Author: -N-

Thoughts Before the Big Blow

Politics, weather, pandemic.  I think it is all making me even crazier than before.  We can expect 40 mph winds on Tuesday.  The temperature will be cooler than the 90F of yesterday, so hopefully less chance of fires.  It’s like the end times so many look forward to, but not me – I like my life!  Still, there is an interesting bit of stress going on that I can only equate to living in a war zone of some sort.  We just don’t know what is going to happen.  I wonder if what I am feeling can be equated to what people and families went through when WW2 was beginning – a sense of unease and that the fabric of life is not what you think it is supposed to be.  It’s a very strange feeling.

So, the Big Blow.  Some areas are going to get 80 mph winds – not quite hurricane strength, but certainly strong.  People in the midwest have gotten those just recently along with a lot of snow.  That doesn’t sound pleasant at all.  Can you imagine your roof flying off?  I know that several years ago parts of Great Britain got them and villages were cut off and food supplies and other stuff needed coptering in.  At least here we have a lot of things, and the stores are open.  And no snow.  Even further back, upstate New York had horrific blizzards, and livelihoods were lost amongst the farmers, especially dairies.  Cows died because they couldn’t be milked without electricity.

I’m just blithering around thinking about things.  Nothing profound, but I have finally had a few minutes to sit down to reflect as I have been really busy today.  We had to get some tools for Josh’s car project, so we looked at plants and bulbs and seeds.  Then I talked with Am, our aunt who has been working hard in the hospital caring for Covid patients.  She is doing really well despite it all, and it was good to have a chance to hear how things are.  Then, off to buy some computer stuff – our keyboards are worn out, and as I had to replace my old computer last week, I am still catching up with it, installing software on it, coordinating printers and scanners.  It is a pain but now that things are sorted, this is my first post using the new computer, keyboard, mouse, etc.  No new monitors as I got those awhile back for my birthday.  Luckily, I know a fair amount about computers so it is not challenging, just time consuming.

The studio, though, has been the scene of upheaval.  Computers need cords and such, and while you are down there sorting things out, you better get into the dust and debris that lurks under the desk.  I did, and while it wasn’t awful, it was good to sort stuff out by vacuuming and untangling cables.  Now I need to place things back where they belong so I can find a paint brush or a camera.  Finally, sewing – the new space is working out well.  I’ve made an apron and two pairs of jammy pants for Josh; time for me to get something!

Despite all the external upheaval, things are pleasant around here.  We are fortunate to have good family and friends and good health.  Not much to gripe about at all.

Time to get out on the bike for the next adventure!

The Burn Begins

It’s January 14, 6:30 in the evening.  At 5 pm a brush fire started 3 miles from our house.  It was 87F this afternoon, with more heat to come, and winds 30-50 mph.  The wind is pushing it in our direction.  There is a 4-6 lane freeway between the fire site and our house, and multiples of houses.  All it takes is a few sparks blown on the wind, and all hell can break loose.

I am not happy.  No rain except a shower in 4 months.  Global warming, of course, does not exist, and all this is “weather”. Here is the twitter link:  https://twitter.com/VCFD+

New Year Stuff

I am going to hold off on political commentary.  Instead, it seems that this New Year has brought about a couple of changes.  Two are chosen, one is a necessity.

First of all, I added a new set of colors on my watercolor palette.  It’s kind of fun as it mixes things up –  you can get too comfortable with colors you use every day.  I like to shake things up a bit when I get too cosy, so I added things like verrditer blue and returned a least favorite color, viridian, to my palette.  Other colors, too, which I cannot recall right at the moment, but it seems this new palette will get me some brighter colors.  Here is a painting I did with these new ones:

Next, I moved my sewing around.  I had bought a sewing cabinet several months ago, thinking it would work in the studio.  Nope!  Too crowded and claustrophobic.  I closed it up and moved back out to the dining room.  However patient my husband is, the clutter got to me far more than it got to him.  As a result, earlier this month I moved a book case from the bedroom into the studio and placed the cabinet where the book case was.  And, it works!  Yes, I do have to close things down and adjust to having things in different places, but it does the job, and the dining area is not a disaster.

Finally, my computer crapped out on me 2 times this morning.  The first time it froze watching a YouTube video.  Rebooted.  Then, after walking away from my computer for 10 minutes, the monitors were black and nothing would reactivate them except another reboot.  Off to Costco to get a prefabricated Windows computer.  It works great.   Now I have some software installed on the new computer and using it to write this blurb.  Meanwhile, I am copying files, which will take hours, from the old computer to an external hard drive so I can put them on the new critter.  It will take a bit of time to get all cosy again, but c’est la vie.

So there you are.  New Year, new activities.

The Road into Town

Today I put together a new watercolor paint palette, adding some colors I normally don’t have on my main palette, as well as adding ones back that didn’t make it into the first one. This palette forces me to work harder to get greens as I don’t have phthalo green, sap green, or Hooker’s on it as “primary” greens; instead, I have viridian, which is not one I have been fond of in the past. However, it works nicely with cadmium lemon and aureolin to make those crazy spring greens I like. I also added manganese blue, verditer blue, and phthalo blue (green shade). I don’t have any yellow ochre or quinacridone colors, but do have Davy’s Grey and Peach Black. In the red arena I added transparent red oxide in place of light red, and cadmium orange as well. All of the earth tones – burnt and raw sienna and umber – are on this palette.

The result is looking to be a brighter series of colors to work with, at least that is my impression. I tried to use nearly every color in the palette on some level in this painting to see what would happen. As it was, I didn’t use every color! Too many!

The subject matter was also something that I wanted to work on – a small town with a few buildings at the base of a mountain range, and the goal was to have a road leading in to it, sloping down hill, and conveying a bit of depth. It’s a busy scene, one from my travels over the years that I caught on camera. Depth is not easy for me, so I used shadows across the road and landscape to catch a bit of it.

First watercolor of the New Year, and started with a New Year Palette!

“But What if We Didn’t?” – Why Enmity and Outrage is the New Normal

I came across this posting via Jim Grey’s Recommended Reading column for today.   He linked to John Scalzi’s post entitled “But What if We Didn’t?” – and that has cleared the confusion as to why the American Congress has gone from attempting to work together to tearing each other apart.

When Ronald Reagan was President, he and Tip O’Neillc ould get along.

Now?

I will leave you to ponder what Scalzi writes – and strongly suggest you Scalzi’s post in its entirety by clicking on the link above or anywhere on the quotation below:

I have a theory about the Republican Party, and it is that around the time Newt Gingrich became the head of its brain trust, the GOP added a fourth functioning principle to its previous tripod of “Southern Strategy to corner the racist vote,” “Abortion to corner the Evangelical vote” and “Tax cuts to corner the capitalist vote (and money).” The fourth principle was not about kettling and controlling a voting bloc, but rather a principle to maximize its power and to motivate the voting blocs beyond whatever the GOP could offer them politically.

That fourth principle, to put it in its shortest and bluntest form, is:

“But what if we… didn’t?”

Somewhat more broadly, the Republicans recognized there was a suite of political conventions and traditions that were designed to make it easier for things to get done, and that this suite of conventions and traditions were exploitable by denial. While people in both parties (and the parties themselves) would occasionally use this exploit, it was not done systematically.