Wait for it...

...okay now.

Naaaay.

BOTCHED.

and cropped.

Solemn stillness.

We've been doing what we can to squeeze every last drop of peppermint flavored Yule from the old place. The result is...not quite right.


Alexander chafing against his scarlet bonds.

A chilly and forlorn Yoda Claus--clearly caught in his own attempt to flee.

Eerie, floating ghost tree.

Dead-eyed Creepy, doing his best to keep his cool--imitating art as The Hare with the Pear Earing.

Joining together with hollow, reedy voices that freeze and crack in the air:

Du grunst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,

Nein auch im Winter, wenn es schneit!

Panic on the streets of London.

But bliss in its skies.

Inspection.

On its way to another cousin across the pond.

Giddup.

Sir Orfeo's queen. Just one more hapless soul nabbed by Mab.

For one of Alex's precocious little cousins who has a love for horses. I was debating whether to send her one of the (many, sigh) tiny glass unicorns unearthed during the moving process, but (in my experience) hard handed, tyrannical little girls should never be given custody of soft-mouthed beasts, especially porcelain ones. So I settled for paper.

Inverse proportions.

Never fails. Dreams get vivid when the drawing stops. Got to keep those mothers away.

Oh, Mickey.

Sorted, pored-over, pilfered, packed, and finally moved a mini-library these past weeks. Including but not limited to:

--three French primers
--two signed Madeline L'Engles
--a shelf of reference volumes inc. Roget's Thesaurus In Dictionary Form and Crabb's English Synonymes (you tell me the difference), the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, a pocket rhyming dictionary, and a small volume on the Queen's English.
--The Essence of the Talmud and an extensive nonfiction on Islamic women
--forty issues of Ebony
--one pamphlet on the Gay Men's Unitarian Choir
--at least thirty years of National Geographic
--countless books on UFOs
--a Penguin edition of Greek Lit
--...and one lonely copy of The Hobbit

A small peek into the highly engaging, highly literate mind of Alex's great aunt.

A little bitte...

...of Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Walk-see.

Windsor by Inwood.

The dawning realization...

...that both fingers and ink move more slowly in fifty-eight degree temps.

Do what you can.

Thanks to The Humanist for providing the link.

http://www.noonprop8.com/home

.

Watson.

Something live has for the last two days been slamming itself bloody against the inside of the fireplace. It's been threatened, pleaded with, abused, and named, all to little avail.

You tell yourself that you'll never be the sort of woman that leaps onto the highest surface at the merest flash of a wing or a tail or a glittering eye. You tell yourself.

Morning routine.

mullberry rouge from Persia--2 gold pieces

Black Sea kohl (Medea's speciality)--one shorn ram

age defying appleseed oil from the Hesperides--5 rattlesnake tails

UV-blocking balm (Heal-ios Inc.)--one amber necklace

membership to Atlas Gym--12 wool blankets

hair brightener--courtesy of Midas

making your wishes count--priceless

Please'er with a tweezer.

Tithonus and the first stray gray.

More trouble than they're worth.

Hobbit's a delicacy that can be prepared any number of ways. They're soft and tender with flesh so aromatic that herbs just become a redundancy. But there's only one way to cook a dwarf and that's to boil it, salt it, crack it like a nut. And watch your teeth around its basalt bones.

Hold it.

Too early for Poe? No matter. I was hoping for a neat convergence by him with what was just a random sketch, but the story's called The Oval Portrait, damn it. Also, turns out that unless you're searching for masses of online galleries, googling "paintings in fairy tales" is really no help at all. Of course, there's the uncomfortable event behind this particular painting (the model didn't die, but nearly froze in a bathtub of slowly chilling water), but once again the shape of the pic figures prominently.

Birthday present.

Saturday, September 20th: finished my second(gasp!) reading of The Hobbit

Sunday, September 21st: 71st anniversary of the publishing of The Hobbit

Monday, September 22nd: Bilbo (and Frodo) Baggins' birthday

Funny how things align.

There are thirteen dwarvish shadows there, in case anyone was counting.

"Chip the glasses and crack the plates!

Blunt the knives and bend the forks!

That's what Bilbo Baggins hates--

Smash the bottles and burn the corks!"

An Unexpected Party, The Hobbit

The appropriate sentiment of clumsiness and mayhem to hang on my virtual door while bandaged hands and mangled fingers heal.

Bits and pieces.

For loss of a pic, a Wednesday was lost. And all for the loss of an eraser nub.