So, to replace the wallet the raccoons stole from the car, I have This Fabulous Thing!! It is Really Really ORANGE.

I have to admit I was torn between this one and the pink one, but I was sucked in by the orange. I was hoping for a kind of Christo orange, and this is much more international orange, or highway cone orange, but it works really well. The velcro is solid, the folds are good, there is room for lots more $$ than I actually have in the $$ compartment, and all the cards I need fit into the various slots. I can even fit the tiny booklet I made to keep track of my finances. And Al gave me a new pen to keep in it, to replace the ones the raccoons have. The coffee shop replaced my card with 10 coffees on it. Life is looking up again in the wallet department.

If you click on the second Christo link, it takes you to Christo and Jeanne-Claude's site, and you can see that the curtain was designed by Mitko Zagoroff and John Thomson. That is my dad. John, not Mitko. I remember them putting a model of the valley in a wind tunnel and making different curtains and testing various anchor points. I saw it unfurl in Colorado. That was pretty cool.

Anyhow – new wallet, working well.

the bad uncle
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

He calls himself the Bad Uncle. It wasn’t me. Really.

Although sometimes I agree, really he is a worse influence on me than the girls.

After we got off the ferry, I was jousting for geezers with the mast strapped to the top of the car. Al pointed out this was not my usual behaviour. He think it is Mattie’s fault. I haven’t the heart to tell him it is always there…

Alice and cousin and aunt
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

the baby nephew – cute, eh?

home again

we had:

a ferry 
a baby nephew/cousin making entrancing noises and grinning in an irrepressible fashion
my sister-in-law who rocks
my brother in an unexpected moment
lunch with a renewed friend (Thank you again Susan – and go see her stuff here!!)
sunshine
fog
sailing the small boat
rowing the same boat
Aerin rowing the same boat by herself
a walk to the wreck and a long time watching the waves
a veryfine sunset
another gorgeous ferry ride back to America
a sublime lobster roll
a
surprisingly easy drive home including a good local
recommendation for supper

and then OMG my Own Bed

a Very Satisfactory Vacation, pictures soon
and no raccoons.
or they picked up after themselves

Raccoon visit
Originally uploaded by 1bluecanoe.

not my picture, but a very appealing face nevertheless. Except when I think she has my wallet.

The raccoons in our neck of the woods lead pretty raucous lives. They tip over trash cans and fight under back porches…

After
we came home from vacation a couple years ago, Al went into the house
first to (he said) chase the raccoons out. The girls and I sat in the car,
thinking about what the raccoons could be doing – surfing the
internet? (reading furry porn says I, and Al cracks up) or boating in
the flooded cellar in the pasta pot? or maybe dealing marshmallows out
the back door to the neighboring raccoons? They had cleared out before
we got home, and tidied up after themselves, but we wondered.

Now,
the raccoons have my wallet. It got removed from the car, unless it
fell out, at the park where we were sailing this afternoon. I can
imagine them, driving a car like Shanenon Garrity's hamsters, massed behind a mask and a trench coat,
using my license for ID. They have the credit cards too. What can a
raccoon do with a credit card? Nothing now that I've cancelled them,
but imagine, if you will, the kids' tool section of the newly opened
Home Depot. If that doesn't make your blood run cold, you are not
thinking. Hammers, saws, nail guns, batteries – so long as their
disguise remains intact, they can acquire all the makings for doomsday
weapons. Or for really properly attacking the garbage, and the raccoon
proof containers at the park.

So I imagine them ordering
steaks from Omaha Steak co. and a weber grill and having a jolly-up in
the woods where no one can find them. Maybe beer. Can you get beer
online? or do they have to rely on their disguise?

And reading furry porn.

exquisite corpse composed
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

The exquisite corpse that I started has come home to roost.

I worked on different pieces of five corpses all together, for four other people in my group. I had fun making my pieces, especially once I stopped overthinking them. I made needlefelted boobs with nipples, and sort of paper doll arms on shoulders, and an outrageous bottom with layers of skirts to make it polite, and finally some fabulous legs with bare feet, surrounded with Barbie shoes.

Click through and look at the pieces up close – they are really something!