hey hey in the hayloft

Today I watched Sullivan's Travels again and it was delightful as always. I forget how funny these screwball era movies are if I haven't seen one in a while. Sullivan's Travels was on my mind because I pressed it on a co-worker who hadn't seen it in years  -  she took it on holiday for thanksgiving and her whole family loved it. It's not a classic just because it was funny back in 1942, but because it's TIMELESS.

 One of my favorite bits from early in the movie is director Sullivan - known for his light comedies - trying to convince two studio bosses to let him make O Brother Where Art Thou, his movie vision that's "a true canvas of the suffering of humanity." I love the bosses trying to bargain for "a little sex in it" and I really love the titles of his early films: Hey Hey in the Hayloft; So long, Sarong; Ants in Your Plants of 1939. (ANTS IN YOUR PLANTS OF 1939!!!!) Ha ha ha! These titles are perfect parodies of a certain kind of movie (Gold Diggers of 1933/1935/1937, anyone?) but I would happily watch any one of them if they really existed.

But my luck is even better, because I have the rest of the Preston Sturges box set waiting by the television.  (I think maybe Palm Beach Story next - that one has Joel McCrae and Claudette Colbert and, of course,  hilarious misunderstandings.)

Or maybe I should watch this one again and follow it up with the Coen brothers O Brother Where Art Thou...

wintertime

How is your mid-late December going? I've reached the point where I am longing for January, which means I need a MENTAL CORRECTION. (not like brain jail, more like a 'check yourself before you wreck yourself' intervention.) Let's say more of a recalibration than a correction - it sounds nicer, but more mechanical. hmmm...

Anyway! I like this Christmas lights picture. They look like little neon skiffs sailing to the north pole.


More lights - this time with needlework.

I usually think of January 1 new year's resolutions as a self-defeating high-pressure cop out. If you want to make the change (whatever it may be) why not start now? Except this year I find myself feeling a lot of pressure to get this or that holiday thing done, and that I can either be thinking about how I have to do these things, or I can be doing these things, but I sure as shit shouldn't be thinking about how I want to take more photographs in the new year, let alone be taking more photographs RIGHT NOW. But this is bullshit!  I could get all this holiday stuff (most of which is FUN) done in no time.  It's a complicated time of year. I'm scraping the barrel of things to feel guilty about.



Question: Guess What?
Answer: KITTEN!!!!!!!! (still nameless because why rush these things.)

most kitten photos are blurry because he does not like standing still. He idolizes Busby. It's so funny to watch as Busby strolls by and the kitten gets all excited but shy, like Busby is his hero but also a famous celebrity that he probably shouldn't bother but then he throws himself in Busby's path because he can't stop himself. Busby has been very good with the kitten and I think it will all work out once they've had more time to know each other and once the baby is a little bigger.



A KITTEN'S THOUGHTS: I will eat your camera strap! And climb to your shoulder so I can climb on the bookcase so I can stand at the top and mew plaintively.

I found out that I will not be going forward in the latest recruitment at work. This is what I expected when I applied, but there's always that little reservoir of hope. BUMMER, except I found out literally five minutes before going to the Humane Society, after which I was like "Who cares?! KITTEN!!"  This is why internet cats are so popular - kittens can fix a lot of things.  And weirdly I made it through further (this is for the job classification above the one I have now) and the kiss off letter was much nicer than the last.  So... progress?

CAVEAT: I am covered in tiny scratches; I look like I've been crawling through delicate barbed wire. However, it is totally worth it.

calendar challenged

Guess who forgot she was working AGAIN? I swear to God - I don't know what my calendar problem is - obviously I didn't fill in any of my stuff for this week, but it seems like maybe I am also losing my marbles? Or am just having some serious time-disorder? (maybe I am time traveling and don't know it yet! I will be sure to remember this excuse should I need to email my boss again.)  At least this time I noticed before I was supposed to be there. Only 25 minutes before, and I still had to take a shower, etc. - BUT STILL. I was only a couple of minutes late. Seriously though, what the hell? This is so not like me I can't even quite process that I did it. This is one of the definite downsides of a variable schedule.

In other news, Grayson the Humane Society cat, who was the only slightly less handsome twin of Busby the My House cat, was adopted today! I'm so glad - he's a really sweet kitty and now I don't feel guilty for not taking him yesterday.

TOMORROW is the day I get my act together. Maybe. I have already checked the schedule and it is clear, so we shall see.

(photo is from a quilt show I went to this last winter.)

these things happened

Today was sincerely weird. 

I took a short 4 hour job that I thought was for next week, but it turned out to be for... TODAY. And it started while I was blithely standing in the Humane Society looking at cats! 

Busby the cat needs a new friend so he's not so lonesome during the day. I was sure that Busby needed a kitten so he could raise him up right. It worked for Dash, surely he'd do it again. HOWEVER, Busby is now 5 years older than he was when Dash came along and maybe he doesn't want a super high energy kitten bouncing off the walls. So the age bar was raised a little and the nice lady at the Humane Society brought out a cat called Grayson - a cat who (VERY WEIRDLY) looked like he could be Busby's long lost twin. This is strange because Busby is HUGE (18+lbs, tall, long) and has long grey fur - unusual! This cat was also all of those things, although he was not as svelte. He was super sweet and friendly, but it just seemed weird to bring home a cat that looks just like the cat already there. I suppose it would be a way to become a crazy cat lady with a special distinction, but that's not a direction I'm currently aiming. I think maybe it's just too early for another cat. I've never in my life gone into a pet shop or shelter to pick out a cat - they've always fallen into my life one way or another and I think I'm scared of making a mistake. I don't want to pick the wrong one and have Busby ( a very sweet and goodnatured fellow) have to suffer the consequences. 

MEANWHILE, BACK AT MY JOB - they called and left a message to say "uh, where are you?" which I didn't get until I was home and already supposed to be there for hours. I did end up going in for the last two hours. People were very kind and understanding - worried, even, since blowing off a job is not my usual M.O. Everyone was very nice/cool about it, but of course I felt guilty.  

Thing that happened at work: this guy came up to the desk to check out a hold - he was very friendly and nice during his transaction,  and then wanted to know how he could donate to the library. I thought he meant books since almost everyone usually means books, but he meant MONEY! I had to rattle around a little to find the right answer (Library Foundation), but he was like "can't I just give you some money right now? Do you have an envelope or something? I really love you guys." ) So I said sure and he counted out a stack of singles from his wallet and I rang it into the cash register and that was that. 

Best introduction: a few weeks ago a little boy came into the library with his mother and little sister. He was wearing an orange long sleeve t-shirt and an olive colored vest. He seemed shy, sticking close to his mom  until she was putting books into the return slot. He came over to the desk where I was working and said in a loud whisper "I'm Han Solo!" and then ran away.  ADORABLE. 

100 percent full

According to the google moon widget (and my eyeballs) the moon is all the way full tonight. It's just out of view right now as I sit at my desk, but I saw its round white glory earlier tonight when I was out. (out on a glamorous mission to buy an invisible zipper and some hem tape for a cotton velvet skirt that better work OR ELSE I will be sad. It's a beautiful bottle green/teal and so soft! Cotton velvet is a revelation - you can just throw it in the washing machine/dryer and that's that. MIRACLE FABRIC if you like velvet but don't like dry cleaning.)

Back to the moon. here's something I noticed tonight - when the moon is full and positioned the way it is positioned in the sky, I can totally see the man in the moon. If I walk while I'm looking at it (this is dangerous in a parking lot), it looks like he's singing. I never see this when I look at a picture of the moon!  It's just weird. Maybe there's some sort of atmospheric animation going on.

I realize this picture is not of a full moon, but this lady is so charming on her plywood crescent and we've all seen pictures of the full moon before.

.
.

Oh, wait. Here's one. I love APOD - Astronomy Photo of the Day. (they make a free phone/ipod app if you're into having that sort of thing in your pocket. FYI, I am into having that sort of thing in my pocket.)

see what I mean? It is so beautiful, but I don't see the guy in there. Maybe the angle is wrong? I see craters and oceans and lacy patterns, but no moon-faced opera singer. In the sky, he's totally there. On the screen, not so much. 

Here's a BONUS vintage postcard kitten moon landing. Click here. (note: space kittens of the moon wear pleated skirts!)

winter sun, complaint department

the sun is so low this time of year! This was taken just after eleven in the morning, and the sun was right in shine-straight-through-my-eyeballs and-fry-my-brains position. Or maybe it's the headache I woke up with that is frying my brains. 

I hate waking up with a headache because that almost always means I was asleep with a headache. In my mind (and where else is there for this range of thought?) sleep with a headache is tainted and any sense of being rested is gone, gone, gone to feed the stupid headache pain. (I'm picturing gentle zzzzzzzs being tipped into the maw of a giant headache volcano.) I can't take any more drugs for it for an hour and just thinking about it makes me nauseated. I never used to get queasy with headaches, but I used to get them a lot more often. A new, fun tradeoff that age has brought me. 

OTHER COMPLAINTS: 

OSTENTATIOUS DISPLAY: Remember how in the olden days I would grouse at length about holiday themed mall jewelry ads? (especially Jane Seymore's "open hearts" necklace that looks like butts. "hello, darling - here is the diamond butt necklace I assume you were admiring. Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman designed it." I guess it also sort of looks like a deformed swan, but I digress.) ANYWAY - I would volunteer to watch a half hour informercial about diamond butt necklaces (or swans) if it meant I never had to see another one of those gross Lexus with a bow on it commercials. OH MY GOD.  The theme music, which in the ads leads to "there's a lexus with a bow on it in the driveway!" excitement, has conditioned me to want to punch someone.  It's so out of touch with current reality - maybe that shit would fly back in 2005, but right now the ads promising layaway options seem more in keeping with these financial times. 

NO LONGER FEELING TENDER AND MILD: It's December, which means there is Christmas music everywhere. I was scarred early this season (still in November!) when I was in a store for half an hour or so and realized that they were playing the SAME SONG over and over (Silent Night) just sung by different artists. Like waking with a headache, it retroactively ruined the fine time I'd already had. Who thought this was a good idea? Maybe it was different songs. Maybe I was having a holiday hallucination. I've not been listening to much Christmas music at home as a result, which is kind of too bad as there is some good stuff out there. 

Hmmm. I may have to make the effort to break the Silent Night Curse. I'm sure there's a thriller out there that already has that name, although it's probably Silent Night Murders and isn't a thriller but instead a cozy mystery about how a small town mall Santa was found murdered in front of a creche and did that wise man's eyes just move? How did we get into this abandoned candle factory? Oh, wait! It is a thriller not a cozy mystery unless the proprietress of the local mystery bookstore who also is the postmaster is the one who saves us. (we are now all life-size candles in a psychopath's holiday diorama!  We are not in a thriller or a cozy, but in an episode of Criminal Minds. Don't worry, most of us make it. Happy Holidays!) 

MY LACK OF FORWARD MOTION: I feel like I'm hovering over a dozen projects, all bright with possibility, but I can't settle down on anything to really work on. It's annoying and I'm complaining so there it is. 

LAST NIGHT'S BONES: I just wanted Brennan to break a chair over Booth's head pretty much through the whole thing, but especially when he wouldn't let her walk on the damned wood floor for fear of her getting a splinter. It's was gross and paternalistic and came across less as concerned and more as controlling asshole. Sweets remains adorable, however. 

Woo! I've fooled around long enough thinking of complaints (and, to be honest, eating potato chips*) that I can take more drugs. 

*the salt counteracts the nausea, huzzah! 

discovery!

This year's Christmas tree had a bonus - a real, honest to god bird's nest.  So cute! The tree had been cut  same day, baled up on the farm and brought into town to the tree place that's near my house. Brought it home, left it outside for a day, brought it in,  un-baled it, and ta-da! Bird's nest with bonus EGG. Can you see the egg? (sorry for these pictures - the room was dark and I had to use the flash.)


It just seems lucky somehow - even if it's just to see this unexpected bit of nature in the living room. (ha - I just did some googling and found flimsy and vague "Icelandic good luck to find a bird's nest in your Christmas tree" etc. I'll take it!)  The egg was bad, by the way - slimy and faintly smelly with a hole in it.  I took it outside. Maybe I can drain it and return it to the nest. Does this counteract my fake Icelandic good luck? I say no.

In any case, the nest will stay in the tree and I'll decorate around it.

how long are V.I.P lines in gothenburg?

TRICK QUESTION! according to the charming Jens Lekman, there are no V.I.P lines in Gothenburg. I like this whole tiny desk concert, but if you want to cut right to his introduction (starts around 8:15) of Waiting For Kirsten, you'll jump right into the setup for his Kirsten Dunst shaggy dog story.

Jens Lekman songs themselves are shaggy dog  NINJAS, jumping out of the bushes with lush proclamations of love or a broken heart or comic asides or astute observation or deadpan self-deprication -  one following the other until you end up somewhere you never would have predicted at the beginning of the song.

Here's a list from the beginning of the year with the "10 best" Jens Lekman songs if you want to hear more or some with full instrumentation.

purple light and tv

I love the bark on this tree - it looked especially pretty tonight as the sun was going down and the sky was turning purple.

Purple sky. 

And now, some random television! 

Did anyone watch Ringer tonight? This show is B A N A N A S. When you begin with an evil twin/ swapped life/ faked death premise, it's not going to start making sense any time soon. They burn through more plot in one episode than some shows do in a season. Oh, evil Siobhan, what villainy will you commit next? Bonus: Amber Benson was in this episode - it was like Buffy old home week! 

COMMUNITY: I love it. I was somewhat late to the show - started by watching Modern Warfare (the season 1 paintball episode) after the internet blew up about it. (I urge you to find it - it's a good standalone episode that demonstrates the lengths they're willing to go. It's also hilarious.)  I then caught up one disc at a time via netflix. They're on an unexpected hiatus right now, but I urge you to seek it out if you aren't watching it already -  it might not be your cup of tea (fair enough, I guess) but if it is, you don't want to wait any longer. 

The Sing-Off: This show and So You Think You Can Dance are the only competition style shows I watch. Oh, wait. I watched The Voice last year too, but I really prefer how they do The Sing Off. (Less gimmick, more singing.)  The contestants are all talented and the judges (Shawn Stockman, Sara Bareilles, Ben Folds) generally give considered, constructive criticisms.  The finale was on last night and Pentatonix - one of my favorites - won.  Nerves caused some strained performances in the live finale, but here's a song of theirs from a couple weeks ago that shows some of what they can do. (note: 3 of these kids are only 19! The rest of them aren't much older.) 

Bonus: Ben Folds kept a blog, and this post in particular is very interesting about Reality TV vs. Reality.

hello, color

It's raining and the sky is grey, not that it matters since it will be dark in ONE HOUR ANYWAY. Not that I'm counting down the days to the winter solstice and the return of the sun or anything...

Enough about the weather - isn't this fabric amazing? It's Pendleton wool, which they have on huge rolls like this at the Pendleton Woolen Mill store here in Portland. We (me, mom, sister) went yesterday just to look around. AMAZING, as always. The color and patterns never fail to cheer me up. I love that they've been weaving some of these patterns for over a hundred years, yet they look so modern.

I prefer the traditional pattern jacquard wool, which is a reversible, tight, flat, woven wool excellent for blankets or jackets or pillows or whatever. It just occurred to me that a few rolls of this stuff would make the most superior blanket fort in the history of blanket forts. 

I love the bold geometrics. The teal on the bottom is even better (greener, richer) in person. They have lots of other Pendleton fabrics at this store in addition to weirdo ends and scraps from the mill. The weirdo ends and scraps are my favorite! I didn't get any yesterday because it was holiday-weekend picked over, but I still have a huge bag from last time...

being sad

The wind is whipping and the rain is dumping down which is gross and terrible, but it suits my mood today which is gross and terrible. Our sweet orange boy Dash was hit by a car late Sunday/early Monday. Such a good cat! He was sweet and feisty, funny and weird, but most of all a beloved part of the family. He and Busby (other cat) got along so well - Busby's already figured out something is wrong and it breaks my heart to see him looking all over the house for Dash - it's exactly what I did before I went looking around the neighborhood and found him the way nobody wants to find a lost pet. He had a good life, but it wasn't long enough. He loved to sleep in the sun in the middle of the garden, he loved climbing trees and catching bugs, he loved sleeping on his back in front of the fireplace, he loved hanging out with Busby, he loved making biscuits and napping in cupboards.

He was also a cat of many names - here are the ones I can think of:

biscuits
itty bits
hobo joe
egyptian red
orange busby
orange cooney
dr. lady baby
the neck nurse
ned nickerson
foxy bananas
poncho maccardle
flashheart
nuu-nuu (but only in the summer when he'd shed his coat)
chester cheeto
sunbeam pete (any cat chasing the sun to nap in gets called this)

He was the most CAT cat I've ever lived with- full of adventure and affection and a particular cat-like joie de vivre. (I'm not saying I loved it when he brought bird after bird into the house, but he did it with such pride and enthusiasm.) I will miss his oven-like warmth, his sweet face, his insistent meow, his soft thick fur, the clatter of his kibble on the plastic tray underneath his bowl (he was a messy eater), but most of all the simple pleasure of his company. I miss him so much and wish that he was spending this wretched day stretched out in front of the fire or curled up in his favorite cardboard box.

uniforms, caps, fezzes, regalia

REGALIA???? I am perhaps most intrigued by this aspect of the Nudelman Bros. insignia. It's probably for the Queen of the Elks or the Regal Rotarian or King B.P.O.E. or H.R.H, Empress of the Masons or whatever. BUT STILL. Maybe they were turning out capes for the minor royalty of Europe, maybe "regalia" means the gold tassel on a fez. I don't know, but I sure like wondering about it.

These patches are in a nursing cape that belonged to my grandfather's third wife. I didn't know her very well, but she was funny, tart, tall and strapping and I can totally imagine her striding around in her blue wool nurses cape fixing things with bandages or a pointed look.

three incompatible things I have to do today

1) APPLY FOR JOB - the job closes tomorrow, there will be thousands of applicants and I don't have any expectation that my application will go anywhere, but I have to do it or I will be plagued with guilt and shame for not even trying. What kind of weirdo doesn't even try, Jen? I would really like this job - I think I could be very good at it, but I'm sure the other 4000 people applying feel the same. Particular challenge: summing up my specific rad-ness and constitutional suitability for the position in 150 words or less without using the word RAD.

2) PAINTING THE ROOM - the room where the fabric and other craft supplies have been stacked in squalor for far too long. This is way overdue and already halfway done, but it requires paint clothes and getting dirty and wah wah wah. I can knock most of this out today (all but the floor), but it will take a lot of advanced do this then that planning - which is FINE as long as the paint dries as fast as I think it should. (note: it almost never does.) 

3) CATCHING UP ON NANO - I am participating in Nanowrimo this year! (I like writing it without all the in the middle Capital Letters because then it reminds me of Nanaimo, which is a very nice place.) This has been a very good thing so far and I have more to say about it, but right now I'm behind. I'm right on the precipice between being able to catch up with a little extra effort, and being too far behind to do anything but type for 2 weeks straight. I don't have time to do that second thing!  I need to do some work today if I'm going to stay on the right side of this, but it's incompatible with being painty! I will figure it out.

The photo above was taken out of the window by my desk yesterday - it looks almost exactly like this today, except there is a lot more fog and leaves on the ground. I am so jealous of this slide! In the summer the neighbor kids put an inflatable pool at the bottom and fix a hose at the top for a pretty sweet slip and slide situation. 

november!

This is what it looked like when I was walking into work this morning. The figure up ahead is the youth librarian, returning from her lunch. [EDIT: it was 2PM! where is my head?]

What are you reading? I have a bunch of things lined up, and have read a bunch of really fun things just recently (more on those in future), but right this very moment I am reading two things:

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: I'm almost half way through and have to read the rest of this tomorrow or, you know, pay late fees (which I will do). This was a slow start for me, but it's probably because I didn't sit down and read 50 pages at once to get right into it.  The book is like a YA picture book with creepy photos, which is FUN, but I'm having some trouble with the voice of the narrator  -  it's supposed to be 1st person 16 y.o. boy, but there's a lot of description and that description is very evocative, but...writerly. Although I think I may have just figured out a way to read further without going "I doubt very much he would have described the light as 'gauzy'!" Maybe this story is being told in retrospect by a former 16 year old who is now a writer and therefore prone to describing things as gauzy or "leaving a trail of parenthetical scars on the floor." I'll let you know!

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table: This is for my non-fiction book group  - it's a series of essays about food and family followed by a recipe. Every single recipe has made me hungry and the writing is really lovely.

directional indicators

I finally uploaded my photos from the fancy car exhibit I went to this summer. It was so cool! I think this might have been on the Bentley - I love the texture of the light on the left, and of course the ALT on the right. I will be posting more pictures from the exhibit - I'm not a capital CAR car person, but there's no denying the graceful and beautiful design in some of these Automobiles of Yore. They're so far removed from the mass produced cars of today they might as well be cars from another planet.

UNRELATED LINKS: Stratford on Hellmouth: fun! Spoilery if you haven't seen the end of certain Joss Whedon shows like Buffy. (this warning is mostly for Leslie!)

Kickstarter for Portland's Dill Pickle Club - this looks so cool! It's to build a social history/take your own downtown tour app. What I especially love about it: they want to make the app free to users AND it's an open source project so other cities could build something similar. One of the things I love best about this country is how uniquely weird each part of it is - what a great way to share that knowledge.