Author: Harmless Weirdo

Summer of smoke.

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smoky-morning_20150822

This is what the sky looked like yesterday morning at around 8:00, and it looked about the same today. That orange-gray haze is smoke from all the wildfires raging in northeastern Washington State, and when I step outside I can smell the smoke in the air. I’m fortunate not to have asthma, or any other difficulties breathing, but my throat has felt scraped raw all day and I’ve got a low-grade headache.

This has been a shitty summer, to be honest, given the unusual, extreme heat and dryness, as well as the fires. I’d like to think this is an aberration, and that we’ll get plenty of rain and snow this winter, and that next summer will be glorious as usual. But given the state of global climate change, I’m not optimistic.

Linocutting.

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linocutting_20150817I

I got several good hours of cutting done on my latest project earlier this week (well, okay–by now it’s last week). I also have three others in progress. Two depict houses across the alley (and slightly uphill) from mine; the other is of the rooming-house next door, to the right. This one is 18 x 24″ (45 x 60cm), and my plan is to print the linocut over monotype. The others will likely be straight-up linocuts, at roughly the same size.

I have plans to do a series of works–paintings and drawings, as well as prints–of the houses in my neighborhood. I live in a neighborhood populated mostly by students, so most of these huge old houses are student rentals. Some are rooming houses, others converted into apartments, and yet others remain undivided. Over the decades, they have been modified to suit their purpose as rentals, which means they have lots of additions and make-do adaptations that were built with cheapness and low maintenance–rather than beauty–in mind.

And to me, this is all fascinating stuff to look at, especially on the back sides, where attractiveness has apparently never been even a token consideration.

And so it begins.

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The students are beginning their moving-out preparations, already having abandoned a few pieces of less-desirable and damaged furniture in the alleys, as well as on the 17th Ave NE median.

In my own alley lies the rotting hulk of a marshmallowy, cream-colored, mid-’90s leather sofa; it’s missing crucial cushions, and got soaked in the weekend’s torrential downpour. So if there was ever a chance somebody might want it?Yeah, forget it.

Good trash pickings are as yet scanty, but once the last-minute panic starts there will be an embarrassment of cast-off riches to be had. This week, I got two pillows (to be re-made into cushions for the cat beds), a nice turquoise pillow sham, a gray-and white patterned twin sheet and matching pillowcase, a beach towel (slated for the Humane Society), and a jade-green plastic serving bowl from the two-doors-down neighbors’ trash. We shall see what other treasures the coming week brings.

Scraping off the rust.

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I’m painting again, in alkyds and oils, after years of messing around semi-successfully with acrylics, then getting heavily into printmaking.

It’s been at least 15 years since I last used oil-based paints–probably longer. The most recent alkyd painting I still have around dates to early 1995; it’s unfinished, but it’s not a terrible painting, and it wouldn’t be a stupid idea to complete it. So why did I put the oils away in favor of acrylics? Honestly, I can’t remember. When I moved here in 2004 I brought along all my neglected paints, stashed them in the basement, and they stayed there, untouched, until this June.

For some reason, I thought I’d be able to jump right back in, picking up where I left off. I have no idea how I managed to harbor this particular delusion, but there you have it. So I’ve been fumbling around, trying to remember how I used to do things, and making some embarrassingly clumsy starts.

I began by painting mostly on Arches oil paper, or Rives BFK sealed with shellac, because even decent paper is a fairly low-investment surface. Fuck it up, and you’re not out the time and money a stretched canvas represents. Make something worthwhile, and you can still mount and frame it. But in the past two weeks, as I’ve got it in my head to make pictures of certain subjects I care about, I’ve made the switch over to canvas. I’m still awkward and unsure, but I’m slowly starting to get my sea legs, and even if the pictures themselves don’t turn out great I’ve begun to feel the work I’m trying to do is worth the investment.

There ought to be a word for this.

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mug-of-coffee

Here we have a mug of coffee.

Never mind that Steph, its owner, is such a rebel that she’s using it for tea; it is clearly intended by its manufacturer to be a MUG OF COFFEE. It says so, all over.

So what I want to know is what this phenomenon is called–in which a manufactured object is emblazoned with words declaring one specific use, when potentially it could be used for any of a number of things.

This rather large mug (which has a nifty silicone lid) could potentially be used for any beverage. Or soup. Or chili. Or oatmeal. So why declare it a MUG OF COFFEE? Do people who might use it for coffee really need a declaration of its contents to remind them of what they are drinking? Do they really need to announce their beverage of choice for all to see?

Kitchen canisters have traditionally done the same thing. The biggest one is always labeled FLOUR. Then SUGAR. Then, usually, COFFEE and TEA. But what if you don’t bake? Or drink tea? Sure, you could put rice in the flour canister, or coffee in the sugar canister, and use the one meant for tea to hold the Splenda packets you steal from Starbucks–but why buy a set of mislabeled canisters, then? Why settle for working around someone else’s assumptions and expectations?

And that’s why I’ve never bought a set of kitchen canisters, because even if I wanted identifying text on them, the usual imposed order has nothing to do with my own preferences (which would probably be for canisters labeled COFFEE, ALMONDS, CATNIP, and HAIR TIES, in that order).

While I wasn’t blogging.

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About ten evenings ago, I heard a cat crying outside my front door. It took a few minutes to realize that it not only wasn’t one of my cats, but it wasn’t even a full-grown cat at all. I stepped out on the porch, and in the shadows of my neighbor’s house was a small dark blob, screaming for food and attention.

It took me two hours of patient, careful maneuvering (and some stinky wet food) to finally catch the little beast and bring her inside–only to have her outwit me the following afternoon, when she escaped through a window. After that, she was justifiably leery of me and my intentions, and wasn’t about to let me touch her. But she did seem to recognize that my yard wasn’t such a bad place to be; she spent the next two days hanging out, devouring all the food I gave her and making the acquaintance of my porch cats. She went from looking lost to looking like she was contentedly settling in.

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Occasionally, if I sat very still, she’d come close and check me out–only to run away if I tried anything funny.

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After two days of that bullshit, I borrowed a live trap. I baited it with more stinky wet food, and within five minutes she strolled right into it. Unfortunately, she was so small and skinny she didn’t weigh enough to spring the mechanism, even while standing right on the trip plate. I didn’t want her to distrust the trap, and there was nothing I could do that wouldn’t scare her away. So I just let her eat, and decided to give it another go later, once I’d rigged a means to manually spring the trap.

A piece of lath shoved through the wire did the trick; the door dropped and I finally had her. And boy, was she pissed–she stormed around, hissing at me while trying to find a way out. Then she’d stop to eat some more (I guess to fuel herself so she could enact her plan for vengeance), growling the whole time.

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It’s been a week, and that hissy little demon has turned out to be very affectionate–though still very independent. With access to all the food she can eat, she’s growing fast as well as packing on weight; I can’t use her backbone to slice baguettes any more. My guess is that she’s about 10 weeks old right now; she weighed exactly 2 lbs. when I plopped her on the baby scale this morning.

As for where she came from, I have no idea. There have been no Lost Kitten flyers posted in the neighborhood; there was nothing when I looked on Craigslist or checked with the city shelter. I haven’t had her scanned for a microchip yet (her first vet visit is on Tuesday). But she’s so young, and only now just big enough to spay, so I doubt she’s chipped–no shelter or rescue would have adopted her out unaltered, and free kittens don’t come with microchips. So with that, I assume nobody is looking for her all that hard, and if they’re not looking for her, I’m not looking for them, so I guess he’s mine, now.

I wasn’t planning on another cat. One of my all-time favorite cats, Dexter, died of cancer at the beginning of June, and while I’m never dead-set against taking in another feline in need, I was in no rush to do it. I’d only recently brought home two fosters, and that was enough.

I’m also not a kitten person. Here on the Island of Misfit Cats, many of the residents come to me because nobody else wants them–they’re too old, have too many medical issues, are too “ugly,” are going to die soon, or just aren’t big fans of humans. I only adopt young cats if they have chronic, incurable conditions that make them unadoptable. Kittens (and healthy adult cats under five years old), generally don’t have a hard time getting adopted at the shelter I volunteer for. I could take her in, and she’d be spayed and adopted within a week. But here she is, and kitten season is going full blast, and–well, shit. Okay. She’s here, she’s happy, my cats accept her, she needs a home, and there’s not a single good reason why that home can’t be here, so she’s staying.

Her name is Nina, after a recently-deceased gorilla of my acquaintance, who was also an independent-minded lady and kind of a handful. So welcome to the Island of Misfit Cats, little Nina; may your stay be a long and happy one.

Vocabulary lesson: petrichor.

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I never knew there was a word for the smell of the earth after the first rain on dry ground. But this morning I learned that yes, in fact there is: petrichor, derived from the Greek petra (stone) + ichor, the “blood” of the Greek gods. Wikipedia has more to say on its origins (which are fascinating).

And it’s a fitting word to learn today of all days, following the first little bit of rain we’ve had after weeks of heat and dryness.