No Oompa Loompas Were Harmed

After all the excitement about meat fest last night, we ended up back at our favorite dim sum restaurant. (The Brazilian meat fest restaurant couldn't seat us until 9:00 or 9:30 which is generally too late for dinner.) It was tasty and way, way too salty. My salt intake has been creeping up again lately, so I'm going to have to start being careful. Sigh!

After we got home, I was pretty tired so I went to bed fairly early--then got up at 1:30 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. I finally got back to sleep around 7:00 a.m. and ended up sleeping until after Dave's 9:30 a.m. clarinet lesson. When he walked in the door, I was awake enough to have a conversation about what to have for brunch--Dion's, my usual plus an Arnold Palmer--so he went out again and I went back to sleep again. I finally got up for good when he came back with subs and a salad.

While we ate, I caught up on a text conversation between my mom and aunt about an upcoming trip we're all taking on the Cumbres-Toltec railroad. They'd included me in their conversation which had been going back and forth for an hour or so while I was sleeping. I read their messages and put in my two cents about the trip and then arranged to have lunch with them tomorrow.

After Dave and I finished our lunch, I took a shower and got dressed and we headed out to the studio. On the way there, we stopped at Starbucks to grab a couple of lattes.

When we got there, Paul came out to say hello and let us know that Judi was in bed with a cold. They returned mid-week from a Nat Geo trip to Scotland--one of those tours where it's you and a handful of historians and you do lectures and so on--and we got to hear a few details. One of the things they did as an add-on to their trip was attend two days of a month-long bagpipe festival in Edinburgh (I think). Paul seemed to enjoy it.

After awhile Paul brought Crunch out to say hello. We watched the house while they were gone, but since our trips overlapped, Crunch got to go to the kennel. Paul told us that Crunch was pretty pissed off about the whole banishment to the kennel thing when they brought him home, but he was glad to see me and Dave. He got lots of belly pets from me and he gave me a few wet kisses on my chin and cheek (which I don't normally allow because, ugh, dog saliva on my face, but it was a special occasion this time).

In between chatting with Paul and petting Crunch, I finished up the construction part of the larger sculpture. 

I had made a couple of decisions about it beforehand. One was that rather than replace the too-big hands, I was just going to carve them down until they were skinnier. (I did that because the piece is somewhat oddly proportioned anyway so the large hands are just part of that--and I didn't want to get into fixing proportions at this stage.) I did not get a good picture of the hands after I carved them down. (In fact, I didn't get any pictures. Dave took some pictures with his phone for me, but no close-ups.)

The other decision I made was to lower the kiln shelf and add a bit to the top of the sculpture. I measured the sculpture and the kiln. With the bottom shelf on a two-inch post above the kiln floor, I had about 1/4 of an inch clearance. I could gain almost an inch of clearance by lowering the shelf onto a one-and-a-half inch post. (It's pushing it a bit but there will be some shrinkage in the drying process.) That's good enough for me, so this is what I added:

It's had to tell what you're looking at, I'm sure, so I'll explain that this is the back view of a crown braid decorated with night-blooming jasmine and sacred datura (which also blooms at night). I choose the datura because it is a plant native to the southwest and I wanted to add something from my home to this homage to the painting of a night sky in France by a Dutch painter. I choose the jasmine because it's also called the queen of the night, which is where this piece started, as a queen of the night figure.

There are twelve flowers--five datura, seven jasmine--woven into her braid, just as there are twelve stars in Van Gogh's painting. (This somewhat blurry shot gives you an idea about the hands, too.)

Two of the datura hang to the front, almost jewel-like.

Dave took this photo from above, which flattens her out and makes her look slightly more squat than she is. (This is the same argument we have whenever he takes my photo, too, because I always seem to end up looking like an Oompa Loompa that got squashed by a bus. But since he is a half-foot taller than I am--6'4" to my 5'10"--it's hard to break him of this habit of the downward-looking photo.) Anyway, she is somewhat squat. But, meh, it's the largest sculpture I've ever made and there will undoubtedly be improvements on this front in future sculptures.

I like her anyway.

It rained in the afternoon but it was waning by the time we left the studio. We stopped on the way home at a little diner near the university and had Greek food for dinner. I had a gyros with salad and patates and Dave had a vegetarian dinner with spanikopita, tiropita, dolmas and salad. We also shared an order of saganaki (a Greek cheese set alight at your table) before dinner. It was all very tasty--and way, way too salty. So now I'm trying to drink as much water as possible to flush the salt out of my system.

Other things that happened in the last 24 hours:

I heard back from the instructor for my A&P class. I probably will have to buy the $300+ dollar text. I saw red for a few minutes (I have to buy it because he's relying on the textbook company to format his homework and quizzes and I need the special one-to-a-customer access number that only comes with a new text--and I find the whole thing--his laziness combined with the predatory textbook publishers price-fixing scheme--to be infuriating) but then I decided to calm down and just buy the fucking thing.

When the class is done, I'm going to hollow out the book, fill it with Crunch's droppings, and light it on fire on the instructor's doorstep. But don't tell him it was me.

So that was one thing.

We also ran into our friend Kai at the co-op. He was looking for digestive enzymes (papain) for his girlfriend, as you do. We chatted for a few minutes then finished up our shopping--dodging another former co-worker of Dave's, a woman who is super nice but who will keep you chatting for far, far too long while all your frozen goods turn to un-frozen goods. (I'm guilty of doing that too, sometimes.)