Winter Sort of/Kind of/Maybe

We finally got some snow- not that I was all antsy on the edge of my seat about the lack there of. (But Jules the Dog seems really happy today!) Some confluence of Climate Change coupled with a strong El Nino has manifested in our oddly benign weather to date. People keep posting all the plants that are growing (and even blooming) and the insects that are drawing winter blood. It is remarkable.
So the picture above illustrates the dusting of crusty white stuff that appeared this morning in the Blue Garden. I guess the end of year and the arrival of a small storm make me consider this year passing and the New Year approaching.
What are we remarking on this year? (Besides the weather).

1. The perfidy of creeps that poached my domain name and messed up my website... leave us poor artists alone for god's sake. Do something good for us: Buy our work. Or advertise us but don't fuck with us. There are plenty of other opportunities for that! So let's hope the New Year returns www.ritavalley.com to me! (It seems to be "down".)
2. Both Bob and I had really dynamite shows this year... and neither one of us sold a bloody thing. I guess we can claim to have had "positive experiences" and we "learned a lot" (but wouldn't it have been nice if the universe smiled that one bit more and caused filthy lucre to have been delivered to our bank accounts? I think so...) Let's hope the New Year brings art sales and splendid offers of shows and good reviews!
3. Bob and I had truly lousy motor vehicle experiences this year. The truck died (and it took a while to replace it) and then the Honda and my mother's elderly Subaru died. We're still dealing with the fallout of all this. Let's hope the New Year brings automotive joy!
4. I can't complain in the "health and happiness" department. We were (overall) healthy and happy. That's a good thing. Let's hope for a continuation of that, come the New Year.

I hope in the New Year that Bob and I accomplish even one of the household projects that we were laughing about with a friend yesterday. We all have long lists, I know, but even one thing (like the hallway shelves/sliding doors or the back terrace area or even my closet!) I'd be really happy with any of those!

It's Cyber Warfare!

I was attempting to complete an artist's statement for some work I wanted to submit and I thought I'd go on my website to check the wording of a particular description of a piece that I had up online. I googled in my web address: ritavalley.com and I was horrified that instead of my art work, some (what I thought at the time) Chinese gibberish appeared.

 (Yup. That's my address in the upper left hand corner). Turns out that it's Japanese...
I tried three times more to reach my website and finally went to my pages through the hosting site where I can add pictures and edit it and stuff. It came up just fine through the host site. I then called Ipage to see what was up...
Turns out that my domain name was supposed to be on "automatic renewal" but was on manual, meaning I was somehow supposed to be on top of when it came due (to the tune of a princely $12 a year). Ipage doesn't handle the domain and the domain registry company either never contacted me or it somehow went to spam or out with the garbage. The upshot is some crazy Japanese computer geek registered my name, I guess in the hopes that they could sell it back to me.
I said to the Ipage representative, "But I'm an artist! What do they want MY name for? We never get any traffic anyway!" And while there was an email address I can't say I see the wisdom in emailing these cyber thugs and saying, "Give me my domain name back!" They'd probably just want to extort lots of money from me, or take my credit card information and use it or send the Yakuza after me.
But it's sucky that my name is associated with what looked like a Japanese dating service:

 The guy at Ipage assured me that it was some sort of Japanese horoscopes. But really? I feel like my online identity has been violated! Who am I?
The only thing I could do was register ritavalley.net as my new address but it just isn't as easy as dot.com. And someone who doesn't know me well will probably google www.ritavalley.com, come up with that stupid poser website and forget all about me!
My next best hope is waiting for these creeps to get sick of paying for my name and then I'll have to jump on it and re-register it for me. I know that people make a business out of registering domain names, but seriously? My name? It's not like I have the name recognition of a Kardashian or a Bush or something! (I heard that the republicans were not really swift about Internet use and people made money selling their names back to them.)
But this is the third time I haven't had my own name available. Initially, it was this real estate agent in Illinois or Indiana. Then it was (just as strange as Japanese) a British chemical company. Then I scored my name serendipitously late one night when their ownership lapsed. Let this be a lesson to the wise: register- permanently if you can- your own name!

This Year's Model

Here's this year's Xmas tree; we can call it the "Bondage Tree". But don't worry, both Bob and I were forced to "liberate" it as guilt over its possible suffering caused us to cut the string...
I went to Walmart a week ago. Yes, I confess to occasionally visiting Walmart (despite those pangs of knowing we're supporting exploited child labor and grisly conditions to produce our pukey cheesy goods at ridiculous rock bottom prices). Anyway, on my way into Walmart, I spotted actual real live Xmas trees, bound up and ready to thrust into the hatchback of our (temporarily) running car. And- can't beat this!- there was a sign reading $5.50. I went in and inquired at the courtesy desk to make sure I wasn't misreading the sign. I then called Bob to get his approval for this remarkably affordable transaction. I enjoy his input.
After smelling and fingering each available tree (for freshness and vigor) I loaded the selected tree into the shopping cart where it projected like a harpoon. Thus armed, I made my other purchases and was greeted with other shoppers exclamations of approval. In truth, as the trees were strictly bundled, there was no way to ascertain whether this tree was a lovely desirable pyramidal spruce, or a homely lop sided individual. It didn't matter anyway- cheap is good.
It was Bob that had the clever idea of leaving the tree all strung up. He even prefaced his idea by saying, "This is an idea more typical of you..." He was right! And for a couple of days, we lighted it and left it bound.
We almost used the above image as our Xmas card, but it just didn't translate all that well. Instead,
we freed it and were pleasantly surprised to find a perfectly shapely five foot tree. We'll officially decorate it tonight, before watching the Democratic debates. Go Team Bernie!

End of Year Project- Kudos to Bob

I wish I had thought to take a picture of the barn before Bob put this lovely wood door up! He really surprised me by just taking the initiative and doing it.
Previously, this section of the barn (which store Maggie's hay supply) was cloaked in an increasingly deteriorating tarp. Looked like shanty town! But Bob cleverly used wood that we had left from other projects and hardware that we had been given to us... in short, it cost like nothing and works really well. The right hand side rolls on a track so you can open  and close it easily. He put a great metal handle on it and it will weather to the same grey in short order. Both Maggie and I are very happy although the picture below doesn't seem to suggest that! Sometimes, it's very difficult to make your horsey friend put her perky little ears forward in a semblance of a good mood:

She appears a tad suspicious in this picture; sort of the "Leave me alone. I was sleeping and what's that annoying little box in your hand? No, I won't put my ears forward and look like your pleasant little palfrey!" But at least her hay is nice and dry and the barn looks so much better. I guess the unseasonably warm inspired Bob to get the door done. We are enjoying the strange December benevolence but it's worth remarking that this is happening during the Paris Climate Summit. Mother Nature does seem intent on reminding us that we're messing around with the natural order of things. Let's hope that- Climate Change deniers aside!- the powers that be come to firm resolve about our environment and everyone gets on board!

Big Feet and Other Scary Stuff

(Well some how I screwed up (while attempting to multi-task) and I published this blog before I was even done) and someone even looked at it!).
Ahem! So Jules the Dog and I went out for our walk and had only just gotten to the car parking area of the dirt road when I saw the above track in the nice soft sand. That is a big foot print! We actually walked all the way back home to get the camera to document the print. And I compared it the listed mountain lion/bear/bobcat prints on the Internet and it looks just like Mountain Lion.
For scale, here's my hand next to it.

(Funny that other people did exactly the same thing for scale. You can google that.) Anyway, sort of freaks me out that there are these super large felines prowling around out there, ready to eat me and Jules. Yes, I suppose it might be a very large coyote but that would be bigger than most I've ever seen. And I took a shot of Jules' footprint in the same sand and it was no where near as deep or impressive and he weighs 55-60 pounds.
Here are a few other  things to be scared of:

Ahhhhhhhhh!!! Ben Carson AND George Bush! Or even worse:

 http://i.giphy.com/xTk9ZMvytLICEWw9bi.gif
Follow that link to get the full effect! Pretty scary stuff out there... and it's real!
Or how about this charmer:

What's terrifying is thinking of any one of them as president... give me mountain lions any day!

And it only gets weirder; just wait until next weeks debate. OOOOOOOOOOoooooo! You'd think every day is Halloween!

Insidious Piles

While the title of my blog could be referencing unfortunate fistulas, it is actually about heaps: heaps of everything. Newspapers, unopened mail, books... really, it is possible to construct piles from almost anything. I should know, as I am an inveterate piler-on.
I seem to be in a confessional mode and allowing one of those occasional glimpses of how we live here at the BauHaus Chicken Coop. Bob can be excused from this conversation, as he is much better than me at eliminating piles- sometimes by simply chucking everything in the offending pile into the garbage can. He is less tolerant than I am of clutter.

Piles evolve. They start as a single magazine or book and advance down that (literal) slippery slope towards deconstruction. I like a good tower in danger of avalanche-dom! It makes for fireworks and excitement when the pile finally lets go and everything comes whooshing down. Once the components of a pile are spilled onto the floor, a better assessment of the contents is possible and an edit can begin. Most of what is found in the pile are expired coupons, notes to one self about interesting books or music to check out (this becomes another auxiliary pile up near the computer) and the book that was due last week at the library.

This last heap is particularly noteworthy. It's what happens to a pile that gets moved because friends are coming to dinner. The pile that resided on the edge of the kitchen table now "hides" on the washing machine. This pile may be returned to the kitchen table intact, or allowed to age until the laundry needs doing. In truth, I probably wouldn't miss anything in this pile if someone came along and threw it away. But you never know.
And really? Our house isn't too bad. We clean up the worst of the dog fur and dust bunnies every few days and our bed is made and the dishes are done. It's just that piles happen.