Dispatch From LA

a posse of cats hijacked this blog!

I sleep by day and conserve my energy so that at night I can find rats to bring inside for you... to chase around the house.  I just wish I understood why you spend so much time catching them just to let them go?  I don't understand!  I must think about this some more.  Things aren't adding up.

I like to keep clean.  I don't like rats.  I don't roll in dirt.  I hate boys.  I love this cool chair.  You'll notice I don't scratch the couch like those other 2 beasts.

Newton's 1st law of motion:  A body in motion tends to stay in motion.  A body at rest tends to stay at rest.  I did not get to be this old without learning some physics.  I am the thinker of the group.  I think I will rest here for awhile.  Maybe all afternoon.  

p.s.  Aunt Carol's cat is learning how to read!

listen to this

 

In one of my early visual journals I have this poem written.  I remember how funny I thought it was when I came across it in a book I was reading.  I read it aloud to a friend.  We roared with laughter.  You have to have a certain level of appreciation for your own past or current paranoia in order to like it.  It appeared the other day in Writer's Almanac and with no one around except Buck Moss to listen, I read it to him.  Sit still for a minute.  I'll read it to you.  

We Who Are Your Closest Friends we who are your closest friends feel the time has come to tell you that every Thursday we have been meeting as a group to devise ways to keep you in perpetual uncertainty frustration discontent and torture by neither loving you as much as you want nor cutting you adrift your analyst is in on it plus your boyfriend and your ex-husband and we have pledged to disappoint you as long as you need us in announcing our  association we realize we have placed in your hands a possible antidote against uncertainty indeed against ourselves but since our Thursday nights have brought us to a community of purpose rare in itself with you as the natural center we feel hopeful you  will continue to make unreasonable demands for affection if not as a consequence of your disastrous personality then for the good of the collective by Phillip Lopate

~

More summer reading.  So good!  The east coast Moss troupe and I retire to the patio each early evening for reading & cocktails.  Yesterday found us here.   A little known jewel of a park where we lolled about on blankets & pillows reading and picnicking until early evening.

The day before we scooted up the coast for a Santa Barbara adventure.

The weather has been mild and pretty close to perfect.  Happy summer dreaming from LA...to wherever in the big wide world you happen to be (!)

dreaming in swedish

summer leisure activity no. 25

cutting & pasting

also,

my long lost brother from the east coast is visiting so we've been doing some of this:

 

the arrows point to the loot

Moss Cottage had just been gussied up when a cute friend knocked on my front door.  I was all prepared to pick her up and spin her around but, she was NOT empty handed.  A giant box of overflowing wallpaper was in her arms.

 There were several more back and forth trips from her car to my house.  Magazines, fabric, mountains of paper...more paper. It looked like she had stopped first at a really cool flea market, packed up her car, and drove straight here.

Cool old iron candalabra and lanterns and other things I know not what they are for.  The lantern will come in handy when I go out on neighborhood crime-solving jaunts at midnight.  I think I will secure it to a staff with a heavy rope or chain.  Or maybe I'll dangle it from my pergola!

That sounds safer.  

  I just went on a cleaning slash decluttering spree.  So really, you could say I needed everything I got.  Although I did make up a box of paper goods for my sister.  Because that's just how I roll.

2 new outdoor pillows!  Seriously I needed 2 new outdoor pillows.

We had a 6 hour non-stop gab fest.  If you put your ear to the window it would've sounded like Alvin & The Chipmunks talking.  Speeded up yackity yackity yaks.

where i fry myself up some doggone chicken!

If you were following THIS recipe and it said you needed a rack to drain the chicken on after brining in buttermilk and sea salt wouldn't you use your dish drainer?  I mean if you didn't have a regular rack.  A rack rack.  My SISTER seemed to think it was hilarious and strange.  I, on the other hand, thought it was a perfectly logical choice.  I guess I could have used the wire mesh paper tray on my desk.  Hmmmm...next time.

A summer without fried chicken is like a heart with no love inside.  A house with all the lights off.  A bottle of lonely peanut oil without a hot pan.  I won't belabor the point.  You're smart.  You get it.

Buck demonstrated his growing repertoire of yoga poses while I fried the chicken.  I showed my appreciation by not getting any flour on him.

happy saturday! {on friday}

This is the former home of a shaggy geranium.  He got moved into the garden and whaddayaknow in moved a succulent jewel box! 

I keep walking over and staring down at all that glittering voluptuousness.  X-rated isn't it?  Cover the kittens eyes!

A friend popped over to Moss Cottage this week and among the treasure she deposited in my arms was this old handmade box from her pop's workshop.   

I do love myself a nice grungy old box with a story.  Also.  Um.  In theory a lot of washi tape could fit in here.

But, I'm using it on my art table to hold paper scraps.  I lined it with some heavy duty wallpaper and glued on various other paper provisions.

Before I actually use it though I think I'll keep staring at it for awhile.  

When I'm not staring at my kindle screen wholly absorbed in this page turner:

Just curious...what are you reading at this exact moment in time?  

dear july, you are so good to me

cinnamon coffee + breakfast + uncrowded restaurant + journal

leaning into simple summer pleasures.

jane austen's summer cottage

no more room = no more tape

A Pinterest Board I Get To Decorate!

My inspiration book grows!  These are colors, patterns, shapes, photos, combinations I want to look at over and over.  Not really things I want to buy.  I'm just enjoying putting pretty things together.

You will recognize some of these as my Paris photos.  I have some 1930's National Geographics and Life around here, but not many new magazines.  So I print a lot of things that catch my eye on design blogs.  It really is like a pinterest board that I get to decorate.

inspiration envelope. 

80 Year Old Designer Miyano Haraki

Ari Seth Cohen of Advanced Style, one of the blogs listed in my sidebar, took this fantastic photo.

80 Year Old Designer Miyano Haraki.  

As I have pointed out before I am no vision of sartorial splendor.  Oh no.  Not me.  And, to be honest, I have very little interest in fashion featuring young kittens prancing about with pouty expressions.  But I do enjoy going to Ari's blog and catching up on all the advanced fashionistas he features on a regular basis.  I appreciate the way he showcases quirky people who lead rich lives and dress accordingly.  Bravo Ari!

My newest summer read.  After slogging through the last book, which I removed from my sidebar as quickly as I could lest someone mistakenly think it was worthy of their attention, I happened upon Jan Morris' book above.  Now I'm imagining a month in a Welsh countryside cottage.  A quiet fire.  The smell of woodsmoke.  A cup of tea by my side.

Have you heard of reading retreats?  Laura Miller has written about them HERE in such a captivating way!  My sister & I always find such pleasure in tramping about our foreign destinations with books in our bags.  In Lisbon we found the loveliest outdoor living rooms in which to hunker down and read at our leisure.

Pure contentment to roam a new city with a book in tow.  Slow travel at its very finest.

I found THIS article about Jan Morris and the enduring love she shares with her partner of 60 years.  Seemed to go with the other themes in this post so I pass it along to you thinking you may enjoy it as well.  

And finally, I received more comments yesterday from THIS post.  Forget the post though!  So many wonderful comments there from a fine troupe of older women.  Even a poem!  How I have enjoyed reading each one. 

Buck Moss Runs This Show

This is my tabletop and I will not move.  Not for anything.  Plus it's my birthday the entire month of July, not just the 4th.  And I'm a 16 year old now.  And jumping is good excercise for me.

You don't need to clear anything off I have already done that.  Oh and you know I am not fond of puffy yarn balls. I had a go at those. I might have bitten one.  Purely accidental.

 

If you make me get down I will go get my fur slippers all dirty outside.  Then I might jump on your white coverlet on your freshly made bed.  I might.  I wouldn't want to.  Because I'm not that kind of cat.

 

Kinfolk

 

Kinkolk: Lunch for Two from andrew+carissa on Vimeo.

Go.  Read.  This.  Magazine.  Thanking my lucky stars I spotted this at Poppytalk earlier today.  Wouldn't have wanted to miss it for the world.  Sublime photos, good reading - a nice article on blogger meetups.  AND.  I adore the couple they meet!   Mr. & Mrs. Globetrot who I discovered this spring because of their amazing Budapest posts.  As I most recently met Chrissy in France, I could especially relate to the nervous apprehension that sat with me as I waited for our date to begin.  It was all for naught.  My instincts were spot-on.  She has a wonderful post up right now about moving to the village of La Borne.

Fireflies & Polish Paper Chandeliers

Cool mornings in LA.  Me & Buck out on the patio tucked under a blanket.  Someone's nose buried in a book.  Mug after mug of milky coffee.  Later I doze off to the drone of hummingbirds at the feeder.  A trip to the nursery.  Planting geraniums.  Late at night I dip my oars in the water and paddle out to my inspiration book.  Through a deep forest with a river running through it.  Birds that call back and forth to each other.  Fireflies!   

74 Degrees of Perfect

 cut.  paste.  hum.  repeat.  i am pressing pause on this day.  oh yes i am!

hello my name is {tuesday}

good times for the summer brain!

happy {sunday}

Unexpected blooms in the patio garden.  I like making my morning inspections.  There are new webs to admire, new blossoms, everything glows in the early light.

The Path is going to make her summer debut any day now.  

It's Sunday.  The air has cooled which means no daytime a/c needed.  I love having my windows open to the outside.

Makes my kitchen vantage place seem practically outside.  I am RIGHT here cutting & humming.  

Wyatt had a dirt massage earlier.

Roll roll roll then UP on the clean tablecloth he goes.  I let him.  sigh.

One of the mamas from one of my classes sent me this dear photo of her 2 girlies working intently in their little  journals.   There is something very right about that.  Something that makes me feel all smiley inside.  Arty dining room table memories in progress.

A 72 year old someone from FTB sent me this journal page.  

I am interested in knowing what 72 year olds think.  There needs to be more of them telling us.  72 is a foreign country I haven't visited yet, but I'm so curious.   If I'm going there someday, I need to get my maps and guidebooks in order now.   Maybe we speak the same language.  Think the same thoughts.

crazy beautiful

kitchen table hijinx.  

once i began i saw that what i really wanted to do is make a pinterest collection.  so i did.  in my inspiration book.  because as keen as i am on pinterest i can't pick it up and thumb through it to see everything i've gathered together.  can i?

it's saturday.  i'm living in the middle of a crazy beautiful mess of paper with birds flying back and forth.  mmmmmm.

see that blue bird knickknack?  mama moss gave that to me last time i was in kansas.  i wrapped it in a sock and carried it home in my purse.  it lived in every one of my childhood homes as far back as i can remember.  now it's on my kitchen sill.  usually i face him out so he can look out the window.

if your inspiration books have an online home (blog or flickr) mention it in the comments so we can all fly over to flip through your pages!

Inspiration Books

I made THIS

Because I saw THIS.

And decided I wanted to keep one of THESE.  For inspiration.  For fun.  Because it's summer and I'm a free bird.  And I can do whatever I want.  Because I'm the boss of me.  that's why.

You'll be updated.  You know you will.

{thursday at home}

i'm still piecing together little collections in my miniature paper museum.

although when i woke up this morning not all of my collections were as I left them.

i gather & sort and buck moss bats them onto the floor with his big paws while i sleep.

how rude!

interested in garden ispiration?  go HERE.  i drank my morning cuppa while flipping the pages.  swoonworthy.

happily lost in a sea of paper

hello.  i'm right where you left me.  

swimming in a sea of paper scraps.  

i keep stopping and making tabletop collages out of assorted collections.

summer shenanigans.

 

Sticks & Salty Dogs!

This Salty Dog is helping only a little with my frayed nerves as I sit in the war zone that is LA on the 4th of July.  It's like The Big Bad Wolf is at my door and  I'm in the house made of sticks!  Sticks!  Where are my nerve pills? 

These are the stitches we did this, our 3rd week in FULL TILT BOOGIE.  Pat made the stunning journal above using a combination of Sewn Chains & Triple Chain stitches.  If you stop by her blog you'll see what else she's been making.  Both of these stitches are clever Keith Smith designs.   I was pretty excited when he graciously allowed me to teach them in FTB.  More than excited actually.  Delirious.

Michelle made the book above.  Go check out her blog to see all the books she's made!  Impressive!

Our photo album holds only some of the journals that this talented ambitious group of craft monkeys have been making.   By the way the 2 stitches above are deceptively simple!

If you're in the NYC area in September, Keith Smith will have an exhibit of his books at Bruce Silverstein Gallery.  He's been exploring the book structure for the last 40 years so I'm imagining this show will be a real visual feast.   

Wendy And Evelyn Were Cilling Bees!

 I adopted a new tattling policy after we watched Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971 version with Gene Wilder).   From Willy Wonka's mouth, to my ears, and straight out of my mouth again.

Please submit all complaints in writing to the complaint department.  It is only open between the hours of 8-9 pm, thus any letters received before this time cannot be guaranteed successful delivery.

The 2nd sentence is of my own making.    I enjoyed delivering my lines over and over in a dramatic voice.

But I've pushed off and away from school life in my little rowboat.  Paddling slowly down the stream.  Looking for a quiet place to pitch my tent.  And eat a bowl of strawberries & peaches.

I went on a morning walk.  I don't know why I feel the need to pick up trash off the street and cart it home in my pockets.  But I do.  Sometimes it doesn't fit in my pockets, but I cart it home anyway.  The mannequin arm from a February walk is still draped across my front porch rail.  I use the 6 white plates I found daily.  The hangers have come in very handy.

As Full Tilt Boogie winds down I'll be blogging more over here.  I don't make a good multi-tasker.  I have a slow methodical brain.  It dives down deep into each subject and sometimes forgets to come up for air.  Luckily I found an oxygen tank on a walk.   And it works!