Or, What if They Gave a Wedding and Somebody ATE the Bride???
I’m sitting here at the kitchen table doing my best to tune out the mayhem in the living room. I. Do. NOT. Want. To. Know…the details.
Sophie caught a mouse tonight. THE mouse. The one that’s been getting into everything. Pooping on the kitchen counter. Pooping pooping POOPING EVERYWHERE. Gnawing on everything gnawable. And some things that aren’t gnawable. And pooping that stuff out too.
I was doing the dinner dishes when I saw her (yes, Miss Mousie is a her because I have declared it so) I saw her out of the corner of my eye, a dark shadow racing from the pantry to the fridge. I yelled and stomped and made scary human noises because I just want her to go away, go outside . I will even feed her outside, make a nice warm nest for her if she will only go THERE and not HERE.
But she didn’t listen. She went back to the pantry where Sophie cornered her behind the (rodent proof) dog food containers. I saw her cowering there and all my mom instincts kicked in. I WANTED TO SAVE HER!!! And then Sophie made a move and Miss Mousie made a move right towards me and I did what they do in the movies–what they do in the cartoons–I jumped out of the way and SCREAMED.
Screamed like a girl.
Then I ran out of the pantry. There was a scuffle behind me. When I turned to look, Sophie was standing there with a tail hanging out of her mouth.
It was not her tail.
She trotted off to the living room, growling at anyone who came near. Growling with her mouth full. With a hairless little tail dangling beneath her chin. This was her first kill and she was not going to share. She spit her prize out by the sofa and that’s when I realized the poor thing was still alive.
Oh crap.
I grabbed some paper towels thinking I’d catch Miss Mousie and take her outside so she could die in peace, carried off from this world (this harsh, cruel world) on the wings of mouse angels.
Because surely she was dying, right?
What the hell do I know… Next to nothing about revival of the fittest. EFFING RODENT made a spontaneous recovery and a successful dash for the safety of under-the-sofa-land. Sophie is beside herself. No matter how much she tries, Sophie can’t fit under the sofa.
But she can bark at it. And growl. And make scrabbling sounds on the wood floor as she scurries from one end to the other. She’s been doing that for, oh, a good two hours now. Won’t even stop for her pre-bed potty break…which is not a good thing.
I can handle a puppy potty accident, lord knows it wouldn’t be the first.
But I really–I mean REALLY–don’t want to wake up with a dead mouse in my bed. Or worse–a live one.
“It took me four years to paint like Raphael but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Pablo Picasso
I spent my early art career years as an illustrator, a time when I could render anything with near photographic precision. When my kids were little I moved on to portraits, mostly because I loved painting their beautiful little faces.
But I didn’t love painting other people’s faces, that was work. Inner Critic weighed heavy on my shoulder. If you’re not familiar with Inner Critic then stop reading this right now and go make something spectacular–because there’s nothing stopping you. Really. Go away now. Shoo!
But, if you’re like any number of creatives and have this weight on your shoulder, this little voice in your head, this invisible something bitch-slapping your ego whenever you walk in the studio–then read on.
Because Ingrid has something to say.
Ingrid is my niece–okay, my great niece, but that makes me sound old. And I’m not old.
Ingrid is a hunter of monkeys. And a discoverer of unicorns. A child who sees the world, well…through a child’s eyes. With no apologies.
She’s three years old and you can learn something from her. The painting up above? That’s Rapunzel. With pink hair. Ingrid made this right around her third birthday. Which blows me away because not only does she have all the facial features–including ears–she’s got them pretty much where they’re supposed to be.
But where are the arms? WHO CARES? Ingrid KNOWS she forgot them. She pointed that out herself and said she would add them after her nap.
After her nap. The wisdom of the universe condensed to three little words.
Which shows this child has her priorities straight.
I’m going to have a chat with Inner Critic today. Maybe bribe her with some chocolate. Or zonk her out with a meditation. Or just tell her to go to hell. Then I’m going down to the studio and I’m going to paint. Not going to think about it. Not going to analyze it. Just going to heat up some wax, tear up some paper and HAVE FUN.
Today I’m joining with thousands of other bloggers throughout the world to talk about girls.
Why girls?
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Because by the time a girl in a developing country is twelve–twelve–she’s considered a woman. Marriage is on the horizon, if she hasn’t been married off already.
And why should we care if some kid in a far off poverty stricken country marries some man two, three or four times her age–why should we care…I mean, aside from basic human decency, WHY SHOULD WE CARE?
Because take that girl and multiply her by the six hundred million other girls in the developing world and look at the pattern. Poverty. Famine. Disease. Infant mortality. Human trafficking. Political instability that affects us all.
But, give a girl an education…
Look what happens when you empower a girl with education. When you give her the tools to better her life, you give her the tools to better the lives of her family. Which impacts her village.
Multiply by six hundred million and you’ve impacted the world.
So what can we do? “We” as in YOU. And ME. Really, what can we do?
Quite a lot. Multiply the ‘you’ and ‘me’ by telling your friends, your coworkers, your church. Spread the word in the schools–get the kids involved. If you’re a blogger write a post. If you like to entertain, throw a party and start the conversation. Retweet this post. Like it on FaceBook.
SPREAD THE WORD.
But this isn’t just about words. It’s about action. I just did my part to keep a little girl in Ethiopia from becoming a child bride. For $25, the cost of a few lattes, the Berhane Hewan project helps prevent girls from becoming child brides by providing a sheep to families who commit to keeping their girls in school.
There are lots of projects like this, lots of organizations dedicated to helping girls in developing countries have a chance in life. To find out more go to here.
We CAN make a difference in this world. One girl at a time.
Autumn is here, for sure. Mr. Spouse and I readied for the first winter type storm due to blow in sometime early in the week. He did the gutters, I raked pine needles and cleaned up down at the barn. Don’t need pictures of any of that, trust me. Grumpy husband, piles of pony poo. Really. Some things are best left to the imagination. Or better still, forgotten entirely.
After two hours of barn work I was hungry. And cold. And tired. And craving eggs and oatmeal. Go figure. By that time Mr. Spouse was on his way to the airport and Daughter Dearest, being an opportunistic self-feeder, had polished off the remains of the chicken in the fridge.
But I couldn’t have just eggs and oatmeal, right? Even though I really wanted ’em. This was dinner. And what’s dinner without veggies? Don’t say breakfast–too easy.
So while the oats were cooking–steel cut, by the way, solid substantial oats–I washed and chopped up some baby spinach. I’ve always got some in the fridge, kale too, because I loves me my greens. Look how pretty they are.
Then came the oats. And a little bit o’butter.
Couple of poached eggs.
Chopped ’em up, mixed it all together. But wait–that’s when the lightbulb went off inside my head and I knew, I just knew what it needed–
Shredded Parmesan! Garlic powder! Salt and fresh ground pepper….
It was absolutely, positively, INSANELY delicious.
