Sad day: the Rosa Mulliganii came down (08-30-08)

This is totally hearsay, but this is as I understand it: the people who seemed (semi-)interested in the house apparently came to see it with their parents, and the parents may have preferred another house that had just come on the market, etc. Result: no offer.

In the meantime, since we had apparently nothing better to do today, we spent the afternoon cleaning the yard, and filling the trailer with year debris.

G. cut down the climbing rose (rosa mulliganii) from the cedar tree, a sad thing, since it took me 14 years to get that thing to climb up and stay in the upper branches rather than snagging me as I walked by. (Picture me standing up on a chair and trying to get the long thorny shoots to loop over the cedar branches with a rake held up high over my head, and them cascading down on head). Anyway, we did this after an arborist had assured G. that the rose would eventually block the sunlight from reaching the branches, and thus impede needle production, etc. So, it's been all cut down. G. was very happy, I guess, as happy as anyone can be after quasi-nagging me for 14 years about how the rose-this and the rose-that, and he finally got to take it down.

Looking up this rose on the web tonight, I just found out that it is the "perfect" rose to grow on cedar trees. Whatever. I have, like, so much moved on mentally that I don't care. All that's left is the base and the roots, and that, I am going to dig up and take with me wherever I go. No point leaving anything that people won't appreciate. Call me cynical; I just take comments that my yard is a "jungle" rather personally.

In the end, and surprisingly enough, the yard looks bigger. Let's see if that gets us some traffic, haha, and maybe people will notice that there IS a yard, all 60 x 100 of it.

Procrastinating...again (08-27-08)

Well, today, we had another one of those speed-clean-the-house moments, because the house had to be shown. It's pretty difficult to keep everything clean all the time. What is even more annoying is to hear lame "feedback" comments and complaints, such as "But there's no yard..." (said in an annoying nasal voice). Yes, there IS a yard: right in front of the house and on the side of it. No, it's not a private yard where you can romp around in the nude, but it IS larger than the standard city lot.

Consequently, I still haven't posted any drawings.

Phil Spector: An Interesting Face and Name (ca. 08-08)

This is an old drawing I did in 2007 from a newspaper photo of 60s record producer Phil Spector during his first trial for murder.
I'm not trying to be funny here, but the name kinda matches the face...

Coming soon... (08-10-08)

...to this blog: Maxine's posts in comics format.

Yessiree, it'll be FUN, it'll be THOUGHT-PROVOKING, it'll be AMAZING!!!

(I can hardly wait.)

Family Tensions (08-10-08)

Gotta post this, it's too funny...

I just love these quick comic sketches I drew thinking of Gary when he got upset one day, as an idea for a possible comics story.

I tried to work on the expressions and the movement

First impressions (08-09-08)

All right. It's time to get this stuff posted and stop berating myself for not doing anything creative. In fact, I got more creativity than I know what to do with, but what I don't have is MOTIVATION. So, in an effort to remedy the problem,

HELLO WORLD,

MAXINE HAS HEREBY STARTED HER SUPRA-EXCITING BLOG IN WHICH SHE WILL TELL IT ALL TO ALL, AND LIFE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME, etc.

(PS: the above text was not yelling; it was just an official announcement)

Maxine's BD: The Gums-Gone-Bad, Part 2 (05-29-08)

Where teeth-related problems continue...

Maxine's BD: The Tell-Tale Teeth, Part 1 (05-23-08)

...Where P. shares her dental woes.

Performance Art in Brussels (11-23-07)

On my last evening in Brussels, I witnessed one of the most chilling art performances ever: women of all ages wearing wedding dresses, dancing on the Grand' Place in front of the Brussels City Hall.

It was eery; ghostlike figures moving about, some quickly, some dragging their feet, in turn grotesque or gracious...

The Interpretation of Marriage

I approached to get a better view of what they were doing. They were miming various tasks and the impact marriage had on the condition of women, ranging from exaggerated bliss to extreme suffering.

Then the doors to the City Hall were open, and the group went upstairs, followed by the crowd that had been watching their performance.

The interesting thing about the Brussels City Hall is that the room where weddings take place is never open to the public outside of an actual such event, and so this was an exceptional opportunity to see it. Good grief! Gorgeous! And as spectacular as the outside...

The women put on another performance, this time, to beautiful, sad music. It was enchanting.

Inside the Brussels City Hal

Women Faces

With only a few hours before my flight back to the United States, I already felt very homesick for Belgium, even though I was still there.

I reluctantly left after 10 PM, looked once again at the market place, now dark, deserted, and went my way, full of regrets unexpressed.

Older Post: Trip to Europe (09-18-07)

Our trip to Europe in a nutshell: it was super-expensive (but fun). We were limited by time and very strapped for money; it was stressful at times (I ran out of cash after one week, and had to use my credit card for the rest of the trip). I did much window shopping, since I couldn't afford to buy anything, but I still bought a few good books and some food treats (which have all been eaten...) We enjoyed the best summer, sunny weather. We went to see the Grand-Place in Bruxelles. It's still as gloriously luminous as ever. We went up to the top of the cathedral in Köln (Cologne). I wrote my name in tiny letters over someone else's graffito way up at the top of the tower. We saw a comic play by Molière in a medieval castle. We ate well, but got bored at my godmother's. We had fun at my brother's and sister-in-law's. We drove to a lot of places at breakneck speeds. We had a family reunion at my aunt's and uncle's. We forgot to take a photo with everyone. We went to my grand-parents' village, and Valérie saw her great-great-great-grand-parents' tombstone. Once again, I saw the little staircase my grand-father and I climbed on when we went for a walk to the forest when I was five years old. I looked in through the windows of the big, gloomy house where I lived when I was eight. It still had the same wallpaper in the entryway as it did back then. We ate the best french fries in the world, and Valérie rappelled down a cable from the top of the cathedral in Malmédy, Belgium. We went four days/three nights to Paris, and it wasn't long enough. I love Paris. Every time I go, there is something new about it. We walked all over Paris, looking for lavender ice cream, but didn't find any. But we found some pretty good places for gelato. We went up the towers of Notre-Dame and touched the gargoyles. Valérie wanted to see the catacombs and the sewers, so we did. It was sad and smelly, in that order. We went to see Monet's garden in Giverny. Much adventures ensued, including an arduous 45 minute-long walk along a busy highway, in the Normandy countryside under a hot blazing sun... We almost missed our train out of Paris, because we went to the wrong train station (Gare du Nord), and had to run with our bags all the way to the right station (Gare de l'Est), and barely made it. We went on the TGV from Paris to Luxembourg. On the way back, we experienced long, unexplained delays at airports, poor service from rude Continental airlines employees, etc. We waited in endless lines for hours, got stranded in Newark for one night, and had to drag our luggage from airport to hotel and back again. (What a drag to get home under these circumstances...)

Older Posts: I love shoes (ca. 2005. 2004, 2003)

ca. 01-05

These sketches came from different sketchbooks. I have a shoe obsession; there is something about the shape and the color, and how legs look so much prettier with certain styles of shoes...

Done on 04-23-04

My beloved Killer Shoes...

Fremont Bridge (07-04)

Here is a view of the Fremont Bridge from the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, while I was waiting for news about Christopher's possible appendicitis.

Older Post: Hawthorne Bridge (2004)

I did this drawing of the Hawthorne and Marquam bridges from inside an office building in downtown Portland.

This sketch was over my desk area for a very long period of time. I liked to look at it, then look out the window to compare my work with the view outside...

The Akwarius (ca. 01-04)

This is some of my older work, originally done in my 2004 sketchbook. I decided to post it here because I like it and I still find it pertinent and meaningful.

Sketchbook layout

Gaping Into the Abyss (09-11-01)

Words cannot describe the horror.