Artsy Fartsy

(OK so this is a shot of Luke’s old Sportster, clean and pretty just before we sold it, but all my Americade pictures are on my home computer so this one’s going to have to do.)

I just found out today that we’re going to be taking a trip to Lake George, NY next week for Americade 2006 and I’m so excited! First off, I haven’t taken a vacation in a long, long time and I really need one, and secondly, Lake George is one of my favorite places to go, especially on a motorcycle and especially in June when the air is clear and the weather is warm. Two years ago we took this same trip and had the most amazing week we’ve had in a long time.

In 2004, I was new to riding, I was just gaining my confidence on Ol’ Bessie (the ‘83 Nighthawk) and I was going back and forth in my head the week before we left - I’m going to ride my bike, no, I think I should be a passenger, no, I’m riding my own bike… Finally, the night before we left I decided that I’d be mad at myself if I didn’t ride so we left the next morning on two bikes and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I think taking that trip to Americade gave me the time in the seat and the confidence that short trips around home weren’t giving me.

We took the longest possible route from Connecticut to New York and rode on some of the most amazing roads. Big hills and sweeping curves, lookouts and valley-views. We rode through farms and forests and tiny little towns. After a few hours, we were hot and tired, searching the middle of nowhere in the 90-degree June heat for a place to stop for lunch. All I wanted was a big glass of seltzer and Luke was ready for an icy cold beer when we came up on a place so perfect, I’m still doubting that it could have really existed. Not only did it have seltzer, it had Rolling Rock, air conditioning, and burritos! What more could we want? We recharged and cooled down and got back on our bikes, even happier after our perfect pit stop. In total, it took us six hours to get there and, except for the heat, I was in heaven. Bessie and I were getting to know each other better and my increased confidence on the bike allowed me to relax and enjoy the trip that much more.

We stayed with some friends who were nice enough to let us camp out on the floor of the cabin they rented in Lake George. We spent four days riding and shopping, eating and racing go-carts. We met some new friends and had such perfect weather. It still seems like a dream. Nothing went wrong (except for the little allergic reaction I had at dinner when we realized that the tonic in my beloved gin and tonic contains sulfa - which I’m allergic to - but that was over quickly and no harm was done). I was so proud of myself for being brave enough to ride and for keeping up with the pack and for trying and learning and having a great time, that I bought myself a little rally pin that says “Americade 2004″. I wear it on my riding jacket to remind me of that fantastic week. It was a dream trip and I have been dying to go back. Now I will!

This time we’re leaving at night because of our work schedules and we’re going to take the highway up. I’ll be on the Cyclone now that Luke’s got his new Ulysses with the luggage bags and all (I’m very excited about that). I’m looking forward to riding the Buell on those great mountain roads around the lake, but the wind on the highway up there’s going to be rough. Once we get up there it’ll be fine. We’re staying with the same friends again (hi Fran and Tracy!) and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some more great weather. Stay tuned for more Americade stories in a couple of weeks and more pictures than I’m sure you care to see.

I am now officially thrity years old. Thirty and a day, to be exact. Hello, my name is Lisa and I am thirty years old. See how I’ve already adjusted to it? I can just admit it to the world. Thirty I am, and quite happy, too.

Sunday, my mom and sister threw Luke and me a big b-day bash and all sorts of fantastic friends came out to celebrate. The weather was spectacular and I think everyone had a great time, epsecially Molly and Jimmy who seem to be the only ones who had their pictures taken that day. Here are a few non-pup pics that we managed to capture:

Molly got to meet Amanda’s pup, Jimmy, who is cute as could be and went swimming for the very first time, once by accident, the rest of the times were on purpose. Here’s his first doggie paddle lesson:
That’s his dad, Greg, and no, he’s not trying to hold him under, he’s just helping him along.

So the party was great, and yesterday, on my real birtday, we had a nice low-key day. There was still a lot of post-party clean up and about 700 flies to kill, but after that we sat out in the yard, enjoying the beautiful day and Luke took me for Mexican food in the topless Jeep (must be careful with the word order there). It was a great way to end the week and celebrate turning thirty.

Thank you to everyone for making Luke and me feel special and loved and old and young and very lucky to have all of you as friends and family, all at the same time!

Some guy on the road just called me “dickhead”.

I can’t recall ever being called dickhead before. I was so stunned, I wanted to follow him to his parking spot and confront him. “Did you just call me dickhead? Oh. OK. Just checking.”

It’s a beautiful day in Connecticut. The sun is finally shining, everything is green and blooming and it’s so warm that I was driving with my windows down. How can anyone be crabby on a day like today? Especially outside of a Starbucks!

Because everything is in bloom, my allergies have kicked it into high gear and my head is killing. Even still, I’m in a good mood because it’s so lovely outside. I thought that a nice iced coffee might help the headache, so I stopped and got one on the way back from lunch. I pulled out of the parking lot and approached a line of cars waiting at a red light. I was thinking about the new prescription sunglasses I’m waiting for and how they might help this headache, too, and apparently I wasn’t using my psychic ability to sense that this large man in a large car with no visible turn signal was thinking of turning in front of me into the Starbucks lot. Shame on me. He turned in behind me. Poor thing had to wait an extra three seconds to get into the parking lot! As he went by, he leaned my way and yelled “dickhead!”

Seriously. Are you that impatient? That self-absorbed? Here’s a little tip for all of you prone to road rage out there. Nobody’s perfect, and every little thing that happens on the road and appears to be an inconvenience to you is not done to spite you. Believe it or not, I don’t hate you. (Well I might now, you called me dickhead.) I don’t even know you. Sometimes I just make mistakes.

Now take it back, you big jerk, you’re killing my nice weather buzz!

I know, you’ve all been wondering, Lisa, what’s it like to get an illustration job? Well, being the passive marketer I’ve been lately, I have to admit, I almost forgot. Thankfully, my favorite clients Ford Folios, called recently to ask me to work on a new project for a local fair catalog. I thought it might be fun to share the steps of a new job with you.

#1 Ideas and Rough Sketches

The wonderful folks at Ford Folios are brilliant and creative and usually have a good idea of what they’d like to see before they call me, so for me, that’s very nice. Their specific ideas and my little touches make for a fun project. For this one, they wanted a picture of the kids’ pedal tractor pull with kid on a pedal tractor pulling a wagon of candy or apples or something like that. The catalog is small, and there needs to be room for the title and some text here and there. I got to work on some very rough sketches and here’s what I came up with.

#2 Fine-Tuning the Design

The FF folks thought that the girl looked more like she was in a parade than a tractor pull and neither of us was thrilled with the boy with the apples. We both liked the thrid boy with the puppy and the girls i nthe background, but they asked if I could also add a weight to the wagon. After redrawing it with the weight, I decded that the wagon looked a little crowded wit hthe puppy so lef thim out. I thought the wagon needed a little character, so I decided it should be made out of wood, and I thought that the background didn’t look like a fairground, so I added some fair details. The FF folks liked the girls in the background because they thought it looked like that boy was trying to impress them. This is what the next sketch looked like.
The FF folks liked the weight, but missed the puppy (me too!) and they said they liked the simpler tree/bird background a opposed to the fair background. I had to redraw the wagon to make it a little bigger to accomodate the puppy, and move the girls back a bit so the puppy didn’t cover them. Here’s what I came up with.
It’s up to the fair officials now to approve the sketch and then when I get the OK, I can put paint to paper. Now for step 3, waiting.

I don’t watch a lot of TV. Sometimes I wish I did so I could share in the conversations about Survivor or Lost or House (which has awesome commercials that make me want to watch it) or whatever everyone else is talking about. I’m so out of it. I only have two shows that I watch every week: Gilmore Girls and 24. I’ve been watching GG for years, but I was only infected with the contagious 24 virus at the beginning of last season. Our neighbors talked about it all the time and were so hooked on it that we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Well. Let me tell you. All the fuss was about Mr. Jack “I can kill you with just about anything including my penetrating stare” Bauer. And the super-suspenseful structure that keeps 24 going (which, for anyone out there who might watch less TV than me, is that each season takes place over the course of only one day, each weekly episode is an hour in that day). We were hooked and watched every week until the end where Jack had to fake his death and disappear forever to avoid imprisonment by the Chinese government. Forever? Really? I had a feeling he’d have to come back for some reason and I wanted to see that, so we started to watch 24 this season. And he came back. Surprise, surprise.

Since this season began, I have been loyally watching every show even though I get so emotionally wrapped up in the show that I get physically uncomfortable and want to leap through the TV to slap that smug bastard President Logan and I shout things at the TV like, “slap him with your pistol!” or “kick him in the nuts!” (which I yelled last night). It’s not healthy. I don’t sleep well on Monday nights because I go directly from watching 24, holding my breath for an hour, to trying to sleep and instead, having fitful dreams of the CTU and things exploding and me running from bad guys.

So we had agreed that we wouldn’t watch 24 next season. Luke doesn’t like to have shows that we watch and he’d be happy to just get rid of the TV altogether and I thought I could do without the stress, so it was settled.

Until last night. Last night was the season finale. The last two hours. The wrap up in which Jack Bauer saves the day again and gets hit in the head with a wrench and shot at and kills many bad guys and then gets to go back to his girlfriend and actually have a happy moment. A moment where he might actually smile for the first time in the two years I’ve watched this show - but wait, before you go home with your girlfriend and live happily ever after Jack, there’s a phone call for you, and even though we all have multiple cell phones and calling devices, we’ve forwarded this call to the phone inside this creepy dark warehouse. Go there, take the call in “private”.

It’s at this point that I said to Luke, “there’s still the small matter of the Chinese government who are going to want to kill him now that they know he’s alive.” Well. Wouldn’t you know, the Chinese government kidnaps Jack and beats the crap out of him. He tells them to kill him, they say that he’s too valuable to kill. And the show ends with Jack’s girlfriend noticing that he’s missing and a view of a container ship sailing away, toward China I assume.

NOW I HAVE TO WATCH IT NEXT SEASON! Damn it! All I wanted was to see President Logan go down (check), I wanted the terrorists to be stopped (check) and I wanted to see the creeps who worked with Logan (like that weasely little jerk with the wireless headset and the irritating glasses) to get what was coming to them, too. Then I would have been happy. But noOOoooo. Instead, Jack Bauer has to be dragged off by the Chinese and now I have to wonder about him until next January when I’m sure I’ll be too weak to resist the lure of the commercials and I’ll be hooked again on another emotional season of twenty-frickin-four.

Thanks a lot FOX!

Every spring the turtles come up from the river to lay their eggs in the sandy ground around our house. Every year Molly tries to convince them to play with her.

Molly: (sniff, sniff) Hey! What’s this?

Turtle: (from inside shell) Go away.

Molly: Hey, you’re not a rock.

Turtle: Go away.

Molly: Let’s play!

Turtle: I’m out of here…

Things haven’t been moving at my Etsy shop, but I’m just convinced that I can sell my jewelry there. It seems so easy and convenient and so many other people are doing it! One woman is even selling homemade cookies for $15 a batch! How does she do it?

In an effort to make my shop clean and easy to navigate, I’ve decided to create two separate shops - one for my jewelry and one for my art. You can now visit the new and improved Jewelry by Lisa Gaumond or the new (and currently empty) Lisa’s Studio.

Jewelry by Lisa Gaumond now features new photos, new styles, and even a new “Amanda” bracelet! I still have the double bracelet to name, should I call that one the “Paula” or maybe the “Flannery”? I’ve been naming the jewelry after the person who inspired me to make it or who bought the most of that style, but I don’t make many of the double bracelets so I don’t know who to name it after…

Well, stay tuned, more lovely things will be added to Lisa’s Studio very soon and new pieces will be added to Jewelry by Lisa Gaumond as often as I can make them.

Here’s the final product for the crayfish postcard. What do you think? If you’re in the area in July, shoot me an email. It’s a fun time. You don’t have to ride a motorcycle to partake. All you have to do is like to eat.

Have you seen the recent commercial for the Honda Element? The one with the crab? If you haven’t (and even if you have) you should treat yourself to this link: I Pinch. Luke and I are now bruised everywhere from sneaking up on eachother and saying like the crab “I peench!” or “maybe little peench?” or “why no peench?” Yes, we’re cruel. And easily amused.

This little guy on the left won’t pinch. He’s a little sketchy sketch I did for a postcard announcing our third annual motorcycle campout and crawfish jambalaya extravaganza. We host a campout for my dad’s motorcycle “gang” every July and the first year I wowed them all by catching crayfish in the river and making jambalaya out of them. Y-U-U-M-M-Y! So now it’s tradition. Catching them is 90% of the fun. Peeling the little buggers sure isn’t a party. You can see a slideshow of last year’s festivities here, just click on the “DHMC Sweaty Boobs” (that’s the old name for it, the summer version of the “Frosty Nutz” trip they take to Vermont in October - it will be renamed this year).

I was so excited that my computer was finally hooked up again after being down for almost three weeks, so I could finally update my iPod. Along with all of the podcasts I was missing out on, I suddenly had the urge to buy music from my high school years. I don’t know where the sudden taste for early 90s music came from but I went with it. Now strange floods of memories are hitting me whenever the songs play. Strange memories, weird points in my life, bad haircuts, awful outfit choices, they’re all coming back to me and I just had the urge to share them with you.

18 and Life - Skid Row

It’s 1990, my friend Jen and I spend every weekend at Golf Land, playing video games, eating at Subway, and irritating the patrons like no one but a 13-year old girl can. We’re too cool for ourselves, even, and we’re trying to look foxy in front of the (loser) guys who hang out there, too. (I say loser now, because looking back, they were a group of 18+ guys who hung out at Golf Land. Come on now! At least we were 13 and had to be dropped off by our parents. They had cars and could have gone somewhere else!) So I was wandering around the video game machines, I’m sure I smelled like Loves Baby Soft, when on the radio comes this guy singing this song - wait, is it a guy? That voice is pretty high. No, it must be a guy. “This song is AWESOME,” I think to myself. I have to buy the tape! I go home and tune my radio to 107.3 WAAF and wait for them to play it again.

House of Pain - Faster Pussycat

The funniest thing about this memory is the thought, “I can’t believe I did a project for English class on this song”. They actually let me get away with that? I can’t remember what the assignment was, but I loved this song so much that I remember illustrating a poster about the song with lyrics and blue flames. It rocked, I’m sure.

Ocean Size - Jane’s Addiction

Probably sometime in 1991, I’m riding to school in my sister’s 1981 silver Camero and this song is playing, not loudly enough for my taste, but it was a feat of patience on my sister’s part that she actually let me play my tape in her car so I didn’t complain. I think to myself, “god, I love Jane’s Addiction. Who doesn’t? I can’t wait to have my OWN car with my OWN tape player so I can play Jane’s Addiction all day every day as loud as it goes!”

This Love - Pantera

It’s about 1993 and Luke convinces me to let him drive my car up to this spot above the highway in Willimantic where there’s a lookout. It’s over route 6 and I’m not sure exactly how we got there or if it was illegal, but we ended up way on top of the highway, looking down on all the cars. It was late at night and it felt like we were miles away from everything, we were so high up. We parked the car and cranked the stereo and this song came on, it was awesome. The sad part to this memory is that one of Luke’s high school friends was in the car with us and a few weeks later he died in a drunk driving accident, so I can’t hear this song without thinking of Dan. But it’s still a great song that needs to be played loudly.

And one more memory, this one from elementary school and no, I didn’t download the song from iTunes. But I’m thinking about it…

Elvira - The Oakridge Boys

When I turned eight, I had a birthday party at Skate Fantasy in Manchester (which is now, sadly, a Big Lots store). When you were the birthday girl at Skate Fantasy, you got to pick a song and have it played just for you. What song did I pick? That’s right - Elvira. My heart was on fire, for Elvira. I think I was the only eight-year old who knew all of the words and I’m still amazed that they had it there to play, but play it they did and I skated and sang my little heart out. I also have a memory of sitting in the TV room at my parents’ house and absolutely blasting this song on the record (yes, record) while I worked on a paint-by-numbers picture of a horse.

Well thanks for taking a walk down memory lane with me. Does this give you any insight on the strange person I’ve grown up to be? From the Oakridge Boys to Pantera to Jack Johnson. Interesting.