The Friday Cat and Mouse Report

The herd next store has gone all Great Warrior Jungle Cats on Jen lately. It’s mouse carnage central over there. Mind you, like us, Jen and Oni never actually see mice in there house so, we’re pretty sure Rosie, Thelma and Skitter are dialing up the mouse outcall services. Again. The three of them seem to be working as a team now too.

Rotten beasts.

And, OK, OK, the blood's photoshopped in the rodent coroner pic above right but Jen said she def saw a big smear of blood.

Progeny

The feral formerly known as Greta

In other herd news, I finally realized why Greta looks so familiar. She’s Skitter’s father. Yup, Greta’s definitely a boy AND she’s the boy who was haunting our porch way back when Trixie was a soon to be tamed feral visitor. Truth be told, Trixie was never feral. At the first opportunity she dashed into our house and refused to leave. She found a nice pillow perch and that was that (she now has a very nice home over in Mission Hill).

So...yup, Greta’s the cad who got our Trixie up the spout.

Clearly I need to get The Amazing Bob to come up with a new name for her...I mean him.

Art Surprise -- The Artists Hand Gallery

While visiting my father in that small Western Pennsylvania town where he resides, I happened on a lovely bit of wonderment. Art!

Specifically, The Artists Hand Gallery.  It’s an art gallery/coffee shop which provides all kinds of cool workshops for children and adults. There’s also studio space for rent in the building. Too cool and wholly unexpected! An oasis.

Jolene Joyner

What struck me, when I first walked in, was the lay out. Each sculpture, painting and pot had a fair amount of space around it -- no crowding. Then there’s the altitudinous ceilings -- beautiful! If I lived in the area, I’d be proud to show my work here.

Not that they’d necessarily want to rep me given my propensity for nudes.

Galleries are businesses and like any enterprise, they need to bring in the rent semolians if they want to stay afloat. A small town gallery must consider it’s audience if it wants to survive. NO this doesn’t mean that you can only show paintings of saucer eyed fluffy kittens on pillows or sketches of adorable ragamuffins.

Goodness no and The Artists Hand Gallery proves it.

I fell in love with Jolene Joyner's brushstroke and Charles Battaglini's color and style. I look forward to seeing more of Betty Hedman's clay work and Trish Dodson's paper creations.

Charles Battaglini

If you're in the Pittsburgh area and have a free afternoon, the gallery is totally worth the hour and a half drive (three hours round trip).

PLUS, just across the street there's a drugstore with a lunch space. The coffee and cookie were fab but, better yet, man behind the counter knew some sign! In a weekend heavily loaded with lip reading and lipreading attempts, this was a major relief for this deafie.

Oh and they had paintings on their walls too. I was totally taken with this one -- at left. I wish I'd gotten the artist's name.

Next time. Next time I will.

Donna's Inferno

Gustave Doré's illustration to Dante's Inferno, Plate LXV: Canto XXXI: The titans and giants

The Amazing Bob and I are in the midst of a shared cold. A cold whose roots, I'm pretty damned sure, are in the seventh circle of Dante's Inferno. Possibly the fifth. In any case, Jen's gonna attempt to score us some antibiotics today. Fingers and toes are crossed.

Escape Artist

While I soldier on in my fervid efforts to throw off this vile cold, which I seem to have brought back with me from Pennsylvania, Jen The Pirate Blogger steps up to the blogging plate.

This is the artist-currently-known-as-Jen's take on Thelma's, generally failed, escape attempts.

Blind Tuna Thelma

Why do I have the blues, specifically Blind Lemon Jefferson, playing in my head right now.

Hmmm. It's a puzzler -- innit.

Tallchiefs and Mothers

a guest post by the fabulous Michal Jones-Stewart  

In my tweener/teen years I was an avid ballet fan, though I couldn't dance worth shit, and made my family sit through numerous recitals.

I was allowed to pick my birthday present and, back then, it was always a trip to the 'Burg (Pittsburgh) to see someone famous.

Not a rock star but some classical superstar -- Van Cliburn, Maria Tallchief and the American Ballet Theater, opera. My mother ALWAYS readily agreed, almost with glee. I never understood. With her depression era frugality, this was a real extravagance.

It wasn't until she was in her dotage that I understood. She lived and breathed ‘culture’ (opera, dance, etc.), with a passion.

At her memorial service, one of her cousins told me the story of Mom being so excited that she could take her to a Standing Room Only performance at Heinz Hall to see an opera when she was in college for $5.00 -- this was 1942.

So, when her 10-15 year old daughter WANTED to go to a live performance she was willing to GO!

The passing of Maria Tallchief, (who I saw TWICE!), is also another passing -- the passing of a memory of my Mother and I doing something together that we both loved. There aren't many of those, we weren't close, but I still remember standing in the lobby at intermission and the joy in my mother's face and voice.
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Today is a day to remember our mothers (birth and spiritual mothers) who’ve gone on to other realms. Today is a day to celebrate with the mothers who are still with us.

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
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Michal Jones-Stewart, AKA The Balm of Idaho, is a dear friend of mine. It seems unimaginable that we met just a few short years ago.
That's Michal, at left, with her gone-much-to-soon Rodney.

Carlos Cats-aneda

While Helen and I are galavanting   around Western Pennsylvania, Jen The Pirate Blogger and her herd of cat are apparently having mega high times at home.

I believe Skitter's scored some sweet Peyote and has set off on some sort of vision quest - except she's having Thelma and Rosie go with her. Because, ya know, vision quests are ever so much more fun when you have them with friends.

Weed

 Why, why, WHY are Dandelions considered a weed?!

From the MedicinPlus site:

Dandelion is an herb. People use the above ground parts and root to make medicine.

Dandelion is used for loss of appetite, upset stomach, intestinal gas, gallstones, joint pain, muscle aches, eczema, and bruises. Dandelion is also used to increase urine production and as a laxative to increase bowel movements. It is also used as skin toner, blood tonic, and digestive tonic.

Some people use dandelion to treat infection, especially viral infections, and cancer.

In foods, dandelion is used as salad greens, and in soups, wine, and teas. The roasted root is used as a coffee substitute.

OK, the site also says:

Dandelion is used for many conditions, but so far, there isn’t enough scientific evidence to determine whether or not it is effective for any of them.

You can also make wine from them! Beyond that, the big thing, to my mind anyway, is their beauty. Mindbendingly useful, peasant stunners, they are.

Time lapse Dandelion flower to seed head vid by Neal Bromhal

Violets too. How can this be!?

They're edible, just like Dandelions and have medicinal qualities. JUST like dandelions.

From Blind Pig & The Acorn where you can also find recipes for Violet Vinegar, Triple Violet Salad, Violet Leaf Tea, Crystallized Viola and more:

All members of the Viola family are edible-I'm sure at some point you've seen the fancy fragile looking candied violets on a wedding cake-but there are a variety of other edible ways to use violets. Both the leaves and blooms are edible-they can be tossed in a salad, used to make violet tea, violet syrup, violet jelly, and even violet vinegar.

Oh yeah, they're stunningly beautiful too. They're the herb/flower/weed (OK, there, I said it. Happy now?) version of Svetlana Lunkina dancing Giselle. No, seriously!