stupid cat...

I guess it's no surprise that I have fallen for you, little Marley. The way you hang out under my car and then come running when I call you- you let me pick you up and then you purr while I pet you... Dammit- I don't even *like* cats...

a cake and an octopus

Sometimes instead of drawing I knit.

And sometimes I attempt to convert a sea-level UK recipe to an American one at 5430 ft, and then hide the mistakes with powdered cocoa and sugar...

So strange...

This is the conversation that I just had with the man that pulled over and rolled down his car window- stopping me on the final stretch of my lunchtime run:

man: [rolls down window- yells something]
me: [taking off headphones] What?
man: Aren't you that baseball player?
me: No.
man. Oh. [rolls up window-drives away]

I have so many questions...

my new camera

These lil' clothespins gathered to watch the sunrise with me on Wednesday morning.

What is kept in this truck, I wonder?

Full moon in the parking lot- As if any of us needed another reason to love the mall.

Mock village used for combat training.*

* Nah... it's the peppermint seaweed soap I made that's making my house smell *amazing* as it continues to harden.

born in the glamourous usa- just like me!

This was the best thing that happened at work today. The contents of the envelope weren't nearly as awesome as the exterior.

Savers on a Sunday

This saltshaker was a bear chained to a stump, with "No hugging allowed" painted at its base. Huh? (The pepper shaker is peeking in from the left.) Close by was a flocked Fivel figurine. I pushed them together to get this nice lil' family portrait...

little table

rickity-tick

not again...

before the frost

I saw this girl eating a grasshopper a couple weeks ago. Hopefully she laid her eggs before these last few nights of frost...

it's always the one you least suspect

I would have bet on the ninja, but that just goes to show how much I know... This is the [crime] scene I came back to at my desk after going for a run at lunch today. Woah...

Sunday afternoon

I think this squirrel likes hanging out on my neighbors wall. He seems pretty fearless, and I decided to test this by walking slowly towards him with the camera, taking pictures every few seconds. You can see he eventually turned to run from me, but even then popped up a few seconds later to see what I was doing.

looks like I have a problem on my hands

You know, I thought my new little goldfish was acting a little strange when I got up to feed him yesterday morning... Now I know why. Apparently he'd been out stenciling his name on public property the night before. Oh, Thor...

my favorite thing in a while

Sitting at the bar at Salt on a rainy Sunday afternoon with Kate, she pulled out her notebook to write something down and I saw this sketch which I immediately fell in love with. Whales! Big blobby whales with amorphous bodies and content expressions! *sigh* So great.

new friend

I was a little worried that Sidekick would eat any new friend I introduced him to, but I figured I'd give it a shot. (Mudcarp died when I was out of town a few weeks ago- I thought it would be nice to give Sidekick a new friend.) I actually gave him two new friends, Thor and Cupcake, but Cupcake got sick and died a week after I got her. Thor and Sidekick seem to be pretty fond of each other, though, despite the disparity in size. I have noticed that Thor stays clear of Sidekick when I feed them- he holds back and eats the little bits of food that drift down to him, or he swims to the opposite side of the tank to eat at the surface. Smart lil' guy.

where are the acorns?

plums

Oh my, little plum tree. You're making me blush...

plum jam

I made and canned 10 jars of plum jam yesterday, after harvesting all the plums I could from the tree in my backyard. The ladder I was using put me at eye level with the top of the neighbors cinderblock wall (that they undoubtedly have to keep out the riffraff- aka: me) and as I was picking plums a lil' squirrel decided to come see what I was doing. Totally fearless, he just sat and stared. I threw a plum at him. It landed on my neighbors' patio. Oops... (heh-heh...)

check out this bird

it's been a while...

...and my sketchbook has cobwebs. The last month has felt like a whirlwind and I simply stepped back and watched as all sort of things were happening around me (and sometimes to me). My brain is muddled and I'm tired and ready for a bit of downtime to dissect all that's been going on...

notes from a meeting a long time ago

This was a collaborative page of notes from a meeting a long time ago with a coworker who no longer works with me, unfortunately. We were imagining that our boss lived in a trailer out in the prairie dog field by our office. We decided he must have had a long extension cord from the building so he could get power. (The rest of the drawing is a bit less clear- but I'm sure it made perfect sense at the time...)

the industrial park where I work is a lot like an enchanted forest.

lil' bunny

This lil' guy liked his patch of worn down grass next to the walkway. He seemed to be too young to know to be afraid of me. It's sort of ridiculous how cute the baby bunnies are. I can hardly stop myself from making audible coos when I see one. Though it was fun the year the owls nested in the tree outside the conference room, I don't miss the torn up bunny parts strewn across the walkways when we would arrive at work in the mornings- evidence of the mother owl teaching her owlets how to hunt and preying on the naive and vulnerable little bunnies... I'd rather be greeted by bunnies like this little one, chewing on grass and watching me as I pass by.

very high tech

I went to a very disappointing event at the art museum last month. A DJ was talking about the history of electronic music and it was sort of awful. I drew this picture of some sort of electrical something he was talking about. Not long after drawing this, Kate and Ryan and Chris and I used our stealth moves to sneak out the back door so we could go eat dumplings and noodles.

a magical rainstorm

We just got whomped with a crazy storm- with thunder and lightning and sideways rain- When the power went off I went to my office window and took some pictures... It was just magical out there.

birdseed on the beach

a fine line

There's a fine line between sketchy and sweet when it comes to men wearing high waisted shorts with walkmen on their belts, giant headphones, and athletic socks pulled up to their knees. If said man is over 65 or developmentally disabled the look is absolutely sweet and I will smile and say hello when we cross paths on a trail at 6:30 am and I'm on a run before work. Otherwise I will likely move over and avoid eye contact and wonder if it would be beneficial for the man I've just seen to know how much he resembles a crazy child molester...

screen shot

I imported a bunch of images into a spec pack I was working on, and when I went to sort them out I noticed how nicely the one image with my hand lined up with the other. I took a screen shot of the images before sorting them. Is this actually cool? Or is my brain just fried from staring at this screen for so many hours? I guess we'll never know...

magical keys

My friend Julia gave me a unicorn key cover this morning. Amazing... Now every time I go to unlock my front door the whole experience will be mystical and magical and full of sparkles and glitter... Thank you Julia!

germ-balls

The first time I saw balls like these to play in was at 'Sesame Playland' where my parents [uncharacteristically] brought my brother and me when we were very little. It must have been the same trip that we went to Hershey Park, in Hershey, PA. Strangely, there are no photos of either of these places- just the fuzzy memories I have stowed in the recesses of my brain. At Sesame Playland my parents bought us fruit juice in fruit-shaped bottles, which was *awesome*. (Mine was grape.) At Hershey Park we went on a ride that simulated the chocolate making process- when we entered the 'oven' portion I was terrified, thinking for certain that we were all going to be toasted into crispy cocoa for their factory...

It's a trap!

This sign attached to a little bridge next to the sidewalk was clearly a trap. I don't know if it was put there by trolls or kidnappers or bears, but you can bet I didn't cross the bridge. No sir... just kept right on walking...

barbecued pizza

Moonhawk took this picture on Saturday night. He takes such nice photos, and I really liked this one... (http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonhawk/4803940472/) I can't think of a nicer way to spend an evening: drinking wine and cooking for/eating with some of the people I love most...

tigers

http://www.wildanimalsanctuary.org/animals/photogallery.html
We packed a picnic and got to the sanctuary around 6. The animals were mostly sprawled in the late day sun and as it began to cool off two lions called to one another, and the wolves and grizzlies began to get more active... The mountain lions began purring and the tigers who were staying cool in their galvanized pools pulled themselves out to dry off.

None of the animals will every be released into the wild- they're all there for the rest of their lives since they were born in captivity and most had been [mis]kept as pets or as circus performers, and would never be able to survive in the wild. It's a better life than they could have had otherwise, though- but strange to see a huge male lion roaring in the dried grass of Colorado farmland...

I made a pun.

Get it?

drawing I found

big move

If Mudcarp and Sidekick were to move across the country, I imagine this is what it would look like... If we were all headed somewhere together (as I'm hoping we would be- those little guys are basically family...) maybe they'd let me stash some things in their rented truck... amidst their algae wafers and dried tubifex worms. My guess is that Mudcarp would do most of the driving.

sugar

Between the desserts for Sunday and the garden-thinning/harvesting Monday, I got more dishes dirty this weekend than I have in a long time...