Theresa · Mather

Between the Snake River Farms Berkshire pork Basque chorizo I had for lunch and the ancho chili chicken a la Too Hot Tamales I made for dinner, I have an amazing case of heartburn in spite of three maximum strength Tums. The bright-as-day moonlight streaming through the windows doesn't help in the sleep department much either. On the non-moon related bright side, I wouldn't have discovered the parody infomercials Adult Swim is running were I not awake at this hour. Between Icelandic Ultra Blue's "jingle contest" and the cash-for-Nazi-gold bit, I at least am amused.

(LOL spell check doesn't recognize the word "chorizo" and wants me to change it to chorus, chores, Chrissy, Shiraz, Cherie, shores or Cheril's.... and suggests anchor,inch, Sancho, arch, ache, echo or Manchu as what I really meant by "ancho" yet it still can't solve the your/you're there/they're/their bear/bare dilemma. Ain't this stupid world of invasive and time-wasting technology we all use like it's some kind of virtue grand? heh heh)

This morning it's finally time. Yesterday, Miss Kitty followed her regular routine as best she could, waiting for me to get up outside my door, meowing when I took too long, waiting for me to get dressed, escorting me to the food bowl, sleeping in her usual places. This morning she can only stagger a few feet and then collapse, and she's tried to eat but really can't. She purrs when I pet her, but she's in a stupor.
I tried to make an appointment at her vet to have her put to sleep so she didn't have to suffer and they said they are booked today and then the vet is going on vacation. I managed to get an appointment for this afternoon at the other veterinary clinic which I have never been to, but I don't know if she'll make it that late. Hopefully she'll just fall asleep today and not wake up, that would be better than taking her to a strange vet in a place she doesn't know.
I am angry that her vet couldn't fit her in, and I'm sad to be losing my 20-years-plus special and mischievous kitty.

(The picture is from January.)

One of the crapiest and suckiest parts of having a pet is the end. Miss Kitty has put up a valiant fight, surviving cancer for a year and a half at least at the venerable age of twenty-something. Even after she had the tumors removed in January and they gradually came back, she's been a regular little Energizer bunny. The last couple of weeks things have started to go down hill. She eats and eats but her already slight weight has been falling away until she's bony. She quit grooming months ago and as her fur gets so matted it can't be brushed out, I've trimmed away the clumps so she's missing her lush fur ruff. Today, for the first time, she couldn't make it up the stairs. This afternoon when she came stalking after my lunch, her daily habit since she's been spoiled with people food since becoming ill, she couldn't jump onto the couch and I had to give her a plate of her own on the floor. She's spending the day looking off into space on a blanket on the floor. She doesn't seem to be in pain, which has made deciding whether or not to put her to sleep harder- so long as she's been willing to fight so hard to live, I haven't wanted to just stop her short. She may just go on her own now, it certainly won't be long. I guess I may have to make a choice very soon about if it's time to have her put to sleep. I really hate this part of having pets.

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is much closer to us than the more frequently visited South Rim, so it's where we go most often. It's higher than the South Rim, and heavily forested. The lodge closes for the year on October 16 although the park stays open until the snow seals it in for the winter, or November 30, whichever comes first. We decided to get a final visit in before the lodge closes.
At this time of year, we were expecting autumn color. We never expected to see the elusive park buffalo, which used to keep to the back country, yet there some were right past the park gates. Judging by the number of "chips", they come to this field frequently.

We saw lots of animals, including about 40 wild turkeys, grouse, deer and a rare kaibab squirrel, which is a large charcoal grey squirrel with a black belly and white tail.The regional deer population is teeming- we saw tons of them all the way back from the park.
( More pictures, clicky here )

I try to take good care of my books, really I do.
But my poor cookbooks are so sadly abused. Not in a grandly reckless manner like the person I read about who set her Julia Child book on fire by accident when flambeing something (Julia would be proud). No, my cookbooks die the death of a thousand grease spots. Their spines are fractured so they open to my favorite recipes. Did you know that dried red chilis, when rendered into sauce, leave saffron colored streaks across paper? That pages become translucent when infused with enough grease? Splatters and spice flecks and sauce stains and warping from wine and steam and wet fingers, little bits of adhered papery garlic skin, I make a mess of the poor things. I set a plate with a sticky bottom down last night on the "Pork Chile Verde" page of my Two Hot Tamales book "Mexican Cooking for Dummies" (amazingly delicious recipe by the way)and lifted the words right off the middle of the page when I lifted the plate. I felt awful... poor book! (though the recipe, amazingly, is still useable.) I just put more cookbooks in my Amazon "to buy" list and I feel guilty. I'm just going to abuse the heck out of them. I keep telling myself "that's what they're for" but part of me thinks maybe I'm just a hopelessly messy cook. Oh well, as long as the results are delicious, I guess that's just the price I (or rather my poor besmeared and fractured cookbooks) will just have to pay.

I signed up for Netflix again now that I'll be home for awhile to actually use it. It's been months since I spent much time watching TV except when I'm winding down late at night, so there's a lot saved up that I want to see.

So far, I've rented:
"Persepolis" which I enjoyed, having read the graphic novel.

"Night at the Museum", which was enjoyable and fun. The script was written by two of the guys behind Reno911, which I think is pretty funny. I thought their commentary track was extra amusing.

Waiting to be watched is "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", which I haven't seen in years. The song "Comedy Tonight" has been running through my head for weeks, sung by Zero Mostel of course. If you want to experience not getting the song out of your head too, click here.

I watched the first episode of season 1 of the video version of "This American Life" courtesy of the streaming video service part of Netflix. I had heard the radio version of one of the stories, "If By Chance We Meet Again" on NPR before. It was amazing how my mental pictures from listening to the radio version differed from the actual visual ones. For instance, I pictured the tame bull in the story, Chance, to be a regular large bull. But he was actually an enormous Brahma bull, which was even more surreal considering his docility.

Also on streaming video were the first 3 episodes of the 1970 BBC production of the Six Wives of Henry the 8th. I need to watch the rest now. The BBC drama impressed me in that it left you sympathetic to each wife, which is kind of a feat because often things are either pro Anne Boleyn or anti Anne Boleyn, which leaves you either liking or not liking Catherine of Aragon or Jane Seymore. Personally, I'm partial to Anne Of Cleves. I also watched "The Other Boleyn Girl", which wasn't historically accurate but was more accurate than the novel.

I have also come to the conclusion that were I to have to choose between dating any of the members of Dethklok, I would probably have to pick Toki Wartooth

I enjoyed the first segment of Ken Burn's "National Parks: America's Best Idea" although since I live so close to several of them and go quite often, I do have something to add. Many of the parks out this way are jammed with tourists so it's difficult to get the zen like serenity and communing with nature that was being discussed unless you are flexible about the times you go or are willing to really hike.
For me, observing the behavior of tourists is half the fun (warning, gross generalizations ahead)- for instance, New Yorkers somehow invariably find each other at the viewpoints and loudly discuss New York and which Cirque Du Soleil they're going to see in Las Vegas. I think their brains must overload when they're out of their matrix or something, so they need to verbally recreate it. Germans expect you to get out of their way on trails, even if you would have to jump down a thousand foot cliff to accommodate them. I could go on with the data from my informal research and observations of tourists in their natural habitat, but I'll spare the details.
I do worry about people falling into the Grand Canyon sometimes when they try to get the perfect photo (one of the primary reasons it happens, actually).
I have thought about doing a project where I take a shot of a person taking a picture at a park, then ask them if they could send me the image they took and show them side by side. People are often so busy taking pictures and trying to get the ultimate shot that they seem to primarily see the parks through their camera or phone. One night, I watched a sunset from the north rim of the Grand Canyon at the lodge balcony, glass of wine in hand as a huge clump of people with cameras followed the sunset across the porch, some of them using flash. None of them actually looked at or witnessed the sunset- they were shoving and jockeying for best position as there were clicks and flashes akin to a paparazzi stalking. It was hilarious in a kind of sad way.
But then there's another time where an elderly man approached the canyon rim, found that he could see nothing because it was filled with clouds, asked my friend if she thought it was going to clear up and then started to weep because he thought he wasn't going to be able to see it. There was a story there, I'm sure.
Then there are moments that transcend the horrible Xanterra lodge food and the crowds. It was a totally clear morning though it had rained the night before. As the sun rose and heated things up, tendrils of mist began to appear rising from the rocks and they whirled gently into clouds. In about a half hour it went from totally clear to completely cloudy, and the clouds were all formed right there. It really didn't matter that the New Yorkers next to me were loudly discussing the merits of Cirque Du Soleil O vs. Cirque Du Soleil Zumanity, it was pretty darned cool.

We took a drive this afternoon up the mountain. Although the autumn color hasn't reached down to 6000 feet altitude in our town, there's plenty of it higher up. The highest peaks in the area hit around 11,000 feet.
This is the road up the mountain you can see from my front window.

Another view from the road up Cedar Mountain, looking toward the top where the altitude is 8700 feet.

This type of lovely plant is my nemesis each autumn. It's called rabbit brush, it's everywhere, and it makes clouds of pretty yellow pollen that make my eyes water continuously when it blooms in fall. Sure is pretty though.

Here I am walking at the top of a lava cliff up on the plateau at the top of the mountains. The peaks are all very high in altitude, but the effect at the top is rolling hills punctuated by evidence of volcanic eruptions. In the summer, ranchers graze sheep and cattle in the rolling hills er...mountaintops, taking them down the mountain later in fall to winter at lower altitudes. We saw several stags and lots of mountain bluebirds today up here.

The prevailing regional color once autumn sets in is golden yellow because of the aspens and cottonwoods and rabbit brush.

These pictures show the early colors. The gambel oaks and many of the aspens haven't even started to change yet. Barring a storm blowing in at the wrong time and taking down the leaves, I hope to make several more trips to this and other local areas to see lots of autumn color before everything turns grey for the winter, which I'm totally not ready for. It's not going to be long now till my own deciduous trees start to turn.

No fall colors yet, but I can see them higher up on the mountainside. It may be time for a fall color viewing drive. Summer is exiting like it entered- cool, and with frequent clouds and rain. We didn't really have much of a summer- I didn't take the lighter winter blankets off the bed until June and I'm thinking about putting them back on already.

I baked a loaf of brown potato bread, it just came out of the oven, so the house smells like baking bread. I had to call Barry to corral dumb kitty who seemed intent on jumping into the hot lower oven when I tried to take it out. Silly cat! Since she has had cancer and needs to eat, I've been sharing people food with her and now she knows it tastes better than cat food. So she's way too interested in anything connected to people food. I thought when she had the tumors removed in January, she wouldn't live very long after that. But it's getting to be fall and she's still here, now with a huge appetite for lunch meat, steak, pork chops, pudding, cheese, mayo, roast beef, salad dressing, cake and chicken. And she's pushy and whiny about it too! The interest in bread seems to come from the newly acquired knowledge that lunch meat and bread are often connected, so if you're handling bread kitty starts to get in front of your feet to force you to pay attention while she says MAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUU over and over.

Cat wrangling isn't all there is on my to-do list today. I'm reframing some pieces for a friend, finishing the small originals for October and getting a commission ready to send today.

Yesterday I got a large frame order in, so sorting and putting away things was the order of the day. I selected a few to reframe some paintings I think would look better framed differently. So I intend to clean up loose ends today and tomorrow so I can forge ahead finishing the year's work. I think dinner at Ninja Japanese Steakhouse would be a good way to celebrate finishing 2009! Of course it's just a symbolic goal, because I'll begin work for 2010 the very next day.

We had a fun getaway to Casa Blanca yesterday. In Mesquite, Nevada, that is. There was an annual wine tasting event called CasaVino at the Casa Blanca casino/ resort. Lots of people from Utah poured over the border, and many came in out of the Nevada heat to enjoy the products of 50 wineries, mountains of cubed cheeses, piles of fresh fruit and some truly delicious baguettes and crackers. It was a paltry $25 per person, and even better, it was for charity. For that price you got a free etched wine glass and all the delicious stuff you could handle. It was fun to try wines that I had seen on the shelves but not wanted to spring for just to try. But I kept finding myself wandering over to the Japanese wine section. I hadn't had some of the fruit infused sparkling sakes before. Star Rabbit sparkling blueberry was just yummy. Also delicious were the Hana lychee and fuji apple sakes. I don't remember all the brands and types but I'd recognize the labels (a lady in a kimono was doling out Ty-Ku sake bombs by the time I thought to look.) It was surreal seeing that many intoxicated people so close to the Utah border. We stayed at the Casa Blanca, which is a nice inexpensive resort. We tried the liquor stores in Mesquite looking for the fruit sakes the next morning, but no luck. I know that there is zero chance the Utah government would have such a thing in the state stores (communists!). So next trip to Vegas, I'll be on a treasure hunt looking for delicious fruit infused sake!
As at many charity events, there was an auction. But hardly anyone was bidding...so we came away with a Yellow Tail monogrammed Weber grill, a Gnarly Head monogrammed Smoky Joe and a shiny new monogrammed Geyser Peak rice cooker. All for charity! Woooo! A friend got a great Yellow Tail basketball hoop set with pole!
This was a fun event, and relatively inexpensive. I think we'll put it on the calendar for next year!

Still more new stuff in my online shop!

There's a new cactus dragonfly print, "Bonker Hedgehog Cactus Dragonfly!" Yes, that is the name of an actual type of cactus. Did I choose it because of the funky name? Partly! But mainly I liked the purple color of the flowers.

Also in the shop are a couple of unusual larger paintings on stone. I don't do a whole lot this size, and they both have fancy mats to set them off.
The Challenge and Sunbow.

The original of Bonker Hedgehog Cactus Dragonfly is also available but not currently listed in the shop.

Fall comes early at 10,000 feet, but as of yesterday it's still hanging somewhere between summer and autumn a 15 minute drive from my house.
This is a view overlooking Zion National Park (in the distance) through ancient bristlecone pines that cling to the more inhospitable heights:

Here's a view of Cedar Breaks National Monument:

These berries were quite striking in appearance, but anything that draws that much attention to itself yet isn't eaten by animals is probably poisonous. Deer will eat anything that isn't toxic, including all my daylilies and chives. So if they didn't eat these, they must be pretty awful.

Today we added yet more goodies to my online shop.

Fire Dragon Flies is double matted to 11x14. It's been out for a few months but somehow didn't get put in the shop.

Next up is a brand new print, just finished in July. It's called "Silver Guardians" and is also double matted as shown to 11x14 inches.

We also put six of my T-shirt designs in the Merchandise section of my shop. These are high quality shirts printed by Offworld Designs. Some of them feature art that has long been sold out as prints, and even some that never was made as a print! Higher Learning features my very own calico Miss Kitty, diligently helping out by keeping the books from flying away. Miss Kitty also stars in another of the shirt designs.

I'm behind in listing my newer prints in my online shop, so I'll do it in stages.
New to the shop are 8 new mini prints and one 8 by 10. Hold your breath, cat fans because 5 of the nine pieces feature KITTIES! There are two fairies and two dice stealing gamer dragons to round out the mix.
The three pictured here are matted to 5x7 inches, and are limited editions of 250, available for $10 each. The originals of all three of these as well as some of the others featured in the shop are still available.
Winter Fairy. She has a genuine Austrian crystal, and so does her wolf. Autumn is also available. The other two seasons have yet to be painted.

Saving Throw! Will he roll the dice, or run off with it? A companion piece with a 6 sided die is also available.

Foxglove, featuring my own kitty (the front part, not the fairy part), Miss Kitty! She also comes with an Austrian crystal in her necklace. There is an equally toxic companion, Henbane. these two go with the earlier prints Belladonna and Nightshade.

Also, I'm reaching the end of several of my print runs including Mischief, Amethyst and Leading The Way, so if you've thought about getting them, you should grab them either at a con or here on the site in the near future. Mischief in particular is all but gone (only 3 left) and will be pulled from the shop shortly.