TGIF Baby!!!

Haven't finish my budget at work yet...but I am so glad to be off for 2 days. I couldn't even look at it today. Did you ever do something so much that you got sick of it. Like writing papers in college. You are so immersed in it and have looked at it and read it so many times that the thought of looking at it just one more time makes you sick. That's how it was today. So I caught up on all the work that I have been pushing aside for the past week. But it never fails that the time you need to be left alone to concentrate....that's the time everyone needs you.

There is a grad student that will spend the next few years in one of my labs. She has been e-mailing me everyday about her paperwork and I have been ignoring her. Today she marches into my office to talk to me. She barely speaks English....she is Chinese. I explain that I do not have the time today but will talk to her next week. She says....I know but I want to talk to you....so I repeat myself and she repeats herself. So I just sat there saying very loudly...NEXT WEEK, NEXT WEEK, NEXT WEEK. I think she got the message. I might sound mean....well OK I am. But the grad students and postdocs are what I refer to as time-suckers. They want to take up your time with trivial issues that quite frankly are low on my priority list. A few years ago I was in my office about 6pm with the door closed talking to the Chairman about the budget when there was a knock at the door. It was a grad student who came to tell me that we were out of creamer for the coffee and telling me that I needed to get her some. HELLO...I'm the Adminstrator...not the snack counter girl, the door is closed, the Chairman is sitting in the office....get a clue girly. So if they don't get it the first time when I explain it in my indoor voice....I revert to my outdoor voice and they get it. And if that doesn't work I just tell them to GET OUT.

So the kiln if running and will be done tomorrow morning. Mostly I put in pieces parts....little discs, some earrings and little links. I have three larger pieces that still need some work but I was too tired tonight to do a good job. Here is a shot of my dining room table. I can absolutely trash a workspace. I can be a pig



Some more pics from Tucson two weeks ago....this is one of two cats that Anne has... Nicki....that glazed look is because everytime she would pass by one of us we would pick her up and snuggle. I have to admit she was very gracious about it all. Don't you just love her mane.

This was a palm tree / bird condo outside the house. I love the texture. I want to shrink it down and make a texture plate out of it.

We went down to The Lost Barrios area to browse in some antiquities stores. If I were very very rich....I could have a lot of fun down there. I could have spent hours in Rustica, the store pictured below. So much to look at. They had old door hardware. I got some door pulls that I want to use in jewelry and use as models for make in silver and bronze.



Further down the street we found a couple of places with some massive doors. What type of house do you own have these as the front doors???

My brother was in Panama last year and said that large doors like this were using in compounds to protect against attacks by pirates. I can believe it with this one. You need a massive chain just to pull it open.

Look closely at the top of this one....there are carved horses that project out over the door frame.

And speaking of horses....there were a couple of carved wooden horses in one of the stores. I should have looked at the tags on them to see where they were from. I saw some similar large dogs that were from Tibet. Maybe that is where these are from.

And on that note....I'll talk to you later :P