The Eye of the Beholder

I’m working on a leaded stained glass piece for practice and fun. It’s a window with curved pieces – all my work has been straight lines so far. Marsha has told me that fitting curves and circles can be hard, but this has been my first attempt. The straight lines are relatively easy but, she’s right, bending the lead and getting the curved glass pieces to fit just right can be challenging. If one piece is ‘off’, it will push all of the others ‘off’ too.

But I thought I was close enough. One line was a little skewed, but I thought nobody would notice. I soldered the pieces together last night and showed Ken.

“Hmm,” he says
“What?” I say
“Is that crooked?”

Arrgh. Enter my frustration and sadness that he noticed practically right away. I was a bit crushed since I was so proud that it was all put together. And also enter the dilemma that was presented:

I like his critique. He has a good eye for seeing when things are straight and he knows what he likes. If I get his seal of approval, I know I did a good job. However, that also puts him in a very awkward spot if the piece isn’t straight or if he just doesn’t like the style of the piece. In situations like last night, what is he to say? ‘No, it’s not straight and is totally noticeable.’ Or enter another situation of ‘The colors aren’t right’., ‘The frame you chose is too big’, etc….

How do you reconcile wanting and not wanting to know the truth?

Options I see include:

1. Don’t ask, don’t tell
2. Listening to his critique and handling it like a normal person without getting sad
3. Have him lie to me

I don’t like options 1 & 3. I want him to be truthful because it only makes the pieces better. But this whole situation sounds like a version of the classical “Do I look fat in this glass?

The Priapic Malignant Gratuitous Bacchanalian Spirochetes

Behold the Portland Urban Iditarod Team of 2006.




Costumes and outfitting the dogsled (aka shopping cart) will be finalized at a party at our house next Friday. Spectators and extra "dog handlers" are more than welcome.

___________________________________
Priapic----Of, relating to, or resembling a phallus; phallic.
Malignant----Showing great malevolence; disposed to do evil.
Gratuitous----Unnecessary or unwarranted; unjustified:
Bacchanalia---an orgiastic festival in ancient Greece honoring Dionysus (=Bacchus)
Spirochetes---A bacteria that gives a puppy a leaky butt.

HOORAY!

A few minutes after my previous post, I received an email from the director of the training grant:

Lisa:

I am sending you a formal letter awarding you a second year of support on the (deleted name) Training Grant, which you should receive in several days. However, I wanted to email you the letter now so you would know that you were awarded the second year of support, congratulations.

The Training Grant Steering Committee was very pleased with your progress and is happy to see that you will be submitting an application for an individual NRSA this summer. Please let us know when you have submitted it and what the outcome is after review.

We also wanted to suggest that you give a seminar at the (place deleted) this year about your work. As there are several scientists who study (subject deleted) at (place deleted), we feel that you would receive very useful input on your studies regarding (subject deleted) by presenting your work at (place deleted). (Name deleted) will be contacting you to schedule a time for a seminar.

(name deleted)

I am so excited. It is rare to get a second year of support on this training grant.

2 down, 2 to go

Talk is finished. Grant renewal was submitted yesterday afternoon. Two papers and then it's back to business -- I can't wait to be caught up.

To celebrate the small steps; however, Ken and I met at Vault for dinner and drinks. We've been meaning to go for some time, so the timing was perfect. I went home to let the dog out first and then met Ken at the bar. He had ordered me a Joyful Girl (vanilla vodka & lemon), which was waiting for me when I arrived and is probably my favorite of their drinks. Yum. Ken got the cucumber kamakaze (vodka, triple sec, cucumber, lime) which was also awesome. We shared the marinated calimari & artichokes as well as the steak skewers with blue cheese fondue. We ate and drank and chatted at the bar for hours. What a great time. Thanks Ken!

Like Father like Son

Last night around 9:30.

Stained Glass Projects

My glass class is now over. I loved it but I'm happy to do things on my own schedule now. I learned a ton and finished five projects over the past eight weeks. You've already seen pictures of the panel in the stairwell, but here are a few pictures of the giant panel I made for the basement as well as the lamp I finished last night. Both took a really long time, but I'm really happy with the results.


Basement Panel
Basement panel using lead came technique; 27x23 inches. Wanted something that would let a lot of light in, yet use a glass that wasn't completely transparent so people couldn't see in. I think I hit the mark with this wavy clear glass. Here's the orignal drawing for it and the final result:



Stained Glass Lamp
I finished the lamp last night after working on every night all week. I estimate it took around 35 hours. Insane amount of time. No wonder people buy them rather than make them. Here's the picture of the orignal lamp I saw in a store window down the street. I drew the pattern for it based on the picture with a few modifications in size: 2.25" top diameter, 16.5" bottom diameter and around 9" high. Used copper foil technique, 5/32" foil.

Here's the lamp during the day:


And illuminated at night:

Kinley & Friends

...friends meaning the bacteria he's carrying around that have been causing his week-long diarrhea spell. So a $45 fecal test to tell us that 5 days of the runs isn't normal.

Nor is the whimpering last night at 2:45 am only to find Kinley in his crate surrounded by a total bowel release of "valentine's".

Nor was the fecal sample I had to collect this morning and the small amount of vomit it induced in the backyard.

But the antibiotics are coming. Ken is picking them up this afternoon when he gets back from his business trip. This week was totally exhausting and it's only a dog. I don't know how single mothers do it.

Ken's coming home!

Turns out Ken's on his way home! He'll be flying out again tomorrow morning at 7:30, but at least he'll be home tonight. Hooray!

I bet Kinley will be excited and have some squishy valentines just for him!

Dinner for Two

Ken's been out of town this whole week. To celebrate, Kinley decided to get diarrhea beginning the night Ken left. Luckily for me, Ken's mom knows dogs and recommended if it continued, to cook up some ground beef and mix it with rice -- which would "push things through".

Of course, it continued.

So while Ken was getting propositioned by a prostitute in Vegas, I spent Valentine's Day home sick alone, cooking dinner for two. One for me, one for the sick poopy dog.*


* In true Patty Kinnunen fashion (who has been known to grate fresh parmesan cheese over the dog's bowl), I doctored up Kinley's food to make it taste better... browned the ground beef with a few spices and mixed it in the rice along with a little bacon fat and salt to punch up the flavor. Also added some water to make the rice not so dry and help with his fluids. I kept tasting it until it was deemed acceptable. Retarded. I spent more time on his dinner than I did on my own.

And yes, he still has diarrhea. I've left the squishy yard yams in the backyard as a belated Valentine's Day present for Ken.

Easter Friends

Easter is my favorite. It's April 16th this year and I just heard from Rachel that she and Justin have booked their flights to join us for it. Taryn & Paul are also coming up for it.

Can't wait.

This year will definitely beat last years, which we spent de-flooding the basement and wiring lights on the front porch. But now we're back in business. If there's a chance you may be able to join us for it, I hope you will. We have plenty of room.

Just let me know so I can prepare the necessary ridiculousness.

tee hee

Deep Breath

It's been busy here.

Just finished giving a presentation and am now coming down from the 'fight of flight' adrenaline rush of it. Now it's back to crazy writing so I can get my research going again. In the next two weeks, I'm writing a grant and finishing two papers. I've been working late all last week and this weekend -- then come home to see Ken, Kinley, Hughes and work on my 250 piece stained glass lamp I'm trying to put together for my last glass class on Wednesday.

I have spread myself too thin. I also have a big gash on my thumb from grinding glass. I am exhausted but happy.

Sadly though, Ken leaves today for a conference in Vegas until Thursday. Then straight to another business trip in California until Friday. He's busy too. So it's me, the animals and a ton of glass work and writing this week. Also, I'm going to sleep.* I'm feeling antisocial and like I need to hibernate for a while. Luckily, Kinley and Hughes like to hibernate too -- as long as there are ribbons & balls involved too.




*I've been staying up until 1:30-3:30am every night working on the lamp. It's all cut and I'm grinding the pieces now. I have about 5% more to grind and two sides of the lamp are already foiled (the step right before when you can solder everything together). So I'm reasonably far along with it. My glass class instructor is showing me how to put it together since they're not offering a lamp class this year (he's the instructor for it). So it's great that I got to learn so much from this class - copper foil & lead techniques as well as how to make lamp shades. I'm really enjoying glass. It's like quilting but without the sewing. Here's a picture of the lamp I'm making. I took it one night at a store window down the street and then drew the pattern based on the picture:

Catfight?

Kinley has learned to climb stairs*, meaning Hughes' safety location is coming to an end. Ken snapped this last night when Kinley wanted to see what Hughes was doing with his ribbons. Kinley loves to see what the cat's doing constantly. Hughes likes a little more distance and tries to fight back when the dog comes sniffing too close. But the sweet paw taps from a clawless cat are no dissausion for Kinley.



*He still can't go down stairs -- well, unless you count falling down sideways "going down".

Welcome Taryn & Paul

to the blog world!