Work Related

Just look at the cool dragon I scored at work! A nice perk has always been the ability to purchase (generally reasonably) interesting stuff. We joke at work that you have to be a "stuff person" to work at an auction house... otherwise it will overload your circuits and you'll go crazy. There is a lot of stuff in the world. The other truth of an auction house is that if you wait long enough, the same thing (or something very similar!) will come along. It's down right weird when we have an auction and get several identical objects consigned by different people. Last year we had the same Lalique vase twice in one sale and just last month, we had two nearly identical wooden swans from different estates. (How many of us have large wooden swans hanging around?!)
As many of you know, I have liked my job. I hope to be able to continue to do so but there are strange things afoot. Despite The Orange Menace constantly crowing about how swell the economy is doing, the auction that I work at seems to be floundering a bit. I understand that the auction world is changing and people are getting smarter about selling their own things on Ebay and Craig's List, and there are thirty million online auctions now...
Here's some really lovely fabric that I got- for a song. Even if I only used it as a backing for an art piece, it would still be a steal; there's over a yard and it's wide.

Anyway, I'm having my hours whittled and it doesn't make me happy. (And just in time for the holidays and the darkest, most brutish time of the year!!) Let's hope things pick up in the near future.

And here's "Steve". I pulled him out of the dumpster behind the auction. It is truly a source for strange things, and No, I did not name him "Steve"*. Look at the back of his neck:

See? I guess my point is how enriched my material world has been while working at the auction. Not only do I get to collect unusual and various things, I get to handle- and photograph- all sorts of delightful and museum-worthy items. I have developed a real appreciation for stuff I'll never own (nor particularly want to): like silverware and Chinese vases and ugly settees. They're all fun to absorb for a few minutes and then they go on their way.
Additionally, I feel entirely too jaded and exhausted to think of looking for another job. I have job-related baggage and little or no desire to have to become a perky and accommodating job applicant at this stage of my life! This has been a good, three-day-a-week job for an artist like me... don't make me start over now!!!!

*Steve is still living in my office at work. I have a prodigious collection of flotsam and ephemera that embellishes my work room, including a large drawing of Lenin and primitive Band-Aid art... and bugs! And teeth! And odd pictures of people grasping cats by their necks!

Thanksgiving Meat Feast

Can anyone tell me why this outlandish and frankly disgusting outer garment keeps showing up in the side border of our email? Bob and I have shopped online for boots and dog leashes and flower bulbs but neither one of us has searched for "jackets that look like marbled slabs of beef". Here's a fashion shot, featuring a contraposto male, just itchin' to show his meat off to some lucky lady:

Fetching, isn't it? And for some truly weird advertising, there seems to be "Arby's" embroidered on his left chest... Do they require employees to wear these smocks at work? Wouldn't that convince more people to eschew the consumption of meat? Hasn't anyone followed the downer cow/mad cow/Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease connection!?!?!?
I take into consideration that it is Thanksgiving tomorrow (be thankful that these ads have not been turning up in your email!) and hunting season is probably in full metal jacket swing, but we're not eating red meat anyway. We're having Chicken Marbella for dinner. Try printing chicken thighs on a jacket! (Or on second thought, don't!)
Okay... here's (I'm assuming) the same company doing themselves even one better if that was possible. Ready for this? (I think not: it was 6:00 am when I first saw this and almost screamed out loud.)

Yes, that's a jacket printed to look like the naked, incredibly hirsute fat middle aged white guy. Oh please! My eyesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Seriously? Who designs this stuff?) I guess this jacket is the logical rejoinder to red meat; a little white flesh, anyone? And would you enjoy a side serving of prions? Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Okay, okay... there's one more (incredibly enough) article of clothing in this line... you know the old jokes about how you don't want to see sausages being made? How about your anorak?

Early Winter

Just in case anyone slept late and missed the joy of waking up to five inches of slushy snow and rain and sleet and generally miserable conditions outside, I'll present a few pictures. How about we didn't get a measly inch or two- the proverbial "dusting"- but instead went for the full-blown, all out winter presentation: Look at this mess!

There's Robin, looking like she's lost in Alaska. She alone among us professes to like the snow. I suppose when one is young and carefree, snow is a blast. Robin does enjoy being toweled off (and given a dog treat) when she comes back in. No one gives Bob or me a dog treat when we come back in... but then again, Bob made French toast and the house smelled divinely like cinnamon and maple when I came back in from feeding Maggie.

Wow! I hadn't even thought about how monochromatic our world is when it snows... just shades of grey. It's hard to believe that just Wednesday, I was planting bulbs and raking leaves and Bob was splitting wood. I sure hope that this early snow storm isn't a harbinger of a long, cold, snowy winter to come. Yikes!

*At least I'm taking the day off from work. The drive in would be a nightmare! (Besides whne I called in, no one answered the phone.) Bob maintains you can't snow blow this sort of heavy wet stuff. But you sure as hell can't shovel it, either! Maybe (wishful thinking) it will melt??!?!?

A Post After the Elections

It's nice to be able to think about something other than politics (Go Blue Ripple!!) like the fact that Bob made this wonderful tile top table. It's got a great stable metal base with an attractive diamond pattern (maybe I'll photo that later) and these tiles were "found" down by Bob's studio. Amazing the stuff that turns up! I love the variation in blues among the tiles...

And you don't see items like this everyday! Our delightful and talented friend Roberta charmed me with an elaborate birthday package. This repurposed Osage orange (with a found alien hand!!!) announced my new magazine subscriptions (Remember that I use them in collage making). But that wasn't all: beneath the carefully wrapped orange was a lovely length of African cloth- perfect for upcoming project! and as if THAT wasn't enough, Roberta also bequeathed me a huge assortment of bulbs! Species tulips, scilla, daffodils, hybrid tulips... amazing! Any one of these gifts would have been more than generous but altogether, I'm overwhelmed! And really? It actually is nicer to receive gifts when least expected! Thank you Roberta!

And here's pastel upside down Robin to remind us that dogs enjoy getting mentioned, too! Robin's been very happy; I think she likes the colder weather, even if I don't. It makes her super frisky and nuts. She's been doing mad loops around the yard at like a million miles an hour. Craziness runs in the family.
I am trying to catch up with myself. It's hard to believe that it's almost Thanksgiving and the year is drawing to a close. So much has happened and continues to happen (and I'm not just thinking of politics!!! A decades worth of "incidents" in a day!) Remember that we experienced a tornado and we are still cleaning up from that. The tree guys are eagerly awaited to take down a whole bunch more dying spruces (the weather's been against them). I have a bunch more planting and yes! I have more studio ideas to implement. And don't get me started on the changes going on at work... anyone want to hire an artist? Actually, I have ideas in that department, too!

(Another) Week of Smelling Badly

That should scare you, a couple of days past Halloween! Just Lil' Robin the Good, rolling around exposing her teeth. And as frequently happens on my blog, the picture has NOTHING to do with the post. (I simply could not locate anything that smelled badly...)
This Wednesday, I was thrilled/relieved/ecstatic that I had NOTHING that I was required to do: no deadlines for submissions, no WTF merchandise to prepare (although I am receiving more orders!), no where I had to be. In short I had the day to myself and I decided to (finally) spend the day with Robin and plant the white daffodil bulbs I had ordered.
The day was perfect; warm (really warm), sunny (finally) and delightful. I gathered tools and dog and headed down to my "spring garden" area. As I wheeled the wheel barrow, I couldn't help but notice that one side of the yard presented the distinct aroma of chicken soup. Someone was obviously cooking. It wasn't the worst smell, just not what I expected.
But as I began cheerfully excavating rocks (lots of them) and inserting my first bulb, the atmosphere changed from chicken noodle to asphalt. The road crew had decided that today was the right day to pave our section of the road and I had to be party to it. Soon, further scents drifted over from our neighbor's house in the form of laundry softener sheets. I had anticipated the autumnal smells of fallen leaves and maybe a bit of apple cider but instead I got petroleum and artificial floral. Yeech.

This weekend, Bob and I are driving to Vermont to retrieve his sculpture that has been in a show all summer. In preparation for our voyage, Bob decided to apply a liquid metal patch to our truck's manifold which has a crack. (No danger in driving it, but it was getting loud.) As we are down to one vehicle, I have been driving the truck to work. About three miles up the road this morning, I became aware of a pungent, sulfur/eggy smell. The source was manifestly the patch, burning off but boy did it stink! I rolled down both windows, opened the back slider and tried to breath minimally. I have a forty minute commute to work.
As luck would have it, I wound up behind a school bus that was burning oil. The combined odor was something else and I was gagging by the time I arrived at work. There, I knew something was up because the front door was ajar. It has been unseasonably warm but it turns out that several pieces of furniture (and maybe a rug or two) that had come to the auction house smelled of cat piss and my co-workers were attempting to air the building out.
But I did ultimately get that pumpkin spice/cinnamon latte/apple cider autumn smell I had sought. There is a leak somewhere in the wall behind the bathroom at work and to mask the smell, our general manager had plugged in one of those peculiar room fresheners that get stuck in wall sockets. (Who thinks up this stuff??!) Truly this week, my world stinks!