Thurs. 11/06/14 1:29 pm

Second day of Nanowrimo writing. (ended at
3:38p 2171 break, but could not add this to bottom of the entry?)

The artist /would be writer ‘Nanowrimoer’ had not written digitally for the novel writing  challenge since opening day. She still had not decided whether she wanted to continue. There had been a big interruption in the process right away because of the Nor’easter storm that had hit the area that Sunday. The winds blew strongly, the snow was wet and heavy. It fell on trees still laden with their autumn leaves, and some fruit trees still holding their fruit. The trees bent down with the heavy snow and many big branches broke off. Power lines went down. Power went out. She had lost power mid day that Sunday. It did come back on for her in only 1 1/5 hours. But one never knew if it might happen again. She could not even think about the writing that day.

She had been so thankful that the cat had come in ahead of the storm. The other cat she had been able to feed during a rainy part of the storm, but she did not like seeing him on the porch with that wet wind buffeting him as he ate. She continued to put food out for him throughout the storm but dared not call him out. She prayed he had found a hidey-hole in which to stay warm.

The next day she would go to teach the adult art class she gave on Mondays at the local public library. She worried over whether she would be able to get her car shoveled out in time. When the snows finally stopped that Sunday night, the winds were still raging. She could not bring herself to go out and shovel then. Would her car be covered in ice, with frozen locks? She had no idea what to expect and the weather was still too wild for her to venture out in. She was assuming that all the rest of the world would have easily dug themselves out by the next morning, and be going about their regular business. 

The next morning she woke early. She had probably gone to bed quite early. It was sunny out, or at least promising that it would soon be sunny. She was able to go out early to work on the car. The driveway and parking lot had not been plowed. She presumed they might be leaving that to melt. The cat went out with her and went leaping around in the snow. He seemed thrilled.

The shoveling of the car had been doable though a bit tiring, since the snow was so wet and heavy. One of her neighbors came out just to put away some garbage. She had to dig out her car to get at the shovel that was in the car so she could clear off the garbage bin to put away her garbage. While they worked on their cars, the plow guy showed up. This was the first time the artist had been out in time, and ahead of, the plow guy. Usually she would see him coming but not been ready to go down. She hated to race to go down there, only to find he had left already. So she always ended up having to shovel away a heap of snow that usually got piled up in front of her car from the snowplow’s snow wake. It was usually quite a mound.

She had to ask him what she should be doing. Where did he want her to go? If you give me a couple minutes while I do this side, you can then go over here, and I’ll get that side. Wonderful. She and her neighbor easily moved their cars aside. A few scoops later and the plow guy was leaving. The whole shoveling out and plowing had take about an hour. When she got upstairs it was still early for her. It felt wonderful to have been able to take care of all this, and so early. Again she assumed that since she had been able to so easily take care of her problem, so had the rest of the world.

There was plenty of time to have her breakfast and prepare for her class. She even had time to browse with the computer a bit. There she discovered that the local schools were not in session. Could that mean that the library might be closed? She called the library. Yes they were open. The school system was completely separate from them. But, was she having class? Someone had called from another town wanting to know. The library had not been able to tell them, but was assuming that the art class was on. The caller could try to check with the artist directly. The artist assured the library that she had shoveled out the car and had just assumed she was coming to do the class. She found it ironic though. The only way she had been able to reassure herself about her concerns over whether she could shovel out the car was that she could always cancel the class. She had not wanted to do that though at a time when surely everything was fine for the rest of the world after this storm.

She had had no idea how widespread the power outages were or that there were so many trees and tree limbs down. When she got to the library she had to park in neighboring parking lot. The library’s lot was full. She got to the library just a little late. The head librarian told her the room was open and that people were there already. Also that they had been getting calls all morning asking whether the class would be held. The librarian had tried to call the artist but had not gotten an answer. Yes, the artist had been out shoveling the car for an hour. But she had told the other librarian that yes, she would be in to give class. Ahh well, they had not yet spoken with each other about this. The other librarian had told the artist that at least she would have the one student from that town, and they could have a one-on –one class, which would be nice for the student. Now here was the head librarian saying that there had been many calls. The head librarian said well it was she who had been answering all the calls. The artist could not decipher whether she had somehow been amiss, that she was to have called in ahead or what it was they were expecting from her, or wishing she had done.

She got down to the room. There were three students waiting, not the many people who had supposedly called. The callers might have gotten the idea that since the library did not know whether there would be class, they would be risking a trip to the library for a cancelled class. The student who had called from the other town, told her that when she called the library, their response had been, “How are we supposed to know whether the class is on?” The student had been mystified and put off by such an answer. She could not believe what she was hearing. And she had not wanted to trouble the artist with a phone call. Her husband decided that since he had to go into town anyway, he would just drop here off at the library. Either there would be a class or there would not be.

In retrospect the artist realized that the librarians’ responses were because there were such widespread outages, one could know who had power or not. If the artist did not have power, she might not have been able to call in to tell them she was not coming. There was no way to know. But this was also a view that one could not see if one was calling for information. The world was somewhat topsy turvy for a while.

The library was busy with lots of patrons visiting. At the same time that the librarians were working with so many patrons, they were working to train the new staff members starting that day. It would be awhile before the storm inside the library calmed.

The class went well. The group had not been that small a group in a long time. It was during another storm two winters before that the class had been that small. That had been such a big snowstorm that snow was blocking the fire exit outside the room in the basement. They had had to move the class to the main floor. It had been four students and the artist. They had worked around a small table upstairs in the children’s section. Outside there was such a heap of snow piled up against the glass door, much of which had slid down from the roof. The two fellows who usually came to do the shoveling, had come to the door to go outside to start shoveling. The artist saw one guy just as he laid his hand on the door handle and shouted out to him. Don’t open that door! She could only imagine the immense snowpile further avalanching thru the door and inside the building. She had told him that it was downstairs that the firedoor was blocked. She had shooed him away. It turned out the door could not be opened from the inside. Was it because it only opened out and with the snow there it could not open, or was it locked. Looking at this question in hindsight, she wondered, was it even legal to have a door that could not open? She would have to find out.

Now this class with just three students and herself, one of which had not been to class since the previous winter because had been busy with work. This snow day was not a work day for him. And his town had no power. So class had been a good place to come. On his way in he had traveled a stretch of road where a string of telephone poles were one after another pulled down at 35 degree angles, (pointing at about 2:00). The group discussed how telephone poles got put in nowadays. They did not get weighted down with cement, they were just stuck in the ground, often the old poles were left next to them. The artist believed the poles were held in place with guy wires. Apparently not too tightly.

2:59p 1759 words

The artist had started off the morning with one idea she wanted to try with the class. This was a new variation on how she had taught this lesson in previous years. But then a new idea came to her. That was the one they worked with. The subject of the class was ‘deer’. Usually she asked students to draw a series of random designs using straight perpendicular lines in one, diagonals, boxes, triangles, then circles, arcs, s curves, and one more that she could not remember. Once they had made their designs, they were to find a creature in each arrangement. 

This time she asked them to cut a sheet of paper into squat quarters. The students colored each quarter in a different color of similar values, but using only three colors, so that two pieces would be the same color. They then cut these  boxes into smaller varying size boxes and then into triangles of varying sizes.

With the triangles they were to arrange them on blank sheets into deer like figures. She had forgotten in what order they had glued down the arrangements. They made crayon rubbings of their arrangements but had they glued the arrangements down before or after? Gluing was very tricky since the little paper pieces easily moved out of position.

Once the figures were glued down, the students made crayon rubbings from the figures but repositioned them on the new sheet. Some of the arrangements went across a double spread of paper. With the rubbing one could also enhance the outline of the figures. It was an imaginative herd of deer that bounded from that class session.

That lesson went through several more variations. The artist met with one of her watercolor students the next day. They had done watercolor variations of it as well. The kids’ class the next day did it with crayons again. That class had such a wide range of skill levels since there were students so young they had very little experience with scissors yet.

3:27p 2098 words

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After the Monday art class, the sun was still shining, and the snow was still plopping off the trees, sliding off branches and wires. The leaves, some still green, but most in their autumn colors, were still hanging on to their trees. It was an unusual to see so much green and autumn coloring bursting from the snowy scenery. Leaves had dropped, but many trees were still loaded with leaves