An update on Coraline

I got Coraline from the vet today and she looks much better! She no longer has a swollen lower jaw, instead it is shaved and now she has a twist of wire coming out of the bottom. This stays in place for six weeks!! I can't imagine we are going to get through six weeks without it snagging on fabric. Her fractured pelvis, while still painful (she growls fiercely when she moves) must be healing well since she is able to sit briefly and reposition herself and -bonus!- can use the litter box, more or less. She is supposed to be confined to a crate (it is a big wire dog crate) for four to six weeks, and I can already tell that in a few weeks there is going to be a battle between us; me struggling to keep her inside and her struggling to escape and get on with her normal life. sigh. In the meantime, I get my head and arms in the crate door to give her some attention and to make sure she eats while Morgan hovers behind me, hoping in vain that the bowl of wet cat food is really meant for her!

Best of Intentions

I had this efficient plan for the day. Take my dog to the kennel, visit the cat at the vet, make some rings and earrings, meet a client to exchange a bracelet (needs a bigger size), drive to Duluth and set up my booth, relax in the evening. Well, I accomplished the first item, and then my radiator died. Fortunately, I was across from a mechanic, and --Bonus!-- they could do the work today! So I spent the better part of my day in Starbucks and then killing time in some antique shops. I was extremely pleased to find an old (1952) book that is a novelized retelling of the trip taken by the steamboat the "Talisman" in 1832 in which Abraham Lincoln played a significant role. I am a complete Lincoln Nut and am very excited by this find! Anyway, I had to scrap most of my plans for the day after that. I couldn't even go to Duluth because the area was getting thunderstorms, with radar indicating more on the way and who wants to set up a canopy in a thunderstorm? Of course this means I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning.... It is now 11pm; gotta go!!

My cat uses one of her lives

Two days ago my cat, Coraline (taken from Neil Gaiman's book), had a mysterious mishap in the middle of the night. I found her curled up on my back deck lying in dried blood and looking quite beat up about the face. She also appeared unable to walk. Wah! I managed to get her to the vet and today she had surgery to wire together a broken lower jaw and remove a broken canine. She has two other broken canines, which may need to be pulled later, and a fractured pelvis. The vet and I speculated about what happened and we believe that she fell off a roof after getting her collar caught on something (the collar is missing) and either wasn't able to right herself in time or hit something on the way down. I can't even imagine what it took for her to make it from where she landed up six steps to the back deck. Maybe she used up a few of the "nine lives" just getting home. Poor Kitty!

She is a great cat. She will often follow me around the house and lay down near (or on) me. Three years ago when I was painting the eaves of my house, she would lay in the gutter and reach around to play with my hair. If I moved to the other side of the house, she'd follow too. She is smart, sweet, and implacable. A great cat. I sure hope she heals up.

Better Late Than Never

I tried to start a blog last fall, but became swamped by all the work I was putting into redesigning my website. I got a little sick of spending hours in front of the computer and couldn't muster more time writing regularly, so I abandoned the effort. Fast forward 8 months, and I feel able to write a bit more regularly now. Mostly I feel like I have more to say.

I spent a lot of time over the winter remodeling both my bathroom (finally!) and my art show booth. I must say that while I feel the redesign of the booth has been a real success, continued use has illuminated new drawbacks. I imagine that in a year or two, it will undergo a major revision again.

Here are some before and after photos of my booth set-up. The new set-up was done in a warehouse in January (it being cold and snowy at the time) and isn't quite finished since a few items related to the panels hadn't been delivered yet. The new panel layout puts earrings and pendants at eye-level, and indeed, my sales of earrings have increased a lot. I also make more types of earrings, so the variety has also seemed to increase sales.

I just bought a new Trimline canopy, so when I get a nice sunny day with no wind, I will take some photos of the "real" new set-up. More to come!