I was resisting my natural urge to set up a blog over at OrbiZart. I just didn’t want another blog to dote on and really wanted my art web site to be something more static and “gallery-like”. I haven’t found a way to do that yet that satisfies me completely, but I’m coming into another really active stage, and I’d like not to make this web site too bandwidth heavy with tons of images all the time.

So, with that said … I am going to give into my urge to set up a blog over at OrbiZart and make it the home of all my artsy craftsy pursuits. Years of working to integrate all my web sites into one web site, and once I finally accomplish that, I start tearing peaces off it again. Entropy in action, yes?

It’s a good thing, for now. Eventually I want a more static art site, but Just Orb has to rebirth it’s old sister sometime, and it might as well be now. Having to categorize things in blog format may give me some ideas of how I want to do the rest of the web site, and I used to have visitors that were only interested in the artsy stuff and couldn’t care less about cat poo at 3 am or crazy ladies with brooms wandering down my street. I’d like to let them enjoy it in peace.

Provided there’s nothing worth watching on TV and I can’t gain control of the living room in order to play a video game, I might just work on it tonight … though I need to get to sleep soonish, if I am going to make it down to the Blanton for cereal and cartoons in the morning.

I’ve been playing around with Bryce … getting used to using the program again, because as soon as there is a Mac sitting on my desktop, I’m getting back into 3D art. I miss it, but my computer is such a slow dullard (that crashes at least 6 times a day), it gets annoying trying to do anything too intensive on it.

Still a work in progress, but it’s pretty enough to show off.

Just a little something for your desktop … some fresh fractal flowers for Spring!

The quality of humans living in Austin has gone way the hell down the last ten years. It’s now to the point where I almost can’t tolerate living here for the sheer number of ignorant, uncultured and downright stupid morons that call my city home. Want some examples of what I mean? All you have to do is read the comments on today’s News 8 Poll concerning the opening of the Blanton Museum. Not only do many of them seem to just hate art in general, they aren’t even aware enough of what the museum is or how it came to be to know they didn’t have a damn thing to do with paying for its collections or construction. Yeah, no taxes were used, so stop your griping. We’d never expect the unwashed and art-hating masses to contribute to anything more cultural than a new baseball stadium or horse racing track.

This museum is a big deal for Austin. We went from having one small modern art museum downtown and a few dark floors at UT to show off the Blanton’s collection to having the largest university art museum in the USA. Hell, even the New York Times is talking about it!

Will I visit the museum more than your average Austinite? Quite likely, seeing as I am an artist, and I love art. Do I ever go to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum? No. I have a pretty firm grasp of Texas history, have been to one too many Texas history museums, and I find them incredibly boring. But did I complain when my tax dollars went to the construction of the new Texas history museum here? No. It’s good for the city, the state, and the local schools … and the tourists seem to love it. So what right so the local art-haters have to gripe about a museum they had no part in building, art going to have to pay for and don’t have to go visit if they don’t want to be exposed to anything more cultural than NASCAR or Starbucks? None whatsoever. Shut up and ignore it, you artless heathens!

I really am starting to hate this town. It used to be such a wonderful artsy, musical, fun-loving city full of culture on every corner. Now it’s getting full of people with tiny brains griping about things they can’t even bother to inform themselves about before complaining … and they want to suck all the fun and color out of life in Austin. This is what happens when you get listed on too many of those “Best Places to Live” lists and unhappy people from all over the country move here, and then try to turn their new home into an exact replica of whatever it was they left behind … and then they still aren’t happy.

I got hit with a migraine yesterday. Not surprising considering the stormy weather than keeps rolling through … and some extreme levels of stress on top of it. So the only interesting thing that happened yesterday was spending over an hour on the phone teaching my mom The Lord’s Prayer in High German. For the record, this is an ill-advised activity for when one has a migraine. Of course, there wasn’t much else to do around here Friday, what with the electricity in our neighborhood popping off and on whenever it felt like it. Apparently an actual storm is no longer necessary to screw up our electrical supply. Nope, now all it takes is the threat of storm.

The head is a little better today. Once I finish the last of the greasy dishes and feed the household, I’m going to take something and go back to bed for a while. After all, it’s the weekend, the Blanton Museum is opening, and I’ll be damned if I am going to let something like head pain keep me from enjoying that! I’ve been waiting for months and months! I’d like to go tonight and catch some of the musical groups that are playing, but if that doesn’t pan out, my plan is to head over there at 5 am for cereal, juice and cartoons. How often do you get to sit in beanbags eating sugary-sweet cereal while watching the cartoons of your youth in a huge art museum? Never! That’s why it’s imperative that I partake of this opportunity. I’m trying to convince Lin to join me at 8 am for coffee and donuts, and then maybe we can hang out until the ribbon cutting at noon. It’ll be a long day, but there’s plenty to do and look at, so I bet the time flies.

Of course this is all dependent on whether or not my head ceases to feel like exploding. At the very least, I’m going for the ribbon cutting and lawn party afterwards … and I will be dragging Lin along, kicking, screaming and in leg irons if necessary. The boy is going to experience some culture, and that’s all there is to it.

The natives are getting restless, and everyone’s got grumbling tummies. I better finish up those dishes soaking in the sink and whip up a batch of French Toast … and cat food for the four-legged critter.

Is it the weekend yet? Is it? ‘Cause I am really ready for it to be the weekend. Not that weekend days can’t suck just as badly as weekdays, but they usually don’t … maybe because Lin is home, and if it sucks, at least I’m not dealing with the suckiness alone. There’s much to be said about having company in your misery.

This weekend is extra special though, and I think that’s why I am especially eager for it to start. The Blanton Museum of Art is having its 24 Hour Extremely Grand Opening this weekend. When I say a 24 hour grand opening, I mean … they really are going to have activities going on for 24 hours from 9 pm Saturday until 9 pm Sunday. I want to go, and I am wondering whether or not it is possible to survive at an art museum opening for 24 hours straight.

Oh you know I’d love to ride the bus down there with a pocket full of mad money to spend at the cash bar and snack stands and just live at the museum for 24 hours straight, but I also think people might look at me as being totally insane for doing so. Lin has completely said “No, Orb, you will not be moving into the museum for 24 hours.” I guess I’ll just have to pick a few select time periods and whine like crazy to get him to go with me.

Though eating milk and cookies in a museum in the middle of the night while listening to improv comedy just sounds so … COOL!!!

Finally edited the poo-covered cat post. Normally I would have just posted it without reading it at all, but after glancing at it briefly last night, I realized that towards the end I was starting to sound like a hysterical banshee and consequentially not making a whole lot of sense. When the topic at hand is poo-covered cats, there’s no reason at all to bring up the fact that my husband paid his best friend’s taxes for him. That’s a post for another day.

Anyway, onward with the adventure:
Continue Reading »

While immigration officers have the right to approach you, everyone has the right to refuse to answer questions. Hines said it’s difficult to get people to understand that.

“It’s very hard to teach people that you have the right to say, ‘no,’ because the general instinct is that if someone comes up to you you’re going to answer those questions,” she said.

Of course you have the right to say “no”, but as Mr. Mendez, an Austin resident and US citizen, found out, they also apparently have the right to put you in handcuffs and haul you off, if you don’t provide them with proof of citizenship.

“I told them no, because I had left it in my wife’s car this morning when she dropped me off,” he said.

That’s when Mendez said the uniformed men told him he’d have to leave his work site — in handcuffs. But there’s one problem. Mendez is a U.S. citizen born and raised in Austin.

“They told me to put my hands behind my back because they didn’t have proof I was a citizen.

I didn’t think Americans were legally required to carry ID on them at all times. Has that changed?

A post was just saved in draft mode. I’m too tired to edit it, and it REALLY needs to be edited … because I was tired and under duress when I wrote it. I do want to share the first two paragraphs with you now. A teaser, if you will, containing a brief introduction to this night’s activities.

—- Begin

No one, and I do mean no one … not even the most evil, vile demon from the pits of hell … should ever be confronted with a poo-covered cat at 2:20 in the morning while preparing to go to bed. No … one.

Of course, this isn’t a story about no one. This is a story about me … the person who either willingly chooses to do those things no one should do or has them thrust upon her at some unlikely hour of a Wednesday morning. I assure you, I did not self-select to be confronted by a poo-covered cat at 2:20 in the morning. No, the universe decided I needed to be faced with this particular life experience in order to … what? Test me on the depths of my compassion, tolerance, love, sense of duty, loyalty? Or did the universe just want to see how long it would take me to barf?

End—-

And just for the official universal record books … the answer is less than five minutes. I’ll let you guess which of the two previous questions that answers.

I’m going to bed now. Between the crazy white-haired woman, the hell hounds and the poo-covered cat … I have had myself quite the day. If I somehow manage to hear the alarm go off at 6 am, I will, of course, get up and make Lin’s coffee. If not, the man is on his own, and I will be sleeping until some crisis of massive proportions forces me to get out of bed and get dressed. I am talking an earthquake-sized crisis. No namby-pamby mid-level crisis will be able to move me. For all I will care, the dogs, feral cats, and neighbors can all go to war in the morning and kill each other noisily for the entire day, and I will not twitch an eyelash. I am going to bed, and I’m going to stay there until I damn well feel like getting up.

Or until the cat gets covered in poo again … whichever comes first.

More on this delightful night soon.

The hell hounds from next door have been getting out on their owner’s yard on a daily basis lately. The other day when I was out running errands, I noticed some fliers on telephone poles saying that lost dogs matching their description (female, grey and white, pit bulls) had been found, so apparently at some point they made their way over more than a few blocks and someone was brave enough to contain them. They have been out most of the day today, even though their owners are at home, and you would think they would notice the total lack of annoying barking coming from their back yard. I know I have noticed how quiet and peaceful it’s been today. At any rate, the last time I saw them was after that white haired woman chased them off down the road. They were gleefully wagging their tales and exploring someone’s front yard.

I have figured out how they have been getting out and onto the street. After they hop the fence to my yard, they then hop my front fence out to freedom. Something has to be done about the fence situation, and quite frankly, I don’t think it’s our responsibility to deal with it so the neighbor’s dogs don’t get out all the time. Not that the dog owners have suggested it was, but Linda was making some noises the other day about how we should put up deer wire along that fence line like she did. Um … no. First off, it’s an ugly solution and looks low rent. Secondly, we don’t have anything we need to retain or contain to our yard. It’s not my problem that my fence is the weak link in the doggie escape route. If someone wants to pay me to put up a taller fence, no problem, but we aren’t going to pay for any fencing until we are ready for the horrible task of putting up a nice wooden privacy fence all the way around. If I can get the dog owners to put up a tall fence on their tab, that’ll just make it easier for us in the long run, and if Linda wants all the trees along our mutual property line cut down and a new fence put in, she can damn well do it herself and put up her own damn tall fence (thus making our task even cheaper and easier still). Linda may think she is stubborn and can always get her way, but she has no clue how long I can tolerate dogs escaping to freedom through my yard and looking at the junk piled up in hers … or neighbors bitching about wanting trees cut down. It’s especially easy to ignore when you don’t have the money to put in a proper fence anyway (and you happen to like trees). Our fence is perfectly fine. The only thing wrong with it is it isn’t tall enough to keep either neighbors’ pit bulls from escaping. I have mentioned that Linda owns put bulls too, haven’t I? Big burly white ones that are completely deaf and somewhat blind. At least she usually manages to keep them in her own yard, which is more than I can say about her collection of fuzzy rabbits which are constantly escaping.

I suppose one of these days when the owners of the hell hounds are all out doing yard work, Lin and I should probably go talk to them … if for no other reason than to maybe get to know the dogs, seeing as they have been spending a good deal of time in our yard. My opinion on the hell hounds has been improving lately. My last two face-to-face encounters with them have gone well. These two seem to like me … or maybe they are just suckering me into lowering my defenses so they can kill me. Hard to say. At any rate, I’d like to meet the dogs with the owners there, and then maybe when I see them in my yard I would be willing to get them home rather than ignore them as they run away. As it stands now, I am not scared of them as much anymore, but you couldn’t pay me to touch one of them or try to get them to go home. Too damn risky to do with dogs you don’t know and who have, in the past, expressed extreme displeasure with your very existence on the planet.

So there, a little more gossipy banter about the goings on around my little corner of Austin. Crazy people and potentially vicious dogs. My life is so full of excitement and entertainment today.

There was a white haired woman standing out in the street with a broom chasing the hell hounds from next door (which got out again) earlier when I left to go to the post office. I didn’t recognize her, but seeing as she had a broom, I just assumed she belonged to one of the houses on the street even though I’ve never seen her before. There are lots of people living on this street I have never seen before. When I got back from my errand, she was puttering around in Pat’s yard. In my mind, I then placed her in the category of belonging with Pat’s house. I mean, who putters around in a yard they have no business puttering around in?

Skip to an hour ago … I opened the shades on the front den window to let some light in. It’s something I don’t often do, because it makes hiding from strangers standing on my porch and knocking on my door more than a bit difficult, if I am sitting at my computer. When I opened the shades, I noticed the same white haired woman was still toddling around the area. I made a mental note that she may be mental. I watched her for a few minutes and determined she wasn’t stark raving mad and therefore not a threat of any immediate sort. I went back to wasting my time reading Metafilter.

Skip to a few minutes ago … I was sitting here hunched down in front of my computer monitor playing a stupid flash game when someone dared to ring the doorbell. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate my doorbell? It sounds like cats being strangled while their claws are being drug over a chalkboard. Anyway, I hunch down even more in my chair, in order to not be seen by whoever it is that doesn’t know I hate my doorbell. I peeked around the edge of my monitor to make sure this person wasn’t in front of the window. They weren’t visible, so when they knocked on the door, I made a dash to the kitchen and began making my way to the living room window as stealthily as I could to get a peek at who it could be. Please do note that at the very moment I am made aware of your presence on my front porch, often before you even bother pressing that ugly pink doorbell button or knocking on the door, you will be vetted thoroughly from several locations within the house. If I don’t know you, the chances of you ever even knowing I exist within these walls are slim to none.

I poke my eyeball up against the blinds. It’s the white haired woman, and I determine that not answering the door is the best course of action. If it’s important, she’ll be persistent or leave a note. She does neither, and I watched as she stepped off my porch and headed across the street to Pat’s kid’s house and rings their doorbell and knocks on their door. No one answers, which is no surprise. We all peek through our blinds before answering our door. I think this behavior comes from living within two miles of 75 churches (I wish I was exaggerating) and having to deal with a weekly onslaught of people selling religion door-to-door. As she stepped off the porch of the house across the street, she took notice of a small fallen branch, not much bigger than a large twig really, and she starts kicking it into the air for whatever insane reason she seems to have. My suspicion that she’s insane grew exponentially at that point. This prompted the man of the house to answer the door. I couldn’t hear what they were saying (too bad I didn’t have the living room window open), but she pointed over to the house the hell hounds come from, or maybe the house where Sewing Woman used to live, and a few words are exchanged. She held up something black she was carrying that she didn’t have before. I couldn’t make out what it was. The man shrugs, shakes his head, and goes back into his house. The white haired woman proceeds out into the middle of the street and wanders off down the road.

So now I am left wondering who the hell she is, where she came from, where the hell she got the broom she had earlier, why she was chasing the hell hounds, and whether or not she is, in fact, stark raving mad. For a moment, I thought maybe she was a census taker, seeing as I have neglected my lawful duty to report my household details for that census test and have received the obligatory letter telling me “someone will be contacting” us soon. I dismissed this as a possibility though, because that certainly wouldn’t explain why this somewhat crazy-acting person has been hanging around on my street for most of the day … unless she’s stalking those of us who haven’t filled out our forms yet. It’s all just very weird, and I am going to begin periodic surveillance of the street now. I have even put the chain on the door. If she rings my gosh awful doorbell again, I will have to answer it just out of curiosity.

With my luck it WILL be a stark raving mad census taker, and then I’ll have to act like I don’t speak English. No one ever expects someone to only know German, and it’s a rare day when you run into someone who also speaks it (around here anyway). In fact, never once has my ploy of “Ich spreche nicht Englisch” not worked perfectly. All the same, it just doesn’t seem like this person has any official reason to be meandering around on our street and puttering in our yards. She seems altogether nuts to me.

I’m telling you, there is never a dull moment around here.

Found the little post office that is officially closest to the house. It’s super easy to get to, and is so tiny there’s only one guy that works there all week long … and he’s really pleasant, knowledgeable and sweet (and talkative). It’s in an old shopping center right by the new big Target and surrounded by Korean shops and restaurants. I’ll have to go explore the shopping center some more when it doesn’t look like it’s about to rain.

So my first ever artist trading cards have gone out in the mail!

I find myself with a free afternoon, and I don’t know what I want to do with it. I don’t even have to plan dinner, because we have leftover chicken from last night. Since the grey weather has left me feeling lazy, I’m betting I’ll waste my free time surfing the ‘net and getting nothing important accomplished … or playing a video game. Downtime is a good thing.

The Texas Legislature is hard at work during yet another special session to deal with the school funding problem. Naturally the first thing they have decided to focus their attention on is lowering property taxes … the very thing that supplies school funding, because obviously that’s what they think needed to be fixed.

The House has passed a few bills they seem pretty proud of but I see as completely stupid, at least in relation to getting anything done about school funding.

They want to create a Property Tax Relief Fund, and into that fund will go a portion of our budget surplus as well as the new tobacco tax they want to create, the new vehicle tax they want to create and the new business tax they want to create. So basically, all the things they said they were going to do to raise money to go toward school funding is now going to go to lowering property taxes, which makes one wonder where they think they are going to get money for schools. Yes, let’s lower the tax that pays for schools and let’s also take other new taxes that could go to schools and put them toward lowering the tax that used to pay for schools. Like I said, pretty stupid.

What’s really stupid is the provision of one bill that requires a letter be sent to Texans telling them how much property tax relief they might get should these bills pass … letters to be sent out in October, which is conveniently right before the November elections. Why letters? Because according to the House, if they don’t send out these letters paid for with our tax money, no one will know what their representatives are up to.

“Yeah, they may watch TV tonight, or see us right now, and say, ‘Hey, gee whiz we’re getting a tax cut.’ And they’ll know who voted for it and who didn’t. But I don’t think your average workingman is going to get all his info from TV.”
–Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa

Yeah, ’cause no one watches TV, reads newspapers, listens to the radio, uses the internet or knows anyone else who does who might talk about it at the office or grocery store. If it doesn’t arrive in our mailbox, we have NO idea what it going on with our state government.

While I am all for lower property taxes in general, this smells like a scam … especially since they have been saying that school districts can then raise property taxes after this plan is in place to gain more funding for their schools. So in the end, I guarantee you, we will end up paying the same or possibly even more in taxes than we are now. Mark my words, in no way is any of this going to end up benefiting anyone (except possibly the wealthiest home owners), and it’s certainly not going to solve the school funding problem.

I can’t wait to see what the next issue comes to the table that they think is somehow important to the school funding problem and what sort of tax-payer funding letter I’ll receive on it telling me how IF it passes how very much it’s going to benefit me (or the schools).

They can send out all the letters they want to promising great things if bills pass, but I think it’s a little too late for many of our elected officials. People around here at least are REALLY getting fed up with the stupidity. I’m not so sure a 10% (temporary) cut in property taxes is going to buy all the voters off in November.

Since I had access to the camera (Lin’s been hogging it lately), I thought I’d take a quick shot of one of my birthday presents … a caricature of me mixing up a storm in the kitchen drawn by my mom. Too freaking cute! Going to have to get a frame for it and hang it somewhere!

Finished those artist trading cards. Nothing like a little procrastination to make it all the more interesting. Tomorrow morning I’ll run them over to the postal station and pop them into the mail. I’m sort of thrilled really to have discovered a postal station less than two miles away and easily gotten to by back roads. No more driving all the way to the big one on the other side of the highway for me! Amazing how I am still learning where things are in my neighborhood, isn’t it.

abitblue and memoryanddream … no peeking behind the cut, unless you want to spoil your surprise! I’m gonna trust you!
Continue Reading »