Spider graffiti

 

artists of the night

shape their art, unseen, unheard

unveiled by sunlight

 

Kitten update

Curious, the injured  kitten we’ve been fostering along with her brother George, has been mending well and settling comfortably into our household. She seems to have developed a particular attachment to our dog, Dylan, and likes to curl up close to him on his bed. Her cast was removed yesterday, but the recovering leg is still weak. We’re hoping her curiousity and fearlessness wont get her into any more trouble.

Action springs from the belief that you can make a difference

This quote from a fellow blogger struck a cord with me today:

“I’ve been both an idealistic child and a realistic grownup, and I think I was a better person when I was an idealistic child…..Realism does little but protect the status quo. Being optimistic, on the other hand, is the most radical political act there is.”

— No Impact Man, August 19, 2007

Small town, big park

I’m always on the look out for interesting graffiti and bits of creative colour in the city. This past weekend I was at a family reunion in the small BC interior city of Vernon and came across this skateboard park.

When I was a teenager there was no such thing as a skateboard park or a skateboard store (at least not outside of California). My boyfriend and his friends were possibly the first skateboarders in our town. They had to special-order their boards through the local bicycle shop, build their own 1/4 pipe out of plywood, then haul it around town on the back of an old pickup truck until they found an empty parking lot in which to set up (luckily most grocery stores were closed on Sundays back then, and Safeway had a loading ramp that you could use to get up good speed).

EPA Warns Human Beings No Longer Biodegradable

I couldn’t resist posting this article, which is both funny and disturbing:

 DC—The Environmental Protection Agency issued a bulletin Tuesday warning the bodies of American citizens, with their large concentrations of artificial, synthetic, and often toxic substances, have been reclassified as industrial waste.

“The average human body is now only 35 percent organic,” EPA chief Ralph Johnson said. “Due to changes brought about by modern detergents, silicone implants, and processed cheese food product, it is no longer safe to allow human tissue to come into contact with our nation’s topsoil.”
Read the full article at theonion.com

Kitten trauma

For the past two weeks we’ve been looking after two very cute little orange kittens (now about 11 weeks old).

The’ve had no problem getting along with our big dog, Dylan, and even seem to like our other cat, though he’s taken awhile to warm up to them. Dylan, the peace-keeper, has had to rush in to break up a few fights (mostly between the older male cat and the male kitten).

Although we’ve been separating the cats whenever we leave them on their own and trying to keeping a careful eye on them when they’ve got the run of the house, I did lose track of the female kitten for about five minutes the other day. I didn’t hear any thumps or mews, but when I saw her next, she wasn’t putting any weight on her front left paw. She continued to limp for the next couple days, so we took her to the vet for an x-ray, and the vet informed us that her leg was broken.

I feel terrible that she could get hurt while in my care, and it is heart-wrenching to see this tiny little kitten bumping around the house with one leg in a cast. Have you ever seen anything so pathetic? And do you know how hard it is to keep a curious and energetic little kitten quiet and resting?

Note: the cast is decorated with a green heart and smells like lavendar, which is supposed to help calm her.

Small is beautiful

In a comment left on my July 27th post about holiday Artist Trading Cards (ATCs), Jean-Pierre suggests that ATCs are “sort of haiku-ish, because of the brevity. I bet Basho would trade art cards with you if he were alive today.”

This is an interesting thought. Both haiku and ATCs can focus attention on a single moment or image that some how points to something more. There is something in that little word/visual image that can resonate with readers/viewers on some personal level. When you discover a haiku or an ATC that stirs you, it’s like being handed a tiny, special present.

Here are a few more of my ATCs:

And in keeping with the “small is beautiful” theme (and with a nod to E.F. Schumacher, author of the same-named book on creating local economies), here are a few more one-inch buttons:

(and the kid on the second button? That’s me, about age 2 — life was good!)