Crabby Clam on a Cruise

You will remember that a customer of mine from Houston took my wee little handsculpted piggy on a tour of Britain, with special stops, um, between, you know, a woman's, ahem....
SO I get the message that A DIFFERENT customer of mine from Houston (and I am coming to really love Houston, even though I have never visited) has taken a crabby clam I made on a cruise. With, ahem, you know, special stops between a woman's.....

kcinnova bakes it up good!

So as you saw, blogger kcinnova and her 4 sons and husband drove several hundreds of miles to see me Saturday and mess around. They brought this rather fab offering, a baked fudge type thing for vegans! Tastes of nuts, peanut butter, mmmm mmmm good! I am quite serious when I tell you EVERYBODY would love it, its probably healthy, and maybe she'll share the recipe? Thanks KC!

le sharks!

(shark bowls and mug by Gary Rith)
Q: What is a sharks favorite kinda sandwich
A: Peanut butter and jellyfish!

A little more LUSH....

you kinda LOVE summer, doncha?

Penny is so hot, she sleeps under the table. And summer, really, is a brief thing here in the north, with winter just hanging around ready to pounce at any minute.
Alright, so the plan is to go to the Chapterhouse bar and drink cold beers in the AC and meet up with all the friends, but crapola, thay don't open till 7 on Sunday? Since when?
Vodka martinis are super cold and super welcome, on my back deck. One day you turn 43 AND Suddenly you find yourself drinking martinis.....

life is just a chair of bowlies

So I am digging into the bagel with (soy)cream cheese and the triple double espresso and we set out the cherries. In a bowl. Life is just a bowl of cherries, when reversed, is hilarious!

one or two potlets....

(pottery by Gary Rith)
I wanted that plate for MESELF....

KC comes over!

One of those things that seems to happen so often these days, but I get the email back in the spring
"GARY! We want to come visit" and I am like
"You live hundreds of miles away don't you?"
"Yeah, I wanna visit some of the people who read my blog!"
and so I say
"That's cool"
"So, me, my husband, and my four boys could drive up. Maybe my youngest son could give the wheel a try?"
and I am like
"Sounds OK, to me, but you have GOTTA go to Niagara Falls too if you're coming all the way up to New York" and she is like
"Good point. The kids have camp and such until mid-August" and I counter
"In late August students return to town and the place is packed"

So, we agree on this quiet weekend between the end of KC's kids' various summer things and just before Ithaca goes mad once again with 26,000 students.

KC has been blogging a long time and commenting at my blog a long time too. I have met dozens of bloggers over the last 3 years, but this is the first time somebody drove hundreds of miles with a car full of kids to do so. The first blogger to visit me was CM 3 years ago. She is a secret blogger from Canada, cousin of Celeste (who comments here too, that party animal) and CM is the absolute best person. We didn't know that before we met her. We wondered, of course, if she was an axe murderer, and obviously she is not, and then CM introduced us to Celeste and then....anyway. So, lots of bloggers have come here or we have met them somehow, and its a pretty cool world, isn't it?

SO, back to KC. The van arrives yesterday afternoon and like the little VW at the circus with a million clowns getting out of it, one son after another is getting out of the van, and here they are--and this is the friendliest and most polite, and outgoing bunch you have met. They come in, and its a hot day and my kiln is on, so its over 100 degrees in the studio, and I do the demo, and the youngest tries it, and then another boy sez he'll try, and before you know, EVERYBODY tries the wheel and makes a cute little candy dish. Yes, even KC's husband, who is an army officer and Iraq War veteran. Turns out he had tried pottery in high school, and remembered it a bit--go DAD!
Then they were off to climb gorges and today Niagara.....

LUSH LIVE!

Mmm hmmm....

three NOT wee items...

(big pots, believe me, by Gary Rith)

Let's have a little more LUSH, oh how I love them so.....

Crabby Clam goes on a cruise.....

SO ANOTHER of my Houston pals goes on a cruise to Cozumel and brings along the crabby clam I made and it gets to go aboard ship and then go to the bar and drink beers....that is the LIFE my man.
Below? New display of mine at the Kitschen Sink Gallery in Ithaca....nice...

Christi comes over.....

My pal Christi calls and she is like
"my 16 year old niece is in town and she is very arty, can we come over?"
And I am like
"absolutely!".
Christi is a painter and illustrator who is one of our very best pals and she messes around here with clay sometimes and gives us eggs from her chickens and cards and pictures.
Her niece had a little experience with clay before, and WOW! Just like Christi, she learns super fast, and threw 2 bowls on the wheel. Christi made a wee little turtle to go into one, and a wee little octopus to go into the other!

"what's happening to you Gary???"

My pal Kate asked yesterday "what's happening to you Gary?" and its like, well, nothing actually. Other than I am being WARPED BY FAME AND FORTUNE! Like Joe Walsh said, "Life's been good to me so far" and then he trashes the hotel room.
The wife saw these pics I took of myself yesterday just now and she is like
"you're an extrovert when you blog". And so Kate, maybe there is part of your answer, plus with 3 years of blogging, I don't edit myself as much anymore. Like anybody else, I have different sides, and let's keep in mind that I admit to a wicked sense of humor, therefore: taking me seriously is optional.

(note about this vase below--sometimes I throw a couple of big sections then later join them together into one big piece---in this case, I wanted a long spirally neck and a wavy groovy base :)





(vase in 2 sections and then finished as one large piece)

whatever happened to LUSH?????

Close cousin musically to Curve is Lush. Oh my, they were SO CUTE in the early 90s. This is the BEST video.

we went over to Bill and Eva's to visit my skull mugs....

We went over to Bill and Eva's to visit the skull mugs they are buying from us. Bill and Eva rock. When he was a kid, Bill was keyboardist in a band called something like COFFEE FOR THE DEAD. We saw their various kids, cats and dogs, and ate vegan stew and focaccia and cake and beers.....
They are hipsters. Bill took Little Britain clips and a tune from Queen and made this clever (and mildly lewd) video....

time for a new tat????

Many of you will remember that my right arm was inked around St Patrick's Day with a tat I planned 15 years ago: my wife's initial in a red star. I am wicked pleased with it, and heck, if you have waited 15 years.....
People say you get hooked, they're like M and Ms--you can't have just one.
Anyway, I am wondering if my man Scott could turn this beauty into something for my LEFT arm---for balance......

Spike the anarcho-punk cat takes some questions....

I try to ignore it, but my email box is stuffed full everyday! Let me answer a bunch of questions here at once:

"Spike, is it really true that republicans howl at the moon and suck the blood of innocents?"--Vlad from Des Moines

"Spike, did I hear that Rush has had a DRUG PROBLEM????" --Ron from NC

"Was that senator and his tapping toes in the airport a pervert, liar and hypocrite????"--Newt from Minneapolis

"Is Rage Against the Machine touring again?????"--Zack from LA

"Do some conservative republican governors feel that it is better to use the taxpayer's money flying off to see their mistresses rather than help citizens who need health insurance?" --Jen in SC

Listen, all of you, the only thing I can say with absolute certainty is that nobody has been able to prove that republicans howl at the moon..... thanks for listening--Spike the cat