Cougar warrior

Apache chief with a cougar skin bow case and quiver set
© The Trustees of the British Museum

My horoscope (Free Will Astrology) was particularly funny today...apparently Aries are satiated by complaining...these are some topics chosen for me to complain about when life is going grand:

2. "The next tissue in my tissue box doesn't magically poke out when I take one." 3. "I want some ice cream, but I overstuffed myself at dinner." 4. "I saw a hipster wearing a shirt I donated to the Salvation Army and now I want it back."  7. "I tried to spread cold butter on my toast and the bread ripped." 8. "I was really comfortable but I thought I could be really really comfortable so I adjusted and now I can't get back to my original level of comfort." 9. "When people tell me I should feel grateful for all I have instead of complaining all the time, I feel guilty." 

Even though things are going fine and dandy, I am going to add two more complaints: 

my cougar stabber

1. "I want to go for a walk in the woods at dawn but my husband doesn't think I would win in a battle against a mountain lion."

i grumbled in the car to myself "I could kill a cougar..." hoping one would attack me, just so i could show my husband who was right because i had my really cool knife with me--lightweight with a balsa handle to keep my stabbing hand warm, but a long enough blade to do some damage...but i quickly realized how hoping for a cougar attack was an absurd manifestation of my ego. It takes a vicious cougar to 100% defeat a cougar, and i am only a partial cougar with a mere four years on my husband...

present project

2. "I thought I invented Pant-Leg Yoga Bag!" 

But, alas, a search on the web revealed that i did not...oh well, i can still make them, and make them look better. 

Yoga bags are like the bow cases for the modern warrior...yoga is my weapon and i will use it to defeat evil raiders ravaging my mind with advertising and evil propaganda...

Stay strong, warriors, and when you feel defeated and want to whine about it, whip out your yoga mat instead and fight back.

Dreadful wind and rain (oh no...not that!)

At first it was a cold wet gale, like something out a Turner painting, except the crab boats tossing about were flashing lights into our windows...

i yearned to be pant-less walking around in the rain soaked desert, and today it was warm enough to feel a little bit right...

the bright orange Moroccan textile bestowed upon me for dog sitting a massive puppy has brightened my area...

at one point in time i was supposed to go work with textile weavers in rural Morocco for a few years, and i often wonder what would be if i had been adventurous enough to go...

Photo by Linda Vinh near Skoura in the Atlas mountains

but wondering things like that are pointless and useless, and the universe has me right where it wants me, adventuring via books and photos while sitting in the dreadful wind and rain.

thanks to the sharing people

keepin' on keepin' on

 work more and better

Woody Gutherie's 1942

read lots good books

photo of letterpress room at Blue Ox by me

dance better and stay glad

 love everybody and dont get lonesome

Lucian Freud

wake up and fight

Delacroix

human power hour

we waited for our tour on a dead end dirt road tucked back off the main street in Eureka until a clunky early 1950s car pulled up ("this MUST be him!") and an adorable working-class Wizard of Oz jumped out and opened the high security gate consisting of a wire cable, although i think the feral cats roaming the property were an added security feature....

 i know i have said this before, but i love my hand-crank singer, and we just got a long arm treadle sewing machine foe sewing into tight spaces at the studio i work at--very excited...

 of course i was beyond delighted to watch the demos of the massive collection of human powered 'power?' tools in the form of saws, lathes, and flat-out choppers at the Blue Ox...

 i have more photos to share from the property (apologies for the blurriness--we are presently in the dark depths of Winter)...

crafted made from scratch everything, besos besos besos.

history of pedal power machines