She's not my kitty, she's the neighbor's kitty, but all the same I can't believe I can't think of a caption for these. I might have to send them to ICHCB as fodder.

Today I am a bike-riding, dress-tweaking design superhero! And I had a party in my cubicle!

Lilium columbianum, a native golden or orange lily that hummingbirds like, is pretty perfect for supplying more orange around the red asiatic.

Now to buy some ground to put the things in.

1. Golden sage is amazingly hardy, quick-growing, and vibrant. It also looks like ASS next to the red Asiatic lily. One of them must move. Sage looks good with purple things.

2. The Stargazer lily deserves a bigger pot next year, if I don't buy ground to put it in. Try white or pink creeping phlox around it's feet if the artemesia doesn't survive.

3. Don't transplant veggies in a heat wave.

4. If I buy dirt, plant black grass and something orange with the red asiatic. California poppies, tiger lily, or penstemon (penstemon pinifolius is a good orange). There's a creeper with dark blue flowers that'd look *awesome* in front of a red and orange bed...hmmm...rocky mountain penstemon is also that lovely blue.

5. Next time you make a flower bed, PLAN.

Most of my planning notes are around the lilies. I LOVE lilies, but was never allowed to have them when I lived with my folks', and never learned what they look nice with. I *finally* made one good pair - artemesia 'silver mound' and my stargazer - but I don't have high hopes for it, because everything I plant with that lily dies.

I figured it out! I understand about that house now.

There were two main facts I didn't put together when I was there.

1. Unusually obnoxious air freshener, presumably for covering unusually obnoxious odor.

2. Abnormally thick wall between closet and bedroom, more than twice the thickness of the other walls (including exterior, which might have been 2x4).

Clearly, they hid the bodies in the wall, plastered over them, and are covering up the reek of putrescence!

If you don't hear from me again, they've found and silenced me.

Unfortunatley, after you cut the old and infirm from the herd, you might not want to eat live in them.

Looked at a house yesterday that I'd had hopes for based on price/sqft/neighborhood. It had a great garage, but that was the best thing about it. It had been added to twice by mysterious builder(s) whom my father described as "imaginative", i.e., making it up as they go along.

You can tell by the interesting topography of the floor. Old houses often settle on their foundation. Old houses that are basically in three parts, some of which don't have foundation*, settle like a soufle after you've done a raindance in the kitchen.

I'm keeping it on my to-watch list, not because I have any desire to take on that kind of project, but because the price it sells for eventually will be informative.

I find realtors very awkward, by the way. I wish they'd hand me the keys and wait in the car. I usually bring my Dad with me, and he knows more about a house within five minutes of walking around it than the agent ever does. Some of the time even I do.

This realtor commented that we were "more adventurous than most buyers", which was code for "willing to get dirty." I don't think I'll ever really get the whole mainstream method of house shopping, where you look at paint and carpet and where the TV will go. I can repaint and tear up carpet and I don't give a shit about the TV, but I do want to know how the foundation is built. Why wait for the inspection to tell you if you can find out NOW?

For the record, I know that foundation structure problems like the ones at this house are fixable, but it'd have to be a nicer house before I considered it. If it had even a partial basement to work in leveling the floor wouldn't be so bad, but digging out, jacking, and repouring in a two foot crawlspace takes someone crazier than I.

*No, not even post and pier. Not built on slab. Just kinda stacked on (possibly untreated) lumber. With a little line of concrete poured around the outside. WTF?

I'm straight, and I have to disagree with this comic.

It's not just lesbians. Penises are HILLARIOUS.

I finally checked out the Olympia Comics Festival Saturday. It was small and only featured independent creators, which was nice. They ran the gamut in skill and professionalism, and got me thinking about comics as an art form and industry again. Not thinking much that was new, however. It still boils down to one problem: Comcis does a terrible job of presenting itself!

You can see it at all levels. The Danger Room (the shop which kick started the festival) is a fantastic store in terms of selection, customer service, and knowledge. From the outside is looks run down, skeazy, and permanently closed. Good luck enticing people new to the media with that.

The artist tables were at the Vault, one of the shadier clubs in downtown Oly. It's a horrid place for any kind of visual art expo - the space is oddly laid out for it, there isn't a big friendly encouraging entrance, and there's no LIGHT.

I did get to run into old WWU classmates, one of whom remembered my art, which was a huge suprise. Also drew a panel in the comic jam, photos of which are supposed to be online eventually. The best part of the day, though, was catching up with fenmere, who was down from B'ham to check out the con. That was rockin! Hope I didn't cramp his networkin' style too much -- I know it can get difficult to do your schtick with an extra audience, so I tried to always have my nose in someone's work.

Speaking of which, lets go back to the wide-ranging quality of the work. Fenmere wrote an excellent post about it, so I won't go over that, but here's something he didn't call out:

Little things make the difference in production.

My new pet peeve: self produced books which haven't had their pages trimmed. For the unfamiliar: You decide to make a book, so your print off several spreads, fold them, and put them one within the other to make your book! Great, right? Except that the center pages stick out at least an 1/8 of an inch beyond the outer pages; frequently more. This problem is solved by triming with a guillotine paper cutter, and you can hire the copy-lackies at kinkos to do it for a buck a cut. Three cuts. Should be able to do a stack of fifty lil' books at one go without a problem, and it makes a world of difference in the apparent professionalism of your product.

The other thing I noticed is totally personal to me -- there's an art style* which has only one line weight and lots and lots and LOTS of scratches and scribbles. I tend to find it in the very self-conciously indie or subculture comics most often, and I'm sure there's GREAT narative work done with it...but I can't read it. It makes my head uncomfortable. It's just too much visual work for me to bother getting to the meaning. I finaly have to acknowledge that I'll just never, ever want to read those.

I will want to read DAR, though. Fenmere introduced me to it, and I'm enjoyin' it!

I took Monday off to work on art, webpage, garden, and fiddle, but on Sunday evening while making Okonomiyaki I chiffenade-ed a little piece of my finger into the cabbage, so anything involving dirt, fiddle strings, or left-hand precision was off the menu for my day off. DUMB. I should have gone in to work anyway and taken thursday or next Monday off instead.

I did get a bit done on the dinosaur collage, and add a new random-images bit to the www.skellingtonart.com homepage.

Needless to say, I didn't play at the pub last night -- stayed home with Erik instead and watched redneck vampires from netflix. I also started reading him A Game of Thrones while he was cooking. It's probably way to ambitious for a read-aloud book, but when it gets difficult to follow I'll just give it to him to take home, and until then we're both enjoying it.

Yeah, my sweetheart and I read books to each other. Isn't it freaking adorable?*

I should be able to play on Thursday, because there's still skin where the strings touch (I sliced the side). I'd be learning a whole bunch of new tunes, so I *better* be able to play!


*For maximum adorable-ness, picture us reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories**, rather than A Game of thrones, which starts with a seven-year-old watching a beheading.

**A great favorite of mine ever since I was a kid. I was very glad Erik enjoyed it as much as I did.

Finished Josie's comps yesterday, which felt very good. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you actually have a whole day to work instead of half an hour here and there.

I still have to work in the collages for the twins, but I took Monday off so I can stay home and do that.

I have a plan for a painting series, and there are some more sheep in space I need to finish up, AND I ought to work on illos for mom's book.

Still busy, but no longer behind on a deadline. It's all good.

Shortly after my great grandma passed away, I promised stories. Because I don't know where I'd begin, I'm going to start posting her poems. Not all of them -- there are hundreds, and she had a deep fondness for the AABB rhyme scheme that starts to wear on you -- but some of my favorites. Lots of them are really little slice-of-life stories, and many of them are poem-versions of stories she told me at one time or another.

Grandma grew up during the depression, and like many people that age, she saved everything. It made going through the drawers kind of fun, and going through the pantry kind of horrific.

She was self-aware about it, though, so for our recession-ish time, here's Plastic Cups.


I saved those little plastic cups,
and all their lids
and thought that I would use them up.

But they just multiplied and swamped
the cupboards, and the drawers;
And I think what a dunce I am to save them.

The Great Depression marked my views ---
can't throw away what I might use ---
Recycling came just in time to save
my conscience and my mind.

I've been indecisive about my long-ish-term plans for awhile now, but luckily the economy crashed and made many of my decisions for me, so now I'm looking at becoming a member of the Propertied Class. Had a meeting about FHA loans this morning, one at Oly Fed last week, and I'm keeping my eye on a number of hovels little houses I might just barely be able to afford.

I'd have to have my parents cosign for a conventional loan, but apparently the feds are happy with loaning the same amount to me, despite my thirty-hour work week and small income. Notice to Federal Government: this could be part of your problem. Seriously, if I wasn't planning on housemates (which they don't take into account), there is no way I'd be able to make the payments they think I can.

Back from a long sunny Folklife weekend. I was so tired going up Saturday I thought it'd be a bust, and except for a Quebecois jam in the morning I barely played, but I slept really well in my parents' Posh Suite*, and got my busking spot bright and early Sunday morning. The vendors around me were GREAT -- really personable, appreciative, caring. There was a really cute girl doing coin-op ballet for hours who looked absolutely shot, and they tried to make sure she kept hydrated. Sylvia (of Sylvia Swasey Designs) even gave me a hand warmer when my Reynaud's kicked in...turns out she's a fellow sufferer. Her daughter is just starting violin, and was a great audience.

The other neighbor-vendor was David Kaynor, who isn't this David Kaynor, but his third cousin. They only discovered each other at Folklife, because of all the people like me who ask "So, do you know you have the same name as this fantastic contra dance caller?" The Artist-David-Kaynor was really friendly. He's also an Olympian. He runs an art show every year two blocks from my house.

Dad and I brought along a bunch of shaky eggs, and when little-littles stopped to listen, we had them join in. I think one in fifteen had rhythm, but we're talking two and three year olds, here. Most of them were just amazed that they were Making Noise With the Musicians. We had the biggest line-up of guest-artists under 2 foot 6 at folklife.

I used a LOT of Quebecois tunes busking for the first time, mostly because I needed a change from same ol-same ol, and I think it went over well. They're really cheerful, perfect for bright festival days, and the rhythms are just odd enough that people stop and listen. Dad's learning to play to crooked tunes, too, but he basically has to learn each one instead of just 'jig' or 'reel', which is tough on a drummer. :)

Hung out with westrider, Ran into lots of Fiddletunes buddies and Bellingham buddies, and had lunch with Rob and Terri, my Bellingham parents. The jams in the hospitality suite were great, and made up for not dancing at all (Sat and Sun I was too footsore, Monday Erik came up and wasn't up for it).

Correction for the general public: I wore my coin scarf, and all weekend people told me I couldn't sneak up on anyone. This is incorrect! I could sneak up on Morris Men. It's a bad idea, however, because Morris Men carry sticks.



*My folks booked a hotel room two blocks from the center, and when they got there they found it was a hotel suite, so I slept on the fold-out in their living room. The next night I stayed with my cousin Kelsey, after finding out that the car my fam let me borrow had a broken seat adjustment and was permanently adjusted for my 5'10" brother, NOT the 5'4"-when-very-straight me. A rolled up blanket booster-seat got me safely to Chateau Too-Good in the Ballard/Phinney area.

I was playing fallout last night and obtained a wig! A powdered wig, no less! When I wear my powdered wig with the naughty (leopard print) nightwear, people will believe anything I say.

Presumably this is because they're still in shock.

I find it hard to believe, but the right wing appears to be flipping out over Obama saying that 'empathy' is a desirable quality in a justice. Apparently the very-human ability to place yourself in another's shoes and understand how they might feel implies wishy-washy, non-law-based decision making.

There are a number of bizarre aspects to this spat -- they equate empathy with bias, assuming that a judge will always only 'feel' for one side of the case; they idealise a very clear-cut, cold application of existing law that simply doesn't work in a human society where we invent new issues constantly -- but what I really get a kick out of is that they're packaging up all this subtext to attack empathy.

Empathy allows us to be successful social animals. Empathy is the true root of morality -- I don't hurt you, not just because it isn't in my best interest, but because I can feel your pain. I'm always amazed at the religious who say that I must be immmoral because I'm an atheist, because it is so clearly untrue, but also because the foundation of morality is something we all have to some degree, whatever one's religion or lack thereof.

I undestand, now. The right wing is attacking the concept of empathy. For people so lacking in and distrustful of a basic human trait, a totally external source of morality is nessecary. Keep your religion, kids; I'm terrified of what you'd do without it.

Garden-fever gets worse with planting, not better, so I was cruising the farm/livestock area of craigslist, daydreaming about dairy sheep.

That's why I saw a listing for a mare, 7 years old, APHA, who "Leads easy, brushes, is calm for furrier."

The recession must be worse than I thought.



Later: SHEEP!

We did one of those health-screening (cholestoral, blood pressure, etc) things at work today, which I participated in because A) more info is almost always good and B) we get a financial incentive from our health insurance company.

The lady was really sweet and a fellow reynaud's sufferer, which was good, because it was cold in the room and it took her three finger-pricks (and some hand-circles, and judiciously applied gravity) to get enough blood to test.

When between us we finally got enough of my blood, she ran the test, and immediatley went all mother-hen on me.

It was kind of adorable.

"Do you have food at your desk? Can you get to your desk? Do you feel shaky?"

Apparently I have rather low bloodsugar when I haven't had breakfast (fasting was required for accurate results). I assured her I had food, and didn't mention that I had to walk two blocks to the espresso stand to get it.

"Okay, but I don't want to see ambulance lights out there, young lady!"

Unrelated exciting medical news! Male birth control on the horizon? It's about damn time!

I put on new strings yesterday. The old ones sounded anemic. Note to self: Don't leave it so long nexttime!

One of these days I'm going to try Obligatos. The Evahs are great, and they're LOUD, which is excellent for busking, but Baby is already a loud, bright fiddle, and Obligatos might add warmth.

Could the universe please try not to beat up my friends? Yesterday wasn't very nice to several of them. Please stop it. Thanks.

This weekend I ordered Quicken 2009, and today the order confirmation arrived:

"Great News! We shipped your order QST3050202690 today (see details of your shipment below). It will arrive shortly."

Wow! I am SO SURPRISED that you did what I paid you to do! Go Intuit!

Most unintentionally funny confirmation e-mail ever.

In other, less great (but perfectly enjoyable) news, I once again spent a weekend mostly-in-the-garden. Finally got compost from mom's, had Doozer and Dad over for BBQ and a few tunes, planted scallions, and got beat up by a rose bush.

Even better, Brad and I finally managed to go for a ride, and for my first long ride of the season I did pretty well! Apparently all that training up to the century doesn't just disappear over night. We also went up to REI and spent our little hearts out. I now have Magic Vulcan Biking Gloves that keep my hands almost toasty!