Friday, August 31, 2007

The GYPSY CARAVAN arrival.

Our friends Reo and Liz are visiting. And they brought their lap-of-luxury house with them! Brian J helps situate the fort.

It fits perfectly in our driveway. Their hand-crafted home on wheels features a full kitchen with granite counter tops, a sauna, skylights, and a tempurpedic mattress. Reo is a guitar builder. Liz is an herbalist and choreographer. They're about to take up trail walking. We drink yerba mate together every day. We REALLY like having them around.
Did I mention how thoughtful they are?
How the "fort" smells of cedar?
And how we're experiencing
blessed bliss at the homestead...
HEY LOOK dear reader! The side bar now includes frequented blogs.

If you don't already know the listed people, well, you should because they are cool (unless you're creepy, then stay the hello away from them. but actually, i don't think i know anyone i'd call creepy. but they're out there... doing their creepiness... as evidenced by the issue of the amnesty international magazine i received in the mail yesterday.


which prompted the writing of my first FAN LETTER EVER.


I wrote to thank an amazing lawyer, Marc Falkoff at 1:30 a.m. when i couldn't stop being upset about this. I thanked him and guess what! He wrote me back! I know my one e-mail is meager, I know I don't help others so much, but i feel really good about thanking someone who DOES.)

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Thursday, August 23, 2007

susan b gave me this anthropologie apron at lunch today! It's now on record that susan is the most perceptive gift giver! and what did i give her for a nice topic of conversation over lunch? ugh. unfortunately i couldn't stop running my mouth about work related matters.
but in the end did contribute that angelina jolie is parked in front of my sister's swank apartment in chicago FOR DAYS of film shooting. my brother-in-law has been sending me pics because he knows there is no way in haiti that i would forgive him if he didn't. their apartment building was flyered with requests to not distribute photos of the film shoot so i won't share them online. but i do have permission to share pics of Torin as tigger.
Torin with his furry entourage shows no interest in the movie star hooplah...while his dad sits gawking at the window taking pics for auntie quellie.
Farmer with his bury-it-with-me pillow. It has proven astonishingly resilient to his puppy love. I used to confiscate it constantly but today after taking this pic I've decided that he'd need rehab to get over his owl pillow addiction. With luck i can buy myself another one at the next beehive bazaar art boutique.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

ANOTHER late work night for the O'lover. if that mid-night oil is going to be burned we will burn it together! Solidarity Lover!

going through recent pics i gotta wonder...
What is the size of life?
Is this sculpture by Dallas Anderson life-size?
maybe in a Jessica Alba "wisp of a woman" sort of way.

Is this depiction of a sleepwalker by James Avanti life-size?
She's more like it..but notice her impossibly long neck with very pronounced veins. and do i detect an adam's apple on this bronzed woman? and that's why i love art. you can make things any size you want.

And then there's the size of my mother's miracle squash hanging from her grape arbor. it's like four feet long and i bet if you look really hard you can see the virgin mary (while crossing your eyes & holding your breath for a very long time). forget harvesting this monster, we should shellac it at the end of the season and sell viewing tickets.
And my little every-day homegrown squash...is earthbound and won't need to be quartered to fit into the oven.

And the
shape of life?
this is our devil's pitchfork carrot.
and it was yummy. we dipped our splayed three-fingered carrot hand in cashew butter. We ate the middle finger first or it would have been rude.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

i've been experiencing writer's ... what's it called? oh yeah "block" writer's block...where i can't remember...what are they? oh yeah "words"... cause sometimes its all about the...sensations.

like walking the dog tonight, in the dark. and feeling every puff of air tickle me. and the hairs on my arms are standing at attention as if someone is slowly passing their hand a few millimeters above what i should be able to feel...stroking my aura. in the lamplight the moths and mosquitoes do fly-bys and their fluttering wings kiss my ears and neck…and under the trees spider webs reach down and barely grab my hair, rearranging my bangs ever so slightly…and the hairs on my arms and now my entire body are all standing at attention...saluting the night sensationsRED ALERTRED ALERT…and finally all of this sends me into a colossal itch frenzy like no other colossal itch frenzy…except for perhaps oliver’s simultaneous itch frenzy…and I feel like I will go mad if I have to endure one more nano second of all this itching!

But we’re able to frantically scratch each other’s itches (yay for ollie’s long guitar plucking fingernails) until our burning raw skin has been rendered incapable of feeling anything but burning and raw. And we awaken from this all-consuming itch event startled to find ourselves on the sidewalk. in front of a house with a darkened porch. full of socializing BYU students who had stopped their conversations mid-sentence in order to watch our apparently indecent public display of frenzy.

one good thing about an itch frenzy is i think i may have found some of those slippery words that were hiding behind a mega giant block!

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

O'lover is working late tonight and I'm feeling especially clingy so I'm not even going to attempt sleep without him. that would end up being me laying on my back staring at the dead mosquito bodies smashed on the ceiling just out of reach. i'll need a ladder to clean up the battlefield.

this post will be flitting all over the place. consider yourselves forewarned.

note to self: blogging should never induce anxiety.
note to self: Phew! now you tell me. what a relief.
note to self: don't even try to make sense.
note to self: sense make not wha...?
flanked by sweetie pies

i've always worked with susans. i had susan kb and then she moved and i had susan b and then she resigned and I was sad and miss her sooo much and now susan kb moved back.

here is susan kb with brad b and the big A.
brad and susan are a good team. here they're suggesting that the big A look at the camera.
and the big A looks! Ta Da!
Susan kb is an empathetic person. She is a natural. she's got mom skills. i like watching her be a mom.

Susan B is a good mom too. i always think of her daughter as "the Princess" because she looks like one but she doesn't act like one. The Princess acts like a hilarious sweet girl. Man that kid's being raised RIGHT. I bet Susan B and the Princess are tan from all that lounging that they're supposed to be doing before school starts like next week. hurry and lounge chicas!

Second blog bonus of the day:
being so embarrassed that anybody in the blogoshere could potentially find out that i haven't cleaned my bedroom's bloodbathed mosquito ceiling yet. Oh the shame! Enough to spur me into action and go out into the dark, knock about in my in-laws shed next door and get the blasted ladder.

hello lovelies,

i've been featured on Susan and Zina's blogs!
i've been featured on Susan and Zina's blogs!

as a great admirer of both of these fantastic people...well...there's no wiping the goofed up grin off my face.

check out their blogs.

and also check out their blog rolls.

Bonus of the day: Discovering overlap between sets of friends.

xoxo,
quel

Monday, August 13, 2007

This last weekend...

at Gallery One Ten in Provo Utah...

Wonderful Paige solicited tons of food sponsorships for the fundraiser and did a celebratory dance. It prompted my first foray into video editing:


Do you like it?! I'm excited to learn how to sync music!

And Paige...you're awesome.
Welcome to my favorite block in Provo! These enchanting houses are in the Maeser neighborhood just southeast of the County buildings. Do you recognize them? Individually the houses are like other charming homes in Provo. But cumulatively there is MAGIC!

I suspect fine details add to the effect.
such as this fence:

and this gate:and this front porch with the wooden rocking chairs:
and this arbor made out of solid beams.The houses have stenciled stars painted on their sidewalk.
When Farmer and I visit this block I shield my eyes from this painfully incongruent sight just across the street. Ouch! I bet there were once lovely pioneer homes there.

Sunday, August 12, 2007


Hey Ollie,

I have a huge crush on you. Can I keep you for always? Cause you're the love of my life. Thank you for making your beautiful art and your amazing music. Thank you for watching British Comedy with me and for liking Clean Sweep even though it's not cool. Thank you for climbing 10 c effortlessly the very first time we went... and for snowboarding off of cliffs even though i think that's crazy insane and non-repeatable in a "not over my dead mangled body" sort of way. Thanks for always reading everything you can get your hands on and for drawing charts and graphs with your elegant lines and euro handwriting. Thank you for your kind, gentle eyes and your melt my heart smile. Thank you for saying you love my poochie butt in your Matthew McConaughey southern drawl every single day. Thanks for blinking. I like watching your eyelids miraculously lift...GASP... those long eyelashes (seriously, don't your eyelids get tired from the weight?) You are cool in every way. More than anything I want to grow old and twinkly-eyed with you.
Happy Third Anniversary O'Lover!
August 11th, 2007

Friday, August 10, 2007

Detox

Who knew that grain withdrawal would have me under lockdown, scratching at the walls, begging in tears and bargaining with Oliver to LET ME HAVE A PIECE OF BREAD.

Thank my lucky stars and my slow to rebel ways, because if it's this hard for me to get off pasta then how would it be to get off heroin, or all those other drugs I forget the names of because i'm too preoccupied with getting high off of Oliver’s brew of dark hot chocolate with cayenne and mustard.

This once upon a time 10 year vegetarian, me, was told by a health professional in no uncertain terms that my body belongs to that of a hunter/gatherer. YAY I get to pick berries! Noooo….gulping sadness... my gut isn’t EVOLVED enough to eat cuisine like you at a restaurant where they serve ingredients. mixed together.

To complicate my food matters, after those ten years of being vegetarian my body doesn’t know what to do with hard core protein, a basic building block that my body NEEDS but doesn’t know HOW TO USE once it has it. AHHHH!

On the bright side, I think I could build a convincing case for a hunter/gatherer being granted the right to wander about outside all day, making flower crowns and grazing on pine nuts and dandelion leaves.

Come to think of it...it's not just my gut that's hunter/gatherer...it's my SOUL.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Commercial Shoot-
Take 1
lights...camera...
And...ACTION!
Yes, that's me in the BYU Museum of Art in a commercial for converse shoes for Chris Cutri's film portfolio.
Yes, that's me looking five months pregnant because grains are the staff of death and i've been joyously/wrecklessly nibbling away at everything Provo Bakery has to offer. If only i had been given more than one day's notice to lay off food that i'm highly allergic to (stomach- of-steel O'lover forgot to mention that he signed me up for this gig.)
Yes, that's Dan Barney playing the part of a haughty art connoisseur and looking fantastic. he had to hold that cup of dusty fake champagne for more than two hours.
And finally, YES this is the HOT Cassandra Barney in a silky black smock dress looking like the smoldering goddess she is. The fact that the crew spent the most time capturing her every move tells me Cass stole the show.

Other cast members include:
super model and makeup artist Danielle, a really cute skater boy (where the converse shoes come into play), haute couture model- Sabrina Squires, and Oliver-- who can eat anything and not have repercussions. lucky bleep.

Click here for Cass's version of events.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

don't read on if you can't stand a good sex scandal...

we took Farmer on a walk along the river. He's a water dog but oddly enough he refused to accompany us down the steep hill to the river... where there's WATER... that he LOVES. O'lover and I proceeded down the ravine and after much futile coaxing, calling, whistling and demanding that Farmer join us, we climbed back up the hill to see what the blasted stubborn dog was distracted by. We finally found him... in the bushes...interrupting a couple who had been... uhhh...mid love session...this is WAY WORSE than walking in on someone using the loo, and way worse than the time that someone tried to join me in a private shower stall at the temple. Amidst many "sorries" we got Farmer the hell out of there so fast, that I'm still wondering was he policing the couple? do we have a chaperone doggie? or was he trying to get in on the love fest? I will give the couple credit for at least trying to get it down in the bushes rather than on the bridge or at the side of the freeway, or on top of a table at Borders.

Changing gears to reverse and putting the pedal to the metal, here's what happened this last weekend:

I learned that LeeAnn and Mark Hillam are moving to the land of "Laverne and Shirley" AKA Milwaukee. In their defense... it's just too great of an opportunity to pass up and who knows, maybe they'll come back in a few years.
I grew up in the midwest/great lakes area and can testify to its beautiful glimmering waters, super nice people, and fascinating art filled cities. It will be a great thing for the Hillams, even though i'm personally sour about it. Especially after our conversation late Friday night. LeeAnn, you make me LAUGH so hard and I love your views on everything.
This is a pic of the Hillam's workshop. Mark is an amazing salvager of all well crafted pioneer home elements. READER: If you need any cool old doors, windows, columns, etc. contact me or the hillams. they will set you up!
Friday was the Downtown Provo Gallery Stroll! Here's a pic of Zina Bennion, a faithful attendee, and Leland Rowley and Ashley Christensen, the devoted Directors. A public service announcement was running on KUER this weekend about the big G110 fundraiser coming up on August 11th. They're closing the street and turning the fundraiser into a riot party. so please come!
Matt and Hillary Shurtleff standing in front of Matt's art. I first knew them from climbing, then G110 and then Hillary taught yoga at my house and probably has the best natural posture ever. They served peanut butter bars at the reception (amongst many other treats). sooo divine. matt, if you need a place to store your paintings...
This is the fine artist, Fidelus Beuhler. He's a big guy so it's hard to tell that the wrestling match painting is really much bigger than it looks in this pic.

Friday, August 3, 2007

the honeymoon is over...

The limitations of blogger (poll feature is KAPUT) have been revealed to me but I’ll
still post because
a) I’ve been magically
bound to blogger, it’s like a marriage, only we didn’t date first, i don't remember the ceremony, and I didn’t know I was committing to post in sickness and in health…for richer or poorer…for dull or dramatic
b)
nothing is more disappointing for me than checking my friends' blogs to find no new posts… Except for the blogger poll feature not working--that's devastating! J/k
It serves them right that the invisible Blogger Techies have been inundated with irate e-mails about the polls being down. i can sense the pitiable techies scurrying about, madly trying to figure out why the css code has failed them, and
collectively pulling out their hair! I know the exact feeling as i've wasted HOURS messing with the code trying to alter the template (stripes in my background, please)... to no avail...Well, Help, i won't add to your heap of crabby e-mails, especially since this great service is FREE (i think...i didn't actually read the fine print).Help's only answer is to take out the poll code...but i'm hoping that the kinks will get worked out and multiple choice answers to the posed question will reappear.
Dear People,

It's Emo Friday! (really every day is "emo"tion(al) but right this second i'm practicing restraint by limiting it to Friday.) O'lover taught me how to use google calendar. And for kicks every day has been assigned a blog theme. Yesterday was garden update day but...the garden is just fine, that's it.

Please answer the poll on the side bar. I want to know how you FEEL!

If the provided answers aren't enough then add a comment. The poll ends on the 10th. Your answers are valuable to me.

xoxo,
quel

p.s. you can now post a comment without being a registered blogger
(changed the comments settings).

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Farmer and I went on a plum scouting trip. Really we were just going on a walk but I always have to have a purpose or...&*$#^%$!* ensues (the bad word is "boredom").

Farmer has different styles of taking walks. With O'lover, the dog whisperer, he's a perfect heeler. with me farmer checks out every nook and cranny ad nauseum...which gives me plenty of time to scrutinize the hodgepodge architecture in the neighborhood....and dream of blowing things up because i want to be just like RH who read the Monkey Wrench Gang when she was too young and now daydreams of blowing up strip malls and cheapo mc mansions. And how i think that's the best OCD ever AND THEN I remember magnus....who taught me how to think all the things i think are ugly are really actually beautiful. so then...what can i blow up?

BYU's south hill would have made the perfect destination because Farmer likes chillin with the ducks and it has many plums...one summer those luscious plums were my main staple. But then, after I had already eaten thousands of delectable plums, my friend Ryan was stopped by the head forester guy and told that the plums are heavily sprayed...with chemicals NOT suitable for ingestion. Ohhh...well, not BYU today.

So now we hunt for our fruit in trustworthy places like abandoned lots or rentals with dead grass. (There's a great apricot tree by an abandoned pioneer house on 400 West and 600 South. it thrives without any care...that tree is my HERO.)

We looked by the church on 7th north- there's a rental with a plum tree...but this year all the fruit has been picked! Sooo impressed.

But no worries, our neighbors the Ramsey's have a plum tree on the alley. And they are decidedly against spraying. They like their food...safe. and they share. but we still ask repeatedly 'cause they are very cool and we don't miss any opportunity to have a chat.