Theresa · Mather

Trying to decide where to see the annular eclipse this afternoon. People were still pouring into town after midnight, since we're the closest town with hotels and restaurants to Kanarraville, the town of 300 that is the "sweet spot" for the eclipse. Never did secure eclipse glasses- we went to get some from the rec center, but you had to complete 10 educational kid stations including face painting, child oriented astronomy lectures and space oriented cookie decorating to get a pair, and even then they ran out before we got there. Every place that was selling them is sold out. So I'm deciding between going to the Parowan Gap petrogylph site (it's a solar and lunar calendar) where they have a presentation and maybe viewing equiptment, or to Kanarraville where they prepared for up to 20,000 people but may get significantly more.

And here's a piece I finished a couple of months ago, acrylic on masonite. It hearkens back to the kid of work I used to do for carousels, at least the signature panel part. I love old advertising and bombast and air ships, so it was fun to do.

Snowflakes are falling but it's too warm for it to stick. Many trees are leafed out for spring already.
Today, I'm optimistically going to try to finish a large commission. Finishing tomorrow is probably more realistic. Then I have a smaller one, and then I need to wrap up my work for May before getting back to doing new work for prints.


I got a fresh turkey on sale so I'm going to prepare achiote butter-basted roast turkey with ancho chili gravy. I roasted extra poblano peppers to also make Two Hot Tamales green rice recipe and homemade refried beans to go with it yesterday. I freely admit that I resorted to use of this book for the green rice and beans, I'm still learning! (That book is worth buying for the chicken with citrus salsa recipe alone.) I managed to find achiote paste at the Mexican market, never used it before but I hear it will dye everything in the kitchen a nice saffron color if I'm not careful.

One day away from finishing another painting for a new print. Then on to commissions.

During my down time, I've been enjoying the randomness of Netflix offerings.

I'm in mid season 3 of Deep Space 9 now.

I'm about halfway through the rather dark Dylan Moran comedy series "Black Books" about a cynical drunken book shop owner and his friends.


Continuing my quotable angry outburst film festival begun with Black Books, I watched "Winnebago Man," a surprisingly good documentary about the "angriest man in the world" from the viral video of the same name. Just like the video, the movie is thoroughly peppered with salty language. He he.

Just finished "Today's Special", a comedy featuring Aasif Mandvi. I'm now very hungry for Indian food, and it's a good long trip up the highway to any Indian restaurant. India Indian. I could probably get Navajo food before I'd hit any Indian if I headed east.

The other thing I watched this weekend was a beautiful four part BBC miniseries of Elizabeth Gaskell's "Wives and Daughters."

Tonight I'll probably finish watching "Rare Exports", a beautifully shot Finnish movie about rural reindeer hunters who fight the ancient evil better known to the world as Santa Claus. (Warning: salty language at end of trailer.) n

When my cats were still young enough to go wildly barreling after toys suspended on strings and did not yet make the game boring by remaining watchfully motionless while only their twitching tails betray that they're even paying attention at all, I bought Beautimouse for them. It was a realistic mouse toy with a squeaker inside attached to a string, with a twig shaped plastic wand to make it easy to fish for cats with. They careened after it, Rusty would leap in the air, Slate would tug on it and growl like a devil cat as if it was real prey and his little kitty life depended on winning it. To distinguish it from their other mouse toys, it was called the Beautimous Mouse. The game started to bore them, so I attached a ribbon to it. Again, it was chased and hunted mercilessly, for a time. At this point, it was known as the Beautimous-Mouse-Ribbon. For obvious reasons, this was shortened to Beautimouse. One day Slate transformed into devil cat, tugged with all his might and the stuffed fabric mouse burst a seam and popped off the string, leaving the squeaker behind. I meant to repair it and put it in the "kitty drawer". Slate figured out that kitty toys, goodies and food were kept in the kitty drawer so whenever it's open he runs over and excitedly looks over the contents before selecting something to abscond with. The ripped Beautimouse was inside for sometime before it got selected since a googly eyed plush caveman with string arms and a red Angry Bird always seemed to catch his eye. But one day Beautimouse was chosen and it remained in the toy cache Slate keeps neatly on the floor, only occasionally swatted at. But then something magical happened. The cats had a stay at a kitty motel which is near fields in the country. The kitty motel has a mouse problem. It's unclear to me whether Slate had a successful real mouse hunt or not, but he seems to know that mice can bite and that one must fling them all around for proper tenderization. When the cats returned home, Slate made straight for Beautimouse and literally beat the stuffing out of it. For hours each day, he beats and flings Beautimouse. He carries it with him from room to room and always knows where it is. He shows it to me. He plays with it in the bathtub twice a day, flinging it at the sides and "killing" it as it slides down. This has been going on for months now. His entire little kitty identity seems to be wrapped up in killing and battering this one toy. It's now a limp scrap of fabric and is losing its fur. One of the black yarn eyes is in the bathtub, the other is frayed and about to come off. Other toys have been offered, even identical new Beautimice with squeakers intact, but they're all just imposters that at best are allowed to sit unplayed with in the toy cache, next to the neglected caveman and friendless angry bird. When I step on the frayed little scrap in the middle of the night , it feels like a bit of limp used kleenex under foot. There's little left but a bit of threadbare fake fur, a frayed tale, shapeless ears and an illegible unravelling tag. I don't know how this will end, I suppose the mouse will disintegrate in the not too distant future. Until then, Slatecat will abuse and beat it into dust, happily trilling and proudly showing it off every chance he gets.