pithy

So I say a little while ago:

"so my little poptart, anything pithy for me?" and she replies

"OY the pressure! And how can I think when you call me POPTART?"

In other bizarre news, and I bet you visit me to read all the bizarre news, YES the little hamster passed through my dreams, writing something in a notebook and then I was dreaming me and the poptart went to Texas because Farmer's Wife's husband is my brother-in-law and south Texas is all snowy and hilly just like here.....well anyway.

little Rafiki and me

(mug by Gary Rith and Rafiki)
Cheri's daughter has a puppy and asked if I could try to make mugs with him. To me, he looks like a brown dog with black smudges, and I think I managed to capture that much!

Disturbed

Woke up singing the Bee Gee's "how can you mend a broken heart...." and I think I will cleanse the palate.
So here is the heaviest of heavy metal, Disturbed. Like if you took a sweet and wholesome band like Godsmack and pushed them off the edge. Nothing uplifting here, not for everybody!
\m/

Down with the sickness


and Stupify which is a rather disturbing video

mirror mirror on the wall....

Who is the fairest of them all?
The other day my adorable and ever sweet and sexy peanut brittle put on the Cowboy Junkies for dinner. I remembered I had seen that the Cowboy Junkies come to Ithaca in February. As Margo sweetly sang BLUUUUUE MOOOOOON I told my peanut brittle:
"Sweetie, don't take this wrong, but there is something about Margo Timmins voice that, well, drives me wild. And dear sweet darling, please don't be jealous, but Suzanne Vega and...." she interrupted "and Kate Bush too?"
" NONONO I like Kate Bush, but SHAWN COLVIN honey. And of course..." I gasped and grabbed my water "KIM GORDON OF SONIC YOUTH".

If Missus G can admit her innocent crushes on Paul Newman and that guy with the lank hair who did the pirate movies, and if Farmer's Wife can dream of Val Kilmer and Cheri can lust after her own iphone...
then I can admit my great appreciation for certain female songwriters. The list here, of course, is merely my top 4 favorites...


Margo Timmins

Suzanne Vega

Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth

Shawn Colvin

yesterday my hot little blueberry muffin said to me

Yesterday my hot little blueberry muffin said to me:

"....I'm just a plaything...."


(added later: OK, I admit it, I dreamt the little dream hamster passed through my dreams and was dancing in little pink rainboots like my wife's and then it was Christmas and I was at a buffet given by a Japanese empress consisting of raw squid and octopus BUT luckily there were a couple of bananas at the end of the buffet.....)

le pots

(pitcher and wild space-age elephant cookie jar by Gary Rith)

scenes from the weekend: including Le sconelets

(scones and bowl by Gary Rith, Penny, Spike and Emily lazing away)
Sheesh, Monday already?
OK, baking le sconelets first. What I like about scones for breakfast is you set them on the table, then you eat them. There is no toasting, no spreading of jam, flipping of eggs, stirring of porridge. Just open the bag and eat. As long as you made them the day before. Scones, of course, are sort of English country biscuits, usually baked full of butter and cream, to which I am allergic. I make a wicked good scone with margerine and soy yogurt (DON'T GAG UNTIL YOU TRY IT, and be glad you are not allergic to dairy!) i doubt if anyone would be able to guess these are not baked with butter etc.
As for the bowl, it is well known I like ridgey pots. I also like squared off pots. How do you make something made round with ridges squared???? test number one turned out well.

Baby its cold outside

From Elf. I love this.

my man BRETT

It was kinda cool that the Titans were undefeated, BUT IT IS FAR COOLER that the Jets beat them in Tennessee today. Soundly!
The thing about Brett is, I almost met him once. Well, I went to a Bears-Green Bay game in Chicago during his rookie season that is. He is cool. You have to admire him: handsome, not stuck up, lived in and loved Green Bay (who could love Green Bay?) did the Super Bowl thing, nearly did it again last year as an old man (the thing I love about Brett is he is about my age!!!! and still running around!!!!!!!!!), got the cold shoulder from the team he wanted to GO BACK TO (I mean, you would think a smart old guy would want to go to Dallas--warm and close to his hometown!), but he joins the not very good Jets and suddenly.................

Santa shops HERE

(mugs by Gary Rith)
One of these cat/dog mugs and this ultra-cute zebra mug go on sale this morning at my online etsy gallery.

WHAT DO YOUR FUZZY SLIPPERS SAY about you?

My little chocolate truffle said to me last night:
"Your blog is family friendly for everyone except the people in your family!!!!"

Was she referring to the pictures I take of her in bed while she sleeps? (I cut her out, honest!) or maybe the embarrassing love talk I quote even when she, you know, asks me not to blog them?

Well, too bad, because I am having fun, and she is a funny person. :)

Let's talk slippers. Last summer one of my favorite posts on the old blog asked 'what do your Chuch Taylor sneakers say about you?'. It is a personality thing--although I have black high AND low Chucks, I have two ratty old pairs of white lowtops---and that is me. I am a Chuck Taylor low white tops personailty, denoting, I think, a certain mellow frame of mind. Cheri, of course, blew us all away with her CRYSTAL COVERED black Chucks.

I was thinking about this and noticed my slippers......I have two pairs of custom jobs: the grey mousikins and the red doggy slippers (yes, they are old and well loved, repaired, and YES, I had asked the missus to take ordinary slippers and make one pair into mouse and the other into doggy slippers). The missus has cheetah print (MEoooooW!). Wonder what this says about us??????????

So, it comes down to: what do your fuzzy slippers say about YOU?

8 degrees at 4:51 on a Sunday :)

Sooooo Penny is rolling around cutely, as she does, little kisses and tail wags that means she NEEDS TO GO OUT. Ugh. I need to glaze pots anyway (I try to get glazing done early, so the kiln can be started and finished by bedtime---it is a 12 hour firing) and it is a busy time of year, what with doing some of Santa's work for customers, so I get up before 5 on a Sunday. Put on the parka over the jammies and go out in the snow with the dogs. The snow has that particluar crunchy sound to it, and I am thinking it is quite cold----and the thermometer tells me 8 stinking degrees. Luckily a hot triple espresso awaits (and the beagle climbs back into the bed with an empty bladder and full belly.....)

remember picking blueberries in August?

(berry bowl by Gary Rith)
My pal Susan in Chicago wanted this guy and he is now on her counter full of apples! My other pal Lis of Root and Sprout bought one like it last summer....
With Susan it was funny . She asked for a berry bowl with cherries, having seen my strawberries. THE PROBLEM was that I had just made my first white bowls with blueberries, which I consider a superb new glaze combo. So I told Susan she didn't want cherries, go for the blueberries instead. That sort of defines the creative process--you have to make what you do best and are most inspired to do, even if the customer THINKS she wants cherries.

Love slave

Yesterday evening my little tofu pup said to me:
"I'd be your love slave for chocolate cookies. DON'T BLOG THAT!!!!"

I made no promises....

worn denim

(sugar bowls by Gary Rith)

laaaaazy

Spike and Emily. Just took this picture. The missus is sleeping on the other side of the bed....what sloth! Laziness! I mean, sleeping in till 6 on a Saturday????

Canada hates northern NY

I bet it goes back to the war of 1812 or something, which, contrary to MY SCHOOL HISTORY books, Canadians claim to have won. But I thought we fought the British? Canadians apparently have long memories, because they fight dirty: every winter they blow this cr@p across Lake Ontario at us, and we get tons of snow. 1-4 inches last night? Tell that to my beagle who is up to her moist little nose in snow out there.

not to complain or anything, but snow every stinking day through Thanksgiving?

channel 9 tells us:

"Right now we are thinking 2-4” in the lakes snows this afternoon then another 4-8” Friday night.

The cold stays with us, and the winds are forecast to stay pretty northwesterly right into and through the day Saturday, so over parts of CNY, we’re expecting significant accumulations of snow, that will likely exceed 1 foot."

23 big ones

(Gary's TRIPLE chocolate cookies)
The fun, of course, of working at home is sometimes NOT working at home but making chocolate cookies for the missus instead. My triple chocolate cookie recipe has cocoa powder, melted chocolate and chocolate chips in them. Plus a tiny bit of flour and other stuff. Recipe makes 3-4 dozen, which would obviously be itty-bitty little cookies. I made 23 big ones and the house smells great.
have a good weekend all!

le doggie!

(teaset by Gary Rith)