Tag: birds

Eye Candy

I’ve long put off doing something with my home office. All I have in a 9’5 x 11′ room is an L-desk, a file cabinet, and a salvaged printer table.

When the exterminator came by today for routine maintenance, one of the ladies in the rental office glanced in and I felt shame, so MUCH Libra shame. So I did what any good Libra would do and rationalize a little shopping spree by noting that it’s a three-paycheck month. Now I have a dark red and black traditional Oriental rug and a 55-inch black console table coming. I’ll get artwork after the rug arrives to see what colors will work best. I keep my office dimly lit, with warm light bulbs, so probably something in fall colors.

I didn’t stop there, though. I bought artwork for over my bed and a four-piece set of birdie artwork for somewhere in the living room. They’re 12-inch square so while they are long enough to take up the necessary space with three inches between them to fill the two-thirds rule of how wide artwork should be over a sofa, they might not be tall enough. If so, I will hang them in a square in the dining area.

Yes, I’ve been living without artwork in my apartment for about nine years now. Why? Because I got rid of all of the stuff I had when I moved back to Virginia in 2015 as it was all given to me by people I didn’t want to be reminded of in my new life. I also hate clutter, as my ex-husband was a slob (one of the reasons for the divorce—nope, signed up to be a wife, not a maid) and my ex-boyfriend was somewhere between a level 1 and a level 2 hoarder (living in the same zip code was enough for me).

A couple of years ago I started going to galleries and looking for paintings, but as much as I wanted to and could finally afford it, I just couldn’t bring myself to plunk down $2,000 or $3,000 on a piece of art for fear of getting it home and then finding that it wasn’t a good size or it just didn’t work with my furniture, color scheme, or light.

So hello canvas prints from small businesses on Amazon! If they work, great! If they don’t, no harm, no foul. I’m only out a couple hundred bucks and I can offer them to friends who might like them. I do know the bird art will work, because bird art will ALWAYS work in my home, but not sure about the abstract I bought for over the bed.

I also figured out where I’m going to hang artwork given to me in recent years by people I do want in my life, as well as smaller pieces I’ve picked up over the years and just never hung, like this beauty, “A Study of Riddles,” by Apollo the Crow at Diva Crows:

I don’t believe Apollo has been painting lately, or, if he has, Diva Crows has stopped selling his artwork, so I’m super glad I got one of his last commissions. He’s still alive and well as far as I know, though.

Another great thing about this painting is the fabric Diva Crows used to wrap it:

Yes, those are eyeballs in the roses. What lovely mix of romance and Hitchcockian terror! Fortunately, I’m on the good side of the Crows who live on the property, having kept them in peanuts for a couple of years now.

And now for today’s candy: Gummy Eyeballs! Fortunately, these were not around when I was a kid or I might very well have turned out even more warped than I did.

Seasonal Simplicity

Long brutal day and pressed for time, so I’m using one of my traditional safety entries, which is to share my current, seasonal wallpaper, downloaded from DesktopNexus.

In keeping with the theme of simplicity, chocolate balls are today’s candy. Like their Christmas and Easter counterparts, they’re wrapped in foil. One thing I remember about them is that sometimes part of the foil was actually in the chocolate, like the chocolate began to melt and then hardened around the edge of the foil.

Chartreuse

The pencil above is Berol Prismacolor PC 989 Chartreuse, the first pencil to retire from the set my father gave me in the early ’90s. I sharpened it for the final time last night, when I realized that the core would shatter if I did so again. It’s small, but not tiny: I could still use it if I wanted to, either with a pencil extender or a light grasp of my hand. But I have a small set of more modern Prismacolors from 2017 or so that includes the same color, so I removed the Chartreuse from that set and put this one in the tin in its stead. The newer one now sits in the old Berol box.

My favorite color is purple, a far cry from chartreuse, and I never thought such a bright lemony green would ever appeal to me, even back in the ’80s when it was everywhere along with the neon pinks, peaches, and purples that dressed a generation of teenagers.

But then Inigo the Nanday came into my life, where he was my constant companion for 21 years until it was his time to pass away last year. That the old pencil is the same shade as his feathers made retiring it that much more poignant, but I take comfort in knowing it will be safe in the tin, braced by a rolled-up tissue to keep it from sliding around and breaking the tip.

A bright green and black bird called a Nanday Conure.

One thing they don’t warn you about regarding your 50s is how many late goodbyes you start having. Things given to you many years ago by people who are now long gone wear out. The cards they sent you turn yellow and the stamps fall off. The classic, timeless items of clothing they gifted you for your birthday or a holiday start coming apart. Any rings they gave you get harder to slip over your knuckles, if they still fit at all. The glue in the bindings of the books they inherited and then passed down to you starts to crack. If you kept their perfume or aftershave, it turns acidic or loses its fragrance entirely. If you were born before cell phones and digital media, the photographs you have of those you lost fade and the tape recordings of their voices stretch and sound strange—if you even still have the audio equipment necessary to play them.

Some folks like to pick on younger generations because of all the pictures and videos they take with their phones, but as long as younger people still live in the moment and don’t create a hazard or rob themselves of the full experience just to get a good angle, I say good for them for capturing it. If they store everything correctly, they’ll always have something crisp and fresh to remember their loved ones by.

But listen, younger folks: Even if you have a ton of photos and videos, cherish the gifts people give you. Hang on to the little keepsakes you have of life milestones, either those you experience yourself or those of your loved ones, and preserve any inadvertent mementos you find in the bottom of a drawer that catapult you unexpectedly into a happy memory. Treasure the items that come to you from a place of affection, especially the small things you manage to take with you when you move from one home to the next. Those are things you can hold in your hand. Those are the things you can hold close to your heart, where the love that brought them to you still resides.