| Barn Wabi-Sabi |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|01:03 pm] |
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http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2009/11/barn-wabi-sabi.html 
Maybe on our next walk we'll ford the creek and poke around this gorgeous barn. We had miles to go, so we forged on.
The next barn was close to the road, and we dove into the detail on its old sides.
I'm not sure what this material originally was--rubberized cloth? but it had aged into a fascinating, fungal texture.
 Oh, I loved this sign. You can't make a sign like this. Time has to make it. Time, and some yahoos to shoot it for you.
There were some Herefords just across the fork. Chet was all a-tremble, but at almost five years old, he knows better than to go after them.
 No leash necessary, just a warning word. Good boy, Chet. Keep moving.
 Mether, someday I may go round those cattle up when you are not looking. But now you are looking. And you are right. I am not a cattle dog. I am a chiptymunk dog. Until someday when you are not looking.
A field daisy defies the frost. I can't remember seeing a fall with so many blooming daisies.
 Are you coming, Mether? Or are you going to crouch down by the flollers all day?
Yes, Chet Baker, but I have a few more flollers to crouch by. These milkweed pods will do nicely.
 It is tricky keeping the horizon straight when you're crouching. Or maybe I'm drunk on rural beauty. Or maybe it's that these barns are all off true by more than a few degrees. Everybody's staggering here.
 Not least me and Shila, at the end of the five or six miles. But there's more to come. We're only a quarter of the way up the road.
For those who are still wondering, wabi-sabi is a Japanese concept of beauty through age, weathering, imperfection, impermanence. It is a scarred and twisted bonsai, a wise and knowing face, a beat-up ballerina's foot, an old Ohio barn. |
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| LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|01:15 pm] |
The empire strikes backIn recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.
RSS feeds againIf you're addicted to , ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.
Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) c_s_i
If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.
Enveloped in postcardsLast week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.
Photos of the weekIf you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... ) |
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| The Best Things in Life... |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|01:56 pm] |
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http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2009/11/best-things-in-life.html  photo by Shila Wilson
As I think about this blog, it seems to me that much of its mission statement is holding true, even four years later. "I hope to show what happens when you make room in your life, every day, for the things that bring you joy. Strange--most of them are free."
Walking is free. Autumn is free. It's free to take a dog along; it's free to sit down and eat lunch under a pale lemon sun, free to take hundreds of photographs and sift through them. All these things take is time. But the joy that comes from one good hike in fall...priceless.
Shila and I couldn't wait to find out how bad the road got beyond where I almost got the Subaru stuck. We wanted to know whether we could have gotten through had I not dropped a wheel over a precipice. We were not to be disappointed.
I'll organize the post as the walk unfolded, so you feel as if you were along with us.
Chet Baker was stoked about the squirtle and chiptymunk possibilities. He got bizzy right off the bat. (Note his trim waistline. Subnote: I take better care of my dog than I do myself. Mmm, Almond Joy.)
Shila and I were stoked about the decrepit outbuilding possibilities.
 Being in a progressive state of decrepitude myself, I am fascinated by the process of decay as manifested in old barns and outbuildings. I love to imagine what's under their roofs. I love to wonder if there is some wonderful glassware or tools or one-lung engines. My dad didn't wonder--he waded right in and started throwing tin and boards aside. He carried a crowbar in the car for just such things. I got that gene, fer sure.
Traces of man were everywhere. But there were no men. Here's a mossy ladder, leading up the side of an oil storage tank that's probably been abandoned for 20 years.
 Dean's Fork rushed by, making little waterfalls, with shadders of minnows darting. Streams are called forks around here.
Two barns stood sentinel in a pasture still used by cattle. The late autumn tapestry made a beautiful backdrop.
Shila moved on ahead, the walking stick a wise bringalong in case we came upon any territorial dogs. (We didn't).
I wonder if this barn was made of chestnut, the dominant forest species before the blight. Many were, and it has wonderful longevity. Whatever the wood, the width of the boards merits a second and third glance. Beautiful.
Beautiful! She's leaning back into the hillside, taking a well-earned rest.
 Now, that is one I'd like to poke around in.
We watched the road as we walked, noticing that it got a little worse the farther we went.
We looked back upon the barns, loving the scene, loving the silence.
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| Illustration that packs a punch in the post |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|11:46 am] |
Freelance life can be tough. Long gaps between commissions. Accounts departments who just can't seem to find your invoice. Not to mention the ever-present need to get your work seen by the people who count.
Jonny Wan, a freelance illustrator from Sheffield, knows all about that. A graduate of the Manchester School of Art, he's constantly striving to ensure his unique illustrative style (think abstracted facial expressions, patterns, symmetry and hand-drawn lettering) snags the attention of creative directors everywhere – and he does so via Business Cards and Postcards from MOO.
( More ) |
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| A Room Crammed with Summer |
[Nov. 3rd, 2009|12:08 pm] |
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http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2009/11/room-crammed-with-summer.html  The Rex begonia "Looking Glass," from Ohio's own Glasshouse Works. Well, I got a plant there about five years ago, and this is probably its great-great-great-great-great grandchild.
It's only 9' across, maybe 12' high, not a lot bigger than a phone booth, but there is no other 9 x 12' space on the planet that brings me as much happiness as the Garden Pod.
I am a sentimental sort and seeing my plant friends die with the frost undoes me, even as I know I cannot haul them all inside for the winter. They wouldn't like it, I wouldn't like it, and the bugs would love it. If you scrutinize the photo above, you will see that I made an exception for the huge pot of Fuchsia "Gartenmeister Bonstedt" on the greenhouse floor. I just could not let it die. Later on in the winter, when it's loaded with whitefly, I'll leave it out in the snow for the polar bears, and nurture the two cuttings, already blooming, I've got going. But for now, it's got a home. This was the only plant I found for sale in 2008, and I found it many miles from my home near Dayton, and carried it over in the greenhouse. I didn't find it in '09, which mystifies me, since it is, in my and the hummingbirds' opinion, the best fuchsia in the universe. I have just finished a painting of it, in fact.
So I take cuttings in August and sometimes I take cuttings in October if the first August batch didn't root. My garden friend Nancy turned me on to vermiculite as a cutting medium and boy, what a difference. Vermiculite is free of the myriad molds and bacteria that plague potting soil, so cuttings have a fighting chance of throwing out roots before they rot. Everything I tried to root in the last October cutting harvest succeeded! Uh oh. I am definitely going to run out of room this winter. Here's one of the geranium cutting groups:
 Who needs a 10-foot high red mandevilla, loaded with aphids, when you can start a little cutting like this one?
 How dear of it to bloom. The nondescript looking plant in the white pot below it is the world's tiniest fuchsia, which just burst into teeny pink bloom today. Its flowers are no longer than a grain of rice, but perfect and sweet. It is a fussy plant that likes the greenhouse best. It threatens and threatens to die all summer long, as fuchsias will, and burgeons as soon as it gets in the moist heat of the Pod.
 Abutilon megapotamicum, a mallow from Africa that I love. All my cuttings rooted, uh oh. Big plant. Better be giving some away.
Geranium "Bolton," developed in a town next door to sister Barbara's in Massachusetts.
 One of two variegated bougainvilleas, zany plants that sulk outdoors all summer (not hot enough!) and bloom like crazy all winter in the greenhouse. Just when I need them most!
 A new hibiscus, one I saw at the grocery store late this summer and snapped up like a horticultural crocodile. Now I need a big ol' hibiscus like a hole in the head but that COLOR. Please. Tangerine. Never seen it before, hadda have it. I do love my mallows.
 It makes me smile and holler. Meanwhile, Mary Alice the hibiscus tree is taller than I am, with a 2" thick trunk, and she's in the living room. A cutting of Mary Alice is blooming for the first time today in the greenhouse. Nancy rooted it for me, in case Mary Alice goes south. And so it goes, on and on. Plants are banks of precious DNA, which you can split off and propagate and downsize and start over indefinitely. That's one of the reasons I find gardening so satisfying.
It's probably illegal to propagate this brand-spanking new tangerine hibiscus. No kidding, plant growers are patenting everything as they bring it out. Pah. I am a notorious scofflaw where plant propagation is concerned. Come and get me, lock me up. A plant this good should be spread around.
Time to water! Gotta go! Nothing like a warm, humid greenhouse on a dreary winter day. If you've even been thinking about getting yourself one, just do it. And you, too, can face the first frost without dread, and cackle when you open the door on your little room crammed full of summer. |
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| Halloween in Marietta, Part 2 |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|01:35 pm] |
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http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2009/11/halloween-in-marietta-part-2.html I stood slack-jawed at the adorability: A baby skunk, doling out candy for the revelers, and almost bringing me to tears for the echoes of toddler Phoebe she conjured up.
Her mother confessed, "I keep weeping, she's so sweet, and she takes it all so seriously, making sure everyone gets a piece of candy."
I had to use flash on her, just to try to capture those apple cheeks. But oh, I love shooting without flash, and seeing what happens.
The images got progressively spookier as it got darker.
 something about the blur makes Liam look like a toddler...going back in time, as Phoebe morphs into the real Hobbes, or Krazy Kat...
 They meet up with their wonderful Granny and GeePop, who always put on the dog for trick-or-treaters, with the scarily realistic and locally famous Witch of Warren Street taking over for Elsa as GeePop plays spooky arpeggios on the organ just inside the parlor.
A zomb0-lantern
My favorite jack-o-lantern of the night. His wife says he always carves the same one, every year, and she's tired of it. I'm not! I made sure he knew that I thought it was brilliant. It's so...hopeless.
 Our jack-o-lanterns at home. Liam's design, Bill's pig, and Phoebe and my zombie hamster.
Counting out the loot with cousin Gus.
 Now that's scary!
I'll leave you with some of my favorite captures from Halloween night.
 You had to go up on this porch and get your candy corn. There was nobody there, just the house's eyes staring out at you. Eeeee!
I loved this cat on this porch, and I caught Liam in the porch light.
 And then something really weird happened, and Liam became something Other, something slumping off Goon Island.
 It was a magical night. And it smelled so delicious. |
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| Halloween '09 |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|06:39 pm] |
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http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2009/11/halloween-09.html  Oh, it was a lovely evening, after all. It was as if the saints all smiled at once, parted the clouds, stopped the rain, and let the children play.
 Calvin and Hobbes, ready to go!
Halloween's weather did not bode well for us. It poured all morning, never got out of the 50's, and the forecast was dire: rain, with a low of 38. Yow. Phoebe with a scratchy throat and full sinuses, Liam with a fervent desire not to ruin his costume with a coat...a mom's dilemma. We multilayered long underwear beneath the costumes, packed umbrellas, and went. And the rain stopped and it stayed about 60 degrees, and it was luverly.
First, to suit up and get to the elementary school Halloween party, which was small and thus much more sufferable than usual, thanks probably to porcine flu thinning the ranks of little revelers.
 Electrician's tape came in handy this year in our costume-making efforts. There is always tape involved, since I am nobody's seamstress. I was worried that Liam would find his Calvin "costume" too prosaic, but some hair wax and a sign on his chest helped. He never complained. He just wanted it to be true. He IS Calvin, in his mind.
 Jessi and MacKenzie were crayolas.
 Daddy kept having to re-do Calvin's spikes. Ow ow ow!
 Phoebe's sisterly tenderness toward her younger brother, which extends to teaming up with him for Halloween, and attending his elementary school party and competing in the costume contest, never fails to melt our hearts.
They didn't win anything but our hearts. I kind of doubt the judges knew who Calvin and Hobbes are, but c'est la vie. It didn't hurt their feelings, and that's what matters.
We drive the kids into town to trick-or-treat, since there are so few homes out our way. I always forget until the moment we get out of the car that Marietta smells absolutely amazing on Halloween. The sweet gums and sycamores that line the streets have an intoxicating, spicy scent that is more intense when the fallen leaves get wet. I go into an instant state of rapture and stay that way as the evening comes on. Between the scent of wet leaves and the feast of visual images of trick-or-treaters and front porches and jack-o-lanterns lit in the night, I am in heaven.
Two little bugs compare their wings.
 Sophi and Oona, our treasured little girlfriends.
Eyob and Abel, surprised by the flash, and trying to figure out what in tarnation is going on all around them.
 The warm light of porches, the friendly smiles, the ghoulish masks...
 The folks who go all out...
 A tiger's stripes, melting into buttermilk.
 I will continue tomorrow. I'm overloading on visual and olfactory memories, not to mention Almond Joys. |
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| Synesthesia and Scares |
[Oct. 31st, 2009|11:30 pm] |
The Music and the Brain lecture series has started up again at the Library of Congress. Last night's lecture was by Richard Cytowic on synesthesia. I read Cytowic's book, The Man Who Tasted Shapes many years ago, so I was somewhat familiar with the subject. But we have apparently learned a lot in the 20 odd years since he wrote that book. In fact, he has a new book out, Wednesday is Mood Indigo, which he was signing after the talk. Anyway, he proved to be an engaging and interesting speaker, mostly focused on examples of the diversity of sensory experience. Seeing colors for numbers or letters is, apparently, the most common form of synesthesia, but he also talked about people who experience tastes with different sounds, some of which are linked to specific similar words (e.g. the word "application" might taste like apricots). Another specific set of examples he talked about had to do with items in an overlearned sequence, e.g. days of the week. But the real point of his lecture had to do with what synesthesia says about creativity and the possibility it could be at the heart of how people make metaphors.
By the way, the lecture last night included a special privilege. Normally, the talks are in the Whittall Pavilion, but the set-up for the evening concert last night (held in the Campbell Auditorium, which is next to and connected to the Whittall), so they moved the lecture to the Members Room. This is the room reserved for Members of Congress and the general public doesn't normally even get to see it. It's quite ornately decorated and I was glad I was there early enough to look around before the lecture and not be distracted during it.
After the lecture, I took advantage of being in the city to run over to Kramer's and pick up a copy of an entirely unrelated book. Save the Deli by David Sax is exactly the sort of thing Robert would like to read, since the decline of Jewish delis is one of his favorite subjects. I will, of course, read the book before giving it to him since that's just what we do. (Well, he's given me books without reading them, but he also reads a lot less than I do.) Anyway, that gave me a slight bit of noshtalgia (i.e. a bittersweet longing for the foods of yesteryear) and I did a google search on "nesselrode pie." That led me to this article by Arthur Schwartz which reveals the horrible truth about that apparently extinct food item. Namely, that the primary ingredient in Raffetto's Nesselro is, of all things, cauliflower. Who knew that Custom Bakers was serving us vegetables in sweet pie form through my youth?
As for today, I ran errands in the morning. The afternoon held the story swap that Voices in the Glen was putting on with the Beltsville public library. We got about 40 people at various times (including about 10 tellers), which is definitely a success for the first time putting on a swap there. The event was advertised as being for ages 6 and up, but nobody pays attention to that and there were some younger kids. Fortunately, most of them had left by the time I told. I had contemplated several different stories, but settled on "Ida Black" as being suitable, as well as something I didn't have to worry about anybody else telling. (It's more or less original, though based on a legend I stumbled across some years ago and later found other versions of in a booklet of "true" ghost stories. It involves a woman who is hanged for witchcraft and returns to dance on the grave of her accuser.) All in all, there was a nice mix of stories and I think most of the attendees had a good time.
No trick or treaters this year, alas. Last year, the only one I had was the little girl next door, but that family has moved away. There are definitely children in the complex, but most of them are from non-trick or treating cultures (primarily Korean and Indian immigrants).
And now for the horror of the World Series. Actually, it would be appropriate for the Source of All Evil in the Universe to win on Halloween, but I still don't want that to happen. |
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| Network Maintenance - Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 04:00-05:00 GMT/UTC |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|05:17 pm] |
EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.
Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.
Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.
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Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.
Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(
Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.
( tech details )
status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D
bt |
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| Roads Not Traveled |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|12:17 pm] |
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http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2009/10/roads-not-traveled.html 
I knew it was the last bike ride of summer. The kids knew it, too. On a fine Sunday, threatening showers, we took off down Dean's Fork, one of my favorite roads around here. It has a beaver pond and natural gardens that defy belief. It has grass growing down the middle, even in the well-traveled upper part, which should be your first clue that you don't take your new Subaru down there.
Nevertheless, Dean's Fork has an allure that calls me every day, because I don't yet know what's down there, a situation that, by the time you read this, will have been remedied.
We timed it just right for the Joe-Pye weed, for the tall ironweed and the jewelweed and the tickseed. These photos just don't do the late-summer tapestry justice, but you can get a hazy idea how spectacular all these weeds, jumbled together in a wet meadow, can be.
Joe-Pye weed is the misty mauve stuff. Tall ironweed is the brilliant royal purple, and tickseed sunflower is the yellow, and jewelweed is the orange. Mmm. Late summer tapestries.
Needless to say, there were ruby-throated hummingbirds in the jewelweed, an embarrassment of riches.
 We rode and rode, stopping every now and then just to consider the green halls of summer.
 A hay musk ox was lurching along in the meadow below the beaver pond, but he froze stock-still when he saw us coming, like the Marsh Man.
Brief digression: This is the Marsh Man. He looks like a willow bush, but he's really a man, who lurches over the marsh. But when you look at him, he stands stock-still, and looks like a bush again.
 His wife is the Marsh Crone, who makes a brew every spring that wakes up the birds and animals that gets them thinking about making more birds and animals. Written and illustrated in 1960 by Ib Spang Olsen (why can't I have a name like that?) and given to me and my sister Micky by my sister Barbara sometime in the 60's. Only about five inches tall, it is one of the books that stayed upstairs, one of the gold standards of children's literature, far more magical to my mind than many of the books that get all the attention.
I am so excited. Today, Friday, it's supposed to hit 75, and the moist dark air at 6 AM holds a warm promise of Indian summer. Bill called Shila up last night and talked her into rearranging her schedule so she and I could take off on a girlhike.* Ever since we almost ran into ruin on Dean's Fork, we've been itching to conquer its 7 or 8 mile length by foot. We want to see how bad it gets; we want to see who and what lives down this forgotten trace. So we're parking a car at either end, packing lunch and lenses and dog cookies and Chet Baker's leash (because there are bound to be cattle), and walking the whole durn thing. I cannot wait.
Zick + Shila + Chet + cameras + unexplored territory = fun
I hope we can't get into too much trouble riding shanks' mare.
*Bill is very good at talking girls into things.
But back to the late-summer bike ride. The kids were very, very tired when we finally got home.
 I trailed behind, as always, and this is what greeted me when I came up the driveway. Corpses.
Chet Baker knows what to do when people lie down on the ground.
 He gives them doggy mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until they giggle.
 Chet Baker, I hope you are up for a much longer walk today.
 I am game, Mether. I will walk twice as far as you and Shila, because there are bound to be squirrelts.
 Walking with my family is my favorite thing.
 Boston terriers: small dogs with giant kisses. It's as if they were bred for it. |
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| The Tornado and the Rainbow |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|07:02 am] |
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http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2009/10/tornado-and-rainbow.html 
I don't know whose photo this is. (Now, thanks to Mike McDowell, I do: Eric Nguyen, the late and incredible weather photographer. It's real, too.) I don't know where it was taken, or even if it's real, and I'm breaking tradition to post it here (I always use my own photos). I love it so much, because it perfectly captures my soul these days.
Bill got a bee in his bonnet this weekend, and even though we went to bed around 3 AM Saturday morning after our Orangutangs gig, he got up at 8 and started moving stuff out of Phoebe's bedroom so he could paint it. Each wall is a different color: Sunrise Beach, Fruit Punch, Dusty Aqua and Ocean Mist. It's like a Caribbean dance party in there. I was charged with running to town for supplies and buying carpet to complete the makeover. Poor child has been staring at white walls for 13 years. She's more than due for a room in the colors she picked. God bless her Daddy for taking the initiative. There was stuff in her closet from the year she was born, for Lord's sake, from 1996. I am not kidding. Stuff about how to breast feed your baby. And now she's practically old enough to have her own baby, and she still had all that crap in her closet.
However. This means that until the carpet installers come Weds. morning, all her bedroom furniture, clothes and crap are in the living room. Which sets my orderly soul a-wandering, tearing its hair. Doesn't bother anybody else much. But I am like a banshee on the moors, wailing, when my house is all upside down.
Well, Liam moped and moped around because nobody was painting HIS room so I bought a carpet remnant for his room at the same time I bought Phoebe's, and then I realized that that meant that we'd have to put the contents of BOTH their rooms in the living room, which actually can't be done, and that also meant that I'd have to weed all his crap and clothes and books out before Wednesday. So I spent most of today, a perfect blue and gold fall day, doing that. And all I got done was the books. He has a LOT of books. And most of them break my heart to give away so really all I did was weed and sort them, and box up the ones for the basement, the Goodnight Moon and the Blueberries for Sal and the Letting Swift River Go and the Miss Rumphius and the Nuts to You, all the ones we know by heart.
By 2 pm I had had it and I called Shila and we decided to go on our own little fall foliage tour. And we took our cameras and Chet and had the most wonderful time photographing dilapidated barns and horse noses and the like. And no, I'm not posting those photos now because I am tired and it is late.
But Shila and I had a hoot exclaiming and freaking out over every little thing, it's like we're high all the time, but we don't use anything but beauty. It's good to have a friend like that, someone who can fully freak out over a sundog or a caterpillar or a certain slant of light through the veins of a leaf. It's not good, it's great to have a friend like that.
So the light was dying and we turned toward home where Bill was making us a homemade pizza. mmmm. And we were going up County Road 12 and I saw a sign for Dean's Fork Road and thought, wow, wouldn't it be cool to take crappy scary old Dean's Fork all the way up to our house? Everybody says it doesn't go through but my new Subaru has all-wheel drive and so does Shila's RAV-4. So I hollered back to Shila, "Hey, you wanna try to take Dean's Fork all the way home?" and her eyes lit up and she said "YEAH! Let's try it!"
Which was the MOST ridiculous thing to try, because everybody knows Dean's Fork is a piece of crap of a road. There are leaves all over it and it's barely wider than a forest path. And I had never been on the lower end of it. And we probably had ten miles of it to navigate.
The thing about off-roading is that the first few ruts and puddles you hit are bad but not that bad and the road just leads you on and on and before you know it you are mushing through the most gooshy and dangerous ruts and puddles, lakes, really. And you're telling yourself, "Hey, this isn't so bad. Look how far I've made it. What a car I have!" but inside you're biting your psychic nails because each puddle and rut is just a bit worse than the one before and you are that much farther from civilization. But I was emboldened by Shila right behind me in her Toyota and I kept mushing on. And I do mean mushing.
Finally we came to a lake in the middle of the rutted path and I knew it was probably my Waterloo so Shila and I got out and mucked around a bit and decided we had better back out of it and try to turn around and get the hell off Dean's Fork before pitch dark, which was in about 20 minutes. So she backed up and got up on terra firma and I backed up and my rear wheel went smack into the worst deepest rut which threw my front into a sashay and all of a sudden my left front wheel dropped off into nothing. I stopped and opened the door and that wheel of my precious new Forester was hanging off in space over a six-foot drop into Dean's Fork Crick. Oh, sh------t. Oh Shila I am so screwed, I am so screwed look at my car look at my car somebody's gonna have to pull me out of here! Aggghh I am panicking. I am envisioning my new car rolling slowly down greasy side up into the rocky creek bed, me and Chet in it. And Shila gets out of her car and points out that three of my wheels are still on the ground, albeit gumbo mud. "Have you tried backing up?" she asked and I said, "No, the only thing I have tried is panicking."
So I throw it in reverse and breathe a prayer and gun it and that car just backed out like Bossy out of her stall. So I did a twenty-point turn in the narrow road with Shila coaching all the way and we made our way back, refording all the puddles and ruts, until we were on pavement again. And pavement never, ever felt so good.
Shila has a bumper sticker on her car that says, "My Other Vehicle is My Imagination" and I told her I want one for my car that says, "My Other Vehicle is My Stupidity."
When Shila and I get together we are like a couple of hunting dogs, egging each other on, running wild. When I thanked her for coaching me out of that horrible jam, she said, "Well, you're welcome, but there's no way you would have taken that road if I hadn't been along." And I had to admit she was right. But it's good, no, it's great to have a friend like that. |
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| Assorted Notes |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|05:54 am] |
1) I am intrigued by what news stories do and don't get major headlines. I'm surprised the Stewart Nozette case isn't getting more news. He is a former NASA scientist, who tried to sell classified data to Israel. Except it was the FBI and not the Mossad who contacted him. I don't think this will be another Pollard case, though, since it seems Nozette was seeking money, while Pollard acted on ideological grounds. (I also think that's why the parts of the Jewish community who think Pollard got too heavy a sentence are wrong, but that's a separate subject.)
2) Tuesday was the last day of the Crystal City farmer's market. It's been very convenient having it right outside my office and I'll be happy when it starts up again in the spring. In the meantime, I stocked up on Stayman apples.
3) Somebody is turning "The Man WHo Mistook His Wife for a Hat" into an opera. Just as I believe that mental illness is not a good subject for musical comedy, neurology does not seem like promising material for opera.
4) My list of things to write about here includes the word "exposure," but I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. In case I happen to ask about the string of numbers on the next page of my planner at some time in the future, it was a document number and Andy's fax number for me to send it to.
5) I managed to save myself about $130 on a trip to San Francisco in December by buying the ticket at exactly the right time. I love it when I get the last seat at the discounted price.
6) The metro had a little service challenge yesterday morning:
Amtrak fire at New
Carrollton this morning screwed
up the Orange Line
and then there is the usual behavior of fellow riders to write haiku about:
Someone should offer
a seat to the woman who's
holding a baby
(If I'd had a seat, I'd have offered it to her, of course.)
7) Go Phillies! (I am blaming last night on Pedro having had a cold.)
8) I vaguely remember putting my cell phone down somewhere when I came home on Sunday evening. And I remember thinking that wherever I put it was a bad idea because I would have trouble finding it again. Sure enough, I have no seen it since. If it doesn't turn up by the end of the weekend, I'll call to get it replaced.
9) An interesting tidbit from the new issue of Technology Review - in 45 BCE, Julius Caesar banned private vehicles from the center of Rome during daytime hours to try to reduce congestion.
10) This song is stuck in my head from my Bollywood dance class Wednesday night, so I thought I'd try to inflict the earworm on others. Unfortunately, it's the steps to an entirely different dance that are stuck in my head with it. (The choreography we did to it is not the same as the movie clip.) If you are wondering why there are so many blondes in a Bollywood movie, the film is apparently set in Miami.
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| Chet Loves Spaghetti |
[Oct. 29th, 2009|01:02 pm] |
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http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2009/10/chet-loves-spaghetti.html I continue to spend my days cleaning. Cleaning out the old. Making room, not for the new, but for us. Killing about 10 billion dust mites with every sweep of the vacuum cleaner and sponge. Having cleaned both kids' bedrooms of 13 and 9 years of crap, respectively, now I am infected with the certainty that the rest of the house, if I were only to peek behind its figurative curtain, is even worse than their closets proved to be. I chip at it, bit by bit, knowing that I could and should keep at it until things are back under something resembling control. And do nothing else for the next couple of months. On the top shelf and in a chest in Phoebe's closet were my hospital release papers from her birth. Instructions on how to deal with a leaky postpartum body and a book on breast feeding. And she is practically old enough to...aggh, I can't even think it.
So I walked into the studio today and looked at the unit next to my old desk computer which was sold to me as a "desk organizer" but which in reality is a plastic support system for a giant haystack, a cornshock of contracts and papers that at one time, oh, say three years ago, were very important, vital, even, but which have aged to a point where they can now be thrown away. Permits, contracts, signed agreements; anything that smacks of legality or permissions goes into the Amish-style cornshock. I did find the contract for my current book, which I perused with some bemusement and replaced. Most everything else I threw out. Ahhh, that felt good. But purging it is something that I can only bring myself to do triannually.
Thank God Shila is in the same deep-cleaning mode, and we call each other and have hour-long conversations about throwing crap out and how somebody should really come in with a snow shovel and help us out here. We can talk and throw crap out at the same time.
All of which is to say that I am posting about Chet and spaghetti because my life is pretty colorless right now; well, no, it is the color of dust bunnies.
We really don't have many rules for Chet Baker; he is such a gentleman. Don't eat the hamsters is a new one. But most "dog people" would be shocked to see us allowing him an occasional seat at the dinner table. Big no-no. We also play tug 0' war with him and he snarls and growls ferociously at us. Thus far, these flirts with anarchy have not produced a slavering were-beast, a severed artery, or anything remotely near it. They are just things Chet Baker does, and the world continues to spin, and he remains our adored pet.
Sometimes Phoebe shares a seat with him. When there is spaghetti, he is usually up in her chair before she can get there.
He studies the spaghetti with such longing, mingled with regret that it is not going into his cakehole.
 He watches each bite as it travels to its destination.
 And at the end of the meal, he gets a little spaghetti sauce over his kibble. I've all but stopped buying the Cesar meals I used to moosh into his Royal Canin to increase its appeal. The gravies and roasts and sauces I make taste ever so much better. Whoops, am I breaking another dogrule? Thought so.
 Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go let Chet in, because, having completed a chiptymunk patrol, he is barking and leaping against the screen door. I gave him a prophylactic spanking on his firm little rumpus as he trotted in. Just in case he might do something naughty. |
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| LiveJournal Major Notes: Search super-tweak, postcards, and amazing user content! |
[Oct. 29th, 2009|10:53 am] |
In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.
Super-tweak for Yandex searchSome of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.
Postcards from the edgeSeveral years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.
Conquer Writer's BlockHere are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:
If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?- I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
- Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
- This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
- I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
- Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
- SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
- I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
- I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
- I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
- Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.
For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!
Spotlight community of the weekWe can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.
halloween_fan
Photos of the weekWe received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!
CurtainsThanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week. |
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| Ornament Exchange 2009-First ornament posted!!! |
[Oct. 28th, 2009|05:30 pm] |
I have the new page up and running. You can find it here:
In case you haven't been to texaswren.com lately, there have been some changes. I got the bright idea (not!) to make my home page my craft blog instead of the index to my BC pages the way it's been for so many years. Trouble is, I hate Wordpress and it's the only thing my webhost will work with (except typepad, which is worse!)
I'll probably change it back after the holidays, but I don't have time to deal with it now. So, here is how to get around over there.
At the top of the blog, it has a link to BC. This takes you to my map to BC page (which use to be the home page). Or, skip the blog and go directly to the page. Then scroll through the list until you see the 2009 ornaments, or pets, or labels, or anything else you may want to use or see.
Sometimes, my brightest ideas are the worst, and that blog thing falls under this category!
But, the first ornament of 2009 is wonderful!!! Be sure to click for a larger version!
Can't wait to see others! |
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| 'My mini-mini portfolio' |
[Oct. 28th, 2009|10:49 am] |
After giving you the story behind Perch's MiniCards, we thought we should catch up with photographer, Simon Warren. Also featured on our MiniCards page, he's been taking advantage of the latest features and comparing them with the larger Business Cards he's been using (and loving) for a while. Here's what he had to say:
( More ) |
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| Beat the UK Postal Strikes |
[Oct. 27th, 2009|03:27 pm] |
As you are probably aware, Royal Mail have scheduled further strikes this week. Please note this only affects "Standard" delivery to UK addresses, not Express.
Local delivery services and the sorting office at Royal Mail HQ will be closed this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We want to make sure that your order doesn't get caught in the backlog and we have some alternatives for you to think about when placing your order.( More ) |
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| Stitches East |
[Oct. 25th, 2009|09:06 pm] |
Last year, I'd taken classes pretty much the whole time I was at Stitches and complained that I felt rushed in the marketplace. So, this year, I only signed up for one class a day. I wasn't able to sign up right when registration opened, so some of the classes I was interested in were sold out. But I still found plenty of things I was interested in.
My Thursday afternoon class was Edie Ekman's Crochet: Buttonbands and Buttonholes. This was pretty straightforward and I could have learned most of what there was just from the handout (although it had a couple of errors). There were a couple of interesting ornate buttonhole / edging patterns, so it was worthwhile. The most useful part of the class, however, was her explanation of charted crochet patterns which I admit I've shied away from.
On Friday, I took A Sampling of Stitches from Margaret Fisher. I'd signed up for that class largely because I'd really liked her Entrelac class last year. This was also an excellent class. She went over four categories of stitches and we worked swatches in each. The smocking stitches were very straightforward and easy. The twisted traveling stitches were complex, but I felt like I came away with a basic understanding of how to follow the charts for them. The most useful part of the class was her explanation of brioche stitch patterns, which are written in a very non-intuitive way. Finally, she had us do some elongated stitch patterns, which turn out to be easier and more fun than I would have expected. In fact, the seafoam pattern stitch she provided is perfect for some yarn I bought last year.
Ann McCauley's Movement for Knitters on Saturday was disappointing. Other attendees seemed more into it, but I had been expecting more practical ergonomics instead of a bunch of new age claptrap about things like holding your fourth finger to alleviate fear. (The class was focused on a Japanese bodywork modality called jin shin jyutsu, which is related to shiatsu. Had that been clear in the class description, I'd never have signed up for it.) Overall, this just wasn't my sort of thing.
Fortunately, the class I took this morning (Laura Bryant's Fake Short Rows) was excellent. The technique is related to the elongated stitches I'd learned on Friday and looks like a good way to make interesting, drapy scarves and shawls (and edgings). It was easy and fun and I suspect it will be very helpful with using up some of my stash.
Speaking of stash, I did add to it in the marketplace, mostly because I can never resist buying small amounts of various exotics. In particular, I couldn't pass up a yarn made from silk and stainless steel and another one that contains jade. There's are also some bison, yak, and camels joining the sheep and alpaca herd in my den. And I bought a few patterns and a pair of square circular needles (which I've been curious about for a while). Overall, however, I was fairly restrained. For example, I did not buy any quiviut. And I bought only one skein of Lamb's Pride (my favorite wool yarn) despite it being just $4.50 a skein. (Admittedly, I have pretty much an entire box of it in my den already.)
Finally, I went to the Saturday night banquet and student fashion show. The food was surprisingly decent for convention center banquet catering. The fashion show went on a bit long. If I ruled the world, I'd limit people to showing just one piece, or possibly two. There were some beautiful items, but there were others that seemed fairly ordinary to me. And some things - like intricate lace - just don't show up well at a distance. At the end, they gave out bags of goodies to each table. You were supposed to distribute things in a particular order, but our table ended up trading amongst ourselves. Given my liking of exotics, nobody should be surprised that I traded a kit for fingerless gloves away in exchange for a skein of milk yarn (80% milk, 20% wool and, no, I have no idea how they make that).
Now, all I need is some time to actually sit down and knit (or crochet). |
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