Sushi on the brain

20080304_sushi Click to see this photo's flickr page

The hard thing about coming up with assignments is trying to make sure it can be interpreted universally enough to engage all, or hopefully, most of my students. The fun thing about coming up with assignments is obsessing about them before I actually give the assignment and thinking of ways I'd approach the project, to help out with an example to get them all going. Well, it's fun, except when it's, like, food.

"Tell me your three favorite foods", I sez. "You should be able to do this without thinking. Here, I like ... sushi, jello and cookies". I lied. I said jello because it would be a good challenge to design around. But I do like Jello. I wouldn't list it as high as one of the top three, though. So, anyway, I'm going with sushi. I actually did a sample sketch ahead of class to show our favorite foods as a roughly geometric shapes. We were busy with other things and didn't even get to the geometric shapes part of it all.

So I'm left to ponder my sushi drawing. Sushi.
Why is that one chopstick so bent? Sushi. Sushi. Sushi.

Oh boy, HAD to have sushi...

I grabbed a container, premade at the supermarket. I know, so not authentic. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Who wants to wait at a sushi bar and all the niceties of eating at a restaurant when you really need a sushi fix?

I couldn't even wait to get home. I had to have it. Right there in the car.

Nomnomnom nomnom!

Poppy Angels

20080303_poppyangels Click to see this photo's flickr page

I'm not sure why, but this spring I'm really enjoying watching the poppies bloom. We're hoping to be able to go to the poppy fields at about the right time to see them all... I don't know why, but I have this image in my mind of making poppy angels. You know, like snow angels. My favorite type is bed angels, but I digress.

For whatever reason, I'm just really very happy to see the poppies this year.

Things that Make my Day

Karen gave me this award. There's been a lot of that going on, and it's a nice opportunity to see what blogs inspire other bloggers. Karen says she thinks I'm a philosopher at heart, that I make her think. I didn't intend to; although I've always figured that whatever message - - in words or in art - - is inside of you tends to come out, one way or another. The best is when you find a conduit that works well, even if you stumble upon it, unexpectedly.

It would be really great if I could find a way to make this part of my creativity - the daydreamy pondering of it all - generate money, of course (I'm playing with ideas, trust me). I don't think of philosophers as being content because of the money they make, sadly, and often, I imagine them being content more because they enjoy the wondering and writing about it all, in their fuzzy hand-knit wool sweaters, smoking pipes and going for long walks...

Really, the important thing that I see in the booming of blogs is the telling of stories, and they are all told and compiled in the day-to-day. The daily sketches, the questioning of faith, the yearning to be a parent, quitting a bad habit - the struggle and triumph to be who we are happens in the everyday. There is strength and resilience in the blogs I read; humility, humor, defiance and lots of good humanity. Maybe, Karen, I just have a knack for distilling some of it. Maybe I have the patience or an obsessive need to get it all down. I don't know. All I know is that I'm so glad to know that someone is reading the words. I've suspected that people are just looking for the new photos or drawings, scrolling scrolling scrolling past all the words, rolling both their eyes and mouse scroll wheels. I know it happens.

I enjoy getting the words out as much as getting the drawings on paper. So thanks, Karen, for reading. xoxox. You, and all of you, with your stories, you make MY day.

Do more than exist; live. Do more than touch; feel. Do more than look; observe.
Do more than read; absorb. Do more than hear; listen. Do more than listen;
understand. Do more than think; ponder. Do more than talk; say something. —John
H. Rhoades

Rainbow over Palm Springs

Rainbow over Palm Springs Click to see this photo's flickr page

It's been a very long week for both me and my boo. I don't remember having much of a weekend last week, either. And there's still today left, too. I'm behind on sketching, all sorts of work, garden-tending, cooking, working out, missed yoga this week, behind on getting down thoughts for school and for fun, and behind on sending thoughts to my bloggy buddies. [sigh] I think sometimes that I should rate my posts with the number of times that I sigh.

I'm going to dash out for another appointment, but wanted to leave you with this -
We went out to the desert last Saturday and took some time to get in another long hike, to balance the sense of being there out of obligation with getting something relaxing and rewarding out of it, as well.

We got to see the beginning of what is probably a short blooming season out in Palm Springs - little wildflowers and grasses. I saw one cactus in bloom, as well, and moss. Moss. In Palm Springs. Looked like healthy moss, at that.

More clouds rolled in and it threatened to rain, but we were close enough to a peak that we figured we'd keep going. It never really let loose, and we got to see the rainbow that appeared.



Palm Springs hike Click to see this photo's flickr page

I guess there's plenty to catch up with, but all the same, I'm looking forward to a lazy couple of days (or at least slower) and hope you all have a great weekend.

More about me

I’m so embarrassed. I can tell I've been putzing around way too long when I got tagged to do a “5 Things About Me” post by TWO different people, and then get the “Lists of Four Things About Me” email from two additional people, as well. I’m just trying to be coy; If you keep making me tell you more things about me in these lists, what secrets will there be left to keep? Really, now.

And then, Dianne gave me this award, and it became clear that it would be so terribly ungracious of me to let that sit as well.

Here are a few things you might not know about me yet.

Four jobs I’ve had, that proves that higher education pays:
- Pineapple canner (Dole)
- Census taker
- Toxicology lab tech
- Rocket scientist (moved up the food chain after college, huh? All this, but what I really wanted to be as a kid was a cartoonist).

Four T.V. Shows I watch:
- Man vs Wild
- Mythbusters
- The Dog Whisperer
- 24 (worked through the first three seasons on dvd with my guy)

Four of my favorite foods (no, PB&J is not one of my favorite foods, just happens to be one of the more frequent):
- Sushi
- Cookies
- Zippy's Zip-Pak plate lunch
- Chips and Salsa (nomnomnomnomnom!)

I love college football. Big Ten football. The worst thing about living in LA isn’t having to hear the endless hype about that football team. Ahem. The worst thing is having to hear that football team’s endless, mindless, brass-laden fight song. Over and over and over and over and over and over again (no, I'm not even going to link to the song. Over my dead body).

[Geh! Okay, wait. Let me get that yucky taste out of my mouth. Gaaack-Pf!]

My favorite colors are soft tints of blue-violet and yellow-orange (I'm wondering: What does it say about a person that specifically lists tertiary colors as their favorites?)
Are your eyes tired of all these excessive color changes? Yeah, too much extra html programming for me, too.

Okay. I’m not going to tag anyone to do anymore “Five things” lists (Mr NerdGuru and Mr Mom in FL are going, “Whew”). But I will list a few of the many lovely blogs that I’m visiting often... Besides the people who tagged me in the first place.

- What is love? Love is what you pack into your kid’s lunches, every day. Look at these amazing and terribly cute daily bento lunches that this mom makes for her young’uns. You thought you packed some pretty great brown-bag lunches? OMG. Go look: Bentoblog

- Yes, I love Cute Overload and happiness is indeed a warm puppy. And there’s a certain charm to ICHC, too, but this is even more precious. Love is in the company we keep, which sometimes, is unexpected.

- Love is sharing recipes from your family with the whole wide internet; food that tantalizes the eyes and promises to warm your soul

- Since we're sharing the love, I want to send hugs and warm thoughts to Roma.

Share some love, why don’t you? Let us all know a few blogs that make you smile, inspire you, and fill you with hope, warmth and love.
1. If you get tagged (or, if you just want to play along), write a post with links to blogs that you love,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

Dreamy gardens

I walk in the garden, I look at the flowers and shrubs and trees and discover in them an exquisiteness of contour, a vitality of edge, or a vigor of spring, as well as an infinite variety of color that no artifact I have seen in the last sixty years can rival... each day, as I look, I wonder where my eyes were yesterday. -Bernard Berenson

I spent some time in the library this week to look for books with good reference images of plants, trees, shrubbery ("Bring me a shwubbery!"). To daydream about a future garden. Or to paint. But mostly to daydream (you can imagine this, yes?). Flipping through, I realized that I have gardening books with great photos. And then I realized that I have plenty of really super images (or, nice images of super memories) from a class I took in school. It was an elective, The History of Gardens. There were lectures, but the field trips were the real treat. We toured a number of local Southern California gardens, both private and public. It was just fantastic.

The Lummis Home / El Alisal
The Getty
Huntington Library
Norton Simon
Descanso
Lotusland
Hannah Carter Japanese Garden

One assignment of the class was to keep a garden notebook, with images, trimmings, thoughts from the gardens and notes on several of our design assignments. I found my notebook and flipped through the pictures, thinking, daydreamily, "Oh, now these are what I should paint."

I managed to find and salvage the digital photo files from archive CDs and lookit, it’s just so much fun and so much from a bright sunny Southern California summer, that I had to share.


Click here for the Flickr photo set.

Sending dreamy thoughts of the first bursts of color of spring and the warmth of summer to you all. Have a great weekend. xox -w