November 1 & 2

Crab Art

A friend sent this link, I’ve never seen anything like this before. Ever. I used to joke that I’d paint anything that didn’t move. These Indonesian artists paint living crab shells. These move. They remove the crab, paint its shell and then return the living crab to the wonderfully decorated shell. You must view this. And let me know what you think. Is this a well known artform I’ve somehow missed? Do people collect different shell designs? If you know the answer or have other fun facts regarding crab art, please, please share.

Indonesian Crab Art Video

StumbleUpon

Thanks to Pictures of Lily over at Etsy, I have become a StumbleUpon addict. What is StumbleUpon? Its supposed to be one of those social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, etc. But I treat it like good old fashioned browsing in an old time record store. Remember record stores? I used to manage a record store in Houston many moons ago. And I always and still love to flip through the records in the browser bins, just thumbing through to see what catches my eye.

8 Random Things

Okay, geckogrrl, thanks for the tag. Here’s what I come up with, the eight random things about me:

1. I used to be in a band with my husband, Mike. I was the singer, he was lead guitar and mastermind. We used to gig a lot in Raleigh, NC back when we lived there. Didn’t gig much in Dallas. Our biggest gigs were opening for Chris Isaak twice and Joe Ely once. Lots of fun. But I got tired of singing in bars and now Mike has an instrumental band, The Big Guns.

I Love Funky Fifties Package Art

I mentioned that I bought a bunch of vintage sequins and beads from a millinery going out of business sale. I referred to the cool packages that they came in and here are the scans of said cool packages. I also have the original owners manual that came with the 1954 Chambers gas cooktop in my kitchen. I’ll have to scan some pages from that and share later. For now, enjoy the beauty of package art.

Six Weird Things

Rina at Red Crochet tagged me to tell six weird things about myself and I wonder what about me would be weird to others, I think I’m perfectly normal. In a weird kind of way. So, allow me to list the weirdness that is me.

one-I never go out for lunch during the work week. I religiously pack my lunch every morning into my trusty portable lunchbox/refrigerator. I also place four liter bottles of water in there with my fruit, veggies and tuna or turkey. Partly because I don’t like spending money for overpriced lousy food and partly because I’m type 1 diabetic and I just feel better if I eat what’s good for me. Besides, when I break the rules, I’d rather drink wine than eat what’s not good for me.

two-I won’t drive on freeways unless there’s no other way to get wherever I’m going. I hate the drivers on the freeways here in Dallas, driving as though it were a sporting event. See a space, must take it. Dart here and there, ride that bumper. I just can’t drive as aggressively as needed to survive on the roads here. At least on the side streets I don’t have to drive fast just to avoid being tailgated. Yes I know it takes me twice as long as anyone else to get places, but at least I’m not totally stressed. Only partially.

three-Not only are Mike and my birthday a day apart, March 25th for him, March 26th for me; but our mothers’ birthdays are also a day apart. My mom’s birthday is the 13th of May and Mike’s mom’s birthday is May 14th. Of course, there are a few years difference between he and I and both moms, but still.

four-The first job outside of babysitting that I had was for one summer working at a drag strip. My dad got me the job. His friend ran the place. The races were held at a small airport for private planes. Many, many races were interrupted so that a plane could take off or land. My job was to sit up in the tower and write down the time trials results. That established who raced who. When the time trials ended, I went down to the concession stand and sold hot dogs to motorheads. I think I was 13 or 14. Hey, it was money. The next summer I graduated to work at the round track car races. The best part was the demolition derbies. But anyways… it was money.

five-I like to work in the dark. I keep the overhead lights off in my office at the job and just use a task light. I like to be able to see the computer without the competition of fluorescent lights. Most people don’t seem to understand that when I explain that I’m not a vampire, really. Could be the fact that I work at a dental college and they like light, lots of light. But I’m in the arts department, I don’t work on teeth unless they’re on my computer monitor, so I don’t need surgical quality lighting in my little office.

six-When I eat red meat, such as steak or lamb, I like it really, really rare. And yes, I’ve heard it all. Many a time when at Mike’s parents’ house for a cookout, his father will unwrap the steak and present it to me raw and ask if its cooked the way I like it. Ha ha. Some like their steak to resemble shoe leather, some like to see it bleed.

Well, I shall stop on that cheery note. And I really don’t have six people to tag. So if you read this and want to play along, you know what to do. Thanks Rina, that was fun.