ruby crowned kinglette

in 24 hours i have been around the world and back

last week i posted a picture of a cupcake... that quick photo i took, while in the car with jen after our meat meal, had a direct impact on a little girl in finland and i am sure she has no idea why and it doesn't matter.  what does matter is that what seemed fairly insignificant to me at the time made this little girl, through the generous and loving actions of her mother, beam with pride.... isn't that just the best reason in the world for these blogs of ours?

this is her.... isn't she beautiful, and so proud?  amazing that in some small way i contributed to that smile is just the greatest. of course, i could be attributing way too much credit for my contribution...

in the same 24 hour period that cupcakes were made in finland, my blog {and i, sort of} traveled quite a little distance....

usa
los angeles california, kingsport tennessee, lawrence kansas, valley stream new york, minnetonka beach minnesota, houston texas, orting washington, baton rouge louisiana, conroe texas, tempe arizona, minneapolis minnesota, jeffersonville ohio, koloa hawaii, champaign illinois, ravensdale washington, hampton virginia, lexington massachusettes, des moines iowa, medway maryland, new york new york, alexandria virginia, westminster maryland, st. louis missouri, austin texas, ashland kentucky, new orleans louisiana, portland oregon, belmont massachusettes, bothell washington, piscataway new jersey, bethesda maryland, columbus georgia, rochester new york, seattle washington, olympia washington, collierville tennessee, dorr michigan, geneseo new york, phoenix arizona, st paul minnesota, washington dc, pomona california, penryn california, felton california, jacksonville florida, sacramento california, scranton pennsylvania, san francisco california, sanford florida, bremerton washington, medford oregon, northfield minnesota, long beach california, huntington beach california, fremont california, dayton ohio

germany
ludwigshafen, oldenburg, cologne, eshborn, passau, bonn, kaiserslautern, hamburg

spain
barcelona, salamanca, madrid

uk
city of london, brighton, guildford, york, stirling, altrincham, worcester, rochdale, huddersfield, nottingham, liphook, blackburn

belguim
brussels

canada
truro  nova scotia, vancouver bc, toronto ontario, quebec, calgary alberta, quesnel bc, wildwood alberta, edmonton alberta

south africa
pretoria

norway
oslo

sweden
karlskrona, stockholm, mjlby

netherlands
den haag, utrecht, paterswolde, hazerswoude-rijndijk, beverwijk

new zealand
aukland

isreal
nehalim, tel aviv-yafo

russia
city of moscow

portugal
lisboa, braga

denmark
mirkerd

iceland
reykjavk

turkey
istanbul

france
torcy, lyon

australia
canberra, sydney, adelaide, melbourne

finland
turku, jyvskyl, rauma

saudi arabia
riyadh

hong kong

indonesia
surabaya

also pretty darned amazing..... both that i had readers from all over the globe and that i took the time to make these notes. it wasn't quick by the way, not a quick little exercise at all, but still kind of fun.

a futile note to the one person i am sure will never, ever, read my blog

dear person,

at what point in your life did you decide that if you see something you like - or admire - instead of being inspired by it and using it as the basis for creating something of your own ... you should steal it???

with very little love for you or your kind,

-stephanie

i am not even talking about ideas here - i am talking about my fairly inexpensive birdbath. a birdbath, incidentally, that very few birds ever bathed in...ha!
i came home monday after my walk around the neighborhood and realized it had gone missing.  probably over the weekend since there were no tracks in the snow to follow...  i think what really bothers me is that someone came so close to my home and took something which couldn't have been all that easy or quick to take. it had a rebar anchor pounded into the ground to hold it steady - pounded into pretty cold hard ground and between the dish, the stand and the glass flowers it seems it must have taken at least two trips to the get away car.

 

the second thing that i worried about was whether they took the chicken...

they did not take the chicken. if someone takes that chicken? well then, all bets are off. 

this here is the best part about that chicken. his 24" long rebar legs, with knees!....

i found the chicken* in sonoma at the sonoma salute to the arts a few years ago when i drove down with a friend, stayed in her condo there in town, sampled {understatement!} lovely wines and bought questionable art.  it was a great week.

last night while standing in front of our homes, i worried to my neighbor, saying i hoped no one would ever take my chicken. she looked at me with what could only be described as a blank stare.  of course, i realize i really am the only one in the world who loves the chicken - i know because people have told me exactly that.

you would be smart to wonder at this point, with all my love for that chicken, why i don't scrub him clean once in a while.... yep, can't answer that one.

 

*the chicken was sculpted by a kid named hopkiss... i can not find his card, but i know it is here.  while i was looking for it i found a card from a ceramics shop in london that i happened upon 15 years ago, and some business cards from a couple of great restaurants in the hudson river valley from a trip 7 years ago and loads of other stuff too important for me to throw away but what would look like a whole lot of meaningless paper to any one else. 
in the mean time, until i do find that card, here is a link to his mother's gallery.

it snowed last night, so i went for a walk this morning

there is a promise of more tonight. 

pruning for spring...

i freaked out a little bit yesterday because we got our work schedules and i only have two days off in the next two weeks.... that means i have a lot to squeeze in, and i have not been very good about squeezing things in lately.

one of those things has been the pruning of the wisteria.  we only had two days of sunshine* last summer so it didn't grow as furiously as in years past. but, it was time to get out there and prune the thing so that all the energy could go to the flowers i want to bloom and not the wild branches that had sprouted all over the place.

there is quite a bit more that needs my attention in the garden, but i think it can wait for a while.  well, shoot, it is going to have to wait, because that is the only option.  besides, when i am ready to get out there again the ground - and air - won't be frozen so it will be easier to spend more than an hour fiddling around without having to shake some warmth back into my hands.

 

so then, the reason that the schedule freaked me out is due principally to the fact that i am going to have surgery on the 6th of february.
 
hysterectomy.
laparoscopic. 
leaving the ovaries.
i am a bit nervous. 
unsuccessfully masking nervousness by being glib.
i know i need it.
but still...

i am kind of hoping too, while i am in my deep sleep on the operating table, that something will trigger and i will wake up with all kinds of creative ideas and the energy to go at them.... i know, it's not advertised as one of the perks of anesthesia, but like i said, i am hoping. 

the plan right now will be to spend two weeks recovering at home. that should give me some time to consider crafting in 2008 as well, and, nothing but good can come of that. also considering convalescing at my mom's house where there will be cable tv, and birds to watch, and computer access, and someone to wait on me and cook for me... hmmm, i am not so certain why i am nervous.  all that sounds excellent, doesn't it?

i think i will go buy some lounging around jammies for the occasion - if i had some time - or energy - i would make some from the lovely tana lawn from liberty that purl soho has... did you see them? they are fantastic...

instead i am going to try to get some laundry done and a little project worked out before i need to go sell a sofa or two...

 

*it seemed like there were only two days..... maybe there were more?

i would not, could not, ever be... a vegetarian

'cause i like meats too much.

lunch today was mighty nice.  in keeping with my promise to take advantage of the city in which i live, i drove downtown and picked up jen on the street corner and headed to pioneer square where we both had ourselves a nice meat sandwich from salumi.
jen had the lamb sandwich, i had the cotecchino and they were good, real real good.

before i picked up jen - from the street corner* - i stopped here and picked up some dessert.  i got a lemon cupcake and a red velvet cupcake. now, i have to say, and i know this is going to hurt some of you... but i don't think i am a big fan of the red velvet.  sure, it looks damn fine, which is why i got it, because i didn't think that the chocolate with vanilla frosting was going to 'look good'** in the box with the lemon one - but, now? i kinda wish i got the chocolate with vanilla frosting because it would have been buttercream frosting and buttercream frosting is just about the best frosting in the whole wide world - especially eaten from the end of your index finger, especially when it is piled high on the end of that index finger.  but they were not serving buttercream from the end of index fingers today so i went with the red velvet.

if i had more self control there would be a photo of the lemon cupcake too, but i don't so there isn't.... enough said.

and for some non-meaty news.... this was on my doorstep this morning.

and look what begins on page 86...

many thanks go to staci dumoski - she contacted me and then kept contacting me because i was incredibly tardy in getting any kind of article to her.  thank you staci, for your patience and making my blog and photos look so great.  it is a lovely honor to be in your magazine. and the best part is that they used my pig tower picture - i love that pig tower picture....

*jen does not actually work the streets of down town seattle, it is just fun to pretend.... well, fun for me anyhow.

**it is real important to look good where cupcakes are concerned...

shadows • light

the morning light, filtered through 80 year old glass. glass with all the imperfections that come from the impurities and bubbles and unevenness inherent in building materials that old.  those imperfections are what make it difficult to see through in perfect clarity but also what make the light so beautiful as it glows against the plaster walls; movement in the stationary.

and then there is this, the transition between here and gone.  ice, cold and hard until warmed by the morning sun light then slowly melting away; the movement of the day.

a new season seemed only hours away on sunday afternoon. each day i lie in bed and listen to the robin and black-capped chickadee greet the morning, but not yet the spring.
maybe tomorrow.

{on a wednesday}

the struggle for beauty is what i see.  a belief that a coat of rust, markings left from insects and frosty nights, intentional growth that looks like tangles or the loss of color does not diminish but makes more beautiful. it is what makes us human too, this struggle. this belief.

more of the world's wednesday observations ....

steven brahy, thank you

this is how the story goes.

fifth grade was when we would learn geography for real. when we would learn where the important places lived on a map and i loved it. i was good at remembering where things were and nothing stayed put like a place on map.

so there it was, spring of 1971 and our job was geography, US geography. and not just the capitols either, but major cities and more. i remembered the 'more' part and it was to be key. there was going to be a contest and the prize was lunch at the huddle, wrangell's only burger joint - and on a school day too.  a cheeseburger, fries and a milkshake were looming large on my horizon and i was determined....

i studied and remembered and made a point to note major mountains and rivers too.

so then, the day arrived, the quiz was given and everyone, EVERYONE expected steven brahy to be the big winner.  sure, he was the smartest in the class, always the top score, always expected to be the one that got the a's... certainly expected to outdo us all in US geography. except that he didn't.

i did.

by one point.

because i remembered the mississippi river.

 

it was perplexing to steven and the teacher most.  the teacher was steven's best friend's father. a man i remember as being fairly sexist, believing boys were smarter than girls; his son and steven especially.  it fell to this man to congratulate me on my win and take me to lunch. 

here is the crummy part, but the part that should have been expected. he invited steven too. it just wasn't in him to be fair and let me savor my accomplishment, or my burger.

but this is the more important part. i learned on that day that adults were not always fair and that teachers could disappoint. but above all i knew in my heart that girls were as smart as boys and on that particular spring day in a tiny little town in southeast alaska, it was me, and me alone that won that fifth grade geography contest.

and i still pretty much rock at the geography.

from the traveler iq challenge, go on now, go test yourself.

it's official...

apparently i am too hard on myself and i will, from now forward, be granting said self some slack.  thank you...

so then, part of going easy on myself will be to stop hanging around with only my thoughts - my thoughts are too loud and overrated besides - instead, i am going to take advantage of my town and what it has to offer...

already i have begun....

the view from the ferry as it came into seattle from bainbridge island on the first day of 2008.

why i feel nervous on the first day of this new year...

i think it is because of the possibilities... the whole world of possibilities out there and me, here, wondering if by the end of 2008 i will feel like i do right now; realizing another year has passed and those resolutions of 2007 are still waiting to be resolved... ok, all but three*, which i suppose is something. kinda.

the nervous part, the part that makes me want to cry really - and that i find a bit unsettling - is the part of me that doesn't feel i've lived up to my expectations of myself this last year.  i didn't really expect that feeling, and i sure don't like that feeling, but there is no denying it is there.

so then, maybe one two resolutions? to be a little easier on myself and to do instead of say... if i can resolve just that, then 2008 will be a year to celebrate.

 

*by this i mean.... i only achieved success with three of these resolutions. yep, just three.