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Jeff took us cross country skiing for xmas! It’s been forever since I’ve been skiing so it was a real treat, absolutely beautiful, too.

We floundered about a bit, but not as badly as this bird, apparently:

Poor thing must’ve done a beakplant before finally managing to take off!

We went up a couple of switchbacks(just to make it really fun for the neophytes in the group)-definately earned our very MEATY lunch.

David and Jeff managed to get an excellent fire going(in the snow!) and we had an awesome sirloin(roasted on skewers), port, meat pasties(brought by the amazing Marina) and chocolate dipped baby orange brunch.

Not to mention ending the evening in a hot tub! Whoohoo!

A lovely xmas day.

You can see the rest of the pretty pics here.

…to really make a kid’s christmas.

Dang ebay cheatin’ bastidges!

Sam was frantic last night-the present he’s been working on for months(for M’kehla and Rowan) went missing!

I ordered sleep and said we’d look for it in the morning…

So, as soon as we woke up, before he could get back into panic mode, I organdized a Systematic Search Party to the tune of his favorite soundtrack-Pirates of the Caribbean.

It worked perfectly, within 15 minutes, we’d found the object in question and Christmas was once again possible.

I highly reccommend the Pirates soundtrack-it’s grand, inquisitive, adventurous, rousing-excellent ransacking… er, I mean investigating the whereabouts of missing items, music.

Our Triple Goddess Housewarming party was a grand success!

Rachael amazed us with a constant flow of sumptuous appetizers from 2 in the afternoon ’til… well, dang near until the party ended around midnight. Goat cheese stuffed pears delicately wrapped with Salumi bacon, Green lipped mussels in saffron vanilla bean sauce, Lemon balm tartlets-it was almost overwhelming, the horn of gourmet plenty flowing from our tiny yellow circlet of a kitchen.

Unfortunately my pics of her culinary delights were all blurry, but I did manage to get a good one of my cucumber-striped smoked salmon fish.

I also made a lovely roasted butternut squash soup and the now famous pompom fruit salad,

The guests managed to arrive in the perfect wavelike formations too, more coming just as a few departed, so the house was pretty much kickin’ for 10 straight hours!

The kids built a gingerbread house and my mom organised a ‘play’ where M’kehla, Sam and Ben(gamely standing in as an honerary kid for the occassion) performed Dr Seuss’s Fox in Sox. To my surprise and delight, Sam got into it, despite the terrifying size of the completely adult audience and did an incredible job of the tweetle beattle battle, noodle-eating poodle and all.

There was drumming and dancing and giggly contact improv girl piles on the stairs-which led to an excellent impromptu rendition of Eileen’s spanking poem-on my very own staircase!

I’d say our house has been properly warmed and swarmed.

Last week’s studio was so much fun! I painted Danni and Lucy, transforming them once again into Snowqueen and Sungoddess for the Little Red Studio’s Solstice celebration.

They were so fun to work with, dancing and striking beautiful yoga poses during the painting, making me giggle and snort.

I wish I could have taken pictures of the rest of the evening. My mom created a ritual for the solstice and Jeff, Sophie, David and I performed it with her… Maris and DB singing and chanting in Latvian all the while. It came out beautifully-the costumes I improvised out of flannel sheets worked out splendidly!

I also got to play Queen of the Poetry Posse for the night, coiled coyly on the altar, attended by my three gorgeous ladies and two gentlemen. I was nervous, but pulled it off and we all read well-including Danni(reading for the first time at the studio!).

It’s nice to impress people even when your legs are shaking.

but a crotchCANNON?!?

Is that like Rambo’s wet dream or what?

(link via Daniel-king of cool, wierd links for the amusement of little boys)

Yay!!!

OK, so I went a little overboard when Daniel told me he had the original Godzilla movie and suggested we do a special Godzilla dinner…

But once I had the idea of dino kale in my head(the perfect warty, green, crenellated ‘zilla skin), well, I just couldn’t stop myself!

And who could resist building Tokyo-blasting it down and eating it?

Certainly not my mayhem-minded crew!

Sam didn’t have the heart to kill the God though and we were all pretty stuffed, so when I opened the fridge in the morning…

RARRRRRH!

So excited to see Joanna Newsome tonight! Love her lyrical storytelling ballads… You have to listen closely to every line, or you’ll miss pearls and pearls of her precious words.

I can’t wait to hear them actually pour out of her mouth! I hope the whole audience is breathlessly silent.

“En Gallop”

this place is damp and ghostly, I am already gone
and the halls were lined with the disembodied
and dustly wings
which fell from flesh
g a s p l e s s l y

and I go where the trees are
and I walk from a higher education
for now, and for hire

it beats me but I do not know
it beats me but I do not know
it beats me but I do not know
I do not know

palaces and stormclouds
the rough straggly sage and the smoke
and the way it will all come together
in quietness in time

bitch, you laws of property
bitch, you free economy
bitch, you unending afterthoughts;
you could’ve told me before:

never get so attached to a poem, you
forget truth that lacks lyricism,
never draw so close to the heat, that
you forget that you must eat, oh

in order to make
the music
seems i must break so many things
turn over
like bracken and sea shrapnel
graced by the tongue of the beetle-green sea

let each note be
a full-bodied song
enough fingers
enough toes
skin to cover
the wreckage
bloody beat
enough belly
enough feet