Cookie Puss

 

Would ya look at that! This cookie greeted Bob and I after dinner one night. While it's totally funny to see a surprised cookie pop out of a package, it's a shame it didn't resemble Jesus... then we could be famous!

And speaking of cookies, here's another puzzle:

Whatever happened with all those monoliths that were popping up across the world? It had a brief run and poof! All gone. Well, I thought to keep the game going...

Pop Quiz: Solstice Edition

Okay kids: What are the two things that Rita enjoys about the Holiday Season? If you said, "Xmas tree!" and "Cookies!" than you have a splendid memory. Above is the partially decorated pine tree that Bob harvested from our vast acreage. It's actually a bit taller than some recent models and boy is there plenty of open space to hang ornaments! Looks great!

                                     

And here's the beginnings of several bouts of cookie creation. We didn't have the ingredients I needed for a few of the other cookies I intended to make, so I resorted to that pseudo-healthy standby of oatmeal raisin cookies. They're half gone already.

Here's our tree illuminated at night. I think this was from our Solstice Celebration. We like to hold celebrations; what else can you do in times of COVID 19 and continued Trumpism?! Let's break out the booze and have a ball... (*1)

It is strange to be decorating and thinking that we'd ordinarily have family (Hi Cathy! Hi Beatrice! Hi John!) over for pork roast, which Bob is just now starting to cook in the CrockPot. (Or, The CrackPot as it IS at our house!). We're cooking the pork roast a day early, thinking we'll enjoy it for Xmas eve as well as Xmas day because Holy Hell! The weather people are predicting heavy rain! High winds! Flooding! Armafuckinggeddon!! Power outages! Darkness! Despair! Our energy company (don't get me started on Eversource (*2)) left a weird robo-message excusing themselves in advance of any responsibility for power outages. They advised to remove or tie down any outdoor decorations... yeah, right. (*3)

So we're having a small feast: mashed potatoes, roast pork, gravy, Brussels sprouts and our own carrots. And we have a warm spinach artichoke dip as an appetizer and a punkin pie to finish up. Slosh it all down with a nice red Bordeaux and boy are we livin' the good life!

In the meantime, I'm doing everything with one hand tied behind my back as I had a freak accident (*4) and my left hand looks like I decked someone in a bar fight. I'm swollen and can't bend two fingers. Thank goodness I'm a Rightie! 

So... Happy Holidays from us and ours to you and yours!

(*1) To quote Miss Peggy Lee.

(*2) And there were a couple of degenerates (one, whaling away at a rose vine with a machete!!) sent by Eversource to prune the trees that line the driveway so as to prevent outages. But walking out to the mailbox and surveying every bloody inch of the driveway, I was unable to discern that they had done anything!!

(*3)  But I will bring Burned Santa inside for the night. Remember him? Rescued from the wilds of Shamokin Pennsylvania where he had been badly burned in some heathen Xmas sacrifice. He gets tied to the fence every year as our one concession to outdoor holiday decorations.

(*4) Don't ask how I managed to hook my sleeve on a gate, pull on it and cause my poor, innocent left hand to come careening across and POW! impact on the side of the horse food bucket. I am swollen and can't bend two fingers.

Cheatin' on Maggie

It's true! I have been cheating on Maggie with a horse named Missy, pictured above. Missy belongs to my friend Gloria who spends the winter in Florida. She was kind enough to ask me if I'd like to ride her horse for her while she whiles away her days on the beach, getting warm and sandy. (We're freezing here!)
I think Missy- seen below in her entirety- misses Gloria, but she's been a good ride for me so far. She seems to be pretty level headed and not spooky or flighty. And she really looks the part of what she is- a Quarter Horse. Very different from my poor Mexican Pony Maggie who is still out of commission because of reoccurring abscesses in her hind foot. Maggie is altogether smaller, both width wise and height wise.

 A comparison:

Maggie is a good hand (four inches) shorter and probably two hundred (or more!) pounds lighter. Even their heads are different: Missy has the wide forehead and big jaw of a Quarter Horse. Maggie has a much longer, narrower head, but your guess is as good as mine as to what Maggie is... maybe part Mustang? Maggie is/was a pretty comfortable horse and it's too bad she's been lame.
I have been fortunate to be riding with Sabina, the woman who actually owns the farm. She has been riding a horse named Hannah, that she bred and raised. Hannah's great; about two years ago, I did some lessons at this farm and Hannah was the horse I was partnered with. She's got a great attitude but a really big, roiling canter- much bouncier at the trot!- than Missy or Maggie. (We didn't ride this past week, though as it snowed and was something like 12 degrees).
And here's what Missy thinks of me; she leaves a big pile every time we ride.

I think I posted this particular subject to avoid what is really on my mind. The winter (which doesn't even begin until this Thursday!!!!!) is already taking it's toll on me. It's dark and cold and the days are short and contrary to whatever it's doing in Florida, it's snowy here. We had such a protracted fall that winter hit suddenly and I sure wans't ready for it! I'm also in avoidance about the holidays. I did make Xmas cookies (one of my two requirements for "celebrating" the season) and we are considering a tree. Maybe that'll get me going, and the fact that it's supposed to be in the forties on Wednesday when we ride... thank goodness for that!

AntiSnow Dance

This is what it has come down to- me against the snow! I know in California they are praying for rain and snow to alleviate their serious drought conditions. But here? I'm dancing my hooves off in an effort to appease the SnoGods (if there are any) and make it stop already. I've heard up to 18 inches in Litchfield County! Nothing to do but bake cookies, vacuum the stairs, work in my studio, take antibiotics and watch the old bump drain. (It is diminished.) The only thing that has improved is the temperature, hovering around the balmy mid-twenties,
Bob has secured the biggest pile of wood ever, indoors.

I share his desire to not have to go out later when there is another foot of snow to bring in the evening's wood. Especially as this white disaster is going to turn to freezing rain and rain later, and then back to snow. Nothing is made better by a coating of ice, especially not my mood. So that's it for now; I'm off to perform round three of my snow cessation dance.

(What We All Need is a) Pre-Christmas Rant

Hey! Remember him? That's right; the half- burned Santa from Hell. Actually, Bob and I retrieved this Santa (with the help of our beloved friend and artist extraordinare Wasil) from a still smoldering slag heap in Shamokin, Pennslyvania several years back. It was early summer and he had apparently been sacrificed by some coal country crazies. But at least he's found a new home among us North Country heathens and was featured on our Christmas card when we were in between housing... let's just not go there.
Anyway, it's the eve of Christmas eve and as good a time as any to promote unhealthy habits and a healthy dose of nihilism. Good ahead! have more eggnog and bacon or eat another gross of cookies! Why not? I think I've started in on food because this is the season to over eat and the repent, isn't it? Well, we may not even have to repent as the world as we know it may end very soon indeed. So much for my being thrilled about ObamaCare! We'll all need it in a big way before much longer...
What am I referring to, obliquely? How about Fukufuckingshima and the fact that that "incident" is still happening. There is so much radioactive water pouring out of that derelict plant every day and true "containment" is years away. Have you heard that they want to try and put walls of ice around it? That'll take ages! And in the mean time, they're attempting to extract the rods, very slowly, very carefully as there's a really big bang waiting in there somewhere if one touches another- and there are hundreds of them! There are these hastily bolted together vessels, stacked on one another in endless rows; what are they- or we- going to do with all those containers? Any one got a bright idea?
The radioactivity has already reached California, according to maps and models. West coast fish is no doubt contaminated and I do so like my salmon. I guess we'll be eating canned food from some other decade down in our fall out shelters.

And food in these fine United States? Has everyone (I hope) seen the little video about a ten year old school kid who was assigned the typical science experiment of sticking toothpicks into a sweet potato and watching it sprout? She waited and waited and waited and started doing a little research. Turns out they treat sweet potatoes  (and so many other foods) with a chemical cheerily called "Bud Nip" that chemically prevents foods from sprouting and weeds from growing. But we're eating this stuff! In the meantime, she got an organic sweet potato from a farmers market and stuck toothpicks into it and mounted it in water and it sprouted right away! Bob took a sweet potato from the box we'd purchased; he's hoping that it sprouts.
Scary, no? Bob and I aren't quite sure what to eat for the holidays...
That's why I'm sort of nihilist this Xmas season; have another cookie! Have a good time!

Here's what I've been working on in my (old) studio): a series of collages based on those annoying (and all to present in our modern day world ) phone menus. While stuck on one the other day, I decided I had only two options. Number One was to get really angry and rip the phone out of the wall, or Number Two, make art out of my (and everyone else's) experiences. I chose the latter.
I have made seven of these, including such high lights as, "Please hold the line; your call is very important to us". Or the classic, "Press 5 for more options". Approximately 28" x 22"; I mixed graphite and paint for the grey field areas and the rest is collage.
In the meantime, my membership in the "Losers Club" is in good standing. I applied to- and got fucking rejected from ($^#$%&!!!) three separate art shows/ venues that I thought were appropriate to me and my work. Hey! What do I know? Why I even bother is beyond me. I mean that rhetorically, of course. I do despise submitting to juried shows, as when they reject you, they never even tell you why so it's not as if you learn anything. On the other hand, most of the time it's like what the jurors had for lunch didn't agree with them when they come to your piece. You can't win. But the sheer wanton fear of never showing again compels me forward. I just submitted to another show today, at the insistence of a couple of friends. I truly must be a glutton for punishment!
But on an entertaining art related note, I am currently in a show in New Bedford at the Colo Colo Gallery. (Our good friend Don Wilkinson invited Bob and I to participate). The theme, loosely Christmas inspired, was "Naughty and Nice". An idea come to me almost at once, when out on my morning walk. I thought to make two plates of cookies, as befits the holiday season. Both plates were covered with cookies made from the same recipe of sugar cookies but once batch, while looking innocent, had chunky kosher salt on top (looks like sugar) and the other had lumps of coal. I polyureathaned both batches three times so as to make them as shiny and artificial looking as possible. Guess what happened? A so-called "art lover" (according to the gallery owner Luis Villaneuva) promptly ate one! This was despite them being labeled as "inedible" and a "work of art"! And at the opening, they had to assign a "cookie watcher" to discourage others from attempting to eat them. The least they could have done was buy my piece before consuming it. Hahahahaha.

I suppose as a very funny footnote I should mention that the person who ate my cookie reported that the flavor was good, but they were hard!

The Two Things of Christmas, Maybe Three

Okay, repeat after me (I sound like a broken record), "The two things that make me feel anything remotely Xmas-y are the 1.) Christmas Cookies, and 2.) The Tree." As you can see, the first batch of Christmas Thing #1 is pictured above. I have now consumed so much dough that I feel vaguely bilious, but that's a good thing! There's a second batch on the way.
And look! What to my wondering eye should appear:

Away in a corner, surrounded by Tibetan prayer flags, no less! So now I do (kinda) feel a bit Christmas-y. And I'm finishing up our Annual Christmas Card Extravaganza. That takes time and energy as we still insist on hand-making all the cards. But they're all small creations and that's a good thing to send off into the universe. I believe that the influence exerted by making and sending something carefully hand made is priceless (like those credit card ads!). I really (mostly) enjoy making the cards; maybe once every five years or so, we grumble and "take a vacation" and purchase a box of pre-mades. This was definitely not one
of those years!
Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, and, apparently, the last day of life on earth. Or the end of the world... something big! We'll see! Our friend Joe is coming by to celebrate darkness and doom with us. At least we'll go out in style!

Future Xmas Trees

We still have no Christmas tree! As I've mentioned several hundred times, there are only two requirements for me to be assured of a holly, jolly Christmas: cookies (and lots of them, carefully decorated) and a tree. I'm beginning to work on Phase 1 (cookies) as we're having a cookie exchange at work and I need an assortment for giving and eating. (All that dough! A bizarre gift to myself!)
As far a Phase 2, I wandered the property yesterday late morning potentially thinking maybe I'd stumble upon the perfect- yet easily sacrificed- tree. All I found were ones like above, or below:

Like perfect for a hundred years from now! So Bob is going to try and fell a tall tree that's dead all the way up until five or six feet from the top. That way we get fence posts AND a Christmas tree. Believe me, we won't miss the tree in question; it's sort of hidden in a bunch of other scraggly spruces.
In the meantime, here's a pretty picture of our small pond, freezing over in the chilly morning.

Hard to think of such things now, but due to the generosity of a few friends, there are irises planted in the "mucka" (Bob's word) at the edge of the pond. Next spring should be very pretty!