The Dark Times of No Baseball coincide with the Dark Times of Seattle weather, when it is too gray or too wet or too windy or too cold to go outside, where I like to be. On one such day, I had Winston and Chloe over, and here is how we spent our time:
The pillow above was a gift from my neighbor -- it says, "A room without books is like a body without a soul." (Cicero)
On one day last week it was sunny enough to go out -- but not warm enough. I took a few pics of the last interesting stuff in my garden for the year:
Purple Smoke Tree
Roses still blooming!
Hounds
A few rocks that I painted
On Friday it SNOWED for four hours. Here is Truman expressing his opinion of his snow jacket:
On Saturday I co-lead a field trip at the Montlake Fill for Connie's intermediate birding class -- it was 35 degrees when we started at 8am, and it was 35 degrees when we ended at 10am. It was so cold I didn't even want to take my camera with me. Despite thermal undergarments, layers of clothing, hand and foot warmers, muffler, ski gloves, and Minnesota Winter Hat, I was still too cold after the first hour and by the time I got back to my car, I was worried I wouldn't be able to drive because I could barely feel my feet. It's too early for this sort of thing!
At least we had good birds -- a Eurasian Wigeon among the regular American Wigeons, a few Ring-necked Ducks, a Hooded Merganser, Bald Eagle fly-bys to startle the large rafts of coots, and a Merlin that conveniently perched a few feet from a Cooper's Hawk for a nice class teaching moment. But please stop me before I volunteer for this sort of thing again.
On Sunday, Tina and I went to Third Place Commons to do some nice, warm, indoor sketching. It was nice to be comfortable, but not so nice regarding subject matter. Mostly, it was People, and you know know much I enjoy sketching People. In fact, I dislike it so much that I managed to draw one of the restaurants without any people at all even though they were moving in and out of my view:
Unfortunately, there just wasn't anything else there I wanted to draw, and Tina wasn't finished yet, so I was forced to do People. And as is always the case, they kept moving on me. I started one sketch, and five seconds later the person got up and left. I started another one, and the person was joined by a second person who blocked my view of the first one. Another one kept uncrossing and recrossing her legs, another kept moving her arms about -- people just do not cooperate!
Tina finished her sketch and I suggested going downstairs to draw the colorful gumball machines -- a spot where there are few people about. We both drew the machines, and then she put an octopus on top of hers.
Yes, that's right -- an octopus. You see, she recently took a class on drawing from one's imagination, and one assignment involved creating an imaginary creature that you could put into drawings or make up stuff for it to do -- and she created Toby the Octopus. Toby now appears in many of her sketches (up in the Common Room, she drew a set of giant chess pieces there, and had Toby playing chess with them). In her gumball drawing, Toby proudly sat atop the machines, holding a shiny coin in one arm.
My drawing looked boring in comparison, and I said so. "Well," Tina replied, "put your own imaginary creature in it -- how about a bird, like an owl?"
So I put an owl on top of the gumball machines. "I think you should paint him purple," Tina suggested. Well, I wanted at least some creative control over my own drawing, so I added a little rosy color to the purple, named him Oswald, and called it good.
Oswald the Owl just might turn up in more sketches in the future -- keep an eye out for him!
I already miss baseball too - sob. And I totally agree with you about football and basketball.
ReplyDeleteI like Oswald the Owl. He's cute!