Kingfisher Cove

In Defense of Teachers

I’ve had several teacher friends over the years. They are smart, caring, hard-working, exceptional people. I have also been taught by many teachers, and the vast majority of them were smart, caring, hard-working, exceptional people. (A handful of them were not; I have also worked for many years with a larger handful of not-so-upstanding professional engineers). 

But no profession is demonized to the extent that teachers are. I will always defend them. It’s not that hard to place my feet in their shoes. Why does it seem to be so hard for so many others?

I highly recommend reading this article. Maybe it’ll change the way you look at your feet.

                         ____________________________

“If a poverty-stricken, drug-addled meth-cooker burns down his house, suffers third degree burns, and then goes to jail; we don’t blame the police, fire department, doctors, and defense attorneys for his predicament. But if that kid doesn’t graduate high school, it’s clearly the teacher’s fault.”
                        ____________________________

I’m In A Mood

It’s been a long week, with the worst commuter traffic ever, and so I’m sharing some of my favorite political graphics I’ve collected over the past year or so. Enjoy!

                                                   (GOP head up ass)

Mad Men

Yet another proposal, due tomorrow. With five days’ warning. And it sat on the engineer’s desk for two weeks with no communication to marketing staff that it was coming. Oh! And I saw said engineer (an older guy) slap the butt of a female co-worker in the corridor today.

Speaking of which, have I mentioned that I’ve been watching “Mad Men?” John got me the 1st season DVD for Christmas, and I’ve since ordered and watched the 2nd season. (Season #3 and #4 DVDs are on the way). I love/hate it. It’s about a Madison Avenue advertising agency that takes place in the early 1960s (the 1st season takes place in 1960; the 2nd season takes place in 1962). It was the heyday of when men had well-stocked bars in their offices and began the drinking early in the morning and continued throughout the day (with a break for 4-martini lunches), and everyone smoked, and while the ad men (mad men) earned a very wealthy $200 – $500+/week (the average wage then was $100/week), the women earned $35/week (considered extremely good pay “for women”), and the butt-slaps in the corridors were commonplace.

I swear, every episode I watch I want to THROW something at the screen. The sense of entitlement with these men! The blatant sexism and racism and excess-ism! And the women really are not “victims.” They don’t see themselves that way. “It’s the way it is. Live with it.” Like sleep with bosses, put up with the butt-slaps and worse, often times encourage it. And the housewives. My God. 

I have enjoyed scrutinizing the “props” of this show. The typewriters and their covers ritually placed every night. The dial telephones. The clunky intercom system, considered state-of-the-art. The carbon paper for correspondence copies. Then: the astounding “magical” Xerox copying machine. The “high-end” kitchen appliances that today would evoke eye-rolls. The uber-expensive luxury $6,500 Cadillac. I recall much of it. I was a young child throughout the ‘60s, and I grew up in a modest, very middle-class household (with vehicles many thousands of dollars less than that Cadillac!) Dial telephones defined my childhood with those curly cords. (I remember getting my OWN curly-cord phone in my bedroom when I was 15! I had to personally pay $1.25/month for that privilege --- 2-1/2 hours worth of babysitting). I’ve heard that in Season #3, they address Kennedy’s assassination. I totally remember that. I was in the 2nd grade, in my reading group, and another teacher came in to tell my teacher. (I wonder how much less per week she earned than that male teacher who gave her the news…) Anyway, I remember all those adult tears. And I remember pretty much understanding, even at the age of 7.

So. Love/hate. If I’d been an adult woman back then, I’d probably have murdered somebody. Likely a man. And he would’ve had it coming.

Icebound

It’s been a wild few days and I haven’t been able to get out of my driveway. It’s Friday night and things are finally melting (slowly!) but now there are heavy clumps of slush and ruts and ice chunks everywhere. I’ve spent all day listening to ice sliding off the roof and icicles dropping from the eves, crashing to the ground and making the dogs go apeshit.

Here’s a picture of a vapor light across the street last night:

They closed the Narrows Bridge all afternoon today because big chunks of ice were dropping onto cars. I don’t think that has ever happened before. And broken trees everywhere. The weight of the ice snapped them apart and broke off limbs that sounded like gun shots. Over 300,000 people without power. And in that regard, we were very fortunate. Our power went out for a while last night while we were sleeping (John overslept this morning!) but that was it. Our cable has been out all day, though. I’ve been able to connect to the internet through my iPhone “personal hotspot” feature. Sluggish, but at least connected. And no TV.

After hours upon hours of that awful ice rain yesterday, it turned back to snow again! We probably got another inch or two on top of the original 4-5 inches, with a thick layer of ice sandwiched in between.

Pardon my croaky voice.

My car makes me think of that coating they put on wedding cakes that’s like a hard shell – fondant. (I had to look it up!) You know, like this:

In a Facebook post, Nate was lamenting from his ship in the Indian Ocean about missing the snow storm, wishing he could sled and frolic and I replied, “But if you were here you’d probably have to work and you’d crash your truck on the way and wish you could escape to see the world.” (Guess I put a bit of a damper on that, ya think?)

While I worked on glass Wednesday, I didn’t dare fire up my kiln yesterday because power was going out all over the place and ours kept blinking. If I’d lost power while the kiln was going, it would definitely have ruined whatever I had in there because the timing of ramping up or down the temperature is so critical to preventing thermal shock (breakage). Today I “played,” though! I stuck this in the kiln about 3:30 so I won’t know how it turns out until the morning:

And I completed this one Wednesday. I like it, but I’m thinking it would be a little more interesting if I sprinkled on a layer of that clear glass frit and contour fused it to give it some texture, since I did it as a full-fuse. (I have some on order – getting low on some supplies!):

Need to get a bunch of these sealed in the round frames!

So, whew! Remind me to not bitch about the rain ever again!

~~~~~

Update (Sunday 1/22/12): I’m glad I added the clear frit! It now looks like water droplets. Here it is before sticking it in the kiln:

 

And…afterward:

And here’s the completed “color burst” one shown above in it’s after-fired state:

I’ve put a bunch of these up on my Artfire site. Check ‘em out!

Snow Day

I am ever so thankful that I met my work deadline yesterday, even though the deadline was today, and it ended up being extended until tomorrow. It’s not just a “me” effort for these deadlines; I have to rely on so many other people to do their part, too. Timely. And ooh boy, was “timely” important for this one.

Big ass snow storm hit in the wee hours this morning. For once it was well-predicted and not one of those typical hit-or-miss storms that mean I’m snowed in but work is bare and wet (“What snow?”) This was a widespread event for basically all of western Washington. Accumulation did vary – the south Sound had up to 19” fall today! Here, south of Seattle, we got about 5” which still creates havoc around here because every-damned-where is hilly. Even 2” causes havoc.

I am not ashamed to admit that I am a wuss when it comes to driving in the snow and ice. I’m really not confident about my own abilities to handle it, but I’m especially not confident about all the gazillions of  the idiots out there I’d have to contend with on those roads. I don’t want my car in a ditch. I don’t want to deal with the hassle of having my car bashed into. I don’t want to risk being the one who causes a wreck. And I don’t want to fall on the ice hiking from the parking lot to the office building.

So…reprieve. Obligations met, so it was a snow day for me. Looks like tomorrow will be, too, because everything is icing over after now being hit with freezing rain.

I shot a brief video of the weenies and Mojo early this morning:

Critters and snow!

I didn’t even see Mojo until he bounded out of that corner! He really surprised me!

And…my poor Bug!

And poor John! He is the Boeing “Incident Commander” for the Seattle site (actually, he’s the “deputy” but his boss tagged him to do the commanding). So he’s been going into work uber-early the past couple of days, arranging for snow removable, overseeing it, handling the logistics, troubleshooting, and touching base with the other site commanders. Thank goodness the ol’ Durango still runs — and handles very well in the snow and ice. (He tossed in chains just in case!)

Here’s another glass ditty – once again, the pictures really don’t show it quite right. In real life, it’s definitely more…interesting.

(It’s more aqua than that. Dark aqua, but aqua).

More like this. I have yet to seal it in the frame. I currently have another one cooking in the kiln that is entirely different. In fact, I wonder how it’ll turn out. Could be a bust.

Work is Kicking My Butt and I’ve Heard from Nate!

I feel like I’ve been kicked right smack dab into the middle of January. These last two weeks since the holidays have been a total blur with what seems like nothing but work and stress. Awfulsauce. I need to do some work this weekend, too, and my huge deadline looms in the midst of expecting SNOW.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Although I haven’t heard anything these past few days, there for a little while I was seeing regular postings from Nate on Facebook, and we also had a Facebook (text) chat that was brief, but fun and informative. I couldn’t get over the fact that we were chatting with me sitting here in Des Moines, WA while he was on a ship in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Yup, the Indian Ocean. Which is big, but it’s in the proximity of Iran. And Somalia. And, well, Africa. In fact, his last Facebook post that I saw said jokingly, “Guess what continent in Africa I’m on?” (Wasn’t it Sarah Palin – or maybe Michele Bachmann – who said something stupid that demonstrated ignorance about the fact that Africa is a continent?) He couldn’t get too specific, but I suspect that they’ve joined up with the USS Stennis Strike Group to help protect the Persian Gulf which Iran has been sabre-rattling about. I look at that map and I see Yemen. That’s where the USS Cole was bombed back in 2000. Nate said there is LOTS of intense training in the Navy these days to prevent anything like that from happening again. (He even had to draw his weapon on some silly looky-loos in San Diego during his Watch when they got too close to the ship in their speed boat. And then report that fact. And fill out a bunch of paperwork about it all…)

I follow the USS Halsey’s Facebook page (I think it’s so cool they have one and don’t keep every damned thing a total secret) and over the holidays they were posting tons of pictures of the sailors in front of a (rather lame) Christmas tree. (Sometimes the lights were on, other times they were off). I kept searching for a picture of Nate, but even after viewing HUNDREDS of pictures, I never saw him in any. I was bummed! But when we had our Facebook chat, he mentioned that there was one of him! So I went back to look and I found it! Get a load of this:

They are ALL named Nathan. AND… they all have red hair! What are the odds of that? Yeah, it’s a big ship (around 300 sailors on board), but still! (Nate said they call themselves “The Gingers.”) Heh.

Feelin’ Like Mr. Bill

Oh no!!!

Work just sucks.

It Hangs!

Natural Light and Sailboats

I’ve been waiting all (awful) week long to have natural light instead of pitch darkness so I could see how my latest glass ditty really looked. “Natural light” in Washington this time of year means gray, unfortunately. But, it’s still better than “dark.”

John held this up for me so I could take some pictures. I need to pick up some silicon to adhere the glass to the wrought iron hanger frame.

It really does look better in real life! (Thinking sunshine would have definitely helped). I then set the glass piece (without the frame) on a display stand on the dining room window sill, and as I was getting ready to take some pictures, I saw this out the window (click to enlarge):

 

       I’m titling this “Sailboats Between the Power Lines.”

 

So here are a couple of shots sans frame:

                                        Sailboats! Power Lines!

I’m really quite happy with it. This is how I did it:

First, I cut a round base of aqua, sized to fit the hanger frame (8-1/2” diameter). And then I cut out shapes of Monterrey art glass and arranged them on top. I also experimented with the placement of the glass baubles:

I removed the baubles and stuck the base with the Monterrey glass in the kiln and full-fused it, which fully melted the art glass into the aqua glass. Afterward, I sprinkled a pretty thick layer of clear frit (clear ground glass) between the areas of the Monterrey glass, then arranged the baubles on top. I stuck it back in the kiln and did a “contour” fuse, which is at a lower temperature and maintains the shape of the baubles. It also allows the frit to not fully melt so there is texture:

                              (Not natural light, obviously)

This was so fun! I have some ideas…

A Quick Note

…to say that it’s a work-week from hell. I’ll come up for air, uhm, some day.

~~~~~

Update Friday Night: Brink of tears. For lots of reasons (like just completing an emotional episode of Downton Abbey on Netflix; having to work late on a Friday night, which wasn’t really terrible in itself, but THEN spending TWO HOURS in traffic on my drive home because of two idiots having an accident on the Alaskan Way Viaduct that created absolute havoc. Did I mention TWO FUCKING HOURS TO DRIVE 16 MILES?)

Yup, it’s been a work-week from hell all right. Which will continue through next week, too.

This new year pretty much sucks already.