On the Canal

Yeah, I know, long time, no post.  And that’s a lotta commas in a short sentence.

We’re staying at the Hotel Pulitzer in Amsterdam, in a room overlooking the Prinsengracht canal. It’s one of the more foreign-feeling cities I’ve visited, and altogether civilized. And the language is fantastic. This is the warning sticker on a package of cigars: “Roken is dodelijk”. If it weren’t on the package of cigars, reminding us that smoking will kill us, I’d think it was some sort of fantastic chocolate dessert. Of course, speakers of the language sound as if they’re occasionally gagging. Or maybe they’re trying to tell us to stop smoking those stinking cigars.

What a great day we’ve had. The weather couldn’t be more perfect, we spent the morning looking at paintings at the Rijksmuseum, had pizza and beer for lunch, then rented a paddleboat for the trip back to the hotel. The day is still young, since it doesn’t get dark until 10 pm or later, so there is more fun to come.

Don’t Just Stand There

He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.

  – Dante Alighieri

(And thanks to Word A Day, Anu Garg for the quote.)

Lawn Sculptures

My friends Don Asbee and Martha Daniels provided a day of craft therapy a couple of weekends ago. We spent an entire day in Don’s metal studio, banging away to our hearts’ content. I made these iron flags out of Don’s extra iron bits (can’t bring myself to call it scrap).  Those nice welds are Don’s.  That lavendar-like plant is what I was working on yesterday before I started trying on shoes.

17 Minutes

Here’s what I accomplished in the 17 minutes from 8:24 until 8:41 pm, CST: dug a hole, planted and watered a nice shrub with purple flowers, then pried open a Zappo’s box and tried on three pairs of shoes. God only knows what I might have done with the four minutes it took me to write this entry.

What Does It Mean?

 

I really was working when I found this.

I was searching for a clip art image of the numeral one and this was one of the results. It was a definite “This one is not like the others” kind of moment and it actually took my mind just a couple of beats to catch up. While this image undoubtedly has lots of uses, I’m wondering what it was doing amongst the thousand or so generic images in my Microsoft clip art file.

When I’m working on html files, I’ll occasionally insert a funny keyword just to make Julie laugh. I wonder if the poor slob who was charged with building this clip art file was doing that when she included this image.

“Resolutions”, You Say?

In an effort to come up with reasonable resolutions for 2009, I present the following:

• Arrive 15 minutes late for absolutely everything, instead of last year’s 10 minutes
• Carry on loud speaker phone conversations in my miniscule work cubicle
• Turn up my cell phone ringer and download a pop tune ringtone
• Drink more coffee
• More drunkenness, less flossing
• Gain 15 pounds
• Wear same pair of cargo pants every day instead of every other day
• Sign on for two year People magazine subscription

On Sloth:

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. -Jerome K. Jerome, humorist and playwright (1859-1927)

Throw Your Shoe

Just about the only pleasant news story over the weekend was the one about the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush, shouting “This is your farewell kiss, you dog!”.

Well said, Mr. al-Zeidi. As a matter of fact, I’d throw my shoes at Bush too, given the opportunity. It just illustrates that, for all the distance and cultural differences, we have alot more in common than we thought.

The Financial Times Says:

“Interest rates were slashed by another percentage point on Thursday, bringing the official cost of borrowing down to 2 per cent, equal to the lowest rate since the Bank of England was founded in 1694.”

This is from an article in the December 4, 2008 Financial Times entitled, UK Interest Rates Lowest Since 1951. It would be interesting to know just how many times the bank has dropped its interest rate to this level since 1694 and what was happening in the world, both politically and economically, at the time.

It’s an arresting statement though, isn’t it?

Max’s Menorah

This is the menorah I made for Max. I haven’t made a menorah for her every year, but I’ve made several. My personal favorite was a curvaceous piece of walnut, smoothed and waxed to perfection, nestled into a cigar box lined with sky blue cashmere quilted with silver thread. Wish I’d gotten a photo of it because it caught fire and is no more.

This one is actually not entirely of my making. Walt made the nice curved hook, but it didn’t suit him and he tossed it in the scrap bucket. I salvaged it and it’s been sitting on my cart for several months until I could figure out what to do with it. Actually, I set out to make the one below, but I threw Walt’s scrap in the fire just for kicks and I like it better. I didn’t realize how much it looked like a lamp until I cut it off, squished the end and flipped the corner up.

I’m not wild about this one, so it will go in the scrap heap or become a door stop. I like the way the hot iron squishes and curves with this process, but I should have changed a few things about it. Oh well. It’s a good thing I enjoy the process because I have more failures than successes.