wedding anniversary eve

Thursday marks our 17th wedding anniversary, yep, Christmas Eve. And today is the Eve of the Eve so of course we went out to the Chapterhouse for a wee beer and some popcorn and my SIL Emily is in town (and plays excellent defense on foosball) and Nicki and Steve and Steve and Judy and Kari and Derek came along too....
I had found, and I swear I am not making this up, an INDUSTRIAL sharpie on the ground and so you KNOW we had to mark up the table with a little anniversary grafitti and then everybody else got into it on the table...

thanks Heather!

Got a wee little package from our old bloggy pal Heather and look what she sent Emily kitty! I hope Emily shares :)

home electronics for dummies

The wife wears the pants in this family. She's the one with the toolbox, I'm the one making the dinner and cleaning the cat box. I'm good at that.
SO for the last year or so only 2 out of 4 burners have worked on the stove. I am resourceful. 2 is better than zero, so it has not bothered me. The wife feels differently. She likes to fix sh!t. I don't like to like to fix things, I like to ignore broken things, make pigs, drink coffee, try another variation on pizza recipes, like that.
SO she tells me we are going down to the electric parts store and I drive her there and turn on the radio.
"You aren't coming in?"
"Me? I don't know anything about burners. I'm gonna sit here and visualize whirled peas"
So my little wife goes into the warehouse and comes back with all these gizmos.
Later I am sitting here after dinner, you know, doing this. Watching Flight of the Conchords clips and stuff. She is rattling around downstairs.
"I gotta turn off the breaker for the stove"
"Crapola, can't you see I'm busy!" but the basement is part of my studio so I have to go to the fuse box for her, and then I am drawn in and you want to say
"DANGER WILL ROBINSON!" because I HATE household projects.
But I am drawn into assisting the courageous little woman, and after things are torn apart and reassembled correctly, there are HIGH FIVES all around. Until this morning when I turn on the fixed burners, which work, to an extent.
"Honey, the burner you fixed works, but only gets, um, warm, not hot at all" (should have kept my mouth SHUT)
"OK" she sez grabbing the toolbox "let.s....(etcetcetc)" and I am like
"IT'S FIVE AM! Can't we wait until we have had some coffee?".
I guess this story will be continued, although the irony of course is that I do all the cooking and she insists we fix this thing....
**update at 6 something, after some coffees: small adjustments made, burner works perfectly :) (this woman kicks AZZ) AND I gave her a scratch ticket and she won TEN DOLLARS. Wow.
In other news, you can see this rather curious experimental cup I am excited about plus the rather nifty patterned bowl experiment....

I might like you better if we.....

So as I say I am making many small teapots to try out ideas and this is not a new idea for me, but I was talking with Pauline about elephants and I am like 'no, wait for the full monty', meaning, of course, the elephant that IS a teapot....
And Becky Jo was asking me about my fancy lighting set up, and actually tis NOT fancy at all.....



(elephant teapots by Gary Rith)
Goodness, remember this tune from the early 80s? I remember in those pre-IPOD days trying to find it on the radio and calling in requests....

a slightly amusing cat joke for Christmas....

Spike and the missus looking so cute below, and lookit this joke I saw floating around the internets......

A slight retelling of the Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas
and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse.

'Cuz the cat had pounced on him
and tore him apart-
Ate his mousey intestines
And chewed up his heart.

Kitty thought he heard sleigh bells,
which made him take pause-
He stopped daintily licking
the blood from his claws.

"Must be Santa" thought Kitty
(that quite clever cat)
'Cuz nobody else climbs down
the chimney like that.

Indeed it was ol' Santa,
so jolly and fat
With a load of presents
and all for the cat!

"Wow, the best Christmas ever!"
Kitty thought with a purr,
Then he coughed up a hairball
and shed some more fur.

Becky Jo and the SECRET GIRAFFE PROJECT

So ends a great pottery mystery.
Early in the fall for some reason or other me and Becky Jo in Iowa are like:
"we could do a pot swap for Christmas" and I was like
"OK, but it has to be smaller than a shoe box" and Becky Jo makes it tough by saying
"and it has to be a GIRAFFE"
and neither of us knew what the other was doing until my box got to her (I don't have a pic of the mug I sent to Becky Jo, but it is similar to the painted one I did here, plus a giraffe inside).
And then Saturday this cute penguin box arrives full of goodies, giraffe and otherwise, from Iowa.
Becky Jo made this rather fantastic textured cup (and pendant and candy). Stunning isn't it? I had never seen texture like that and asked if she had carved it, and she sez she filled a bag with dark slip and applied it a little decorating with frosting.
Ah ha!

don't you wish you were married to me?

The missus said late this afternoon: "I am so lucky to have met you" and I was like
"moi?"
and she is like
"yes" and I was like
**blush** cause she is so pretty.
Then I went downstairs and made peanut lime sauce and stir fry peppers and sticky rice. The fun thing with sticky rice is to take it and pack it into a small bowl so you can plop it onto a plate and it looks like a little boobie :)
Isn't the house across the street from us pretty? You could have bought it last spring, but Terri Anne and Chris did buy it and they are great.

le SUNDAY

Penny got up on the cat perch to look at the neighbors out the window, and Spike was like "that's MY SPOT". Penny is very athletic.
I was having fun making a few pots and the wife saw me blow up a bottle and get clay around my mouth and she is like "I gotta getta pic of THAT"

ho ho HO!

I made these a long time ago (and could make them again, although probably not this season). The snowman sez 1996 underneath. I used to make pumpkins, ghosts, angels, etc etc and they sold very well, but you know how I am, always trying new forms etc. Maybe next summer I'll make some of these holiday things again. Nice arty looking picture there too, eh?
ANYWAY, woke up at 4:11 ready to go, and now its 5 and I am gonna do some glazing and get on with the day. Hope yours is faboo!



Sorry, I have really come to hate schmaltzy Christmas carols, like the ones at the grocery store which make you want to get your dog food and RUN out screaming. Remember IRONMAN by Black Sabbath? Now HERE is a Christmas carol....

BAMF* of the day: my old pal Wendy

Where to begin? For a recluse, I sure do get around sometimes.
You will remember my pal Wendy, we grew up in the same neighborhood and I was friends with herself (ten months younger than me) and her sister Mary Beth, in my grade. Their last name also started with R so I was always being plunked next to Mary Beth in class seating charts, and we would all hang out and wander around and complain about school and such. As I have said, we were a little like Winnie and Kevin in the WONDER YEARS TV show.
Fast forward to now, of course, and Wendy lives up the road in Syracuse, and once again, we all pal around.
SO, I needed to get to my clay supplier in Syracuse today and take the missus shopping and for lunch at Alto Cinco, the BAMF Mexican restaurant near Syracuse University, and early this am, since this was like a last second plan, I left a message for Wendy that if she wasn't busy we'd be at Alto Cinco just before noon. AND SHE CAME! I mean, we don't have a cell phone, so we are hard to keep track of, but Wendy dropped everything to have lunch with us and go shopping. You can see here: the missus has the cappucino and fries and such, I had the espresso and the rest, and it was so much food it was brought home for dinner too.
Then, of course, you also know I hate shopping, but near Alto Cinco is this clothing-costume shop (actually, there are two or 3) and we go in and I show the missus the spiked giraffe boots and I am thinking "I could develop a foot fetish over these, meow!" and then there is the wee little doggie punk leather biker jacket and Wendy, Gawd bless her, holds still and lets me dress her.
I am like "WENDY: cheetah print!!!! BERET WITH FEATHERS!!!!" and I discovered today what so many gay fashion designers already know: dressing up women is a BLAST.*Wendy is a BAMF for the day for letting me dress her up and coming out for lunch with me and the missus at the last second, oh yes....