Molly Goatwax

more tooting of a tiny little horn behind the tiny violin section

Just as I opened my e-mails yesterday to find that my painting is featured on the Flying Dog website, the snail mail hit the floor with my author's copies of Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore #10. I feel honored to be included in this amusing and highly recommended series of zines, and I may even participate in the readings in November. It would be far more gratifying, however, if all this creativity could pay the electric bills.

The uplift

Today I put in ten job applications and entered a poetry contest. It gets pretty discouraging sometimes, putting your best virtual face forward to draw only blanks in response. But! But! I am absolutely charmed by the Flying Dog Brewery featuring my art opening on its events calendar, complete with graphics! It looks wonderful! Check it out..

ever vigilant

Homer has killed a small mole and left its body on the walkway outside. I hope the toads are safe, I think he's eaten all the chipmunks.

to market

Today my adventures took me to Fell's Point, to rustle a bunch of youngsters against their playground wall for tracing their shapes into a mural project. Because Fell's Point is one of the oldest places in Baltimore, indeed, it was a busy port in 1763-before they even incorporated the rest of town...I made sure to arrive early enough to visit the ancient but rebuilt Broadway Market for handmade sausages. My blogging buddy Keith has been going on about how succulent are his local butcher's, so jealous, I was inspired to seek out some of my own. Broadway Market has seen more properous days, but I found a vendor of Polish wares and scored cheap some fine fresh kiszka, which is a spiced buckwheat and (pork) blood sausage. You cut it into inch long rounds for the skillet and it breaks up like hash in cooking. Mmmm...with noodles or potatos it would be good, but the tot and I had ours with gnocchi. It that weren't enough to stop you dead in your your tracks, I also brought home a couple of decidedly non-kosher chocolate hamantaschen from the same place. If I weren't so full, I could tell you how nicely tracing all those children went.

WWMD

That's not weapons of mass distruction so much as What Would Mom Do? In this case, I think, she would be looking for jobs as a teacher. Or selling encyclopedias. She applied make up to the clients at a funeral home for a brief stint. Mother was by turns, a general contracter, a short order cook, a science teacher and a custom dressmaker. As much as things were different then, some things remain the same. Whatever it takes.

another type of interview

Today I attended a meeting with the aftercare co-ordinator and the principal of the school to which I have been assigned to lead a mural project. A brainstorming session produced a mutually agreed apon and easily executable design in which the the students line up against the wall, holding hands, to be traced. Their sillouhettes will form a chain of paper doll like shapes that will be painted in primary colors by the students, themselves. We got a dozen or so kids to line up so we could see if our wall was right. How Fun! I will put them on telephone books in tracing so that we can paint grass under the feet of the shapes, as the wall meets more concrete at the base. And they pay me to do these things! Gosh!

Shakes on the loose

I don't know how this item from yesterday's Police Blotter feature in The Baltimore Sun has escaped the world's notice.

" Burglary A man dressed as a clown entered Casa Mia's Restaurant in the 8600 block of Honeygo Blvd. about 3 a.m. Saturday after breaking the glass front door and stole beer and liquor. Nearby pedestrians called police when they heard the sound of breaking glass. A surveillance camera caught the burglary in progress, but no arrest had been made. "

a new day

Time to stop wallowing in the lachrymose puddle of self-pity I've created and pull myself up by the belt loops! I've already gotten two job interviews for the week and a list of numbers to call. Let's roll!

This new challenge

One of the recurring themes in my life that I have recorded in this blog is how I am ever re-inventing my relationship with society in terms of employment. Readers have followed my movements from banking to barkeeping. It can now be discussed that, I just finished up a month's worth of training to emerge with a Nurse's Assistant Certification, just barely. My Supervisor was forthright to the point of bluntness (and all the nurses I've met speak as plainly) in her final evaluation when she told me that nursing home care is a career for which I am simply not suited. I lack the strength and stamina to care for eight to ten residents at a time. And, between my advanced age and lack of experience in related fields she advised me that it would be unlikely I could use the training as an entry to a more advanced position in, say, medical imaging-as I would be competing for those slots against youngsters with letters in the biological sciences. She was highly amused after I admitted that my degree is in painting, then started probing into my motivations. Dag. I'm feeling kinda rejected. And my back hurts a bit from heaving that dear biddy around repeatedly on my own decaying muscles. But wait! There's Home Care! And they need a CNA at the methadone clinic! Or something....the next chapter waits to be written.

Cake Week

Starting some birthday observations, here. Pass the ice cream.