My car. My precious Honda. It is old but it is special. So special, in fact, that every time I drive it, someone asks me if I will sell it.

My car was hit by some obnoxious person. Hit in a mall parking lot on private property. Which, no police officer can assign guilt or liability to either party involved in the accident.

My car is not mine anymore. I have to go to a lawyer to get it back. My fear is, that it is in a place where everyone wants to drive it and claim it as their own.

Say a prayer for Frostie. Although he is nineteen years old, he is not used to spending the night away from home.

Whizzing by the other night, I saw a dog with a light on its collar. It was designed for the dog to see where it was going in the darkness. Just loose enough to move with the dog. Just tight enough so that the light didn’t swing and sway to confuse the puppy.

I have never seen these lights for dogs. Then I thought of SkyMall, the inflight magazine on airplanes. (which, by the way, was where I ordered my dog repellent device.) SkyMall, of course, is now online.

SkyMall is the best magazine for obscure and interesting “things.” An “It Is what It Is” inscribed bracelet. Really, people say that all the time: what does it MEAN? A scalp massaging shampoo brush. (Shown with water showering down on a head in the photograph) Stretchy wearable posture aids, a floating desk (with storage), phone mounters for the car, iPhone printers and so much more.You can see why these magazines are on the airplane. Why worry about lousy inflight service when there is SkyMall?

Have you ever tried to solve a mystery? Something in your daily life you can’t quite figure out, but you have a gut feeling about? Have you combined your intuition with some facts surrounding the situation and BAM! you have it the solution. Or have you? Has this ever happened to you?

The Chinese say that intuition is a “second brain”, physically located in your stomach. Hence the “gut feeling” expression.

Most people do not trust their intuition enough! When I try to solve a problem using my intuition, it feels like stepping out on a cloud, walking off a plank, taking a shot at something. It feels a little strange. People think they need facts alone to solve problems and mysteries. That to use intuition could not possible be sound.

But, as I said in the first paragraph, I put some facts with my intuition and…..well, I can solve almost anything. Can you?

Phones. We all have cells. I like those. But the land or “home” phones as they are called, bring with them terrible sales and political calls. The phone rings. We rush to the phone to answer and we get the dreaded waste-of-energy call.

Therefore, it was during a very high stress time in my life, (when is it not?) I asked my husband to make the home phones not ring. Yes, we could call out, but no one could call us at home. To reach us, they would just have to call our cells. We told ourselves we were keeping the land phones for emergencies.

No problem. We had a vast assortment of Motorola, T-mobile and Panasonic phones littering our house. And he timed the ring systems so that the phones didn’t ring. Quiet.

Stress began again when we switched phone carriers. My husband got mad at one of the customer service reps (They will elevate your blood pressure) and out, we yanked ourselves. Oh yes. It caused a great deal of trouble. New internet provider. Had to be installed by coming to the house, new home phone provider, all having to be redone. Our security system in our home was affected too, because we have the older version, the kind that runs through the phone lines. Even our cells, although upgraded for free, were paid for with an eight hour wait to transfer pictures and such.

We were in the store the other day picking out new home phones and my husband said, “All this, for phones that don’t ring?”

My studio is next to Art Papers, a magazine about contemporary art. The former Editor-In-Chief and Executive Director, Sylvie Fortin, told me that an artist should always, when contributing, donate his/her best work. (Sylvie, by the way, raced me to the hospital one time. It was when a masonite painting I was working on fell, severely damaging the muscle in the back of my leg. I also should point out that Sylvie does not drive. She drove my car, first wheeling me in an office chair to the curb. In addition, she put everything aside to get me there.)

She told me that, by putting your best work out there, especially when you donate artwork, you speak to your audience clearly. As clearly as you would if your work were in a gallery.

This is the piece I have donated to the Hambidge Auction. I posted it recently on Facebook. It is from my solo show “Afloat: An Installation”, New York. This piece is a collage, 5” x 5”, a collage done strictly with magazine pieces, no computer imaging. Or internet sources. It is framed in a white floater frame.

I also posted it in my online exhibition here on WordPress. Where it received the highest “site stat” rating. Which means it received the most “hits” on my blog. 
Even with the inclusion of my post about my friend and mentor, the now famous artist, Peter Forakis which also received very high stats. This piece aced that one.

It is kind of like that song from West Side Story: “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way.” Everything matters. Or don’t do it!