The View From Kalamazoo

Animated gif of a lunar cycle. I thought it was pretty darn cool.

h, how I love the long, holiday weekends….the opportunity for end-of-summer projects (read: moving furniture and sending my allergies and asthma into high gear cleaning the hoard of dust bunnies I discovered behind and under) and quality time with the kids (*shriek* “MooOOOOoooom! Colin’s botherin’ me again!”)

Last night, as an apparent extension of the weekend, my darling girl somehow got ahold of a baggie of curry powder (read: Penzeys, damnit) and so there was curry up the stairs…in her bed…on her rug…everywhere. So my house smells good…well, it just smells. Strong curry scent in every room is decidedly unpleasant. Cumin may have been worse, but it’s hard to imagine.

I have a staph staff meeting Friday. Does anyone else hate these things? The good news: yesterday (ADHD Awareness Day, I remind you) I read Shelley the Hyperactive Turtle to Emma’s class. The interesting thing about 1st graders is the totally different tangents a bunch of kids all hearing the same book can mentally wander onto – in addition to hearing about pet turtles (understandable) and a turtle found in the middle of the road and saved by the kid’s parent (relocated out of harm’s way!)(also understandable)… I was also treated to long, drawn-out (and strangely non-linear) tales of pet hermit crabs, big kids who sit at the back of the bus who cuss and throw spicy cheetos at little kids, and something about some kid’s toy telephone being battered by some older kids with a hammer. Heh.

I managed to secure a partial scholarship to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (I had to bring in work to be judged for quality and everything, but still so very unlike the stress of grad school applications!) so I’m taking a class, darnit. Ceramics – haven’t touched clay in probably 15-16 years…but it’ll be a Good Thing for me, I think. I was insanely tempted by the sculpture class – but it was only held during the day (not a weekend), so that was out. This will be good, though, as my last 3D work involved working in steel and bronze (the human figure, specifically) so the change will be interesting…although I haven’t much touched a wheel in gaining on 20 years, so we’ll see if that skill is anything like riding a bicycle.

I git to git diiirty – clay under the fingernails and evr’thang. Woooo Hoooo!

Catching up:

Irreplaceable books lost to fire at library

“WEIMAR, Germany — A fire that ripped through one of Germany’s most precious historical libraries destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of irreplaceable books, although 6,000 works, including a 1543 Martin Luther Bible, were spirited to safety by a chain of people, officials said Friday.

About 25,000 books were destroyed and 40,000 others were damaged by water and smoke from the fire Thursday night in Weimar’s Duchess Anna Amalia Library, housed in a 16th century rococo-style palace, said Ulrike Bestgen, an expert with the Weimar Classics Foundation. …”