The Skinny

Shadow play in Forest Hill
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20 inches
(not quite finished)
Barbara Muir © 2010

I'm thinking of the word skinny because I took
my car in to get the oil changed the other day. That
doesn't make any sense does it? But wait. I
had to wait for an hour -- actually 3 1/2 hours,
but I'm not one for freaking about time spent
waiting. So I walked over to the nearest mall
(Yorkdale) in Toronto, and walked around.
The mall was closed (it was 8 a.m. when I arrived),
but I looked at the display windows in every store.
So much fun to watch the cleaning up, dressing of
mannequins, window styling, and all the preparation
that goes into setting up for another day in one of
this city's top malls. I grabbed a coffee and greatly
enjoyed the peace and quiet and watching the mall
come to life.

The Skinny hit me as every clothing store in
the mall has Skinny jeans. I won't be getting
them, but I thought I'd talk about the skinny on
our vacation. Well...Nova Scotia was as beautiful
as ever, and we had a wonderful time until things
began unravelling at home. We had a completely
wonderful time, but my Siamese cat, the beautiful
and sweet Fiona, missed us too much, and developed
pancreatitis! So after spending about three days
glued to my husband's Blackberry and deep in worry,
we headed for home, and drove the 1600 k
(just shy of 1,000 miles) in two days. (My advice?
Don't do this!)

After extensive vet visits, and three days on an I.V.
while we were gone, Fiona, who is only three, rallied.
People say why all this fuss over a cat? My answer is
that if you don't have a cat you love, you can't know. We
have two cats and a dog. They've been great friends,
great animals, part of our family and the inspiration
for artwork.

Fiona sleeping on my bed

A shout out to my friends in the Maritimes. (More on
that coming), and to Sam, Josephine, Claudia, Cathy and
Sean who kept the home fires burning, kept the garden
watered, and saved our little kitty's life. It was a much
happier homecoming than it could have been without
them.

Now we're back and it's back to work. Art work that
is. I've missed you greatly, and I'm delighted to be
back in the blog world. I don't know if I'm going to
continue to blog daily. I will see how the mood hits
me. I may start to take weekends, or excessively
busy days off. I think I've learned a lot by not blogging.
But that too will have to wait for another day.

Have a hey-it's-still-summer-don't-make-me-buy-fall-clothes day.