Sallyacious

July 02, 2008

Ready to Go

Finally. Everything is packed. I did not get around to cleaning the kitchen sinks or vacuuming the floors or the couch. Hopefully Dave will either do it himself or not notice.

I will be travelling for most of tomorrow. In order to catch my 12:30 flight, I have to leave here by 8:30am. And I'm scheduled to get into Chicago just before 9pm. That's 11 hours driving, flying and waiting. Yay. Anyway, that means I won't be posting tomorrow until very late, if at all. (Though I will be taking my traveling laptop with me, in hopes of posting on the road.) With that in mind, I present a series of photographs that seem highly appropriate, given the date Friday.

I took these at the Boise zoo. I wish I was good enough (and lucky enough) to get a picture like this in the wild, but I'm not. I have to take what I can get. Despite that, I am quite proud of these three photographs.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody. (At least, to those of you who celebrate it. Those of you who don't can still enjoy the pictures.)

Posted by sally at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

It's Tired Out

I should be packing or cleaning or something, but I just couldn't resist. Our cats have been sleeping a LOT, what with the warm weather and the fur coats and all, and the opportunity to share these images was too much to pass up.

Katala was just enjoying the sunshine on the couch yesterday morning.

I took these this afternoon. There was at least a 30 minute gap between them. Notice that there is nothing supporting Polyphemos' head except my chair, which is on wheels. That's trust.

Or foolishness.

One of the two anyway.

Posted by sally at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)

Stuck

On the couch.

Because I just painted my toenails.

I should have used the bathroom first.

But I have been rushing about today, getting things done, so perhaps I need a break right now. Enforced though this one is. At least I opted to not paint my fingernails. Then I wouldn't be able to type, either. (I only do that for ultra-special occasions because thanks to my neverending array of messy projects, the polish looks nice for roughly a day, and then gets all chipped and nasty looking.)

I was going to post about something else, but now I can't remember what it was.

...

...

Nope. It's gone.

Anyway, I leave tomorrow for Chicago, the first stop on my dash around the country. Not only is my wonderful friend Heather meeting me for drinks breakfast at this restaurant where they have a build your own fresh squeezed juice bar (to which you can add your own alcoholic beverages - she's bringing champagne, what a fantastic woman), but she is bestowing upon me the high honor of being the first guest on her brand new Chicago Art Institute membership pass. I shall try to behave myself and not spend hours in one room as I am wont to do at galleries and museums.

Also, our friend and fellow alum Chris will be meeting us at the Art Institute, so that's cool too.

Oh, Heather, before I forget, Ginger & Christi S. say hi.

Then there's a barbeque with the bride and groom and families where we shall hang out on the beach and watch the fireworks with everyone else in Chicago. Then the wedding and then, I suspect, a sleepless night due to a wedding reception that ends at 11pm with a lengthy shuttle trip back to my hotel and a 7:45am flight out of O'Hare the next morning. I plan to sleep on the plane(s).

After that, who knows? I have no idea what to expect at this workshop. I've never done anything like this before. It's like I'm stepping off the edge.

Thank goodness I have freshly painted toes so that I can launch myself into the abyss in style.

Posted by sally at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)

June 30, 2008

Shoe Shopping (Or Why I Can't Have Nice Things)

One of the reasons this place makes me crazy is the direct result of the tininess and isolation. There is not a single upscale clothing store. Not. One. There are many, many versions of Hot Topic & The Buckle, even an Old Navy, but not one Nordstrom or Barneys or equivalent. We do have a Macy's, but, well, let me give you an example of how useful our Macy's is.

Last week, I finally destroyed my purse enough that I needed another one. My clever habit of stuffing as much as possible into the little tiny bag took its toll and I ripped out the bottom. I have a bag that works, is slightly larger and has enough space to hold my kindle too, so I figured I'd just transfer everything there. It's not as wee as my last purse, but, as I said, my kindle fits, whereas the last bag was really just a wallet with a strap.

That being said, I needed a new wallet. There are exactly two stores here in town where I might find such a beast: Macy's and Ross. Of course I went to Ross first, but nothing really sang out to me. I figured I'd head to Macy's just to see if they had anything before settling for the best thing I could find at Ross. (As luck would have it, I did find the perfect wallet at Macy's and bought it despite the price because I figured, if my last purse hung in there for 10 years, I could probably get at least as much out of the wallet, and $4.50 a year was a bargain for a wallet I fell in love with on sight.)

Anyway, I figured while I was in there, I ought to see what kind of dresses they have for this wedding I'm getting ready to attend in Chicago. So I wandered through all of their adult female clothing sections to see. Do you know what they have? Polyester dresses shaped like sacks, with spaghetti straps and wild pink and brown (or blue and green) splotchy/swirly designs lifted straight from the 1960's. OR cotton skirts. That's it. Not really wedding-type attire. In fact, there was not a single fancy-type dress in the entire store. And there are no other options for me in this town. Because Walmart, Christopher and Banks and Old Navy are not going to cut it. (And yes, I did go into Ross and check there. More of the same, thanks.) All of the clothes are for hip young things to attend their best friends' weddings and bridal showers, not for grownups to attend the fancy evening do's of their grownup peers.

I did actually find something in my own closet that will work beautifully, despite the multiple (and seemingly contradictory) requirements of fancy wedding, packable outfit--read small and light and relatively un-crease-y--and possible thunderstorms with a four-block walk to my hotel. But I still needed shoes. Because my beloved Michael Kors pumps, though the right color & a very sexy style, are not summery enough. And my Tevas are just not quite right with a silk sheath.

So I got to endure the agony of looking for something nice all over again.

You may not know this about me, but when it comes to footwear, I have a whole bunch of requirements that must be met.
★ I have size ten feet. Size. Ten. Guess how many cutecutecute shoes that look adorable in a six look adorable in a ten. (And for special bonus points, guess how many of the styles of shoes available in a six also come in a ten.)
★ I have a great deal of hatred for anything between my toes. Which eliminates anything remotely flip-floppy (I have more class than to wear a pair of flipflops to a wedding, anyway, thankyouverymuch.)
★ I have feet that are very wide at the ball and very narrow at the heel. So the cute little strappy straps tend to make my feet look fat. They aren't, but they look it in strappy sandals.

My first choice, given all these insane demands, is usually Zappos. But I only figured out what I was wearing yesterday. And I leave for Chicago on Thursday. Which means no time for shipping shoes to me. Plus, I really don't feel like getting another pair of really expensive shoes right now. (Well, I feel like it, I just don't think it's very responsible of me, given all of the traveling I'm doing this summer and all of the money I'm not earning.) So off I went to the mall.

After visits to Payless, Famous Footwear, The Buckle, Ross & Macy's Shoes (my only options) I did end up with a cute pair of black peep-toe slingbacks that are actually quite sexy and were 40% off. (I cannot find a picture of them online but--duh, let me just take a picture of them for you.)

(Yes, I know it's a terrible photograph, I was in a hurry.)

See? Sexy. Appropriate. And the buckle--which you can't see--has little black sparklies. Inexpensive enough that I don't feel guilty about buying them to fit a wardrobe gap I rarely notice or about how well they do or don't travel, as long as they get to Chicago in one piece. Also, I think they are going to look damn fine with deep purple toenails peeking out at the toe.

But. They were the ONLY pair in the entire city that would have worked for what I needed. Oh, there were plenty of appropriately cute shoes, but none in my size. And there were plenty of shoes in my size, but none of them were the right style for an evening wedding in the summer. I'm sorry, but I'm not wearing a pair of platform slides with wide black patent leather straps and cork soles with my rust-colored silk dress. Nor am I wearing a pair of gold and black come-fuck-me pumps with a stilleto heel and a pointy toe.

There are things about living here that have been good for me. The very isolation and scarcity of diversions that I bitch about so much has demanded that I go deep within myself to find answers there, rather than relying on the rest of the world to solve my problems for me. I'm a better artist because I have had to explore new forms of expression to keep myself from going mad. I've got a stronger CV than I might have because of the teaching I'm doing here.

However. I am more than ready at this point to take all of the things I've learned and apply them somewhere that has access to galleries, restaurants and real shoe stores. Eleven months and counting.

Posted by sally at 12:55 PM | Comments (2)

June 29, 2008

PhotoHunt: Bright

I wasn't going to post this week because I didn't have time yesterday and I didn't think I had anything workable, and then just now I remembered a shot I took in February 2006, during the Arboretum Project. We had such a cold snap that creeks froze with ripples in them still, and I got a shot of one, on an ice cold day (freezing nostril hair when you inhaled kind of cold), with full daylight and not a cloud in the sky. The sunshine reflected off the ice really jacked with the F-stops on the camera. Bright may not, in fact, be a strong enough word for the intensity of the glare.

Frozen Rapids

Even just looking at this photograph again, I want to squint.

I was going back through my Arboretum Project photos for a different project this week and realized that I really miss those weekly shoots. I got such a sense of peace during those two to three hours I spent wandering. I miss seeing the turtles and the baby birds and the dragonflies and the heron and all of the changes. And I miss the development it gave my eye. I took some really great shots that year, as my skills and vision improved. It was good for me. Maybe this year I can find the time to do something like it again.

Posted by sally at 12:16 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Unconscious Mutterings Week 283

She says..., and I think...

1. Loneliness :: my lifestyle, sometimes necessary, depressing
2. Traffic :: school, signal, light
3. Chaos :: swirling, unsettled, to be avoided
4. Burp :: braaaaaaak
5. 500 :: Indy, racecar
6. Movie :: theatre, summer, cool
7. Coma :: awful novel/film from the late 70’s, early 80’s
8. Bark :: bite
9. Stare :: Look, rude, gaze, glare
10. Angelina :: Heroin. I hope the rumors about her being back on the junk aren’t true. Also, Heroine. What a generous, compassionate person she seems to be.

Posted by sally at 11:59 AM

June 28, 2008

Because I Am an Idiot

IM conversationwith my friend Amy. (Who has known me since our freshman year of college, so this is really nothing new to her.)

Sally says: I just realized today that I missed your birthday.
Sally says: Unless it is today.
Amy says: It is today.
Sally says: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Yeah. Cause I'm lame like that.

Happy birthday, Amy. I hope it was wonderful.

Posted by sally at 11:57 PM

Party On

So Vanessa at A Fanciful Twist is having a Mad Tea Party {of the costume variety} today that I was quite cleverly too late to sign up for. Because I just never got around to it, that's why. But that doesn't mean I can't party too.

In my own special way.

So I'm having a garden party here at Sallyacious. The roses are taking off nicely, and a number of other flowers are blooming right now as well --yay for mockoranges!!!--and we'll get to those in a minute. But first, a couple of other party images.

As you may or may not know, Dave's birthday was last month. And we actually had a party here for him. But I was too busy eating and drinking and shouting in the game we played to take pictures. So no pictures of the hilarious (and delicious) time we all had. HOWever, that's not the point of this commentary. The point of this commentary is that this last weekend when I was in Boise, my brother and sister-in-law gave me a card to give to Dave for his birthday. We have a grand tradition, my brother and I--supported by our spouses--of managing to miss each other's birthdays. Not deliberately, it just kind of happens. And so we give our gifts to each other when we get around to it.

I often mention to people that my brother is one of the funniest people I know, quite possibly one of the funniest people in the world, and to demonstrate why I believe that, I present to you the card they gave David, complete with my brother's edits.

Also, before we get to the flowers, another kind of party, completely unrelated to gardens, but of the sort infinitely preferred by cats. A slumber party. Yesterday they all slept on the bed for most of the day, a rather unusual occurence. It is, by the way, impossible to make a bed around a sleeping cat.

(There are four cats in the photo. That dark thing in the lower left corner is not a pile of laundry.)

But now, the garden party.

I'm afraid I'm a bit more ascerbic and not as likely to be fanciful as A Fanciful Twist's hostess. I'm a little crankier, and a bit more bitter. If she's a strawberry, think of me as a grapefruit, not for all tastes, and some are genetically predisposed to find me completely unpleasant, but I'm also sometimes sweeter than you expected. Right. Done with that metaphor, it was finished, really, before I started and I should have recognized that.

Anyway. I really like Vanessa's artwork, and I love the idea of a party, so come on over.

Here's what you'll see coming up the front walk. A friend of mine remarked that our house looks like a good witch lives here. If only I could magic away that damn lamppost.

It's hot, but you can probably tell that from the clear blue of the sky and the brownness of the grass. Welcome to Idaho.

Astonishingly, the climbing roses arount the front porch seem to adore this weather. (When we bought the house, there were two tiny, straggling canes on that rosebush. Apparently all it wanted was some chicken manure and a little seaweed compost tea.)

Now that you're here, grab a glass of mint-sprigged iced tea, grab your favorite garden hat and let's do a bit of exploring.

Just feel free to wander wherever. The prettiest blooms are out today.

Blue Flax & Flowering Quince

Campanula and Tomato Blossoms

Lupin and Peony

Climbing Rose and Fallen Flax Petals

Yarrow

Summer Savory and Unnamed Yellow Flower

Daisies & Chamomile with Blue Flax

I've got to go now, I have errands to run and a gym to visit, but feel free to stay as long as you like. There are still some irises, and the poppies are beginning to bloom. Also, I didn't include the syringa because I couldn't get close enough to them to photograph well, but they smell divine, as do the rugosa roses. And it just seems to get prettier as the sun goes down. (Maybe that's because it's cooler and then you can't see all of the brown in the lawn.)

Posted by sally at 12:54 PM

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