you were probably DYING to know my year end best OF list...

Best of 2012!!!!!!!!!! I know you have been DYING to know my opinons on all that went on this year.

In my personal life?  Can I GET personal???? A few highlights....
OK, briefly, and this IS like standing out front in my briefs:
1)  I survived 2012.  This is no joke. Some of you know what this means.
2)  Our wonderful old dog Buster passed away last winter, age 13.  He had an awesome run...and this led in part to...
3)  My pet sitting business!  Yes, me, the professional pet sitter....I moonlight, as you know, as a dog walker to Nook and Yogi and am currently also babysitting 3 cats.... you get older, headed to 50, and it is EASIER to have one dog and cat of your own, and you don't have to bring all the others home...even if you want to .... and
4)  speaking of dogs, for a shy person, it has been a wonderful revelation, taking my dog the therapy beagle weekly to a senior living center for her to be hugged and loved---I just follow her around and we have a blast! And this has brought about
5)  I am not feeling as shy and reclusive as I used to...gawdamn, I am out seeing people every DAY including
6) after a break of a few years, I have been back to running every day and WOWIE I am one super fit old dude....
7) Lastly, of course, for pots and sculpture:  ROBOTS and GODZILLA!  betcha can't wait to see where go with THOSE in 2013....

I hope you had a pretty good 2012... or even just survived it :)

Let's get back to BEST OF shall we?

I usually like something with a lot more energy (see below) but there is something so appealing and mellow 
and haunting about the Fleet Foxes, just as I liked the Jayhawks so much 20 years or so ago....

and I know that they are not new but I loved them in 2013...and Silversun Pickups..also not new, 
but a favorite of mine in 2013...and a LOT of energy

 

Just like last year I loved Fitz and the Tantrums with their retro Motown LA hipster rock and roll thing...

Good golly you listen to this music and it is sooooo flippin' awesome you retain some faith in the next generation,
 that they are not all twee hipsters wasting their youth and irritating gen xers like me....

Best movie?  We saw Woody's MIDNIGHT IN PARIS in 2012 and looooved it...
but I think the DESCENDANTS had to be another favorite movie we saw in 2012...
and sooner or later we shall see SKYFALL :)

Top news????

And thank GOD health care is gonna become a fact.

FINALLY:  finished cleaning the house for the new year.  Studio LOOKS SHARP, a couple more bags of trash went out yesterday through the....



approx. 2 fresh feet of snow we got this week.......SIGH....
best wishes to you in 2013!

a reason to be PIGGY!

Claudia is talking cranberry nut bread which she made and which is GORGEOUS and tasty, and that got me thinking and searching for a recipe like it, sans dairy and egg, and HOLY CATS did I come across a lovely recipe!  I am one of those persons who fills the freezer in the fall with cranberries and no plans....and they always get used in delicious ways like this...I bet this recipe goes well with blueberries in there too....

Have a look at this mug...gosh, I really think this style has an interesting future, don't you?  Putting the guys on the side in relief?


(piggy mug by Gary Rith)

 You may need a piggy bank...available now at my etsy shoppe!

HOLY SH!T pottery!

I was chatting with S. the other day "a Quaker tries to be humble and modest" and she is like "you are humble, you are good!" and I am like, quite honestly "NO I AM NOT.  I am snarky and sly and narcissistic and childish and immature.  But I can try to be good.  And humble."

This is not one of those posts, it is, as usual, ME ME ME!  Such as, you want to make pots sometimes where people go "holy sh!t lookit that!".  I was thinking the other day, as I reluctantly let a robot sugar bowl go to a new home (sometimes I make something and it does not go for sale for awhile...it sits there and I think about it....) and I was like "put that guy on the side of a mug!" and the first 2 were tres exciting, but then I was thinking, like the middle one here, that he needed to be a little flatter against the mug...and you end up with a LOT OF HOLY SH!T lookit that pottery.  Or at least I think so ;)
(considerations, in practical terms, include making relief sculpture on the side of a mug that does not bump the chin or lips of the drinker, and also does not have little bits that poke you in the eye, etc, therefore the robot on the side opposite the handle....and that way, too, all the lefties who like to complain about righties are silenced!)



(robot mugs by me)

snow up to my ears!

If I was a beagle :)


We got about a foot of fresh snow yesterday, on top of Christmas' few inches....but after Dec. 25???
 IT IS NOT PRETTY.  I was born to winter in Key West and OH YES one day I shall...


Bridge over the river behind our house, walking to the post office....


Penny does not always want to walk on the bridge....


I am babysitting Tiger this week....and 2 other cats in the same house.  They are shy.  I have no idea where they are.......which worries me greatly....they are hiding somewhere in the house, presumably...


Fall Creek behind our house, full of geese! Have an awesome day yerself!

coming out of the closet: an intimate look...

...at my drawers!  Closet too!  Post-Christmas and new year has come to mean clean the house head to toe, organize sh!t, donate stuff, throw things away, recycle things...I work everyday and need to force myself to organize...I really need time to concentrate on it once a year, and the orgy of pottery making* and selling is like my own fiscal cliff:  I finish the orders and get down to the cleaning...
my closet looks very tidy now, and it was funny what I found in my socks and undies drawer:  brand new socks I had no idea I owned.....it looks great now, although everything fit much better when it was a mess....

(*it occurs to me that this post with words "closet, intimate and orgy" I may attract a LOT of new readers...who may get more than they bargained for here ;)


In other news, I had a surprise in the mail, my best pal Meesh sent me a mug she had made!  And a wee pot by my old friend JZ.  JZ was her partner but passed away, quite young, 3 years ago, a totally sweet man, great potter...



You will have noticed that I have worn my new Godzilla tee and striped thermal undershirt for 48 plus hours in a row...it is STILL on me because I slept in it last night too....note how my tee, Godzilla eating a car, matches one of my favorite sculptures I made a couple months ago...


I have so many pics of new pots floating around, I cannot remember what I have shown you...so here is some faboo piggy stuff!

I was under a LOT of Christmas trees yesterday....

...I bet!  Well sure, I am a retailer and potter, right?  I was under hundreds of trees and I hope the recipients have as much fun with my mugs and bowls etc. as I had making them!
I made this wee cup for the wife for our 20th anniversary..it says so underneath...it came out of the kiln ON our anniversary and went well with Christmas pie....

The wife has been sewing me a robe from scratch with robots ...and surprised me mightlily with it on Christmas! She is finishing one for herself that matches....


We made stuffed shells a HUGE and tasty favorite...this is my NEW GODZILLA tee...and me making a Godzilla face!
I spent all of Christmas afternoon starting to clean my studio, an early start on the annual New Year cleaning binge.  You really need a clear schedule to do projects like that...and Christmas is JUST that, a nice day to do what you want...like dust and scrub....but such a sweet day, over so soon!
Have an excellent boxing day!

so this is Christmas....

What a nice photo of the wife to celebrate our 20th anniversary, eh?  Lady looks magnificent doesn't she?  She is even nicer than she looks too :)
Yep, we had a great anniversary indeed.

I am a Quaker as you may know, and we might say "no day is more sacred than another" (HAHAHA!) and there is minimum fuss amongst Quakers on Christmas, officially.  (the wife and I party hearty...for a lot of reasons!  Not just the birthday of baby Jesus, but our own, you know, special day too)
BUT ANYWAY I thought that a humble way to spend Christmas, and since NObody else wanted to do it, would be to clean the Quaker meetinghouse.  My pal Nancy joined.  We have no clergy and no staff and members rotate around who gets to clean, and I am part of a small group that keeps the place scrubbed.
I usually try to be busily vacuuming something when it comes time to clean the 3 public bathrooms thereby tricking my partner into having to do it, but I was in a generous mood and jumped in and did them first ;)
(trying to earn bonus points with SANTA was I??? AND God and the baby Jesus, hmm????)
Outside the meeting,
inside the meeting



Potters always joke that thrill of opening a just fired kiln is like Christmas morning....and I had a just fired kiln to open on Christmas morning!


My best pal Lori Buff sent me a surprise mug for Christmas...exquisite!


The wife and I made tortillas for guac and sweet potato burritos OH MY...also a pumpkin pie for Christmas morning breakfast...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


Hope you have a Merry one :)

 

It was 20 years ago today...

20 years ago today married, 21 years ago we got together :) Merry Christmas to all of you!

speaking of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree....

I surprise the wife with the glorious decorated Christmas tree Saturday...we never have one because of our naughty cat, but we do now!  The little cutie in the header and here.  The wife notices "huh, scraggly, half dead pine branch with one ornament bending it over and Snoopies around it...." and I am like "I KNOW just like" and she finishes "Charlie Brown's tree!".  Note the small actual beagle in there looking like she is tired of the camera...and some of you will recognize the sock monkey up there too....
I was shoveling outside and found the branch in the snow and thought it would make a festive wee tree to go with our other chaotic and festive anarcho-punk decorations hanging from the ceiling....


our future Christmas tree, blown down by the wind...


our house, newly painted, looking glorious and bright in the snowstorm


the bridge over the river behind our house...with wife and dog


I am betting that my friends in San Diego never have stop signs covered with snow....


Penny at the park and in our backyard and at the local church's manger scene...it was not the worst winter storm I have ever seen, but it was maybe the windiest:  so windy, I was running down the road and was literally blown off!