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June 30, 2008
Shoe Shopping (Or Why I Can't Have Nice Things)
One of the reasons this place makes me crazy is the direct result of the tininess and isolation. There is not a single upscale clothing store. Not. One. There are many, many versions of Hot Topic & The Buckle, even an Old Navy, but not one Nordstrom or Barneys or equivalent. We do have a Macy's, but, well, let me give you an example of how useful our Macy's is.
Last week, I finally destroyed my purse enough that I needed another one. My clever habit of stuffing as much as possible into the little tiny bag took its toll and I ripped out the bottom. I have a bag that works, is slightly larger and has enough space to hold my kindle too, so I figured I'd just transfer everything there. It's not as wee as my last purse, but, as I said, my kindle fits, whereas the last bag was really just a wallet with a strap.
That being said, I needed a new wallet. There are exactly two stores here in town where I might find such a beast: Macy's and Ross. Of course I went to Ross first, but nothing really sang out to me. I figured I'd head to Macy's just to see if they had anything before settling for the best thing I could find at Ross. (As luck would have it, I did find the perfect wallet at Macy's and bought it despite the price because I figured, if my last purse hung in there for 10 years, I could probably get at least as much out of the wallet, and $4.50 a year was a bargain for a wallet I fell in love with on sight.)
Anyway, I figured while I was in there, I ought to see what kind of dresses they have for this wedding I'm getting ready to attend in Chicago. So I wandered through all of their adult female clothing sections to see. Do you know what they have? Polyester dresses shaped like sacks, with spaghetti straps and wild pink and brown (or blue and green) splotchy/swirly designs lifted straight from the 1960's. OR cotton skirts. That's it. Not really wedding-type attire. In fact, there was not a single fancy-type dress in the entire store. And there are no other options for me in this town. Because Walmart, Christopher and Banks and Old Navy are not going to cut it. (And yes, I did go into Ross and check there. More of the same, thanks.) All of the clothes are for hip young things to attend their best friends' weddings and bridal showers, not for grownups to attend the fancy evening do's of their grownup peers.
I did actually find something in my own closet that will work beautifully, despite the multiple (and seemingly contradictory) requirements of fancy wedding, packable outfit--read small and light and relatively un-crease-y--and possible thunderstorms with a four-block walk to my hotel. But I still needed shoes. Because my beloved Michael Kors pumps, though the right color & a very sexy style, are not summery enough. And my Tevas are just not quite right with a silk sheath.
So I got to endure the agony of looking for something nice all over again.
You may not know this about me, but when it comes to footwear, I have a whole bunch of requirements that must be met.
★ I have size ten feet. Size. Ten. Guess how many cutecutecute shoes that look adorable in a six look adorable in a ten. (And for special bonus points, guess how many of the styles of shoes available in a six also come in a ten.)
★ I have a great deal of hatred for anything between my toes. Which eliminates anything remotely flip-floppy (I have more class than to wear a pair of flipflops to a wedding, anyway, thankyouverymuch.)
★ I have feet that are very wide at the ball and very narrow at the heel. So the cute little strappy straps tend to make my feet look fat. They aren't, but they look it in strappy sandals.
My first choice, given all these insane demands, is usually Zappos. But I only figured out what I was wearing yesterday. And I leave for Chicago on Thursday. Which means no time for shipping shoes to me. Plus, I really don't feel like getting another pair of really expensive shoes right now. (Well, I feel like it, I just don't think it's very responsible of me, given all of the traveling I'm doing this summer and all of the money I'm not earning.) So off I went to the mall.
After visits to Payless, Famous Footwear, The Buckle, Ross & Macy's Shoes (my only options) I did end up with a cute pair of black peep-toe slingbacks that are actually quite sexy and were 40% off. (I cannot find a picture of them online but--duh, let me just take a picture of them for you.)
(Yes, I know it's a terrible photograph, I was in a hurry.)
See? Sexy. Appropriate. And the buckle--which you can't see--has little black sparklies. Inexpensive enough that I don't feel guilty about buying them to fit a wardrobe gap I rarely notice or about how well they do or don't travel, as long as they get to Chicago in one piece. Also, I think they are going to look damn fine with deep purple toenails peeking out at the toe.
But. They were the ONLY pair in the entire city that would have worked for what I needed. Oh, there were plenty of appropriately cute shoes, but none in my size. And there were plenty of shoes in my size, but none of them were the right style for an evening wedding in the summer. I'm sorry, but I'm not wearing a pair of platform slides with wide black patent leather straps and cork soles with my rust-colored silk dress. Nor am I wearing a pair of gold and black come-fuck-me pumps with a stilleto heel and a pointy toe.
There are things about living here that have been good for me. The very isolation and scarcity of diversions that I bitch about so much has demanded that I go deep within myself to find answers there, rather than relying on the rest of the world to solve my problems for me. I'm a better artist because I have had to explore new forms of expression to keep myself from going mad. I've got a stronger CV than I might have because of the teaching I'm doing here.
However. I am more than ready at this point to take all of the things I've learned and apply them somewhere that has access to galleries, restaurants and real shoe stores. Eleven months and counting.
Posted by sally at 12:55 PM | Comments (2)
June 29, 2008
PhotoHunt: Bright
I wasn't going to post this week because I didn't have time yesterday and I didn't think I had anything workable, and then just now I remembered a shot I took in February 2006, during the Arboretum Project. We had such a cold snap that creeks froze with ripples in them still, and I got a shot of one, on an ice cold day (freezing nostril hair when you inhaled kind of cold), with full daylight and not a cloud in the sky. The sunshine reflected off the ice really jacked with the F-stops on the camera. Bright may not, in fact, be a strong enough word for the intensity of the glare.
Frozen Rapids
Even just looking at this photograph again, I want to squint.
I was going back through my Arboretum Project photos for a different project this week and realized that I really miss those weekly shoots. I got such a sense of peace during those two to three hours I spent wandering. I miss seeing the turtles and the baby birds and the dragonflies and the heron and all of the changes. And I miss the development it gave my eye. I took some really great shots that year, as my skills and vision improved. It was good for me. Maybe this year I can find the time to do something like it again.
Posted by sally at 12:16 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Unconscious Mutterings Week 283
She says..., and I think...
- Loneliness :: my lifestyle, sometimes necessary, depressing
- Traffic :: school, signal, light
- Chaos :: swirling, unsettled, to be avoided
- Burp :: braaaaaaak
- 500 :: Indy, racecar
- Movie :: theatre, summer, cool
- Coma :: awful novel/film from the late 70’s, early 80’s
- Bark :: bite
- Stare :: Look, rude, gaze, glare
- Angelina :: Heroin. I hope the rumors about her being back on the junk aren’t true. Also, Heroine. What a generous, compassionate person she seems to be.
Posted by sally at 11:59 AM
June 28, 2008
Because I Am an Idiot
IM conversationwith my friend Amy. (Who has known me since our freshman year of college, so this is really nothing new to her.)
Sally says: I just realized today that I missed your birthday.
Sally says: Unless it is today.
Amy says: It is today.
Sally says: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!
Yeah. Cause I'm lame like that.
Happy birthday, Amy. I hope it was wonderful.
Posted by sally at 11:57 PM
Party On
So Vanessa at A Fanciful Twist is having a Mad Tea Party {of the costume variety} today that I was quite cleverly too late to sign up for. Because I just never got around to it, that's why. But that doesn't mean I can't party too.
In my own special way.
So I'm having a garden party here at Sallyacious. The roses are taking off nicely, and a number of other flowers are blooming right now as well --yay for mockoranges!!!--and we'll get to those in a minute. But first, a couple of other party images.
As you may or may not know, Dave's birthday was last month. And we actually had a party here for him. But I was too busy eating and drinking and shouting in the game we played to take pictures. So no pictures of the hilarious (and delicious) time we all had. HOWever, that's not the point of this commentary. The point of this commentary is that this last weekend when I was in Boise, my brother and sister-in-law gave me a card to give to Dave for his birthday. We have a grand tradition, my brother and I--supported by our spouses--of managing to miss each other's birthdays. Not deliberately, it just kind of happens. And so we give our gifts to each other when we get around to it.
I often mention to people that my brother is one of the funniest people I know, quite possibly one of the funniest people in the world, and to demonstrate why I believe that, I present to you the card they gave David, complete with my brother's edits.
Also, before we get to the flowers, another kind of party, completely unrelated to gardens, but of the sort infinitely preferred by cats. A slumber party. Yesterday they all slept on the bed for most of the day, a rather unusual occurence. It is, by the way, impossible to make a bed around a sleeping cat.
(There are four cats in the photo. That dark thing in the lower left corner is not a pile of laundry.)
But now, the garden party.
I'm afraid I'm a bit more ascerbic and not as likely to be fanciful as A Fanciful Twist's hostess. I'm a little crankier, and a bit more bitter. If she's a strawberry, think of me as a grapefruit, not for all tastes, and some are genetically predisposed to find me completely unpleasant, but I'm also sometimes sweeter than you expected. Right. Done with that metaphor, it was finished, really, before I started and I should have recognized that.
Anyway. I really like Vanessa's artwork, and I love the idea of a party, so come on over.
Here's what you'll see coming up the front walk. A friend of mine remarked that our house looks like a good witch lives here. If only I could magic away that damn lamppost.
It's hot, but you can probably tell that from the clear blue of the sky and the brownness of the grass. Welcome to Idaho.
Astonishingly, the climbing roses arount the front porch seem to adore this weather. (When we bought the house, there were two tiny, straggling canes on that rosebush. Apparently all it wanted was some chicken manure and a little seaweed compost tea.)
Now that you're here, grab a glass of mint-sprigged iced tea, grab your favorite garden hat and let's do a bit of exploring.
Just feel free to wander wherever. The prettiest blooms are out today.
Blue Flax & Flowering Quince
Campanula and Tomato Blossoms
Lupin and Peony
Climbing Rose and Fallen Flax Petals
Yarrow
Summer Savory and Unnamed Yellow Flower
Daisies & Chamomile with Blue Flax
I've got to go now, I have errands to run and a gym to visit, but feel free to stay as long as you like. There are still some irises, and the poppies are beginning to bloom. Also, I didn't include the syringa because I couldn't get close enough to them to photograph well, but they smell divine, as do the rugosa roses. And it just seems to get prettier as the sun goes down. (Maybe that's because it's cooler and then you can't see all of the brown in the lawn.)
Posted by sally at 12:54 PM
June 24, 2008
The Boy Who Broke My Heart
It happened yesterday, as I was headed out the door for the airport. Literally. I had my backpack/carryon in one hand and the case with all my clothes and toiletries in the other, when my sweet, sweet nephew grabbed one of his favorite books, which I had read to him earlier in the afternoon, and ran up to me with it. So I could read it to him. I almost cried, because at that moment, I would have loved nothing better than to sweep him up in my arms, snuggle down into an easy chair with him and hold him on my lap while he opened and closed all of the little doors on the pages.
I compromised. I took the book and thanked him and herded him out the door to the car, where, once everybody was strapped in, I read it to him. He was in his carseat in the back, and I was twisted practically in half, trying to make the book accessible for him from my place in the front passenger seat, so it wasn't the most comfortable I've ever been when doing something with the Boy, but at least I got to share the book with him before I left.
This is the second time my heart's been broken by this particular fellow. The first time was in March when I went down to Boise for part of spring break, and my last interaction with him was him running into my arms at full speed for a wonderful, full body, toddler hug. He's such a great little boy, and it seems every trip he makes me one of his go-to people on the last day. Though this time he warmed up to me faster than on previous visits. Maybe it's because it hasn't been as long this time. Maybe it's because he's getting older and actually remembers me from before. Whatever the reason, I was tickling his leg and he was laughing at me after we'd been in the car maybe ten minutes on Friday, which was a much better reception than the last time, when he saw me walking out of my parents' guest room and burst into tears and screaming.
But that's not what you're here for. You're here for the pictures. And I don't blame you. I took lots this time around--lots of good ones, even--so I'm going to do this over a couple of entries. This set is from our visit to the zoo on Monday.
I only got shots of the Boy at three exhibits, but the pics are kind of fun, I think. (At some of the exhibits, I was holding him, so it wasn't really possible to do the photography as well. And for others, he was in his stroller and that just doesn't lend itself to photogenia.)
Meeting Meerkats
The meerkats were fascinated by him, but he wasn't all that interested in them. His longest two visits were at the tortoise setup and the tiger cage. He kept running back to the tortoises for another look, I'm not sure why they interested him so much, but they did. And he spent a lot of time watching the tigers. (Takes after his auntie already. Good boy!)
Turtles
What's in There?
(That ball, by the way? Went all around the zoo with him. He didn't let it out of his sight, though he did occasionally drop it when he got excited.)
Tiger
I was a bit stunned by just how big the tiger was when compared to the toddler. Especially since it got up shortly after we arrived and lunged its face toward the glass at a little girl who had been standing there looking. She jumped back, as did I. But it was pretty amazing to have it lie down right there in front of the window after it made a leisurely circuit of the enclosure.
Lounging Tiger, Roaring Todder
Kieran was imitating a bunch of other kids who decided that's the noise that tigers make. He so enjoyed making it that he kept on long after all of the other children had stopped. And he kept trying to get other kids to roar with him. As you may be able to tell from the above photo, he really got into the roaring.
Mom took us to the zoo, and made a picnic lunch to enjoy afterward. It was a really lovely day, we were all in good moods and just enjoying the hell out of each other's company.
Couple of Freshly Hatched Looney Birds
And then, after the zoo, the picnic. I think Kieran was getting an ice cube here. I just love the look on his face.
He's like a sponge. He notices everything. Music, behavior, birds, puddles, planes, the whole world around him gets absorbed. So much is going in right now, I'm really curious to see how it reworks itself inside his head.
Posted by sally at 09:48 PM | Comments (1)
Jiggety-Jig
Got in last night around 8pm. The flight was quicker than usual. It's normally an hour, yet they somehow managed to make up 15 minutes of a 30 minute delay in the air. I have to say, the winds in Lewiston made the landing exactly the sort of bumpy, bouncy ride I don't like to experience anywhere but on a roller coaster, where that sort of thing is planned.
I'll have bunches of nephew photos up eventually, but I have so much catching up to do here. I just realized last night--thanks to Dave--that I'm home for nine days before I head off to Chicago and then Palm Springs, which is a ten day trip and requires some serious preparation, including shipping things to Idyllwild because my bookbinding stuff really doesn't need to go to Chicago with me, and getting the vegetable plants ready for hotter weather and easier watering by Dave, who will be--of course--especially busy during the time I'm gone and doesn't need to be bothered with trying to figure out just exactly how much water everybody gets daily. Also, laundry. Plus, I have a number of creative projects I'm right in the middle of, and it would be nice to finish some of them.
So, lots going on, but at some point--probably after yoga tonight, when all I want to do is sit and stare at things--I'll get those pictures edited for the web and posted. I'll warn you right now, toddlers move very fast and this one is in motion most of the time, so mostly, I have pictures of him eating. Except for the zoo trip, where I think I got some great shots of the Boy with a tiger, some tortoises and some meerkats. (Which, by the way, do not look nearly as friendly as Timon from The Lion King. They look like cranky little buggers.)
It's lovely here right now. Perfect weather and the roses are starting to bloom. The front of the house is about to be covered with them. And my syringas are blooming as well. I thought I'd lost them this winter, but apparently not.
I had a wonderful time in Boise, but it's nice to be back.
Posted by sally at 09:22 AM | Comments (3)
June 19, 2008
Playing with Danger
Today I got lots of stuff done, in large part because I knew I had a treat awaiting me this afternoon and I wanted to have most of my tasks done beforehand.
Today, I got to spend time with my friend Danger. (Ginger, for those who know her by her actual name. Yes, Heather, it is the Ginger you're thinking of.) We went to a nursery/garden store. We went to a glass studio. We checked out a bead store. We sat on the patio of the Old Post Office and had hummus and pita and bruschetta and talked and giggled and just had the best time.
She's so awesome. And she told me that she struggles with the "If I'm not producing anything how can I be living a good life?" issue too. Which was especially comforting because Danger is the sort of person who always seems to have it together.
It was quite simply a lovely day, complete with perfect weather and coming home to a clean house (because that's the part I did before she picked me up).
And why did I feel this desperate need to clean my house today? Aside from my appointment with Danger (no, I don't remember how she got the nickname) acting as a really inspiring carrot? Because tomorrow morning I catch a 7:45 flight to Boise to spend four days with my nephew. (And the rest of my family.) Which means no posting here until at least Monday, including no PhotoHunt and no Unconscious Mutterings. However, lots of people from all over the world will be doing one or the other or maybe both, so you should check them all out.
On the other hand, I will most likely have new nephew pictures when I return, So there's that.
Have a lovely weekend.
(And if you're a burglar, Dave's still going to be here, so I'd not even bother, if I were you.)
Posted by sally at 06:20 PM | Comments (1)
June 18, 2008
A Moment's Reflection
I read part of a book last summer called Stumbling Upon Happiness. I don't remember finishing it, but I may have. (That's been a limited reading time trick of mine since undergrad. Read until you figure out the author's bias, get the gist of what s/he's getting at and then move on to the next thing.)
The core of the author's argument, as I recall it, is that it doesn't matter how hard we work to make things safe, it doesn't matter how thoroughly we research our options, in the end, we not only have no guarantees of favorable results for anything, but the happiness we find is often not in the place we expected it to show up, and we need to grab those moments when they happen.
This is why I war with myself all summer long. Because I feel like I ought to be doing things. What use am I if I'm just taking up space? It's no good telling myself I narrowly avoided either a physical or mental collapse this spring, given the way I was pushing myself, and that I desperately need a rest. I still feel useless if I'm not producing something, be it a paycheck (not happening right now, it's summer), a remodeled bathroom, a clean house, garden produce*, art, something physical that I can use to demonstrate my value.
But if I don't have these moments of breathing space, I miss the real beauty, which happens in flashes and isn't available for me if I'm rushing from thing to thing. I miss things like this:
Dogwood Reflection
That was on our kitchen wall this morning. It's the shadow of our red twig dogwood. Only, based on the angle, it's not possible. The sun is blocked by the house across the street when it would be able to produce that shadow. (And I don't get up early enough to catch something like that.)
As near as I can tell, it's a shadow created by sunlight reflected off the windshield of a car parked in the driveway of the house across the street. Fleeting, beautiful, and only available by chance because the car was parked there at just the right time at just the right angle and the dogwood is finally big enough--but not too big--for the branches to cast shadows there and I was in the kitchen to notice it. And rather than just brush it off or think, "That's cool," and get on with my life, I opted to take a photograph of it. I paused, and let it hit me more deeply.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. I mean, what if the richness of our lives is based not on the things we produce, not on the goals we achieve, but on our stopping to recognize the moments of fleeting beauty? What if that's the thing that tips the scales** between a standard life and a life well-lived? Am I simply wasting time, or am I making myself available to appreciate the really important bits?
I'm not sure I'll ever have an answer to this question. I do hope I can learn to slow down. I'm not sure I proved anything by pushing myself nigh unto death this spring except that that is not how I want to live. But is there value in these moments? Is there worth in being the only person who got to watch a hummingbird play in the spray from the backyard sprinklers one morning last summer? Do those individual experiences add anything of value to the world? Or do I need to stop worrying about whether the entire planet directly benefits from everything I do and maybe assume the accumulation of these moments in a single life does prove to be important in the long run?
Things were so much easier when I was six and didn't worry about everybody else so much.
*Which is coming, by the way, I have three happy tomato plants, a vigorous eggplant, three pots of mint, one of nasturtiums, three romaine plants, some Swiss chard and a big dish of French greens. Oh. And four pumpkins and some radishes. No sign of the carrots I planted with them.
**It's so funny that I'm a Virgo with a Scorpio rising sign. Because those two signs flank Libra--the scales--and it seems I'm doomed to spend my entire life seeking balance, an accord, between my highly practical earth sign and the fiery creativity of my rising sign.
Posted by sally at 09:51 AM | Comments (4)
June 16, 2008
Quiet, Please
I wish I could get the insides to match the outsides. I mean, I wish I could get the internal turbulence, the bubblings up of discontent and frustration to match the beautiful, calm weather. Why can't I lounge in the sun and enjoy the silence? Why must I instead seethe and grumble and fester about how I can't do what I want to do because the things I need to do the things I want aren't available?
And yes, I can drive 90 miles to the nearest real art supply store and they might have the decorative papers I'm looking for, but why must it take me THREE HOURS round trip to get to a store that
Also on my list of discontents, why are there no good junk shops here that sell stuff for cheap? Why must everything be bought up greedily at estate sales & then re-sold at twice what the now-seller bought it for so that it's now out of my price range? I'm sorry, people, but I'm not paying $15 for a water-stained cigar box or $2.50 for a single tile shell or a dollar a piece for old postcards or $22.50 for a mason jar full of buttons. I can't imagine many people would. Which means that you have effectively taken these things off the market, making them of no use to anybody as they sit and molder in a dingy little "Antique Mall." I could be creating beauty with them, but not at those prices.
Plus, I'm discontented with my own attitude. I'm tired of being a crank and a lump and a whiner. Tired. of. It. Which means, of course, that I need to get off my ass and start doing rather than just pissing and moaning. God. What do you do when you're tired of your own company? You don't get into a car and make a 90 minute drive by yourself, that's for sure.
Right. I need to go buy some primer and some sandpaper, which I can get here (cue angel choir) and shut the fuck up and get to work.
Posted by sally at 11:43 AM | Comments (1)
June 15, 2008
Unconscious Mutterings Week 281
- Purchase :: Option, credit, cash
- Squeaky clean :: Fromme, gleaming, window
- Blended :: Drink, shake, margarita
- Wednesday :: Adams
- Function :: Job
- Look down :: Vertigo
- July? :: Maybe, Fourth, travel
- Raspberry :: Frappe, vine, shake
- Assertive :: Bossy, independent, me
- Cracker :: Barrel, Jack, goober
This week was tough. For some reason, I drew a blank on a couple of words. I'd look at them and something would flutter through my head without actually swimming into daylight. And then there would be nothing. Like a stalled car.
Maybe it's the champagne. I had a mimosa with breakfast.
Anyway, it's another gorgeous day out and I need to find something to do to celebrate that.
Posted by sally at 10:44 AM
June 14, 2008
PhotoHunt: Emotion(s)
For this week's theme, I opted to go with images that represent emotions for me. All taken today, all having to do with summer now that it's finally (oh please, please) here.
Happiness
Anticipation
Tranquility
Posted by sally at 12:50 PM | Comments (11)
June 13, 2008
Perfect
What a lovely evening. Today was Moscow's annual ArtWalk, and the weather could not have been more cooperative. Light breezes and sunny skies. The bands all played outdoors this year, and several artists were giving demonstrations as well as displaying their work. Children were making chalk drawings all across the blocked off portions of Main Street.
Tonight, I loved living here. That only happens twice a year for me. ArtWalk and Jazz Festival. The rest of the year, this is a pokey little town deeply divided along religious and political lines. (Seriously. People choose their coffee shop here based on religious affiliation. I kid you not.) But during these two events, imagination and creativity reign, and Moscow becomes a beautiful place to be.
I'm also quite pleased to live in the home of the Borah Symposium when that rolls around every year.
Otherwise?
Get me out of here. I'm too far away from everything: opportunities, choices, supplies, theatres, a gym with a steam room. I was fascinated to discover just last week that a number of local artists have finally realized that you can't make a living here. Not as an artist, anyway. You can live here, but you'd better be selling in other places, because this community cannot/will not pay the prices artists need to earn to survive. Astonishing that they're just now noticing. I figured that out ages ago.
My favorite moments this evening?
Walking into the Above the Rim Gallery which is located on the second story of Paradise Bicycles. You actually have to walk through the store to get to the gallery. The work currently featured in there is titled "Corpus Memento," by Uniontown artist Jennifer Holland, and is a collection of dress forms decorated with found objects. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. Extraordinary work. Really, really, really amazing. I kept gasping and sighing and making little "ooh ooh ooh" sounds. It was a little indecent, actually. I'm astonished no one complained (about my orgasmic vocalizations, not about the work). But I couldn't help myself, the pieces were stunning. (I just checked, and neither the artist nor the gallery have websites. For shame.)
Listening to local Buddhist nun and artist Debbie Chan, whose carvings and etchings and paintings were displayed and available in Marco Polo Imports. She was doing Chinese calligraphy, writing people's names, for free. A lovely woman, so friendly and enthusiastic and down to earth. And her work is beautiful. I'm going back for a couple of her pieces, I think. A painting of poppies on rice paper and a glass vase etched with a mountain scene, complete with tiger.
Watching a glass artist do lampwork. (From Ra Glass in Pullman. Why do none of these artists or organizations have websites? WHYYYYYYY?) He'd set up a booth in Friendship Square. The artist had flames tattooed on both forearms. So perfect, on an man who creates beauty from fire. He teaches one-day lampwork workshops. I really want to try it.
There were lots more lovely things, but those were the highlights for me.
And now I must go feed the cats. They're dyyyyyyyyying.
Posted by sally at 10:07 PM | Comments (2)
And Then There's Imogen
What can I say? Our fierce, sweet, snuggly, affection-demanding little calico is also a complete and utter goofball.
Doesn't it look like she's sticking her tongue out at me?
Posted by sally at 10:07 AM | Comments (2)
June 12, 2008
Old Pickle Jars and Sprigs of Mint
The weather is better today in Sallyaciousville. No snow, and the lawnmowing lady even came. Thanks to the rain & the really cold weather, the lawn hadn't grown much since her last visit, but this keeps it from getting too raggedy.
Anyway, here's what I think is one of the best indicators of good weather.
Sun tea.
Made for the first time this year with mint from my pots (it's finally big enough to use).
Mmmm... Not sweetened, just pepperminty.
I'm getting thirsty...
Posted by sally at 12:12 PM | Comments (1)
June 11, 2008
Gadfly
I'm traveling quite a bit this summer. There is, of course, the bookbinding workshop at Idyllwild in July, a much-needed trip to Boise this month (must re-introduce myself to the nephew before he forgets who I am) and a week in Hawaii to celebrate some friends as they renew their wedding vows.
Last week, those same friends offered to treat me to a veddy naice facial and a Bikram yoga session, along with their company for a weekend, as my birthday present this year. To claim my gift, I must go to Tacoma, which is a treat for me, since I love the Puget Sound and these particular friends. So I'll be doing that in early August. (Though to be fair, guys, Dave's the person you need to convince to move to Tacoma. I'm already pretty much sold.)
You'd think that would be quite enough jauntering for any one summer. Especially for a person who rarely leaves the city limits. (Moscow is like that, a black hole whose dense gravity sucks you back in when you try to escape. Or maybe that's just me.) You do notice that I have managed to confine my junketing to the western United States. Southern Idaho, California, Washington, Hawaii...
And then--on Friday--an envelope arrived in the mail. One of those larger than normal envelopes made of thick paper, with fancy printing on the exterior and a multitude of little sheets of paper inside. "This had better be what I think it is," said Dave, as he waved it at me after getting the mail.
It was.
One of my very favorite people in the entire world is getting married next month. As luck would have it, the day before I'm supposed to leave for Idyllwild. But she is someone I love deeply, and I cannot possibly miss her wedding. So I've bought me an additional set of plane tickets and I will be in CHICAGO--are you paying attention Heather?--July 3-6. I arrive late on the 3rd and leave early on the 6th, but I will be in town, so we should at the very least do breakfast.
And I think that fills up my summer. If I'm gone any more than this, Dave won't remember who I am either.
Posted by sally at 12:02 AM | Comments (4)
June 10, 2008
Feel. My. Pain.
Front Yard
Iris
Rosebud
Back Yard
Frozen Flowerbed
Hawthorne Blossoms
I took these pictures fifteen minutes ago. It's still snowing.
Posted by sally at 09:18 AM | Comments (2)
Snow Way
Excerpts from a coversation with my husband.
Dave: (As Sally rolls over and barely indicates that she is floating near consciousness) Hello.
Sally: (Wondering why he's speaking to her when she's clearly not awake yet) Hello.
Dave: I hate to tell you this, but really I kind of want to tell you this.
Sally: Nnnngaaaa?
Dave: It's snowing.
Sally: (In accents of disgust and horror.) No.
Dave: No, snow.
Sally: (After peeking out the windw to see that it is, indeed, snowing.) Naaaoooooooooooooooooooooowwwww!
There is an extended pause while Dave goes away to do other things and Sally lies in bed, considering staying there forever because if it's snowing on June 10, life clearly holds no more joy for her.
(Dave returns to the room.)
Sally: I hold you responsible. The snow is your fault--
Dave: No! It's your fault! You washed my hat!*
Sally: No. I-- (Decides to ignore him.) Snow is always your fault. And two, you shouldn't have told me. If you loved me, you would have protected me from this horrible knowledge and made sure I stayed wrapped in my safe little coccoon where it's actually summer.
Dave: (With glee.) At least I didn't wake you up to tell you. I waited until you were stirring to tell you.
Sally: (Groans.)
Dave: I told [a coworker] it was snowing here and he said "It's 90 degrees here. With a heat index of 100."
Sally: Where is he?
Dave: Poughkeepsie.
It's snowing harder now.
I hate it here.
*Yesterday, because I was washing a load of reds, I picked one of Dave's tuques up off the floor where it had been gathering dust bunnies and washed it. He claimed at the time that I would be sorry, that I was inviting the weather to be awful. Given that it was already awful, I ignored him. I'm still pretty sure the snow is his fault.
Posted by sally at 07:57 AM | Comments (2)
June 09, 2008
Slowly
I spent a good portion of today cleaning things up. Specifically, my image files. Not my online or digital image files, oh no. My physical image files.
I have several boxes (shoebox sized and larger) stacked in the other closet of my office (not the one Dave just put shelves in, the other closet), each carefully labelled and containing images cut from calendars, magazines, catalogues, junk mail. On Friday, a friend of mine gave me a milk crate full of book covers that the university library didn't want to keep. Today, I went through them for images I wanted, setting covers aside for use in student projects in the fall.
When I went to file the images in my boxes, I discovered a relatively large stack of images I hadn't filed earlier. Apparently while I spent August-May being really, really busy, I was putting images on top of the boxes instead of in them. To save time. Well, I spent all that saved time today, when the stack of images tipped over and scattered all over the floor of my office. They're all filed now.
I also did laundry and some dusting and cleared off part of my desk. It's slow going, this organization stuff, but eventually it will pay off. At least, I hope it will. Already, parts of my office are looking better than they have in months.
Looks to be pretty similar stuff for tomorrow, though I'm hoping to have time to do some create-y stuff as well. Which I kept promising myself today, but wow did time get away from me. And here I am again, yawning like the top of my head is going to come off and taking an exceptional amount of time and space to say very little. Must be time for bed. I'm babbling.
Posted by sally at 10:31 PM
June 08, 2008
Unconscious Mutterings Week 280
Tired. Oh, so tired. But the barriers are much weaker at times like this, so I choose to do the meme now.
- Rambling :: ranting, rolling, stone, wandering
- Magnetic :: personality, attraction, repelling
- Again! :: “Hey, Rocky. Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.” (No, I don’t know why Bullwinkle has been running through my head lately, but there you are.)
- Acoustic :: Guitar
- Mahogany :: Wood, rare, precious, gorgeous color.
- Promises :: “You made me, promises promises…” “Flowers, chocolates, promises you don’t intend to keep.”
- Ill fitting :: Costume, not custom, off the rack, not handmade
- Sublime :: aaaahhhhh…, divine, contentment
- Poop :: Deck, buttheaded
- Disoriented :: Lost, confused, Alzheimer’s, disorientated
A shower and then to bed, I think.
Posted by sally at 12:01 AM
June 07, 2008
Back on Track, Perhaps
Feeling much better about things in general, thanks to my wonderful David.
This was my office on Thursday, and also a metaphor for my life.
On Friday, a friend gave me some more art supplies. A milk crate full, so it got even worse before it got better. Don't get me wrong, though, it's still a mess. It's just less so as of this evening.
I have been wanting to fix/organize my craft closet for, well, ever since we moved into this house. Look at the huge space there between the shelves. That's room I could be using to store supplies, and I could put the wire shelf space to better use as well, if there weren't issues with things falling between the wires. Making the changes has just not been a priority, given the schedules we tend to keep. But this week, I got a wild hair and decided I would actually fix it. How hard could it be, I thought, to replace the stupid wire shelf with some real shelving and add another couple of shelves while I'm at it?
Plenty hard, it turns out.
I have complained about the people who lived here previously many times. Today was another opportunity to do so, though not all of the issues with the craft closet could be laid on their shoulders. (I hold them fully responsible for the uselesness of the shelving, however. And the stupid choices they made when hanging it.) The people who built the house share some of the blame this time around. For putting the studs in 20" apart, and not that consistently, either. Which made it really, really fun for Dave to hang the standards for the shelving.
I was going to do it, but it turns out I am an idiot, and couldn't figure out where the fuck the studs were. I was knocking away on the wall and not remotely able to figure out which areas seemed more solid. Dave--who believes it's both his job and his privilege to take care of me, bless him--took over and did the whole installation. Once he was done with that, he replaced the doorknob and deadbolt on the back door, because the knob came off in my hand this afternoon. (Seriously. I tried to open the door and ended up having to go out the front and around the house to get a screwdriver out of the garage because the handle broke off so badly. It was not a good afternoon.)
While Dave was fixing the door, I put my closet back together. This is the first incarnation of the New Closet Order:
Notice the space for cats. Already in use, even. She was very pleased to be the inaugural closet napper.
I was so pleased to get stuff out of the way that I decided to reorganize the closet again. It still wasn't being used to its full potential. So I removed the pieces I'm planning to work on this week and loaded up the shelf with other stuff. And then I found some more things to put away. And some more things. And some more...
And here's what the closet looks like now.
Mind you, there are still plenty of things that need sorting and putting away. The top of my desk is now completely invisible. My bookshelves are still insanely out of control, and the filing is just, well, not. I'd also like to label all of the containers so that I can tell what's inside of them without having to open each one to find what I'm looking for. Still, my office is a damn sight better than it was three days ago. And that makes me feel like I can tackle something else tomorrow.
Posted by sally at 10:00 PM
Derailed
Got off track somehow and not sure how to get myself going again. I don't know if it was all the movie theatre popcorn I ate last night or the box of Junior Mints. (Forgetting Sarah Marshall is really funny, by the way. I laughed a lot, both big old guffaws and highly amused giggles.) Maybe it's all of the other things I've had going on that took me away from the work or the fact that my inner critic is screaming at me that I don't know what I'm doing. Or that I'm not focusing on the right things. But I feel blah, and though I have a whole bunch of possibilities, I can't seem to motivate myself to act on any of them.
To be honest, I've felt this coming on for quite some time, but haven't been able to figure out how to get around it. What to do to avoid or get through this feeling of uselessness and letdown. Even though I've tried to be gentle with myself about all of the things that have been throwing off my routine and the things I want to be doing.
Speaking of taking action, there will be no PhotoHunt photo today (Theme: Bad Hair). All of my bad hair pics are from shows, and I don't have 1) any electronic copies or 2) a scanner. It's kind of unfortunate, because I had really awesome bad hair for Woods of Weaver, where my character--Juniper--got progressively more drunk as Act II wore on. I started out looking like a saloon girl and ended up looking like a saloon girl who'd been hit by a bus, run through a wind tunnel and then fallen asleep on her face. It was World Class bad hair.
Plus, the theme seems almost prophetic, given that the hair color I got yesterday at the salon I've gone to for over four years now, turned out a really unflattering shade for the first time ever, and I am currently living with bad hair myself which I don't choose to share with any of you. Hopefully, it will get fixed on Tuesday.
Right. I'm going to see if I can't actually leave the house and wander down to the flea market that's supposed to be taking place this morning. I wonder how many vendors there are, given the weather.
11:20am I've Been Thinking: Maybe part of my issue is the weather. I don't have a studio space where I can go do really messy work like stripping paint--which is my next step--and the weather has been rainy and windy with temps in the 50's and 60's. Normally I would do the messy stuff outside. But I can't right now. It's too cold and too windy. My one outdoor workspace gets the full brunt of the wind, even though it's sheltered. How I long for a proper studio.
But. All that being said, maybe I can just work on some smaller projects for now and leave the big ones for a day when it's actually nice out. Provided, of course, that I don't have seventeen other things scheduled for that day. At least then I'd feel like I was doing something.
Posted by sally at 10:37 AM
June 03, 2008
Project the Next
After I got done with my button box, I was so proud of myself and so interested in doing some more playing that I decided to finally finish the box that holds my greeting cards.
I'm a sucker for blank greeting cards with fancy art on the front. I have BUNCHES that I occasionally take the time to write in and send off to various friends. And for years, literally, they have been quietly sitting in a white cardboard suitcase on a shelf in my closet. I've been meaning to decorate it since, I think, the fall of 2005.
Here's what it looked like two days ago.
Originally, it had a stupid rooster/country/Americana design on it. (You can sort of see it through the paint on the lid of the above photo.) I actually bought three in three different sizes when they went on sale and immediately painted them white. One went to my friend Maaike as a birthday present. She came over one day and picked out the suitcase she wanted and then dove into my thousands of image files and reams of fancy papers to decorate her box. Which I believe she now stores her camera in. The other two I decided to use for my own personal storage, but I never got around to decorating them. Though I did discover that I'd used art deco paper on the inside upper lid of the larger box, the one I'm playing with now.
I knew I wanted it to look well-traveled and cool, and yet the design also needed to refer--I felt--to the contents somehow. So the first thing I did was practically give myself carpal tunnel by using the packing tape transfer method on ten art deco and french poster postcards. I'm not going to explain how to do that. There are plenty of other places online where you can find that information. I will say that they didn't get really clear until I used a small sponge on them. My fingers were not cutting it as paper backing removers.
(You can see the transfers drying on the table. This was before I used the sponge on them. Note the distinct lack of transparency.)
I used spray adhesive to attach the semi-transparent stickers to the still white suitcase and thought about what I wanted to do with it next for about 36 hours.
Last night, I mixed up black, white, silver & copper acrylic paints to get a nice charcoal color and painted around the stickers. I am really bad at this. It looked atrocious. Fortunately, the paint peeled right off the packing tape (good thing to know), and once I'd lightly sanded the whole thing with entirely the wrong grit of sandpaper (too heavy, would have used something finer if I'd known what I was doing), it actually started to look pretty cool.
(These are post-sanding and picking at the paint on the stickers. I think you can probably tell, though.)
Once that was done, I mixed a satin finish clear archival sealer with copper and silver acrylic paint and covered the whole thing again. It's currently drying. (Note the attractive patented drying system for when you've painted the entire object and can't set it down anywhere.)
My next step (if all things go according to plan) is to sparingly apply some pewter metallic wax, and maybe some black paint or charcoal, to age it up a bit and then I will give it at least two coats of plain sealer and call it good. Unless I get a different/better idea in the meantime.
Posted by sally at 01:21 PM | Comments (4)
June 02, 2008
On My Own Time
Which means that roughly two-thirds of any given project may or may not get done in a day. Because I'm taking my own sweet time getting things done.
I like being responsible to more or less nobody else. It's refreshing.
It's not that things aren't getting done, it's just that they're getting done slooowly. Because I'm not in any great hurry, really. And I'm taking the time to do things like test sheets so that I have a decent idea of what will happen (or ought to happen) before I get started on the next phase of a project. So today I colored a page from an old book with watercolors, water soluble oil pastels and colored pencils, to see which I preferred for when I get around to coloring other pages from the same book. (Not sure what I'll do with them yet, just know I want to color the pictures.)
And I mixed the awesome glass bead medium I've been craving (and finally bought yesterday because it was 25% off) with paint, applying it over & under to see what happens. I also applied it to an old Christmas card and was astounded at how very very cool it looks over an image. Very, very cool. I will certainly and somehow be taking advantage of that.
I also wrote for about ninety minutes and ran some errands and chatted with my teaching partner and hit the gym and read a magazine...
Laundry happened as well, and cat attention and some actual work on my next piece, a suitcase that holds my greeting cards, the blank ones I send to people. So lots of stuff happened. It's just that it happened on my timetable and nobody else's. I'm learning to breathe again, and I love it. I had forgotten what time tasted like and felt like, and the fact that I seem to be able to do this stuff more or less guilt-free is pretty much icing on the cake.
I am really enjoying this summer. I haven't felt this free in a very, very long time.
If ever.
Posted by sally at 10:33 PM
June 01, 2008
Unconscious Mutterings Week 279
Lots to do today. I'm on a roll and just need to keep working!
- Gossipping :: bitchy, rude, spiteful
- Misplaced :: lost, car keys, sunglasses
- Spaceship :: Earth, V-ger, Star Trek
- Ignore :: What?
- Bodily :: Moving by force
- Tweezers :: Eyebrows, slivers
- Goodnight :: Moon
- Curls :: Yay! Girly hair!
- Faucet :: Sink
- Right? :: Left.
Posted by sally at 12:03 PM | Comments (2)
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