Round Round Get Around...

I particularly like the canopy, though it could have a fringe. Happy are the uses of mobility, and fearless is my mum!

Ouch

I have been in the wars lately - massive bruises, all self-inflicted, I sat on a stitch-ripper and gouged a hole two inches long in my thigh, then today I sewed through my finger. Shades of Pam Warren.

If it is dry tomorrow I will buy the insulation for the big room ceiling, since I have finished Constance's fourteen French chairs. You can just see one in the previous photo of Suscipe and the vulture.

Turkey Vulture

Suscipe likes her sinister new friend...

Not Zen

I am fairly quivering with indignation - went out to have my breakfast in the sun, to see a bulldozer taking out all the trees and bushes at the far end if the inlet, exposing the buildings beyond. A flurry of phone calls later the planning official is coming this afternoon after his dental work, but a bulldozer can do a lot in a couple of hours.

I am keeping an eye on the live oaks directly in front of us, and if they start on those I shall throw my body in their path. In the meantime I am so agitated I can barely work - thread breaks, needle broke, and I just sewed one cover inside out.

Doing it with Betty

You have to hand it to the Aussies - who else could make this practical little piece, straightforwardly and with good cheer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18-mzj_DVOI

Link seems to be disabled (mum muttered darkly...) go to youtube and type in 'Doing it with Betty'.

Leave them Wanting More

Just back from Eureka with our client, so I made a good meal as all we had had was an egg McMuffin at 8 am. Piece de resistance was fresh coriander peach with vanilla ice cream, fresh caramel sauce and burnt almonds. Stefan liked it so much he went back for seconds and O-D'ed, so will never want it again. A pity, since I potted up the remainder of the sauce for another time.

We shoot again tomorrow, then I finish the curtains before hanging in Sonoma on Saturday.

There was fresh snow on the mountains as we drove down, all the way to Geyserville. Lovely.

Glory

The sun is out and so was I, all the way up the hill before coming down to a late breakfast, all the windows flung open and the Swoon Collection on iTunes.

The assembly of my breakfast made me uncomfortably aware of the way choices shape day-to-day life, uncomfortable because I have the puritan conviction that character is formed when we have no more external options. When your back is to the wall you know where the wall is. In part this must be influence by From the Holy Mountain, reading about sixth century hermits and the injustice of the Palestine settlement steers the mind away from frivolity. It increases my dismay at fundamentalist of any stripe too, raising ideology over humanity. I sit here in California where distraction from unpleasantness fuels entire industries.

I think I shall do something madly practical today. we are working next weekend in the wine country again -that will be hard.

Word Associations

I have been trying to find garments which are not black (like not thinking of a polar bear), so was very pleased to find a soft knitted suit in that new micro-fibre chenille which is so soft, warm and seductively comfortable that any other fabric feels like burlap. I dithered between a too-salmony pink and soft lavender blue, and the blue won, but now it is home I see the colour is officially Wisteria. Oh.

They did have it in black.

References

Just read a blog (one of my favourites) which referenced Molesworth and Ed Burra in the same post, and set me musing on how much we depend on our allusions being recognised.

Twelfth Night

So I have taken down the little Christmas tree Cissy and George brought over, and packed away the ornaments for next year. if you can't beat'em...

We are meant to have the third storm today, with thunder and lightning, but although the water is very high it is limpid, and the sky is bright and clear. There is a huge crane in the marina opposite fixing something or other and I can hear chainsaws up the hill. Stefan is editing and I am sewing so it feels like a happy, productive Sunday. I went over all the upcoming productions with John yesterday evening and it is most encouraging. Plenty to do.

We have been eating through a celestial mache salad Ed gave us, with a gently aromatic dressing of olive oil, rice wine vinegar, a whisper of rose water, honey, ground coriander and salt and pepper. Pomegranate seeds and a sprinkling of walnuts. Decadent cheeses. Fresh chanterelles. Perfect ripe pears, green and bumpy, sweet-fleshed ahi tuna and scallops from the Bay of Cortez. Every meal is an adventure.

Tweed River at Murwillumbah

Norma's house on Tumbulgum Road will be up to the new levee with this amount of water.

Test

This is what we shot on Thursday, with the background we shot a week ago. The strobing on the windows is NTSC, not there in HD.
http://www.stefansargent.com/pomo_model.html

I am so pleased.

and Cosy Here Beneath the Blast...

This morning the inlet is about 24" higher than the tide of 5'9", San Rafael/ Richmond Bridge is closed as four big-rigs have blown over, power is out all over the Bay, San Anselmo is flooded, so is the 101. I have been following it all on the deliciously parochial Bay Area news channels, only too happy to stay indoors and sew, while the wind howls and the rain blows horizontally.

Drama next door- this from Dee: "First time I've actually seen water over the end of the dock. So great that our power stayed on, everyone else I know had NO power. Scout had a blast with puddles galore! Ollie, Glenn's white cat, finally fell off the deck last night. Ed heard him
crying and saw him soaking wet sitting on the crossbeams under the house... I went and got the parents and Glenn hung out over the water and caught a cat."

As I climbed over the remains of the arbour there was a frantic scrabbling under the honeysuckle and two fat voles panicked out like circus clowns, displaced from their burrows. First time I have seen them (apart from the damage they do), but there is truce in times of emergency.

It's raining all over the world. M'bah is in torrents, and even rain in Sydney, Nom said. And L.A.

The model shoot went really well yesterday, I think I will have to post a link once it is edited. The cyclorama worked better than I had hoped, anyone want a 10'x30' chromakey blue cuddly?

Surprise

Will surprised us with an outing, drive and picnic on the Marin Headlands, roads I didn't know existed. I was charmed, so this is what is like to be mom and pop! Another of those things that are better on the inside.

For the Soul

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fd_nopTFuZA

A Quick Whip Round

Getting ready for Herb and Barbara's visit with bright warm sun showing up all the slippage and occupation since my heroic pre-season bottoming of all things domestic. Housework doesn't last does it? Very necessary though, for the inner self, as well as to provide welcoming and accommodating comfort for all of us. An outward and visible sign of an inner invisible grace.

A big sigh of relief that it is (after today), all over, and we can get on with normal, happy, busy living. My New Year Awareness is in place although I am pussyfooting around one of my main issues: weight. So boring. It is illuminating to read other people's musings on organisation, self-improvement of mind and muscle, new skills, new strengths. I know what I want.

2008

I blog for the simple pleasure of seeing the date go over. Here's to a wonderful new year for us all.

Mum sent this picture of a four foot snake coiled over her friend Mary's computer - got in through a hole in the flyscreen. The elders of Murwillumbah are a hardy lot.