Funny Anniversary

I just looked at a calendar and realised that today is this blog's fourth anniversary.

How funny.

I don't want to go all melodramatic on y'all, but I think I'm going to take a break from blogging. Maybe I'll retire this blog. I don't know.

Today is a bad day to make decisions. I'm a bit crickety from fighting off a cold the last couple of days but essentially I can tell you that I'm feeling restless and bored.

Again.

Lord save us.

Maybe I'll start another blog with a bit more focus.

Maybe a knitting blog.

I dunno. There are an awful lot of American knitting blogs and they all scare the beejeezus out of me with their crazy kind of awesome (that may be an oxymoron for many people, but you should see the fancy things some of those people make. From scratch (ie, from the sheep. No lie.)). Also, a lot of the time, I have no idea what the hell they're talking about.

But I am intrigued by all the new yarns and designs out there. Seriously, for a kid who grew up with Mary Maxim yarn kits and shit from Michael's Craft Store, I'm seriously in heaven.

Now if only I could get to my Ravelry account from work. Apparently it's on the same level as porn sites for the old firewall...

Anyway (coz I was digressing), what I'm lacking in is focus. Generally and this for a very long time. My brain is all over the place. I'm feeling uncertain about lots of things. Whether illustrating is right for me (this could be because I haven't had a project in some time, but also because I feel like I've lost my passionate interest). Whether I'll be able to get anything off the ground at all in the near future with a babe in arms and what that might be.

I feel like I'm in a perpetual state of limbo and I'm not sure how to slough off the brainfunk this time. Or even what I want to do.

Even reading other peoples' blogs is doing nothing for me. My interest level is leaking away on a lot of things. I wish I was more active but until my maternity leave, I'm pretty much stuck at my deskjob, waiting for someone to give me something to do. But rather than spending my days wanting to draw, I want to knit.

You'd think, with all this time on my hands, that I would have more inclination to write this blog. Strangely, that is not the case.

Maybe this blog is a casualty of the times. Are blogs really waning? Hélas.

I'll invariably still be online. On twitter @jchevais and facebook (I'm Jennifer Wenham Chevais. If you friend me, tell me who you are (sorta) so that I know you aren't some spammer coming to stalk my profile).

So... with that in mind, I bid you au revoir*

*(which, if you didn't know, means 'til we meet again'. If I was definitely going away forever, I would have said 'adieu' which means 'until we meet again before God'...)

A Visit to Dr Shiva

Mr C has this strange relationship with a client that I can't figure out. His code name is Dr. Shiva and suspiciously, he sort of reminds me of a weasel. He has an answer for everything and many hands in many different pots.

"Dr Shiva, il s'occupe de tout." (Dr Shiva does everything).

Right.

So we've been looking into buying another car (finally) that doesn't stall all the time (it used to be embarrassing and scary but now I'm an old hat at getting halfway through a traffic circle when the engine dies). Which means that we need to figure out a way to get rid of our old, dangerous, car.

Mr C's motto: When in doubt, consult with dubious clients.

Saturday, I fired up our clunker, piled the kids in and took the car to meet Mr C who wanted to see if Dr Shiva could figure out a way to get rid of the thing. Without our liability coming into question, of course. Our meeting spot was in front of Dr Shiva's "business" premises (which consisted of a dry cleaners and a "taxiphone"/epicerie.

Explanatory aside: Epicerie is a 'mom&pop shop' which is sometimes called an 'arabian' store (l'arabe) perhaps because they're usually owned by North Africans (Mr C thinks Dr Shiva is originally from Pakistan though he could be from India. It's not really something you ask). Taxiphone is a non-word referring to telephone booth rental, internet services and fax machines. Why taxiphone? No Freaking Idea.

Dr Shiva looked at the car, asked Mr C how much he wanted for it and said no problem (we knew he would). The two of them talked trash for a couple of minutes and then Mr C wrapped it up.

All this time, the kids were watching Dr Shiva. Entranced. Perhaps it was his pot belly. Perhaps it was his lovely smile. Perhaps it was his bulging round eyes in his perfectly round head. They shook their heads as though waking from a dream when he asked them if they were thirsty.

"Wha?...." had barely come out of Kilian's mouth when Dr Shiva thrusted a cherry coke in his hand.

Then he looked at me, "How about you? Would you like something to drink?"

I hadn't yet had time to say it wasn't necessary when he put his finger to his nose à la Santa Clause, winked and then disappeared towards the back of his shop.

"Here. This is perfect for you." He handed me a box of herbal tea. "This blend has been very successful in my shop. It's a special tea to lose weight."

...


"Um." I looked at Mr C and could see a grin flirting with his eyes. "Thanks?"

We were about 50 yards from Dr Shiva's shop when I burst out laughing. "He just insinuated that I'm a fat cow!"

"I told you that Dr Shiva s'occupe de tout. He's a man full of ideas!"

"He gave you a box of tea too. You planning on drinking any of it?"

"Are you crazy?"

New Work Monday #41

41 weeks, which is, coincidentally, the number of gestation weeks as counted by French medical practitioners.

I know.

FASCINATING.

So today, I have for you a relic of my old life:




The Known Universe
Copper plate

This little monstrosity is what made me decide to study Jewellery & Metalsmithing in art school instead of Fibre Arts.

Now what you need is context. I took the Metals Foundation class on a lark.

Coincidentally, I had a SUPER HOT teacher. Seriously. For an 18 year old girl, Jeff de Boer? With his 'L'Oreal Prince Charming "I'm Worth It"' feathered hair thing?

OMG. SWOON!

Yeah. Always a good reason to pick a career path.

Stop JUDGING ME!

So, ANWAY! We were doing a crit (in case you don't know, a crit (short for critique) is where everyone in the class focuses on one piece of artwork and then TEARS IT ALL TO SHIT... or not, but dudes, it has GOT to be stellar for that to happen...) when Jeff picked up my Universe piece, threw it on the table and said it was shit.

But he said it nicely.

He said that it was shit NOW, but that it had potential to be something really interesting.

And something in my nubile young body fell for this and said, hell yeah, I'd love to wrestle metal into weird lumpy shapes for the next four years and then never touch a hammer or solder another piece of metal for the rest of my life.

Unless you count those plumbing incidents.... Knowing how to solder has been useful in France.

But I digress.

While this may be starting to sound like I hate Mr. de Boer for leading me down a path I couldn't follow through on, it is not. I admire the fellow greatly. Seriously.

It was because of him that I never once churned out something valuable and jewellery oriented (considering my major, this was quite the feat). It was because of this initial experience that I couldn't settle down in my first job as a jeweller's apprentice (ok, it was work experience) because setting gems bored the everlivingcrap out of me.

The man who made samarai costumes for cats and dogs inspired me to make corsets and hats during my school years, rather than brooches and earrings. He inspired me to try and figure out how to bring metal and fibre arts together. No. My attempts weren't always successful, but I still kept trying.

I still keep trying. No longer in metal OR fibre arts, but I still keep trucking.

Slowly.

That's not too bad a legacy, I think.

Definitely not an Iron Maiden

I've mentioned how I'm a zombie in the evening.

It ain't that much better in the morning.

This morning, after a week off, Mr C was getting ready for work. He popped into the bathroom while I was showering and asked if I knew where he could find a bottle of water so that he could fill up the iron.

I had no idea (bloody typical really) and he wandered upstairs on the hunt.

Shortly after I came out of the bathroom, found the pants I wanted to wear and ughed. They need ironing.

However, Mr C hadn't yet finished his ironing and he still hadn't come downstairs with a jug of water, so I hitched the pants that he'd been working on over my shoulder and started to iron my own trousers, reasoning that I would cede my place when he came downstairs.

Dudes. This is the logic of a multi-tasker. Really. And I did it in the morning. I am a super star.

However....

Yes. However, when he came downstairs, he saw me ironing. WHAT HE DIDN'T SEE was ALL THE SHAMPOO on his trousers from where they had been sitting on my shoulder.

Zombie girl is at least mostly clean. Though gooey.

ACK!

Thankfully, Mr C reasoned that it would be quicker to let me finish ironing and went right into the bathroom to shower. Scrambling and somewhat frantically, I drenched his pants with water in order to rub the shampoo out.

OUT DAMN SPOT!

RUBBING WITH THE VERY TOWEL I WAS WEARING.

Fortunately, no one was around to witness the ignominy of me wrestling with a pair of pants.

Naked.

Soon though? SUCCESS!

However?

Dripping wet trousers. ACK!

OMFG!

So I did something I've NEVER DONE because of the dangerous precedent which could be set. I ironed his slacks.

It was to DRY THEM. I SWEAR!

But now, still feeling guilty, I started ironing his shirt.

Let's get something straight here. I'm terrible with an iron. There is a reason that I iron everything inside out. It hides the burn marks.

His shirt ironed, I slunk upstairs to get dressed.

Mr C, when he was all groomed and dashing, he came up to me and thanked me for ironing his things.

"A little kiss for my trouble?"

"Of course!"

If he only knew...

New Work Monday #40

You'd think after 10 months of posting every Monday, I'd have something a little more polished than this today:

Sigh.

It's been an ups and downs sort of life week.

This is a little WIP that, if the person who it was drawn for is amenable, will be inked and used for diabolicle purposes.

Actually, no. Not diabolicle purposes.

Just stuff. Good stuff (I'm assuming).

Some nice, possibly low key, possibly high key, warm fuzzy stuff.

...

OK. Full disclosure? I'm not sure if the person in question will even be interested anymore because I sort of.... possibly..... definitely kept forgetting that I had promised to do this drawing.

BECAUSE I AM AN EEGIT!

It doesn't matter that this drawing is "volunteer" work. I didn't come through and I feel terrible about it. It's not as though I've been terrible busy with other stuff.

I like to call it pregnancy brain, however one can only go so far. Especially seeing as how I promised this in ... what.... MARCH?...

Volunteer work and myself? An intoxicating and compelling elixir of never knowing if that thing'll get finished, where it'll dog my brain til my eyes are clouded with brainfarts.

Now, next on my list is figuring out a banner for a conference in March that I'm not even going to.... and I believe I promised a write up on French healthcare....

After those two things, I think I'll let myself be done with "volunteering" for awhile. I like to volunteer, but at the same time, feel largely harassed when doing it (or rather, the idea of when I'll eventually get around to doing it) and then at the end, when I've spent hours on a thing, I have a hard time staying magnanimous when an especially tedious thing that I'd finally accomplished, gets a sort of non-thanks. Or doesn't get used at all.

OK. Full disclosure? I guess I'm an attention whore.

Bother.