Friday Unrelated Information

1. All the schedules for free concerts and movie screenings for the summer are up, and guess who's coming to the Gallivan Twilight Concert series this year? Neko Case, The Awesomest Woman To Sing Since Patsy Cline. She's playing August 28th. For free. (Also free: An outdoor screening of The Muppet Movie at Lindsay Gardens in the Avenues July 25th.)

2. Speaking of thrifty entertainment, here's a collection of thrifty tips (not mine) that we can learn from Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

3. Toby likes the sun. He takes after me.

Non-Confusing Post About Bikes

I've decided to buy a bike. But after realizing I really, really disliked mountain biking, I haven't been on a bike in ten years. While this may make my decision sound like a recipe for disaster, I'm remembering how much I liked just riding around (on pavement) in my teens. I'm also remembering how expensive gas is and how many hours every day I do nothing but sit. Plus, I live about a mile and a half from work and my car is not getting any younger.*

Another thing that helped convince me that I will LOVE riding a bike: the Internet. Did you know there are whole blogs dedicated to cycling stylishly? Blogs that advocate wearing dresses to keep cool and vintage capes to keep warm? Here are a few that helped me decide:

Copenhagen Cycle Chic
London Cycle Chic
Riding Pretty

I'll start looking at bikes (pretty!) next week. I'm undecided about wearing a helmet, but the Internet has told me that there are even pretty-ish options for those, too--they look a little like a riding helmet, turning my bike into my pony...

I think I'll like cycling.

*I do plan to actually ride a bike or two before I buy one myself, just to make sure I won't hate it. It's one thing to "cycle pretty" and another thing to spend $400 on an accessory you won't use.

Things One Learns That One Is Really Embarrassed To Admit

I always though Ray Eames, of the design team Charles and Ray Eames, was Charles's brother. No, Ray was his WIFE. The things you learn.

(I found this out at the US Postal Service site, because stamps with Eames designs are coming out.)

(Also, if people would use the proper convention for couples' names and keep the husband's name closest to his last name [because his name never changed, while the wife's did], I would not have made this egregious error. I'm just saying.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Remember When I Used To Knit?

Yeah, I remember when I did, too.


(I still have a sweater going, but it's stalled on the sleeves. And I brought a market bag with me for travel knitting but it's turning out way too small for anything that could be bought at the market, except maybe two tomatoes.)

Agricultural Monday

Continuing the "Where Does Your Food Come From/Are We Doomed?" theme of the past few weeks, here's an an article by Michael Pollan for the New York Times online titled, "Why Bother?"--which was part of the angst of that trip to the Midwest:

The realization that all my efforts aren't doing anything--that no matter how much I try to eat eggs from happy chickens, or buy organic parsley, that there will be thousands more people buying the cheapest eggs and parsley, with no thought as to where they come from--was really discouraging.

So imagine how happy I was to find an article telling me why I should still bother. Read it and see why you should bother, and we'll resurrect the 1970's back-to-the-land movement!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Yves Saint Laurent died Sunday. Someone who popularized the trapeze dress is all right with me.

2. Photographs of beds deer made in long grass for the night--a whole series. I like that.

3. Words of wisdom from a writerly blog by a former Utahn: "When you are the person who says, 'I want to go to the demoliton derby,' or, 'I know...let's spend our summer vacation with war reenactors,' and you find the person who's like, 'Yeah, and let's also hit the La Brea tar pits;' hold onto that like a rear-mount choke hold, people. Because that is LOVE."

(And speaking of derbies, mark your calendar for Tooele--where they serve beer and it is awesome--on August 2 and for August 9 for the Weber County Fair. Perhaps it will be warm and sunny then.)

"The Grapes Of Wrath" Is One Of The Best Titles Ever

I took The Grapes of Wrath with me on my trip last week, thinking it would be a good mix of travel and agriculture. (I had forgotten how sad it is, though; I had to stop reading in the Denver airport because I was getting weepy.) Reading it now, right after all my other books about alternative farming and eating locally, and after visiting the family farm that miraculously still struggles on, I'm really struck by how current it is--Steinbeck saw the writing on the wall in 1939:

"...crops were reckoned in dollars, and land was valued by principal plus interest, and crops were bought and sold before they were planted. Then crop failure, drought, and flood were no longer little deaths within life, but simple losses of money...[until the landowners] were no longer farmers at all, but little shopkeepers of crops, little manufacturers who must sell before they can make. Then those farmers who were not good shopkeepers lost their land to good shopkeepers. No matter how clever, how loving a man might be with earth and growing things, he could not survive if he were not a good shopkeeper. And as time went on, the business men had the farms, and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them."

The Best Bar Ever

It was here:And this is why it was awesome:

I'm Back. And Kind Of Speechless.

I really don't know where to start with this trip recap....should I mention the fact that, despite not eating meat for a decade, my diet is apparently still something to talk me out of? That my relatives are convinced about the Biblical age of the earth? That I realized my puny efforts to buy local and organic aren't going to do anything to change the farming system as we know it? No, I think I'd better mention the fact that a gin and tonic in the bar in the nearest town was $2.00. Because that was my happy place.

(Pictures coming tomorrow, if Blogger behaves.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I'll miss a post Monday, since I will be on a farm. With not a lot of internet. On the prairie. Toby and Mr. Isbell will have to be bachelors together.

2. Remember the cat veranda I was debating about getting? I got it. My dad (Toby's "grandpa") installed it in an ingenious fashion last night. The verdict? Best. Purchase. Ever. He's in it right now getting the morning sun and here he was right after the installation:

More Fun With Religion

Continuing my unable-to-not-read-it exploration of fanaticism (I don't know why this is so fascinating to me right now; I turned into an apostate a long time ago), I found a Rolling Stone article online about born again Christian Zionism--that is, evangelicals who believe the end times are near and a holy war with the Middle East is imminent (and necessary for God's plan). It's not unbiased, of course, but it's funny and it's thought provoking and so very scary. The quote of the day from it:

"It occurred to me that over the past decades, any number of our prominent political leaders (from Jimmy Carter to Chuck Colson to W himself) had boasted publicly of their born-again experiences, broadcasting to Middle America an understanding of their personal relationships with God. But whereas once these conversions were humble things...the modern version might very easily be this completely batshit holy-vomitus/demon-exorcism deal. The thought that any politician could claim this kind of experience and not be immediately disqualified from public service seemed utterly terrifying."

Wednesday Project Roundup: Dresses For The Prairie Edition

I was able to finish the both dresses I wanted to make and wear to the family reunion this weekend--yay for days off prior to camping trips!

The plaid dress is for the airplane and has handy big pockets. (It was inspired by this version from A.P.C. for $120.)

And the beige linen check dress was inspired by meandering poetically through the pasture land, avoiding cow pies and thistles:
I used my new initial labels on it, too. Because it's important to have a monogrammed linen muumuu in which to wander the prairie. Just ask the pioneers.

Tuesday Camping Roundup

We made it back from camping but I was too busy getting the campfire smell out of all the gear yesterday to post these.

Thankfully, it was only like this the first afternoon:

But the clouds didn't keep us from going up on Topaz Mountain and looking for topaz--there are some in that bag. (The beer was a way of keeping warm. As was the gin and the whiskey later.)

There was even a good sunny photo op:

But I was glad to be back home with Toby, who couldn't stop smelling our shoes.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. As I mentioned, I read Under the Banner of Heaven this week, and just...wow. So depressing and creepy and, like a train wreck, oddly fascinating. (And if I had read something about life under Taliban rule, or the early Christian church, I would be saying the same thing. As I said, I hate Illinois Nazis--I mean, religious fanatics.)

2. The Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association National Conference is going on NOW at the South Towne Expo Center. This is how I met alpacas a few years ago--the show is all weekend, there are vendors and exhibits, and there are a bunch of furry camelids inside a convention center. Do you need more reason than that?

3. Despite those compelling reasons I'll have to miss the show this year, because I will be camping. In the rain. And 34 degree nighttime lows. I told my friend Sean about my plans, and he said, "I'd rather be at the Rainbow Room." Wouldn't we all, Sean.

Of Books That Make You Wonder, "Why Is That A Classic?"

I finished Of Human Bondage yesterday. I enjoyed it, but I also would have equally enjoyed not reading it. It's engrossing, but the language never made me stop and say, "Wow!"; and there was just too much introspection from the main character about the meaning of life for my taste.

It also seemed almost comically existential to me: Philip's conclusions about the futility of life only reminded me of "The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook" (worth a click). For example, he visits his old school:

He thought bitterly how much he had wanted to do and how little done. It seemed to him that all those years, vanished beyond recall, had been utterly wasted. The boys, fresh and buoyant, were doing the same things that he had done, it seemed that not a day had passed since he left the school, and yet in that place where at least by name he had known everybody now he knew not a soul. In a few years these too, others taking their place, would stand alien as he stood; but the reflection brought him no solace; it merely impressed upon him the futility of human existence.

Dude, easy there. He also falls in love--a happy thing, right? Not really:

He had thought of love as a rapture which seized one so that all the world seemed spring-like, he had looked forward to an ecstatic happiness; but this was not happiness; it was a hunger of the soul, it was a painful yearning, it was a bitter anguish, he had never known before...When she left him it was wretchedness, and when she came to him again it was despair.

And so on, for quite a few pages. And then at the end he finds happiness with a different girl, and in one chapter we're told that all of his angst and unhappiness and obsessions with his other love will be cured by marriage. (If it had been about a red-haired girl and had more hijinks, that ending would have made me think I was reading Anne of Green Gables.)

So, a good book--just not to my taste. (And seriously, click through that Sartre link. My best friend and I thought it was the height of cleverness in high school.)

Sure Do Wish I Could Post A Picture Of Toby To Cheer Us Up

I sure do, because otherwise I'll complain about Blogger’s photo uploading issues, and how cold the office is, and the rain that will continue through the weekend while I'm camping, and the fact that Under the Banner of Heaven is so depressing, and that it actually ties in well with Of Human Bondage, another depressing book about unhealthy obsessions and their ultimate futility. And a protagonist with a club foot.

Blogger, we could have avoided all of this. It’s a good thing I have the real Toby to look forward to tonight.

Tuesday Project Roundup: My Photographer Is In The West Desert

I finished one of the two dresses I want to make before next weekend when I head back to the prairies for a family reunion, but it needs a modeled shot because it looks like a big beige sack on the hanger. However, Mr. Isbell is out of town and Toby, despite how smart he is, has a hard time taking pictures.
So I took a picture of him instead:

Updated: Blogger photo loading is being difficult. I guess this was meant to be photo-less today.

Velcro, Bugs Bunny, The Golden Gate Bridge...

Have you ever wondered, "Hm, what's younger than John McCain?" Well, now there's a site that tells you--www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com.

The internet is awesome. (It, too, is younger than John McCain. Or me, for that matter.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I saw Don Giovanni this week and I'd have to say it's the best Utah Opera production I've seen since La Boheme about 10 years ago. The set is ugly and boring, but it was so well-performed. It even made me regret not playing in the pit...for a minute. I saw people I knew in there, too.

2. Also music related: Given my extreme distaste for being around pot smokers, my pre-conceived notions about the music, my most recent exposure to it from a mainstream movie, and my whiteness, would it be too awful of me to get a Bob Marley CD? I've been listening to it on the shared iTunes at work all week and, um, I really like it.

3. Thank you, weather, for being warm this weekend. Please don't snow again.

Literature In The Workplace

I'm reading Of Human Bondage and I came across this passage and thought, "Huh, just replace
'painters'with 'art directors' and it's the agency!"


They looked upon him, as painters often do writers, with contempt because he was a layman, with tolerance
because he practised an art, and with awe because he used a medium in which themselves felt ill-at-ease.

An Open Letter To The Beehive Tearoom

Dear Beehive Tearoom,

I am over you. Your signs are getting more aggressive*, your teas are now upwards of $5 a pot (!), and your wait times--perhaps because of your aggressive signage--are the longest they've been in the six years I've been visiting you.

Beehive Tearoom, I love the thought that you serve delicious teas and pastries, but if I'm full of fear and can't afford your delicacies, it's really not worth it anymore.

Also, why are you serving beer? And hipster beer, at that? Does a tearoom that's open until 6:30 really have a demand for PBR? I expected better from you. I expected tea from you.

So, Beehive Tearoom, don't expect me to be back. I just can't overlook things like this any longer.

Signed disappointedly,
Karen


*One of the many aggressive signs: "Preparing tea takes time. If you do not have the time or patience to wait, please come back when you do." (Another aggressive sign tells us that wait times are typically "15-40 minutes." For tea? Are they building a fire on which to boil the kettle?)

Tuesday Project Roundup: But I Know I Made It Edition

I've been wanting some of those personalized "Made by" labels for a while now, but I haven't bought any because they just seem so obvious: I know I made my dress. And it's not as if I sell anything I make or sew for other people who might need to know. It just seems like a clever touch--something to make it less homemade and more custom-made.

Happily, last week on a craft blog I saw a link to someone selling "brocaded alphabet ribbons" on Etsy. I immediately thought, "I could cut the ribbon apart and have little initials to use as labels!" and in fact the seller says that that's what they're used for in Italy. 2.5 meters of the initial K are are on their way. Now no one will be able to sneak away with my homemade clothes.

In actual sewing news, I want to try to get two more dresses made before I go on vacation at the end of this month. One's already cut out, so I think that's a reasonable goal. Check back next Tuesday.

"So I Sez To Mabel, I Sez.."

(Karma and Sergio at the ranch, being ruminants.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I saw what can only be described as the Calico Bird of the Apocalypse this morning at the bird feeder: It was between a startling and a sparrow in size, and it looked just like a calico cat--black, brown, and white. And fluffy. I've never seen anything like it.

2. I accompanied my friend Sean--he of the Picnic watching and the not understanding the appeal of pets--to a party last night at a very posh home on Country Club Drive. The hosts had a pug puppy that had an "accident" in the course of the evening--or, as Sean put it, "That mammal just defecated in their house."

3. This is not Toby, but it could be. I just can't allow him outside, though. Who knows what bird will come to the feeder next and carry him away?

Don't You Get A Welcome Kit In The Mail Or Something?

I was watching I Am Legend with a friend this week, which uses some Bob Marley songs to nice effect, and had the following conversation:
Me: "I really like Bob Marley. I should get a CD."
[pause]
Me: "Do you have a Bob Marley CD?"
Friend: "No."
Me: "You don't? Huh."
[pause]
Me: "Does your dad have a Bob Marley CD?"
Friend: [stops watching and turns to me with a look] "What, do you think that everyone who smokes pot has to have a Bob Marley CD?"
Me: [found out, sheepish] "Yes."

Tuesday Project Roundup: Dressing Like I'm Six

I think I had a top with sleeves like this when I was little, but I can't remember. Something about the smock-y shape and those straight Jetson sleeves seem very familiar to me:

And I know I had a pair of these when I was a kid (in pink), but look: Saltwater Sandals come in adult sizes, too!

I'll wear the top and the sandals together today and maybe play My Little Pony after work. Or maybe Charmkins.

(I'm actually telling myself the top looks more sophisticated than juvenile and the sandals are just retro. Here's a detail of the yoke inset and the fabric, a really nice black tweed linen.)Nothing like dressing to feel young.

Today I Will:

1. Play with Toby, who is trying to get on the keyboard and roll around as I type this
2. Walk to breakfast
3. Water my garden (because the lettuce and radishes are coming up)
4. Fill the bird feeder
5. Plant up my strawberry pot
6. Cut out and maybe start sewing a new pencil skirt pattern
7. Eat an enchilada, for Cinco de Mayo

Because I took the day off! Freedom!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I've known about Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio Hour" show on XM radio for a while now, but I've never heard it. So I was tickled that Vanity Fair posted an article that lists the themes, repeated artists, useful tips, history lessons, and recipes he's shared on the show. There are even some choice quotes, including, "All of our shows are for truckers, if not about truckers" and "Here’s a woman who sure doesn’t sound like she sleeps alone." Crazy Bob, I love you so.

(Also: look at the original magazine spread at the top of the article and notice how they've typeset it to look like the Milton Glaser Dylan poster from the '60s.)

2. I've had 72-hour kits on my mind lately--I think it's because I have Toby now. I was thinking out loud to Mr. Isbell that I have three cans of tuna in the cupboard we could use in an emergency and he pointed out, "That's only a meal each for you, me, and Toby." I think I need to look into putting a few things together.

3. Or maybe I'm just reacting to the climate of fear lately. Maybe it's time to re-read Fahrenheit 451.

4. And in happier world events, Oxford University is hosting the first annual Fred Astaire Conference this June, featuring "an international assembly of Astaire experts, among them writers, performers, choreographers, and historians of dance, theatre, and film." Delightful!

I Think The Druids Are Becoming Ineffective Against The Weather

Today is May 1--May Day, International Workers Day, or Beltane, depending on how you choose to celebrate it. Since I'm (usually) struck by how the weather matches the old Celtic holidays, I'll talk about Beltane:

"The day was a traditional summer holiday in many pre-Christian European pagan cultures. While February 1 was the first day of Spring, May 1 was the first day of summer; hence, the summer solstice...was Midsummer."

First day of summer, hm? I woke up to snow this morning. I think you failed us, Druids.

I Need One Of These

Mine would pop out of my desk drawer and offer me hors d’oeuvres and a cocktail every afternoon.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Beige Rectangle Edition

I can't say it was the most thrilling week of projects, but I did finally get a new bath mat made for the miniscule bathroom in the apartment:

To give you an idea of scale, the bathmat is made of two hand towels sewn together. Hand towels. I had to make my own, obviously, because standard-size bathmats were way too big for the floor space.
And here's a scarf I made out of a long piece of linen, finishing the edges with my sister-in-law's serger. Once again this is a blatant copy of--I mean it's "inspired by"--something I saw online here.

(Also, see that stripey dress? I didn't make that. It came from a store, ready to wear. I'd almost forgotten that feeling.)

If Monday Were A Toy Mousie, I Would Do This To It:

Then I'd just walk away from it:

That's what I'd do.

Friday Unrekated Information

1. So glad it's Friday. Go away already, longest week ever.

2. If you're wondering what the baby alpaca at Blue Moon Ranch got named, he's Sergio. (Apparently Linda tries out different names on them and sees what they react to. She's the alpaca whisperer.) Sergio and his mom Lola.

3. Why do we like pandas so much? NPR tells us, "Because they make you smile."


4. Something else that makes me smile? The first season of 30 Rock. Like all TV shows, I'm late to the party on this one, but it's awesome.

It's Not Just Me, Then

I've always thought the new LDS Conference Center looked disturbingly 3rd Reich and that the Church Office Building looked like a dreary tenement, so imagine my vindication when I found this Tribune article linked on my coworker Jason's blog: SLC skyline 'pretty disappointing'. In it, the Chicago Tribune's Blair Kamin (Pulitzer-prize winning critic of architecture--who knew that could be a job description?) is given a tour of the city and weighs in on the landmarks. His summary of the Conference Center? "It's like fourth-rate modernism." And his thoughts about the Church Office Building? "That looks like the wrong side of the Cold War."

Who Needs Clive Cussler?

I read an awesome Wired magazine article Monday called, "High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace." It's about a nautical salvage firm trying to save a sinking Japanese freighter--if they can save it, they get a cut of the cargo value from the ship's insurer. If they fail, they don't get anything.

Who knew things like that existed outside of Bruce Willis movies? The guy in charge, Rich Habib (and if that's not a fake name, I don't know what is) "holds an unlimited master's license, which means he's one of the select few who are qualified to pilot ships of any size, anywhere in the world." How cool is that?

It's a long article but it reads like adventure fiction, complete with tragedy and a foul-mouthed Panamanian sidekick. Go check it out.

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."