Shelf Life

Shelf Life

Last Friday I adopted two new bookshelves. One is tall-ish and lean, the other is shorter and on the wide side. They single handedly, well double-shelfedly took care of the mind wrenching clutter that occupied two opposite corners of my bedroom.

It is said your house/home is a reflection of your inner self. My home consists of areas of great beauty (meaning: beautiful things I treasure), orderly placed furniture and quirky props, like the rhinestone brooches I hang on the walls like art. And then there are piles of crap, with corners so neglected and passed over it is as if they do not even exist on my plane of reality.

Sometimes, I make the mistake of noticing things. This time, I noticed the brown shelf I bought at a garage sales some years ago and the white shelf (with the brown one on top) were looking less than neat and organized. Actually, the brown shelf was nicely decorated with my Noritake "gondola/Venice" painted china that I have been collecting piece by piece from ebay the last couple of years. However, the white shelf, with 3 square openings that I so cleverly laid on its side and propped the brown shelf on, held a mishmash of books and paraphernalia. Most were travel books, but it also had my black Birkenstocks and my brown leather sandals, a 5-pound hand weight and handfuls of dust with essence of dog fur.

The opposite corner to the left of my bed consisted of an avalanche of books that drifted on the floor halfway down the length of my bed along the wall with the window (overlooking the blueberry bushes and creek). It was a path just wide enough for easy walking. But that ease was hampered by the jumble of books which ended where the small nightstand (also piled with books) cowered in a dark, under used corner.

This is what I unfortunately noticed the other day. Once I happen upon a mess (although it could have been that way for years, as is this case) a cure becomes essential or obsessive, take your pick. Maybe it was the happy addition of the light green ottoman on wheels, with the storage space inside. This piece did 'neaten' up the rest of the room quite a bit. It must have been the contrast that caused the problem corners to scream loud enough for me to finally notice.

So now in the under used corner, the tall-ish, lean bookshelf now smugly holds books and pretty things (including a fleet of various colored ceramic gondolas on top). I also moved a wall lamp over there to light brighten the works. This meant I had to move up some of my ceramic duck wall pockets. They now fly a little higher than before, but with more light. My Signac print of Venice from NYC's Met had to move. But then I was able to import a few highly decorated silver spoons with enameled pictures of Venice in the bowls and sporting on top either a gondola or the 'Lion of Venice'; hanging them on the wall, below the ducks, with tiny nails.

My details are not so much an attempt to give somebody a list of 'my stuff.' It is a symptom of showing that nothing is simple. I could not 'simply' install even one shelf. It turns into a major procession of shifting, viewing and shifting again. Although I can live with invisible messes for years at a time, I can also be extremely particular as to whether something belongs, Here, an inch to the left? to the right? or maybe on another shelf?...(you get the picture).

This is how I spent most of my weekend: Rearranging shelves, books, pictures, spoons, lamps, candles, shoes, books, pictures, dust bunnies and did I mention books? The results did make it all worth it. My bruised knee and cranky lower back will recover. My room no longer has any hideous, screaming, neglected corners. That translates back to my brain as a whisper of calm.

Anybody need a brown bookshelf? My brown garage sale beauty is now cluttering my life in a new way as I type; sitting awkwardly next to my printer, in a spot where no piece of furniture should ever reside….

My ottoman empire....

My Ottoman Empire Is Complete....

So yesterday I went out shopping for batteries. My 'walkwoman' CD player, was telling me it could not go another step:
"No ennn -- errr---ggggyyy..."
It's digitally breathless, voiceless message was deathbed serious. It was Violeta in LaTraviata, Gilda in Rigoletto, Mimi in LaBoheme. I cannot blame a device, which lives only to sing and play music for falling into a dramatic interlude. After all, it knows not that it will be reincarnated, yet again, when the "Goddess of batteries" resuscitates it.

Besides needing the life resuscitating batteries, I also wanted to check on my black and white film (see 'Walk Noir'). It had been a whole week since I turned it in for processing. Usually I have my film developed on a same-day-basis. But, because it was b&w, they could not develop it on site. So with the fresh batteries, two new throw rugs and a DVD in hand, I hopefully inquired about my film: Nope, not there. I was told it could be as long as 2 weeks for B&W film. Great, another whole week of fretting, anticipating and angsting about the potential disasters that could befall my two rolls of film; lost and alone in some unknown photo lab thousands of miles from home. My cheery new rugs and the dvd could not pacify my disappointment, hard as they tried. I paid for my loot and left the store. Even the happy-to-see-what-I-might-have-gotten-her, Sarah dog, waiting in the car could not lift me out of my grey fog of pining (or is it whining?!?) for my pictures. I knew something drastic had to be done!

I drove straight to a furniture store. Not the one that I buy my hot tub supplies from. This one is closer to my home. Last year, in a moment of near crisis (such as this) it saved me, by having an attractive sage green, softly upholstered chair that was perfect for my bedroom. And this day's impromptu (but justified) trip was related to this chair. I have been struggling with trying to find a perfect ottoman to be used with my cozy, sage chair. I tried using a beige leather ottoman that belonged to another chair. It is neo-modern in design with an open, round wooden pedestal supporting the light beige leather pillow on top. The chair it really belonged to missed it terribly. And it really did not fit into the corner where my sage chair resides.

The solid, rectangular black ottoman I bought a few weeks ago to go with the couch in the room I created at the back of my garage slept in my bedroom the first week after I brought it home. It was way too big and way too black, but it was a comfortable entity to prop my feet on while slowly but surely working toward the finish of my crocheted afghan. I got tired of tripping over it and tired of looking at it and took it where it belonged. This left an empty space which I welcomed, but missed the prop when in the chair.

This year has been the most ottoman-intensive of my life. And as I write this, it is also the end of my ottoman empire explorations, too. After all I have no more chairs or couches or corners lacking the privilege of an ottoman.

I entered the furniture store with the notion of maybe having to replace my soft-sage chair with an ugly little recliner type. But, as fate has steered me this year, a small square-ish, suede-like, light green ottoman pressed its wet nose up against the glass and stole my heart. That puppy even has wheels for easy shifting and, AND the top comes off; flipping over to a hard plastic drink holder and within its belly, I can load it with yarn, etc. It was love at first sight. Well, as much in love with an ottoman as one depressed, b&w film waiting, afghan crocheting woman could be.

A couple years ago, I drew illustrations for some of my silly, children's genre poems. Here is the camel poem's artwork (i use that term loosely). 

Owlette (Northern Pygmy-Owl) 

Owl be seeing you....

When looking for wild rose pictures the other day, I came across my photo of a Pygmy Owl.

It was mid-October 1999 when I heard a strange thunk up against one of my large front windows. It was beyond the regular season of having birds flying full force into windows as if they were part of the scenery as they reflected the brightly lit days of summer. I jumped up to see what had happened, truly puzzled. To my great surprise there was a tiny owl sitting on my deck looking stunned.

Forty years here in Alaska and I had never seen an owl. There they were in my book, "Guide to the Birds of Alaska," saying some of them are pretty common to here in the southeast, but I never had the pleasure of seeing one in the wild. Now I was a couple of feet away from a tiny owl, which at the time I mistook for a baby. It was only later I found in my book that it is a 'Northern Pygmy-Owl' (Glaucidium gnoma). It is even listed as 'Uncommon' in the book's rating of potential sightings.

It is extra special to see a bird rated anything other than 'Common' for those of us who get thrill out of viewing birds. I am a total amateur at it; not knowing how to organize a mental picture of key, identifying marks on generic little brown birds. Typically I end up in a mad rush to my bird book while my pixels of memory start disintegrating by the second as I try to hang onto the image of the size, color and general silhouette of the bird I just saw in my yard. After flipping through several pages, it ends up being one of about 6 or so possibilities. I write of sightings in my scrappy, paperback bird-book and it is full of many question marks along with dates and places. In the page- flipping aftermath of the event, this owlette was definitely a Northern Pygmy…AND "Uncommon."

So after running to the window and seeing this quizzical looking little thing and uttering, shit, I dashed to get my camera. At the same time I was horrified that it might have gotten injured. Regardless, it wouldn't hurt to take a picture and then attend to it if needed. I practically floated down the hall to where my camera was and tore it out of its bag. Fortunately it was loaded and ready to shoot-I dashed back to the window and peered down; it was still there.

It was facing right when I got to back but had not moved. I was in awe to see the smooth, perfectly designed mechanism that was its neck as it turned back around to face the window. It did not move like the little brown somethings I am used to seeing. This was a predator. Its head/neck seemed to float as it turned with near endless peripheral capabilities. The eyes were enormous in proportion to the head: all the better to see you with my dear…And huge wrinkled yellow talons, so big they looked like something that belonged on a larger bird: all the better to catch you with my dear…This was a scaled down version of a perfect hunting machine.

From the "thunk" to me standing there with my camera in hand staring at this little owlette, maybe a total of 20 seconds had passed. I quickly zoomed in on it through the window and focused. In a divine moment of perfect timing, the little fella gazed directly up at me and my camera; Click. One click and it took off never to be seen by me again.

Walk Noir.....

The weather here in Juneau the last couple of days has been vast blue skies, fluffy white clouds and sunshine beaming yellow, but basically non-warming rays. In other words, boring.

Yesterday I remembered that I still had about 20 shots of Tmax-400, Black & White film waiting in my camera. I had purchased 2 rolls of it back in January when the world around me was buried in over a foot of snow. Making the scenery even more 'picturesque' during this time, was lack of winds. The snow was piling up in sculptural finery on branches of all kinds. Everything was in mumbling shades of grey, black and white. At times, January-grey sky sifted down with chunky white flakes. Other times it was a still palette of grey with no discernible beginning or end, leaving no depth of field to focus on while staring up. Color was of no consequence. This was a world of contrasts. The shades between black and white.

So yesterday, I remembered about the B&W film and decided to head out into the color-intensive world and take a walk down the hill from my house on the path next to a lake. I stuck my CD player in the outside pocket of my camera bag, positioned the earplugs and turned on Leonard Cohen as I set out on the paved pathway.

The film in my camera did not stop talking or pointing the whole time. It forced me to look at shapes. "Ignore the colors, dammit!" it screamed, as the dark blue lake bumped diamonds of light on its surface. When the lipstick red, twiggy branches tried to grab my attention with their bold, naked spring color, my film grabbed me by my shoulders in overly dramatic fashion and whispered in my ear,

"Silhouettes. Shadows. Look for the outline. Those colors mean nothing in our world, babe."

I was irritated at being called 'babe' but had to admit it was right. I ignored the greens, the reds, the yellows. I turned away from mallards. And snubbed the white mountain tops carving the crisp blue sky.

It was a black and white world for this dame, till the film ran out. My walk noir then ended as if it never happened at all. The end.

Wild (rugosa) roses in my yard... 

Beautiful and vicious. My snagged finger still hurts. You should see her now, nothing but a mass of barbarous, mistrusting twigs.  

Himalayan blue poppies (in my garden) 

Gardens: Dead Birds: Ravens

I went out this morning and started facing the ravages of winter on my yard and garden. The snow is all but melted. We are all a year older.

Perennial intensive, my method of gardening is 'tough love.' While my neighbors cut back all the spent plants, go out and collect seaweed and pine branches to protect the roots from winter kill; I watch my astilbe, tiger lilies, bee balm and all the others die upright. Depending on the plant either their once green stems keep standing all winter, turning brown or bone beige and hollow; or they slumped limp in October's monsoons. I force them by my lack of action to draw from what nature gave them as a source of food and protection, themselves. It makes for an ugly brown mess in the spring. What once was individual leaves is now a solid mass of decomposing sludge with a dry crust on top. Some plants leave long blackened fronds of last summer tangled up like a nest. The weave of the tapestry of death is a little different for each plant, but it is all shades of brown to the extreme black.

When looking closely this morning, but not disturbing the crusts or nests (we still have over a month of killer frost lurking) I could see tiny fingers of succulent green flesh squeezing out of the cold black dirt. A few of the plants at this embryonic state are pinkish and white, instead of green. They all look like plants that you might see underwater and never know the name of.

I clipped the molding, spongy rose hips from my wild white rose bush. Its thorns snagged me again. I cannot understand why after so many years it does not trust me.

Also, I found the feathery remains of a dead bird laying on one of the rocks bordering a garden area. The placement of the bird I found today told me it hit one of my windows. Usually during the summer they fly unawares into one my front windows. Sometimes I can go out and hold them while they recover the shock. Usually I can tell by the sound of how hard they hit whether it was a fatal blow.

Last summer, I only had one fatality that I knew of, it was a little pine siskin. Also last summer, we had a pair of ravens build a nest in the back yard. It is not a typical 'back yard' it is a small spot of old growth forest. The tree they built their nest in is a large old pine. So I got to watch this pair of ravens work in tandem taking care of the nest and going out for food. Their work seemed endless. Back to the siskin, it hit the window and death was instant. I got a piece of cardboard to carry it on and took it to the end of my driveway, hoping one of the raven's would spot it and have an easy meal. Within a few minutes one of the large black birds landed in the road and surveyed the scene before hopping over to the bird. I expected it to just pick it up and fly off. Instead, holding the tiny body down with its feet it meticulously plucked the bird. I can still picture the tiny feathers drifting down the road in small wisps pushed by a light breeze.

From earth, gazing skyward... 

NYC initiation...

Earlier today, I was looking for the receipt for the replacement gutters installed a couple of years ago. I needed to be sure and call the same company for repairs. This winter did some major damage to my rain gutters, half of which are now posing as objects "formerly known as rain gutters" as they dangle disjointedly from beneath my roof's eaves. Snow, rain, ice, ice, rain and snow were their downfall. So while looking for the receipt, I came across a photo I took on my first trip to NYC, in July of 2000. It is a picture of the top portions of the Towers taken at an artsy angle. The view from their base was dizzying and sublime.

I have to admit I was terrified to go to NYC. It was so far from Alaska. And more yet, so far from what I had sheltered myself from for all of my life; or what my life had sheltered me from...either way works. But, I had good reason to override my imaginings of dark alleys and crime on every corner, (the NYC of my mind) and go.

Andrea Bocelli was giving a special outdoor concert at Liberty State Park. It was even being televised live on PBS across the country. I had traveled to Detroit the previous fall to see Bocelli in an opera. I even had the great (great!!) pleasure of meeting him while there. I also met a few good friends, one of which was my roommate and partner in crime for this NY trip. We landed within hours of each other at JFK and greeted each other like long lost victims of alien abduction in the 'under construction' halls of the airport. Neither of us were seasoned travelers.

We found our way out of that construction site they call JFK and looked for a cab. The heat was distracting, as were the smells of airport fumes mixed with traffic and then the badly chosen air freshener of the taxi. After awhile, we opted for too hot with windows o.p.e.n. as opposed to being violated by the internal aromas. I remember being on a noisy all metal bridge and starting to get a glimpse of the city. The first impressions were of factory type buildings, too much traffic, blocked views and a cab driver whose driving made in-air turbulence seem not so bad after all.

Our hotel was in lower Manhattan about a block from the Towers. It was also within a couple of blocks of the small ferries that made frequent runs to Liberty Park where the concert was two days from our arrival. We got lost 3 different ways before we found the ferry pier. That first afternoon we were so overwhelmed with just the getting there, I cannot remember really taking a look "up" until we hopped a boat over to the park. From there, away from the hustle of so many people and the noise, I was able to take a deep breathe and see the city for the jewel it is. All those glistening buildings reflecting their own distinct gem-like colors created by the sun's angles. It was here I first got to see those beautiful towers. Their simple vertical lines, the square girth and the gift of their being two. One simply would not have worked. I fell in love with NYC and her Towers. I wanted to be a part of it. I fantasized about living there.

I got up early one morning and while my roommate was still sleeping, went out and pretended I was part of the hustle of morning workers going to their jobs. By myself, I walked to the mall under one of the towers and bought a newspaper. Then keeping with my soaking up the ambiance which is uniquely New York City, I took the escalator up to the rooftop overpass that hooked up to another building next to the water and the ferry pier. After crossing over, my newspaper tucked under my arm (I left my camera at home) I came out the glass doors into another mall that had palm trees. The entrance from this method left you high above it all at the top of a grand marble staircase, with the dark blue waters sparkling outside a huge arched window and a close encounter with the tops of the palms. It was just a simple excursion and I had been in this mall near the water before, but not from the method I had just used. It felt like I had just gone through some sort of initiation, by joining the morning crowds of people who called this amazing place, home.

I have a picture posted here on my blog that I took in the wee hours of sunrise during this trip. It was taken from my hotel room window. I have a series of these pictures, each one, as amazing as the next. I'd never seen colors like that before in a sunrise. I found NYC every bit as beautiful as the mountainous-nature-intensive scenes I live with here in Alaska.

I ended up visiting NYC one more time before the Towers fell. This time, for the first time, I went up and experienced Manhattan from above.

The next time I visited NYC after that was just a couple of weeks after 9/11. This was a trip I had planned months in advance and I was not going to let a cross-country, early morning flight stop me. This is when I got my first tattoo. But that is another story…

Summer 2000. NYC is a thing of beauty. 

Taken on my first trip to NYC, summer 2000~ view from Liberty State Park, NJ. 

Disclaimer: about that painting....

I decided, that even though I am virtually talking-to-myself, that I need to put a disclaimer on that painting of mine.

On my profile, I did not list 'artist' or 'painter.' My painting is Exhibit A as to why I did not list my artistic abilities. It is because I have none. I painted it about four months after my first trip to Venice.

Suddenly one night, I had an impulse to get my mind's jumble of impressions of the place onto a canvas. I stayed up nearly all night completing it. And felt strangely relieved having accomplished my task.

There it was, 'a monkey might have done it' rendering of my inner-Venice. The building are crooked. The water is bizarre. My "bridge" is unsafe. But, it felt like a huge accomplishment. And I must admit, despite the amateur content, the colours do still excite me.

I painted my "impressions" after my first trip to Venice... 

So yesterday I go into a local furniture store that also sells hot tubs just to buy some granulated chlorine for my hot tub. I walked out with a new black leather ottoman, watermelon scented hot tub perfume, a chemical to clean out the inner workings of the thing and few other assorted chemicals me and my tub just could not live without.

This is what happens when I shop and am depressed. It's like some sort of placebo. Sometimes I actually get useful stuff (like yesterday). But sometimes it is pure frivolity; especially if I start meandering through the endless halls of ebay.

Of course, I can justify all those gondola-related items. After all, Venice is my home away from home and I needed each and every item related to Venice that is hanging on my walls or taking up shelf space. Like that ceramic liquor decanter with a large black gondola emblem pressed up against an abstract version of St. Marks cathedral. It is a strange flat design, no thicker than 2 inches. Next to that, I have a small fleet of metallic gondolas, either brass or silver. The largest is about 5 inches. The smallest is an inch long silver filigree brooch. In all, half a dozen in assorted sizes all essential.

Also from ebay, I have a paper-punch which cuts out a small gondola, gondolier and tiny wave (of water) in one hard press of the button. I have used the cutouts to embellish a picture of Venice that I matted myself. Really, not nearly as tacky as it sounds.

I really needed that oval brooch with the ivory wannabee center with the Rialto bridge in plastic cut out splendor. Actually I had to have two of these. BUT, the outside brass is decorated differently on each. If you have ever been depressed and tried to cure/appease it with shopping, I'm sure you understand completely. I am not trying to recruit the unaffected.

Although I gave up smoking 15 years ago, it did not dissuade me from purchasing that leather cigarette package holder with a badly painted version of the Rialto bridge and a gondola.

I have acquired some truly beautiful things. In fact they out number the questionable stuff.

Amongst the best are beautifully painted glass items. One of my faves is a teal green flattened out bowl nearly 15 inches across. It has hand painted white enamel decorations, that look much like lace and in four oval sections around the outside, still in all white, are scenes in detail of landmarks (Rialto, etc) in Venice. It is stunning. Got some nice artwork that I have not tired of living with yet. But obviously despite my enthusiasm for the subject (and many other subjects for that matter) depression still manages to permeate my existence. It is like an unwelcome guest, one that acts as if "I" am the visitor not it.