Hanging in there

 How do you spell the sound of a raspberry? 

Everyone was perfectly nice to me today, but I felt enormously put upon. 

I roll my eyes at myself. 

Maturity, I read once, is the ability to gracefully accept paradox and contradiction.

Fine, I am not mature.

I am gracelessy grumpy about  my contradictory feelings of immense pride and joy and EXCITEMENT for Marz, who is heading out for the New Mexico goat farm on Friday, and my feelings of loss at her departure (however temporary it may prove—she may be back in the spring, ...or not). 

It’s good, it’s time: Fly away, little bird!

Here, hanging out at the lake on Sunday with Julia and Marz, and new doll Spike (“the Marz doll”—she cut off her hair—“it’s stupid”, she said)— and Annie Evening, the nicest of the dolls:

Meanwhile, I’m not blogging or commenting much because it’s such a pain to do that on this phone. 

Here is Spike, hanging in a hammock. She has strung my mask between two bikes’ sprockets:

Otter in process, II

 

Good morning! Today Blogger on my phone is posting photos upright. (Perhaps it thought pencils should go vertically.)

Flummox checks in the mirror. She is pleased with her new otter snout. Her legs are shorter now too—all this is done painlessly, I should add—and leftover fabric will provide her a proper otter tail.

Pencil Names

Why is blogger posting my pictures sideways? 

I’ve lent out my laptop and can’t be bothered to figure it out on my phone at the moment.

 I’m sorting old pencils donated to the thrift store (an entirely optional task...). I’m impressed by their names—they sound like Thoroughbred racehorses names. 

“CrownLine DATAMATE EXECUTIVE National’s Thor”

RAVEN SCRIBBLER sounds like a clue. 

Otter Underway

Trying out a free app for blogging on the phone (I loaned my laptop to Marz until she leaves town in ten days).

This morning I’m starting to embroider Flummox’s muzzle so she looks more like an otter—you may remember this rescue toy says she is one of them. 

Ok, that was easy to compose... so... how do I post this?

Nope—can’t. I have to buy the app—No way. 

I’m on the web version of blogger now—it’ll do. 

 

Dog says hello. 

They're here!

The calendars arrived--early--and the printing job is good!

If you're looking for a place to print calendars and photo books,
I am pleased with the company, Mixbook.com.

Be sure and look for --or email them and ask for--their coupons. As I've said, I got 50% off and free shipping, so the final cost was $16.20 per calendar. (Still a bit spendy, but when I've used cheaper companies, the prints have been washed out.)

Someone asked how big the calendars are, and if they're clear from across the room. 

They are the modern standard size of 12" x 12".
Only September has all-small photos--here's that month:

I mixed photo sizes for most months, like this one (next to my Star Trek calendar):

A few are full page:

Feel free to cancel your order if you don't like the calendar.
Otherwise, I will mail them out this week.

You can pay ($20 incl. media mail postage) in the mail,
or send a payment to that email on PayPal (CHOOSE "sending money to a friend" or they charge fees).

I'd love feedback (now, or when you get your copy):
Do you prefer more large photos?
Do you like the date-boxes filled in with photos, or not? (I don't write on my wall calendars much, so I prefer more pictures.)
Any favorite photos? Any you do not like?

Golf & Grapes

For bink's birthday yesterday we went mini-golfing at Big Stone Mini-Golf & Sculpture Garden: an artist-made course outside town.

Some did not fully comprehend the game.

The picnic is the most important part anyway.

                                              Grapes were handed out.

happy birthday, bink!

 It's bink's birthday today--as often, it's falling during Rosh Hashanah. A fresh new year would be nice...

bink & I have been friends for forty years, since we met in a reading group the fall I was nineteen. For thirteen of those years, we were partners. 

Most of my pictures of us are on paper--I should do a big scan one of these days.
Meanwhile, here's a brief round-up.

BELOW: 1987, bink's thirtieth birthday party in Chicago. We lived there while she got her MFA in painting. (I was working first as a cook at a whole foods deli (before Whole Foods), then in the library of Columbia College Chicago--an arts college.)

Below, a page from bink's graphic memoir, Reliquary (2017?), about walking Camino---a reminder that the 1980s were hardly easy times.
More of bink's art on her website.

BELOW, 2010: bink & me the opening of bink's "DVD to ART" project--"made in collaboration with Catholics who received DVDs sent out by [then-] archbishop Nienstedt urging them to oppose same-sex marriage".

After the archbishop made DVDs opposing an upcoming vote to make marriage legal for all, bink collected thousands of the DVDs from parishioners and made a sculpture and a prayer wall out the the discs and their slipcases:

This led to one of my personal favorite things in bink's life:
an opinion piece in the Washington Post by Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo: "Of Bully Pulpits and Bully Bishops". [Darn--no longer a live link! Just a reminder of how fleeting this online stuff is...]

Stevens-Arroyo compared archbishop Nienstedt to Hollywood's fat-cat bishops (or corrupt sheriffs):

While medieval labels like “Robin Hood” no longer apply, the age-old temptation to make deals with the rich and powerful have not gone away. I don’t know if John Nienstedt, the Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, has succumbed to this temptation, but if you substitute “same sex marriage” for “rights to hunt deer in Sherwood Forest” you’d have enough for a movie.

More on the project on bink's blog from the time: dvdtoart.blogspot.com/2010

2015: L to R: bink's partner Maura, bink, me, at our friend Jill's wedding:

 The March for Science in 2017:

Below is a favorite photo, from summer 2018--it shows bink's sensitivity and intelligence. She is discussing with Penny Cooper how a bread warmer might be used to heat a doll swimming pool:

And here she is the other day, with Astro:

Happy birthday, binky!

"Justice, justice shall you pursue." --Deuteronomy

Illustration of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by bink & me from our zine Baby's First Resist/story *(2017), "An Alphabet Book in a response to Trump's first 100 days."

RBG had calligraphed on her chambers' walls the command from Deuteronomy 16:20,

"Justice, justice shall you pursue."

May her memory be a blessing. 

Ha--I like this, also from RBG--2016 interview in the NYT:

Another often-asked question when I speak in public:
“Do you have some good advice you might share with us?”

Yes, I do. It comes from my savvy mother-in-law, advice she gave me on my wedding day. “In every good marriage,” she counseled, “it helps sometimes to be a little deaf.”

I have followed that advice assiduously, and not only at home through 56 years of a marital partnership nonpareil. I have employed it as well in every workplace, including the Supreme Court. When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade.

* (If you're on a computer, you can see it here--there's a page tab at the top bar of this page: "Key to Baby's First Resist/story".)

Goats Fight Fire

Death, destruction, and the rise of Very Bad People.

I commented to a friend, it's like we're in the first book of Lord of the Rings...

But, as Molly Ivins said, remember the plucky hobbits!

No, she didn't. She said,

“We should be cheerful about the here and now on the principle that it can always get worse, and then we will never have been cheerful at all.”

I tell ya, the worse things get, the more I embrace Ivins's exhortation to cheerfulness, which annoys the hell out of me when times are better (or when I'm less aware, anyway, of how awful they are).
I'm very cheery indeed these days.

Anyway--good beings are making smart moves all the time, too.
In Orgeon, 230 goats arrive to eat the "dry undergrowth that fuels big fires":

www.opb.org/article/2020/09/17/goats-fire-prevention-oregon

"The goats are calling and I must go."

 Marz came to Doll Costume Day for a while. She has lifted her ban on appearing on social media, at least partially.

Partially.... and temporarily:
She's given notice at her job at the co-op, given up her apartment, and signed on to work at a goat farm in New Mexico for the winter!
They have internet and phone service, but you have to climb a hill and wave your device in the air or something.

This high-desert landscape looks like her.

And, look! Kids in the kitchen:

The farm is part of the WWOOFing scheme--World-Wide Organization of Organic Farms. They provide bed and board  for people who come help on the farm. Marz will have her own little, wood-heated cabin.

I'm nothing but thrilled for her!
Marz is the sort of person who could sit in the same room for years and lead an interesting life. But she's been here nine years, and it's time for a new adventure.

For myself, I am inspired that she is heading off. It's a big world:
Go out! Go out!

I'm also a little... hm, uncertain about how my life will go without her nearby. 
She's good to have around, like a magpie, gathering things that glint; like a garden worm, aerating the soil; like a bee, disseminating pollen--and all as she goes about her daily business... 

I always say, she is like the sun flashing off the brass of a marching band.

March on!

___________________________

P.S.  From an 1873 letter from naturalist John Muir to his sister:

“The mountains are calling & I must go & I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.”

Medieval Mayhem

It was medieval-inspired costume-making day yesterday at bink's.

 I made headdresses out of ladies' vintage gloves from the thrift store. The soft leather was a dream to work with. In process:

Inspired by this medieval illumination:

 

Sister made a gown inspired by writer Christine de Pisan (b. 1364):

And bink's girlette wanted to be Pestilence!

She turned out really scary (but they're just playing...):

 

Run away! Run away!

 

They all escaped and are just fine! (And that's a bag of bakery treats.)

My sister (in red) and I always have fun together on Doll Costume Day, with bink:

The 2021 Girlette Calendar--Final Version

UPDATE ON PRICE:
Great! Mixbook gave me 50% off printing, and free shipping, because I'm ordering more than ten calendars.

So... Each calendar costs me $16.20 (incl. tax)--plus whatever it'll cost me to mail it to you, if you're out of town.

I just checked, and calendars do qualify for USPS media mail (yay!)--so let's say... if you're in the US,
$20 per calendar.

 

If you want to order one, email, and give me your address.

(I'm not charging anything above cost, of course: 

You're friends, and the girlettes think money is the silliest thing and have no truck with it.)

If you pre-ordered a calendar and don't like how it's turned out, feel free to cancel!

 

They're due to me in a couple weeks, and I'll mail them right out.

After you get your calendar, you can pay me on PayPal.
* * * BE SURE TO CHECK the box "sending money to a friend" (not a purchase) or else I have to pay a fee.
Or you can mail me a check.

 

I'm very happy with Mixbook so far--lots of placement & editing options, easy to use. If the finished calendars look as good as they look online, I'm going to be impressed with this company. www.mixbook.com

 

I spent the week putting this calendar together online. I could futz with it endlessly, but I'm pleased with it and calling it DONE.