Category Archives: Spare time – Culture

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Max’s new best friend

We’re happy to report that two weeks ago Max (now known as Duncan) moved to a wonderful new home, and now has a cat best friend who actually likes to play with him!

And Ophy and Pippa are happy to report that their lives are back to normal – mostly napping, some eating, and absolutely NO kitten attacks!  So while Jim and Abby miss Max’s youthful exuberance, we’re all thrilled to be back in our regular groove, and doubly thrilled that Max ended up in such a terrific home.  Thanks, Susan and Chris!

Feltboard, Spare time - Culture, Storytime

Polar Bear, Polar Bear

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And the last three feltboard pieces for Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, written by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle. After putting the walrus on the board, I go back to the book and show Eric Carle’s illustration of the zookeeper, and then the final spread with the children dressed in costumes of the various animals.  Going back to the book made sense in terms of the story, and it also reinforces that the feltboard pieces are based upon a book.

Here are the pieces for the leopard, peacock, and walrus (click image to enlarge):

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Feltboard, Spare time - Culture, Storytime

Polar Bear, Polar Bear…

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Today and tomorrow I’ll post photos of the feltboard pieces I made for Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, written by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle.  I’ve found that illustrations by Eric Carle translate very well to felt pieces, probably because the originals are made of paper collage and are thus more similar to felt pieces than painting or pen and ink drawing.

Here are my feltboard pieces for the first seven animals (polar bear, lion, hippopotamus, flamingo, zebra, boa constrictor, and elephant) – click on image to enlarge:

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Children's literature, Librarianship, Spare time - Culture

Vacation! And reading!

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I’m nearing the end of five whole days off in a row, and I feel fabulous.  Rested, refreshed, intellectually reinvigorated.  And we’ve even had TWO social engagements in the last five days – huge for us homebodies.  (I don’t count Jim’s band rehearsals as social engagements, since I’m not part of that, but he did have about three band meetings/rehearsals.)

The best part of the last five days is that I had time and space and energy to read.  A lot.  I read Blue Balliett’s Chasing Vermeer and The Calder Game (I’ll get to The Wright Three when I find it at the used book store like the others), Joan Bauer’s Peeled, various magazine articles, and am starting The Prophet of Yonwood by Jeanne DuPrau.  [I’m a slow reader, folks, as I’ve stated before, so this is a lot of books for me to have gotten through while housecleaning and doing laundry and shoveling 10 inches of snow and partying with friends…]  Only one of these books is for a book group (Peeled), and I’ve actually been wanting to read it, anyway, so it didn’t feel like an assignment.

One of the oddities of my job as a children’s librarian is that I need to have read a lot of books, yet that reading can’t really happen in my work hours.  And let’s face it, often our off-work hours are filled with mundanities like laundry and scooping litter boxes, and don’t leave much time for wonderful things like reading.  So, in an odd way, though I read these books for pleasure, I also feel like all of this reading was for work, too.  Now when a child or parent asks me about Chasing Vermeer, I can actually speak with some authority on the topic, not the usual “It’s gotten great reviews.”  I’ll never be able to read all of the books that I order for the library, but I’d like to aim for a higher percentage than I’ve had time for recently.

So it’s been a truly lovely five days.  And tomorrow I’m back to my usual crazy schedule, working full time and tutoring two nights a week, though the Italian class is over now, which gains me a bit more reading time.  But I’ll be going back to that schedule with renewed energy and vitality, and I’m psyched.

Etc., Spare time - Culture

24 toes

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24 toes can cause a lot of trouble, especially when they’re connected the mind of a kitten.  I love Max dearly, but this living-with-a-kitten thing is new to me.  I’m used to staid, tired older cats who loll around most of the day.

Yesterday Max found the steel wool next to the kitchen sink while we were out running errands.  He doesn’t appear to have suffered any ill effects, but he sure did a number on that poor piece of now-discarded steel wool.

This morning I went to fill up my Camelbak water bottle, and couldn’t find the squishy little tip that you’re supposed to drink through.  After taking it out of the dishwasher, I had laid the three bottle pieces out on the first shelf of the upper kitchen cabinet to dry.  Ophy and Pippa have never touched anything in the cabinets (we don’t have cabinet doors), so I didn’t give it a second thought.  But, blech, I will from now on.  The squishy little drinking tip was under our oven, all covered in lint and yucky stuff.  Yuck yuck yuck.  To his credit, Max supervised and “helped” while I fished it out.

And yesterday morning, Max “helped” Jim scoop the litterboxes.  We use Feline Pine, and Jim sifts the used sawdust out into a bag for disposal.  As Jim was working, Max watched attentively…then pounced on the bag, sending an enormous puff of urine-laced sawdust up into Jim’s face.  (Once more, Jim proved what a great guy he is – mad as hops, but didn’t say a harsh word to little Max.)

So cute, but so troublesome.  Ah, little guy, what will we do with you?

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Houseguest

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We have a small furry houseguest.  Chances are good that he’s just a guest, and won’t be living with us permanently, but we’re certainly enjoying his company while he’s here.

So here’s the story:  my coworker Susan has a neighbor who found a four month old kitten in her yard.  The neighbor says that the kitten must have been outside for a couple of days, and he literally leaped into her arms.  The neighbor and her husband are decidedly NOT pet people (I think one or both of them has allergies), and they walked the neighborhood hoping to find the owner of this kitten (and took him to a vet to see if he had a chip implanted, which he didn’t).  Ultimately, they talked to Susan and her husband, and knowing that Susan and spouse had a cat, they somehow got Susan fully involved in trying to find a home for this little guy.

After a few days, the neighbor was getting antsy, and told Susan that if a home wasn’t found for the kitten, he’d be going to a shelter – or maybe back out on the street.  The deadline was 7 PM last night, and Jim and I decided to rise to the occasion and foster the kitten until we can find him a good home (and we have several “hot” leads, so, please, no one volunteer right now to take him!).

We picked the kitten up this morning; our vet was kind enough to stop by and examine him an hour later; and he’s proved to be both very healthy and very, very good natured.  A star patient for Dr. Reiner: after having blood drawn for the feline leukemia test, he purred madly and waited patiently for the next procedure.  Didn’t blink after being given a pill for his worms.  Didn’t complain about being given a rabies shot and feline distemper shot.  Got a bit frisky after having his claws trimmed, but one claw did get trimmed a bit short and bled a bit, so we’ll forgive him.

After passing the physical exam (no feline leukemia, no fleas, no ear mites), the vet gave us clearance to let Max roam the house freely and interact with Ophy and Pippa.  He’s a scrappy little fella, and has arched his back and hissed a bit at the girls, but so far no fights have broken out.  At the moment, all three cats are with me in the dining room, by the woodstove.  And yes, I know, we probably shouldn’t have named him, but it’s hard to just call him “Cat” or “Buddy.”  Max suits him.

Here’s a photo of the cutie, a talkative little lovebug who weighs almost five pounds at barely four months of age, and has extra toes on every single paw (click on image to enlarge):

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Feltboard, Spare time - Culture, Storytime

In felt: The Very Quiet Cricket, part I

In response to overwhelming demands to see some of my felt board creations posted here (that would be you, Dan…), I have taken photos of the pieces I made last weekend for Eric Carle’s The Very Quiet Cricket.  I’ll post the photos in three separate posts; today’s photo includes the pieces for the two small crickets, the cracked egg, the large cricket, the locust, and the praying mantis (click on image to enlarge):

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Spare time - Culture, Storytime

Disaster…of sorts…

Last night I spent two and a half hours creating felt pieces for Eric Carle’s The Very Quiet Cricket.  I went to bed at 10:30 feeling pretty darn proud of myself, because they turned out really well.

But this morning, when I tried to pack up the felt pieces for travel to the library, I discovered a minor crisis.  A bit of a disaster.  Despite having had all night to dry, the glue was still fresh and wet this morning.  Ever tried to put a delicate felt praying mantis on the board when the glue is still wet?  Not a pretty sight.

I tried to manage the crisis by putting each felt figure on a fresh rectangle of felt, to help hold it together, and then I used parchment paper as a protective layer between each piece and its neighbor. 

The real challenge will come this morning as I try to tell the story while treating each piece as if it’s about to fall apart. 

*  (I know that someone is bound to lecture me now on the benefits of a hot glue gun, but there are a lot of reasons why I prefer Elmer’s white glue to a glue gun.  And up till now, it’s never been an issue.  Sigh.)