Happy Rosemas to all, and to all a good night

both Juliet and Leif sent me the same card from someecards... and all i have to say is that someone out there has an xmas time birthday and translated it into card comedy QUITE well.

avocado deep thoughts. snow leading to deep muscle ache

Yesterday I bought an avocado because they are DELICIOUS and I wanted to make some guacamole. In the last few months I have gotten REALLY into avocados... at first I was eating them plain, with just salt. Then I started mashing them up with salt and using them as dip. Then once in a while I would mash them up with salt and add some chopped tomatoes. Once in a while I'd add cumin too. Last night I had some extra chopped onions from a stew I was making and added some of those as well.

I've gained immense joy from each of these iterations along the sliding scale between avocado and guacomole, and found that I have gotten a huge breadth of understanding of the different flavors through this process. Then I got excited about how much more I'd be able to experiment with avocadoes... over the rest of my life. That was pretty exciting, to realize that I have SO MUCH TIME to cook and eat and love food.

YUM :)


On an unrelated note, God sh*t on us this weekend and his sh*t was 20 inches of snow. This is when I get REALLY sad that I own a car and have street parking. I shoveled for an hour Friday night, at least 2 hours (over 2 separate occasions) Saturday, and then another hour and a half Sunday. This is when I start to be able to rationalize those stories you hear about people putting orange cones, lawn chairs, and trash cans in parking spots in Southie. To my IMMENSE delight, I managed to regain the spot I had spent all weekend excavating when I parked this evening after work. Otherwise someone would've gotten their car keyed. Just sayin.

To the left - the top photo is another honda civic on my block, he probably shovelled on sunday morning but the rest of the day likely caused the blockage. It is too cold for me to go out and get better photos of the poor suckers who didnt shovel at all... for them the snow pack is up to their side mirrors.

Below is a picture of my beautifully shovelled civic. My back muscles say YOU'RE WELCOME

werk birthday

my coworkers covered my desk last night as a birthday present...

one of the balloons had a post-it that said "open me" and inside was a key. my computer mouse was missing and desk drawer locked, but the key didnt work on the drawer. I tried my buddies' drawers to no avail. but did see some creepy stuff in their desks in the process. You guys are sick.

After leaving text messages for 4 people (no one was in the office yet) I finally got a call back and it turned out that key was indeed a fake-out key - the real one was in another, unmarked balloon. And that unlocked my desk and revealed my mouse.

happy birthday to me. thats what I get for leaving the Beer Thursday event yesterday evening at 5:20...

Darn Big B&W Turine

This is my new favorite piece... I made it out of white clay and struggled for a couple weeks to figure out how I'd glaze it. I asked my teacher for advice and he suggested this "horse-eye" design (he specializes in japanese ceramics and, apparently, this is a very japanese design.) It is painted using successively bigger ovals and is supposed to occur in groups of five.



It took SO MUCH WILL-POWER to do this in just black and white (the overglaze is clear, showing the white clay underneath,) because I'm a color person. Seriously, I never leave the house with at least SOME color on me, even if it is just in my earrings. So doing this without ANY... was tough. But it was a good call in the end, and really highlights the shape and strength of the sculptural details. In my oh-so-humble opinion.


The piece is about 11.5" in diameter and 7.5" tall, table-to-knob. I threw it as two separate bowls (the top is an inverted bowl) and then threw the knob on the wheel separately. The horse-eyes are painted with a long-haired japanese brush using black underglaze, and then the whole thing was poured with clear crackle glaze.

Deep Thoughts

• Sometimes, hiding chocolate from yourself actually DOES work. Until you find it.
• There is a shameful but very real satisfaction in running into d-bag football players from high school at a bar, and knowing/seeing that you are now more successful. And didnt gain quite as much weight.
• I love buying presents for people who have very real interests/passions. Find myself having to restrain from buying them too many gifts.
• HELLO WORLD!
  

Happy Birthday, Mom!