giulini mongrelizing unexceptionally

HAPPY NEW YEAR CARD (my last one I think)

“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.” (Brené Brown

today's obligatory squirrel, this one is glass

In response to the Bruges Triennial’s 2018 theme “Liquid City,” Brooklyn-based architecture and design firm STUDIOKCA designed a 38-foot-tall sculptural whale composed of over five tons of plastic pulled from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The studio, led by Jason Klimoski and Lesley Chang, wanted to address how cities from across the globe are contributing to the waste that has piled up in our oceans—the discarded plastic that is washing up on our shores and endangering and killing marine life.

Amazing, eh?  Wish I could send along all the trash out on our street to be built into something-  probably could build a small skyscraper from all the Amazon boxes sitting in the raining getting floppy.  Trash was supposed to be picked up yesterday but nobody showed.  Now they are hoping for tomorrow.

I got to the studio yesterday-  I know, you think I must be lying but I'm not.  Ollie took an extra long nap and I  just stayed until it was dark and rainy and knew I had to get back.  I had found a top I started back in Wellesley, and if you know this blog I detailed that back in 1999 and 2000 so that's how long the pins have been rusting in it!  Anyway, back in the day I had liked it and thought I may use it as a backup between other pieces.  The whole thing is hand appliqué, before Mistyfuse or Q20 machines so a throwback of sorts.  I had started it as a memorial to the grape arbor that grew on our side porch that I used for jelly every year.  I always knew the grapes were perfect at the point that the whole structure was marauded by overnight raccoon families-  the babies falling off the porch with THUNKS would wake me up so I'd go down to the kitchen and watch them gorging themselves.  I'd get what was left and it was plenty.  Maybe the quilt need s baby raccoon too, we'll see.  But it felt really good to hand appliqué a few more pieces on yesterday.

I also was able to mend a shirt Ollie had stuck his teeth through and run with.  And hem some pants, and cut 6" of a sweater he had also ripped a 1" hole in.  So far things are fixable.  But also pissing me off!