No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on March 10, 2012

I don’t remember the first piece of Moebius’ artwork I saw. I just remember looking at it and thinking Wow. It very well might have been the Silver Surfer since I associate his artwork with the character so strongly. But I remember that after that I knew when I saw his artwork.

He did a lot of work in the film industry as well. His drawings were always fascinating to look at and then really look at. There was a lot to look at.

When Peter and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary, we lucked into a trip that took us to a Star Trek convention in Italy and a series of comic book shop signings in Paris. The owner of the comic book shops arranged for us to have lunch with Moebius.

He was delightful. A witty raconteur with a million stories to tell. We talked about art, comics, film, television and many other topics. It was one of those meals that goes on and on but you hope it won’t end because you are having so much fun. He found out that that Peter and I were celebrating our first anniversary and that I was pregnant with my first child. So he drew us this

(For the VI: this is a picture of the Marvel Character the Silver Surfer holding his surfboard standing on sand. The Surfer (on the right) is done in blue pencil. The surfboard(on the left) is red with a white strip down the middle.)

It was quite appropriate for our first anniversary since it is made of paper.

We have treasured both it and the memories of that lovely afternoon at a bistro in Paris talking with Moebuis and other artists about all kinds of topics that we found interesting.

I am grateful that I got to meet Moebius especially under such wonderful circumstances.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 9, 2012

Today and tomorrow I am going to be thinking about my friend Orenthal and offering prayers for him, his family, extended family, and friends as they lay to rest his wife Lisa. This was one of those sudden passings with next to no warning and really makes the rest of us stop and look at what we have with us that we might take for granted. I have been reading the various things he has been posting through this whole thing.

His relationship with Lisa reminds me a lot of mine with Peter. I can remember talking to Lisa at the New York Comic Con about our man folk and how this sort of event can make them so happy. We smiled that knowing wife smile at each other. We understood. She was always lovely to me and I am glad that our paths crossed a couple of times through the years. She will be missed.

Unfortunately her is not the only death of someone I know from a heart attack within the last month. The current count is 4 and that kind of scares me. I also found out that a woman that I met while bowling has passed after a battle with breast cancer. I was figuring I was going to see her next week at the polling place when I went to vote and I would catch up on how she was doing then. I didn’t get the chance.

Caroline’s science experiment went well. We got our data and proved our hypothesis. Now we need to finish the write up and get her oral presentation together for her class. Monday is the big looming deadline on that one.

In a week I will be going to LunaCon. I will be there Friday and Saturday and a sliver of Sunday because Sunday night is the LAST Broadway Bear auction. Which is sad because we always had a lot of fun there and met a lot of really neat people. The weekend after that we have some family plans and the weekend after that is Icon so we are busy every weekend and pretty busy with our scheduled activities during the week.

Like I said, my brain is moving rather swiftly jumping from thought to thought. My focus needs more focus. I have tried most of my tricks to get my brain to settle down but it is not happening right now. I am trying to figure out some other tricks that I can do but nothing is coming to mind. But I do need to focus rather than flit. It will come back to me in its own time.

Project Runway All Stars conclusion is about where I figured it would be. I had only one person different in the top three from about the half way point. I don’t understand the final showing because it wasn’t a runway walk. But I’ll find out next week.

Face/off has been interesting. The Dino challenge was tricky. Caroline has gotten into special effects make-up and how it is done because of the show. When Mom does it, well it’s Mom. But watching others do it, she gained an appreciation of what Mom can do. So win-win for me. I am dreading when she finds out that I can’t make everything. For one thing I don’t have access to a vac-former.

Today is Laundry, Larder Stocking, and Science Project with a showing of John Carter in there if we have the time. Peter is on several deadlines all at the same time so he is writing as fast as he can.

I am grateful that I met Lisa Hawkins.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 7, 2012

Recently there has been a video going around the Internet by a charity called “Invisible Children”. The problem they are trying to get your dollars for is an old one that hasn’t happened since 2006. Yes, these children do need support but this charity is rather suspicious in its use of the funds that others have given them. They have very little transparency to the uses of the monies and what we can figure out is that a majority seems to be spent on salaries of the employees of the charity and film equipment and computer equipment. The footage they are using is a rehash of footage they used previously plus some new footage. There is no disclaimer about this. So they are playing on the heartstrings to get money from you using information that is no longer factual.

(There is a well written article about this here)

If I give to a charity, I do a lot of research as to the percentage of funds are used for the cause I am supporting as opposed to being spent on salaries and keeping the charity comfortable (nice offices and the like). If I give money, I want a majority of it to go to the purpose.

Most of the charities I support are global but some are very local. They do things within my community that make life better for the children in the area. I can point to programs that are offered and structures that have been built by these groups. For some of the larger ones, I read the materials that they send me about what they are doing and I keep an eye on them through various groups that monitor charities. If the charity starts going off in a direction I don’t believe in, I don’t donate. Simple as that. I vote with my money.

I have also given money to groups that I trust. Recently an artist/editor that I have met and has done a lot to help a lot of young artists and writers catch a break got into a bit of financial difficulty and there was a fund raiser to help her and her family through a rather difficult time. I participated in that because I trusted the people who where running it to get the money to the person in need.

There are a lot of hands out asking for one’s help. Some are legit and do good works and others are shells and use the money to make sure that they have a good life. We want to help others but we have to do the work to make sure our money is working the way that we want it to.

I am grateful to charities that help people for real.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 6, 2012

And I have LunaCon in a week and a half. *sigh*

Not at my best on that one.

I am part of the Harry Potter Crafts. I have been for a number of years and done swaps and challenges over the years.

This past swap was making 4 ATC (Artist Trading Cards: Which are cards that are the size of a baseball or trading card and given or exchanged not sold).

(for the Visually impaired, there are four cards here. This will be a short description of each because I am talking more about them in the entry. The one to the left is a furry Monster card with eyes and teeth. The top card is a willow tree with a Beware sign to the right of it. The right card says “Qudditch Rules” and has two broom sticks crossed, a snitch at the top, two quaffels on either side of the broomsticks. The bottom card says Bernie Botts on the top and Every Flavored Bean on the bottom of the card with colorful jelly beans in between)

The theme was Hogwarts’ students so I decided to try a number of different things.

The first card, the one on the left, I did was the second version of a card I did a couple of Valentine’s ago. It is the Monster book done as a card. The interior of the card is a lovely blood red paper. It is glued to two pieces of cardstock the size of the ATC. I put brown fun fur on the outside and glued some googly eyes on top. The teeth are made of watercolor paper and I almost got them to fit into each other.

The second card I did was the one on the right. I used watercolor paper and used watercolor paint for the background with one color to represent each house. I then used paper to create the two brooms, the snitch, and the two quaffels. Watercolors are pretty new to me but I like how they look.

The third card is the bottom card. I took a Bernie Bott’s box and carefully cut the logos off the box. I made the beans with a new set of flair color pens. Yes, Flair is back again and they are pretty nifty to use. I like the thin lines I could do without bleeding between the colors.

The fourth card was the top one and was the card furthest outside my comfort zone but I thought I would give it a go. It is the Womping Willow that I did all in watercolor. I learned a lot about watercolor by doing it including that I really like playing with watercolors. The sign that says “Beware” is a separate piece that I made and glued onto the card.

So that’s the ATCs. I am working on stuff for LunaCon and Caroline’s science project so I have to be twice as creative in totally different ways this week.

I am grateful for having such a good time painting.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 5, 2012

Today is my mother’s 75th Birthday.

If she didn’t exist then I wouldn’t and you wouldn’t be reading this. But she does and I do and that’s pretty cool in its own right.

My mom did a great job raising my brothers, sister, and me. I know that at times it wasn’t easy but she managed to change four id driven babies into four responsible, civic-minded adults with all the temper tantrums and teen age angst along the way.

As I have stated before my parenting skills come from the example she set for me. When I hit one of those cross-roads that can be pretty scary, I think of what my mother did with me and my brothers and sister and pretty much follow her lead.

She has written a book that is on iTunes called “Teaching Nursing in the Clinical Setting”. She taught nursing for many years and was very good at it. She has taught many others how to teach nursing to students so that we can have well trained nurses. She is passionate about teaching.

She is also passionate about gardening. I learned a lot about how to grow plants and flowers from her. I can keep a tomato plant alive which makes me pretty happy. This spring/summer, Caroline and I are going to have a vegetable garden with things that Caroline likes and things that she wants to try. I want to get that going and then an herb garden. My mother has a magnificent herb garden. She can go out her backdoor and pluck fresh herbs for whatever she is making. It makes the food taste that much better. I have said that she has a green thumb but it is more than that. She works hard on her gardens and it shows. I love her rose garden which is so beautiful. She has turned her love of plants into a Master Gardener certificate and she answers questions for other gardeners all the time.

She had retired but keeps herself busy. It took her a while to go from retired to not teaching classes at Emory’s Nursing School but she did it on her own time and in her own way. Now she has time for things that she has always wanted to do. One of those is travel. My father and her have been some pretty cool places over the years. They have had adventures and seen things that most people only read about in travel books. They still go to the beach for a week once a year. They can just pick up and go when they like but have a home to come back to as well.

My mother worked very hard to get to where she is today and I am very proud of her. She is my shining example for so many things in my life. And I wouldn’t be the person I am today if not for her.

I love you Mom. Happy Birthday and enjoy your birthday dinner.

I am so very grateful to the point that I can’t really express that my Mother is MY Mother.

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