Category: Photography

Crankypantsing, Pets, Photography

Long Time No Blog

Shelly

Cars
Because life is never quite exciting enough, the MoonPie of Delight decided to die. Of course, she waited until after I’d spent $500 getting the oil pump and some damned seal replaced, before shuffling off this mortal coil. That’s how these things happen, I guess.

So now I’m car shopping, which is pretty damned funny. I know nothing whatsoever about cars, beyond “Oooh, pretty!” Somehow, that strikes me as an ass-backwards way to go about choosing a car, but what can I say? At this point, I’m leaning toward another hatchback or a small wagon (Ford Focus or Subaru Outback?), but Jeebus only knows what I’ll end up with when it’s all said and done. I know that it will not be a sedan or coupe. I need rear cargo space that will accommodate a medium-sized dog crate and/or art. Plus, I’m just not a sedan sorta person. A small SUV would be fine, but for the few occasions 4WD would actually be helpful, it hardly seems worth the expense. The extra clearance would definitely be good (the driveway is gravel and often in serious need of grading), but again, I’m not sure it’s worth the expense.

Anyway, the result is that I’m superdamned cranky. I don’t like being carless.

Dogs
On the bright side, I found myself a little virtual dog therapy. Check out this little guy. Have you ever seen anything like those ears? I didn’t think so! I really recommend looking at the video, too, if you’re on broadband. I know I said male Boxer*, but I’m smitten. Unfortunately, he’s the right dog at the wrong time. Damn, is he ever gorgeous, though! Hopefully, someone will adopt him soon, so he can stop tormenting me.

On the homefront, Harriet is still being a sissypants about going out into the yard by herself. She’s desperately in need of another dog to hold her paw and egg her on. I don’t mind going out with her, but for some reason, she says it’s not the same as chasing bunnies with another dog, thankyouverymuch. She’s enjoying getting all the attention for her very own self, though. Boxers are not lap dogs, but evidently no one ever told her that. I spent yesterday evening, sitting on the couch, trying to balance my book on top of her. It’s a Very Good Thing she’s cute.

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Arting
In other news, I’ve not been in any sort of mood to do any arting. I’ve been re-reading the first five Harry Potter books, instead. I finished the fifth one Monday and–finally!–started on the new one yesterday. If I can tear myself away from it, I’m going to spend tonight and tomorrow catching up on other people’s art.

Movies
In movie news, I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory over the weekend. It was everything I’d hoped it would be–much creepier than Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. I’m a huge Tim Burton fan, though, so it would’ve had to’ve been pretty dreadful for me not to have enjoyed it.

I’ve also been working my way through a stack of Netflix: The League of Gentlemen, seasons 2-3 (brilliant, of course), Dogville (a wonderful Lars von Trier oddity), and the rest of Wonderfalls (I can’t recommend it enough). Another little film was recommended in one of “my” dog groups: The Miracle of the White Stallions. It’s a typical mid-’60s Disney film, but I thought it was well worth watching. It’s set in WWII Austria, so the Disnification of the war, Nazis, Americans, etc. is interesting. Plus, pretty horsies!

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* The master plan was to eventually end up with a female Sibe and a male Boxer. Since Harriet is such a fearsome bitch where other girldogs are concerned, the next dog will have to be a boy. Since the boy half of the eventual duo was to be a Boxer, that meant that the next dog was to be a Boxer boy. That’s what I get for making plans, right? Becaue, now I’m seriously rethinking them. A male Sibe-female Boxer combo can’t be too bad, can it? Those Boxer girls are such pains in the arse when it comes to bossypantsing, though, so I dunno. A female Sibe would, I think, be much easier to live with. I could go around in circles like this for days on end.**

** This should give you some idea why car hunting is making my brain explodiate.

Pets, Photography

Elliott (March 1994-July 29, 2005)

Shelly

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Late Thursday night, I lost my heart dog. I got Elliott as a puppy, eleven years ago. Eleven is a nice, respectable age for a dog, but it’s not enough

From the start, he was my constant shadow, always underfoot and alert to my every movement. He was a dream puppy–reliably housebroken from day one and thoroughly trustworthy. With one exception, he never touched anything that wasn’t his. (In his defense, the chair he ate was later eaten by two other dogs. Obviously, it deserved it.)

Elliott had a wicked sense of humor, something that won’t surprise anyone who has lived with Chowy dogs. They’re deeply, but quietly, funny. Elliott’s Pit Bull half meant that he was also silly, gregarious, and big-hearted. He was glad to do anything I asked of him, and more. Bomb-proof, nothing fazed him.

If I could design the perfect dog right this minute, it would be Elliott. I wouldn’t have changed a thing about him.

When Elliott was five, I decided it was time to add a second dog to our home. When I got Harriet, Elliott was ecstatic. He wanted desperately to play with her, but she was Not Interested. It took her about 24 hours to warm up to him, but when she did, they became good friends.

As playmates, they were well matched. Elliott taught Harriet how to play chase games and she taught him how to box. Hardly a day went by without riotous games of bitey-face. He let her boss him around (that’s what girldogs do best and Elliott was happy to let her exercise her bitchy prerogative). She let him take care of alerting to strange noises and intruders (watch dog duty is not her Thing). Despite occasional disagreements and the odd fight, they were deeply bonded to each other.

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I don’t know how dogs perceive death, but I know that Harriet’s at loose ends. She was terribly bossy toward Elliott, but she always took her cues from him. If he decided that a noise outside wasn’t worth worrying about, she believed him. It’ll be interesting to see how she adapts to not having Elliott to hold her paw.

Another area for concern is how well I’ll be able to deal with her activity level. Walks and play time aren’t an issue, but there are games that dogs play with each other that humans just can’t participate in. I went outside with Harriet this afternoon, at their regular “dog play” time. She stood on the deck and looked at me like “Now what?” Even when she was just mooching around, eating grass, she was always accompanied by Elliott. She doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with herself without him.

At some point, I’m sure I’ll get another dog–a male Boxer, if all goes according to plan. It’ll be a while, though. For now, I’m just trying to get used to having a one-dog household. It’s a little surreal. Elliott took up a huge amount of psychological space. He was always glued to my side, so that, even when he was resting quietly, I was always aware of his presence.

Goodbye to the bestest dog ever. I miss you like crazy.

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Journals, Photography

Sunset and Journaling

Shelly

Last night’s sunset was spectacularly vivid. The sky was an intense cerulean and the clouds were neon pink. I managed to get some pictures before it had faded too much.

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The weather did, indeed, turn lovely, just as our trusty weatherdude promised. With lows in the crispy upper 50sF, it was perfect for sleeping. I was so comfortable when my alarm went off this morning that I didn’t want to get out of bed. Sleeping all day was, alas, not on my To Do list, though.

Now, on to journaling. I belong to a few art journaling mail lists. I enjoy discussing materials, motivation, inspiration, etc., and these lists are a good place to do that. Probably the most frequent topic of discussion is “journaler’s block.” Folks post, asking for help with visual how-to guides and idea prompts, because they’re drawing a blank or, worse, they are intimidated by their journals. I think everyone who expresses themselves creatively has experienced the former. In my experience, there is an ebb and flow to creativity. Some days the muse dogs your every move, bullying you until you pay attention to her and other days she can’t be coaxed into coming to the party. As an artist, you learn to deal with her fickleness in your own way.

The latter problem is a whole ‘nother kettle of fishes. I really feel for people who are intimidated by their own journals. I don’t know how you help someone in that position. To me a journal is just an extension of my own mental space; a sort of back-up drive for my brain, where I can dump the stuff that swirls around in my head. Otherwise, it will drive me to distraction. And, we don’t want that, do we?

Hemp Bound Journal: Spine
Hemp Bound Journal: Spine

I think this is why it’s difficult for me to understand or offer advice to someone who is intimidated by their journal. To me, that means that what they really fear is the stuff that swirls around in their heads. Or, perhaps they just don’t have the skills to access the swirly stuff? I’m not sure it matters either way, as all the encouragement and journaling tips in the world are unlikely to help the person because the real problem isn’t just your garden variety Mental Block.

Maybe what the intimidated person needs to do is offer a formal invitation to her muse. Ask her over for a cocktail or a cup of coffee and have a little chat with her. Maybe the two of you can come to a mutually beneficial agreement?

Now, if I can just stay connected long enough to upload this. I swear, if the digital divide were any larger, I’d be back in the Stone Age. Apparently, us rural folks don’t merit either a stable dial-up connection, much less any kind of broadband option. I’d be happy with a 14.4kbs transfer rate. I just want to be able to get on-line.

Crankypantsing, Meta, News & Politics, Pets, Photography

Nitpickings and Ramblings

Shelly

Have I mentioned that if it’s not one thing, it’s ten others? Yes! Yes, I believe I have.

I keep finding pesky little issues with the website. Most of them stem from having used my host’s silly web FTP to upload files. Life would’ve been grand if I could’ve used a proper FTP client to do the uploading, but, obviously, that would’ve been far, far too easy. I think there are approximately eleventy-hundred separate files, so when loading them five (yes, *5*) at a time, it’s not surprising that a few went AWOL. I keep a close eye on my error reports and fix problems as I find them, but if y’all run across files that seem to be missing, just let me know and I’ll fix them ASAP. So far, it’s mostly been large images that have gone walkabout, but I also ran across a couple of links that were, um, pointing with their middle fingers. I dunno how that happened, as I used relative URLs for internal links. Another issue has been file names changing case when uploaded. What’s weird is that they changed from lower to upper case. Hmmm. Usually, it’s the other way around.

Anyway, that’s a rambly way of saying that I’m continuing to tidy things up around the edges. Which, you may have guessed, is the story of my life.

No art today. I’ve been driving myself to tears with this Color Erratica round robin. Someone dropped out, causing a log jam of books, so a bunch of us are scrambling to get caught up and get the group back on track. I took a break from it last night, though, and sat on my ass and did N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Well, not exactly nothing. I watched some–you guessed it!–really bad TeeVee. I’ll spare you the details, as there really aren’t any.

The unholy hot weather continues. “They” say we’ll get a break from it tomorrow. I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, because Freshman orientation is over and the wee kiddies and their parents have left the building, and because the heat index has been in the triple digits, and because we supposedly need to conserve energy, The Powers That Be have declared that our building will be having periodic chilled water outages. Yep. When it gets super hot, they turn off our AC. Of course, this is an eleven story building with no windows above the third floor, so it’s not like we need AC or anything. M’kay. All that means that here are about a zillion fans going full-blast, so A) it’s impossible to hear yourself think and B) I really have to question whether there is, in fact, any sort of energy savings at all.

Le sigh. If I ran the world, things would be very, very different. Not better, mind you, just, well, different. For example, we might have year-round snow:

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And, finally, for those of you who care, the House of Representatives re-upped the Patriot Act. (A pdf of the full text of the Patriot Act can be found here.)

Bookarts, Photography

Demolition Derby and the Sunset that Wasn’t

Shelly

I finally got around to cropping and uploading photos I took at last weekend’s demolition derby. Yes, I said demolition derby. If you haven’t been to one, you have no idea what you’re missing. Not only is it the ultimate in recycling, it’s a ginormous amount of fun. I especially recommend watching the Bumble Bees (AKA the minis). A little four-door Geo Metro won the mini division this year. Alas, I got no pictures of the minis, but I got quite a few of the large and mid-sized cars, including a firemen’s confab. Also, alas, there were no explodiations or infernos this year.

It’d been overcast and oppressively hot that day, but before the derby proper started, there was a lovely break in the clouds and a tiny peek at what would have been a spectacular sunset.

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No arting today, but I made a nifty little book last night out of the end of an old stash of paper. When I worked at the art museum, I was given a stack of museum board. It’s half-way between rough watercolor paper and Davey board. It’s interesting stuff–nice for oil pastels or any number of media that work well on toned paper. The texture has a definite grain, but it’s not too pronounced once you’ve worked on it.

Hemp Journal: Spine

I tore it down to size (I really prefer torn paper to cut paper, especially for journals). I was too lazy to dig out my book board, so I used two folded sheets of the paper for the front and back covers. I doubled them over and punched holes in them along the open side, then used eyelets to reinforce the holes and close the open edge. Because I wanted to keep the book looking rustic, I used hemp twine to bind it. It’s just a basic, single-needle Coptic stitch.

Pets, Photography

Fog and Dogs

Shelly

I took these about a month ago, when we were having a spate of drizzly, misty weather. After it cleared up, we had nearly a month without useful precipitation. Hurricane Dennis came to Indiana this week, breaking the dry spell. It’s been a lovely, soaking rain over several days–exactly what we needed. It’s not been as picturesque as the pictures below, though, so I’m using them instead.

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Elliott is our dog-in-fog model. The grass was too wet for Princess Harriet to put her delicate little feetses in.

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And, because I can, here’s the obligatory dogblogging. Have I mentioned that Harriet is not (not!) a fan of air conditioning? Well, if I didn’t, she’s not a fan of AC. When it cools down in the living room, she scrunches up into a little ball and moans and groans and sighs until I take pity on her sad little self and cover her up with a binkey. If I’m a meanypants and ignore her, she goes to the bedroom, where there’s no AC, and roots around on the bed until she’s got the bedding wadded to perfection. I use it as an excuse not to make my bed in the mornings, because she’s only going to mess it up. I just pull the covers up and wait until bedtime to make the bed. A) I’m lazy and B) I choose my battles.

It’s a good thing she’s cute.

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Burritodog

Photography

Cutest Puppy EVAR!1!! and Some Instant Reviews

Shelly

Last weekend was a whirlwind of party hopping and fil-um watching. On Friday night, I went with Mr. and Mrs. B. to see War of the Worlds and Sahara at the drive-in. Much fun was had. Saturday was Mr. and Mrs. B.’s Fourth of July on the Second party. Much fun was had. Sunday was Zombie-fest (Land of the Dead) and more party hopping. One of the parties was at the home of one of the cutest puppies I have ever met. Really. He was that adorable. Buddha is a little Pembroke Welsh Corgi (pointy ears, no tail, and ginormous feet). He schmoozed and played and finally fell asleep thusly:

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Isn’t he precious? I spent the evening trying to figure out how to fit him in my purse, so I could snatch him away from his rightful owners.

Some Instant Reviews:

War of the Worlds was pretty damned good, despite The Tom. The tripods were creepy and the suspense was never-ending. One thing that struck me as odd was how many folks brought their small kids to see it. This is not a kiddie movie! I had weird-assed dreams that night, so I can only imagine how creepy it might have been to small children.

Sahara was a good drive-in movie. I wouldn’t have seen it at a theater and wouldn’t have bothered to Netflix it, but it was a nice contrast to War of the Worlds.

Land of the Dead totally kicked ass. I think I’ll be purchasing that one when it comes out on DVD. The zombies were excellent, the gore was plentiful and satisfying, and the social commentary was spot-on. (Poor Spot!1!!)

Pets, Photography

Another Brief Respite

Shelly

I’ve been out mowing and got a couple of shots of Elliott while I was taking a break. This one–he’s hunting moles–was framed particularly nicely, so I thought I’d upload it. The photo on the right was taken a week ago. Even though it was hot and yucky out, the shade from the tangled tree branches looked cool and inviting. I wasn’t able to get a picture of him, but there was a male cardinal cheeking up a storm in the sassafras tree. Every time I’d get the camera focused on him, he’d hop to a different branch.

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I know it’s cooler out today than it has been in ages, but it’s still too bloody hot for yard work. Yuck! Frequent breaks are, I think, the ticket.