she tells me "never eat fruit"

(suddenly I am stamping EVERYTHING spiral...)

Right there, on the recommendations!
But first, she wants me to get rid of my cat and dog.  Or at least keep them OUT of the bedroom and NEVER on the furniture.
Dust, too, better quit the pottery!
I have been getting crap like THAT since I was tiny and the doctor said I was allergic to everything.
Fortunately, my doctor now is a VERY KINDLY woman with 2 dogs and 2 cats of her own, and those warnings were on the pre-printed allergy office bits of advice they gave me. I told her I would do what I always do, which is ignore that advice because I don't react as much as I used to, but this fruit sh!t???? Pfft.  That is a new one.

Trying to figure this out has taken almost 8 years of constant bad to terrible stomachache and the loss of almost 25 percent of my body weight which I did not need to lose.

You want a long and tedious post about what I CANNOT eat?  Probably like watching paint dry! (except I am funnier!)  Then there is the further list of what I DO NOT choose to eat. As my primary care physician said to me in April "my GOD WHAT DO you eat?".  Plenty. But the no's:

-I have celiac, so no wheat or gluten and I have the type that means no oats either
-no dairy because of lactose intolerance
-I try to have no sweets or sugar--almost all the cookies and cakes I bake are eaten by my ravenous wife who is the same size now she was at age 12--sugar gives me a crash
-I don't drink caffeine either--caffeine also gives me the crash
-no meat because I am veg--I added eggs back in because I was finding my list of food pretty flippin' LIMITED
-and the latest:  NO FRUIT.  Or at least, no pineapple, strawberries, plums, kiwis, cherries. Pears and apples aren't too bad for me, peaches ditto, blueberries and raspberries, melon and citrus all seem OK.  But just like the dog and cat and clay dust "avoid fruits" goes on the doctor's recommendation page.  That sh!t HURTS, I am a fruititarian! (Steve Jobs was too...and he ended up dead...gotta keep that in mind, although they are not related.)

The fruit thing is a weird one.  I went to the allergist to get answers "why the fukk is my mouth filled with sores when I eat pineappleplumkiwicherrystrawberries?"
It is an odd one, but turns out that it is a direct result of tree pollen allergies.  Allergic to elms and alders and maples?  Your body reads some fruits as having those pollens and reacts with a rash, swelling and hives in the mouth which can lead to ana-whatever shock or at least a closed airway so you choke to death.  Worst case scenario, luckily not likely in my case BECAUSE NO FRUIT.

The doctor is like "It is a good thing you don't react to nuts, that one is worse, but do you want an epi pen?"
I am like "why?"
"So you don't die when somebody gives you a salad with strawberries on it, you take them off, have a reaction to the residue and die."
And I am like "I am SCREWED! But I always prepare my own food, thanks, I'll be OK for now without the epi pen."

That is pretty close to the exact convo we had, actually....

You know from reading this blog that there is a ton I can and do eat, as long as I shop carefully for the right things and prepare them myself.  But I can't go out ot restaurants or other people's houses without my own picnic.  That is the long and winding road ahead, dealing with THAT ONE...but since I am anti-social, now I can GET OUT OF EVERYTHING :) and avoid people the rest of my life...just hiding in my little cave out here eating my....tofu and tempeh.... ;)

You probably think I am a freak, but I dare you to find to anyone as healthy as me, since most Americans live on cheeseburgers and lemon meringue pie.

Hey, who cares about that, buy some of my pots, new listings now at my etsy shoppe!

she came bearing sweaters....

Weird sh!t happens in bloggyland...and my dreams!

Many years ago I adopted Cheri as an imaginary cousin. She is SO nice.  Remember my jokes yesterday about customers?  (BTW, what does the "Idiot's Guide to Business" say about making fun of your customers? One should probably refrain.... ;)
Cheri is the IDEAL.  One year for Christmas she ordered, and I swear it is true, 3 dozen duck mugs...and she tells me she wants to do a blog post and profile of me with a giveaway at HER blog... I mean, honestly, could a customer or imaginary cousin be ANY NICER?

So, my dream last night goes like this, in brief:

Cheri flies in from Cali to visit us!
Cheri is staying with us (my wife is used to strange women bloggers being adopted as cousins and visiting our house....it has happened many times before, I SWEAR I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP, like CM and Mrs G, for example).
Cheri's hostess gift is...sweaters.  Cheri comes bearing a large bag filled with wooly sweaters.  She guessed, correctly, as a Southern Californian might, that we live in a very cold place and that we would love some new sweaters.  She is right about that!  It is like 50 now and I am bundled up....
I smacked Cheri's fingers.  You would guess that if I had strange women bloggers staying here things might get...kinky.  You would be wrong about that! The only one cuddling up to Cheri would be Spike the cat, and her allergies would send Cheri right down the street to that not-as-bad-inside-as-it-looks-on-the-outside hotel we live near. So, like I say, I slapped her fingers.  And I am not a violent person! I never slap anybody! But she would have LOST her fingers, in my dream:  she went to lift the kiln lid to see her special order in there.
"CHERI!" sez I "it is 2000 degrees in there, your fingers will be smoked sausages in seconds!"
You would slap your friend's fingers too if it meant they got to KEEP their fingers.
And finally, I made a prediction "Cheri, I am gonna tell you the God's honest truth:  your husband has awesome hair"
Cheri "Your hair is too!"
Gary "Mine has its moments, thanks, but your husband has reached grandfather age with a tremendous head of hair.  Speaking of which, and maybe this is true of everybody in Cali?  You have great hair. I bet your daughters have great hair too! IT THEREFORE FOLLOWS THAT YOUR little grandson:  is gonna have great hair".
There is a lesson in all this:  if you have awesome hair and bring us gifts of sweaters, I will dream about you.

In other news, it is peach time. We had 2 left in the fridge.  I woke up yesterday feeling deprived:
"I might be a gluten-free FREAK but I swear I am gonna have peach cobbler...". ***click for recipe
So I made this.  The wife is like "throw in some blueberries!"  which is some wise sh!t, what color, what contrast, what flavor! Besides, the recipe author says you can add other fruit, and I needed 2 and a half peaches to make a half recipe and was short.  The result?  KILLER. And so EASY!  I have made this young guy's recipes before.  He is a nifty teenage cook, and for example, his pumpkin bread is also easy and superb (I posted that last fall) but like many teens, he likes his sugar more that I do.  His pumpkin bread AND his cobbler can both be made with half the sugar.

zip your lip?

(YES, my kiln is fixed now and working great :)

SO LIKE I SAY, I was at a fair all weekend.  I was so flippin' tired Monday evening I think I fell asleep at 7:15 and slept all the way through....with detours here and there through dreams:  I met the president again.  He was doing local theater in my town and liked to act!  Michelle too...they are both quite awesome...and TALL.  I am small.  They are tall.

So, at fairs, unlike McDonalds, say, or Smallmart, only nice people come up and talk to me, generally. Except for, like I said, the dude who was sleeping on the sidewalk between beers.... although I have to admit, he was friendly.  ANYWAY, you meet nice people at fairs.

BUT.  There are the 3 types of people you would rather talk to less (other than homeless winos sleeping on the sidewalk).  They might be well-intentioned and friendly, but you always wish they would SHUT UP AND GO AWAY.

1)  How many suburban or country ladies of a certain age have sniffed to their friend "hmm, that's DIFFERENT".  I mean, it may not be a huge insult, but it is so laughably small-minded and ignorant.  What are they used to?????  My work isn't THAT WEIRD.  Is it? ;)

2)  The other potters.  Oh sure, some are your friends.  But customers assume 1)  all potters know each other across the universe "oh, you must know Joe, a potter from Kathmandu?" and also 2) that we hang out with each other.  NO.  Do all plumbers hang out together?
And like this past weekend.  There is a potter at this fair every year that... I do not like.  I can't explain why.  Probably because he acts like we are competitors, which we are, in a way, competitors for customers.  But I know this:  our work is not that similar (his is brown, for example) and I have great sales at the event so I don't worry about him...does he worry about me?  But he masked a compliment to me this weekend in the guise of trying to get something from me "Ooooh, you have a wonderful burgundy red glaze!  What is the recipe?"  I just smiled and winked.  "OH! You're not going to tell me?".  There are times in life you just smile and nod, keeping your mouth shut.

3)  Which brings us to the third group of people that irk you when you are at a fair, usually women of a certain age to elderly:  the ones who chat and admire your work then tell you loudly "oh, I am trying to get rid of stuff, but your work is nice!".  Just go ahead and THRUST IN THE KNIFE AND TWIST IT then JAB AGAIN AND AGAIN until I am lying on the ground in agony....
if only people could realize that it would be be better if they said nothing or just "nice work".  The long list of people who feel obligated to tell you they are downsizing makes you wonder if they think their honesty is polite???

BONUS! 4)  The old guy.  There are always these old retirees that hang around telling you about how they used to work for the ____ and like to vacation at ____ and their grandkids ____ and kids ____ and then they moved to ____ and have you even seen ____ work, because THAT WORK IS REALLY GOOD.
You realize that for many people you don't matter, you simply have ears and they want to yak at you.

Now, that is a very negative list, and nothing like, say, the kind of nasty customer who turns up in McDonalds or Smallmart, and really, you have 1 of those for 10 awesome people.

So, who IS my customer?  Anybody and everybody.  I used to say "the woman with the Coach bag!" and that is still true :)  The person who likes to look at art, appreciates handmade, may need to give a gift to somebody, and generally understands what you do.

I am in a lot of other people's kitchens this morning....

(hey, my Godzilla bowl! :)

It ended with a tornado...but more on that later!

It was such a gorgeous JULY weekend..sunny! Warm!  Happy people everywhere....
a 3 day event is a long and tiring haul for a potter.  Whenever I exercise and idly say to myself "why do I do this? This is pointless...." THEN, in the middle of the weekend fair I realize "THIS is why I exercise, so I can endure the long haul, the heavy lifting, the schmoozing with strangers".  An endurance race!

But the most fun race you can imagine, especially with awesome rock and roll in the background. I LOVE events like this, but am so glad to be back to normal too.

I am a very early bird, and the early bird drives his car up onto the sidewalk because nobody is around, unloads and parks in the best spot, again, long before the sleepyheads arrive to unload.  The earlybird also sells a lot of stuff early...

It is a city fair, and all kinds of people are around.  Friday, office workers on break followed by rock and rollers for evening music and beers and Saturday families followed by more rock and rollers and Sunday the after church group followed by...more rock and rollers.

And characters.  It was mid-80s Saturday afternoon, and there was an impossibly tall person who seemed one or two short of a six pack wearing a HEAVY BLACK WINTER COAT.  And the guy Sunday morning asleep on the sidewalk who cheerfully woke up and found some more beer to enjoy amongst the artists and who, well, scared off some of the church people and even stretched out to sleep SOME MORE INSIDE the artist booth next to mine...before he wandered off....he was out of beer and needed more....

It was all over in a rush, a blur.  We had a bad weather report for Sunday and that kept crowds down, after perfect Friday and Saturday . The weather, the crowd, and the music were nice until 2 something Sunday, not long before close--it is very unusual for artists to pack early and a fair to close, contracts forbid it--BUT we had notice of a monster storm arriving, and indeed, Binghamton had a tornado that did not touch down.   Driving over Sunday I decided to pack up half my booth and make a system for a  quick getaway later, and since I was early, I parked in the closest spot to the fair. When the rain started to fly I WAS GONE.  One wet box, that was it :) I was lucky, my sales had been Superb until then, and I beat my target expectations for the weekend...by 14 dollars :)




After a couple hours setting up...below, arriving early ready to unload.


the artist view from the back!

an 11 piece Ukranian jazz band in my bathroom

You know I am at a 3 day jazz fest, arts fest, all kinds of fests!
It has been IMMENSELY fun, and I am very fortunate:  I know a LOT of people, and a LOT of repeat customers come to find me and I have been emptying boxes and filling my pockets, the weather is great, the crowd is great the music is great!
Final day today.......

Speaking of music, you would be correct if you guessed that I sleep like the dead during these things....long, busy days followed by head-touches-pillow = dreamland.

I was dreaming just now:  the wife and I bought a large NEW house (somehow!) on a California hillside. Ours was house one on what would become a planned neighborhood of hundreds.  I am a little dissapointed to imagine that our pretty hillside contained only a tiny lot for our house, and the pretty woods and meadows were gonna soon go under the bulldozer...

ANYWAY, our new house was huge.  One feature it contained was a kitchen that looked like an English country tavern in 1600.  I did not know I wanted such a thing, but let me tell you, as imagined in 2016 with modern conveniences, it was beautiful.  Upstairs, one of the bathrooms had a HUGE U shaped bathtub. I did not know I wanted such a thing...big enough for 3 or more people...actually, why would I want that?

OK, so in the dream, surprise!  I have a new (crabby) brother-in-law.  Bonus:  he is Ukrainian! Or a Russian?  Or a Slav or Czech??? One of those, he never admits.  He is a slick fast talking used car salesman type, with a deep accent.  Fair enough.

But, remember the bathroom with the U shaped tub?  There is a knock at the door as I finish spending a penny (I dream of going to the bathroom?  yes, I guess I do...) and there he is...in town to STAY WITH US!  And so are his numerous friends, none of whom know English, a Ukrainian (whatever) jazz band! All smoking like chimneys.  It takes a little adjusting, and I was not really getting to like them or their smokes, but the great advantage of a 1600 tavern for a kitchen is there is plenty of room for a Ukrainian (whatever) jazz band and their slick manager.... I must admit that I was glad to awaken from this dream at that point....
have a great Sunday!

(almost) running out the door...

I need to hit the road.  But I am still sipping coffee and need to make three pb and j's.

People ask "do you stay in a hotel when you do an out of town fair???" and it is like "holy SH!T, what kind of profits do you think I make? I can't afford a hotel, or a restaurant.  Besides, it is just an hour's drive!"  I have no problem getting up early and driving an hour or 2...that is why I am still in business, thrifty!

OK, so the dream just now goes like this:  my mechanic is driving me through a snowstorm...to an indoor soccer game at somebody's house in England.  Where we play soccer with LARGE LOGS instead of balls.

Time to go, have a great weekend :)

the BIG SCHLEP

You see silver jewelers at art fairs:  2 little cases holds all their stuff, 2000 dollars worth of product!  Then the potters show up:  14 heavy and fragile boxes that take forever to unload and load.... we are pack mules.
Before and after, actually.  As I keep telling you, I a)  have a broken kiln and b) a big fair Friday-Sunday SO I c) went and bought more clay.  It is the great balanced circle of pottery life, hundreds of pounds of clay come in, boxes of pots go out....

I plan to have tremendous fun this weekend.  My biggest event of the year, 3 days in downtown Binghamton, NY, fifth year I have been there, I know a lot of people so it is a party for all :)  Join us if you can!

ROAD TRIP: when good potters (and good dogs) go BAD and play hooky....

So like I was saying yesterday, the kiln is broken, dozens of pots lie around awaiting their turn to be fired, and parts are on their way from Oregon...but there is a huge fair this weekend.
Time to GOOF OFF.

I was babysitting Yogi. Yogi is a good-natured golden doodle, a retriever, and he swims with his family every day in good weather.  My parents have a river, a creek and a pond and live about an hour away on a large farm in the middle of a 5000 acre state forest.....

"WHY" you ask "ARE YOU NOT THERE ALL THE TIME?????".
Well, certainly, when it is hot and sunny, the draw is there....

Here is the river alongside their driveway....


This is the wee creek running down into the river alongside the driveway....it is, btw, a long driveway...


Like any good retriever, you DO NOT need to show them the water:  they FIND IT and jump in.
Penny and Yogi are good friends, but very different types of dogs.  I left Penny beagle at home with the wife.  She is all NOSE, following scents when she is in the woods, and I knew Yogi would be all PLAY and swim with me instead....he was such a good dog.  My parents are, well, not in their more adventurous years, you could say, and a sweet-natured and clownish, friendly, well-behaved dog was a treat for them.
The pond lies right below the house and barns and you look at it and it takes your breath away it is so pretty, and you are like "Gary's parents have their OWN PERSONAL STATE PARK???".
Paradise.

Yogi's family was at work.  Imagine how they feel, looking at their dog goofing off with me all day....


Yogi can be a bit shy with new people.
He loves my parents.  My mom called me over "Yogi wants me to hold his paw!".  He just sat there with his paw in her hand for a long time...


It was warm.  The water was cool.
We were all pretty happy....later, Yogi was SOUND ASLEEP all afternoon....

little pieces...

Well, sure, yesterday I was whining and whinging:  BROKEN KILN, dozens of pots need firing, huge 3 day fair this weekend.  BUT, you know, if life gives you a problem, you have to work on solving it, and this kiln is meant to be quickly and easily repaired...once you have the parts.  Which are in Oregon.  And will be here... ?
No matter.  I have lots of good items to display this weekend, and I had been driving myself rather hard lately, exhausted.  I have decided that slowing it down for a couple of days is what the Gods recommend...

In other news, our neighbor's huge garden continues to overwhelm them, much to our advantage, and even my beagle loves the extra red leaf lettuce--you would be surprised, hold an apple bit or something and she is drooling like it is a pork chop--dogs are more omnivorous than people realize!
... have a great Tuesday!

the fabric of life: you weather the ups and downs

Let's say you get a nail in your tire...which turns into a crazy weeklong search for its DIScontinued replacement...and finally you are happy to have it put on BEfore a super busy week with the year's biggest fair.....and the kiln that had broken last month and you REpaired...breaks in some other mysterious way.  Potters will tell you:  that sh!t is DEpressing...I have so much work needing to go into the kiln and....nothing.  I take it apart today.  What are the chances, if it needs parts, I can have them by Wednesday?  SLIM to none... just the way it is, Murphy's law or something... but life has its ebb and flow, up and down, you adapt....

Adapt:  for example, we would go to a friend's house and have their tahini lemon salad dressing, so yummy!  But as food writer and essayist Mark Bittman says "salad dressing is the biggest ripoff, make your own!".  I was in the lucky position of a) the neighbors keep throwing fresh lettuce from their garden at us :) AND b) I had one spoonful of tahini left before I go to the store.  INSPIRATION!  I decided to make that tasty tahini salad dressing myself.... after enjoying it, I looked up recipes, and they seemed to be along the lines I had followed and I was like "AH HA! I am brilliant!" *****

*****
Gary's 4-6 serving tahini lemon salad dressing

in a small bowl whisk:
-one spoonful tahini
-one spoonful olive oil
-one spoonful good vinegar
-one spoonful lemon juice
-one spoonful honey or maple syrup
-one spoonful water or soy sauce
with:  (salt if you wish) pepper, garlic and ginger powder, and other spices like dry basil, oregano and sesame seeds if you have them

DONE!

when Mother Nature sends you perfection...

Friday was a little on the cool and wet side....today is s'posed to be a little EXTRA hot...but Saturday?  Oh my.  How do you beat a July day in the 70s??? You soak it up, because in January things looka little different...

I was glazing and finishing pots, but had a cat job midday.  We finished and had brought the bikes along for adventure....



I wish my photo matched how pretty this valley is, looking over at Ellis Hollow....


Sure, it was the busy day, but I got a last minute call to babysit Yogi...it is like "sure, he is so easy to care for, especially on the nice day..."


The wife tells me NOT to take her picture and do NOT post them... she'll never know...


Penny's friend Soupie lives by Yogi, wish I had a picture of all 3 of them playing ANYWAY happy Sunday!

bowled over...

(new bowls by Gary Rith)
OOOf, punny titles 2 days in a row!  Lucky you :)
Yesterday's mugs and today's bowls?  I like them all so much I am doing them all over again today :)
Have a great weekend!

it was quite muggy.....

(new mugs by Gary Rith)
Hahaha!  It was!  Nice thing about 3 days of humid 90ish weather is that when the cool rains pass through and you are like "Ahhhh..." which people in the south probably don't get until November....

I have a week until my biggest fair of the year.  I am making many mugs and all the rest... people ask what I am doing today, a holiday weekend, and it is, like any other, a fun work day :) 

Odin....

I have been on a long catsitting job with a friend's marmalade cat, an orange tiger named ODIN.  WHAT a sweetie!  If you are intellectually curious and the name ODIN strikes a chord, you are like "some sort of Norse god, thunder or something..." and so you read wiki and find

the Allfather of the gods

and

Odin is a principal member of the Æsir(the major group of the Norse pantheon) and is associated with war, battle, victory and death, but also wisdom, Shamanism, magic, poetry, prophecy, and the hunt. Odin has many sons, the most famous of whom is the thunder god Thor.

Then you start to think "OOOOH, the root of that name Odin or Wodan--do a little trimming and add G and you get GOD! "

YES, the family has a Swedish background. But like I say, he is a HUGE sweetie. He doesn't even hunt, although birds cluck at him nervously.  We play inside then go outdoors where he has a fenced yard...which he stays in until I shake the crunchies in the kitchen and he comes running....

A week ago, post allergist visit, I told you my 43 item skin test showed severe allergic reactions to most,  allergic to all 43.  Number one was, ahem, when the doctor said as the pricks had just been made and the test began, tapping my back "there goes your cat!".  Nothing new there, my dog was next.... but I am USED to them.  I don't seem to react to them.  BUT holy CATS, rubbing faces with Odin here?  I am NOT used to him.  Got the swollen face and the runny nose (which passed, no probs).  ...but he is worth it....

"bite me!"

(New vases and pitchers by Gary Rith..love the emeralds, love the blues!  I realized the other day that my many glazes, 18 or so, have all been slightly re-formulated in recent months for more ZING!  I bet you agree, these items have ZING!)

"Bite me" probably sounds rude.  Cornell Vet School's dental surgeons gave Penny a bag of treats along with a super high tech toothbrush and chicken toothpaste.  I think the treats were meant for mastiffs.  She does not complain if they are bigger than her sweet little head... have a great Wednesday!