Down to Kentucky

Maybe I should look into being a truck driver, because I really do enjoy being on the road.

This trip was a quick one: down to Cumberland Kentucky to help friends get an old family condo back into working order.

Step one was de-cluttering, step two was hooking up the internet.

Entryway

Folks sometimes wonder when meeting me, “Where do you live?”

They see glimpses of our studio, or snapshots from all over tarnation, and a big heaping of the midwest.

It gets confusing.

I live in Cincinnati. (In fact, I’ve been in Ohio my entire life.)

Moved to this joint a little over a year ago after living in Dayton for a piece.

It’s not perfect. The walls are too thin, neighbors too noisy, and drafts hard to stop. But I was drawn to the space and the light.

And though the calendar has flipped, there are still pictures to hang. I’ve only started to put away the haphazard stacks of things in the closets. Each attempt is an overwhelming exercise in “Do I really need this (thing)?”

I usually end up with a pile for the thrift store (which eventually gets there),
and a pile for eBay or Craigslist (which gets shoved back in a corner for another day).

She bowls with those nails too

Spent all morning in the business center of the car dealership getting my ride put back into tip top shape. Luckily there was wireless internet so I was able to keep productive and on the clock. Heard a car dealer remark on the fingernails of the woman beside me and I was in the zone and didn’t look over.

That was, until it was time to leave and then, I was amazed.

Asked for a photo and she was super gracious and all kinds of awesome.

And she does apparently bowl with those nails. Right handed, hence the shorter length.

Folks ask her how she can deal with ’em day in and day out, and she says she manages just fine.
I told her some folks feel the same way about a beard.

Kelley and the scarves

POST NOTE: This journal entry was written on November 9, 2023... Thirteen years after the photos were taken.

Back in the year of 2010, British-Irish boyband One Direction is formed and selling stuff online was kind of complicated. You could have a janky PayPal button fairly easily, but to have a cart and credit card processing? It was an ordeal.

We had that all figured out at Wire & Twine and helped Kelley Deal start selling her lovely handmade felted scarves online. It was always a joy when she dropped off a new batch to add to the inventory. She’d hang around the studio and use Tom’s old typewriter to make custom cards for each one with their name.

Yup. Each scarf had a name, just like Cabbage Patch Kids.

In alphabetical order: (Left) 20 Eyes, Alumni, Animal Farm, Artifacts, Bitch Seat, Bonneville, Broad Highway, Cheerwine, Cold War, Crazy About Ballerinas, Dewey Decimal, Dr. Rhythym, Eastern Bloc, Finch, Fjord, Galaga, Habit, Hoarders, Hoarfrost, Horn Rimmed

(Right) Illegal Shift, Nantucket, Night Train, Parker Bros, Pepper Mill, Pilkington, Pop!, Shame Spiral, Sign For It, Skunktrain, Snow Plow, Squash, Stretch Out and Wait, Strunk and White, The 45 King, Thoreau, Topiary, Uzbekistan, Winter Dawn, and Work Week.

I would later adopt shame spiral into my vernacular.

And on this day we did a photoshoot to feature Kelley on the website, resulting in the image above where she’s covered in scarves. I forget whose idea that was, but it is a among my favorite snaps of all time.

And here’s a bonus shot of Tom being funny behind Kelley as she sorts through all the scarves.

A woman prepares home made scarves for photographing