Show and Tell

A lot has happened since I posted last. (That was about ten months ago.) I embarked on a brief but much-needed road trip to Connecticut in March 2013, visiting family in Groton and helping a friend by hauling a van-load of personal items back to Pittsburgh from Hartford. (While in Hartford I walked around the magnificent Mark Twain House as well as the Harriet Beecher Stowe House and photographed Richard Meier's gleaming white Hartford Seminary.) My beautiful niece Ariana Genevieve--hometown Groton, CT--was born at the beginning of March. I traveled to Seattle, Portland, Mount St. Helens, Vancouver, and many points between with my loyal long-time travel partner Amanda in March, staying with other wonderful friends and their kids as our 'home base' in Tacoma between side trips. I flew to Atlanta in May for yet another good friend's wedding. My leopard gecko Luna, with me since 1997 and much-loved member of the family, finally passed away in the spring; but I also acquired a new pet, a spunky red-tail Boa constrictor named Reggie that likes to hiss a lot with his mouth open (trying to be a bad-ass...) but behaves himself once he's out of his terrarium. I sold a painting (this one) at Lawrenceville's Art All Night in April and completed my eighth consecutive Rachel Carson Trail Challenge in June.

An American five-lined skink (sometimes called blue-tail) that I found in Georgia.

In April, I participated in a benefit art and music show hosted by a group called Project Okello at Grove City College after having been contacted by one of the event organizers through Etsy. I met some really fantastic people, handed out some business cards, and enjoyed the top-notch live music provided by student groups. My friend Ryan and his son Kole stopped by as well as my parents. (Dad's a Grove City College alumnus.) I was really overwhelmed by the atmosphere of positivity, warmth, and community at this event, and although I didn't sell anything, I'm glad that I took the risk of participating.

There's been plenty of live music in the past ten months as well: Martha Wainwright, Carrie Rodriguez, Soul Asylum, Suzanne Vega, Aimee Mann with Ted Leo, The Black Keys & The Flaming Lips, Dave Matthews Band with JD McPherson, Mary Fahl, Brett Dennen with Goldspot, and the incomparable Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers featuring Edie Brickell--probably the standout show of 2013.  (We'll see if Nine Inch Nails on October 8 can top it!)

The big project of the year--ongoing but nearing completion just in time for autumn--is the reconstruction of my front porch. My long-time partner in crime Ryan and I demolished the original porch on Mother's Day. As of this writing, the cedar skirting is being installed and we still need to add the railings. I've been working with Matt Johnston of Johnston Woodworking and everything looks fantastic. It's been a long time coming, and this is one project that I'll be grateful never to have to do again (at least not on this house!). You can see photos of the porch progress here.

The rest of this post is basically a Show and Tell from the past year--no staggering literary icing, no profound sprinkles of wit, no Maraschino cherry of glowing insight, just pictures paired with brief explanations. Enjoy!

First, here are some photos of Reggie the red-tail boa:

 

 

...and a couple of Lucinda (one of my two corn snakes) just because she likes to show off from time to time:

We hauled much of the debris from my front porch up to Cochranton, PA and had ourselves a little bonfire on my friend Ryan's parents' property. Along with wood from my porch, we also incinerated paneling and other debris from a crumbling mobile home that Ryan and I spent much of the afternoon demolishing. Behold the fire:

This past summer was the third in a row that I "had a disagreement" with Poison Ivy and walked away wounded. However, I was extremely fortunate this time, owing largely to the great care that I've taken in working to trim down the evil plant where it resides in my back yard; rather than having it all over my body, I only suffered from a breakout on my right arm. No big deal (although the constant seeping is disgusting).

The adventures continued with the appearance of a sinkhole that opened up beneath my street, directly across from my house. Fortunately the Wilkinsburg borough responded relatively quickly to fill the hole in. It was a little scary considering how difficult it sometimes is to determine how deep and extensive such a hole can be, or just how serious the subterranean erosion is--especially if it's caused by a ruptured pipe or storm sewer line.

On a whim, I planted some sunflower seeds in the back yard this summer. Not only did I not expect any of them to actually grow, but it didn't matter to me. It was really just an experiment: would any of these find purchase? If yes, fantastic; if not, oh well. As a matter of fact, one hearty specimen--and one alone--did decide to take up residence. (I'm wondering if I might have accidentally weeded some of the others out before I'd realized what infant sunflower plants look like.) Here it is:

I'll conclude with a little DIY project--the creative repurposing of my old (and useless from the time I moved into the house) kitchen garbage disposal as a planter. It's doing a lot more good sticking out of the ground filled with dirt and hosting a gladiola bulb than it did producing odors of death and shameful filth beneath my sink basin for two years. Plus, it looks really cool. The photo below was taken several weeks ago; the entire bed is now finished with uniform crushed stone, decorated with interesting objects including rusty saw blades, a ceramic insulator, bathroom cup/toothbrush holders (one pink, one white), a cologne bottle, an old steak knife, and a retired paintbrush that served honorably in the name of house improvement for two years. I'll share photos of this garden of whimsical oddities at a later date.