Thursday evening I had dinner with my mom and aunt, a quick BBQ dinner ("moist" brisket and coleslaw). It was my salt-intake limit plus. I ended up drinking about half a gallon of water after, but it was worth it.
I was going to do some shopping after dinner but I decided against it, so I came home and watched an episode of The Blacklist online. It was the first of a two-parter with one of my favorite actors Ron Perlman.
I had had a soda with dinner, and the caffeine ended up keeping me awake long past my bed time. I finally got to sleep just before 2:00 a.m., got up around 5:00 to take my meds, then went back to sleep until around 10:00. So it was a full night's sleep, just shifted and broken up some.
Friday
I had some bits and pieces of things for breakfast, a banana, the last two bites of my rotisserie chicken, a bit of cheese, a handful of tortilla chips, coffee. I just grazed on what was at hand because I didn't feel like cooking anything.
In the afternoon I braved the cross-town traffic to go to Target for some things we've been needing around the house. I bought aluminum foil, paper bowls, kitty litter, garbage bags, toothpaste and so on. It was mostly fine, even if the traffic sucked. After Target, I stopped by the co-op. Dave was coming home from Toronto and I promised him red chile for dinner so I picked up tortillas and cheese and some Quorn to go in the chile. I also picked up some vegetable sushi (avocado and brown rice) for my lunch, which was very tasty if not particularly filling.
At home, I did a bit of work on the patio, wiping down the patio furniture and setting up the patio umbrella. It will be nice when it gets to be warm enough to have dinner out there. Even though the days are climbing into the mid-60s, the temperature begins to fall rapidly at sunset. Dave will often sit out and read on his phone or laptop after dark, but I am not cold-hearty in late winter and I am a mosquito magnet (and have a strong reaction to being bit) in the spring and summer, so I usually come indoors a lot sooner than he does.
Dave's plane was a bit late, but only a bit. I got to the airport early and sat in the cell phone waiting lot and read celebrity gossip on my phone while I waited for him to call me. We got home a bit after 9:00, had dinner, and then both crashed.
Saturday
I slept until about 5:45 and woke with heartburn. I reached for an antacid and was chewing it up when I realized that I hadn't had my meds yet and I'm not supposed to take antacids within 4 hours of taking them. Sigh. I figured I'd just wait until 9:45 and take them a few hours late, so I went back to bed. I fell asleep again and didn't wake up until noon. I got up, took my meds, and sat down to read a bit of the new Bill Bryson book that Dave brought for me.
We had brunch, a quick huevos rancheros without potatoes (just eggs, chile, beans, cheese, and tortilla) and coffee. Then we both sat around keeping our computers company. It was such a beautiful day that we kept the door open. The cats went out and sat on the patio, soaking up some sun.
After a few hours, we went to the studio. I checked my fox lady and was sad to see that she had cracked along one inner elbow. I set about fixing the crack (a time-consuming and often ultimately ineffective task) and putting a bit of underglaze on her. The further along I get with the piece, the less satisfied I am. But that is a problem I have almost continuously, not just with this but with everything. I have to fight against it.
This is after a bit of underglaze. You can see that she's wearing gloves over her fox paws. I had thought to make them like real fox paws, but I wanted to add gloves and I also didn't like the way the transition from skin to fur looked on the head and so didn't want to repeat it for the paws.
The gloves will be black and satiny. She has a preliminary coat of white on the skin and fur. I'll continue to add to that until she is completely white, then I'll decide whether or not to paint on tattoos. In either case, she'll get a wash of black underglaze after the initial firing. That will settle in the textured areas and add some grittiness to her overall look. Her inner ears will be either pink or red, I haven't decided, and her eyes a greenish yellow or a celadon green. The corset is a bit of a worry. I'm not sure if I want to paint some kind of pattern on it or leave it plain and top it with a satiny red glaze. It might be interesting to leave it matte red and then stencil a pattern using gold acrylic paint over the top after it's fired. We'll see.
The elbow that cracked is the one on the right. You can't see the crack in this photo. I repaired it once and it cracked again, slightly smaller, after sitting for an hour. I repeated the process and the same thing happened. Repairing cracks sucks. I'll add more slip tomorrow and work it into the crack and see what happens. Sometimes--about 30% of the time--it works. If she cracks again in the firing, I'll probably repair it with a bit of epoxy and then put her out on the patio to keep an eye on things.
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