February Sucks Generally

As we were leaving the studio this evening, locking doors and turning out lights, there was a  pottery book on the front desk, something probably published in the 1940s by the look of it. I opened it at random to this page:

Ay yi yi. You have to laugh, really; You could reverse those captions and it wouldn't make any more--or any less--sense.

Anyway, as you know, February sucks. Good thing it's a relatively short month, short and sucky. I don't know why it's so sucky, but it is. They try to fool you with Valentine's Day, but that sinks like a rock in the middle of the month. (And for those of you without Valentines, it makes the month even worse, doesn't it?) So.

What have I been doing besides resenting February?

Well, I've been reading like a fiend. I was a bit worried about making my monthly reading goal (set at new year's as 3 books a week or 13 books a month), but it's been no problem at all. I'm a quarter of the way through my fifteenth book and will probably make it through at least a couple more before the end of the month. It's been crazy, subject-wise. I've read biographical works by and about Winston Churchill, Rachel Dratch, and Darrell Hammond. I've read novels about teenaged anorexics and little British schoolboys. I've read books for children published one hundred and fifty years ago and books for adolescents written last year.  Right now, I'm mired in Bob Woodward's unflinching biography of John Belushi.  I'll have a full list in another few days, my monthly book report.

At the studio I've been building altars. (Wind me up and set me down and sooner rather than later I'll end up making altars. I'm always only ever in search of the perfect altar.) I've made two so far, both intended to go onto the patio when they're finished.  One is going to hold eggs, ceramic mostly but also ostrich. The other? Well, we'll see.

I've been using Annie's Mix to build the altars, a kind of clay that I have limited experience with. It's made by Laguna, but was actually developed in the studio where I work for an artist I met a long time ago, Annie Rogers. Annie died a couple of years ago, but her clay (red, groggy) lives on. (Her little kitty Saba also lives on, adopted by Dave and me after Annie died.)

The days are getting longer of course, thankfully. Today you could sit on the patio in the sun, but midweek we woke to a couple of inches of snow on the ground. It's getting time to turn over the soil in the garden and to start thinking about seeds and growing and such. I'd like more peas and beans this year and lots of sunflowers. Both Dave and Kelly seem happy to grow any- and/or everything. Kevin mentioned a tomato plant he'd like to put in. Spring will be here before you know it.