e.

clarice @ 2011-01-01T23:12:00

2011-01-02T05:12:09Z

Ensconced in Chicago again, where it was delightfully warm on Friday (warmer than California, in fact) and tear-inducingly cold today (which is uncomfortable, given that tears freeze instantly). This visit I walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, which I had never done before, and will likely not repeat, and not just because I get a bit of l'appel du vide on bridges. Little is more terrifying than open water at night. But the bridge is pretty in the dark.

Saw True Grit today, which is as good as Rotten Tomatoes suggests it is, and made me cry. At this point drawing up a list of films that don't make me cry would be a speedier endeavor. (Look at me, old and hormonal and weepy.) The woman next to me was crying over an animal, though (I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that in a western, an animal suffers at some point during the story), and what is that human impulse to sob over the poor creature when the pathos of the scene has little to do with it?

Anyway, it was not as unrelentingly depressing as I now expect Coen Brothers films to be (being based on a book isn't always a mitigating factor--so was No Country for Old Men), but unlike many of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, I did not watch it as a film about the grizzled male lead. The first adaptation was, but this one, to me, is squarely about the little girl. She's much more compelling than the adults, and it is her story. In some ways Mattie's development reminds me of Ree in Winter's Bone. She'd make my list of nuanced and complex female characters of 2010 without a doubt (and I choose not to ponder the fact that two of a relatively short list are teenage girls.) The dialogue is also pitch-perfect and fantastic. (And funny; though some of it is law-humor.)

Aaaaand I have no New Year's Resolutions for 2011. Unless I am resolving not to resolve to do things I am unlikely to actually do. Happy New Year to all y'all!

clarice @ 2010-09-03T00:50:00

2010-09-03T05:50:20Z

Oh, Chicago.

Why does he look so... disco?

2010-04-06T19:07:24Z

Yes, it's a ~~Tin~~ Marshmallow-stuffed Dog!

If you're cruising by your flist and curious wtf this thing is, it's a stuffed version of this. A fire-breathing snarky robot dog. I made the pattern before my sewing machine broke (attempting to put him together was how I discovered that it didn't want to function anymore) so this was the baptismal project on my new machine. See? I definitely needed that expensive machine. For very important stuff like plushie K9.

I drafted the pattern from line art meant as a guide for building a full size K9 prop. He is basically 1:2 scale (his base measures 15", 1:2 scale would be 14.8"). I left off some details and altered bits of him a little, but overall he's pretty close to scale. I even made a paper model and a complete, final draft pattern rather than drafting as I went, so I'm inordinately pleased with my frequently-lacking patience.

He's approximately 20" long and 15" high, excluding ears and tail. There is some wire in the dish portion of his ears, but otherwise he's all fabric, stuffing, buttons, and thread.

Side with his "TV"

His legs wrinkle because they aren't stuffed quite firmly enough (which is quite hard when there's no separate compartment to pack with stuffing) but after rubbing my fingertips raw doing all the soft sculpting on his legs and underside I wasn't going to take it out just to restuff the legs. I made his collar but he's wearing my old cat's tag. Maybe someday he'll get his own. I pleated his neck to mimic the tubing, but it doesn't really show in photos.

Top! I used fabric covered buttons as his buttons rather than appliqueing on a bunch of tiny little squares. They're sharper than the squares would be, and I think they're cute.

...So there's my stuffed robot disco dog. I've been staring at him for so long I can't really tell how well he came out, but the boyfriend likes him--despite never having really seen Doctor Who or knowing the character--so he must've come out okay. :) I'm pretty fond of him. He's very smooshy-huggable.

ETA: My K-9 pattern has been uploaded over here.

clarice @ 2009-12-24T02:02:00

2009-12-24T08:02:27Z

A Happy-Slightly-Early Christmas to all! May it be full of... victorian bear maulings. I dunno. But this card is awesome and clearly ahead of its time.

I started my break by missing my flight out of Chicago. Yes, this is embarrassing because I missed it by going to the wrong airport (yes. Yes, really.) but since C is going to avail himself of the opportunity to tell everyone we know, if I say it I may then at least pretend that it is not borderline-mortifying.

At any rate, I discovered that if you miss your flight but show up within two hours of take off (I finally got to the check in counter at Midway 6 minutes after my flight had left) they will book you on the next flight for no additional charge. And when you’re on the 7 pm flight that means the 6 am flight. I ended up sleeping 2 hours in a 36 hour period and did fine, which is bizarre considering the fact that I sometimes sleep ten hours, wake up feeling like crap, and want to go back to bed again 12 hours later.

But anyway, I got back to suburban California and am more or less enjoying doing nothing, though that is also (more or less) what I do in Chicago. I haven’t read my novel for class, or watched My Cousin Vinnie (which is an assignment for Ethics; perhaps better at the beginning of the quarter than as a final, which it’s been used for in the past) but I did watch The Wire all week, which takes as much of an investment of attention to follow as the Wilkie Collins I should be reading instead.

Monterey, Carmel, & Point Lobos photos

2009-09-14T01:56:20Z

Photos from California, edited down to a reasonable number. (And only including vacation-within-vacation photos, because I presume nobody wants to look at Sacramento or Lincoln, jewels of the Central Valley that they are).

Carmel:

Pebble Beach is that green bit that sticks out.

Monterey:
I still adore this place. It makes me feel like an awestruck little kid. And since we went in the off-season it was not crowded at all, just some adults (lots of Australians, incidentally) and some kids too young to be in school. This made it easy to get a good look at everything, but the poor curators faced a tough crowd audience participation wise. The special exhibits were on river otters and sea horses.

The little fish are sardines (a species which pops up in the aquarium a lot in homage to its former life as a sardine cannery).

Giant pelagic tank. The long streaks near the top are mahi mahi, lower big blobs are blue fin tuna, the spiral is a school of sardines. Unfortunately they didn't have any sunfish at the moment (all outgrew the tank and had to be released with no new specimen found yet) but they did have a great white cruising around in here. She was much too fast to photograph even as a blur.

Jeeeeellyfish...

...I love them.

Moon jellies.

A bunch more of them.

Sea nettles.

This little penguin was very, very hungry.

Three dude penguins.

Apparently these penguins are so lazy (...or brilliant?) that they only eat if a fish is physically placed in their mouths by a human being.

Kelp forest tank, populated with stuff found right off shore. (I've been diving in Monterey; it does look like this, expect visibility is, like, five feet on a bad day.)

Large, fake sea mammals. This is as close as the "Cetacean Institute" gets to actually having whales.

There were rays in this pool but they didn't show up. They feel weird, like a ziplock bag full of chicken breast.

Cuttlefish! I love cephalopods, but all the others were too dimly lit to get a halfway decent photo.

Sea horses.

Sea dragon.

Aquarium people doing their thing. A couple were diving in dry suits. Pansies.

Back deck of the aquarium (with legs of a dry suit and rock filled with invisible common murres).

Deep sea fish strip a whale carcass on rejected Star Trek set.

Specimens from Ed Ricketts lab.

Cannery Row.

Ugly fishing trawler.

Point Lobos State Reserve:
I don't remember coming here before, but I must have at some point. It's a lovely park, and apparently the diving is also quite good. There were a couple sea otters and sea lions hanging about but too far off the shore to photograph. We didn't have time to drive the 25 miles to Big Sur, so we spent the afternoon here instead.

Little tiny egret.

Four fat harbor seals with the right idea.

Middle of Nowhere:
My dad has this bizarre fixation with the mega fruit stand "Casa de Fruta," which I think is located somewhere outside of Hollister; I remember stopping here as a kid. It's the middle of nowhere, right off the highway... and it has a carousel. We stopped because we thought it was funny and I knew my dad would ask if we had. We did end up buying a bunch of fruit and nuts and salt water taffy. Best damn strawberries I've ever had.

Casa de Fundamental Misunderstanding of Spanish Language.

Nonsensical Bonus:

Jelly bean governator. I love California.

clarice @ 2009-01-09T21:07:00

2009-01-10T03:15:58Z

Ice flow on the Chicago River, 6:00 pm today. (And at 2:45 pm, looking toward Wabash.)

My day was good -- paid my bills, returned a dress I decided I was never actually going to alter (my torso is three inches too short for normal human clothing, apparently) and despite my best efforts, did not find something to exchange it for. Bought $30 worth of jewelry instead, then had jerk chicken with C at Calypso, and plan to watch the first episode of The Tudors while attempting to brush my cat. It was cold today, and it may have hailed. Or maybe it was just very sharp snow.

How was yours?