Tuesday Project Roundup: I Know What I'm Wearing To County Fairs And Derbies This Season

I'm wearing gingham, like generations of farm women behind me!
My gingham has a mandarin collar and a 70's feel (I modified the duck dress pattern), which hopefully keeps it from feeling too literally farm-like.

I'm extra pleased by how I got the checks to match on the front: They match horizontally across the collar and across the front inset, and (mostly) vertically from the inset into the body. That's a lot of 3/8 inch checks to keep track of while cutting out.
Toby, however, was underwhelmed by it last night:

(He's on the ironing board here. Yes, I give my cat plastic bags to play with and let him sit on the ironing board while I'm ironing. It's a good thing he's not a human baby.)

Awwww....

The first of 19 expected crias arrived at Blue Moon Ranch yesterday.
He doesn't have a name yet, so check the barn cam tomorrow to see what it is. (I would call him Robin, but that's just me.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Has anyone had any experience with "kitty window boxes"? Toby is an inside-only cat while I'm living next to Pirate House and busy streets, but he's already expressed a very strong interest in open (screened) windows. This could work, but I 'm afraid that he'd either figure out how to knock this out of the window and escape, or that it would drive him bonkers to be even closer to the birds but still unable to get them.2. I'm about three steps away from turning into a crazy cat lady, aren't I?

3. To counteract yesterday's "sad little llama picture," as my mother called it, here's another happy Mary Oliver poem I found:

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

She Looks Like I Feel

Sometimes, it's just all too much, whether you're an alpaca or a copywriter.

Planning For Spring While It Snows

I could dig up another unhappy quote about the weather, but let's just assume I'm unhappy with it and move on to something more hopeful: Seeds.

Last year I had a patio garden and it did pretty well, so this year I'm getting more ambitious and will actually plant things in the ground. (In the blighted area where the landlord cut down all the trees last spring, actually.)

I have tomatoes and basil going as starts, and I bought seeds for the rest of the produce yesterday. So now I'm really impatient for nice weather.

(And because I have to take a picture of Toby every time I get out the camera, here he is. His new favorite toy? A plastic bag. I have some reservations giving my "baby" a plastic bag as a toy, but he's supervised. And very smart, as you can see.)

Mom: Better Than Any Project

You love sickly cats best; you complain bitterly about managing students but then always make them birthday cakes; you're redecorating and using Monet's house as an inspiration; pruning is your therapy. Thank you for everything and happy birthday!

Love,
The Daughter


2006, on the bridge at Giverny

"Privilege O f Being"

Mr. Isbell has been out of town, and yesterday night I dreamed that instead of adopting Toby, I took him back to the shelter, realized my mistake, and went to get him again only to find out that he had been "donated" to the "University Cat Research Center". (It was a dream, but it was very ominous.)

Of course I was so relieved to wake up and see Toby sitting on my chest, but I had to think of my friend Sean: When I told him I wanted to get a cat, he said, "That will just open up whole new ways for you to be miserable!"

I understand his point. While the dream was just a dream, there are so many ways to be afraid for something you love. People can "die young, fail at love, fail of their ambitions," cats can get lost or sick--but you have to just accept that risk, because the happiness you get tempers the fear. (Sean disagrees, of course, but he also doesn't care for pets.)

(Title and quotes from one of my favorite Robert Hass poems.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Gah! Has anyone else had the 24-hour stomach flu that’s going around? Mr. Isbell had it Sunday and I told him it had to be food poisoning, since it came and went so fast. Well, my disbelief was punished—I came down with it yesterday at lunch. I’m just glad it does move fast. I might even try to eat a cracker later.

2. I will wash my windows tomorrow, when I am recovered. No excuses. It’s getting hard for Toby to see the birds out of them.

3. From an archived interview (now online) with Ernest Hemingway on how he approached symbolism in his books: "I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. The hardest thing is to make something really true and sometimes truer than true."

A Lovely Poem For Thursday

It's by Mary Oliver, who wrote a handbook we used in my long-lost poetry classes but whose work I didn't really know.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

He Wasn't Really Dancing

I mentioned Dancing Cats Feline Health Center on Friday, and at the risk of telling yet another cat story, I have to mention it again today. Toby had to go there last Wednesday for an eye infection; they were really nice; he didn't mind being there (until they tried to take his temperature); and he got eye drops to clear things up.

But the drops weren't clearing things up, so I left a message Saturday morning when they were closed, thinking I wouldn't hear back from them over the weekend. But only an hour later the vet called and had me come in to get oral antibiotics, and called again yesterday to see if they were working. (Fortunately, they were, because it wasn't fun for anyone involved to make sure Toby got eye drops and liquid medicine.)

But my point is: great vet, who remembers people by their cat's name, who comes in on weekends to check messages, and who names her clinic Dancing Cats.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Brand New Bag

I got the feeling on Friday (get it, James Brown fans?) to ignore my dirty windows and screens and to work on a new bag instead. I've made purses for myself before, but have always been a little dissatisfied with how they turned out--too small, the zipper looked lumpy, the interfacing didn't bond right, etc.

But I got so sick of carrying an old bag that I bought in the days of credit (that I probably just paid off) that I decided to try again. And it turned out well: It's big enough to hold a bottle of wine, my minimum size requirement (putting wine in a purse happens more than you'd think); there's a magnetic snap instead of a zipper; and the interfacing is just fine.

Toby likes it, too. Although he prefers his grocery bag.

Dammit, Spring, Will You Get Spring-like Soon?

This is the rest of the passage from A Moveable Feast I put up a couple weeks ago:

"Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it [spring] back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life...You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the tree and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason."

Hear that, spring? You're making us sad. Shape up.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I learned an awesome word this week: jeremiad, or "a long literary work in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective."

2. The article in which I learned this awesome word is worth reading, even if it's depressing: "The Dumbing of America."

3. If you maybe have the day off and are trying to decide between sewing a new bag and washing your filthy windows, you could read this article, too, while you finish your coffee and decide: "Stowaways," about "the strange things restorers find in historic aircraft."

4. If you have a cat and need a vet, I highly recommend Dancing Cats Feline Health Center. Not only because their name is Dancing Cats (which is fantastic), but because they're kind, efficient, and affordable and recognized Toby as the superior cat he is.

What Makes A Good Blog

I read The Simple Dollar blog generally every day--it's what sparked my financial turnaround over a year ago and I'm still fond of it for that reason, although now it's more of a habit. Mr. Simple Dollar recently quit his job to become a full-time blogger, and shared some advice on what gets a blog traffic (and income):

"The thing is that almost all blogs out there on the internet--the kind where people talk about their pet cat and such, or ones that are very unfocused about the topics they write about, or are written in very poor grammar--don't get a lot of traffic."

Heh. It's a good thing I don't want to get any income from this. At least my grammar and spelling are up to par.

And doesn't everyone want to read thrilling stories about Toby L. Cat?

I Need Some New Music

I was tired of the CDs I had in my car last night so I turned on the oldies station to see if anything good was on, and it was The Byrds version of "Mr. Tambourine Man." I knew that their version of the song was always more popular than Dylan's, but I had never heard it, being a Dylan fan who thinks he sings just fine, thank you. And being a Dylan fan, I thought The Byrds took out all the best lyrics and made it lugubrious with 10-string guitars. I can see now why everyone thinks it's a druggy song.

But if you listen to the song as Bob does it, preferably the solo version from 1966 or so, you really focus on the lyrics which, in my opinion, are as evocative as something by Kerouac and make great use of word sounds and consonance. For example:


Then take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.


Maybe my thwarted English minor is asserting itself; maybe I should buy a CD recorded in this century. But I think that verse is awesome.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Cat Hair Everywhere Edition

I started this project weeks before Toby L. Cat showed up, but I got the decorative strip pinned on and then lost all steam to finish. Last week I finally sewed the strip down and added ties to keep the sides shut.
What is it, you ask? A sewing machine cozy, of course. It keeps things like dust and cat hair out of the machine and it keeps interesting small chewable things hidden from Toby.
I'm glad I got this out of the way because I feel a project-filled weekend coming up: The navy gingham will be here soon, and yesterday I got fabric for a new summer handbag project.

Which is, of course, Toby-approved:

The Cute Made Me Forget

The Toby Show last week consumed all my attention, so I forgot there was a birth and a death anniversary of my two favorite artists: Friday the 21st was Bach's birthday in 1685, and Friday the 28th was the day in 1941 when poor Virginia Woolf walked into the River Ouse.

In Toby-related news, he's very cute.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. KHAN!! KHAN!! I've been on a kick of sci-fi movies while I knit this endless cotton sweater: We've watched the original Star Wars movies and the last newest one; Starship Troopers (so very bad); the David Lynch version of Dune (which almost made Toby get named Leto, except he looked like a Toby); and, last night, The Wrath of Khan. Up next: The Search for Spock. I haven't seen any of the Star Trek movies as an adult, so it's pretty awesome.

2. Speaking of Toby names, he's already gotten a few nicknames: Squeakers, Tiny Toby, Tidy Toby, the Toble, and Toblerone.

3. This is for you, Dad!

Mr. And Mrs. Stompy Renewed Their Lease, Too

My upstairs neighbors are not particularly light of foot. I've seen both of them and neither of them weigh 300 pounds, but it sounds as if they do. Last night they were babysitting a small child, so there were three people running, crashing, and dropping things. I've learned to tune out the running, crashing, and dropping that starts every morning at 6:30, but Toby was bothered by the sounds last night, too.

I had to think of the Grinch wanting to steal Christmas from the Whos because they make noise. I'd do it to the Stompys if I could.

For Tomorrow, he knew, all the Who girls and boys,
Would wake bright and early. They'd rush for their toys!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise!
Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing he hated! The NOISE!
NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

The Pear Tree By The Parking Garage Almost Has Leaves

"With so many trees in the city, you could see spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly one morning."

A Moveable Feast

Tuesday Project Roundup: Nothing To Show But Toby

I still need to photograph the pattern and the four variations I've made from it that I talked about last week, but I got distracted and photographed Toby watching birds out the window:

I've been knitting, too--a cotton cardigan to wear over dresses in the summer--but there's really nothing to see yet, since I'm not past the shoulders and it's just plain stockinette. If you want to imagine it in tan, it's this pattern.

And inspired by the goat pictures and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, I've ordered some navy gingham to make into a dress that hopefully will come off more like a sophisticated nod to hobby farms than Dorothy from Kansas. (We shall see.)

Toby approves of the crafty plans. And birds.

Toby!

After one trip to the PetSmart Saturday adoption, one last-minute test for FIV, two different kinds of treats, three different kinds of food, twenty-four daylight hours of hiding under the bed, seven nighttime hours of yowling loud enough to wake the upstairs neighbors, one kitty bed, one purchased mouse toy, one homemade yarn toy, one robe tie that became a toy, and half a bag of catnip, Toby has joined the household:

And I'm so glad he did, because I was seriously doubting my cat-whispering skills during the Saturday Night of Yowls. Thankfully that was followed by the Sunday Night of "I'll Sleep So Close To You You Won't Be Able To Roll Over And You'll Get A Leg Cramp But You'll Love It Because I Am So Very Cute."

Friday Unrelated Information

1. It's been kind of a dark week in posts--major problems with our food supply, sickly cats, unending wars--so here's a link to a video of a cat purring. Mr. Isbell watched it and said, "That's almost a lion noise." These are some serious purrs.

2. If you want to leave work early today, say you want to go to a "choral meditation" at the Cathedral of the Madeleine and no one will give you a hard time.(They will think you're Catholic, though.) You'll get to hear the Pergolesi Stabat Mater.

3. In other entertainment news, the midnight movie at the Tower this weekend is Duel! My brother owns this movie, along with other awesome road classics such as Two Lane Blacktop and Vanishing Point.

Anniversaries

Happy Vernal Equinox! Curiously, there isn't a lot of history about how Druids celebrated this holiday, but the Christian way of determining Easter is Pagan enough: The first Sunday after the first full moon that follows the spring equinox.

And as of yesterday, we marked five years of the Iraq war. There's a really good article in the Tribune (I know, I never thought I'd say that, either) about the local protest that only drew 75 people, and about public apathy in general. To quote, "Just one in four Americans know that nearly 4,000 U.S. service members have died in Iraq." We're at 4,000 dead and 30,000 injured--and people think putting a "Support Our Troops" car magnet on their SUVs (not even a bumper sticker, a magnet) makes them good concerned citizens.

Support our troops. Get them home.

I Would Just Put Out Cat Food And Hope For The Best, But There Are Raccons In My Neighborhood

Perhaps you were wondering if, after nearly a year of dithering, preparing, and looking online, I actually went and looked for a cat in person last weekend. I did, while I was getting a litter box at PetSmart, and I saw a little cat that spoke to me. (He was actually behind glass in the more permanent pet display in the store, but I saw his mouth open.)

His name was Gus and he was a young Siamese with a white nose; I called his foster Sunday afternoon and left a message. I had thought I wanted an orange cat, but Gus had meowed at me through the glass and then played with a toy! I had to call again Monday (all after arranging the litter box and thinking where Gus would like to sleep best and how cute he would be) and then found out someone had already spoken for him a few hours before I saw him.

I was sad, but moved right on to the next one I had seen on PetFinder, Harvey: Harvey was big and orange and white, which I told myself I really wanted in the first place. There's a video of Harvey online and in it he's rolling around and trying to give the camera head butts--that's even better than meowing through glass! I filled out the online application Monday morning and heard back right away from the adoption coordinator, and spent most of Tuesday waiting to hear from Harvey's foster parent.

We spoke in the afternoon and I heard all about how Harvey had been rescued from a feral colony and was sweet and mellow and a good indoor-only cat. I told his foster that Harvey sounded perfect and I wanted take him home, and we had planned that and were saying our goodbyes when his foster said, "He is FIV positive, by the way."

Now, I can understand why a shelter wouldn't indicate online if their animals are FIV or FeL positive, because obviously people don't want to adopt a cat that will require extra medical attention. But I was so disappointed, because I had set my heart on Harvey the way I had set it on Gus 48 hours before, and I know I can't take on a cat with FIV. It would be too hard for me to cover the kind of vet care I would want to give Harvey (or Wilbur, for that matter), and if I couldn't provide that care, I would feel terrible.

I felt pretty terrible anyway after I found out I would not be adopting an orange-and-white kitty that gives head bonks. My co-worker firmly believes that "pets choose the person they're meant to be with"--not a comforting thought last night.

I've been avoiding going to shelters because it would be sad to not be able to take all the cats home, but after the last few days I think that might have to be plan B: Go with no expectations to a place where they're not named, just numbered, and see what cat "chooses" me. It's that, or I should return the litter box.

(Seriously, people just take a kitten from a box in front of the grocery store that says "Free" and boom, they have a cat. They put out food and adopt a stray and have a cat. Crazy cat ladies have hundreds of cats! It shouldn't be this hard.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Does Making Bread Count?

It's not that I haven't been sewing--I've now made four out of the five variations on a vintage dress pattern--it's that I'm too lazy to get pictures taken. (I was thinking the latest variation could be my Easter dress. Although I technically don't attend church anymore, it's robin's egg blue and very spring-like.)

So no pictures, but I have another quote from Animal, Vegetable, Mineral that reflects on the homemade process:
"A lot of human hobbies, from knitting sweaters to building model airplanes, are probably rooted in the same human desire to control an entire process of manufacture. Karl Marx called it the antidote to alienation."

Kingsolver goes on to talk about the process of cooking as the antidote to "alimentary alienation," which made me wonder why I don't make my own bread more (I had sourdough starter in the family fridge all through junior high), which made me get some bread going last night. (No pictures of that, either.)

Don't be surprised if I've grown my hair into braids and am holding a chicken in the next photo shoot, though.

I'm Reading A Book

Maybe I should say I'm reading a new book, because since last July I've only been re-reading things: The Dune series, the young adult The Dark Is Rising series, M.F.K. Fisher, Hemingway, some Anne of Green Gables--whatever I picked up from the shelf.

I was at a different library a couple of weeks ago, though, and saw Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, her non-fiction account of trying to grow whatever her family eats for a year, starting with "enough knowledge to muddle through. Or starting with baby animals and enough sense to refrain from naming them."

I'm only three chapters into it but I highly recommend it. (When one dreams of a hobby farm and a big garden and fiber animals and posts pictures of goats on one's blog, that's probably a given.) Here's something to think about today:

"In two generations, we've transformed ourselves from a rural to an urban nation. [...] The baby boom psyche embraces a powerful presumption that education is a key to moving away from manual labor, and dirt--two undeniable ingredients of farming. It's good enough for us that somebody, somewhere, knows food production well enough to serve the rest of us with all we need to eat, each day of our lives.

"If that is true, why isn't it good enough for someone else to know multiplication and the contents of the Bill of Rights? Is the story of bread, from tilled ground to our table, less relevant to our lives than the history of the thirteen colonies?"

And here's a goat picture. Cute!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Did you know there is a word to describe plants that have bluish-green or grayish leaves and/or a waxy bloom on them (like plums)? It's glaucous.

2. I'll be eating artichoke dip for dinner tonight. (This recipe, very easy and good.)

3. There might be a scientific reason behind why we love to search the web all day: According to this article, "coming across...new and richly interpretable information triggers a chemical reaction that makes us feel good, which in turn causes us to seek out even more of it."

The Aperitif

Spring has filled me with a sense of possibilities--the possibilities of cocktails. The time change makes lingering summer evenings seem very close, and while a gin and tonic is the drink of choice for hot weather, I've been happily trying out other suitable warmer-weather, pre-dinner drinks. (Ideally, of course, I would try these out in a cafe that I could walk to after work, maybe meeting friends there. I'd order a different aperitif a day from the menu to find my favorites, and then go home and eat something delicious, probably involving seafood.)

Sadly, there are no Parisian cafes in Salt Lake, so I've been doing my aperitif experimentation at home. My recent favorite is a far cry from the red wines I sucked down all winter just to keep warm--it's a vermouth cassis, which is white vermouth, creme de cassis, and soda water.
It's probably the French equivalent of a wine cooler, but it's good: it's just boozy enough for after work but not so strong as to impede cooking; it's a festive shade of pink; and it has a tasty berry-wine flavor that's not too sweet.

If you want to make one (and why wouldn't you?) take 2.5 parts of vermouth to .5 parts cassis and top with club soda and a lemon slice. C'est bon.

Invisible Cat!

I took the first step towards cat ownership Monday night when I bought these nice melamine bowls from Target.

I've been toying with the cat idea since last fall, and it's been so hard to decide whether to get one or not. It's not that I wasn't sold on the idea of a cat--I love cats; Mr. Isbell calls me "the cat whisperer"--it's that I was terrified to take on responsibility for another living creature. Would it be happy being an indoor only kitty? Would it get lonely during the day? What about a future family, how would that impact the kitty? Would I have enough money to take care of it if it got sick? (My cat struggle just reinforces my belief that 95% of pregnancies accidents, because imagine how much harder it would be to consciously decide to take on responsibility for a human.)

But I have bought bowls. And next I'll make a fleecy throw for the kitty to sleep on. And maybe, just maybe, I'll go look at kitties up for adoption this Saturday.

(Wilbur is still available, by the way. For the love of god, someone please adopt him!)

Tuesday Project Roundup: I Haven't Done A Crafty Thing In Days

Instead, I went to Moab for the weekend.It was cold but sunny; my sister-in-law kicked ass in the half marathon; we ate some fantastic fish tacos; and it was good to see that area again after so long. In fact, I think I can only express my feelings with a quote from a T.S. Eliot poem!

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Moab trip forecast: It will be warm(er) and there will be rocks.

2. Quote of the week from my blog reading (it's about Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel): "The Road defies all logic, ignores basic rules of fiction, casts an idealized version of the author's own son in the role of what should have been a near-feral child, and all but leg-humps the reader while decrying the fate of humanity."
Nothing like working "leg humps" into a book review. And it was on a knitting blog! Shouldn't knitters be more polite?

3. Obama is clearly the pro-cat candidate:

Go Read Another Site Today

I’m sorry I’ve just been linking out to other sites this week; I wanted to have a quote-y post about aperitifs today and why they’re fabulous, but I’m suddenly popular at work and had to rush in. Thus, no aperitifs (until tonight, when I am home and can make another tasty one!).

Instead, go visit the site, “Stuff White People Like.” It’s not hateful, just really funny—included are things like Whole Foods, not watching TV, Oscar parties, modern furniture, and many other things I, indeed, like.

This Is Great

Someone has removed Garfield from the "Garfield" comic strips, leaving Jon Arbuckle by himslef and creating, in their own words, "an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life."

If you like that sort of thing, go visit garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com for more.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Still Knitting, Still Fighting The Cylons

I've been trying to pace myself on my sewing projects since it still isn't dress season (warm days in winter are nice but it's still technically winter). But what to do while watching season 2 of the new Battlestar Galactica? Knit, a scarf of course: I get enough distraction from the Cylon drama but I can still look up and make comments such as, "Oh come on, Earth is so far in the past it's become a legend, but there's still such a thing as piano wire?" [or yellow pencils, or paper printouts, or model ships--in BSG, the future is just like now, but in space!].

Anyway, it's a scarf. A long rectangle made of yarn.
I like it because it looks like crochet. I don't know how to crochet; maybe I'll have to learn.

High School Reunion!

Last night, my friend forwarded the website for our upcoming 10 year reunion (with the note, "Look how many of them have three kids") and while just the organizers have signed the guest book so far, there were a lot that I recognized. All the girls that I went through sixth grade, junior high and high school with do, indeed, have three kids. I tried to explain to Mr. Isbell why I did not want to attend and had to resort to quoting Virginia Woolf. From To the Lighthouse:

For it was extraordinary to think that they had been capable of going on living all these years when she had not thought of them more than once all that time. How eventful her own life had been, during those same years. Yet perhaps Carrie Manning had not thought about her either. The thought was strange and distasteful.

(Part of me still wants to go--just to see how bad it will be.)

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?