What's been going on?

Well, now. It's been a few days since I last posted. What's been going on...

...at the studio?

I'm (co-)teaching three classes a week. Dave and I teach together on Saturdays, and on Mondays and Thursdays, I work with another woman. The classes last three hours and they're mainly for beginning (or beginning-again) students. I enjoy teaching, but it is exhausting. It's also physically demanding; I end up squatting on the opposite side of the wheel to help people as they're throwing, and squatting while leaning over gives me a huge backache. It's also hard on my back to lean over kilns while I'm loading. (For that--and other--reasons, I've decided to give up the kiln loading part of my job.)

Anyway, I really enjoy working with new students. It's interesting to me to see how peoples' expectations and personalities manifest themselves in their work even from day one. Perfectionists, for example, seem to have a hard time with letting go and getting dirty and consequently they produce the least number of pieces during the lesson. People who walk in with the expectation that they're going to learn in one lesson how to reproduce a bowl that they purchased, say, from a potter who had years of experience also have a hard time of it. They learn pretty quickly that it's not as easy as it looks and their disappointed expectations make them some of the hardest people to teach. Kids seem to do the best. They're used to getting dirty. They don't have expectations about what their work "should" look like. They like to have fun. They're not invested in the outcome to the extent that they are disappointed with dinky little pieces. One kid made me laugh because he wanted to carve up his first bowl. I thought he was putting his name on it, but when I looked at it later, I saw he had carved "STAR WARS RULES" on the side.

So, yes, it's fun. But I'm also rapidly running through my Cost-co sized bottle of ibuprophen for my back and a big tube of arnica gel for my sore wrists.

With all the teaching, I also am having a hard time getting my own work done recently. To combat that, I decided today to glaze the bulk of the bisqued pieces that have been hanging out in my cubicle. I spent about four hours glazing, and in that time glazed thirty-seven pieces. Another woman was glazing at the same time, and the sheer number of pieces I glazed amazed her. (Unfortunately, leaning over glaze buckets did not help my back.)

...with the puppies?

What puppies? Kelly and Kevin's puppies Lester and Olive. I went with them--puppies and people--to puppy training class on Saturday morning. It was very confusing to the instructor, I think, that two puppies showed up with four adults (Dave came along too). It was fun. Lester and Olive are very smart and pick up on training very quickly. Lester is a happy-go-lucky pup and Olive is very smart and independent-minded.

...with everything else?

Last week my aunt Char and I went for pedicures. Now my toenails are gold. (My aunt chose a more sedate dark maroon color.) While we were sitting there, my aunt struck up a conversation with a woman who, turns out, grew up in the same neighborhood as both of us. (The woman was a few years older than my aunt, so they didn't really know each other. Still, small world, you know?) After getting our toes done we stopped by a paleteria to pick up some Mexican ice cream bars. I liked my crema con fresa, but my aunt was less thrilled with her mango bar.

We also, Dave and I, met Judi and Paul for breakfast at a place new to all of us, Cafe Green.  The place looks like a rinky-dink coffee house from the outside, but inside it turned out to be all white tablecloths and upscale diner food. We'll be back for Dutch babies for sure.

I've been spending a lot of time at the dentist recently, too, because the crown on my implant was causing me some problems. The crown fit was so slightly off so that it took a year and a half before it started causing problems. The crown had to be pried off and the tissue underneath allowed to heal, then the crown had to be reshaped and re-cemented onto the implant. Ugh. Three dentist visits later, it's back in. I love my dentist but I hate going to the dentist, if you know what I mean. It's incredibly stressful. I end up feeling like I got hit by a bus at the end of a dentist visit, even a relatively benign one. 

In Netflix news, I'm suddenly on a Nanny 911 kick. I love watching nanny shows. I love watching clueless middle-class white people who have completely and utterly lost control of their entitled little brats.  You wonder where serial killers and investment bankers come from? They come from families like that. It's like rubbernecking at the scene of a car accident. Fun for everyone.