opheliaswims

Today I went to the Mall of the Supreme Knock Offs. Not your ordinary purses sold on NY corners by barking salesman, but the Uber Bag. So well done, it would fool a hardened Chanel addict. You could find of course the tell tale bit where it’s not Chanel, but hey, it even has the hardware with the Chanel logo. No plain metal here. I will post a picture later when I can get my camera unloaded. I am staying at the Shangri-La Hotel in Quingdao. Lovely room, when I walked in there was a bowl of fruit waiting. I don’t think I will ever leave. Mister Pooh has asked me politely to stay. He’s in love with the girls at the Front Desk.

As I was in the car on the way to the hotel, I thought “I am in a foreign country”. But then it occured to me that I was home. I have never felt out of place here. My heart belongs here.

I took this photo at Jusco’s in Quingdao. I was standing in line with a bag of lychees. All of a sudden I heard screaming and jumped back. The two gentlemen in front of me were fighting. Flinging fruit and air punches, they screamed at each other for some small transgression that was brewing in the short time they were in line. Ten cops ran down and arrested both of them. The Chinese take this in stride, we all watch the ruckus, and then go back to shopping. Getting dinner is the priority here.

This is one of a few sporadic updates from China. I landed in Beijing last Thursday, all ready to do my “thing”. I have been visiting China since 1976 since I was a kid, yes that long. The changes are beyond leaps and bounds, lets say more like a jet fueled rocket propelled crashing into the next two centuries. I love it and I hate it.

I miss the crumbling old China, the shut off China. However, I love the advances she has made. Like China, I am have one foot in the past and one in the future.

Mister Pooh goes off to China to see Mao Tze Dung, and his cousin Wa Hoo Pooh.

Wedding, musical, dinners, too many inkings in the calendar. And then soon off to China. Back to China in July and August. A finger in every pot, a foot on each coast, a mind in each world. Now to check that to-do list….

I am always on the look out for “Pure Luck”. Not your filtered, half’n'half, homogenized, watered down “Luck”. But Pure Luck. The times I have encountered it’s nasty cousin “Bad Luck”, I am thankful for the Good Luck I have had. Everyday is a wonderful moment. Everyday is filled with Pure Luck.

Photo taken on Melrose and Heliotrope, Los Angeles. A lucky moment.

Wow. I got the news today that my work will appear in NYArts Magazine. In print in July, and online in August. It will be interesting to see if there is any interest in the work outside of Fine Art. I would love to see it in stores as window dressing.

As a kid growing up in Toronto, I loved seeing the Christmas window displays. My eyes would go misty at the sight of toys I would never have. My gloved hands would press against the glass and my breath would steam up the window.

It would be a great turnaround to see my work on the other side of the glass. It would be surreal.

Little things. Bits of jetsam and flotsam. Swimming around my head. Do this, don’t forget that. Talk to her, email him, pick up this, change that. Will I leave anything behind? Even a hermit has a list. I am trying to imagine what a recluse’s list is like.
1. Stay In
2. Remember to not answer the door.
3. Watch TV
4. Eat
5. Take nap
6. Eat
7. Pile stuff into corner
8. Eat
9. Pile more stuff into the other corner.
10. Eat
11. Go to bed.

Seems like my day, only without the need for wifi and phone. Got to go, I have to pile more crap into the corner.

“While the flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away upon the river; and thus do greater things that once were in our breasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to the eternal seas.” Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

I love the moonlight. It covers the ground in a soft blurr. As though a veil was placed over the night. Tomorrow is May’s New Moon. We begin a new cycle that leads us to the white night.

“The sky was a midnight-blue, like warm, deep, blue water, and the moon seemed to lie on it like a water-lily, floating forward with an invisible current.”One of Ours by Willa Cather

I am in love.

Ouch. Internet went up and down all day. Stubbed my toe. However, I did get some great work done for a big meeting tomorrow. I love working with creative people. The ideas flying back and forth, from coast to coast. Like ping pong balls.

Speaking of ping pong, I picked up my visa for China today. It’s a multiple entry (no snickering please), that means I can go back and forth for six months. I looked in my passport, there’s five visas for China. Sigh.

As I was in Spinning Class, my mind wandered all over the place. Just like today’s blog. I am halfway there to my goal, and halfway to China.

Soon…a wedding, a trip overseas, an idea to bloom…

My friend Leslie will be married in a week. She opened the door and Richard stood there. When you ask the universe for love, it comes knocking on your door.

Eleven days until I leave for China. Too many things to do before I leave. Work. Too many ideas at the gate. I have been pruning out the ones that aren’t going to give fruit, and tending to the ones that will.

I have been watching my avocado tree, there are many little baby avocados dotting the branches. Thanks to water and bags of fertilizer. This is the first year I have fertilized. I guess that’s the trick (doh).

Fertilizer… good for avocados and ideas.