oh my goodness!

remember this post about willy schlossbach?

funny, about that.

the other day, i was sitting in the studio with my back to the door, soldering lobster clasps onto lockets. (smells so good.) it was about quarter to noon, because the church bells across the street were yelling out familiar old hymns, like they do every day at quarter to noon. i suddenly heard someone say, "hey annie!" cheerily behind me. i turned around, and there was willy schlossbach, holding in his kind hands the printed pages of my blog post about him. it took me very much by surprise. (hello, willy, if you're reading about yourself again!)

he told me he liked the post, and that he was glad that i like his paintings,
and then, you know what he did?
he told me i ought to come pick out a painting from his studio. any one i'd like.


!!!


and so i did, and i didn't even know what to say, and i was just so happy and it was incredibly wonderful. i can't even believe it. i picked out one called "the old plow." it's so lovely. so lovely. i brought it back into my studio and set it carefully against the wall and sat down at the table to solder again.

except for i couldn't! i couldn't just start soldering with that beautiful painting sitting behind me, glowing at my back. i was antsy and a little shaky and grinning. so i jumped up, sat down at another table across the room, and started crocheting some wire earrings. this was a little better. the frantic, spastic motion of hurried crocheting was much easier to bear than the focused anxiety of precise soldering.

but i was still too excited to do anything neatly.

oh dear!

somehow i managed to do a bit more, and then ann and i went out to eat at the new mexican place by the drawbridge, and we talked about friendship and baseball and student loans, and then i scrambled home to show my mother the painting. she was terribly jealous and we hung it on the wall in the living room, above the red chair.