Snapshots from the Week

   1.

It's back!  Our late lamented mailbox, removed on September 20,  bolted back in place as of yesterday.  Where did it go?  What is the US Postal Service up to?  And why?



                                               
                     
         2.

Prescribed sleep deprivation:  I'm beginning to get used to it, although the first hour I'm up, I'm zomboid. This morning when Jerry finally appeared (7:30 am), I had a plan to go out to breakfast, a reward for enduring three days of 5:30 am wake-ups.

Over breakfast he told me about an e-mail request he received:  Another scientist wants him to send a leg of a particular moth specimen; he's going to do DNA analysis on it.  This is standard practice now, removing one of the six legs of a museum specimen so its genes can be analyzed.

 

                               My camera couldn't see the legs, either.

                                                                                               
                                                                                            
                                                                           3.

Our basket overfloweth

We're getting reams of election mail, mostly about state propositions.   Our recycle basket is full. 

I've recycled my 2008 Obama  yard sign by wiring it to the railing of our deck.  Note the  cleverly recycled twist-ties from Berkeley Bowl supermarket. 

If Romney wins, I'm leaving it up permanently.

                                           

                                                                      4.

I've just about finished reading "Dearie," a biography of Julia Child by  Bob Spitz.  In spite of his annoying colloquialisms (a friend abandoned it because of them), I recommend this book.

 Julia was frisky!  A cut-up in school, very interested in sex, although she was a virgin until her thirties (product of the times).  I've read several books about her, including her own "My Life in France," which I loved, but it's more discrete than this book.  As far as I can tell, she was completely authentic and very fun to be around.  Always optimistic, too.  When doctors discovered she had breast cancer, she said, "I'm going to get a false titty...I'll be fine, dearie."                                                                            

 

 

                                                                         5.

 

 An art show that tempts me, even though the gallery is in North Beach and nowhere near BART:   Kim Frohsin at the Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco:

                               



 

#67: Summer of Love, 2012  from Portrait of Numbers: 2011-2012

Montage of drawings from The White Dahlia series, 2011

Years ago, I bought a couple of her prints/gouaches.

A Girl Reading, 1998

                                                                                              
                                                                   6.

This week, I said to hell with my bathroom scale and retired it to a bathroom cupboard, where it can hang out with my hot rollers and curling wand, unused since the 80's.   I'm not going to diet, so what's the point?   Am I alone in doing this?


                                                                             



                                                            7.

 

 

Partly constructed Sawtooth Star block

I started to make the first Sawtooth Star block for a quilt I have in mind.  After half an hour, I had to abandon my studio--the off-gassing from fabric bothered me.  

I'm getting allergy shots twice a week, which five years ago calmed my immune system enough so that other allergens/sensitivities became much less pronounced.

                                                                        8.

Backyard fall color:

A native grapevine in our backyard, backlit by the setting sun