Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Apparently it’s random photo week here at Casa di Monster Cat. Here is a long-promised dead jellyfish photo. There were many, many, many dead cannonball jellyfish on the beach when we were in Hilton Head in April. They were really quite remarkable.

I’m not a graphic designer, nor would I play one on TV. Luckily, if I try really hard, I can color using Photoshop and a Wacom Bamboo tablet. Annoying and niggly work, but (hot damn) did it work. I think I need to do more coloring as practice. In my copious spare time.

I’m taking tomorrow off from work but will probably log in to see if any progress can be made on the current fire drill. I really am a sucker for getting things done.

Now, I should post Monster Cat and go to sleep. Really.

tags: cannonball jellyfish, random, work

So, while I was home in Maine my little brother grinned with glee, took my camera and scampered (yes, scampered) to the attic of Dad’s garage with the comment, “Oh you’ve got to have a picture of this!” And this is how I ended up with the Shag King on my camera. The Shag King is, naturally, a vacuum attachment for the 30+ year old Kirby vacuum cleaner in my parents’ house. Presumably, if it were attached to said Kirby and pointed at some shag carpet, the Shag King would indeed voraciously devour all dirt in its shaggy path.

I have redrafted the pattern for Fop Pants and cut out a pair. I have more fabric in the dryer. Apparently I’m still procrastinating my Viking apron dresses. I’ve got plenty of pre-Pennsic projects to do it with too.

tags: attachment, dad’s attic, kirby, random, sewing, shag king, vacuum cleaner

This photo is from my mother’s garden taken on my road trip last week.

Good news! I got my desktop Mac back Sunday! (It took them 13 days to repair it. *sigh* The process for finding parts for older Macs is not a great one. Next time I’ll probably go through Small Dog instead to avoid the Apple corporate policy on repairs that extended the repair so significantly.)

Bad news! I’m falling apart and my weekend was somewhat consumed by a general malaise.

I still did get out to bbqs and such over the holiday. There were incredible fireworks Friday night at the Fop’s aunt’s house courtesy of her husband. (And I have to say his aunt puts on quite the bbq… she’s amazing!) I have never sat so close to such an awesome show. Rich choreographed his show to music, of course, and went through 4 or 5 songs. Let’s just say it was quite a display for a backyard professional. Unfortunately it started to rain so I have no good photos. Next year…

Saturday was a long, enjoyable afternoon and evening at Thomas and Marion’s with many people of LJ and Tadcaster fame about as well as other random folks.

Sunday… well, Sunday I picked up my computer, did necessary grocery shopping then basically passed out for the rest of the day. (What can I say? My chair-and-a-half is incredibly comfortable, especially when paired with a bear for a footstool!)

Work today was rough, quite honestly - more of the usual amplified by being away for a week. I set up my desktop Mac again after work and it’s nice to have it back up and running.

tags: bbqs, fireworks, mac repair, photographs, random, weekend, work

It occured to me that I never posted the pictures of the dead jellyfish from Hilton Head Island I’d promised back in April. While I decide if that’s too morbid or not, here’s a seagull about to be hit by wave (well not really) from the same trip. He had quite the jaunty bounce to his step… probably because he was trying to avoid stepping on the dead and dying jellyfish.

The week continues to be an adventure at work. Someone wants me in a meeting at 8 a.m. tomorrow. Luckily, he didn’t specify I had to be happy about it. I really need to start work around 7, I suspect, given we’re leaving for the airport at 2.

Did I mention we’re going away for the weekend? Did I mention we’re going to Las Vegas? No, we are not getting married this weekend. Yes, we are visiting the lions and whoever else is in residence at the big cat habitat in the MGM Grand. Yes, we are seeing a Cirque show - Zumanity. There will also be pirates, blue men and ponchos, and funny men who are made funnier by one’s silence. It should be a fun weekend.

If I survive the weekend… I’ll be flying up to Connecticut for a quick work trip Monday eve through Wednesday eve. Quick, but useful.

tags: hilton head island, las vegas, meetings, ocean, photographs, photography, seagull, south carolina, travel, work

If you’re like me and only remember/care about the dream sequences from The Cell and though they were glorious, you might be interested in the interview with the director, Tarsem, up on the AV Club. Tarsem himself admits to only taking the job so he could do the dream scenes. He’s got a new film coming to theaters: The Fall. I’m curious to see it as it sounds fascinating. Take a look at the stills or watch the trailer. It just looks like such an awesome trip.

In other news, I have 3 rose blossoms going full force in the garden and I’m considering starting construction on an ark. It’s been gray and raining here for what feels like a couple weeks. The basement seems the perfect place to test prototypes too. I really wish the washer and dryer were on the drier side of the basement. I don’t mind a wet basement but I do mind not being able to do laundry!

tags: ark, house, movies, photography, phtographs, rain, tarsem, the cell, the fall, weather

Spring Passing / Summer Promising: A short series.
So often we celebrate spring or summer. But right now, in my garden, it’s the time when spring is starting to wan while summer is not yet ready to explode.

The flowers on the azaleas and the pink bush of doom are starting to lose their flowers. I’m really excited by the progress the peonies are making since being transplanted last Fall. They have settled in and taken off! I was concerned when I planted them that the soil was too low quality for them along the fence. Apparently I was wrong. I can’t wait until they start blooming! The two new rose bushes are in the ground and I’m hoping for flowers this summer but not holding my breath. The other rose bush is already budding up a storm and I’m not sure the new ones will catch up.

After a few chilly gray days I’ve been opening windows to try to get the house to warm up. Ah… the thermal glory of stone walls. I wish they went all the way up instead of just the first floor!

tags: azaleas, flowers, peonies, photographs, photography, roses, spring, summer

So I have several favorite quilts from the International Quilt Show as well as several I was heartbroken that I couldn’t capture about because they had “no photography” signs on them. I’m sure it comes as no surprise to most of you that one of my favorite quilts is a winter tree quilt. It’s a little quilt - 9×11 inches - and the stitches are very intricate! In the close-up version you can see the tiny stitches that make up the graceful snowflakes. I really love the shimmer of this quilt too. Just pretty… very pretty. :) I love that a lot of very careful work went into this small work of fabric art.

Happily, in other news, the week is half over! 2 more days then I go on a vacation with no firm plans other than our plane tickets! YAY! I have a huge list of things I want to edit or write not to mention a large pile of books to read on the trip. I will whittle down my lists and still not accomplish much on vacation I’m sure… which is probably how it should be. I still really need a vacation so I should take the time for a proper recharge.

I did get the Bernina embroidery software installed on my laptop last night. The delay was because I had to install Windows first. (Boo!) It all seems pretty stable so far. I opened a few designs that were pre-installed and decided I should probably go through the tutorial. That’s right… I’m going to do the tutorial for a piece of software. Why? Well, it’s essentially high-end graphic design software and that’s not something I’m very good at and the icons often make absolutely no sense so it’s hard to punt. I’ll figure it out probably half way through the tutorial, get bored, quit the tutorial and be off and running.

tags: bernina, chicago, embroidery software, international quilt show, quilts, snowflakes, vacation, winter

That’s right, folks! Scandalous photos of Spring-like things that will depress and exasperate my dear mother especially since they got 5 inches of snow on Friday. Shhh… don’t tell her.

Oh. Hi. If it’s any consolation, dear Mum, it was too chilly to work outside, at least given that I’m fighting off a cold or something.

This weekend was almost really incredibly productive! Instead it was just soft of productive. Yesterday the Fop woke up not feeling well at all and decided it was best not to go to Mudthaw. When he eventually felt more human we hit a movie. Superhero Movie falls squarely in a genre I really don’t care for but I hated Spiderman so much, I thought it would be fun to see the parody. Indeed, it was fun - it turned out to be a little better than a series of jokes and spoofs strung together by virtue of each skit involving the same characters and it was definitely far superior to Spiderman. Don’t get me wrong - it was still a dumb movie, but it was a parody of something I felt needed to be parodied and I enjoyed the silliness and stupidity. Leslie Nielson is still quite a crazy, dead-pan man. Pamela Anderson still has boobs that defy the laws of physics. (I’m surprised more physicists don’t try to give her a ticket for that as a pickup line. Then again, she probably doesn’t hang out in many locales populated by physicists.) I’m not saying you should go see this movie, but it didn’t suck. If you do go, stay through the credits because there are several more little skits in the final credits that look like they got cut from the movie.

Now that the Denny’s near us has improved its service AND eliminated its smoking section, we’ve gotten in the habit of having breakfast/brunch over there like once a weekend. So this “morning” involved Denny’s then a trip to Home Depot for indoor gardening supplies. I may or may not have over-purchased. After an afternoon of standing in the sun out on the enclosed porch, I have transplanted about a dozen plants and started seeds for 3 or 4 types of hot peppers, chives, parsley, basil, white echinacea flowers, columbine and 3 pots of oat grass for the kitties. I have a plan for a raised bed herb garden. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the peppers yet.

In other spring news, again don’t tell my mother, the peonies that Janet gave me in October appear to have weathered the incredibly and depressingly mild winter quite well in their new beds. I can see the beginnings of new growth poking up through the rather clay-like ground I planted them in. Finally there will be flowers in the narrow strip between the driveway and the fence! Fierce peonies! The plum tree is budding, as seen here. The rose bush is starting to show new growth as well. The lilies have already popped up new growth and the lone tulip is deciding if it’s going to bud or not. It’s good that I have already given up on winter (despite the fact that my desktop image is a photo of a pink flamingo lawn ornament under snow), otherwise all this spring stuff would be hard to take.

Oh, and dear mother? Yes, this is revenge for all the photos of snow you sent me.

tags: buds, flowers, gardening, indoor gardening, photographs, photography, plum tree, snow, spring, weekend, winter

Bunnies bearing eggs are not to be trusted!

As appropriate, I had easter candy for breakfast. And that was the full extent of my observance of the holiday. Some traditions should not be broken.

All in all, this was not the most productive weekend in history, but it suited my mood. I could have used a little more sleep, but that was apparently not to be. I could have used a little more time with my brain functioning as well, but this was also not to be. Oh well.

We did go see 10,000 B.C. in which we saw some pretty ticked off giant arboreal attack chickens who were some ticked about that bunny stealing their eggs. Even after bracing ourselves for a fantasy movie, it was a pretty bad movie. Silly and amusing enough but bad. I don’t feel cheated out of time and money, but in hindsight I really didn’t need to see it.

The Bank Job would have benefited from skimpier costumes for Jason Statham. Alas, he was fully clothed most of the time. Despite this, it was a good, fun caper flick.

This weekend also involved looking at couches again as our current couch is rather … squished. We have confirmed that we are incredibly picky. We have also confirmed that we should probably carry around little cards that explain to sales people to leave us alone because they’re more likely to get a sale that way. However, I am at least somewhat optimistic that we will be able to find a couch we like when the time comes. Our current couch is probably about 10 years old and those years have not been easy. If all else fails, I’ll get it refurbished with new cushions and upholstery or maybe do that anyway and put it somewhere else in the house. I’d also like to put a comfy reading chair in my office where I currently have a bunch of crates and boxes for recycling. I need to stash my sewing machine boxes somewhere storage-like as well. And I should do something about bookshelves so I can get my books out of the Fop’s office… not that I can navigate through the boxes of comics to get to my books right now. *giggle* I do sense a trip to IKEA in my future though.

But, first on my list is to play with fabric. I need some sort of carrier for my laptop accessories and cables. I keep seeing the neoprene ones for sale and thinking “cool but I could make that” so I guess I should get off my butt, right?

I know the photo is not very Spring-ly, but I really like it. I hadn’t posted a non-monster cat photo in a while and wanted to post something. It would also make an excellent location to hide easter eggs. In fact, maybe this is an easter photo and you should find the easter egg hidden in this picture!

tags: 10,000 b.c., easter, movie reviews, movies, photographs, projects, shopping, the bank job, weekend

More moon photos! I cropped the first one and played a bit with the color for fun. The second is cropped to show off the various other objects visible around the moon during the eclipse. I love how the light changed as the eclipse progressed and regressed. Just amazing really. I’m also still incredibly happy that I was inspired to find my tripod… (I blame Mike.) More cool night photos may happen now.

The green reflection in some of the photos? It was caused by my UV filter. It didn’t occur to me to take it off. Apparently this is a common side-effect of leaving on the UV filter when taking photographs of points of light. The earlier photos didn’t have as intense a light source as the last bunch I took of the moon emerging out of the eclipse. I admit it, I’m lame and use my UV filter primarily as a protective shield for my lens.

Oh, Very Happy Friday to all of you! Buon Weekend! Hurray! I think I may have lost Thursday this week but I’m not sure. Hopefully it won’t reappear in the future to make another week longer… that is unless it picks a week I’m on vacation.

I did survive the week though and for that I thank my lucky stars. And my unlucky ones too because they weren’t too horrible this week. I did make the big french press of coffee this morning instead of the little single-serve press but I think it was a good decision. I *know* that it was good coffee. I felt vaguely on top of things when I shut down the work laptop this evening. Monster Cat was later rather than earlier (in the day that is) most of the week but I have some ideas that I want to play with this weekend so that next week’s Monster Cat episodes are posted first thing in the morning instead of at lunch.

Most importantly, at least to me, is that it snowed today. We got about 2 inches of accumulation then a bunch of misty wet in the afternoon. We might get a little more snow overnight and tomorrow but the radar isn’t promising. Still, it was fun to shovel the walks this afternoon and the world is a better place when it’s covered with snow.

More than anything I want more free time… specifically free time when I’m not already mentally spent and exhausted. Seriously.

tags: lunar eclipse, moon, photographs, photography