The Great Hamster of Alsace

I'm not kidding, there is an article in the NY Times today about this. It is about a very large wild hamster (10 inches) that is losing habitat in the Alsace region of France. France has been ordered by the courts to do more to protect this hamster.

It's a classic summer Friday where I work. Most everyone participates in the summer hours program, where you work an extra hour every night, but then get a half day on Friday. The nature of my job requires that someone be available in the department at all times, so my workmate and I take turns having Summer hours. It is her turn today, but I've had a whopping 5 e-mails so far today, so I'm just chillin' over here. This is why I have time to blog.

This morning I took Kate to the College of New Jersey so that she could compete in the Special Olympic Summer games. She's been doing this since she is 13. (She will be 28 this year.) I've given myself the Saturday of Summer Olympics off for years now. I'll go back on Sunday morning to watch her play her last matches and then hang for the awards before we all go out for lunch afterward.

My extremely social husband has already lined us up to go to dinner with a couple we know. I personally would rather just hang around, maybe make some art, but, whatever.We don't get a lot of Kate-free time. I would like to finish up an art journal I have been working on. My method is to prepare a number of sheets for the journal, and then work on filling both sides of those sheets. When they are done, that's a journal, and I bind it together. I have finished one other. I generally don't enter contests or try out for juried shows; it usually is a lot of work and I get hopeful but it ends in rejection. I did send my first journal to "Journal Arts" Magazine. Maybe they can use a couple of pages. We'll see. The thing is, I bent one of their many submission rules. I was supposed to send a check sto cover the cost to return the journal if they didn't want it, but instead I sent a pre-paid UPS envelope. Is that acceptable? Will they now throw it into the trash with no comment?

At any rate, I hope to take pictures of the journal I am working on now, this weekend. I've been meaning to do that for weeks. How does time pass so quickly? Why do I feel so busy all of the time? I haven't been bored in 20 years.

Joe went riding too fast on his motorcycle, a couple of weekends ago, so Kate and I went to NYC. There isn't a lot of Joe-free time, either. We went to the Museum of Folk art and saw a great quilt show. They also have a lot of other stuff in their collection, such as some of the coolest weather vanes you are likely to ever see.  One thing we do every time we go into the city is go to a store called "Conway's." Conway's has the cheapest clothes I have ever seen. It is a giant guilt trip, because you know slave labor made these throw-away clothes, and, like I need anything? One thing that helps me not buy nearly as much as I might is that they have no dressing rooms. You are flying in the dark there. I did manage to buy a Indian style skirt in bright orange. I was really struck by the color. And the fact that it was $7. Now I spend my spare time looking for shirts to go with it. Dumb, dumb, dumb. After that we went to China town, just because we had not been there in so long.  Kate and I both bought $3 sandals out of a bucket there. I bought soap just for the wrappers. (The soap always smells terrible, but the graphics on the wrappers are so cool.) I bought the plastic for shrinky dinks. I always wanted to mess around with that stuff. (I haven't done it yet) Maybe I can do that this weekend?

Well, when I start writing stream-of-consciousness-style, I know it is time to give it a rest.

I Lost My Heart

I had this heart that I made around Valentine's day last year. For some reason I never photographed it or put it up on Etsy. So I decided to bring it in to work today to scan it or take a picture. Somehow, I lost it. I have been extremely scatter-brained lately, so I might have put it down around here somewhere. I looked all around my cubicle. I may have left it in the bathroom when I got here? But no, I did not go to the bathroom first, I went to my desk first. And I keep doing that crazy THING. You know that THING? Where you keep looking in the same place again and again. Will it suddenly be there? So far, no.

Work is so very busy right now. I'm truly at the edge of what I can do. I keep getting e-mails from people that will go something like this: "Hi Chris, here is the address to send the posters..."  And I'm thinking what posters? And then my brain snaps and I think, "HOLY SHIT! THAT'S RIGHT, I FORGOT!!!!!!!!!!!!"

That happened 3 times this week, where I would have completely dropped a job if someone had not mentioned it or followed up, or I happened to find an e-mail under some junk on my desk. Sometimes I am amazed that I mange to hang on to this job.

Joe is gone for the weekend again. He rode his motorcycle up to the Adirondacks. He says there isn' too much more riding time left in the season, so, he had to go. The progress on my studio is nil. Next week he is on call, so he will have to stay around the house. That is unless he gets a lot of "emergency" plumbing calls. You would not believe the sense of entitlement some people have. Would you pay top dollar to get a plumber in on a Saturday if your toilet was clogged? You might, but what if you had 2 other bathrooms? Do you think you could hang on until Monday? The best one ever was a woman who called to say the she had a pipe leaking in the basement. Joe tried to get a handle on how bad the leak was. He asked her if she could put a pail inder it until Monday. She complained that she was alone, and she was pregnant. SO??? Is it somehow a danger to your pregnancy to put a pail under a pipe? Or to have leaky pipes in the vicintity? Or maybe a princess should not have to endure such hardships?

Please.

But anyway, looking forward to the weekend. Maybe something interesting will happen.