Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

coffee hour

Thursday Coffee Hour: Oscar Wilde and Dreamers (An Art Diary)

Cross Posted from Street Prophets)

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is new in your life. If I had to choose an historical person to go back in time and meet I would probably choose Oscar Wilde. There is something fascinating about him and he intrigues me. Ever since I read The Picture of Dorian Grey I have been a fan of his. I use one of his quotes as a signature line.

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” Oscar Wilde

I realize that as a night owl I see the moon a lot and an occasional sunrise since I’m usually asleep when the sun comes up. I do use those times a lot in my art. So in honor of Oscar Wilde here are moons and sunrises.

Thursday Coffee Hour: Stonehenge and Other Stone Circles

(Cross Posted from Street Prophets)

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is new with you and what’s on your mind. Stonehenge and other stone circles have fascinated mankind since they were first discovered. There have been many different theories on why they were built. One of the prominent theories is they were used in astronomy and tracking the sun in order to know when to plant. I frequently use them in my artwork.

Thursday Coffee Hour: Spring Peeking Out

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is new in your life. What’s for supper? Currently I am concocting recipes that will use up the corned beef from St. Patrick’s Day. Spring is peeking around the corner here in North Carolina. A few of the trees are blooming but it looks like the rest are waiting to make sure winter has really gone away. I managed to get a few picture the other day.

Thursday Coffee Hour: The Guardian Series Part Four

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is new in your life. I have a couple of leads on where to promote my art so I’ve been updating all my old art on my website with new models and textures. I want everything to look as good as possible. I did a series in 2006 called the Guardian series where I tied everything together with the same dragon and rainbows. I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could do a series that was artistic and symbolic and united together. It wasn’t easy to do but the more I got into it the more I enjoyed creating it. The dragon was really a pretty clunky model and could not be posed. So I just finished updating the whole series. These are the Guardians of the Concepts. These were the most challenging of the whole series to do because I was taking abstract concepts and trying to make them into a concrete picture. See previous diaries for the Guardians of Time, Elements, and Seasons. I’ve included my comments on the pictures from my website.  

Thursday Coffee Hour: The Art of Mischief

Cross Posted from Street Prophets

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is new in your life. My younger cat, Pixie, has brought mischief up to an art form. I’m surprised she doesn’t teach classes in it.

I have to toss her off the bed a half a dozen times as she insists on helping me make the bed. Walking where I’m trying to pull up covers and scrunching the blanket I just straightened out is her way of “helping.”

I scoop out the litter box every morning. Pixie waits until I’ve cleaned the box and then uses it even if she has to squeeze to get out a couple of drops. I guess it is her way of saying thanks for cleaning the box.

Pixie’s toys keep getting put in Merlin’s water dish and food bowl. It is so strange how they never end up in her dishes. 😉

Pixie loves to help me wrap presents. My presents look good when done but if you look carefully at the ribbons you will see kitty teeth marks.

Pixie is also a little mooch and if that doesn’t get my attention she has been known to try and climb down my arm to get at what I am eating.

Pixie is a mine. In that everything is mine. That lovely quilt you had made for me? Pixie thinks it is hers. The lovely unicorn I bought well Valentine is hers. According to Pixie what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is mine, and what’s Merlin’s is definitely mine.

I’m glad Mom got voted down in calling the cat Snickerdoodles. Mike said she was more of a Pixie and boy does she live up to her name!

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Thursday Coffee Hour: Fighting Dragons

(Republished from the sane Street Prophets area of the orange fainting couch.)

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour this is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is going on in your life. I just finished an art piece the other night and I have to say it really resonates with what is going on in my life at the moment.

I am still trying to get all of my brothers finances cleared up. Still trying to get the house sold. Still trying to get through to Social Security to get Medicare drug help. Sometimes it feels like I am battling huge dragons with a nothing but a feather. Bureaucracy is just horrendous. Rarely do you get the help you need. Once in a while though someone actually believes that Customer Service means just that. Last Friday I got a letter from Social Security saying they were denying my application for help with the Medicare Drug Costs because they didn’t get back everything they asked for. The first time I got a letter saying they needed something back that I had already sent I called and was assured that our letters got crossed in the mail. I got a man named Jeffrey this time who actually went the extra mile. He looked up my record, said I was qualified for the help, and filed the appeal. He gave me the phone number to call for the appeals people. I left a message yesterday, got a call back today from someone whom I could barely understand, and then got a second call back from a lady telling me the appeal was in process and they didn’t need anything else from me. Yeah Jeffrey!

Yesterday I was trying to get through the confusing telephone prompt menu of the Department of Defense to get some answers on what paperwork they needed to get any unpaid Army pay to my brother Mike’s daughter. I got the wrong department and the man who answered took the time to find out what I needed. He asked to put me on hold for a few minutes saying he understood the phone system and would get the information for me. He came back a few minutes later with the exact information I needed.

So thanks to my two dragon fighters for taking the time to help me out. It is nice to know that their are people in this world who care and will help.

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Thursday Coffee Hour: Feng Shui and Balance

Reposted from Street Prophets: Faith and Politics

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is going on in your life. Lately I have had to try and incorporate elements from my parent’s home into my own. My place is a small two-bedroom apartment with a definite lack of closet space so I had to try and work around the lack of places to store things. I wanted to honor both of my parents who are deceased and my older brother who recently passed away. I also needed to be mindful of my own tastes and things I like. One of the things I have been interested in is using feng shui, yin-yang, and the Tao Te Ching to try and reach a balance. For someone who was brought up Irish Catholic that is quite a new experience. Follow me below the orange squiggly-de-do for one women’s quirky attempt at balance.