Wednesday, February 28, 2007

everybody dance now!



I exercise at Curves for Women.
I exercise there when I can get there, that is.

...which isn't as frequently as I resolve to...

A decent workout can be had at Curves, and the main value I see for going there is the strength-training. I do feel stronger after doing the Curves circuit with any regularity.

Therein lies the problem.
Going there and doing the workout - regularly.

Truth be known, I find exercising at 'the gym' a bit of a bore.
As well as a chore.
Having to make time to get to 'the place of exercise' three or four or five days out of a week is sometimes more than I can handle. To make matters worse, it's a 25 minute drive from my home to the nearest Curves.
Having to listen to the recorded music that is played there is sometimes close to intolerable. At the Curves franchise where I'm a card-carrying member, the music runs the gamut from Kinda Catchy to OK-Fine to Downright Cacky (I hate exercising to Christian Rock).

At home, I have a NordicTrack ski machine which is a great workout (again, if used regularly) - but exercising on that can get boring too.
Even with the TV on.

However and Hmmmmm....
What about Dancing as exercise?

Dancing.
Now that can be a fun way to move the ol' bod.
More so if the music is a tune that one can't help but move to.

I have the extended version (16.7 minutes on CD) of 'Gonna Make You Sweat/Everybody Dance Now' by C+C Music Factory. Been thinking about beginning a mini exercise regimen of dancing to that CD twice a day (when I'm around the homestead and not out of town). Dancing would certainly serve to work the muscles of this aging bod; and get some aerobics in, to boot.
As for the same song getting repetitive, well - you know me and RPT!
No problemo!

Tell ya what, I'm going to give it a go tomorrow.
No one's home and I'll be able to dance round the house all by my lonesome - with wild abandon - just like a Flaming Fool.
Perhaps I'll even make up some fancy dance steps to go with the song.
(Believe me, I won't be giving up Curves anytime too soon though)

Report to follow.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

That does it!


I guess the next move will be to #$@^&?^!!!*&%$#^!? Butte, Montana!

There's some truly wonderful things about living rural: spacious countryside, peace and quiet, natural surroundings right outside your door, lots of free parking, little road traffic, no crowds....
spacious countryside, peace and quiet, natural surroundings right outside your door, lots of free parking, little road traffic, no crowds....
(Oooooh, am I already repeating myself?)

Anyways.
Butte might be as good as it gets as far as small rural towns (in the U.S.A.) + recognition of local Chinese history + the celebration of Chinese New Year.

Hmmmmm....Montana.....Big Sky Country.....mebbe get a thousand acres with a little (or little bit bigger) log cabin on it....
Ah - to be able to step out of my humble rural abode and into town every year at this time - to see a FESTIVE CNY PARADE.

Even if it does take standing in the DAMNDEST FREEZING COLD to witness it.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

like it's going out of style


I've been knitting and (machine) felting - like it's going out of style.

What starts out looking like the (armless) body of a sweater sized to fit a 10 yr. old child becomes ...after a hot bath in the washing machine....


a tea cozy for a smallish teapot. A tea cozy that looks like a densely woven night watchman's cap...

HolyMoly, I expected it to shrink considerably, but not this much. I'd heard 30% in height and 25% in width. I've also been told that felting shrinkage can be 60% in height/length.
This must be closer to 60%!

Felting is full of surprises, and the process can get a little frustrating, but basically - I like it.

The unexpected is going to allow (force?) me to stray quite dramatically from the original cute English Cottage Tea Cozy pattern I set out to make, and put my own funky twist on the end product. What with using assorted leftover yarns for Tea Cosy #3 (yes, this is my third attempt at the same pattern), I've already turned it into a striped cottage. Ye Olde Striped English Cottage with Striped Roof.

Not a problem, as I'm beginning to embrace my creative process being all about the ad lib after screwing up with following the instructions...

So Ai Ya and WhoopdeeDoo.

It's not quite safe to go back into the water yet. There will be more about
my felted knitting projects in future posts. I just wanted to post 'before' and 'after' pix.

And to show that I also have the ability to turn a $1 bill into a $20 bill....
(yost keeding)

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Hey Vic-Tor!


Fry bread to the movie 'Smoke Signals' - is what Jai (aka Buddha's Delight) is to Chinese New Year.
Very very important.

As is Nien Gow - Chinese New Year (sweet glutinous rice) 'cake'. Make no mistake - this is not your mama's angel food cake!

Jai is a complicated dish to cook, requiring 18 (more or less?) ingredients. My Dad made the best Jai - so delicious, so packed full of good stuff. No skimpin' on the best things to put in (though I never did appreciate the gingko nuts). Dad took a lot of pride in his Chinese New Year Jai, and friends/family would come from far and wide to have a taste.

Nien Gow isn't quite as difficult to prepare - fewer ingredients, though there are many steps to the process. However, there isn't any Peen Tong to be had round these parts. My Aunt Virge always made the best Nien Gow.

I've got to try my hand at both: this year or next (depending on where and when I can obtain the authentic foodstuffs).


More to say...

about Asian new year celebrations...

Gung Hay Gung Hay


Sun Neen Fy Lok,
Gung Hay Fot Choy!

Wishing you a prosperous New Year!

Contrary to common belief (outside the circle), Chinese New Year is not a one-day celebration, as is January 1 New Year.
You can't just say 'Gung Hay Fot Choy' and call it a day.

Beginning on the first day of the Chinese new year (each year the first day coincides with the new moon - this year it was Sunday, February 18th), the CNY celebration continues for 15 days. Yep. That's a lot of feasting and festing. Numerous visits back and forth and back again with relatives and friends. Many a bounteous meal. Laughter and bright decor and lucky money!

When I was a kid, CNY was bigger than Christmas at our house. That's right. Bigger than Christmas. As the years have passed and my moves have taken me further and further from (any) Chinese community, it's gotten tougher to recognize CNY for the huge holiday I've always known it to be. It's like losing a significant part of my tradition, and that makes me sad.

This year, I'm trying my best to recreate CNY in my life as something beyond the few (well-meant and sincerely expressed) Happy New Year Gung Hay Fot Choy greetings from family/friends. How to do that in a locale where the sale of 'oriental foodstuffs' in supermarkets is what defines and heralds the holiday? That will be my personal challenge...and what a challenge that be!

High spirits and focused determination, however, will prevail...
even if it means eating a fortune cookie a day for 15 days...
or practicing Cantonese....

Ai Ya!
and
Onward!

Monday, February 19, 2007

apologies!


It's late.
I'm checking in with b's blog.
Double checking links n' such.
Dang!
I've just discovered that there are a couple of unlinkable links in the last post(s).
I HATE when that happens, and usually do my best to correct or delete ASAP so that y'all don't become frustrated or irritated with getting nowhere when clicking on the links.

However, I will save the re-editing task for the morning.
Need sleep...
Blurry eyed right now to do anything about it -
but -
apologize...

Sunday, February 18, 2007

roving roving roving


keep them doggies roving...

Yesterday, I dropped by the yarn shop for felting needles and wool roving. While it was fun choosing the colors, there is still part of me that is a bit hesitant to begin needle felting - am I ready to add yet another crafty technique into my repertoire of...The-Not-Quite-Mastered-and-Probably-Will-Never-Quite
-Master-Craft-Techniques!?

Having already committed to the acquisition of felting supplies - I am - foiled again.
Alas!
Have supplies = must to craft!

Truthfully, I'm eager to start needle felting (being mindful not to poke myself with the dangerously barbed needles). As with all artsy crafty techniques I endeavor, doing it is accompanied by a hope that this too can one day be incorporated into mixed media artworks...of a larger and grander scale....

Mebbe.
Mebbe not.

It's-A-Good-Life-Dilemma #5,823:
What project to begin needle felting on? 2-D? 3-D? Something sculptural? Flat? Floral? Pictorial? Useful/practical? Purely aesthetic? Representational? Abstract? Whimsical?

Or just plain cute?

Friday, February 16, 2007

fiber art and such


Question: Several people recently asked how I've progressed with my comprehension of, practice on and actual use of Photoshop and/or Illustrator computer programs.

Answer: I haven't progressed much at all. Regressed is more like it. Most everything I learned a couple years ago (in a basic Photoshop/ Illustrator/Painter class) is largely parked far off and away in the back 40 of my gray matter.

I've long neglected my techno studies.
When I acquired the applications for my computer, they were the latest and greatest versions - which are no longer up-to-date, of course. To be expected when one has not paid much attention for a year or two (or more). Ah well. I'm not one to keep abreast of all-things-techno anyhow anyway.

No matter. The basic programs are still sound. My problem? If I want to do this at all, I just have to stop procrastinating and make up my mind to devote some serious study to re-learning the basics, and possibly going a bit beyond. Lord knows, I'll have to Rob Peter to Pay Paul to manage it, as my time has been otherwise occupied: with tactile artsy and crafty things like yarns, threads, fabrics, beads...

At this juncture, I could care less about the computer stuff (save for researching craft techniques on the web)(and blogging, of course).

I'm taking a 'Hands-On Art History' class. The lectures/demos have me plenty excited about traditional North, Central and South American fiber arts. In the last few weeks, we've studied the Cuna of the San Blas islands (molas), the Navajo (weaving) and Mayans (calendars, alphabet, sculpture, architecture, numbers).
I'm luvin' this stuff!
Art n' craft of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Yeah!

Our weekly homework assignments are to create an art project based on the week's topic. Students may interpret the theme using any medium (not just fiber).

With all the tiny stitches involved, a week wasn't nearly long enough to start and complete even the simplest of fabric molas, so I opted to use colored cardstock for my mola. I designed, cut and pasted. For texture, I sewed a bit of embroidery floss and metallic thread throughout. My paper mola actually looks like fabric, doesn't it?



Last week's assignment: Navajo weaving. I went this route - a small pouch woven on a small cardboard loom (fun!)(time-consuming!)(I'd do it again!):

After weaving the pouch, I added a crocheted handle, let the fringy things hang free, added beads and a handsewn fabric lining. A bit hippiedaze, but it works. I now understand the simplicity/complexity of warp and weft, and better appreciate that even the simplest woven item is a labor of combined love and patience.

As of this writing I have no clue how to approach the Mayan theme'd project. I'll get an idea sometime late Tuesday eve (just call me '11th hour B'). At that time, the creative juices will bubble over and flow...I'm sure of it.

I've stated it before and I'm stating it again:
Life is just too short for all the crafting there is to do (and all the books to read)!
Then, Good Grief! there are all those art-based computer programs....which I will get to....someday...

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Love Love Love

A Beary
Happy
Heart

Day
to
All.

[this from someone who does not enjoy any manner of you-chase-after-it-or-it-chases-after-you video entertainment]

Anyways.
Good Day to You and Eat Chocolate.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

RPT




T'was a blessed day, T'was a cursed day - when I discovered the RPT button on my car stereo.
I'm the Queen of RPT, or at least a Princess (yeah, I wish). I'm a big fan of creating an endless loop of my fave song from a music CD.

I usually drive with no passengers in the car, so feel at liberty to repeat a song for the
entire length of a drive...whether it's a short 10 minutes to the store or over an hour each way to visit DDJrS.

Volume: cranked (I always crack open a back window to stay aware of traffic sounds as well).
Bass: at a balanced setting to the treble (puh-leese, no car-rattling head splitting booming bass for me).

Enjoying tunes in one's car can certainly be mesmerizing - hopefully, not enough to distract from safe driving.
It is a tad more risky than focusing 100% on the driving.
It is a tad less risky than talking on one's cell, eating a sandwich or applying make-up whilst driving...

Kottke's cover of 'Corrina Corrina' has been my RPT choice for the last two weeks.
[Regretfully, I had a link to a 30 second sampling of the song, then lost it. Been running the search again for the last hour, and still can't seem to relocate it. You'll just have to get hold of a copy of the tune for a listen.]

Best line in the song: 'I walk the world on the bottom of the sea - 'cause I can't breathe when she talks to me'. Hang there for a fraction of a sec on the word 'breathe'. Oh my.

Kottke's baritone hints of the low vocal grumblings of Garrison Keillor. Kottke likens his own singing to 'geese farts on a muggy day'.
Hmmmm.

I had to view numerous online photos of Kottke to erase the image of Keillor that kept coming to mind when listening to 'Corrina, Corrina'.
Suffice it to say that Kottke has a decidedly less...strongly featured... face...than Keillor.

Before 'Corrina, Corrina', I RPT'd selected cuts from the 'Dances With Wolves' soundtrack, listening to those for close to two weeks (!). Mental imagery of big sky, softly rolling prairieland, people living in harmony with the land, and of course - tatonka. (I try not to picture the Union soldiers).

A 2-week RPT is a considerably long run, even for me. It would drive anyone else ca-ray-zee, which is why I only RPT when I'm alone.
That way, I avoid getting committed...

I also RPT out of anyone else's earshot when I'm painting. Music RPTs can go on for hours on end when taking brush to canvas. RPTs help me to get/stay 'in the zone'.

Find yourself a copy of 'Corrina, Corrina' by Leo Kottke.

Listen to it on a good music system.

Crank the volume.

RPT the song = have a good time.

P.S. Bonus clip

Friday, February 09, 2007

Bugged!



I've been wondering why it's so acceptable for movies about
ancient Rome to feature actors/actresses with British accents.
Not only accepted, but expected.

Understandably, films made for an English-speaking audience should preferably be in English. If not, then in the language spoken by the country/time period in which the film is set - with English subtitles, of course. Mel G. did this quite effectively in 'The Passion'.

What accent, then, for Ancient Rome? Is there a Latin accent?!?
If there were still native Latin speakers, would their spoken English hint more of Italian than 'The Queen's English' or Heaven Forbid Cockney?

I don't doubt that it's a tough call.
But please, don't hand me Manchester-accented English in a film about Ancient Rome and expect me not to cringe...

HBO's 'Rome' is the worst offender.
Based loosely on world history, this series has proven wildly popular. Not for the educational angle but for generous heapings of blood and gore and exploiting the worst of human foilables. There's plenty of man's inhumanity to man (bitchy women get equal time). Naked bodies slipping into Roman baths. Sweaty sex. The dialog in 'Rome' is liberally laced with swearing, which is not quite as endearing here as it is in another much-loved HBO series (shameless plug for 'Deadwood'.

The British accents in 'Rome' are so so so very distracting.
Some of them are positively Limey Several scenes set in a Roman drinking establishment had the characters sounding more like they were at the corner pub throwing back pints and discussing football. They peppered their dialog with 'eh whot' 'mate' and (Heaven Forbid) HubbyDear swears he heard someone say 'sawry, mum'.

Gawwwwwwd!
That just ain't right.

Another example: Michael Caine is a marvelous actor, but in his role as an ex-pat Frenchman in 'The Statement' (2003), Caine delivered lines in Limey Blimey accent. As always, Caine did a great acting job - but as a Frenchman who spied for the Nazis, couldn't he have sounded just a little bit French or hinted ever-so-slightly of German? Instead, he was out and out Eliza Doolittle. I could barely stand it.

Like, 'What's Wrong With This Picture?!?'
OMG-It's-Those-Damned-Misplaced-Accents-
That's-What.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Heads-Up, Piglets!

February 18th is the first day of Chinese New Year 2007/4704-4705.

Year of the Pig.

[More to come on Chinese New Year and pigs...]

Monday, February 05, 2007

What's not to love...

about Michael Palin's travelogues for BBC?

I just watched (DVD) two of four hours from the series 'Sahara', Palin's 2001-2002 trip in and around Africa's great desert.

Details about the series can be found at this website.

For the longest time, it was unbeknowst to me that my Dad was a big Palin fan. Dad admired Michael Palin not for the Monty Python stuff, but for the travel adventures. Once when we were talking (our 'talks' were typically simple two or three sentence exchanges) about educational adventure shows on TV, Dad stated that he really enjoyed watching 'Michael' (first name only, like they were buddies). 'Michael?' I repeated incredulously. 'Who's Michael?'.

Dad answered rather matter-of-factly 'Michael Palin'.
Then added ' He's good'.

This, from my Dad - a man of few words (in English, anyway) and not many of those were 'dropped names'. Not that 'Michael Palin' is your typical household word (at least not on this side of 'The Pond').
So - what gives with Dad and Michael Palin?

Dad did a fair amount of traveling as a young man. Seafaring adventures to exotic world ports and often into remote areas beyond the coastal cities. I believe he felt akin to 'Michael' because many of the faraway/unusual locales visited by Palin were also places Dad had once set foot upon.

Michael Palin enlivens educational travelogue material with his inimitable child-like enthusiasm. Even when exhausted by the weariness and strain of constant travel, he is capable of attention to detail. He never neglects to exercising his comic genius. A tireless pursuit of knowledge is his creativity. All add up to great entertainment.
Palin is ONE with joie de vivre.

Dad too would set aside fear of the unknown as he sought answers to his questions about the world. He trod unmarked trails, navigated the proverbial uncharted waters. For Dad, the excitement of living large awaited at every turn. The man cultivated street smarts early on. At the same time, Dad took note of the humble gesture. He also never failed to enjoy a good kick-in-the-pants laff.
Life - according to Dad - was to be lived.

I can only imagine what Dad went through in mind, heart and spirit as he engaged in Palin-type experiences while making his own way round the world. What challenges: unraveling the mysteries of new cultures, battling the natural elements during travel and fraternizing (or negotiating daily survival) with the locals in unfamilar places. Not easy.
Life, not easy - but to be lived.

Through travel, curiosity, adventure and humor, Dad could identify with Michael Palin. Who knew?

I'm currently succumbing to an urge to watch any and all of Palin's travelogues from years past.
I could feel a tremendous awe as well as ticklish delight when viewing Palin's amazing travels through the Sahara. What he went through was often physically and emotionally grueling, but exhilarating as well. It's in memory of Dad - and via Palin's BBC travel series, that I venture forth vicariously on the roads-less-traveled.

Michael Palin's humor is often self-effacing and his talent is turning it into downright funny. His antics have me laughing out loud. I could chortle, guffaw and chuckle and it feels like I'm sharing a laugh with Dad again...

Dad and Michael on a journey. With me along for the ride. In the back seat. Full of wonder - and giggles.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Eureka I have found it!



I've been looking for this video for months!

Friday, February 02, 2007

I need you. I love you. Let's mate.


Don't be frightened.
It's mating season - for skunks.

Living in the forest and driving round areas where there is an abundance of open space (fields, meadows and the like), there's been malodorous as well as physical evidence of skunks running amuck.

Unfortunately, much of that skunk presence is in the form of road kill and the resulting mouffette eau de parfum.

Watch out for the amorous striped-back ones whilst driving down the road. I've developed a newfound appreciation for the little critters since reading this article. They may be stinky - but in the bigger scheme of things, they're mighty helpful.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

the eyes follow you

It's my buddy, Chloƫ-Bear.
Trooper, who is her bro-in-da-crime-of-being-lovable - was mentioned and pictured in a previous post.
All is fair in love and equal beagle time.