February 17, 2005.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I read Kathryn Harrison’s The Mother Knot the night before last. It’s such a small book that it took me about an hour – if that – to read. I always forget how much I like her writing, even though she kind of weirds me out a little at the same time. I’ll always think of her as the woman who had an affair with her father – and then wrote a book about it – and if that doesn’t give you the willies, I don’t know what will. This is a woman with Issues, I guess you could say. But an amazing writer. I recommend The Mother Knot.

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In the back yard, my daffodils are beginning to bloom, and the temperature is somewhere in the 40s. It hit 70 degrees on Tuesday, then we had some crappy weather yesterday – (in fact, when we were sitting in the lawyer’s office signing the refinancing papers yesterday, the tornado sirens went off, and Fred and the lawyer did a rousing rendition of “Them damn tornado sirens iz fer pussies and I ain’t takin’ no shelter and it used to be that the sirens didn’t go off unless there wuz an actual tornado spotted, but now if the sky gets a little windy they set those damn sirens off without thinkin’ twice, uh-huh” replete with a little soft shoe and jazz hands.) – and the temperature dropped into the low 50s, and it seems to be getting colder and colder and JESUS CHRIST I MOVED TO THE SOUTH SO I WOULD NEVER HAVE TO BE COLD AGAIN. Why, god, why? I’m sitting here, my fingers are freezing, my toes are freezing (and the big-ass cup of Diet Coke with lots of ice I just finished drinking has NOTHING to do with that, I’m sure), I have two space heaters going (though a portly Poo is flopped down in front of one of them, stealing the heat so that it won’t get to me), and I am FREEZING. Clearly I need to move to South America.
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I finally remembered to go to the frame shop where I’d dropped off the picture I cross-stitched for the spud. I dropped it off about a month and a half ago, and they called the week after to let me know it was done, but I kept forgetting to go pick it up until this morning. It looks good; I was a little worried whether the red mat would work, but I think it worked out just fine. However, does it look just a little bit off-center to you, or am I just seeing things? I look at it one time and it looks fine, and then I look at it again and it looks off-center. What do you think?
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::sniff::sniff::sniff::sniff::SNIFF::SNIFF::SNIFF:: Miz Poo does not appreciate being sniffed when she’s minding her own business hanging out on top of a box.
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21 thoughts on “February 17, 2005.”

  1. Miz Poo let Mr Boogers sniff her more times than our Maisey would let her sister Daisy sniff her. In fact, Daisy has only to get within sniffing distance and the smackdown is applied appropriately. Cute Poo!

  2. Glad you made it back home before the Jeep broke down. Phew! (brushes hand past forehead)
    The picture does not look off-center to me. There might be a bit of an optical illusion because the text is aligned to the right of the Statue’s torch. But if you look at the pedestal on which she’s standing, each corner looks equidistant from the edge of the frame.
    Oh, Miz Poo and Mister Boogers together! Good shot of the stumpy tail.

  3. I see what you mean about it looking off center, I think’s just because the words are off center from the picture which makes the top look off center…

  4. The pictures a little off to the right. I’m sure you spent a bundle – I’d make them redo it. You can tell for sure – messure the white space on the left & right. At first I just thought is was just with the torch, the title is off center, but then I looked closer and it’s off.
    Mister Boogers does look like he’s asking for a smack down – daring to sniff Miz Poo. It’s like she stinks or something. We know Miz Poo don’t stink one bit!

  7. I think it’s framed wrong, too. Although the actual statue is centered, if you measure the distance from the farthest stitch on either side to the edge of the mat, it’s not anywhere near equal. Que sera.
    If you took it back and had them redo it, how long would it be before you went to pick it up again? 😉
    Great pic of Stubby’s little stub!

  8. What I think they did was center the statue. But they should have centered the — ummm — entire “picture area”, in which the statute is aligned a bit to the left of center. Hmmmm.

  10. forgive my total lack of sophistication, but, if you REALLY can’t tell, and you get conflicting opinions from folk, does it matter that much? I mean, in the grand scheme…? I DO, however, love your site. GREEEAAATT.

  11. I don’t think it looks off center. It looks awesome from where it’s hanging in my room.
    That was an awesome picture of Stanley’s deriere.

  12. I agree with Laurie – they centered it around the statue, instead of centering the picture as a whole. I think it could look good either way, but I’m guessing you paid a decent amount to have it framed up – so if you’re not satisfied, tell ’em so! I’m sure the store has some kind of “satisfaction guaranteed” statement – and if not, it won’t take them that long to fix it anyway, as the frame and mat are fine, they just have to move the fabric over and put it all back together.

  13. Hey, I think the pic looks great! And if the Spud likes the way it looks hanging in her room, I would let it be.
    I made an error in a knitting pattern once, it was in the right hand corner of an afghan. I noticed it after I had almost the entire thing done. Being a perfectionist I ALMOST ripped out the entire afghan to redo it. I was stopped by a friend that told me she heard that Amish women used to make errors in their needlework on purpose, once somewhere in the pattern…to remind us that only GOD does everything perfectly. I don’t know if that is true, but it made for a good story on why I didn’t fix my mistake. And I was the only one that ever noticed it anyway….

  15. I’m with you on Kathryn Harrison! I really wanted to be disgusted by her whole affair with her father, but instead I just felt bad for her. Her fiction is awesome too. I’ll have to pick up the one you mentioned.

  16. Yay for the first daffodils of the season and in your color too! Brace yourself for March but don’t worry, the true spring will be here before you know it.

  17. It does look like it’s a little too far off to the right. Too much fabric on the left side. It bugs the crap out of me when a project isn’t centered right. I had that happen once…it was just a wee bit off, but I took it back and they redid it for me. My LNS is just great with the framing! I seriously need to get over there and get a whole bunch of stuff done up!
    It also looks great with the red mat and blue frame! Great job!

  18. I think it’ll look a bit weird if the whole picture area is centered, because the statue is gazing off to the left. Generally, composition dictates that you leave some open space where the person is gazing, so that the picture flows. Centering the entire picture area will make it look like the statue is gazing at the frame, and not off into the distance as she should be.

  19. Yep, it’s off-centered. Have them measure the sides as you know they will clearly blame it on you, even though it clearly isn’t your fault. Bastards.

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