Dawn's Art Journal

The way to a woman's heart...

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:43:22 GMT

...is through the keys to a very large truck.

Well, *this* woman's heart, anyway. At any rate, I do like my new truck. It's an '08 F350 FX4.. I didn't need the off-road package, but I do appreciate the skid plates and the beefy suspension, and the high-profile tires. It will serve very well as a good work truck, once we've got land. Until then, it's just taking up a lot of space in my pitiful suburban driveway, thusly:

As you can see, there's absolutely no hope of getting either of those trucks in the garage; they both dwarf the doors, although you can clearly see that *my* truck is the taller of the two, by a couple of inches. Har! =D (Frank's truck is the white F450 with dual rear wheels and all the fancy-schmancy stuff on it, although I drive it more than he does.) The MINI is trapped in the garage right now, until I get my truck broken in. It looks lost in there, makes the garage look huge, although it's obvious that it isn't, once you see the trucks next to it. You can barely see the MINI in the garage, at this angle:

I do love the truck. It's a little easier to maneuver in parking lots than the F450 is, although it hasn't got nearly as tight a turn radius, surprisingly. It's roomy and comfortable, with a crew cab. Had to get the crew cab. We tried the supercab, and the regular cab.. Bragi didn't like either of those, and, well, we make sure everything in our lives is comfortable for the dog, because he's got us totally wrapped around his furry little fingers. Besides, with a crew cab and a long bed, this thing can haul around five adults in leather-coated air-conditioned comfort. It's got the nav system and the beefy stereo, although I didn't care if I got those. I wasn't even concerned about leather, but Fugate Ford made us a good deal. Overall, I'm satisfied, and even if all the electronic gew-gaws bite the dust, that diesel engine will still be chugging along. And the leather seats will still be comfortable:

Now, it has come to my attention that some people don't care for large trucks. I can appreciate that, being the driver of a MINI Cooper. They're large enough that you can't see around them. However, they're also large enough that they're very effective blockers for you, in heavy-traffic situations. When that big ol' truck is blocking your view while you're trying to make a right turn, just wait until the truck moves to turn left, and then go. You're safe. Ain't nothin' gonna get through that truck in time to hit you. Just smile and wave, and tip your hat to the woman in the F350. She's doing you a service. And remember, while you're driving that 1973 rusted-out Datsun that belches smoke out the tailpipe and uses six quarts of oil a month... her new diesel engine runs cleaner than your car has in two decades, and is probably more fuel-efficient than your Datsun was ten years ago. Hell, it only got 26 mpg when it was new.

Also, it might be worth bearing in mind..... next time you feel the urge to tailgate a truck, look at what's in front of you, at eye level: That truck's bumper. Now, if that truck has to stop suddenly, you're risking having that bumper come crashing through your windshield... at eye level. That means your head is coming off. You don't want that to happen. Neither does the driver of that truck. If you're so far up under her field of vision that she can't see you, what's to stop her from slamming on her brakes so that raccoon family can cross the road in safety? What then, hey?

Courtesy and caution. Both qualities held in high esteem.

The Benefits of Being Organized

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:02:07 GMT

While my oldest daughter and her boyfriend were living with us after she graduated college and he dropped out of it, I was forced to get extremely organized in order to cope with the presence of two messy young adults. This meant making a to-do list for everyone. (well, one for me and one for them.) Yeah, it was akin to treating them like minimum-wage employees, but that's how they were acting. Once the to-do list was initiated, things were easier... there wasn't any friction about what needed doing, because everyone knew, and they did it.

After the kids left (they were obviously being mistreated,) I kept my to-do list, and expanded it to include the chores they were doing. I added almost an hour to my daily stuff-that-must-be-done, but the benefits are unexpectedly far-reaching.

The house is clean. I mean, CLEAN, as in: No dust, no clumps of animal hair, no grime on the floor or counters or stove or toilets, and not much in the way of clutter. Any day of the week is a good day for company to drop by, because the carpet is always clean, the dishes are always done, beds always made, everything always tidy.

I get one day a week OFF. No housework, unless I want to. I spend the day doing stuff I like to do, rather than scrambling around trying to make things look presentable. I use Sunday, because Frank keeps a regular work week, whether he's at home or at a client's site.

I have a lot less stress these days. Not only is my environment nicer, I feel accomplished every day, every time I check an item off my list. The psychological benefits of a sense of accomplishment really can't be exaggerated. I feel more empowered at this point in time than I ever have before, even when I was working at a 'regular' job.

I've got more time than I used to have. That's probably the biggest benefit; the time management skills one acquires when one actually gets organized. I had to invest a little time making the list in the beginning, but after four months of using this list, that little chunk of time has been repaid a hundred times over. Now I've got time to make that cheese or that yogurt, bake that pie, read that book I've been wanting to read, knit that baby blanket that's about a year overdue, and play my guitar until my fingers are numb.

I'm healthier. With a very clean environment, the air in this house is good; I've got more time to prepare very healthy food, and I've got more time to take walks with the dog, and because it's on my list, I never forget to do my arm exercises (assigned by the chiropractor to deal with tennis elbow.) So, I'm getting muscle tone, and my metabolism is finally learning to cope with not smoking anymore. It's kicking up, slowly but surely.

Here's the most unexpected benefit: Our sex life is better. I mean, LOTS better. Like, we have sex daily, if we're together. For a while, we were acting like typical married people who'd been together more than fifteen years.. not having sex very often, and not really enjoying it when we did. But now.. sheesh. (oddly enough, this happened when my husband finally decided to make his own to-do list, and put me on it. Imagine that.)

Well, it's kind of nice. Wish I'd known about this to-do list stuff all along. I'd be President or something.

What Monsanto Doesn't Want You To Know...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:41:42 GMT

...You don't need Round-Up® herbicide to kill dandelions. A couple of hours ago, I sprayed the dandelions in my yard with an incredibly effective non-discriminate herbicide, and I didn't kill any of the grass.

What is this wonder chemical, you may ask?

Vinegar.

Yes, that's right. Vinegar. Costs me about two bucks a gallon. The squirt bottle I used is an empty organic kitchen-cleaner squirt bottle. Wanna see what it did to my weeds?

This one was huge. Big, bushy, monstrous. Really, really healthy. Wish I'd taken a 'before' picture, but I didn't know I'd get such good results, and so fast. Anyway, here's what it looked like an hour after I sprayed it with straight vinegar:

Now, my yard has some pretty lush grass. I'm proud of it. I mow it twice a week, never water it, and don't use fertilizer. I learned everything I know from this article: Organic Lawn Care For the Cheap and Lazy. (I'm both cheap *and* lazy. Ideal, for me.) Needless to say, I didn't want to hurt the grass, I just wanted to kill the dandelion. I squirted a stream of vinegar slowly at each leaf, letting the broad leaves carry the fluid directly to the root, which is exactly what they do with rainwater to feed themselves. By doing this, I was using the dandelion's own means of successfully surviving in order to kill it. I let it drink straight vinegar, rather than rainwater. Here's how it looked, an hour later:

That's a dead dandelion. It isn't coming back. If I'd tried to dig it out, I'd have failed, and the damned thing would have regenerated from whatever root pieces were left. (Dandelion plants regenerate from root fragments. A new plant, from each fragment. That's how those clusters of weeds happen.) Those little tools designed to dig out dandelions do nothing but help them grow bigger and healthier and more numerous the next time around.

Dandelions are a huge problem in most of suburbia, as well as anywhere else that boasts a square inch of soil to root in. (they probably wouldn't be such a problem if we started eating them and using them for medicine.) The majority of suburbanites spend a fortune on herbicides produced by Monsanto, and completely fail to kill the weeds. Why? It isn't because Round-Up® doesn't work. It works just fine, IF you apply it exactly the way I applied the vinegar to those two dandelions, and the couple of dozen others out in my yard.

But.... why pay for Round-Up®, if straight vinegar works just as well, and has the benefit of not being a contact poison to humans and other animals?

Why, indeed.

Cesar Millan knows his shit.

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:30:44 GMT

So, I read this book.. something about being a pack leader, by Cesar Millan. Yes, that dog-whisperer guy. The book was a lot of anecdotes, and observations, success stories, failure stories, all that sort of thing.

At the end, there was a short handbook, of the 'do this and this and this, don't do this and this and this' variety.

In my opinion, that handbook is why the book was written. It's pure gold.

A few days ago, after I finished reading this book, I looked at my dog and decided that we were going to Master the Walk. I walk my dog every day, sometimes for several miles. He's on medication for seizures that makes his hindquarters very weak, so I make sure he gets a lot of gentle exercise to strengthen his legs as much as possible. So, I walk him... sorta. He mostly walks me. And he gets obsessive about stuff, and he pulls me all over the place.

Well, he used to. No more.

I followed Cesar's directions, and taught Bragi to look at me, and pay attention to me, not the squirrel, not the screaming kids, not the barking dogs. I've taught him that I am the one that decides when we go, where we go, when we play, and for how long. I've taught him that he must stay where I tell him to, until I tell him to follow me.

Mostly, he does pretty well. He waits for me to go through doors now, and watches my face for clues about what he should do. Getting him to look at my face took a while. I don't know why, but he's always avoided eye contact. Perhaps he didn't trust me, fully. He's learning to trust me, now. Mealtimes are completely different, lately. No more chasing around after the cats and acting neurotically obsessed. He sits and waits for his food, calmly. He doesn't pull me around on the leash anymore. I don't lose my temper with him anymore, and I don't send him conflicting signals.

Let's just hope all this good behavior becomes a habit before my husband comes back to town. :-D

MINI and me.

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 18:46:28 GMT

This is me, with my brand-new prescription sunglasses, sitting in Northwest MINI's waiting lounge, waiting on the luggage racks to be installed on my brand-new MINI Cooper S. I'd take a picture of it, but it's in the back, getting fondled by service techs.

I love the car. The gas mileage is phenomenal (around 32mpg, combined city and freeway driving) it's cute as a bug's ear, and everyone smiles at me. Maybe because I've got a perma-grin these days.

I'm getting luggage racks installed so I can load up art supplies and a suitcase and go see my kids and my beautiful granddaughter. I'm working on finding a battery for our smallest camera, so that I'll be more likely to snap pictures on a moment's notice. Isn't going to happen this trip, but that's alright. I've got a wonderful Canon Rebel XT that takes incredible pictures, even though it's heavy and bulky. I'll just set it on easy point-and-shoot mode, and reduce the picture size so that the work required to get pictures onto here and on a web site is minimal.

Anyway, I've put 1200 miles on my car in just one month. That's unheard of, for me. Normally, I drive about 4,000 miles a year. Obviously, I'm enjoying the car. Pictures of it in a day or two, if I can sit still long enough to actually work the camera.

PS: Did you know that pulling huge graphic files and editing web sites on a free connection at a car dealership is damned near impossible? =D

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:54:56 GMT

That up there is my 2.5-year-old puppy, Bragi Wigglebutt. He’s been having seizures, and I think it’s possible that they were caused by parsley.

Please allow me to explain: We’ve noticed a correlation between the introduction of parsley to his diet and the onset of seizures. The same correlation can be made between increased ice cream sales and increased boating accidents. They both happen at the same time, therefore, ice cream causes boating accidents. Right?

Well, no. Not necessarily. Unless the boating accident was caused by someone who was intimately involved with ice cream while trying to drive a boat at top speed through a busy harbor. So, in theory, ice cream can cause boating accidents.

I think Bragi is trying to drive fast while eating parsley-flavored ice cream. Sure, it could be idiosyncratic; it’s unlikely that parsley contains or can be turned into any chemical compound that would affect an ordinary individual to the extent of causing seizures, but it’s always possible that this one dog has an unfavorable reaction to it.

However, with almost seven billion humans on the planet, and about that many dogs, I have a hard time swallowing the notion that any type of ailment can be specific to one individual.

The main reason I suspect parsley is the simple fact that every single episode of seizures has occurred shortly after he has ingested parsley.

The first seizures were last February; two or three days prior to the first seizure, Frank had begun using Mrs. Dash ‘Original’ flavor (that was the only flavor we had at the time.)

The second seizure, which turned into a very bad ‘cluster’ of grand mal seizures, happened exactly a week later. Frank hadn’t discontinued use of Mrs. Dash. After the second seizure and its ‘cluster’, we no longer allowed him any of our leftovers. All was well for three months, and Bragi was put on Phenobarbital by the ER vets.

Four weeks ago, in May, Bragi had another cluster of grand mal seizures... two days after first eating a chicken-jerky treat that contained parsley. We took him back to the ER (it was 1am) and they gave him valium and upped his phenobarb dosage.

A week ago, we took Bragi to our local vet to get blood tests done to check his phenobarb levels and make sure he wasn’t being overdosed and taking damage. He wasn’t, levels were good, and the vet commented on how perfectly healthy the blood test indicated he was. Next door to the vet was a small dog boutique that sold high-end food. Since the food Bragi had been eating made all his hair fall out (Royal Canin brand --don’t buy it, it’s crap. More on that later) I made the decision to get him food that was free of chicken meal and corn gluten meal. The food happened to contain parsley flakes as a minor ingredient.

Yesterday, Bragi had two seizures, at 4:25 am and 10:42 am. A couple of hours after the first seizure, I gave him some kibble (with parsley) with a little tuna on it. He had another seizure, much worse than the first, a little over six hours later. I called the vet, and explained the situation. They had me up his dosage by half a pill a day. I also spoke with my husband, and we decided that it was a little too coincidental that each seizure cluster coincided with his ingestion of parsley. I made him some dog food to last the rest of the day out of tuna, carrots, peas, and brown rice, with a little more meat than vegetables, and an amount of rice that roughly equalled the amount of veggies.

I called back, and informed the vet that I was taking his feeding into my own hands. I outlined my basic recipe and asked for her advice. She approved the plan, and advised that I get a good, digestible multi-vitamin that included trace mineral to crumble into his food at dinner time. She wasn’t at all skeptical, and seemed to support the plan whole-heartedly. I fed him the new, home-made food the rest of the day, and made another batch that will last two days. I portioned it out in one-cup servings, and will give him three servings a day.
He loves it. Eats every scrap of it. So far, he’s got firm stool and good breath.. That’s a bonus. Hopefully, this type of food will do the trick, and turn the tide of these seizures.

If he doesn’t have a seizure for a year, I’m going to wean him off the phenobarbital. If he doesn’t have a seizure for a year after that, I’ll know it was the commercial food.

I could, at that point, give him parsley and see if he has a seizure, but i’m not sure I want to do that. I’ll post again soon, and share observations.

(There's no such thing as one catch-all 'perfect' dog-food recipe, but here are some excellent guidelines on HOW to make it. My husband found these guidelines for me just after I made his first small batch of food yesterday. It's important to change your dog's food every so often, to something that uses a different protein source and/or a different starch. A dog can eventually build up an allergy to even the most expensive dog food, so no matter what, it's important to periodically change protein and starch choices.)

Holy Gods, I'm a treehugger.

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:05:44 GMT

I didn’t think I was. Never thought it would happen. I’ve been a good little consumer my whole life, never questioning the wisdom of Proctor & Gamble.

Then, I started noticing that my dog was losing his hair, and that I felt short of breath and got terrible headaches after eating yummy-tasting savory prepared foods. Turns out I’m a little overly-sensitive to MSG, and my poor dog can’t survive very well on kibble filled with mostly corn and corn gluten.

Those things led me to look around and realize that there are millions of little things we, here, in this house, do every day that contribute to the slow poisoning of ourselves and our environment. Chlorine bleach, PVC plastics, fiberglass insulation, acrylic carpet fibers... all of these things do something called ‘off-gassing’, which is just a polite way to say ‘slowly poisons the air, earth and water you live in’.

I was horrified to realize that I live in a cesspit of toxicity.

So, I started doing something about it. The first thing was to avoid prepared foods, and find some pet food that won’t kill my pets. We’re still experimenting with that last, but so far Dick Van Patten’s ‘Natural Balance’ food seems to be doing the trick. I’m also adding a little salmon oil to my puppy’s food to help combat the hair loss in the short term.

Avoiding prepared foods for myself is easy; the trick is finding fresh foods that aren’t laden with pesticides and hormones. Yes, I wash my food before I eat it, but you can’t wash the hormones and antibiotics out of milk, beef or chicken.

This has led me to experiment with ‘organic’ foods. Look, I’m not crazy... I know animals are helpless against me using them for food, and that’s the way I like it. If I want to raise dogs to eat, I will. (I don’t, but if this were China, I might.) Anyway, I eat meat. I don’t care if the chicken I buy never sees the light of day, so long as it isn’t shot up with hormones to give it bigger tits, and it isn’t fed dead chickens along with the cheap corn it eats. Eggs, however, I prefer from chickens that get fresh air, exercise, and whole grains (including barley, wheat and corn.) I don’t think vegetarian animals and ruminants should be fed dead, diseased animals, and yet it’s routine to render dead animals on a farm back into the stream of feed. This is where mad cow disease comes from... Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is caused, in short, by feeding cows the ground up spinal cord and brain tissue of diseased sheep (scrapie) and cows. A BSE diagnosis can only be made after death, and there’s really no way to treat it if it’s even suspected... therefor, the animals are a total loss for the rancher. Unless, of course, he grinds them up and feeds them to the surviving herd members.

This is unacceptable to me. Unfortunately, ‘organic’ beef and chicken ranges from $7-$15 a pound, and is out of most people’s financial reach.

So... poor people are supposed to eat shit?

Anyway, everything I’ve learned over the past few months is WAY too much for one little post in a blog, so I’ll try to break it up over time into smaller, more detailed explorations of what I’m learning. That way, I can share with you this life’s journey into the realm of healthy living.

If you’ll excuse me, it’s time to go play my guitar and make some yogurt. Tomorrow is granola day. Don't you dare laugh at me.

Music never goes out of style.

Sun, 27 May 2007 19:10:19 GMT

Click this link if you'd like to hear me playing my guitar... which is a Martin 00-28EC.

http://web.mac.com/dawnsartstudio/iWeb/Site/Blog/2B360FDE-4E9B-4E55-978F-313A47F13833.html

Life After 40 --there's a lot of it.

Sat, 12 May 2007 18:03:33 GMT

One might even say that most of living is done after the age of 40. At least, that's my experience. If it weren't, I'd have a lot more time to write a journal.

I don't know where to begin...so how about the beginning? A month ago, I went to spend two weeks with my parents in Boise. I went because my cousin Marj was visiting from Tennessee, and I haven't seen her in more than twenty years. She still remembers that I popped her eardrum with my fist, when we were kids. (I was aiming for her face, but it was a slow punch, and she ducked. Probably a good thing, because she'd have likely lost a tooth. No, I didn't instigate the fight.) Old conflicts aside, visiting with Marj and her mother was a delight --she's exactly the same spitfire-yet-down-to-earth personality I've always known, and these days I appreciate her a lot more than I ever did.

Marj and her mother were only there for a week, but I stayed on an extra week, for many reasons. The best reason was to spend time with my parents. Mom went back to work the second week, but Dad's retired, so we got to hang out together every day. It was a wonderful bonding time. I bought my father an inexpensive acoustic/electric classical guitar, and taught him to read guitar tab (music notated in a way that makes sense on a guitar.) Now, my Dad is 64 years old, and he picked up reading guitar tab in nothing flat. I'm pretty proud of that. I think realizing he could actually understand and play real music opened up a whole new world for him. He was busily thumbing through the songbooks I'd gotten for him, finding things he'd like to learn to play.

You can see how excited he was in this picture I got of him:

(Okay, that picture was taken before he got his guitar... I was showing him how ultra-cool my Macbook Pro is. I'm gonna look just like that in 20 years or so --beard and all. Maybe even the hat.)

The entire time at Mom and Dad's house was wonderful. I took Bragi with me, and my parents were kind enough to let him in the house. And on the couch. And in their laps. He loved all over them, and they gave him food. Even my mother, who traditionally will not allow an animal to touch her or be in her vicinity, giggled whenever Bragi did a drive-by foot-kissing on her. Marj is very much anti-animal, too, but Bragi zeroed in on her as a soft touch immediately. She squealed and giggled every time he kissed her, so of course he thought it was a great game that she liked playing. She started calling him "Ol' Sneak-a-lick", and I caught her petting him a time or two. Bragi blossomed in that environment, and spent a great deal of every day running and playing with Digger (my mom and dad's little dog who looks like a cross between a very fat rat and a ...well... I don't know. But she's odd-looking) and Tucker, the golden retriever from next door. They had half an acre of open space to run their legs off in, and they did. I informed Frank that we need more space and another dog.

At the end of two weeks, Frank drove down to get me, since I don't have my car yet (but I do have a production number! woot!) On the way back, we went through Spokane so I could see my first grandchild. She's so beautiful. She was one month and one week old at the time, and very alert. She payed close attention when someone spoke to her, and after a few minutes spent studying her grandmother, she went right to sleep in my arms. It was heavenly. She's more than lovely. My son and his beautiful lady made a gorgeous child. Here's the best picture I got of her:

Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend much time with them, but it was wonderful while it lasted. Miss Carleigh Rose was fascinated with her Grandpa Frank; she studied him intently while he talked to her. I think she may have been fascinated with his facial hair, but she could also have been mesmerized by the subsonic bass rumble in his voice.

The remainder of our drive home was spent discussing retirement options. We've decided we want a largish chunk of property, and lots of family around us, probably in Eastern Washington. Beyond that, there's too much possibility to contemplate. We're going to have to narrow down our desires over the next five years, because that's about when we're going to be buying property.

Home is good. We're slowly getting the computer lab arranged, my art studio moved, and the recording studio set up. We need a part to power the microphones, but that's simply a matter of waiting for the order to arrive. My friend Kevin came and spent time with us yesterday, and we had a marvelous time playing together, and doing some singing... Kevin and I harmonize pretty well together, in an odd sort of way. I'll know better how we sound once I hear a recording, but it's fun stuff.

Perhaps we'll eventually develop a recording studio that artists can use and publish from without the horrid soul-eating grind of going through major recording labels. There are so many stellar-quality musicians that aren't techies, there's bound to be a niche for people like us. Ah, well. There's a time for everything, I suppose.

It's a GIRL!!

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:59:16 GMT

My granddaughter, Carleigh Rose, was born just a few minutes ago, about 6:40 am. My son called a little while earlier, and said his wife was fully dilated and effaced, and about to start pushing. A half-hour later, Carleigh was born. He said it was the easiest thing he’d ever seen. Mom didn’t even break a sweat.

Our little newcomer is 20 inches long, and she weighs 7 lbs., 10 oz. She’s healthy, and screamed her indignation right away. We’re all very pleased and proud.

So, 'normal', but with seizures.

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:41:53 GMT

We got Bragi’s test results from the spinal tap and the liver panels... and everything is ‘normal’. So why is he having seizures? The veterinary neurologist confirmed my surmise that ‘epilepsy’ is a catch-all diagnosis for seizures that don’t have an obvious physical cause. She asked how he was doing, and fortunately, he’s doing pretty well. There have been no more seizures, but it’s only been about a week. Next week, we’re to take him to our local vet and get his blood tested to see how he’s tolerating the phenobarbital. I’m guessing the idea is to use as little medication as possible, and still have few or no seizures. I asked about weaning him off the medicine eventually, and was told that after a year with no seizures, we’d talk about weaning him off.

All this time, my mind has been working and worrying at the problem of ‘unexplained seizures’. Every seizure has a cause, even if we can’t find it. When I say ‘cause’, I don’t mean ‘trigger’. It’s pretty well known that triggers for seizures differ from person to person, but the types of seizures remain the same across the board; for instance, Johnny may see flashing lights and have a grand mal seizure, while Jenny will have a beer or two and have a grand mal seizure. Two different triggers, one type of seizure. Johnny has nothing apparently wrong with him, while Jenny has too much fluid in her cranial cavity, which puts a lot of pressure on her brain. We know what causes Jenny’s seizures; we don’t know what causes Johnny’s. A trigger is not the same as a cause.

Brain activity during a seizure has been likened to an electrical storm, and is usually expressed as ‘a threshold breached’. I don’t know how accurate the electrical storm analogy is, but it seems likely that neurons fire in an uncontrolled fashion during a seizure... and probably immediately preceding one. I’m also not sure the ‘breached threshold’ illustration is accurate. What causes the threshold to raise and lower? How can someone test ‘normal’ in all respects, and still have a lower ‘threshold’ for seizures than someone else? Why do some only have seizures for a short length of time, while others must wear a helmet to prevent head injury because their seizures are constant and unable to be controlled with medication?

These and other questions are on my mind, lately. Guess it’s time to do some more reading.

My puppy is coming home today.

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:53:04 GMT

Bragi is coming home from the hospital today. My beautiful 2-and-a-half year old 100% mutt puppy had four grand mal seizures in a 14-hour period the day before yesterday. He’d had one seizure a week and a half before those. It was also a classic grand mal seizure, including loss of bladder control, falling down, and rhythmic, violent twitches. He appeared to be ‘paddling’, since that’s the way his body is constructed. In a human, there’s a great deal more range of motion, and the twitches take many more forms. Of course, we took him to our veterinarian, who examined him and drew blood for testing. The blood test showed nothing unusual; no elevated liver enzymes to indicate he’d eaten something poisonous to him, and no elevated white blood cell count to indicate infection. The bloodwork essentially ruled out environmental toxins. Okay. So we don’t keep slug bait around, we knew that. But what WAS it? No way to tell, we just had to watch and wait.

So we did. He wasn’t out of our sight for a week and a half. At about 11am the day before yesterday, he was sleeping by the stairs, and had another seizure. I held him through it, and steadied him during his ‘post-ictal’ phase (that’s the short period of disorientation and imbalance that occurs immediately after a grand mal seizure.) As soon as he recovered his balance, he went outside and decorated the lawn with a largish pile of fecal matter. No worries; I have a poop-scoop. It took him a little over half an hour to appear normal again. I called the vet, who referred me to a VCA animal hospital in Lynnwood for further tests and perhaps an MRI scan. (If you have a four-legged family member with problems that can’t be fixed with a belly rub or a special treat, I highly recommend this place. It’s cleaner and better-run than most human hospitals I’ve been in, and they’ve got an in-house lab as well as the machinery necessary for things like an MRI.) I wrote down the information our local vet gave me, cleaned the carpets, and we settled down to wait for my husband to get home. At about 7:30, I was at my computer and Bragi was sleeping right behind my chair, when he had another seizure. Same as the last ones, but only lasting around 30-45 seconds rather than a minute or so. My husband got home shortly after that, and we called the VCA hospital, expecting to get an answering machine. We didn’t. That place is staffed 24 hours. We told them what had happened, and they asked us if we’d like to bring him in that night. We weren’t sure, since he’d lived his whole life without a seizure, why would he suddenly start having them? Then he had another. We called them back and asked for an address. He had another seizure after we got there, but they were able to stop it with valium. We spent a couple of hours waiting around while he was examined and had blood drawn for more extensive tests.

To make a long story much shorter and less boring, he had an MRI last night, and had spinal fluid drawn. The MRI looked normal; this rules out most intra-cranial problems, like lesions, tumors, cysts, excess water, and most infections that involve inflammation and swelling. The spinal fluid test will possibly rule out microbial infections like Meningitis. The blood tests could possibly rule out things like liver and kidney malfunction.

If all those things are ruled out, we’re left with this: Idiopathic Epilepsy. ‘Idiopathic’ means they don’t know what causes the seizures.

I’m not satisfied with this. I accept that we will have to treat the symptoms of something we can’t identify, most likely his whole life. I can’t accept that there isn’t a way to find out what causes seizures in an animal of any species, when none of the usual suspects (inflammation, infection, toxins, etc.) are at fault.

All I know so far is that seizures are typified by an extreme amount of uncontrolled activity in an animal’s forebrain, whether the animal be human, canine, or what have you. My investigation is going to have to start there. I'm just glad to finally be getting him back, because it's very, very difficult to sleep without a snoring puppy on the bed.

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:18:28 GMT

Frank says they’re both mine --I think he’s just leaving himself an out in case he can’t keep up with the learning curve until he retires.. which is alright by me. I’m not going to put pressure on him. Neither of them has been named, yet --we’re just getting acquainted. On the left is a Fender Stratocaster American Deluxe, and on the right is MY Gibson SG Classic. I’ve spent the last couple of days wearing my fingerprints off on steel strings --holy gods, I never knew pain could feel so good. The Fender has lighter strings than the Gibson, and is consequently slightly easier to play, but it lacks the warm, mellow, rich sound of the Gibson. Also, with humbucker pickups, the Gibson has an incredibly ‘clean’ sound, with almost no distortion, hiss, hum, or feedback...unless I want it.

In case you think I’m insane for learning to play a new instrument at 41 years of age --I’m not. It isn’t all that new, in fact. When I was a teenager, I taught myself to play the piano, and played for many years. I built a pretty large repertoire of songs to play, and learned to read music pretty effectively. Making music comes as naturally to me as making visual art; I’m just a lot less practiced. Give me a year, and I’ll be good. Two years, I’ll be very good. Perhaps, one day, I’ll be good enough to tour the local nursing homes. (okay, that was a joke.. sorta.)

The dream --The Dream-- is for Frank and I both to learn and grow and play together, face-to-face, touching each other through these instruments with the same intimacy and joy we’ve been touching each other with our minds and bodies all these years. I see it as a new dimension to our relationship, not necessarily sexual, but definitely *intimate*. Sound has always been important to both of us, and these beautiful guitars are simply yet another way we can use sound to communicate.

On the technical side: We’ve got a pair of Vox 30-watt combo amps, but no pedals yet. No need for them, at this time. Eventually, we might move to larger amps, but for most purposes, these will serve just fine. I have no intention of blasting the windows out of my house any time soon, and I certainly wouldn’t want to damage any nursing homes once we go on tour. (that was typed very much tongue-in-cheek.)

Okay, so changes happen.

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 23:23:11 GMT

Time passes, and things change. I don't like to work large anymore. I've decided digital art isn't so bad, or so difficult. Living in a motorhome at retirement looks like it might be something I want to do. Instead of looking forward to the next sexual adventure, I'm looking forward to my first grandchild. I have to cut sugar out of my diet as a matter of survival. I left EBSQ. My best childhood friend now weighs over 95 pounds. Change happens... so often, in fact, that 'change' is the only constant.

I like working small. Digital art is an adventure, and wondrously clean and compact.. perfect for travelling. I'll be able to teach my grandchildren something rewarding to do with their computers. Sugar makes me crazy, anyway. I've begun to use DeviantArt. Sherrill now looks like a real and beautiful woman. Life is good.

I'm seriously considering learning to play an acoustic guitar. Maybe, once that's mastered, I'll pick up an electric guitar. One is never too old, or too firmly n a rut, to learn something new. I'm willing to take the risk of failing or looking like a fool in order to feel alive and keep my brain in top condition. Without some risk, there isn't a reward.

One Good Boob.

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 05:57:54 GMT

Okay, here’s the thing: I lost all faith in my abilities after tracing my photo. Fortunately, this was a short-lived thing. I promptly set about drawing a few things free-hand, and using all my traditional-medium skills with this new medium. (have i mentioned that I freaking LOVE my Cintiq?) Anyway, I’ll show you all the results of this labor eventually, but right now I wanna show you the one little thing I drew today, testing the felt-tip nib in my stylus. (I like the felt tip very much, btw --spring-loaded nib is the next one to be tested.) This little thing is called ‘Torso 1’. Original, I know. My wit is boundless. Anyway, it’s drawn with the same tools as my self-portrait was drawn with, but all on one layer. No reference, whatsoever. I’m probably a lot more tickled with it than it warrants... but hey. No one reads this. I can brag to myself all I like. (click the thumbnail to make it larger... if you're actually reading this.)

No wonder people cheat.

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 09:59:55 GMT

I recently opened a DeviantArt account. This gave rise to the need for an artistic avatar. Ordinarily, I use a picture of myself with green mud on my face and curlers in my hair. This time, I just snapped a picture of mine own self with Photobooth, and used the charcoal pencil tools in Painter to draw ‘over’ the photo on a transparent layer. I then deleted the photo, leaving a blank white ‘canvas’ under the transparent layer. All of this took slightly under half an hour. It isn’t exactly like the photo.. but in my mind, that doesn’t mitigate the crime. I consider tracing when one can’t draw in the first place to be ‘cheating’. Harsh, maybe, but I’m old-school rigorous, and *used* to be proud of my own abilities. I’ve been drawing since I was a teensy little grasshopper. Now I’m a big old crusty bug, and I still can’t draw as well as I can trace. This hurts like mad. No wonder people trace images to produce artwork. Even if you know how to draw, it’s just a million times faster.

Sitting here looking at this drawing and the reference photo, I can see a hundred little errors. If I hadn’t traced, I wouldn’t know they were there. Or maybe I’m just being overly neurotic. *sigh* (click on the drawing to make it larger. you don't want my real face to be larger.)

The agony of drying time.

Sat, 21 Oct 2006 18:50:31 GMT

Perhaps I’m just impatient, but it seems like oil paint takes forever to dry.

This is the current progress on “The Bird with Crocheted Wings”. I’ve a few small bits of things to add to the beach portion, but sky and water are done. The figure needs a great deal of work, of course.

If you see anything glaringly horrific, please let me know.

Once upon a time...

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 18:14:53 GMT

About a hundred years ago, my second husband (father of all my children) spent a few minutes each night telling stories to our children, to give them some soothing attention before they slept. The kids loved his stories, and I admired them greatly, myself...so I took a tape recorder in the room while he was telling stories on two different occasions, and then painstakingly transcribed those two stories, so they wouldn’t be forgotten.

Well, today I have finished the first illustration for one of the stories. (I still have the transcriptions, two decades later.) My son called me the other day and asked if I could send those transcriptions to him, and I offered to illustrate them and publish them in book form for his child, who is due next spring. He was amenable.

I accomplished this illustration of the opening passage using my Cintiq and Painter 9.5, the digital watercolor tools, specifically. It was a joy to do, and I think it was moderately successful. I hope my grandchildren enjoy it.

Digital Watercolor --how easy is that?

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:31:11 GMT

Spent about half the day yesterday working with Painter 9.5, learning how to use the tools. Last night, I finally got around to being able to go through one of their tutorials. The tutorial was for painting a face with digital watercolor, all on one layer. I used the pencil tool to draw a face (the tutorial was online, and the image wasn’t downloadable.. plus, I didn’t like their face.) The tutorial was set up logically, and I’m almost happy with the result. Not sure I like the watercolor paper texture that got applied at the end, though. Yeah, it looks like extremely rough cold-press watercolor paper, but I’m thinking I should have adjusted the levels a bit so it wasn’t so all-pervasively present. I also painted off the edges of the page.. yeah, I know that’s a no-no with watercolorists, but I really don’t give a shit. End result: The watercolor is very nice, acts like real watercolor (mostly) and I’ll probably use it extensively for backgrounds and tinting.

Oil Painting WIP: Work on Mercedes, continued...

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:40:55 GMT

*Note: the PNG file that my post turns into from my .Mac blog site does not transfer links; the missing link from this post is the Toll Brothers homebuilders site: http://www.tollbrothers.com/homesearch/servlet/HomeSearch

I'll try to find a work-around for this problem.

WOOT! My Wacom Cintiq 21UX is here!

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 06:50:02 GMT

My Cintiq 21UX got here today... I was so excited, I drew porn all over it. (this was done in less than an hour using the charcoal pencil tools in Corel Painter 9.5.)

The World's Best Pizza...

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 17:18:18 GMT

...came out of my kitchen last night. I know, the picture is a rose, not a pizza, but that’s because I have LOTS of pictures of roses, but no pictures of pizzas. Certainly not of the delicious, easy, fast pizza we had last night. It was gone before I could even think about taking a picture. It wasn’t an ordinary pizza, because it was made with shrimp, goat cheese, spinach (frozen, over a year old, so quit flinging e.coli at me), and alfredo sauce, but WOW was it good!

Here’s the list of ingredients I used to make it:

-Any 12-inch pre-baked pizza crust
-olive oil
-a good handful of those little frozen pre-cooked shrimp, rinsed in cold water
-a good handful out of a bag of frozen chopped spinach
-about 4 oz. out of a jar of pre-made alfredo sauce (like Ragu)
-a couple of tablespoons of water
-a nice fat clove of garlic, either crushed or finely minced
-a 4 oz. container of unripened goat cheese (or feta, if you’re a chickenheart, but the goat cheese is better)
-a nice handful of shredded parmesan, grated out of a can might be okay
-a sprinkling of thyme

Making the thing is easy. Start by preheating your oven AND your pizza pan to 450°. Brush the crust lightly with olive oil. Distribute the rinsed and drained shrimp evenly over the bottom of the crust; distribute spinach just as evenly.

Crush the garlic clove, mix with the alfredo sauce. Add a little water at a time until it is of pizza-sauce consistency (not watery, but not gelatinous, either...might want to err on the side of ‘thick’.) Distribute sauce as evenly as possible over shrimp and spinach. Sprinkle goat cheese evenly over entire pizza, top with the parmesan. Sprinkle the thyme in a light dusting over your pizza, then pop it in that hot, hot oven.

Lower the temperature to 425°. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Turn your oven’s setting to ‘broil’, and broil for about three minutes, so the topping begins to brown. I like it hot enough to peel the skin off the roof of my mouth, but you might want to let it cool for five minutes or so, because hot alfredo sauce is a lot like napalm; it sticks, and keeps burning.

At any rate, this pizza was honkin’ delicious, really easy to make, and fast. Looking at the ingredients, it’s also on the high side of nutricious. Sadly, this pizza was probably the highlight of a really busy and somewhat frustrating week. Hopefully, my Cintiq will be here today, but my cables don’t arrive until Monday, so it’ll be another weekend of waiting.

*sigh*

I want money. That's what I want.

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:34:33 GMT

There was no post yesterday, because I spent the ENTIRE DAY researching stocks. We added two positions to our portfolio, and they were both chosen after a lot of research. One was a very good pick (in my opinion, which doesn’t mean doodly squat); that one is United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) We’re already up $.67 per share over this morning’s purchase price, and it looks good (to me) until the feds start loosening up on rates and the economy surges again. We might sell it earlier.. I dunno yet. At any rate, this was one of the few small-to-mid-cap stocks in which the board of directors and/or the financials didn’t give me the heebie-jeebies. The company is currently expanding its distribution base, to capture a little more of the organic food market. UNFI has taken on a little debt (but not much, compared to revenue) to do this, and while this might not be the best time to take on debt because of slightly higher interest rates, it’s a fairly certain thing that this company will be in a prime position to capture a large share of the rapidly-growing organic and whole foods market. We all want to feel good about what we eat, don’t we? How much buzz have you seen about ‘whole foods’ and ‘organic foods’ in the media lately? Take a look around, watch a few commercials, listen to health-conscious-but-time-stressed America search for a way to get something better than cheezy poufs and sugar-laden cereals at the grocery store. (note: I dearly love cheezy poufs, but only once every few months. I eat oatmeal and vegetables nearly every day.) Couple that with the fed-neutral point in the economic cycle, and I consider this stock a winner. We purchased half of our intended position this morning.

Yeah, sounds like voodoo. It is. It’s freaking gambling. My mother would love this stuff. However, what we do is prudent gambling.

The other stock pick I made was probably purchased at the wrong time, but I’ve still got faith in it. Here’s why: The company is American Ecology Corporation (ECOL), the oldest radioactive wastes services provider in the US, and the only company in the country that handles both hazardous and radioactive waste facilities. According to their web site, they own all the physical facilities that they use for all this nasty waste management, but with only 214 employees, I’m thinking they probably sub-contract the personnel for some jobs. I could be wrong about that, but my homework for this company isn’t anywhere near done. We only committed to one-third of our intended position for ECOL this morning, and we’ll wait to see how this cycle goes before we either buy a little more, double down, or dump it. This company also manages PCB wastes generated by manufacture of computer parts and components, and being based in Boise makes just that portion of their business fairly lucrative. The government contracts are just gravy. Everything about this small-cap security says, to me, that American Ecology Corporation is a prime company for one of the huger-than-huge companies (like WMI) to buy up in order to add industrial and government contracts to their revenue stream. (I know nothing about WMI’s management, but they’re on my list to look at.)

All of the above is just my opinion... I’m not trying to sell you on these stocks, or on stock trading, period. I like it, get high on it, enjoy it immensely, but I’ve got the spare time to devote to it. If you don’t have a couple of days a week to spend researching stock to buy and sell... then don’t. I’m just sharing my excitement at my very first actual pull-the-trigger foray into the world of stock exchanges.

(Yeah, I think Jim Cramer is brilliant. No, I don’t do his picks, but I do use his methods of research.)

Surf and Sky

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:43:51 GMT

Did some basic laying out of the water yesterday, and a lot of work on the sky. It became pretty obvious pretty quickly that I was going to have to finish the background before touching the figure in this painting, unless I wanted a horrific mess. I don’t, so surf and sky it is. For some reason, my camera didn’t capture the colors like it should have. There’s a great deal of magenta and yellow in the water and clouds, but it isn’t showing in the photo. Ah, well. You get the idea. I’ll for sure get a picture on the next update, which will be several days from now. What I’ve done thus far must dry pretty well before I can layer more color on top.

The Bird with Crocheted Wings

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 23:07:00 GMT

John Christopher Borrero is a phenomenal artist. He is also a gentle, wise human being whom I am really honored to have as a very valued acquaintance. He’s the sort of fellow that touches lives in a positive way. It was no surprise to me to discover that he is descended from a woman of strength and character; her name is Mercedes. She will be 92 years old this month. John asked me to do a portrait of her some time back, and sent me a couple of dozen pictures of her at various times in her life. I was most captivated by the pictures taken of her in the last ten years, but couldn’t seem to come up with a composition that didn’t look like ‘Lucy in the Field with Flowers’...then John told me something his grandmother had said to him recently: “She says little birds "with crocheted wings" sit on the piano to listen to her play.”

That phrase was visually evocative for me, and I couldn’t let go of it. I saw her mind roaming free, a ‘bird with crocheted wings’, tethered by habit to her 90+ year-old body. Mercedes was born in Sosua, in the Dominican Republic, quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth. I found many captivating photographs of this resort town... with the composition pictured above, I was able to use my favorite photo of Sosua, and my favorite photo of Mercedes as references.

What I’ve done so far is a very rough placement sketch; I will begin adding values of light and dark today. I will post progress photos as I go along, but this isn’t going to be a quick painting. There’s still a lot of problem-solving to be accomplished, with her hand positions and the exact wind-blown status of her dress and crocheted shawl. Hopefully, I’ve been loose enough in the under-sketch that I won’t be unable to correct things as I go along.