Mystical Moments Mosaics ~ My Pique Passion

Women for Obama Jewelry Mosaic Mirror. Si Se Puede!

2008-06-26T14:26:00.001-07:00

I'll bet this one will look COOL with my blog colors!

2008-04-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

Cat not included.
(Fortunately, Annie got in there just in time to make this the only decent photo of the mirror in its entirety.)

Quite a visual impact with all this black on magenta! I offered up a long-saved, tiny cup from a child's tea set and a butter pat from a very favorite English transferware pattern from the mid 1800's. I love the black and white paisley and small butterflies. Black onyx beads line the mirror's border, and you will find oodles of interesting jewelry bits and pieces, seeing something new each time you look at it.

The whole piece is a 16" round with the mirror portion measuring 9".
FABULOUS gift for Mom's Day, available in my etsy store!

Who knew orange and red look so COOL with blue? (photo frame)

2008-04-09T13:18:00.000-07:00

Green, Pink and Purple mirror

2008-04-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

Spanish Dancer Mirror

2008-04-08T18:20:00.001-07:00

Good Friday's Purple Passion Play

2008-03-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

Spring has finally Sprung!

2008-03-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

The color freak girl child in me has been going nuts lately.
For a 5 x 7 photo...10.5 x 12 in. total.

Hunka Hunka Burning Magenta Love!

2008-03-13T13:45:00.001-07:00

A big, colorful, fun and very whimsical 16" square mirror.

Spring has sprung

2008-03-12T16:01:00.001-07:00

For a 5x7 photo.

Pink(ish) Palate Cleansers

2008-03-09T11:12:00.001-07:00

A girl can only handle so much subtlety and elegance before she has to get her loud, colorful goof on again. I thought the background would be a hot pink, and it sorta is, but it is also sorta red(ish). No matter. Still very festive and fun, in a South American sort of way. Not that I've ever been to South America.

I did a vertical and a horizontal and listed them as a pair on etsy.

Periwinkle Round Mirror

2008-03-05T15:26:00.001-08:00

Me likey the periwinkle blue!

Best Friends photo frames - #1

2008-03-03T11:55:00.000-08:00

A custom project for two longtime best friends, both of whom have a thang for crowns and hearts. And animals.
Fits an 8x10 photo and is 13x16 in total.

Green Vintage Jewelry Frame, 5x7

2008-03-03T11:40:00.001-08:00

Available for purchase in my etsy store. Link from sidebar.

Best Friends photo frames - #2

2008-03-03T11:10:00.000-08:00

Black Vintage Jewelry Photo Frame (5x7)

2008-02-28T14:22:00.000-08:00

Now I'm onto frames. This piece is designed to be hung vertically and the whole piece measures 10.5 x 12.
Check out the cute little juggler on the bottom. I also love the locket that frames the photo opening.

Turquoise Jewelry Mirror

2008-02-24T11:31:00.001-08:00

Purple Jewelry Mirror

2008-02-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

Green Jewelry Mosaic Mirror

2008-02-13T11:30:00.001-08:00

The cool polymer clay pendant came from etsy. I found the seller on the EBSQ etsy message board. So far I've purchased three items on etsy from artists I found on EBSQ. Some nice stuff over there!

Brown Jewelry Mirror #2

2008-02-05T14:12:00.001-08:00

Brown Jewelry Mirror #1

2008-02-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

oooo oooo oooo! VD mirror #2.

2008-02-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day Mirror #1 (of 987,00)

2008-01-29T13:33:00.001-08:00

I have finally found a way to use large amounts of the vintage jewelry I love to hoard and TO AVOID GROUTING! Voila...

Valentine's Day mirror or frame. Buyer's choice.

I decided to try a bit of china on it (the red and white Woods that I love) just to see if it looked corny or not without grout. It looks fine, actually, so I may mix it up a bit and use china patterns on certain pieces.

Obviously the possibilities for chotzkes to include are unlimited. Many use keys, buttons, funky little memorabilia thingeys...wine corks, matchbooks. I was thinking this morning that to build one around the ID tag of a dead pet (or soldier?) would make a nice memorial.

I just finished my second one and it's drying. The base is RED! Very cool. Photos to come soon.

I've got some mint condition vintage cigar boxes coming. I'll tackle them when I get bored of the mirrors. I've got about 8 mirrors in my head right now, creating themselves.
In the Life is a Circle Game file...my paternal grandmother, Anne (the artist who had a brother named WALTER who had a vacation home in Asheville, NC) made jewelry boxes out of cigar boxes when I was very young. I only remember a very large one that sat on her gorgeous cherry wood dresser in the bedroom. I recall a big, goldtone flower brooch as the focal point, and strands and strands of faux pearls and green and gold beads wrapping all around the lid of the box.
Stay tuned!

Special Wedding Carafe

2008-01-13T06:05:00.001-08:00

For Rebecca and Kaustuv (and Willow!)
February 3, 2008

Dog Grotto, Sullivan's Island, SC

2008-01-05T09:54:00.001-08:00

A welcoming watering hole for thirsty dogs walking by.

Universal Potteries Ballerina Iris pattern and another one with cool leaves and earth tone flowers I do not know the name of.
Vintage and contemporary Fiesta blues and greens, Vintage Bauer (Chinese Yellow), and Bosco eggplant.

Free advice: mix the mortar very thick! It's a real drag to sit there for an extra hour, holding up the shards that keep sliding down the vertical walls.

Mosaic Dawg seal of approval.

Christmas Gifts 2007 ~ Sullivan's Island, SC

2007-12-30T06:21:00.000-08:00

Vince's carafe

2007-12-11T09:18:00.001-08:00

What I believe to be the final carafe produced in 2007!

Can this mini-panther strike a pose on cue or what?

Vogue, Annie, vogue!
Work it, Girl.

Commissioned Christmas Carafe #2 - Clare

2007-12-04T10:59:00.001-08:00

Bohemian Violet Rhapsody

2007-11-21T07:42:00.000-08:00

Annie gives this one FIVE HEAD BUTTS UP!

A custom Christmas gift for a couple. I was told that she loves violets and is a bit of a bohemian. Color requests were purple, green and a bit of magenta.

The swan brooch kills me. I could only bear to part with it for a very special piece deserving of it!

Tasteful little purple and pearl brooches, pretty green aventurine beads, antique white grout and metallic amethyst paint.
My (newest) favorite wine carafe EVER!

Another day, another carafe

2007-11-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

This one is for the brown transferware fans. I love the sparkly copper beads with the metallic copper paint!

Fruits of the Day

2007-11-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

HA!
I thought I was too burned out to post three words, let alone, four, witty, title words.
No -- really.
Here are the two newest. (Holding the third in reserve for tomorrow.)
Please visit my etsy store for the details on materials and patterns.
Thanks!

Doesn't this wine carafe just make you want to go:
SLLLLUUUUUURRRRPPP?

I would eat and drink color if I could, but they would probably just make me even fatter.

Wherein I steal my own idea. From myself.

2007-11-06T16:35:00.000-08:00

Welp, I said I wanted to do a dozen more just like this one that I did for a friend last summer. This is pretty close, but I left off the flying insects and fuzzy little four-legged darlings. And all references to Elton and Liberace. But I'm HAPPY to add them if it makes a buyer HAPPY!

The green grout, china florals (lots of Homer Laughlin Rhythm patterns), and metallic, rose pink paint combo just...well...make me HAPPY, let's just say.

I'm really struggling to get decent photos lately, shooting them in three different spots outside on the decks just to end up with five acceptable submissions that are not shadowed, glaring, too light, too dark. Time to get some indoor sewing lamps and some flat, monochromatic backdrops. I'm sure you are as weary as I of the wrinkled, tacky tablecloths. Tres gauche.

Obviously, I would use this as a wine carafe. It would also make a loverly utensil crock, paintbrush holder, drumstick repository?

Bow Bells & Blue Willow

2007-11-05T07:07:00.001-08:00

Uncharacteristically understated, here are two recently-completed pieces from my backlog of groutables.
Bow Bells is a very popular, and pricey, brown and white transferware pattern made by Masons in England. If you can find it on eBay, you will pay for it. It makes a nice lazy susan paired with powder blue shards, antique white grout, and metallic copper paint on the edge and bottom.

I'm not a big fan of Blue Willow (blame the saturated market), but many people are. I will say that this vase is quite striking, especially when viewed from a distance, due to the nice contrast and symmetry in the shape.

I'd never used a teacup around a vase neck before, but this works. The blue aventurine beads look perfect with the china pattern, and the cobalt blue teapot was so cooperative, breaking in all the right places for perfect attaching.

The abalone butterfly brooch was a "making lemonade" addition.
As I went to grout the vase, I saw that a tiny "v"-shaped chip had come off the top. The crack did not run, luckily, and it was a very clean break, confined to just the rim.
After all the time and materials put into this thing, I was so not going to chuck it.

So I grouted it, silver leafed the inside top, and went through my accoutrement stash to find something suitable for hiding the chip.
It totally works!

Pastel Palate Cleanser

2007-10-30T13:44:00.001-07:00

It's good for me to remember that not everyone loves the bold, intensely saturated colors that I favor. I try to do the occasional pastel piece along with brown and white, or blue and white, patterns. There's nothing wrong with creating everything according to your own tastes, of course, but if the goal is to sell the pieces, a broad range of colors and patterns is probably smarter than self-pleasuring. So to speak.

So this leafing stuff going on at the vase's neck is very new for me. This is my second effort and it was easier than the first by far. And looks a little better. I love the black variegated product, as opposed to the solid gold. I've yet to try silver, copper and other colors in the variegated patterns.
But it certainly looks more finished and polished than seeing glue blobs through the clear glass.

A very pretty soft pink and gold teapot gave its life for this vase. I used rose quartz beads around the neck and dark cherry grout.

Very sweet and petite at 9" tall.

Had to take about 30 photos to finally get five in which the glare is not blinding.
Coming soon to my etsy store in the sidebar near you.

The perfect gift for the enophile master gardener archeologist historian who has everything.

2007-10-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

Being the non-conformist INFJ mega-Aquarian I am, I decided to bend the etsy bitchen kitchen mosaic challenge rules a tad and make this wine amphora my entry.
Nowhere in the rules did it say that we had to confine our houseware item selection to this millennium and this was surely ESSENTIAL for the well-appointed 1400BC Greek kitchen!

Can you believe that I had to leave all manner of furniture behind when I left Colorado for lack of space on the truck, not to mention over a dozen beloved house plants that had been with me for over a decade! But somehow, this long-empty 3 liter wine bottle managed to make it to North Carolina with us? (That can be rhetorical.)

When a glass water pitcher broke and I was able to extract the blue handle intact, my dead wine soldier was reincarnated into an historical artifact. An Italian, porcelain, flower cluster focal point is kept company by gorgeous bright floral china. I used several Homer Laughlin Rhythm patterns, Primrose, Chintz, Woods and Kensington (the two grape patterns up top). I added some mother of pearl beads and a vintage necklace around the mouth. Grouted in my favorite deep purple grape, of course!

I know y'all don't come here looking for Terrific Tips, but this one is free and I wish I'd known it a decade ago when I started this pique pathology of mine. When I use the purple grout, after it dries, there are milky white haze blotches in parts. It has always annoyed me. I was about to order a product from a mosaic supply site (Sulfamic Acid: A great product for removing grout haze and efflorescence (that white grainy looking stuff that sometime forms on your grout) but I somehow got google lucky and ended up on some long-dead tile tip board. Someone mentioned white vinegar for grout cleaning and VOILA! Not only did it remove the haze on the grout but it also helped with another problem I always forget that I have.

I seem compelled to use dark color grouts on pieces that I adorn with white shards replete with silverware scratches. You'll see this tomorrow when I post a teapot vase grouted in black cherry. All that dark black cherry grout gets in the surface scratches on the white shards and it looks shitty. (See Sally selling seashells by the seashore.) White vinegar on a Q-Tip to the rescue! It doesn't totally shine the white up, but good enough for me.

This piece has been waiting for grout for months. I finished it last spring, I think. I'm pretty nuts about it and would love to do more like it. I just need to get my hands on a few more Jeroboams! (Hey, that's a nice name for a cat! hmmmmm....)

Everyone's a critic! Yet another wine carafe...glug glug.

2007-10-26T13:23:00.001-07:00

Mmmmmmmmmm...Red Fiesta has a good flavor!

I finally realized that my digital camera needs ALKALINE batteries to function. I tried to shoot this last Sunday and since then have twice brought home cheap, non-alkalines, which are very non-functional. At least I know it's not the camera. Dysfunctional operator error, as usual.

Doesn't this just say Bitchen Kitchen? I'll enter it in the etsy Bitchen Kitchen Mosaic Challenge. All the cute little flower pot patterned plates have been in my inventory for years and years. There comes a day, even for me, when you look at something you've moved, and moved around, a bazillion times and say to yourself: "Self...use it or lose it. NOW!" Paden City and Crooksville, I think? And a bit of Homer Laughlin. I paired them with some awesome new red Fiesta and some very fun vintage jewelry accoutrement. I loves me some my tacky shiny embellishments.

I can see that these photos are not good enough for the competition so I'll have to re-shoot some. You can hardly see the darling little bumble bee up above with the wings that move. Be sure to click on to enlarge all the photos.

This neat green rhinestone fly is from a pair of pins I got on eBay a couple months ago from Whiskers Rescue.
They are one of my favorite sellers to patronize as they spay and neuter feral cats in New Jersey and care for them in their existing colonies, providing food and medical care. Really great people to support!

The wings quiver on that hummingbird, and the tail on the tiny turtle moves too, which is handy, since it moves out of the way without breaking when you set the carafe down.

Too bad the bitchen bottle of Georges Duboeuf Shiraz (why does a man with that last name not call it Syrah?) does not show well in my crappy photos. The colors and design are very funky and appropriate for the carafe.

I'll put this in my etsy store and enter it in the Bitchen Kitchen Challenge as soon as I get another decent photo or two with adequate lighting.
Two new wine carafes grouted...four to go.
Cheers!

Who am I and what have I done with Laura the Uninspired?

2007-10-21T12:14:00.001-07:00

I don't know if it's the season or the coming holiday season or my Uranus emerging from its retrograde pattern or what -- but I'm suddenly a whirl of mad mosaic inspiration. I won't analyze it (too much.) I'll just make hay while my emotional sun is shining.

Perhaps it was the muse-like inspiration of the adorable foster kitties, Smudge & Lucy?
You can learn more about them than you probably want to know at the cats' blog.

I've got about 5 of these carafes to finish up (that would mean GROUTING, painting, sealing), but I've done the first two since they got the fun embellishments. That inspires me! My carrot on the grout stick. The other 3 are embellishment-less, so they will be quicker. And a bit less fun.

I just listed this one in my etsy store and will plagiarize my own self by cutting and pasting my text here:

This cheery and super-bright new piece was inspired by a vintage Titan Ware plate by Adams. The sunflower garden just called for a matching array of Fiesta shards. It has a bit of a southwestern, desert feel to it. Very warm.

I am nuts about using vintage jewelry embellishments on some of my new work, so here you'll see a tiny turtle, a big butterfly, and three flowers. I chose to paint it in a bright orange which pairs nicely with the Fiesta against neutral antique white grout. The African jade beads up top finish the whole piece up beautifully. Sealed for protection and signed by me, Laura!

The carafe stands 7 1/2" tall and is 4 1/4" across the open part of the mouth which allows room for most bottles of wine plus one of those handy dandy freezable wine chiller sleeves!
(or so I've heard. HA!)

I've got projects in progress and dusty pieces begging for grout. And a million more ideas making my head explode. Somehow I think I'll carry through and get a ton of new stuff done by year's end, including making ALL of my gifts this year. I have some really exciting ideas along those lines.

So watch this space! I promise to have fresh stuff slathered upon it more frequently!
(and thanks for visiting and for all the lovely comments and feedback. Please remember my etsy store over in the sidebar for all of your holiday shopping needs.)

Phoebe's Wine Carafe

2007-09-24T11:50:00.001-07:00

How pathetic it is that I've not posted anything new in so many weeks! I simply refuse to grout. It's just the way it is. One day, I'll get my grout groove back and blow through the many pieces that sit there crying out to me for completion.

Phoebe's Wine Carafe was done in August along with the Southern Garden piece below. Phoebe Fed Ex'd me a few broken Ralph Lauren dishes (her special pattern) and another china plate that had a small rim chip. I added just the Little Mae & Pets transferware cream pitcher images. It's a very special child's transferware pattern from England that dates back to the 1800s. The little girl, Mae, sits on a stoop with a dog (that looks a lot like a crazy Blue Heeler), a kitty on her lap, and a white kitty drinking cream from a bowl by her feet. It is a very sweet and special pattern.

The piece is more primitive and less patterned and ornate than I usually choose to do when I'm creating from scratch, but I really wanted to try to use only the materials that were sent to me. Toward that end, I even used all the salvageable back stamps. I literally had only three tiny shards left over when it was complete.

I added the two cat brooches, of course, and also added some gold paint flecks to the upper rim after the photos were taken. I hated the somber, burgundy paint I chose, even though it matched the dark maroon in the Lauren china and Little Mae. Adding some gold sparkly paint to the carafe's rim lightened it up nicely and complemented the gold tones in the kitty brooches and on the edges of the English floral china plate.

(Thank you, Jelly in S. Korea, fellow mosaicist, for shaming me into getting off my ass and posting something! God. If only the cats could learn to grout.)

A South Carolina Garden Wine Cooler

2007-08-22T13:15:00.001-07:00

A brand new piece that has me wanting to do a dozen more just like it!
I did this for a wine o'clock friend with a new home on Sullivan's Island. I wanted the theme to be a mass of bold and saturated pink, purple and white flowers along with all the darling creatures one hopes to find in a garden.

Hot pink and green are one of my favorite color combos, and hers too.

Bunnies are special to her, so I used two treasured, vintage, costume brooches from my stash. I've saved the little pink flower earrings for surely a decade and finally their piece came along.
What is a garden without a massive flying insect? You can't see but he has red glass eyes, as does the albino bunny.

A gold butterfly for good luck...

And the finishing touch -- what has become known as The Liberace Bunny.
My personal favorite nuance!

The long, Great Grout Drought is over.

2007-08-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

Praise Shiva!
I finally got a face full of grout dust. And sweat. And bugs. Two days, four pieces completed. I'll show the lazy susans here, but will wait to show the other two as they are surprises for folks who may (or may not) read this blog upon occasion.

I got some weird, farm theme thing stuck up my rear last spring. My maternal Grandma, Emma, had Brock farm scene dinnerware all through my youth, so I have sentimental attachments to that pattern. I found a few great chicken pattern plates on eBay as well, and used contemporary red Fiesta as the background. Mallard green grout looks cool, as does the red paint for the edge.

I heart the little donkey!

Pretty Flowers for a Pretty Susan

2007-08-16T14:42:00.001-07:00

I need to get better shots of this piece but I'm too burned out tonight to attempt.
This is really gorgeous with great color contrast, against antique white grout with dark Cranberry Wine paint trim.

I used a bunch of great Homer Laughlin florals, some Woods, and the center focal point is a Royal Cauldon I've saved for years. Hard to part with. Hard to replace! I love the pattern and the central image. Such deep, rich colors.

Teapot Vases, Anyone?

2007-08-04T16:32:00.001-07:00

I can't figure out why these professionally shot jpgs look so washed out when compared to my pitiful home photos. Maybe 'cuz they were shot for slides? Ya' think?
Oh well. We'll go with these for tonight.

The first one I call "Ambrosia" in honor of my deceased, paternal grandmother, Anne. She was an artist, a recovered alcoholic, and single for all the years I knew her, devoted to her toy poodle, "Tina". She liked sweet things, like ambrosia fruit salad, ice cream and candy. She died at her brother Walter's cabin in Asheville, NC, when I was in my first year of college at UCSB.

Du du du du dummmmmmmmmmm....

Laura Ann
An artist type.
Single... devoted to pets...suddenly living 30 miles from Asheville

(Thankfully, I was named for a great aunt on the other side of the fam. She committed suicide.)

Pass the wine and carrot cake, please.

My favorite birdhouse EVER (so far)

2007-07-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

I did this one in Spring of 2006 and it remains a personal fave. It was one of the five slides I submitted to the Southern Highland Craft Guild and it will be one of the five pieces I take up to Asheville in August for the in-person jury for sure. I'm lucky that it lives here in my new hometown and WAS hanging on a friend's front porch until a few months ago when I snatched it for some professionally shot photos (these are my funky photos, not the pro's.) I snatched it just in time as the other birdhouse of mine hanging right next to it had a teeny baby birdling with a gaping mouth living inside. Momma bird watched me very nervously from a nearby tree as I took this one down, and I watched her (very nervously) from the car to be sure she flew back to her baby. I was afraid because I'd touched their home she would not go back and how could I live with that, huh?

I think the roof blows my mind. What's not to love about those great contrasting California pottery colors...purple, orange and chartreuse? The Universal Ballerina Iris on the front is another big plus, along with the Fiesta yellow tea cup handle as the front door knob. I even used vintage Fiesta ringware cups on the roof trim. Love that deep yellow. I was living in the southwest when I did it and it has such a vibrant, Santa Fe vibe to it, complete with stucco-colored grout.

As of today I have 9 new pieces done, ready for grouting. Any day now I'll be grouting. Really. I'm on a vase binge right now. Two done and three in process. I go in phases like that. Next I'll do wine coolers, and then I really want to get back into some photo frames and mirrors. It's a treat to bounce back and forth between curved, 3-D surfaces and flat, one-dimensional stuff like lazy susans, mirrors and frames.

A very fave from my North Carolina "early" period

2007-07-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

It's odd that I'm so enamored with this mantle clock, being the color freak that I am. I was very dubious about combining the seafoam green glass and African jade beads with the neutral tones of white, brown and black on the clock face. But I love it! There is a richness to this piece and a sense that I wouldn't do one thing differently if I did it over. I don't always feel that way. It helps that I used some very old and very rare brown and white and black and white transferware pieces. But down to the perfectly-matched six pairs of vintage earrings as the number markers, this piece did border on the mystical for me. It therefore makes a great photo for this blog header. (As CoCo the Cat is the perfect header for the cats' blog.)

I've got the clock listed on eBay right now, but if it doesn't sell in the next few weeks, it will definitely be one of the five pieces I submit to the Southern Highland Craft Guild in August for the second phase in the jury process. Got my instruction sheets today. Five of my BEST works, they suggest, from the last two years. Luckily, I've sold most of them, but I do have access to several good pieces that belong to a friend/collector nearby.

I wouldn't have been so concerned with the BEST work issue but I recently learned that only 10% of the slide submissions make it on to round two, and only 10% of those artists are accepted into the Guild. So we'll see how I do in the final qualifying round. Won't know till the end of September. This thing drags on! (I did not make it up to the semi-annual folk art fair last week after all. Too much going on with the fur kids and their health issues for me to want to take a full day away.)

Proof that I hate to grout

2007-07-18T13:14:00.000-07:00

A bad photo of five new pieces that have been waiting for grout forever and ever. Grouting is the drudgery part of doing mosaics for me, surpassed only by housecleaning, cooking and grocery shopping in terms of my ability to procrastinate until I have no choice but to perform said drudge. I even have an idyllic wooden picnic table out in the front yard with a bit of shade over it on which to grout. Soon. Really. Soon.

I was very happy with the wine amphora. It's going to get dark purple grout. I want to find more of the big wine bottles now! I'm also pleased with the mirror. They are impossible for me to get good photos of, those pesky reflective objects, but I will try once it's grouted in antique white. Birdhouses are the bane of my pique assiette existence, and if the sharding is time consuming, you know the grouting sucks me dry. Ha! Those are lazy susans, the round mandala-like things. You can see several completed examples here.

You can see the wine amphora in its infancy, if you care, here...and I'd love it if you visited my new auctions over on eBay. I moved all my pieces from etsy to the Bay today since they just finally added the Mosaic Art categories in Home Decor. Have I mentioned anywhere on this blog that I love custom work? Email me! (lauraw at citcom dot net).

I've got about half a dozen pieces in various stages of non-completion right now so I've got big plans for upcoming weeks. I plan to drive up to Asheville for the Southern Highland Craft Guild show Friday. I'm so hoping that will inspire me. I'm halfway through the jury process for acceptance into the guild and depending upon what I see on Friday, I may just try to snag a booth for their October show.

Happy Sharding to you all!

Er...Fire the Grid Tuesday?

2007-07-16T09:30:00.001-07:00

Now that the cats have their OWN BLOG for CAT STUFF ONLY, I can get back to the original intent of this one: mosaics, mysticism and madness. You can decide if this post falls into the mad or the mystic file.

Tomorrow, 7/17/07, is Fire the Grid Day. I surfed upon this subject and must've spent two hours watching Shelley Yates talk on YouTube. I just tried to click on, but the server is a tad busy. One can imagine! Anyway, it's of interest to me and maybe you. The deciding factor for me to consider participating was when I saw that the precise moment of the galactic grid meditation was 7/17 at 7:11am EST. I was born 2/17, 7:11am (PST). If I were still in Colorado it'd be 5:11am. Always looking for signs and synchronicities to quell the chaos between my ears -- I'm there.

I'd planned to go up the stone steps in the back yard to the cool picnic table on the landing and have contemplative time with whatever fur kids wanted to join, but Leah the Dawg has to be at Animals of Eden Vet Hospital (nice name, huh?) at 7:30am for surgery to remove what may be a tumor on the top of her front, left paw. God forbid a week should pass and we not be there at least twice for something. More on all that tomorrow.

And here's the mosaic part. I'm nuts for this mirror. It's relatively new, and probably a good companion photo for this post, even though the colors looked a bit washed out in these shots. Much more vibrant in color contrast in person. It's in my etsy shop right now (see shiny sidebar ----> ) but I'm moving all my pieces, and hopefully some new ones, to eBay as soon as they add some mosaic-specific categories over in Home Decor. I'd prefer the new mosaic categories to be in Art, but at least it's something, I suppose.

Weekend Cat Blogging by Sadie -- It's my 5th Gotmeversary!

2007-07-13T05:26:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone! Thanks for letting me celebrate my 5th Gotmeversary with all of you! We are so happy that we discovered you and will play in the cat blog box every weekend. There are so many beautiful, smart, stylish and FUNNY blogging cats around here! Go visit many of them all rounded up in one place at Dragonheart's blog. Dragonheart is this weekend's cat herding host and has something very special to celebrate too! Because it's such a cool week for me, I want to share my happy story with you.

Five years ago right now when I was not more than six weeks old, I was so over the feral life that I was enduring in the cat commune down by the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs, CO. Of course that was not the life I was born to live, but I knew I had to start life there so my destiny could intersect my Mom's. She was working at a liquor store back then (glug glug) and I knew that on this very day she'd stay a little late to help a group of wild women assemble a mixed case of wine. (My Mom knows a LOT about wine. Practice makes purrfect!) She left work later than usual that day. I executed my plan to perfection, dashing in front of her car like a darting furball flash of lightning as she drove through the alley. A confluence of graces! Mom threw the car in neutral, put on the emergency brake, and was on her feet running to catch me before she even realized what was happening. She knows a kitten in need in her sleep, my Mom, even one traveling at super sonic speed. It took her two tries to reach down into the bush where I was pretending to hide to GOTME. She was surprised that I didn't keep running. I tried to keep up the wild, resistant, feral kitten pretense, but I caved in quickly, allowing her to snag me. I sat on her lap the whole way home, trying to keep up the resistant feral pretense, but I never moved from her lap.

The Angels in Charge of Cat Distribution and Dispensation (ACCDD) sent me to her because:

1) She and my fur siblings had just been through a very scary foreclosure and nothing brings joy and cheer and hope to a life more than a kitten.
2) I look just like Gracie, the founding feline member of our current tribe, who came to Mom in 1991 and left in 2000 due to hyperthyroidism and heart disease. Some say I am Gracie returned.
3) My mom is very patient with feral kittens. She is not very patient with humans, which is kind of funny. (Unless you're a human she is not being patient with. Then not so funny.)
4) My mom is a tiny bit obsessive compulsive and prefers an even number of cats, perfectly balanced between male and female.
5) There is no 5. She has a teeny number fetish and insists that I keep this even.

So, on that fateful day in July of 2002, Mom took me home to the funky, dark, bug-infested, stinky, skanky, slanty-floored, freezing cold, ancient farmhouse my family was renting and immediately gave me a bowl of cream. I was so dehydrated and starving, I sucked it up in seconds. Then I got big diarrhea. I shat all over my behind and promptly got my first, (and only), bath. To this day I insist upon my dollop of cream every morning as she stumbles for her first cup of coffee. (Unrelenting screaming is very effective with Mom.) I spent the next several weeks living under a bed in a guest room. My dawg, Leah, and my big brother, Walter, kept close to me. Leah laid next to the bed all that time, keeping a very close eye on me. I love my dog. Walter taught me how to play when I eventually got brave enough to come out from under the bed. I loved my Walter. He went to Fur Heaven very suddenly two months ago. You can see lots of photos of him on this blog, including a very wonderful Snapfish collage poster we just got in the mail. Losing our Tubbo Walter has been a great tragedy for all of us, most especially Mom and Leah Dawg. Walter raised Leah. That's how it is in our family...the youngest fur takes the new arrival under their loving paw.

We all moved from Colorado to North Carolina at the end of last year and I love my new home. I have 9 lush, forested acres to play on, but I stick close to my home. I sure miss playing outside with Walter, but there are snakes and lizards, birds and bunnies, butterflies and fireflies to play with here. We did not have fireflies in Colorado! Whatthe?? I am not allowed outside after dark so I try to grok them through the windows. Mom can't believe that the heat does not bother me outside but our new fur doctor sold us a furminator. Who knew I was all bottom coat? I try to help my Mom with her mosaic art -- that's me, advising her on a big lazy susan project on MY consulting table -- but since Walter died, she is not so creatively inspired. At least with her mosaics. She seems to want to write a lot, which is why I'm so happy we found all you eloquent cats who blog. Mom still cries almost every day about Walter and thinks her mosaic promotion blog has turned into a fur kid promotion blog. I say: the problem with that is...? I give her free mosaic consultations, talk with her more than ever, and share extra love and attention to try to fill up some of the emptiness in her heart. We all know she loves us in very special and unique ways, but we also all know that Walter was extra-special and uber-unique in her life. If he were still with us, Walter would surely have his own blog today! (And he would certainly be cyber-courting Miss Lilly.)

Mom tried to help all of us after Walter died by consulting pet communicators. She started getting very interested in pet communication and pet reincarnation and did a lot of reading and researching. She had sessions with three women: Leonora to talk to Walter, Lydia Hiby to help Leah, and Cindy Smith for the whole family. That's where I got to talk. I told Cindy Smith to remind my Mom that I am very independent and also very content and happy with both my life and my place in the family. This was a great comfort to my Mom, and she knows it is Truth. Cindy also told my Mom that I would LOVE a new kitten. More Truth. Because I am the youngest, the new kitten will be mine!!!

So the best anniversary present the ACCDDs can give me is a new kitten, hopefully Tubbo Walter returning to us! Mom believes 100% in Fur Fate -- she knows that her four-legged companions always come to her, or wait for her, without her having to look for them (Truth again). We are all keeping a vigil for our next fur family member. Nothing brings joy and cheer and hope to a life more than a kitten.

(PS: Does anyone know if Fat Eric has a girlfriend? He reminds me of my Tubbo Walter, and like my Mom, I get weak in the paws over orange guys. Especially fat, fluffy, frequently-peckish, orange guys.)

What is this Wordless Wednesday of which they speak?

2007-07-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

Tubbo Walter always made his dawg laff

2007-07-11T07:41:00.001-07:00

Willie & The Awakening

2007-07-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

Willie looks pretty good for gonna-be-16-on-New-Year's-Eve-2007, huh?

Life imitates art

2007-07-09T09:17:00.000-07:00

Here we have Willie in his dignified posturing, splayed out in front of our favorite painting EVER. Long long time ago, in another lifetime, or at least another galaxy, I came into a wad of cash rather suddenly. (Daddy died.) One of the very first things I did was buy original art from a few women artists that I loved. Of course they all paint animals! This one is by Vicki Ledray Grabicki of Washington state. I first discovered Vicki's work in the gift shop at Nepethe, Big Sur. A greeting card knocked me out! It was a boldly colored image of a Celtic goddess. The back read: "Queen Hanorah and her beloved Sylvester -- goddess of creation, arts and CATS." The red-haired maiden is naked, under a sliver moon, cradling my Willie in her arms.

Vicki and I began a snail mail correspondence and I learned her Sylvester looked a lot like my Willie. I also learned that I was addicted to Vicki's art and sense of spiritual mystery. My collection includes a few of her prints: Shaman Calling Her Allies; Remembering Who She Is; Queen Hanorah -- all images of women and their power animals -- along with this original from her "Cats and Flowers" period. I also own The Awakening, another original you can see above this post, hanging on the fireplace wall behind Willie on his couch.

When I was deciding which of Vicki's originals I could not live without back in 1996 -- I had already selected The Awakening as a must-have -- she sent me a photograph of this brand new, woman-reading-with-cat painting. I gasped...c'est moi! Vicki had no earthly idea what I looked like, so when I sent her a photo of myself with a decent perm, she too gasped. I love meant to be art. And cats, and flowers, and color and creation. All crucial components of what is mystically inspiring to me.

You'd think with all this inspiration flowing I'd get back to the mosaic studio. Manana. Today I have wonky DSL modems to take to the doctor and compounded tapazole for Bianca to refill and health food store shopping to do. Poor Bianca...two vomitting episodes last night between the time I finally fell asleep and midnight. I'm getting closer and closer every day to insisting upon a surgical consult for her. I don't think tapazole is the key, long term, and I don't think the vomiting frequency is fair to her, me, or the carpets.

Palate Cleanser

2007-07-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

Elton my brother, you are older than me...

He's 60, I'm, closing in on 50. Time flies regardless of the fun factor. I saw him perform at the Hollywood Bowl when I was in my early teens. He was at the height of his mania. I remember what we both wore.

I can't stand pulling up my blog and seeing the poster of Walter. How am I gonna deal with it in life size form, hanging on my mosaic studio wall? Baby steps, Laura. Plus, I needed a good excuse to post this Elton photo from the Diana Day Debacle. I wrote a long diatribe about how much I hate the 4th of July and chronicled Bianca's third bladder infection in the last nine months necessitating an hour long drive (her screaming all the way) to the emergency clinic in Asheville last Saturday, but it bored me so much I couldn't even edit it.
Whatever.

Still no blood test results. I'm expecting (hoping for is better) a call later this evening. Thursday's sample had "coagulation" issues so we had to go back in Friday afternoon for more torture. Why Bianca couldn't pee in an inappropriate place at some point on Friday is beyond me. She waited until 6:30am Saturday to do it on my comforter, between my legs, ensuring that our vet, and every other vet in western NC, would be off for the holiday. The only good thing about the episode (aside from the fact that it was just another UTI cured by Clavimox), is that I got to drive to REACH in daylight under non-emergency conditions. Should I ever have to make the drive again, god forbid, in a life-threatening panic, I'll have been there once. Not that this guarantees I'll remember the way, since I can't navigate myself out of a paper sack. "Lack of grounding" some could say. "Not fully incarnated" others might offer. Moronic idiot with directions works for me. I pray that if and when this ever occurs I have had no wine that evening. That would be very inconvenient, and frightening, for all concerned. I suppose I could always call the town's cab service. Note to self...

Snapfish Rules (Bottomless well o' grief)

2007-07-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

I was just in the bedroom sobbing over Walter again, wondering if it's ever going to get easier. Will I ever string a few days together in which I don't dwell in guilt, regret, grief and despair? I printed out some of my favorite final photos of him (all the years prior are trapped on a dead iMac and a dead iBook for now) so I was shuffling through the images, thinking of how I might frame and display them when I can bear it.

In my inbox was notification from Snapfish that my poster has shipped. I had to get a new HP printer to interface with my new MacBook Pro and along with all that came 20 free prints on Snapfish. I finally got up the energy to upload a ton of my fur fotos last week and order a lot of prints for me and to send to friends and fam. AND, then I saw their collage poster feature. You can guess the rest. I'm going to hang it in my mosaic studio, which happens to have the perfect empty vertical wall space. It also happens to be the room he dragged himself into that horrible morning and the room in which I struggled to get him into the crate. He did not want to go, in more ways than 22.

Beloved Tubbo Walter who reigned over my bed

2007-06-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

Hyperthyroidism, arterial thrombosis, and phantom limbs

2007-06-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

The lexicon of my current days...diseases of the cat. Bianca (the small black and white fur kid on your left. Willie is the big boy) is hyperthyroid and can't stop puking to save her life. She's been on transdermal tapazole for nearly a month, and the only difference I see is that she keeps her food down for a few hours before puking it back up. But she also vomits numerous times between midnight and wake-up-o'clock. Often there is nothing for her to bring up but water or mucus. Of course, since Walter is no longer with us, she has started to sleep with me for the first time in over a decade. Walter ruled my bedroom for his entire life and while I adored sleeping with him every night of my life, I suppose he was a bit of a bully when it came to sharing me with the others. So I do love that Bianca is now sleeping with me. But the vomiting...not so much loving. I am on my feet with the bedside light on, paper towels and Resolve in hand, before I am even awake. This scares her, surely, as she must think that I'm mad at her given the alarm response her retching elicits in me.

We go to the vet "first thing" tomorrow morn for a blood draw, and "first thing" is very late for me recently, given the crappy sleep pattern I'm currently not enjoying. Gracie, the very first cat in my Cat Collecting Period, circa 1991, died of the cardiomyopathy associated with hyperthyroidism several years back, so I know this road. Gracie was pillable. Bianca is not. Thus the gratitude for our own local compound pharmacy. Bianca and Willie came to me right after Gracie did back in Monterey, CA, in 1992, and the three of them saved my life back in the day, in more ways than 24. I got Willie to keep Gracie company (an idea she was not fond of at all, as it turned out) and then a friend sort of dumped Bianca on me. How could I not keep her given how much she resembled Willie? It blows my mind every day that Willie and Bianca, both 15ish, remain the sole survivors in terms of the cat elders. Sadie is only 5.

I had the three Monterey cats for a few years (and Fred the hermaphrodite guinea pig) and then just as I was preparing to move to the Southwest, Merlin showed up feral in my yard. It took us days to trap and when we did, it was only because he had buried himself under the hood of my old Toyota truck. God he fought it and ripped into my hands something fierce from inside the pillow case. Shortly after that, I moved four cats and whatever I could fit into a U-Haul trailer with me to New Mexico, where we picked up adorable shelter Milo during our nine-month stay in hell, and then onto Colorado, where we found our Walter three months after moving into our own home. I liked having six cats. I loved not having to apologize to a landlady for my love of cats or get permission from anyone to add another should I care to. But then they started to thin out from various disease processes, and I added the dog in 1999 solely to accompany me on my walks.

I lost my first home in Colorado to foreclosure in 2002 and moved out with the dog and three cats, Willie, Bianca and Walter. Four months later, feral Sadie kitten dashed in front of my car in an alley, severely dehydrated, tiny and starving. I was back to four, my feline homeostatic point of equilibrium, and a new kitten helped us all adjust a bit better to the disorientation and loss of the foreclosure. I rested comfortably at four cats from 2002 until just last month when Walter died from a saddle thrombosis with a suddenness and unexpectedness that still makes my heart reel when I dwell upon it. I moved across the country, from Colorado to North Carolina, with my four cats and our dog, and now that I'm down to just three cats, I constantly do the nightly nose count to four. It's the phantom limb of an amputee. I don't feel whole without Walter, for sure, and his painful departure was certainly a severing process. But there is something about meeting my minimum daily feline companion requirement going on here too. I'm deliberately holding off on actively finding a new cat or kitten, mostly because I never have to look for them...they truly do all find me, and of course I am waiting for Walter to reincarnate immediately and come right back to me. But also for Bianca's sake. I've no desire to stress her daily life any further than it is with her health issues and whatever treatment course we decide to pursue.

I was emailing a friend that Bianca had puked three times night before last between midnight and 2:30am, and then I found mucus in my awesome black and white paisley Wal Mart flip flops in the mud room the next morning. That had me musing about this darling photo of my Beloved Walter on the pink and white paisley flip flops. I'm not in the mood to discuss the specifics of Walter's thrombotic demise right now (there's a very nice man under my house fixing the A/C, praise Allah) but I just logged onto one of my very favorite blogs, Crazy Aunt Purl, and saw her photo of one of her four babies on top of her flip flops. It put me in the mood to savor one of the 9,886 photos of Walter I've taken over the last 11 years.

It's a wet, fundamental heat

2007-06-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

Because I went and bragged in an email to Varina (ex-neighbor in Colorado) that the heat and humidity had not yet killed me, we are currently "enjoying" what has to be the most humid day EVER in NC. I splurged on the A/C before noon, which is a first, and only the third time I've hit the switch so far. Last night was horrible. Even the bedroom ceiling fan cranked up to high did not help. The late afternoon thunder storms hovered into the wee morning hours, cloaking the house in an oppressive straight jacket of sticky, suffocating moist. The thunder renders the dog even more oppressive and suffocating than normal in terms of her inability to be more than three feet from me. I'm certain that the bottle of Biltmore Chenin, accompanied by a serving of leftover pasta large enough for three wrestlers, followed up by as much Marie Callender's very frozen coconut cream pie that I could chisel out of the tin during Suze Orman, all contributed to my blissful and deep night's rest.

It's Sunday and that ensures that most of my elderly neighbors are coming and going from church. All this is apparent on the daily walk with the dog. Two very nice people have tried to encourage my attendance at their Baptist church of choice. There is one on every corner, literally. "Most everyone in these parts is Baptist." There is a conspiratorial effort underway to convert me. I have less than zero percent interest in discussing my eclectic spiritual path in life with anyone that does not sorta kinda share some of it, and I have less than less than zero percent interest in debating anything having to do with their certainty that "The Bible says it, therefore it's True." (Cue Stephen Colbert). What I have found spontaneously popping out of my mouth in both instances was: "Gee, that's sooooo kind of you, but I'm pretty liberal -- pro-choice, pro-gay." Which I know they hear as "Pro-murder, pro-sodomy." I can see them visualizing my bumper sticker: I brake for baby killers and butt fuckers. (Cue Kathy Griffin).

For the most part, people are pretty nice here, especially my elderly neighbors who have all lived right here in the same homes since God. The dog and I love our nature walks, despite the heat, and I find myself more tan than I've been in a decade. I'm forcing myself to walk in shorts, fat legs and all, and I think the copious rays of sunshine, the profuse sweating, the hills we climb, and the daily consistency in walking are all helping me to finally lose a few pounds. (If I continue to eat and drink like I have this weekend that will be short lived.) While I've been told that the bugs are not yet "bad" -- shudder -- I have issues with the kamikaze gnats that deliberately fly right into my sweaty eyeballs during my walks. It's a bitch trying to extract them without a mirror and sometimes they stay lodged in there for an hour or so. Still beats the shit out of shoveling snow!!

Lazy farm susan in progress

2007-06-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

Not sure what it is about moving from rural SW Colorado to rural NW North Carolina that seems to have brought out the repressed farm girl/survivalist in me, but I recently got a big thing up my butt about hoarding not just sani-wipes, but china and pottery patterns with farm motifs.

My 92-year-young maternal Grama Emma, still alive and kicking in Napa, CA, with my mom, used a Brock pattern for her tableware throughout my entire childhood, so that predisposes me to a fondness for that maker. Bucks County has some cool patterns I've used in the past, and a search on eBay for chicken plates yielded more fun stuff. I started with this lazy susan but have a whole corner of a room dedicated to collecting all manner of farm themed pieces with a vision of grabbing me a huge hunk o' hardibacker from Lowe's and going to town, or farm, on a wall panel/backsplash. Maybe if I do get that booth for the Southern Highlands Craft Fair in October. I think the Bucks County sugar bowl lid is awesome, and with any luck I can split the rooster egg cup in half cleanly. And the Amish woman just plain old looks like me. Wonder can I find me a husband like hers in these parts?

And here's a little stepping stone in progress

2007-06-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

I'm calling Sadie.

The transcendence in wine o'clock

2007-06-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

The transcendent will come of its own accord when the container is strong enough.

This hangs on my fridge in my own handwriting. It inspires me deeply, as does its author, Marion Woodman -- beyond-brilliant Jungian analyst and one of my most treasured writers/thinkers/feelers in this lifetime. I believe I own every book she's written, or collaborated upon, or contributed to. Dip your soul's toes into the vastness that is she with a few choice interviews, conveniently transcribed for us in one place. I'm an absolute freak for dream work. Tracking her as she decodes dream samples contained in her books makes me wet. Really. I'm that hot for good dream work.

I'm also hot for good wine. Staying with the Jungian analyst theme, if an "over fondness" for spirits is merely a surface level, externalized, concretized symptom of a far deeper yearning for Spirit, is it possible that turning this massive empty wine bottle that I've saved for a decade into a pique assiette wine amphora will quench my thirst? Will the transcendent come of its own accord into my life more fully once I grout it in dark purple? How about if I drink more wine? Who can say. As Brugh Joy would admonish: "Don't pathologize The Mystery." (Which is a phrase that anybody with an "over fondness" for wine and spirits should keep on hand for moments when others far less self-actualized and un-transcendent are giving you grief and trying to pathologize your ass.)

Speaking of good wine, Biltmore Estate is all the rage here in NC and I recently began to explore their wines, readily available in GROCERY STORES here on any day of the week! This in blessed contrast to Colorado where the only "booze" one could find in a food market was a 3.2% wine cooler, beer, or Zima type thingey. And liquor stores must close on Sunday in CO, and on Christmas. One of the many reasons I am quite happy with my new home state. The other main one being NO SNOW to speak of.

Biltmore Estate Winery is up in Asheville, which is less than an hour from me. I intend to visit one day, but for now, I'm hopelessly hooked on their Chenin Blanc. It's a heapin' mouth full brimming with apricot jam and ripe, sweet pear nectar. Just enough acidity remains, along with a shockingly smooth and full body. $5.51 at my local Sav-Mor! The Riesling didn't do anything for me and I've been trying to be frugal and drink wines under $10 when I do drink so I'm currently doing my find-a-good-thing-and-beat-it-to-death, repetitive OCD ritual with the Chenin. But I can see from their Wines page that I need to try the Sauv Blanc, Pinot Grigio, and perhaps even their seasonal Festival of Flowers blend. (I am physically unable to drink red wines in heat, damn Pitta constitution. But maybe just a wee sip of their Pinot?) I feel a tasting trip is in order, perhaps next month when I visit the Southern Highlands Craft Guild's 60th Annual Craft Fair. I'm halfway through the jury process for membership, aspiring to be accepted by late August in hopes of scoring a booth for the October Craft Fair. I have not been able to find any other mosaic artists on their web site or in their member directory, so I'm hopeful that this might be a very nice affiliation for me. In the event that another artist bails out on their booth for October and I can snag it...a very good carrot on a stick to place under my nose (or swirling glass of wine, if you prefer) to keep me creating creating and transcending transcending.

It's in that surrender to the transcendent that art is created.
-Marion Woodman

Like onions for gladiolas

2007-06-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

At the end of last year the fur kids and I moved from the mountains of SW Colorado (8,000 feet) to the mountains of NW North Carolina (3,000). What a trip, in more ways than 12. I rented the only house that made any sense that I was able to view on a 48-hour, whirlwind trip here just prior. Must Find Home. Fast. It rained the entire time I was here so I never once saw the sky or even much of a tree line anywhere in the town. It was only after living here for a few weeks, and finally "landing" here, emotionally and psychically, that I fully realized how amazing these 9 acres that I rent truly are.

As the rental agent would tell me, the owners had "too much time on their hands" when living here, as evidenced (to him) by their fruit and vegetable garden efforts. But when I factored in all of the interesting old animal hutches and pens down the hill, I concluded that they are closeted End Times Freaks, which I am currently very much aspiring to be. Perhaps this home is nurturing and reigniting that relatively-dormant-since-Y2K streak in me? I stockpiled a lot of shit for Y2K, most especially anti-bacterial handi-wipes. Hell to me is not being able to wash my hands every 4 seconds. Having learned that when the electricity goes off here (often), so do the well and septic, I am now hoarding anti-bacterial handi-wipes again, along with plastic jugs of water for washing and flushing. Not to be co-mingled with the filtered ones for drinking.

One night in 2000 it was clear that we had escaped the clutches of the Y2K beast and I was experiencing severe blood sugar lows. (A more honest person of integrity would just say "drunk".) After downing a fabulous bottle of California Pinot Noir, I broke into my very stale trail bar stash, and then I broke a $1,000 veneer off my tooth. For that reason alone, my End Times Stash will include no trail bars, over-cooked Atkins frozen pizzas, or rice cakes topped with peanut butter, all proven mortal enemies of porcelain veneers in the years following. And I doubt that many cosmetic, restorative dentists will be in practice once the End Times are upon us. Surely they will be raptured first so there will be plentiful pearly whites inside the pearly gates. There are no bad teeth in heaven.

Anyway, Mr. Homeowner's job pulled them down to Florida and they now find themselves with two mortgages -- reluctant landlords who dream of retiring back up here, happily self-sustaining among their flora and fauna.

Over the months I've discovered not only the multitude of blooming trees and shrubs that grow wild in this area, but also a number of very beautiful bulb flowers that were planted around the home. Tulip, daffodil, lilies of various colors and species. Muy gorgeousio. Always something new in bloom. As I watched the edible treats come up, I found strawberries, raspberries, grapes and blackberries. I'm hoping that the blackberries, still to ripen, will bear decent fruit. Because I'm not tending the gardens one bit, the other berries have been a bit disappointing. I know I disappoint them as well.

The vegetable beds were a trip! A few tiny heads of stunted lettuce came up and I did eat a few leaves one night. I was able to identify mint and chives, but am not clear on what another large patch of most plentiful herbs truly is. One morning after my walk I glanced up to see an asparagus spear sticking straight up out of the ground! Never in my life had I seen one grow, or even a photo of one growing, apparently. I had no idea that they look, in the ground, exactly like they do in the market, but are not bundled in two places with thick, blue rubber bands. Now...if you let them go a week longer, they morph into four foot trees that look a lot like asparagus ferns! Imagine my surprise. And then there were these spear shaped leaves that poked up even before spring, on level one in the veggie/herb portion of the terrace. I was certain they were some foreign species of Southern onion. I pulled two, just to see how they were progressing, and due to their puny size, decided not to slice them for salad toppings. I pretty much forgot about them over the last month, blind-sided and devastated by the unexpected and heart-breaking death of my favorite feline companion, soul mate, Beloved Tubbo Walter.

So I was doing the dishes yesterday morning, hypnotically fixated on the garden, as I am wont to do. Two tiny orange blooms on one of the "onion" stalks knocked my ass right out of my reverie. For Christ's sake! GLADIOLAS. It never occurred to me that there might be more bulb flowers in that bed! I had salad fixings all over my mind. I felt very stupid, although I shouldn't have, knowing myself to be the bumbling savant I often feel myself to be in this lifetime in certain areas. I have my abundant areas of special talent and extreme giftedness, of course, but most days they bow in humiliated subservience to my regions of vast lameitude and buffoonishness. I am truly deserving of a front seat on the special bus in certain arenas. Many arenas.

Waiting for the end of the world

2007-06-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Lord I sincerely hope you're coming 'cuz you really started something.

This seems as fitting a launch subject as any with which to kick off my new blog. My tortured psyche can not contain the incongruity of it all...vivid memories of driving the 100 or so miles from UC Santa Barbara south to Santa Monica to see Elvis Costello at age 19(ish), and today, at 49(ish), snoozing through the Lexus commercials that he and his (new) wife crank out. That alone tilts my little inner world on its axis.

But why stop there? Almost everything tilts my axis lately, and since I have strategically structured my hermetically sealed outer life to never compete with my rich, vibrant, and ever-vibrating inner life...I have no one to talk to about the many things that amuse and bemuse me. Except for the cats, of course, but they are heavy into power napping these days and I can only rouse them so many times before affecting their health. I have no e-friends in my current inner circle who have half the tolerance for, nay, love of, long email dissertations and free associating missives that I am constantly composing between my pointy ears and the enveloping silver folds of my beloved MacBook Pro. I no longer write a bi-weekly wine column for a little mountain town newspaper. (You can enjoy all of my columns archived here!) I hang out on no message boards. (I lurk.) I need to write. I love to write. I live to write. I shall write. I thank you in advance for reading.