An Artists' Life

My sorrows are drowning me today; perhaps too many to even name, so I will just end the list: the printer/scanner/copier has been down for a long time. I changed all the ink, which is a very expensive proposition. Good thing I always keep a spare of each color on hand, and two of black. Except for now, no back-ups.

It won't print, it goes through the motions, takes all the time in the world, but spits out big empty sheets of paper, much to my annoyance. I scan and the same thing happens. The whole machine is on the 'fritz' as some say. I hate to say it because that is the name of Stevies' boss, Fritz, and I don't want to sound rude. Fritz is an excellent dentist and a very nice person as well. But my 3 in 1 is also on the fritz for sure. Call tech support? The first thing they want is the serial number. Where is the serial #? Behind the machine, which is both ackward and heavy. So I need help to get that. So this is the third and least frustrating of my problems.

I was thinking about gooey first meals, and I started thinking about none other than - Rebecca. Now I always laughed when Rebecca was born and I was a 23 year old know it all. Whenever I started to talk about her, my aunts would mention some story about my cousins. I thought it hilarious that my stories would trigger 25 year old memories. But to this day, now these are 34 year old memories, and my daughter has two two year old twin toddlers, and any mention of any achievements they make, or steps they take, or whatever, my aunt will launch off into these charming old stories of my cousins, which usually bring us right up to today.

So gooey meals was it? It was. And a nice jar of organic carrots, which Rebecca thought was good, but better to wear. So she always turned her head away at the last possible second, causing me to dump the spoonful of gooey carrot on her face. Oh she laughed and laughed, especially as I whipped that spoon around, scooping up carrot and popping it into her mouth. She didn't mind. I didn't mind. Is that unhealthy? Everybody seems to do that. Scrape food off the babies face, and then stuff it back into its' mouth. Seem wasteful not to. I never read not to do it, and my pediatrician never said not to. She seems to have turned out very well indeed, if you ask me, but I may be prejudiced.

Most people admired her throughout her baby and childhood, and thought she was quite adorable. I am not exagerating nor just saying this, even my aunt who will never ever read this said that she was the most beautiful newborn she'd ever seen. She attributed it to natural childbirth but I don't know, that doesn't make sense. She was just one beautiful baby, and still is the apple of her moms' eye. And not because she's beautiful, but because she has an admirable life.