The Hollosphere

I’m sure everybody else who has a wood stove has thought of these techniques already, but nobody ever told me. I’ve finally ironed this out after two months of building fires here at Murray Creek. I am hereby sharing my brilliant ideas with you so that you may become, like me, a fire goddess (or god).

Instructions for Making a Killer Fire:

• When the person bagging your items at the grocery store asks, “Paper or plastic?” say, “Paper, please.” Smiling is good, too, although it doesn’t help with your fire directly. One might argue that your fire has a better chance of success if you yourself are in a good mood as a result of smiling at everybody and thus apt to use more care and attention in starting your fire, but I digress (as usual).

Continue reading ‘How to Make a Killer Fire in the Wood Stove’ »

The genius of Peter Callesen’s paper art caught my attention courtesy of an email from my painting teacher, Joni. Many of Peter’s creations are made from a single sheet of paper.

Not all his works are small. Check out the big stuff. Life-sized stairways made of paper??! Wow.

Some of Peter’s thoughts on his work with standard (A4) paper:

“I find the A4 sheet of paper interesting to work with, because it probably still is the most common and consumed media and format for carrying information today, and in that sense it is something very loaded. This means that we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper. By removing all the information and starting from scratch using the blank white 80gsm A4 paper as a base for my creations, I feel that I have found a material which, on one hand, we all are able to relate to, and which on the other hand is non-loaded and neutral and therefore easier to fill with different meanings. The thin white paper also gives the paper sculptures a fragility which underlines the tragic and romantic theme of the works.”

A bit of browsing through Peter’s various installations and performances makes me smile. Peter is my favorite kind of artist: one who challenges my assumptions about my world in completely new and arresting ways, not just visually and aesthetically, but culturally, socially, emotionally. Some of his stuff pushes my buttons and makes me real uncomfortable (OMG, now he’s scaring the kids!). I love art in that role ~ poking at my assumptions and making me think and question and rethink. And smile.

*replied Tasha when I emailed her this picture of me and Conal

Conal’s granddaughter, Audrey, is visiting us at Murray Creek this week with her mom, Charlotte. Audrey is two. Audrey likes rice. A lot.

When you’re really chowing down hard on the rice, like, straight from the pan with your fingers, it’s important to protect your eyes.

Cats have been on my mind lately. Firstly, I’m completely addicted to lolcats. Srsly. I mean, come on! Also, people keep sending me pointers to assorted ridiculously adorable cats online. Check out this delightful video of Nora, the piano playing cat.

All this inescapable feline cuteness has me missing our family kitteh, Tess. Full name, Tessa Leone Croydon. I didn’t think she’d long survive country life. There are plenty of predators in these foothills who might make a quick snack of a city cat. So Tess went to live with my daughter, Tasha, when I moved to California. This picture was taken by Tasha in the spring of 2007 just after Tess had moved in with her.

Tess came unexpectedly into our family as a teensy kitten. It was an accident, on my part. A coworker brought her into the office to find a home for her. I had already been asked if I wanted a kitten and declined. However, when I opened the door to the office where she was visiting with a crowd of admirers (hey, I was trying to get work done!), Tess immediately dashed over to me and climbed me like a tree in about a half a second. I didn’t even have time to squeak. Once she’d made it to my shoulder, she proceeded to purr loudly while nosing around my ear with her cold wet nose. There was a general chorus of “Ooooh, she’s found her new mama!” and “Sold!” and things like that. I was pretty much sunk. She’d claimed me. Needless to say, she came home with me that day and became a full-fledged family member, growing up side-by-side with Tasha. My memory is filled with moments of excruciating cuteness between them, the little monsters.

Now she’s getting to be an elderly lady (Tess, not Tasha), hanging out with the kids and having a relaxing life free of cougars and rattlesnakes, lounging around on pillows or warm laundry, getting underfoot in the kitchen, and begging to be swept.

I enjoy the freedom that comes with not having responsibility for a pet. Heck, we don’t even have a houseplant. We can decide to hit the road anytime, lock the house behind us, and have no worries about leaving the place uninhabited.

But le sigh. I sure miss having a purr-baby around.

My daughter’s livejournal pointed me to this orc-a-licious post. Words fail me. You’ll just have to see for yourself.

Although I’m not often vocal about my views on the matter, people who know me well know that I purposefully avoid Wal-Mart. I have yet to set foot in one of their stores, and my intention is to take my business elsewhere. Always. My resolve is tested more strenuously living here at Murray Creek, in that the Wal-Mart store in Jackson is by far the closest big box store to home. Target is a half hour further away in El Dorado Hills, along with my favorite big box store, Costco. So far, though, relative convenience of location has not tempted me to shop at Wal-Mart.

Last night, I finally got around to watching Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, a 2005 documentary film by director Robert Greenwald. The movie paints a rather grim picture of Wal-Mart’s policies through interviews and stories of people impacted by them, including business owners forced to close their stores after Wal-Mart opened nearby, and who were upset about huge tax subsidies paid to Wal-Mart, about employees kept to part time hours or forced to work overtime for no pay, whose paychecks were not enough to feed their families and pay medical insurance premiums, of the drastic measures taken by the company to thwart efforts of workers to unionize, about small towns whose business districts were decimated by Wal-Mart, and about discriminatory practices against women and minorities, to name some of the topics. If only half of what is reported in the movie is true or indicative of real systemic problems, it would still be a deeply disturbing tale.

The movie ends with stories of people working to stop Wal-Mart stores from being opened in their neighborhoods, and invites us to take action as well. Overall, the impression the movie gave me was that Wal-Mart is a monster that must be stopped. Note the movie poster pictured here, which further illustrates this perspective.

Although I have made my choice not to support Wal-Mart, I don’t think it’s quite so cut and dry as Wal-Mart=Evil.

Continue reading ‘Choosing to Shop at Wal-Mart (or Not)’ »

Conal and I began fixing up our home office. We spent a day painting it a couple of shades of gold with white trim and a white ceiling.

Then our friend Bill came out and laid down a wonderful new floor. We choose super durable Pergo flooring so that we can zoom around in our office chairs without worrying about scratching it up. Here is Bill laying the first board.

And here is the floor all laid down. Purty, eh? I’m very impressed with the new Pergo products. They have managed to make the texture line up with the wood pattern, making for a very realistic look. We love it.

Tasks remaining to complete the project include more coats of gold on the walls, touching up boo boos, repairing the moldings (which had to be removed to lay the floor), filling nail holes, and figuring out what kind of lighting to put in. We are looking forward to setting up our new L-shaped desks from Ikea, hanging pictures, and making it a lovely, cozy work space. For comparison’s sake, here’s what it looked like before.