked head on: sweated out, molested, assaulted, crushed, mashed, mangled, forced into unrelenting hard labor, deprived of oxygen, marched to the edge of the precipice and hurtled over the side.

Each shovelful of chicken manure is a rusty nail driven into soft warm virus flesh, a cannon ball smashing the outer walls, a volley of arrows and a catapult of boulders harassing and assaulting and assailing.

The Norwegian Artist gives no quarter. After the garden activity comes the daily walk (minus me), if not at full speed in deference to the health hostilities, at no less than 85 percent. If it’s still light outside, there’s time for a little wood chopping. Maybe the gate on the goat pen needs to be fixed.

At dark he’s in, sniffing, sneezing, coughing but abounding with righteous energy, consuming his tea and toast (which he gets himself), casting a calculating glance my direction, but wise enough not to say anything about his co-General-in-life’s tactical maneuvers.

In bed, at night, we both toss and turn, each with our private box of Kleenex.

The next day, the individualized health plans of after-work action (or, in my case, inaction) begin anew, until, three days later, the colds have run their course and we resume normal activity.

Mountain Lake, at the Western Masters Art Show and Sale, Great Falls, MT

I, in that three day skirmish, have had a delightful respite — making allowance for the headache, mild fever, and plugging of the ears — catching up on light reading, knitting a bit, chatting with the cat.

The Norwegian Artist  has filled half the woodshed, prepared two beds in the garden for planting, fixed the gate, walked the dog.

Ying and Yang, Norwegian and Pole, artist and writer, north and south, male and female, husband and wife — we are different enough to keep the other on edge, alike enough to enjoy being in the same room together.

Gesundheit.

Incandescence, by Steve Henderson, at the Western Masters Art Show and Sale, Great Falls, MT, March 16-19, Room 140 (Samarah Fine Art) Best Western Heritage Inn

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Sewing, Knitting, Quilting — Real Women and Real Men Do These Things

Posted on March 7, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Mountain Lake, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson. Click on the image to see it on the gallery website.

I’m a Baby Boomer, which means that I am one generation removed from the “I walked 10 miles in the snow to get to school every day” stories.

Okay, so my parents drove me to school every day. I did walk home, just not in the snow.

However, I do have my own tiresome tales to tell my captive progeny audience, especially when we’re in the car and they forget to charge the I-pod or MP-3 player or whatever electronic device they have stuck in their ears (“I heard literal voices in my head,” will begin their own tiresome tales someday).

Mine have to do with being in third grade and owning four dresses, worn in rotating fashion throughout the week, and washed every weekend.

With three brothers ahead of me, I had no hand-me-downs, and for some reason, nobody in the family knew anything about second-hand stores. I myself did not discover their existence until I began dating the Norwegian Artist, who was taken aback at my initial reaction:

“This place is incredible! They should open up stores like this in other towns!”

Back to the third grade, just temporarily, since it is best left in the past:

The class was going on a field trip, and girls were advised to wear pants. I was in a panic — since I owned no pants other than a pair of jeans that magically made it past the third brother.

True to my high strung nature, I agonized, stressed, and woke up at night, worrying, but never thought to actually mention the matter to my parents, who, being parents, eventually figured out that their youngest child was in a state.

Bainbridge Island Sail-by, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson. Click on the image to see it on the gallery website.

“I have no pants to wear to the school field trip!” I wailed. “I won’t be able to go!”

My mother looked at me, looked at my father, then disappeared into the nether regions of her bedroom closet, returning with a festively wrapped birthday present.

“It looks like you need to open this early,” she told me.

Inside — oh joy! — was a striped polyester brown/mustard yellow/cream stretchy top and matching pair of brown pants.

Not only was I dressed for field trip success, I had a fifth item in my rotating weekly wardrobe, expanded even further when, on my actual birthday, I received the identical outfit again, only red, white, and blue this time.

Eight rotating outfits — doubled from four!

The Fruit Vendor, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson. Click on the image to see it on the gallery website.

While this experience did not result in an adulthood of Paris Hilton shopping sprees (you need money for that, I find), it did create in me a need to create. From an eight-year-old’s dreams and actual attempts at sewing and knitting (not very successful in a family of microbiologists who know how to use a microscope but not a sewing machine), I grew into an adult her taught herself to sew and knit unique garments to compliment the name-brand finds in those miraculous second-hand stores.

Every day, I wear at least one item that I sewed or knit — top, socks, hat, no slacks yet since I’m not that proficient — and I sleep under a bedspread I pieced and machine quilted, with my head on matching pillow cases. Meals feature place mats and potholders spun from my fingers. Scattered about are pillows and table runners. The Toddler can look forward to years’ worth of customized jammies. The Norwegian Artist gets a vest now and then, his supply abruptly cut off at the knees if he ventures to make any less than positive comment about fit, look, or style.

“Is that sweater for someone you know?” people ask when they spot me knitting.

“It’s for ME,” I reply. “Who else would fully appreciate all of the work and time that went into it?”

Like any mother, I am generous with my time, but my knitting and sewing endeavors largely benefit myself and that eight-year-old girl who smiles with wonder every time she finds herself with yet another piece to her wardrobe.

I have more than one week’s worth of rotating clothes!

And I have a passion, a hobby, an activity to make time for, somehow, everyday that uses a different part of my mind than writing and marketing and calling on the phone and sending paintings to galleries and shows.

At the Norwegian Artist’s receptions and opening nights, I appear in something that exists all its own on the planet — no twin at Wal-Mart or Nordstrom’s — what I’m wearing is as unique, unusual, and imperfect as I am.

The eight-year-old within me laughs with joy.

Wading, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

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Home Office Space — The Final Frontier

Posted on March 3, 2011 by This Woman Writes

College Girl, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Once while I was attending one of those tiresome Welcome Parents and Students orientation events with my soon-to-be College Girl, I escaped the maddening crowd and settled myself in a public lounge. I was clacking away on a sweater when a woman stopped to watch.

“I really want to knit,” she sighed.

“I can teach you,” I said.

“Oh. I think I’d like that. But I just don’t have a place to knit, you know?”

Considering that I was sitting in an orange plastic bucket chair in front of a tiny round lime-green-Formica-covered table, I was surprised, and gestured to my surroundings.

“Knitting is portable,” I said. “You don’t need much room.”

“But I do!” she replied. “We’re converting the entire basement into a space for my writing room. Once that’s done, I’ll have the space I need to create.”

Sigh.

The space to create.

My sewing room shares an 11×11-foot footprint with the laundry room. My knitting hangs in bags on the coat rack or behind the sofa, ready to pick up at any time.

My office?

The piano room.

The front door is eight feet to my right, and people and animals walk in and out of it all the time. If the dogs were able to operate the doorknob, that would be distracting enough, but  generally the small rat-thing hunches near the door, looks at me, looks at the door, emits a pale sigh, then renews the entire process until I get up to let her out.

Ruby, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Fifteen seconds later she is scratching to be let back in (if only the average human female could be that speedy in a public restroom).

The big dog stands three feet from the front door, turns my direction, and STARES.

Son and Heir slams his way out (teenaged boys are incapable of shutting doors) and bursts back in. Tired of Being Youngest grabs the binoculars, whisks out to the porch, and peers 400 feet through the trees to the mailbox to see if the latest electronic thing she has ordered has arrived. The answer no, she stomps back in. SLAM.

The Siamese cat, which, when we used to have lever doorknobs, effected a grand entrance by jumping on the lever and disengaging the latch, now resorts to climbing the door itself, peering through the small windows at the top and directing her malice toward the woman at the desk who is trying to type.

To his credit, the Norwegian Artist comes in from his barn studio only to deliver the mail or grab a cup of tea, but after the dogs and the cats and the Son and Heir and Tired of Being Youngest and the county tax assessor and the Fed-Ex guy and the UPS man and the kid selling cheap chocolate bars for the baseball team — well, the Polish Contessa doesn’t give the sweetest welcome to her Norwegian Prince.

It is not that I envy the Norwegian Artist his studio — after all, a large canvas, a palette full of paint, and an easel demand more space than a flat screen and a keyboard — and as a writer I don’t stand back from the screen and wave my pencils around — but I think I scared the man with my enthusiasm over his proposal to build a wall between my desk and the front door.

Ascension, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

“Yes! Oh yes oh yes oh yes! Yes!” sounding like Jane accepting Mr. Bingley  in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series.

A wall, a barrier, separation from that dog-infested door.

Really, I think that I am a remarkably easy woman to please, and back to my Stranger in the Afternoon who wanted to knit but didn’t have the space, I am flabbergasted at the barriers people put up in the way of getting things done — and I don’t mean walls that block out front doors.

While designated space is nice, reality is that most of what’s available is taken up by dining room tables and sofas and bedrooms for children still living in the house and toilets and such, and when you want to carve a niche out for your business or hobby, you have to be as creative as what you plan to do once you get the space to do it in.

Someday, maybe, the space will be there — carved out, remodeled, created, designed, spontaneously combusted.

But until then, there is work to be done, and if you’re not doing it, well then, it’s not getting done, is it?

Just do it — whether or not you’re wearing Nikes.

August, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

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Is Trivia Really Trivial?

Posted on March 1, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Mallard Grove, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

The only time in my life I recall longing to do laundry was after our first child was born, when ANYTHING, down to matching socks, sorting whites from the grays, or watching the machine agitator rotate back and forth, was preferable to dealing with a small, demanding, noisy, messy, burpy, smelly, screaming, clutching and clawing bundle of humanity that would not sleep.

(I wonder if this is why we eventually had three more?)

Despite the challenges, raising children is infinitely preferable to doing laundry, although it’s not as if there were a choice in the matter to drop the latter from your life, and finding the right detergent to do the job is a task I am still working on, as that first baby is producing laundry creators of her own.

Other than trying to identify the least dyed, least aromatic product on the shelf, I claim no brand loyalty, but, like an organ grinder’s monkey, I am attracted by bright colors and bold writing proclaiming “102 Loads in a Bottle the Size of a Liquid Cough Medicine Container!”

I feel as if I am in a silent auction, standing before the array of heavily perfumed packaging and lip reading 84 Loads! in the orange box and 96.5 Loads! in the teal bottle, and pounding the gavel for the third time at the 102!

One time, in a spirit of experimentation, I marked on the bottle every time I did a load to see how close I could get to 102, but I lost interest or mislaid the pen or something, and never did finish the project.

But I did figure something out:

The cap is the crucial element, and, depending upon how full you fill it, this determines how many loads you’ll get.

This is painfully obvious, right?

So tell me, the last time you did laundry, did you fill the cap to the top?

Thought so.

You won’t get 102 loads that way.

Dory Beach, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Fully engaging my Organ Grinder Monkey Brain, I looked on the back of the bottle for Directions. Unfortunately, although my brain is sharp, my eyesight is fuzzy, and the tiny writing was difficult to decipher, but that I eventually did:

“For small to normal loads, fill the cap up to the first line. For larger loads, fill up to the second, third, fourth or fifth line, or to the top.”

Wait — wait — there are LINES on the cap? Where?

The cap is dark blue, opaque plastic, and if there are lines on it, then they are subtle indeed.

And there are FIVE lines.

I brought the cap close to my face and stared, then ran the tip of my finger along the inside. Just barely, I felt an obtrusion at the one-third point, then another slightly above that, then another, and another, and another — five. Knowing where they were, I was able to make out the faintest 3/8 inch lines staggered around the interior of the cap.

And I saw that, in order to realize my full 102 loads, I must use roughly two tablespoons of viscous blue liquid, just up to the first unidentifiable line.

Human nature being what it is, I can’t stop at that first line, even if I could see it, and continue pouring a decent shot — not to the top, because that would be conceding defeat to the manufacturers, but to roughly the 2/3 mark, which I think is about the fourth line — resulting in 61 loads as opposed to 102.

Emergence, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

I find this same phenomenon of absentminded lines on medicine caps, which is disturbing, because while doubling the dose of laundry detergent — assuming that I’m not stupid enough to ingest the viscous blue liquid — results in no more than getting half my money’s worth, overshooting the lines of recommended medication is a bit more serious.

In this day of bright happy packaging and labels Siren calling us from across the aisle, is it too much to ask that the measurement lines be easy to identify?

And before it be pointed out that there are far more serious issues to contemplate than invisible demarcation lines on plastic cups, allow me to observe that these lines — or lack of thereof — are a symptom of a larger issue:

Being forthright and honest. Or not.

If the marketers and manufacturers of assorted products can spend the money on a loud, lavish label that shouts at me, 102 Loads!, they no doubt could make it easier to identify what an actual load really is.

But they don’t.

Lower Weinhardt Road, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

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The Amazing Advantage to Being Incredibly Nearsighted

Posted on February 23, 2011 by This Woman Writes

August, art prints from Steve Henderson Collections.

My daughter, Tired of Being Youngest, is studying genetics, which involves much contemplation of black and white guinea pigs, as well as pea plants. I do not believe that the pea plants are crossed with the guinea pigs, and I imagine that it is best not to have the rodents and the plants in the same laboratory space.

My own direct experience with genetics — aside from the all too limited two-week study of it in high school biology — involves my father, the Professorial One, who is a tall scientific genius with the eyesight of a myopic mole.

My mother, Venerable One, is a short little Polish dynamo whose eyesight is as sharp as her grasp of English grammar.

Hence, there comes their youngest progeny — a profoundly nearsighted thing with my father’s strong masculine jaw and distinctive nose, and my mother’s . . . height. Thanks to a maternal training in grammar that began before I could speak, I am well versed in nominative and accusative cases, participial phrases, and subordinate clauses, to the point that if I knew as much about science as I do about grammar, I would have been nominated for the Nobel Prize, which, incidentally, Professorial One was.

Garden Gatherings, art prints from Steve Henderson Collections.

But we were talking about genetics, and while Professorial One’s genius with microbes and viruses and tropical diseases was all used up on the older siblings, he had plenty of his wretched eyesight to dump in my DNA, with the result that I began wearing eyeglasses in the third grade, when I thought to myself, “If only the teacher would write in BRIGHT RED chalk and MUCH BIGGER, I would be able to read it.”

Ah, the mind of a child. I wonder when I will discard it?

One especially tact-challenged ophthalmologist blurted out, “With eyesight as bad as yours, you must have worn glasses in the cradle!”

Fortunately, technology’s advents have enabled me to take advantage of thinner lenses, so that people actually can see my eyes through the glass, or rather, polycarbonate.

And with the inexorable march of time finding me solidly in the camp of middle age, when most people start picking up cheap frames at Mart stores so that they don’t have to tape the newspaper to the wall five feet in front of them, I find that there is a plus factor to having the eyesight of a myopic mole, namely, that though I must wear glasses to locate the giant E on the eyecharts, I only have to take them off to have the closeup abilities of our granddaughter, the Toddler.

From childhood I remember the image of Professorial One in his armchair, glasses at the top of his head, trashy spy paperback novel three inches from his face. No bifocals here.

Golden Beach, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

As a compensation for receiving recessive genes from both parents’ X factors, I, too, enjoy the benefit of slipping the glasses to the top of the head, sexy starlet style, and thereby destroying the image by drawing whatever it is I am trying to read just a breath or two beyond the tip of my nose.

The Norwegian Artist, who has super powered hearing and sight, gives me a pained look every time I do that.

“That makes my eyes hurt,” he says.

And no wonder, since, at five years my senior, he of the 20/18 superlative vision had to creep into the Mart store and pick up a pair of cheaters, relying upon me, glasses atop my head, to read the little magnification numbers and direct him to the right section.

I admit to being merciless in my enjoyment of this, and have not been innocent of a comment or two, or three, or, frankly, quite a few more, but I have drastically reined myself in as I discovered, a couple years ago, that when it comes to using the computer or the sewing machine, perkily perching my glasses in my tresses doesn’t work.

It’s bad enough breathing in paper fibers while you’re reading, but it looks weirder than even I’m willing to look to type with your face brushed against the screen of the monitor, or to sew with your cheek resting on the throat plate of the sewing machine (not to mention that the needle is moving up and down way too close to not just fabric).

When I found that, in the car as navigator, I could more easily read the map by slipping the Norwegian Artist’s reading glasses over my own eye ware; and when I saw the Norwegian Artist’s ill concealed smile, I went to the ophthalmologist (not the tactless one), and announced that it was time for graded bifocals.

All comments about age-related eye issues have stopped, and I am an understanding and sympathetic helpmate to the Norwegian Artist when we are facing menus at the Chinese restaurant and he has forgotten his reading glasses.

“You want #7 and I’ll take #10,” I tell him with confidence.

I like both of these dishes equally well, and I just couldn’t decide between the two. Isn’t that what being married is all about?

After the Harvest Rain, art print from Steve Henderson Collections.

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Seriously — Is My Health Insurance Company Really My Family?

Posted on February 15, 2011 by This Woman Writes

Ruby, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

One of the most memorable offerings that I received this Valentine’s Day was a gigantic red and white card, teeming with colossal, poofy, happy hearts and a warm, loving message signed, “Your Extended Family.”

My health care plan.

Also known as “the insurance company,” three words that I have never remotely associated with “family,” extended or otherwise.

Ah, but language changes, either on its own or through design, and there are two significant ways that you can demean or marginalize a word so that it no longer means what it once did:

First, in Brave New World fashion (read the book, by the way; it is chillingly prophetic), you can denigrate the word to the point that what was once good, is now bad.  In the aforementioned novel, “Mother” becomes rude, offensive, crude and obscene — the M word, so to speak — not so far off the mark when you consider that contemporaneously, state and private  forms are replacing the words “Mother” and “Father” with “Parent 1” and “Parent 2.”

Thing One and Thing Two — One’s Red and One’s Blue. Can “Parent 3” and “Parent 4” be far behind?

The second way to destroy a word is to overuse it and dilute it to the point that it means so much, it means nothing at all.

This is what is happening to the term, “family,” which, however one describes it, holds the distinction of being “a fundamental unit in the organization of society,” according to Webster’s 1913 dictionary, which, interestingly, posts as its primary definition, “a household, including parents, children, and servants, and, as the case may be, lodgers or boarders.”

Captain's House, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Okay. So Webster wrote before the atomic age, mercifully not incorporating the coldly offensive but aptly descriptive, “nuclear family.”

So while we can establish that family is a flexible term, perhaps we can avoid bending over backwards to the point that we snap our spines, becoming, in effect, spineless:

My health care plan is not my family, extended or otherwise. Membership to this particular family hinges solely upon a monthly check.

In the same manner, the places where I purchase dish washing liquid, toilet paper, bananas, crew socks, and grapes are also not my family. Not only are these people not there at 1 in the morning when one of the progeny is an hour over curfew, they are also not there when I need to find the paper plates and napkins aisle.

The Office? Seriously, do you want Dwight to be your brother and Michael Scott your father? Stanley would be an okay uncle on an itinerant basis, but Angela would be downright scary at Thanksgiving if you both brought sweet potato casserole.

Hilary Clinton’s Village? It has always been painfully obvious, but never mentioned, that while the traditional African village referenced is made up of brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents — in effect, people genetically related to one another — Hilary’s Utopia consists of social workers, government aides, politicians,  medical workers, educational personnel, the police force, lawyers,  and general administrative staff — none of which are on hand when a child is the only one in the class not asked to the Big Birthday Party.

Religious institutions get a little closer, especially those that insist upon incorporating “Brother” and “Sister” with one another, and I do understand and embrace the concept of the Family of God — but I was nonplussed when the leader of an organization in which we had not participated for three years — and were thereby requesting that our names be removed from the membership list — countered with, “But you’re a member of our family . . .”

In some ways, family is like great art: “I don’t know how to describe it, but I know it when I see it.”

The Pine Grove, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

It’s not enough to say that families are a group of people who love one another — that’s warm and fuzzy, but so was my Valentine’s Card from the insurance company. Frankly, we all have members in our family tree that are not the apples and pears and peaches of our lives but more of the pits and seeds and bruised, slimy skin — and yet we still acknowledge them as family.

My definition? Families are a group of people who belong to one another in a closed set — a set that can grow, incidentally, through marriage and birth and adoption — but a set that is nonetheless closed. We understand one another, we stand up for one another, we stand being around one another. We nourish and protect our children in an insulated environment that holds at bay hostile outside forces that seek to damage and destroy them before they can stand on their own.

Madonna and Toddler, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

We are connected by a fusion of bloodlines, shared history, and choice; strengthened by commitment and time; and inextricably intertwined on a level so deep that we overcome distance and circumstance to maintain our identity as a family of relatives and kin.

We are, indeed, THE fundamental unit in the organization of society.

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The Punctuation Princess Says: Easy on the Exclamation Points! Please!

Posted on February 12, 2011 by This Woman Writes

 

Reflections in the Sand, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

One of my favorite features of our daily newspaper, other than my own column, of course, is the Letters to the Editor page.

I have to hand it to the people at our little news review — not only do they print a balanced array of opinionated writers, from Clarence Page to John Stossel — they make a genuine point of printing each and every letter, and other than fxing obvius spllng mstakes, they keep the content pure and unadulterated.

With all respect to Misters Stossel and Page, I read the ordinary people first, and as a writer, I get especial enjoyment out of the variety of ways a variety of people have of saying a variety of things.

One itsy bitsy element stops me in my tracks, however, and this is the overuse of exclamation points.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These little ditties are like Tiramisu, the cloyingly rich Italian dessert composed of Savoyard finger biscuits dipped in strong coffee, and encapsulated with Mascarpone cheese, spirits, sugar, cocoa, and double cream.

If it sounds like something that you shouldn’t eat for dinner every night, you’re right. Too much of a good thing.

A good thing!

In the same way, exclamation points are punctuation items meant to be brought out for that special occasion, when the selective choice of the right adjective, adverb, noun, or verb, just doesn’t do the job.

Aarrrrgh!

Sometimes an inarticulate grunt or gasp or cry of anguish manages to express our feelings on the matter, but an entire composition of these utterances makes one wonder why the primeval Neanderthal bothered with the scratches on the cave walls in the first place.

Too often, people tack an exclamation point to the end of an insipid sentence, with the mistaken notion that it will somehow infuse hot scarlet overtones into a sepia-toned lithograph:

“This is so stupid!”

or, for even greater emphasis,

“This is soooooooo stupid!”

Aside from the obvious point that calling people or complex issues stupid does nothing to bring the other side into your court, this verbal laziness undermines the integrity of the writer, giving the reader the impression that this person is overly emotional, underly sensitive, and possessive of a working vocabulary of less than 500 words.

The better authors give examples:

“The other driver pulled into the opposing lane and rapidly accelerated to pass me — in an elementary school zone, during the lunch period, and at the crossing intersection. It is amazing how quickly a stout, middle-aged former heavy weight boxer crossing guard can react.”

or understate the issue for emphasis:

“I found the mayor’s conduct unprofessional when he flung his Dixie cup of fruit juice at the opposing councilman, and question whether his explanation that he had tripped is a valid one, given that both men were sitting down at the time.”

Sunday Morning, by the Norwegian Artist, Steve Henderson

Decidedly, when a writer takes time to frame his phrases into strong constructions — using words more complex than “nice,” “dumb,” “cool, man,”  or “gross,” then the letter on the whole is not only more interesting to read, it is highly likely that it actually says something, whether or not we agree with the writer’s opinion.

So, take that little box of exclamation points and put it in the back of the cupboard, removing it only on special, special occasions — which, incidentally, pretty much never occur on resumes, cover letters to prospective employees, business reports, or essays for a 101 English paper.

Invest in a physical thesaurus or use an online one, and play with different words in your writing (you might want to confirm the meanings in a dictionary as well — you can call your fiancee “buxom”, but she probably wouldn’t appreciate “ample”), and if a particular sentence doesn’t have the punch and panache you want without an exclamation point, it probably needs more thought as opposed to a line with a dot.

This article is reprinted from Focus on the Artist, a division of Steve Henderson Fine Art, providing articles to art lovers and people who want to be art lovers on art issues, writing matters, and general topics of interest.

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