Dervish performance at the Wikalet al-Ghouri Egypt: What New, What’s Different, Part 1 A Bit of Background: This November I returned to Egypt after 25 years. It was my fifth visit. I was both excited and anxious, giddy and hesitant. In addition to Egypt, I have been to Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, and Palestine/Israel/the West Bank, so visiting a Middle Eastern/North African country was nothing strange to me. But visiting a country that I was last in 25 years ago, felt strange (I had the…

image from OrthoBullets Follow-up to my blog of Oct 24, 2017, "What the Hell is Cubital Tunnel Syndrome" Some days it is better, some days not so much. Overall, there seems to be improvement, but it is not ‘all better’. In response to the question, “At the end of all this will I be able to go back to doing things the way I used to?” the short answer might be, “No”. I will need to adopt some accommodating behavior as a life style change, or have surgery. Since this involves my right hand and arm…

My elbow pads (cut so they won't press on the nerve at night), and my gel packs The last few weeks have been part of the year I have called “The Year of New Normals”. To make a long story short, numbness I have been feeling in my little finger and the side of my ring finger in my right hand for over a month was diagnosed as cubital tunnel syndrome. This means that the nerve going through my elbow in the area we call the funnybone has been irritated; it's similar to carpal tunnel syndrome, excep…

Adventures in Mud There are mud baths, mud facials, mud cloth, and mud pies.All good, desirable things. ‘Here’s mud in your eye’, a great saying. We go out of our way and pay lots of money for hot mud baths, in situ. However, I cannot say I have enjoyed any of that. Mud is my nemesis. It has taken quite some time for that to sink in, because it looks so innocent, just sitting there. It’s in my way, why not walk across? Why not step into it? Why not ignore it? Because mud is out t…

The Lesser Known (#5womenartists) March is/was Women’s History Month, and the first thing that greeted me on my Twitter Feed on March 1 was a post by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. It read: “Can you name five women artists?” And of course, I could. And I did. And THEN I thought, ‘well, I could do more than THIS. What if I could name five women EVERY day of the month, without looking any up, just based on what know or remember? And what if I included images of work done by each of th…

Travelling in the Soviet Union, Part 1: “What Do You MEAN, My Luggage is in New York?” In December of 1986, I had the rare opportunity to travel with a group of educators to the Soviet Union. It meant I would be spending Christmas in the Soviet Union. And New Year’s Eve. This was because of Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of Glasnost which began in 1985. I talked it over with my principal, and we decided this was a great trip for me! I would leave the day Christmas break started, and would return t…

How I Came to Sketch with a Pen I have done sketching all my life; give me a pencil, eraser, and a sheet of paper, and I know what to do. Give me several kinds of pencils, and you better STAND BACK! However, until I began to do plein air painting, my sketches were really more finished drawings, renderings. I saw drawing as an art form unto itself, and did thumbnails if I was painting, but not really even sketches. That all changed on October 5, 2010. That was the painting trip Brenda and I t…

Climbing the Dome of the Cathedral of Florence—Il Duomo, aka Cathedral di Santa Maria del Fiore As many of you know, my ‘partner in crime’, Brenda Bickerstaff-Stanley, passed away suddenly January 5 (see what I wrote on my website). I have decided the best way to get back into my blog was to write about one of the many travel/art adventures we had together. Climbing the Dome of the Cathedral in Florence Italy. Both Brenda and I had been to Florence before; she just a few years before, I abou…

More on New Year Resolutions—Close Enough! Part 2 on Managing my Resolutions I decided to take a break from my travel/art adventures to write about New Year’s resolutions, which I hate. Two weeks ago I wrote about why you SHOULDN'T make New Year's resolutions, Link So, I want this to be a SHORT update on what I’ve done to get ahead of plans for 2017. As I stated before, it seems to be really important to ME to get ahead of the curve. I love making plans, but I have learned that I have to co…

I really dislike the concept of New Year resolutions. The idea of starting off fresh, starting over, is an enticing one. The problem is, very few follow through for any length of time. I always feel like I’m already behind the eight ball when I ‘start’ my resolutions on New Year’s Day (actually, the day AFTER New Year’s Day), and there is a great deal of pressure and stress. Is that really the way I want to begin my New Year? No. No, it is not. So, a few years ago, I came up with a different pl…