Monday, December 31, 2007

Monday Morons--I'm not very organized

A few notes before I get to the post. First, I had originally written this thinking that I would post this on Christmas Eve, but remembered I had something else that I'd rather post. So I am posting this now, without rewriting it, so there are parts that do not quite make sense because I wrote this more than a week ago.

Also, if you need a bit more chocolate or other snacks for tonight, the Christmas stuff at Target is now 75% off. Or, at least, the stores that I've been to in Texas are now having their 75% off clearance sale. I suppose that other areas may have different sales dates. But be aware that the Hickory Farms and Pepperidge Farm products do not scan at the sale price, even though there may be a sale sign on the shelf right in front of the items. To get the sale price, you may have to ask the cashier to ring up the items manually, ask to speak to a manager, and perhaps threaten lawsuits, and you might still not get the items at the sale price. Decide before you shop if it is worth the effort.


Okay, on with the post-------



Earlier I had started a Monday Moron post, but it turned out to be a very long post and I did not get it done in time to post on Monday. So I thought that I'd finish it later and post it the next Monday. Only then I remembered that the next Monday would be Christmas Eve, and I did not want to post such a thing on Christmas Eve.

Then I thought that I didn't want to post a Monday Morons on Christmas Eve at all. Something else came to mind, which would be just as funny but more in a holiday mood.

Due to a certain husband spending all of his time off either blogging or with me at the movie theater, I didn't get to use the computer when I thought of whatever it was I meant to post today. I've forgotten what it was. It just seemed so perfect, but I didn't think that I'd need to be reminded of whatever it was. I didn't write myself a little note saying what I was supposed to blog about.

So whatever today's post was supposed to be, I've forgotten.

So now I am back to Monday Morons, though I've decided that blogging about that other person on Christmas Eve would not be a good thing in the holiday spirit, so I'll blog about myself instead.

If you're a regular reader, you may have noticed that I'm not very organized. I am spending most of my holiday break (that is, most of the break that I am not spending at the movie theater with my husband) trying to clean house and get organized. But, as I write this, there is still a couple of boxes of Halloween stuff out in the hallway. The one box is T-shirts, and I suppose that it is still there because I'm still finding things to wash and add to the box. But the other box is just sitting there because I haven't gotten around to it yet. I really hope to deal with it today, so that I don't have to deal with organizing Halloween stuff and Christmas stuff at the same time. I will be at Target around 7am on the 26th, so there will definitely be Christmas stuff to deal with soon, even though I didn't unpack much of anything this year.

But that is the usual state of things. What really bothered me here recently is that I don't have the Harry Potter stuff organized. There is no excuse for that really. I know that I usually need it every December, and there are other times during the year that it might be requested. So you would think that I would have it all put neatly away someplace where I could get to it at a moment's notice. Or at least, you'd think that I'd start gathering the stuff so that I could have it all together by mid-December when I know that I'll need it.

I have three wands. Two were cheap things that I bought for myself. I don't mind if I lose those, but that I lose them in my own home instead of when I am out is greatly annoying. I have another wand that is not cheap, and was made by a friend and given to me as a Christmas gift. I know where that one is, but it usually doesn't leave the house because I do not want to lose that one.

I have various hats that do not stay on my head. Most of these are cheap and again I would not mind if I lost one of these while we are out. I have one that I did a lot of work on, but it still wouldn't stay on my head. I tried sewing a hair clasp to the hat, which does keep it from flying off my head, sort of. It still gets blown backward and doesn't stay properly on my head but sort of flops around my neck upside down. So I usually don't bother with the hat, and I wear a hooded cape so if I want something on my head the hood usually works better.

For the most part, the black cape and the Gryffindor scarf are the things that I just can't do without. I have a black dress that I would prefer to wear, but I can't find that half of the time. I have a black vest that I wear, but since it is black against an already black dress it doesn't really show that much anyway. If I can't find the black dress I do have a number of black turtlenecks to choose from as well a few black skirts. And I could even switch to black pants if I had to. Then there are various black shoes to choose from if I cannot find the preferred black boots.

So the day that I need the costume I know that I won't be wearing the dress, because I looked for that already and I couldn't find it anywhere. Finding an alternate skirt took longer than I expected, and went through three turtlenecks before I found a suitable one. The black vest turned up, but not the preferred black boots. Still there was a shorter pair of black boots, so that was okay.

The black cape was not where I normally keep it, but then I remembered taking it out in case I decided to be Little Black Riding Hood instead of Little Red Riding Hood.

Okay. Hat? Not this time. Wand? Skip it. Black hooded cape, check. Black skirt, check. Black turtleneck, check. Black vest, check. Black boots, check. Black purse, check. Gryffindor scarf?

Where the hell is my scarf?

Once in a while, I make an effort to get the scarves and the yarn at least in one room. So when I didn't find the scarf where I thought I'd left it, I thought maybe it was in the other room with some other scarves. I found the original practice scarf which I wear just when it is cold, but I do not think it is good enough for part of a costume. I found a scarf that I had started for a friend but then never finished because I decided to instead make scarves for his whole family and this one didn't quite match the other three. I found another unfinished scarf that I had started for a club auction, but the auction winner preferred the Ravenclaw scarf. I found Dr. Who type scarves and other scarves, but no Gryffindor scarf that I wear with my costume.

Should I cancel? Should I just go dressed all in black with no scarf?

Maybe I should wear a different scarf?

I found a green and grey Slytherin scarf, which I had thought was finished until I noticed that I had somehow made two extra tassels on one side and they would have to be redone. But I suppose that they don't have to be redone right this minute. I can probably wear the thing and only I would notice the problem with the tassels.

Actually, switching to Slytherin worked out okay. I practiced being a whole different character from the one I'd made up earlier. I complained about Muggles and not liking children and all of that.

And it gave me an excuse to get out of the singing. I don't sing. I just sort of go along and pretend to sing. With this grumpy character, I didn't even have to pretend.

So it did work out in the end. But really, I should be more organized. What's the point of having this stuff if I can't find it when we need it?

Thursday, December 27, 2007

And Happy After-Christmas Clearance Sale Day To You Too

Well, Christmas itself has finally come and gone. I've exchanged gifts with everyone that was on my list except for two club members who were out of town. I have an assortment of hot chocolate mixes from the official club gift exchange, and an unexpected gift basket from an out-of-state friend, and I have a sweater from my mom and a necklace from my sister and a few other things and some gift cards. I really did encourage people to get me gift cards, unless they wanted to get me miter clamps and such, which most people probably thought was a joke. So sadly, I did not receive any clamps, but I did get over a hundred dollars worth of gift cards.

Last year, we lost a gift card to our favorite restaurant. So I immediately stuffed all of "my" gift cards into my wallet. My husband is still holding on to some of "our" gift cards to some restaurants.

I was up early Wednesday morning, ready to go to shopping. Maybe I got up too early. My first stop was going to be Target, which opened at 7am. So I spent some time looking on the Internet. I didn't want to spend a lot of time waiting in the parking lot, so I thought 6:45 would be a good time to leave. I checked the clock on the computer every once in a while. Finally, it was time to get going.


Only the clock in the car said it was ten minutes later than what I'd thought it was. Don't you hate that? You're just doing something to kill time, and then you end up late to whatever it was that you really wanted to do.

So I got to the store about eight minutes later than I planned. So I expected to see some people with carts full of just the stuff I wanted. Don't you hate that?

Well, I really didn't want that much. Except that I was going to get a ton of storage stuff if that had been on sale. But it wasn't. And why should it be? The week after Christmas is right when people are supposed to buy the stuff, so it wouldn't be on clearance yet. But the orange and black boxes were on sale the day after Halloween, so I thought maybe they'd mark down the red and green boxes the day after Christmas.

No such luck.

Well, we had gone to the store Friday and looked around and said that there really wasn't anything that we were just dying to have at 50% off, but there were a couple of things I should get if they were still there. And of course I'll be looking again when the stuff is 75% off later, but that won't be at least til Saturday or Sunday, and possibly not til next Wednesday.

I got a spice rack. How boring is that? Well, this one looks almost looks like a set of test-tubes, except that the bottoms are flat and they have screw-tops. So when I get done with the spices, it will go with the Halloween lab-set decorations.


I picked up some candy that my husband wanted. I didn't buy any decorations. With school and going out of town and such, I don't think that I've really done any major Christmas decorating since we've moved. So I'm thinking I shouldn't buy much anyway, cause I don't know what I need. I know, I don't really need any of it. But I'm thinking that I probably don't have enough stuff that really goes together, and I should probably take a complete inventory of what I already have before I buy lights and such.


So what I mainly came for (other than the storage boxes that I didn't buy cause they weren't on sale) was food. I didn't see any Hickory Farms stuff, so I was about to leave when I found where it was, mostly hiding behind the 50% off sign. I took about three things to the self-scanner, and they didn't seem to be on sale. After discussing the matter with another shopper, we decided to take the stuff to the checkout anyway and make them give it to us at half-price. They can't argue that it isn't on sale when they've put the 50% off sign right in front of the stuff.

The cashier had to call three different people before she'd give me the discount. While that was going on we let another customer go ahead of me, since he only had some mouthwash and a DVD player. The DVD player wouldn't scan, so she just asked him what it cost and he said that it was on sale for thirty-five dollars. So she rang up thirty-five dollars and took the man's money, and he left with his DVD player and his mouthwash. I still have to wait for the manager if I want seven bucks off of some cheese, but if you want discounted electronics they'll just take your word for it?


I finally get my discount and pay about twenty-five dollars and leave. I'm so proud of myself that I didn't go crazy and buy more. I pretty much just bought what we'd discussed and some cider and some crackers. Not much at all.


Well, the grocery store down the street used to be the place to get goodies after Christmas, so I went and had a look. Either there wasn't much of a sale or it was too early for them and they hadn't gotten around to marking it yet. Whatever. I should have gone to some other places, but they were near the mall and I decided to go home first and find out what other people had planned for the day.


My brother wanted to have us over for lunch. I thought lunch might be at eleven, and it was like 9:30. So I decided to put off the mall area shopping for a bit. Besides, I should see what yarn I needed before I went shopping.


My brother didn't plan lunch until 12, and then it ended up not being until after 12:30. So I could have had time to do a bit of shopping. Whatever.

After lunch we were going to see that Alien movie. We decided we were a bit late and would wait til the next show. So I'm off to the mall area to get some yarn.

Only I get to the checkout at the fabric store, and I can't find my wallet. I think that it must have fallen out of my pocket while I took out a measuring tape to check the size of a storage box. It was right at the front of the store, maybe someone turned it in?

No. Maybe you left it in the car?


I didn't think so, but I went to look anyway. Didn't see it. Called my husband and he didn't see it either. Called my brother too, but no luck.

So I've lost my wallet with my gift cards and my checkcard. So I have to turn around and go home. I go home without any yarn or anything.

I look for my wallet near the computer and in the bathroom and on the bed and in the kitchen, but I can't find it. I call Target and the grocery store to see if they've found a wallet. No luck. I retrace my steps to my brother's place, but still no luck. I go home and call the fabric place, but still nothing.

Time to give up and cancel the checkcard. And to be on the safe side I also cancel my library cards. I currently have three library cards. Not that I think someone is going to rush to the library and steal books and videos, but just in case.

So that's all done. I start to feel a bit better. The three of us still go see that Alien movie.

And then when I was about ready to go to sleep, I found the wallet just under the bed. So I'll have to do without my checkcard for a few days, and I'll have to go and get all new library cards, but that's okay. At least I didn't lose my Christmas presents and I don't have to go to the DMV for a new driver's license.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

The summer that I met the real Santa Claus

Everyone seems to think that his name is Nick. They're wrong. His name's Rick. I don't remember his last name, but his first name was definitely Rick.

Rick didn't have elves. I heard that he had a bunch of kids, like maybe ten. I never met the kids. I don't know if they were really his kids or step-kids or foster kids. Maybe a combination. Or maybe they were all grown up by then. Anyway, I never met the kids, but I heard that he had a lot of them.

I worked one summer at an arcade that had lots of skeeball machines. Rick would come in and play skeeball several times a week. He didn't have a beard or white hair, just brown. He was tall and fat. He always wore suspenders to hold up his pants.

He was a very friendly guy who did nothing but play skeeball. A lot of skeeball. Like twenty dollars a night.

Some people play skeeball for fun. This guy played to win toys. He only occasionally looked up to see how much he'd won. He won a lot. He played some perfect games of 450, a lot of near perfect games of 410, and occasionally only a 370 or so. You win tickets depending on how high your score is, and sometimes you win extra stuffed animals for perfect games. Every time he came in he got one of those extra stuffed animals and spent enough tickets to buy between three and six more stuffed animals. And every time he came in he gave away a stuffed animal, or maybe two, or maybe three. He took home at least three stuffed animals and a bunch of tickets.

The stuffed animals he took home were stored until Christmas. In December he brought back the rest of his tickets and bought pretty much all of the cool stuff in the prize counter. Then he took the stuffed animals and other stuff and gave them to some orphans for Christmas.

Once in a while we'd have a slow day at the arcade, and there weren't really any kids around when he got ready to leave for the day. A couple of times he didn't see any kids he thought needed the stuffed animal, so he gave it to me instead. I had two stuffed animals given to me by the real Santa Claus. I don't have them anymore. I'm afraid I must have lost them when we moved from Fort Worth.

The mall with that arcade isn't there anymore. I wonder where Santa Claus moved to?

Monday, December 24, 2007

Monday Morons--No thanks, I'm not alcoholic

Okay, this is the third or fourth post that I've written for today. I keep changing my mind which one to post. Since it's the day before Christmas, maybe I should get into the whole "peace on earth and goodwill towards men" thing and just skip Monday Morons this week.

On the other hand, I just remembered something that has to do with Christmas, so here goes....

As some of you may know, I do not drink alcohol. Or, at least, I do not consume much alcohol, and most of that has been cooked. I've had beer cheese soup and beer bread and the occasional fish with wine sauce and stuff like that. Maybe when I was younger I had some prescription cough syrup that contained alcohol, but I don't remember.

I was once introduced at a party as "that girl who won't drink NyQuil."

Anyway, I don't think that drinkable alcohol should be available over the counter like that. If you need a drug, go see a doctor. I don't think that it's fair that people can legally go out and drink and such and there's nothing you can do to stop people from doing that and follow up with any number of stupid things. People are sold useless alcohol when it's pretty obvious that they're going to end up hurting or even killing someone. On the other hand, if you want to buy antibiotics for a painful UTI, that's too bad. You want antibiotics, you have to go to a doctor first, and if you don't go see a doctor the people in the drug store will let you suffer and possibly die. But in that same store you can buy as much alcohol as you want as long as you have ID.

The whole drinking alcohol thing is stupid anyway, even if it didn't hurt and kill people. If you're not any fun to begin with, the alcohol isn't going to change that. You'll never be as funny as me, so just accept that fact and get on with your life. The alcohol will not make you as funny as me, it will just dull your senses until you imagine that you're as funny as me. Those of us who stayed sober just watched you do something really stupid. We're laughing at you, not with you.

Where was I?

So I don't drink alcohol and everyone who's paid an attention knows that I don't drink alcohol. I do like a few things that other more strict people think are recreational drugs--caffeine, chocolate, and sugar. I am quite sure that I consume more of those things than is good for me. But so far it hasn't made me do anything stupid (in front of other people) or caused me to hurt someone or hit someone with the car, etc....

I enjoy a number of non-alcoholic drinks and a variety of foods. My husband also enjoys food. And if you're supposed to get me and/or my husband a gift, things that have to do with food are usually a good idea. Gift cards to restaurants, coupons books and/or calendars, homemade goodies, and gift baskets from Hickory Farms and such are all things that we appreciate.

One year my employer gave me a gift basket and a bottle of champagne. It wasn't like they specifically went out and bought that for me, just that everyone at the place received an almost identical gift basket with champagne. I mentioned that if I was still there the next Christmas (which I was not) I would prefer the less expensive non-alcoholic bubbly or maybe some bubble bath that just looks like champagne. I think I ended up cooking some fish in it and maybe attempted to make some candy with some of it. I'm sure a lot of it went to waste, cause I wouldn't drink any of it and I certainly wouldn't let anyone else drink it either.

So very often for Christmas, someone gets us an assortment of cheeses and a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice or cider or pear or something that looks like wine or champagne. We like that sort of thing, and before I joined the club we usually spent New Year's Eve at home, undressed, eating the cheese assortment and drinking the non-alcoholic whatever.

One year when we unwrapped the bottle of non-alcoholic whatever it was, someone joked about the bottle, maybe saying that someone was too cheap to get us the real stuff. I don't remember exactly what the joke was, just that it was funny at the time cause everyone there knew that I didn't drink alcohol.

So the next year someone gave me real champagne. This was someone who not only knows better in the moral sense, but has known me a long time and knows that I don't drink. But for some reason the joke from the previous year stuck in his head, and then he got confused and thought that I had really changed my mind about drinking alcohol.

That was all a bit upsetting. I didn't want the stuff, and the person who gave me the gift was embarrassed. He had so gotten it stuck in his head that I wanted real champagne for Christmas that he just thought he'd gotten me the perfect gift and hadn't seriously considered getting me any gift that did not come with a bottle of champagne.

So don't give people alcohol for Christmas. Unless, maybe, they happen to be gourmet cooks and wouldn't actually drink much of the stuff. If you give someone alcohol and they don't want alcohol, that can be embarrassing. And if they really like alcohol, well, how would you feel if someone got hurt?

Saturday, December 22, 2007

...and a beer in a tree

Okay, I saw something like this in the store this week.

So that's just about perfect if this is your favorite Christmas song.

I wouldn't say it was my favorite Christmas song, and of course I do not consume alcohol, but a beer in a tree is really funny. So now you can have ten beers in a tree.

Of course, I do not have beer in my tree. Actually, right now I didn't even put up the tree. But the weird things that are usually in my tree are spaceships.

This guy has a cool tree. Mine is not so cool, even when I put it up. I'm cheap, so I only have about six Hallmark ornaments, and half of those were gifts. I get to see a tree very much like this at a friend's house. But I don't know this guy, he just had cool tree pictures on his blog.


Friday, December 21, 2007

An unpleasant jump-start for your diet

1. Skip lunch, or wait a suitable period after lunch before going to the theater

2. In the afternoon, go see the new movie Sweeney Todd

3. Don't eat anything after you've seen the movie Sweeney Todd

4. Later, still don't eat anything. After seeing that movie, this should not be difficult

5. This may last a while. To prevent actual starvation, drink some broth and/or some vitamin water



If you are not on a diet, going out after the movie and having a stromboli is still a bad idea.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Sorry I haven't been around much lately

Let's see. I was busy with school stuff until about Thursday afternoon. Then, after a bit of a rest, I was busy with club stuff until Monday. Friday we went to see I Am Legend, and Monday we went to see The Golden Compass. I haven't been able to blog about either, because my husband has two weeks off and spends all of his time on the computer. I have started several posts about other things, but I never get to finish them.

The club charity thing went okay. I'll have to post about that later too.

Despite making a serious effort to clean and straighten things up around here, a day and a half later, the Halloween stuff is still out in the hallway.

However, the mini outlet center of Bath & Body Works is a bit more organized. Or, at least, there are no more bags of the stuff in the bedroom. Three items went into the official club gift exchange, two items so far went into the unofficial gift exchange, and several more items have been wrapped or bagged to be given out later. That leaves one item that still needs to be wrapped, about ten items that need to be moved to a better looking bag, and a number of leftover items that have been moved to the back room. We might have a clearance sale on eBay after Christmas.

Do to a lot of misunderstandings and supply problems at school, the teacher decided to just drop everyone's lowest grade. Therefore, I ended up getting an A instead of the earlier agreed on B, despite the fact that I missed an entire project while I went out of town for two weeks. Also, my second glass project has probably been fired by now, though I don't expect to see it until sometime in January. I've decided to not even ask about it. I have other things that I should be doing.

The family dinner thing was supposed to be earlier this month, but I told my mom that the best day for me was the 8th. By the time everyone else checked to see if the 8th was good for them, my husband had to go out of town that week and would have been driving back home late on the 8th. So the 8th was dropped. Most of the other weekend dates meant that I would have to drop some club thing. The 9th might have worked, but I guess that didn't work for someone else. So the next date was the 16th, which meant I'd have to cancel something important, but not as important as the 15th or the 31st, so okay. After thinking about it some, mom decided that it did not absolutely have to be on a weekend, as long as my husband and my brother-in-law were not going out of town then, and they weren't, so the 17th was scheduled. My sister got sick on the 17th. Mom suggested maybe waiting til after Christmas, and I suggested the 27th. The dinner has been rescheduled again and is now partially replacing the Christmas Eve plans. That works for me, as long as my sister hasn't already ordered the other food for that evening.

So far as I know, the 23rd is still planned with the only one of my in-laws that my husband still speaks to, and there are no real plans for the 25th itself.

I should blog about all that other stuff later. But that mostly gets me caught up. This last week before Christmas, when I don't have any shopping to do and I should be just wrapping gifts and enjoying the lights and such, I am instead planning to clean house. But I have planned to clean house before, and it rarely gets done.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Monday Morons--Vandalism

If you are eating while reading blogs, you should not read this one right now.

At school we have a main building with the offices and the library and the cafeteria and a swimming pool and most of the classrooms. And then there are some annex buildings on the other side of the parking lot. And then between the main building and the other annex buildings is the art annex building, which is where the ceramic classes and sculpture classes meet. The art annex building has two main classrooms, a big room with ceramic kilns and glass kilns, an office, several closets, a tool room, a saw room, a welding room, several sinks, a water fountain, and a women's restroom and a men's restroom.

These are not big multiple stall restrooms like they have in the main building. These are the kind with one toilet and one sink that you lock behind you when you go in. They are handicap accessible and have hand rails and all of that. Funny that the restrooms are handicap accessible and there are wheelchair ramps, but the classrooms themselves would not be good for someone in a wheelchair. I wonder if we ever got a student in a wheelchair would they build him a new table?

Anyway, there is one women's restroom and one men's restroom. Most of the time, the building is empty. When there is a class there is usually less than twenty people in the building. If there is a ceramics class and a sculpture class going on at the same time, there is usually still less than forty people in the building. For there to be more than forty people in the building there would have to be two classes going on at the same time plus students from another class, visitors, and/or maintenance staff. So the original plan for the building was to only have the one restroom, but people didn't really like that idea. So now there is one women's restroom, and one men's restroom. And if there's maintenance that needs to be done or some emergency, the men could use the women's restroom, or the women could use the men's restroom.

Friday, everyone was using the women's restroom.

The men's restroom was just fine early on Friday morning. At some point after about 9am, someone put shit on the walls. Not graffiti. Literally, shit.

So no one wanted to go in there after that.

Technically, it wasn't our class time. Our teacher was in the building from 9 til 11 and in the afternoon from 1 to 5 for office hours. There were a couple of us around trying to get extra work done, but we're pretty sure that it wasn't one of us. We're pretty sure that it wasn't our teacher, or anybody else's teacher. We're pretty sure that it wasn't a woman. We're pretty sure that it wasn't anyone on the maintenance staff, since they're the ones who would have to clean it up.

I did not go look at it. Someone who did asked "How did they get it up that high?" I don't want know, and I don't want to see it in order to formulate a theory.

One of the maintenance guys teased the teacher that it must have been someone he gave a bad grade that morning. Only it wasn't his class that morning, so he hadn't given anyone a bad grade. It must have been someone in that other class with that other teacher.

Can't imagine doing anything like that, even over a bad grade. Besides, the other teacher is a woman, and vandalizing the men's room isn't going to inconvenience her. Really, the person this is going to annoy the most is the maintenance guy who gets the job of cleaning up the mess. Did someone really do that to annoy the maintenance guys? Even if you hate the maintenance guys, it just can't be worth the risk of getting caught doing something so embarrassing.

The other bit of vandalism I saw was at a neighbor's house yesterday. Someone tossed a concrete support onto her car and broke her windshield. I do not know her very well, and I have no theories on that one.

Friday, December 07, 2007

I did not forget that it is Friday

I should have done a Freaky Friday post this morning. I didn't forget that it was Friday; I was just busy with school stuff. I know that I said I was going to start doing Freaky Friday either once a month or every other Friday, and either way I should have done one today. I didn't, and I'm sorry. I'll try next week, or maybe I'll even try to write one tomorrow.

Technically, all I have to do for class is paint a pumpkin and a dragon. The pumpkin is in the kitchen now, and one of the dragons is in the car. I could just do that and say that I'm done with it on Monday. But two of these dragons are supposed to be Christmas presents, and they're not working out. Not one of them has come out of the mold without breaking pieces off. I've done like eight now. It's just not working with the plaster.

I'm going to give it a couple more tries. There's plaster drying in the molds right now, and I'll cross my fingers for Monday night. After the semester is over I'm going to bring the molds home and try colored cement and possibly that clear acrylic stuff. But the clear stuff is expensive, and you have to buy a special mold-release.

Also I want to put using the harder stuff til later, just in case I can't get it out of the molds.

I originally planned to do the dragons without the high relief. If I had stuck to the original plan, I'd have no problems now. But the teacher said that rubber molds could handle the undercuts, so I tried to recreate the same dragon from last semester.

So it's Friday night, and I am a.) not doing anything fun, and b.) not even working on any art projects. I am mostly just sitting here waiting for my mom to call. Of course, she probably forgot that I said I'd call her back on Friday, and unless something bad has happened she is probably out shopping.

Possibility 1--something unpleasant happened to my sister. Mom called Tuesday when I was out, and it was too late to call her back. She called again on Wednesday, and being that it was only like ten minutes too late to call, I phoned anyway just in case it was important. I thought that it was about the family dinner, which she said it was not. But then she said that she was too tired to get into it, and I said that I'd call her back tonight after I was finished with the school stuff. Still, I'm thinking that if something unpleasant happened to my sister, she would have told me about it regardless of being too tired to get into it.

Possibility 2--something unpleasant has happened to my grandmother. Or rather, something more unpleasant than the usual has happened to grandmother. Grandmother is not getting any younger, so it is never anything pleasant for her anymore. Again, if it was something really bad, she probably would have told me.

Possibility 3--something unpleasant and totally unexpected has happened to someone else. Now that really is something she probably would have told me about before now.

Possibility 4--the same old stuff with grandmother, and would I consider taking a job helping out grandma?

Well, no, I would not consider taking a job helping out grandma. Not if there's anyway out of it. About three years ago, mom talked me into this "job." I didn't want to do it then. I wanted a job, but I wanted a real job with more money and insurance and such. But my mom talked me into it, and right after I agreed to do it, the "job" offer did not actually result in a "job". They'd have to talk about it some more, and she couldn't tell me the schedule so I could make other plans to maybe take an art class, etc.... I needed the money at the time, but I still didn't really want to do it even then. I was afraid I wouldn't know what to do in an emergency, and I didn't want to have to lift her if she fell down, and if I got hurt on the "job" I wouldn't have insurance and workman's-comp, etc....

I had all of those reasons not to take the "job" then, and those are still valid reasons now. I don't want to do it. I don't want any commitments right now, other than school. I really don't want that much of a commitment, but if I didn't go to school right now, I'd go crazy. And school is something I can get out of whenever I want. I don't know how I'd get out of this "job" if it just wasn't working out for me.

So I'm afraid that is what my mom wants to talk about. I've already said that I wasn't interested, I don't think so, and all the other polite things that I say when I don't want to do something. I hate to have to say anything else. I really do not want to have another conversation about this, and I especially do not want to have this conversation now, during the last week of the semester, and right before Christmas and birthdays and all of that.

I should not be greedy and worry that she'll get upset and cancel the family dinner, but that is what I'm afraid of.

So I am mostly just sitting here, waiting for my mother to call, possibly to have a conversation that I don't want to have.

I think that I'll go watch Night of the Living Dead DVD or something like that. Won't that put me in a better mood?

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Last official week of art class

Nothing seems to be done. Well, that's not exactly true. The paper things are done, they just need to be framed later for display. The relief of Anubis is done. And the wire dragon is done. But I didn't really care too much for them.

Technically, the first glass sculpture is done, but it's full of holes. I have made a mold for the second one, but I have to wait for everyone else to finish their glass projects to see if there will be enough glass left for me to try again.

There is more drama with the rubber molds. I mentioned something to the professor about using paint-on thick rubber instead of pouring rubber. I was just talking about later, next semester maybe. But he thought it was such a good idea that he ordered some additive and told me to use that on my second mold. And he's making everyone else that hasn't already poured rubber to use this method too. I wanted to try it, just not now, and not on this particular piece. I'm not sure it's going to work with this piece. It's very high relief in places, and it is taking many many coats of "paint." I didn't think it was ever going to get done.

Tomorrow I'll finish that mold and hopefully I can test it Thursday. The first mold isn't working so good. I did the first piece, and the first piece is really just supposed to be a test, and it also helps clean out the mold and such. I'm afraid that the first piece may end up being the best one. I wasn't planning on doing anything with it, but now I'm painting it white to cover up all the smudges of leftover clay. Little pieces of the mold come off every time I use it. And every time I cast plaster in it there are bubbles and/or little pieces of plaster that get stuck in the mold and break off. After my third attempt I decided to give it a rest.

We were also supposed to used this same mold with cement and maybe a resin. But I guess that isn't going to happen either.

My pumpkin is now in the kiln. With luck I can take it home on Thursday and get it painted over the weekend. And with a little more luck I'll get the three extra tiles out and glazed in time to get fired again.

Really, to earn the B I have already agreed to, there isn't much that I have to do. I have to paint that pumpkin, which shouldn't be a problem. I have to finish painting that dragon test piece, which is mostly done except that I would like to find a way to repair a couple of the little pieces that broke off. And I have to finish that artichoke plant, which I am working on at home and should finish today.

But I had thought that I'd get more done. The teacher is offering other students extra credit for making more pieces with their rubber molds and paper molds. Why can't I get extra credit for something? I'd gladly do some extra work. I have been doing extra work all along. Just now the dragon mold is being difficult.

I had meant to use the dragon molds to make a couple of Christmas presents. I may end up just taking a picture of a dragon and wrapping it with a note saying, "I'll make you one of these later."

For some reason I was thinking that next week was the last week of regular classes. Finals week doesn't really count. Your not still supposed to be working on stuff during finals week. But I guess that I will be.