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On finishing things

Creative efforts, Writing No Responses »

Jul 072010

My first quilt -- called Gabbro

I got the idea for this quilt months and months ago. I had all these smallish pieces of fabric, because I have a friend who likes to hang out in fabric stores. Being one of those people who is attracted to bright or shiny things, I invariably ended up buying a handful of “fat quarters” or other pieces less than a yard. They were always in some random kind of pattern or batik that suggested water, or clouds, or sedimentary rocks, or some other bizarre thing. But I didn’t know what I would ever do with them.

Until I saw this picture when I Googled “gabbro” to find out what kind of rock it is.

Microscope slice of gabbro

I found the picture on a site with other pictures of “Rocks under the microscope.” Gabbro is an igneous rock made up of chunks of different minerals — not always the same ones. It’s a hodge-podge. I like hodge-podges. I like the opportunity to use the word hodge-podge in a sentence, or three.

I thought “Ah ha!” That would make a cool quilt. (Now let me issue a disclaimer, here: I am not a quilter — have never read a book, even though I own one, or taken a class in how to make a quilt. I know how to use a sewing machine. That’s it.) With my typical “Damn the procedure and full steam ahead” mindset, I found a piece of fabric that I could use as the ground matrix — that’s the darker gray stuff — and started planning out how I would assemble the jigsaw puzzle of all the various fabric “minerals.” What held me up for all those months was how was I going to patch together a bunch of odd-shaped pieces and keep them from unraveling around the edges, and then attach them to the back?

Then I discovered a lovely product that you can iron onto a piece of fabric, turn it over and remove the paper backing, and iron the first piece to another. Oh, happy day. I was on my way. Everything else was all done off the cuff, on the fly, by feel, or by guesswork. In other words — standard operating procedure for me — I made it all up. The real miracle is that it all actually worked. Sometimes I amaze even myself! (All right. Maybe I amaze only myself, but as long as someone is amazed, I have accomplished something.)

Something else I recently finished, although I had begun to doubt I ever would, was a correspondence writing course. And this is old school correspondence, using paper and envelopes and going to the post office to have the thing weighed and paying postage. Yeah. And I started back in…well, maybe I don’t want to think about how long it took me. The point is, I sent in my last assignment yesterday, and I did learn a lot from taking the course. Not just about writing. I learned about my own thought processes, and to what lengths I would go to avoid interviewing another human being face-to-face. Gah. Need to get over that. Need to chant my mantra “People don’t bite. People don’t bite…” etc.

So, now that those things are no longer sitting on the back burner simmering down to unrecognizable sludge, I can work on some of the newer things that have spent less time on the back burner. Time to get out the paints.

Return to Amber, part two

Reading, Writing No Responses »

Jul 052010

Okay, so I meant to write this review and get it up here on my blog a couple of weeks ago — it was supposed to follow the first review in somewhat shorter order, but you know how it is with the best laid plans and so on (you know you’ve heard the quote, modified from Robert Burns so we can actually understand what the frak it says). Mule shows and bird migrations had to be commented upon first.

When I read the second five books in the Chronicles of Amber, I noticed one thing pretty quick. Not nearly as much smoking. I thought, well, maybe Mr. Zelazny had quit smoking (to tell the truth, I don’t know for a fact that he ever smoked in the first place). There were a few mentions of pipes. Apparently, Corwin’s son, Merlin (Merle) would occasionally puff on a pipe, but not cigarettes. But as I got past the first part of the first book, even the pipes disappeared. To be sure, there was a lot of moving around, running, fighting, and such — not a lot of leisure time for a smoke — but I started to wonder. I finally realized that a book of matches had played a crucial part in one scene in the 3rd (or was it the 4th?) book of the elder Chronicles. (Sorry I don’t have the books in front of me — they had to return to Lubbock.) And from that point on, there had not been as much smoking in those books, either. Ah hah! All the attention on smoking might have been just a mechanism to ensure those matches were on hand when they were needed, and no one would be going, “Wait! Where did those matches come from? That’s cheating!”

People who tend to gobble up science fiction, like people who gobble up other genres, get quite good at spotting inconsistencies in the stories they read. And woe to any author who asks too much in the “suspension of disbelief” category. Even if that weren’t true, and readers just didn’t notice one or two inconsistencies, a writer shouldn’t get lazy, and expect his or her readers to forgive them for sloppy writing. It ends up being sloppy story-telling.

There was still plenty of other-worldly scenery in these books, mostly seen while passing through between this world, Amber, and the Courts of Chaos. The Courts were mentioned in the first books, but we didn’t get to really see the place until the final book. I wanted to see more. The sequel series, centered around Merlin, who’s mother was of noble Chaotic blood, featured a lot of Chaotic settings. (I like chaos. It’s fun to watch. I think it’s why I have basenjis.)

There was also a lot more emphasis on describing various magical powers. Considering that Mr. Zelazny was writing these books in the late 70′s – early 80′s that’s not surprising. Wicca magic, psychic readings, tarot cards and astrology were all the rage about that time. He was cashing in on a sign of the times. Aside from that, though, the story holds up as well as the first five books. I’m glad I got the chance to read them all.

...And I take that back

Nature No Responses »

Jul 012010

Turns out the martins haven’t actually left the area, they just moved out of the house. On reflection, it seemed like a bad time to migrate south — it’s still winter on the other side of the equator. Plainly, I don’t know as much about purple martin migratory habits as some people. I seem to remember my mom saying that they arrive in this area around Valentine’s Day, and leave again on June 15th. That’s pretty specific. But she must have meant that they leave the nest on June 15th. Or thereabouts. We didn’t get the house up until late February, and I didn’t see any martins around it until mid-March. Both families of martins were still using the nest a lot on June 15th. But now I see one group of four (mom, dad, two kids) fly over the house once in a while and never land on it. They hang out on the telephone wires out by the road. I’m sure there’s still plenty of good grasshopper hunting in the area. It just goes to show, you should never stop observing, and you’ll probably never be through learning.

Like thieves in the night

Nature No Responses »

Jun 292010

The martins are gone. No goodbyes. No forwarding address. They just took wing and flew away. Their house looks a little forlorn, with just a random sparrow or two perched on the porch railings, where a few days ago the two pairs of adult martins and their well-grown offspring had all been jostling for the best perches on the roof. It made for a busy scene as one or another bird got edged off its spot and flew out and away and up and around and back, all the while chattering in their distinctive purple martin language. It had lifted my heart considerably to have them back after an absence of several years.

But let me back up a bit. For starters, my yard is ideal purple martin habitat — a flat, treeless plain. With plenty of weeds. Grasshoppers like weeds. Purple martins like grasshoppers. For breakfast, lunch and supper. When my parents moved onto this spot after several years in a fairly woodsy location at Hilltop Lakes (where they spent a lot of time watching deer and other wildlife visit their back yard) my mom decided they should have a martin house. A lot of people (like my mom) think martins eat mosquitoes, but they don’t. Other birds might, bats definitely do, but not martins. Still, having a little extra help with grasshopper control is good, too, whether you’re aware of it or not — which my folks weren’t, but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, my dad being my dad, he built the house for the martins. He didn’t go half measures, either. The house had 24 apartments, and was attached to a post that could be lowered every winter and the house taken off, cleaned out, and put in storage until spring. This was all to keep the pesky sparrows and starlings from moving in and making the place their slum. After my mom died, in 1989, the martin house never came down again. And the sparrows and starlings started taking over.

When I moved back home in 2002, I saw no martins move in the following spring. There were no vacancies. The place had taken on the appearance of a shabby old tenament, with faded, peeling paint, and last season’s nesting material overflowing out the doors. Pitiful.

Oddly, even though the upright had taken on a bit of a warp, and as a consequence the house leaned a bit to the south, it withstood our brush with Hurricane Rita in 2005. It came down that winter, all on its own. The upright failed under the weight of all that accumulated sparrow and starling crap one stormy night. It made a sad sight lying broken in the middle of the yard. By then my dad was past knowing or caring about it, so my brother and I just quietly cleared away the debris and dug up the foundation of the post.

I looked at martin houses on the internet, and couldn’t afford any of them. I knew I’d never get my brother to build one, so I just kept shopping around whenever I thought about it. I didn’t want to give up, because purple martins in this part of the country don’t even look for natural nesting sites any more. So many generations have been raised in artificial nests that they have come to depend on us to provide them. Finally, last year, I found a house I could afford at the local Tractor Supply center. It’s made of the same kind of plastic that a lot of dog houses are being made of, so it’s lightweight. And it has swing out panels on both sides so it’s easy to clean out. We just happened to have an old T.V. antenna pole just the right height and diameter to attach it to and set it up in about the same location as the old one. Disappointingly, no martins moved in. I wondered if our timing was bad or if for some reason martins disapproved of the material the house was made of. Maybe it smelled funny. The sparrows and starlings didn’t seem to mind, and several of them moved into one or another of the 12 apartments. When cold weather came on, though, we took the house down and I cleaned out all the old nesting material.

Whether spending a year out in the elements made the house lose its plastic smell, or we had better timing in getting it up this year, I was delighted to see the first pair of martins that did a fly-by wheel around and fly in for a closer look. By mid-June, I was pretty sure there were two pairs raising babies in the house, and they didn’t seem to be bothered that they were sharing the building with some sparrow families (I never saw any starlings around).

Before long, the young were all out of the nests, and the whole gang of them would try to perch on the same corner of the roof during the heat of the day. It made for considerable shifting and jostling around, and there was usually a bird or two in the air trying to fly in and land on the favored spot. Hopeless. I was glad, however, when I remembered that they would be leaving soon to migrate back to their winter range — it had to be getting scorching hot sitting on top of that house out in the middle of the prairie in the full sun. If they are going someplace even hotter, I wish them well. But now the Mexican Free-tailed bats are here, and if I remember to go outside right at sunrise and sunset, I can watch them skipping through the air chasing things I can’t see — hopefully mosquitoes. Now if I can convince my brother to put up a bat roost…

The Texas Shootout

Leisure, Pets No Responses »

Jun 202010

Right off the bat, when you read that title, what do you think? Yeah, I know. But it’s not about guns. Oh, no. The Texas Shootout — billed with the tagline, “Where East meets West, to see who’s best,” has nothing to do with guns. Or shooting. It’s a mule and donkey show. Or a donkey and mule show. Depending on which critter you favor more. Yeah. So, of course, I had no idea there was an annual mule and donkey show right here in my own back yard, as it were, and I only found out about it this year. But better late than never, as the saying goes.

The event was held last weekend in the newish Brazos County Expo Complex, and I found out about it on Saturday evening. In time to go see some of the event on Sunday. By which time a lot of exhibitors had already left. No matter. I took my camera and got myself over there to see me some mules.

I walked through the barn area and watched some riders walking and jogging their mules and donkeys around the exercise ring, and saw this overly excited guy standing outside his stall.

Maybe a bit too highly strung

…or maybe he just had his eyes closed so he could concentrate on whatever he was listening to.

When I went into the arena, there was a class being judged. A donkeymanship class. Not only is the name a little whimsical, but the donkeys in the class were putting their own interpretations on the exercises. I thought, “how basenji-like.” So no wonder I like these alternate equines. Like basenjis aren’t your daddy’s Labrador, donkeys aren’t your daddy’s quarter horse. They have their own way of doing things. Sometimes it’s the same as your way, and sometimes it ain’t.

At another point in my peregrinations around the barn area, I stopped to watch another mule in his stall, munching on some grain in a sack.

mmmmule noms

And I heard this incredible noise start up from somewhere close by, but all the other stalls were empty — or so I thought. When I peeked over the solid wall part, I realized why these guys were making so much noise. They just wanted to make sure I’d see them!

We gotta make noise cuz we be short

I couldn’t stay for the rest of the show because I had to take the camera to my brother, but I watched a couple of mulemanship classes (yeah, I know), which were also pretty entertaining. The mules were all sizes and colors. One probably had a quarter horse mom, because he walked with his head down at cow-eye level, another could have had a Belgian (draft horse) mom — it was big and muscular. And there was one I was sure had an Arabian mother because she had the prettiest face. I found out from her rider that her mother was a mustang (I bet there’s some Arabian blood in that mustang herd).

A very pretty mule

So when I got home I looked up some of the mule and donkey farms on line to see if there are any close by, and maybe I’ll be able to go visit some of them and get some more photos. Turns out most of the farms I found listed close to home have miniature donkeys. Criminally, insanely cute little creatures. And miniature mules, too. Oh, I am in trouble.

We're coming for YOU!

Star Wars, full circle

Uncategorized No Responses »

Jun 172010

On June 6th I went to a concert with my good friend from way back in our Air Force days, Tresha. She was the friend who convinced me to go see the first Star Wars movie when it was released back in 1977. We saw it at the Cine Capri theater in Phoenix. All my misgivings about a “dumb space opera movie” were shelved. It didn’t matter that it was basically a dumb space opera. It was FABULOUS!

And of course, over the years, I’ve seen all the other Star Wars movies — often in spite of all the criticism of them. For those, the special effects made up for other flaws. But I saw all the sequels (in Bryan) and re-releases (in Kentucky) and prequels (back in Bryan) with one or the other of my ex-husbands, or my brother. The concert was an early birthday present from Tresha.

We got to the arena early to see the exhibit of movie props that were part of the show. There were costumes, a couple of people in “storm trooper” garb posing for pictures, a blinking, burbling, squealing R2D2 replica, and a lot of screens showing clips of art work and special effects processes. It was awesome. A lot of attendees were dressed in their own versions of some of the costumes — mostly kids. There were a LOT of kids. A lot of them, of course, had never even seen the original movies at the theater (I almost said “on a big screen, but considering the size of some t.v.s these days, that would probably be wrong to assume).

The concert was all the original sound track music by John Williams, played by the Star Wars Orchestra, and introduced by Anthony Daniels — the only actor to appear in all six movies, as C3PO. The music was played around themes from the films — the Empire theme, the Old Republic theme, the Rebellion theme — and accompanied by film clips shown on a huge screen behind the orchestra. During the intermission, we overheard someone sitting near us comment that this was the best way to see the Aniken Skywalker episodes — watch the best highlights without all the “awful parts.” Be that as it may, everything we saw and heard that day was epic. If you get a chance to go and see this show, don’t pass it up. Or at least go to the website and watch the trailer.

When even laughing makes you sweat...

Health and stuff No Responses »

Jun 012010

This is the time of year when I would like nothing better than to be able to live on a nothing-but-ice-cream diet. I was reading an article on The Blogess this morning, and had one of those laughing melt-downs. You know, where you start out with everything kind of contained with just some shoulder jiggling, and then you’re wheezing and snorting and shrieking and making sobbing sounds and the tears are running down your face and you about wet your pants. One of those. I had forgotten how funny her articles are. I can’t read them every day.

Anyway, after I got myself back under a semblance of control, I was soggy — all the usual soggy places. I’ll spare you the details. Obviously, being post-menopausal does not guarantee no more hot flashes. Or it could be my trying-to-save-on-the-electric-bill thermostat setting and the house being 81 degrees. Whatever. Bring on the ice cream.

Actually, I think ice cream makers are making more of an effort to include more food groups in their flavors these days. For instance, I recently found a flavor called “Peanut Butter Panic,” that is just bonkers good. Of course it has a serving of dairy. Then there is the protein food group represented by the peanuts in the peanut butter. And of course there’s the chocolate food group. All you need to do is throw on some frozen peas, maybe some blueberries and some All-Bran or something, and you’ve got a complete meal in one bowl of cold, creamy goodness!

Return to Amber

Reading No Responses »

May 142010

It was a very long time ago, when I first made the journey to Roger Zelazny’s fantasy world in The Chronicles of Amber. It was, in fact, sometime in 1984. Why do I remember the exact year? Because I remember reading the book in the laundromat at the front of the R.V./mobile home park where I was living temporarily in my parents’ travel trailer after I started working at the Fort Worth Zoo (and 1984 was when I was there). The book was a hardback edition of the complete Chronicles — all five books in one volume — that I don’t even remember whether I owned or had borrowed from someone. I remember reading while I waited for my washer to finish, while I waited for my clothes to dry, and after I put my clean laundry away when I got back to my temporary home. I remember having massive headaches after spending hours with my eyes glued to the pages. And I remember that that is when I had to start wearing prescription lenses. Boo.

When I started re-reading the original five books, now included in a massive paperback tome that holds all TEN Amber novels, I remembered a lot more of the stories than I thought I would (except how all the conflicts were resolved). It’s always good to have a little of the original surprise at the end, even though sometimes knowing exactly how things turn out doesn’t spoil the enjoyment of re-reading a good story.

I remembered that the stories were complex, the plots convoluted, the settings complete to the smallest detail. And there were a lot of settings. Amber and its Shadows are like many other planets all layered on top of our mundane world. There are no space ships involved, but there is plenty of travel from world to world, from reality to reality. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed the journeys.

Since I’ve learned a lot more about writing fiction in recent years, I have also been appreciating Zelazny’s story-telling abilities more this time around. I thought it might be easier to categorize things a bit. As in:

1. Characters and Point of View (POV). It’s all written in first person POV. A lot of people don’t like this. I’m not one of them. First person narrows the perspective on the story to the point that anything that surprises or mystifies the main character is going to surprise or mystify the readers. We don’t get to see inside the minds of the other characters (a style I think is often overused). All you need to know is the title of the first Amber novel — Nine Princes in Amber — to know there will be some serious family conflict going on. Seeing everything through the eyes of just one of those princes — Corwin — means you have only his experiences to go on when it comes to sorting out the good guys and bad guys, and you don’t get to find out which ones he might be wrong about until he finds out himself. I think it’s kind of cool.

2. Tension. I never really appreciated how important it is to keep the pressure on the characters at all times in order to keep moving the story forward. I used to wonder why these poor saps had to keep stumbling from disaster to catastrophe to apocalypse and back through the whole book until I learned that some people would actually stop reading if such was not the case. Really? I always had the attitude — and I don’t know where I got this — that once I started reading, I had to finish the book — no matter what. (Maybe it was kin to that parental decree that I had to eat everything on my plate, even if some of it made me gag.) And showing the tension’s effect on the character with a line like this is priceless: “A hot bath, a full meal, a bed would be very good things. But these assumed an almost mythic quality…” It’s a short little passage, but it speaks volumes about the character’s condition.

3. Setting. Nothing can beat a thorough job of world-building. A lot of fantasy novels include maps to help us locate all the story locations relative to each other as we travel through them. That would never work with Amber. Sure you could draw the mountain, Kolvir, with the palace atop it, and label places around it like Arden and Garnath, but it wouldn’t be enough. There would be no way to show all the Shadow worlds, and you couldn’t really have Amber without all its Shadows. Anyway, they’re all too fluid to restrict to one spot on a two-dimensional map. No. You have to build the map — the concept — of Amber in your head.

4. Interesting, if somewhat annoying. Like some other classics of science fiction and fantasy I’ve read recently, there are some details that seriously date the first five books. There’s a whole lotta smokin’ goin’ on. Every time they turn around, these guys are lighting up. Cigarettes, pipes, what have you. Considering the fact that Roger Zelazny died just a month past his 58th birthday, I have to assume the fictional habit was a direct mirror of his own. Too bad. He would be 73 now, if he’d lived (in fact, yesterday would have been his 73rd birthday). Who knows how far he might have been able to carry the Amber saga. I’ve only just finished re-reading the original five books, and the first chapter of the first of the second five, so I have no idea whether the conclusion to this round is the final word — I’ll just have to wait and see.

Making Pandora - a "How-to"

Creative efforts No Responses »

May 052010

After I saw Avatar, I wanted to add Pandora to my collection of planets, of course. The colors were sumptuous — that’s the only way to describe them. Some were Earth tones; some were like the vivid colors of deep sea creatures, but flying through the air. I was blown away.

I thought I would photograph the entire planet-building process this time, and put it on my blog in case anyone wonders what all I do with my time. This project took most of a day.

Fig. 1

I started with some of the same colors I use to make Earth — White, Leaf Green, and a combination of Chocolate and Sand. I left out the Light Blue Pearl, and added Turquoise, and Spring Lilac (Fig. 1).

Fig. 2

For the next step I slice off three sections about one third the width of each of those little divisions in the Sculpey blocks. I roll them out into “worms” all about the same diameter (smaller around than a pencil), and cut them all off to the same lengths (Fig. 2).

Fig. 3

Next comes the fun part. I moosh (that’s a technical term, yes, but I don’t think you’ll find it in a dictionary) the little worms into one big worm and twist it around some to blend the colors a bit randomly. At this point, depending on just how much blending you want to do, you can keep wadding the colors together, rolling them back out, and wadding them down again. For instance, you probably can’t tell that the brown is really a combination of two colors now — they’ve become almost completely blended. For a lot of my planets, though, I want the appearance of land masses, ocean, and sky/clouds to be distinguishable, so I stop mooshing here (Fig. 3).

I work with rolls about the size of a pencil

Fig. 4

Now I need to make a worm about the size of a pencil or a little thicker, so I usually have to cut the big worm into three or four sections. In Fig. 4 I have a Pandora worm and an Earth worm ( I know what you’re thinking — this doesn’t look like the earthworm you dissected in biology lab), the right size to start slicing.

Fig. 5

I slice off sections about 1/4″ (0.5 cm) give or take a bit, and roll them into quasi-spheres about the size of peas (Fig. 5). I say quasi because none of them are perfectly spherical. They have lumps and bumps and flat places. It’s called “terrain.”

Fig. 6

I usually let the baby planets sit and cure for a few hours before I get out the planetary axis drill (Fig. 6) and poke holes through them. Then in the oven they go to harden up all that molten magma in their little interiors. And Presto! Pandora. You can see some of the other planets and some of the jewelry I made with them in previous posts. Just click on the “planets” tag in the tag cloud.

New planetary configurations

Creative efforts No Responses »

May 032010

I started out with the planets, and a few simple bracelets on stretch string, but now I’ve started making bracelets on memory wire with some odds and ends of glass beads to complement the planets. The nice thing about the polymer clay beads is that they’re almost weightless. I had made several memory wire bracelets with glass beads that got so heavy it was hazardous to make any sudden moves with the arm wearing the bracelet, or it could go flying off. Oops.

But now I’ve got something better than the glass beads, because I made them — and they’re planets! And the newest one is Pandora.

Pandora and miscellaneous glass

Pluto and Mars with cubes

Minbar and glass (remember Babylon 5?)

Qo'nos -- the Klingon homeworld

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