Mine would pop out of my desk drawer and offer me hors d’oeuvres and a cocktail every afternoon.
April 2008
Tuesday Project Roundup: Beige Rectangle Edition
I can’t say it was the most thrilling week of projects, but I did finally get a new bath mat made for the miniscule bathroom in the apartment:
To give you an idea of scale, the bathmat is made of two hand towels sewn together. Hand towels. I had to make my own, obviously, because standard-size bathmats were way too big for the floor space. 
And here’s a scarf I made out of a long piece of linen, finishing the edges with my sister-in-law’s serger. Once again this is a blatant copy of–I mean it’s “inspired by”–something I saw online here.
(Also, see that stripey dress? I didn’t make that. It came from a store, ready to wear. I’d almost forgotten that feeling.)
If Monday Were A Toy Mousie, I Would Do This To It:
Then I’d just walk away from it:
That’s what I’d do.
Friday Unrekated Information
1. So glad it’s Friday. Go away already, longest week ever.
2. If you’re wondering what the baby alpaca at Blue Moon Ranch got named, he’s Sergio. (Apparently Linda tries out different names on them and sees what they react to. She’s the alpaca whisperer.) 
Sergio and his mom Lola.
3. Why do we like pandas so much? NPR tells us, “Because they make you smile.”
4. Something else that makes me smile? The first season of 30 Rock. Like all TV shows, I’m late to the party on this one, but it’s awesome.
It’s Not Just Me, Then
I’ve always thought the new LDS Conference Center looked disturbingly 3rd Reich and that the Church Office Building looked like a dreary tenement, so imagine my vindication when I found this Tribune article linked on my coworker Jason’s blog: SLC skyline ‘pretty disappointing’. In it, the Chicago Tribune’s Blair Kamin (Pulitzer-prize winning critic of architecture–who knew that could be a job description?) is given a tour of the city and weighs in on the landmarks. His summary of the Conference Center? “It’s like fourth-rate modernism.” And his thoughts about the Church Office Building? “That looks like the wrong side of the Cold War.”
Who Needs Clive Cussler?
I read an awesome Wired magazine article Monday called, “High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace.” It’s about a nautical salvage firm trying to save a sinking Japanese freighter–if they can save it, they get a cut of the cargo value from the ship’s insurer. If they fail, they don’t get anything.
Who knew things like that existed outside of Bruce Willis movies? The guy in charge, Rich Habib (and if that’s not a fake name, I don’t know what is) “holds an unlimited master’s license, which means he’s one of the select few who are qualified to pilot ships of any size, anywhere in the world.” How cool is that?
It’s a long article but it reads like adventure fiction, complete with tragedy and a foul-mouthed Panamanian sidekick. Go check it out.
Tuesday Project Roundup: I Know What I’m Wearing To County Fairs And Derbies This Season
I’m wearing gingham, like generations of farm women behind me!
My gingham has a mandarin collar and a 70’s feel (I modified the duck dress pattern), which hopefully keeps it from feeling too literally farm-like.
I’m extra pleased by how I got the checks to match on the front: They match horizontally across the collar and across the front inset, and (mostly) vertically from the inset into the body. That’s a lot of 3/8 inch checks to keep track of while cutting out.
Toby, however, was underwhelmed by it last night:
(He’s on the ironing board here. Yes, I give my cat plastic bags to play with and let him sit on the ironing board while I’m ironing. It’s a good thing he’s not a human baby.)
I Know What I’m Wearing To County Fairs And Derbies This Season
That would be gingham!
Awwww….
The first of 19 expected crias arrived at Blue Moon Ranch yesterday.
He doesn’t have a name yet, so check the barn cam tomorrow to see what it is. (I would call him Robin, but that’s just me.)
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Has anyone had any experience with “kitty window boxes“? Toby is an inside-only cat while I’m living next to Pirate House and busy streets, but he’s already expressed a very strong interest in open (screened) windows. This could work, but I ‘m afraid that he’d either figure out how to knock this out of the window and escape, or that it would drive him bonkers to be even closer to the birds but still unable to get them.
2. I’m about three steps away from turning into a crazy cat lady, aren’t I?
3. To counteract yesterday’s “sad little llama picture,” as my mother called it, here’s another happy Mary Oliver poem I found:
Morning Poem
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.