To do or to write about doing

I've been focused on doing rather than writing about doing lately. When I get home I need to do something with my hands instead of typing. I've been looking at a computer screen for around 9 hours a day at work, and the last thing I want to do is turn on a computer when I get home.

Luckily, I have plenty of art to do.

I am participating in a community Art Tour in December. Members of the community go around by foot and vehicle to various artist studios, and hopefully find items they want to buy. Most of my art is probably too highly priced for most Winona people, and I hesitate to underprice myself. Underpricing one's not only hurts the artist who is cutting prices, but also hurts other artists who then feel pressured to lower their prices.

I sell my paintings for between $95 and $300, my tapestries between $75 and $1,500, and I will be selling mosaics for between $100 and 500. None of those are going to be of interest to most of the people coming to the Art Tour.

So I pulled out all the gourds that I had on hand, and purchased some additional small ones, and I've been doing some gourd pieces that should sell from between $30 and $100 - except for the gourd drums, which will sell for between $250 and $400.

Assorted gourd work in various stages of completion.

Here you can see some bowls, some sculptural (non-functional) pieces, some musical instruments (snake gourds - the otter in front and the unfinished gourds in the upper right; and the beginnings of a large gourd drum, upper center. and some shakers, near the drum and near the leather dye), some bowls with lids and a couple some hinged boxes.

The Lion Roars, mosaic, Venetian glass tiles.
I am waiting for more glass tiles to come from Tile Shack.
The Lion Roars is based on the textile work of Jude Hill.

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I really don't get upset if my art doesn't sell. I am not trying to make my living off of it - which makes it even more important that I don't underprice and handicap other artists.

Metatarsophalangeal Joint Arthrodesis - Part II

It's been 10 days since the surgery. The incision site doesn't seem too tender and actual bone that was worked on isn't too painful. However the rest of my foot is quite tender. I had to unwrap the dressing a few days ago; it was slipping off of the end of my foot. I was a bit nervous about unwrapping it, but I did not see much of a choice. It was either unwrap it myself, or drag Abelisto out of class and have him drive me to LaCrosse and get the podiatry nurse to rewrap it.

I did not want Abelisto to miss any more of his classes (his students would have probably not minded, but he hates getting behind the schedule he sets in his syllabi), so I did it myself. I took off the big black space boot that covered the dressing on my foot. It has some of the best velcro I have ever seen - it grabs onto itself very securely and the ripping sound it makes when it is unbelted and opened up is tremendous.

Lifting my foot out of the boot I saw that somewhere I had lost one of the elastic bandage clips (found it later in the bedding at home). Since I did not have any new cotton batting, I tried to gently remove the old batting and carefully roll it up as I took it off so that I could put it back on. The sight as the last layer of batting came off was a wee bit scary - the foot had swelled considerably. I had deep red, purple, and greenish-yellow bruising all over my foot, and a large crack in the callous on the bottom of my foot. I lifted the gauze and pad off of the incision site and saw that the swelling had expanded the skin to where the stitched area was stretched out nearly flat.

My foot looked like a mugging victim.

I had spent nearly a full day at work the day before, and I am guessing that was too much. I sort of knew it was because about 11 the foot had started some pretty serious throbbing and burning, which of course, I ignored - with the above results. Since then I have come in in the morning and worked until the throbbing starts and then gone home and put my foot up with a cold pack on it. Yesterday I brought a cold pack to work in hopes of extending my time there a bit, mainly because today is the president's inauguration and I will likely be here most of the day.

I do work at home, but sometimes I end up taking pain medication when I get there and that puts me to sleep. I had worried about having this sort of down-time during the website redesign, but this has not been too bothersome, since at this point most of the work is being done by the vendor. Soon though, I will need to be back at full-force and ready to start working with the content management system and doing some pretty extensive Flash work. However, I am lucky in that even if I need to be home with my foot up, I can still do my work because most of it is done online anyway. And I do have an almost-comfortable way to sit in bed and work.

I have another doctor appointment in three days. Hopefully he won't tell me I really screwed up.

Self-Reliance and Sustainability

I've been rereading Emerson's essay on Self-Reliance and sustainability. Foremost in my thoughts about it at this point is that I think Emerson loved words, or maybe more accurately loved himself using words - lots of words. However this may be a significant misjudgment on my part. Even though I resist it, I am as addicted to the sound-bite summary, the cliff notes version, the easy path to enlightenment, as anyone.

I also just read the Steampunk Magazine's A Steampunk's Guide to Surviving an Apocalypse.

There's some connection going on between these two documents - inside my head.

Emerson begins this essay with:
Ne te quaesiveris extra - Do not seek for anything outside of thyself.

He seems to be extolling the virtues of thinking for yourself,taking care of yourself, by yourself, experiencing yourself as potentate - at least of your own existence. He writes: It is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town?

I am not sure.

I think that being self-reliant is knowing and accepting oneself. I think that this can happen whether I am standing alone or as part of a group, a tribe, or a movement.

If I know myself I should be able to recognize when I am not being true to my self. I should be able to know when I am off-kilter, so to speak. To be self-reliant is to be emotionally healthy, not needy, not seeking to verify who I am in another person's approval. However this does not mean that I should be distant or disconnected from others.

It seems that Emerson was reacting to social pressures as he created this essay. However, this is just the feeling lingering after my first reread in three years. I will have to read it again and see what I think.

*******************

It's interesting the different meanings we attribute to words and concepts. Self-reliance has so many meanings.

Self-reliance in regard to sustainability

There are two areas in which one can be self-reliant – production and consumption – and both are needed for true sustainability.

Self-reliance in production means that one can make much of what they need. This can be as simple as making a cake from scratch, or as complex as building a structure to live in shaping raw materials with the use of a few tools. Production by the self-reliant is gauged by its use value, rather than its market value. Self-reliance in production means that quality is the focus, not quantity. Quality can be sustainable, quantity often is not.

Self-reliance in consumption means that one doesn't really need a lot of things in order to exist contently – things like fancy toys or the latest style of clothing or a lavish home. A self-reliant identity does not come from the things one can buy and flaunt. A self-reliant lifestyle is unpretentious and grounded in thoughtful consumption. Considerate consumption is sustainable, conspicuous consumption never is.

Self-reliance and community

Generally one thinks of a self-reliant person being independent and unfettered by a need of others. The paradox is that self-reliance cannot truly exist without the community of trust.

"One can achieve everything in solitude - except character." ~ Henri Stendhal

Community is necessary in order to establish our identity. Without knowledge of the other there can be no knowledge of the self. Meaning is arrived at through distinctions.

Without a community of trust, an individual cannot come to know themselves fully. Without the ability to explore ideas in a safe atmosphere, the demanding, often frightening steps necessary to knowing oneself become exponentially more difficult. When thoughts and words have to be carefully guarded, when all energy is spent on simply maintaining one's existence in the seclusion of one's own mind – sanity, not growth, is the focus.

Without trust there is insecurity and an urge to hoard – both skills and things. Without trust I am not able to allow you to produce and consume in your natural patterns – I cannot trust that your intentions are towards quality, not quantity, and your consumption is considerate and not conspicuous.

Metatarsophalangeal Joint Arthrodesis

I've been recovering from a surgery I had this week - Metatarsophalangeal Joint Arthrodesis. The lines on the above image only roughly represent the work that was done.

The bone connecting to my right big toe was too long. This was putting all the weight of my body on the toe joint when I walked or stood, instead of distributing it across all the toes.

the right foot, awaiting the surgeon's skill
(arrgh, I haven't seen that leg shaved in over 20 years)
the left decked out in a fancy stocking and
pressurized anklet to keep my blood flowing like it should...

I am now, 3 days after the surgery, doing better. The surgery itself went well, but recovery has been rough. I had a pretty severe reaction to the pain medicines they gave me (vomiting and mild hallucinations - crawly things all over me) and have sworn off prescribed drugs for now. I am only taking Tylenol.

what I saw today at the doctor's office

Today I got to see my foot when they took off the first cast (they would not let me stay awake and photograph the procedure - everyone quit talking and just stared at me when I asked, so I took that as a NO). I took pictures of my foot before they put the new dressings on it

the new boot, at least for the next few weeks I will get to wear

all my favorite socks that have had mates go missing

I now have a walking boot on my foot, but it is still too tender to walk on much. However, I am fairly tough, with a reasonable tolerance for pain, and I heal quickly... and I surely do hate crutches. Once this is over I am so going on a shoe-buying spree...

However, this damn boot isn't going to be easy to sleep in. And I will have to go to work in sweat pants - that's all that will fit over it (big hardship there...).

I've avoided reading about the procedure as a matter of principle, but you can if you want. Here's the Google search.

The Greene County Daily World

Dad's obituary was in the weekly paper one year ago today, along with a photo of him with his motorcycle (although they cropped most of the motorcycle out of the image). It said:

Keith L. May, 78, of Linton, passed away at 8:45 p.m., Friday, August 31, 2007 at his residence.
He was born on March 25, 1929, the son of Curtis and Emma (Wilson) May. He served in the U.S. Army and was a veteran of the Korean War. He worked as a truck driver, a regional service representative for Fiat, a service manager at a foreign car dealership, and later worked for Williams Brothers Pharmacy in delivery until his retirement in July of 2007. He was a memeter of the Bloomington Masonic Lodge and the Linton Goldwing Club.
Survivors include his wife whom he married June 22, 1956, Constance E. (Johnston) May of Linton; two daughters, Monta Gael May (Wes Miller) of Winona, MN and Michelle (Chris) Mattox of Bloomfield; two sons Aaron Douglas May (Jennifer Sparks) of Bloomfield and Brian Keith (Susan) May of Atoka TN; two sisters Mary Jo May of Bedford and Wanda Rush of Bloomington; one brother, Bill May of Bedford; 11 grandchildren Aluna, Nova, Sheba, Emerald, Eli, Aaron (Erin), Tena, Rebecca, Jessica, Blaise and Ava; and two great-grandchildren Taylor and Dominic.
He was preceded in death by his father Curtis May; mother Emma May-Stancombe; and a brother Harry May.
Memorial services were held at the Welch & Cornett Funeral Home, Linton Chapel, at 11:00 on Tuesday.
Online condolences can be sent to the family at www.welchcornett.com.

There was also a color photo of dad on the front page of the paper.

The week's front page headlines were:
Counterfeit bills surface in Linton
Police have suspect in bomb threat cases
Families help break ground on new homes
Music fesitval exceeds expectations

We were already home in Winona when the weekly paper came out. My mother got copies of the paper for all of us. I have copies of the newspaper for all of the kids. I haven't given them to them. The papers are sitting on my dresser. This is the first I have looked at them in a year.

Google Chrome

I just downloaded Chrome.

Seems like it renders text ala Firefox, images come across well, and it is FAST,FAST, FAST in regard to scripts and multimedia.

Side-by-side comparison of text rendering: (left-to-right) Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IE7.

It also uploads fast. The image above uploaded so fast I thought I was seeing things...

I will be checking out my favorite bandwidth-heavy sites and see if it really is as fast as it seems.

The last time I saw my father

Last year at this time I saw my father for the very last time.

He was laying on a table in the mortuary. Cold and smooth. I touched his face, I held his hand, I could not let him go without doing those things.

9-1-2007

I started this blog on August 2nd of last year. I had just learned my father was dying of lung cancer. The bridge in Minneapolis had just collapsed, or was collapsing - I cannot quite remember the order of things.

One year ago yesterday, one year and 12 hours ago, my father died. I was on the road, desperately trying to get there before he passed on. I did not make it.

One year ago today I was helping with funeral arrangements, trying to transfer airline tickets for our daughters and granddaughter to fly in from Las Vegas, and trying to arrange a ticket for our son, Eli, to fly down from Winona (he stayed home since we had more people than would fit in the station wagon and we never dreamed my father would die that night).

Eli's ticket was not a problem. Transferring the girls' tickets was a nightmare. In the end we ended up spending nearly $3,000 for the airline tickets we purchased that day and the ones we had purchased two days before, since they would not let us transfer the original tickets without paying fees and the difference between the ticket prices. That would have been more than buying new tickets, so we bought new tickets. After that we learned that the initial ticket order had been duplicated and so we owned 8 tickets. Nova and Taylor would fly in from Vegas that night. Aluna would fly in the next morning so that she could work her shift (it was impossible to get a substitute at that late notice). Eli would fly down from Minnesota that night, just a couple hours ahead of Nova and Tay. Eli doesn't drive, didn't drive, so Princess and Matt took him to the airport - a 2-hour drive from Winona.

I am amazed now, looking back, that it all worked out.

One year ago...

I made the biggest mistake I can remember making.

My father was dying. We knew this. Over the last few days he had nearly stopped eating. The lung cancer that had metastasized and taken up residence in his bones was winning. We knew it would, he knew it would - but we thought he had a few months to live. They told us at the end of July that he had two to nine months to live.

The 31st was a Friday. Wednesday of that week my mother had called and said she thought he wasn't going to be with us much longer. I called the girls in Vegas right after that phone call and told them they needed to get to Indiana if they wanted to see their grandfather before he died. Nova had been there in July. Aluna had taken a new job that summer and did not feel that she could take time off. When I told her she needed to get to Indiana now, she went to her new boss and got the time off and made plans to fly herself, Nova and Tay out the following Tuesday.

What was my mistake you ask? The mistake I made was putting my job and my normal life ahead of my father and my family. In all honesty, none of us expected him to pass that day. So I went to work in the morning with plans to leave around noon.

It's a 10-hour drive from Winona to my parent's home in Linton Indiana. If I had piled everyone in the car and left early in the day we would have made it in time.

Instead, leaving at noon meant that we were somewhere between Bloomington/Normal and Danville, Illinois when my brother called to tell us that my father had passed away. They told me that he knew - as much as one can know in the final hours of life - that we were coming, but he just could not wait for us to be there. He died at 8:45pm.

I wasn't there. Forever I will know that my decision to work those 4 or 5 hours meant that I was racing down a highway in a futile attempt to be there when my father died.

I hate it sometimes, that my family is so spread out over the country. I know something like this will happen again.

A New Budget

September always brings new budgets in our house. Every year, at this time of year, at least one person in the household (and probably more) is retooling, rethinking and reassessing wants, needs and how far a dollar (or $20) can be stretched.

It's the time of year when school shopping has been my love-to-do/hate-to-do task (one I no longer face since everyone is out of high school and either done with college, or paying for their own stuff). Love the "organizational" shopping that notebooks, pens & pencils & markers, post-it notes, binders and those nifty zipper pockets for them, implies. Hate the list of "must-have-on-first-day-of-school" that the public school sent out every year (divided by grade level). Hate the fact that kids can be so cruel and if daughters and son came in less-than-stylish clothing they would be tortured, cut to the bone with a glance and a snicker.

For the last 20 years or so, I have had to postpone a birthday celebration for myself (d.o.b. 9/13) because school shopping would so blow the budget. We would finally recover in time to do the Christmas shopping sometime late-October or early-November. Not a bad thing, since I have way too much stuff anyway. But some years there wasn't even enough left to have a cake and ice cream.

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Thinking about McCain's $5-million-dollar-is-rich jokey response to the discussion of class and wealth...
NY Times Op-Ed by economist Paul Krugman

Endangered Species Act - Part II

A few days ago I posted a link to a NY Times article about the Endangered Species Act and some upcoming changes the Bush administration wants to push through. I also included the link to the information on public comments.

The proposed changes are on the government website where you can submit comments. This evening I plan to read through the change document and make some comments.

Tire Pressure

This weekend I got a very dramatic lesson in how tire pressure affects gas mileage - from my bicycle.

Abelisto and I usually ride our bikes to the Farmer's Market in Winona on Saturday mornings. We have panniers on our bikes that can hold the equivalent of 2 brown paper grocery bags each. Together we can get over a week's groceries in the panniers.

Anyway, over the last couple weeks I had been having more and more trouble riding the bike. I was cursing poor Adventure Cycle, thinking that they were at fault (had a recent tune up and one of the problems following it was this difficulty/trouble with riding - the other problem, erratic shifting issues still is going on). On Saturday morning Abelisto noticed that my rear tire was extremely low on air. We quickly went to the service station and added quite a bit of air pressure to both my tires.

Getting back on the bike was amazing - it now rolled so freely, so effortlessly... The difference in energy expenditure was unbelievable. It must be much the same with a car, except we do not notice it since we aren't doing the pedaling...

Now I have got to check the tires on all the vehicles in the household.

Now I need to check the tire pressures on all the vehicles.

Mead Update

Got some advice from Jon (a veteran mead & wine maker) concerning the mead. He said to date it and put it in a dark, cool place for 12 months to mellow the taste.


So on the 16th of August in 2009 we will open a bottle and test it.

Mead Making

Tonight Eli and I bottled the first batch of mead. This mead was made with honey from a local beekeeper that we got at the Farmer's Market in Winona. I do not drink alcohol so I do not really know myself, but others in my household think it tastes good.

This batch was made sort of willy-nilly. I did read the meadmaker book, but I did not have any special equipment for doing it other than the carboy and the fermentation lock. I did not even have a thermometer. I guess I was really lucky that it made at all. It took DAYS for it to start fermenting, and it was not very vigorous when it did start. There was maybe a bubble every 15 seconds. We worried that we were going to end up with honey vinegar, or something like that.

A week or so ago I stopped by the Wine & Beer Making Supply store just north of Rochester on Hwy 52. I bought a polycarbonate carboy, another fermentation lock, a racking tube and hose, a floating thermometer, a hydrometer and testing tube, some stabilizer, and some yeast energizer (or maybe it was nutrient - don't remember and the box is in the other room).

Abelisto and I picked up 12 pounds raw honey at the food co-op. I started a second batch of mead with part of it last weekend when I moved the first batch to the secondary fermentation carboy (the rest of the honey went to the roofers in appreciation of taking such good care not to drop old shingles on the bee hives). I really did not need to move the first batch into a secondary fermentation carboy, it was absolutely done with the fermenting, but it did help clarify it. Anyway, the second batch of mead was bubbling away about 4 hours after I mixed it up. The bubbles were rising through the fermentation lock at about 1 bubble every 2.5 to 3 seconds this time. I took specific gravity and temperature measurements and am keeping better records with this batch. 

It will be interesting to see how it comes out.

Endangered Species Act

Normally I do not regurgitate content from other websites. However this is something I think needs to be passed along:

NY Times Editorial - An Endangered Act
Published: August 13, 2008
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s latest assault on the Endangered Species Act deserves to be struck down.

Information on commenting during the 30-day Public Comment period.

I would suggest that we all think about commenting after the proposed changes have been posted (sometime tomorrow - 8/15/2008).

• Online, at Regulations.gov
• By mail, to:
  

  Public Comment Processing,
  Attention: 1018-AT50
  Division of Policy and Directives Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service
  4401 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 222,
  Arlington, VA 22203

When the proposed rule changes get posted I will try to put them up here - it is confusing to find them on the gov site.

Leclerc Tissart Tapestry Loom

I have not posted on here for a few days - mostly because I was busy getting some things done. There is this thing about doing and/or writing about doing that I sometimes struggle with. It is the residue from graduate school. I want to do the work. I do not always want to document it. However I realize that I can get pretty lazy intellectually if I do not work at documenting the work.

However, that was not the reason I have not posted lately. The reason was that I have been all wrapped up in the new tapestry loom. It is a 60" Leclerc Tissart loom, probably made in the 70s or 80s (still need to do more research).

We drove to Chicago in the new car (2007 Pontiac Vibe - more about that later) on August 1st to spend the weekend with Eileen at her new place, go to some museums, visit Loyola where Abelisto went to grad school and just hang out. On the way back we drove to Krakow Wisconsin (an hour or so north of Green Bay) to pick up the loom.

We took it apart and put it in the Vibe. We had to fold down the wider section of the back seat and the front passenger seat to get it all in there. Some of the pieces are around 6' long. Abelisto ended up sitting behind me in the narrower section of the back seat.

When we got it home late Sunday night we piled the loom in the front room and went to bed. Monday night I cleaned and oiled the wooden parts and steel-wooled the brake assembly and the harnesses (slight surface rust). The heddles are wire with inset eyes (maybe stainless steel - I did not look that closely at them) and are in really good condition considering the loom sat out in a barn for a few years.

Then Abelisto and I put it back together.

Step one: Side pieces and bottom piece with treddles.


Step two: Added the front and middle back beams and the beater assembly (which is backwards in this photo - we discovered that pretty quickly and turned it around).


Step three: Added the cloth beam (or whatever it is called on a tapestry loom) and tension arm.


Step four: Here we turned the harness assembly around the right way and added the warp beam. All that is left is the top back beam.

Once the loom was together we decided to move Sheba's desk and put the loom in front of the big window.

Tonight I plan to start dressing the loom.

New Loom

Usually I stay away from Ebay. For a number of reasons - mainly I like to see and touch what I buy before I do so, However this week I found a Leclerc tapestry loom on Ebay that was too good to pass up.

(Seller photograph)

It came with some other items.

(Seller photograph)

It is a 60" loom, and hopefully Abelisto and I can pick it up on the way back from Chicago this weekend...

Tapestry Finishing - II

Tonight I took the tapestry off of the loom. Once the piece was relaxed, once the tension was normalized, the selvedge issue became much less obvious. That is good to see.

I tied each pair of warp threads together in square knots. Then I started weaving the loose ends back in. I used the threaders I mentioned before with mixed results. I snapped one right off. Then I tried a twisted beading needle, then a large gauge bead threader. I ended up going back to the punch embroidery needle threader and just being careful, careful, careful as I pull the yarns back through the weft.


I managed to get maybe a third of the ends woven in before I got tired of doing it. I will probably finish weaving them in tomorrow. Then I will have to figure out what to do with the warp ends. Now I am going to finish building the smaller loom and maybe warp it.

Winona County DFL Website

I did not work on the tapestry last night. I had wanted to go to the DFL Tech committee meeting, get lots of work done and then come home and work on the tapestry.

Instead of doing that, I ended up having only one other member of my committee attend the meeting and then staying an extra hour at the DFL to teach someone how to use Google Groups.

Frustrated by the lack of progress and the lack of response to my requests for help with the website content, I decided to do it myself and then bring it back to a few key people who I know will get me the information that I need. When I got home (around 7 pm) I started working on the site. Shortly before midnight I posted the redesign to a temporary location and am now waiting on more information and feedback.

Tapestry Finishing

Last night I started taking the tapestry off of the loom. Thought I should stop at one point and refresh my memory of how this would best be done. I have decided to weave the loose ends that are sticking out of the back into the weft before going any farther with the cutting down the tapestry. If that works out to be too difficult (given the tension on the piece) I will continue cutting it loose and tying it off and then tuck in the loose ends once it is off the loom. I think the best tool for that would be the threaders for punch embroidery needles that I have. They look like giant sewing needle threading aids. I can easily slip them between the weft yarns, catch the loose ends, and pull them up between the weft yarns in order to bind them in and hide them.

I did run across some encouraging information - since this tapestry is woven with wool it may be possible to somewhat correct the draw-in/selvedge issue by steaming and blocking the piece.

It is worth a try.