Fun Charlotte sights!

One of the best things Charlotte has to offer is our diverse culture and robust Arts. Among the Queen City's crown jewels in this writer's opinion is Mexican truck art such as this gem sighted Saturday at the Wal-Mart on Eastway Drive.
Allow me to critique; depicted in the rear windshield we have Our Lady of Guadalupe, the sixteenth century icon of The Virgin Mary and a beloved motif of many Mexican artists and truck owners alike. To her right is a portrait of perhaps this very truck itself in a vibrant alizarin crimson with fancy resplendant rims. Also in the foreground we see what I assume are the driver's very own muchachos donning cowboy hats. These two ninos strike a masculine pose next to a Brahma bull, an unlikely pairing next to a lion and his lioness; predator and prey in such close proximity, what could the implication be? No matter, let us move onto the rather dynamic rider astride a thrashing bull; one is reminded of how rugged and masculine, macho if you will, this owner must certainly be. Is that his Grande Casa nestled in the background? If this piece tells us nothing else, it surely tells of it's owner's virility and prosperity, we must assume it is indeed his home. But what of his faith? Again, the Virgin's placement near the center of the piece is telling; this is the art of a Man of God.
Although I can rrrroll my Rs with the best of 'em, sadly I am in fact not fluent in Espanol. I had to turn to the internet in attempt to translate the script along the bottom, "Que Dios Me Bendiga En Mi Camino". Near as I can tell this translates loosely to "God bless me on my way". On his way where? To the United States? To Wal-Mart? Or through life? I think he means through life, in his truck, with his kids.

Another of Charlotte's gems is The Landmark Diner! Here is Ellie standing before The Dessert Case in all it's deliciousness. On an outing with my Mom, Ellie and Danny we stopped by to take out a piece of chocolate cake and a slice of strawberry cheesecake to split. The Landmark is truly one of the best kept secrets in Charlotte. Whether you want breakfast or a pizza bagel after a night out with friends at 2 AM, lunch with family midday or dinner with the girls at 8 this is always the best choice. Their menu boasts more items than you can shake a stick at, and everything is delish! They bake their own bread, they have wonderful authentic Greek dishes, you can get breakfast around the clock and may I suggest the Chicken Marsala? In my younger days they had these miniature coin operated juke boxes at every booth, but sadly they redecorated a few years ago and tossed out the delightful contraptions. Still, the food is excellent!

What is a trip down Central Avenue without a stop at Value Village? A gyp, that's what! "VV" as we call it is only the best thrift store in Charlotte; well to be fair it's a toss up between VV and Community Thrift on Freedome Drive, but I live way closer to VV so it wins. It is worth the entertainment value just to stroll through even if you don't find anything. I love looking at all the weird stuff. Where else can you find snow globes, porcelain Teddy bears and grotesque European busts all on one shelf?


I have found some of my best "stuff" on this shelf, but let's not leave out another favorite feature of VV; the "bags of random stuff". Check out these vintage plastic doll heads! $3.13 for a bag of 6! Had you purchased them eslewhere you might expect to pay upwards of $34.99. And if you want more there was a whole other bag of them below these. I have to admit, I was tempted...but I was able to resist. I'm not real sure what I would have done with them. But they would sure look cool in my big glass apothecary jar...
A funny thing happens when you do as much thrift shopping as me and my compadres, you get really cheap, as in "$3.13? That is way too much!" I mean, who are they kidding? They got the stuff for free!
Stay tuned for more tales from one of only two dozen Charlotte natives...

Tysabri #13!

Yesterday was in fact my 13th Tysabri infusion since my first one was last December. I had an MRI done about a week ago and I'll go to my appointment with Thor the Viking Neurologist in February to see the results of my brain scan. How cool is it that his real first name is Thor!? (He goes by T. Erik Boressen but the T. is for Thor.)
Since my very first MRI I have imagined how funny it would be if it showed a profile of my head with a hamster running in his wheel where my brain would go, maybe some cobwebs. I must figure out how to "photo shop" that. It would make a great T-shirt.
Alas I left my camera this time so this image is from a few months ago, but it's the same thing.
After a year of infusions and quarterly blood draws from the same site my good vein is scarred up. Well, I knew it would come to that. The nurses are really gifted phlebotomists and mine was able to get a good vein along the inside of my forearm.
I always look forward to my infusions because it is the one time a month where I allow myself a completely lazy self indulgent day without feeling guilty. I listened to one of my favorite bands, Clutch, on headphones. Their self titled album is probably my favorite one.
And I read this book a friend loaned to me. I used to think I was a fast reader but I have been really drawing this one out. It's fun & interesting reading and the perfect thing to do while "maxin' and relaxin'" in a heated oncology chair!
After about an hour and a half of reading and rockin' out I went down for the count. I get the best naps in there! Every once in a while I would wake to the sound of myself snoring. Apparently I do a weird closed mouth snore. I'm sure everybody else in there just loves hearing it. Probably about as much as I love hearing the nonstop soap operas on the TV in there. I took a very snuggly Halloween fleece blanket and my sleep mask and slept the deep sleep of a pro-napper. I like to get very relaxed while whatever that stuff is courses through my veins. I think it's important to be in the right frame of mind for medicine to work best.
Then I came home & napped some more! Napping in my own bed with my warm Roxi curled up next to me is even better than in the hospital. She is an excellent sleeping companion and she never steals the covers.
I have almost two months to visualize good results on my MRI disk. No new lesions! I believe that my MS is manageable; I have only had relapses following periods of extreme stress. If I learn to handle bumps in the road with grace I can avoid the debilitating exacerbations. Of course no one can avoid stress. But I am compelled by the idea that the only thing that brings you pain is resistance to change. Isn't that profound? Of course you should resist some changes; I don't aspire to happily accept every shitty thing that happens to me!
But I can roll with the punches.

Bran's house

I went to my sister's yesterday for a visit. She lives about 20 miles away from me (too far) and has 3 kids so I usually go to her. For anyone who doesn't know this, we are "BFFs" in the most serious way. Even as kids we were joined at the hip, always assuming all sisters were like us. I was in high school before I realised some sisters really don't like each other. Weird.
When my parents came home with me from the hospital she was almost 4 years old and her response was "Thank you for getting her for me; she's just the kind I wanted!" Typical Brandi optimism and enthusiasm. She is an awesome big sister. The best. Whenever her oldest daughter complains about her little sister Cassie I explain the Cassie is her biggest alli. Nobody else will ever think Ellie is cooler or above Ellie ever; a little sister is an unfailing unwavering supporter always and forever! Even though she may be, at times, a huge pain in the ass.

Bran's house (like mine) is chocked full of cool stuff everywhere. Here are pictures of just a few groupings of neat stuff. Above is an alligator head atop a silver candle stick, a clay cherub, a small black clay horse head (made by yours truly in 12th grade) along with various other items waiting to be put to use.
Below is a cornucopia of various Halloween items; witches, a Devil head, owls, pumpkins & gourds, tiny tomb stones and a tiny Man in the Moon to name a few. Isn't it all so festive?

Here is a supply cabinet in the kitchen. We both take after our Dad by keeping non kitchen items in our kitchen/dining areas. At Dad's house the kitchen table is really a bullet loading bench with various presses and other bullet making accouterments clamped right onto the table. Kitchen cabinets where you might expect to find food are stocked instead with gun powder, primers, brass, cast bullets, beeswax etc. In Bran's kitchen her husband Jim has staked out a claim on the business end of the kitchen (he is seriously the World's Best Cook) but her art stuff dominates the half of the kitchen with the table. Cabinets are filled to overflowing with Halloween Art supplies and a console table I gave her one Christmas is her staging area for photographing her works to be put online. I love this cute white cabinet chocked full of Halloweenery!
My kitchen/dining room does double duty too as per family tradition. The tile topped island in the middle of my kitchen stores small hand tools and my prized chisel set. Drawers are packed with my favorite type of screws, "deckmates". My buffet provides the perfect storage space for larger tools in their cases, my beloved 18 volt lithium battery Makita drill, DeWalt jigsaw, Dremmel as well as things like a hot glue gun, jewelry making supplies, things I need to keep handy like tape measure, pliers, screw driver etc.


"If I go home and craft all night long it's a FAMILY TRADITION"!
-Hank Williams Jr. (sort of)

High as a cat's ass! Woo Gibson's in Laurel! Bas relief of a peanut Map of the food Fraud's penis jealousy It's been cool Good Fine Must have died and crawled up in there Yeah, me and God! Fine specimen Sister turn around and count them cars, Mrs. Caldwell don't pay me to pick up this house but one time a day
and many more Pearson-isms and stories to be elaborated on in the near future!

I like Picasso better without the hat. This is a plaster casting of a sculpture of Pablo Picasso's head made by a friend of my uncle Wilbur. My entire life it lived in the basement of our house, and it scared my sister & I (mostly her) when we went into the basement with all the lights off except the fluorescent one over Dad's workbench. With all the rights and privileges due the big sister, Brandi would order me into the basement first to find a sheet and cover up "The Head" before she went in. I would dutifully oblige. For some reason I remember when I was very small thinking it was my Popaw's head; it was big & bald like him.


This is an Art Deco mirror I found years ago that I recently restored the carving and improved it by adding a skull. Almost anything looks better with a skull in my opinion! I really enjoyed re-gluing the laminated wood, filling in and re-carving where necessary and gold leafing. That's the kind of work I can get lost in for hours...be still my beating heart!
There are so many things I am passionate about doing, it's hard to know where to begin. I started this vision board last year to try to refocus myself. I filled it with things I love and pictures of me with some friends and family, all that is most important to me (and a dollar on top because hey, a little dough wouldn't be too bad either).
I think it's time for me to change it; put up some new affirmations, maybe some different pictures. The truth is I don't know what to do with myself. I'm working on solving that problem. The one constant though, the one thing that never ceases to bring me relief, hope, reassurance, joy is writing. When I started this vision board I was hand writing in a journal every day. It's interesting to go back though it and see how much my hand writing changed day to day during that last exacerbation. It's also interesting to go back and see how most of it was positive. Some of it was undoubtedly the prednisone, but somehow MS has a strange effect on me; it brings me into a higher state of consciousness. That is a Grand statement, but it's true. Sure the physical part is Hell, but I think when your body is weakened your spirit gets stronger...
I like keeping this blog, I like rambling on about different thoughts that stomp through my brain. Writing is such a joyful indulgence!

I love unusual Christmas colors. I put vintage turquoise green glass ornaments in an apothecary jar with clear and silver ornaments to create an icy pallet. Plus this way the pets can't play with them. What is a Christmas tree besides a huge cat toy?
I do so love the Christmas tree; it's the Jack-O-Lantern of Christmas. Whether it's plastic or real, large or small, classy or kitschy I love them all! Mine is small & understated this year. I don't want to tempt Roxi.
I have a Santa tree topper...I am going to rip the Santa head off and make a 'possum head for it. Santa body with a 'possum's head and a tail coming out the back of his robe. It will be hard to make sure it looks like an opossum and not a rat. Not that I have anything against a Christmas Rat. I have lots of 'possum ideas based on Pumpkin, my pet opossum from years ago. I could go on & on about her but for now I'll just say she was the poster child of opossums and cuter than Shirley Temple. I just hope that my attempt at recapturing that charm will be a success.

Time to turn out the Christmas tree and go to bed, with dreams of "Pumpkin" dancing in my head!

Let the Christmas festivities begin!
I am keeping it simple this year; three strands of tinsel on the mantle and a few mini trees (black feathered and mirrored). I love the deep purple with white and sort of a white gold metallic. Even though I am a fan of the tried & true red and green, it's nice to mix things up a bit. It will be refreshing after 4 weeks of Christmas themed advertising and rampant consumerism everywhere I look!
In my kitchen I have this non-traditional nod to Christmas. Mary and a lamb. Makes sense, right? I found this awesome metal framed print of Mary with with a 4 watt bulb built in at a thrift store. I seriously think it is beautiful. Does anybody know what these things are called? I have always wanted one and it was only $4.14. I am lucky to be so easily pleased, I know.

The lamb is a two piece cake mold. I guess it's for Easter but I might make a Christmas lamb! That sounds kind of borderline pagan blasphemy...but it would be cute & yummy. I could make it red velvet cake with fluffy cream cheese frosting...mmm...that's good blasphemy!
In the true spirit of Christmas I am refusing to give into the stress & strain of the retail hullabaloo this year. I'm not going to play the part of The Grinch; my heart is not two sizes too small. I love the traditions, the decorations, the baking and all but I am not going to worry over anything. A perfect Christmas will be one spent with family & friends enjoying each other's company.
I want a peaceful joyful season this year. I will enjoy the silent, holy night.