For anyone following along, my place of (temporary) employment, previously referred to on this blog as “Joe’s Coffeehouse,” will now be called “The Beanhouse.”
I dunno why. Just because.
(Also … I’m working on a post about the latest goings-on at The Beanhouse. Please remain calm.)
I love Artist Trading Cards: tiny works of art that are traded amongst artists all over the world. I don’t know. I just love the IDEA of that — bold little works of art floating about in such a vulnerable form.
As their name suggests, ATC are collectables, much like older, sports-themed trading cards. Actually, one of the “rules” governing their exchange comes from their predecessors — the dimensions of the ATC must always be 2.5″x3.5.”
Artist Trading Cards are not sold, they are only exchanged. The idea is for artist to meet artist, exchange work, and be exposed to different styles. Conventions are actually held all over the world where artists can gather, meet, and exchange.
Here are some examples that struck me. I love the detail of them, the obvious care each artist took on such a small canvas. (sorry the images aren’t bigger — oh, and that I didn’t get the artists’ names. At the site I visited, they weren’t always listed):
I found so many I liked, I just may have to post more of these in the future!
Guess I accidentally pressed the wrong button behind the scenes here that says you’re having to register in order to comment? And people are emailing me saying they don’t know how to do that — is that right? Well, I went in and “unpressed” it — because I don’t know how you register, either!
I may have to look into that, though, because I’m just getting flooded with spam comments on my old posts and I’m wasting far too much time deleting them all.
Any suggestions? Does anybody know the Word Press comment registration process?
Someone say something so I know whether I fixed the problem!!
I’m a bad aunt. Button Baby turned 2 yesterday, Valentine’s Day, and I’m a day late in acknowledging it! Well, she is ONLY 2 and doesn’t read this blog …. uh, yet.
The latest on the Button Baby front:
She had some little friends over yesterday. At one point, they all gather around the table to eat. Approximately one minute of actual eating occurs, when Button loudly declares: “Everyone full! Time for pwesents!!”
Okaaay.
When asked her age, she says, “I’m 2. Not 5 or 6 or 7, just 2.”
Then, she’s decided she no longer likes her nickname. My brother and his wife started calling her “Biscuit” right from the get-go, saying she was always hot, “like a biscuit straight from the oven.”
But not anymore. No more Biscuit.
“Peanut!” she insists. If you call her any other nickname, you hear:
“NOO! PEANUT!!”
All righty.
So Happy Birthday …. whatever your name is!!!
(And, oh, YEAH, you’re definitely just 2.)
Adrien Brody, swept away by research for a movie role, will win the gold medal in Men’s Figure Skating …..
But, sadly, not the Oscar, not for THIS one.
(For red, who loves this day SO much)
It’s Valentine’s Day, baby ….
How about a hot cuppa Hoffee?
…. I took down the Doctor Warp post and my stretched-out creations of Brad Pitt and Katie Holmes. I don’t wanna fight about it. To those offended, I am sorry. But I imagine I’m not sorry enough.
That I can even call myself a “Christian” is by grace and GRACE ALONE. I’m just as broken and flawed and struggling as …. well, as any of you, I suppose.
Whoops! Forgot to put this up! Guess it’s kind of a moot point, now. Oh, well ….
Some Russian pair, I don’t even know — I swear they were skating to xylophone music. Plinky-plinky-plinnnky-dink. The guy was ancient in skater terms — 35 — and looked exactly like Quentin Tarantino. Three minutes into the program, he officially achieved geezerdom — hunching over, gasping for breath, flailing his arms about. He looked like a big ol’ bear on skates. Good thing Timothy Treadwell wasn’t around to see that.
Pang and Tong — one of the Chinese pairs. Skating to — yawn — “The Phantom of the Opera.” Several times during their skate you could literally hear their coach yelling things like “Cow yow!” and “Shauw ni hong shy!” One assumes this was encouragement. I’d hate to think he was standing there with a #1 foam finger in one hand and a gun to his head in the other.
The Russian pair — they show the HORRIBLE fall she had when he lost his legs on a lift a while back and she cracked her head on the ice. How much it shook them. So it’s all about the confidence for them. They’re the favorites and in first place, but the whole skate, Dick Button and Sandra Bezic keep TALKING about the two Chinese pairs. One already skated well, one is still to come. Blahdie blah blah. Shut UP about the other skaters and let this pair SKATE, already! Damn.
My Beloved, annoyed, said, “All right, already! ‘Marcia, Marcia Marcia!!'” (Which only makes sense if you watched “The Brady Bunch”)
Chinese pair — Zhang and Zhang. She FALLS horribly on a throw jump, landing on her knees. It’s awful. They stop and she’s clutching her knee. Brief conference with coach. They’re allowed to pick up from where they stopped. From the looks of that fall, I can’t imagine how she could go on. BUT she does. And they skate. WELL. It’s astonishing. All the jumps and lifts and spins and her knee holds up! Such guts, really. They finish and wait for their scores. And …. THEY WIN THE SILVER!! Wow. For skill AND guts. Good for you.
Oh, and yes — the “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” Russian pair won Gold. I guess that kinda makes them “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia,” doesn’t it?
…. that the half-pipers get to compete in their jammies:
The kid is at it again. I know I write about her a lot, but I just can’t get enough of her. I don’t have my own children — as I’ve shared before — and so in some ways, she feels like mine. Just indulge me.
So I’m on the phone with my sister the other day. I hear Piper talking in the background.
“What’s she doing?” I ask.
“Oh, she’s got this plastic jar of wooden beads. She wants to make a necklace,” Sister replied. Then she warns, “Piper, you need to hold that with BOTH hands; you don’t want to drop it.”
We chat for about 30 more seconds, then
CRRASSHHH!!
CLAT-T-T-T-T-T-T-TER!!!
My sister sighs.
“The beads?” I say.
“Yes,” Sister says, heavy under her breath. “The beads.”
Then, the instruction:
“Okay, Piper, you need to pick them up, please.”
“Mommy!” Piper protests.
“Please pick them up.”
We are stiffling giggles, because — and who knows why, really — something about little kid angst is just funny, face it.
Now we’re whispering to each other.
“Is she doing it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s good.”
We resume our interrupted conversation. Another 30 seconds go by, then
“MOMMMMY!”
Oh, the utter anguish of it all!
“Yes, Piper?”
“ADULTS ARE S’POSED TO HELP WIDDLE KIDS!!!!!!”
That’s it. We’re gone. I’m forced to hang up, shrieking with laughter.
