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One always hears tales of the enormous rats and cockroaches that infest the city of New York. I’ve seen the subway rats, and perchance they are not as large as the famed sewer rats, but it was nothing to write home about.

So too it was with the cockroaches. Over the course of the last so many months I’ve had the misfortune to come across half a dozen of the little buggers. On the whole, they were of a size quite becoming to a beetle, which is to say rather small.

That all changed this morning. As I attempted to start my day off with the morning shower, I soon learned that the bathtub was already occupied. Please believe that I attempted to acquire a photograph to verify my claims; however, the camera was having difficulty focusing in the dark of the bathroom, and the picture ended up looking more like Big-Foot than a cockroach. However, without the aid of calipers, I tell you honestly that the beast was significantly larger and wider than my own thumb, the antennae doubling that length.

Deciding that the bathroom was not large enough to share with this unwelcomed guest, I grabbed a plastic container of sanitizing wipes and started to bludgeon the unholy creature to his doom. I knew that my previous experience with his now clearly inferior kin would avail me on this day. I thanked God that the battle was to commence within the confines of the porcelain (or perhaps fiberglass) tub, as there was a surprising and disgusting amount of blood spilled and splattered, all of which, I am happy to report, belonged to that villian the cockroach.

Satisfied that my task was acomplished and the battle won, I reached for the burial shroud (read: toilet paper) of my fallen foe. However, as I reached for his broken and limp body, the most amazing thing happened. He got up, made an obscene gesture, and scurried down the drain.

Of course I opened the flood-gates in what is no doubt a vain attempt to drown the prince of cockroaches. While he was forced to retreat this day, I know that he will be back, no doubt at the time and place of his choosing. I must stay vigilant, for he will have learned from my attacks on this encounter, and will be prepared with a new strategy on our next encounter. I only hope that his is not so cowardly as to attack whilst I slumber.

– Jeremy

I made it back to Brooklyn on Friday. True to form, it continues to be more difficult flying to NYC than returning from there. I had a layover in Detroit. Upon arrival, I learned from the reader board that my flight to LGA had been canceled. After inquiring with an airline rep, I learned that the flight was canceled because they had no crew to work the plane. I was given the option of spending the night in the lovely city (read: airport) of Detroit, or continuing on to JFK on another flight sans checked luggage. I opted for the latter. Fortunately, my luggage arrived and was delivered the next day.

No time has been wasted getting back into the swing of things. We are now into the last third of the semester, and I’m starting to get the feeling that nothing short of a herculean effort will allow me to finish the assigned tasks before the end of the school year. Wish me luck, and please forgive me in advance if I am less than social. Cheers.

– Jeremy

Well, spring break is over already, and Jeremy is winging his way back to NYC as I write. I took several days off to hang out with him, and even though we didn’t do much worth mentioning, it was a lovely week.

I have a brief update about little Loki: we took her to the vet this past Tuesday for another check-up, and the medicine does seem to be helping her to some extent, though not enough to send the cancer into remission. She’s lost another two ounces in the past few weeks. Not much else we can do at this point, though, but keep up the meds and give her lots of love and attention. She loves to curl up next to us in the blanket on the couch, and has taken to begging for chicken gravy every time we go in the kitchen.

Whatever you may think about New York City, there are few icons as recongnizable as this one…

Here’s a semi-artsy picture, that I’ve taken to calling ‘Sunsets on Liberty’.

Sorry about the pun…

– Jeremy

Not sure when I will post my next blog entry*, so I’ll just give you a brief update for the time being.

* Jeremy comes home for spring break late tomorrow night, and my parents will be visiting over their spring break the following week. Yay for company!

Knitting Progress

I’m very pleased to say that my Braid-Edge cardigan is at last a finished object. After marinating seamed for 6 months, I finally got the needles I needed to complete the front band. It was complete (sans woven ends) a year to the day after I cast on, and had its work debut this past Wednesday. If I ask nicely, maybe Jeremy will take a photo of me modeling the prodigal cardigan to post here.

The Vintage Cardigan is also nearly complete. It just needs seaming and a collarband, and then I have to track down the perfect buttons. In the meantime, I am continuing to work on the second beige toe-up sock and my parents’ AbFab afghan, which needs four diamonds and some finishing to be complete. The goal is to have it finished by the time my parents leave, so it can go home with them. Photos of all of the above will also be forthcoming upon completion.

Shameless Promotion

I’ve heard many good things about Adagio Teas recently, but have not had the chance to try out any of their products yet. They sell full-leaf gourmet teas of all sorts, and some really neat kettles and infusers and other contraptions for brewing perfect tea. We don’t ordinarily promote products on this blog, but they are offering rewards to people who link to their site, in an effort to increase their Google ratings. Sounded like a good deal to me.

What, two updates in one week? What is the world coming to…

Here are a couple of pics.

This one is from Figure Drawing. Kind of interesting, basically the same model is alternating between two poses. We’ll have 3 more hours to work on this next week. I really need to work on the face, hands and feet.

Here is a continuation of the figure painting that we’ve been working on. This week we’ve moved on to a full palette. Basically we start by adding a ‘couch’ which is similar to a glaze of transparent color, but then you paint opaquely into it. It allows one to move from very opaque areas (like in the light mass) to very translucent areas (like the shadow mass) seemlessly. An extremely useful technique. I’ve lightened the light mass considerably in this one.

Cheers.

– Jeremy

I think I’ve told a few people already, but this year I am really looking forward to spring. It isn’t that I ordinarily dislike spring; spring fashion often leaves me cold (in more ways than one), but the new life of the season does have universal appeal. It’s just that spring means that summer is on the way, and I generally prefer fall and winter because I deal better with cold than with heat, with winter clothing layers and comfort food and hot drinks than with shorts and cold salads (the iced tea I don’t mind!).

This year, though, has been a little different. I’ve kept the heat turned down low in the house to save a bit of money, and buried myself in slippers and housecoats, hunched under a blanket with a space heater. I’ve adjusted my schedule to avoid having to walk home in the dark (though I still had to do so several days a week), instead walking to work in the half-light of dawn. And I have come to the realization that baking products and winter root vegetables are darn heavy to carry home from the grocery store.

So this year as I look around at the proliferation of flowering plants and trees, I have to look forward to the warmer weather and longer hours of daylight. In Salem for the past few days, we’ve been having nearly gorgeous weather, and most of the trees have burst into bloom. There are daffodils everywhere, and the daphne bushes are making the air smell wonderful. I spent several hours in the backyard this weekend doing damage control yardwork, mowing and weeding and trimming, and expect that by next weekend everything will already have grown back. Seems worthwhile to me if it also means I can turn off the heat, or leave the lights off for a little longer in the evening!

On a more sober note: The unusually dry warm winter we’ve been having does not bode well for summer. The weather is lovely now, but apparently Oregon is already classified as having severe drought conditions because of our lack of rain. We’re short something like 7-8” of ground water, which may well translate into wildfires when the summer heat kicks in. This makes me feel guilty for enjoying the weather when I think about it, but then I go outside and smell the daphnes, and can’t help but be happy anyway.

Not to make you jealous, here are a few pictures of our lovely spring plants, taken in the late afternoon sun as I walked through campus on the way home in the 70-degree weather.

I know it is out of character for me to post between weekends, but I brought the camera to school today to get a couple of pictures. I don’t have a lot of time to give details about what these are, but if I get a chance soon, I’ll rework this post with more information.

These first two are small (10″ x 15″) oil sketches done ala prima, less than 5 hours for each.

This is a continuation of the painting that I posted earlier. Still nothing other than Transparent Red Oxide, Blue Black and Lead White. The colors are off in the picture, but you get an idea about the drawing.

I’ve done a “muscular” re-working of my self-portrait composition… this is the imprematura on the final support (42″ x 36″). Still needs a lot of work, but at least it’s on it way.

– Jeremy

I don’t know if most of you would consider this to be a famous person sighting, but Orson Scott Card, author of the excellent book Ender’s Game, among many many others, had a book signing in town today. Julie forced me to brave the wintery mix of snow and freezing rain, not to mention the 55 mile-per-hour winds to get a signed copy of his new book, Shadow of the Giant.

Orson Scott Card is very personable and well spoken. He answered questions for about an hour, before the 300 or so eager audience members lined up to have one of his novels inscribed. If you haven’t taken the time to read Ender’s Game, I would suggest that you pick up a copy. It is an excellent book; I promise that you won’t be disappointed. Card also writes a weekly column for his local paper, which are shortly-thereafter posted on one of his websites. If you are interested in reading politically-oriented articles by an intelligent and capable writer (i.e. something more than you’ll get from the sound-bites on CNN), you should also check out The Ornery American.

– Jeremy

Over the past few months, I’ve been watching with concern as Loki, our second-oldest girl, has lost weight and energy. Finally I was able to take her to a vet for examination, and have some bad news for those of you that know Loki: she has been diagnosed with lymphosarcoma (lymphoma). This is basically a cancer originating in the white blood cells that can cause tumors in various places in the body; in Loki’s case, there are several of a highly malignant variety in her bowels.

At the moment I don’t know much about what her quality or length of life will be. She has been prescribed prednisone, and I will be giving that to her twice a day, possibly for the rest of her life. With luck, it will arrest the progress of the cancer and help her become more healthy and comfortable, though it is not a cure.

Loki is 5 1/2 years old now, and, being a Marshall Farms ferret, we knew there was a strong possibility of disease coming her way around this age, whether adrenal, insulinoma, lymphoma, or something else. Even knowing all this, the news was still difficult to take. You better believe Loki is getting all the attention, love, and treats she can stand.

P.S. The photo was taken last night, while Loki slept in her new favorite spot: the blanket I always have on the couch (my first large knitting project, for what it’s worth). I let her out to run around, and after about 10 minutes, she climbs up on the couch—sometimes with my assistance—and curls up in her blanky.