"I am very fat"

(Spike cat and Penny Beagle)
We have a traveling vet. She comes over, and it was time for Penny's yearly exam. She is in excellent health and athletically shaped, and weighed in a pound less than last year: 22 pounds, perfect.
Spike, on the other hand, who had his food cut in half six months ago when the vet put him on a diet has gained 2 pounds, and is now 21 pounds. He is quite chubby, yet quite happy, although the vet wants his food CUT again....

DON'T YOU WANT ME BABY????

Oh I love New wave, the angst, the dudes in makeup, the dancing, the little leather boots....
Human League.

pottery in action: we grab a first

(Missus Cafe au Lait and Spike Cat, cups and saucers by Gary Rith--note chocolate cake)
Tis quite a rare thing, grabbing a non-broken pot for our own use. I liked this cup and saucer and gave it to US, turtle and all.
Kinda funny, the angle of that one pic makes it look like Spike is getting into the coffee himself.
Today is wicked busy! The traveling vet visits this morning (which means I have to scrub the kitchen and esp. the kitchen floor, which serves as an examination table and I don't want to be embarrassed by my poor house keeping skills). Just Penny's yearly exam, plus the vet will be giving me the yearly flea and other meds for all the dogs and cats...HAHAHA! yes, meds for 4 pets for one year is PRICEY.
THEN, of course, I am off to the spend several hours manning the cash register in the final moments of the Cornell Pot Shop spring sale at Willard Straight Hall. I have had some emails about it, as we go into day 4, and it sounds like I have had good sales.

self-inflicted belly-ache

(elephant tea party plaque by Gary Rith)

What motivates an artist?
Today, you know how it is, you kinda gobble lunch while reading a magazine and then you're like ::URP!:: all afternoon with indigestion.
The only cure, really, is cuteness. Like Buster and Penny cuddled up below. Or making a wee little elephant tea party plaque. I am in an exhibit a month from now, and need 3 good wall pieces. Elephants make a good subject for a tea party, I think, because they have that trunk to pour and drink with.

chop chop and kitten Le Blob

(pottery in process by Gary Rith)

So, I was asking myself, "what happens if you chop our the middle on a round pot and make a wide oval???" and as you saw a few days ago, the first one, a teapot looked TRES GOOD. I like this mug here but REALLY like what this vase became, a really pretty flared out oval.
It is kinda tricky hacking the middle out of a piece, because it has to be still a little soft, but you need it stand up firm....well, tis fun actually. And esp. fun to try new forms.
Here is me and our fat old kitten.


(Emily, our chubby 15 year old kitten--she is cross eyed and not terribly smart either, but super cuddly and sweet)

the first 100 days

Mickey and Minnie

(BIG vases by Gary Rith)
My second big vase is out of the kiln and I am soooo pleased. I have to make more.
I was kinda thinking, one is long, angular and tall. The other maybe more curvy and womanly. Mickey and Minnie!

petit chocolate gateau and le tortilla surprise

(piggy bowl by Gary Rith)
You love leftovers, esp. leftovers full of onions and garlic. Things get a little more pungent on day two.
Missus Chawclat Cake might get thin and waste away so I baked her a cake (and warmed up the last of the tortilla surprise), and I used the lazy-man's frosting method: toss a load of chocolate chips across the top of the cake when it comes out hot. They melt in. I was feeling nutty and added some of theose too.

"Can I hold your banana?"

We get into the car this morning and Missus Quesadilla sez to me:
"Can I hold your banana?"
I was pulling into traffic and eating a banana and I didn't think it was a good time for a distraction.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Tink has the weekly picture challenge going, angry and R. There is no anger in my world, nosirree! Plenty of R's though!!!!
Like our two old telephones, my old typewriter, and of course, in the studio window....
Tink actually has a very amusing story up yesterday about interviewing for a job in a funeral home (she herself is a young woman who was laid of from Sudsweiser those jerks....)

interspecies loooove

(Spike and Penny at the window, groovy elephant cup by Gary Rith)
I know. I was just writing below about demonic heavy metal bands. And now cuddly little pets and mugs.

heavy metal smackdown

Yesterday evening me and Missus Tortilla Surprise are walking the beagle past our corner and a large pickup truck with flames on the side pulls up, driven by a young woman, blasting Godsmack. (oh goodness, I love Godsmack) YOU ABSOLUTELY have to LOVE summertime.
That, of course, got me thinking.
Mastodon and their song Oblivion is all over the radio here and then I read about how big they are in the newspaper. Oblivion sounds a lot like Ozzy Ozbourne. You watch the video of them live and you think "this is a bunch of demonic hillbillies, and didn't Rob Zombie do that ten years ago?". I dunno, the newspaper says they might be the future of heavy metal, I think I will wait and see.
RED, on the other hand, is also getting a lot of airplay around here lately, and I like their sound a lot more. They don't look like demonic hillbillies either, simply demonic. Have a listen to both.

Red, death of me.


Mastodon and Oblivion (no video, just the cd single)

Oblivion live, doesn't sound as good to me as the studio cut.

doomed vs. delicious

(dirt and seeds and TORTILLA SURPRISE and plate by Gary Rith)
OK, so I got some seeds into dirt today inside, after weeding and such outside. This pic? Morning glories, marigolds and sunflowers PERIOD. Last year all my sunflowers died (and half the morning glories) because I planted them May 30 and then we had 3 nights with temps in the 20s (early June, temps in the 20s????). So, hopefully this stuff is not DOOMED. But usually in my care, plants are DOOMED. Like the dying cilantro I have here in the pic.
On the other hand, I am an ace in the kitchen and made tortilla surprise for dinner. Yummo! A nice hot dish to eat on an evening when it is 92 degrees outside, and in the studio where the kiln has been cooking pots, 120 degrees inside.......

this time last week it was snowing

(Your hero does the darn lawn)
I am not one of those people who likes to garden. Probably because my parents loved to garden and I was cheap labor. I don't mind cutting the grass, and of course as a homeowner I like things tidy looking, but gawd, weeding? Taking cares of plants, shrubs and flowers??? No way. I have two black thumbs, and its a lot of work.
But you have to weed from time to time, esp. just after winter. The biggest yard cleanup of the year, and I tried to do it before it got too hot today (88 and rising, in the shade at 10:30----last Monday it snowed).
Anyway, here are my gardening philosophies:
1) whereever possible, have ivies and plants that just cover space and rarely need weeding
2) the woods are THERE, on the other side of the line, I cut everything up to the woods with the mower, and we have no arguments
3) rake leaves? HA! This first cut of the year is important because the mower does all the "raking" for me--just shreds and mulches it. Fine with me.
4) This year I will grow: 2-4 tomato plants next to the fence--they will die, as they die every year
5) this year I will plant sunflowers in the weedy 10 foot circle in back, and hopefully the temps will not go down into the 20s in early June, which is what killed last years sunflowers
6) I can't kill marigolds, so I will pot a bunch of them and water them from time to time and call it a success.

10:47. Too early for a beer.

le SALE

(pottery by Gary Rith)
I was so tired last night I didn't get a picture of the sale itself. Monday-Thursday this week we have the Cornell Pot Shop show and sale in the gallery in Willard Straight Hall. The Pot Shop is in the lower level, gallery is on the street level.
Anyway, due to a SNAFU we were to set up this exhibit at 4 on Sunday but there was a band, catering, beers and the rest in the gallery. Taken over by a fraternity group or something, and we finally got them kicked out before 6 (the floor was STICKY) and got set up. These pots here had come right out of the kiln into the sale and look tres good. I will be over at the sale most of Thursday running the cash register.
So, we set up, I was tired and started home, and saw all these brightly flowered trees in the twilight!

of hot rods and teapots! and bikinis....

(teapot in stages by Gary Rith)

I am NOT an outdoorsy person, no WAAY. I like the outdoors out there, and me in here when it is sunny and hot. Maybe I am photosensitive or maybe I am simply a pottery nerd, because I am the only person on earth today cleaning the bathroom, the catbox and working on pottery. A LOT of pottery.
If you love hot rods, and I do, then you know that a hot rod or street rod is an old car taken apart and reassembled, with additions and improvements, creating wild shapes and forms, a car that has never existed before and is a one of a kind.
I wanted to see if I could chop the middle out of a teapot and its spout and push it together and reattach the pieces, creating a long and wide oval shape.
Holy cats, it worked!!!!

its just a harmless little bunny!

(cups by Gary Rith)
Opened the door here on an early Sunday to let the dogs out and there was a bunny in the yard, and a LOT of noise from my dogs.
Monty Python shows what can happen if you mess with bunnies.

get crazy with the cheese slicer!

(Penny)

What can I say? It is hot outside and getting hotter. Yesterday morning it was 28 degrees, today it is 60s already and going up to 80s, yahoo! I'll take it!

My man Ben is having a party, and his invite had this tiny little pic of him when he was little in the corner of the page, and I pulled it out. BENJI! Adorable his whole life, eh?
And at the bottom of these? YES, I have been playing with my cheese slicer a lot lately....

isn't she beautiful? HAPPY HOUR....

Twas 28 first thing this am when we walked the dogs: gloves, parka, hat. 78 by afternoon, THANK YOU JESUS!
I was all jingly jangly by 2 pm, and needed to get work done. I decided to get out of the house and do it at the Cornell studio instead, so I could gossip with my friends, get a change of scene, and, um, go to happy hour at my favorite ratty bar next to Cornell (FREE POPCORN BABY!) with Missus Jiffypop when she finished work at Cornell at 4:30. My trick is this: pick her up after work, park by the bar and casually say: "wow, kinda hot, are ya thirsty dear? Wanna step in and wet the whistle?".
My wife is very sweet and trusting and falls for it every time (look at her thuggish husband pictured above making faces, doesn't she look lovely?).
I am making these wild cups and saucers. I'll go back to Cornell tomorrow and make more....