Lisa Occhipinti
Sotto Voce, mixed media on canvas, 18" x 24,"

Did you know it is mating season for the wild turkey? Are you well versed in how that little dance goes? No? Oh, please--allow me to share.

At about 5 am each morning, a rafter of turkeys will gather in a nice open space-- perhaps at the top of your field so that you can hear everything through your open window? First, there are squeals and squabbles and a dominant sound that can only be described as Charlie Brown's teacher on Quaaludes-- I believe this is referred to as a "gobble." The tone and pitch of the gobbling and squawking continue to magnify until all three of your dogs are awake and barking madly in response to the gallinaceous lovefest.

At this point, your husband reaches up above the headboard of the bed and pulls down the shotgun. Without removing the screen from the window he blasts at random all the while screaming, "shut. thefuck. uhhhhhhhpppppppp."

((Oh come now. You know I love nothing but a big fat exaggeration. We don't have a loaded gun on the wall above our bed. We keep it under the mattress)).

Now, despite the passionate entreaties to cease and desist, the turkeys continue with their festivities. The males (this morning we had two) flare out every single feather on their rather sizable torsos, which creates an enormous fan of feathers sticking out from their butt as is so often immortalized on Thanksgiving platters. They suck in their long neck so that their heads are up high and at a fighting angle and there may well be other subtle changes like little, tiny death rays that shoot out of their eyes-- but you can't see that from the window.

What you realize, yet again, is that these birds must be a first cousin to the peacock. How embarrassing for the peacock, you think. The magnificent blue bird with its wondrous plumage strolls royally across the groomed lawns of its vast European estate sniffling into its Belgian lace handkerchief as it laments the fact that his ugly, brown American cousin with its casement of shiny, dark feathers has all the beauty of an overgrown waterbug.

So then there is much with the hopping and strutting-- we have some turns, a few waddles and then the keg runs out and everybody's gone as fast as they arrived.

Hey! But now you are up at 5:30. How great. It's a perfect time to head to the gym, or begin writing the Great American Novel, or organize your kitchen shelves according to the Dewey decimal system.

Now, in other news--

Imagine you have a friend who is an amazing painter and she comes to spend the weekend with you and she comes into your studio and gives you feedback on two pieces you are totally stuck on and her response completely energizes you and fills you with the excitement and vision to finish them when just days before all you wanted to do was to chuck them both onto the woodpile. Imagine.

Lisa Occhipinti
Subtext, mixed media on canvas, 18" x 24"

And we won't even get into how wildly amazing and fun and creative and kind and original she is---my friend, Lisa Occhipinti--- she is just, well, words don't even do her justice so I'll just say I love her a lot. A real lot.

She came up last weekend and damn, I almost chased her down the road when she had to leave Sunday night, zipping down the drive in her black and white Mini-- yes, she drives a Mini. She also wears Italian boots with a perfectly chic black throw over her shoulders when we walk the dogs-- I, of course, dazzle in my mismatched athletic socks and mud-covered Merrells, a pair of stained, worn-out hiking cargos that Jed Clampett gave to Goodwill and a hoodie covered in bug repellant. We make quite the pair.

I'm sharing two of her recent paintings because they are so gorgeous and the woman doesn't have a website-- grrrr. However, I think after all the arm-twisting I did this weekend she will get one up soon. She had damn well better.

In other news, I watched another really great movie. I know-- it's like three movies in three months. I'm on a roll here. But, since I have YET to write an opine on my beloved Lars and the Real Girl-- I'm going to stop here.

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