Lexington and Back

Funeral in Kentucky Summer.  Collage by me.

Unexpectedly, Ben's grampa died and so we went back to Kentucky for the visitation, funeral, and to clear out the house.  

Visitation

Old Talbott Tavern in Bardstown

Kentucky Burgoo and fried green tomatoes

Bourbon bottle with a fox that looks like Cappy

Ice's Produce: owned by Ben's Mom's cousins.

Corncob handle found on old awl. For reals.

3 sets of Flour/Sugar/Coffee/Tea tins that I saw in Lexington at an antique market that I considered getting.  Then I found a set at Grandparents' house. 

Mom's honey and honeycomb from her new bees.

Mom's beehives.

Mmmmmmm.

None of the motorcyclists I saw wore helmets.  This motorcycle had mini truck-nuts.  Oh Kentucky. 

But it's not all backwards: Food carts in downtown Lexington!

Delish breakfast w/ family.

Delish indeed.

Dr. Nasty, Morgan, and Glossy.

Flex, Ben, Isaac, Ella 

Missy & Cole

Flex showing us his radio and antennae.

Dad driving Polly, his 1950 Chevrolet.

Polly

Driving in Polly in lush green Cincinnati.

Dad and I walked around watching frogs jump into the pond. Chirp!

It's just SO GREEN there.  

By the end I missed the ocean and my kitties.  But I loved the comfort I feel there, friends and family, plenty.  And now I'm back in the world of recycling, composting, and my own destiny.

The Behbes

My younger sister was the last of her friends to have children. Meanwhile none of my friends had kids. I thought I just had the types of friends that didn't have kids, but the spell has been broken, and now most of my friends have kids.

Babies are big these days.  Ha ha. Bad pun. They're "in", I should say.

Here's a little post to show some of them. Missing from this edition of recently-seen-babies is Theo of Derrick & Shana.

Aria's parents (she's hiding up there in the swaddling).

Me 'n' Aria

Missy and Flex now have 3 yr old Cole and 6 month old twins Isaac and Ella. Here's 5 seconds of chaos at their house.  Missy is an incredible mother, cleaning up behind everyone, preemptively feeding everyone, and maintaining a cheery, encouraging disposition.

Cyprus with his dad Joe and mama Mira.

Libby Lee motor boats my mouth then hers.

And the inevitable question is, Do I want kids now?  Still the answer is not really.  I enjoy meeting these new little people, and it's really cool to see their parents transform into parenthood.  I can see and have confirmed through discussion that having children is often one of the most fulfilling aspects of their lives.  I also see that it's not all roses, and I commend parents for the trials and tribulations they endure daily.  But to exemplify how I feel personally about having kids, I'll let this photo do the speaking:

And of course the baby I'm most excited about...Baby Kitty.  I can't help myself!

Since Graduation

I have, of course, been searching for jobs.  I've had 2 interviews where I was in the final rounds, but no dice.  Still, thinking about those situations as great opportunities to practice interviewing.  I'm taking it as a good sign that I've had 2 real interviews less than a month after graduating.  I'm also working 15 hrs/week at Seafood Watch, still.

In the meantime, I've been trying to enjoy myself as much as possible.  All these projects I've had in my mind for ever--I have the time to make them come to fruition!  For instance, this model for my pendants and earrings which I wanted on wood, but never found a properly large piece of drift wood to make that come true. Instead, I utilized my photoshop skills, melding a photo of worn wood that I took with the silhouette photo, mounting it on foamboard and cutting it out.

 Ben and I have been enjoying more time to explore TOGETHER.  Here are some shots from Asilomar one day. Super low tide= lots of crabs.

 Once a week, I've been going up to San Francisco for a dance class, and I have enjoyed other things like loft parties with hipster bands and characters dancing around.

People named Pinky playing something that looks like a cross between a fiddle and a gramaphone.

If I go up early (which I've learned to do to avoid hitting crazy traffic), I spend the day with Dusty or Mira or Rose, working on costuming/choreography.  It's great to immerse myself in that creative part of my life with others who are of the same ilk.  

Dusty's dress patterns hanging all organized-like.

 My friend Colleen turned 30, and I helped celebrate, doing her makeup like mine (I had just finished round two of photoshoots with Thatcher).

Baby Aria and dressed up dolls Alyssum and Mama Colleen.

DIY: Breadbox Electronics Home

A couple weeks ago, I went to the overwhelmingly awesome Alameda Antique & Flea Market with my friend Mira.  We picked up a few things.  That shiny thing in the middle was my favorite object: an art deco chrome bread box.  My idea:  turn it into a home for all my electronics that need to be plugged in.  You can see what a mess it is to have camera, batteries, phone, dongles, ipad all in a wreck on the counter:

 So I got right to it.  Firstly, I used some steel wool to rub out the spots of rust on the outside.

I was afraid that the steel wool would scratch the chrome, but it actually did really well.  Here is the exact same spot on the breadbox as the picture above.  

Then I had to make a hole in the back for the plug of the powerstrip to go through.  This was the toughest part.  I bought a special 1 1/2" drill bit, but couldn't get it to stay in one place, so I ended up tracing the drill bit and going around the circle with a tiny drill bit, one hole at a time. 

At this point I hoped the large drill bit would have something for the teeth to grab on to, but it didn't.  So I just continued making holes.

I couldn't get the holes quite close enough to run into one another, so I ended up snipping the metal between them with a wire cutter.

Once I got it started, I was able to use a pair of needle nose pliers to pull the circle away from the breadbox.

Then there was a super jagged edge which is less than ideal for electronics. Unfortunately the file didn't really work.

So instead I just taped the bejeezus out of it with electrical tape.

 (Cat interlude.  Parsnip found the hole irresistible)

 Okay, next step.  So it looked like this inside to begin with.  I wanted it to look as nice inside as it does outside, so I added some corduroy to the horizontal surfaces with hot glue.  It peels off easily if I ever want to change it out, but sticks well enough to be semi-permanent.

And for the final touch I used these very cool twisty ties to keep all the cords tidy.

 And, voila!