Cat Whisperer

We recently got two new foster kittens, older than the ones we usually get and therefore on the road to being feral.  The first couple of days were filled with hissing, fluffing up into big, terrifying kitties and uncontrollable shaking.  Did I mention the hissing?  Because that was pretty much constant.  Walked into the room.  Hiss.  Looked at them.  Hiss.  Shifted because my butt was asleep.  Hiss.  Came up to me and sniffed me.  Hiss.  They're best trick was a sort of syncopated hissing, one after the other.  And if I laughed at that?  Hiss.

Socializing kittens that have a deep fear of scary-bad people can be a slow and tedious process.  Lots of sitting around, pretending to be an inanimate object until they feel comfortable enough to approach you.  Gentle movements.  Occasionally petting and picking up.  And getting hissed at.  A lot.  And feeling like a monster because they seem to enjoy being scratched behind the ears but they're still shaking hard enough to sometimes knock themselves over.

Now, I can't say that my job is hard.  Sometimes gross, sometimes frustrating and sometimes heartbreaking?  Yes.  But not exactly difficult.  But sitting around doing my best impersonation of furniture is boring. Though being able to watch TV on my laptop has made it bearable.  I love living in the future.  So, one night after the hissing died down and they felt comfortable enough for some exploring I pulled out the sock currently on the needles.  And wouldn't you know, it was like magic.  Apparently I might still be scary-bad if I tried to touch them but I had wooly string and that made me kind of ok.

By the time I was ready to take a break (meaning my legs were totally numb from sitting relatively still on the floor) they were like this:

Yeah, that's the little black one sleeping on me.  The tabby dozed off shortly after the awkward webcam picture.  But not before hissing.

After deciding that maybe I wasn't so bad things have progressed quickly.  Now they're downright snuggly.  Sleeping on my legs under a blanket is way better than the nest box.  Where before we couldn't get them out of the next box.  They're still a little stand-offish with the Boyfriend- if given the choice between laps they'll default to mine.  I think he's considering taking up knitting to win them over.  Or at least holding a WIP in his lap and waggling the needles.

Hiss.

Fear Itself

Sometimes I think it would be easier to make a list of things that I'm not afraid of.  That way when someone expresses surprise over an irrational and incredibly stupid sounding fear (ex: Slime mold.  No, really.  I don't know why, it's just creepy.) I can just give them a list of things we can discuss that won't give me the full body heebie jeebies.

A lot of my fears can be easily summed up by 'I'm afraid of the dark.'  There's more to it than that, I mean, the general 'dark' is pants-wetting enough but my overactive lizard brain just can't stop there.  Dark windows I can't see out of, half opened doors where a ninja-rapist and/ or cucuy could hide behind, mirrors and other reflective surfaces in dark rooms (though mirrors are creepy all by themselves) under the bed, attics, basements, outdoors at night (I hate taking out the trash by myself.  The zombie-pocalypse might have started and my perfectly lovely next door neighbors might now have an overwhelming urge to eat the flesh from my bones) especially near bodies of water because of La Llorona.... Well, like I said: I'm afraid of everything.

Even something as supposedly relaxing as a hot shower.  Because I'm alone and vulnerable and only have a loofah and a ladies' razor for protection from ninja-rapists and/or cucuy.  There have been too many times when I've tried to console myself with escape plans consisting of 'hit him with the jumbo sized conditioner bottle and run.'  As far as escape plans go that's far from comforting.

I was taking a shower tonight and things were going normally:

And then the power when out:

The fight or flight instinct hit pretty hard at this point.  I turned off the shower so I could hear my impending doom and opened the shower door forcefully with the idea of knocking back the ninja-rapist and/or cucuy that was out there so I could run for it.  I hadn't figured out how I was going to find someplace safe and well-lit yet, but that's neither here nor there.

Fortunately, I had a rare moment of dignity saving bravado so when the lights came back on I wasn't curled into the fetal position naked and soapy.

The Boyfriend is aware of my pathological fear of everything and was coming to rescue me with a flashlight.  I had managed to play it cool by dropping the back brush, but proceeded to show exactly how much I was still losing my mind (if the hyperventilating didn't tip him off) by stomping off to find a lighter and lighting all the candles I could find in the bathroom.  That way I could get the conditioner out of my hair with at least some light if the power went out again.

I wonder how long I can stand myself before I absolutely have to take a shower again.  We're about to find out.

When the Boyfriend realized that I was illustrating my trauma he decided that he wanted to play too:

We don't think alike at all.

Illustration Friday - Diary

I didn't start keeping a regular diary until I was in college.  Sometimes it seems like my life before that is written out on my body.

My second and third toes on both feet are crooked from my years in ballet.

The middle of my right forearm aches when it's cold and rainy since I broke it in third grade.

The two scars from the man o' war sting I got the first time I went to the beach when I was 12 have faded.  For a few months after it happened they were the same color as the man o' war's tentacles.

The long thin scar on my inner thigh just above my knee is from the sleepover I had for my fifteenth birthday.  I scratched myself with my fingernail while flailing during a tickle fight.  I never knew fingernails could be so dangerous.

Of course, now it's a collection of fine lines from kittens trying to climb up my legs.  Words I'd never thought I'd say: 'Could you pick this kitten off my butt before it tries to go any higher?'

Playing with New Toys

Brown Sea Nettle

You know how pleased I was with the watercolor instruction book because it had exercises in it that would result in proper paintings while I learned how to use my new paints?  Well, despite that the first thing I did was a quick doodle of a jellyfish so I could color it in.

None of the exercises was of a jellyfish, so obviously my way was better.  Or something.

Had the shakes while I was inking it (damn you caffeine addiction) but other than that I'm pretty pleased with myself.  Still have a rather long way to go, but for a first attempt with proper watercolors it could certainly be worse.  Unfortunately, I can't get the colors true in the photograph, but you can get the idea.

Art Supply Haul

Behold, my materialism!

Despite my ineptitude with watercolors I've decided that I really like them.  So, I need to get better at them.

Went to the craft store today to pick up some real watercolor supplies.  I figured that if I'm going to make a go at this I should do it properly and not use the ancient grade school style palette of watercolors that I do have.  But because this is me I couldn't just stop there.

I like to think that I understand the theory behind using watercolor (I might be wrong about that) but I fail completely and utterly in the execution.  Thus the book.  Instead of the usual drawing basics that most instruction books have and the step by step instructions of 'first you take your pigment....' it has several painting exercises.  Complete pieces done by several artists with their notes on how they did them.  This should keep me reasonably entertained as I'll have a distinct 'prize' at the end of each exercise- a painting that looks like something besides simple shapes.  Thanks for understanding my need for immediate reward, book!

Next were some brushes.  Because I have some acrylic brushes but nothing with fine hair or that were small enough to work in my sketchbook.  Except for one flat brush I stole from my dad's stash for leather dyeing once.  I think I used it for eye shadow.  Sorry, Pater.

And then I was completely distracted from my intended shopping purpose by the drafting supplies.  Yay! technical pencils!  They make me happy.  I also picked up a piece of illustration board because Pater is always bugging me about how I should work bigger.  Now I'll make him something and it'll take ten and a half million years because it's (comparatively) huge.  No idea what it'll be yet, other than big enough.  Hopefully.

And then a new sketchbook.  Because I'm a compulsive book buyer.  I have more notebooks and sketchbooks than I will probably fill in my entire life, but I'll still buy more because they have a pretty cover or lovely paper or come in an interesting shape.  I have a problem.  Someone on the Journal Writing Knitter's group recommended the hand*book journal co.'s books as a less expensive alternative to the Moleskine.  Unfortunately, I noticed after I got it home that the elastic closure on this one was already broken.  Still, if the paper is friendlier to my fountain pens than Mole or the Picadilly I'm currently using to journal then I'll be a happy resa.

And now the watercolors.  I bought the Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolors Compact Set.

And here it is, all opened up.  Not the greatest quality on the plastic box, but I'm okay with that.  No sense getting the best of the best if I'm going to get bored of watercolor in a few weeks which is always a possibility.  Love how portable it is.  The few times I actually leave the house this will easily fit into just about any of my purses.

Here's my cheat sheet of what colors came with the set.  Just in case I actually finish off one or more of the pans and want to get replacements.  Also, it gave me a neat excuse to play with it right away.  Like any time I get a new toy the need to have a go immediately after getting the packaging off was strong.

I'm terribly excited about the table top easel.  As are my old lady bones that now protest hunching over a table for extended periods of time.  I'll get some more photos of it once I get it out of the box and set up.  I think we're going to be the best of friends.

Qi Vortex

Austin has a large population of Great-Tailed Grackles.  When a colony comes home to roost it's one hell of an experience.



My freshman year of college I went on a date with a guy who, while seeming perfectly normal if a bit pretentious (to be fair, so was I.  Philosophy undergrad will do that to you.) when I first met him, turned out to be benignly nutty.

Apparently a small-ish colony of grackles called the trees next to the ice cream shop we went to home and while we were there started coming in for the evening.  As they were screaming and swooping and chattering to each other my date starts going on this amazing tirade about how much he hates grackles.  Not the usual complaints of 'they're loud,' or 'they poop a lot on my car,' or 'they drive off the smaller birds,' but about how they were just energy draining.  Being around grackles made this guy exhausted.

Then he said what were perhaps the greatest words I'd thus far heard in my life:

Grackles.  They're, like, Qi vortexes, draining my life force.

Shortly after I had to call it quits and went home.  Because really.  I learned a valuable lesson though.  Never pick up guys in the wee hours at the all night diner.

Illustration Friday - Giant

Since I never draw anything anymore I've decided to hop on board with Illustration Friday, see if that can get my mojo going.

Sleeping in the Hands of Giants

That's Snickerdoodle, one of our foster kittens.  She was found at the dump after falling out of a couch being thrown away.  Because of being underfed she was tiny for her age so had the proportions of an older cat shrunk down to pocket sized dimensions.  Happily she recovered to be a normal looking kitten and has gone on to a loving home.

I thought that I would try watercolor for this but I forgot my almost pathological ineptitude at it.  I need to remember that if I think something will look cool in watercolor it won't with my watercolor.