Pottery Update

I finished the pottery class I was taking before Christmas and somehow managed to finish a few pieces in time to use them for gifts. We learned about making sets, plates, and composite forms where you use two or more shaped put together to make a more complex form.

I didn't post these sooner because it would have spoiled the surprise of the lucky (or not so lucky) recipiants.

I sent this Acorn Vase to my mother. It is a composite form, and was meant to be a bottle. Everyone else made a bottle, but my neck turned out more bulbous and flat than tall and narrow so it became an acorn. When I told my pottery teacher I would send it to my mother he nodded and said, "It's the sort of thing a mother would like." Meaning it is ugly and badly done, but the Law of Motherhood states that mothers are required to like anything their children make. My Father (who is not bound by the Law of Motherhood) thinks I made it to put her ashes in when she pops off.

These mugs were an exercise in making 'sets' or a run of similar things that supposedly go together. That is harder than it sounds, and as you can see my set is composed of 4 very different mugs. In case you are wondering, I did not forget the second glaze colour on the mug front and left of the picture, but I did glaze it on a different day, and didn't take the time to stir the glaze properly before I dipped it.
We learned to make plates one class. Plates are actually pretty easy, and as I'm rather fond of this glaze I kept them for myself. The picture doesn't capture it well, the over glaze is mottled with gold and red flecks.
I'm currently in a teapot phase, which is the last thing we learned in our class before the break. Teapots are rather complex because they have a handle which must be comfortable to hold, a spout that pours without dripping or overflowing too fast, and a lid which much fit well. I think I'll be in this phase for a while.

Gentlemen Amongst Gruel

I went shopping this week for all those things I didn't get for Christmas. It is suspect to me that fashion dictates I must wear pants that have the problem of constantly slipping down my bum so that the solution is either to:
1. constantly hike them up every time I get up, bend over or walk more than 6 steps
or
2. (wait for it) Buy Something.

Fashion won the battle, I bought a belt. BUT, my consumer hold out was not entirely in vain. I bought it at a closing out sale at something like 80% off.
But because the prices were so good I actually bought two.
So in the Yana vs Consumerism war I'm not sure who's winning anymore.
When I got the belt home, I clipped off the tags and then I read what I clipped off. And laughed. It seems in the Consumer Wars it is not enough to buy; you must be branded too. This is not news, but I was unaware that an item as simple as a belt could be a branded statement. Shoes, I get shoes. And handbags OK, but a belt?
I think I was supposed to read the tag before I bought the belt, and it would entice me to 'buy in' but had I read the tag in the store I would have left it there. I'm not sure who this marketing strategy is aimed at, but the tag was so funny, I'm going to reprint it here in hopes that one of you will be able to explain - Who thinks this is a good idea?
This is what the tag said, just as it is written, questionable grammar, punctuation et al:

Touche!
On choosing such an exquisite
And finely crafted garment.
Welcome to the PRIVATE RESERVE,
you are now part of the
upper level of society?

Gentlemen amongst gruel, you might say!
We are the elite and forthright...
Those that have rather than have not.
Those who would rather not be,
than be less than what we are
(which of course is Perfect)

I mean look at us, the creme de la creme,
Top notch, superb.
Ahh, just come of benefits of
wearing this new collection.

Come closer!
I need to tell you something!
If you repeat it I will deny it!
but I also heard there is a
footwear collection to match!
Kudos to those who made
this club possible, loudos!

Well I'm off, secret society meetings
Cheerios!
And once again
Welcome to PRIVATE RESERVE

Perhaps I should describe the item that will elevate me to a new level of society. Man's black leather belt, heavy brass buckle,1.5 inches wide with some small stamped coronets and fleur de lis as a pattern on the leather.
Don't get me wrong, Baroness Orczy and I spent three consecutive summers together in high school, when I was a silly girl and hadn't yet discovered the Brontes.
But Gadzooks! and Zounds! I'm going to have to check if my life membership to the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel is still active.
Cheerios!

Snow Day

Jake is enjoying the snow in front of the house. Underneath that pile is the sidewalk and about 4 feet of street where we normally park the car. We are meant to get another 15 cm dump tomorrow. If this keeps up, the house will completely disappear by February.

Food Adventures

Food is a big part of the holidays for me. Being in a foreign country, I have experienced some unusual fare in the last month at parties.
First it was cod spread. Believe it or not this was pretty good. Salt cod, rinsed until it was only very salty, flaked up and then mixed with lots of garlic and some cream. Spread on crackers or a baguette as a snack. I was told this was a traditional thing except the garlic which is a modern addition.
Then it was moose sausages. These weren't all that moosey if you know what I mean. I expected them to be gamey like deer, but mostly they were like ground beef.
Tortierre was at the same party as the moose sausage, it was ground lamb and pork in a nice pastry, but a little dry for me.
Seal flipper pie. Yes, the LeXy TD insisted on this one. We found it at the apparently famous institution of Bidgoods Grocery in the Goulds. They have a licence to sell game and it is probably where the moose and the tortierre came from as they also have quite a specialty section. We went looking for mince meat for Christmas pie, but were unsuccessful. I think seal flipper must be an acquired taste. It was a traditional meat pie with chunks of veg and gravy and a thick bread crust on top, but instead of beef or chicken it was flipper. Just flipper the label said, we made a few jokes about dolphins and bought it for lunch. Studyboy described the taste as smoked liver. The texture was stringy like stew meat but the taste was a strong smoked liver with a soupcon of fish. LeXy and I finished ours off but didn't go back for seconds, Studyboy gave his to the dog. The dog LOVED it.
We bought partridge berries at Bidgoods too, in case we never found the mincemeat for pie. I have had fresh partridge berries before, because they grow in Nova Scotia, but we have so many nicer berries there that we don't bother with them like they do here. The partridge berry jam we bought at the farmers stall is nice on toast, but the frozen berries in a pie leave rather a tart taste on the back of the tongue. "Like cranberries trying to be blueberries' is how LeXy described them. Thinking that they were a relative of blueberries and cranberries I put lots of tapioca in the pie to sop up the extra juice. Partridge berries are not as juicy when cooked so we ended up with a really thick solid filling. A jam pie.
After several attempts to find real mincemeat, we found a jar imported from England at Auntie Crae's, another institution here in town. It essentially made raisin pie. Whenever I would ask for mincemeat at a butcher or deli counter, they would try to sell me ground beef. When I described what I was looking for, one woman pointed out that there are no deer in Newfoundland so I was not likely to find any. Good point.
We saw lots of bake apple preserves too, but they were pricey and one woman said they were difficult to pick so it was worth it to pay for them. I kept asking what exactly bake apples were but really didn't get a good explanation from anyone. A low growing berry was all the description I could elicit so I googled them. They are a ground cover version of a raspberry/blackberry cousin, but yellow when ripe. It must be the prickles that make them difficult to pick. Now that I know, I'll splurge out on a small jar.

As Christmas As Moving the Furniture

Anyone who knows Studyboy, knows that he is a master at modifying his work environment to suit his purpose. This is true if the work space is a wood shop or a class room, and it is true of his StudyLair.
We had to dismantle the StudyLair and make it a bedroom because the LeXy TD came to visit for Christmas (she wanted to be called Catwoman but dc comics threatened to sue.) In fact it was necessary to rearrange the whole apartment to accommodate Christmas and another human.
The hall closet moved to the Laundry Closet so the area by the door could be Tree Central.
The Reading Chair from the StudyLair moved to the living room so all of us could sit at one time and we didn't have to play a week long game of Christmas Musical Chairs.
On the feasting day, bits of living room furniture were stuffed into other rooms so it could double as the dining room because the kitchen is too small for three to sit at the table. Truly, the living room is also too small to sit three at a table but one of my superpowers is the ability to shoehorn large objects into too small a space. It's called Yanaspace, sort of like what librarians do in L Space.
Once we moved the table out of the kitchen we realised how much easier it was to move in there. We decided that Studyboy would use the larger kitchen table as a desk in the StudyLair, and the kitchen would get his narrower make shift desk that was really just a coffee table jacked up on empty boxes. So early this morning after the LeXy TD flew off out of the sunrise, we started rearranging the furniture (again).
Away went the spare bed from the StudyLair and back went the Reading Chair into its place. The table swap happened, but instead of boxes to support the weight of the vintage 1982 microwave we snagged at a yard sale last fall, we used a small shelf unit from the StudyLair (also a yard sale find.) That shelf was used to hold up the swing arm book rest that floats in front of Studyboy's Reading Chair. Lesser humans would just hold the book in their hands, but this is what I mean by his talent for workspace modification. So today, when the rest of St. John's was out for Boxing Day Sales and Armageddon Shopping ahead of a big storm, we were out looking for a drill bit and a box of screws to jury rig another support for the book rest.

No More Sleeps!

Merry Christmas to all from the Cabot Tower in St. John's (Just to prove that we really are here and not just hiding from you all)

Happy Solstice

If you think about it. Everything is really just about how dark it is in December.
We went to a Swedish St Lucia party last week. One of Studyboy's classmates is Swedish so we learned the whole story.
St Lucia is a Catholic Saint, patron of the blind because she had her eyes poked out by a spurned lover. Her feast day is Dec 13. In Sweden, girls wear a crown of candles and sing a song, boys wear a dunce cap with a star and carry a wand. It is the Swedish festival of light. But before Pope Gregory introduced the new calendar and corrected for leap year, Dec 13 was the Winter Solstice, longest, darkest night of the year. So having a Saint with fire hair whose eyes grew back and now she can see in the darkness kind of fits.
Today is Solstice the pagan Festival of Light. We burn candles or Yule logs all night and make wreaths to attract back the sun that has gone for a holiday down south. Can't blame it really.
Later today, thanks to Prince Albert, we're going to haul a tree into the house and cover it with lights and sparkly bits. We call it a Christmas tree, but really, what does a Balsam Fir from Lunenburg County have to do with the birth of a kid in the desert?
Hanukkah finished last week. That was a Festival of Light too. Candles are really popular with everyone at this time of year, especially if the power goes out.
Lights on the house outside, a star on the tree, candles in the window.
Whatever your inclination, burn something today and bring a little enlightenment back into the world.
Happy Solstice