mercury in retrograde

The many different variables involved in the production of a line of clothing could definitely make your head spin. I often tell my interns to always expect the unexpected... be prepared for the worst, and know that everything will go wrong at some point. This is just a general rule of the industry. I am not coming at this from a very negative place- although it can be incredibly frustrating. It is just the way it is- when you are depending on so many things working in tandem like a clock, it can be difficult when one cog doesn't turn just so. It can leave you in a tight spot. If UPS is late, because of weather, or if there is an unseasonable cold front in the small village in India where your handloom fabric is coming from and the people are unable to finish your cloth on time, or one of your main sewers becomes ill and is unable to work, or your car finally decides to poop out, there really is very little you can do. It can be really intense if all of those things happen during one production season. But you have to just roll with it... cause what else can you do?
We actually have no control over anything, and sometimes we forget.
fall 2010 photo shoot is on Thursday, then next week school starts at SAIC and After School Matters (my two teaching gigs). Next monday is my birthday. I turn 29. I survey my little shop, my wholesale collection (in all its' tumultuous glory), and the classes I teach. I wonder how next year at this time is going to look....
I don't know if it is different for anyone else- I talk to my lovely pantheon of talented designer friends, artists, and colleagues- and everyone is in the same boat. We are all connected.
But, by golly, there is some craziness occurring in the stars or a retrograde happening or something, cause I cannot catch a break. February, I am counting on you to turn the beginning of 2010 around.

Dear friends,

I am forwarding this message to you from my mother. Her husband is an orthopedic surgeon who arrived on the boarder of Haiti and the Dominican republic along with several other doctors and nurses to aid BUSLOADS of injured people who have been arriving hourly to one of the closest free-standing buildings in the area. There is mass chaos occurring in Haiti, but Dorothy and Dale have been providing medical aid through the IMA for over a decade to the Dominican Republic and Africa, as well as in New Orleans after Katrina. If you have the ability to donate any amount of money to them, do know that it is being used directly, to impact the care of these victims in the form of immediate medical attention. Thank you for your any help you can give.

Annie Novotny

Ed left for the Dominican Republic Friday with a team from the International Medical Alliance of Tennessee (IMA) to provide medical and surgical help for masses of people who are badly injured as a result of the earthquake in Haiti. I know they arrived safely in a small jet to an airfield in Santadomingo DR and are heading to an area called Jimani?? where over 1200 victims had already arrived by trucks to the tiny clinic they have served in the past.

Pray for them. and if you want more information about them you can go to https://imaonline.org/Home_Page.php which will contain progress updates. IMA has a link to pay pal in their donation section if anyone can provide some support : (https://imaonline.org/Donate_Now.html)

Everything from their food to gasoline must be paid for in cash and they brought all they could with them including all the surgical supplies, bandages, cast materials and sterile packs. Several agencies back home are working on reinforcements of medicine and equipment as fast as they can obtain and ship. It is a huge endeavor and they know many will already die, they hope to help as many as they can with all the resources and professional volunteers they can recruit.

One thing I am confident about is that IMA will not leave after the news stories are over. Our friends Dorothy Davison, FNP and her husband, Dale Betterton, MD, have been giving their lives to provide medical care to people in the DR and Africa for ever 10 years. They are also the group that provided immediate response to the victims of hurricane Katrina and then stayed on in New Orleans for 3 years living in portable housing to continue giving free care and medicine to people with acute and chronic problems .

If everyone does one small thing. If we each help one person where we are. We will accomplish a lot and hopefully move toward a better more peaceful life for all of us!
Thanks for your concern and help.