odds & ends

I'm sliding around on my chair because it is wooden and I have my shortest shorts on and my skin is sweating.

I only scored 23000 on the new Facebook geography challenge game but I placed Stonehenge within 28 km of its correct location!

The Mexican family who live next to our complex have (I think that [have and not has] is from reading all this Brit stuff lately - isn't that fun?) a new dog, a really ferocious sounding Rottweiler which scares the shit out of me every time I ride my bike in or out now. At least they have it tied up which is not what they did with their previous dog and is probably the biggest reason why they have a new dog in the first place.

So the Bike Shop guy thought my new Arkel pannier was The Bomb. I kinda think the Bike Shop guy is The Bomb. No, not that Bike Shop guy, the one I used to have a crush on. I gave up on that one long ago, which is just as well. Anyway I think this one was kinda impressed I change my own tubes. Oh, sure, he could just have been being (?) customer service-y when he said he would exchange the wrong tube I bought last week for a correct one whenever I want, but I prefer to think he has the hots for women who change their own bike tires.

What is the deal with Ingmar Bergman movies? Should I feel weird I can get into nary a single one? Maybe someday I'll have a friend who likes them and will help me see their appeal...

Me and My Good Ideas: HMPH. Every so often with the Michelin people I suggest reading a book and discussing it. It of course depends on their level, etc., but there have been a couple over the years who went for it. Normally I suggest (and they opt for) something pop. fic.-y like mysteries. When Carl, my most recent Michelin guy said he would like to read a book, I asked him what he liked to read in English and it turns out he likes Sci. Fi. No brainer: Jules Verne in French! What could be better than reading the Godfather of Sci. Fi. if you're a Sci.Fi. aficionado?? Well, apparently... Victor Hugo. I told him to go order whatever he wanted, and in the conversation for which I was present it was pretty clear we had settled on Jules Verne, but at our next session when I asked him what book he chose so I could order one, too, he said he had already ordered one for me and added that he had chosen Notre-Dame de Paris. I hope I sufficiently covered my initial look of horror with a morph to faux delight. I then gently shifted to "Um, are you sure? It might be a little heavy, vocab-wise and he can be a bit much with the descriptive, at times..." Carl didn't seem fazed in the least. No! Really! He wanted to read it!! Sigh. So now, 14 years after safely extricating myself from grad. school and forced lit. reading, here I am again with ol' Vic Hugo. True, it will be good for my French since I'm doing precious little with it this summer, but still... When reading for discussion with a student you have to know every frigging word, whereas if I were just reading it for myself I would probably plow thru without looking (much) stuff up, trusting my head to figure out any holes. So color me digging out my Larousse this week. Luckily Carl is away for the next 10 days so I have a while to get a head start. And from the sound of it I probably only need to jump about 5-6 pages ahead. When I asked him yesterday how it was going so far he made an eyerolly face and said he had made it through 1.5 pages, and Boy! Was it hard! (Insert Susan's "No Shit" facial expression here.) Hmmm...

Kathmandu, Kalamazoo, Timbuktu, Waterloo, Oo-oo. Just on a roll. The Oo-oo part is from when Leah, my eldest niece, was little and was just starting to talk. She was trying to say my name and could only say "Oo-oo" ("oo" as in "moon"). Someone would say, really slowly and distinctly, "Su----sie---!" (and, no, none of you is [fun! again blame the Brit reading] allowed to call me that except very occasionally) and she would get this look of heavy concentration on her face and start out, "Oo-----" hesitate just a second, her face changing to show that she knew she got it right this time, "oo---!!!" with utter delight that she sounded exactly like the model at last. It was a riot. Consequently various friends called me Oo-oo for quite some time at BG and down here when I came to grad. school, especially Mary Ann, who kept it up longer than most. So fun.

Brig & I had lunch at Toomer's Drugs today. As I told her, my Toomer's cherry is popped now. I know! So lamentable that I, of all people (which just sounds funny to say and makes me giggle quite a lot because who is less Aub*rn-spirited than I? nyernt nyernt), had never eaten at Toomer's. Added bonus of yummy potato soup. Added added bonus of seeing Rachel, a former student who absolutely rocks. I had a root beer, too, which Hit The Spot.

Studio time today was quite good. Someone had finally run a bisque firing (first firing of pieces, after which they are glazed and then glaze-fired) so I had 6 pieces to glaze. The glaze situation at the studio is still pretty iffy, but there were 3 or 4 of my old faves which were usable quand-même and I think a couple of the pieces are going to turn out quite well. On two slightly iffy ones I used new (to me) glazes as tests. We'll see what happens. One thing is Really Really Fun (at the risk of jinxing it): a medium-sized pitcher where I did a pinched in effect on the non-spout side instead of a handle. I think it will be kind of a fun larger version of the little sauce pitcher I made Jessica way back when, which I think I posted about before but here's another pic anyway since this post needs something to liven it up:
Please disregard the date - I'm too lazy to photoshop right now.

Speaking of making stuff for Jessica I suppose some of you are wondering about quilt news but my wee creation has been a bit neglected this week. I will do another big chunk this weekend (actually should be able to finish piecing!) and post pix of course. Then batting, sewing the back (one big seam and you're done!), then... Well I can't seem to come up with an idea for the quilting design. My new quilting feet set for the sewing machine includes a free-sewing foot so you can do free form design and squiggle all over, which would be really cool but would take a lot longer since I am a complete novice at that. Something rather more systematic, like basic diagonal quilting or something would be much faster and therefore much more get-done-able but that seems boring. Obviously more thought is required...

The cool thing is that having read Harry Potter 5 a few weeks ago in prep for the movie, I decided that would be fun to listen to while I quilt, so I rented the audio book on CD at Hastings the other day. The girl tried to charge me twice since it's two volumes but I asked her to doublecheck. I didn't play the "I used to work here and I fucking knew my shit" card but I just said "You guys used to charge multi-volume audiobooks as one charge, could you please check that that policy has indeed changed?" She grudgingly called over JT one of the new managers (who had just put $104 dollars of credit on my giftcard - another stack of CDs had accompanied me to the store :) and he took one look at it and said, "It counts as one item. I'll void it, no problem." HA. I felt like Ruth Fisher at the hacienda hot tub in Rosarita all of a sudden! What life problem can't be solved with a shot of tequila and some moxie?! I can't think of one.

Lots of thoughts of hiking with the Birds in AZ thanks to the camping trip. That's one part of my marriage I will never regret and in fact be ever thankful for. Those Grand Canyon trips absolutely rocked.

Well, I went to Dillard's today to get the new Fiestaware color (Evergreen). I thought to treat myself to just one small piece of something but all they had were the ramekins. I do like the ramekins but for some reason I was not in the mood to buy a ramekin today. So I decided to wait til fall and get a couple of new pieces online.

On that note I might as well stop. The Interesting Reading Bag seems to be empty now.

"It was kinda weird, but I liked it!"