Merry Chrismas!

This year has been a gift, more so than anything else. I am so thankful :}

For You and You and You

Meow!

How Do You Eat a Persimmon?

I am wondering.

Also, Christy-Anne, I miss you --

Daisy

The blurry furry with green eye(s) is one half of the cat population at my parent's house. She is very good as keeping one company when one is sick and in bed. Tonight, I had the dizzies and a strange bout of nausea (hello, Seattle, round two? Odd). Arthur did his best, which meant the foot of the bed, reluctantly. While I appreciate his efforts and know for a non-snuggling cat there was a great deal of love and concern involved, I miss me a little Daisy-bug side lap purring and whirring.

Zing

Yesterday was the first time in my entire life that I have eaten fresh cranberries. They remind me of the candy called War Heads. I am now popping them like the fifth grade version of myself popped lemon War Heads.

From Our Adventure/ ( From A While Ago )

Arthie, Corn, Nibbles

I forgot that I lived in Florida for a minute

I didn't miss central air conditioning as much as I miss central heat. We have three space heaters to nine hundred square feet, and this ratio is not working as well as I had hoped it would for my blue toes and poor circulation. I feel every particle of air getting in, through the cracks in the windows, the small gaps in the floor, the pinprick holes in the wall. I feel the 1954-ness of here.

I went into Chamblin's Bookmine the other day, my first time, despite living in Jacksonville for three years. Besides getting a bunch of books for R. and my brother for the yuletide holiday time, I found a book of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry, the original German and translated English versions. I am thinking of, as perhaps a New Years resolution, attempting to speak it again, inspired in part by the beauty of Rilke's words that don't transfer well into English but also by the surprising amount of German customers that I speak with at the grocery store I work at in Mandarin. Here is my favorite poem of Rilke's thus far:

Du meine heilige Einsamkeit,
du bist so reich und rein und weit
wie ein erwachender Garten.
Meine heilige Einsamkeit du -
halte die goldenen Türen zu,
vor denen die wünsche warten.

I'm Here

Just nothing blog worthy or creative happening lately ;}

Really Bad and Terribly Funny

Our HD digital antenna picks up, among a plethora of church channels and the local news, two channels that play quite the array of movies and television shows. I've recently watched Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine and, on Halloween weekend, The Brain that Wouldn't Die with R. (Not to mention Night Rider, hah!) I find myself strangely enjoying the stilted acting and the highly exaggerated gender roles.

In other news, I've been a busy bee training at my new job! It's tough just because the sheer volume of seasonal shoppers, but I really like the company, everyone I've met and all the strange new fruits and vegetables I learn about every day :} What a great feeling, being excited and motivated to go in to work, and having not only all my co workers but customers who are a wealth of knowledge, too!

Saturday Night, Live

+ sniffles and two whole tissue boxes, sheesh
+ twerk! and being plunged back in suddenly, doubly, but happily/gratefully
+ SNL and doing the dishes late with my Love - small pleasures
+ can't wait to get back to practicing yoga (here, perhaps!)
+ vintage book covers = ooh la

A Tuesday, Who Would Have Thought?

Despite my slightly sick-ish sniffles, today ended up being lovely and surprising.

Rudo Prekop/ The Porcupine

Obligatory Cat Post

(1. Glamour shots by Deb, or, Arthur with his eyes made wonky, 2. My two favorite creatures sleeping, 3. A modern interpretation of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller', as performed by Arthur)

Recent Disasters

Our house flooded! This is what happens when one's neighbor takes sleeping pills but then wakes up at 4 in the morning to take a bath (but really isn't so awake after all). Yes, that is our fusebox that got wet. Yes, that is water beading off a hallway light with electrical currents running through it.. Joyous! Apartment living at its' finest! Luckily, though, nothing besides a small portion of our wood floors and drywall were damaged.

As if that didn't jolt us out of sleep that week, our bed frame breaking sure did. While R. and I were quite irate at the one hundred and twenty five dollar price tag a furniture repair shop quoted us (bump that, thanks Dad, you rock at fixing everything!), Arthur was in good spirits and happy to shortly have a new toy/scratching post/perch.

Outside Making Stuff

David, Lezzles (Leslie), Chopper and I had a nice afternoon sketching in Memorial Park a few weeks ago. Chopper, having poor hygiene, had an Indian Summer musk about him but we enjoyed his presence nonetheless.

I Think

I am going to learn how to build benches and make two for our kitchen table. I like benches in kitchens. It makes for elbow-ful eating with friends. (This is a good thing)

A

Chill tonic for the recent chill, if you will

The Most Mundane Dream in the History of the World:

Getting my split ends trimmed.

Oh, You Are Going to Vote Tomorrow?

Me too.

Halloweens

I've been so distracted lately, hello.

Holy Jeez Wow!!!

How did I not know about these two cat-related things floating around the interwebs?!?

+ The Catorialist

+ Dreamcats

Paper Roses

I forget where I found this image, but I think a paper rose garland would be fun to make for the upcoming holiday season.

Tomorrow --

My family is coming to visit!! I am so excited!

Beauty Berries in Water/ The Bruised Above

The Sky: I will get you.

Laura: I am going back inside now.

The Sky: I will get you forever, and the roof tops too.

Baby Trouble Bubble

Who needs a batting T? Not this kid.

Makes Me Want to Dance

Sweet Tooth

So, my mom is amazingly cool and surprised me by sending three vegan sweets themed cookbooks in the mail. MOM YOU ARE FABULOUS! Also fabulous are the recipes. Ohmylanta, I've only dug in to Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, but I can't wait to try out recipes from the others! A huge hit in our house were the chocolate chip cookies (photos 2 and 3), but peanut butter blondies (photo 4, before going in to the oven) were a close second. The last photo is of a banana bread in muffin form from the Post Punk Kitchen's recipe archive, which I've blogged about before on my old cooking blog. An oldie but a goodie. We had an impromptu party Friday night and everyone, even that one boy terrified of the word 'vegan', declared the mufins "pretty good".

Diebenkorn

(Colors.)

Coffee As Hair Dye

1. Coffee hair
2. Results
3.) Mabes a smidge?

I haven't dyed my hair in a year and three fourths. (Ought I get a cookie?) Listen. I had hair dye fever from eighteen on - pink, blue, yellow, orange, black, red, strawberry, you name it, I had it. Is this a remnant of my short-lived studded belt wearing phase? My affinity for the anime characters from Sailor Moon? My unintentional fulfilling of every stereotype of what an art student 'ought' to be? Not sure, guys and dolls. Regardless, I fried the holy bajeez out of my hair so that it's taken forever to grow out healthy and even worse, burned my scalp. So, when the hair dye fever set upon me one evening, in lieu of the ammonia, para-phenylenediamine, tetrahydro-6-nitroquinoxaline, coal tar, formaldehyde, and eugenol -- made up names for made up things -- I decided to dye my hair with some coffee. Brewed super duper dark. Cooled and rinsed multiple times into my hair in our lovely pink tile bath tub. While it didn't have the heft of those ratty chemicals, it did get a weensy bit browner while managing to bring out the blondey highlights a bit. It almost looks red in photos 2 and 3 which I believe is the result of the light bouncing off said pink tiles.. I plan on doing this once a week and observing the results. I've also switched to self made shampoo, lotion and face scrub, taking out those preservative, chemical laden things bit by small bit. Suck it, cancer givers. I don't wantcha.

House Shapes

(1. Plant in early morning light hitting the window, 2.) Wonderful-horrible curtain rod angle, thank you clumsy cat, 3.) Paper scrap/ sunshine scrap)

Yaguires

( 1. Arthur thinks 'for shame Potato-face Manning, for shame, such churlish ways!', 2. Little snuggle buggle getting cozy pants slash oh muh gawd whattagame slash way to bring it gents.)

So this is the game my boyfriend decides to give his season tickets away? To "hang out" with me? OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY, I SWEAR I WILL BEAR YOU BEAUTIFUL, HEALTHY CHILREN TO MAKE UP FOR THIS ATROCITY!(!!)

p.s. -- Beat the Bills this week. Seriously.

River City Gay Pride Parade

October 2nd, this past Saturday, the River City Gay Pride Parade cycled, stomped, danced and even roller skated through the streets of Riverside. While the long-faced officers of JSO held off traffic, Jesus, a handful of drag queens, individuals super psyched about their sexuality and more rainbows than I could ever count paraded their way from Metro to the Riverside Arts Market in the lovely gray of a Saturday afternoon. It was right around the corner from us and I watched with R's sister Erin (hi Erin! thanks for reading my blog!) pictured in the 8th photo down, rocking her gay pride flag. Erin and her fiancee Jess are having their commitment ceremony at the end of this month, congratulations girls :}