Friday Unrelated Information

1. One of the design blogs I read linked to an artist, Mincing Mockingbird, who paints birds and whose painting titles are my new favorite thing ever:
This one is "Will You Please Put Down That US Magazine And Listen To Me?"
And this one is "My Genial And Relaxed Countenance Hides A Startling Amount Of Naked Rage."
2. I reached back into my first days in marketing and was able to set up Google Analytics on the blog. It tells me that I've had 4 unique visitors since last week, which is probably pretty accurate.

3. A Moab trip is planned for next weekend, so I've been spending downtime staring at the hotel's river cam: redcliffslodge.com/webcam

Actually, It's Not

C.S. Lewis Was A Wino

Well, he probably wasn't a wino, but I think he liked it. I was reading Prince Caspian last night waiting for dinner and there were two separate passages about it:
"..what was in [the pitcher] was not water but the richest wine, red as red-currant jelly, smooth as oil, strong as beef, warming as tea, cool as dew."

And not ten pages later:
"Then...came the wines: dark, thick ones like syrups of mulberry juice, and clear red ones like red jellies liquefied, and yellow wines and green wines and yellowy-green and greenish-yellow."

Is anyone surprised to learn that this was one of my favorite Narnia books as a child?

Tuesday Project Roundup: "Now Is The Winter of Our Discontent."

Emphasis on the "tent":
The problem with sewing a muumuu in February is that you can't really justify its voluminousness until the weather is hot. So until then, I have the world's roomiest jumper.

I do like how it turned out; I like muumuus. (Nothing better has been invented for summer wear. Those old ladies knew.) I just got a little overeager for the weather to warm up.

The plaid is very nice, though--the colors of dry grass and evening light on the foothills in August. It will look nice with a tan.

Farm Escapism Monday

If I had a goat dairy, I might have to let my hair grow out so the goats could nom on my braid, because that's just so cute:
(But to be fair, if I had a goat dairy in the winter I might miss things like days inside, health insurance, steady paychecks...maybe.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. There was consternation at the apartment this morning: a Desert News was delivered by mistake! As much as I mock the Tribune, it really is the lesser of two evils—and when I had it re-delivered this morning, there was a picture of a kitty in the masthead. You’d never see kitties in the News of Deseret. They are clearly the anti-kitten paper.

2. Did anyone else want to start singing Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” every time someone mentioned the total eclipse of the moon this week?

3. Speaking of music, someone in the next row of cubes at work has been listening to Led Zeppelin at barely-discernible volumes for three weeks straight now. I think Led Zeppelin is a brilliant band, but not when you can just hear snippets of songs repeated throughout the day, every day, for three weeks. I might start screaming along with Robert Plant.

4. And in this week’s report on the coming of spring, there are crocus and tulip and daffodil bulbs coming up in the planters downtown.

Me And My Half Elf Army

Comments are still a novelty to me, so I was excited to see one on my Buttars post from yesterday. And guess what? It was from a Buttars supporter! It was so very crazy that I deleted it—then thought, “But it’s too good not to share.” Below, my favorite parts of it (oh yes, it was lopnger):

you are a hypocrite liar who publicly preaches free speech (except when it is something with which you disagree)but who really hates open discourse.

anyone who might say, “hey, you have a black mark on your {record}{shirt} {soul}” is a racist devil to be destroyed.
If i say “that black mark on your record is one ugly baby” I should have my gonads removed by a team of man hating lesbian trasgendered [sic] half elf midgets with a speech impediment.

Because people who think Buttars is a hate-monger with the faintest grasp of subject-verb agreement are clearly man-hating lesbian (and transgendered--bonus!) half elf midgets with a speech impediment. Sorry, guys.

Buttars Rides Again

Buttars is feeling picked on from all the backlash to his "black baby" comment, but guess what? He wasn't referring to a human! Also: He just can't understand how people can be so mean. "To have it taken to the extreme of hate that it has achieved is . . . I have no idea how people could act like that," he says.

Neither do we, Senator.

Tuesday Project Roundup: MasterCard Edition

Three yards of Japanese duck print fabric (a splurge): $24
One vintage pattern: $7.
Four pearl snaps from my mom's stash (also vintage): $0.


Wearing animals on your clothing as a grownup: Priceless.

I Want A Bird On MY Head

And I want that headscarf, just in case, and I want to be looking over that valley at those power lines. It's not long until it's summer here and we get our migration of scarlet macaws, right?

(Image by Paul Costello, via the Decorno site.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Even with the snow over the past two days, I keep thinking of this quote from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe: "This is no thaw, this is spring!" (Said by the evil dwarf to the White Witch, which pisses her off.)

2. The Muppet Show has been coming from Netflix this week and I'm remembering things I didn't know I'd forgotten, like DR. TEETH AND THE ELECTRIC MAYHEM:
That is seriously the best band name ever.

3. I found a gallery of images online this week called Silhouette Masterpiece Theater, which is as cool as it sounds. This is my favorite (click to enlarge):

St. Valentine's

As Nigel Slater says, "St. Valentine's is rather like Christmas, in that if you ignore it, you always end up regretting it, feeling mean and cynical. Yes, it is more than a bit cheesy, but I think we have to go with it."

And go with it we shall, Nigel. In years past, I have never been bothered by being single on Valentine's Day nearly as much as I was bothered by being single on New Years Eve, but I obviously didn't do much in the way of celebration. And when I wasn't alone I still didn't really make a fuss about the holiday, due to the nagging fear that the partner of the moment would get scared off. (Which I guess they did anyway. No great loss.)

But now, I have a honey who seems like he will stick around in spite of my many moments, and I couldn't be happier that his idea of celebrating nearly everything is just like mine: seafood. (And champagne, of course; any excuse for that.) Happy St. Valentine's, my seafood-eating, blog-commenting, public-declaration-of-sentiment-inducing, continually-patient, dear.

A Note To Senator Chris Buttars

Dear Chris (on the right),
Jesus said we shouldn't hate people. Just thought you might need a little reminder.

Love,
Karen


(Story here.)
(Bonus story of more inappropriateness here.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Next, I Will Sew A Car Edition

Now I’m sewing furniture. Well, it’s technically a really big pillow (that took 8.5 pounds of fiberfill to stuff!) but it’s being used as an ottoman, so I think it’s furniture. Behold!

Of course, right after I finished this my brother and sister-in-law found a round ottoman at Target for the price I paid for the fabric alone. But mine is certainly more fiberfill-ious.

Cute Goat Picture Monday

Today I was going to play either Ad Police (the Utah anti-meth ads really bother me) or Word Police (seriously, Trolley Square? You really want to post a flier a year after your fatal shootings that says, "Hit the Bricks! Shop til You Drop!" ?) but I don't think righteous indignation is what we need on a Monday.

No, what we need on a Monday are pictures of cute baby goats:

(Pictures taken from search results for "cute baby goat," of course.)

Now we can pretend we work on a goat dairy instead of various business-to-business tech accounts.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The Tribune had an awesome typo this week in Wednesday's coverage of restaurants offering fixed-price, or prix-fixe (pronounced "pree feex") meals: They spelled it "pre-fixe".

2. Quote of the week from my blog readings: Rachel Ray "has tourettes of retarded sayings" (from isuwannee.blogspot.com).

3. Have you been wondering what breed of sheep to include on your ranch? Check out the A-Z guide of sheep breeds! www.sheep101.info

Winter, I Say, "Meh" To You

I was so unhappy to see the snow yesterday morning, but then I remembered that 1.) it'd not dark until 6:00 these days; 2.) I can hear birds in the morning; and 3.) there are real afternoons again--it's not just lunchtime and then dusk.

Plus, I found this quote in The Kitchen Diaries while I was looking for something to cook that wasn't cream- or cheese-based over the weekend:
"People get down about this time of year, but even today [at the market] there were fat little partridges, clementines heavy with juice, and bunches of narcissi to cheer us up. There is good stuff if you are prepared to go and find it."

And while partridge carcasses don't cheer me up, the sentiment of the last line is sound.

Word Police 2: Bad Word Combinations In The Latest Anthropologie Catalog

"Eyelet cargo shorts"
"Fiery dew"
"Zulu knobs"
"Colorful buzzards"

Oh Anthropologie, your clothes are so expensive, your copy so bad.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Stop Worrying About Throw Pillows And Go Vote Edition

Remember: Obama, bama, bo-bama, banana fana fo-fama, mi my mo mama--OBAMA!

Because we can always worry about what throw pillows to make to match the couch later.

Post-Superbowl Madness

MADNESS, I say! I couldn't care less about the actual football, but there were some high points. Did you see the kitty halftime show on Animal Planet? The FedEx commercial with the giant pigeons?

Another high point: This McSweeney's list, titled "NFL Players Whose Names Sound Vaguely Dickensian, And The Characters They Would Be In An Actual Dickens Novel (2007-2008 Regular Season Edition."

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I have a couch! I feel just like a real adult now, with a KitchenAid and flat-pack furniture.
2. It's February 1st, also known as Imbolc if you're a Celt or St. Brigid's Day if you're a Catholic. Essentially, it's a pagan Groundhog Day, although it does signal the beginning of the end of winter.

3. Here's a philosophical question to ponder: Do you think the alpacas know that the reflection in the mirror is themselves?