Friday, July 8, 2011

Kingdom of the Spiders


You know what I hate about summer?  Bugs.

I have to say, I can't stand bugs.  I can't stand the flies that sneak in my house, the wasps that try to make nests on my eaves, the mosquitos that leave itchy welts on my family, or the spiders that somehow find their way into my bathroom.  And don't get me started on the ants.  In our old house, every single summer, we would have a trail or ants leading into our kitchen. That nearly drove me insane,   The idea of a whole parade of bugs (that apparently couldn't be stopped my any means we could find) marching into the area where we cooked and stored food was just sickening.  I don't mean to sound phobic or OCD about it, but it really bothered me.   We went nuts spreading Diazanon and ant traps and drilling into walls to get at them.






Luckily we don't have the ant issue now.  Mostly just spiders.  At least spiders eat other bugs.  Isn't it bad luck to kill a spider in your house?  I read that somewhere.   There are a LOT of bizarre "bad luck" practices.  Everyone has heard of the opening the umbrella indoors, breaking a mirror, blah blah blah.  But here are some weirder ones.  And the second to last one I just made up.

Putting a hat on the bed is bad luck.
Putting your shoes on the table is bad luck.
Sleeping at the table is bad luck.
Wearing opals, unless opal is your birthstone is bad luck.
Chasing anyone with a broom is bad luck.
Getting out of your bed in the morning on the same side which you got into it the night before.
If you drop a dishcloth, you'll have bad luck with dinner.
If you're juggling 4 weasels, it's bad luck to whistle a song by New Kids on the Block.
When fishing, you must throw back your first fish. The others are safe.



Now here are some bizarre ones-

Pictures of an elephant bring luck, but only if they face a door.



It is bad luck to cut your fingernails on Friday or Sunday.


If you catch a falling leaf on the first day of autumn you will not catch a cold all winter.

If you spill pepper you will have a serious argument with your best friend.



Salty soup is a sign that the cook is in love.
Why do/did people believe this stuff?  I have little doubt that some it is based in practicality- such as a hat being more likely to be crushed if it's on a bed rather than being on a hat rack.  Or sleeping at the table is just plain rude to most people. But the rest just seems to be an attempt and making sense out of our world, and getting comfort from the imagined ability to predict unpredictable events. That's what we humans do; we desperately want to make sense of, or maybe just pretend we have control of a largely unpredictable, uncontrollable world, even if the methods we use are completely without logic or merit!  We're all just scared children, when you really get down to it...we each have our own security blanket.


Okay, I make myself sick if I wax poetic about the human condition too much.  Nobody wants to hear it.  Anyway, I'm still messing around with the string backpacks.  I got a hold of some adult-size ones, and they seem to be working fine.  I should have them up on Etsy by this weekend.  I've already got pre-orders from a few friends and artist buddies!   http://www.etsy.com/listing/76565487/nissa-string-backpack

  And we're crankin' out prints on the fancy-dancy new printer we acquired.  That thing works great, once you figure out all the little quirks.  It even allows you to  print directly onto CD's and DVD's- not labels, I mean directly ON the DVD's!  Pretty cool.  The watercolor paper we use is so much nice-looking than using plain old photo paper.   I've got a couple new ideas of painting on some non-tradional surfaces, too.  And hey- here's the art cabinet we salvaged.  Instead of rebar handles, we found some cast iron ones dirt cheap.  Still in the process of  "distressing" the cabinet...


And here is the Barbie Deathwagon so far.  Gotta attach all the skulls and stickers to it.  This plastic-bonding paint we used apparently takes about 4 days to fully bond to the plastic.  We won't let our daughter play with it,  so she just stares at it and asks if it's dry yet...


That's all I've got.  Well, that's not true.  But that's all I can show you now.  Gotta have a Hostess fruit pie and go to bed. I kinda wish they made blueberry.  THAT would be good.  Alright, I've had enough of you people for tonight.  Disperse.  Show's over, folks.

-Christine

www.crowsfeetstudios.com
http://www.etsy.com/shop/CrowsFeetStudios?ref=si_shop

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