Trying to whip the garden into shape

Georgia Bluets

Karl Lagerfeld Rose

Mimulus

With the help of a man in my neighborhood who will pull weeds industriously (though for what seems an outrageous amount of money), my front yard is looking better these days, and I have invested in some plants, mostly plants that have blue flowers. Phacelia, commelina, penstemon, Georgia bluets, Chinese larkspur, lobelia. Interspersed are white flowers -- mostly bacopa, which trails nicely, and some yellow fllowers. I've bought a few purple flowers as well -- lavendar and a morning glory variant. As I plant things, I put down mulch cloth around the plants, and then add small rocks. It's astounding how many rocks you need, actually. I have bought several hundred pounds and clearly I will have to arrange for them to deliver a ton to the driveway before I am done. -- Rachel

Penstemon

Phacelia

Platycodon

Permanent employment with benefits

I have been offered, and accepted, a permanent position at CompuMentor as an Associate Customer Service Representative. I'll be working for the TechSoup Stock division, where I have been a temp off and on since the middle of last May.

Yay, health insurance!!!!! -- Rachel

Artwork for Sale

Margaret Organ-Kean, Illustrator

My friend Margaret Organ-Kean is an extremely talented artist, and she's put some Tshirts, tote bags, and posters on her website.

Margaret and I met during the World Fantasy Convention in Seattle in -- what? 1989? -- and then were part of the same APA. Later, when I unexpectedly became an art director, I contacted her, and she became a regular contributor to Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY agazine, providing fabulous black and white work a bit reminiscent of the work of Aubrey Beardsley, and a couple of color covers. She's doing more color work now, which you'll see on her site.

-- Rachel

April Fool

I heard recently about a computer trick you could try on a friend. Of course, afterwards they might not be your friend any more.....

Go to their computer when they're out of the room, minimize any open windows, and press the PrintScreen button. This will save the entire desktop to the clipboard.

Open MS Paint, press Ctrl-V to paste, and save the resulting picture as a BMP file -- let's say you save it as "C:/deskfoto.bmp". Close the paint program.

Rightclick anywhere in the open desktop, and you'll get a menu that starts with "Arrange Icons by...". One of its choices is "Show Desktop Icons". Uncheck this to hide all their desktop icons. Then using the Display section of the Control Panel (see "settings' in the start menu), make note of their existing desktop picture (so you can restore things to their rightful place before your friend kills you), and replace their desktop picture with C:/deskfoto.bmp.

They will try to click on their usual icons, but since it's only a picture, nothing will happen. -- Rachel

P.S. Or you could leave their icons displayed, change their background as described, and .... MOVE a few of the real icons. The potential for mischief is high.

Botanical Illustration

Perennial Flower Illustrations at the Glasgow University Library

Well, I missed this exhibit in 1995, but there's a nice webpage about it that's still up, and in fact was revised in 1999. There aren't as many sample illustrations as I'd like -- only a handful, in fact -- but there's still fascinating information here. For instance, I learned that a 1554 book of illustrations, overseen by a physician, used "cross-hatching ... to display contours and varying thickness of line to indicate depth. Some coloured copies exist but these were published as black and white and then coloured by their owners." And that the first colored book of botanical illustrations was published in 1752. -- Rachel

Finally starting to feel human again

Today my Palm alarm woke me at 8 (when I am normally at my office and about to start my shift answering phones, so I have the Palm nag me so I'll stop whatever I'm doing and take up my phone task); the office where I work as a long-term temp is closed today in observance of a California state holiday, the birthday of labor organizer Cesar Chavez.

(It does seem odd that the day of the observance is -- April Fools Day.)

I realized that I was actually breathing through my nose -- which meant it's not so stopped up any more, and that I didn't ache all over or feel feverish. I didn't rush out of bed or anything, but by noon I had eaten some Grapenuts, toasted some cashews for a snack later, and tackled the sinkful of dirty dishes that had accumulated while I was ill. -- Rachel

Home with a cold

I've spent the first half of this week home with what I guess is a bad cold, which hit Sunday morning and has kept me in bed except for brief trips to the kitchen (luckily I started a lentil soup on Saturday) for food. I'm taking Cold-Eeze, which contains zinc which is supposed to help; but they warn in the fine print to avoid taking it on an empty stomach. I'm not sure the zinc has helped, but the soup has been a lifesaver. Nothing fancy: lentils, water, a large sauteed onion, two stalks of celery, a couple of cubes of chicken boullion (sp?), and a handful of minute rice. -- Rachel

MacWorld 2005 San Francisco

Early in January every year, I go to MacWorld at Moscone Center in San Francisco. This year I spent parts of three days, which was not enough, but I had other commitments. Here I am, all ready for the Expo to open on Tuesday morning. You can click on this link to see a movie of the crowds pouring down the escalator into the entry area. MOVIE

Of course I love high-tech gadgets. (I joke that I inherited this tendency from my dad.) Here are two different TINY speakers for your iPod. The one on the right is designed to leave in one place; come in and plunk your iPod into the middle and away it plays. The set on the left fascinated me, clearly designed for the Road Warrior. The case has a cover that slides open to play; that uncovers a set of connectors for jacks from the iPod. Disconnect the cables and close the cover, and the whole unit slides into a large-ish pocket. All in stylish white, of course. Now I just need an iPod.

Now that we've gotten used to carrying our entire audio libraries with us, Several vendors want to persuade us to carry all our videos as well. Here's a nice-looking player from Epson, which I liked more than any of the other similar devices that I saw.

Some of the most interesting booths are usually in the center back of the exhibit hall, behind the big Apple.


(But of course, I had to stop and admire the new tiny new Mac-ette: here's the banner flying over the Apple pavilion.)

One booth I enjoyed sold bags and carrying cases for practically anything. Their booth was wonderfully low-tech, with walls built from oil drums on the outside, plywood on the inside that was painted with blackboard paint. Artists had drawn outlines of people, and the
bags were draped around the drawings. And there was plenty of chalk, so every day the booth walls got more and more crowded with notes, drawings, aphorisms, and phone numbers. The booth featured other low-tech as well: they actually had a manual typewriter for receipts, and a battery-operated record player used old LPs to provide musical ambiance.

Then there was my buddy the robot, reminding me of Clayton Bailey's finest.

My lunch stop was at little crepe place hidden in the back right corner, where I had a wonderful savory lunch. In case the Moscone exhibit hall view was getting a bit dull, a whole village of miniature buildings surrounded the booth, complete with Victorian painted ladies, the domed centerpiece next to the Exploratorium, and the TransAmerica pyramid!

Then it was back into the fray. I was very impressed by the wall of experts at the Canon booth; they seemed ready to field ANY question you might have about photography, digital cameras, lenses, and photo printing.

Before I left, I wandered into the main section of the hall again, and noticed this very effective, semi-transparent banner for a mouse manufacturer. Behind this was the John Lennon bus -- but more tomorrow.

Hawaii Quilt Blocks

Above is the "dark" variant, with a dark green strip around the center square. Below is the "light" variant, with a light blue strip around the center square.

When I make this particular quilt, I always get two sets of blocks. This time I have made 4 dark and 4 light blocks, and I will make two lap quilts. I love the beautiful Hawaiian-themed floral fabric (are these ginger flowers?) in the center.

Beautiful crocheted hat

My sister crochets beautiful hats.

She likes to use acrylic yarn since she's allergic to wool.

Joyce and Dad

My sister and my dad

My Mom

My Mom and I like to work on jigsaw puzzles together (JPEG Image, 579x400 pixels)

Just call us the Couchettes

Rachel, Joyce, and Katie.

Someone snapped this picture of us on Christmas day.

East Bay Heritage Quilters - Northern California

East Bay Heritage Quilters - Northern California

I'm a member of the East Bay Heritage Quilters. We have dropins on Tuesdays and on Saturdays (not every week, but frequently). And once a month we hold a Saturday workshop, a Monday workshop, and a Monday evening meeting with announcements, workshop signups, and a presentation which is usually a slide lecture but may also be a fashion show or quilt show. Members can check out books from a terrific library.

Generally the lectures are the last Monday each month, but in May the meeting is the next-to-last Monday, there is no July meeting, and there is no December meeting. (Dropins continue through all months.)

Why is this called the Maple Leaf Rag?

Hello, all. This blog will be a continuation of my old Apa-zine, Maple Leaf Rag (named mostly because I had a really nice rubber stamp for a maple leaf, which I used to start off each issue). I will see if I can scan the maple leaf and post it on these pages as well. -- Rachel