Dancing Doll Cats: Case of the Missing Kit

Halloween can be a time of fun, but it brings new worries to pet owners. We have a family of well-meaning children on the east side of our house; however, when they take in a litter of kittens, we never see the kits again. I'm not sure what they do -- I suspect that they kill the poor little mites with kindness ... and cow's milk. The kittens' mother is a stray, not truly feral, because she will let Joy or me touch her. However, she does not like to be picked up, and she has never shown any interest in coming inside ... I spotted the 4some: 2 white ones that might be Siamese mix, 1 yellow tabby, and 1 gray. Skippy John, the male Siamese stray, is probably 1 of the fathers, and I suspect he'd kill the litter once he found them. It's a no-win situation for the little things, either way.

Worse, Flea went missing. We don't know how she got out of the house, but when I went to feed the cats, there was no small black and red tabby ... Fiona looks like a half-grown kitten, but Joy thinks that she's the same age as our other 2 half-grown cats, Bojangles and Margot, named after Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Margot Fonteyn. I went through the house with a flashlight, went through the front and back yard ... no Fiona. Every 15-30 minutes, I'd repeat the process -- that's how I found the kittens -- but no little cat. Finally, Joy went out on the back porch and called. She swore she heard a tiny mew ... but no cat in sight. I came out with the flashlight, and two orange eyes peered at me from high up the tree. It was no owl; it meowed. We fought our way through the underbrush (yeah, it's time to trim bushes again!). I climbed on a low branch; Joy got food to tempt Fiona into position.

Finally, she climbed down to a cut-off branch where I could grab 1 leg and a tail ... Fiona protested, but I hauled her down ... For a while, I could tell she was debating on jumping onto the roof, then decided (thankfully) that it was too far for her short legs to reach.

Oh, and I've finished 5 pages (1,000 words) for my NaNoWriMo weekend.

NaNoWriMo

A plot flickers in a dark and stormy mind ...

Half of you are thinking, "What the ***?" -- and the other half are thinking, "It's that time, again?" What am I talking about? November is National Novel Writing Month (NanoWriMo); participants pledge to write a 50, 000 word novel in 30 days. It can be done; I've done it, and so have thousands of others. It shames me to write it, but it was 4 years ago that I did my first "Nano" novel on a now-defunct laptop. (BTW, Karyl, I did back it up on two drives, as well as print a copy.) This year, unless I'm lucky, I may be handwriting most of the novel since I really write better in front of the TV than in isolation with the desktop. Call me crazy (it's been done before), but I will get it done ... or get hand cramps in the attempt.

Of course, it means that most of my jewelry projects, quilt designs, and doll dresses will be placed on hold during November ... and luckily the grading will be a tad lighter on the essay side since we're doing an "I" scrapbook instead of a traditional essay for our project. We'll see how many kids finish it by next week's deadline.

My first (though not last) "nano" novel told the tale of a were-jaguar in search of her missing brother. She drives out to East Texas (hey, they say write what you know -- well, I know the drive to Tyler pretty well) and gets hooked up with a Texas Ranger who's searching for some nasty drug dealers who're capturing college kids for nefarious rites. (Think the Matamoros drug dealer murders down near the border.) Her grandmother is a curandera who gives the Ranger a scapular medal to help the woman control the first change ... yes, it's a romance (of sorts), and it is VERY rough in spots ... but I got it done in (more or less) 1 month.

I still haven't forgotten the day when the principal had us at an in-service; I had just started the novel, and the woman walked into a bar. I think I had the biker bar in mind; however, since I've never been in the biker bar, I made it a more normal country bar ... and a man walks through the door. I had no clue who he was -- then I had to pay attention to the speaker, a brain research specialist, and didn't get a chance to return to the story until lunch. Then everyone wanted me to eat with them -- they were willing to pay -- but I wanted to find out who the guy was! When I told them that I was writing -- and I had no idea who this new character was -- they couldn't understand. "If you're the writer, then you should know," one insisted. Well, I didn't know -- and she didn't know. The only one who DID know was Dirk, and he didn't reveal his motivation for coming after Lena until another 20 pages had passed. (He turned out to be the hero after all.)

This year's "Nano" novel may be set near my 85-year-old high school. I've tried getting the novel off the ground several times -- I need to locate the opening scenes I wrote last summer. My other alternative is a YA novel about a magic user who's coming into her power ... and, to tell the truth, I could combine the setting of one with the characters of the other ... Sad to say, it's hard to write about teenagers and even harder to write about people my own age. We're at such very different stages in the life journey. Of course, there's always the idea of wisdom + youth. What could you do if you had the energy and resilience of youth added to the life experience (and wisdom, hopefully) of age? The fae (Fair Folk, elves) do -- but only Tolkein's elves make consistently choices to do good; the traditional fair folk are not always so benign, and some are actively evil. I read Moning's Faefever series -- I had to stop when the Fairy prince and his minions gang raped the heroine to make her his slave. That's not the end of the series -- but I won't start reading again until book 5 comes out. Moning defended the scene, but it put me off her writing for over a year -- and I don't recommend the series, even for hard-core romance/ fantasy readers, unless you're willing to deal with nastiness on a level I haven't seen in a long time. The only writer who came close to that was Tami Hoag; her main characters are torture puppies near the book's climax. They risk their lives to put the bad guys away ... although they're willing to pay the price, I'm not always willing to share the experience.

Dance quote: "Any problem in the world can be solved by dancing." -James Brown

Bazeball dase

Happy Halloween from Pash't and her furry fiend

My anime boys tells me that BJDs are creepy; the life-like eyes and limbs create atavistic memories of tiny homuculi who create havoc when everyone is asleep -- a cross between Chucky in Child's Play and Woody's crew in Toy Story. There are guys out there who enjoy the dolls; however, most come into the doll fold because their SO likes them ... or they're gay and enjoy designing a OOAK doll (not all, mind you, but most that I know). I still love the name of one of Joy's groups: Creepy Old Folks Who Play With Dolls. Too much fun!

Tonight the Texas Rangers play the SF Giants in San Francisco ... I normally don't follow America's game; however, I am a Texan, which means that I follow "the boys" when they make the playoffs. To tell the truth, I'm using the internet to check on their progress (right now, lack of progress, since the score is 4-2) because baseball games just move too slowly for my taste ... even when my dad took the family to Arlington Stadium (now only a vague memory), I took a book along. I'm sure it was a fantasy book, though which one I could not tell. I saved Lord of the Rings for the long drives from Dallas to my grandmother's home in Evansville, IN, and my aunt's home in Morehead, KY. Like Christopher Lee, I enjoyed re-visiting Middle Earth every summer.





Of course, my students talk of nothing but the World Series ... if the Cowboys were doing better, there would be a choice of subjects; however, "da Boys" aren't winning much this year, like our Bison football team ... and this week is homecoming. Oh, well, I'm sure the Bison of years past will enjoy more than just the game ... I've never felt the need to visit Wildcat Country at Wildcat/Ram Stadium, perhaps because I deal with high school sports all the time. I feel little desire to re-visit the scene of my mis-spent youth. After all, I know where to find the 3 people who were my closest friends at that time -- Facebook just makes it a one-stop-shop.

I enjoyed college and grad school; however, I never kept up with any of those folks. Oh, I met some of them later when we were all theatre teachers in Dallas ISD; however, after I graduated from college, I only saw one of the folks from ETSU -- and that friendship shattered when she started sleeping with a married man ... That was one crazy spring! A fruit basket turnover of relationships, a veritable soap opera. As my niece says, I try to steer clear of drama; still, sometimes the drama finds you ... as it's done 3 times this year. After 3 blessed years of relative peace, we've had 3 fights among the sophomores -- 1 involved alleged gang rivalries, but 2 were girls fighting over name-calling and boys. (Puh-leeze! I teach the little brat -- he ain't all that.)

Dance Quote: “Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.” -- Voltaire

Beware the pirate elves! The kawaii factor lowers your defenses, then they'll steal your heart ...

We spent the weekend -- well, a second weekend, in Southlake. Petsitting is no joke, unless the pets are your own ... which wouldn't make it petsitting, would it, unless the dogs (or cats) literally DO sit on you. Mine have been known to do so, and Joy's birds use her as a perch whenever they can (usually while the cats are placed inside their room). Back to the subject at hand: the girls & Veronica (who is in her late 50s but prefers to party with younger females) decided to go on a road trip to the East Coast ... after toodling around the Big Apple and its environs, they came south to that center of Elvis worship, Graceland. Currently they're driving south and west towards their house ... where Joy waits in durance vile.

This was a weekend for old movies: Kind Hearts & Coronets, starring Alec Guinness in 7 roles; Laura, with Gene Tierney and Vincent Price, a documentary on the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and Return to the House on Haunted Hill, with no name actors ... oh, and we caught the last half of Disney's Princess & the Frog. No one could ever say our tastes weren't eclectic ... We interspersed the movie watching with reading -- Joy had found the final volume in one of her fantasy series, and I read a reprint of a Mary Balough romance, The Christmas Promise, as well as parts from The Chronicles of Narnia. I guess all the reading was to distract the mind from the fact that duty had trapped us in a place where we really didn't wish to be, caring for animals not our own ... Worse, two of Joy's cockatiels died this week, and she was unable to bid them a final farewell and mourn properly since she wasn't here. I know that sorrow bothers her -- I remember finding Lady Orchid, who had been quite ill for a long time ... She had died inside the hospital cage in the bedroom, since I feared that she might climb into the mattress or closet in her last moments. Such a lovely, loving queenly cat ... Her brother Skittles is still with us. He meowed and chatted me up since I had spent 2 nights in Southlake.

We now have bison on a chain ... well, chain earrings. This week is homecoming at Sunset HS, so I made some earring sets for teachers who want to show spirit on Friday ... and it's tough to find bison. Luckily, Mar found some pewter pieces at Intergem, so I have a bagful for earrings and pendants ... plus, a few buffalo nickels in a coin setting. They're too heavy for earrings, but perfect as pendants ... and I saw a few steers in the field next to Cheri's abode. They ignored us mere humans (after all, we didn't have any food for them), despite our "mooooooooo"-ing.

Dance Quote: If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. George Bernard Shaw

Taken to TAKS --

... or task, as it were, as I move from senior tutor to sophomore teacher ... and after 3 years of calm, we've had 3 fights on 3rd floor this semester. Alas, we're short 2 principals, which adds to the problem. I only hope that we can get the 10th grade class back on track in time for the 2011 TAKS ...

So what's with the funny animals? As I commented below, I have an anime shrine -- most of my students aren't interested in furry art; however, there are two anthropomorphic bison -- a samurai and a geisha -- as the mascots for the anime club.




You have to be a good dancer to be this clumsy at the barre ... Lucy was a dancer for MGM before they discovered that she was a comedienne. My friend Mandy has a shrine to the Ricardos & Mertzes in her classroom; I myself have an anime shrine. Both of us enjoy movies, particularly the classics; when we taught next door to one another, we would play movie trivia. How many minutes into a scene did you need in order to identify the movie and its stars? I wonder whether she shows movies before school and during lunch the way she did on 3rd floor. I doubt it -- the powers-that-be (and lunch traffic) frown on cinematic stuff between 9 and 4. Then they wonder why the kids have so little culture ... it's all hip-hop and pop with the Web sites and Youtube thrown into the mix.

I did have to chuckle, however, because I had to shoo several kids away from the library since the seniors are testing all week. Sorry, kids, you can't check your manga or video stream ... see you next week.

Dance quote: What could I do? I couldn't dance. I couldn't sing. I could talk.
-- Lucille Ball

Critter Crawlies & Senior Slides

This picture shows what happens when STAR WARS meets steampunk fashions ... Lucas wanted the droids to have a "used" look -- I think the model maker replicated it well. I almost didn't recognize the crew, especially with the changes for Obi-Wan. I can't quite see Alec Guiness in these exaggerated shoulder armor, though I guess they were inspired by the wide samurai plates -- although I think those were made of narrow pieces of lacquered wood fastened together to be more flexible ... and they didn't do much with Princess Leia's outfit, besides adding the usual reversed corset over her blouse. Ah, well, I guess someone can go in and build the retro weaponry that mark the real steampunk designers. After all, the light sabers and blaster combinations reflected the same mashup of past, present and future technologies that we saw in the original trilogy. (No, I do not count the prequel trilogy or CLONE WARS -- too much CGI trickery in one, and in animated series only the imagination can limit the designs. Either way, the practicality of the weapon never becomes an issue, just whether it looks good.) Maybe I should tune into the replay of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It's on today ... Yeah, Sean Connery as Alan Quartermain. I can handle that.

On a completely different note:

I almost made it through the fall TAKS season without tutoring a single senior ... Why, do you ask? Since I volunteered to "move down" to 10th grade, I'm no longer personally acquainted with members of the Class of 2011 -- at least, not most of the ones who need to take TAKS. My students passed the first time in the spring of 2011. (And it's not boasting, if it's a fact, as Beowulf would say.) However, none of the senior teachers want to take on the task, and when the asst. principal asked for recommendations, they gave my name ... SIGH. It's a pain when you're a "team player." I get stuck in a prayer room (2 long tables and 1 long pew) with various seniors ... many of whom aren't feeling the serious inspiration to get their thinking caps on and write the essay -- making a mere 2 our of 4 last March does not reassure me that they can repeat the deed in October. Several are more interested in their jobs than in their test for graduation . Ah well, we'll see how they feel next March when they have to take the test again ... and one guy who left to teach his hip-hop dance class wants to graduate in December; he needs to pass 2 sections. oh, well ...

If you ever want to find a place that has illusions of grandeur, Southlake is the place to visit. It's made having a middle class WASP neighborhood its mission -- along with a powerhouse football team that has qualified for more state championships than I can name. I swear that you won't find any non-whites out there unless they make $$$$. I've seen 1 or 2 Indians in the neighborhood, but I suspect that they have tech jobs somewhere ... The trio of ladies who own the house where I stayed have many, many critters; Joy's job this week is critter-sitting, so I used it as an excuse to mall crawl at Grapevine Mills ... We made the run down to Lancaster to check on our pets; the cockatoos and 'tiels welcomed Joy with wild tweets and jungle cries, a foreshadowing of the raucous welcome home she'll receive next Sunday.

Lancaster may be located less than 40 miles southeast of Southlake, but it could as well be in another country. (We ARE in another county: they're in Tarrant Co., we're in Dallas.) After the tornado in '94, the demographics have gradually shifted as Dallas residents have moved south, and the light industry has stayed north ... I think the 2 biggest employers in this town are Wal-Mart and Lancaster ISD. We're a commuter town -- which is difficult since we have no bus service. If you don't have a car, finding a job is tough. The city park and library complex north of us are quite beautiful -- alas, you have to drive there since Lancaster Road & Jefferson Street are too busy for pedestrians to traverse safely. Still, we have a ringside seat when there are fireworks displays or concerts ... all we have to do is pull out the lawn chairs.

Dance quote: "Your love for yourself is only shown when you are dancing freely." -- anonymous

In a Faire State

Goodreau Vampire guards the money box from anime fans

Today we teachers get the day off for the State Fair of Texas -- as you can see in the title, my fingers did the walking and used the ren spelling for "fair." Not a surprise, since we spend much of our time on the faire grounds in East Texas during the spring. The official State Fair is huge, and except for the new fried foods, there isn't much to tempt me to walk all day and check out displays ... Compared to Six Flags, the Midway isn't as fun as it was when I was in high school; altough the ticket gives us free admission, it doesn't pay for all the tickets you'd need to eat, drink and be merry ... Besides, I don't want to see any of my students during my "down time" this weekend.

After I grade some papers -- yes, I'm trying not to drown in student papers this 6 weeks -- I shall begin to bead. I found an interesting book on bead embroidery, which might tempt the BJD ladies into parting with some cash ... we shall see. Plus, I have bison earrings to create for the theater teacher and others. A few students are interested; the rules may bend for teachers who want jewelry, but they are adamant about student sales ... Too many dirty deeds done at DISD during the Naughty Nineties, I'm sure, when many higher-ups and business managers used district funds to feather their own nests. Most of the earrings are simple ones -- beads on a headpin (I almost wrote beads on a stick ...) or simple beadweaving. I hope some are bought, since we spent $$ at Intergem and Rock Barrell to obtain purple and white pearls and crystals.

So -- who's the little vampire in the picture? He's an ABC vinyl BJD created by Paulette Goudreau; Joy spotted the little man at BJDC Austin ... but bought a smaller magician instead since he resembled her chara Harry St. Cloud. She'd given Paulette a jewelry pendant; to our surprise, Paulette sent this little guy our way ... A few resin purists insist that he shouldn't be called a BJD since they insist that only an "Asian-inspired" aesthetic defines a true ball-jointed doll. Oh, please ... first, he has the changeable hair and wig; he also has joints; he's strung, even if he is made of vinyl ... And if you're looking for an "Asian aesthetic," he still fits the definition because many manga and anime will create a "chibi" version of all but the most serious chara. He's just a chibi Dracula ... a distinction that some BJD purists wouldn't know because they don't know the entire "Asian aesthetic" that influences the sculptors who create the dolls. I think they're narrowing the definition more and more because they don't want outsiders to invade their private party ... Now I'm the first to agree that reborn dolls (dolls which look like newborn babies, complete with the redness associated with babies who are just born) are not BJDs ... and neither are most Barbie dolls or many fashion dolls since they don't have changeable eyes or hair ... but Goodreau's dolls (and some other lines, too) DO follow the definition. Check them out for yourself and see.

Dance Quote: "I could dance with you till the cows come home...On second thought, I'd rather dance with the cows when you came home."(Groucho Marx, Duck Soup (1933))

Gemstones & Bison Bits

OCGMS case

We'll spend this weekend at the International Gem & Jewelry show, instead of the Cowtown Celtic Festival ... advertising for the latter appeared in late September, so we were already committed to working the club table. I'd enjoy seeing a festival that I wasn't working -- when the North Texas Irish Fest happens, we're at 4 Winds Faire; when the Scottish Festival occurs, we're at A-Kon. Those weekends fill up fast -- at least MiddleFaire, Cottonwood Arts Festival, and Cowtown Celtic, not to mention the State Faire, will have beautiful weather ... I only hope that the jewelry people will visit us at Market Hall. After all, not every visitor came for the Texas-OU game.

Joy created the various pieces of wire-wrapped stones ; many of them currently reside in Maryland where a friend (hopefully) will present and sell them to people she knows ... She bought a drusy piece, and a friend bought an opal in matrix. We'd had the pieces for over a year, so it's good to let them find new homes and beautify other ladies. I did the Dutch spiral (or Russian spiral) necklace in black,red, and white beads ... people love to watch me do the spirals; alas, they do not buy them. I just wish I could find some charity interested in donations of the pieces ... I have many pretty sparklies, but no home for them. That sounds like a no-kill shelter, doesn't it?

Mariann has a new problem at her work -- she knows someone who runs a foster home for kittens & cats ... uh, oh -- they are SO cute when they're itty bitty kittehs (to quote lolcats), but they grow up into cats -- and stay that way until they die. Mar's travelling life style doesn't permit pets, except as a day visitation sort of thing. We've brought Lola (the rat terrier) and Fiona (a kitten) to visit her ... then we remind her that -- like nieces and nephews -- the good part is that you can give them back with a clear conscience.

Bison Bits -- I saw Clue last night. The kids mainly knew their lines, much more than they did in "Dracula" two years ago. Alas, we still can't hear them, even with floor mikes -- and you can't mike at UIL competition, so they need to project! The butler was good, and he mainly carried the show -- I just hope he stays with theatre and doesn't get sucked into other arts or sports. Ginger wants to do vampires next month as the late Halloween project ... we'll see. At least she has a livelier group than she did last year. Those seniors were sorry -- at least they've graduated and moved on, so we can pick up and begin again.

Ginger used all of the stage areas -- since we can place furniture anywhere we like in our own space, she used the steps, the side stages (which are really fire exits), and back stage. The lights and sound were a bit iffy -- she still needs to train her techs. However, the main thing was getting the actors on stage. They had moments -- they weren't the UIL Best Actors or Ensemble -- and I felt proud to be the teacher (I can claim some of them, if only from last year.) of such talented students. Congrats to Ginger for pulling it off.

The weather has turned coolish, so I'm off to walk off the weight. For a while, the weather was too warm -- or too rainy -- for me to go outdoors before dawn (the main time I have to exercise unless it's ballet class). Today looks like it's prime walker weather. Carpe diem!

Dance quote: "We should consider everyday lost in which we don't dance." -Neitzsche