I haven't forgotten you

And here we have some of my art. This is a piece from out first assignment, which was to make fertility figures or something suggestive of fertility. This here is supposed to be a pregnant pig with really big teats. The swirls give her visual interest and maybe suggest the curly tail, except that this curly tail has gone wild all over her body. I don't know, people. Sometimes these things come to me like that.

Madame Pig from the other side. She's about the size of a small fist. Oh, and pay no attention to the time stamp on the photo. I accidently changed it and haven't fixed it yet.
This fertility figure is more a maternity figure, I suppose. The form is supposed to suggest a mama bear, and there are her two little cubs. The one lying down looks like a baby gerbil to me, but I meant for it to be a small bear cub.
Mama bear's back is all dressed up with a symbol signifying what she eats (salmon) and where she lives (Pacific Northwest)
Here they are snuggled all together in the protection of Mama's embrace.
There are more figures from this assignment, one pretty boring and the other amazing. I'm too tired to load them now. Remind me if I forget later. Tomorrow in class I will take more pictures of the latest completed assignment. I may also photograph my current work in progress. I'll try to get some pics posted here.

I'm quite busy this semester, as I've mentioned. And that's all I have to say about that. Today I am amazingly sleepy. Almost time for my next nap.

We had a lovely Samhain (Halloween) celebration over here last night. A core group of young people, C and N's closest friends, came over and we had a feast and celebration. I cooked a lot of food! I didn't realize that I was doing most of the cooking, but when the table was set, there was all this food that I made. Superman fixed some of those really skinny steaks, I can't remember what they're called. That was our emergency back-up meat. The guys bought a very nice pork loin, but for complicated reasons it did not start cooking as early as it should have. It was finally finished when everything was over around 1:00 this morning. I just had a piece of the pork loin for lunch. It's amazingly good! We may have to do that again, only plan it better next time.

Late last night I had an attack of the blues. That so doesn't describe it, though. An attack of the black? I was overcome by a painful sadness, a mourning of what I don't know. I felt closer to crazy than I have in a while. It was a familiar feeling. Maybe that's what I was sad about, that it was so familiar. I don't know.

One of the elements of our celebration was masks. We had been instructed to bring a mask to wear. Last weekend I drew out some sketches for a mask I had in mind, and yesterday afternoon I made it. Thing about my mask, though, in concept it was less of a mask and more of an unmask. C is the only one who understood the significance of it, simply because he knows me so well. I used a piece of black craft foam, the thin lightweight stuff that is easy to cut into shapes, but stays stiff enough to not fold up under its own weight, mostly. I dunno. Look it up. Anyway, I used this piece of black craft foam, cut into a shape similar to that of Robin's mask. Instead of being smooth across the bottom, I cut it so that there were extensions from the outside of the eye area that ran down the outsides of my cheeks, sort of. One on each side, sort of curling out around my cheeks. The top of the mask above the eyes went up, forming the apex of a semicircle that surrounded my forehead, from the temples, up over the forehead, then back to the other temple. Don't know if I've described it well.

But on to the concept of the mask. The two pieces that ran down around my cheeks I covered with a line of clear rhinestones, diamond-like in appearance. Those were my tears, tracking down my face to my chin. This was a sorrowful mask. Recently, I'd say over the last few months I've been pretty happy. There haven't been many of those sorrowful days. However, the sorrow and pain are always with me, usually not far from the surface. Deep enough these days that it isn't too obvious to most people. My mask unmasked those feelings, and though the celebration was going along very well and I was tired but happy, suddenly the sorrow rammed into me. I sat on the ground for a while, then moved to the lawn chair and sat for a long time after everyone else went inside. C and N came out to sit with me. C held my hand and asked me those questions that must be asked. Do you intend to hurt yourself? Are you planning to kill yourself? He's a good friend and I love him very deeply. And no, I had no intentions of doing myself in. We discussed taking a very small number of pills to calm my raging emotions/nerves, and that is what I decided to do.

Before they came out to sit with me I had figured out what I needed to do. I had to burn the mask. I removed it, held it in my hands for a while watching as the light from our campfire illuminated the rhinestones. C followed me as I walked over to the fire to drop the damned mask in. Funny how different things burn. That mask curled up on itself, burst into flames, and quickly melted to nothing. I think I felt better. So I came inside, took some aleve for my headache and 1 mg of benzodiazapine. Then I washed my face and went to bed. I felt better immediately. I assume I did, having no recollection of what transpired from then until I woke up at 9 or so this morning.

Today is obviously a sleep day. I've had one nap already, and keep nodding off while typing this. I'm going to take another nap now.

Happy Halloween, Happy Samhain, and Happy New Year to all.

Procrastination and possibly interesting stuff

I am SO procrastinating right now. There's a report due tomorrow morning and a big exam Thursday that I MUST study for beginning yesterday. But I just had to show you these things, because I must. That's all. 

Here's the big kitty, Samhain. He sat down on my computer as I was booting up yesterday. I love that look he's giving me. It's his standard look. He's one of those cats who has not forgotten that cats have been worshiped as gods. 

I saw this note on Twitch's door this evening. The cats love his room, and have been making a mess of his stuff recently.
It says "I don't care if you're the Pope, if you let any of the cats or any/all of your person into this room, I'll see to it that you'll be eating and breathing through a series of tubes for the rest of your meaningless life. (However long that may be)"

Superman has been building beds for the two younger kidlets. They had an interesting bunk arrangement when they shared this room, but since C and S moved out they've each gotten their own room. Superman had to disassemble the big bunk contraption and has spent this past weekend putting legs on the platforms for the kids' mattresses.
This is the underside of Diva's bed as Superman is putting on the legs. The walls in that room are in a sad state. I began to prime them nearly a year ago and didn't get very far. Maybe after this school term is over I'll get back in there and finish up. Diva has some wild ideas about color for that room. Her color selection changes frequently, so we shall see what actually happens when it happens. 

He's about to drill a really deep hole so he can put a long screw through the wood to connect the leg pieces. The man has tools. It's exciting. 

I took the picture above just because I like being that close to him. Did I mention that Tuesday is our 26th wedding anniversary? I'm really glad I married this man. 

This is what Diva has done with her bed now. All her favorite critters are lined up on her "new" bed. 

This shot shows how high off the floor the bed is. She can store all manner of things under the bed and they will hopefully be fairly easy to access. 

And here's a look at Sproing's new bed frame. That's Diva being Diva-licious on the bed. The walls in this room were painted by Light, as it used to be her room. 

Here's the boy being all cool and shit on his new bed. He really likes it. It was SO cute, last night Superman went in to tuck him in and Sproing said "Thanks, Dad, for building my bed. I really like it." Awwwwww!
Sproing spent most of the day yesterday being an absolute pain in the ass. The more annoying he is, the more love he needs, and the harder it is to give him that love and acceptance. Building him a bed is one of those things that speaks his love language. So for a day or two he will feel loved. Then he'll forget that feeling and find something else about his life here with this family that sucks out loud and is evidence of the failure of the universe to meet his every whim. 

Puberty sucks. 

OK, I'm going to post this then get to work on my report. I'll let you know how it goes after the presentation tomorrow (Tuesday).

Scheherazade kitty update

Scheherazade is growing, as kittens are wont to do. She is an endless source of amusement. She likes to curl up on my breast/stomach while I'm on the computer, and that is so soothing! Her purr is very loud. She likes me to rub her neck. 

Samhain is our other cat. I may have mentioned him before. He's a solid black cat with short silky fur. We got him as a kitten a couple of years ago. He's just old enough to not exactly be a kitten, but still have some playful tendencies. He is far enough away from kittenhood, though, to be really annoyed by Scheherazade. And she's a mean little sister! She loves to pick at him. Sometimes she'll stick her nose in his face when he's trying to sleep, but she usually jumps on him in a full out attack. He gets her back, too. It was a bit frightening at first to watch them wrestle, as she is so small and I was afraid she'd get hurt. She starts it every time though, so I figure she deserves what she gets, and she hasn't been injured yet. She certainly does put up a fuss, though. Whenever he grabs her she hisses, growls, and bares her teeth at him. He doesn't say a thing. He's too busy fighting. 

Scheherazade makes some interesting noises. My favorite is the trill she sings when she is about to eat. It sounds like a combination meow and purr. Very cute.  This afternoon I locked her out of the bedroom so I could sleep undisturbed. When I let her back in she walked toward her food bowl but was not singing her food trill. She was meowing firmly, if that makes sense. Not loudly, exactly, but with emotion. She then turned to look at me over her shoulder and meowed directly at me. I got that message. Who knew cats could cuss?

Samhain has his spot at the foot of the bed on my side. I suspect he prefers my side because my feet aren't as big nor my legs as long as Superman's so Samhain has a little more room to sleep. He spends the mornings there when he can, and sometimes he'll sleep there at night. Scheherazade usually sleeps with us, also, though she moves around a lot. I sleep on my side, and she likes to climb on my ribs and curl up against my arm as it rests on my hip. Or she sleeps on my hip. Sometimes she's on Superman's chest. It usually works out pretty well until around 4 in the morning. That must be the catting hour or something. When she's the only one sleeping with us she'll climb on top of the headboard and knock things off the shelf onto our heads, or pounce on our fingers or our feet. If Samhain is in the room she attacks him. We woke up earlier this week to both of them having a royal wrestling match between us on the bed, and chasing each other under, then over, then back under the bed. He's bigger than she is, and if they aren't too fast or I'm not too asleep I can tell which one is jumping on my ribs. 

She helps me study.

She makes a beautiful bookend, but isn't very efficient at it.

Superman built a hutch for my desk. He also, as you can see from the picture above, sanded the old paint and varnish off the top of the desk. It actually looks nice under all that paint. 

She likes to climb on the shelf and look over the edge of the hutch.

I got many comments when we first named her about what sort of nickname she'd end up with. Well, she's been around for nearly four months and rarely is she called Scheherazade. Superman was the first one to come up with a good nickname for her. She's small and fuzzy and black, and when she hunkers down on the floor lying in wait to attack the Toes of Doom she looks like a smudge on the floor. So he calls her Smudge. Especially when it's dark she really does look like a spot of something smeared on the floor, though less so now that she's getting bigger. 

I frequently refer to her as the small cat, and Samhain as the big kitty. 

Twitch is our primary name-giver. He has a gift for it, actually. He named our (late) dog Ruby. He has named almost all the cats who have ever wandered into our lives. He is particularly fond of cats, and uses many pet names for our two. I've been surreptitiously making a list of the different things he calls Scheherazade. You know "Scheherazade" isn't one of them! I present to you The Names of the Cat:

kitty-boo

mao-mao

mew-mew

adorable

fuzzy

fuzzy-butt

ki' ki'

pookums

boo

floof-butt

goof

(and my favorites)

Smudgemous

ScheheraSmudge 

With the light of the camera's flash it is easy to see the black cat on the black seat of the black chair. 

My chair is between the desk and a rather dark corner of the room, and without a spotlight on the chair it's difficult to tell if there's an extra cat-cushion on it. The silly kitten doesn't voluntarily move, even when it becomes apparent that she is in danger of being squished. 

She's giving me "the look"

Even fuzzier out of focus. She likes to crawl into nooks like this shelf beside my desk. 

High is good. Her balance here is noteworthy.

Basket Kitty!!

She was not amused that my photography interrupted her nap.

And that's my kitten update. I will try to update more frequently so as not to have so much to cover in one post next time. 

Time for more kitty pictures!

Cat Care Tip #57- Let sleeping kittens lie.

Scheherazade is getting little bits of soft fur all over our bed. She's cute enough at this age that I don't mind too much. 

Here she is hiding behind the lump of sheet. She's preparing her for her attack.

"Wait, what was that?"

Faster than lightning, cuter than cute, she attacks! This time she got Light's fingers. My fingers are all chewed up, too.

She's a blur

Play is serious stuff. She must attack this roll of tissue.
Hail the conquering hero!She deigns to let me hold her for a moment.

We have another cat named Samhain. He is approximately 2.5 years old. He is a sleek black cat, very regal and proud when he isn't being silly and kittenish. Samhain likes to play, too. But Samhain isn't sure what to think of Scheherazade. She wants to play with him, but he is wary. For about an hour they eyed each other from different sides of the box on the right. They both got too tired to watch each other and each fell asleep. This is as close as they got to each other yesterday. Today they actually touched noses momentarily. 

"Scheherazade" is a mouthful of name to say everytime we refer to her. I still like the name, and use it when I don't call her kitty. Superman, on the other hand, likes to call her Smudge. He says she looks like a black smudge on the floor.

Addendum: How about Cher for a nickname, but spelled Scher? Since Scheherazade begins with Sch. I've had a few votes for Cher already. thinking with fingers, here, maybe sCher. Looks kinda funny, but when has that ever stopped me?