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Friday Recommends – Pogo, etc.

January 13, 2012 in Friday Recommends | 4 comments

Friday the 13th falls on a Friday this month, so it behooves us to beware lest we be befuddled. If you don’t know Pogo, my first recommendation to you is to read the Wiki on Pogo and then read some of the strips. You’re welcome.

flag by Nick Piche

I can’t remember if I recommended this guy before, but I’m recommending him now: Nick Piche. Besides being a fan of the Oxford comma (a comma after EVERY “and” and “or” in a series), he writes killer fiction.

If you’re seriously locavore and have the room for some structures (and your neighborhood codes allow it), have a look at Suburban Hobby Farmer by Bill Brikiatis. Lots of good stuff there!

Our #4 daughter showed me this video and I have to share it:

It snowed here overnight, so I went looking for programs to make my own snowflakes. Here’s a fun one. Or, if you’re old-skool, you can cut some out of paper with Martha Stewart. With Martha Stewart’s instructions, I mean. You wouldn’t actually use Martha Stewart in place of scissors. If she were that sharp, she wouldn’t have done time, am I right? (Sorry, Martha! I love ya, gal!)

WRITING PROMPT: If you love cold weather, write a character who hates it. If you hate it, write a character who loves it.

MA

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Sunday In New Albany, Japan

June 14, 2011 in Grab bag | No comments

Click picture to enlarge

Sunday, Mom and I went to An Asian Garden Tour and Culture Workshop sponsored by The Center for Cultural Resources and the Students for Diversity Club of Indiana University Southeast. The “gardens” were not what we in the Western tradition think of as gardens: lots of plants, preferably with flowers on them. These gardens were little jewels, little bites of richness to be savored for quality rather than quantity.

Here’s the only picture I took on the tour. The other spaces were so intimate and complex, they wouldn’t have come across in a photograph.

We also received packets listing the nine design techniques and seven basic elements of Japanese gardens.

Design Techniques

  1. enclosure and entry
  2. void and accent
  3. balance and asymmetry
  4. planes and volume
  5. symbology
  6. borrowed scenery
  7. mitate (one thing standing in for another)
  8. pathways and bridges
  9. master planning (letting the garden grow and flow with landscape and materials)

Design Elements

  1. rocks
  2. white sand
  3. water
  4. plantings
  5. bridges
  6. sculptured ornaments
  7. walls and fences

We were invited to make our own small zen gardens to take home, but I declined. I used to have a zen garden in the house, until the cats discovered it and did some of their own organic composition and raking.

I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies on Julie Hyzy’s White House Chef mystery EGGSECUTIVE ORDERS and at Echelon Exploration on more of the origin and transformation of FORCE OF HABIT.

WRITING PROMPT: Would your main character be interested in having a zen garden? Why or why not? Write a paragraph in which he or she HAS to make one.

MA

 

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Dead Dog Walking

September 2, 2010 in Uncategorized | 3 comments

It’s lucky for Joe that winter is coming on. If Charlie catches him wallowing in the hosta bed again, he might not make it, at that.

Joe’s given name is Jolteon, a Pokemon character. I can’t say I see the resemblance, but I didn’t know him as a puppy. When he was a puppy, I mean, not when I was a puppy. Not that I was ever a puppy. I mean, I didn’t know Joe when he–Joe–was a puppy.

See the resemblance? Me neither.

Here is a song I posted earlier on my defunct blog. Sadly, it is still relevant.

Ballad of a Doomed Dog
by Marian Allen

Hang down your head, you Joe-dog,
Hang down your head and whine.
Hang down your head, you Joe-dog,
Poor dog, your butt is mine.

Caught him in the garden
Mashing down the plants
If he’d been wearing trousers,
I’d-a kicked him in the pants.

(Chorus)

Lily-of-the-Valley,
Hosta, moss and fern–
Joe will nap upon them.
–Dog, you’re a-gonna burn.

(Chorus)

Every time I catch him,
He slopes off with looks of shame
Says, “If it’s a plant bed,
What have I done to blame?”

Hang down your head, you Joe-dog,
Hang down your head and whine.
Hang down your head, you Joe-dog,
Poor dog, your butt is mine.

When the winter comes, the hostas will be gone, and Joe may live to see another season.

In other news, Mom and I watched GASLIGHT with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer last night. I mean, last night, Mom and I watched GASLIGHT starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Chilling and wonderful.

WRITING PROMPT: Watch GASLIGHT. How do you know Gregory is a stinker from the first, even before the letter?

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