Workin' Like a Dog

For those of you who do not go to Jesse's blog on a regular basis, here is the photo she took before driving off to school. It is not the most flattering pic of our family, but it is kind of funny, and the dogs are quite handsome. Toby and I were putting down cement board on the floor to get ready for tile. It is rather hard, dirty work. I pulled my knee pads off for the photo and you can see the sweat stains on my knees. Lovely. Last night we painted the hall of closets and then laid down more cement board. We worked from 4:30 until 9:00 PM. I was one tired puppy.

Jesse is loving school. She is her mother's daughter - she loves people and new things. She called to tell me that they still have the same drawing benches in her drawing class that I had when I was there. She said they were "really old." Well yeah! I sat on those benches to draw when I was pregnant with Jesse thirty years ago! Jesse knows about those benches, because I made one for myself when we lived in NM. Years later when I took an art workshop with Ben Konis, I used my drawing bench. He made terrible fun of me saying things like, "Did you bring your mule to class? Are you going to sit on your ass?" I just ignored Mr. Konis, who was by far one of the best artist I've ever taken a class with, but he did have a mouth on him. Some of the people in that class were offended by his mouth. Not me. I've been around smart-a's all my life. I should tell you that later in class, Mr. Konis called me "the ringer." I was quite flattered.

In fact, last night while we were rolling paint on the wall with long handled paint rollers, Toby said something rather rude and smartie about my painting job. I replied, "It is not wise to give me a weapon and then say something smart-a$$ to me." He did not say anything else, but there was a grin on his face.

Speaking of smarties, Jesse called me yesterday asking me where a certain bookstore was in WF. She said it was supposedly on Maplewood near the old Pelican restaurant. I told her that it might be in the shopping center across from the school. We discussed other possibilities before she said she would go home and google it. Fine. A little later, she texted me back and said that the bookstore was catty-cornered from the school and that I "wasn't even close!" Boy, that pushed my button. I pulled over and texted back, "Yes I was!" She then texted, "I know. Just messin' with ya." I texted, "You did a good job."