News from the home front

Long day at work today, for no apparent reason. Just long.

I saw via email that a package had been left for me – the replacement kitty scratching post from Felix Katnip Tree. Although I was a little dismayed at how long it took to arrive, I was glad that it had! Took it out of the box, found the little wedge you need to secure it.

The bigger part of the problem was how to get the old post out of the base. After all, it had been more than secure for quite a number of years, due to the little wedge you bang into the post’s bottom peg. I finally took it downstairs and used the vise action of the portable worktable that’s down there. I tried banging on the peg that goes through a hole in the large flat base some more. Nothing. As a different approach I put the post itself in the vise hold and tried wiggling the base back and forth and it did actually budge a bit. So I stood on the bottom of the work table and slowly twisted the base up and around and off. Whew!

Took the base back upstairs, inserted the new post and hammered the wedge into the bottom of that sucker. It’s going no where for the next number of years – no matter what the cats do to it.

Molly of course scrabbled right up to the top of it. I’ve seen other big cats leap right to the top and it doesn’t so much as wobble so it is more than secure for long luxurious scratches.

Then I went upstairs and tried taking better pictures of the new quilt. It’s tough and I’m not interested in setting up the photo lights up there. Maybe when the piecing gets underway.

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Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten

A recent NYTimes article about Arvo Part led me to a compilation album done as a chronological overview of his work. I started listening to it while putting little dark squares up on the wall. It surprised me in that I was expecting very modern, spare stuff. Instead, there were beautiful and lush melodies and sounds.

There was only one piece that I went past – a little too dissonant for the moment. Finally today I arrived at the last piece of the recording: “Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten.

I will be listening to this piece a lot more in the future. My reaction isn’t ready for words yet but it seriously grabs me somewhere.

Part has said of “tintinnabulation: “The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises — and everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this. Here I am alone with silence. I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me.”

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Eeps!

As it did last time, the whole idea of this made me gasp a little. My quilt returned from Athens today for its long winter nap. having been photographed for this book it will rest now until it goes back in May for the show opening.

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TGIF?

I have to say it’s unlikely that I’ll ever change my idea of a normal work week, weekend etc. So TGIF to y’all.

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just a test

I am trying a plug in that lets folks view my blog content more easily from phones and devices. Let me know if it’s working for you or no. Continue reading

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