in order to knit you need a cat...

You will recall my ambition to knit a penguin (and others! dog, cat...?) tea cozy.  Tea cozy being a coat for a teapot.  Or a sweater, really, to keep it warm between pours.  OK, really, just a silly damn thing that looks cute...on a cute teapot.

I was an intrepid knitter in the 80s.  I made up patterns and then made them happen...like a sweater for a girlfriend that had multi-color leaping swordfish on it.  And the pillow on the couch here with the dog and me--that was the last sweater I ever worked on, but stopped and never restarted, as you know, and the wife turned what was completed into this awesome pillow.

But, you know, that sh!t was all nearly 25 years ago! You will recall 2 weeks ago I began knitting again.  It has not been going well.  I am, as ever, an impatient dude....I pulled out my first efforts at a scarf and wound up the yarn in a huff.  I kept forgetting what stitch I was doing and what came next, plus I was KNITTING ON THE POINTS, apparently, according to my instructor (my wife!) which made it damn hard to do anything.

OK, who cares about that would-be scarf.  I found a scarf on the sidewalk this week.  It had sat there since Halloween.  It is a very pretty handmade item in an unfortunate avocado-acid green color.  But the pattern is simple yet inspiring. Therefore  I am inspired to begin my scarf again. The dog and cat are on board....
in other news, you will notice that the wife's cardigan is coming along swimmingly....

elephant pitchers: its a trunk thing.....

(new elephant pitchers by Gary Rith)

OK, you have seen me make the cups....the sugar bowl, teapot and creamer too.  Not a huge leap to make an elephant pitcher, right?

As you see, I am trying 2 styles--one has a closed top/head, the other open.  I surprise myself:  I kinda prefer the open top.  You could easily stick flowers in there, too....

when pigs fly...in airplanes!

(new wall sculptures by Gary Rith)
You have seen me make the wee airplanes with the piggy....as i said yesterday with the hippo and elephant teaparty I am entering a show of wall pieces and made this super fancy one...the plane hangs under a sun and cloud....
you have also seen me make plenty of cow over the moon sculptures (for sale at my etsy gallery too! click here!) but THIS one is extra fancy.....
have an awesome day!

the power of tea....

Watching DOWNTON ABBEY lately, and they are always pouring tea.  Whatever disaster befalls the characters, or just to welcome a guest or friend, the English pull out the teapot. I love it.  In the cold months, I drink tea by the gallon.

I am involved in a large group exhibit of art pieces for the wall, otherwise known as paintings and  photos, and plan to sneak my entries of ceramic wall sculptures in.  I think it hilarious that elephant would be able to serve tea to hippo with his trunk, don't you agree?

sock hops....and lowwww to the ground....

Some of you may recall my old friend Carrie...not my oldest (going back in time, that is) but close to my oldest.  She was the first girl I ever wanted to ask out.  When we were 11, I had a crush on her in sixth grade and asked her to the fall sock hop.  We never went, but she never said NO either....

Decades pass, facebook is invented, and her sweet self JUST SO happens to live in the same town as us. (we went to school over toward Buffalo, about 3 hours from here).  She is just as groovy as ever and I am lucky to still know her.

ANYWAY, she needed a dachshund mug for her sister...I explained:
"sure, just like the beagle mugs I make everyday! Just longer and lower..." and she agrees
"yes, and a pointier nose too!".

All Soul's Day...

(new pottery with grapes by Gary Rith)

As a Quaker, we follow the idea that no space is any more sacred than any other, and that no day is more sacred than another.  Quakers even went so far as to name the days with numbers (Sunday became First Day, etc).  SO, we have no churches, just meeting houses, and we have no holidays, sort of, because of course we are from Christian roots living in a Christmas obsessed society.  Meaning, there may be quiet and simple words said on Christmas or Easter.  But that is mostly it. (I swear, though, that we KNOW how to have fun, dammit, and we don't wear stupid old black hats either...)

SO, mention was made in meeting yesterday of All Saint's Day, and I was a little vague on what that means.  And the wife was talking about All Soul's Day (which is TODAY)...all of which is preceded by All Hallow's Eve, which has something to do with candy and costumes.  An outsider trying to understand Christianity could become confused, right? BUT ANYWAY....

All Soul's Day celebrates the departed in one's life.  Somehow or other I have nearly reached 50 without ever been to a funeral or memorial service (and just a handful of weddings).  But not many people I know closely have passed away.  But my pets have.

OK, so here is the strange and wonderful dream I had last night, which is closely connected to All Soul's Day:  I dreamt it was an ordinary day, and realized that my first cat Sammy was with us in the house...or the ghost or spirit of, anyhow....and slowly, like the ghosts of baseball players in FIELD OF DREAMS, the spirits of all the pets I have had came to see us, filling the house.  Penny and Spike, as a dog and cat might, accepted this as normal and ordinary, but for us it was wonderful :)

a shot of bourbon and a banana....

The wife asks "did you get any Halloween candy for kids?"
Self "no"
she "but what if somebody comes to our door?"
self "nobody is coming to our door tonight" (we live on a state highway-NOT safe for kids to walk at night...)
she "but what if...?"
self "then I'll give them what we've got ... um, a shot of bourbon and, um, a banana!"

Just think what you missed, kids.....

IN other news, the wife and I hiked around Beebe Lake on the Cornell campus, taking advantage of 2015's LAST late afternoon (so damn DARK after the time change)...and the cat took over my sock drawer.

Just another day in paradise :)

Sammy Tulane....

(new teapot by Gary Rith)

I could say that Halloween is just another day here, but that is not true:

I will watch the Snoopy Halloween program with great delight....starring, of course, a famous beagle.....

AN UPDATE on a couple of things:  one, Sammy Tulane.  I was reading somewhere that you get your p0rn star name from your first pet's name then the street you grew up on (are there a lot of "Fluffy Elm" or "Maggie Main"s out there?  Perhaps "Digger State" or "Max First"s????).
Sammy was my cat, and having lived on MANYmany streets as a child, I could only remember one: Tulane.  Sammy Tulane, c'est moi!  Sounds rather good, doesn't it?  But makes a better name for a PI, a detective than a p0rn star THANK GOD.  Much classier.

Two:  knitting.  I am finding I do not have a lot of patience with my progress (nothing new THERE in my life).  I keep doing things wrong.  My grand scarf project?  Unraveled.  I think I need to a) try bigger needles and b) just mess around with small samples.  I need some immediate gratification here....

have a great weekend!

a patient and fortuitous cat....

SPIKE! And me....


 
The two lions in front of the 5th Ave main branch of the NY public library are called Patience and Fortitude..... our cat Spike is indeed a very patient cat, and his coming to us 8 years ago was a fortuitous event for all of us ;)

Speaking of cats, how about these new mugs, just out of my kiln?  Cats chasing all over them and the mouse hiding on the handle!
 In other news, I was in the mood to try making elephant pitchers, and so I did....have a great weekend!

knitting: teaching that OLD dog OLD tricks....

(new teapot and cups by Gary Rith...featuring Penny the beagle, for one....)

You will recall some discussion here about my LAST knitting project, a sweater I was working on for the wife back in 1992...I set it down...for 23 years.  It was 2/3 finished, and frankly, I faked myself out:  it was a complicated pattern I had devised, and over 23 years I forgot how to knit, and whenever I picked it up I was too intimidated to try again.

The wife exorcised THAT demon, bless her, by turning it into the awesome pillow you see the dog sleeping on here.  Like I say:  complicated.

I knit several sweaters in the 80s, sprinkling them across the galaxy of my dating life ( boyfriend who did NOT wine and dine you, but did give you pots...and sweaters....maybe I seem weird....?).

MY GOAL now was two part, since I no longer felt I had to finish the sweater:  a)  relearn knitting and b) knit tea cozies, like a penguin shaped tea cozy!  That may not happen this week, but I pestered my wife, just as I had pestered my mom when I was 18 and had my wisdom teeth out, to teach me how to knit again.

I was a horrible student to both with my snotty "what the hell are you doing?!" and "THAT is not how you do that!".  It should be noted, as you see here, that she is a very accomplished and experienced knitter making herself a very complicated cardigan....and I should be a nicer student ;)

ANYWAY, I dipped into the yarn bag and...
she:  why are you using those needles, where did you get those?
he:  I dunno, these are the only knitting needles I ever used
she:  Where did that come from, why are you using that yarn???
he:  It came from the bag, I bought it in 1988, and there is a lot of it! that is why I am using it.

I knit an inch.  I want to make a double wide scarf and then fold it back and stitch the edge, making a normal width scarf that is IMPOSSIBLY THICK AND WARM.  I figured it would be 50 stitches wide.  NO.  80 looked good.  Now I have an inch! If I do an inch a day (and take my vitamins, eat right, exercise, brush my teeth, clean the cat box, sweep the floor, do the dishes, walk the dog and EVERY OTHER DAMN THING I HAVE TO DO each day, plus work TWO JOBS) I figure I will have a scarf by, what, Memorial Day or the Fourth of July?????????

Below:  sweater by me turned pillow.....

karma...or Kiko, is gonna get you.....

You know I moonlight as a dog (and cat!) walker. I must be good at it because the phone is always ringin'....and it is DAMN fun. Tuesday I brought Yogi over to see Kiko...Kiko has a LOT of energy. Yogi does too, but he goes home and sleeps all day after a morning's romp....Kiko is ready for more...I have never seen 2 dogs have more fun.

for the love of a good cat...and veggie burger

HOW TO:  I was reading yesterday about how most veggie burgers are these boring and rubbery, yet dry, hockey pucks.  It doesn't have to be this way!

I have a favorite veggie burger recipe that is easy and wicked good.  I made them yesterday to put into tortillas with guac, but they were big so we didn't bother making the tortillas to go with them, just laid them on greens with tomato and the guac.  so they look like boobies.
GADDAWN that is tasty ....

Gary's guac: lazy way--slice and dice the avocado into a bowl, then add some salsa and/or hot sauce, lemon or lime juice, mash with a fork.

Gary's damn easy veggie burger:  boil a cup of brown rice, per usual but with some extra water, adding a drained 15 oz can of black beans, spice, and some veggies about halfway through (and more water if you need it---the veggies I added yesterday was some spinach, and a couple of small handfuls of frozen corn and broccoli). (there will be more rice mixture than you need)

For 2 people, use a covered microwave dish with a TBS of water in it, cube a sweet potato into 8-12 pieces and microwave:  first for 2 1/2 mins, stir pieces, then about 1 1/2 mins.  It should be hot and soft.

Scoop the sweet potato pieces and some spoonfuls of the rice mix into your blender or whatever, and give it a whirl.  It should be pretty well mixed, sticky and mushy. I like to make sure it still has nice chunks of rice and veggie.

Form into 4 patties and fry like any old burger!

microscopic pottery....

My favorite part of pottery has always been the fiddling part.
Throwing on the wheel is, I am sorry to say, maybe the least interesting part to me.  I KNOW a lot of potters get in their groove when they throw, but to me it requires a lot of planning and forethought:  "oh, I gotta make this and that, then later I gotta do that to it and....".  Basically, it is the writer with the blank page to fill, all the decisions to be made.
I guess I kinda like the parts that come next:  putting it all together and decorating.  Because that is the meditative part. I sit there all afternoon fiddling with the bits, putting them together (or lately, also painting flowers, etc on things) a totally mellow meditative dream state.  Like knitting.  OK, I am sounding like a flake, but there it is.

I spent Sunday making a number of sculptures.
It is remarkable how much time that takes.
I could have made 2 dozen bowls in the same time...really.  MORE than 2 dozen.  But that would have been as boring as watching paint dry, to my mind....not liking too much repetition.  ANYWAY, I am entering a competition in less that 2 weeks and need 3 wall pieces....one of the wall pieces is a new idea, the other 2 are types I have made before, like the elephant and hippo teaparty I was finishing here....I could have taken the one off the wall where it hangs by our kitchen table but I LOOOOOOVE it...so I made another like it, of course....with tiny tiny cups and a teapot.  You know the appeal is that Mr. Elephant has that trunk to pour with, a totally amusing bonus....

apples on a stormy day....

Do you see that flag down there????  YES, it was that windy yesterday and overnight....I don't know if I have ever heard a louder rain storm than last night's....I was looking at the weather map for the US, thinking to self "could this possibly be Patricia????" because the wind was from the SOUTH, which we never get.  And yes, the weather map shows that, Patricia or no, there is a straight line of storms drawn from Mexico to upstate NY.  No, we are not getting the kinds of flooding Texas is getting, of course, but DANG!

Anyway, it started mid-afternoon yesterday, just before we got apples and vacuumed out the car....there is a delightful little orchard on Cayuga Lake we like, on our way back from delivering pots to Aurora Art Design, an awesome gallery up the lake a bit....then it was time for applesauce with the OLD apples already in the fridge...I make it with cranberries, mmmmmmmmmm...

save it for later!

The first step toward SAVING is to buy one of my cute banks....I have several piggy banks at my etsy site, and just added these, a penguin and hippo bank!!!! Get 'em while they're HOT (click here!)

the cat just ate half a spider plant and....

...whoa, here it is again....at least he won't have a tummy ache.
New mugs by me.
The cat ones?  I have an idea how to make them even cooler next time, just watch me!

not exactly junk food.....

 (New pitcher by Gary Rith)

Yes, the morning glories are KAPUT, having had temps in the 20s.  But they live on here on my pots, right?

Messed up night of dreams:  I dreamt I was going through a school cafeteria line.  I put a load of salad WITH dressing into my backpack, then tossed in a baked potato for now and 2 for later.  When I got to a table and began eating out of my backpack I realized I would have to launder that thing, and soon.....