Category: writings (Page 11 of 66)

Portals #55 ©2015 Lisa Call 18 x 18 inches

So there I am, sitting in the chair closest to the door (it’s what you do if you’ve been traumatized – always have an escape hatch) at a breakout session at the World Domination Summit, stitching one of Nancy’s drawings. Just as the session was about to start, this woman comes whizzing in and plops down in the chair next to me. We listen, take a few notes, and are partners for the stupid worthless activities that eat up clock. When the session ends, I begin to put my things in the bag, moving slowly to avoid the herd. The woman sitting next to me remains in her seat, too.

When the din dies down to a tolerable level, she turns to me and asks what I am working on. “In June,” I tell her, “my developmentally disabled sister-in-law started drawing, and I’m now stitching every one of her drawings.”

She seems keenly intrigued then adds, “You know, I work with textiles, too.”

“You do? How marvelous.”

“Yes. Do you have a card?” she asks.

I reach into my bag and whip out a regular-sized business card and hand it to her. My card looks teensy beside the oversized postcard she puts in my hand. I did what you do when somebody hands you their business card – I read it. “Wait a minute,” I say, “you’re Lisa Call?”

“The one and only.”

“Well, it is really nice to meet you.” You see, I’ve been following Lisa online since blogs were invented, always intrigued with her textile paintings and impressed with her approach, dedication, and productivity. She is a systems girl who dreams big then lays down the plans to make sure it all happens. “I’ve been following you online since you moved to Denver. I watched you remodel your house. Watched you lay the carpet. Watched you start your garden.” I stopped there for fear of what she might think – you know, this is the stuff stalkers are made of. Fortunately, she just laughs, and we’ve been friends ever since. She was even an Envoy, taking photos of one of Nancy’s first drawings and writing about it, and I have taken several of her workshops, and she is now my art coach.

When I go visit my son who lives in Denver, I make sure to let Lisa know so we can get a walk in (something that’s become increasingly more difficult since she became a part-time resident of New Zealand earlier this year.) On one visit, we eat at a restaurant in Cherry Creek. Lisa orders first. “I’ll have the kale salad with no dressing and water.”

“We can’t serve the kale salad without the dressing,” the waitress says.

“Okay,” Lisa says, “I’ll have the kale salad with the dressing on the side.”

“We can’t serve the kale salad with the dressing on the side.”

“Time out,” I say, making a T with my hands. “Where I’m from, the customer is most always right, and certainly when she wants the dressing on the side or no dressing at all, she gets it that way.”

“We can’t serve the kale salad without the dressing or with the dressing on the side,” the waitress assures me.

“What if it’s a health issue?” I ask. “What if she is allergic to something in the dressing or has diabetes or some other illness that makes it necessary for her to forego the dressing?”

“Well then, she’ll need to order something else,” the waitress says, “because we have to preserve the integrity of the kale.”

I’m not kidding – she says that. “We have to preserve the integrity of the kale.” And she says it with a straight face.

Lisa and I sit there dumbfounded then start to laugh and gather our things, preparing to find food somewhere else – hopefully in a place where customer satisfaction is more important than with the integrity of the kale.

“Wait a minute,” the waitress offers. “I’ll go ask my manager if there’s anything we can do.”

“You do that,” Lisa manages to tell her between laughs.

The manager agrees to break the rules this one time, the salad is served with the dressing on the side, and soon enough, we are eating and talking textile art. And the best part? We leave with a secret code phrase that never fails to set things in proper perspective: “preserve the integrity of the kale.” And we’ve never eaten at that restaurant again. Ever.

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Lisa’s latest exhibit – Endless Horizon: 14000 feet to Sea Level – opened this past week at the Spark Gallery in Denver. It’ll be up through October 18, so if you get a chance, go by and see it. Her newest work is striking. Stunning, really. But then all her work is.

When his daddy died and left the land to him, my daddy turned cow pastures into a golf course. When I became a mother, we built a house on the fringes of the golf course, close enough to Mother and Daddy’s house to feel safe letting the chiclets walk over for a visit, far enough back from the road to worry about golfers heading to or from the 19th hole as they did.

I was up early, preparing to teach a full-day workshop on bookmaking when the dog’s incessant barking woke the children. Frustrated that my quiet time was snatched away, I readied the children, picked up Laura The Babysitter, and headed off to my workshop. Daddy called on my way out to tell me to keep the doors locked because the golf course had been robbed and to let me know that law enforcement were combing the area in search of the bandits. I relayed this information to Laura and went on my way. It was before cell phones appeared anywhere but in comic books, so it was much, much later when I learned the rest of the story . . .

Two detectives with the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office take a golf cart and head down my way in search of the thieves, or at least some clues that would help them in their investigation, while Daddy and the Sheriff get in another cart and ride in the other direction in search of the same thing. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Laura takes the chiclets outside to play on this sunny morning.

As the detectives top the hill in the golf cart, they see somebody (it’s actually Laura The Babysitter, who, at the time, is built like a highly sought-after linebacker) chasing the children back into the safety of the house because Laura The Babysitter has seen two unidentified men wearing bluejeans and t-shirts headed her way in a golf cart, and for all she knows, they are the robbers.

“We have the thief on the run,” one detective radios the Sheriff. “He’s at Jeanne’s house, and he has the children.”

“Roger that,” says the Sheriff as he turns the golf cart around. “Proceed with caution.”

In a most unfortunate turn of events, Laura brought the children out through the basement, leaving the front door – the nearest, of course – locked. The children, still thinking they’re playing a game, run into the basement and get under the sewing machine as directed.

By this time, Daddy has taken the radio from the Sheriff and contacted the detectives to let them know that the person they saw chasing his grandchildren is Laura The Babysitter. So here we are: the children are hiding under the sewing machine that’s right under the window, and just outside are two plain clothes detectives, their guns raised, looking through the window from the outside, telling Laura The Babysitter “No” as she dials the phone.

“Hello, Mom, it’s me, Laura. The golf course was robbed this morning, see, and there are two men outside the window here. I don’t know what to do because while they’re showing me their badges, they also have their guns raised, are wearing t-shirts, and are telling me ‘No’ through the window. What should I do?”

Jane, her mother, tells Laura to stay on the phone and calls the Sheriff’s Department on her other line. Meanwhile the detectives figure out that the raised guns could pose a problem, so they holster them while continuing to show their badges and say “No, put the phone down” through the window.

“Can we look? Can we look?” ask the children, who still think it’s a game, just a different one now.

Jane comes back on the line to tell Laura it’s okay, they really are detectives, these two, so Laura lets the kids pop up out from under the sewing machine to take a quick look. Laura is making her way to unlock the basement doors when Daddy arrives, letting himself through the front door with his key. Introductions, apologies, and explanations are shared, the children get their cookies early and get to share them with their beloved granddaddy and his friends with guns, and best of all: everybody was alive to tell me all about it when I got home.

Even after all this time, the two detectives – Larry W. and Tommy N. – are not nearly as amused as I am when I see them in public and hug and thank them for not shooting my babysitter.

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I’m penning 100 stores in 100 days. If you’d like to read along, you can subscribe by mashing the “right-this-way” button in the orange strip at the top of the screen, and following the directions. It’s free, fast, easy, and muchly appreciated.

When you take your daughter to college (where she received a full-ride scholarship that she would forego at the end of her first year in favor of full, out-of-state tuition) (what, me, bitter?), you talk about all kinds of things on the ride up . . .

Lighthearted Stuff: Yes, that’s the Gaffney Peach. No, your eyes do not deceive you, it really does resemble a certain part of the human anatomy. Now get your eyes back on the road before you kill us both. We don’t get a refund at this point, you know.

Plain Ole’ Stuff: Thought I’d never find them (who knew Spencer Gifts were still around?), but I did and I bought you strings of beads to put over your door like I did when I went off to college. Well, yes, you’ll have a real door. I didn’t, but you will, I just know it.

Important Stuff: Yes, Mom, I promise you faithfully that I will not put you in any nursing home that won’t let you have your very own grocery cart.

It’s never too early to extract the important kinds of promises, you know.

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Today’s post enkindled by my friend LindaMarie over on The Facebook.

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