To the Bar!

I did a good deed.

I am rewarding myself with a Happy Hour appearance in approximately 30 minutes.

What did I do that merits a bit o' beer in my tummy? (Apart from losing weight and freaking out my physical therapist who prescribed cookies to cure the rapid weight loss?)

I found an iPad. It was on the sidewalk in my apartment complex last night at 9:00 when I went to check my mail. I picked it up and decided I'd turn it into the complex office today.

En route to the complex office, I saw a sign that pointed to approximately where the iPad had fallen, and it listed a phone number to call if anyone found the touchscreen contraption. I called. No one answered. So I left a message and went to physical therapy.

The owner called back, and after I went grocery shopping, I returned the iPad to the incredibly grateful owner, a stunning young Russian woman who hugged the iPad to her chest as if it was a lost child. There are three of them - the young woman, her little sister, and their mother - living in a sparsely furnished two-bedroom apartment.

Still basking in the do-gooder glow, I am taking myself off to Happy Hour at City Tavern.

In the words of Maxminimus: Onwards, to the bar.

Super Subtle Me

My super-duper subtle hinting that I would really really like a needlepoint canvas for Valentine's day paid off.

Super subtle.

So I will receive the one featured on this webpage sometime next week (hopefully). Early Valentine's Day gift. Hooray! Then I'll just have to go buy the wools for it, which will, I'm sure, require me to drive all over the place to find a needlepoint store that isn't the one just down the block (where the ladies are snooty and unhelpful).

Mini road trip!

In the meantime, I'm sitting around, waiting for the other wools I ordered to arrive so I don't have idle hands, which is the title of a 1999 movie starring Seth Green and Devon Sawa (remember him? Huh. He didn't look like that in Casper).

Idle Hands is also the name of a jewelry company that makes mini-harmonica necklaces.

WANT

On the upside, I'm almost finished with the fairy-tale I'm writing. The climax of the story has been reached, and now there's the denouement.

And, yes, I spelled denouement without spell check. Sweet.

And yes, interwebz, you're welcome for providing a wealth of links to bring you traffic. I know you don't get enough of it.

Now, I'm going to go back to listening to Toto and playing Tetris.

Super subtle, super exciting life.

Camels, Needle's Eye, Whatever

"And again I say to you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." --Matthew 19:24

I thought of the quote, not because of my financial situation, or because there are roaming herds of camels in Dallas (but there are in East Texas at the Blazing Saddles Ranch), but because I just ordered the last batch of tapestry wools needed to complete a needlepoint pillow.

I blogged earlier about a needlepoint canvas I will eventually have made into a pillow, one I finished years ago and stowed away, lugging it from apartment to apartment in its unfinished state. Within the month, I will finish another one, also a design by William Morris, on which I've been working for about 3 or 4 years, now.

It is the Hare Tapestry pictured above, and I've thoroughly enjoyed working on it, even if I tend to use more wool than the stitch guide says I should. I use a stitch called the Reverse Basket Weave, which looks exactly like Tent stitching on the front (diagonal stitches leaning to the right), but on the back looks like - you guessed it! - basket weaving. It provides a sturdier base for the canvas than other stitches and helps to hold the canvas' shape through repeated rollings and crumplings.

Unfortunately, the store where I originally purchased my canvas and tapestry wools is no longer in business. It was run by a wonderfully diminutive family, all of whom - husband and son included - needlepointed. They were the only shop in Dallas that carried the particular type of wools I prefer, Appleton Tapestry wools, which Queen Elizabeth II favors. They were also the only shop in Dallas where, when I underwent chemotherapy, the patrons did not comment on my odd appearance, and welcomed me with open arms because I was a fellow stitcher, bald head or no.

After my little needlepoint shop went out of business, I tried going to another shop, but the employees were frankly unhelpful, and I did not go back.

I cannot find any other shops in Texas that sell my Appleton Tapestry wools via internet, and so I ordered them from Carbondale, Illinois. Hopefully, I will have them within a week so I can continue stitching up a storm.

But once finished, my hands will be idle, and I'll have to find another piece of needlework. I have a few ideas - possibly turning one of my own photographs into a needlepoint pillow, which would be a mountain of work - but the biggest impediment at present is cost.

A good quality needlepoint canvas usually costs at least $100 (for a 12"x12" canvas), and the really nice ones are in the $200+ range, and neither of those numbers includes the cost of the wools, which can put the total cost well over $400 by the time all is said and done.

I found a website with absolutely beautiful canvases for sale, http://www.artneedlepoint.com/. I like it because it isn't cluttered with cutesy teddy bear needlepoints or Precious Moments kits. Most of its needlework is based on artists' works - Paul Klee and Edgar Degas both make appearances - or they're designed by the likes of Elizabeth Russell, whose name sends stitchers' hearts a flutter.

Anyway, I've found about twenty canvases I'd like to own, but they will undoubtedly have to wait until I'm employed, at the very least, or until one of the random holidays my mother celebrates by lavishing gifts upon my sister and I rolls around.

My mother has always been amazingly generous, celebrating Valentine's Day and Easter with the same exuberance she puts into Christmas, albeit on a smaller scale.

Or perhaps I'll cobble together something of my own design from the wools I have left from previous projects.

Breakfast! Get Yer Breakfast!

I have had, recently, a yen for breakfast foods (particularly if they're wrapped around Justin Timberlake, as seen at left).

Part of this is related to the ever-present nausea I have, which makes me want to eat sweet things, like ice cream. Alas, woman cannot exist on ice cream alone, and so I decided that cereal would be an excellent addition to my daily diet, what with all that fiber, the milk that gives me calcium, and the fact that they're mostly fortified.

Last night, though, I had a hankering for pancakes.

I rarely want pancakes. Usually when I crave breakfast foods, it involves multiple rashers of thick-sliced applewood bacon, with maybe a side of cinnamon toast.

But no, I needed pancakes, so I decided to make them.

I tend to forget that I am not particularly adept at the art of pancake-making. They tend to be black on one side, and perfectly golden brown on the other. But is that a globule of undissolved flour in the middle? Huh, yes it is. Ew.

I managed to make five tiny edible pancakes (out of a batch of 12, mind you), and thought my craving for batter-based breakfast foods was at an end.

I was so wrong. So very very wrong.

Today, at the grocery store, I decided to buy some frozen waffles. So now, I have three frozen waffles awaiting their turn in the oven. There is one thing that alarms me, however: the waffles I bought are whole-grain, so they're a dark tan color. The directions tell me to cook them until golden brown.

They're already golden brown.

So does this mean Cook until a dark umber color or Cook until deep sepia? I suppose I'll find out once I've cooked them. For no less than 10 minutes, otherwise there is apparently some dire circumstance awaiting me. Any less than 10 minutes, and they won't be edible, according to the packaging.

These waffles will self-destruct in less than 10 minutes.

"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz

I just finished reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Wow.

It won a Pulitzer Prize, so you know it's got to be pretty good. And it was funny, sometimes, but at other times heartwrenchingly sad.

Synopsis: Oscar Wao is a Dominican emigrant living in the northeast (okay, I can't remember if it's Jersey or New York... details) and he is everything a Dominican lad is not supposed to be: hopeless when it comes to the ladies, obese, and waaaaay into sci-fi and fantasy novels and games. This is a boy who eats, sleeps, and dreams Dungeons and Dragons, who was once a 7 year old Lothario but lost his game, and whose only two friends - both Grade-A nerds like himself - are ashamed of how nerdy Oscar is.

The book isn't narrated by an omniscient God, but is told by several different people: Oscar's sister Lola, Lola's boyfriend (who took pity on Oscar and roomed with him in college) and another narrator whose identity I never quite pinned down. Oscar's family history is divulged - his grandfather's persecution by Trujillo and his mother's horrifying fate following the family's breakup - and the various relationships he has with those family members is discussed at length, but always through the eyes of someone else.

The book is breathtaking, and a bit of sci-fi/fantasy knowledge is helpful because bits of Tolkien and Lovecraft are discussed. The book wrestles with Oscar's identity: no longer Dominican, but also not like the other Dominicans living in the U.S.

I bought my copy of the book at Half Priced Books, because there were four paperback copies marked between $8.00 (pristine) and $5.00 (looked the same as the $8.00), and I scooped up the $5.00 copy.

I forgot to check to see what on earth could have led to the book being marked so cheaply, and then began reading. Oscar Wao is laced with bits of Dominican slang and snippets of Spanish, and the reader before me appears to have had the same grasp of the Spanish language that I have:

We know just enough to know when to be offended.

The harmless words that translate to "wicked" and "disgusting" are underlined with abandon, and the translations are penciled into the margins. The curse words, however, are all left alone.

It's like we were separated at birth! Or, at least, at the end of college.

The book does not have a happy ending, but it's also not completely a sad ending. Oscar takes a stand, and he suffers for it, but he also reaches new heights of ecstasy, both physical and spiritual. He is, by the book's end, changed in both mind and body, and I couldn't help but be happy for him. Throughout his wretched life, he let the things he wanted slip away, but at the end, he took what he wanted and he was blissfully happy, if only for a short time.

Oscar isn't an entirely lovable character. I wanted to shake him, several times (and did, in fact, find myself jerking the book around, as if Oscar could feel my frustration), but his faults are what make him so endearing as a character.

And no, his last name is not Wao: it's an in-joke that I didn't learn the meaning of until midway through the book, and then I couldn't help but smile, despite the fact that the nickname "Wao" is meant as a bullying tease to Oscar.

Oscar Wao is a wonderful book, and is truly wondrous, but it's also not for someone who wants a "feel good" book to read. There are no tidily wrapped up murders with jokey detectives, and no "happily ever after," but I'm glad I read it, all the same.

(The picture is the author's photo from the book cover; I think he's wearing makeup)

Keep Your Hand Out for Handouts

Yesterday, I called the billing office for a consortium of doctors that doesn't negotiate with insurance companies.

(Just FYI, if you go to the ER at and Texas Health Resources hospital, you will get a $450 charge on top of your insurance ER copay. Or, if you're me, you'll get two of them, on the same day, along with a charge for $200 from the hospital for one of those ER visits. Aaaaaaand I'm unemployed. Neat!)

The upshot of the telephone conversation I had with the lovely lady from billing is that I'm supposed to call the hospital, and, since I'm unemployed now, they might be able to help me out. As in, they might wipe out my hospital bills, since I'm considered indigent and all that.

Or they might just reduce the bill.

Bear in mind, she also might have told me that just to get the crying girl off the phone. Who knows?

I sent an email to the Business Office - a.k.a. the Gimme Money Department - and I was supposed to have heard from them by 5:00 today. It didn't happen. So I will have to call them tomorrow to ask if I can pretty pretty please apply to their indigent care program for those two visits to the ER back in December - at which time I was not receiving a paycheck, mind you. I haven't received one since the end of November.

If the hospital says, "Oh, okay, you poor widdle thing, we'll forgive the debt" then the third party billing office will also forgive the debt.

And that would be sweet.

"Stealing the Mystic Lamb" by Noah Charney

I recently finished reading a book entitled Stealing the Mystic Lamb. It's about the Altarpiece of Ghent, a.k.a. the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, and its past.

FASCINATING!

The Mystic Lamb is the most stolen artwork of all time, having been stolen 14 times since its painting by Jan van Eyck in the 15th Century. In addition to being considered the first painting of the Renaissance (eat your heart out, Michelangelo) and the last painting of the Middle Ages, it was considered to have miraculous properties. None of this "healing the sick" nonsense, though. Oh, no. Supposedly, it would lead scholars/treasure-hunters to not only the Holy Grail (where Eric Idle would greet them, undoubtedly), but also to the Crown of Thorns, the True Cross, the spear (can't remember its fancy-schmancy relic name) and much much more!

I read a review of the book in The Economist and thought it sounded interesting. Interesting in a possibly dull kind of way, but hey, it would look good on my bookshelves, right?

It reads like a frickin' John Le Carre thriller! You have American mobsters (no, not joking here), German Resistance fighters, spies, corrupt churchmen, and the mystery of whether Jan van Eyck actually painted the thing, or if his brother should be credited with it.

I couldn't put it down, particularly once the book reached the part where the Altarpiece was in Nazi hands, being stored in a salt mine in the Austrian Alps, and these American special forces espionage types were trying to reach it before a crazy Nazi officer could blow it up.

It was so exciting, I had to tell somebody about it. So I regaled Major Tom with the story.

He's not as into art history as I am, but he thought the battle sequences were pretty riveting.

At this point, I can't wait to reread it, and I only finished it on Saturday. It's that kind of book! If you're looking for an exciting, informative read that will give you fantastic conversation for cocktail parties, then read it. If not, read it anyway.

That amazing.