Month: November 2006

Ladybusiness, News & Politics

Brought to You By…

Shelly

I watched 16 Children and Moving In last night. I’ve mentioned that I like a good horror story? Well, not only is the thought of having kids–much less 16 of ’em–horrifying, but the family the show was about squicks me out, too. The Duggars are ultra conservative fundamentalists, belonging to what is known as the Full Quiver, or Quiverfull, movement (Providentialism, if you’re Catholic).

Full Quiver proponents believe that children are a blessing from God, and that all forms of contraception–even NFP–are an abomination. Quiverfulls demonstrate their submission to God by maintaining “continual openness to children.” God alone has the power to “open and close a woman’s womb.” Any effort to interfere with his plans is a usurpation of his divine power.

Quiverfulls adhere strictly to biblical patriarchal values, wherein the male is the authoritarian head of household and the woman submits to him in all things. Women pursue traditional roles as homemakers, nurturers, and teachers. Quiverfulls–the mothers, anyway–commonly home school their children in order to limit their access to outside influences.

Quiverfulls believe they are raising an army for God. To them, children are weapons in a cultural arms race. They see it as their duty to out-breed the brown heathens of the world, and they’re not shy about making their motives clear. Quiverfulls fear a world in which white, Christian men are not at the top of the food chain, and they aim to make sure that doesn’t happen.

So, anyway, this is all a lengthy, round-about way of getting to my point: One of the sponsors of the show was NuvaRing. I about peed my pants laughing.

Pets, Photography

Sunday Dogblogging

Shelly

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Harriet crashed out on the couch, with her ears up. She’s all about The Comfy, so she’s lying on top of a fleece blanket, with an afghan on top of her. It was a gelid 70F inside, poor baby. (I love the way the fur on her chin turned out in this photo. If you’ve ever petted a horse’s muzzle, that’s what a Boxer muzzle feels like. Soft and velvety, like moleskin.)

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Since becoming an only dog, Harriet’s style of play has changed a bit. She plays more by herself, and when she does, she engages in more fetch-chase-kill!kill!kill! games. She’s even begun growling and vocalizing while “killing” toys, which cracks me up. Tennis balls are often the victims of these games. She tosses them around, chases them, grabs them, then shake-shake-shakes them dead, all the while snarling and growling and basically telling them what she thinks of them. This time, after playing on her own for awhile, she spit out the ball and play bowed at me, inviting me to play with her. Meanypants that I am, I took her picture instead. It’s not a very good photo, because I had to act quickly.

Photography

Trees in Spring

Shelly

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Apple Tree in Spring

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Redbud Tree

We’ve had a week of gorgeous weather here in southern Indiana. It’s been so warm and sunny that it’s been hard to believe that it’s November–and the end of November, no less. It won’t be long before it the cold and snow start, so I thought I’d share a couple of springtime photos.

These are the redbud and 5-in-1 apple trees at my mom’s house, taken last April. It’s weird to see how big they’ve gotten. There was only one tree on the property when we moved there in 1985. It’s long since died, but we planted a bunch of others: peach, two apple, cherry, pear, redbud, oak, and maple. The peach was planted too close to the garage and had to be cut down, and the cherry was lost in an ice storm. The rest are huge, now, though. Proper trees instead of spindly saplings.

Photo note: These photos are a good illustration of just how super-saturated colors become when the sky is overcast. It might seem like bright sunlight would be better for outdoor photography, but it tends to wash out colors. The shadows and reflections created by strong sunlight can also be problematic. If I had my way, I’d much rather photograph artwork outdoors on a cloudy day.

Also, studio update: I’ve finally got most of the furniture arranged. I still have to set up half of the workbench (there are two 4′ long sections) and unpack my supplies, but it’s getting there. There are also a couple of utility shelving units that I’m trying to decide where to put. They’ll probably end up in the closet, for tool storage, which means the closet will have to be emptied and sorted/unpacked. I think I should be able to finish that up by the end of the day. I could actually have a working studio by tomorrow!

I can’t believe how long it’s taken me to unpack. Lordy! The problem is that I work 10 hour days, and I don’t have much time to work on stuff in the evenings. And, since moving, most of my weekends have been spent helping a friend pack and move (large house, crammed to the rafters with stuff), so I really haven’t had much in the way of free time. She’s nearly finished packing, though, and should be entirely moved by the end of the month. I’ll finally have some time to myself to do real, live arting.

Ladybusiness

Little House on the Prairie: Fin

Shelly

Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder
Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder, circa 1885

I mentioned a long while back that I was working my way through the entire series of Little House on the Prairie. Well, I finally finished season nine. One of the reasons it took me so long to finish was that I was busy moving. I also got distracted by having cable again. Mostly, though, the final seasons were increasingly depressing and disappointing and I just didn’t want to watch them. And then there was the fact that I’d recently re-read the books, and while the early seasons of the show departed significantly from them, the final seasons were all kinds of made up.

So, my final verdict is that the early episodes are great, but the later ones are kind of craptacular.

Photography

More Fun with Photoshop

Shelly

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The rain finally cleared up Sunday night, and Monday night we had a lovely sunset. The Belt of Venus was glowing softly, and the line of clouds above the horizon was deep blue on the bottom and pink on top. They looked like giant bags of swirly pink and blue cotton candy.

Alas, I was on the phone with my mom, and didn’t get a very good shot of it, so I decided to use it as an excuse to play with some more filters. I don’t think I’ve used the diffused glow filter before, but I really like the way it makes the image look like a print from an old negative.

Crankypantsing, Photography

Bookshelves

Shelly

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Dawn mentioned in comments that bookshelves are for books, not knick-knacks. I obviously agree. Bookshelf real estate is a precious commodity in my house, and I don’t see the sense in wasting it on trinkets. On the other hand, knick-knacks have a way of insinuating themselves into my life (“Ooooh! Shiny!”), and once in my house, they breed in the corners like Tribbles. It won’t be long before my nice, new bookshelves are riddled with tchotchkes. It is inevitable.

Which brings me to today’s crankypants observation. I’ve mentioned my addiction to house porn? I’d watch TLC and HGTV all day, if I could. One thing I’ve noticed is that redecorating shows invariably waste a chunk of their budget on purchasing tchotchkes. What on earth is wrong with people, that they don’t have boxes and bins and bags and closets full of crap, so that they have to actually go out and purchase decorative junk? I just don’t get it. I collect junk because I like it and want to look at it, not because I need something to match the sofa.

Photo: Speaking of junk accumulating. My mom had her chimney replaced years ago (it had separated from the house and was leaning out into thin air), and the pile of bricks from the old chimney is still lying right where it landed.

Pets, Photography

We Have Achieved Shelving

Shelly

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I’ve been trying to find time to knock together these rickety-assed shelves for weeks, and finally managed it last weekend. I opted to use a couple of shelf brackets to stabilize them, instead of plywood backs or swaybars. Eventually, they’ll get a coat of paint and proper backs, but for now, they’re functional. Hallelujah! I was sick and tired of piles of boxes of books everywhere.

Our lovely spokesmodel is Pandora, who, with the perversity inherent in all cats, chose to take a bath while I was taking the first photo. Pandora has perfected the art of being exactly where you don’t want her, at the precise moment when you least want her there. She also has a death wish, in which she indulges by way of flopping around on top of the dog’s bones and chewy toys. Harriet isn’t the most patient or tolerant of dogs, so I think she deserves some sort of medal for not putting the smackdown on Pandora.

(And, yes, I do have lots of kiddie books.)

Crankypantsing

Operation Shelving

Shelly

I repeat: We have achieved shelving!

I finally had time and sufficient hardware to slap together three sets of bookshelves on Sunday. Between building the shelves and unpacking and sorting books, Operation Shelving took me damned near 12 hours to finish. Yes, 12 hours. Trying to force screws through rock-hard cedar is no picnic. Please, don’t try this at home unless you have a drill. Otherwise, your hands may turn to hamburger. Actually, the hamburger is partially due to the fact that some dog who shall remain nameless chewed the hell out of the handles of a couple of my screwdrivers. About halfway through Operation Shelving, it occurred to me that maybe I should wrap the chewed bits with duct tape, but by then the hamburger was made.

But, it’s done, done, done. Hallelujah! I still have a couple of boxes of art books to unpack, but those will go in the studio, so I’m not worrying about them just now. Besides, the bookcase they go in needs a coat of paint before I can put anything in it. I should have taken care of that a couple of weekends ago, when it was 75F and sunny outside. Now, I’m going to have to paint it indoors, which will probably end in tears when the inevitable paint-on-carpet tragedy occurs.

In any event, this means that I can finally focus on getting the studio unpacked. I’m not sure yet what Ms. Lea’s weekend packing and moving plans are, but I suspect I’ll have at least one day to work on the studio, which makes me happy.

And, speaking of things that make me happy, I have found perhaps the world’s most perfect carpet stain remover. I may have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: Woolite Oxy Deep. It’s damned good stuff. It even removed dried blood stains from the carpet at the old place [1]. I had tried just about everything I could think of and had just about given up on finding something that would work. This stuff removed it quickly and with a minimum of elbow grease.

And now for the crankypantsing. I was busy all weekend and didn’t get much sleep, so I was looking forward to sleeping in on Monday and spending pretty much the whole damned day sitting on my ass. The only problem was, I didn’t account for Milton and His Spectacularly Loud Television. Holy crap! I woke up at 7am to the morning news, blaring away from upstairs. That went on pretty much all day, then through the night, he plunked on his bass guitar. He must be learning to play, because when I first moved in, he was working on simple scales. Now, he’s graduated to adding halftone decreases to the up progression and halftone increases to the down progression. Only, he fucks up about every third note. This went on all freaking night. The man must not ever sleep!

Then, when I got home yesterday, I noticed that his television was on, but for once, it was at a sane volume. Hmmm. That’s the first time he hasn’t had it on full-blast since I moved in in late September. I wonder if someone complained? The folks who share a wall with him can’t be any more thrilled than I am with the noise.

Alas, the bass playing went on last night as scheduled, from about midnight until I left this morning at 5:45. Which really makes the mind boggle, when you think about it. That’s six solid hours spent doing nothing but playing scales–and badly, at that. It makes no sense from the standpoint of learning to play an instrument, which makes me wonder if it’s an OCD sort of thing, wherein he just cannot put the instrument down until he completes the given scale perfectly.

I dunno. I do wish he’d turn the damned amplifier off, though. What kind of jackass thinks it’s reasonable to play electric bass all night in an apartment complex? It is sure to make the Baby Jeebus weep.

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[1] The body was buried in the front yard. And, no, I’m not kidding.