Friday Afternoon

We just finished dog-sitting for these two delights. I took that picture with my cell phone to send to their owners to show off their handiwork. They chewed up two books, The Conquest of New Spain (that's the one you see in bits and pieces on the rug behind Lester there) and a dictionary. They also, that same afternoon, chewed up a houseplant. They also, the next day, made short work of one of those indestructible Kong toys for dogs. But they're still the cutest dogs ever. I mean, look at little Lester there, grinning away. So sweet!

And can you stand another picture of Jack? Because I find this one hilarious:



His parents have taught him to pinch his own chubby little cheeks and that is what he looks like when he's doing it. You have to love that!

And what else?

It's a gorgeous day today. Hard to believe that this time last week we were looking down the barrel of a snowstorm, no? Today the sky is perfectly perfectly blue and it's just warm enough and I even went and sat outside for an hour or so. (A miracle considering that I'm a hardcore indoorswoman at heart. Getting me outside is only somewhat more difficult than digging a tree stump out of the ground.) True, this morning I did stay in and watch Ghost Dog on Netflix. (I forget how much I love that movie. It is very nearly perfect as far as I'm concerned.) But in the afternoon, I went outside where everything is blooming and shedding its pollen in an effort to make me miserable. I took a Benadryl or three and went outside anyway. The cats joined me. Gray Kitty sprawled out in the dirt and rolled around trying to make himself into the perfect dirt-transporting vehicle. (He runs inside all covered with dirt and pollen and jumps on the bed, of course.) Saba actually stayed in the patio, pretending that she can't jump the fence (an Oscar-worthy performance on her part).

Dave just texted to say that he's on the way home. He's going to try to talk me into going to the gym tonight, I just know it. I've taken the last week and a half off because I've been sick as a dog (the laryngitis is getting better, thanks for asking, and my lungs are clearing up nicely), so I should go. But what I really want to do is eat a cheesecake for dinner and watch another movie. This weekend there's  a gallery opening for one of the potters at the studio, a really terrific woman named Jenn Noel who has a knack for raku. We'll probably go to that tomorrow morning before we have to be at the studio.

In other studio news:

The Tuesday night class has started a book club. I'm kind of excited about that. One of the women in the class is a retired librarian and she suggested a book club and several of us were interested. I'd love to re-read all the classics I have read (and read a few I haven't  ever read), but we're taking turns choosing. Our first book is Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth. I'm looking forward to it. (If nothing else, it should jar me out of the rut of celebrity biographies that I've fallen into.)

I'm not spending nearly enough time at the studio these days. Before I went to Deming I threw and slipped nearly a dozen vases and left them needing to be carved. On Wednesday I did go in and carve four or five or them, but the rest are sitting under plastic and I'm hoping they don't dry out before I get back to them. I'm also piling up bisque, dozens and dozens of mugs, some hummingbird feeders I meant to have done by now, and several little bits and pieces of an assorted nature. I also ended up (somewhat inadvertently) buying 200 pounds of clay that we don't normally carry and it's just sitting in boxes at the moment. That will all get turned into calavera-type work--eventually.