A Valentine for my friend.

Hoppy Valentine's Day Heather.

It's fortunate that out of all of the people across the world, you and I were brought together as friends. With generosity, kindness, and love, you tolerate my crazy (entertain it even), yet you're also not afraid to let me know when I'm unreasonable (which rarely happens, if ever).

Thank you friend.

With much love and appreciation,

jen

untitled

painting by Matt Scheid

The painting featured above, is by a friend of my daughter Riana [drama friends]. I expressed how impressed I was with his work, assuming he was just a theatrical talent, but he briefly explained how he had created this piece just before my daughter's birthday party (that night), and that he had been dabbling in this type of painting for a couple of weeks!?--raw talent.

The party itself was a good time: shiny neon spandex pants, 1980's short shorts, and kitty cat sweatshirts--that was just the boys. As for the girls, I so badly wanted to join them and whip on my Madonna wanna-be garb and roller boogie the night away. For whatever reason [something to do with a childhood roller skating spill, resulting in a minor concussion] I could not convince Heather to strap on some skates. It's probably better that we didn't skate, reserving our energy for post party late night people watching and tolerating bad cover band music.

The following night was the auction for Heather's daughter's preschool. It went quite well, and our paintings, especially Heather's, were very popular. I failed to mention that Heather donated a personal pet portrait, which along with her "I will be good" piece, created some hovering and competition with the silent bidding. Nice.

(jen)

Let's start the bidding at 1 piece...

mantra by heather jarvis

So tomorrow night is the annual party and auction of the Central Branch Preschool, where my good preschool friend attends. My preschool friend is Heather's wee-est one. I recently traded her 4 pieces of gum (1 orange, 3 mint) for a rogue binky that she came across during the unpacking of Heather's recent move. It wasn't long ago that she reluctantly gave up the bink, so when she found the stray, she knew she'd struck gold. She drives a hard bargain; I initiated the bidding with 1 piece of gum, and she upped my ante (after some back and forth) to 4 pieces and the ability to deposit the binky in the kitchen sink--which was in the other room and I think she assumed she could collect her gum from me and run to grab the binky from the sink...but aha! I've been around the binky block. I came back at her with a firm "4 pieces and binky in my hand". She wavered, but eventually agreed--some exciting bargaining, and I hope the auction benefiting her preschool tomorrow night is equally successful.

The above piece [by Heather] has been donated, and the two below [by me] have also been donated--the best of what we both currently have to offer.

If you would like to help support the Central Branch Preschool, details are as follows:

Saturday, February 6th

7pm

Mt. Baker Community Club

206.723.1187

As for now, I've gotta run. Heather and I are meeting for dinner, then off to Skate King--to roller boogie the night away (no joke).

loosely separated by jennifer culp

hamsters on the mind by jennifer culp