Not in the Mainstream

When she was 92, my dear Aunt Anne said to me, "Kathy, I think it's just marvelous the way you get these jobs, because you don't really operate in the mainstream." And she was right. I never get jobs that I've applied for through a routine application process. But, I do tend to get unsolicited job offers for work that is "not in the mainstream."

Once, a theater colleague called, and said in her soft Mississippi drawl, "We need someone to make a tiny naked mendicant Brahman puppet." Never mind that my experience making tiny mendicant Brahman puppets, naked or otherwise, was non-existent. I jumped at the chance. I just knew it would fill that vacant spot on my resume, right after painting ballet scenery in a car parts warehouse; teaching kindergartners art by using dogs as the artists; designing and building a "barbecue castle" for the Memphis International Barbecue Festival; teaching Art Appreciation to unappreciative students; dog-sitting in Alaska; supervising the cutting in half of a 727 airplane; installing removable totem poles; and hanging colored lights in fruit bat, binturong and aardvark enclosures at a zoo.

Yes indeed - Brahman puppet construction was just what I needed to round out my resume.

My husband Chuck posing as "The Reluctant Naked Mendicant Brahman "