The devastating mudslide last week in Oso, Washington has made for heartbreaking news stories, but also stories that makes one proud of our communities pulling together. Yesterday we had a glimmer of good news when the number of missing persons was lowered to 30. The first responders and volunteer workers are doing an amazing job.
trillium
daffodils
cherry tree in bloom
cherry tree aisle
Hats off to the 530 community strength on display and know that the prayers of the world are supporting you. Aura Sun Arts submits this floral salute and has the flag at half staff, in appreciation of the towns of Arlington, Oso and Darrington.
Congratulations to Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks on their win at the Superbowl. It was quite the epic game and the cats and I are still smiling.
russell wilson sketch
750,000 fans braved below freezing temperatures to cheer the team in a victory parade that was truly astonishing.
The electricity and joy in this town and across the Northwest is still resonating.
What’s next year going to bring?
Everyone is excited for the new year with a young team that might look very similar next season.
Portraits are fun and challenging and I look forward to finding time to work on more.
I made neon green sugar to decorate some Seahawk cookies; they were almost as sweet as that win!
the 12 cookies
Mr Mo and Miss Nimbus are getting ready for the Superbowl, when the Seattle Seahawks face the Denver Broncos. They heard the cheering last Sunday when the team left for New Jersey. Seattle is pretty excited, along with the entire Northwest, as there are many fans in Alaska and other neighboring states.
Miss Nimbus favors Marshawn Lynch and Mr Mo is a fan of Doug Baldwin, but there are so many great athletes on the team it is hard to choose!
Here they are showing team colors!
mo dreaming of a win
super stretch nimbus
Feline beast mode!
Go Hawks!
Hello Mo fans!
It was a good year for Mr Mo and Miss Nimbus. Mo was a December kitten, born unusually late in the year, and I sang him Christmas carols on the way home in the car so he would not be scared. He snuggled right up to my neck to stay warm and has continued this practice for the nine years of companionship we have enjoyed thus far.
double cat snooze
Here they are napping in peaceful togetherness. They do sometimes get a bit feisty, usually with Mr Mo going on the offensive and chasing the temptress Miss Nimbus hither and yon. They have been well behaved with this year’s Christmas tree, a small table top version that is quite cute.
Miss Nimbus will celebrate five years with us this summer; they are both delights.
I have installed a stone circle on the porch to keep the magic alive until the summer sun returns. Hooray for the solstice!
stone fairy circle
The banded coral shrimp is a small red and white shrimp that is quite interesting to watch, in the wild or in an aquarium. They resemble miniature lobsters with large front claws brightly striped in red and white. I recently had the opportunity to view one in a salt water aquarium. It is on the lower right in front of the rock column.
banded coral shrimp with clownfish.
Here are two illustrations of the shrimp from the book Marine Fauna and Flora of Bermuda, published by Wiley Interscience. One is a color photograph. the other is a pen and ink illustration I did while working as a scientific illustrator in Bermuda in 1977. Click on any image to enlarge.
To see other illustrations of shells done for the same book, check the traditional portfolio link under the digital art tab.
illustration of shrimp
banded coral shrimp
(upper center)
While drawing the shrimp I had a live specimen in a shallow petri dish of salt water. I happened to notice a loose piece of skin on a finger and pulled off a hangnail and tossed it into the dish. The shrimp snatched it up and gobbled it down like candy. Who knew, to shrimp, human is a delicacy!
Halloween 1993 was my best costume ever, inspired by a magazine cover with Kurt Cobain cross-dressing. It was to be Kurt’s last Halloween with us, unfortunately. But grunge was ruling the airwaves and I found the flannel and hightop sneakers at Value Village, rocking the Macklemore Thrift Shop trend 20 years ago. With a backwards baseball hat hiding much of my hair and a flair pen adding a stipple of stubble to my chin for a goatee I found myself cross dressing for the day. It was quite interesting; while walking in downtown Seattle if I chanced to make eye contact with a guy, he would immediately look away. Normally guys will do a body check on a young female and attempt to make and hold eye contact, so this was an amazing change to be invisible to men for a day, what a delight.
kurt cobain for a day
I counted about two dozen people who were fooled by the costume and did not know it was me. Half a dozen people thought I was Cobain. One close friend actually got off the elevator rather than ride with that creepy guy who was grinning at her. Other women took extra steps to get out of arm’s reach while passing me. A security guard I knew well was not about to let me enter her building. A diamond dealer thought he was about to sell a big diamond to a rock star.
At my usual lunch spot, the cooks were whispering “hey that’s Kurt Cobain” as I walked in. The clerk gave me a dazzling smile and said “What would you like today?” so sweetly that I realized she was flirting with me/Kurt. She was never that friendly on a regular day.
It was a day of very interesting insights into male – female dynamics. I realized that as a petite guy it took courage for Kurt to dress in a conspicuous manner. It was odd to not carry a purse, but men’s clothing has many pockets. I started the day with a sock stuffed in my underwear so I would remember not to cross my legs and squash my sock. As the evening ended at a Halloween party I found that the sock had slid way down my leg while dancing, a definite wardrobe malfunction that was fortunately not that noticeable and easy to remedy.
Too bad Kurt did not hang around another year or two as peptic ulcers were found to respond beautifully to antibiotics. Thank you Mr Cobain, for the excellent tunes and the great memories.
The lawn goes from a flattened straw yellow to a perky deep green with just a few weeks of rain. It is now nearly tall enough to mow again, after the standard long stretch of dormancy. The sunny days of lounging on the porch are over.
summer rocked
The dustbath season for the cats ended with the rains and they welcomed the heat coming on indoors. Mo roasts himself by lying atop the heat vent while it is blasting out hot air.
roasted cat toes
Here is Mr Mo surveying the garden, supervising a final barbeque of the summer.
lord of the garden
August has been spectacular, but the long summer days are getting a bit shorter and it was nice to get a bit of badly needed rain. Some weeks were too warm for working on beads, and some new perennial garden additions came my way, so creating new flowerbeds for those took some time, but their flowers will reward me for years to come.
I made a string of black beads with starry white flashes to honor the Perseid meteor shower, which makes its annual appearance around August 12th. One of them promptly split in two, but that makes a cabochon pair for earrings. If a bead splits it usually means it was not cooled down slowly. They usually break right away if they are going to, but now and then one surprises me and breaks long after being made. At the end of the season the year’s crop goes into the oven for the annealing process, a heat treatment that strengthens and tempers the glass.
starry night
Tags: annealing, AuraSunArts, beads, glass, oven, Perseid, split, star, summer
AuraSunArts, making glass beads | mary | 
August 30, 2013 2:37 am | 
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Summer continues with Seattle’s fabulous weather, warm enough to enjoy without becoming uncomfortable. While the rest of the country is battling heat waves, we are in the 70’s and 80’s. Life is good.
Many flowers are in bloom this year in the garden, they are now numbering some two dozen different species. The old fashioned day lily is a garden staple in many areas of the country.
Day lily twins
The cats are enjoying the summer and have me well trained to pet them just the way they like it, and groom all that shedding hair off them. Mo likes having his chin scratched and Miss Nimbus likes me scratching the top of her head.
I have found time for a few side trips to Eastern Washington and Oregon, enjoying garden inspiration and great scenery along the way. Here are some shots from Tucquala Lake north of Roslyn, WA. It is the headwaters of the Cle Elum River, heading down to the lake of the same name, which was recently stocked with salmon.
Looking north at Tucquala Lake
Tucquala Lake
Spring has eased into summer and the garden is in bloom and producing a few edibles. The steady supply of strawberries are yielding to raspberries.
The bead studio has been cleaned and activated, but only a few sessions have resulted so far. As usual, it is blues and greens that are chosen first for warming up.
The cats and spring flowers are featured here.
salt and pepper cats outside the kitchen
volunteer flowers springing from the walk
Mo guarding the porch
I noticed one shrub had badly eaten leaves, the poor plant looked like Swiss cheese. While examining the plant I saw a leaf cutter bee in action. They are solitary bees so I hope with plenty of water and fertilizer the plant can stay ahead of the bee. Check the above link to Wikipedia for an article on the bees with a photo.
leaf cutter bee damage
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