Artsy Fartsy

Last night was not fun. It’s never a good time at the emergency vet’s at 10 o’clock on a Sunday night.

The three of us spent the entire weekend outside, working on the deck, cleaning up the yard. Molly was in pup heaven, frolicking outdoors all day, sleeping soundly at night. Then last night around 7:30, I noticed that Molly was awfully fidgety and scratching at her eyes a lot. Our house is always dim and I couldn’t see anything bothering her, but I felt something on her eyebrow so I brought her into the bathroom where the light is brighter and noticed immediately that her poor puppy face was completely swollen. It wasn’t something on her eyebrow that I felt, it was her eyebrow, all puffy and big. Her eyelids were swollen into tiny slits, her lips and nose were so swollen, she looked terrible. I called the emergency vet and asked if there was something at home I could give her, rather than go to the emergency clinic where I know the fee is double after-hours. She told me that they might be able to prescribe Benadryl, but then again maybe she’d need a steroid shot and so she booked be an appointment at 10pm. From 7:30 to 10 I watched her and poked her to make sure she was breathing. The swelling got worse about a half hour after I got off the phone with the vet, but then I put cold cloths on her face and she settled down and fell asleep and the swelling seemed to level out.

At this point I should mention that I cannot stand to look at someone who is swollen. In an emergency, if you gave me the choice of looking after the person who was missing and arm and bleeding all over, or the person who was having an allergic reaction and swelling like a balloon, I’d choose the bleeder. I get faint looking at a swollen face (or arm, or leg…) I can’t explain it, but it’s rather annoying. Particularly with a husband who is allergic to bee stings, and now a dog who may be as well.

That reminds me that at this point in the evening, I had no clue why Molly was swollen. Did she eat something? Did she get stung or bitten? I was trying desperately to remember what was she was doing before we cam in for the evening, but she has free run of the yard. I don’t always know what she’s doing or what she’s getting into. I was terrified.

So 10pm rolled around and we were at the emergency vet’s. They were very nice, and sadly, they were very busy that night. A dog in the back was yelping and screaming, that wasn’t good to hear and didn’t help my trying to tell molly that everything would be fine. The doctor checked her over and diagnosed her as very sweet and extremely cute and probably suffering from a bee sting. She got a shot of Benadryl and a steroid and we went home where Molly flopped on the couch and snored, and I felt relieved knowing that she was mostly OK, still looking swollen and sad, but able to breathe, at least.

I wanted to take a picture of her mid-swell, but due to the afore mentioned swelling aversion, and the fact that my heart broke into pieces whenever she looked at me through swollen lids, I just couldn’t. Take my word for it - it was both terrible and sad. This morning she’s much better. Barely swollen but still groggy from the Benadryl. Thank goodness my pup is OK.

So what did I learn from the horrible experience? Well, 1.) bees are out in March - who would expect that? 2.) when fearing for the life of your beloved pup, an emergency office visit fee of $95 will sound quite reasonable, 3.) the same Benadryl you take, yourself, can be given to your dog (21-lb Molly gets 25mg every 12 hours), and 4.) Molly really is the best dog ever. She kissed the lady who took her temperature, she kissed the lady who took her in the back to have a shot, and she played (swollen-faced and all) with the ladies at the desk as I payed the bill. She’s so sweet. If I were her, I would have definitely taken someone’s hand off at some point last night.

Behold my fur-children in an often witnessed, rarely photographed moment.  The cat usually likes to act like she’s too cool to be seen with Molly.

They both like to sit there on the rug and look out the glass doors.  Sometimes they lay there in the sun together.  One of them also likes to sit there and meow loudly to go out, the other prefers to scratch at the wood when she has to go.

Who? Me?

I have to confess, I have this mental… deficiency.  It’s a problem with my wiring.  It involves shopping and it drives Luke up the wall.  He will frequently be looking for something in the pantry, like a can of corn, and find, rather than the plain golden corn, a can of creamed corn.  Creamed corn?  Who buys creamed corn?  I do, by accident.  I get overwhelmed by the variety and similar labels of everything in the store, and then I grab one of what I think is the right thing, only to realize after I get it home, that’s it’s not the right thing.  Corn, tomatoes, shredded cheese, it happens all the time.  And not just with food.

My sister got to experience this phenomenon recently while I was in Kohl’s trying to find undies for Luke.  I know his size, I know the basic fit he likes, and I know that I can’t stand white undies on men so I was looking for the colorful ones.  That’s three separate factors to keep track of in the midst of a dozen manufacturers.  I’d find some that were the right color and the right fit and realize they weren’t the right size.  I’d grab one that was the right size and the right color and look in my cart to see I had the wrong fit.  My head nearly exploded.  Andrea tried to help but I told her I was going to give up and tell Luke to buy his own damn undies.

This short-circuit in my head doesn’t really bother me all that much.  It’s frustrating, but I also think it’s kind of funny, a Lisa-ism.  I don’t do it on purpose, yet the harder I try to avoid it, the more inevitable it is that it happens, so I have to just go with it.  The only time it really annoys me is when I screw up major ingredients that I need for a recipe.

One of my favorite easy recipes is Sloppy Joe Pot Pie, which I got from the Bisquick website.  Only, since I only read the recipe the first time I made it, mine is completely different from that recipe.  Namely, I like the barbecue Sloppy Joe sauce, and I like to add a can of corn, and lots more cheese, oh and some other things, too.  Really, you can’t go wrong with this recipe, and I am a living example that you can not screw it up.

Driving home from work tonight, I was mentally going through my pantry trying to decide what to make for dinner.  I knew I had ground turkey in the fridge, and I was certain I bought the Sloppy Joe sauce last week, so I decided on Sloppy Joe Pot Pie.  I stopped at the store because I knew I didn’t have any Bisquick (actually I prefer Jiffy mix, but they’re practically the same), and  I grabbed some corn and extra cheese just to be safe.  I got home, threw the turkey on the stove, preheated the oven, and looked in the pantry for the Sloppy Joe sauce.   Which was not there, but you know what was?  Baked beans.  Because you know where the Sloppy Joe sauce is sold in the store?  You guessed it.  Next to the baked beans.  Now what?

I decided to wing it and make up my own sauce.  I combined taco sauce with barbecue sauce and ketchup and I think I got it!  It smelled just like the Sloppy Joe sauce.  It was all comically down hill from there.  I couldn’t find my deep dish pie pan to make the Sloppy Joe Pot PIE, so I dragged out a big loaf pan instead.  I put in my ground turkey sauce creation and went to layer in my corn.  Guess what?  I bought the wrong corn!  Only it wasn’t too bad.  It wasn’t creamed, it was Mexicorn, which actually went well with the taco sauce.  Then I added my cheese and Jiffy mix and threw in the oven, at the wrong temperature I realize now that I’ve seen the Bisquick recipe again.  Oh well, I smell it cooking now and it’ll be delicious, I’m sure of it.

So if you’re a bad cook, or a clumsy shopper like me, take heart.  This is a recipe for you.  Follow the link to the Sloppy Joe Pot Pie recipe from Bisquick and have at it.  Add to it, change it, I guarantee it will not be bad.  I’ve made it with Gardenburger crumbles instead of turkey.  I’ve gone without the egg.  I’ve added sour cream and cottage cheese layered under the Bisquick, I even tried spinach and mozzarella.  And now tonight, I made it in a loaf pan without the sauce…  It’s all good.  Go and enjoy.  I hear my oven timer going off, it’s time for me to go enjoy mine.

Oh, hi there.  Sorry to neglect you for so long, but I managed to catch the plague over the weekend.  I’ve been lucky this winter to only get minor colds that last about a day and then go away, but this time I caught something nastier that makes me want to do nothing other than sleep and moan about the pressure in my head.   I’m on my way to feeling better but I’d still rather be sleeping than typing right now.

Other than my symptoms and the craziness at work right now, I don’t have much to say.  That’s what happens when all you do is sleep - you become really boring.  So rather than bore you to death, let me share some links to things more exciting than me right now…

Like Secret Agent Josephine’s photos from her trip to Hawaii last week.  Sigh…

Or instructions on how to make your own glove animals, courtesy of Martha Stewart.  How cute?!

Or the website that should be renamed “Everything I Want For My Birthday dot com,” 2Jane

Or if you’re really in need of a pick-me-up, there’s always puppies!

Hopefully that will hold you over for a little while until I can tell you all about the Roman shades I made, or the bags I want to sew, or the birthday gift for Alex that I’m working on.  Fresh updates coming soon, I promise.

I caught a wicked cold that won’t give up at the same time that work is hammering me around the clock, but let’s not think aobut that right now, let’s think about yesterday when we were eating chocolate eggs and flying kites…

Have you ever had someone point something out, like “wow, you blink a lot” and then suddenly you’re aware of every blink, every eyelash flutter? You can’t remember a time when you blinked without paying attention and you wonder if you’ll ever go back to being unaware of the ups and downs of your eyelids? I had a moment like that last week that just won’t go away.

There’s a radio program that I love, called Radiolab, and thankfully for iTunes and the kindness of WNYC, I download it and listen to it for free on my iPod. They have incredibly interesting shows that explore human behavior and thoughts, and really there’s no good way to describe the show unless you listen to it, so go listen. You’ll be hooked, too.

Last week I listened to a show on laughter that explored why humans laugh and challenged the idea the humans are the only creatures that laugh. It was fascinating. Specifically, there was a scientist on who talked about why humans laugh and said that it’s not really because something is funny, it’s more of a social “noise” we make to let others know that we’re non-threatening. He studied groups of people interacting and noted what was said in a conversation just before a person laughed. More times than not, it wasn’t something funny, it was something very normal and boring, like “how about that weather?”

Now I can’t talk to anyone without noticing that I laugh A LOT. I laugh more than I talk, and now it sounds completely fake to me. It’s driving me nuts. I want to go back to laughing without thinking about it. The week before last I listened to another Radiolab show about deception that had a man on who studied facial expressions. He said that you can tell if a smile is fake because in a real smile, the flesh under a person’s eyelids lowers ever so slightly when they smile. Now I can’t smile without feeling my eyelids lower. Damn you Radiolab! If the next show is on blinking I’m going to go absolutely crazy.

I recently started to repaint my living room/dining room area.  A few years of woodsmoke had done a number on the walls, and a couple of cracks from the house settling needed to be fixed, so we decided to repaint.  Or rather, we decided that I would repaint.  I started on Sunday and it’s looking great, but as with any other time I take everything off the walls to repaint, I want to buy all new things to hang back on the freshly painted walls.  Rather than buy new artwork, I decided to create some out of cheap stuff I found at the Salvation Army and a little junk mail.

Here’s a piece of art I found at the Salvation Army for $4.99.  It’s square, which I like, and it has a mat.  Two good things.  Also it was only $4.99, three good things.  The picture inside was a bit lame, (although love really IS all we need), and it looked like someone’s dog had been chewing on the frame.  Minor issues.  This frame and mat had a bigger destiny to fulfill.

Here’s a postcard I got in the mail at work.  Isn’t it lovely?  It’s announcing the opening of a show at the Danese Gallery of works by  Julian Stanczak.  We get mail every day from galleries announcing shows and they’re usually put right in the garbage, but this one I liked.  I thought I might be able to make something of it.  Amazingly, I measured the postcard and I measured the opening of the mat I bought at the Salvation Army and they matched perfectly!  The DIY gods were smiling down on me.

So let’s begin turning a trite piece of beat-up art from the thrift store, and a destined-for-the-trash piece of junk mail into a work of art, shall we?

First I had to cut the paper off the back of the frame (and think Happy Thoughts).  Depending on the frame you find, you may or may not have to do this.

Then pry up the staples all around so you can remove the mat and the glass inside.

Sand down the scratches and tooth marks (geeze, my hand looks enormous from this angle).

And then give it a few good coats of spray paint.  I used a white gloss enamel.  I like white frames with white mats.  It looks very clean, I think.

Now at this point, while the paint dries, I should be showing you a photo of me putting the postcard into the mat.  Unfortunately, I’m not very good at this step-by-step thing, and I completely forgot to take pictures.  It turned out that the heart picture was fused with the mat and I couldn’t remove it without ruining the mat.  Disappointing, but not the end of the world.  Instead of attaching the postcard to the back of the mat like I wanted to, I cut he postcard to size and attached it to the front of the heart picture just inside the opening of the mat.  No one will ever know the difference.  Except for you. but you won’t give away my secrets, right?

Next I gave the glass a good scrub, buffed the frame with some steel wool to remove a little of the gloss, (it was a bit too shiny for me), put the matted postcard in and sealed it back up.  And ta-da!  Fancy artwork for $4.99.

And yes, if you noticed, the postcard I framed isn’t the view you saw at the top of this post.  The card was two-sided and I ended up liking this side better.  Maybe I’ll go back to the Salvation Army and get another one of these frames and frame the other side.  Now everyone, go forth and make recycled art!

I can’t quite gather my thoughts today so I thought I’d just throw out some randomness.

First off, Happy Birthday Leeland! Leeland was a college roommate of mine and is now a cool dog-walking entrepreneur living in New York. Have a great green b-day Leeland!

And of course, Happy St. Patrick’s day to everyone else who isn’t having a birthday today. It’s cold and windy out today and I couldn’t find anything both warm and green to wear. I had to wear green earrings with my non-green outfit to show my Irish spirit. When I was in high school, we had the coolest (possibly craziest) principal named Mr. Fleming. Every year on St. Patrick’s Day he declared it a half day, and the last two hours of our already shortened day was spent in an assembly, singing Irish drinking songs with Tom Callinan, Connecticut’s Official State Troubador. I miss high school…

I cleaned my car this weekend. This shouldn’t be news, but it’s only the second time I’ve done it since I bought my car more than a year ago. I really hate cleaning it. I should try to do it more often though, while vacuuming under the seats I found a bill that hadn’t been mailed. That clears up the mystery as to why they keep billing me every month when I know I wrote out a check to pay them in August! A little embarrassing, but kinda funny.

My dad and I brewed some beer on Friday. He got a beer-making kit for Christmas from my mom but wanted me to help him follow the directions. There’s a keg on my counter fermenting at this very moment. This weekend we bottle it, and possibly the following weekend we can drink it! If it comes out good, I may be able to add Brewmaster to my list of titles. Look out, Jim Koch.

OK, the fourth time’s a charm, apparently. The Netflix computers may think I’m strange, but two weeks after I sent Once back because I couldn’t get through it, I asked to borrow it again and sat down to watch it last night. I actually watched the whole thing, and I actually liked it. You know what made it better this time? I turned on the subtitles. Seriously, I know they’re speaking English, but it’s with a thick Irish brogue and they talk so fast! Plus the girl speaks her Irish brogue with a Czech accent.This time I understood more and I did really like it. It’s not for everyone, that’s definite, but if you like music and you’re patient, give it a try.

Every year in mid-March, the weather warms up and I realize that my skin is so pale, it’s transparent.  And about this time I break out the sunless tanner.  I’ve had relatively good luck with the sunless tanners.  Only a few zebra leg incidents, and no real Oompa-Loompa orange color, other than the occasional orange palms.  I like Jergens Natural Glow, you use it every day like a moisturizer, and it gradually makes you look tannish.  My problem is that every time I use sunless tanner, no matter the brand, fancy or cheap, I cannot stand the smell!  They all have some funky smell, it must be the chemical that makes your skin change color because every brand, scented or unscented, smells the same once I put it on my skin.  It smells so strong to me, I think that the people around me must be able to smell it too and I get nervous.  But then I started thinking, I’m not the first person to use sunless tanner.  How come I’ve never smelled it before on anyone else?  Is it just me?  Am I crazy?  Please tell me.