This is Shady Grove and her prized toy, an Osage Orange otherwise referred to by those of us who collect them as Monkey Brains. It is a fascinating fruit that are softball sized (during normal years of normal precipitation) but this year are more cannonball sized which Shady has problems with gripping between her teeth. The Monkey Brain is Shady's favorite autumn toys to chase and bring back to us in the throwing fest. The great thing about the Brains as they are heavy, and upon being thrown,they gain in momentum as they roll and roll and roll giving our doggie girl a great run and scramble for her fun. They fall on the ground and if they arent picked up over the course of the winter they become blackened and skanky looking. I love the way the Monkey Brains look in bowls or wire baskets outside with pumpkins for the oncoming halloween holiday. Note: get pumpkins this weekend and if we have a chance, carve them. As an aside, don't you love how Shady Grove becomes purple in the context of the green grass? She sometimes becomes our plum colored dog.
Have been rereading To the Scaffold by Carolley Erickson--a great biography about the life and end of Marie Antoinette by one of my favorite biographers. Erickson tells a great story with the right embellishment,tone and social history. Its been a pleasure and a break from the regular--a chance to take my mind off of all the craziness at the office. If you like history, Ms. Erickson is a treat. She's covered all the tutors, Catherine the Great, Josephine and many more. As she puts them out, I buy them, read them and shelve them and then read them again. She has also written some fun historically based novels like The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette where she uses her broad historical skills and weaves engaging stories that make for a cozy read.
Work Stuff: One holiday card to print today! Yeah.
And one more to go. Had a lovely chat with the Executive Director of the Hangar Theatre this morning. There are big things planned for our Hangar from an expansion and improvement of the facility along with more programming and outreach. I might be able to help them with posters and images after my thesis is done next year. Could make a nice body of work that could work for shows for me, and image building for them.
Another work idea is that cases of GlimmerGlass are here to sell. Tom has a case shipped to us>> and who knows, there are sales opportunities on the horizon that could get the product moving and make us a bit of money. I have a little glimmer of hope that this might evolve into a little tiny profit center. No plans for big. Just enough.
Need to jump up and get some rice going for dinner. More later.