Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Glass just dripping off the rod….

Nope. That is not how the song goes. But it could. Tonight was the last night of glass class and we added color for the first time. After our initial gather of glass, we rolled our hot glass in frit (sort of like glitter, made of glass), then melted it all together. Then we gathered more clear glass and made it into a cup. Bam. Done.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! There are forty-nine-eleven more steps before the cup is made. Keith added a big, different step to his first attempt when he sort of folded his glass all up (before he recycled it). On his second attempt, he just broke the cup and all the glass fell on the floor. Since Ashley and Myriam were both travelling for work this week, our small class of four allowed for plenty of time for Keith to have a third (successful) try at a cup. I got to make two cups. My first one is small, because my gathers are never very good (the glass mostly stays in the furnace). My second one is sort of a wonky shot glass.

Alexander wasn’t feeling great tonight (his poor organs – poorgans – were acting up) and after he made one cup, he was just assisting me. Glass blowing requires a second person, and can even benefit from a third person. He said he was feeling like he got beaten up with a bag of oranges, so I appreciated that he didn’t just sit in a chair. Thanks, Alexander.

We filled out class evaluations. The last question asked if we would be back – either for another class or just to rent space/time. The men said yes/maybe. I said no, I am bad at it, but I certainly had fun. We were standing around with our teachers, Claire and Carla, and I said we were going to go for after class slushies. Claire was confused. She did not know what a slushie was. We said, “You know. Slushies. Go to the gas station and get a slushie (realizing that that in NO way explains what they are).” She just shook her head. “It’s a frozen drink that normal people would have on a hot day. Like ice ground up in a blender with flavor in it. They usually come in red or blue.” She just laughed and said, “Red and blue aren’t flavors.”

Well, that is a whole other conversation – but yes, they are. Yellow is also a flavor, but only when talking about cake.

Claire looked to Carla for support, but Carla said, “I’m not on your side. Slushies are slushies. Seven-11 has sour patch kids flavors. They are the best.” Alexander was instantly intrigued. He is a connoisseur of slushies. Claire kept trying to describe what she thought we were talking about. She was not getting it AT ALL. We kept giving her lame examples. Communication was not happening. She definitely has been in the presence of a slushie. We finally ended up with slushies are like you put 30 Otter pops (what? Alexander interpreted that for me. An Otter pop is a freezy pop) in a cup and stir it around. She couldn’t believe we were going to have such an item on our way home, and when Alexander said we would have a 48oz cup, her head just about fell off.

Ah, good times!