Gratuitous Cat Video #2

Okay, here's another short video for you. This one is just under a minute and nothing really happens in it at all, but it makes me smile so much. Ah, to be a cat and find so much joy by sitting in a box. Maybe I should try it!

five flickr favorites to relieve stress

I am a stress case this week (so far anyway, I guess it is only Tuesday), and it is not very much fun. I don't like getting so worked up about things. It certainly doesn't help, and in fact, being so stressed makes me snap at people which sometimes makes things worse. Do you know what I mean? Perhaps something wonky is going on with the stars and planets, but yesterday I just snapped. I blamed it on sleeping poorly for a few nights in a row, but I slept well last night and still woke up feeling like a monster!

Anyway, I don't want to harp on stress and negativity, so today I am posting five Flickr favorites from the last week or so.

supercapacity's palm. lovely and serene.
maditi's with | without. dreamy.
bloody power's Me and JC. strong and beautiful. also quintessential pittsburgh ladies.
lauratitian's untitled. love all the tablescapes, but this one is so perfect to me.
polagroid's .503. roar.

And I have to say that I already feel better after taking the time to revisit these photos and create the links. Seriously.

What are your latest favorites? On Flickr or anywhere...please share. I could use some love today, plus it is always fun to be led to new wonders on the web.

hills in ny

hills, originally uploaded by the other lisa.

I did not make the journey to New York for the Hills/Christy & Emily/Noble Lake show on Saturday, so I was happy to find the other lisa's awesome photos from the evening! Check out the whole set.

cable knit handbag, the finished product

I finished the handbag today. It's a a little wonky, but I think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt. I've made a few handbags before, but this is the first cable knit one. I think the hardest part is getting it attached to the handles. On this one, I used a crochet method which is a little bulky but super secure. Now on to a new project! I think I am going to make this Belt du Jour (PDF link). I'm trying to stick with simple projects since we're going to be moving soon! (The moving part is news item #2 which I keep putting off writing about here. It's no secret, I just never seem to get it out. Soon, I promise.) Have a happy Sunday!

Korean BBQ and Art

On Friday night, we decided to try the Korean/Japanese restaurant that's up the hill from us. We'd heard okay things about it, but I have to say, it was one of the stranger dining experiences I have had. They seated us under one of the stereo speakers for starters. And they played a lot of Japanese pop music. Then they randomly switched to the soundtrack from Grease. Don't get me wrong, I love the music from Grease, but maybe not so much when dining. In a Korean restaurant. It was bizarre. Anyway, we ordered a few appetizers and Korean BBQ.



It was okay, but definitely not the best Korean food I've ever had. Nonetheless, I am glad we checked out the place. I'd always been curious about it and well, now I know.

From there, we headed downtown to SPACE Gallery. It was the art crawl night downtown, and man, it was hopping. I don't think I've ever seen so many people downtown at night before. SPACE was packed which made it slightly difficult to focus on the art, but I think we saw most of it.







My favorite piece was the one by Maya Hayuk (above). She's awesome. In retrospect, I wish we'd stayed there longer and watched more of the video work, but alas, it was so crowded, we couldn't deal. Anyway, it was a great show and you should check it out while it's up.

snow day and knitting, part deux

No view of downtown today! I love the snow though and wish it would keep coming down. Today's been the coldest day we've had this winter. I wanted to be bad ass and go running this morning, but it was eight degrees and that's a bit too chilly for me. After a short day at work, I came home and knit some more. I watched Mad Hot Ballroom while I worked and loved it. I've always wanted to learn how to ballroom dance and this movie totally made me want to learn even more! (I have to admit, I am not super coordinated and don't think I can move my body that way, but hey, I can dream!) The knitting went well today. I just need to block the piece, seam it together and attach the handles.



Tonight we're going down to SPACE Gallery for an art opening. There's video and a bunch of stuff going on tomorrow night as well so if you're in town, check it out. And the Human Brains are playing at the 31st Street Pub tonight if you're feeling the need to rock out. Have an excellent weekend! I am going to leave you with this funny picture of Simon.

snow day and knitting

Mother Nature has been alternating snow with sunshine today. It's bitterly cold outside, but I like it. It finally feels like winter. The photo is a shot from the third floor window of our house. My new camera has quite a zoom on it! I love that I can see the downtown skyline. So pretty. Here's a wider view.

Work is quiet this week so I've been getting home early which is awesome. Today I decided to take some time out to knit. It also provided a good excuse to get caught up on the new season of The L Word. I didn't even know it was back on until last night! As for my knitting, I keep making silly mistakes so it's taking me awhile to get through this project. I am making a cable knit handbag, inspired by this tutorial. I love cable stitches.

Gratuitous Cat Video #1

I'll be honest with you. This is not a particularly exciting video. I recently got a new camera and I just can't resist using the video! The video is under a minute and it is an iside look at what the cats start doing at around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. Dinnertime is at 5:00, but they like to start hovering near the food bucket (the white bucket in the video) and crying lest we forget to feed them. I wanted to get them both whining in unison (singing for their supper!), but alas, they would not perform for me. Both are used to their pictures being taken, but Rocky looked a bit baffled as to why I was following him around with the little camera. ("Just feed me already woman!") This is Gratuitous Cat Video #1 because I am sure there will be more to come!

On the new camera - I absolutely love it!! I love my Canon 350D as well, but I missed having a compact digital that I could easily carry with me everywhere. The SD800 has a surprising amount of functions for an automatic camera, some that I still need to figure out and some that I will probably never use. It also allows setting the ISO as high as 1600 which is important for me when I am shooting pictures at shows. Makes for a lot of noise in a photo, but that isn't always a bad thing. Anyway, I am very happy with my purchase.

It is snowing again today and it's finally starting to look like a winter wonderland around here! I love it when everything is blanketed by fresh snow. It's so lovely. And it helps brighten up the gray days.

Since I began this post with a gratuitous cat video, I will end it with a gratuitous cat photo. It's an old one, taken in our Brooklyn apartment in 2004. It makes Rocky look like his middle name could be "No Neck", but I still love it. We got the best morning light in the apartment.

NYE Self-Portraits

1. Alan, 2. Carolyn, 3. Ed, 4. Barry 1, 5. Barry 2, 6. Ivan, 7. Eric,
8. Leah, 9. Juli, 10. Will & Simon, 11. Julie, 12. Mystery Photo

Since about 1995, it's been something of a tradition for me to take Polaroid pictures of people on New Year's Eve. There are dozens from some years and only one or two from others. This past year, we were at home with friends. I left the camera on the dining room table and asked that everyone present take a self-portrait at some point through the course of the day. You can see the results above and I have to say, I like this project. I like taking pictures of people, but I also love self-portraits. It's always interesting to see how people present themselves. I think that I'll do this again. In this particular series, I think my favorite is the one of Julie (#11), because she's the only one who chose to use the self-timer!! Ivan (#6) and Eric (#7) are not actually self-portraits, but I've included them because they were taken on that day. We never did figure out why the first picture Barry took (#4) came out completely black or who took the Mystery Photo (#12).

magic carpet

Yes, I have a magic carpet! It was a holiday gift from my husband, and definitely one of my favorite gifts ever. Now if only I had a better place for it. Right now it is resting near my altar and the magic mirror that Steve gave us. Soon we will hardware floors again and the magic carpet will have a better resting place. Anyway, the carpet was made by the wonderful Haydee, a friend from the Werehouse. The other side is painted as well.



I love it. And so do the cats, though thankfully they just love sleeping on it and not clawing it. I think that they fly away on it at night and have many cat adventures, perhaps even trips to the Werehouse to visit Lily and The Mayor.



Simon in particular has an affinity for the carpet. He used to live at the Werehouse and seems to remain connected to it somehow. We also have a beautiful wooden bench that was a wedding gift, made from Werehouse wood and Simon absolutely loves it. When we first brought it home (to Brooklyn - this was a few years ago), he immediately hopped up on it and claimed it as his own. Yes, I find my cats - and really all cats - to be endlessly intriguing.

To change the subject, I have so many things that I still need to share and while I don't want to overload you with posts, I want to get caught up! Soon I will write about News Item #2 and share the NYE Polaroid self-portraits with you.

the knitted kitten

Dear Lord, I believe that this may be the cutest kitten picture I have ever seen.

Go on, click on it!

weekend review

Hello! Time for another weekend review. I had a very long day at the office on Friday. It felt like I was there for a week all in one day. So I was quite happy when I finally got to head home. I rounded up the gentlemen and we headed out for an early Friday at Gooski's yet again (picking up Bloody along the way). Blazzzer served us up some tasty wings and steak sandwiches and then Steve and Bloody headed to the ping pong table.





After a few rounds of ping pong and picture-taking, we headed back home. I ended up retiring fairly early, leaving the others to play Mexican Train. Good times.

I woke up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and was super productive all morning, catching up on laundry and running errands. (A quick aside: the dryer repair man came over last Thursday and he was so funny. When he came up from the basement with Will, he mentioned that he had a cat that looks like Simon but without the white. Then he whips a stack of Polaroid pictures out of his jacket pocket and starts showing us pictures of his cat, a possum, and his property. It was hilarious. I never would have pegged him as a cat lover muchless a cat lover with Polaroid photos in his pocket! He was quite entertaining.) That afternoon I backed up all the data on my hard drive, all the while taking care of little things because the backing up part takes forever. I felt great about getting so much done. Oh and CC stopped over that day too! It was good to catch up with him a bit.

On Sunday I was up at the crack of dawn once again, taking care of various little tasks. The days feel extra long when I get up so early on the weekend. It's nice. Later that afternoon Bloody came over and we drank some delicious prosecco while awaiting kick-off time. Yes, another football Sunday. Bloody brought over Tater Tot Hash to go with our Firecrackers (jalapeños stuffed with herbed cream cheese and wrapped in bacon). You certainly can't go wrong with tater tots, sausage, spinach and cheese! The Firecrackers ended up tasty but rather unsightly. There actually isn't a photo in the cookbook, but I envisioned something beautiful. Perfect jalapeños wrapped in crisp bacon. Well, the bacon never crisped properly and everything sort of fell apart. I think next time around we'll change a few things and make them look pretty. But hey, at least they tasted good and we were really psyched to try a recipe out of the bacon cookbook. Granted, my stomach is probably going to be happy when football is over. The snacking definitely gets to me sometimes.

I won't go on too much about the games, but I'll say that I was sad but not heartbroken to see the Saints lose; and I was ecstatic to see the Patriots lose! Who will you be pulling for in the SuperBowl?

puzzle

I'm a little late with sharing the puzzle pictures with you, but they just made it to my computer yesterday. We started the puzzle on New Year's Day and finished it up an evening or two later. I insisted on putting this section together:



The weather was pretty gray for a week or two after we finished the puzzle so I never ended up getting a decent photo of the whole thing. After having the puzzle on our dining room table for days, I finally broke, took a few not so great photos and put the puzzle away. I needed my table back. Here's another detail:



And here's the whole thing:



Bad photo, but you get the idea. It was a pretty challenging puzzle. We just bought another one and I'm looking forward to working on it. Maybe it's totally dorky, but working on a puzzle in the evening is a nice way for me and Will to spend some quality time together that does not involve watching television!

Making music

...on two floors. And me in the middle, hearing the sounds from above and below. Yesterday afternoon I was on the 2nd floor, scanning photographs. Steve was on the 3rd floor, in Will's studio, singing and recording. Will was on the 1st floor playing guitar and singing. I could hear both of them and it made me laugh (the sounds didn't exactly mesh). It also warmed my heart. So of course I had to capture the moment(s) with my Polaroid!

on overweight kitties

Obese stray cat gets stuck in doggie door.

Funny, but not really. It's sad that so many cats, just like humans, are overweight.

The OHS said that 40 percent of cats in the United States are considered to be overweight and are being seen more often by veterinarians for various disorders. A press release said cats are at risk for a number of obesity-related disorders and that in recent years feline diabetes mellitus, or diabetes, has become a regular diagnosis in animal hospitals across the United States.

That's why we are so proud of Rocky. He's doing great with his diet and has lost 4 pounds over the past 2 years. He eats Science Diet r/d® which definitely helps, but even more important, since we left NYC, he gets a whole lot of exercise. You can see the difference.



And I think he is much happier now that he has lost weight. It means he can jump on the counter and eat the leftover sausage that we forget to put away. (Not so good for the diet, of course.)

[link via cat]

snow and sunshine

I have all kinds of random tidbits in my head that I want to share!

Yesterday it finally snowed! Yea! Snow! There wasn't much accumulation, but it was lovely to have snowflakes falling from the sky. A vast improvement over all the rain we've had lately. It definitely lifted my spirts. And today, sunshine! That lifts my spirts even more. (Perhaps the reason I am using so many exclamation points.) It's COLD, but with the sun, it's feels wonderful. An excellent day. I am hoping to get out of work early enough to make it to the library to pick up the books I requested. It's been too long since I've had new things to read.

Oh and also on the sunshine tip, we watched Little Miss Sunshine and we all LOVED it. It's the best movie I have seen in a long time. I always love Toni Collette, she's just so great. And Abigail Breslin, who plays Olive, the little girl, is AWESOME. We've been wanting to see the movie for awhile so I am glad we finally took the time to do it. It was an evening well spent.

Last night for dinner we had Red Pepper Ravioli from Groceria Italiana which was awesome. I prefer Groceria Italiana to Donatelli's these days because it is never as crowded and all the people there are super friendly. Plus the homemade pastas are to-die-for and they have a great selection of sauces. AND they have imported black olives (canned) that remind of the olives I used to buy in Spain. Yum.

To backtrack a little bit, on Monday I met Sheryl at Lot 17. We had beers, good conversation and salmon salads. I don't get to see Sherly often enough and so I love the time we do get to have together. She gave me the coolest cookbook ever! It's called Seduced by Bacon and it has the most amazing photos in it, not to mention the incredible sounding recipes! I can't wait to use it.

Okay, I must return to the work at hand. Happy Wednesday!

The Magic of Polaroid

In Issue No. 17 of Art & Design Magazine, there's an interesting article about Polanoir which includes a timeline of the genesis of Polaroid and the stories behind Polanoid and Polanoir.

Many of us still - or more than ever - love the sensual experience of being presented with a genuine picture immediately after the shutter release has been pressed; to smell it, to almost taste it, and above all, to be able to hold it in one's hands right away. It is simply something you can feel.

on flickr

When I deleted MT from my server, my archives went along with it. I have it all backed up, so no worries there, but I have to admit I miss having archives available online. It was a convenient way for me to go back and see what I was doing on any give day in a previous year. Plus I always enjoyed going through my photographs because sometimes when I looked at them, it was like seeing something new all over again. So I have been going through my photo archives and posting some of the old stuff to Flickr. All of the New York photos make me miss living there! I haven't even been back for a visit since we moved in April 2005. Alas, perhaps I'll make it there this Spring.

Today's photo was taken in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn on St. James Place with a Lomo LC-A.

a gray monday

Yes, a gray weekend and a gray Monday. Aren't my post titles so very original?! I took this picture with my cell phone as I was driving to work so you can see how dreary it is here. It is definitely wearing me down. Yesterday I kept trying to get things done, but I really didn't do much of anything besides knit and watch football. (And at the end of the evening, both Will and I were depressed because the Chargers lost to the Pats. I really can't stand the Pats and get so sick of how the media worships them; so having them move on in the play-offs does not make me happy.) I was feeling guilty about my lack of motivation, but Steve pointed out that the gray day was making everyone lazy and that made me feel better. Plus I reminded myself that I am going to be very busy in the coming months so taking a day of relaxation now really isn't a big deal. Today I am not down, but I feel like the weather, if that makes sense. On the bright side, I am meeting Sheryl this evening! I haven't seen her in forever so I am looking forward to it.

a gray weekend

Nothing but gray skies and rain in Pittsburgh for the past few days. There are a few more ahead according to the weather forecasts. The dark days start to get to me after awhile, even after all these years in the northeast. I am looking forward to sunshine later in the week. (Fingers crossed.)

There hasn't been a whole going on which is why I haven't posted. I don't want to get in the habit of NOT posting though, that's why I am writing now. It was a fairly mellow work week, a nice change from the week before. I actually got out of there by 1:oo or 2:oo every day. So I had ample time to work on projects around the house, one of them being cleaning out more stuff. I decided to tackle the file cabinet. My parents - or at least my dad - trained me to hang onto papers forever. Financial statements, receipts, bill statements...you name it, I keep it. And sometimes it has paid off. But it's a fresh year and it was time to purge. I threw out just about everything except the latest bills, the important receipts, a year's worth of financial statements and of course my income tax records. I also managed to completely burn out my paper shredder. I shredded the last of some pay stubs yesterday afternoon and they just barely made it through the final, dying gasps of the shredder. Alas. But man, it's so nice to have space in my file drawers again! My husband is the complete opposite of me and throws most of his paper stuff away. (Of course now I make him keep the statements for things that we share.) Do you all save paperwork forever or throw it out right away?

Oh, the other task I took on this week was to get all my old files off of floppy disks and onto CDs. I had maybe 20 or so floppies with email stored on them (yes, I save email too), and now it's all on one CD. Sweet. I still need to back-up my hard drive and then I will be ready to buy a new computer! Yea! My hard drive space is about used up and it is time for a new machine. (And speaking of paperwork, one of the items that got shredded was the receipt for the first computer I bought in 1997 and have not had since 2001. I need to clean out more often!) I can't wait to have more speed.

On Friday night, we went to Gooski's again and Nick served up the best damn wings I have ever had. I am not a wing person, but we had been told we should try the wings there and so we did. Jamaican Jerk. Delicious. Steve arrived safe and mostly sound from NC while we were there. It's great to have him up here for awhile. Later, we came back home with Steve and Bloody in tow and had a fine time sitting around the living room listening to records and telling stories. Due to beer consumption and a late night (for me), I was feeling a bit rough yesterday but managed to shake it off. I spent the day taking care of business, including laundy, and sadly, during this chore, the dryer bit the dust. Not a good week for appliances in our household. Hopefully we can get it fixed soon. In the evening, we watched football, of course. And there will be more football today. Both teams I was pulling for won yesterday: Indy and New Orleans. I don't care much about the Seahawks/Bears game, but I'll be pulling for the Chargers in the AFC game. And don't worry, I won't be totally consumed by football, I'll be doing some knitting while the games are on.

Have an excellent Sunday.

P.S. Today's photo was taken over the holidays when we were at the Werehouse.