#18 Reading Harry Potter

Read all 7 of the Harry Potter books

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone finished 12/28/07
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows

So...Santa kindly brought me the Harry Potter series for Christmas. I finished the first one last night.

A friend described it as "goodish". I'd describe it as a very interesting start to more adventures. It definitely made me want to read the next one.

Now, I have to confess that I've already seen all the movies that are out (I think 5 by now), so as I was reading the "Sorcerer's Stone" visions of that movie popped into my head.

On to the next.

#45. Take my mother out to dinner

Good grief! I've passed the 10% milestone of my days but feel like I've been an absolute slug the last month or so. With less than 900 days left I certainly haven't finished 10% of my goals. After the holidays it is time to buckle down again.

One item that I can mark off, but forgot to mention, was to take my mother out to dinner. When we visited her at Thanksgiving, she wanted to go to this Italian restaurant, Buca di Beppo She called it a food museum. So the day after turkey day, off we go to this crazy place covered floor to ceiling with photographs of Italians and Italian-Americans and all sorts of statuary and do-dads. She had reserved the Frank Sinatra booth but it was not empty when we arrived. She was PO'd about that but there were plenty of empty spaces so we had another booth with murals of ladies and fountains.

The food was good. Really big portions, even the single-serving entries were huge. It was fun.

94. Paint the House

Wow! This is a biggie that is done and crossed off the list. The house is not really tipping over, but this was the best shot hubby got today that actually shows the colors. The house is brown with grey trim, dark green accents and dark red door. If you click on the photo you can see closeups better.

I am very happy with the results. It hadn't been painted in about 20 years so it was long overdue. Just in time for all the leaves to fall off the trees. Looks good, doesn't it?

We'll work on landscaping next spring. Provided we get any rain between now and then or else we may be in a desert if we don't get water soon.

11. Visit the aquarium

We spent the afternoon at the Georgia Aquarium
What an amazing sight, especially seeing the whale sharks in person! What huge creatures, yet so graceful. It was a beautiful fall day and the crowds were not too large. I could have sat for hours at the viewing hall watching all the fish move in a ballet of fluid movement. How peaceful it was.

I also loved seeing the jellyfish. Such beautiful, glowing, orange, strange creatures that are absolutely fascinating, looking like parachutes rising and falling against a blue glass background.

It was the perfect time to visit. I even brought home a souvenir paperweight with a beautiful blue glass jellyfish encased in clear glass to remind me daily of the liquid day.

Book Review – The Root of Wild Madder

An American journalist living in Greece, Brian Murphy, had considerable and travel experience in Iran and Afghanistan when he became interested in the mysteries inherent in Persian carpets. This led to a quest to become more knowledgeable about the spiritual aspects and the significance of Persian carpets for those involved in making and trading them. This book is also a record of what are undoubtedly vanishing skills and ways of live for carpet weavers, dyers and carpet traders in a part of the world that is increasingly cut off from the west. The madder root of the title is the source of many of the oranges and reds found in Persian carpets made from naturally dyed materials.

The book is a mixture of many things: a travelogue through Iran and Afghanistan, a political analysis of their regimes, a socio-anthropological treatise of their people, but most of all, it is a book about carpets, and about those who weave them, those who dye them, those who trade them, and those who adore them. Brian Murphy uses a very poetic language to present all the above. And the book itself is a pleasure to read, with lots of stories, information, human conditions, and knowledge.

Whenever I come across a passage or phrase that catches my attention in a book, I tend to dog-ear the page so that I can come back to it. I’ve dogged-eared quite a few pages in this one. Rarely have I read a book that so readily captures the magic of what fuels the fiber enthusiast. These textiles are about stories captured in fiber and structure. Meanings and symbols may or may not give up their secrets outside of the carpet weaver’s mind and hands. Here is such a passage:

“My grandmother made this carpet when I was a boy…I must have been very young, because I can remember only little fragments of her making this carpet. There was a big pot where she made the dyes from different things. There were some leaves and dry plants. I remember the colors so well. I had never seen such things. It was from nature, the world where we walk, but also—how can I say?—part from somewhere else….When my grandmother died, I was still young. I remember whispering into the carpets, thinking my grandmother could hear me….I think what we make, what we say, what we do are all little parts of our soul. We leave these things for others to find and collect. This carpet was from my grandmother’s hand and her mind. It is now with me and my family….Life is in this carpet. So why is it wrong to believe that my grandmother is not still connected to this carpet she made; that she can feel the love we put in keeping it clean and repaired?”

I got caught up in the author’s carpet education and the insight he gained for appreciation of the poetry and imagery of Persian carpets.

44. Find a good Italian restaurant and have dinner

So I accidently found a good Italian restaurant, or I should say... re-discovered a good Italian restaurant that I liked but now there is a branch near the office and I don't have to go to the other side of town to eat out.

The office staff went there a few weeks ago when we were treated to dinner by some guests and I was in heaven. The place is called "Ippolitos" and it reminds me of the northern West Virginia Italian food I grew up on, a place populated with many Italian families.

Check it out, maybe you'll like it too. I can't wait to go back.

http://www.ippolitos.net/

88. Go to my 35- year high school reunion

I'm back from my weekend at the high school reunion. It was kinda weird. I'm at the age now where I hardly recognized anybody and, if they did look familiar, I couldn't remember their name. The name tags had a not-very-user-friendly font so that I had to practically stand on top of people in order to read the name to figure out who the heck I was talking to. Who let all those old people in the door?

Geeze... most of the people I hung around with in high school didn't show up. I'm still not sure if I had a good time or not.

About 120 (including spouses) people attended, which was a pretty good number to have at the dinner/dance after 35 years. What stuck me as sort of odd was how many people still lived in the area. Since I haven’t lived in my home town since the late 1970s is it any wonder I don’t recognize anybody? Hubby’s class is much more widespread geographically and he was only two years ahead of me in high school.

The best part of the weekend for me was the tour of the high school. The main building is still the same although they are currently doing a renovation at the front and the office will be moving to the new area. The school was built in 1919 and currently has 1700 students. I think when we were there the student population was about 1500 but we only had three grades then. The main building still has the same marble hall floors and stairwells, wooden panels lining the walls, hardwood floors in the classrooms. The library was exactly the same except the card catalog is gone and there are some computers on tables. It even smelled the same.

There are a few new additions: like a new cafeteria, basketball court and science classrooms wing. The auditorium still has its original 1940 chairs and stage and is in need of major fixes. It was a like being in a time warp to be in those buildings again. Thank God I am not that age any longer.

After the school tour some of us took a faux trolley bus ride around the university to visit some of its new facilities. I'm in that picture but I'm not pointing myself out. Luckily, I grew up in a big university town. Back then the college students seemed mature and adult. Now they look like little kids.

I can’t win this age thing can I?

#14 Listen to a live jazz band

Bonsai!
I unexpectedly completed one item today in the most unlikely of places.
I went to Japanfest this afternoon. http://www.japanfest.org/

This event used to be held outside at Stone Mountain but this year moved to a new location inside the Civic Center. The new location is a lot more convenient for me to get to but I’m reserving judgment on whether or not it is a good move as there was a lot of bottlenecking in the layout of the place and events. Too many people crammed into too little space. Hopefully, if they keep it in this location, they will learn from this year’s mistakes.

However, I really enjoyed having the musical concerts inside the Performance Arts Center area. Here is a real stage with good acoustics and adequate seating. So, in a very happy mix of things American and Japanese I listened to not one but two live mini concerts.

"Autumn Breeze" Jazz Concert by Shunzo Ohno and a Blues Concert by Tomi Isobe.
Both had great musicians and good music. Cool man….

My other great find was the good kimono vendor booth and treating myself to two silk haori jackets that were on the special sale rack because I simply couldn’t choose between them. Here is what a haori jacket looks like.

http://www.kimonosource.com/japanese_kimono_information/about_haori.htm

I bought myself a grayish blue-green one and an old rose colored one. Very soft, toned, colored silk, unlike the loud, garish, too-bright colored stuff most everyone else was looking at. What can I say? My artistic training by my Japanese professor has finally sunk in to appreciate the more subtle color palette the Japanese would prefer for themselves.

A beautiful fall day was had by all.

Book review for The Subversive Stitch

This book is a history of embroidery from the mostly English point of view. Written in 1984, it is a study of women’s history and women’s role in society as it is reviewed through the shifting notions of femininity and the roles ascribed to women through samplers, decorative arts and dress and a touch on modern fiber art, though this aspect could due with a more recent look at current artists who use stitching as a medium for expression.

In the middle ages women worked alongside men in embroiderers’ guild workshops as apprentices, designers, and stitchers of gold, silver and silk and embroidery was thought to be equal of painting and sculpture. But, by the eighteenth century embroidery was considered to be a task exclusively suited to women, and by the nineteenth century the fine stitchery expected of women of the upper classes and the skill work extracted for slave wages from working-class women, had become both a symbol and instrument of female subservience.

Drawing on household accounts, women’s magazines, letters, novels, and the art works themselves, Rozsika Parker discovered pockets of resistance: paradoxically, while embroidery was employed to define femininity in women, it also provided a way to negotiate the constraints of the feminine role. “Polly Cook did this”, one eighteenth century child’s sampler states, “and hated every stitch she did in it.” Good for Polly.

The images of the embroideries were amazing work. The writing itself was a bit dry and academic, which I suppose is to be expected given the subject matter.

Book review - Things I Didn't Know

I first heard of Robert Hughes some years ago when I was watching a PBS television series, American Visions. He struck me then as a brassy Aussie who knew his art stuff but was also quite bombastic at times in his tendency to get carried away. His memoir is oddly compelling and frustrating at the same time. Here is a review that I mostly agree with so I will try to not repeat the same stuff.

http://www.powells.com/review/2006_10_30.html

It opens with the horrendous car crash that nearly killed him several years ago. This was an opening story that really grabs you. Then it proceeds to his childhood, which was not too awful except for losing his father early and for the requisite catholic boarding school which seems to be an excellent way to turn most people who are exposed to that particular brand of education off of religion in general.

His personality is oversized and he has made his share of enemies as well as a ton of friends. The description of his first marriage is blunt and apparently was such a train-wreck that I felt sorry for his baby son who was stuck with parents who clearly should not have been parents at that point in their lives. To later find out that he and his adult son were estranged prior to the son’s suicide is very tragic. But Bob has no fear in exposing his less than endearing traits as well as his talents and strengths. I think that writing about one’s own life must be incredibly challenging and making it readable even more so.

My main complaint about the book is that it took so long to get to his arrival in America (this book is 395 pages) that it suddenly ends in the early 70s. So we don’t find out anything about him for the past 35 years of his life except for the car crash that was at the beginning of the book. He was an art critic for Time magazine for 30 years. Where are the rest of his stories?

This book left me wanting more.

Books, books and more books

Well, I’m making some progress on #16 Reading the Current Books on my Nightstand. I even managed to finish a couple (see below in red). However, I have also added two new books to my growing collection but haven’t listed them here yet. I’m missing the whole point of this goal, aren’t I? Not supposed to be adding one for every one read.

What can I say? I’m hopelessly in love with my books. It’s a sickness . I even added up the number of pages for my journal group a few weeks back and was startled to realize that these books alone add up to 8,752 pages. That would mean I would have to read something like 10 pages every night in order to catch up just these books. I don’t know about you but I can’t always get to my book time before conking out to sleep every night. So this goal will be a real challenge but I am enjoying it nonetheless. BTW, its not hard to guess what my primary interests are either is it?

I’ll give each book its own separate entry as I finish reading them as a book report. Didn’t you hate doing those in school? Strangely now I think its fun (I grew up I guess) and love reading book reviews because it helps me determine whether I’m going to add that book to my stash or not.

Stay tuned for my first report next.


Things I Didn't Know - a Memoir by Robert Hughes
The Subversive Stitch by Rozsika Parker
The Root of Wild Madder by Brian Murphy
Audubon and his Journals by Maria Audubon
Weaving New Worlds by Sarah Hill
Mark Twain-An Illustrated Biography by Ken Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns
The Original Illustrated Mark Twain by Mark Twain
Sculpture in the Age of Doubt by Thomas McEvilley
Rembrandt's Eyes by Simon Schama
1000 Places to See Before Your Die by Patricia Schultz
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
JR by William Gaddis
Matisse The Master by Hilary Spurling
Silk and Religion by Xinru Liu
Bauhaus Textiles by Sigrid Weltge
Carpets Techniques Traditions & History by Jacques Anquetil
Shanghai Girl Gets All Dressed Up by Beverley Jackson
Women Travelers by Mary Morris
Pictures of Nothing by Kirk Varnedoe
The Hidden Life of Art by Clare Gibson
50 Essays-A Portable Anthology 2nd edition, Samuel Cohen
Ikat II by Lydia Gelder

Update for #26 Make the Dichotomy series

Dichotomy = Division into two usually contradictory parts or opinions.

This is the first piece in my Dichotomy series. It's called "Erased". The text behind the pattern is obliterated; mostly gone except in memory where it is scattered, no longer whole. Two layers, two meanings, one moment in time.

Nearly all of my artwork gets a personal name. This time the name/concept came first. This series is an abstraction of deeply personal meanings but I have chosen to use a formulaic method to represent these thoughts using hand-dyed cloth, text and graphic pattern to render the work.

The art is not completely finished but the top is done. Later on, after all the tops are finished I will come back and complete the work.

I'm thinking about the next one right now. It will be called "Brise Soleil".

Birthday Dinner

I am a fan of Japanese steakhouses. It is the type of restaurant we seem to gravitate towards whenever there is a family celebration to be had. I rather enjoy having my meal with built-in entertainment. So we ended up at Yamato’s in Duluth for my birthday dinner. Maybe not my first choice in places to eat but it was a Friday night and I figured if we went out rather early in the evening the restaurant wouldn’t be crowded. I was right. There was no waiting and we were seated immediately at a table that had another family sitting on the opposite side from us, a young Indian couple there with their in-laws. At Yamato, the prices were very reasonable and unlike many sushi bars where you are stuffed in like sardines, you are out in the open. The chef had some good moves in his repertoire. He was excellent at juggling a raw egg and flipping it right onto the top of his rather tall chef hat. His flops: the onion volcano was a bust and failed to spew forth it’s flaming top and twice he tried to flip a piece of food into hubby’s and the other guy’s mouth. Both guys missed the catch. The chef wisely didn’t try this stunt with any of the women present.

The downsides? The food was plentiful but not especially memorable. After I had stuffed myself full of fried rice, veggies, steak and scallops and was settling down to enjoy the rest of my white wine, I accidentally knocked it over and shattered the glass. Acck! I was only half way done with the Chablis. Darn! The buzz was just starting too.

Oh well… it was a very nice birthday after all with only a tiny mishap so I am rather pleased that I had a good day to celebrate my 53rd.

Every year I still can’t believe I’m getting older. The good news: another fun thing to cross off the list.

Visit to the zoo

Hurray! I get to mark one thing off!

Today was an absolutely beautiful, indian summer day with fall, practically and literally, just around the corner so I took the day off and went to the Atlanta zoo. It couldn't have been more perfect: great weather, no crowds, and I finally got to finally see my baby in person. Her name is Mei Lan and she is one year old.

I was going to show you her photo here but I can't figure out how to get my photos inserted where I want to in this post and I've wasted at least a half hour on that so all I can say is that she was taking a nap the whole time I hung around the panda exhibit.

You can watch her yourself during the work weekday here. (note to self - figure out how to format this thing better!) http://zooatlanta.org/animals_panda_cam.php4

The gorillas were too majestic in their grouping of at least two females with about 3 or 4 little ones hanging around doing what all youngsters do; picking on each other.

The meerkats were amusing as well with the two groups currently separated from each other. I think it is the males and females. But they can see each other through the glass enclosure and were busily showing off and scouting. One posed very nicely for me.

All in all, it was a great pre-birthday gift to myself.

Action Items for September

You say tomato, I say toma(y)to. How do you like my new car? It's got nothing to do with my list but that's how life happens isn't it?

Hey, it's Labor Day so I should get back to concentrating on labor for the next 999 days. So, what the heck do I want to call these individual things-to-do? Items, goals, stuff? I suspect I'll use lots of words to describe my process along the way.

I'm taking a business approach to working through my goals. Besides the ongoing habit items, here are the other things I plan to tackle this month:

Continue reading through the nightstand books

Go to the zoo

Organize the upstairs studio (a biggie)

Finish the first top of the Dichomoty series

Get my passport renewed

Pick a cool downtown restaurant for my birthday

Visit the Hindu mandir

Pick one room to get rid of clutter (yeah, this one can also count for cleaning up the mess in the upstairs studio)

Write a letter to myself

This should keep me busy all month.

Turning Over a New Leaf

So... in declaring myself underway, upon closer inspection, I see that many items on this list are really about creating or re-establishing healthy habits.

47. Making a weekly menu and shopping list
50. Practice yoga every morning for a month
53. Practicing a centering prayer
71. Walk daily
72. Lose weight
84. Ride the exercise bike
85. Walk the outdoor trail once a month

Which ones should I work on first? Why all of these certainly deserve attention right away.

The yoga is easy to get started again. I am using the AM Yoga tape by Rodney Yee.
http://www.amazon.com/AM-Yoga-Beginners-Patricia-Walden/dp/094567189X

It's very gentle and geared for beginners and that is where I'm at right now. In the two years since I last did this morning ritual regularly I am astounded at how stiff I have become. If I let this decrepitude continue I'll become immoble in a few years. Yikes! I'm not ready to succumb to getting old yet. Wake up call to lumber up. Literally.

Let 'er Rip!

"Overture, curtains, lights,

This is it, the night of nights

No more rehearsing and nursing a part

We know every part by heart

Overture, curtains, lights

This is it, you'll hit the heights

And oh what heights we'll hit

On with the show this is it

Tonight what heights we'll hit

On with the show this is it."

START DATE: September 1, 2007

END DATE: May 30, 2010

COMPLETED: 0 out of 101

WHAT: In a compulsive way, I decided to take on the task of not only compiling a list of 101 things I'd like to do, but of ambitiously completing them in 1001 days. I also stole this idea from someone else. Then, come to find out there is a whole website devoted to this topic but what the heck? http://triplux.com/dayzero/default.asp?view=masterlist

WHY: Why should I work through this list? I will be taking time to savor life and create random acts of enjoyment. Organizing and tracking my goals makes me feel useful and gives my life a purpose. I like the idea of planning out my pleasures, measuring my progress and being surprised at the results.

HOW: Make the list and a possible time frame for tackling the “big ticket” items. These are too broadly defined goals that have multiple parts to them but I’m too stingy to give them more than one spot on the list. Mark off items as they are completed. Allow myself to make revisions if I want to but note them in red.

Here’s my short-term life spelled out. No more time to waste.

Exciting Adventures

1. Go river rafting
2. Visit the zoo

3. Pamper myself by going to a day spa

4. Spend an afternoon antique shopping

5. Enjoy a bonfire

6. Watch a sunrise or sunset at the beach

7. Visit a waterfall
8. Watch a play

9. Go to the movies alone

10. Have a picnic in the forest
11. Visit the aquarium
12. Play tourist for a day in Atlanta
13. Visit 10 museums

Literary and Artistic Pursuits

14. Listen to a live jazz band

15. Organize the books in my library

16. Read all the books currently on my nightstand (count & name them)

17. Write a poem

18. Read all 7 of the Harry Potter books

19. Weave the ground fabric for the Alphabet series

20. Join a women’s book club

21. Embroider and finish the Alphabet series (26 pieces)

22. Write a letter to my favorite author

23. Make a collage

24. Make enough work and book a solo exhibition by the end of 2010

25. Make the Identity Litany series (24 pieces)

26. Make the Dichotomy series, (6-8 pieces) influenced by C

27. Finish the Opus mark making course

28. Sign up for and finish the Guilds certificate course for embroidery

29. Organize the upstairs studio

30. Organize the basement studio

Travels

31. Get passport renewed by the end of this year

32. Visit Ireland in 2008
33. Go on tour of South Africa 2009

34. Visit Charleston, SC

35. Go to Hawaii in 2008 for TSA conference

36. Go to Florida for work (Convergence 2008)

37. Take hubby to Cooperstown NY to Baseball Hall of Fame

Culinary Explorations
38. Try out 30 Rachael Ray recipes for a month for dinner

39. Grill hamburgers and hotdogs

40. Have a chocolate fondue feast

41. Bake no-fat, sugar-free cookies
42. Make weekly menu planning a habit with shopping lists too

43. Eat a hot dog at a baseball game

44. Find a good Italian restaurant and have dinner

45. Take my mother out to dinner

46. Make a homemade pizza

47. Eat at a downtown restaurant for my birthday

48. Buy a new stove

49. Have a crab cake in Baltimore

Spiritual Motivations
50. Practice yoga every morning for a month

51. Pick a topic from Parabola to study for a month

52. Visit the Hindu temple in Lilburn

53. Practice a centering prayer for one week (start a new habit)

54. Memorize three prayers (for loved ones, morning, evening)

55. Conduct one fast

56. Visit a church service

57. Read the Transformational Book Circle book(s)

58. Observe the Sabbath as a day of rest once every three months

59. Go through the house room by room and get rid of clutter

60. Spend one weekend day in silence (while hubby is not home)

61. Repeat a mantra for one day

62. Go one week without buying anything unnecessary

63. Add spiritual quotes to my journal once a week for a month

Crafty Endeavors
64. Dye up fabric in gradations for Litany series

65. Sew a vintage-style dress on my sewing machine

66. Knit a sweater

67. Make a monthly journal of inspiration photos

68. Make a Christmas tree ornament

69. Paint Easter eggs

70. Learn how to make origami paper cranes

In Motion

71. Walk the mall daily for one month (and daily thereafter)

72. Lose 80 pounds by June 2008

73. Learn belly dancing

74. Fly a kite

75. Make a snow angel

76. Dance in the rain

77. Hike in the mountains for at least one day and night (at a state park)

78. Climb Stone Mountain

79. Practice my yoga AM & PM routines daily for one month

80. Take an adult dance class

81. Swim in two oceans

82. Ride the exercise bike 5 nights a week for one month

83. Learn to tango

84. Walk the Suwanee Creek Trail one weekend day a month

Miscellaneous

85. Write a letter to three friends

86. Watch 10 movies a year

87. Organize my papers in the studio

88. Go to my 35- year high school reunion in Oct. 2007

89. Teach a semester textiles course

90. Learn to weave tapestry
91. Build a sand castle

92. Reupholster the old sofa and move it upstairs

93. Do a jigsaw puzzle

94. Paint the house

95. Plant a flower bed in the front yard

96. Spend a week day exploring a small town

97. Create a boudoir in my bedroom

98. Get a pearl necklace by my 55th birthday (Sept. 2009)

99. Write a letter to myself, to be read in five years

100. Pick a bouquet of wildflowers

101. Spend a vacation visiting a state park in West Virginia