Tattoo + Jasmine Green Tea shortbread

Last night, I made a variation of Habeas Brulee’s  Tea Cookies.  Instead of the oolong she used, I went with jasmine green tea.  I also used orange flower-scented sugar to coat the cookies, because I love flowers in food.  My miniature citrus plants are blooming for the very first time (they’re about four years old now!) and the smell is lovely.  The resulting cookies were well-balanced, not too sweet, and fragrant without any cloying overtones.  I’d love to make these with my Margo-inspired Madge Shelton tea (black tea spiked with rose, spearmint and pink peppercorn).

I’ll be taking a baker’s dozen to the Ink Spot this evening.  We’ll be working on the rose and the poppy this time, which will round out the largest components of the design.  The rose is a Handel, one of my mother’s favorite flowers.  She grew one next to our front door, untrellised, and the carnivorous beast used to demand blood toll from nearly every visitor.  I can’t tell you how many times that damned rose stabbed me in the left arm growing up, so this seems like fitting tribute.  I planted poppies in our garden when we were still considering a backyard wedding, hoping for a sea of orange and red.  They were a prominent motif on our wedblog (along with ginkgo), and I used them in my bouquet for our cheesy awesome Vegas wedding.

All of these pieces of my life are beautiful, especially together.

Mother’s Day

I have two more jewelry slots available before Mother’s Day.  If you’d like to commission some wearable art for your mom, hit me at inquiries@birdofparadox.com

Moms love nests filled with as many eggs as they have children!

Oh noes!

Migrating to Wordpress broke my birthday fund button. Here’s a link.

Round Two!

I went in last night for two hours so Erica could start the color on the flowers. The iris was first, and it’s stunning. It looks like it could rustle with the slightest breeze. The iris is for my grandmother, and I can’t wait to send the photos to her. The lotus was much less time-intensive, but it is no less lovely. I love the pinks and the lovely veining.

Dudes, I am all YARDCORE and stuff.

I’m so very excited. There’s still signficant work to be done, but I’m hoping to get as much done as possible in the spaces between the long weekends of teacher training.

Birthday is May 2nd!

ETA: The Toasterstrumpet informs me the Paypal button has been broken since my Wordpress migration. Here’s a link instead.

Whirlwind craziness

I’ve been quiet because I’ve been conspiring, you see.

About two weeks ago, my dad’s girlfriend had a crazy idea to get me there for the premiere of the documentary, Another Night at the Agora, which details some of the big south Florida bands from the 70s and 80s. My dad’s band, Z-Cars (Zed, not Zee) is one of the bands featured in the film, and I know he’d been hoping I could come to the showing, but knew our finances have been kinda froggy since the heater/ac blew, and then the tornado came fast on its heels.

Anyway, frequent flyer miles were donated, plans were made, and soon, I was in the middle of a crazy 30-hour round-trip worthy of a rock star. We completely snowed my dad, which ruled. I got to watch the movie and then hang with him and all my wacky uncles until unholy hours of the morning. I got to hang with my mother’s best friends, which was surreal and amazing and so very emotional for me. Everyone told stories about how I used to mess with them when they were passed out on the couch; about growing up idolizing my dad; about the force of nature who was my mom. I got to tell funny and appropriate stories to their kids, and see my childhood for the bizarre and wonderful weird thing it was.

As much joy as the surprise brought my dad, I didn’t really expect to be so affected by the visit. I had a moment with Mary Ann (my mom’s best friend) where we realized she was only 12 years older than I was, and it seemed so weird that 12 years seemed so trivial now, whereas when I was a kid, it was an insurmountable chasm. When I was a kid, my life revolved around my father’s bands, and everyone else could have fallen off the planet. Hearing all these bands again made me realize that even if I was outwardly focused on Z-Cars or Cats on Holiday, my innards were gobbling every last riff of these bands. I so clearly recognized every band’s influence in my musical taste.

Best of all, I got to see my dad and the amazing transformation made by a solid, decent relationship. He’s living with a wonderful woman, and her badass daughter. They’re surrounded by warm and supportive friends who obviously love them. I left knowing he was in good hands.

So thanks again to Diane, the mastermind, and Tomey, my lovely benefactress. The weekend was magnificent!

Welcome, Emily Sabine!!

Happy birthday, wonder girl.  I realize you’re very busy sussing out things like breathing and eating and GRAVITY, but hi!  Welcome to the world, beautiful girl!!!

I’m outlined and stuff

Last night, Matthew and I went over to the Ink Spot to see what Erica Flannes had worked up for me. I’d given her concept art, but I am not so much of an artist, so I made sure to include photos, lest I end up with a gigantic vulva instead of an Iris. What she’d worked up made me teary-eyed. I knew she’d come up with something beautiful, but once it’d been realized, I was so emotional and overwrought.

About an hour later, I walked out with the beginnings of my birthday present!!

(if you click the image, you’ll see a tagged version, which explains the flowers)

It’s done in a medium grey, so it won’t have garish outlines. I think we’re heading somewhere semi-realistic, which should just be AMAZING.

I’m going back next Friday, where we’ll be layin’ down some color!

Damages

We actually have power and intarwebz.

Here’s what happened in our neighborhood. Most of the trees around here start branching out well over the tops of our houses, so a lot of these pictures don’t accurately portray the soul-crippling magnitude of these downed limbs.

http://picasaweb.google.com/birdofparadox/TornadoApril42008

It’s Ms. Ms.!! Say Mizzzzzzzzzzz!!!

We need equality. Kinda now.

I’m always stunned when something like this happens. I know I live in the deep south, and I know that I work with folks whose entire careers immerse them in the near- to distant-past. However, this is just crazy.

I got stopped my two people having an animated conversation, evidently engrossed in the subtleties of female honorifics. They were particularly confounded by the pronunciation of Ms. I offered my input (It’s a hardish z sound, like Mizz) and started to leave when one said something about me being a Mrs.

I said, “I actually don’t go by Mrs., I prefer Ms.”

“But you’re married! Only divorced women use Ms.”

I rambled awkwardly about how it most certainly was not a construct for divorcees, but it didn’t seem like any of it sunk in. I’m just so stunned and baffled by such a ridiculous and narrow statement.

For the record:

Many of us think of Ms. or Ms as a fairly recent invention of the women’s movement, but in fact the term was first suggested as a convenience to writers of business letters by such publications as the Bulletin of the American Business Writing Association (1951) and The Simplified Letter, issued by the National Office Management Association (1952). Ms. is now widely used in both professional and social contexts. As a courtesy title Ms. serves exactly the same function that Mr. does for men, and like it may be used with a last name alone or with a full name. Furthermore, Ms. is correct regardless of a woman’s marital status, thus relegating that information to the realm of private life, where many feel it belongs anyway. Some women prefer Miss or Mrs., however, and courtesy requires that their wishes be respected.

Websense Came To Its Senses!

Since some of you were getting my jewelry site/blog/etc. tagged as “sex,” I wrote Websense directly and asked why. on. earth. my blog (which rightfully refers to a wine-poached pear as sex-ass; and talks occasionally about pro-choice issues in a non-explicit way) got blocked.

Thank you for writing to Websense.

The sites you submitted are virtually hosted sites that were not in our database.  However, they share an IP address with other sites in our database which caused an unintended overblock.  These sites have been reviewed and categorized accordingly:

http://blog.birdofparadox.com/ - Social Networking and Personal Sites
http://www.birdofparadox.com/ - Shopping
http://birdofparadox.com/ - Shopping

Categorization updates should be available in the next scheduled publication of the database.  A new database is published every business day, five days a week, Pacific Standard Time.

Thank you for your assistance,

The Websense Database Services Staff

Now, I just need to be sure my other subdomains (like shockra.birdofparadox.com), as well as the other domains our side business hosts, aren’t being hit with the “sexual content” stamp of disapproval.