Sculpin

Okay. Six months from now, I will have my heels on the floor in downward dog.

So I’m told, anyway; my teacher says that if I do a certain stretch daily without fail, it’ll happen. I was doing it daily for about a month and a half, and I had a pretty good record. But then life got freaky about two months ago and I let my whole home practice fall apart, more fool me. Today, though, I’m resuscitating it. And come the Fall equinox, barring calamity, I will be doing one fine adho mukha svanasana.

In other news, my Pilates instructor has started to get me into Yamuna body rolling as a sort of self-care myofascial release method. And all this stuff is getting me interested in knowing enough about anatomy to talk sensibly about it. (Fun fact: a trochanter is neither a musical instrument nor a nautical hat.)

I believe I’m seeing some improvement in the alignment of my right knee.

Do any of you happen to know anything about Tibetan beeswax jewelry? I’m wondering how it’s made, whether there are rosins or other hardeners mixed into the beeswax — anything you’ve got on the subject, really.

I used to do a fair bit of beading and a little wirework, but I haven’t done anything for a long time. I’ve been getting interested in jewelry arts again (probably from reading Cissa’s reports) but, man, the thought of precious metal extraction creeps me out even as I’d love to play with the stuff. And then there are the various shop chemicals and their disposal to consider. It’s enough to make me think, “What could you make jewelry out of that’s not so evil? And of that, what might not suck?” Paper, fibers, glass, ceramic, some stone, shell, pearls, bone… beeswax?

Greg Dahlman pointed this out today: King County Animal Services statistics. Some highlights:

Healthy, adoptable animals euthanized in 1993: 2,952
Healthy, adoptable animals euthanized in 2003: 3
Animals leaving KCAC alive in 1990: 19.34%
Animals leaving KCAC alive in 2003: 52.6%

Of course we all have questions about what “healthy” and “adoptable” mean, but still, wow.

In high school here in the late 80s, I knew a kid who volunteered at the local animal shelter. He used to tell me about the guy who’d come around to collect the cats. Every couple of weeks he’d come by and pick up another bag of dead cats, hefting it over his shoulder with macabre good cheer. I’m glad that guy’s not getting nearly as much work as he used to.

Just look at this gorgeous thing. The clasps alone are amazing.

The central medallion represents the name of the Chateau in 11th century Mail (Arabic) calligraphy. A rough version was faxed to Normandy from the Levant and refaxed to Minsky’s computer in New York, where he autotraced the bitmap into CorelDraw, converted it to Bezier curves, formed it into a logo, printed it on an ink jet, had a magnesium die made of it, made a latex mold of the die, made wax castings in the mold, which were lost wax cast in Vermeil, and painted in the transparent enamels to get the effect you see here.

You may already have seen Minsky’s binding of 1984. His Bill of Rights work is also worth a look. I like the subtlety of Amendment X, but my favorite is, unsurprisingly, Amendment I.

From Copper Canyon Press:

This April, in celebration of National Poetry Month, Copper Canyon Press will distribute thousands of free books to individuals and book groups who meet in their homes to read poems aloud. To participate, please request your free books no later than March 17. Orders will be shipped the first week in April. This offer is good while supplies last.

Poems Aloud is a unique program that gives readers the opportunity to learn more about their favorite authors and celebrate the musicality of language with friends and family. Our goal is to inspire hundreds of book groups around the United States during the month of April. Please help us in this effort by forwarding this email to friends who love to read. To take part in this special Poems Aloud offer, click here: http://www.coppercanyonpress.org/poetrymonth

Thanks for your consideration. As always, we wish you good reading.

If you’re not reading Manolo’s Shoe Blog, you’re missing out on such phrases as “The super fantastic girl who wears this boot would brook no interference from the gallery of the peanuts.”

Speaking of shoes, last week on the Ave I passed a man wearing a Utilikilt and Ugg boots. Kilt good (though this guy wore it sloppily). Ugg boots, not so good. I managed not to crack a smile until I was well past him, but the guy behind him caught my expression and grinned.

And did you know that Ugg makes handbags? A few weeks ago I saw a woman whose handbag matched her boots — enormously fleecy. I don’t think she meant to look goofy, but you never do know.

While I’m inappropriately making fun of people, I might as well make fun of children. Years ago I heard that girls were curling their hair for stepdancing competitions because the bouncing curls made their dancing look livelier. There must have been some sort of escalation happening among stepdancers, because, well, good heavens! O my people, how bizarre you have made yourselves appear! I applaud the stepdancers who resist the wigs and the glow-in-the-dark eyeshadow.

I’ve seen interest here and there in rain barrels lately, and occasionally run across a link to Aaron’s Rain Barrels. They’ve got some neat stuff there. But the price, $125 a barrel, may make you think twice.

If you’re in the Seattle area, you can get rainbarrels for less than fifty bucks each, including tax, at the Seattle Audubon Nature Shop in Wedgwood. (Members may get first dibs; I’m not sure.) They are very similar to the Aaron’s variety, though the design isn’t quite as well developed; you may want to reinforce the mosquito netting. Barrels will be available by April 2, and there’s a list of folks waiting for them already.

Rainbarrels are nifty. We had one working rainbarrel last summer and didn’t have to turn the hose on our garden for a whole month in the dry season. This year we’ll have four barrels, both for water conservation and for downspout drainage control. It’s bound to be a lot easier to put in a rainbarrel or a diverter than it is to clear out clogged below-ground drainage tubes; I could cheerfully put off that task forever.

Update, Mar 19: I take it back — we got our rainbarrels today and they are an entirely different design. (Spouts everywhere! ) I hope they are as good.

A couple of days ago I dropped in at my local flower shop and bought a gorgeous orange-red gerbera daisy. Joanne, the florist, gave me a couple of tips to help it last:

• Gerberas don’t much care for floral food like Floralife.
• Gerberas last longer if their stems don’t rest on the bottom of their container. Joanne loosely wired some beargrass around it for me. When I got home, I recut the gerbera stem so it was a little shorter than the beargrass and could hang there supported by it, ensuring good circulation around the base of the stem.

I stumbled onto this story from Stephen Elliott today. His father has been leaving vicious reviews of his books on Amazon.com, claiming all sorts of vileness about Elliott and his work.

Elliott writes, “If you know an abuser, someone who lashes out and can’t control their emotions, get away from that person. Cut the cord and never look back.” What he said.

And while I’m on the subject– once you’ve cut that cord, may I suggest that you be careful to avoid other people who can’t restrain their rage or their sense of entitlement. Even if they are fine people when they aren’t exploding in fury. Baby, you’ve done your time.

I spent too much time when I was younger thinking I could handle all sorts of crazy behavior from people because I had lived through so much worse. I always promised myself I’d immediately sever any relationship in which I got hit. But perversely, at some level I felt like some kind of expert in the art of dealing with people who liked kicking me (or others) around psychologically, especially people with mental illnesses. Therefore it was my duty to be selflessly patient in the face of that shit. Feminine conditioning didn’t help any. I’d hang tough, trying to state my thoughts and feelings clearly, trying to appear reasonable and unprovocative, when I should have been walking out the door.

Eventually I reconsidered the wisdom of wasting my life through catering to other people’s insane and abominable behavior. I’d had it entirely the wrong way round. WTF was I thinking?

Hey, Desolina! I keep meaning to get the name of the guy you recommend for essential oils. You said he was up in my neck of the woods, if I recall correctly — is it the Aromatherapy Center at 91st and Roosevelt, maybe?

(Psst to Canyonwren, who’s getting into perfumery: Desolina knows her essential oils.)

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