Hard to choose two from today’s outing to the Smithsonian. I was happy at the National Museum of the American Indian.
The second photo is supposed to be a detail that I might take for granted if I wasn’t looking deeply. I liked the geometrics of this scene waiting for the Metro train, with the goldenrod happily blooming beside the tracks.
A train trip to Alexandria, Virginia. Travel post coming later.
Shadows on the Potomac riverfront behind the Torpedo Factory.
Hops Burger Bar – yum! This had bacon, pimento cheese, and fried green tomatoes on it.
I had my hair dyed and cut after this photo – it was supposed to be the “before” photo. The “after” was a definite mistake.
Winding down after a very frustrating “nibbled to death by ducks” kind of day.
Diego Wolf chases his tail.
Test tiles for glazes in the ceramics studio
The old physical plant at UNCG – beautiful building.
(I decided to include photos of things on my walk to work in this category.)
Steaming handmade paper signatures with oak leaves stuck between the pages.
Redbud seedpods in the Back Forty.
I’m making an effort to blog regularly again, which is part of the reason for the daily visual journal. l;;3w’;/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewe (That was Pablo Blondie’s contribution. I can’t walk away from the laptop for a minute. I must admit that I like it when they do this, so I always leave their writings up.) It is useful for me to do these coffee pot posts once a week as well, just to clear my head.
These past ten days or so have seen a lot of heartbreak. My uncle broke his hip and, as often happens with elderly people, ended up getting very sick and he is now in a coma in Hospice. So my sister and I will be making a trip to Clemson, South Carolina soon to attend his funeral and see our cousins. My aunt is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s and my cousins have had a very tough time lately. Uncle Wilton and Aunt Louise raised six intelligent, gifted, kind children. Going to their house in Clemson when I was young was always fun because she loved children and gave us crafty things to do (and they had a backyard pool!). They traveled the world and drove their RV all over the country, taking my mother with them for many trips so she was able to join in the fun. Uncle Wilton is a letter writer and wrote his autobiography with a great sense of humor. They were both very successful people in every sense of the word and have lived full and wonderful lives.
Then there’s my friend, the fabulous Zha K, who has been on a wild surrealistic ride not of her choosing anyway, which I can’t even vent about here, as much as I’d love to do it. Suffice it to say that she has been slandered viciously and treated like a criminal without cause for six months now, and the situation has serious implications for the way staff can be abused at our workplace, even with no evidence of wrongdoing.
Her “spouse emeritus,” as she likes to say rather than “former husband,” and our friend, had a massive heart attack about ten days ago, and died and was resuscitated four times. The doctors found severe lung damage from his breathing carbon monoxide fumes at work for years. He was on a ventilator for a week and we were all worried about severe brain damage as well. However, he woke up once they took him off the ventilator on Wednesday and is talking and moving now. Even though he is still confused over what is going on he knows basic facts and recognizes people, and from what I understand is trying to enlist the help of his friends to escape the cardiac ICU. Sandy is planning to visit him today. Their children, ages 18-22, have been put in the position of next of kin and decision makers. It has been extremely rough on this family.
In good news, the boys, Pablocito Blondie and Diego Wolf, have had their final kitten checkups and vaccinations and are cleared for neutering on Nov. 20. They never stop playing, even in the vet’s office, and their coats are healthy and beautiful. They weigh over 6 pounds and 5 1/2 pounds. Theo has finally warmed up to them but he is getting attacked (playfully but roughly) and double teamed frequently. I had to break up the fight between Pablocito and Theo this morning because Pablo was not getting the message that Theo had had enough and I was afraid that another ragged tomcat ear would be the result.
Sandy and I have reservations to take the train to Alexandria, Virginia and spend a long weekend exploring D.C. for his birthday, but it now looks like I will need to cancel our reservations while I can get a refund and plan to either drive and wing it instead of reservations or just plan to go another time.
I’m done working with wet clay and I’m busy finishing the book covers, mainly with simple oxides and stains, and preparing paper signatures for binding. One of the books has a LOT of holes for caterpillar stitches and the holes are too big for the linen threads that I planned to use. I’m going to try one today and see if I need to twist a double strand. I’d rather not make it any more complicated than I have to.
I’ve done a little more natural dyeing on silk, also, but I’m disappointed that I didn’t get clear leaf prints. I have a problem getting that tight bond with the fabric, so I guess that I’ll start clamping instead of binding with thread. I love the marks that the threads make – maybe I will overdye those swatches.
Photos will come along as I post my visual journal.
I’ve decided to start a new project. A very simple one, one I should be able to manage easily. Every day, if possible, I’ll post two photos.
1. Something to document my activity that day.
2. Something from my home or block or my walk to work (when I’m home) to help me discover the details that I take for granted.
I’m going to make a physical journal of this project as well.
Here goes:
Folding and tearing handmade papers to bind with clay book covers.
Thai peppers in the back forty.
Once there was a village without a well. Their stream had dried up and a man from a village near the river sold water to the villagers. Some of the villagers could afford barrels to catch the rainwater, and so they did not need to buy water as often. The mayor of the village decided to build a water tower in the commons to catch rainwater so that everyone could have access to water and not have to rely on the water seller, who played favorites and would not sell water to certain parts of town where the slopes of the mountain were steep and made delivery more costly and difficult. The mayor and council passed a law that the water seller could not play favorites anymore, because it was necessary for the health of the village for all people to have water.
Everyone in the village was required to help pay for this tower to help those without water, just as they were required to help build the roads and pay for the firemen and police. The people with barrels of their own didn’t want to pay. They didn’t like the mayor and they were friends with the water seller, who was unhappy about the competition from the water tower. The people against the tower fired their shotguns at it as it was being built, and the cooper could hardly keep up with the repairs as he tried to fulfill his contract with the village.
Finally the water tower was finished and there was a huge rainstorm. The tower sprung leaks all over and not much water was left for the people of the village. The cooper began making repairs to the barrel, but the attacks continued.
The villagers, including the ones who never came down from the mountaintop to see what had happened, blamed the mayor, the council and the cooper.
The end.
Long time no see, friends.
It’s a good thing. When I haven’t been working on my book cover and scroll box projects for my ceramics class, I’ve been relaxing. That’s right. I can relax now. Although that crash that just came from the kitchen kind of nullified that for a minute.
The kittens are between 4-5 months old and completely crazy and entertaining but they also require some training about scratching the furniture and jumping on forbidden places like the woodstove and the counter around the stove where I prepare food. Unfortunately, Theo is a nervous wreck and whenever he hears me say “No” to the kittens he freaks out and hides. This reminds me that I have no idea what happened to him during his first eight years, or why he was turned over to the animal shelter. So this situation is a bit of a challenge.
Pablo Opie Blondie Fritz and Diego Wolf Winnie (we can’t settle on one name, and the latter ones are the ones the shelter gave them) are definitely in need of neutering and no one will do it until they are completely free of the ringworm. Pablo seems to be over it, and Diego is close – he has a spot near the end of his tail that has been there from the beginning which is really stubborn. Once we adopted them and turned them over to our vet’s care, they went on oral meds which has helped enormously. Their coats are beautiful now. We discovered that the shelter would euthanize them because of the ringworm even though we were committed to adopting them so we went ahead and paid the fee and signed a contract that we would take care of the rest of their vaccines and neutering. They are expensive little boogers. We saved their lives. They owe us, dammit.
I think that Pablo will earn his keep. One night he sat on the floor hunched down and growling. I picked him up and he clearly had something in his mouth, but he was not letting go. I stuck my finger into his mouth between his teeth and he chomped down hard enough that I couldn’t get my finger out! So I walked him over to Sandy, Pablo still growling, and Sandy saw that he had a palmetto bug in his mouth. God, how I hate those things. This year is my first experience with them. I managed to get my finger out and Sandy asked if I wanted him to get the bug out of his mouth. Well, first off, I don’t think that Pablo would have allowed that. Secondly, if he wants to eat palmetto bugs, I say by all means let him.
There has not been another bug incident that I am aware of, but it does bode well that Miss Lucy will have a hunting partner when the mice come back into the house for the winter. In the meantime, Pablo runs around with a butterbean in his mouth growling. That’s my boy.
Lucy has adjusted well to the kittens and plays with them sometimes. She is fascinated with watching them and has a happy relaxed curled tail while she sits in the middle of the chaos. Poor Theo is the one I am worried about. He will occasionally lick their faces when they are calm but he doesn’t eat much. I give him as much attention as always and he sleeps beside me at night. I’m glad that he is overweight because mealtimes seem to be a source of stress and I have tried a lot of variations, including giving him a special treat before he eats to charge up his appetite. That seems to work best but not if he is running from me and hiding. It used to be that shaking the treat bag would bring him out of anywhere in the house anytime, but no more.
Art report later.
