indraeek

It's that time of year again...

2011-04-26T04:45:00.002-04:00

The National - Think You Can Wait

The National -- Exile Vilify

Yep, it's time for me to spruik The National again. ;-)

The two songs shown are new over the past month or two. The first is from a movie; the second from a video game. I haven't seen or played either. Love the songs though.

And, as well as being the time to spruik the band, it's also time for me to mention that I'm going to see them live! Can you imagine? eekie's going to see a band which isn't the Church? This must be a sure sign of the impending apocalypse. It's about three weeks off and is going to be in this lovely old music hall which is supposed to have fantastic sound. And I have a really good seat...if Matt does his trademark into the audience wander, I could be right there in the thick of it! whee!! Should be amazing!

And what of the Church and eekie's Church Excursion, 2011 Edition, you ask? Well, it was fantastic, amazing, and in parts, just plain weird. I'll post about it...I swear!

Guess who eekie went to see?

2010-08-03T00:27:00.005-04:00

Yep. I did it. I actually did go to The National concert. :-)

I almost didn't. Not only did I almost chicken out, but I also had a meeting I had to attend about 55 miles away that evening. But just as I was leaving home for the meeting -- and of course I was running really late -- I thought "hmm...the meeting should be over by 8...I could still make the show" (wouldn't catch the opener, but that's ok). But I'm not familiar with the arena district and didn't have my GPS with me, so actually getting there still wasn't looking very good.

But after the meeting broke up I asked if anyone knew how to get to the venue from I 70 and someone did...and get this -- it was easy! Even for me (and that's really saying something, considering I can hardly find my way out of my driveway without my GPS)! So I went...got there in just enough time to park, buy a ticket, a bottle of water, and an ep, and find a fairly comfortable spot to stand before the show started.

The show itself was excellent. Being at the very back of the venue (an outdoor venue at that), I know I missed out on a lot of the energy, and I did notice that. But I was doing good just to be there and I wanted to enjoy the show instead of being stressed out about the crowd. Being at the back allowed me to do that. Someday I would like to be able to be close to the stage at one of their shows though. I think that would make the experience even better.

As much as I like the studio versions of their songs I think most of them are even better live. While they remain pretty faithful to the studio versions when they play live, they give the songs a little extra spark and that is great. Here's the setlist:

Runaway
Mistaken For Strangers
Anyone's Ghost
Bloodbuzz Ohio
Brainy
Slow Show
Squalor Victoria
Afraid Of Everyone
Available
Little Faith
Conversation 16
Apartment Story
Abel
Daughters Of The Soho Riots
England
Fake Empire

Encore:

Wasp Nest
Lemonworld
Mr. November
Terrible Love
About Today

I generally am happy with whatever songs a band plays live, as I figure they know which songs work well in a live setting (and if I like a band well enough to actually go see them I like most of their songs anyway), but I was thrilled they played About Today. While I like the studio version, I love the live version. The studio version trails off, but the live version ends in a long blast of distortion and instrumental wankery (and I mean wankery in the best possible way here). It's a great end to their show.

I would have loved to have heard Secret Meeting and Ada, but can't complain about the set. Little Faith was probably the one song that didn't do a whole lot for me live. It wasn't bad by any means, but if I had to replace one song that would be the one. Mr November and Terrible Love are a fantastic one/two punch at the end of the show, and often are the very last two songs. I was kind of surprised at how much I liked Lemonworld live, as it took a while to really grow on me when I first heard it.

So anyway...if you like The National I encourage you to go see them live. You will be delighted. I'll certainly try to see them again. :-)

The National

2010-06-17T02:43:00.000-04:00

I know I'm rather late to the party regarding The National, but I'm really enjoying them. I've heard and liked some of their songs over the past few years, but the songs I heard leading up to their newest release (High Violet) I found I really liked, so I had to buy the album. And so far I'm loving it. I might even spash out big and buy another of their albums. lol

If the player below doesn't play the show for you, here's a link to their show at this year's Bonnaroo Festival. It's pretty close to a full length show -- an hour and a half and 20 songs.

They are playing in Columbus on August 2 and I'd love to see them, but I find it really hard make myself go to stuff like this even when I want to. Social anxiety/excessive shyness sucks. (Yeah, I know I make it to the church shows, but I get so nervous about going I often feel like vomiting for weeks before the first show. It ain't pretty.) Still, I keep checking to make sure tickets are still available...I might just be able to shock myself and just fucking go on the night.

SK in short film

2010-06-16T15:19:00.004-04:00

The film was made for the Fish Eye Film Festival competition. All films had to be 7 minutes or less and had to have some relationship with surf, snow and/or skate sports. Furthermore, feet as a theme, item or object had to fit into the film somehow.

And this film was the overall winner! Pretty cool, eh? :-)

The WINNER: Gonzales The Movie from Fish Eye on Vimeo.

eekie's SK dream

2010-06-15T21:45:00.000-04:00

Ok, here's the dream:

Steve was riding with me between tour stops and we were chatting about various stuff and generally having a good time. Then he started making some comments about my driving. I laughed it off at first, but he kept it up and we started to actually argue. The argument got quite a bit more heated and finally I'd had enough. I pulled over to the side of the road and told him to "Get the fuck OUT!!!!" He did. Slammed the door (he was pretty pissed off too). And I drove off. But then about a minute down the road I realised I couldn't leave him there. The little bastard didn't have a phone and I was responsible for getting him to the venue (the others had left earlier to get to there and set up). I certainly didn't want to have to deal with the wrath the church if I lost Steve. And of course, I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to him. So I sighed and turned the fuck around to go pick him up.

...and then the dream faded out and that was it.

Later, when I woke up and was getting dressed, I found myself ticked off at Steve for the argument...until it dawned on me that the argument had only been in my dream.... lol. I still can't help but laugh at how angry I was at him after waking up from that dream!

In reality he was a good passenger -- yeah he hit the "brakes" a few times and did ask if I was driving faster because he was in the car (no, I was actually driving a bit slower because I didn't want to get stopped with him in the car), but there were no arguments, which is definitely a plus in my book!

At one of the rest stops Steve was recognised by a guy who had been at the show the night before. Made that guy's day which was pretty cool. I had to laugh later though when I thought I bet he was wondering where the rest of the band was. I imagine he did a bit of looking around -- I know I would have! But the others weren't at that stop (at least not then) because at the hotel that morning when we were gathering in the lobby Steve asked me "You're staying at the same hotel we are tonight, aren't you?" I said yeah, and then he said "You're ready to leave now?" Again I said yeah. And he said "I'm riding with you!" And so we left. Hey, the rest of them went directly to the venue to set up, riding with me allowed him to get a couple of hours at the hotel to just chill out before going to the venue. Even in the brief time I was around during this tour I noticed how few truly down hours they had, so grabbing them where they could was important.

Plus he got my company for several hours. How could he resist that? lol ;-)

It's a miracle!!!

2010-03-25T06:55:00.002-04:00

the church tour program actually has gone to print and should be ready for the first show next friday!!

Everything just seemed to melt down late last week and I have to admit I wondered if it was doomed, but all the issues got settled and it went to print yesterday! Now everyone who attends the shows will not only get a free cd, but also this pretty cool little program.

With my name in it. :D :D :D

PS22 Chorus "Under The Milky Way" The Church (with Myster E)

2010-03-09T02:39:00.001-05:00

Very possibly my favourite cover of this song.

2010 US Church Tour!!!

2010-02-20T02:52:00.008-05:00

Here's the official announcement from the band. Looks as if there will still be a few dates yet announced, but this looks like most of it. I really hope they are still working on scheduling some more shows in the south and southwest. The "throughout April and May 2010" bit in the press release gives me hope for several more dates in May.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the church
An Intimate Space 30th Anniversary
Nth American Tour 2010

After three decades together, the church return to North America for a special 30th anniversary acoustic tour throughout April and May 2010. “An Intimate Space” will include songs that span the length of the church’s epic creative trip from their debut in 1980 to their latest critically acclaimed 2009 album “Untitled # 23”.

In a unique and unusual execution, the band will choose one song from each of their considerable album releases and perform them in reverse chronological order. This original show will have the audience gliding softly down through the years, opening with a track from “Untitled #23” before embarking on a fantastic voyage through time ultimately arriving at their first Australian album, “Of Skins And Heart” where it all began.

This engaging and rare performance is not to be missed.

FREE CD
To make these shows even more special, every ticket holder will receive a free copy of “Deadman’s Hand”, the third EP from the “Untitled #23” album. This EP will include the title track and unreleased tracks from the band’s secret vault. A must have.

Dates confirmed as follows with more to be added in the coming week…

the church
An Intimate Space 30th Anniversary
Nth American Tour 2010

APRIL
2 – San Juan Capistrano, CA – Coach House
4 – San Diego, CA – Anthology
5 – Los Angeles, CA – The Roxy
6 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
8 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
9 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox
13 – Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line Music Café
14 – Madison, WI – Majestic Theatre
15 – Chicago, IL – Park West
17 – Cleveland, OH – The Winchester Tavern and Music Hall
18 – Ferndale, MI – The Magic Bag Theatre
19 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Café
21 – Boston, MA - TBC
22 – NYC – City Winery
23 – Bay Shore, NY (Long Island) - Boulton Center for the Performing Arts
24 – Sellersville, PA (Philadelphia) - Sellersville Theatre
25 – Falls Church, VA (DC) - State Theatre
27 – Annapolis, MD – Rams Head On Stage

MAY
1 – Atlanta, GA – Center Stage

Stay tuned to our official websites for further updates and venue and ticket details. Further gigs will also be sent out via this mailing list.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Cleveland, Ferndale, and Pittsburgh shows look the best bet for me, followed by the Sellersville, Falls Church, and Annapolis ones. Of course what I would really love would be to start in Minnapolis and hit every remaining gig, but that just ain't gonna happen.

** update **

According to a post on HW by Sue C. May 1 will most likely be the last date for the tour, so it looks as if Atlanta is going to be as far south as they go. That certainly sucks for a lot of people. I think the distances between cities where they can get ok crowds probably makes it harder to go there. I mean in 2006 they had fairly good crowds in Texas and Arizona, but it's a whole lot of driving.

yikes!

2010-02-19T15:34:00.002-05:00

the church are going to be touring in the US again soon. Yay!!

...guess I better finish writing blog entries from their last tour! lol

I'm officially old

2010-02-04T23:18:00.000-05:00

I just picked up my first pair of bifocals today (of course now they call them "Progressives" -- I assume to soothe all the baby boomers and whatever group is next now getting them).

Sigh.

Zeke on his new bed

2009-11-25T01:31:00.003-05:00

It's been a hell of a long time since I've posted. Unfortunately I don't have time to do a real entry, so I'll just post a pic of Zeke on his new bed. He was so happy when I bought it home -- he checked it all out and laid down on it -- but when he got up to eat or go outside or something, the cats took it over and wouldn't let poor Zekie sleep on his own bed

But after a few days the cats, in their infinite wisdom, decided he would be permitted to sleep on his bed for a few hours each day. Victory for Zeke!!!

Ok, it's not a complete victory, but considering these cats, Zeke considers himself lucky to get even that much bed time.

:-)

eekie's Church Excursion -- Part 3 -- Annapolis

2009-08-16T22:30:00.006-04:00

There was a day off between Falls Church and Annapolis. Given the area, what I should have done was check out at least some of the attractions in the Washington DC area. I'd never been there before, so it could have been pretty cool. Of course, being me, I didn't do that.

While helping out with the merch I noticed that many of the boxes the stuff was in were falling apart. The solution to that -- like so many problems one encounters in life -- was obviously duct tape. Lots and lots of duct tape. And they were down to the last couple of nearly dried out Sharpies...and had no silver ones at all. Several people in Falls Church were damned lucky that I always carry a couple of Sharpies in my purse (hey, you never know when you're going to need one!) because SK was looking mighty befuddled when the one he'd picked up wasn't working. I did get a few odd looks from other fans when I said "hey! I need that back" to Steve as he was headed backstage. I figured hell, he was just going to lose it if he kept it (where do you think all the others they started out with went?) and he'd want it again in just a few nights (and he did). And I also noticed they had no hand truck/dolly/cart -- I'm not quite sure what they were thinking there. All the crap in the pic I put up in my Falls Church post had to be carried in and then back out again by hand if the venue didn't have something they could borrow (and the venues often didn't). I looked at that and thought "you gotta be kidding!"

So I slept late then went shopping. Duct tape, Sharpies (black and silver), a folding cart, and a few misc. things (such as leave-in conditioner -- I couldn't believe I forgot to pack that. No way in hell I could manage a whole week or more without it -- not with my crazy hair!). It shouldn't have taken very long, but finding a cart was a bit harder than I expected. The one I ended up with wasn't the most stable thing (esp. on uneven surfaces), but I noticed it got used, so it was a whole lot better than nothing.

So. Annapolis. The venue (Ram's Head OnStage) was in a lovely area -- almost too lovely if that makes sense. I mean the area was so perfect it had an almost Stepford Wives-ish feel too it. And there were cops on Segways. Lovely to visit, but I'd hate to live there.

I went a bit early because I figured I could help Stephen set up the merch (I'd not helped at all beforehand at the previous two shows) and give him the supplies I'd bought, but when I walked in I found out the venue handles all the set up and sales of the merch there. Apparently the band still isn't great at reading the fine print on their contracts, because they were just as surprised about that as I was. Ok, then, no work for me (until it came time to pack it all out -- the venue didn't do that).

I had gotten there towards the end of their sound check so after finding out about the merch situation I checked out seating (it was reserved seating) to find out where I could sit -- the woman looked at the guest list and said "oh, you don't have a seat -- you're with the band." Haha! That was news to me! I ended up sitting at one of the tables reserved for people on the guest list anyway (and met the guy -- and his wife -- who recorded Dabble. That was pretty cool). Look at the seating chart below (click for a larger image) -- I was sitting at table 302 in the chair closest to the back and side. And that little triangle of what looks like open space was filled with equipment. The band entered and exited the stage along that walkway.

As you can see by the seating chart, it's an odd setup. With just about any orientation the band could try, most of the audience would see them at a strange angle. Just as the band was going on, Steve came up behind me, put his hands on my shoulders, leaned down and whispered into my ear "Most of the people here are going to see us in profile. It's ridiculous!" and then ran up on stage. I thought "oh dear, this could be an 'interesting' night." It wasn't just because of that comment I thought this though. There had been a bit of drama (it wouldn't be a Church tour without some drama) toward the end of and after the Falls Church show a couple of days before. It wasn't noticeable to the crowd and didn't really affect that show, but the band and their entourage were embroiled in it. It was still simmering in Annapolis. So when the band took the stage that night I really wondered just what kind of show we were going to get.

It seems a bit odd to say, but I think the Church thrives on adversity and/or drama, because Annapolis show was wonderful! It seemed as if Steve just threw himself into it and then his energy and mood got picked up and expanded upon by the crowd and rest of the band. He did all his very best "rock star" moves and bantered happily with the crowd. I don't think it was quite as good musically (although none of the shows I saw were bad) as Falls Church, but it was an amazingly fun and energetic and even happy show. What a great surprise.

This isn't a good pic (at all!), but it shows my viewing angle at this show.

It wasn't as bad a view as it seems in the pic...and when they left the stage after the main set and between encores Tiare had me keep an eye on the equipment ("guard the guitars" lol ) because there was nothing between the equipment and the audience. No real big deal, of course, but there's always the chance some overzealous fan is going to blunder up there and trip over and break something.

After the show I helped haul merch out to the vans behind the venue and one time on the way back in SK (who had come out to schmooze with fans) pointed at me and said "YOU!" I swear I must have given my very best "Ack! What did I do now!?!" deer in the headlights look before he directed a couple of people to me. Turns out this guy had bought some SK paintings through me and wanted to meet me. So we had a nice little chat and I ended up taking his pic with SK too.

He was talking to the woman in the photo and she mentioned she was a massage therapist. As quick as a wink he grabbed a chair, turned it around, sat down and said "do me!" (or something to that effect). Opportunist! lol Here he is getting his impromptu massage:

Oh I almost forgot -- before the show I had dinner with Tiare and Marty. My, my Marty is a picky vegetarian (hey, Tiare even called him that!) -- I swear the list of what he won't eat is longer than the what he will. What they ended up getting -- a ravioli with a light cream sauce, I think -- looked really good though. Chatted a bit about some ideas for his artwork and then went over to the venue.

Hear in Noiseville featuring Steve Kilbey

2009-08-12T22:07:00.004-04:00

I need to add more RAM (I've needed to upgrade for a while, but have been putting it off) to my pc so I can download the newest flash player before I can watch videos on YouTube, but weirdly I can watch YouTube videos if I embed them into Blogger posts. So that's why this video is up here. Steve is a hoot!

So if you see some really odd videos on my blog...especially if they disappear quickly...you'll know I'm on a YouTube watching kick. You'll also know I'm too damn lazy to upgrade.

More eekie's Church Excursion posts yet to come, I swear! I've been a total slacker about doing that.

eekie's Church Excursion -- Part 2 -- Falls Church

2009-07-26T22:31:00.003-04:00

Had a nice sleep in Pittsburgh in the nice comfy bed at my hotel. That was a really good thing because I was very tired and sore after that first show -- I actually wondered how I was going to manage the rest of my trip if I was that miserable after just one gig. However, apparently that sleep did wonders for me because I didn't feel that bad on the rest of my trip.

So I checked out of my hotel, loaded up my car, fired up my GPS, and headed out to the next destination -- Falls Church, VA. What a beautiful drive -- I loved all the hills and the trees, just how green and lush it was. And since it only took a bit over four hours I didn't feel at all rushed.

I have to mention my GPS device here -- it is, without a doubt, THE BEST INVENTION EVER!!!! I didn't get lost once -- granted, most of the time I didn't know exactly where I was, but Garmina (that's what I named it) did, and she (this unit has a female voice, so I think of it as a she) always got us where I wanted to go. When I disregarded her instructions (there were times I wasn't comfortable making a turn she suggested, and occasionally I would go left instead of right because I'm hopeless at knowing my right from left) she would simply say "recalculating" and give me new directions. I absolutely love how she says "recalculating!" She gives this little sigh and sounds so disappointed -- did anyone else's mom say "I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed" when you did something stupid? Well, that's how this voice sounds when she says recalculating. I love that -- it always makes me laugh. I hadn't even tried it out until the day I started on my trip, but it's very easy to use and I learned to rely on it very quickly. So I highly recommend a GPS for anyone travelling to unfamiliar locations, or for those, who like me, are directionally challenged. Ask around for which models people like best though -- the band had GPS units in the vans, but those often gave the instructions a bit late and they actually turned the voice prompts off in at least one van. Garmina was good -- she gave me plenty of warning before I'd have to make a turn, etc.

Garmina in action!

So I find the venue and locate a parking lot close by -- there was only one empty space when I pulled in and this huge Ford Expedition was trying to wiggle into it. To my complete joy, however, the Expedition was just too damned big and had to abandon it's quest for the spot and I smugly tucked my little rental into the spot. Nah nah nah nah nah! I head off in what I think is the direction of the venue (I'm thinking "what I need is a GPS unit implanted in my brain...") and I see this little group of people, so I figure "aha! I am going in the right direction!" I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Suddenly I hear this lovely familiar voice call out my name and everyone else in that little group turns and gives me this "who the hell is she?" look. Yep, Steve is holding court behind the venue (and I actually was going in the correct direction! Yay!) -- giving an impromptu yoga lesson (there are a couple of photos on HW). We say our hellos and he continues chatting with the little group, and I hear my name again. This time it's PV! Turns out he's out for a week to video the band and will be at all the rest of "my" shows. I like PV a lot. He's a genuinely nice guy and I've always enjoyed talking to him (a few days later these two things turn out to be VERY good :-) ). He's also the first of my internet Church buddies I met in person.

Steve finishes chatting and heads back inside...suddenly he stops, turns around and says "Holly, c'mon!" Being ever the bright child I say "huh?" lol He says "you want to come upstairs?" Again I see the "who the hell is she" looks (gotta admit that feels kind of cool) as we go in. So was there any big excitement upstairs (the performer lounge area), you ask? Well, of course -- cheesy 80's videos and interviews (including one of SK) on You Tube complete with commentary by Steve! It was just light and fun and pleasant. For me the highlight was the video Steve introduced as "the worst video ever": "Ooh La La, by The Venetians. Click here for the link (sorry, embedding was disabled). Pay particular attention to the drummer. It's Tim. lol! Much laughter.

So, eekie, I hear you ask, how was the actual show?

Fan-fucking-tastic! This was the show I was hoping for. Merch Stephen (as opposed to singer Steven ;-) ) said after the show that he knew right off it was going to be something special when they came out and noodled around a bit (musically) before plowing into Tantalized. You know, I think he was right too...that noodling around was a bit like...well...foreplay. And it's always better to have a bit of foreplay than just your basic wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. :-)

Now none of the shows I saw were bad -- not even Pittsburgh, which was my least favourite -- but during this one they all seemed to be firing on all cylinders. After the show Steve even said it had been his favourite thus far. Yeah, it really was that good. And this was their sixth show in a row, which to me makes it even more impressive. There were a few problems (mostly some tuning issues), but they didn't derail the show -- it had enough momentum to keep going in a good direction. Plus it was a good (appreciative) crowd and a nice venue. That helps too.

This time I made sure to be closer to the front too. I wanted to feel a greater connection than I did at the back of the venue. It was a mostly seated venue (much of it reserved), but there was an open area right in front of the stage. I went there and stood against the railing at the back of it. I was pretty far to Marty's side, but also had a very good view of Steve and Tim and a pretty good view of Peter and Craig (guest keyboard player). Worked for me anyway -- I was grinning like a fool the whole show.

Here's a pic I took of SK during the show. It isn't great, but Falls Church marked the very first time I have ever taken pics at a concert, so I'm showing one. Now you know why I don't take pics at concerts! LOL!

Immeditely after the show I went out and helped Stephen with merch. It was busy! People were buying like crazy. The merch was set up in the lobby as you came in (and went out), there was plenty of room to display it nicely, and there was good light so you could see it well. I think those factors really helped with the sales...and the fabulous show also helped make people more willing to plunk down their money.

Steve and Marty came out to the lobby to meet fans. It was really cool watching -- people were genuinely happy and although I'm not sure Steve is ever completely comfortable (I notice he often slipped behind the merch table when he came out -- I think that functioned a bit as a security blanket for him), he is gracious, sweet and funny. I was really proud of him. Marty, of course, was in his element.

A pic of Steve behind the merch table (right beside me, hence the pic. Sorry it's so dark) in Falls Church.

Helped pack up and drag merch out to the vehicles at the back of the venue. One of the venue staff said she was pretty sure the amount of merch they had to sell was a record for the venue. There certainly was a whole lot of it (something like 84 different items at the beginning)!

Here's a pic of the boxes of merch that we had just dragged out of the venue (the girl in the pic was venue staff). There was still more (extras) in the trailer. When they started on the tour, that trailer was completely full of merch.

eekie's Church Excursion -- Part 1 -- Pittsburgh

2009-07-20T22:53:00.002-04:00

Pittsburgh was the first stop on my Church excursion and as the days wound down to it, I couldn't help wish it was still a few weeks off. I'd just moved into a new place the Tuesday before and was still trying to figure out where everything was (I'm still working on that actually!). I was tired and cranky and hadn't had time to really get in the mood for this. But I knew I'd be unhappy if I didn't go, so I went anyway.

There was a vague plan to meet up with a few people (Ann -- CouldBeAnyone on HW, John, Freida (posts as Freddie on SK blog comments), Noel, and also Kim from SK's exhibition) before the show, but nothing definite had been set up. I was a couple hours late getting started and then hit a traffic jam going into the city (baseball game, I think), so by the time I get checked into my hotel and walked to the venue (about 1/2 mile away) the doors had been open a little while.

Both Steve and Marty had told me Do. Not. Buy. Tickets., and Tiare had emailed to ask which shows I was planning on attending so I could be put on the guest list, so I fought my complusion to buy tickets and went up to the box office and said "I should be on the guest list" and sure enough I was! Whew! In one of my email replies to Steve about not buying tickets I wrote something like "Ok, I won't buy any. But, just so you know, I'll have nightmares about not being on the list and being refused entry!" lol!

That over (whew!), I went in, checked out the merch table and said hi to Stephen (Second Motion Records) there. There had been an email sent out asking for volunteers to help him with the merch and I had said I would at the shows I attended. He said he didn't need help during the shows, but might immediately after when a lot of people buy things, and also with tearing down and loading out. I'm just weird enough to think that would be pretty fun. :-) After the show John and I helped Stephen count t-shirts (the venue took a cut of all t-shirt sales) and then carry boxes out to the van/trailer. Marty also helped load out the merch. I'm not sure I helped a whole lot this time, but I got better at it on subsequent days.

Tiare took me upstairs to say hi to everyone. Got a big hug from Marty -- I can't help it, Marty almost always makes me smile. He's such an exuberant guy. Got a hug from Steve and then we talked art business for a bit. I didn't stay up there too long because they need some time to prepare for the show and didn't need me hanging around. One of the best things to know is when to leave. As I was leaving though I saw Terri! Denise and Staci -- remember her from Chicago (and also Milwaukee for Staci)? I didn't really expect her to be in Pittsburgh, so that was a nice surprise.

I'm much more comfortable with them in person this time than I was during the last tour. I think more years of dealing with Steve and now also Marty has really helped with my confidence level. Plus I was really busy leading up to the tour and simply didn't have time to work myself into a panic. While I would like to have been more excited about the start of the tour, in a way it really helped me be more calm about many things which in turn actually increased my enjoyment.

The show itself.... I have to admit I wasn't really in the right mood for it. I was tired and still thinking of the people I was supposed to meet with and found it hard to focus on the show. I stood at the back of the room because I just didn't want to deal with the crowd. I did enjoy the show, and the band certainly performed well, but I wasn't into it as much as I could have been and I found the sound very echo-y which I think also helped keep me from being able to get into it that much. I've read some glowing reviews of the gig (the people that wrote at least two of them were right up front, so maybe the sound was better there. And I'm also guessing they were in a more receptive mood for the show than I was.), but it wasn't all that great for me.

For me the most enjoyable part of Pittsburgh was meeting and talking to so many people. I still had a wonderful time, but I was very happy I would be seeing more shows. I most certainly wanted a show to soar for me.

I cried

2009-07-13T22:33:00.002-04:00

when I read SK's blog today.

Yeah, yeah, I know to many people that cements me as a pathetic sycophant, but I just couldn't help it. I realise part of SK's melancholia is because the tour is ending and always happens after a tour, but what he wrote about their last show -- them playing a great gig and most people just drifting away -- I just found very sad. Steve's hurt is just so palpable as he keeps repeating that the audience just left. It was almost like a sad, sad mantra. So much of the reason they tried playing festivals is to try to garner new fans, but they just don't seem to be able to convert many people -- even when they play a scorching set. To play your heart out and have most of the crowd just leave...that has to really hurt. And I also think Steve (and I'm sure the rest too) had thought/hoped the overwhelmingly positive reviews for Untitled #23 would help generate a larger than usual buzz for them, but it just doesn't seem to have done that.

I don't think I've ever left a show during a band's set, even if I hated them. I've just not been able to walk out on someone when they are playing no matter how bad they are. It has always seemed like such a personal rejection to me, and I know I'd be hurt if people did it to me. I don't even like to do bathroom or drink breaks during gigs for much the same reason. I guess I'm weird though.

And of course the rest of the blog was pretty damned downbeat too. The tax issue, the lower than hoped for merch sales (even though they were generally good overall), the smaller turnout.... I really enjoyed the shows I saw, but they had quite a few support people along this time around, and as I looked around at the crowds I couldn't help but think they couldn't be making a whole hell of a lot of profit.

The Church makes the music I love the most, and I like them (well, mostly Steve, because he's the one I know best) as people too. So it hurts to see them not only scraping by, but also ignored.

June 27

2009-06-27T09:45:00.003-04:00

Headed out to begin my Church Excursion in a few hours.

Officially moved into my new place Tuesday -- finally got everyone (cats, dog, Diane) in at 11:30 pm. I still have things to bring over here and I have to do a bunch of cleaning out of the old place when I get back, but it's nice to be here.

The first couple of nights here all the cats and the dog slept with me. Gah! I had to fight for space on my own bed! They are all pretty stressed about the move (and now I'm leaving them for a week -- I do feel guilty about that), but this is a better place for all of us and they are adapting pretty well.

Blah

2009-06-16T20:35:00.007-04:00

I hate moving.

And I'm not very good at it. I've been packing stuff and throwing stuff out and dragging stuff over to the new place for weeks, yet there is still oodles yet to pack and move (and throw away) yet. Where does it all come from??? I swear all my stuff must be screwing around at night because it must be procreating. At least someone...or something... is getting lucky. Sadly, it sure isn't me. :-(

I'm a little frustrated because although my brother is big on "families help each other" I've not gotten diddly in the help department from him. He did pick up and bring in the love seat sleeper sofa I bought used (I think he only did that because his girlfriend was there and asked him to...when I ask he just gives me this blank look) but for the most part it's just me. The sofa, by the way, cost a grand total of $19.41! and it's pretty damned nice too -- I am pretty pleased with that. There is soooo much stuff, and I'm really tired and sore. I'm hoping to get the furniture moved over (having to hire someone -- how come he can always help his friends but not me?) by the very first of next week so I can have a few days to get Diane and the cats and dogs settled in before I leave for my Church excursion.

I kind of wish the Church tour was a month or so later this year because it's such a hassle getting moved before going. As it is I'll have to do a bunch of clean up at the old place when I get home from it. I suspect when I get back I just won't give a shit and will hire someone to clean out whatever is left. I can't really afford that, but I also can't afford to kill myself over cleaning it out either. I will enjoy the gigs (and the time off) though, damn it!

On the plus side -- the new place is beginning to feel more and more like home. If I can just finally get completely moved in here it will be nice.

SK Art, Man & Technology cd and prints set

2009-06-10T15:26:00.004-04:00

A quick snapshot of the cd/prints set. You can see the cd, some of the prints in the set (there are 20), and the box it's in. We also decided to put a sticker on the back of the box, but I didn't get that in the pic. We weren't sure it would stick well on the top of the box, plus the top is textured, so we thought that might be a problem.

It turned into a bigger production than we had originally planned, but it also turned out much better than either of us thought it would when we first discussed it. As I started planning it, it got more elaborate. I chatted with Kim -- who set up the Pittsburgh exhibition -- at the exhibition opening about the idea and she said she would do the graphic design, which I think looks great. The cd looks so good! I was so thrilled when they arrived. I did what I'm good at -- sourced the cds and packaging, printed and trimmed the prints, assembled the whole thing, and sent them off.

Steve, who just got to see it in person for the first time yesterday or today, is very pleased with it. That's certainly a relief! I have to admit I'm very proud of it.

SK's first official art review!

2009-05-21T19:16:00.002-04:00

And it's pretty good. I think the guy misses on a few points (definitely didn't get the number of years Steve has been selling his art), but overall it's a good and thorough review. I'm pleased. :-)

Here's a link to it: Pittsburgh City Paper

House pics

2009-05-15T16:46:00.004-04:00

I decided the house probably would never look as good as it does empty, so I'm putting pics of it up that way. I'm not much of a decorator.

Anyway, it will be a great place for us.

I bet the cats will love looking out these doors! Might make it tricky to get out them without a cat or two escaping though.

Chuffed!

2009-05-15T16:34:00.003-04:00

I am.

Remember back in March when I said there was something about the new Church album that should be interesting? Well the "real" version of Untitled #23 (as opposed to the slipcovered one) arrived today and sure enough the "interesting" bit is inside. I took a pic and if you look carefully (you might have to click on the pic to enlarge) you should see it.

I have the biggest smile on my face right now. :-)

Keys

2009-04-30T21:19:00.004-04:00

Keys to the house my sister closed on today.

The house for me, my aunt, and all my critters.

It's kind of a short Cape Cod house (not quite as tall as most Cape Cods so the upstairs room is not good for tall people -- luckily I'm short). All the living areas Di will need are on the main floor, and then there is an additional bedroom or office (I'll use it as an office I think) upstairs, and a mostly finished basement (with second full bath). Hardwood or tile floors on the main floor, carpet upstairs, carpet in part of the basement (tile in the bathroom), concrete in the laundry room and work room (in basement). Small deck and patio out the back door (we will also put a wheelchair ramp out this door too I think). One and a half car detached garage with an additional carport. Decent sized (for the area) fenced yard -- plenty of room for Zeke to wander about and even room for a nice garden.

This is what I was referring to a while ago when I said something is going on which could be very good for me, but could be difficult and maybe bad for others. For me this house will be much easier (especially with Di) and less expensive than where I currently live which will help me out a whole lot. However, where I currently live is in one side of my brother's duplex. I pay him the same rent the last renters paid and he depends on that money. Now if he can do some minor repairs/painting/etc., and get this place rented quickly, he could do ok...he should be even be able to get more for it than he's been charging me. However, if he can't get it rented quickly, he doesn't have a lot in reserve right now.

So I hate to be the straw that breaks his back so to speak, but I also couldn't afford my current expenses for a whole lot longer. My sister's offering me the chance to get back on my feet financially as well as have a suitable place for Di. I certainly can't pass that up.

Now I have to move all my crap over there. Luckily it's only a few miles away, but it's going to be a VERY busy several weeks.

Pics the next week! I hope.

How do I get myself into these things?

2009-04-23T05:09:00.004-04:00

Last night I managed to find myself responsible for manufacturing, assembling, and packaging a cd and small prints package deal highlighting Steve's current exhibition in time for their US tour in early June.

I mean we were just chatting away about how great it would be to package the cd of spoken word pieces over music (one to go with each painting) with small prints (5x7s) of each of the paintings and have it for sale at the merch table on the US tour when all of a sudden I hear Steve say something like "maybe this could be your baby...we could sell it on the art site and you could take care of it. Wouldn't that be good?"

Now the sensible part of my brain (which is apparently really small) was saying "What? Oh no no no. No no no no! You do not want to get stuck doing all this yourself. No siree Bob. No, no, no." But the rest of me (which had control of my mouth, by the way), piped up with "yeah! I could do that!"

So I actually do know how I got into this. And I have to admit I'm kind of excited about it. But I just know I'll end up pulling much of my hair out...and I bet I'll be mighty twitchy by the time the tour rolls around too. And I just know there will be plenty of fans who will bitch about all aspects of the damned thing (price, production, packaging, etc.). I'm not really looking forward to having it ripped apart. I just wish some of these people would realise there are real people behind the projects they so happily shred. I think I might just not even read any threads or posts about it.

* edit/update

This project is getting going and I think it's going to be very cool. In reading back over the initial post I should have made it more clear that I didn't get talked into doing anything I didn't want to do. I'm thrilled to be doing it and it's a huge honour to be trusted with it.

My problem is based in insecurity -- I fear I really won't be able to do as good a job with it as I want. There is always that nagging feeling that I've been faking it all along and now I'm going to be unmasked as the fraud I really am. I think this is where the concern about others picking it apart comes from -- I'm always a bit afraid they could be right when they say "Oh that sucks!" Now when people say the same things about something I think is good that someone else has done I just think they are full of shit. But when I've done it -- even if I really love it and think it's great -- and it gets ripped apart, I can be really devastated. Shaky self confidence sucks big time.

I want to do this project enough to do it anyway. I'm not sure I'm tough enough to read what people say about it though. The thing is I know most people who buy it will be happy with it...but the ones who bitch seem to have much, much louder voices.

My Church excursion

2009-04-20T00:26:00.004-04:00

Talked to my sister tonight and it looks as if I might be able to go to five or even possibly six gigs. The pretty definite ones are Falls Church, VA; Annapolis, MD; Philadelphia, PA; Foxborough, MA; and Londonderry, NH. Pittsburgh, PA is a maybe depending on when she can fly in. Actually, now that I think about it, the Londonderry one might be a maybe because of when she has to fly out. It's an 800 mile drive back home, so that will take a while. If I do that show I might have to see if my brother can hang out at my place if I don't make it back in time for my sister's flight. I probably should be an adult and just come home after the Foxbourough show, but I'd love to see this one too! I'm also going to feel out my brother about him baby sitting for an evening or two and maybe trying to hit the Cleveland show or possibly one of the Michigan shows. I could do either Cleveland or Ferndale (MI) as quick up and back trips, so I might be able to squeeze one of those in. Getting to one of those shows would also break me out of the social anxiety panic I tend to get at the start of one of these trips.

This time I'm having to pay for the hotels myself (my sister has given me hotel points before for some of the dates, but this year she is running low on them -- plus she's coming out to hold down the fort so I can go, so she's doing quite enough!), so I'm really going to scrounge for the best prices. I might splurge on a hotel in Philadelphia close to the venue because I suck at getting around in big cities (hell, I suck at getting around in any city...) and that way I could get to my hotel and just walk to the venue. Most of the rest of the venues are either more suburban or are in much smaller cities which I generally find easier find my way around. I figure with the GPS unit I'm looking at I should be more comfortable finding my way a few miles to my hotel after a gig than I usually am too.

I realise I'm really lucky to have someone willing and able to take over for me while I take off on this little excursion, and I'm very grateful for that. I'm still not quite sure how I'm going to pay for it yet, but do a bit of scrambling and will manage somehow.

whew!

2009-04-14T05:56:00.001-04:00

Just finished and filed my taxes. No too bad this year. My income was just about the same as it was in 2007, but my expenses were higher last year (that SK exhibition was expensive!), so my taxes were lower this time. I'm self employed so I have to pay estimated tax payments quarterly. Well with the extra expenses I had overpaid last year, so I got a refund!!

Unfortunately that refund isn't quite as much of a thrill as it is for many people because I just applied it to this year's estimated tax. So I won't actually be getting anything back. However, I also don't have to make an estimated tax payment right now (which I usually do), and my next estimated payment will be lower than usual too (unless I suddenly make substantially more than I have been for the past several years), so that's a big financial help right now.

I'm proud of myself -- I got it finished and filed over 42 hours before the deadline! That could be a record for me. :-)

Now if my car doesn't fall apart on tax day (this one shouldn't!), I'll be way ahead of last year. :-D

splurge

2009-04-11T01:15:00.002-04:00

I'm going to splurge and buy a GPS system. I figure with any luck I'll be doing a lot of driving to unfamiliar areas this summer and since my sense of direction completely sucks I need all the help I can get. I've gotten by without one for years, but I just checked some out and the prices have dropped to the point where they are really quite reasonable, especially if you go for a more basic model. I figure with a GPS system, good maps/road atlas, Mapquest or Google directions (or maybe even a AAA Triptik -- I'm a AAA member so I might as well use it) I should be able to find my way around without getting lost too many times.

Of course, going to see The Church will be a splurge too. I've been doing a little checking on hotels in the various possible cities and the cost for those will add up pretty quickly. Several venues I'm considering look fairly suburban though, which means parking will be fairly easy which is always nice, especially because suburban hotels are often less expensive than downtown ones. And I'll be renting a car if I go to several shows. Although my car is now running pretty well (it should be after what I just spent on it!), my sister will need a car to get around while she's here taking care of everything, so she can use mine and I can put all those miles on a rental instead on my car. Besides, rentals have cd players and my car doesn't. :-)

I've been making prints and cards for SK's Pittsburgh show. Right now it's slow going as I'm having to set up every single piece and I'm still learning how to do that. It's not hard, but it's still really new to me so I have to think my way through everything. But the prints and cards are beautiful and it's going to be wonderful to be able to provide better (ie., faster) service to our customers. Plus it will be less stressful!

Church Tour Dates

2009-04-06T00:12:00.001-04:00

They are up on the official site now, so they are fair game. Nothing for people in the southern portions of the country (except southern CA). That kind of sucks because I know it's tough for many people to travel to see them, especially so far.

JUN 10 WED BELLY UP TAVERN * SOLANA BEACH, CA

JUN 11 THU THE ROXY THEATRE * WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA

JUN 12 FRI SLIM'S * SAN FRANCISCO, CA

JUN 14 SUN ALADDIN THEATER * PORTLAND, OR

JUN 15 MON THE TRIPLE DOOR * SEATTLE, WA

JUN 18 THU GOTHIC THEATRE * ENGLEWOOD, CO

JUN 20 SAT HOUSE OF BLUES CHICAGO * CHICAGO, IL

JUN 21 SUN VARSITY THEATER * MINNEAPOLIS, MN

JUN 23 TUE SHANK HALL * MILWAUKEE, WI

JUN 25 THU THE MAGIC BAG * FERNDALE, MI

JUN 26 FRI BEACHLAND BALLROOM * CLEVELAND, OH

JUN 27 SAT REX THEATRE * PITTSBURGH, PA

JUN 28 SUN THE STATE THEATRE * FALLS CHURCH, VA

JUN 30 TUE RAM'S HEAD ONSTAGE * ANNAPOLIS, MD

JUL 1 WED THE TROCADERO * PHILADELPHIA, PA

JUL 2 THU SHOWCASE LIVE * FOXBOROUGH, MA

JUL 3 FRI TUPELO MUSIC HALL * LONDONDERRY, NH

JUL 8 WED IRVING PLAZA * NEW YORK, NY

JUL 9 THU THE RIDGEFIELD PLAYHOUSE * RIDGEFIELD, CT

* early, early morning edit: This could also be called "The Blue State Tour." There isn't a single gig in a state that voted Republican in the 2008 US Presidential Election.

It figures

2009-04-04T02:01:00.004-04:00

June 25 -- The Magic Bag, Ferndale, MI
June 26 -- Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, OH

US Church gigs!

Yippee!!

...except my sister, who said she'd come and take care of Diane and the cats and dog for while I go see some gigs, can't do it that one week. And you just know a Chicago show is going to be either the 24th or the 27th. While I hate getting into and around in Chicago (I always get lost there and drivers in Chicago honk at everything -- actually I think they just honk for the sheer hell of it...I'd like to cram their freaking horns down their throats), the gigs are usually really good. So that's totally sucking.

However, I've heard the tour is supposed to begin on June 10 in San Diego and run until about July 11th. So I'm thinking they will continue east, and then may go down the east coast and perhaps even circle back west to end. So I figure I should be able to catch up with them somewhere along the east coast. But they were supposed to check with me before scheduling shows in the midwest, damn it!

Hmm...maybe I could get my brother to take care of things for me for a show or two during this week and then have my sister hold down the fort while I catch other shows the next week. I like that plan. I'll have to work on that. :-D

Oh my god...I'm listening to a bootleg of MWP's Winchester Tavern gig from last year and it's hilarious! That was my first (and so far, only) solo MWP (or any Church member) gig, and it was such a good time. I absolutely adore the shows by the whole band, but Marty is a hoot. He played for about three hours and told stories and jokes all through it. A couple people said they would have rather he played more and talked less, but I love the chatter. And he did play a shitload of songs. I certainly hope to be able to catch more solo MWP gigs. I'm pretty sure I'll never see a solo SK show since I can't see him doing any here. Can't have everything I suppose.

Well I'm doing MY part to stimulate the fucking economy!

2009-04-02T20:39:00.006-04:00

Yep, over the past couple of months I've stimulated:

-- the veterinary industry. Zeke, Oscar, and my brother's cat Annie all needed some pretty major workups. Good news on Zeke, ok news on Oscar, bad news on Annie. All damned expensive. And Oscar could cost substantially more over the next several months/years. Annie won't cost much more, but the near future will be sad (she has a large mass -- almost certainly cancer -- and any treatment other than pain relief would just be futile).

-- the "make-nice-art-prints-on-your-own" industry. A couple of items in this section. For the past four years I had been having someone I thought was at least a friendly acquaintance do this work, but early this year I could no longer tolerate her taking months to do jobs she promised within a week or two. She would also not respond to repeated attempts to contact her when she was late on jobs, so I never had a clue when my work would be finished. Not at all cool when people are waiting for orders. So I had to do something else.

1) Entry level large format printer, plus a stock of papers and ink to keep it going. This has the potential to be a really worthwhile investment, but right now it's a huge drain on my finances. Will enable me to provide much better service at an attractive price down the road.

2) Image capture for Steve's art. I found a local company which specializes in large format scanning and has scanned many artworks for local museums. They also do all the colour correction and give me a disc with a high res scan for each piece. It costs more than what my "friend" was charging, but the quality is higher, and when I take in several pieces at a time (which is typically what I do with SK's art), I get a discount on the work. However, it's still more money than I have been paying, and I just had a batch of 16 pieces scanned. Ch-ching!

-- the local framing industry. You would think I'd be all set with all the frames I have left over from Steve's exhibition last year, but nooooo, for his new exhibition he did five paintings in a larger size (22"x30" before framing vs a previous largest size of 18"x24"), and the larger the painting the more expensive they are to frame. Plus I had to get a few new frames for the smaller sizes because I didn't have quite enough. And we decided to use black mats for the paintings this time (instead of white), so I needed to get new black mats for all 20 paintings. (the black mats look fabulous though!) Let me tell you -- framing ain't cheap. If you go to the exhibition, want to buy a painting, and are ok with the frame and matting it's in (which granted is a basic exhibition setup -- they are designed to be consistent and make all the paintings look good together), you will get a good deal. I've only charged enough on the framing to not lose money.

-- and last (so far anyway), but certainly not least, the car repair industry. Fuck. The car has a broken spring, shot struts, and a bad gasket/seal which is causing a vacuum leak which in turn has made the mpg plummet. The broken spring obviously has to be replaced -- you hit a bump just right and you're in trouble. Since there are lots of bumps and potholes around hitting a bump just right is very possible. And I pretty much knew from the way the car was handling (and the overall mileage) that the struts were probably bad. And it's still cheaper than making payments on a new/good used car. But damn...I really don't need this big-ass repair bill right now.

So there. I'm doing my part to stimulate the economy. Shouldn't I get some kind of prize or something?

stressed out

2009-03-17T04:00:00.002-04:00

Some things happening -- or possibly happening -- right now in my life which could work out really well for me. But these things require a lot of decisions and changes -- many of them difficult and affecting (sometimes not positively) other people. I'm not good at this kind of shit and I'm totally stressed out right now.

When it shakes out -- whatever the result -- I'll most likely blog about it.

eekie returns!!!

2009-03-16T04:47:00.005-04:00

Sorry for disappearing on y'all, but a few days after last posting I got the flu. I have felt worse before, but this damned thing knocked me out for most of a week. I was hardly out of bed for three days and then I was just so very tired for several days after that I still slept for 12 or more hours each day and didn't do much when I was awake. And I've been trying to catch up with all the crap I let slide when I was sick. More on some of those things later in this post...but first the Zeke and Oscar news. Actually Denise already knows this because she emailed me asking about them -- if much of this post looks familiar Denise, it's because I lifted it from the email I wrote to you. Yeah I'm lazy, but I figure it's about the only way I'll get a blog written right now. And I have soooo much catching up with everyone else's blogs too.

I do have news on both now -- Zeke apparently does not have cancer! Yay!! They aren't quite sure what it is, but it could be a just bit of scar tissue. We are going to check him every two to three months for a while though, just to make absolutely sure the bump isn't growing. And Zeke loves going to the vet -- he isn't real fond of the exam he'll be getting, but as soon as it's over he forgets it and loves all the attention he gets. You gotta love the innocence of dogs -- they seem so much more forgiving than cats. It's often a battle to get the cats in the carrier to take them to the vet (although most of my current ones aren't bad about that), but Zeke is overjoyed when I get his lead and take him out to the car. The only place I take him it the car is to the vet, and yet he still thinks it's the greatest thing ever! And Heelers are supposed to be among the smartest of dog breeds too. Damn, I'd hate to see the really dumb dog breeds.

Now Oscar...he does have hyperthyroidism. My vet called and said "Oscar is the most normal-acting super high hyperthyroid cat I have ever seen." I had to laugh at that. Max, who also had hyperthyroidism, was spaz cat, but Oscar is just active. And he's always been active, so that's not a big change for him. Then again, he is about 13, so he is probably a bit more active than usual. The vet also said Oscar might be a good candidate for radioactive iodine treatment. Although the upfront costs are high with this, it actually cures it and if the cat lives more than a few more years is less expensive than pills and tests etc. Since Oscar's generally in good health I do expect him to live for several more years. He's now on medication -- pills, which he's taking wonderfully (cats are usually hell to medicate). His being ravenous much of the time does have it's benefits -- I tuck the pill (only a quarter of a small tablet twice a day right now) into a little bit of canned cat food and he scarfs it right down. Then I give him the rest of his portion.

So the animals are ok which is quite a relief. An expensive relief, but less expensive than they could have been.

Now for some of the things I've been trying to catch up with. The printing...I'm not as comfortable with it as I'd hoped to be yet because being sick just pushed everything back. Still, I'm glad I bought it and will be getting back to figuring out how to do everything in the next few weeks.

Steve sent a big batch of new paintings -- 13 of them this time. I had him send them in two tubes because I suddenly had this bit of panic that it would be just our luck that they would get lost if they were all in one tube. They made it here in perfect shape though, so that was a relief. These pieces are for an exhibition of SK's stuff in Pittsburgh next month. There will be 19 or 20 pieces total, and he may also be sending music and spoken word pieces to go with the artwork.

I was delighted with how cohesive Steve's exhibition last year was -- I thought he did a great job -- but this one should prove to be more of a "real" exhibit and that is very exciting. Also very exciting for me is that once I frame and deliver the paintings, most of my work is done! Of course, I will publicise it as much as possible and help as much as I can to make it a success, but organising the actual exhibit and opening reception, etc., won't be my problem. There are people who are great at that kind of thing, but I'm not really one of them. Anyway, so far it seems to be working out really well. And being in Pittsburgh, it's close enough that I can go see it when it's all up. It should also get his work seen by people interested in art, but not necessarily familiar with him or his music or art, so it could gain him some new fans/customers. I'm going to have info on the exhibit up on the SK art site soon, so I'll let you know when to look.

My sister's coming into town later today, so I have to try to get this house in a bit better order. I'm a LOT more casual about housekeeping than she is, so when she gets here she tends to clean, which drives me bonkers. Seriously, once I vacuumed the carpet just before she arrived and within a couple of hours she had the vacuum out and was going to town. Wow, that really made me feel good. I think that's what family is for -- to drive you out of your fucking mind. Or maybe that's just my family.

Anyway, I might have some interesting news after she goes home. Piqued your interest, didn't I? :-)

And another bit of news that I can only hint at right now -- Steve told me something about the new Church album that should be interesting. Maybe it won't be interesting to anyone but me though...although it should be! :p

It does look as if they are planning on touring here, so I'm excited about that. Hoping to see at least a few shows. Ideally I would like to see several shows, but we will have to see how the year progresses. I still think they should schedule at least a half dozen shows in Ohio. :-)

It's a good thing I have spellcheck -- I fucked up a LOT of words today. Guess I need some sleep.

worried

2009-02-18T23:36:00.003-05:00

Last month I took Zeke to the vet for shots and to have his anal glands cleaned out (an absolutely delightful task I assure you, but some dogs need it). The shots went fine, but while the vet was doing the anal gland thingie she noticed a little bump where there isn't supposed to be one. We scheduled a recheck in a month, which was today, and the little bump is still there.

While it could be many things that aren't terribly problematic, it could also be anal sac carcinoma, which can be deadly. So the vet took some blood for some tests which will help determine if it's the carcinoma and next week I'm taking Zeke back in to have a biopsy done. If it is a carcinoma at least it's small (about the size of a pea), so it's most likely been caught early which makes a successful outcome much more likely. Because it's in an area that doesn't usually get a lot of checking, many of these are found in the late stages when they have spread.

Another good thing is there is a very good specialty and emergency vet clinic less than 10 miles away, plus the OSU vet school clinic very close as well, so I have easy access to top of the line vet care if needed. So right now I'm feeling pretty positive about this, but I can't help but be worried. Zekie is a wonderful dog and I want him around for many years to come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that wasn't even the stuff going on I mentioned in my last post. Thanks for the birthday wishes!

So for my birthday I bought my first wide format printer. Now as wide format printers go, it's just a baby, but it will print sheets up to 13"x19" with eight colours of pigment ink.

"Wait a minute" I hear you say. "Isn't that the type of printer used to make SK's art prints and cards?"

"Why, yes, it is" I say with a big smile.

Yep, I finally gave the woman I've had do the prints (and the photographing the paintings to get the image to print) the boot. Ultimately I could not accept waiting weeks and sometimes months (often with no communication during this time) for work which for most of the time I was doing business with her was supposed to have a week to maximum ten day turn around time. I really should have done it long before this, but she was someone I knew and I felt loyal to her. Unfortunately, I have since realised she did not feel as loyal to me as I did to her.

So the plan now is to have all the paintings scanned and colour corrected and the image files put on disc. Then I will do any final tweaking needed and will make the cards and prints up to 13"x19" (which is our current max size). Because large format scanning usually has much more detail and sharpness than a photograph for making prints, we will also now be able to offer larger sized prints of the larger sized paintings (SK is now doing some 20"x30" pieces -- his previous max size was 18"x24"). These larger prints will only be offered as special orders because I will have to order them which can take a while, but I think it will be good to offer them.

But back to my new printer. Getting this printer is a big step for me because although it is just a printer, it's an expensive little (not so little -- it's approx 2'x2.5') devil. I could have gotten a decent computer for what I dropped on this printer. A set of eight ink tanks (the printer head is attached to the machine) costs a bit over $100 and these printers are ink hogs so the ink doesn't last long. And then there is the cost of the specialty paper....

Still, because we make virtually all of Steve's paintings into cards and prints it would be nearly impossible to set up everything (currently we offer cards and prints of approximately 150 paintings) with another printer. Plus I can print off work when I need it, so I will be able to offer excellent service and not have to carry a large inventory of printed pieces.

The printer is supposed to arrive tomorrow. If I post a pic of me with clumps of hair missing you'll know it's not going well.

Happy Birthday to

2009-02-16T02:54:00.004-05:00

ME!!!! :-)

Yep, today is my birthday and I'm hoping to slide under the radar this year. Not entirely or I wouldn't have made a blog post noting it now, but the only people in the area that would do anything are my brother and his girlfriend and I'm just not in the mood to have to be at all social. Of course, considering my brother generally doesn't consider much of anything that doesn't revolve around him to be worth his time, sliding under the radar shouldn't be hard.

I'm thinking that making some microwave popcorn, breaking open a couple of wine coolers, and watching a movie (almost certainly with a bunch of cats piled on top of me -- it's winter so they suddenly love me) sounds pretty appealing. It will most likely be a light, fun movie. I bought The Sting a few months ago (in honour of Paul Newman), so I might watch that. Haven't seen it in years.

I have some other crap to write about, but it's late and I'm tired, so I'll have to do that later. Some of it is even interesting. Hmm...maybe it's only interesting to me.

Swiped from Staci :-)

2009-02-07T15:06:00.002-05:00

1. Your name: H
2. A four Letter word: Hell
3. A boy's name: Harold
4. A girl's name: Hannah
5. An occupation: Headhunter
6. A color: Hazel
7. Something you wear: Hat
8. A food: Honey
9. Something found in the bathroom: Hair (I know, I know, it's totally yucky! lol!)
10. A place: Harrisburg
11. A reason for being late: Hangover
12. Something you shout: Help!
13. A movie title: Halloween
14. Something you drink: Hot Cocoa
15. A musical group: Hot House Flowers
16. An animal: Horse
17. A street name: High Street
18. A type of car: Honda
19. Something scary: Heights (hey, they scare me!)
20. Ice cream flavor: Heath Bar Crunch

This was kind of fun. :-)

Nah nah nah! -- I'm doing the survey!!

2009-02-06T14:02:00.002-05:00

1. What is your occupation right now?
Self employed something or other. Caregiver to my aunt, SK's art rep, glass artisan -- none of it seems to be achieving much right now. Blah.

2.What colour are your socks right now?
Not wearing any. I hate socks.

3.What are you listening to right now?
Just the sounds of the house and various noises from outside.

4.What was the last thing that you ate?
Homemade veggie soup. It was good!

5.Can you drive a stick shift?
Never bothered to learn.

6.Last person you spoke to on the phone?
Some sales guy.

7.Do you like the person who sent this to you?
No one sent it to me, but I like all the people who write the blogs I read it on. Even those who expected me not to answer. ;-)

8.How old are you today?
44

9.What is your favourite sport to watch on TV?
Not really any of them regularly, but when the Olympics roll around I enjoy watching them -- particularly the weird winter sports. I mean seriously, who the hell thought of double luge?

10.What is your favourite drink?
Non Alcohol: water
Alcohol: wine coolers. I know, I know, they are such a sissy drink -- even the dog rolls his eyes at me when I break out a wine cooler.

11.Have you ever dyed your hair?
Used to all the time. Don't anymore.

12.Favourite food
Ice Cream. Or Chocolate. Or good bread. Or pizza. Or that veggie soup I just had. Unfortunately, I have a LOT of favourite foods.

13.What is the last movie you watched?
The Hot Rock.

14.Favourite day of the year?
Depends on the year.

15.How do you vent anger?
I rant (in fact I just wrote out a rant a couple of days ago -- I might actually post it here too. Depends on my mood). Then I listen to music I like and go to sleep.

16.What was your favourite toy as a child?
I coveted my sister's Easy Bake Oven and miniature tea set and played with them like crazy when she was away at school. hehehe.

17.What is your favourite season?
Autumn. But I'm really looking forward to spring this year.

18.Cherries or Blueberries?
Cherries

19.Do you want your friends to e-mail you back?
Yeah, but I currently suck at emailing them back all the time so I cut them slack. I absolutely HATE when people who are supposed to be providing a business service do not email or call me back however. (oops! a bit of my rant slipped out...)

20.Who is the most likely to respond?
I've waited so long to complete it that I don't think there's anyone left....

21.Who is least likely to respond?
See above.

22.Living arrangements?
Me, my aunt, the dog, and the cats.

23.When was the last time you cried?
A day or so ago I guess.

24.What is on the floor of your closet?
This place doesn't really have closets which is a major pain in the ass.

25.Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending to?
Not sending to anyone.

26.What did you do last night?
Not much of anything.

27.What are you most afraid of?
I hate not knowing what I'm doing. I guess that fits.

28.Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers?
Haven't had a hamburger in ages, but I always liked plain best.

29.Favourite dog breed?
Currently Australian Cattle Dog -- because Zeke is an ACD mix. :-) I do love Alaskan Malamutes and Great Pyrenees too.

30.Favourite day of the week?
They all look the same to me.

31.How many states have you lived in?
Just one.

32.Diamonds or pearls?
I don't wear jewelry much at all, but when I do I'm much more apt to wear pearls.

33.What is your favorite flower?
Tulips.

Spot the difference

2009-02-01T09:25:00.004-05:00

I'm just going to post a link, but make sure to take a look. It's just two pics, but what a story they tell. Don't worry it won't take you to anything rude or crude -- well, the first pic is pretty disgusting (you'll understand when you see it), but they are both safe for work and all that.

Click here for the link.

Snow. Ice. Snow.

2009-01-28T04:36:00.004-05:00

We had light snow yesterday, then it turned to freezing rain overnight (still getting this), and we're supposed to get more snow today. Crappy, crappy weather. I'm just hoping the ice stops soon because heavy ice could take out power lines. I was without power for a little over three days in September because of the wind storm and that wasn't bad, but in winter no power would be a hell of a lot harder. A couple hours ago a bunch of ice and snow came crashing down from the roof -- it made quite a racket and really scared poor Zekie. I was a bit worried that it might have brought some of the gutters and slate from the roof down with it, but I took a quick look and nothing seems to have fallen but ice and snow.

I don't think we are going to get it quite as bad as people to the south, but it's already crappy enough. One of the people in the arts coop lives in Lexington and she said they are getting hammered with ice. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and picked up some supplies (the two most important things on my list were toilet paper and Zeke's favourite snackies -- don't want to be caught without either of those!) so we can just hang out here until the weather gets better. When I was walking out to the car I slipped on a patch of ice under the snow and smacked my head into the cinder block garage (my car is parked beside the garage). Damn that hurt! And it made quite a sound -- kind of a thwack sound, at least in my head. I have a little tender spot on my temple and my neck is a bit sore, but it's not too bad. And that was before this current round of ice. Blah.

I'm sure as hell not taking Diane outside any time soon. She's not good on her feet even on perfect surfaces. It's just not worth the risk to take her anywhere now. She's broken one of her legs twice and the other once over the past 25 years, and two of those breaks were pretty bad, requiring surgery and plates and screws in one leg and rods and pins in the other. Plus several days in the hospital, several cast changes, months in a wheelchair, and months of physical therapy. One of the bad breaks occurred when she took a single step on a snow covered walk. It wasn't even particularly slippery -- everyone else had no problem walking on it. But Di isn't everyone else, so now when conditions are even the least bit slick, she doesn't go out.

It's very quiet outside right now. We live just one house in from a pretty busy street, but there are very few people driving now (it's just about 6 am). Most schools in the area are closed, and I imagine quite a few people are either working from home or calling off too. The city just asked all non-essential personnel to wait until 11 am to come in to work, and OSU is closed. Since there are a shit-load of OSU students living in this area that probably accounts for a good deal of the lessened traffic.

And I noticed SK shut down the comments on his blog. Some poor pathetic person apparently needs a lot of attention -- not getting it now though is he/she? You have to wonder what kind of issues that person has to make being such a douche attractive.

Zekie Belly Rub

2009-01-27T01:55:00.006-05:00

When I prepare to put my aunt to bed Zeke dashes into her room, jumps onto her bed and lays on his back so I can give him a belly rub. He just loves it, and he looks so cute I had to get a pic. He's giving me a "what the hell are you doing? You're supposed to be rubbing my tummy!" look here.

And if you want a heavy dose of "awwww! soooo cute!!" watch the Kitty Cam and watch seven kittens go about the serious business of being kittens. :)

Spirituallessness

2009-01-04T21:48:00.003-05:00

I don't think that's really a word, but it works so I'm using it. So there!

I've come to the conclusion that I am the least spiritual person on earth. It just doesn't do anything for me. At all. None of it. And looking back I realise it never has done anything for me.

I don't feel past lives or energy from things or see auras around things (except when I'm driving in fog -- then headlights of oncoming cars have a bit of an aura, but I'm pretty sure that's not what people mean when they talk of seeing auras ;-) ). I've never "felt" any of the people that have been close to me that have died. They are just gone and nothing except the memories I have of them remain. I've often felt this makes the thought of dying myself easier, but having people you love die is harder.

Usually it doesn't bug me, because how can you miss what you don't feel exists, but every once in a while when I read or hear so many people pondering their spiritual journeys I do feel like the odd person out. Over the years I have checked out various belief systems and such, because I figured if most everyone else seems to be into something along that line there must be something to it. But to me it always felt fake...just some fantasy.

What is worse than someone constantly pondering their spirituality? Someone pondering their lack of spirituality. Lol! So I'll quit and go to bed. (Thank you! I hear you all say. :-) ) Besides, I promised the dog I'd take him for a little walk tomorrow morning before I go off to the shop. He'll be so happy. Actually he doesn't do much walking -- he mostly sniffs stuff and pees. But he's really happy anyway. :-)

the eekie saga

2008-12-31T23:38:00.000-05:00

This all happened in March and April of this year. I wrote several blogs, but didn't post them. I kept wanting to finish them more -- a baaaaddd move considering how much I procrastinate. The dates of the original blogs are at the beginning of each new blog. So anyway, here it is...better late than never, right?

My little gray cat, Loki wasn't eating well at all so I took him to the vet. After losing MiloGuido to feline leukemia (that I didn't even know he had) just after Christmas (2007) I was totally stressed out about Loki. I had convinced myself he was also going to have to be put to sleep. But Loki also had really bad teeth, and upon examination it became clear they were even worse than before (Loki is very frightened about being confined in any way and so its hard for me to really examine him) and she thought that was most of his problem. So getting the problem teeth -- which would most likely be all of the few teeth he had left -- out would probably help him to feel much better. But because Loki is an old cat, they wanted to do some pre-operative testing to make sure he could handle the anaesthesia etc.

And so the saga begins...

a bit of a wild child

03-16-2008

That's what one of the vet assistants said about Loki when I went to pick him up after a day of tests Friday. I had told them I thought he was semi feral and could be quite a challenge to do work on. He doesn't like to be picked up or held or anyway controlled or confined. (He does like to sleep next to me or draped over my arm though.) I also told them he'd gotten loose the first time I ever took him to the vet when he first came to me four years ago and they had to use a net to catch him. But when he was in Thursday for an initial checkup he was really very good and I was very proud of him. Then I took him in on Friday and from what they said for most of his workup he was quite good -- tight, nervous, and not at all happy, but nothing major.

However, when it came time for xrays and they had to put him on his back he was having none of it. He fought and he scratched and he bit and he really meant it! Luckily with the biting Loki has very bad teeth -- his canine's are broken off/worn down and missing/loose and several others are gone as well -- so even with him wanting to bite he couldn't do much damage. Plus they were wearing heavy gloves at the time, so all his biting efforts were thwarted. Still, he tried hard! Once he starts fighting he doesn't stop and he managed to get away and dove under the cages. They had to roll around on the floor and drag him out.

So I get a call from the vet telling me what happened and asking if I will authorise a tranquiliser for him (a bit of a risk because he's older, plus much of the testing is to help determine how he will handle the anaesthesia when he has his teeth done. It's not a big risk but it's still a risk). I say ok and a few hours later get the call to go to pick him up. The guy calling says he did fine with the tranquiliser and they got all the tests done. I get there and one of the techs says "He's a bit of a wild child!" and proceeds to tell me how he got the tranq and had some time to let it work, then they proceeded to try to get the xrays again. "It didn't make a bit of difference! He did the very same thing again!" He even dove under the same set of cages! I couldn't help but laugh. She told me he was so good at first that they were wondering why I was so insistent that he could be a problem, but when they tried for the xrays they suddenly understood.

So he goes in Tuesday to have his teeth worked on...well mostly removed I think. They are really bad now. They were bad when he first came -- several missing and many worn way down -- but until recently they didn't give him many problems. He's an old cat -- we decided on 13 for him, although he could be older, and most of that time was most likely spent as an outdoor cat on his own (that ages them faster) -- so any time you put them out it's a bigger risk than for a younger cat, but he has to have this done to be happy and healthy. I think he'll do just fine...he's a pretty tough little cat. Tough and pretty much toothless. But I love him anyway.

"What isn't wrong with Loki?"

03-17-2008

Well Loki isn't going in to get his teeth worked on tomorrow, he's going to be checked out by a cat cardiologist next week. Most of the results from that whole battery of tests that were run on him came back and although he doesn't have heartworm or hyperthyroidism or feline leukemia or FIV, the tests and xrays indicate several potential problems. Apparently his liver is working fine, but several indicators of kidney function are abnormal, so they are not quite right, although they don't seem to be in the horrible stage yet. The bigger issue is potential heart problems. The vet detected a heart murmur, his blood pressure is high (not super high but still high), and his heart appears to be enlarged on the xrays (which weren't the best because he was not at all cooperative). Also, the person who read the xrays (they were sent out to a specialist) noted what looked like a mass in one of his lungs. This could be nothing at all and just a consequence of the rather poor quality and not quite right position of the xray, but it also could be several things, including an aggressive, fast growing cancer that could kill him within weeks.

When my vet called the cat cardiologist to see what anaesthesia would be best to use if we did go ahead with the teeth job tomorrow, she outlined the various test results for the specialist who said "wow, what isn't wrong with Loki?" I couldn't help but laugh when she told me that. It's just so typical of my cats -- when they do something, they do it full out. No half-ass sicknesses for my kitties. Sigh.

On the plus side, since he's been getting antibiotics, Loki is feeling much better and is eating up a storm -- even dry food -- and he's seems very happy. This improvement allows me to take him to the specialist instead of having to press on right now with the dental work (although unless he has something quickly terminal he will need it soon). With any luck getting a better handle on some of his other issues will allow the work on his teeth to be less risky for him.

So now he'll get to terrorise yet another vet clinic.

Mr. Loki's visit to the cardiologist

03-27-2008

So Loki went to the cardiologist Wednesday and the results were pretty good. First of all he was an excellent kitty there -- they told me they had another kitty there who wasn't being a good kitty at all. I'm very proud of him for that because Loki tends to get very stressed when he's held or confined in any way.

Now he went to the cardiologist to find out how much risk putting him under to work on his teeth will be given the exam and testing by my regular vet turned up several indications of heart problems, and also because in one of three xrays taken at my regular vet there seems to be a mass in one of his lungs. So here were the findings:

1) my vet got a blood pressure reading of 200, but wed it was only 130 to 135 on repeated checks. That is good news.

2) he does have Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (essentially thickening of the left ventricle) which can lead to congestive heart failure, sudden death, or blood clots. Loki's case is still mild however, and shouldn't make anaesthesia a whole lot more risky than normal to have his teeth worked on.

3) he does have mild renal disease which also complicates the anaesthesia somewhat, but the risk is still not terribly high. Of course the kidney disease is something that will have to be managed as it progresses, but for now it isn't a huge deal.

4) the possible lung mass or hiatal hernia which showed up on one of the xrays. Loki wasn't being at all cooperative when these were taken so they weren't great and it's possible there is nothing at all to be concerned about. It could be a sliding hernia in which case it's been there all his life and if it hasn't caused problems yet, it's not likely to now. It could be scarring from an old injury or infection. Or it could be lung cancer. The vet asked me about how he's eating (good since the antibiotics kicked in so his teeth don't hurt as much); and how his cough is (I mentioned he sometimes coughed to my vet when I first took him in a couple of weeks ago -- haven't heard him do it since). She was pleased with this and said it made it less likely to be lung cancer, although she couldn't say for sure with the tests we had done so far. They could take another xray and hope to get a better view, but it might also be inconclusive. Essentially it came down to if I really needed to know. I decided since I wouldn't have him operated on if it was cancer (he's old -- this vet thinks he could be even older than our best guess age of 13; he has several other health issues that could make recovery from surgery difficult; often with cancer cases the cancer has already spread making the surgery pretty much ineffective; and I really couldn't afford it anyway) that I really didn't need to know. So I still don't really know about that possible mass, but since he seems to be pretty happy and comfortable now, we'll do his teeth and hope for the best.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased.

********************************************************************

So Loki was able to have his bad teeth removed -- all seven that remained (I told you his teeth were bad!). The vet said there was one that kind of looked ok, but when she touched it, it just fell out. But what's he going to do with one tooth anyway??? So that was ok.

He came home and he felt pretty good, except his gums hurt and he didn't want to eat. Not even tasty canned food. The special all-cats-love-this-stuff canned food from the vet didn't even do it for him. In fact, he sniffs it and positively recoils with this "that shit is DISGUSTING!!" look on his face. I joke that Loki is a low-rent kitty. It's as if he says "I don't want this crap (the vet food -- which costs $2 per can btw), I want GOOD food, dammit! I want Fancy Feast or Friskies!" Leave it to my cat to want the equivelent of McDonalds. But his not eating was a problem because cats can develop serious liver problems in a very short time if they don't eat. So I had to take him back to the vet to have him force fed. It did work...he came home, cleaned himself up, and started to eat small amounts of his favourite foods. That was quite a relief. However, Maddie was sick (vomiting, diarrhea and just very miserable), so she went to the vet too.

And the saga continues...

Maddie just died

04-02-2008

About an hour ago. She went downhill so fast -- on Sunday she seemed fine, ate like a trooper and was pretty much like she always is, by Monday she was sick. I took her to the vet Tuesday, but she never really rallied and today (Wednesday) by late afternoon I had decided to take her to the emergency vet. She died while I was getting ready to go. At least she didn't suffer long and didn't have the stress of going to the vet. And she did have a good 13 years with me/us.

I'll miss the silly little girl.

*****************************************************************************
(the vet thinks a blood clot killed her, and I imagine it was give how fast she went, but she wasn't getting any better from how sick she was either. She'd long had imune system problems, and ultimately I think her body just finally had enough.)

On with the tale...

Well Mitzi's still alive and kicking

04-07-2008

Mitzi is my oldest cat. We got her on election day in 1989 or 1990 or 1991 -- I can't really remember right now... I'll have to check her records when I go to the vet. Anyway, she's an old cat and she has chronic respiratory problems and some kidney problems at the very least. She's very ratty looking mostly because she has long hair but really really really hates to be brushed, and hates even more to have mats removed and makes no bones about letting anyone and everyone know her feelings on the issue. She will bite and she's very quick and nasty with her claws. She earned the nickname Hell Cat Bitch!

Anyway, late last night she vomited and then wouldn't eat. Then she vomited up the water she drank and it was apparent she was becoming dehydrated. She was weak and just looked miserable. So I took her to the emergency vet.

They did a quick exam and then some tests and it turns out that for a 16 to 18 year old cat Mitzi is pretty damned healthy (and according to the vet she's also "pretty strong!" so I think she showed a bit of her HCB personality to them. Atta girl, Mitz!). Her kidney values are somewhat elevated which is from her kidney disease, but some of it could be from the dehydration. Her blood pressure is normal, her glucose levels are good, her heart sounds good, she doesn't have any infection -- overall she's a lot better off than I expected her to be. I knew she was a tough little cat, but Mitzi must have some seriously good cat genes.

So she got some fluids and a couple of shots to calm her stomach and got sent home. She slept for a while in front of the space heater and got a drink and has even eaten a little. She clearly feels better than she did just 3-4 hours ago. I need to get her in to see my regular vet in the next couple of days, but it looks as if Mitzi is going to live -- at least for a while yet.

I don't know

04-08-2008

I don't know about Mitzi...she seemed to rally Sunday night and Monday morning, but now I don't think she's doing so well again. She doesn't seem as miserable as she did on Sunday and she is drinking and is interested in food (and not vomiting) although she isn't eating much, but she just looks tired out.

Over the years I've had more animals die/be put down than most people ever have and often at the end they have this "it's time" look. Mitzi does tend to look like death warmed over when she is sick -- she always has -- but at her age, and as much as she has slowed down over the past several months, I think it's very possible that "time" is here. She's fooled me before, and I hope she does this time also, but usually she shows continuous progress after treatment. This time she showed improvement, but now is getting weaker again. At least she doesn't look terribly uncomfortable, just very tired and weak.

Ah well, we'll see what morning brings.

Mitzi's vet visit

04-10-2008

She's still alive. Took her to the vet on Wednesday morning where she got some fluids (subcu) and a couple of shots. She hadn't eaten since sometime Tuesday and was feeling mighty pitiful. Poor little cat weighed less than 6 lbs. After treatment she started feeling better pretty quickly, and actually started eating a tiny bit just an hour and a half after getting home. She's been eating on and off all day. It's not a huge amount, and she does best with the gravy in chunks and gravy style canned cat food than anything else (I've been getting a lot of different types of canned food lately in hopes of tempting her and Loki), but I figure it's a lot better than nothing. She also quite likes the food Max gets so I'm giving her some of that (it's high calorie and very soft and easy to eat), but it's not supposed to be great long-term for cats with kidney problems so if she gets eating other food better I'll stop giving her that.

She goes back this morning for some more fluids (chances are good I'll begin giving them to her at home -- she seems to be at the point where she needs them) and will also get the "lion trim" because her coat is so matted. She's a long haired cat and hates to be brushed (not that she showed that at the vet...she's really good for them! Damned little cat is determined to make a liar out of me!) so her coat is in awful shape. The "lion trim", in case you don't know, is where they clip off all the fur from the head on back. She'll be a naked little cat. Good thing summer is coming.

I'm not sure all this is really going to give her a whole lot more time, but she keeps responding to treatment so I figure as long as she does and seems to be able to enjoy her life it's worth doing. One other thing I found out at the vet -- Mitzi is older than I thought. I thought we might have gotten her as early as Nov of 1989 (election day -- I remember because the company I worked for then gave us that day off), but it turns out we got her the year before. This means Mitzi is 19 years and seven months old. I think that's pretty damned good!! Especially for a pitiful little 8 week old stray kitten no one wanted. I'm pretty sure she's the oldest cat I've ever had.

toast

04-15-2008

Yes, I'm pretty sure the ratty little gerbil car is toast.

It broke down in the middle of a main road (but not an interstate -- whew!) today as I stopped for a traffic light. As I applied the brakes I heard this squeal, then this horrible crunching sound, then it felt as if the driver's side wheel was being torn apart. And it pulled really hard to the left. Why it pulled to the left was apparent when I got out and looked -- the front wheel was angled out oddly (I don't know much about cars but that didn't look like a good sign to me).

The car wouldn't budge, so I'm sitting in the middle of a five lane road (two lanes on each side and a turning lane in the middle) just at the end of rush hour so it was pretty busy. Within just a minute or so though a couple of guys came over and said they would push the car out of the roadway but when they tried they could barely budge it. A couple other guys walking and biking along came over too and the four of them pushed the car across the intersection and over to the curb (I steered ). The car only weighs about 1600 lbs -- it's tiny and light. Hell I've even pushed it short distances by myself. So it was obvious to everyone that something was really wrong with it.

Anyway, after getting it moved to the side of the road I called AAA and my brother to pick me up and to help me decide what to do with the damned little thing. It appears the strut has torn away from the frame. That can't be good.

The car was cheap to begin with and really has lasted longer than I expected it to. I had a 100 mile a day commute at the time so racked up the miles pretty fast the first couple of years, but these last few years I haven't had to drive it all that much (and when I took road trips I would rent a car), so it has been ok. But it has definitely been showing it's age (14 years) a lot the last couple of years, and I think the ratty little gerbil car has finally reached the end of the road.

Of course it had to do it just after I had to spend boatloads at the vet and more than I expected with my taxes. I had been thinking just 5-10 minutes before it broke down that this would be a really bad time for it to break down. That's the problem -- I gotta stop thinking!

********************************************************************

The ratty little gerbil car was indeed dead, so I had to find something else. No way in hell could I afford something new or even newish, so I searched Craigslist for something inexpensive (cheap!) and economical and fairly decent. And I found one that would actually work quite well, but it had a a blown cylinder head (same thing that finally did in Tibor). But overall the car was in good shape and my brother assured me he could replace the cylinder head inexpensively enough that the car would still be an excellent buy. And he did...eventually.

I bought the car towards the end of April and he finally got it fixed and running at the very end of June. This period was the worst possible time for me to be without a car too. I was getting the SK exhibit ready before June and then going to the gallery several times during it's run through June. Yellow Springs is a 120 mile round trip too, so I really needed a car! So I rented cars and spent loads more money that I really couldn't afford to spend. And then when he finally finished it at the end of June I was scheduled to work in the shop (coop where the SK exhibit was) the last day of June so I could take the show down at the end of the day. But during the wee morning hours of June 30 I came down with a nast stomach/intestinal bug. Now I know you all know what that does to a person, so I won't tell that part (besides I just noticed I already posted a blog on it in early June), but I couldn't go to the shop. But I did manage to go take down the exhibit a bit later in the week.

Anyway, the car has needed a few other repairs, but is pretty good and overall I'm happy with it. It sure is a heck of a lot better than the ratty little gerbil car. I just wish it hadn'y taken so long to get it fixed in the first place.

So there it is. The eekie saga.

The spring 2008 eekie saga at least.

Fading away

2008-12-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

I'm going to call my vet in a few hours and see about setting up an appointment to have my cat Mitzi put to sleep. It's time -- she's old and sick and very, very tired.

On election day (first Tuesday in November) I've had her for 20 years. In 1988 I was working for a company that had election day off (thank you GE!!), so I was taking my mum out for lunch (she loved seafood, so we were going someplace where she could get decent seafood) and then either to a movie or shopping. I needed cash so we stopped at this shopping center with an ATM (they weren't everywhere like they are now) and that's when the day started to unravel. As I used the machine my mum noticed a girl with with an adorable little yellow and white kitten sitting on one of the benches in the mall.

I heard my mum say "oh what a cute kitten!" and instinctively I knew we were doomed. Sure enough the girl was crying because she'd found this kitten out in the parking lot but didn't know what to do with her. She couldn't take her home because her apartment wouldn't allow pets, the people at the pet store in the mall wouldn't take her (that was a given), and it was cold outside and the kitten was only about eight weeks old. So my mum said "that's ok. We'll take her and give her a good home."

So much for the nice seafood lunch (which I wasn't looking forward to, because I've never liked seafood, but mum was) -- we went to the McDonalds drive through and ate in the parking lot (and shared some fries with the kitten). Then we started off towards our vet (a good 30-40 miles away) and stopped for kitten supplies on the way (so we did get to go shopping after all! :lol:). She checked out ok, got her first set of shots and my mum named her Mitzi.

We decided she could be a barn cat and friend to our only other cat at the time, Munchie. Munchie, however, said "NO! She's NOT staying here!" (Munchie was a little tyrant) so Mitzi lived in the house with us that winter. However, by spring, Mitzi was literally climbing the walls to get outside, so after she recovered from being fixed, we let her outside. In the months she was inside, Mitzi grew up to be quite the heller, so although Munchie still didn't approve of her, he couldn't do much about it. Once he found he couldn't successfully boss her around they came to an understanding and got along quite well.

Mitzi loved being an outside cat -- she could run and hunt and just do whatever the hell she wanted to do. One thing she loved to do was jump up on our Shetland pony when we would bring her out to munch on the lawn (small ponies such as Shetlands need to have their grass intake closely monitored because they can overdo it and founder easily, so the pony couldn't go out to pasture with the rest of the horses). Mitzi would come running whenever we would bring the pony out, and then would just jump up on her back and lay down and snooze. She never used her claws to hold on, so the pony didn't mind at all.

Mitzi lived outside for 12 happy years, but she was getting older and slowing down, so we decided to bring her into the house to live. Well, she might have been not as capable outside anymore, but once inside she continued to reign as Hell Cat Bitch (HCB) supreme. Mitzi always wanted things done her way, and when they weren't, someone had to pay. I don't remember exactly what she was mad at, but for a while she would chase my mum around and bite her -- mostly her ankles, but once she was on the couch when she got cranky, so she bit mum on the butt. She would go after me occasionally, but her target was mostly mum. She never really bit hard, so it was just hilarious to see her get all pissed off about some minor thing and go on a chasing and nipping rampage.

And one of my favourite Mitzi, HCB stories happened when my sister came to visit once. We didn't have an extra room for her, so she slept on the sleeper sofa in the living room. Two of the cats (MiloGuido and Max -- both sadly departed within the past year) were just being all lovey-dovey with my sister and Mitzi decided she wanted some attention too. But Mitzi didn't want to be one of the cats getting attention, she wanted to be the ONLY cat getting attention, so she got up onto the sofa bed and was smacking the other two cats to get them to leave. My sister didn't think this was fair, so she pushed Mitzi off the bed instead. Oh dear. Mitzi was not amused. Not amused at all. And to show her displeasure she went over to my sister's duffle bag and promptly peed all over it and everything in it. Yeah, it wasn't a very nice thing to do, but I couldn't help laughing. Thinking about it still always makes me laugh too. :lol:

Over the past several years Mitzi has developed kidney disease and has had to periodically have subcutaneous fluids (hasn't needed them on a regular basis until fairly recently though). She's had chronic upper respiratory infections for years, so she often has runny eyes and nose. And she's never been great with personal hygiene and she has long hair too, so she's had to have the "lion cut" a few times. The last time she had one (this April) one of the other cats (Ricky) was both fascinated and horrified. He couldn't stop looking at her, but he'd hide behind doorways and furniture to do it and would run when she looked at him. Gotta love my chickenshit boy cats. :lol: But for the most part Mitzi seemed bright and interested and happy with life. Over the last few weeks, however, she's been fading fast, and now I don't see any happiness in her.

So it's time, and today at 3:30 pm I'm going to take Mitzi to the vet to be put to sleep.

I'll miss you Mitzi.

NNNOOOO!!!!!!!

2008-11-17T03:28:00.003-05:00

It's snowing! On November 17th. In central Ohio. Damn it, it's not supposed to snow that early here. Granted, it's not a hell of a lot of snow -- just a dusting, really -- but it's still way too early for this crap.

I am NOT a happy camper. >:(

YES!!!

2008-11-04T21:37:00.001-05:00

Ohio is making eekie proud tonight!

YES!!!

Update: Hell, the US overall is making me proud!

Made me laugh

2008-11-02T05:37:00.004-05:00

I'm still alive -- in case you wondered. My sister was out last week for a few days, and since we only see each other every couple of years, we were busy doing stuff. But I'm pretty much back to my normal boring life now. :-)

yikes!

2008-10-20T07:55:00.002-04:00

The daytime highs are only supposed to be in the 50s this week. I like cool weather, but that's a little too damned cool for this time of the year!

And the Bitch-O-Meter email should be on it's way tonight. :-)

Yep

2008-10-14T06:29:00.001-04:00

Yep, my Bitch-O-Meter is going all kinds of crazy right now.

I'll give you all the details by email and see if you feel the same way.

eekie's adventures with cellulitis

2008-10-01T04:01:00.008-04:00

Cellulitis, an infection of the deep subcutaneous tissue of the skin. Not cellulite, aka cottage cheese skin. (Skinny people get cellulite -- the rest of us just deal with fat. But this entry isn't about cellulite, or even fat. It's about cellulitis.) If you want to know more about cellulitis click here.

Anyway, on with the tale. Cellulitis is generally caused when bacteria normally on the surface of the skin gets under the skin. The scrape I got while picking up pears during the windstorm (not the brightest thing I've ever done... but the pears are really sweet :-) ) we had a couple of weeks ago allowed the bacteria in and after about a week I noticed the part of my leg that was scraped was tight, hot, red, and very tender to the touch. So there are these minor treatment clinics set up in some of the larger Kroger's in the area, so I dropped in there to have it checked out. Sure enough, it was cellulitis. So the nurse practitioner gave me a prescription for antibiotics and I also got a tetanus shot. Those clinics are mighty convenient -- I was able to do my grocery shopping while I waited for my turn and then I got the prescription filled at the in-store pharmacy.

Now my leg is feeling better and is not nearly as red and sore, but is still swollen and certain spots are still really tender. I think I finish up the antibiotics this coming Monday, but I'm starting to wonder if I'll need another course of them. It is clearing up, but doesn't seem to be going quite as quickly as I expected. From what I understand cellulitis can sometimes be tough to get rid of completely and can become very serious if it isn't completely wiped out, so I want to make sure to beat the crap out of it. I'm thinking I might call my doctor and see what he thinks. My mum had it (from a cat bite) and it was serious enough in her case that she had to be hospitalised and given intravenous antibiotics. Of course, she had other health issues that made her more susceptable to any kind of infection, so she couldn't fight it well on her own, but her experience still makes me nervous.

So here's a pic of my lovely (NOT!! haha!) leg. It was getting dark outside and I had to use a flash, so the redness doesn't really show up that much, but I took this just after getting the cellulits diagnosis. Charming, isn't it?

Blowin' in the wind

2008-09-18T05:32:00.004-04:00

We got some remnants of Hurricane Ike on Sunday -- not the rain we usually get from hurricanes, but hurricane force winds. They were amazing! I was outside on my porch with a customer (from the SK Birthday sale) for much of it and it was fantastic to see and hear. I've never been in a hurricane (I'm very happy for that), but it was quite a thrill to be able to experience hurricane force winds (even if they were relatively mild for a hurricane). And having the sun out during the whole thing was wild -- I kept expecting a storm, but it never came. We barely got a drizzle, and even that came after the winds left.

The winds took down a bunch of tree limbs, trees, and power lines, so over a million people in Ohio were without power. Hundreds of thousands still have no electricity, and power isn't expected to be fully restored until the end of the weekend or possibly early next week. My electricity was out for over three days (approx. 76 hours), but since I expected not to get it back until Friday or Saturday, I'm thrilled it was only off that long.

Several people were killed during the storm -- one guy was electrocuted working on a generator and several, including the father of an OSU student missing since 2006, were killed by falling trees. The latter guy's death seems particularly sad because first he lost his wife to cancer, then a month later his son went missing (and is presumed dead), now he is killed by a falling tree limb. Out of the whole family there is one 26-year-old son left. I cannot imagine what he is going through now.

The power outage wasn't all that bad for me. I'm used to living in mostly or all electric houses with septic systems and well or cistern water (which use electric pumps). But now I live in a house with city sewer and water and have a gas stove and gas water heater. So unlike the past times I've been through long power outages I had a toilet that flushed, running water (both cold and hot) and a usable stove. We bought ice and packed perishables in coolers, so I didn't lose much there (what I did lose was mostly stuff that should have been tossed anyway). Makes this power outage thing a piece of cake, especially since we didn't have to deal with actual hurricane conditions (the weather has been gorgeous the past few days) or massive damage. Plus I had loads of candles and batteries and a standard corded land line phone (and a cell phone), so although evenings were quiet and dark they were really kind of nice too. I did miss being able to get online, but not as much as I expected to -- knowing a whole lot of other people are much worse off made it much easier.

And I talked to many of my neighbors for the first time ever.

Overall not a bad few days.

Oh, I did get a storm injury. In between gusts, I was out picking up pears knocked off the trees when another gust hit. I was just scurrying away from the tree when a fence post that was leaning against the deck blew over and hit me on back of my calf. So I have a nifty bruise and a seven to eight inch long and two inch wide scrape on the back of my leg. That will teach me not to go outside in that kind of wind again. The pears are pretty damned tasty though.

(I took pics of my leg -- I'll have to post one soon. Just what you always wanted to see -- my not-very-nice-looking-leg looking even worse. Will the thrills never end? :-) )

And the SK Birthday art sale has been extended (partly because his birthday fell on the weekend and partly because I'm still so scattered from the windstorm and power outage) until Sept. 21. Go buy something. :-D

SK Art Sale

2008-09-12T14:45:00.005-04:00

September 13th is Steve's birthday and what better way to celebrate Steve's birthday than by buying yourself a gift? Yes, that's right -- the Steve Kilbey Art Sale is going on RIGHT NOW!! Everything on the website (with the exception of two paintings going to an exhibit) is on sale, with discounts ranging from 10-40% off. There are also 11 brand new paintings just up on the site (20% off on those pieces -- 40% off on other originals). All prints are 40% off, and cards are $3.50 instead of $4. Even commissioned paintings are on sale (10% discount).

It's a great sale, and it's only on Steve's birthday (it goes as long as it's the 13th anywhere in the world), so head over to the SK Art site and check it out. Now.

And of course, just when I was getting ready to send out this announcement to the SK Art site email list the site goes down. How irritating. Then again, if it's down, it would mean no one came see it anyway, so it doesn't matter if I am able to send out the announcement anyway. Could be just my connection, but I'm getting through to other sites. I guess if the site is down for an extended period, I'll just extend the sale for a while longer.

* edit -- well, now that I whined about it being down, it's back up. Guess I should whine about more stuff!

okey dokey then...

2008-09-08T01:49:00.003-04:00

I admit it. I'm dying to know what the fuck the person who wrote this (in the comments section of SK's blog Sept.8th) was thinking, but I'd be damned if I'd even acknowledge it there.

Hey Kilbey

You know how your band has been raping the reputations of Australian women? Was that to keep your handful of devoted USA fans happy? Way to go, get rid of your Australian market to keep the anal ones, and promote sexism in Australia at the same time.

I used to be fan. How embarrassing.
10:48 AM

I have two theories:

1) troll. Someone wrote this purely for the reaction. They conjured up something that sounded kind of scandalous and are enjoying seeing who will jump for it. I think this is very possible.

2) it's the ravings of a loon, who fully believes this, even though no one else has a clue what he/she is talking about. This is very possible too.

What I particularly like about this comment is that the whole band are apparently horribly misogynistic, but only about Australian women. So what would that be called? MisOZgynistic, perhaps? :-) And I'm wondering just what set the person off. Hmm...just what did SK say on Rockwiz anyway!!! :-D

Q & A

2008-08-23T03:46:00.005-04:00

Swiped from Catz (and Veleska). :-)

FACT: about the person you fell hardest for?
Turned out to be a jerk.

WHAT: happened at 9:00 am today?
9 am hasn't happened yet today. When it does I'll probably still be asleep.

ARE YOU: wearing something you borrowed from someone?
Nope. Everything is mine, all mine!!

WHAT IS: the last thing someone bought you?
I can't really remember. Probably something from Kroger or for the car.

WHEN: was the last time you saw number 2 on your top Myspace friends?
The whole group I last saw early on August 20, 2006, but I last saw one quarter of them early on May 18 of this year.

LAST: person to lay in your bed?
Me. Last other person was my niece.

THE LAST: food you ate?
Pizza.

SOMETHING: you say when you are mad?
FUCK!! Dammit!! (the last is generally directed at the cats or the dog)

DO YOU: delete people off of myspace?
I haven't. I've been deleted by others a few times though. I don't know whether I should be proud of that or not. lol

FAVE: drink?
Water -- has to be super cold though.

DO YOU: crack your knuckles?
Nope. Never figured out how to do it.

DID YOU: cry at all today?
Not so far.

ARE YOU: ticklish
Yes.

WHO WAS: the last person you talked to last night before bed?
Haven't been to bed yet. ;-) Last person I talked to though was my niece.

HAVE YOU MADE: a mistake this past week?
I can't really think of anything, which sounds as if I think I'm above making mistakes, but that's not it at all. It's just that I haven't really don't that much this week.

DO YOU: miss someone?
Yes.

DO YOU KNOW: anyone with the same name as you?
Not really.

WHEN WAS: the last time you really laughed?
I laughed pretty hard at that joke on S's blog just now. And my niece and I were looking at the I Can Haz Cheezburger and laughed pretty hard at some of the things there.

HAVE ANY: regrets?
Of course.

DO YOU USE: an alarm clock?
Yes. I can sleep right through it sometimes though.

ARE YOU: social or antisocial person?
Mostly antisocial. I tend to only like being around people in fairly short bursts with long periods in between.

DO YOU: have a tan?
No.

WHO WAS THE LAST: person to disappoint you?
Really disappoint me...was someone I trusted and thought was a friend. I've since learned otherwise. Two years now and I still feel sad sometimes.

DO YOU TRUST: people?
On some things yes (mostly because it's too much work not to), but on other things no.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING: tomorrow?
Should be working on glass.

WHAT WERE YOU DOING: at 5 in the morning?
Sleeping.

Had a loss recently?
Yes.

Last movie you saw?
I don't remember. It's been a while.

What was the last thing you said out loud?
"You're such a cute little snugglebunny, Loki." Obviously I was talking to the cat.

Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
Steve.

What is the first thing you notice in the opposite sex?
Hair, eyes, general face shape, hands, shoes. Voice if I hear it. I'm a sucker for a great voice.

Are you afraid of the dark?
Not really. I used to be very much so, but it seems to have gone away.

First thing you'll save in a fire?
I think I'll echo Veleska's answer and assume Di and all the critters are out (because I don't even want to think about the alternative) and then say my photos.

What do you always take with you?
My keys and my cell phone.

Has anyone called you beautiful in the past 5 days?
No. :-(

Ever turned anyone down you shouldn't have?
I doubt it. Oh maybe. Probably not though.

What are you stressing about right now?
If I should take over doing the photography and printing of SK's and MWP's artwork myself (which would entail a good sized monetary outlay and then quite a learning curve) or keep using the current person (who is doing it more as a favour than as a business, which makes me nervous as it could end very abruptly).

Do you swallow gum when you're done with it?
Not now.

Do you like messages or comments better?
On MySpace I like messages better. I like blog comments (posting, reading, and getting) though.

The last person you held hands with, did it mean anything?
Yeah, I guess it did.

In the past week have you felt sad?
Yes.

crud

2008-08-02T02:27:00.003-04:00

Just a minor crud, but still a crud. I'm having Blogger issues today. I can get to my dashboard and post a blog, but I'm having trouble getting to other people's (and sometimes mine too) blogs to read and comment on them. When I go to a blog it shows up for a split second and then I get a IE pop up telling me "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site [site addy]. Operation aborted." over top of the fucking blog I am trying to reach. I feel like screaming at the screen "What do you mean you can't open www.blahblahblah" You just [i]did[/i] open the fucking thing!!" Ok, I do have to admit I actually did mutter that at the screen a few times, but at least I didn't scream it. Not yet anyway.

Then when I click on this pop up, the blog I was trying to reach does indeed go away and is replaced with the damned Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage screen. And I can't simply click on the underlying page and have it jump over the pop up like you can with a normal pop up. Nooooo, this pop up won't let anything move underneath it until you click on it. Nasty attention seeking pop up. I'd like to slap it's smug little pop up face.

Anyway, I'm hoping the issue resolves itself (I'm pretty sure it's a blogger issue since it isn't happening with any other sites I've tried today) shortly, but until then I can't read or comment on any of the Blogger blogs I usually do. I'll keep checking though (well, not right now, I'm going to go to bed now that I got myself irritated).

Cake Wrecks

2008-07-31T22:46:00.004-04:00

July seems to have gotten by me before I could write much here (mostly because I'm a slacker), but I thought I'd finish off the month by introducing you to a most amazing blog -- Cake Wrecks.

The blog's description/subtitle is "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong" and I'll tell you, they certainly get that right. It's a whole blog full of train wrecks -- only in cake form!

Click Here.

I actually quite like this cake. An Acid Cake -- faaaarrr ooouuttt, maaaannn!

And a link to the post of this cake.

bored on break?

2008-07-28T03:47:00.003-04:00

Lately I've been hearing a lot of kids (I think of college students as kids too) say they are bored when they are on break for more than a week or two. I've heard it sometimes from adults when they are off work too, but less often.

Is this normal?

The first few times I heard kids say it I just thought they were crazy, but now I've heard it so many times I'm starting to wonder if it's just me who's odd. I don't remember ever being bored when I was on break from school (or from work for that matter). It wasn't that I had so many places to go or so many friends I hung out with, because I didn't. I lived in a rural area and only occasionally had friends over or went anywhere (other than grocery store, etc), but we lived on a small farm so I had woods, and streams, and fields, and horses, and cats, and dogs. Plus we had books, and music and art supplies.

Maybe it's just that I am and have always been a loner, but I can almost always entertain myself. I've never really needed to go places or have a lot of contact with people -- actually I can get mighty cranky if I don't have my alone time. Plus I'm not real fond of group activities, structured days, and authority, so I've always chafed in most school and work situations.

Cotton Keays Morris - The Real Thing

2008-07-02T04:48:00.001-04:00

This is the Russell Morris song SK and TP played on at the ARIA HOF induction ceremony. I like this version a lot. I can certainly see why SK likes the song.

ugh

2008-07-02T04:16:00.003-04:00

I've been sick as a dog for the past couple of days. Late Sunday night I started feeling queasy while I was working on a piece of glass I had to finish up so I could take it in to the shop Monday (special order for a guy who bought it Friday). So I just finish up the glass when all of a sudden WHAM! I get smacked by a nasty stomach bug. I'll spare you the gory details -- and they are gory indeed, I must say -- but I have been one very miserable blob lately.

I couldn't even get poor Diane to bed until mid-afternoon Monday because I simply couldn't move. Luckily she has a comfy chair in the living room and did quite well...but she was really happy to finally get to bed! Wasn't able to feed the cats either -- I do have dry food out all the time, but poor toothless Loki was starting to wonder if he was ever going to eat again (I'm wondering that about myself now too, although it probably wouldn't hurt much if I laid off the food for a while...). Several of the cats thought me being sick was great (except for the lack of food part that is) because they could hang out in bed (when I wasn't in the bathroom) all day and night long. Loki especially was quite the snugglebunny although now that I think about it I'm not sure it's because he loves me so much or if he was just making sure he'd get fed first when I finally got the hell up!

I'm starting to feel like I'm gonna live, but I ache all over. Trust me on this -- laughing, especially after puking for hours on end, is no damned fun.

so....

2008-06-29T08:13:00.002-04:00

Steve is going to be performing at the ARIA Hall of Fame award show this Tuesday -- twice. Once with the Triffids (vocals on Wide Open Road) and once playing The Real Thing (according to the bulletin sent out from his Myspace page he's doing vocals on that too) for the induction of Russell Morris.

I swear sometimes I'd like to shake that man. Last year the Aria people tried to induct the Church into the HOF but the band declined because they were "unavailable." I'm sorry but I don't quite believe they were so damned busy they couldn't have made it if they wanted to. I'm especially doubtful after reading SK's blog rant about what the Aria people wanted (they were asked to play two of their best known songs -- imagine the fucking gall of that!!! :rolleyes: ) which ended with "i'd rather circumcize myself with a blunt plectrum". Granted the rant was pretty funny (especially that last line), but sometimes his (and the band's) refusal to do so many things that could help them publicity-wise is maddening.

Whether or not they get inducted into this HOF has no bearing on my admiration or respect for them, and I doubt it does for many hardcore fans. But I do think things such as an Aria HOF induction or having one of their albums featured on a program such as the "Great Australian Albums" one SK appeared on talking about the Triffids would help raise the level of awareness of them amongst a whole host of more casual fans. I'm hoping SK's (and Tim's) appearance at this ARIA HOF ceremony and the Rockwiz appearance (yet to air, but taped a few months ago) is signaling a change of heart in regards to taking advantage of this type of publicity. I hope so anyway.

But SK's self-circumcision...ouch! -- that's bound to hurt!

ok...we're gonna try this again

2008-06-20T01:10:00.006-04:00

The second SK exhibit reception is tonight. This one is in conjunction with the town's Art Stroll, a gallery hop type of thing and the turn out has been pretty good for those lately. So even without a lot of SK or Church fans (slackers!! >:( ) there should be a decent number of people though to look at everything.

Steve's been working on a "Get Stoned and Paint" dvd and he sent me a 10+ minute teaser dvd to play for people at the reception. It's pretty cool to see him actually working on various pieces and talking about what he's trying for with them. I think that kind of stuff is interesting -- it's a bit like watching a sound check or getting to hear a musician's unfinished or demo tracks -- and hope other people feel the same way. It's cool to be allowed a peek into the process instead of just getting the finished product.

For your viewing and listening pleasure

2008-06-16T02:17:00.003-04:00

Fipster (of the Church Discography fame) was kind enough to set up an online photo tour (with loads of audio clips!) of Steve Kilbey's current art exhibition. It gives you a really good feel for the exhibit.

Here's the link: Steve Kilbey art exhibit photo tour

Enjoy!!

!!

2008-06-15T07:21:00.003-04:00

Loki, my little old now toothless grey cat with a variety of other health issues too, is scampering around the house and up and down the stairs. He's positively romping around. I've had Loki for four years now and have never seen him do that before. Getting his few remaining teeth out was certainly a great thing for him. He's feeling mighty spritely. Makes me happy. :-)

if I consider it a dress rehearsal...

2008-06-09T00:54:00.004-04:00

maybe I won't be as disappointed.

The turnout was dismal -- the people who came were great, but there were damned few of them. The exhibit looks great (all the pieces are up now -- I'll get some more pics and put them up here) and Steve was interesting and hilarious and talked with us for a long time (over an hour), but only a few people came to see it and hear him.

Maybe they are all planning to come next weekend and catch Street Fair too or aiming for the second reception on the 20th, but I'm so discouraged right now I'm not counting on it. At least the next reception is set as Art Stroll for the whole town so there should be more people coming into the shop, even if they aren't there specifically for the SK exhibit. Might make a few new SK art fans. :-)

On the good side:

- fipster came and took pics and will work up a nice virtual tour of it. I'm looking forward to seeing that.

- met Kat (and her friend Debbie -- I think that's her name). That was enjoyable

- the paintings Steve came up for this really are wonderful and I'm very proud of him

- Steve was lovely and chatted happily about his art

But overall...sigh.

in less than 24 hours....

2008-06-06T23:02:00.000-04:00

In less than 24 hours the first reception for the Stevie show (SK's art exhibition ;-) ) will be over. I am sooo stressed about it. I still have loads to do before it happens and I doubt I'll get all of it done. Granted it will happen whether I get these things done or not, but the more I get done the better it will look/work. I still need to put up several paintings (still being framed) and need to put some of the older original paintings in protective bags (they are gouache/pastel on watercolour paper so they need to be covered if they are going to be handled a lot) so people can check out those too.

I got a bunch of stuff for the reception (it's a casual place so the food is casual too) -- fresh fruit (cut up), veggies and dip, pub mix, chips and salsa, mixed nuts, mini cream puffs, mini cheesecake squares, soda (coke & 7up or sprite), wine, and bottled water (it's gonna be hot so I figured water would be good). I sure hope there is at least one other co-op member there to help me set up as I suck at this stuff. I guess the person working tomorrow can help if it's not hugely busy. I emailed the group (co-op) to see if I could borrow a cooler from anyone so I could put the drinks in there and then fill with ice (the little fridge we have at the shop freezes everything), but I haven't heard from anyone yet. I can brorrow one of my brother's if need be, but would like not to have to haul it around if I don't have to.

Steve is supposed to call between 7 and 7:30 pm (my time) so people who show up right on time for the reception (the exhibit will be open all day) will have time to check everything out before he calls. That should be fun and interesting -- I just hope everyone will be able to hear with the speakerphone. I did give it a test last week and it did ok, but I'm still a bit stressed over it.

And the thing most stressing me out is...cue dramatic music.... What if no one shows up? Ack!!

Exhibit pics

2008-06-06T02:04:00.004-04:00

These are just very quick snapshots I took. I'm sure the photos taken by Fipster (the Church discography website guy) will be a whole lot better. These are just to show the basic layout. There are still five more paintings yet to go up (they will be up by the reception); a few paintings will be moved when the new ones get there; and a couple of other things will be moved in the area too.

The pedestal in the corner will be removed, and the blank space behind it will have a painting in it. The tables will most likely be moved for the reception (covered and used to hold food and drinks). The one next to the flip bin (holding various prints and maybe even some older originals) has a small cd player to play a recording of Steve reading his Jim's Mirror blog entry. It sounds absolutely sublime.

I need to get some better light on The Vegetalista (the pic in the center).

The painting closest to the camera might be moved for one of the new ones which I think will be large -- the same size as the pic in the middle of this pic. If there is room I will put four pics on this wall, but I think the larger pic will take up any extra space. Beyond the doorway is another of Steve's paintings (Painkiller right now, but will be a commissioned piece by reception time).

The David McComb painting and a couple racks of cards. There are over 120 different card designs in those holders! I need to remember to remove that extra hanging bracket.

A series of smaller paintings is in the hallway. I could have packed more into the main room by putting some over the doorways and fitting more closer together, but they would be hard to see there and I didn't want to crowd them, so I thought the hall way a better option. They actually show up pretty well there.

A view from the other end of the hall. Same pics as in the photo above.

I'll try to get more photos from the reception...the place actually cleans up pretty nicely. I really hope it goes well....

the meltdown so far

2008-05-29T01:30:00.002-04:00

It's just three days until the SK art exhibit officially opens and I am soooooooooooooooooooooo far behind where I should be right now. Nine of the paintings are framed and ready to hang. Nine. Out of 22. The rest are still being photographed and set up for prints and cards. With any luck that is now finished (at 9:30 pm last night it was about halfway done) and I'll be able to pick up the paintings in the next couple of days. Today isn't supposed to be a good day for the photographer, so I'm not counting on doing that today. I have mats and frames for seven or eight of the ones being photographed, so once I get them back I can get those ready to hang pretty quickly. The materials to frame the rest won't even be in until the Thursday before the first reception (the last few pieces were a bit late getting to me), but they should be ready for that.

I don't have any prints or cards of the paintings in the reception yet, although I do have quite a few other cards and a small selection of older prints also. I'm hoping to have at least a couple cards and one print of each of the exhibit paintings by the time of the first reception, but I'm not sure of that. The combination of many of the paintings getting to me a bit later than originally planned and this time of year being both my framer's and photographer/printer's super busy season has really made everything come down to the wire.

I do think (and fervently hope) that not many people will come to see the show in the first few days. I'm thinking most won't come until the first full weekend, so that will give me several days to get everything -- or at least most everything -- finished and ready. I could use another month easily, but since I don't have another month I will get as much as possible done and hope for the best.

The paintings are really cool and they fit the theme well, so if I can just get them all framed and hung it's going to look really good. I just want to do the work justice and with time running out I'm really scrambling.

**update**

I just got an email from Steve that he has five more paintings that can also fit the exhibit. Aaahhhh!!!! Actually, when I think about it these won't be that hard because I have plenty of pieces without them so if come and be worked in that's great and if they can't that's ok too. And I might just have not frame them but make them available for people to see at the second reception and any days I'm there. Kind of an additional perk. Since I like the new work he's doing I'm thrilled he's so prolific right now.

How do you make a duck a soul singer?

2008-05-20T02:55:00.008-04:00

You put it in a microwave until it's bill withers.

:D

(really bad joke courtesy of Marty Willson-Piper)

I got to see my very first MWP solo gig (with the Electric Mood Maidens -- the core MMs, Tiare and Davida) this past Saturday night and it was great! A couple of years ago I was pretty much resigned to never seeing any of the Church guys solo so I was absolutely delighted when I saw the Marty tour was coming relatively close to me. I had originally hoped to see at least two or three shows, but that didn't work out and I had to settle for one. Nevertheless that one show worked out perfectly. And I didn't even get lost getting there!! (I found out they did though. lol!)

About a month and a half ago (April 8th to be exact) I got an email from MWP expressing interest in getting some of his artwork made into cards and perhaps prints. We started with the Nightjar and Pegasus images from his most recent cd (cards and prints -- which look fantastic. Very striking pieces.) and then also did a gig poster from a couple of years ago that he drew. The gig poster is especially cool -- I remember thinking (and I swear I wrote somewhere online then too but I can't remember where) that he should make it into a print. Here's the gig poster:

Marty's stuff right now is pen and ink designs and he doesn't send the originals, but rather high res scans which I forward on to my printer who makes them work for the prints and cards. For instance he sent a scan of a sketchbook page which had several designs and we are picking out pieces to make into cards and sometimes prints. With any luck Marty will think a bit about what is need to reproduce any future drawings and will make sure to keep some room between each design he does from now on. I think he will because he seems fairly organised, so that will make it much easier. I'll be interested to see what he comes up with.

Because we started fairly close to the beginning of his US tour and also because it's taking a bit of time to figure out just what could be done with his work (that's actually still going on), it's been a bit of a scramble getting things made up and to him. But it's gone pretty well so far. I had to laugh though because with Steve I try to limit my emails -- both in number and in length -- because he gets overwhelmed when he gets a whole lot of them and I find I get a better response if I only contact him when it's really necessary, plus we only talk on the phone on average once or twice a month. But with MWP I got a flood of emails (many were necessary, but some I had no clue why I got) and once he got to the US he called almost every day. Those calls were fun -- I'll miss them when the US tour is over and I'm not getting them anymore.

The show itself was great and there are a couple of very detailed reviews of it on HW so I won't go into that here. What was most exciting for me is that I didn't get as completely stressed out as I usually do so I was actually able to enjoy the whole thing. I was so nervous before the last Church tour I was very unhappy and had to force myself to even go. Even then I sat in my hotel room before going over to the first venue and cried because I was so wigged out, and although once I got there I was ok I still hardly remember the gig itself. But on Saturday I just drove up, found a parking space, took a few deep breaths, walked to the venue and went in. The bartender told me place wasn't actually opened yet, but I said "oh I have some stuff for the merch table" and waved some flyers I had for SK's art exhibit (Marty had suggested the day before that I make some up and bring them so I wasn't lying), so I got to stay, but I was told to wait right there. MWP and the Mood Maidens (just Tiare and Davida for this show) were doing their soundcheck in the main hall so I was enjoying listening to that. But just a couple of minutes later the opening act guy came to the door and said "are you Holly?" I said yeah and he said "they want you in there" so in I went and the hard part was over. :-)

Everyone was nice and it was really quite relaxed. And an extra cool bit was that Marty noted the SK art exhibit during the gig so that was great. I told Steve about it on Monday when he called to make sure the most recent batch of paintings made it here (we're still a bit wigged out from the loss of that set from earlier this year) and he was quite pleased. It got a good reaction -- a lot of people seemed excited to hear about it.

Some snow pics

2008-05-17T02:30:00.002-04:00

The first pic is the view out my front door. The second two are out the back. I had to shovel a path so my whimpy dog would go out into the yard and go potty. The third pic is the path I shoveled across the back deck towards my brother's door. I love all the snow on the chairs. This snow happened on a weekend and I didn't get the car out until Wednesday (for what else but a vet visit -- typical) and I still had to have my brother give me a little push to get my car out. Of course part of that is because it's a very small and light car and couldn't push through the heavy snow and slush (by then it was warm and the snow was melting fast).

One thing this storm will teach me is to keep my stupid mouth shut about how we don't get much winter once February is over here! >:(

eekie saga

2008-05-12T03:46:00.002-04:00

It's been an interesting couple months since I last posted a real entry. Some good things, some crappy things, not the worst or best ever and I know many people have it worse, but I've had my troubles dealing with all the various crap in my life lately. I'll post about it over the next several days. Oh joy I hear you say.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

2008-04-19T03:30:00.004-04:00

This is great! I'm no engineer, but much of this stuff was very familiar as a cat person (or crazy cat lady). Enjoy!

life according to eekie

2008-04-10T02:28:00.005-04:00

Shit happens. Deal with it.

There you go -- life in a nut shell.

Think about it. Shit of various types (good, bad, indifferent) happens, and then you deal with it. Sometimes you deal with it well, other times not so well, but one way or another you deal with it (and I consider ignoring it or running away from it to be ways of dealing).

It's really very simple. Unfortunately simple doesn't always, or often, mean easy or pleasant, and that completely sucks.

(I know what you're thinking: "Over a month since your last post and this is the best you could come up with?" Umm...yeah. This is as good as it gets from me right now. Deal with it. ;-) )

A whole lotta snow!

2008-03-08T21:03:00.003-05:00

According to weather.com Columbus got 20.4 inches of snow yesterday and today. It's a new record -- the previous high was 15.3" in 1910. Isn't that just lovely? I certainly believe it -- there's a hell of a lot of snow out there! Maybe this will teach me to keep my big mouth shut about winter being pretty much over by the end of February here. The snow drifted into my front porch -- it's at least a foot deep there in places. I can barely open the door. The back deck isn't much better -- I had to dig a path from the door, down the steps, and then clear a little space in the yard for the dog to go out and do his business (Zeke is a wuss). Haven't gotten out to where the car is yet. Hell I can't even take the garbage out until I shovel a path.

My brother got stuck -- three times -- once on a side road and twice in the alley behind the house (we each have one side of a duplex) trying to get home, so I know my ratty little car isn't going anywhere until I can dig a bunch of snow out of the way. At least it's only a short way along the alley to a main road, but there is a whole lot of digging yet to do just to get to the car.

I will try to post pics tomorrow.

Remember when I said by March it was usually spring here?

2008-03-07T20:14:00.003-05:00

Well you can go ahead and point and laugh at me.

We're under a fucking Blizzard Warning!! until tomorrow evening and it looks as if we will end up with 8-12 inches of snow.

One thing I'm pleased about is that the original time I had planned for the Steve show was March. I would be hating myself if this was happening during his exhibit. The shop didn't even open today and I doubt it will tomorrow. Weekends are generally when we get traffic and sales, so weekends lost to bad weather are no good at all. With any luck we will not have any blizzards in May. ;-)

Hot Damn!

2008-03-04T02:58:00.004-05:00

I had FIVE new messages on my answering machine tonight when I got home! Yeah I know to many/most people that's not a whole lot, but there have been whole months where I haven't gotten five calls on my home phone, so five calls in one day is amazing.

Unfortunately they were all automated and they were all encouraging me to vote for various candidates in the primary today, so I'm not really loved I just have my name on a bunch of candidates' phone lists. I can't help any of them out this time though as I found out when I went to renew my driver's license that although I had changed my address on the voter registration roles when I moved, but somehow my county didn't get changed. So I did get it corrected, but it was less than 30 days before the primary, so I can't vote. It's all good to go for November though and that's the biggie. I had pretty much decided not to vote in the primary anyway, but I was waffling until I found out about this. Now I don't have to feel guilty about blowing it off. :-)

And I'm so damned tired of the presidential campaign anyway that I decided to mostly ignore it as much as possible until a month or two before the general election. I'm having mixed success with that plan, but I have a very limited tolerance for politics and politicians and I want to make sure I'm not completely burned out in November.

two months

2008-03-01T04:02:00.002-05:00

Just two months until "The Stevie Show" (my name for it ;-) ) begins and I have a shitload to do and no paintings so far to do it with. I was so pleased when he sent a batch out earlier than expected, but those are the now infamous lost FedEx paintings (he's doing battle with FedEx over the package now -- maybe he'll have better luck than I did. He's the shipper so he has to file the claim), and now I think he's a little worried about sending more over. I certainly can't blame him for that, but the earlier I can get some the better. First I need to have all pieces photographed and set up for prints, cards, and web images. Because it's a part time job for the person I have for that it can take a week or more depending on her schedule. Then I have get them to another person to have them all matted and framed. He's also doing this on a part-time basis, so the more time I am able to give him the better.

Once some of the pics are taken (and Steve comes up with a name for the exhibition. I need to ask him about that...although I suspect since he can whip out song lyrics in a matter of minutes naming this exhibition won't be a problem for him) I am having the woman who does the photography also make up a little tri-fold program/brochure with some of the pieces from the show and a bit about Steve and some comments from him about some of the work or just painting/art in general. Kinko's is running a special on printing that type of thing through the end of this month so I'd like to catch that. Plus it would be nice to be able to get some put around the area a few weeks before the show. I also want to have some posters advertising the exhibit made to hang up in the area. And then there's the press release to write up and send out, the advertisements to order (mostly just local on those), the receptions to set dates for and plan. I'm planning on two evening receptions right now -- an exhibit opening reception probably the first Saturday of the month and then another in conjunction with the town's Chamber of Commerce "Third Friday" promotion where businesses stay open and have special events the third Friday of every month. I'm hoping to have Steve participate by tele during the receptions. That should be fairly easy -- all I need is a cheap rates phone card and a speakerphone and he can talk to the people there for a while. I need to plan and budget for decent finger food and drinks (usually wine, water and either punch or soft drinks) too.

Steve and I also talked of making it more of a multimedia thing -- not only having his paintings but also having his music and poetry all available too. So instead of just being the SK art exhibit it would be this huge SK ego trip! (Hey he was the one who said ego trip -- I just agreed! :-) ) Because we have a limited space inside, but can set up outside on good days I'm thinking of setting up a canopy outside on Saturdays and having the "SK ego trip" part then. That would help draw people just walking by into the shop too, so would do double duty. I have to figure out just how to do this though.

Sometimes I wonder why I put myself up for this stuff (because I'm the one that says "ah, Steve, what about doing an exhibit?" and then I'm the one that has to do all the planning and set up), but when it all comes together (after the sleepless nights and crying jags in the days immediately before it opens) I think it will be good.

It better be good, damn it.

cute kitty pics

2008-02-26T03:01:00.007-05:00

Oscar. He's missing a toe (on the front foot not showing), I don't know the story (and he's not telling!), it was missing when he came. You can also see he has a few bits out of his ears. It's quite apparent Oscar stuck his cute little nose where it didn't belong quite a bit.

LBC giving me his best "Yeah, I'm sleeping in a case of Ramen noodles. What of it?" look. He's adapted to living in the house very well and is very sure of himself. He knows he's a mighty handsome dude.

Rickenbacker Straticaticus aka Ricky taking a snooze by the heater. As you can tell Ricky knows how to relax! (He's doing cat-yoga ;-) ) Mitzi, my oldest and most decrepit cat, is about to walk through the shot....

Ricky and Oscar. Oscar figured with Ricky on one side and the heater on the other he'd be nice and toasty. He's a clever little guy. Ricky is too easy-going to care about what's going on.

the package

2008-02-21T07:05:00.001-05:00

It isn't looking good at all.

I'm so discouraged.

They say they are still tracing it, but we aren't exactly a high priority customer, and although these paintings are of great importance to us, their liability isn't great enough to spend much time or effort looking for it. Better for them to send out a couple of emails and if no one remembers it offhand to just pay the claim on it and move on.

As for insurance/liability, Fed Ex's maximum liability for artwork is $500 per shipment, not per piece, so we are screwed there. And I don't know what Steve put down for a declared value either -- he's not great at that kind of thing.

FedEx Tubes, which this plain white round tube was put into have an adhesive strip down the long side but not on the ends. One end is kind of built in when you fold it into the triangular shape. I think that end probably did fine. The other end is a flap with "locking" tabs which are designed to secure it. Nowhere in the directions on the box (I have one here) does it say to use tape on the end and I'm pretty sure the guy who assembled it (not Steve but the guy at the FedEx counter after Steve left because they didn't have any tubes when SK was there) didn't even think to use tape on it. Although I haven't seen the empty FedEx Tube I bet the inside tube banged against the end hard enough to pop it open and then the inside tube just fell out. Chances are a couple pieces of packaging tape would have prevented it entirely.

You're probably wondering why it would need to go into the Fed Ex Tube in the first place if it was already in a tube, right? Well...because Steve was quoted a much higher price to ship the plain tube than the fedEx one and the guy at the counter said he'd just pop the plain tube into a FedEx tube when they came in later that day and Steve would get the better rate. I would have said ok too. You figure the Fed Ex guy would know what he was doing (although Steve did say he thought the guy was a bit of a slacker -- guess that should have been a warning sign).

Shipping/mailing, especially the initial one getting them over here, has always been the riskiest part of this operation as far as potential loss. We don't have pictures or really much of a record of them at all at that point. Again, Steve isn't really good at that stuff. That's a big part of why they come to me in the first place. We are going to try to keep a little better record of them before they get sent off. Even if it's just a digital snapshot of each one as it's finished. That won't prevent them from getting lost, and it doesn't mean if they do get lost that we will get their full value although it should help, but at the very least there will be a record of them. It's almost as if they never existed and that makes me oddly sad.

oh shit turns to FUCK!

2008-02-16T02:06:00.004-05:00

You know my "oh shit" entry from yesterday? Well I had my worst fears about it confirmed. The tube apparently made it to Memphis, but there's nothing in it. Yep, the paintings are lost. SK took them to FedEx in a large plain tube and one of the people at the counter said he'd put it in a FedEx tube to get the better rate (they were apparently out of FedEx tubes until later that day). Well somewhere along the way FedEx tube popped opened and the other tube fell out and they got separated. Because he expected the airwaybill to go on the tube, Steve didn't put any address or anything on that tube, so somewhere there is a plain white tube with a bunch of SK's paintings in it. One positive is if they can find that tube the paintings are packed into it very firmly, so they should be in good shape.

So now FedEx is going to look for the paintings (the rep I talked to said they actually do find some missing things) but needed to know as much detail about the contents as possible. I had to email Steve with the news and what info FedEx needs (number of paintings, subject, colours, signatures on them, titles on back, etc.). I really hated writing and sending that email -- not because Steve was pissy or anything (he wasn't), but because I knew he would be discouraged (and of course he was). He got back to me with the info and I was able to pass it on to FedEx. One of the paintings is a commissioned piece -- a multi-person portrait -- and the others are for an exhibit. And it turns out there are more paintings in there than I originally thought -- I thought there were three or four, but Steve says there were at least six and as many as ten. Damn. That really sucks.

On the plus side the customer service people at FedEx were apologetic when they said the stuff was missing and they seemed genuinely helpful and interested in trying to find it. At least it makes me feel a little better. The earliest they told me I could expect to hear anything from them is Monday, so I'm going to try to forget about it over the weekend. Worrying about it now won't help. I'll start worrying again on Monday. ;-)

oh shit

2008-02-15T04:46:00.002-05:00

I'm probably freaking out over nothing but the Fed Ex package that was supposed to arrive yesterday didn't get here and when I go to the fed Ex site and track it shows no progress since it got an "Int'l shipment release" in Memphis at 1:33 am yesterday. Not only that but the estimated date of delivery part of the tracking page has suddenly disappeared. It shows the date it was shipped (the 12th), but not the estimated delivery date. I've never seen that before, even when a package is held up. And usually when it is delayed or held up there are updates shown on the tracking page, but there has been nothing since that 1:33 am notation. I have the horrible feeling this package is lost -- and it's paintings from Steve (one a commission).

I so hope I'm wrong and it's just delayed by weather or something. :-(

Wah!

2008-02-09T06:38:00.000-05:00

I am so putting off writing up my artist bio for the shop and shop website. I have maybe four sentences written and they are awful. I have a freaking degree in English -- I should be better at this crap. But I really hate writing stuff like this about myself. Thankfully one of the other members said she would take whatever I write and make it sound decent, so I'm actually working on it now. I've only been putting it off for about two years now....

Yep, I am a master of procrastination. Hell, I'm an Aquarius -- we're good at procrastinating. :-)

...because I'll get a blog out of it.

2008-02-06T23:34:00.000-05:00

There have been some comments on my blog recently which I should have responded to, but being the slug I am I haven't. So I figured I could respond to them now and get a blog entry out of it! :-D

-- Phone calls/telemarketers -- I don't get many phone calls (really...who am I going to give my number to anyway?), and most of the calls I get, especially on my cell phone, are from people who's numbers I recognise. Calls from people whose numbers or voices I don't know right off -- or when there is a pause before the person starts speaking -- are generally telemarketers. I don't like telemarketers. Granted I've never really been inundated by them (I did do the do not call list Catz and it really did help), but I find them rude and annoying. Even the supposedly charity calls which aren't stopped by the do not call list irritate me -- partly because I'm cynical and think that most are probably scams. So, yep Veleska, that's why I was really hesitant when you first called but then ended up yakking my fool head off. :-D

-- Phone calls/SK -- yeah, hanging up on SK would be damned embarrassing. And it's not as much that he's SK as it is that he hasn't done anything to deserve being hung up on. I'd feel bad hanging up on any of you people too. :-) Guess I better get used to giving the calls I think are telemarketers (or bill collectors for the people who used to have my phone number, although those have tapered off recently) a bit more time before I hang up.

As for actually talking to SK I think most people would do just fine. If for some reason he got a bunch of fans phone numbers and decided to call some I think once people got over the "OMG! It's Steve Kilbey!" reaction they would have quite a nice chat with him unless they were totally rude or silly. Part of what would help is that if he calls it's almost certainly because he feels like talking, and when he feels like talking he's great.

-- exhibition. I didn't make it super clear, but the exhibition will be of Steve's work, not mine. If I'm feeling really ambitious (unfortunately that's not very likely) I will make sure there is plenty of my work up when his show is on so people coming to see his stuff will also see mine. I just set the time for it -- the whole month of May, and it will be in Yellow Springs. I'm going to have another blog about the current plans/ideas for it tomorrow (and will almost certainly blather on and on about it for the next couple of months). I figure at least some of you are interested in it, unlike my family members. :-( (I'm allowed to whine -- it's my blog! ;-) )

-- Steve Kilbey Live DVD -- Catzy asked about this. It's one of the solo shows Steve did in New Zealand last year (when the fucking Church was supposed to be touring here! Wah! >:( Ok that was never officially planned, but I heard rumours about it and wanted so much for it to be true...). He really seems to be enjoying himself and the audience was enjoying it too. He said this was one of the best solo shows he'd ever done. You can order it online here.

I damn near hung up on him again!

2008-01-31T22:24:00.000-05:00

Yep, I came this close (imagine finger and thumb held apart by the very smallest of margins) to hanging up on SK tonight. I almost did it the very first time he called me too (which was just a bit over three years ago -- the 2nd or 3rd of Jan 2005 I believe). You see I really hate calls from telemarketers (even ones disguised as charity calls, especially because when you check most of the time the charity doesn't exist) and that's what I thought both of these calls were at first. But of course neither call was a telemarketer and I paused long enough not to hang up. I would have been so embarrassed to have hung up on him.

That very first call I was soooo not expecting and once I realised who it was I was having trouble talking, but my mind was racing -- "OMG! Steve Kilbey is on the phone...I'm talking to Steve Kilbey...Oh shit! I nearly hung up on Steve Kilbey!...How the hell did he get my number anyway?" (It actually took me a couple of weeks to figure that last bit out -- I had some trifold pamphlets made up to promote that first exhibit I had and after it was over I sent some to him. It had my phone numbers on the back. :-) ) Anyway, once the initial shock wore off I found him really easy to talk to, so we had a nice chat and by the end of the call I had become his art manager. That kinda boggled my mind -- still does sometimes when I think back on it. We had been emailing back and forth for several months so I wasn't totally wigged out talking to him. In a lot of ways talking to him on the phone is easier than doing emails because I don't have to think of everything all at once and I get feedback right away. Plus I can't agonise over a single sentence for hours which I tend to do when I write emails (and sometimes blogs and blog comments).

So during the call tonight we discussed a couple of commissions he is working on or had just finished and some of the other paintings he's recently done. I'm looking forward to seeing these pieces -- especially the one of David McComb which he's going to send to me for prints (he wants to keep the original). I wonder if we should do a signed, limited edition of that one -- I'll have to ask what he thinks of that idea. Then we talked about the exhibition I'm working on. I'm so glad he called because I had been thinking earlier today that my motivation was just about nil. Yeah I wanted to have an exhibition, but I just couldn't find it in me to give a shit about any of the details. Well now I'm back to being all excited about it. If we (a lot of it me, but that's what I'm here for) can get this to work the way we envision it will be a very cool exhibit. It does push back the date a bit -- I had originally thought of March for it, but that is waaay too close now, so it's looking more like May. I have to make sure I can get the space for then, but if not then we'll just do it another month. We aren't wedded to any particular month. The warmer months will also give us better traffic so that will be good.

I'll almost certainly blather on more about this as it starts to take shape. I'll probably bitch and whine a lot too. ;-)

hapless

2008-01-25T03:26:00.000-05:00

I love the word hapless -- especially when it is used in a headline. You just know the story is going to be about people treading on the wrong side of the law and that it will result in at least a few guffaws. A recent headline: Dough! Hapless thieves mistake bread for cash is a case in point. A pair of thieves had this plan to rob a restaurant of the day's proceeds at the end of the night. The plan doesn't sound too bad, does it? Ah, but their execution sucked big time. Read story here (this article uses a different headline than the one I noted above -- that was the first one I read and got me thinking how much I love the word hapless -- this one is more detailed :-) ).

Speaking of hapless (actually it's more inept, but I'm trying for a theme here dammit!), I finally got to bed at around 6:30 am Thursday morning after spending 36 hours sorting through and compiling the arts coop's 2007 finances for the accountant. Yep, two all-nighters (and a day in there too!). It was not a pretty sight. I don't mean the finances -- they aren't all that hideous -- I mean me. It shouldn't have taken me anywhere that long, but I just could not get my brain to work. And of course because I had to wait for certain info to arrive before I could work on this I had to get it done ASAP so I couldn't just wait until my brain cleared (which would probably be a loooong wait). So I plowed along and finally managed to get the crap finished and sent off to the accountant. Apparently it is ok because the email he sent back just clarified something I had asked him and didn't say "What the fuck is this supposed to be?!?" Whew.

Now in the good news department -- the Steve Kilbey Live dvd I ordered arrived yesterday. Yay! It's a lot of fun and probably as close to seeing a SK solo show as I will ever get.

weather/seasons

2008-01-22T07:06:00.000-05:00

One of Veleska's blog posts (from about three weeks ago -- I said I was running waaaay behind!) was about the difference in the winter temps in NOLA and in N. Texas. She wrote that while N. Texas can have some pretty cold weather, freezing temps in NOLA are pretty much newsworthy. I was pondering what she wrote while I was driving one day and "Wow! V is used to only two seasons -- stinking hot and warm" popped into my mind.

Then I started thinking about the seasons I am used to. Because I've lived in pretty much one area most of my life (SW and now central OH), I consider the seasons as I'm used to them as being normal. And the seasons here are actually pretty evenly distributed -- basically winter, spring, summer and fall each last approx three months. Yes, we can have snowstorms in mid-April, hard freezes in mid-May, or have temps in the 70s and still be mowing the lawn in November and early December, but these occurrences aren't typical. For the most part Dec-Feb is winter; March-May is spring; June-August is summer, and Sept-Nov is fall here.

Maybe it's because I'm used to them, but I basically like the seasons here. I get to have a nice taste of each one, yet none last so long that I get sick of them (well...usually ;-) ).

(yeah, yeah, this blog is pretty pointless, but what the hell. It's the best my furry little brain could manage right now.)

Carol Burnett Show outtakes - Tim Conway's Elephant Story

2008-01-20T23:18:00.000-05:00

Last night I saw the news that Suzanne Pleshette had died so I went to You Tube and checked out a few Bob Newhart Show clips. While I was doing that I remembered Catz mentioning a PBS special on the evolution of variety shows on her blog a week or so ago (see I told you I was running behind!) and thought of Carol Burnett. This clip is one of my very favourites. Always makes me laugh. :-)

MiloGuido -- The Christmas Cat

2007-12-29T23:43:00.000-05:00

Milo strayed in a few days before Christmas 1997. He was cold and hungry, but very friendly and absolutely loved attention. He was a large orange/yellow cat with a prominent nose (almost a roman nose) and huge yellow eyes. He was a huge hit at Christmas that year.

My mum named him Milo after a character in a mystery series (by Jonathan Kellerman), but it soon became apparent (to me anyway) that he needed another name for his kind of punky ("evil") alter ego, so I tagged him with Guido. So he was Milo when he was good and Guido when he was bad. Soon I just began referring to him as MiloGuido. I even signed up for a couple of online message boards as miloguidosmom because he would "help" me when I was on the computer.

He loved to sleep with...well, more accurately, on me. When I would get ready for bed he would practically be dancing on the bed demanding that I hurry up and get in bed and settled so he could jump up on me, lay down on my chest with his face just inches away from mine and purr. Loudly. He purred like a diesel engine. And if I used a certain hand cream he would lick the backs of my hands. You try sleeping with an almost 20 lb cat laying on your chest, purring loudly, and licking your hands. It was kind of a pain in the ass, but it was also funny and sweet.

During that ten years I never knew MiloGuido to be sick. He was always exuberant, energetic, a very hearty eater (how else does a cat get to be nearly 20 lbs?), and just the picture of excellent health. Last weekend I noticed he was off his food a bit and just seemed a bit off overall. I thought he might have some infected teeth and took him to the vet on Thursday. His teeth looked pretty good although his gums were pale. He also had a distinct heart murmur (never noted before) and he was breathing fast. The vet took blood and urine samples for various tests and sent them off for testing.

MiloGuido and I came home. As usual he slept on me, but he barely licked my hands and his purr was much more muted. He also didn't dance around on the bed waiting for me to get in, but just sat and waited. As I lay there patting him I couldn't help but think "I don't think this is going to end well." It wasn't that he seemed so terribly ill, because I've had other cats that seemed much more acutely sick that I didn't that feeling from, but he just had "the look." That look that says "it's time."

I had an appointment at the vet with Little Black Cat (LBC) for his second set of shots on Friday and when I went into the examination room the vet told me to put LBC and his carrier on the table and she pulled out a stool and told me to sit there. I said "Oh. That means bad news." She said yeah and proceeded to tell me MiloGuido had feline leukemia. For those who don't know feline leukemia is one of those diseases with no good outcome. A cat can have the virus for quite a while without showing any symptoms, but once sick they generally only get worse. And it's contagious (even when a cat has no symptoms).

After having one last night with MG sleeping on me and getting lots of attention and patting, I took him to the vet today and had him put to sleep. He got lots of patting and got to look out the window at the birds outside as we waited for a shot of tranquliser and pain killer to take effect. Then when he was very comfortable and relaxed he was given the shot that put him to sleep. I'll miss him so much, but it was right for MiloGuido.

He came into my life just before Christmas and ten years later he left just after Christmas.

Here are a few pics:

This morning. He still looks good, but he was so weak and tired. He just sat there which was so unlike the normal MG.

In the clothes basket hamper. Sometimes he would jump in and the lid would flip over, but stay on so when I would go to drop clothes in there would be MG looking up at me -- just as he is in this photo.

I always loved this photo. MG would sit on top of the toaster oven and look out the center of a beveled glass piece in one of the sidelights we had. There was lots of bird and squirrel activity out there!

what a little bitch

2007-12-21T05:38:00.000-05:00

A weird little bitch at that. My car that is. Yes the ratty little gerbil car saga continues. It died again -- and yes it was AGAIN in Yellow Springs! At least this time it started with a jump and I was able to drive it home. It was a pretty stressful 62 miles though -- I didn't run anything but the lights and a little heat and I knew if it stalled I wouldn't be able to get the damned thing started again without another jump. I can't remember the last time the car stalled, but I figured it would be just my luck it would do it on this trip. And the tow truck got there super fast -- only a few minutes after I called AAA (which I love btw) -- so that was excellent. The guy said it seemed to be charging once it was running and the battery tested fine when I got home, but when we tried to start it again after I got home it did exactly the same thing it did in YS. When I first turn the key it's clear it's engaging for a split second but then it's as if a fuse blows (or like a lightbulb burning out) -- there's just nothing, nothing at all works, no lights. Nothing. We had the hood up when we tried to start it here and I saw a spark so we (the "we" being my brother, not me 'cause I'm clueless) do know where to look. It just seems so weird that it's completely dead one moment (won't even crank) and fine as soon as it gets a jump. Something is shorting out somewhere. Because it seems to run fine once it gets started I'm thinking (and hoping) it's fairly minor and will be an easy fix. It's just a case of figuring out what.

Sometimes I hate cars. >:(

**update** well it was something simple (and cheap! Yippie!!) -- one of the battery terminal connections was loose. My brother flattened a small piece of lead to fill the space and the car started right up as pretty as you please. :)

a little tip for drivers

2007-12-14T08:47:00.001-05:00

When you are driving on the city's (and one of the state's) most congested, high crash interstates (actually a section where two interstates merge for a couple of miles) DO NOT STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING ROAD because you just realised you missed your exit.

You are in a city -- there are lots of exits. If you miss your exit there will be several more just up the road that you can take and then get back on the interstate going the opposite direction and then take the exit you wanted in the first place. Sure it will take a little extra time to get where you wanted to go, but you will get there faster than if you get splattered all over the road because someone plowed into you. Try to think when you are driving, ok?

And if you do ignore my advice and stop in the middle of a busy interstate -- don't do it right in front of ME!

The Crazy Cat Lady Strikes Again

2007-12-06T04:52:00.000-05:00

Yep. I have a new cat. Well he's not exactly new, he's just newly official. LBC (Little Black Cat -- who isn't all that little anymore) was meowing on the back deck Monday morning and when I patted him all I could think is "if I don't get him soon he could very well go the same route as Bruiser in a year or two" and I didn't want that. So I grabbed him, brought him in the house and called my vet as soon as they were open. I got an appointment for a check up and to start shots (if he got negative feline leukemia and FIV test results which he did) and then we would set up an appointment for neutering a bit later.

Well that quick appointment turned into "we have time today, would you like to get him neutered now?" to which I said "Yes!" I figured the sooner we got that done the better. I was supposed to go to a meeting later that evening and if everything ran according to schedule it would have been fine, but by the time I got out of the vet with him it was an hour later than expected and more than a half hour after I was supposed to have left for my meeting (which was 61 miles away). I still had to get the cat settled in and was suddenly very tired and feeling kind of sick (nothing real major, just a cold). So I didn't get to the meeting.

Anyway the cat is great. He's very sweet but he really really wants to go outside. When I go in and out of the house and when I go to bed I put him in a cage with a litter box, a bed, and food and water. It's large enough that he can move around well and it prevents him from getting out accidentally (my brother is re-doing his bathroom and right now it is all ripped out so he comes over here to use the bathroom and shower). When I'm here and the more agressive/pushy cats are in another room I let him out to roam around the house. He knows were the doors to the outside are and he seems fairly comfortable wandering around in here. He's found Diane's bed and likes to snooze on the pillow. Smart little devil.

I'm having a hell of a time coming up with a name for him though. I've called him Little Black Cat for several months now and although I don't really want to keep that name nothing else is really grabbing me at the moment. I suppose as I deal with him more an appropriate name will come to me.

I'm gonna have to stop...

2007-11-30T08:42:00.000-05:00

going to the vet and to Yellow Springs.

Why? (I hear you ask.)

Because it seems as if my ratty little gerbil car is going to have "issues" it's going to have them at one of those two places. (and this is when I would love to be able to use smilies here because I would certainly use a grumpy-assed smilie here)

A couple of months ago it died in the parking lot at the vet and I had to have the alternator and battery replaced. So last night as I was driving home I noticed the battery warning light was on so I pulled into a gas station. The car lights dimmed and the car sounded odd. I decided I wasn't going to risk driving 50+ miles at night on a busy interstate which gets a lot of semi truck traffic in a tiny car that could just die at any moment. Plus I had my down's syndrome aunt with me.

So I called AAA and they sent a truck out for us. It took close to two hours for the truck to get there because the driver was sent to the wrong BP station. Poor Di -- there was only a bar stool in there and she's not at all good at sitting on that type of thing, but she also can't stand for long periods. She actually did very well though -- a couple of Milky Way bars helped her mood immensely.

Getting Di in the tow truck was a challenge -- tow trucks are HUGE now and she had to climb up several steps in the dark...well actually I mostly lifted her up each step (the truck driver did help me heave her up there so I have to give him a lot of credit for that...many people won't), but she did pretty well. And once she was sitting and comfortable she was quite happy, and then she slept most of the way home.

So the ratty little gerbil car is back at the shop. I think (and dearly hope) the problem is fairly minor -- maybe something didn't get adjusted or set up quite right when the alternator was put on a couple of months ago. The real bitch is I have a lot of things I need a car for over the next three or four days -- including yet another trip to Yellow Springs. If I have to I can rent a car, but I'd like to avoid that if I can.

And speaking of smilies -- if I could, I would also use them when I comment on Steve's blog today. A board I visit has great "oh my!" and "lmao" ones which would be the ones I would use. What a little horny toad! ;-)

At least I got a good laugh from reading that.

It wasn't quite what I was going for...

2007-11-20T23:43:00.000-05:00

At the arts coop shop were I sell my glass the members all donate a few handmade Christmas tree ornaments each year to sell in the shop with all proceeds going to the shop. This helps cover our operating expenses and allows us to keep our yearly dues relatively low. These ornaments do not need to be in the same medium the member usually sells in the shop (members have to jury into the group and then are only permitted to sell items in the medium they juried in with -- occasionally a member will be allowed to sell works in another medium if no one else is doing that at the time).

So I decided to do take some inexpensive shaped beveled blanks and paint on them with heat set glass paint. I figured they would be fun and relaxing to make and they would have a low price point. I'm not much of a painter (which is why I make stained glass), but I had fun with it. What I ended up doing is painting lots of various little coloured dots all over the bevels. Since the bevels are shaped like christmas trees I figured the dots would kind of look like ornaments.

So I take them with me the next time I worked in the shop and as I was putting on ribbon and price tags it occurs to me the dots don't really look like ornaments -- they make the poor trees look as if they have chicken pox. Oh well. So much for my painting talent. They were fun anyway. I wonder if anyone will buy my "pox" trees. lol

An interesting thing I just noticed -- my blog on the brownies got four visits from someone at Continental Mills (the company which makes the Ghirardelli brownie mixes). It looks as if each time someone commented on that post I got another visit from them. I wonder if it's an automated thing or if it's a real person who's job it is to check out all mentions of the company's products online. I was kinda creeped out at first but then I thought "hmm...if I keep mentioning Ghirardelli in my blogs I might get more visits." Hehehe.

Of course the most visits I ever got was the couple of days SK had shut down comments on his blog and I used that "links to this post" button at the bottom of his most recent post and wrote my own blog about it. That was the first (and only) time I had ever used that "links to" feature and I have to admit I was a bit freaked out seeing the link to my post at the bottom of his -- but I did get a lot of traffic (for me anyway). I guess if I want another burst of visits I should get back to posting a bunch of rude and insulting anonymous comments on his blog shouldn't I? ;-) :-D

Decadence

2007-11-18T03:21:00.000-05:00

Holy shit these are good!

I don't normally get mixes (occasionally I will get a cake mix) because baking from scratch is easy, tastes better, and is often less expensive for better quality. But last week I saw Ghirardelli brownie mixes on sale so I bought a box of the Double Chocolate mix. Tonight I was in one of those I NEED chocolate!! moods, so I made them.

Oh my. Oh my, oh my -- these are really good. They have a very nice intense chocolate flavour and the texture is also great. I thought they would be good in a pinch, but these are better than the usual "oh well, it's better than nothing" munchies (that you realise after you eat them that actually nothing would have been better after all). These are really quite wonderful.

I won't be buying them often because once I buy them I'll eat them. But I'll enjoy the hell out of this batch. :-)

Maddie

2007-11-10T03:41:00.000-05:00

This is turning into the "All My Cats" blog....

Maddie has been having problems with sore spots in her mouth this week and wouldn't eat because it hurt, so I've been having to force feed her since last weekend. She's very sweet and not very bright so she's gullible which makes this force feeding (a mix of very finely pureed very high calorie canned cat food and a bit of water to make it thinner put in a large syringe and squeezed into the back of her mouth) fairly easy, but it's a pain and she doesn't get nearly as much food that way. It's enough to keep her ok in the short term, but that's all. I was able to get her to the vet on Wednesday (yay! MORE vet bills!!!) where she had blood drawn and got a shot of antibiotic (her mouth is infected), oral antibiotics and steroid pills (which always help this).

Thursday she would drink a little broth I gave her, but still needed the cat food given to her in a syringe. Friday during the day she drank more of the broth, swiped a bit of the cheese spread I make for my aunt, and licked up a bit of the sauce in the canned cat food, but she still wasn't quite ready to eat solid food although she was clearly interested in it. But about an hour and a half ago she started to eat the super soft, super high calorie canned cat food. I'm so pleased -- both for her and for me. She obviously feels so much better and I don't have to force feed her anymore (except for pills and antibiotic drops)!

Sometimes the little victories are all you get.

hay hay hay

2007-11-06T23:58:00.000-05:00

Talked to one of my old neighbours Saturday morning. She told me hay was going for between $6-8 (and occasionally more) per bale. Wow. That's a lot -- especially for that area. When I last bought hay -- early spring of 2005 -- it was selling for $3-5 per bale, depending on what it was (alfalfa, clover, timothy, grass, various combinations) and the quality. So the current prices are a huge jump.

The reason the prices are so high, of course is the lack of rain. The hay just didn't grow well. And what makes it worse is horses fed on pasture during the summer (as mine were) would have to be fed hay during those months because the pastures didn't grow either. I knew it was very dry this summer, but it doesn't really have the same day to day meaning for me now as it used to.

On a different subject -- I picked up Bruiser's ashes today. They are in a little wooden box with a black plaque with his name and the year engraved on it (the lettering is gold). Included with the sympathy card that comes with it are two cards with one of Bruiser's paw prints. I'm not quite sure what I'll do with those (just as I'm not sure what I'll do with the ashes -- I'm not one for displaying them), but they are kinda cute. Bruiser had cute (but really tough) feet.

When Bruiser was at my regular vet before going to the emergency one they had drawn blood and fluid from his abdomen for some tests. Anyway, a day or so later the vet called and left me a message asking if I still wanted the tests run (to see if we could figure out just what it was, because we had several possibilities but nothing further than that). I said not to bother with them, but the tests managed to get run anyway (I wasn't charged). They said the samples were sent out accidentally, and that could be, but my guess is the vet just really wanted to know what was wrong with that cat.

The main three suspects I was told were FIP (feline infectious peritonitis), lymphoma (probably mediastinal form), and a ruptured or torn bladder. All are bad. And all are made more problematic by FIV (the feline equivalent of HIV) -- and Bruiser did test positive for FIV. FIP is (at least now) invariably fatal. Lymphoma can be treated with chemo, but cats with FIV don't do as well. From what my vet is telling the tests show it appears Bruiser had a torn or more likely, a ruptured bladder from an untreated blockage. It is treatable with surgery, however the surgery is expensive (she said about $3000, and I've noticed vet estimates generally run low...), difficult, and the FIV would make recovery from the surgery more difficult, so it's very possible he would have just suffered more and still not survived.

The vet at the emergency clinic said he really didn't think Bruiser had much of a chance no matter which of the three he had and the best case scenario was a few months. Especially with FIV. I know my vet was charmed by the little guy (he was so sweet and cute at the vet) and really wanted to save him, but I think to have pushed ahead with treatment would have just caused him a lot of pain for not much gain. So although I'm sad about having to put Bruiser to sleep and I miss him more than I expected to, the decision to put him to sleep wasn't hard. I felt it was the only compassionate thing to do.

And I couldn't have afforded $3000+ anyway. I am glad the decision didn't come down to money though. To have not been able to do a treatment that would have given him a few more good years because of money would have been crushing. I can't fathom the agony a parent, or spouse or child goes through when the treatment their loved one needs for any hope of survival is out of reach because they can't pay for it.

?

2007-11-05T23:47:00.000-05:00

When I was driving home on I70 from Yellow Springs tonight I was passed by 19 Highway Patrol cars. Nineteen -- all in a line in the high speed lane, not going terribly fast (I would guess about 70-75 mph), and without any sirens or flashing lights. I've never seen that before.

I just wonder where they were going or where they were coming from.

A little experiment

2007-11-03T22:46:00.000-04:00

I post on a forum which has an active politics/current events section. I've noticed that many threads have descended into:

"You're biased/a bigot/too blinded by your prejudice to see anything else!"
"No I'm not!"
"Yes you are!"
"No I'm not!"
"Yes you are!"
"No I'm not!"

over and over and over -- sometimes for pages -- and end up going nowhere.

I strongly believe that it's a very rare person who has no biases and I doubt most of those post on that board. So I decided to start a thread to see if people would disclose just one of their own biases. Here are the "rules"/clarifications I set up for the thread:

1) this is for disclosing your bias, NOT someone else's.
2) don't pull the old job interview/beauty queen trick of "turning a negative into a positive" ie., don't say "my bias is I can't stand hate." Big deal -- most of us can't stand what we perceive as hate. If you really cannot find any prejudice in you don't post here (or you can post "I'm as pure as driven snow" but I think most of the rest of us will roll our eyes and laugh)
3) let's not attack anyone for his/her confessions here. It's easy to say "you have preconceived ideas about people"; it's a lot harder to look inward and find one's own preconceived notions about others.
4) it can be a bias or prejudice you have nearly quashed or just feel minor twinges. It doesn't have to be foaming at the mouth hatred.
5) you can do some explaining why you think you hold this feeling if you'd like, but don't excuse it

Fourteen people responded. Of those 14, 10 were female. Three were from people I rarely see post in that forum. Four of the responders are among the people I find are generally the most balanced in their posts and the least likely to bait other posters (and one of those disclosed nine biases -- ok...one was against Yankee fans and one was towards Canadian musicians and hockey players and Russian figure skaters...lol).

In a lot of ways though what I found most interesting weren't the people who responded, but the ones who didn't. None of the responses were from the conservative posters. And the liberal posters most likely to bait others and to get into pissing contests (such as the one noted at the beginning of this entry) about other's bigotry didn't respond either.

It turned out to be very much as I expected -- right down to which specific posters responded and which didn't. The people most capable of discussion without personally attacking others were also the ones most willing to disclose at least one of their own flaws. Those on either side of the political/social spectrum with the most dogmatic responses and the most willing to attack (personally) others in discussions were the least likely to disclosed any of their own flaws.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now on a different subject entirely -- my Bruiser story ended unhappily, but if you click here you can read a much happier older-seen-better-days stray cat story. I'm sure the time I will cry for Loki will come (it comes for all of us eventually), but now he's living a very happy life. :-)

Some Bruiser pics and tidbits

2007-10-31T23:48:00.000-04:00

A few other Bruiser tidbits.

He had a little bump on his chest. At first I thought it was a scab, but then I realised it was not that new. Turns out someone shot him with a BB gun and the pellet was still in there. I despise people who do shit like that.

He always limped a little bit on one of his hind legs. It never seemed to be acutely painful though, so I figured it was an old injury. Although he would let me pat him, he would never let me really examine him -- especially past his shoulders. When he was getting checked out at the vet they said it looked as if the leg had been broken, but wasn't set and just healed on it's own. It healed crooked, so although he didn't seem to have any pain from it, he had a permanent limp.

What a poor hard luck kitty -- mangled ears, shot with a BB, broken leg. But he was still amazingly sweet. He would sit on the bench, deck rail, or in a chair and watch the door so he could catch my eye and get me to come out with food (it's hard not to look out the back door every time I go in the kitchen now ), and one time he was sitting right in front of the door staring up at the window like "c'mon! I know you're in there and I'm hungry, damnit!" That was a very cute look. He got so he would rub against my legs when I would come out to feed him. He even came trotting over to me a couple of times. Of course he was probably thinking "ah! my waitress. I shall tip her by rubbing on her so I get better service" but I'm going to think he liked the attention and liked me.

And a bit that is a bit more humourous: I get loaf style Friskies canned cat food for my cats who aren't on special diets (they just get a bit each day mostly as a treat) and especially for any strays. They all generally like it. One day I had some special food from the vet opened and thought I'd give Bruiser some of that. This is the food they give to cats who aren't eating well to tempt them -- everyone likes it. Everyone except Bruiser that is. He sniffed it and was like "eewww" and wouldn't touch it! I gave him some of his regular food and he scarfed it right down. Bruiser was just a low-rent kinda kitty. My kind of cat

And a couple more pics:

This is his "aren't I sexy" pose. It also allows you a good look at his big "man cheeks." The flash made him close his eyes.

One of the very first pics I took of him. He wasn't too sure of me then.

Bruiser update -- final

2007-10-30T23:57:00.000-04:00

This was one of those times I wanted so much to be wrong. But I wasn't and I'm so very sad. After spending most of the day at two vets -- because although I knew he wasn't going to get better, hope is very powerful and I really wanted to be able to make him better, so when there was a bit of hope I grabbed for it and treated him even when in my heart I knew it was ultimately going to fail -- I had Bruiser euthanized at approx 7:30 pm October 30, 2007. I held him in my arms as the vet gave him the shots and he died very peacefully.

I know this might sound strange, but I was so proud of the little guy today. He hadn't had a lot of human interaction before, but he was so good and so sweet despite all the poking and proding. He was such a little trooper.

When he came around for food and attention/company he liked to be patted (he especially loved the top of his head and under his chin scratched), but would never let me pick him up or hold him. The only time I ever got to hold him was at the very end, for 15-20 minutes of goodbye and then for the actual euthanasia. By then he was just tired out and very weak. I'm glad I got the opportunity, but sad it was the only time.

When I had my old Cairn Terrier Patrick put to sleep earlier this year I had him cremated, but didn't have the ashes returned. He had a long full happy life with us/me and I felt the additional money would be better spent on the other animals. I don't feel it was any diss of Patrick and I've never regretted the decision. But with Bruiser I just couldn't do that. I felt so bad that he'd probably never had a real home and I wanted to give him a home, even if it was just for his ashes. Silly, but it makes me feel a little better.

This is the last picture I ever took of Bruiser. It was right before taking him to the vet. I'll miss that face with his fat cheeks, little pink nose and mangled ears looking up at me.

And here's a picture from a couple of months ago. He liked to come and snooze on the deck during the warm evenings.

RIP Bruiser honey.

Bruiser update #2

2007-10-29T11:55:00.000-04:00

I finally caught the little fella this morning. I was surprised it was so easy after the problems I'd had trying to get him over the past couple of days. I looked out the front door and he was sitting in the sun on the porch. I got some food for him and while he was licking that I went back into the house and got the cat carrier. The carrier has a hinged top as well as a regular door, so I opened the top since I figured it might be easier to put him in that way than to try to shove him in the door. Then I opened up the towel I had in the carrier, draped it over the cat and picked him up and put him in the cage. He didn't resist at all. He was stressed -- his little pink nose turned bright red and his eyes were worried and kind of confused -- but he was very good and very calm. He gave a couple low growls and tried to find a way out of the carrier, but mostly he was very sweet.

I called my vet right away, but they were booked solid today and the earliest they could schedule me was tomorrow at 11 am. I took that because I figured if he seemed in acute pain I could take him to the emergency vet any time (they are open 24/7). I want to avoid the emergency vet if I can help it though, because it's hugely expensive. They tell you upfront their charges are two to three times what your regular vet would charge. As much as I want to get this cat help asap, I just can't afford that. I can barely afford my regular vet right now. Good thing I have credit cards.

At least part of the ooze is from an abscess he has over his hips. He's an unneutered male cat, so he gets into a lot of fights, so he's always coming around with new scratches and bites. Another thing I worry about (especially with him being a free roaming kitty) is that he might have one of the infectious cat illnesses -- I'm particularly worried about Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) because his abdomen is so swollen. It also seems to me that his kidneys are huge. I'd like to think he has something which can be cured or at least treated and controlled, but I fear that's not going to happen. That makes me very sad, but at least I know if he can't be helped at least he won't suffer any more.

I've been careful to keep him away from the other cats. He's in the basement (none of the other animals are allowed down there) in a cage with a bed, litter pan, and food and water dish. All except the cage can be tossed if need be. And the cage can be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.

annnndddd they're back!

2007-10-28T23:54:00.000-04:00

Comments on SK's blog that is.

Now if everyone can act like like reasonable adults we'll be all set.

Haha! Good luck with that.

...and all my visitors are going back to SK's blog.... :weepingandgnashingmyteeth: :-(
(that was the best thing to ever happen to my viewer numbers. ;-) )

Bruiser update

2007-10-28T05:47:00.001-04:00

Well Bruiser came back to the deck this evening. The good news is he didn't look any worse and really didn't look in pain. The bad news is I figured I'd be smart and called my brother (who's just in the other side of the duplex) to come help me catch him and put him in the cat carrier. My brother came out to help, but when he got outside his phone rang and he answered that damned thing and started talking! The cat decides he's had enough and starts to leave. My brother, instead of telling the person on the phone "I have to go" and hanging up keeps talking and tries to "herd" the cat back towards me. That, obviously, doesn't work -- instead Bruiser gets kind of wigged out and takes off. On the plus side -- he's moving well. But yet another failed attempt to catch him.

I'll go back to plan A -- catch him myself. He mostly trusts me, so I'm hoping that will help. At least he doesn't seem to be in acute misery, but he does really need to go to the vet -- and soon.

My goal with the strays/ferals (all my current cats are former strays/ferals) is to provide them with as decent a life as they will allow, and if possible to catch them and blend them into the household. I've never had high hopes for Bruiser to be an indoor cat since he seems too set in his ways, but I want him to be as happy and comfortable as possible. I have had some in the past where when I do get them to the vet we find out they have problems we can't help and the only thing left to do is put them to sleep. It always hurts. But I can't not feed them when they are hungry in order to spare me pain if I get attached. Sucks sometimes.