Here And There

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12/23/2005

Elephants

Why do they make me so happy?

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12/21/2005

Happy Winter Solstice

If We Do Not Speak

If we do not speak to praise the Earth,
it is best we keep silent.

Praise air
that fills the bellow of the lung
& feeds our heart's blood;
that carries light,
the smell of flowers & the seas,
the songs of birds & the wind's howl;
that conspires with distance
to make the mountains blue.

Praise fire
that lights the day & warms the night;
that cooks our food & gives motion to our wills;
that is the heart of Earth, this fragment of a star;
that burns & purifies for good or ill.

Praise water
that makes the rivers & the seas;
that gives substance to the clouds & us;
that makes green the forests & the fields;
that swells the fruit & wombs our birth.

Praise earth
that is the ground, the mountain, & the stones;
that holds the forests & roots our sustenance;
that is the garden & the desert sand;
that builds our bones & salts the seas, the blood;
that is our home & place.

If we do not speak in praise of the Earth,
if we do not sing in celebration of life,
it is best we keep silent.

© Rafael Jesús González 2005

Read at the World Congress of Poets,
Tai'an, Shandong Province, China, November 2005

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12/20/2005

Things are evidently getting worse....

I'm posting a picture of my desk at home to shame myself.

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12/19/2005

Things get finished. Things get put off till later.

This weekend was nicely stormy.

I didn't get everything done that I needed to. So I'm cutting my losses. Which are - the fuzzy feet for christa. I gave her a necklace from the craft fair that she loved and my homemade perfume and will finish the fuzzies while sitting on my a** in Alaska drinking cocoa. Also the necklace I was making for a certain someone. I will give her perfume and then the necklace on her birthday.

I'm also skipping bellydance again this wed. Which really sucks. But has to happen.

I worked Saturday and came home about 2pm. I cleaned the house and carved my lino bookplate for Sally. Made meatloaf and opened presents from my Mom and Dad. They gave us one of those high density foam mattress covers. They are really expensive and really comfortable but we are afraid of the fumes. I'm not sure what to do.

But we got lots of fun nice stuff. My mom is so sweet. She gave the kitties this "Kitty Body Pillow" with catnip that the went crazy over for about 15 minutes.

Also I got a "Knitting Pattern a Day" Calendar. There looks like some pretty good patterns in there.

On sunday I took a bath and watched the rain and really awesome lightning. Some friends came over and I made my ham from my parents. It was soooo good. I'm sold on buying meat from them from now on.

This week is going to be insane. 3 more days till we leave!!!!

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12/16/2005

Stress, it is Holiday

I'm alive. But crampy and stressed. My mom actually made me chant "I am not Martha, I am not Martha" yesterday.

I have to work tomorrow (Saturday, the last weekend before I leave for 10 days) and had to skip Bellydance Wed. because I had to work late. But I was only slightly pissed about that because I had to have a 2 min choreography ready to show the class and I was totally not ready.

But I've been doing stuff. So much stuff my wrist and my brain hurt. Photo proof.

One fuzzy foot. I'll just revel in this misshapen and slightly hole-y accomplishment before thinking about the fact I've only knitted an inch on the cuff of the other one and need to have them finished and felted by 7 pm on Sunday when Christa comes over for dinner. Its apparent that I'm incapable of kitchener stitch. It's all grafted fine but it looks so wonky! I swear these weren't so hard the first time I made them. Have I regressed in my knitting skillz? Thank Goddess I'll be felting it.

Also Baking.

Gingerbread from Eating Well Magazine. I'm not posting a link because I don't recommend them. And, you guessed it. Those whitish spots are clumps of butter I failed to let soften enough so I could properly incorporate them into the dough. Que serah.

(Also, that mug of suspect-looking liquid is ginger lemon tea if you were wondering)

So they weren't that great. But I had to post a picture because I'm obsessed with trays of cookie shapes. It all dates back to one Raggedy Anne book from the seventies that I used to read at my Grandma's house (down the street!) about the dog that stole all the nice shaped cookies that Raggedy Anne made for Raggedy Andy. The book isn't that great or special but it's just one of those visual memories that stick in my head. I think there is a picture of poorly rendered beige cookie shapes raining down from the sky after being spilled. I kind of wonder if some of the things I remember most about my childhood were not things I especially liked but ones I didn't. I mean, thinking back, they were horrible illustrations, and the dog stealing the cookies that Raggedy Anne worked so hard to make kind of upset me (control issue?). Who knows.

Thankfully I know my jam thumbprint cookies from epicurious.com will turn out great because that is the best cookie recipe in the world. At least when you use my Mamma's homemade jam it is..

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12/07/2005

This makes me happy

I could watch this all day long on repeat. Thanks to Super Eggplant for the link.

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Crack open that bottle of Vanilla Ketel One...

I'm proud and histerically giddy to announce:

I think my cat has been cured of the innapropriate peeing.

Last night we let the cats come in the bedroom AND NOTHING!! Just sleepy, warm purr machines trying to suffocate me with their fuzzy belly. No wet spots, no waking up to a multi-colored devil scratching to cover something up by your feet.....

I'm ectatic, you have no idea. (A). because I cannot describe the horror that is cat pee on your bed or couch and (B). I really hate keeping the kitties out of the bedroom at night.

We graduated her from confinement to the bathroom, then confinement to the bathroom/kitchen/hallway, to letting her in the living room with tin foil on all the furniture (no joke), to removal of tinfoil, to now: full access. Also, changed her litter from my beloved Feline Pine (particles too big) to eventually Nature's Miracle Clumping litter, spent the college fund of my unborn child on Feliway and Nature's Miracle enzyme cleaner, got her new, big, open litterboxes AND at the advice of one Crazy Aunt Purl, I ditched the Booda Dome which I loved. (Apparently lots of cats find Booda Domes smelly and clausterphobic - so save your $19.95 and get yourself something big, something ugly and more likely to keep the piss off your Lazy-Boy.) and I SCOOP THEM ALL TWICE A GODDAMNED DAY. Mostly on my own because apparently boys are allergic to cat litter.. who knew.

Of all those solutions, I have no idea which one did the trick but I'm not going to stop doing any one of them - maybe she just finally got used to us and her stress level went down.

IF the trick is done.... we'll see after we get back from Alaska for Christmas..... nothing like leaving your cat with a bandmate for 10 days to make her pee on your shit.

This was all very traumatic for me... Olive would eat dog poop before she would pee where she wasn't supposed to... before we fostered my boss's cats for a year we even had her trained to pee in the toilet - so I was not prepared for this. There. is. nothing. worse. than. cat. pee.

Nothing.

And I've just had a horrible feeling that all this celebrating will jinx me and I will get home to a flat that smells like a toxic waste site. Plus I don't know why I'm so excited she can sleep in the bedroom. I still can't even sleep in the bedroom... *achoo!* Oh, well I'll still have that vodka tonic please....

"Feed me sardines or I will pee on your comfy chair..."....

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12/06/2005

You know you wanna see it....

My freezer.

We brought back our half of the half of pig we bought . It cost 60$ total. It is way less than I thought it would be. Thats not a bad thing, I was afraid it wouldn't all fit in my freezer, but this was not the case. And the price is pretty good too. I ended up with half a ham, 4-5 pound of bacon, about 6 pkgs of 2 pork chops, some steak, 4 pkgs of sausage, a roast, short ribs, and my brother spared some venison steaks and a venison tenderloin. A lot of meat, but it will last us until next time. The price is good and I can feel good about it. Yay.

1. My meat, baby
2. Homemade raw cat food in yogurt containers ready to be defrosted and devoured by carnivorous felines.
3. Christmas cookie dough to be defrosted and baked this weekend. (gingerbread, and lemon shortbread if you were wondering)
4. Left over curry lentils (and I think some homemade watermelon yogurt sorbet underneath).

I feel so exposed.

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12/05/2005

At least I can K & P and even k2tg, sm, ssk

This weekend was nightmarish, what with yule crafts, social engagements (oh poor me), struggling to breath all night long (see below), and a grumpy boyfriend the only thing that kept me sane was..... knitting with the girls.

Sunday after an exhausting but lucrative (*) trip to the mighty Alameda Antique Fair with Christa and Joel, Christa and I went to our dear friend Ellen's for some knit and some tea. Where I ate some crazy good apple pie that Abby (?) bought, knit our projects, sipped tea in front of the fake fire and took crappy pictures of beautiful women:













It was EXACTLY what was called for. And maybe saved my sanity. Maybe.

Because now, today, I'm back at work and. oh. my. goddess. I'm in for some long hours this week. Not to mention I volunteered to sign up dancers and vendors for this weeks Cafe Bellie. Plus the fact that none of my yule projects are really done... well, I'll save that "sane" verdict until after 1/1/2006 thanks.

* I got a beautiful 60's -ish dress with butterflies on it that fit. me. perfectly. Which never ever happens. I'm pretty excited. I'll probably post pictures of it. Course, I won't be able to wear it for about 6 months but oh well.

22:50 Posted in Nitt'n | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

12/01/2005

I'm allergic to my bedroom. WTF?

All of my mother's sisters have horrible allergies. My aunt Annie had such bad asthma/allergies as a child she almost died. She is also allergic to dust, wool (ack!), down, animals, etc. My Aunt Sallie, besides having hayfever and cat allergies, cannot put anything on her skin or it cracks and gets rashes. She has to wear cotton gloves to fold laundry, is forbidden by her doctor to ever wash a car, and is not allowed really to wash anything without gloves. My mom and her brother and my brother just have your average really bad hayfever and asthma.

I, on the other hand thought I had gotten away without any allergies. Oh, I had something as a child, they stuck me with lots of needles, put me on a horrible diet and never really found what it was. They decided it might be corn. Which I hate and never eat anyway. (I'm also never motion sick, while my mother and brother get sick looking at a picture of a rollercoaster). I laughed at their pain. I thought they were winers. "I'm all itchy and stuffy, who mowed the lawn!? wah wah"

But now. As of one week. I am horribly allergic to something in my bedroom. SUDDENLY! When I go to bed at night I get all stuffy, and by about 4 am I have to get up because I can no longer breath. Its strange how horrible it feels. I now understand what everyone is complaining about. I'm not okay with getting up at four in the morning either, by the way.

I slept out on the sorry excuse for a couch that is our futon last night to see if it was something in our room. It was, because this morning I felt fine until I went in to get dressed. My biggest fears are that it is either the cats or my down comforter.

I don't think it's the cats. THANK GODDESS. I would just live with never being able to breath again if that were the case. Because when I slept on couch, the cats slept all over my face and I didn't feel a thing. ( They can't come in the bedroom. Which sucks because Olive loves her some snuggle-time.)

And I used my down throw for a pillow last night so hopefully it's not that either.

Which probably leaves dust. Of which I have a prize winning collection in my room. Unfortunately, I don't have time to pull everything out and clean it because IT IS HOLIDAY TIME.

Maybe I'll get a air purifier?

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