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Loads of creativity around these here parts.

Monday, March 9th, 2015

I have been crafting and painting and working lo these last few weeks in between having a raunchy bout of bronchitis. I horked and sniveled my way through several craft projects of which I am very proud. Remember the nutria project for the wedding I’m going to in New Orleans? In addition to that, I made the bride a parasol that she can carry down the street while a jazz band plays behind her. When I bought the parasol online, I noticed that it had ten distinct sections that I could use for personalized messages.

(Here is a picture of the parasol I bought. The only difference is mine is dark purple, not white.)

First I sewed a festive black and silver sequin fringe around the entire outer edge.

Then I measured the blank areas and made five different stencils that I repeated twice:

1. The initials of the bride and the groom
2. The date of the wedding

3. The letters “NOLA” for New Orleans, Louisiana

4. A fleur-de-lis (a symbol of New Orleans)

5. And “2nd Line,” the name of the parade where a jazz band follows you around and you carry a parasol

Following that came the gluing of the Swarovski crystals. So many crystals, each one glued by hand. I bought a gross of white ones and I think I used about half, meaning there are 500 white crystals on there. That does not include the purple or pink crystals. Or the glittery hearts I ironed on. It’s… got some sparkle. But I think Ness is going to love it. Her wedding colors are purple and burgundy so this fits right in with her theme.

When I’m lying in bed watching “Vikings” I work on the nutria that will go on my jaunty hat that I intend to wear at the wedding. I’m making him out of needle-felted roving so he will be lightweight. I began that project by making a structure in the vague shape of a semi-aquatic giant rodent out of some scrap illustration boards I had lying around.

Then the wrapping and stabbing began. I didn’t want to use up all my fancy llama roving so I made the base out of regular wool. I wrapped and stabbed and wrapped and stabbed and then made two pads for the ample rump of the nutria.

Right now I have it completely covered in nice brown llama roving, I’ve stabbed the eyes into place (that seems wrong to type but it is accurate), the ears and snoot are on and all I have left are the legs, tail and teeth. It’s going to be a lovely nutria.

And finally, The Project That Time Forgot, the kitchen backsplash. I painted the trees on. Yay! And then I hated them because they were too thick and the branches looked horsey.

So after HorkFest 2015 ended and I no longer wanted to lay in bed and gurgle, I returned and carefully thinned down one tree and all the branches. Much better. Very happy now.

It might not seem like a big difference, but to me it changes everything. It is a vast improvement. Next I need to tile the pebbles at the bottom and then the scary stained glass portion begins. Eeek.

Posted in Apartment, My Art/Design/Business, Nature | No Comments »

Germany, Part 5.

Friday, January 30th, 2015

Before I get to the Saga of Sadness known as Our Trip to Prague, let me tell you about a neat thing in Europe. Here it is: pretty much anywhere you can go, a dog can go. That includes food procurement facilities, like restaurants and cafes. One evening we went to an authentic German restaurant. It was a big farmhouse once but is now converted and because we got there so early we ended having our own room. I ate elk on a bed of local mushrooms with red cabbage and almond-crusted potato croquettes. So effing delicious.

And, because this is Germany and it was around Christmastime, there were chocolates decorating the table. Germans must never be more than ten feet from chocolate at any given time. It’s in their constitution.

Anyway, we were in our own private room all by our lonesomes when Neenernator’s mother wanted to go to the bathroom. She opened the door to walk down the hall and – WOOOOMPH!! – loudest bark ever greets her. She slammed the door shut and was like, “I’ll pee when I get home.” Turns out under the table of another family having dinner there was a half-Malamute, half-German Shepherd monster-dog chillin’. I made a point to say howdy as I was leaving. The direwolf growled at me. It’s quite a culture shock going to a restaurant and seeing a giant horse-beast hanging out under the table. But if they’re okay with it, I’m okay with it.

Also, so important! A day before we left, the sun came out! The sun. I had not seen the sun in a week. I walked outside and greeted like someone who had spent the last five years in a bunker preparing for the apocalypse. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuun. I took my camera out and got some decent pics of Neenernator’s backyard.

First, here’s the window seat looking out onto the small lake in the back. Every single other day the view was this (boo):

But this one day it was this (yay!):

And outside was this (whee!)

I was so delighted by the faint warm fiery ball in the sky I took pictures of everything. Here is a bucket of moles ornaments.

Here is the neighbor’s tree through their window.

Here’s Neenernator’s awesome grandma waving at the dumb tourist (me).

Here’s the fake egret the jerkface neighbors across the way have stuck in their lawn. It’s there because if an egret sees it, it will not come to this lake. One egret per water body. I said I would happily go over there and steal it but Neenernator’s mother said, “Don’t do that, they’ll know it was me.”

Okay, onto the trip to Prague. Neenernator and I decided to go to Prague for two days at the end of the Germany trip because, like me, Neenernator loves bones. Lots and lots of bones. The Ossuary of Sedlec is in Prague and it’s got 40,000 dead people decorating the space so that was a no-brainer. We thought it would be super-funsies to take the overnight train. When I was in Africa as a child I used to adore sleeping on the train. That would be great! Here’s what happened: you know how everybody says that no matter Germany’s flaws, at least the trains always run on time? That is a LIE. Neenernator booked us a train from Bremen to Dortmund. We then had 35 minutes to catch an all-night train from Dortmund to Prague. Easy, right? Except our train from Bremen to Dortmund was an hour late, meaning we missed our connection. We intended to be in Prague by 10:00 a.m. and the next all-nighter train got us into Prague at 3:00 in the afternoon, basically killing a whole day. By the way, I’m compressing hours and hours of drama here. Neenernator arguing with the attendant in the various train stations, us hopping into a cab in an attempt to drive down the Autobahn at 200 kilometers an hour to make the train (that did not work), us sitting forlornly on the freezing outdoor train platform for a million years at 11:30 at night, etc. It was the opposite of a good time. Here is Neenernator posing with all our luggage.

One thing on the platform I did like: they have a map of the train and there’s a string down the map so you know what car will be directly in front of you when the train pulls in. So if you have seats in car 3, you can figure out where car 3 will be. Anticipating. It’s a plus. Metro-North, take note.

Eventually we made it to Dortmund at about 1:00 in the morning. I fell asleep mournfully. At 4:30 a.m. (for those of you bad at math, that would be a lovely 3.5 hours night’s sleep) Neenernator woke me up. “Hey,” she said, her laptop illuminating her face. “Why don’t we fly to Prague? There’s a flight out of Frankfurt that gets us there at 11:00 a.m. You okay with that?” “Hell yeah I’m okay with that,” I said. “Great,” Neenernator said. “Get up. We need to catch the 5:00 a.m. train to the Frankfurt Airport. Let’s go.” We grabbed our luggage and dragged it down the streets to the main train station where we went to the Frankfurt Airport. While we were on the train Neenernator bought the plane tickets using her phone and that is why she is my hero. My adult approach to this travel debacle would be to slump to the ground and cry, but not Neenernator. She keeps cool in all situations. Hero forever. We got to the airport with about a half-hour to spare. They had already started boarding. It’s important for you to know that the Frankfurt Airport is HUGE. It’s a major European hub. We arrived at the bottom of this weird plant-shaped map where the train tracks are.

And where was our flight leaving from? That is correct, B20. At the exact opposite end of this building the size of a village. And it’s a ziggy-zaggy building meaning we went on, no joke, over ten escalators with all that luggage. And Neenernator was pregnant. The whole thing was a nightmare.

We finally arrived at Security, sweaty and exhausted and punchy where it is made abundantly clear that we packed anticipating train travel, not plane travel. Meaning all manner of beverages were in our backpacks and random nail clipper-like items were shoved into pockets, etc. It didn’t help that our security guy was a total douche. I had purchased a large ocean jasper stone that I had hastily put into my handbag and this security guard decided this was an ideal time to hassle me about this rock. “Are you intending to use this as a weapon?” he asked (douchily). I said, “Yes. On you. Right now. Enough already. I’m going to miss my flight*.” Thankfully he realized I was not a threat and we made it to our plane just in time where we had the delightful opportunity to stand on the tarmac in the rain during boarding. How this looks was how I felt.

But we made it. We made it, guys! And I got the opportunity to take a two-hour nap on the plane. Such a glorious glorious nap. Before I fell asleep I caught a glimpse of the seat in front of me and realized this dope pun.

All you beer aficionados, please note: This is not regular Budweiser. That would not fly in the capital of beers, Prague. This is a special Budweiser that is brewed in the outskirts of Prague because we are talking about a people who drink absinthe with hemp seeds in it. They will not tolerate the yellowish seltzer we call beer in this country. You don’t even hallucinate with our stuff!

Next post: Prague Prague Prague.

*That is 100% true, what I said to him. I said it loudly and aggressively. It is a miracle I didn’t get detained.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, Tasty 'n' Delicious, Travels - I Has Them | No Comments »

Germany, Part 4.

Wednesday, January 21st, 2015

Before we continue on with my German Christmas, let’s look at some things I came across while driving in the countryside with Neenernator.

Trees! They line all the roads. They’re big. And old. It’s pretty awesome.

Look children, look at this remnant from the past. This is a movie rental store. See, you go here where a monk is standing behind the counter. Then you rent a DVD and he scribes on a piece of parchment with his quill which movie has been tooken out. At some point Gutenberg will show up and show the monk how to use a printing press but it hasn’t happened yet, so he still quillin’. You watch it at home and then when you’re done watching it you bring it back. This particular video store doesn’t even an after-hours slot, you actually have to come back when the store is open to give the movies back. The monk needs to be in attendance! A slot is too advanced!* Neenernator told me that TV is Germany is lame-o, therefore people rent movies. Not gonna lie, it was really fun. It made me feel like I was back in college.

Various barns around the area. Many of them have biblical sayings over the door. Neenernator has a barn on her property and she’s an atheist, so we decided that we should paint a saying over her big barn doors in that blackletter calligraphy but instead of being from the Bible it would say, “Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.”

It’s very windy in this area so there are those industrial windmills all over the place. However, in addition, there are old cutey-patootie windmills! I saw one from a distance in Bremen.

But Neenernator, being the consummate host, found me a windmill I could walk right up to. And hug, which is precisely what I did. They had taken the fins off the mill for the season but I was still delighted. I hugged a windmill, y’all!

So, the day before Christmas after we had explored most of the villages in the area of Ottersberg we went to the gigantic shopping mall called Dodenhof to wander around and allow me to see what a gigantic German shopping mall looks like. It’s pretty great. It’s like the best qualities of Ikea combined with Restoration Hardware and Trader Joe’s and a million other stores. You know how you occasionally hear about people living in a Wal-Mart for a month or whatever? I don’t know if I would do that, but I sure as hell would live in Dodenhof for an extended period of time.

The entrance we went in (there are a ton of entrances because this place is the size of Lichtenstein) was the furniture department where Neenernator and I were greeted by some of the most awesomely garish living room set-ups I have ever seen in my life. I have a very limited knowledge of Germans and their interior designing tastes, but based on the living rooms I’ve seen they tend to go sensible, well-made and in neutral colors. I didn’t want to make assumptions based on the three German houses I’ve been in so I turned to Neenernator and said, “Who… buys these?” She was flummoxed. She said, “No Germans I know.”

On top of being wildly vibrant, these couches were huge, like room-sized beds. Neenernator insisted I sit on a side chair. You’ll note that I look uncomfortable like a perched bird and that is because the chair was six inches wide so only about one half of one butt cheek fits on the seat part. Seriously, though, never mind the Germans – who on this planet buys these things? It’s uncomfortable, expensive, hard to clean, etc.

We eventually ambled out of the furniture section into the light fixture section (I wanted many, many things but thankfully our plugs are different here in the U.S. so I could buy nothing). Then next part we entered was the grocery section. It was enormous, the size of a supermarket here. They sold all of the items you can imagine, but this being Europe they also sold alcohol. Remember the feurzengenbowles from the first German vacation post? Dodenhof had a kit so you can make them at home. Neenernator got one. There’s a little metal clamp you attach to the side of the mug to hold the cone of brown sugar that you set on fire and pour the wine and rum over. It’s hardcore.

Outside the grocery store there was a full-size Lego Santa with reindeer that some kids were posing on.

And a forest tableau populated by Steiff animals, one of which was a large huggable cuddly wild boar, about three feet long and two feet tall. I wanted him, but Neenernator pointed out that it was probably $1,000 so maybe not. I took pictures of him, though.

On the top floor, that was the piece de resistance – the food court. It was glorious. As you enter all you see is the gelato counter. They ain’t playin’ at the gelato counter.

Then, off to the side was the actual food area and that’s all well and good, but beyond that was the dessert bar. The magical, magical dessert bar.

You see that? That there’s Jello. And in the middle, that’s the most wondrous substance in existence. Custard. You may think that’s the light from the ceiling illuminating the custard, but I prefer to think it is a halo bequeathed by the Lord on a dessert item plucked directly from the Garden of Eden.

I got myself a dinner, a basic, no-frills dinner. A basic, no-frills dinner was THE BIGGEST HOT DOG EVER, some curry sauce, french fries and a salad. Neenernator got a salad and a kiwi juice. It was meat-licious meal.

The next day was Christmas Eve which is the day that Germans open their presents. Neenernator’s family is not even the slightest bit religious so we had a lovely secular day. We went to see Frozen in German, the sing-a-long edition. I warned everyone repeatedly beforehand that I would be singing along in English. I did, doing complete hand gestures to accompany the emotions. I can now say I know what “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” in German sounds like (it sounds like this).

When Frozen was over, we returned to the homestead to wait for lasagna. I watched German television. It was a game show where Irish musicians played bagpipes, fifes and drums and then contestants guessed if they were wearing underpants beneath their kilts. After filling up on lasagna (bechamel sauce instead of ricotta, OMG) we made our way over to the tree to open presents. We had to roll two die and whoever rolled the highest number got to open their present. It’s a good technique, keeps things moving. We needed to keep things moving because there were a ton of presents.

Post-present-opening we had more food because why not? I don’t have gout quite yet, let’s go out with inflamed toes. It was dessert – baked apples, cored, with melted gingerbread cookies in the middle. I haven’t been to many Christmas dinners but I think I can say this was a great one. Mellow, pleasant, lots of deliciousness and chatting and general friendliness. Good stuff.

The next day, Christmas Day, we went to the spa. If this sounds like no big deal, you don’t understand the magnitude of this. We went, as a family, to the spa for five hours. We brought towels and books and slippers and drinks, it was a massive undertaking. The spa we went to, Oase Spa, was in a built originally as a waterpark under a giant glass dome but all the screaming children’s voices reverberated off the hard surfaces and the dome and it was achingly loud. So, because it had all the pipes and whatnot, they changed it to a quiet peaceful spa. Where everyone is naked all the time. I’ll repeat that: where both men and women wander around with no garments covering their components. I can now say, between Burning Man and this, I have seen all the penii and scrotaa and boobery that I ever need see. I have a wonderful range of knowledge about them now, I’m good for the rest of my existence.

When we arrived we picked out lawn chairs on the second level and Neenernator showed me around. There’s indoor sections, there’s outdoor sections, it covers a lot of terrain. Because Neenernator is “with child” she could only go in the most temperate of saunas and steamrooms and thank God for that because I did not want to experience the extreme rooms. The cooler ones were pretty hot, thanks ever so much. Here’s where germaphobes and people with social anxiety will need to close their eyes for a while: there are signs with the pour schedules and they say things like, “11:00 a.m. in Himalayan Salt Room. Cedarwood pour and gong. 12:30 in Nordic Sauna. Wildberry scrub.” We went to the Himalayan Salt Room for the Cedarwood pour and gong (whatever the hell that was) and slowly I realized that everyone was showing up for this. Meaning small portions of my naked sweating self was up against other people’s naked sweating selfs. It could not be avoided. Luckily I totally do not care, but a typical American would have burst into flames. BTW, the Cedarwood Pour involved pouring cedarwood-scented water over the coals and then fanning the yummy steam over our faces and bodies with a giant fan, and the Gong was… a gong. That was rung several times, I imagine to increase the soothing nature of the activity.

Post-sauna you are encouraged to sit quietly in a normal temperature and recover for about forty-five minutes while drinking a ton of water. I brought a book and Neernernator snuck a photo of me with her phone. Don’t worry, I’m wearing a robe.

Neenernator had booked me a massage, something with hot foam and I’m down for whatever so off I went with her mother for our tandem hot foam massages. First we got all nekkid and laid down on our personal marble tables, like Cold Stone Creamery but warm. Then the nice masseuse lady assigned to me scrubbed my entire body with a mitten made of cat hair. (It felt like cat hair. It looked like cat hair. Tell me different.) Following the scrubbing the masseuse did something interesting: she filled a nylon bag the size of a pillowcase, similar to the kind rice is sold in, with hot water and soap. Then she waved it in the air several times and squoze the hot foam created all over me. She did this over and over until I was completely covered. Lemme tell you something. Here, lean in, this is important. It feels amazing to be covered in hot foam. Seriously. So so good. You know what doesn’t feel so good? When the nice masseuse lady reaches through the foam and attempts to rip your body apart like bread to feed the ducks. At one point she put all her weight on her elbow which she dug into my spine and dragged down the length of my back. I thought she was trying to fracture a rib. The whole next day I felt like I had been hit across the back with a stool in a bar fight. It was brutal. I think my hands were shaking because at one point she asked if I was alright. I was honest with her, “I’m… fine, I’m no hero, I can handle this, I can’t hide that it hurts so much.” “Well,” she responded matter-of-factly, “At least you know you have muscles now.” When she had massaged me completely from head to toe (she washed my hair so she could massage my scalp), the masseuse told me to sit up, put one hand on my heart and the other on my stomach and then she threw a bucket of cold water on me. I would have imagined I would have screamed or something but… nope. It felt jarring but okay. I think my body was so grateful she was no longer acting like there was a dinosaur buried in my flesh and she was a paleontologist with a shovel that it didn’t care cold water was being chucked at me. After that she gave me a glass of apple tea and sent me back to my lawn chair to chill out for another hour or so. Now the sun was setting so they turned on these lovely interior lights. Neenernator snuck a shot of that too. She’s a good friend.

We went to one final sauna (it was packed, they gave us honey to smear on ourselves and then blasted us in the face with steam), we returned home looking like shiny pink piggies. The Oase really took it out of us so hey, let’s have another feast! This time it was fondue. I made myself useful peeling vegetables and setting the table and all that, and then we all settled in to eat three different kinds of meat that had been boiled in oil.

After filling up on delicious meats (and three different dipping sauces!) Neenernator and I packed because we were going to catch an overnight train to Prague. I say “was going to” because we did not, and I will delve into that joyous bullhorse in the next entry.

* It wasn’t really a monk, it was a middle-aged lady with an unfortunate bleach job, but it’s such a blast from the past I felt the need to go all 1100 A.D. on it.

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Two important items.

Friday, November 28th, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope it was a delicious and filled with good company. Two things came to my attention recently: first, there’s this special owl. He was found in the forest and now he lives on a stump in a wildlife center office. His eyes are filled with vitreous gloop (as all eyes are) but he lacks a cornea or retina, so he’s blind. And this owl has strings running through his eyeball goo. All of this leads to making this owl’s eyes look like galaxies. He’s a tiny magical owl. His name is Zeus and I am mildly obsessed with him.

And, wonderfully, people are making art inspired by Zeus. Because, in case you didn’t catch it, he’s a tiny magical owl. Who can maybe see into the future. It’s nice to see I’m not the only one who thinks Zeus is THE KEY TO THE UNIVERSE.

The other thing I noticed recently was television’s inability to learn from mistakes. I’ll explain. There has been a glut of redneck reality programming in the last few years and almost every show has had a tragic flaw. There was “Duck Dynasty” where one of the members of the family said some hateful, small-minded things. There was that show on MTV with the teenagers in West Virginia, I think it was called “Buckwild”. One of the teens died from carbon monoxide poisoning in a truck. There’s “Gypsy Sisters” which also films in West Virginia and where one of the cast members was caught stealing almost $15,000 of merchandise from a Target store. And, of course, there’s the recent “Here Comes Honey BooBoo” situation which is deplorable. I would think at this moment the cable channels would look into another area of society to mine for reality shows, but I realized I was incorrect. I’m not exaggerating, when I first saw this I thought it was a parody or a joke of some sort.

http://youtu.be/TDr_AiVzOTc

I’m kind of disgusted with myself, but how badly do you want to see this show? I want to watch it mainly for that little kid. I hope nothing bad happens on this show due to poor judgement of the people portrayed. Between running a funeral home and wrasslin’ for funsies there’s so many ways for this to go horribly wrong and I would like it if they could somehow navigate this quagmire of potential catastrophes and come out okay on the other side. That would be just great.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, The Telly | No Comments »

Rhinebeck Sheep ‘n’ Wool Festival 2014.

Thursday, October 30th, 2014

I went this year! It was great. I drove up with my sister K. because she is a super-talented knitress and as opposed to me who goes for the sheep-petting, she actually goes to buy yarn like a normal person. This is some of her work:

Yeah. She’s amazing. Anyway, we went up and I saw some excellent work. I considered walking up to several people wearing beautiful handmade sweaters/shawls/gloves/etc. and thanking them for making and sharing these wonderful pieces with the world, but then I decided that that would be way too weird even for me, even for the RSnWF. And let me tell you the RSnWF can get mighty weird. One example that immediately comes to mind is when I walked up to a woman, a professional woman, a woman manning a booth filled with wooly products for sale. She had a two-year-old child sitting on the counter in front of her and while this woman was talking to a client the child pulled up her shirt and was nursing from one of her breasts while finger-playing with the other nipple. All of her goods and services were hanging out into the great wide open and I mentally shut down. It was like seeing a griffin*. I’m all for breastfeeding but this was waaaaaaay too much. I think I got boobPTSD from that experience. My point is that one could walk up to a stranger at the festival and compliment their knittery without being the oddest thing that happens to them that day. BY A LOT.

We hit up a couple of specific shops K. wanted to purchase products from, one of which was Fiber Optic. They sell yarn groupings that gradually change from one color to another so you can make ombre-type scarfs. I LURVE me some ombre so I loitered outside their booth staring at the examples they had pinned up. So good.

Other neat things I saw at the RSnWF: this sweater.

This shorn roving with pictures of the sheepies that it was shorned from which makes me want to buy this fleece even though it’s probably greasy (lanolin) and I have zero use for it.

The truth was I did end up buying some roving because I have a very special project in mind. Let’s start at the beginning. When my friend Ness turned 30 she and a bunch of her chums went to New Orleans to celebrate what she called her Dirty Thirty. At this exact time a hurricane had passed through the delta and drowned thousands of nutria (a giant South-American rat) and these nutria corpses were washing up on the beaches. I could not stop talking about it. So, in order to make Ness’ trip even more memorable, every time she would post something on Facebook I would comment with something about nutria. No context, no explanation. Every time.

Then I started photoshopping her pictures.

I was shocked she didn’t come back and stab me in the face with a collectible plastic margarita glass shaped like a fleur de lis. I honestly expected the stabbing but I still couldn’t stop myself. Now Ness is getting married in May and the wedding is going to be in New Orleans, her reasoning being “it’s equally inconvenient from people on both the East and West Coast.” I cannot let this opportunity pass. I am making myself a Southern church-going hat to wear to the wedding and on top (you guessed it) will be a six-inch nutria doll made of felt. In order to make this felted nutria I bought some brown roving from a llama (no lanolin so naturally dry and clean) with tiny sparkly threads woven in. It’s going to be glorious. Get ready.

*”Is that half eagle, half lion? What’s going on with its front legs? I have so many questions and I cannot physically stare hard enough at this.”

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, My Art/Design/Business, Nature, New York, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff | No Comments »

Bugs be TRIPPIN’.

Monday, September 29th, 2014

Before we get into nature being unnecessarily disturbing recently, we will address the “compliment” I got yesterday. In case you were unaware, I cut off a goodly portion of my hair and donated it, and I decided to dye the remaining hair purple, it looks sort of like this:

So yesterday I was walking along the High Line, that park made on abandoned train tracks in New York, where I saw a bucket drummer and I gave him some change. He stopped playing, turned to me and said, “Thank you Beautiful, who does your hair?” And I was all, “Gosh, thanks, I do it myself,” and he said, “You know which movie star you look like?” and I was all, “Which movie star?” (take a moment to appreciate how well this is all going, that’s gonna end momentarily) and he said, “Who’s that actress who kidnaps a writer and keeps him prisoner in her house?”

“That would be Kathy Bates in Misery,” I said.

Yup, you look just like her in that movie,” he said.

Yaaaaaay.

Don’t get me wrong, I happen to think Kathy Bates is a damn fine-looking woman:

HOWEVER, in that film they did everything in their power to make her look frumpy and plain, so, yeah, not a compliment really. Gonna not take that one, thanks though.

Alright. Onto insects being unacceptable. Did y’all see that article that made my skin crawl across the floor? The one about the guest room? And the wasps? UUUUGGHGGHHHGHGHHH.

http://jezebel.com/thousands-of-wasps-found-living-in-womans-home-1627843820

Some of the comments are golden. Here are a few of my favorites:

I bet that was awful. Try to imagine: thousands of them, nesting on that bed, telling stories about their days on the Harvard rowing team and complaining about the Hamptons running out of rosé.

The only time in my life I legit fainted was when I called an exterminator to my house to investigate a tiny hole in the siding where I had seen a few wasps flying in and out. I stood outside beneath the wee hole while the dude climbed up a ladder and poked around a bit, shined a light in the hole, etc. He came down and said, very matter-of-factly, “Yeah, you got about 50,000 yellow jackets in there. Surprised they haven’t chewed through the –” ::THUNK::

It’s weird how everything around the nest looks so crisp and clean and normal and then in the center is this crazy hell portal.

Look, I know that people are BUSY these days. But the fact that nobody even opened the goddamn door to that room for three whole months is nuts! NUTS! Does nobody else in this godforsaken world do a full house spot-check for serial killers every night before they go to bed?

I know you’re all thinking, one horrific insect-related thing does not hysteria make, but then Cricket was walking through the forest when he saw a weird dark spot on the ground and a thin layer of white fur on the tree branch above. So, being of an exploratory nature, he tapped the white fur with his walking stick and the WHITE FUR GOT AGITATED AND STARTED WAVING AT HIM WHY

http://youtu.be/BA7F-wosu0w

Turns out the dark spot on the ground was the white puffs’ poops. Does anyone know what the hell those are? Here’s a close-up photo if that helps.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, New York | 1 Comment »

Looking a gift horse DIRECTLY in the mouth.

Wednesday, July 9th, 2014

The Moomins recently returned from a trip to Africa where she spent a month hanging out with relatives and friends. One of those relatives, my Auntie Bo, works for WIZO, the Women’s International Zionist Organization. It was created mainly to help women in Israel and according to the WIZO Wikipedia page:

Today, WIZO runs 180 day care centers in Israel, caring for 14,000 children of working mothers, new immigrants and needy families. The organization also runs summer camps, courses for single-parent families and therapeutic frameworks for children removed from their homes by court order.

That’s nice. Anyway, my aunt runs a chapter in Johannesburg and they have auctions to raise money. A woman in Africa passed away and left the contents of her home for WIZO to auction off. The Moomins was assisting Auntie Bo, organizing the stuff into piles when another lady came over with a puzzled expression on her face. “What are these?” she asked. The Moomins said, “Oh, those are penis shields.” Indigenous men in Africa would wear penis shields to prevent irritation from the rough animal skin pelt skirts. You don’t want to chafe. Now that Western clothing with underpants is more common penis shields have fallen out of popularity, but these were vintage ones from the 60s. “Who would want them?” the woman asked. “You know, my daughter would*,” The Moomins responded. So, when she came back and I said, “Hey, didja bring me anything cool?” thinking I would get something made out of wire or a piece of pottery, she presented me with not one, but two penis shields. A plethora of penis shields! Hooray! You can’t have just one! I didn’t know what to do. Despite what you may think my entire apartment is tastefully appointed, no art with any sexuality of any kind. I do not want these in my home. I cannot decide which drawer I will shove them in to try to forget about them. I insisted my father hold a shield in each hand so I could take a photo. He’s trying to smile but he’s actually saying, “What am I holding right now and why?”

In keeping with this vaguely sub-gartelian theme, I was asked by a gay co-worker for some signs to hold when he walked in the Gay Pride Parade. He is part of a gay outdoor adventure group. He gave me some witty and naughty catchphrases that he wrote (puns abound, y’all) and I designed a variety of posters based on them. I went to their Facebook page and researched all the places the group had traveled to (one was called Gaylordsville which is ridiculous, c’mon now) and used them as background images for the signs. I think they turned out great. Head’s up: some of these are a bit rough-and-tumble so don’t look at them if your workplace is uncool.

*NO I WOULD NOT.

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Kitchen countertop is painted!

Tuesday, July 1st, 2014

I hunkered down and got some work done this weekend because I am running out of patience. I want to stop washing my dishes in the bathtub. It’s been months. I’m 100% over it. So I spent all weekend painting five fish (below is an example, first the stencil and then with highlights and lowlights added):

And highlights on any part of the circles intersecting.

I also laid out where all the pebble tiles are going to go. Now I need to glue down all the tiles, grout them and then finally – FINALLY!! – I can pour the resin and then call in plumbers in winnipeg to attach the sink and dishwasher. And then everything in my apartment will be washed and I shall rejoice. Call Rare Breed Plumbing for professional plumbing services in Bountiful & Sandy, Utah. If you want to be a plumber, then there are many plumbing certification programs you can take.

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Movie reviews.

Monday, June 2nd, 2014

Ugh, what a terrible two-week chunk. I worked a 36-hour day and it screwed up my sleep cycle for many days after. It was not a good time. However, in and around these weeks of three simultaneous pitches I managed to see a few movies I would like to discuss. But first, did you know there were IRIDESCENT HOLOGRAPHIC-TYPE SNAKES??? WHY WAS I NOT NOTIFIED OF THIS NATURAL PHENOMENA???

Holy crap, that is awesome. If I had one of those I would stare at it all day. Happy happy rainbow snake for me to love and pet and call George.

Okay, sorry, movies. I saw Paranorman! And it was surprisingly good! I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I know I’m supposed to like Tim Burton movies but I just don’t. Visually they’re excellent but plot-wise I find them perpetually lacking. After Frankenweenie and The Nightmare Before Christmas I felt like the spooky-ooky stop-motion animation children’s movie bed had been made but I was pleasantly proven wrong. Paranorman has a plot! It’s a decent plot, too. The animation is fun and sassy and creative. I do have to say that it is a scary movie. Like, if I was thirteen this would scare the pants off of me. If you’re not keen on zombies or creepy angry little girls with demon powers then this might not be the movie for you. I mainly saw it because A) it was streaming on Netflix and B) I saw this preview in the theater when I went to see Frozen (ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THAT DAMN SONG, I’M SICK OF IT) and was immediately smitten. I have no idea if the movie is good but I have higher hopes now that I’ve seen Paranorman.

http://youtu.be/1y8E7xJ6MX

I saw 20 Feet From Stardom. It’s a documentary about background singers. I know that sounds possibly uninteresting, but no, it was a compelling film. I loved it. There’s not much I can tell you about it because it doesn’t really have a story line. It’s basically these different people, mostly women, talking about how their love of music began and who they sang with and where they are now. It won Best Documentary at the Oscars this year. I think it is also streaming on Netflix right now. You should check it out.

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Countertop test.

Wednesday, May 14th, 2014

After much deliberation I came up with a look for my backsplash and countertop. If you remember correctly I originally planned to have giant goldfish as my backsplash.

I loved that design, but after I went to Japan I was convinced to go with a less strident look. Now I’m thinking I’m going to do ferns and make the countertop look like a pond. Right now it’s bare plywood so I would spackle and sand it, then paint it and then pour resin all over it. Cricket wisely suggested that before I go all gung-ho on the real thing I should buy a sample piece of plywood and test out all my techniques beforehand. Wise man, that Cricket. I bought a 2′ x 4′ plywood panel and painted it to resemble the pond-y vibe I am going for. Ignore the green dots on the edges – I was trying to make duckweed and failed.

Pond ripples! Cool, huh? I did that by printing out giant concentric circles, laying acetate over the circles and using a soldering iron to cut out those little islands that comprise the dark part of the ripples. I only burned myself twice, which is pretty darn good in my book. Stencils, they are a lifesaver, I tell you. I tap-tap-tapped the dark islands onto the blue background and then free-handed the light parts. And, if you pay attention, you will notice I recycled my backsplash fish. I used them as a guide to make the ghost-fish you see off to the right there. I might make a ghost-bullfrog too, I’m not sure yet.

Last night (because it was warm and the website I bought the resin from said you should pour it when it’s not cold otherwise it won’t cure properly) I followed the directions and slathered the board with a painted coat of resin, followed by a flood coat of resin four hours later. Here, a video to explain my journey. I’ve watched it more times than necessary. I find it hypnotic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIGV5qugAqg

The first thing I noticed (other than resin is sticky and gets everywhere) is that the middle tones went really dark. The fish almost disappeared except for the highlights on their fins. Gotta take that into consideration. The resin situation did not go smoothly from the start. I mixed up a batch and poured it onto the board. Due to my stellar mathematical skills it did not cover the correct amount. Not even close. Sooooo I mixed up a second batch exactly the same way. However, for some reason this batch was chock-full of tiny bubbles, making it look opaque. I poured it on the unresin-ed half and you could clearly see the edge where the good pour and the frothy pour met. It looked God-awful. I was sad and disappointed. I covered one corner in corn starch to see what kind of look that would be. Maybe it would give it a cool matte finish (corn starch is known to do that to resin.) Then I forlornly went to bed. I woke up the next morning to tentatively check on my resin-blargh.

Huh. Everything seemed to work itself out. Wow. Look at that. No seam, the bubbles ebbed, it looks pretty cool. I will wash away the corn starch and see what that looks like. Even though it cost me about eighty bucks in supplies I’m delighted that I did a test board because I learned so much. Alright. Next to spackle forty-some-odd square feet of real countertop.

Update 5/18/2014: The corn starch looks not that great. I can’t just pour it on, I would need to get a sifter or something to evenly distribute a fine dusting. So that idea shall be scrapped. Shiny surface it is.