Billy & Willy--can Milli Vanilli be far behind?

Dear Google Chrome, 

What's with the font stuff? You want to be the cool new kid on the block? Support fonts. (Georgia, Georgia, Georgia on my--oops, that's scheduled for later in the blog.) Heck, Blogger wants me to access my account with a Google email address, so y'all ought to be working together. I can get to my fonts in (polite cough) Mozilla Firefox. Need I say more? Now, please excuse me, for I must talk to my loyal blog followers (um, that would be Cathy & Bill & probably Sharon & Bruce & Helen & Nick & Chloe & Jeremiah & possibly Zach) so, Google Chrome, I say TTFN.

Semi-warmly,

Laurel Winter

Hi Everybody Else (Okay GChrome, you're included too),

Now this is weird. Georgia may have JUST started working. Not sure, because sometimes (in Chrome) it SAYS it's working & when I post it's a boring font, but we'll see... (When I started it wouldn't even pretend it was using Georgia.) ( p.s. I've posted & I see that it WAS just pretending to use Georgia.)

Okay,

Wow,

Shift in the universal energies anyone?

I've talked to several people, including myself (hey, I love talking to myself) about how it feels like a whole different universe since February started. Like time compresses & expands willy-nilly, that sort of thing.

I see that I am going to have to use a more concrete example of a dramatic change in the spacetime continuum:

I took a basket making class--2 of them, actually--out at the Arboretum. Involving needle & thread-substitute. (aka raffia) I only poked myself once. For those of you who have known me less long, you may be unfamiliar with the fact that the last time I played with needles, not-so-willingly, was high school home ec class, more than 30 years ago. Boy, did I not go to the head of the class for that! But I sat there &--under the tutelage of a wonderful Cherokee woman named Nancy Basket--made a cute little coiled pine needle basket. I'm not going to quit my day job (poetry, stories long & short, art, inventing stuff, designing stuff, guiding cosmic energy through people) anytime soon to make coiled baskets, but it was fun. Then, after a nice lunch break, we had a second class:

Freeform Kudzu Basket

I gave that a line of its own, because I am definitely going to have fun with kudzu again. & again. & etcetera. Talk about having the raw materials handy. & if my friend's yard runs out (not likely) pretty much anyone you go talk to & say, "Pardon me, but can I borrow a cup of kudzu? I brought my own clippers." will give you as much kudzu as you can carry & refrain from calling the mental hospital because they just hope you're crazy enough to come back for more.

little pine needle basket digesting

in belly of freeform kudzu basket

I've also been listening to some cds. (Yeah, I know, I'm probably one of the last 3 people on the planet to not own some sort of IPod or mp3 player--but that will change. I just got advice from my sons on which device I might want, so I can transfer songs & not be dealing with stacks of scratchable discs. [this is the camera speaking, I who still have complete control over her imaging capability. Don't hold your breath, cds.]

So, I got out my 2 disc Essential Willie Nelson & Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, vol. I & II (that's only good through 1985, so I bet there's more out there) &--because I have no Milli Vanilli to follow Willy & Billy--listened to The Proclaimers & John Denver & Don McLean (Bye, bye, Miss American Pie. Drove my chevy to...um, don't want to violate copyright here) & Neil Diamond.

& as Neil Diamond says, "Good times never seemed so good." Here I am in Sweet Carolina, with Georgia on my mind (at least as my font) & Wild Montana Skies in my heart &--well, none of the songs were about Minnesota or Wisconsin, the other 2 places I've lived, but I've been thinking them (& all you who live there) fondly as well. 

As Bobby McFerrin says (another recent companion of my ear) "Don't worry. Be happy." Good advice.

Blog alternative:

165. Listen to some music from your past. Bonus points if you dance around the living room.

&

a bonus:

166. Take a (short) class in something you used to hate/be-really-not-good-at/think-you-couldn't-do-so-never-ever-tried. Your single mission: to have fun playing with it. The great thing about this is if you're able to do it at ALL you're doing well. & it's good if you don't do it well the first time, because then there's nowhere to go but up.

Flash Ferret & the Pet Peeves: now touring

Beast Friends

In honor of the groundhog
In honor of Zach's new puppy (a min pin named Cheese)


We get two Friday-the-thirteenths in a row. I'm celebrating ten days in advance of the first of them.

Yesterday it snowed & rained. Today it is sunning, but the snow is supposed to return this evening & a few more snow showers tomorrow. Hope it doesn't mess up my espanol (I don't really know how to put the ~ over the n, so you will have to use your own mental powers to move it there yourself. Don't explode your brain doing so.) Even though we're in the mountains, we're still in the south, so things get canceled at the drop of a not-so-very-many flakes.

The PowerPoint class was good fun & useful. Flash web animation coming up this Saturday. Screenwriting is either canceled or postponed for a month--I've had both stories so far. I am voting for the latter to be true.

My big news of the week:
I was voted
Best Poetry Contributor
for
StarShipSofa, the Audio Science Fiction Magazine

Check them out at starshipsofa.com
lots of good authors & sound effects & people with great accents (hi Tony) & lovely voices (especially Diane, who has narrated my work)

Besides that, much poetry has flared through my synapses & through my fingers. Who knows where it was before that! Ditto drawings. Don't tell my camera [What is she scheming now, I wonder; this cannot be good.] but I definitely am planning an upgrade [Upgrade! Upgrade! I am outraged.] now that I've got PowerPoint plans & need to have sharper photos of my placemat drawings [Sure, blame the camera.] to put into presentations.

So much to experience. So much to express. So, see ya later.

Blog alternative:
164. Befriend a beast. Love on your cat or dog or ferret if you have one. Compliment some barky dog you are walking past, telling he, she or it "good job! way to defend your territory." Imagine fondly some dear departed pet (hey, timespace is something we're making up as we go along, so they're not really gone) and let the hands of your heart fondle those feathers or scales or fur.

Oh, that reminds me of a thought I'd had about pet peeves. What do you do with pets? Give them food & attention & training, help them to grow & be strong & healthy. Do you really want to lavish that attention on an annoyance? ("No, I can't come over yet; gotta walk the peeve.") I've abandoned a pet peeve on the side of the highway. Now, instead of fuming over the people who don't signal, I'm choosing to notice & praise the ones who do. I'll admit every once in a while the peeve hops on my hood, but I shoo it off at the next traffic light....