When Fish Fly

Its funny how in my childhood days I loved fishing. My aunt and uncle would often take us fishing and I have many great memories.
Whether it was the time my aunt tied a little string around a crayfish's neck (do they have a neck come to think of it?) and I walked it like a little dog, or the great picnic lunches we would have, or cooking the freshly caught fish, I am not sure, but it was great.
And there were the trips up north with my parents, renting a cottage off the lake and getting up at the crack of dawn to go see what bounties we could reel in.

Somewhere down the line though, something clicked or snapped, depending how you look at it.
I suddenly found the whole fishing thing a little disconcerting.
Still love spending time with family, still love great picnic lunches, still love nature.
But hooking and reeling in the things...ewwww...can't do it....just can't do it.
I remember my Dad always told me that they didn't feel anything. Well I bought it then, but sorry I can't buy it now.

I realize fish may not have the most magnetic personalities, and its not exactly a creature you would want to cuddle. But just try watching one lay there on the boat gasping its last breathe and look at those glass like eyes and tell me you don't see something of a personality?
Sure they are different. I think the French novelist Andre Gide put it best, "Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling." So is that any reason to persecute them?

I often come across many vintage images where fish are depicted in many strange ways, from serving martinis, bowling, to romancing their significant other. One of my favorite is from an 1800's image that I use in a popular pin I sell that I like to call "Thick Lipped Smoked Fish" for short.

This recent discovery below is a bit strange. Can't quite make out the meaning behind it but its interesting, to me at least.
The woman is holding a fish that seems to blend in with her dress all neatly wrapped in a bow. Fashion accessory? Maybe to attract the menfolk? Or is it simply supper on its way home?
Whatever the case sweetie, I would watch out for the fish flying above you. May be a hostile family member ready to drop some bait that might just catch you.

And finally there is the awesome animated short on BoingBoing I came across. One from the PSST!3 series where three teams of collaborators combine their work.
Its the first in this series,called "Omar" by Doug Purver I was especially fond of although all 3 are great. I have added the full version below called "Omar and his Skyhook" but if you would like to see it combined with 2 other short animated clips that merge into one,heres the link for that. http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/17/bb-video-omar-hot-pu.html

So hope you enjoy it. I may just sign out with the name "Hypocrite". Because where you won't find me fishing again till fish fly, I have to admit that you will be able to find me chowing down on sauteed trout, baked salmon, or a nice slab of seared ahi tuna whenever possible. My bad.

Being all grown up can bring you down

The other day I was visiting at a friends house who was watching her 18 month old grandson.
The other adults in the room seemed to disappear into the back ground as I got drawn in by watching the little guy. It suddenly struck me how badly I wanted to be a child again and find the greatest joy in the simplest of things.

He was entertaining himself by simply going round and round a chair. He would do it several times and then just burst into laughter.
It was infectious laughter that made me want to strip myself of my adulthood, and dive into the simple joy of young childhood.
Think how much easier life if we would deal with our problems by looking at everything through a child's eye.

For instance I just spent about 20 minutes trying to get a blanket to be balanced on the spin cycle. Every time it would hit full speed, boom, off it would go because it wasn't balanced right. So I would open up the washer and readjust. Over and over again. All the time watching the clothes through the front load window.
Frustrated beyond compare. Ready to blow the thing up.
But how different it would have been had I had a child's mind.
Spin a little..boom... I let out a loud laugh. Spin a little...boom... I run in circles and fall down.
I become mesmerized by the blanket turning and spinning and tumbling.
I could have probably carried it on for twice as long and walked away with a smile on my face.

Probably even the scenario I had today of trying to help another who was depressed would have been so much easier. Instead as an adult I had to rationalize,empathize,and vocalize just so.
It left me feeling drained and in a lousy mood.

But had I been looking through a childs eye, I would have probably just made funny faces to make the poor depressed soul feel better, or offered them my cookie and we probably both would have walked off hand in hand singing a little song together.
I wouldn't have had to think so much about what to say. I would have only felt what it was I needed to do to make them feel better.

Oh well. Such is life. And I guess there is always the exception.
Came across this antique postcard the other day and it only goes to show, that even a childs mind can have a dark side. At least I didn't kill anyone today.

Of Replicating Pods and Slugs

The whole summer has been extremely strange.
Weather that never let us know that it really was summer. Just sort of this confusion as to had it arrived, and was it staying.
Add to that the fact that my time was totally not my own and I ran from this to this to that, and it just never really felt like "Summertime and the living is easy."

As I finally had some time to actually weed today, I had time to gaze at what was/is my garden.
Yes,it has been an object of neglect, but most neglected gardens seem to at least produce, but just in amongst a mess of weeds.
My vegetable garden this year was not only hidden in weeds, but what it did produce seemed to be spawned from some distant planet. Little watermelons that morphed into baseball size sludge. Tomatoes that sometimes decided to grow round but many that looked like a horrible tumour growth, mojito mint that changed color on me and several species of plants that just seemed to disappear, perhaps being eaten by something.
And that something could have been slugs. There seem to be slugs everywhere.
The other day my daughter put a blanket on the ground to enjoy a "picnic" lunch with my granddaughter, and soon they were infiltrating the blanket and moving in for the kill.
Hundreds of them.
Made me think of the following 1900's postcard. This guy has a serious problem in more ways then one and much milder than mine. His grubs seem exceptionally dangerous and his veggies are downright freaks.

So its with a sense of sadness but also relief that I watch the darkness fall earlier every night. Not quite the summer that we will be able to relive in pictures looked at over and over again, or one where we can reminisce over the bounty of garden goodies we grew. But a relief also because many good things were accomplished too. Maybe looking forward to the fall will bring even greater adventures in living.

At least I didn't have replicating pods in my life. Got 11:00 minutes? Enjoy 11:00 minutes Space Ghost, Stephen Wright and replicating pods. Insanity...but I love it.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast
by NPIcartoons

Life's a circus full of cheap fun

Times are tough, and we hear about it everyday. People are spending less on lots of things, especially non essentials. Like eating out, the newest fashions and entertainment.
Wanted to share with you some of the many ways one can be entertained at home with out breaking out your wallet.
All one has to do is look to the past, and see how much fun they had in the good old days.
For instance,the circus! Who doesn't love a circus? Well those who are afraid of clowns, and those who hate seeing animals abused, and those who have a morbid fear of a tent collapsing on them like the scene in Dumbo.
But asides from those people, there is alot of fun to be had by going to a circus.
But whats so great is that many of these acts can be duplicated right in your very own home!! Yes,you and your family can gather around and have your own circus!
Just take a look at some of these fine circus acts that can bring the house down in an uplifting way.
The first act I came across from around 1910 was labeled in French as "La Femme Insensible".


Which translates to ...you guessed it... The Insensible Woman.
Its such a shame that we have forgotten to value this lost art. What could be grander than sitting around watching a woman be insensible?? Priceless! And to think I could have gotten paid back then for being hormonal.

Once you become bored with that how about an act called the French Kangaroo. Sure to fool all your friends and family and bring you hours of fun.

How did they pull off those realistic ears?? Lots of practice I am sure!

And finally something to have your little pooch involved in too! Some family fun and keep your family pet active at the same time.
Grab your tennis rackets and give that pup the ride of his life!! Sports juggling! Something we can probably all give a try.

So let me know how it goes. Fill me in on how your family enjoys these activities and any others you might dream up to stay afloat in this hard economic times.

I'll leave you with one other idea, that unlike the previous makes lots of sense, involves real life, and causes no harm to others! They had it right back then,and its still a great idea today. Get out and enjoy nature. This vintage image inspired a necklace of a woman getting it just right. Dirt cheap, inspiring and full of wonder.

I love to dance,and any reasonable semblance of it

I just love to dance!! Now bear in mind, I don't even watch "Dancing with the Stars" because it will only zap my joy in the fact that I can't really dance. The kind of dancing I do is "for the sheer joy of it" dance. The kind that just sorts of oozes out of you. The kind I feel when I have a rush of endorphins on the treadmill and suddenly wish I was on a dance floor so I could be dancing to the tune on my ipod rather than running.

I recently made the piece below as a pin or desk art, not so much because I thought it would be the best looking brooch I ever made, but because it is just to fun of an image to not look at.
From the early 1900's this chick is moving to her own unique beat and I just gotta love it! Only goes to show that some things never change. Dancing is here to stay, no matter what your style is.

The joy of dancing takes on all sorts of forms. From the barest stripped down of just merely jumping up and down to the beat, to the most intricate of well thought out steps.

Came across the following antique postcard and have to wonder however, where does one draw the line?? Maybe if I could talk to this woman and find out just what she was feeling. Is this interpretive dance of a spear of asparagus?

I think what makes me want to dance even more is the fact that we are not alone in this world in us wanting to groove to the beat. Please click on the link below napoleon and snowball to read an interesting article on this fact and even better yet check out the video at the top,watch and then smile. And when you are done, you tell me who dances better? And tell me too, could you watch it and sit still in your seat??

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103629651

A spin on real time

So only a mere two months since I have logged into my blog. Not bad for being comatose.

Have no idea where the time went except that it seems as if there is no time these days.

"Summertime and the living AINT easy" is my tune.

Seems like things always speed up a notch or two as soon as we can start opening the windows around here.

Wonder if it would be great if we could somehow control time. Speed it up when things are boring and slow it down when we really want to savor it longer. Put it into warp speed those bad days so we cannot even absorb them. And then bring it to a crawl when the days are so good we never want it to end.

Put just a little spin to life?

Take for instance this antique postcard. These frogs seem to be in a hurry. But then why don't they just get off the snails? But on the other hand maybe they really just want to experience life at a snails pace. What ever the case thought it was a cute enough to share,besides the fact that it was the only I could come up with that would somewhat congeal with the time theme.

Also wanted to share with you this awesome video called Spin which got me thinking about the whole time thing. And somehow inspired me to get myself a little more in the right gear.
You may have seen it already as it seems to have been up on the net for some time. However, I just came across it. And thoroughly enjoyed it. Hope you do too. If only to have the luxury of this little spin on time.

A Leap of Love

I am excited!! I am going to be in a wedding in the UK in July!! Yep,that's right.
Going to be walking down the aisle. Right smack dab in the middle of the brides bouquet. You read right. In the middle of the bouquet.
Had a lovely customer named Emily purchase "My tiny leap for houndkind" pin which is pictured here.

She is getting married in July, and she had this to say,

"I deliberately went for your pin because I have been searching high and low for a whippy item that I could incorporate into our big day & to be honest so many of the other whippy bits and pieces I've seen the dogs are really ugly! I then saw your pin and it reminded me so much of my beautiful boy Bailey that I knew it would be perfect to add to my bouquet so that I could have him close to me on the day.

I got Bailey from whippet rescue and had him for 8 years, he was my pride and joy and the absolute love of my life, he was without a doubt my soul mate. Tragically whilst my mum was looking after him for me for a few days he was hit by a car and killed instantly.

Although this has been the cruelest of blows for me I am slowly learning to remember him and smile and that is exactly what I will be doing on the 4th July this year as I walk up the aisle!I have also named all of our tables after our pets and the top table is called Bailey after my little man."



I really love being a "part" of peoples lives in ways I never would have imagined.
The image of that pin actually is a bit of digitally altered art from, would you believe it, the 14th century! To me its such a timeless piece of art that seems to have such a modern look to it and captures the joy of a hound freely leaping through the wide open spaces. It has such a happy feel to it and I am glad that Emily chose it to remember her Bailey on her special day.

Seems like no matter where we are in the stream of time, that bond we have with our pooches will always be there, as will true love of the human kind.
So while we are on the subject of romantic love, thought I would share a postcard from the late 1800's.
We often hear comments these days of "Where are our youth headed" these days.
Well if this image is depicting anything of life back then, think this pair got quite an early start down the road called "TROUBLE"!