Wednesday, June 27:

Yeah I'm in the studio today. There's air conditioning here. Now that I'm old I need air conditioning. I also need ice in my drink and high speed internets. And I'm gonna bitch if I don't have them. 'Cause I'm old.

So I took my camera home last night. I anticipated that one of my tomato plants was going to gift me a ripe tomato for my birthday and I wanted to take a picture of it. The tomato was not quite ripe but there was something picture worthy going on in the yard. This friend of mine, Brad, was using our cement backyard as a site to spray paint about 100 knives he found in the garbage. There were a bunch more of them that he couldn't paint because they had tape all over the blades. Where did they come from? No one knows. What's he doing with them? Painting them white, silly. Making something out of them. Can't pass up a box of free knives, that's for sure.

I also took a picture of the stitches on Don's thumb. He recieved that wound in a bizarre accident when a metal venetian blind fell down on his hand. (Somewhat inconsequential side note: The blind fell down because I did not put it up right.) I relayed the story to my mom today who shared with me a similar incident involving a blind she put up and my grandmother. I would SO not have wanted to be my mom then. Grandmother was startled, though uninjured in the episode. I feel this new information vindicates me seeing as how I was raised by people who cut corners when they install venetian blinds.

I don't feel any different now that I'm 40. I am experiencing a sense of impending doom, though, and I'll tell you why. When I married Don I also married his sweet, sweet health insurance he recieves thru his employer. At 37 I decided to seek out a primary health care provider, you know, because I could.

So I went to my first physical in a really long time and it was pretty unpleasant. The doctor was really terse with me and didn't seem to be blessed with a measurable sense of humor. Everything I was doing was wrong--except the fact that I drink milk everyday. I think I scored a point with that. Anyways, the doctor went into this litany of tests that I HAD to do. I remember hearing "Bla, bla, bla, mammagram, bla, bla, bla" and I was all "Really? I have to do all that? What the hell?" and she said "All of these tests are standard when you're over 40" and I said "But I'm only 37" and she said "It says here on your chart that you're 47" and I said "I'm only 37. You have to believe me". Not once did she find this scenerio amusing. I got outta there with a lecture and a pelvic exam and never went back.

I did not say this but I was thinking "Do I not seem rather spry for a 47 year old who does not take care of herself? I mean, you're a doctor and all. " I was also thinking "I sure am glad I'm not over 40."

So that's where I'm at with this birthday.

Monday, June 25:

The Lost School Band played out at a party on Saturday. I'm still tired from that even though all I did was sit on a rock and video tape part of the show. If we can figure out how to get the DV footage into the computer you may be rewarded with seeing an animated GIF of Bob Foster exercising to the music. Bob is awesome.

I ate too many shrimp yesterday. Don and I finally used a $50. Red Lobster gift card someone gave us about a year ago. We basically bought $50. worth of shrimp. Due to my no shrimp left behind policy I ended up eating all of my food and what was left of Don's. Then I went home and laid down on the living room floor for several hours. I'm lucky to be alive today.

Speaking of being alive, on Wed. June 27 I will have been alive for 40 years. I'm foreward promoting that event in case I don't make it in on Wednesday to tell you all about it.

Thursday, June 21:

Above is a brand spanking new monster head design. It's a by-product of that creature project I'm working on for the Watch Me Create group blog. Speaking of the blog, here's how that works: There are several different artists submitting ideas on inspiration and what have you. The submissions are published one per day. My first submission pertaining to the creature will be going up in the next day or two. The point of the whole deal is for us to come up with new ideas for beads and explain how we got there.

The head and the stand will be going up on Ebay at 7:45pm CST. "Jazzhands" does not contain any parts of the WMC creature--I merely assembled it using a technique I first tried out on the creature sculpture.

Wednesday, June 20:

Teresa of Lavender Creek tagged me. You may know Teresa from Ebay--she's the one who's beads look like they belong in a museum. Anyways, she tagged me and now I have to answer these questions:

What were you doing 10 years ago? In the summer of '97 I was finishing up a big stained glass comission for an area church. The procedes from that job went toward the downpayment on the Aardvark Art Glass building. The building needed a new roof and I somehow managed to hire the least-competetant, hardest drinking roofing company in the world to accomplish this. After putting all my money into the building I was broke-ass-broke. '97 sucked for the most part. On the bright side it was also the summer of '97 when Don moved back to Madison after being away for a year and a half on various brewing system installations around the world. He got here in the nick of time. He almost missed seeing the guy pass out drunk on the roof.

What were you doing a year ago? I guess I was getting ready to go to the Gathering in Kansas City. I teached a mask bead class there. As experiences go that was a very positive one. I'd reccommend it to anyone.

What are 5 snacks you enjoy?

1.Cigarettes

2.Jellybeans

3. Wasabi Peas

4. Rice Krispie squares

5. Cuttlefish chips

What are 5 songs you know the lyrics to?

"Row Row Row Your Boat"

Anything by Burl Ives or Tom Waits

"Oh What A Beautiful Lizard" by Cathy Lybarger

What are 5 things you'd do if you were a millionaire?

1. Buy health insurance for all of my friends so they wouldn't have to work their crappy jobs

2. Buy up three houses adjacent to ours

3. Bulldoze one and make a parking lot

4. Connect the remaining ones with colorful plastic tubes

5. Fence it in and make Lost School Compound

What are 5 bad habits you have?

1. Smoking cigars in movie theaters

2. Stalking and terrorizing a family in New England

3. Impersonating a theater teacher in order to seduce an underage girl

4. Wait. That's not me. That's Bob De Niro in "Cape Fear"

5. Nevermind

What are 5 things you'd never wear again? N/A because I always wear the same thing.

What are your 5 favorite toys?

1. Superball with a plastic octopus inside it

2. Superball that lights up when you bounce it

3. Regular superball

4. Scissors

5. Empty box the dryer came in

There! I did it. In record time! I'm supposed to tag 5 other people but now my kiln is warmed up now and I have to make beads. I'm only going to tag Jean Yates because she tagged me once. Now we're even. Teresa, you're on the list too.

Tuesday, June 19:

My best pals Rob and Rose came to visit last week. Here they are doing the American Gothic thing with the requisite giant fork and spoon we keep in our kitchen. (Which one is the Grant Wood painting? I can hardly tell them apart!) Rob is the only founding Lost School member to escape the web of arrested development we've woven here in Madison. R&R currently reside in a gated community in California with their little girl, Rory. Rory brings the total number of spawn of Lost School members to three. They're all pretty young yet so I don't know if this is hopeful or scary.

I had hoped to entertain R&R&R so thoroughly that they would not want to return to the gated community. I thought maybe they could buy the house next door and we could connect our homes with a colorful, plastic tube and be together forever. Sadly, they had to return. Something about jobs or whatever...something I couldn't possibly understand. I miss you guys! Thanks for sending the picture.

Monday, June 18:

We have dish TV now. Don signed us up for it a month or so ago. His arguement was that without it we effectively have no TV since we can't get decent reception in our home. I was ok with that. The TV had sound at least...usually.

So I was kinda pissed off at first but now I'm warming up to the dish because of the show "How It's Made". It's on the Discovery channel. I love it and I don't know why. I watch it every morning before I go to work. It's filling my head with interesting yet useless information about how fortune cookies, jellybeans, microchips and chain are made. I can feel other more pertinant info getting pushed out of my brain and yet I can't stop watching. It's probably not a good thing.

Once was, when I couldn't get to sleep at night I would lie down by an upstairs window and stare at the sewer in the hope of seeing a raccoon either go in or come out of it. I did see one go down on three occasions in the last year so a viewing wasn't an impossibility, it was just highly unlikely. Don thinks it bespeaks an unquiet mind but it gave me time to think about things. Were my non-tv watching forebearers also raccoon watchers or did they know how to read? Now with all the tv watching my raccoon time has lessened and all I can think about when I stare at the sewer is that machine that made the corn starch molds for jellybean production. Man, was that cool. Mmmmmm...jellybeans.

Saturday, June 16:

So now I'm busy trying to contribute to "Watch Me Create" (Lori Greenberg's brainchild.) To date I've written an intro and a post about a project I'm working on. At this moment they're going thru the system. I hope to be visible on that real soon. In the meantime, you can read any number of posts that other people wtote by clicking the link at the top of the page.

About my WMC project--I was watching a "Futurama" episode the other day that featured the recurring character of the brain slug. Since brain slugs are obviously transparent light grass green (#591020), cute and a simple shape I decided I wanted to make some out of glass. Then I thought wouldn't it be cool to make a larger glass creature beset by brain slugs? Of course it would. So that's what I'm doing. THe piece will be a bead assemblage made of wire and glass, similar to my bird, but probably not as good. I don't know where this is going, how long it will take, what it's going to look like or if I'll even finish it. There are way more problems than solutions with something like this. Either way, lessons will be learned. Honor will be won or lost. Things will be smelled, regretted and smelled again.

Wednesday, June 13

Listing, listing,listing. I'm all about the listing today. There's new stuff up on the Wine Stopper page as well as the Mask and Fish bead page. There's stuff up in the Ebay Store too. Hell, there are beads everywhere! Go buy some.

A blog worthy discovery at the Bead and Button show were these bottle cap beads made by Cathy Collison of Glass Gardens. Aren't they the neatest? Cathy put in some serious time into figuring out how to manufacture those little suckers. It involved having special equipment made so don't think that you can just run out and make them yourself. We admire her commitment to this project and we want to help so we're funneling all of our cool bottlecaps from craft brewed beers her way. Three Floyd's has the best artwork and the best beer, in my opinion, so I guess we'll be drinking a lot of that from now on. Anything for Cathy.

Monday, June 11:

I took Deet into the vet to have her put down this morning. She had been sick for a really long time probably with cancer. As the guy at the vet school pointed out, hedgehogs are little tumor factories. I finally called it when, despite the fact that she was still eating, Deet had lost half of her body weight. Still, she had some days when she seemed pretty chipper so it was a tough call to make. Deet is survived by her cage mate Cracker. I separated the two of them a few months ago to better care for Deet. The separation did not seem to cause any ill psychological affects to either hedgehog so I doubt Cracker even knows Deet is gone even though they had lived together for most of their lives.

Man, sick pets. Sick pets take up so much space on my mental hard drive it isn't even funny. I've never been blessed with the ability to just "think of something else" when a pet is sick. So I'm missing little Deet but I'm glad I don't have to worry about her well-being anymore.

Deet will spend eternity buried in a segment of PVC tubing. In life, tubing represented to Deet both a place safe from humans and a position of power where she could block Cracker's access to the bathroom area and exercise wheel. During the year and a half that she was my pet Deet expressed little if any interest in anything other than sitting in a tube and messing with Cracker. So that's all I've got to go on. I guess we'll bury her near the house somewhere though that may prove difficult what with the backyard being mostly cement. We'll figure something out.

Wednesday, June 6:

Don's boss at the brew pub bought a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Not just any "that kinda looks like a Frank Lloyd Wright house" but a really, really great one (see above photo). We've been invited over to drink beer on the porch. I can't wait to go over there. I like Frank's work. I have no desire to own one of his houses--which is good because I couldn't afford one in a million years--but I would like to visit one. I'm wondering what the basement looks like. You never see pictures of Frank Lloyd Wright basements. I'm going to guess that if the Pew house has a basement it will be interesting to look at but something about it's design will prevent it from being of any practical use. That's just how Frank rolled. He was such a stinker.

I guess I'm all ready to go to Milwaukee. A nice lady named Julie (from Budget Signs & Specialties) made me a banner with the flaming ass aardvark on it. She was fast and very helpful. I'll definately go there again. That was about the last thing I had to take care of.

Remember now that, since I'm a guest of Kate Mc Kinnon, my name does not appear on the Bead and Button vendor list. I think it might be in the program but I'm not sure. So you'll have to remember either my booth number (#1002) or the name "Kate Mc Kinnon" in order to find me. I'll be there on Friday and Saturday only. Please stop by and say whatever you want to me (as long as it isn't too personal).

Monday, June 4:

Do any of your distributors include pieces of beat-up looking candy with your orders? Some of mine do. Rings-n-Things does. They sent me a Jolly Rancher and two Tootsie Rolls along with my order for 12 Bic Lighter blanks. Normally I like free candy but it gets kind of unappetizing when it's sitting at the bottom of a bag of findings. Should I eat them? Too late! I already did. I was hungry! The Tootsie Rolls were actually quite fresh.

Well, the last of the shit I need for Bead and Button came in the mail today. I finished up my lighter bugs using the aforementioned lighter blanks. I'm still trying to procure sinage. I'm still trying to do a lot of things before I leave on Thursday. And how.

I guess Copper Jesus is coming along for the ride (instead of Triangle Man). Triangle Man has been to B&B three times already. The only place Copper Jesus has been is the Spam carving contest so I guess it's his turn. Stop by booth #1002 on Friday or Saturday if you want to meet him.

Friday, June 1:

This week Random and Odd wanted a shot of your hairbrush in it's natural state. I couldn't find my hairbrush but I found my comb. Now you know all my beauty secrets.

I turned on the air conditioner at the studio today and it worked! Wooo-hoooo! Once again my low expectations of an appliance have been met and as a result I am filled with joy. And I remembered to bring paper towels to work. Could things get any better?

Wednesday, May 30:

Geez. It's the 30th already. Where does the time go? Don't answer that--I know where the time goes and I'm not proud of it. Anyways, I been working very hard getting my act together for the Bead and Button Show in Milwaukee (click here for details).

I ran up against a wall bead-wise last week so I reverted to an earlier form of myself and started making bug sculptures and Bite Me pins. The bug sculpture in the above picture is not yet complete. When he is done he will be holding a Bic lighter blank with a Bic lighter inside of it. You know, to help you set things on fire. The bug stands up on his own and holds the lighter erect so you can locate it even on the messiest coffee table. The Lighter Bug , which is made of lead solder and dichroic glass, is one of my favorite functional objets d'arte. A gem of an idea. They are a pain in the ass to make, I don't mind saying, but I think they will round out the bead table nicely. The Bite Me Pin is self-explanatory.

Friday, May 25:

I'm lame. I just couldn't come up with anything picture worthy for Stuff Portrait Friday this week. I tried very hard, too.

Anyhoo, back in the Real World someone is doing something important. Jewelry maker Jennifer Dangerfield is participating in the "Pants To Ovarian Cancer" fund raising campaign. (Jennifer is a Brit and Brits use words like "Pants" and as expletives. I've always liked that about the Brits.) Jennifer is having a postcard competition where in she will donate one dollar to Ovarian Cancer Action for each postcard you or I send her. Go read all about it on her blog. Sign up and send her a card, why don't you? It'll do you no harm.

In other news...Put down your firey torches everyone! I've been informed by my micro-biologist/bug guy pal, Phil, that house centipedes are in fact worthwhile creatures. First off, centipedes are not bugs or insects but rather Scutigera. Remember that. If they are in your home it's because there is moisture and an ample food supply for them. Scutigera eat other bugs and other bug's eggs. They do not care for ham sandwiches or mixed drinks so they don't compete with people for food sources. Phil also pointed out that, unlike many other pests such as cockroaches and ants, the presence of Scutigera is not nature's way of criticizing your living habits. So that's all good.

On the downside, Scutigera are venomous and have a bite similar to a bee sting. Like bees and some people I know they only bite when provoked so if you can resist the urge to pick up the Scutigera you should be ok.

Armed with this new information I've decided to amend my previous stance on the creatures. I'm still offering a bounty on them but only when they invade well-defined "Red Zones" in our house. These include my work area, around the toilets and my bedroom. Anywhere I'm feeling vulnerable, really. The Scutigera can have the basement, some of the living room and the upstairs hallway. I think that's fair. We'll see how it all goes. You can make up your own rules for your own house.

Wednesday, May 23:

On Monday night we had a bunch of people over to play music. At least two of the people witnessed a bug similar to the one in the above picture race by and all they did was point and say "Oh! Look at the giant bug!"--a reaction not unlike one you would have when viewing a creature being purposely kept alive in a zoo. Contrary to how it may seem, our house is not a bug zoo. Our house centipedes are not there by invitation and so are not there for your entertainment. If you see one scampering across the wall or floor of our home and you kill it, I will give you a dollar. If you are able-bodied and you have your shoes on while you see one scampering across the floor and you do not kill it, you will be asked to leave or take a time out in the basement where you will find many, many house centipedes to enjoy.

I put together a little sign to remind everyone of this new rule. Anyone wishing to have a copy of this sign for their own home can download it here. Please note that the word "kilt" is in fact a comical misspelling of the word "killed" and not a reference to Scottish dress attire. I now hope we're all on the same page with reference to this creepy menace.

Monday, May 21:

Me and my lady welding friend Erika went to the SPAM carving contest on Saturday. Above is a picture of our work area when we were done. Note the bright blue, plastic tablecloth--it's in keeping with the bright blue and yellow color theme on the SPAM cans. Nice touch.

Originally, I planned on carving a SPAM twin of the rubber aardvark from "the project"but by Saturday afternoon when the event rolled around I wasn't feeling real well and did not know if I would be physically able to handle gelatinous processed meat. Erika jumped in right away and in the end I was able to make a decent submission out of her scraps. Since there were over 30 entries this year and a rather meticulous judging process, we had to leave before all the results were tabulated. Today I am working on getting a page up of all the entries that I photographed so you can enjoy them too.

Since the contest's host, David, is a serious collector of creepy religious memoralbia, I brought Copper Jesus along to the event. Copper Jesus liked getting out of the house. He was enjoyed. He spent most of the time in my backpack though 'cause I didn't want to get any SPAM in his wiring.

Friday, May 18:

Random and Odd wanted a picture of our favorite frame this week so I picked this one. It's a collage by an artist who used to sell on Ebay named Rik (rikcat) Catlow. Like many people I know, Rik likes to work with things he finds on the ground or in the garbage. The name of this piece is "Wormburger" (from 1997, I think) and it's made out of Burger King and White Castle burger wrappers, a real french fry and a real straw. The frame is wood and it too is covered with Burger King wrappers. Here's a close up of the collage and a detail of the frame. It's a swell piece, I tell ya, and I got it for a song on Ebay frame and all.

Rik also does these cool collage/paintings on squished cans. You may have seen those on ebay. I got me one of them too. Can't get enough of that Ebay art.

Thursday, May 17:

Do you like to tempt fate? Usually I do it without even noticing but today I spotted two really bad ideas in their early stages of fate-tempting. The first is my habit of propping up my caller ID box in my recycle bin so I can see it while I make beads. Sure I could affix it to the wall but the caller ID box is never in my reality unless the phone is ringing and my hands are full. The odds of my being aware of the box and at the same time locating a hammer and a nail are slim so I predict that in 2007 I will either damage or accidentally throw away my caller ID box. Place your bets now.

The second really bad idea is my unconscious placing of my tape gun in close proximity to my computer's mouse. Right now I am one vigorous mousing away from my hand getting tangled up in packing tape. The gun has been sitting there for quite a while without incident so I'm just going to leave it as is and predict that someday soon my mouse and hand are going to be joined by sticky tape. That should break up the monotony.

Oh, god, I just remembered something really funny! It happened a few years ago back when I had to drag clothes to and fro the laundromat. I need a vessel (or "wessel" as I like to say) for my liquid soap so I used a discarded Dr. Pepper bottle. The soap was really dark blue-almost brown like Dr. Pepper. When I got back I placed the half-empty Dr. Pepper bottle full of soap on my bench. At that point I was aware of what was in the bottle but I bet myself that if I left it there long enough I would forget and take a drink out of the bottle---which I did, twice! If you have a limited capacity for thinking about what you're doing combined with a disinterest for putting things back where they belong you can actually play a practical joke on yourself. I still laugh like hell about that even though, deep down, I think there's something wrong with me.

Tuesday, May 15:

Guess what, children! The thirteenth annual SPAM Carving Contest is this weekend! Finally, something to do. Still sitting on my desk is a can of garlic SPAM that I won two years ago for the above entry. I can't remember how the rules went but if they let you work with more than one can I want to build an aardvark that's a twin to the rubber ones used in the Pimp My Aardvark project. Then I can combine my worlds.

Speaking of the project, my customer-pals from back in the day, Phil and Renee, finally submitted their work to the gallery. I knew these would be great because Renee is a beader and Phil is a bug guy. Check out Renee's beaded aardvark (click on it to view it big and beautiful) and Phil's aardvark-ant creature. Nifty! Have you submitted your aardvarks yet? I think some of you have not. Don't forget to do that. I check the gallery every day looking for new work and when there isn't any new work it makes me sad. So decorate your damn aardvarks already!

Saturday, May 12:

My pal Jean Yates Meme'd me so now I have to answer these questions on my blog. Since I love Jean, and also because she always listens to my nonsense, I will do it!

1. Are you a spiritual person?

No, I don't think so. I sometimes think that there's a force out there that influences things. I generically refer to it as "The Universe". It is responsible for things like wonderous coincidences that I witness. It also puts interesting things on the ground and in the garbage for me to find so I can write about them in my blog. Sometimes I think The Universe gets a kick out of messing with me. That explains a lot about why things happen the way they do. As a belief I find this more delusional than spiritual. It's a fine line though.

2.What makes your blog unique?

I believe that most of the stuff I talk about interests only me. When it interests other people and they email me about...say...squirrel poop, that brightens my day big time. (Jean emailed me about squirrel poop.) Those are the kind of people I want to talk to. My people. I try to avoid topics on which everyone has a strong opinion, like religion or politics, because I don't really want to hear everyone's opinion on those. I'm all ears if you want to talk squirrel poop.

Even though I'm a beadmaker I rarely blog about bead processes. Beadmaking is facinating and all it's just that I do it all day every day and I like to escape myself sometimes. Recreational art activities are more fun to talk about.

3. What are your feelings on the "Blog Popularity" issue?

I'm all for whatever gets people to write more. More time writing means less time screaming.

4. When did you start blogging?

I think it was on 2004. I wanted to tell people about an expensive operation that Lucy the iguana had to undergo. That's what started it , I think. My first blog page was on one of the pages in my Ebay store because my website was on a computer located away from the studio. I had better access to the ebay pages from the studio computer. I think my archives here go back to 2005. I can't really tell though because my archiving system is so unorganized.

Hooray! I did it. I'm supposed to forward these questions to three people but I just can't do it. If 3 people out there want to answer these let me know and I'll link to you. That's the best I can do.

Friday, May 11:

Look who it is! It's Cracker the disagreeable albino hedgehog. You may remember Cracker as one of the two hedgehogs we adopted about a year and a half ago. Their antics are a lot more limited than the iguanas so I don't blog about them much. Due to her large size and cranky disposition, Cracker is pretty hard to handle without some kind of a buffer between your skin and her quills, hence the pretty pink blanket. She's a good hedgehog but she just never got tame or warmed up to people at all. What can you say? People aren't for everyone. Cracker's former cagemate and diminuitive counterpart, Deet (the brown hedgehog-not pictured) is considerably more social but is too wiggly for picture taking. Thanks, Random and Odd.

Monday, May 7:

I remember what I wanted to tell you-I had a really cleaver dream the other night. I have a disproportionate number of dreams about either pet-related anxiety, my teeth or tornados. The dreams are seldom cleaver--sometimes they're interesting but usually they're just sad or scary. Anyways, this was a pet anxiety dream about my eldest iguana, Iggy.

First the backstory-Iggy is a rescue iguana I got when she was four years old. She's about thirteen now and she's got some pretty significant bone related health problems. Her back and tail are really stiff with arthritis. She's still chugging along though--eating and pooping almost every day.

Iggy lives wild and free on top of Lucy the other iguana's cage. (Because of her stiffness, Iggy can't live in an enclosed area where she could potentially injure her tail on a wall.) Back when the store was open customer opinion about the iguanas was always vocal and mostly positive. Anyone with a fear of reptiles usually directed their anxiety toward immobile Iggy as she was the one who wasn't locked up. Sometimes they would share a traumatic experience about being bitten or attacked by an iguana. One person shrieked and ran out of the store and once a man screamed (not unlike a woman) and spent the rest of his stay by the front door kind of freaking out while his lady friend shopped. Often times people will offer an explanation for their panic but all this guy said was "I'm from New York." I never did find out what that meant. Could it be "I'm from New York and people don't have iguanas in stores there" or maybe "I'm from New York and in New York reptiles eat people"? Who knows, who cares. Anyway, what I'm trying to get at here is that Iggy has had to endure a lot of negativity from people in her life just because she's a reptile. That's how this whole story fits into the dream.

SO, Here's how the dream went. Finally. Some iguana rescue group came into the store and took Iggy away from me because they saw that she wasn't in real good shape and they did not think I was taking very good care of her. I went to go see how they had her set up in the new place. They had placed Iggy, along with another iguana, inside of a cage shaped like a giant bunny. They bunny's stomach was the interior of a large iguana cage covered in one way glass so people could not see that there were lizards inside the bunny, but the lizards could see out. I could see in and I could see that Iggy looked really good. All day people would crowd around the cage and talk about how cute the bunny was---and the lizards thought they were talking about them. Not a bad idea.

Sunday, May 6:

Hello. I'm still here. Making beads for the Bead and Button Show. I'm bored and I'm running out of eyes. I need to brush my teeth, too. Other than that thinks are ducky. The bead pile looks better than I thought it would at this point. Yup. Not much going on here. Life is but a monotaneous dream.

I found a small, partially decorated Christmas tree by my back door of the studio. I think it might be related to the pile of Winnie the Pooh ornaments I found a while back. You have to wonder about people who regularly dispose of things by throwing them out the window. It bespeaks an attitude of carefree-ness toward life that is greater even than my own. And that's saying something...because I'm pretty damn carefree...just not enough to imagine that objects vanish once they're heaved out the window. Hopefully the next flood will carry the tree to someone with less disdain for the holidays. Nature to the rescue.

Friday, May 4:

Back...I don't know...in January I blogged about an arrangement of plastic animals that was sitting in the middle of a hallway that led to my psychiatrist's office. It was a semi-circle of dinosaur types closing in on another toy that was holding a sign that said "With patience humans can be trained". I assumed that the arrangement had been organized by a child, though this assumption left some questions unanswered like, where did the material to make the sign come from? How did a kid come up with something so pithy?etc., etc. But if not a child then, who?

Well, it turns out that the animal clusters are the work of some of the doctors who have offices on that floor. It's just something they like to do, play with animals. So this is stranger and a lot cooler than I had hoped. When I went in for my quarterly appointment this morning I brought my camera with me to document the scene. The creatures in the picture on the right are the ones outside my doctor's door. He had more dinosaurs than anyone, probably because he has a corner office. Most offices only had one. In the picture, I think the brontosaur is the one doing the counseling, though it's hard to tell which one is the doctor because none of them are holding prescription pads. I have an immense stash of doll house props at the store and next time I go to the doctor I'm going to bring some teeny-tiny prescription pads and give them to whoever is in charge of the hallway diorama. Then the plastic animals will be able to get the help they so rightly deserve. I like to help.

Completely different topic! Kind of gross but just something I was thinking about on the way home last night--Has anyone ever seen a squirrel go to the bathroom? How does that work? They don't go when they're in the trees--we'd know it if they did. There would be Real Problems if they did. Birds only get away with it because they're tiny and they don't stick around after they go. But squirrels...if they poop down on the ground then there are places in Madison, like the Capitol Lawn (which is home to hundreds and hundreds of squirrels), that should be blanketed in squirrel doo. I'm kind of an expert on the poop output of small animals and it seems like that many animals eating as much food as I see them eat would make a real mess. I don't think I've ever even seen a squirrel doo, not outside. It's quite a mystery to me.

Wednesday, May 2:

Don called me at 8:30 this morning from his truck to tell me that he was following the Man Bear. The Man Bear is an extremely hirsute individual perhaps living somewhere in this area who only Don has seen. Even though I've never seen him I believe he exists because it's not like Don to make things up. Due to our shared interest in extreme facial hair growth I've been wanting to catch a glimpse of the Man Bear ever since Don's first sighting that was...gosh...probably over a year ago. But he's as elusive as he is hairy. I share this with you only because I predict that, with a month of bead production in front of me, Don's sighting will be the most exciting thing to almost happen to me for the forseeable future.

Tuesday, May 1:

Like Johnny Depp? Sure, we all do. My pal Margaret likes him so much she ordered this Johnny Depp calendar. Once she recieved it in the mail she discovered that it wasn't such a great calendar after all. For starters, the days of the week and the dates are so tiny that it isn't really functional as a calendar. That was a deal breaker for Margaret who wanted both enjoyable pictures of Johnny Depp and a calendar she could use. Like most people who have things they no longer want but don't want to throw them away, Margaret donated the calendar to Lost School in the hope that we could use it for something.

To make the pictures more calendar-like I cut out post-it notes into the shape of word bubbles into which I can write any calendar worthy information, such as birthdays or dentist appointments. (Of course, we don't have a lot of appointments or occasions so most of the word bubbles are likely to contain grocery lists, drunken nonsense, poems or bead names.) The word bubbles can then be placed about the head, or in the case of May, the crotch area of Johnny Depp--whichever one is more likely to look toward for information or advice. In theory it would be like Johny Depp, or in the case of May Johnny Depp's crotch, is talking right to you. Hey, at least we're using the calendar for something.

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