often things are done a certain way for a reason

    One morning while visiting my mom i found all of the ingredients for making blueberry pancakes waiting for my on the kitchen counter.
My brother makes the BEST pancakes ever, but mine are certainly fine for home consumption so i got to it.

Then it happened - i had an IDEA.
Oh, how many misadventures here in the Nikiverse start with me suddenly having an idea?

It really annoys me that blueberry pancakes only have blueberries every here and there because they are added after the batter is poured.
    You get bites with a lot of berry and bites with no berry.

It tweaks at my love for food homogeny.

What if i added some of them during mixing so that they would break apart, scattering blueberry bitletts throughout the batter?
Then i could still place extra berries where needed as they cooked.
Double the berry goodnes!
BRILLIANT!
It is so obvious, so easy.
Why has no one done it like this before?

sigh... this is why.


Too much berry caused the top cakes to cook unevenly and be, well, you can see for yourself.


I added more batter and placed the berries as is common and got the delicious bottom cakes.




sigh... foiled again by dratted reality

WWoB goes to school

Hitting that snooze button a second time seemed like the right choice at 7 am.
To shower faster i skipped the conditioner on my hair, threw on workout pants and a sweater and was out the door at 7:28 to be at JP's at 7:30 to wake up Dash at 7:40.
Easy-peasy.

ummmmmm... are you wondering how i parked in front of that tree?
I didn't.
And that is not a tree.
It is a ginourmo tree limb laying ON my car.

Good news - only a few scratches that will easily wash or buff off.
Bad news - i had to lift that grody, soaking wet, very heavy dead thing off of my car and then move it into the front yard, around another tree so that i could pull my car out resulting in me being covered in mud.
By the time i got to JP's it was already time to get up the boy.
Got all of the morning routine done and left his house on time, but never got around to putting up my hair.
And that is why the Wild Woman of Borneo walked into the Otter's classroom this morning with muddy clothes, destroyed nails and half-wet, half-dry, frizzy, almost but not quite curly hair.
One can assume it was a sight.

one of THOSE days...

You know the days I mean: everything you touch seems to come apart.
Nothing truly bad happens.
Glassware breaks, things are left at home, lunches can't be found.
It isn't even bad enough to be the work of the thwart-hog.
It is more like an annoying anteater lumbering through your life, knocking things over with that huge furry tail and licking everything in sight with its crazy tongue.
Yes, I'd say my day in covered in anteater spit.

original image at aazk.com

nice hat

I've had a great, productive week getting ready for the first festival of the season -

Catonsville Arts and Craft Festival;

Sunday Sept 8th;

i'll be next to Objects Found.

I mean, I love the pieces that I've made and am excited about new displays and am generally stoked about NikCo.

Last night the productivity train jumped its tracks when I realized that a nice couple that I had talked to for about 10-15 minutes yesterday at work had actually been playing me and stole some expensive merchandise.
Nothing makes you not want to be optimistic like watching security tape to find the moment where other human beings take advantage of your basic kind nature to their own nefarious ends.
No, that does not inspire optimism.
It inspires nausea and sleeplessness.
It inspires crying for hours because how can people BE like that?
It inspires free-floating anxiety and mistrust, as well as general malaise.
It inspires lethargy and depression.
It inspires self-loathing and disdain for the entire human race.
It inspires helplessness, hopelessness and an overwhelming need to run away to New Zealand and change my name to Gertie.

Sitting here trying to cobble together a Friday Randomness post I couldn't think of a single cheerful, silly, funny, interesting or odd thing to write. All I could think about is how it always seems like whenever I am happy and on-course something always happens to make me doubt myself, my choices and my entire world view.
Cheery, isn't it?
Aren't you glad you checked out The Nikiverse today?

Then I remembered the bookmark I used to have clipped to my file boxes at work:

All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.
- St. Francis of Assisi

Optimism is a choice.
It is a silly choice.
It flies in the face of all evidence.
It is ridiculous.
But it is still the best choice.

shaking my head slowly

So i just logged on to post the updates to my Friday post, only to find that my Friday post never posted.
I am so unamused right now.
Anyhoo, below is the post that was suppossed to go out on Friday; just add 2 days to all of the announcements i guess.
...sigh

why wasn't it on clearance?

With standing gigs at three different store, festivals, babysitting and housesitting I wouldn't know where I am supposed to be from hour to hour without my planner.
Last year I found the PERFECT planner: it is the right size for my purse, has monthly dividers for quick glances, has large boxes without lines, is spiral bound so I can tuck my pencil right in the binding, has heavy, protective covers and is even pink for goodness' sakes.
I love it.
However, it is a student planner, so July is the last month in my beloved planner.
sigh...
Last month I went to the same store where I bought my planner, but they didn't have any of the same design. They did have a jillion others so I spent over a half hour leafing through pages, fitting pencils, running pocket book tests, and generally trying to find an equivalent to what I have.
Finally I settled on an 18 month planner that is the same size, spiral bound, with both the plastic covers and large boxes; as an added bonus, it is burgundy. Plus, with it going from July this year through December of next year i'd be back on the regular world calendar instead of a school year calendar.
Yesterday I spent an hour modifying it to be exactly what I need:

- extraneous dividers and pages were cut out to make room for my pencil
- important pages were adhered to each other to give them extra weight
- all of the remaining pages were trimmed with a straight edge and exacto to make room for the tabs
- color  matched tabs were cut, labeled, and installed
It was perfect and ready to go to work.
I filled in all of my set work days for the next two months and then contacted Andrew to get his vacation dates.
That is when things started to get hinky.
He sent me dates that didn't match up with my calendar.
Of course he is also sick so I questioned and requestioned him.
After about 10 minutes of this I had a sickening epiphany:

It is a 2012/2013 book instead of a 2013/2014 book.
Mayhaps you are wondering how in the world I could have missed such a thing.
Did I mention that I looked through a jillion planners?
I must have just noticed the big 2013 on the title page and assumed it was July 2013 through December 2014.
Why wouldn't you title it "2012-2013 Planner"?
Besides, why would they have a planner on the shelves that is already 67% invalid?
Yes, it still had 6 good months in it, but you'd think they wouldn't be charging FULL PRICE for 6 months. One would think that the store would put something a full year past its starting date on sale. If there had been a sale sticker on it I would have examined it a bit more closely.
So after all that work I didn't have 17 months prepped; I had 5 months.

AAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

After throwing a bit of a hissy in the studio and then placating myself by sharing sushi with fTM Amy I went to FOUR stores and still don't have a planner like the one that ends tomorrow.

I'll be right back.

Since yesterday I'd calmed down about it, but after typing out the story I was so incensed again that I ripped out all of the expired months from the burgundy planner.

mmmmmm...catharsis

 [it might not have been such a good idea to do it right over my lunch]
Now at least I have the next five months covered without the offensive pages mocking me every time I open the book.
That will give me time to contact the manufacturer of my pink planner to see if they still produce the model I love and if they sell it online.

you know who hates jewelry?

The Thwart-hog hates jewelry.
Beauty and joy and sparkles are like thorns in its paws.
The first photo shoot for NikCo was postponed because of weather on Tuesday and then again just this afternoon cause my model is sick in bed.
GAH!

the thwart-hog also rises

 

 THWART-HOG!


It felt like everything was going too well.
It felt like things were progressing just a bit too smoothly.
But i wasn't worried; in fact, i figured the thwart-hog had been chased away by the actual calamity that was this summer, that he was giving me some space to get The Plan on track.
Naive?
Perhaps.
Overly optimistic?
Certainly.
Just plain dumb?
...sigh

For perhaps the first time in history i was not only on target, on schedule and not procrastinating, i was ahead of schedule in preparation for the Catonsville Arts and Crafts Festival tomorrow. My BFF was calling every 6-12 hours for us to set another production goal (and i earned cool stuff like homemade jelly and cookies if i accomplished them; isn't she cool?), displays were being built and painted, i was even getting sleep, people.

And somewhere the thwart-hog was watching, waiting and laughing.

It was time to take a little break, get some dinner and go to Michael's. Normally i buy findings and wires in bulk on-line, but production has been so high, so on target this week that i ran out.
In the shopping center parking lot my car had some sort of electrical breakdown and i had to get AAA to tow it to the dealership, which was closed since it was a Friday night.
So the day before the Festival, I have no car.
THWART-HOG!

I'm sure that i can find a way around the half built displays that need hinges from the hardware store, the necklaces that are waiting for findings cause i never got to the Michael's, the complete lack of caffeine in my house right now, the display pieces that i just realized are in my car at the dealership along with my  travel chairs, the repair bill that i don't know how i'm going to pay and the super grumpy attitude that i am currently wearing.
I'm sure that it is all gonna be just fine in the end; mayhaps not as super-sparkly, ultra-fantastic as i planned, but certainly not an abysmal tragedy.
But that doesn't change the fact that I want to hunt down that dagnabbed thwart-hog and run him over with my car.
...oh wait
THWART-HOG!

Anyhoo, i figured a cathartic little post would be a good way to purge my bile and get back on track; plus, i know that someday this will just be a funny story - like the time i had to finish the display cards for the art exhibition by lantern light - so it needed to be recorded in this here digital scrapbook of the insanity that is my life.
I'm off to do... something... maybe take a bubble bath with aroma candles and soothing Native American flute sonatas.

If you're in town, come see me tomorrow at the Catonsville Arts and Crafts Festival.
My tent will be in front of Objects Found and it should be a hoot to see what i manage to cobble together for displays.

if only i could keep my dang mouth shut.

The word for today, my friends, is hubris.
Hubris is excessive pride or insolence.
Often, it is referred to as pride before the fall because it is a classic character flaw in heroes.
Basically, the hero has so much self-confidence that he is blinded into doing something exceedingly dumb that proves to be the beginning of his undoing.
One of the interesting things about hubris is that it is so blatant, so obvious that everyone can recognize it (except for the hero himself) and most everyone can guess what is going to happen because of it. 
Let's take a hypothetical example... the heroine of a story is feeling so good, so happy, so elated that she declares before a gathering of her friends that she is unafraid of Fate; she boasts that no matter what, she will be going on vacation to Alaska in eight months.
Hubris!
Therefore, no one would be the least bit surprised when one week later a text message arrives -while she is hypothetically grocery shopping and trying to decide what kind of yogurt to buy- with the news that the trip might have to be cancelled; no one, that is, except our hapless heroine who honestly can't frickin' believe it. Despite having studied Aristotle's Poetics on more than one occasion and having written numerous papers on hubris, she is indeed clueless and doesn't see the other shoe inevitably falling.
Of course, Fate has risen to the call-out and tossed a good, legitimate wrench into the works.
Why?
HUBRIS

...sigh

ps - hey Fate, sorry about that; you win

Twart Hog sighting

DAGNABIT!

The water main broke at work yesterday so we are closed on Monday which would be awesone except that the new show premieres on Wednesday, so Monday was all day blocking and rehearsal.
The blinking LED smiley face base was all ready to start the polying process until acetone accidently dripped on it.
I found out that the largest circle bit for our drill press in 2 and an eighth, but i need 3 inch routed circles on a prop.
Running up and down the steps between my lab and the wood shop i popped the knee i have been babying since i cracked it during the Poultry-geist attack.
The fresnel light we were going to use for one experiment overheated and cracked the lamp housing, rendering it useless.
We are almost ready to do a table set-up, but there are no spaces available and my yearly employee evaluation is in an hour.

I know that right before a premiere things are supposed to go wonky so that the actual performance is smooth, but really, people, REALLY?
Send me some good vibes today, please, before i inadvertently electrocute myself during training tomorrow. (oh, did i mention that i'm already working tomorrow for public programs?)

what could be worse than the twart-hog?

(when the day starts with a spontaneous explosion that could've taken out a city block and ends with falling up the stairs in front of guests, you know it is time to get home and hide in your bed because you are being stalked by the poultry-geist)

{note- the explosion happened in my lab, but not to me; fTM Megan burned off the hairs on her arms and nearly had a heat attack, but she seemed okay}

God weighs in on my habit of buzzing deadlines

I am good at meeting deadlines, but i tend to get things finished at the 11th hour. It's the way i've always operated and generally it works for me; however, it does mean that it makes me vulnerable to outside forces.
The art show was from noon to 5pm on Sunday, but as part of the organizing committee i needed to be there at 8am to start turning the room.
I had a detailed, succinct plan on how to finish all of my promotional things, get cards made to sell, finish 2 of the 4 pieces in process in my studio so that i would exhibit 3 pieces total, and still manage to get 4 hours of sleep. It was an inspired schedule, if i must say so myself.
Then, the power went out at 1am Sunday morning.
Yes, the lights blinked twice and then the neighborhood went dark.
Pitch dark.
Here i am finishing the title cards by the light of a Coleman lantern:

Really.
Who could make this stuff up?

twart-hog of the tundra

I came to work early to start running some structural integrity tests on thermoses.
Halfway through i needed to get more liquid nitrogen so i opened the storage room to find this:

hmmmmmmm...
You really don't need to know what a 250L Dewar normally looks like
 to know that this
can't possibly be right.

  I tip my hat to you, chilly-chilly thwart-hog!

TRAGEDY!

I went out to clear my car from the first round of wintery mix today,
 in anticipation for the next, possibly worse front and found this:

AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH

do thwart-hogs naturally migrate or just stalk me?

When i visit my parents in Florida i try to take one day to see some friends.
This trip i figured i wouldn't be able to see David and Kaaren as David's family was coming down so i figured instead of going all the way into Orlando, I'd see if Douglas would meet me part way.
You see, i wanted to go to Dinosaur Land in Plant City (not related to Dinosaurland in Winchester, VA which i have visited). I have driven by it hundreds of time, but have never been there.
How is that possible? you ask; giant Concrete dinosaurs right off the highway and you never stopped?
I know. I know.
 But finally, finally i was going to rectify that situation, plus slide one more new thing into December.
80 miles into the journey, right before the I-4 exit from I-75 outside of Tampa, my tire blew.
YIKES!
I was in the right-hand lane cause i was getting ready to exit so i was able to safely get off of the highway. AAA came to change the tire and make sure i hadn't bent the rim or damaged anything else with a high speed blowout.
When the Nice Tow Truck Driver, Steve, went to take off the blown tire, it came off in 2 pieces:
Yes, that is the tread in one complete circle at the bottom and the inner tire at the top.
Take a look at that devastation.
Steve tested the spare and declared it sound before putting it on.
 I was all ready to carry on with the adventure once the repair was done, but there was a teeny, little voice in the back of my head, Should you really drive without a spare? What if another tire blew? What if you are in the middle of nowhere and you end up having to buy a tire? A new tire is not in your budget.
sigh... stupid, reasonable, responsible voice.
Man, i hate that voice.  Sometimes i long for the days when i drank too much and went out dancing on work nights.
As much as i wanted to see Douglas and finally, finally go to Dinosaur Land, once Steve declared the car drivable i turned around and headed home.
Well, at least i can stop at Sonic now and get some tots, i cheered myself.
You see there is a Sonic right next to Mom's park and we always get tots at least once when i visit. That is, there was a Sonic right next to my mom's. It suddenly closed overnight with no warning, about a month before i got there so i hadn't had any Sonic tots on my Florida trip yet.
 I remembered passing a sign for a Sonic a few exits earlier so i was gonna ease my disappointment with some deep fried nuggets of pressed potato joy.
Except that it was also closed!
Come on now, thwart-hog. I'm on dang vacation here, 1000 miles away from home. Why are you here, too?
At that point there was nothing to do but grab a Checkers Champ with Cheese and get myself back to mom's. To stave off the dejection i reminded myself that i had bought a new travel CD ($3 at Beall's outlet) and listened to one of my all time favorite songs -Dobie Gray's Drift Away- several times on repeat at rather high decibels. I also saw two Mr. Snuffles Magees (armadillos) along the way, which always makes me smile.
It was sad not to see Douglas, but we'll find some way to visit each other and i will find a way to get to Dinosaur Land some day.
Mark my words, thwart-hog, i will.

let's begin at the end, shall we?

As i begin to post the Hawaii pictures i need to tell you a story about a lovely $5 Goodwill skirt and the only bad thing that happened on my trip because it has some bearing on the posts.
When i travel i like to have a few things/place/restaurants/goals picked out to visit or accomplish, but i leave the rest of the time open for adventure.
 Generally, the day before i leave is my "clean up" day to hit anything still on the list and to take pictures that i need for my scrapbook or for specific blog posts. I was checking out of my hotel on Saturday, flying out at midnight, flying through the night and getting home in the morning on Sunday, so i had almost 12 hours for "clean up" and planned the day to the max:
-get up at 8
-breakfast at Eggs and Things
-take Waikiki street shots and buy souvenirs during the 1.5 hour wait for breakfast
-check out between 11 and 11:30
-pics of Waikiki Aquarium and Honolulu Zoo
-pics of Honolulu public art and mountainside neighborhoods
-head north to find the Crouching Lion formation
-spend the afternoon exploring the Polynesian Cultural Center villages including going to the specific shows and lessons, until they close for the evening luaus
-dinner someplace on the way back to Honolulu
-pictures of the city at night
-return rental car at 9pm
-shuttle to the airport and change into warmer travel clothes
Doesn't that sound like a great day?
Knowing that there would be a lot of pictures and that many of the pictures of me in Hawaii up to that point had been taken when i looked like crappy (totally happy, but tired and salty with sketchy hair) i saved the cutest outfit for last. I found this red and white knee-length floral skirt at Goodwill just days before i left. It is cotton and too light to wear in Maryland in October, but perfect for Hawaii. It was to be paired with a white V-neck t-shirt and long, vintage red and gold beads.
 Lovely, if i must say so myself.
And the perfect yes-i'm-a-tourist-but-i'm-not-the-fannypack-crowd outfit.
Ahhhhh... the best laid plans...
Friday night between the luau and the show (separate post), i was going over everything in my head for "clean up" day - firming up the estimated times, planning the most efficient driving routes, deciding what to pack that night and what to leave for the morning, etc - when i started to have a little doubt.
 I'd made the plane reservations one day sitting at my desk with my boss in the guest chair, talking about flying over a bunch of timezones. I'd intentionally picked flying overnight so that i could sleep. But now that i was in Hawaii and understood the time difference, the travel times just didn't add up. It is a 5 hour flight across the ocean and then another 5 hours across the country, plus layover time to switch planes. Add crossing 6 time zones to the east and the journey appears to take almost an entire day. How was i supposed to leave at midnight and get in at 7am? Somehow i must have messed up and be getting in at 7pm, losing Sunday in the process.
Once i got back to the hotel i checked my reservations.
Yes, i got into BWI at 7am.
Yes, i left Honolulu at midnight - 12:30pm to be precise.
Wait.
12:30pm...
Wait...
12:30 pm is NOON, not MIDNIGHT!
waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
No "clean up" day.
 No Eggs and Things.
No Crouching Lion.
No PCC, even though i had already paid for the tickets.
 No final pictures for the scrapbook or the blog.
 No opportunity to wear my super cute i'm-in-Hawaii outfit.
CURSES!
Soooooooo... i managed to get souvenirs bought and pictures of the King Kamehameha statue before sitting through rush hour traffic to return my car and get to the airport by 10am.
sigh
That is why several of the posts following over the next few days will say imagine pictures here and why there is a picture of my pretty Goodwill skirt, since i can't wear it until probably April.
Phooey.
Oh well, crap happens, right?
Anyhoo, the trip was great otherwise and i'll try to get a few posts up each day to share the adventure with you.

Thwart Hog!!!!

I'm back.
I'm wading through piles of mail and laundry and work and pictures to share my adventures with you, but today I am being stalked by...
the THWART HOG! (drawing by TM Amy)
I'm not going to go through every misstep, closed door and ridiculous situation that has transpired today but know that i am close to hysterical laughter, the kind that you can't stop once you start.
Once i am back from hiding, i'll post some Pacific joy.