fuzzy balls

look out tennis world, shauna and i have taken to the hard court. after a marathon three day session of play in some summer heat we're taking a few days to recover before we hit the courts again this weekend. look out mr. jiggles, yer goin' down! - for those not in the know mr. jiggles is the name of my gut.

gail watching

in what could best be described as a redux of the koched! post from a couple of months back i was able to surreptitiously snap a photo of shauna with a sort-of celebrity; this time it was top chef's pudgy judgy gail simmons at bar pitti in the west village. one day someone is going to catch me in the act and knock me out.

labia sebucula

labia sebucula, or "lip sweater" for those of you not versed in latin. no doubt you've all noticed a pretty steep decline in my may posting totals. my knee jerk reaction would be "hey, i've been busy, doing a little more teaching than usual, i just don't have as much time for crafts and such that i used too have". that sentiment might be disingenuous. i think the real problem might be my clean shaven face. since the "lip sweater" went away i'm not feeling as inspired or clever as i once did. maybe it's one of those samson kinda deals. no worries all, i'll find my drive again.i refuse to remain moxie free. keep checking in and i'll keep trying to entertain; and here's one more look for the road: oh how i miss you my old friend. r.i.p.

word to my mutha!

happy mother's day mom, thanks for all your mumly ways

red sox yankees part 3

nine brooms for the nine games in the home-stand sweep. the sox swept the yankees tonight, won nine in a row at home and ten in a row overall. oh, and jacoby ellsbury stole home. delicious.

red sox yankees part 2

well, the sox prevailed again. there was about a dozen lead changes in the game, it was the sixth longest 9 inning regular season game ever and the sox came back from a 6-0 deficit to win 16 to 11. the animated corpse of jason varitek hit a grand slam and the terrier had six rbi in the win. the sunday game starts after eight, lets hope i can make it through. go sox

red sox yankees part 1

it's no secret to anyone that jimmy likes his baseball. what jimmy really, really likes is some red sox yankees baseball. last night was the first of eighteen games that will be played between these two teams during the regular season. watching sox games in the yankees tv market is always bittersweet; i get to see my team play, but i'm also forced to listen to the y.e.s. network announcers. every time i hear michael kay speak i throw up a little bit in my mouth. last nights game featured this over-hyped - and over-fed - "athlete" pitching for the yankees: it was really the worst sort of game for about three and a half hours, the yankees getting a gifty call, joba pitching lousy but still weaseling his way out of trouble with four double plays and the red sox just looking lousy with the bats. if i had a temper i would have thrown something. then the magic happened; in the ninth inning, down by two runs with two outs and youk on base "new manny" jason bay came in to face mo rivera - arguably the games greatest closer. before i get into what happened, it is worth taking a moment to talk about "new manny". sure i loved manny back in the day but his antics, lazy baseball play and all-around doucheyness eventually meant he had to go and he was replaced with bay. this is manny in the field: and this was "new manny" last night: this is manny standing at home plate after a home run celebrating himself: and "new manny": back to last nights game - two outs, one on, down by two runs and jason bay crushed a home run off mo to tie the game. he quietly rounded the bases - so canadian - not even smiling - not because he wasn't having a good time - but because, as he later explained, "Until you win the game, it's really hard to jump up and down and get all excited about anything..." he almost looked like he felt bad for rivera. in the eleventh inning youk hit a walk-off home run against demaso marte, a pitcher not so good like mo. youk was not afraid to celebrate: with the game now over even "new manny" enjoyed the moment "...once Youk hit that ball, it was a relief and we could enjoy it a little more, winning that game makes all the difference in the world in enjoying it." and if you enjoy youk's beard you will definitely enjoy beardoftruth.com. till part 2 tomorrow...

ice cream social

this year has not been kind to my blogging output; first i was working too much to stay consistent, now i'm finding myself in a bit of a creative rut. lucky for me i had the raw material to post about a kick-ass ice cream social i had with heather and shauna two weeks back because truth-be-told i don't find anything else quite as inspiring as ice cream. we had some nice weather so we were cruising j.c. in our bocho when we came across torico's homemade ice cream parlor. they have a deal where you can sample eight single scoops of different flavors. we all took it very seriously, sampling each flavor, rinsing between bites and ranking our choices. the flavors in play were chocolate chunk, chocolate chip mint, cinnamon, coffee, dulce de leche, vanilla peanut butter, butter pecan and coconut joy.you can see shauna's final rankings next to our empty cups.all told just a wonderful experience. they advertise having sixty flavors, i think i'll keep it up until i've tried them all.

gold

sometimes i come across this sort of thing when searching for images. just super!

squirrel

this painting was hanging on the wall of my house throughout my childhood:i fancy myself the artistic type and i went to film school so one would figure i have at least decent powers of observation. for the purpose of this post most importantly i love cute furry animals so how is it that i missed out on this:it wasn't until my most recent trip home that shauna pointed that little guy out to me. i'm so disappointed in myself. it might be time to reevaluate this whole artist thing. how can i teach children to appreciate art when that super-magical squirrel was right in front of my face for all those years without me ever noticing. alas, i'm forced to lament the lost time we could have spent together.

opening day

sorry i've been so absent again. I've got some good stuff to post soon; some fun drawings from when shauna and i were stranded in the airport in carolina, a video of papi giving me a bath and some pics from an ice cream social we had with heather. for today i just wanted to acknowledge that the baseball season has begun. the sox got rained out, but the yankees newest - and fattest - pitcher got shelled so not a bad day all around. see you tomorrow.

birch tree beehive

i started a new painting today. this is it a couple of hours in.

unearthed during some research

why i think this is funny sort of speaks for itself.

finished pencil box

these are some pictures of the pencil box i made for shauna. the kitty, inside and feet of the box are prussian blue; the color on the body of the box is just a thin coat of white gesso. I covered the whole thing with a coat of shiny varnish.

finished spoons

i've finally finished the wooden spoons i was working on. the top spoon is for me, while the bottom spoon is to be sent of to isreal for the mum of a friend of my sisters. the pencil box is nearly complete as well; it just needs a coat of varnish. i'll post a picture of it tomorrow in all of its painted and shiny glory.

pencil box progress

the little pencil box i'm working on is coming along nicely. all that's left to do is gesso, compose a design, paint and varnish. hopefully i'll finish it up by tomorrow.

happy st patrick's day

i don't really know what this picture is all about - although it does seem vaguely offensive - but this is what comes up when you google irish monkey. anyway, happy paddy's day. i'll be crafting all day; i have several wood-working projects going right now so i'll be spending the day on the stoop sanding wooden spoons and cutting tiny bits for a pencil box i'm working on. these are some pics of my early progress. enjoy the day.

preview of things to come

blogjamming readership is way down since before thanksgiving when my old hand turkey post created all of that internet buzz. so, while i'm not sure who's reading this, i am pledging here and now to increase my output, and will do so over the next two weeks with arts and crafts posts, hopefully some comic book progress posts and a several part series - à la my spring training posts - on some comic book artists that i'm looking at right now or were influential in initially getting me hooked on the medium back in the day. as for why i've posted this picture of papi, just look at the guy and his doppelgänger bobblehead. as always adorable. see you monday.

a stroll through the old hood

now that i'm living in j.c. i don't get back to the old hood very often; this will no doubt change when the weather picks up and zummy puts their tables back out on the sidewalk. ah yes! sun, german beers and wieners! i happen to be on second street yesterday and passed a community garden on second street, a few blocks from the old apartment that had some new decor. i love this bit of muralling and thought i should put it up on blogjamming. spring break is starting tomorrow for both of the schools i've been working at so expect and increase in post frequency and arts and crafts output.

snow day!

to celebrate my first snow day as a teacher here are some pictures of monkeys in the snow. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!