Hello everyone! I’m writing to you from America’s Dairyland—Wisconsin!—after driving up here earlier today.
Here’s a doodle of my friend (and Flora’s niece) Little Mouse, who came along, excited about her first big trip away from home without Mom and Dad.
I’m looking forward to reporting on our adventures in beautiful Wisconsin in upcoming posts. To be continued…tomorrow. Have a great night!
Is it too early to be thinking about Easter baskets? Maybe! But this year I won’t be at home for Easter, so I wanted to prepare one for my little sister before I head out of town tomorrow, since she’ll be here visiting Dad on Easter while I’m gone.
Easter baskets are a fond tradition in our family that hasn’t diminished all that much over time. They were important when we were kids, and are still fun to put together, even if there are no kids around—for instance when someone visits, or has an April birthday, or needs a little get-well goody.
Here’a a pretty pink Easter basket I put together (with Charlotte’s help) for Mom when she was in a rehab facility for several months, prior to her death in 2010. (This basket had a lot of ho-hum stuff in it like travel size toiletries, but Mom still seemed to get a kick out of how festive it looked.)
I also had a bit of help putting together this year’s Easter basket for Julie, pictured at the top. Dad rounded up all the candy, and Charlotte put on her bunny suit a little earlier than usual, so she could model for the card.
Kitty also supplied me with something to draw for Dad’s breakfast table doodle this morning, when her bunny suit zipper malfunctioned. (Thanks, Charlotte!)
By the way, you probably can’t see it too clearly in the above snapshot, but the drawing of Charlotte for Julie’s basket got enhanced with a bit of tinted sparkle glue here and there. —Worth mentioning, just in case there are any other magpies out there who, like me, are into glittery, shiny things. This was one of the treats my sister Carol gave me for my birthday, and something I’d highly recommend getting ahold of: a set of 24 little tubes of glitter glue from Martha Stewart Crafts, in delicious subtle colors like, “aquamarine crystal” and “purple sapphire.” Sounds—and looks—pretty yummy, no?
While we’re on the subject of craft supplies and make & do, a few days later Carol had another treat sent my way: Do any of you remember the 1953 classic, McCall’s Giant Golden Make-It Book? My sister and I had been reminiscing about our long lost copy a week or two before, and she ended up tracking down one for me, which was pretty darn thrilling (and very thoughtful of her, too).
I’ll bet a lot of you reading this have books in your own distant past, which, for whatever reason, held you spellbound. When I was a kid, I spent hours pouring over the colorful retro illustrations in the Make-It Book—showing how to decorate a table for a Valentine’s Day party, or make jewelry out of bottle caps and seashells, or a weird and wonderful “chemical garden” (like the kind you used to be able to buy in kits)—fantasizing all the while, not about doing the project, but about the end result. (A lot of the instructions required much, much more focus than my youthful attention span could muster, alas.)
Fortunately, Mom not only had the necessary focus, but, being an artist and graphic designer, she also had the requisite fine motor skills to tackle anything at all in the book, and to make it look even better than the illustrated examples—which was extremely impressive to me, both then and now. I don’t recall her creating any of the “Make-It” Easter baskets that I used to love to study, but I do remember her making her own version of the Jolly Easter Eggs pictured below, creating a fantastic menagerie of egg shell animals—bunnies, chicks, birds, goldfish, chipmunks, etc.— which we would display at Easter for years to come.
Whatever happened to those wonderful “jolly eggs?” Or, to our original copy of the beloved Make-It Book, for that matter? —Just one of the many mysteries of what got kept and what got tossed, that every family or household has.
Something, however, that did get kept (albeit reluctantly), were Carol and my first Easter baskets, pictured below. I love the way Mom labeled them when she stored them away: “Carol and Jean said save. Why?” Well Mom, because just seeing them brings back memories of all the wonderful things they once held—those jolly eggs, the fuzzy toy chicks with the wonky metal feet, the sugar eggs with scenes inside. —Not to mention, the thrill of finding them all, tucked into a basket bulging with candy, on Easter morning.
Is it any wonder I still like Easter baskets?
Have a great Thursday night everyone and a happy Friday tomorrow!
Tonight, Flora and her kitchen helpers set out to tackle Ina “The Barefoot Contessa” Garten’s fabulous turkey sausage and goat cheese lasagna recipe. Even though it’s still a work in progress, doesn’t it look delicious? Charlotte thinks so, anyway!
Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to what is bound to be an excellent late night snack.
I hope all of you reading this tonight are looking forward to some excellent things as well: a good night’s sleep, pleasant dreams, and a great day tomorrow! See you all again on Thursday…
It’s unavoidable, isn’t it? In spring, as Mother Nature embarks on her annual spit and polish of The Great Outdoors, many of us turn our attention to The Great Indoors, washing windows, clearing clutter, organizing closets, etc..
Well, not so much over here.
So thank goodness for Charlotte, her love of heavy machinery, and Gordian Knot approach to spring cleaning. When I heard rumblings overhead late last night and went upstairs to investigate, there she and Daisy Mouse were, happy as clams behind the wheel of a small bulldozer, clearing out the mess in my younger sister’s room. And all just in time for Julie’s visit next week!
My own strengths lie more in the “special touches” department, which includes such things as hand-drawn welcome home signs, a vase of flowers, or some pillow mints. —Which made me reflect back on the welcome-home cat doodle I made for my little sister when she visited last summer.
I still smile whenever I see it, because of how wrong I got it, despite my good intentions. Julie has a condition called Williams Syndrome, which causes her to experience and process things a little differently. For instance, people with Williams tend to have heightened verbal-auditory skills (and she does), but also decreased visual-spatial abilities (which in my sister’s case means that a complicated drawing crammed full of hand-written copy might not be much fun to decipher).
Plus, even though Julie has an excellent sense of humor, she can be a stickler for accuracy in certain situations. So when I asked her how she liked her drawing, she replied (a little sternly, I thought), “Cats say ‘meow.’”
I had to laugh—making it “less talky” was not only a great editorial suggestion, it was one I definitely should have seen coming. (I think she’s going to prefer today’s drawing when she sees it, as I’ve left out the word balloons entirely.)
Meanwhile, I hope all of you fellow night owls are having a good and/or productive evening tonight as I write this, and that my early bird friends are all having sweet dreams—uninterrupted by the sound of heavy machinery.
Even though it wasn’t as warm as it’s been lately, the Mouse family still had a lovely weekend: Papa Mouse enjoyed his Wall Street Journal al fresco with a glass of vino, Momma Mouse caught up on her gardening, Little Mouse got to fly her kite, and Junior Mouse went for a bike ride. And best of all, there was nary a cat in sight the whole time!
So why don’t they look happier, trudging off to work and school this morning?
Personally, I think Monday mornings can be tough, to whatever degree the weekend was wonderful (even though I have a hunch it’s not supposed to work that way).
And maybe the nicest thing to be said about Monday (besides that The Voice is on TV) is, “just four more days until the weekend?”
Regardless, I hope everyone’s reentry into the workplace or school went smoothly today, and that tomorrow’s even better!
Meanwhile, for those of you, like me, who would just as soon spend Mondays under the covers, guess what I found? My old Hookey License circa 4th grade. Feel free to white out my name and fill in yours—next Monday is just around the corner!
This morning Charlotte and her friends headed off to church, like they do most Sundays.
Despite her regular church attendance, I wouldn’t describe Charlotte as devout exactly—aside from “devoutly interested” in the whole social aspect of church, including checking out what everyone else will be wearing. (Much like I was in my own youth, alas.) Whenever Charlotte shows up wearing her “Big Cheese” hat, outfitted with a high protein snack to help get her through the long sermon, she knows she will get many admiring glances. So it’s a hat she wears often, and did today, much to the mousefellows’ delight.
I hope everyone had a restful, restorative Sunday, however you spent it. Sweet dreams on a late Sunday night, and have a great start to the week tomorrow!
Hello to all on a late Saturday evening!
Over dinner earlier, Dad and I were chatting about “doodle rendering techniques,” and how, while they are all fun for me to do—whether ballpoint pen, colored pencil, marker—some are more difficult to scan and/or reproduce than others. Just for fun I decided to take a stab at digitally rendering what was Dad’s hand drawn breakfast table doodle this morning, since a digitally-drawn line drawing reproduces best of all.
Meanwhile, the idea for this doodle came from a sudden drop in temperature last night. Miss Mouse got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, and thought of all her friends, shivering out in the cold. So she invited them all inside for a slumber party. Everyone woke up warm and toasty and happy this morning, thanks to her thoughtfulness.
Sweet dreams, everyone!
There was a great surprise waiting for me in my mailbox at the studio yesterday: some homemade pound cake sent by my thoughtful friend (and an excellent baker), Rebecca—whom you may remember from an earlier post.
So this morning on the breakfast table, along with the below doodle of Max and Flora (both huge pound cake fans), Dad was treated to a tasty sample.
—Though it’s something of a minor miracle that there was any pound cake left by then, due to an unscheduled tasting at 3 AM, when Blackie, Aaron (Charlotte’s dressmaker), and I all got in from the first midnight showing of The Hunger Games. (Doesn’t the title alone make you want to go fix a snack?)
Since this movie has just opened and been very highly touted, I figure you might be thinking of checking it out this weekend, and might like a few more details.
First off, do not take a formerly homeless cat with you to see a film set in a post-apocalyptic society where canned Fancy Feast is no longer available. —Not unless you are prepared to buy him a jumbo-sized popcorn.
Secondly, if there is an aspiring fashion designer like Aaron in your household, he or she will love it. The costumes worn by the residents of the decadent Capitol are pretty wild and over the top! We’re talking fabulous crazy-colored wigs and eyelash extensions, wacky hats, etc.
While watching, Aaron made a lot of (top secret!) costume sketches, but did agree to share these other two scribbles, which I’d explain thusly:
1) Anyone taking a young mouse to see the film should be strongly cautioned: There is a brief cameo by a snarling cat early on (Primrose’s beloved-but-crabby Buttercup, whom everyone else but Primrose loathes).
2) There is a big rat later on who has some very interestingly sculpted facial hair. I don’t think it is much of a spoiler to tell you that even though he smiles a lot, he is bad news, as is nearly everyone else in the Capitol, where the annual Hunger Games take place—an event where teenaged tributes from each of the other districts are pitted against each other in a fight to the death.
(The berries reference is going to make more sense after you see it; trust me.)
From a mouse’s perspective, that is probably all you need to know. From a human perspective, I’d say, I really enjoyed it, but I think it might be more interesting if you read the first book in the Young Adult series before seeing the film (if you haven’t already). It will help fill in some of the gaps. Plus, I think Suzanne Collins is an excellent writer, and I enjoyed the series so much that right after I finished it, I read another one she had written, The Underland Chronicles, though it is probably aimed at an even younger audience.
I’ll be curious if any of you go this weekend, what you think…?
Meanwhile, that’s it for this edition. Time for me to go home and have some pound cake. Thanks again, Rebecca, for a wonderful treat, and have a great weekend everyone!
Artwork by Maira Kalman
After Dad is done with his copy of The New Yorker, he leaves it out for Charlotte to enjoy. The sight of her reading this week’s issue, with its fabulous Maira Kalman illustration on the cover, was one I couldn’t resist doodling…and doodling…and doodling.
So when Dad got up this morning, there were 4 doodles waiting on the breakfast table for him, with a request that he check off his favorite. (Poor Dad—the guy has barely poured his first coffee of the day, and he’s already being asked to play editor/art director.)
Below are the breakfast table versions (including Dad’s pick, lower right); as well as one more I did this afternoon (at the top). What can I say? When inspiration strikes, I tend to like to milk it dry.
While I’ve never met the divine Ms. Kalman, I’ve admired her work for years, (as has Charlotte). If you aren’t familiar with her fun and clever artwork, here’s a direct link to more of her wonderful New Yorker covers. Enjoy!
Happy Thursday night, night owls, and Happy Friday to all of you already in Dreamland (who won’t be reading this until the morning). May we all have inspiring dreams—and inspiring waking hours, too. (TGIF!)
Blackie and crew have been busy getting into character this morning, in preparation for going to see Casablanca later today, over at a nearby multiplex. (It’s been a while since any of us have seen it, as you can probably tell!)
In honor of its 70th anniversary, a digitally remastered version of the film is being shown today, March 21st, for one day only, at nearly 500 theaters nationwide—maybe even at one near you. Here’s a link to TCM’s website, if you’d like to read more about it, or click here for a list of participating theaters.
Have a great Wednesday, everyone!
