Mom & Me Five Archive

    Mom was intrigued with our egg painting exercise. "This is fun," she said, several times. It was. We only accomplished half of our project in yesterday's two sessions: The painting of the base colors. Each of us chose our base colors and painted three eggs. I felt that mine required two coats. She decided to paint each egg with only one coat, but her process took longer than mine, so we finished about the same time. I had washed and brought a seventh egg to room temperature just in case one of the eggs broke. Our sessions went well, though, despite (or maybe because of) frequent on-table supervision by our cats, so I decided to base paint the seventh.
    As we base painted, we talked about possible decoration detail. At one point I suggested that we consider gluing beads onto the eggs.
    Mom gave me a stern look across the table. "I think painting designs is going to keep us busy enough," she countered.
    After base painting was completed, it was obvious that Mom's intellectual acuity and concentration had been taxed enough for one day. We decided to leave the decorative detail for today. I was very pleased, though, with our two sessions. She was engaged beyond my imaginings.
    She noticed that her base painting yielded coatings not as smooth as mine. I'm always honest with her when she asks my opinion about such matters. I examined each of her eggs and said, "I suppose you're right, but, look, Mom, the quality of your brush strokes is bold and interesting. I wish I'd thought of that," which was true. "You've got provocative textures, here. I'm thinking it might be fun to try dripping washes of other colors over your eggs to highlight the textures. Remember, when you used to do ceramics, you'd create those spot glazes with chunks of materials that would melt and run? I think we could come up with a similar technique. Or, you could add dashes of contrasting color with bold, thick strokes. You're selling yourself short if you don't consider the possibilities of your base coat technique."
    "That really wasn't technique," she said, "it was accident."
    "Happy accident, then. I think you have the beginnings of some intriguing eggs, here." And, I do.
    She was not only pleased, she examined each of her eggs from this perspective and began to smile. "I think I see what you mean," she said.
    We also talked about the possibility of doing this type of thing regularly. I mentioned that I wasn't sure that we wanted to produce painted eggs in abundance; after all, what would we do with them?
    "Sell them," Mom said, always the opportunist.
    That's a possibility, but one in which I haven't got much faith. "We'd probably only be able to sell them around Easter, Mom," I said, "and then, what would we do with them in the meantime?" I suggested that maybe we could just paint pictures, but she wasn't keen on that idea. "Maybe, then, we could find other things to paint, like, oh, I don't know..."
    "...our walls," Mom suggested.
    I laughed, but, now that I think of it, this isn't a half bad idea.
    I'm also thinking, maybe I can solicit my neighbor with the camera to come over and take some shots of our finished eggs to post here, if they turn out as interesting as I suspect they will.
    Which reminds me...only three of the snow pictures taken through our windows turned out; of those, only one expresses the quality of what it's like to live in this house, in this area, surrounded by snow. This is a note to myself to remember to post it here, shortly.
    Today, though, has not been a good day to continue painting, what with TCM's Jesus movie extravaganza on television. I'd forgotten about that aspect of Easter. Mom's just finishing King of Kings and will shortly begin Barabbas. I've been surprised by some of the scenes in King of Kings, particularly those featuring Herod, Pilate, Lucius, the various royal wives and Salome. I'm looking forward to Barabbas because of Anthony Quinn. It'll be interesting to see what kind of Jesus story Hollywood cobbled together out of nothing.
    Then, of course, later tonight is the next episode of The Tudors. Mom was thoroughly seduced by the first episode last week. Curiously, during last week's episode she was reminded that she has a book about the children of Henry VIII. I remembered it remains in her bed stand book collection. We've decided, when we finish with the book through which we're now currently working our way, The Making of "Mammy Pleasant": A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco, a book written by one of my fraternal cousins upon which I stumbled upon while doing some genealogical research for MCS, we'll read about Henry VIII's children. Mom read the book once many years ago but has no memory of it. I remember she enjoyed it, though, so it should be a good read. I expect, once all the Easter movies are exhausted, we'll probably, once again, start through our collection of English Royals movies.
    Mom was surprised and a little confused by the contents of the Easter basket, although once she opened the mandala coloring books she was enchanted. I included an extensive collection of crayons and colored pencils. She has the prejudice against crayons common to many people; they're for kids. I don't mind that she prefers colored pencils, but I decided to initiate a "crayons aren't for sissies" session with the blank practicing pad and encouraged her to experiment with both. I don't know that she was convinced, but I'm sure she'll be using the coloring books with one medium or another. When she noticed there were two she said, "Oh, good, you can color with me." I never thought I'd find myself saying this in my 50's, but I'm looking forward to it.
    I've been adding to this post throughout the evening, as possible. It is now Monday, 0046. Dinner, which was excellent, is long done. Yes, we had ham. Not HoneyBaked, though. We've been successively disappointed with the taste as compared to the price over the last few years. Years ago, HoneyBaked hams tasted distinctive. This is no longer true; it's now hard to tell the difference between them and other premium spiral sliced hams. We decided to go for the markedly cheaper (and leaner) Kirkland ham. As usual, I played with the glaze mix that comes with the ham, this time substituting pineapple juice, from the canned-in-juice slices with which I decorated the ham, for the water and adding rum. Savory results. I served lightly steamed Brussels sprouts with feta/herb dressing and fresh, nuked corn on the cob. After this feast, neither of us was interested in the cherry pie, to which I'd also added rum. My taste buds seem to be frantic for the flavor of rum, lately. We'll see how that worked out tomorrow, probably.
    No nap today for Mom, which surprised and delighted me. Her choice. I believe she was afraid she'd miss yet another Jesus movie.
    I think I'll relax a bit and hit the sack. I've got some errands to run early in the morning. This week, too, is Gather Up Yard Trash and Get It to the Curb Week.
    Later.