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Big kid toys
Jun. 5th, 2024 10:47 pmSpotted on River Road yesterday: a bright red Camaro with big black racing stripes. On the rear quarter panel: an enormous Hot Wheels logo.
I wanna see it do the loop-de-loop.
I wanna see it do the loop-de-loop.
Well, that was quick
May. 31st, 2024 05:30 pmWe've blown past iris season and right into roses. Here are a few from last Friday, taken whilst mowing knee-high grass in the back yard.
These are two we bought from an heirloom rose outfit in St. Paul, Oregon, and grew in buckets for years at our old place. Put them in the ground when we bought the house, and they're thriving.
This long stem Peace rose came with the house. It's currently something over ten feet high.
We have several of these guys on the left, a leggy small double that also came with the house. Described them to my potter/greenhouse owner friend Linda, who said, Oh, root stock roses. Apparently, this is what happens when fancy grafted roses die back to the roots. Hey, they're hardy and pretty. The Rugosa on the right won't do that. It's on its own root stock. And smells wonderful.
...and this one's not a rose at all. It's a cistus--Rock Rose--we bought from Linda when we got the house. It quickly grew to a sprawling mound of pink flowers over the first few years, then died back almost entirely during a prolonged cold snap. The only exception was one branch that had flopped over on the ground and developed its own roots. I levered out the old stump, transplanted the survivor, and in two years it had completely taken over again.
These are two we bought from an heirloom rose outfit in St. Paul, Oregon, and grew in buckets for years at our old place. Put them in the ground when we bought the house, and they're thriving.
This long stem Peace rose came with the house. It's currently something over ten feet high.
We have several of these guys on the left, a leggy small double that also came with the house. Described them to my potter/greenhouse owner friend Linda, who said, Oh, root stock roses. Apparently, this is what happens when fancy grafted roses die back to the roots. Hey, they're hardy and pretty. The Rugosa on the right won't do that. It's on its own root stock. And smells wonderful.
...and this one's not a rose at all. It's a cistus--Rock Rose--we bought from Linda when we got the house. It quickly grew to a sprawling mound of pink flowers over the first few years, then died back almost entirely during a prolonged cold snap. The only exception was one branch that had flopped over on the ground and developed its own roots. I levered out the old stump, transplanted the survivor, and in two years it had completely taken over again.
Inquiring minds
May. 22nd, 2024 08:37 amSo Denise was quoting TOS Mirror, Mirror this morning, which made me wonder: When we visualize someone's evil twin, why do we always imagine them with a goatee, a la Spock, rather than a sinister scar, like Sulu?
Gang, gang
Apr. 10th, 2023 09:52 am
...the hail's all here!Scene from the front door of Club Mud last Monday; fortunately, I was indoors with a nice warm kiln. It would be really nice to have spring one of these days?
Even later
Feb. 25th, 2023 02:28 pmHere are some fired pieces from the last firing. What can I say? I'm a slow-motion blogger.
Whale teapot, mantis pasta and barn owl platter are special orders. The rest are just going into my booth when Saturday Market opens.
Whale teapot, mantis pasta and barn owl platter are special orders. The rest are just going into my booth when Saturday Market opens.
While I were out
Oct. 2nd, 2022 09:19 pm So a lot has happened since I posted last. In particular, we took a week off to fly back to the midwest and play connect-the-relatives. Then there was the return, ambushed by cats. Days on the computer doing all the non-fun stuff--triaging email, coping with ad design for two different pottery shows. Sorting and boxing pots, doing some remedial firing. Two Saturday Markets. Oh, and a broken window on the van that needed attending to.
I've just edited a bunch of photos from the trip and since, and will be posting recaps and updates a few at a time over the next week. Hopefully, I can be caught up by my birthday, Friday.
I've just edited a bunch of photos from the trip and since, and will be posting recaps and updates a few at a time over the next week. Hopefully, I can be caught up by my birthday, Friday.
Making progress
Apr. 21st, 2022 11:07 am
We're making progress in making the house safe for Denise, post-knee surgery. I don't know if you can tell, but there's bare floor space around that chair. Also a rather handy footstool I picked up for under ten bucks at St. Vincent de Paul that has the added advantage of storage space inside.Not shown: the completely cleared hallway and path to the side door that I created in my studio, at the expense of most of the working space. I'll have to reorganize that once everything else is done.
Next week, Denise will work on clearing the half-bath (shower stall is easier to access than the tub, but hasn't actually been used in... 20 years?) while I build ramps. Right now, though, we're taking a well-earned break. Driving down to Newport for the weekend for the Paper & Book Arts Festival.
Merry Christmas, Solstice, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or whatever winter holiday you favor, I hope it's happy, peaceful, and full of love and friends. We're slowly decompressing from the sales season, will have Christmas dinner for supper, maybe open presents, maybe save 'em for Sunday. Who knows? It's just the start of the Christmas season.Woke up this morning at 6:24 to Christmas greetings from a friend in Wisconsin who doesn't understand how time zones work. Sang Christmas carols with an expanded Newman Center choir (only one Christmas day Mass, so both the 9 and 11 am folks were there) that had sopranos and altos, along with my lone tenor. Carols are fun because everybody knows 'em, and we all have the harmonies down from years of repetition. We also had an operatic soprano who knows a few of the grand, soaring descants on Hark the Herald and Angels We Have Heard. Was going to introduce Shannon to our hand-made Nativity set, but Regina's grand-kids were crowding the space and we couldn't get close enough to touch. (She's blind, so will need hands-on to appreciate.) Fortunately, there's time. It's just the start of the season, after all.
Overheard at Holiday Market: Grandpa's a tough one. Everybody scratches their head, because he has no hobbies and no interests.
I nodded sympathetically, but then remembered what my niece gave my mother (her grandmother) last Christmas: a calendar.
Not just any calendar; a calendar with a day circled every month when she and her partner would come by and visit. During lockdown, they brought takeout supper. Now that things have opened up a bit, they like to go to Rock Dam for a Friday fish fry. She also comes over to help roll out potica dough. It's been a lovely year's gifting.
I nodded sympathetically, but then remembered what my niece gave my mother (her grandmother) last Christmas: a calendar.
Not just any calendar; a calendar with a day circled every month when she and her partner would come by and visit. During lockdown, they brought takeout supper. Now that things have opened up a bit, they like to go to Rock Dam for a Friday fish fry. She also comes over to help roll out potica dough. It's been a lovely year's gifting.
The sheriff's tale
Nov. 30th, 2021 09:59 pm
I did my annual Holiday Market work shift Saturday morning. Vendors each do one shift a year (or forfeit a $25 deposit). I like to do morning security. I hang out by the side door, near to my booth, hold it open for vendors, help bring in their stock if need be, and keep the random public from wandering in before we open.Market keeps a small stock of toy badges for us to wear, but I prefer to pin mine on a bear. Reminds me of Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson's The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch, which always makes me smile. When vendors address me with a "Howdy, Sheriff!" I can point out that, in fact, this is the sheriff; I'm just the deputy.
Around 9:13 am, a car pulls up and the driver rolls down his window and calls out, "What time do you open?" He doesn't hear my "10 o'clock," so I walk out and repeat myself. "Okay, then, it says 10:13 here," he says, pointing to his dashboard clock. "No, I"m afraid you're still on daylight time," I say, "It's only quarter after nine." "But it says 10:13," he insists, while his wife tries to show him the correct time on her phone.
"Well, can we just come in anyway, and look around quietly?" No, you really can't. "Why not? Everything's legal now that you people elected Biden."
Oh, that got strange fast. I try to explain that, in fact, as a private organization, Saturday Market has the right to set our own operating hours, while he keeps repeating "Everything's legal now." So I give up and go back to my door while he shouts, "Don't you walk away from me!" I ignore him and go inside, and eventually he rolls up his window and drives off.
Twenty minutes later, a different guy comes up. He's on foot, in a yellow rain jacket and home-made mask, incorporating what looks like a piece of pillow case sewn into a structure of white athletic socks, providing the elastic to hold it on. (In contrast, car guy had no mask, and a Navy ball cap.) He asks me what time the Market opens.
"10 o'clock," I say. "I thought it opened at 9, like the downtown Market," he replies. "No, actually, the Saturday Market also opens at 10. Farmers Market opens at 9," I explain. "Oh! I guess I connect those two in my mind," he says. "I guess I'll just puddle around for a while, then." I observe that it's a lovely morning for walkies--the sun was just coming out, and we're right on the Amazon canal. He agrees, and says he appreciates that I appreciate that.
"Thanks for the extra 18 minutes," he says to me.
Lean into the cute
May. 23rd, 2021 09:07 pmMy favorite science podcast, Ologies, has an interesting and slightly spacy closing theme: over mellow instrumental, a woman's voice recites a list of different scientific fields, "ologies," if you will. Pathology, serology, nanotechnology. My fave is pachydermatology--the study of large, thick skinned mammals, as shown here. Almost chose this as "today's theme" on Instagram yesterday, but decided instead to go with what I'm known for: Baby elephant, baby squirrel, bunnies; lean into the cute.
Both of my neighbors were leather crafters, but their displays couldn't have been more different. Gera (pron. HAY-rah), to my left, has a full booth with trade-show grey fabric panels, an EZ-Up canopy, counter space. Gordon, to my right, has a blue pipe-frame rolling cart, a folding card table, and a chair. And a portable anvil to punch holes and cut belts to size. They both seem to be having pretty good days, Gordon sold all but three bracelets, numerous belts and a couple of big courier bags.
I had a very good day as well, over $800 in sales. I keep expecting some sort of crash, and it keeps not happening. Good thing I'm firing a kiln before my next Market.
It's our first full week since the new CDC masking guidelines dropped. All but three or four of the vendors I saw were still masked, and a good 80% of the public, including all the of customers in my booth. Of course, there's also the usual naked-nosers, and an older woman who keeps pulling her mask down to talk to me. I'm fully vaccinated, so a little more blasé about it; no longer wiping down pots with hand sanitizer after customers handle them. Keeping my mask, though.
A little girl comes in with a white mask with pink tongue painted on. I point to my teddy-bear mask and say, Look, our masks are twinses! She agrees, and laughs even harder when I show her my teddy bear with her mask. Kids are the best sometimes.
I sold a lot of Denise's greeting cards, nine in all, I think. They're actually a collaborative effort, copies from my watercolor sketchbooks mounted on her handmade paper. My favorite sale is to a college girl. She wants two, and one has to be the barn owl pic; the other is one of five different floral patterns, and she just can't decide. Her friend is no help, she goes 'round and 'round, and finally, I get a quarter out of my pocket, and start flipping it. Heads, this one, tails, that--ope, that one goes back in the box. Now these two, then these--four flips later, she's down to the apple blossoms card with the honeybee, and happy with it.
And because nothing ever just happens once: There's a young married couple who just got their first house, and have been telling me since Market opened that they plan to replace all of their commercial dishes with handmade ones. From me. Today's the day they start; they want to pick out two dinner plates. In coming weeks, they'll get more, one or two at a time.
Of course, no sooner do they tell me this, but they get distracted by crab and octopus stew mugs--octo is her favorite pattern, crab his. Maybe they should get these? But they planned on plates. Well, they could get two plates and the crab mug--but they'd initially planned on one plate, talked themselves up to two, this would blow their budget.
I tell you, it was more entertaining than the Eurovision finals.
Meanwhile, I'm digging through the plate stack to find the octopus plate, opening the restock box to get out a few more, including a crab. She immediately latches on to the octopus, he's less committed to the crab (I think he likes the stew mug better). They're also looking at a saw-whet owl plate that came from under the counter, and she's not sure and he won't choose.
You guessed it. The quarter came out again. She called heads, and took home the owl and octopus plates. I'm gonna hold on to this quarter. Think it might be magic...
Both of my neighbors were leather crafters, but their displays couldn't have been more different. Gera (pron. HAY-rah), to my left, has a full booth with trade-show grey fabric panels, an EZ-Up canopy, counter space. Gordon, to my right, has a blue pipe-frame rolling cart, a folding card table, and a chair. And a portable anvil to punch holes and cut belts to size. They both seem to be having pretty good days, Gordon sold all but three bracelets, numerous belts and a couple of big courier bags.
I had a very good day as well, over $800 in sales. I keep expecting some sort of crash, and it keeps not happening. Good thing I'm firing a kiln before my next Market.
It's our first full week since the new CDC masking guidelines dropped. All but three or four of the vendors I saw were still masked, and a good 80% of the public, including all the of customers in my booth. Of course, there's also the usual naked-nosers, and an older woman who keeps pulling her mask down to talk to me. I'm fully vaccinated, so a little more blasé about it; no longer wiping down pots with hand sanitizer after customers handle them. Keeping my mask, though.
A little girl comes in with a white mask with pink tongue painted on. I point to my teddy-bear mask and say, Look, our masks are twinses! She agrees, and laughs even harder when I show her my teddy bear with her mask. Kids are the best sometimes.
I sold a lot of Denise's greeting cards, nine in all, I think. They're actually a collaborative effort, copies from my watercolor sketchbooks mounted on her handmade paper. My favorite sale is to a college girl. She wants two, and one has to be the barn owl pic; the other is one of five different floral patterns, and she just can't decide. Her friend is no help, she goes 'round and 'round, and finally, I get a quarter out of my pocket, and start flipping it. Heads, this one, tails, that--ope, that one goes back in the box. Now these two, then these--four flips later, she's down to the apple blossoms card with the honeybee, and happy with it.
And because nothing ever just happens once: There's a young married couple who just got their first house, and have been telling me since Market opened that they plan to replace all of their commercial dishes with handmade ones. From me. Today's the day they start; they want to pick out two dinner plates. In coming weeks, they'll get more, one or two at a time.
Of course, no sooner do they tell me this, but they get distracted by crab and octopus stew mugs--octo is her favorite pattern, crab his. Maybe they should get these? But they planned on plates. Well, they could get two plates and the crab mug--but they'd initially planned on one plate, talked themselves up to two, this would blow their budget.
I tell you, it was more entertaining than the Eurovision finals.
Meanwhile, I'm digging through the plate stack to find the octopus plate, opening the restock box to get out a few more, including a crab. She immediately latches on to the octopus, he's less committed to the crab (I think he likes the stew mug better). They're also looking at a saw-whet owl plate that came from under the counter, and she's not sure and he won't choose.
You guessed it. The quarter came out again. She called heads, and took home the owl and octopus plates. I'm gonna hold on to this quarter. Think it might be magic...
Things I noticed
Apr. 25th, 2021 07:01 pmI've been reading a book called On Looking: Eleven Walks With Expert Eyes. Think I heard about it on a podcast, 99 Percent Invisible maybe? She talks about the the things we fail to notice in our surroundings, and goes out walking with different specialists--a typographer, artist, biologist, her toddler--and describes the different things they find, even their different ways of seeing. I highly recommend it. And it may have got me noticing a bit more at Market yesterday. Some examples:
My strawberry from Farmer's Market has feet.
Social distancing is multi-dimensional.
After a half-hour of annoying echoes from the street-preacher-with-a-bullhorn a block away, it was a pleasant surprise to have them drowned out by harp music. Danny's friend, watching his booth while he got lunch.
And the same space, two hours later, as the second shift arrives.
My strawberry from Farmer's Market has feet.
Social distancing is multi-dimensional.
After a half-hour of annoying echoes from the street-preacher-with-a-bullhorn a block away, it was a pleasant surprise to have them drowned out by harp music. Danny's friend, watching his booth while he got lunch.
And the same space, two hours later, as the second shift arrives.
Just mailed off my Oregon taxes today.
I always tackle the taxes early, sometime in February, then leave them sit for a week or two, waiting to see I've forgotten anything. I've used a basic tax program--TurboTax once upon a time, HR Block more recently--since I first bought a computer, and up until last year, I'd just download state forms from their website. They were easy enough to do, just transfer numbers from the appropriate spots on the federal 1040. They even used to use the federal schedule A for itemized deductions, with a place to adjust for state tax payments. It was simple and quick; also free.
Last year, though, Oregon changed their form; added about six new bits on an adjustments schedule, their own deductions form, and none of the instructions in the downloadable pdf made sense to me. I made a couple of mistakes, which fortunately cancelled each other out and left me slightly to the good, but still.
So this year, I paid Block the extra $25 for the state add-on. It ran very smoothly; took most of the data it needed from the federal, I just had to make sure to get the withholding, estimated taxes and carry-over from last year input.
Comes time to file. Fed is easy, comes free with the program (with four free returns to spare). But when I went on to the state, I found out that state filing is not free, it's $19.95, which they'll be happy to take a credit or debit card number for. Or I can just have it taken out of my federal refund.
I stomped off into the living room and growled to Denise about it. Apparently, I'd missed the fine print on this when I bought the software? She calmed me down, said it wasn't that big a deal, and we had a nice refund coming, so why not? Get it in to the state quicker.
Come back to finish filing, and see more fine print. There's an extra charge for taking the filing fee out of my refund. $39. (On top of the $19.95 already coming out.)
Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. I back out of there quick time, get some clean paper in the printer and run out a copy. (Two copies, actually. I ran out of ink about four pages into the first set, so I've got a bunch of partially blank pages to shred, because you know the one thing that's still readable is probably my SS#.) Found a clean 6x9" envelope, and rode down to the Post Office today. 3-ounce envelope, $1.40 postage.
A bargain.
I always tackle the taxes early, sometime in February, then leave them sit for a week or two, waiting to see I've forgotten anything. I've used a basic tax program--TurboTax once upon a time, HR Block more recently--since I first bought a computer, and up until last year, I'd just download state forms from their website. They were easy enough to do, just transfer numbers from the appropriate spots on the federal 1040. They even used to use the federal schedule A for itemized deductions, with a place to adjust for state tax payments. It was simple and quick; also free.
Last year, though, Oregon changed their form; added about six new bits on an adjustments schedule, their own deductions form, and none of the instructions in the downloadable pdf made sense to me. I made a couple of mistakes, which fortunately cancelled each other out and left me slightly to the good, but still.
So this year, I paid Block the extra $25 for the state add-on. It ran very smoothly; took most of the data it needed from the federal, I just had to make sure to get the withholding, estimated taxes and carry-over from last year input.
Comes time to file. Fed is easy, comes free with the program (with four free returns to spare). But when I went on to the state, I found out that state filing is not free, it's $19.95, which they'll be happy to take a credit or debit card number for. Or I can just have it taken out of my federal refund.
I stomped off into the living room and growled to Denise about it. Apparently, I'd missed the fine print on this when I bought the software? She calmed me down, said it wasn't that big a deal, and we had a nice refund coming, so why not? Get it in to the state quicker.
Come back to finish filing, and see more fine print. There's an extra charge for taking the filing fee out of my refund. $39. (On top of the $19.95 already coming out.)
Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. I back out of there quick time, get some clean paper in the printer and run out a copy. (Two copies, actually. I ran out of ink about four pages into the first set, so I've got a bunch of partially blank pages to shred, because you know the one thing that's still readable is probably my SS#.) Found a clean 6x9" envelope, and rode down to the Post Office today. 3-ounce envelope, $1.40 postage.
A bargain.
To which I say...
Are you sure?