The Start of Something Wonderful

I have a three foot long by one foot deep "garden" in which I can plan whatever I like. A good part of the land is taken up by Roderick, my lion (thanks for the name Keith! I can't think of him as anything else) and the other part I am starting to experiment with. The lilac bushes that the association pulled out are starting to come back and I'm leaving them. The lilacs were some of the main reasons I moved here. I planted a nice looking hosta that requires almost no care from me. But the last planting is the one I'm the most excited about (Jeff would say obsessed about). Strawberries!!!

I planted a half dozen strawberry plants last year in April. They were still too new to bear fruit last year so I "patiently" waited through the year for this spring. Three of them survived the winter, although two others are trying. Suddenly I'm starting to see a mixture of the little white flowers that strawberries grow, and another kind of stalk. The berries are still green and very small but they are the start of something wonderful. In May I will have fresh organically grown strawberries. I'll be able to harvest my own food, which has been a dream of mine for years now.

I'm already thinking about planting more strawberries and trying to do some potted raspberries. My father learned how to Bonzai an orange tree, with the possibility of full size oranges. I tried planting spinach last year that failed miserably. But these little plants, so green and beautiful, make me want to plant more food. To actually produce a crop of something. Until then I'm going to gorge myself on homegrown strawberries. Well at least once they become ripe.

A Love Letter to a Love Letter

Jeff and I unboxed books for a book sale this past week. We were assigned the paperback romance novels which was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Some of the titles were pretty cringe worthy (The Greek Billionaire's Forced Bride). We were discussing good romance novels at knitting last night (think Gone With the Wind and Pride and Prejudice) and discussing if we had ever swooned at a book.

So this morning I'm thinking about swooning moments. Moments that are just so romantic and wonderful that they capture your emotions. And I thought of one. One of the few times where I've actually swooned at a book. It's from Jane Austen's Persuasion. Persuasion was the last book that Austen wrote, and her most sad. It's about unrequited love, something I have some good experience with. And it's my favorite of her novels. At the end of the book there is a love letter that made me weak in the knees when I read it. It's a love letter filled with passion and hope and a bit of pain. It's some of the best romantic writing I've ever read. So I thought I would quote it here. Sorry for the spoiler. If I destroy the book for you, I apologize. Although it is still well worth reading, just for Austen's wonderful phrasings.

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.
"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

The Risk of Cables

I'm a non-risk taker by nature. I'm not a fan of failing so I tend to be slow to try things. And I often overthink things, meaning that more often than not I won't even try things because I'll decide that they are too difficult before I even start. It's a flaw that I keep working to overcome. My hobbies are no exception. I'm slowly learning a lesson about knitting. For years I've been overcautious in my knitting. I work on projects where I know most of what I'm doing. I like projects that are mostly mindless knitting. I've learned a lot over the years but I tend to stay mostly within my comfort zone.

In October I taught a friend how to knit. He was visiting and had been interested in trying so on the day before he left, I taught him the basic knit stitch. He went home and worked on his first scarf. Then he got bored and knit a little hat for his niece. Then some mittens. Then a belt. Then a cowl. Then...you get the idea. He taught himself how to bind off, how to purl, how to yarn over. In six months he's tried techniques that I hadn't tried within the the first three years of knitting. I'm a bit in awe of how willing he is to take risks and how good of a knitter he's become.

And I'm learning that nothing in knitting is as hard as I make it out to be. I learned how to make tiny fingers for a sackboy doll I made. I learned how to pick up stitches for mittens. I learned that I can read some pretty scary looking patterns. And this week I learned my holy grail of knitting, cabling. I had been terrified to cable for years. I just didn't think I would understand it so I didn't try it. This week I started this cowl which happens to have some cabling. It took me a bit of coaxing from Jeff but now I can say I know how to cable. And it's way easier than I thought it would be. Everything in knitting is easier than it sounds. That's my lesson. It may take me a few times to get things, but everything is learnable. It's a good lesson for knitting...and really for life. Everything is learnable.

Reconnecting

About two weeks ago my aunt and uncle were in Des Moines. Jeff and I had dinner with them and spent two nights playing games and enjoying their company. On the last evening they were here, my uncle mentioned an old friend that he had just gotten back in contact with. He said that there was another old friend he was looking for and hadn't had a lot of luck finding. So I offered to help him look.

I have access to some great public records databases and can find a lot people information without a ton of effort. So I started doing some digging to find his friend. It took me less than an hour to find his friend and to confirm that it was the man he was looking for. I had found an old email address, a current phone number, and a current address. I sent it over to my uncle to do with as he would like. He tried the email and it bounced back so he cold-called. And after a couple uncomfortable minutes, the two friends were talking. My uncle sent him some pictures and figured that was that.

He emailed me this morning to tell me that he'd gotten a letter from his old friend. It was an in depth letter describing the friend's life and talking about his family. And then this friend dropped a bombshell. The man was dying. He had about a year or so left to live. When I read that in my uncle's email I was shaken. I was so sad for this man, who is on the edge of death. But I was also happy that my uncle had reconnected at this point. That it wasn't too late for him to say that he was thinking of this man. I was happy he would have a chance to say goodbye. If he had waited a year, my uncle would never have gotten to say anything.

So today I've been thinking about all the people I've lost contact with. All the friends that I've let drift away. I'm suddenly interested in getting in touch with them. Of telling them how much their friendship meant to me, even if it never rekindles. Because you never know when it will be too late. I'm both happy and sad I could help my uncle. But more than anything it has made me think.

Charles Santoso

I'm not sure where I saw it, the image above. I'm sure I had been doing an image search for art or illustration or Totoro (because I do those kind of things regularly...probably more regularly than I should admit). But I saw this image and my heart melted. This is a wonderful piece of Totoro work. It has the same sweetness but it's not just ordinary fan art. This has extra character to it. This is the kind of piece that grabs my attention. So of course I had to see where it came from. The link led me to other tribute art, some for Peanuts, some for Calvin and Hobbes, some for Harry Potter. But all of them had the same soft softness and sweetness to them. I was hooked.

So I went to My Mini Tree House and discovered that this was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Charles Santoso's work. And I love every bit of it. Santoso is a Sydney, Australia based artist who has done film and TV work. But it's his little character sketches that make me the happiest. On his website he describes himself as a concept artist who focuses on creating whimsical characters and scenes. He certainly does that. His draftsmanship is very good but it's the character and humor that makes me love his work.

 I subscribed immediately to his blog, and then started going back through the vast archive of art that he's already posted. As I read back, I grew to like his work even more. Santoso is willing to play. You can see the joy he takes in his work jump off the blog. He'll post concept art or strange dreams he's had. He'll try colors out and then post. He's having fun. I found all different types of art and so many characters, most of which are his own. Some artists leave me intimidated and Santoso certainly is good enough to do that. But looking at his work I just wanted to play and that was actually very inspiring. Incredible artwork and inspiration make for a new favorite artist.

P.S. I just went to Acid Free Gallery and purchased this print. Now I'll have some new artwork to hang on the wall.

The Only Animation I Don't Like

I'm going to sound like an anti-progress curmudgeon with this statement but I hate animated gifs. Hate them! Nothing will get me to leave a webpage faster than an animated gif. I see that movement and I'm already clicking on another link to get away.

This shouldn't really be a problem for me but I'm seeing them more and more frequently. A drawing blog I follow has had two or three posts including animated gifs recently. A couple bloggers I follow have used them. It's a good think I don't follow any of the cute cat websites anymore because they seem to be the number one producers of them. It hasn't happened yet but I could see myself narrowing down my blog list if I find the author uses them frequently. I hate them that much.

You would think I'd be okay with them (not love but at least be okay) because I'm such an animation fan. Okay I'm really more of an animation junkie. I can't stay away from the stuff. Given my choice of movie it's always animated. But there is something about the repetitive movement that turns me off. The ads that use them will never ever ever receive a single click from me. And the artists who create animated gifs, even if they do amazing work outside of that, will never end up profiled on this blog. I know it sounds grouchy of me. But the next time you see one, just watch it for a couple minutes. Tell me if you feel nauseated. Tell me how fast you click off the site.

I Want a Daemon

I broke my series streak when I picked up a bound three book edition of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Philip Pullman has been a polarizing figure for years, with a fever pitch after the movie The Golden Compass came out. The books have been condemned and banned all over the world for being anti-religion. I knew of the controversy before but knew little about the books. So when I found this edition, for a decent price, I picked it up to see what all the fuss was about. I figured I'd just read the first book, as is my usual trend.

But after sitting down and getting twenty pages into the first book, I was intrigued. The concept of other worlds and dust and the church seemed so out there. So odd. I was hooked. I looked up at Jeff and made the understatement of the week. "I'll be in this book for a while". What I meant is that he wasn't to bother me. What I didn't realize is that I was going to read all three books in a little over 48 hours. I read while I ate. I read while I got dressed. I read late into the night. I simply couldn't put the books down. I won't even try to go through the plot here. I could be here for days trying to describe and explain everything that happens in these books. These are plot and character rich books.

And although I loved the characters, the concepts, and the settings, it was the idea of the daemons that drove me to finish. In Lyra's world (the main character) a daemon is a being that is tied to you from the very earliest days of your life until the very end of your life. It is a creature that is constantly with you. It can hear your thoughts and you can hear its. It cannot be separated from you without pain. It's a companion in the closest possible sense. And the bonds between the people and their daemons are emotional at their finest level. The thought of separation between a human and their daemon (something brought up frequently in the book) was enough to make me cry. I broke down on numerous occasions not because a character had died but because of their daemon's reaction to the eminent death. It was heart-wrenching and reduced me to tears.

I loved the books for a number of reasons but the biggest one was to see what would happen to Lyra and her daemon. To share in the bond between them. I found the book mystical and spiritual in a way that made me question all the hype about it. This was not an anti-religious book but an anti-established church book. It was about not giving the church too much power and to see the rest of the spiritualness around you. But for me this was a story about companionship. It made my heart ache to know that I'd never have a daemon. To know those kind of bonds. It hurt me as much as it hurt Lyra to be separated from her daemon. It was a set of books that made me feel more than anything.

Poetry Friday

The first book of poems I ever purchased was A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far by Adrienne Rich. It was a tiny slim volume of poetry wrapped in a bright pink cover. And I remember thinking how small and thin it was. Until I opened it. This tiny volume was filled with passion and anger and politics and beauty. It was everything good poetry should be. I read a lot of Rich's work in college and loved most of it. She died on Tuesday. This is my way of a memorial.

Diving Into the Wreck (a poem that became even better once I started diving)
by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
abourd the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me where the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and tehn
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breath differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purpose.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative hunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a book, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

Collector of Images

The new Library at Alexandria lit up at night

I have a number of collections that I keep. I mentioned before my rather unusual collections in a post a while ago. I collect books certainly. I wrote about my nearly obsessive journal collection here. But currently my favorite collection, at least the one I'm adding to the most frequently, is a collection of images that I like. I have computer folders and paper folders filled with images. Some are illustrations. Some are photographs. Some are just plain silly. But I keep gathering them.

 An image from Coran Stone's Calvin and Hobbes story that I have to find the rest of.

 A bookcase that makes me happy

I should really just start a Pinterest account. Then I could keep all my images in one place. I could access them any time I want. But I don't. Part of me is worried about the time suck of the account. Like Facebook I worry that the site will be too addictive. I don't need another online place to waste time. I already have enough with Facebook and the over 90 blogs and webcomics that I subscribe to. So instead I just save the images and hoard them.

A librarian image that makes me happy.

Some characters I drew as possible villians in a

graphic novel I want to write (someone else will illustrate it).

Some of them I share here. If I find an artist I like I tend to share their work. But some of them simply molder away in a file folder, never to be shared or seen by anyone but me. And today I started wondering about the usefulness of that (plus I'm having a terrible day and needed fun images to make it better). So this post is really just to share some of the images I've collected and enjoy. There is no theme here. Just some images that make me happy. Welcome to my rather eclectic mind.

A treehouse I took from Lovely Listings that made me think of stories I read as a child.

Shaun Tan's waterbuffalo from Tales from Outer Suburbia

Library Hotel

There's a line in an INXS's song Heaven Sent that goes "She says she works in the library uptown". For the first dozen or so times I heard the song, what I heard was 'she says she works in the library hotel.' The line used to confuse me. Library Hotel? What was that? I did know that as a librarian, and a book fanatic, the idea appealed to me. This afternoon I found out that the Library Hotel actually exists. I think I'll start planning my trip now.

The Library Hotel is a small boutique library in Manhattan. The lobby is decorated with bookshelves. The public areas are filled with reading chairs, lamps, and more bookcases. Each room is filled with books by subject. And even more fun, the ten floors are themed on the Dewey Decimal system. One floor is filled with History and Geography themes, another focuses on literature, the fifth floor should be science related.... I'm so in love with the idea of staying in my favorite classification section (we all have them).

I love the card catalog wall behind the reception desk.

To add to that, the hotel is beautiful. The Poetry garden below is the kind of place I could imagine sitting with a glass of red wine and a book of Shakespeare sonnets or Charles Bukowski poems. There is a writers area which includes some rather spectacular views. Or sit down in the medieval themed restaurant and watch the people go by which reading Chaucer (not that I've ever read Chaucer). This is my type of place. I really do need to plan a trip. Although Manhattan has never really drawn me in, this hotel would be worth the visit.

New Yarn

Sorry I've been gone. Two weeks ago I was done in the dumps and didn't feel like writing. This past week I've been on vacation from work and didn't feel like writing. So I took the time off. After all, I don't want this to feel like a job. So I apologize but I'm back and feeling better.

Today I met some of the ladies of my knitting group and a couple husbands and we had breakfast and then headed out to Heartland Fiberpalooza, a fiber convention in Winterset, Iowa. Imagine a room filled with yarn, rovings, and knitters. It was loud and colorful and a lot of fun. I'm not ashamed to say I loved every minute of it.

Breakfast was at a local restaurant that mixes Lexus drivers and farmers and hunters. It's out in the country but the area is surrounded by half a million dollar homes. Overalls mix with prada bags. It's a great environment and even better food. It's also right on the way to Winterset (yes where the covered bridges are). The convention was down at the fairgrounds and was really only one building. There were less than a dozen exhibitors but it didn't matter. The focus of the show was on spinning and dyeing but there was plenty of hand-dyed yarn. I wandered the show and then started the spending spree. Jeff and I had set aside some mad money and I managed to spend all of it.

After the convention, we all went to a local Mexican place for one of the best mexican lunches I've had in a while. Mi Pueblito offered a ton of vegetarian fare and the potato burrito and cheese enchielada were some of the best I've ever had. Add in some good salsa and a great cheese dip and I was in heaven. I'll be heading back. After lunch we hit the local yarn store, the one that had sponsored the festival. I bought more yarn (I might have a problem). After the money was gone and we were tired, we each headed home where I sat and knit for hours. It was wonderful. I walked away with five total skeins of yarn and no money leftover. It was well worth it though. A great day with yarn and friends.

Sorry this one is so washed out. I loved the mix of brown and blues. I just couldn't capture how beautiful it is with the camera. Here is a better picture. 

A Rant

I'm in a rather frustrated mood tonight so of course I'm going to write. And publish. I'm officially tired of politics. I'm tired of national primaries, I'm tired of local politics, I'm tired of the stupid decisions that keep being passed into law, and more than anything I'm tired of unwillingness of any politician to compromise. Or even talk logically. 

I'm inundated with media that pushes the fanatics to the front and center. I hear yelling, not discourse. I hear name-calling when I should hear logic. And I hear a lot of people talking out of their asses. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of seeing legislation that has no place in our society. The whole idea of the Bill of Rights was granting rights. Not taking it away. 

So I'm chucking it all. I'm checking out of this political game. I'm tired of hearing it so I'm going to turn off my TV. I'm going to stay away from news sites. I'm going to read my books and write stories and wait for the world to become sane again. I'm going to practice common courtesy in my own life. I'm going to continue to be a vegetarian and live my principles. I'm going to be nice and polite and a good citizen. And when the idiots up in Washington or up on the hill figure out how to act like human beings again, perhaps I'll start paying attention. But until then I guarantee I'll be in a better mood. 

The 700 Club

Does anyone remember that show? I know that when I was young it was the fastest way to get me to change the channel. The moment it came on, I found something else to watch.

But this post isn't really about the show. I never really watched it so I couldn't talk intelligently about it. Instead this is my 700th post. And as we all do, I like big round numbers. So I'm celebrating today with balloons. Or rather these really cool balloon light fixtures by Estiluz, a spanish light fixture manufacturer. Seriously how cool are these lights? Pull the balloon string to turn the light on. I will have these in at least one of my rooms in my next house.

So balloons, lights, and a ton of posts. Here's to 700 more.

Hiding, Reading, and a Possible Theft

A couple weeks ago I had made a comment about disappearing as part of my Poetry Friday posts. I'm sure that for some of you that sounds a bit like a joke. I can't really disappear of course. But I do go into hiding on a somewhat regular basis. This weekend was one of them. Other than breakfast on Saturday with Jeff and a brief drive that day, I haven't left the house since Friday. I did check email for most of the weekend. I certainly didn't write any. I grumbled whenever the phone rang. Other than occasionally checking Facebook and a video chat this afternoon I had almost no contact with the outside word. I was a hermit this weekend. Lately I'm feeling overwhelmed. This was my way to cope. It appears to have worked. I feel refreshed now.

What I did this weekend was read. I read five books this weekend. Most of them were young adult so it isn't the grand achievement that it sounds like. I burrowed into the couch and read some of the classic YA stories that I've heard so much about. I read Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea, Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three, Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did, and E. Nesbit's Five Children and It. I made another library run to pick up a graphic novel called Page by Paige which has to be one of the most brilliant books for creative people I've ever read. I copied tons of quotes out of it. I must own it. The reading was good this weekend. I might (and I mean might) continue on with the Earthsea series, and you know how I feel about series. I lost myself in books this weekend. And found some wonderful characters.

I also received a bill that has me a little worried. On Saturday Jeff picked up the mail and noticed that there was a bill from one of the local health providers. It was addressed to me, but was for someone I don't know. Nothing about the name was familiar. After losing my wallet in February I was terrified that this person had used my insurance. Of course no one was open on Saturday or Sunday. So today I called. I guess this person was seen at the hospital and gave my name as a guarantor. I'm pissed. I concerned that this is a case of identify theft. Or that this person has my wallet. I was kind of hoping that whoever had found it had just taken the case and tossed the rest of the wallet. Now suddenly I'm not so sure. I've talked to the hospital and their billing and the issue has been resolved. But there is a feeling of uneasiness in my mind. What other bills will I be getting? And who is this person? Thankfully I research people for a living. Time to do some digging on my possible thief.

Poetry Friday

It was my father's birthday yesterday. My father is the one who introduced me to poetry in general and specific poets in particular. I've learned to love the poetric rhymes and phrasings because of him. So this poetry friday is for my dad. It's from one of the new poets he has just recently introduced me to. This poem made both of us laugh until we cried. You can either read the poem here or watch Billy Collins read it here. (sorry about the advertisment.)

The Lanyard
by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly--
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and her is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift--not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.