Virtual Brush Box

🦁 🛖 🦁

Many years ago, when humanity was a child, life was lived on the plains. Lions also lived on those plains. Because of this, people had to look out for lions.

One person said if I pile dirt into a heap and stand on it, I can see farther.

One person said I want to stand on the heap with you and look for lions also.

One person said I want to stand on the heap with you and look down on my neighbors who are not on the heap.

One person said if I pile this rock on top of that rock, I can build a higher heap.

One person said I can move these rocks wherever I want and build a heap at the top of a naturally occurring heap so that I can see for miles around and be seen from miles around.

One person said if I climb to the top of my rock heap, I will stay safe while I burn down my neighbor’s house.

One person said if I combine coal, limestone, and iron ore, I can make my heap really high.

One person said I can make money on stores and offices and bedrooms and observatories in the really high heaps.

One person said since the steel heap is supported from the inside, I can have glass all around the outside. I can seen everything everywhere.

Many people said, we want to live on that very high heap.

And that is why cities have tall buildings. Because inside each of us is a 100,000-year-old ancestor looking out for lions.

🏙️ 🦁 🏙️

Afterword

Inspiration for form. The story percolated in the the same “ridiculous fable” space as last week. The result is not really a fable and not really ridiculous, but that was where the idea began. Therefore, a second thank you to Imperfect Patience: YOU MIGHT TEACH WRITING & Imperfect Patience: FRAMES & RLP. [How The Computer Keyboard Got Its Numbers]

Inspiration for content. New online class, UC Graham: From Istanbul to Cairo: The City in the Historical Novels of the Middle East. Expect to hear more about Cairo, Istanbul, and cities in general.

The bit about burning down the neighbors came from Florence, care of Professor Palmer, “These all-stone buildings were also fireproof, leading to a terrible but effective tactic: take your family, treasures & goods up into your tower then set fire to enemies’ homes and let the city burn around you while you sit safe above.” Ex Urbe: The Lost Towers of the Guelph-Ghibelline Wars.

Onwards!
Katherine

Views of the outside world. EarthCam: Top of the Rock & NYC Live Cam: Empire State Building. For giggles, ESB: Exhibits, scroll down to Kong.

~~~

Moving forward with post-production of photos. This month, pushing buttons as a way to ease into the process. Two from the color menu. One from the filter menu. [Step Zero, Photo Editing]

Original, reposted. [When?]

Colors > Saturation. Low. A little bit more what it looks like IRL. Some areas, such as the mid-ground and street level, look better. Some areas, such as the background, look a little too blue. I suspect the answer is to adjust the blue as well. I will leave double buttons for a later effort.

Hard to see the difference unless compared to the original.

Colors > Saturation. High. As an intentionally weird effect.

Colors > Threshold. Mostly an effect. Adjusted a bit darker to bring out the central building.

Filters > Light & Shadow > Supernova. Used the base color and shape for the nova. Another artistic effect.

Thus ends today’s effort. Result, one serious, three goofy. Lessons learned. I can see the point of the serious. The goofy is more fun.

Previous Post Production Ponderings

[Foto Friday: Spotted in GIMP] 2013

[Pondering Post-Production Processes] 2020

Maybe this time I’ll stick with it.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Several cat foods have been recalled due to bird flu. Keep an eye out. I would assume that dog foods may follow. Ditto.

~~~

The good news is that Rose is speaking out more. The bad news is that she’s doing so because her needs have increased.

Unfortunately, she began having problems with her back a week or so ago. At 2 am, she was fine. At 6 am, she was wobbly. She recreated in a few hours what took Jasmine several months. Vet lit agrees that there are two types of this problem, one slow onset, one fast.

Fortunately (unfortunately), we know how to shift Basset bulk and could ramp up immediately.

Unfortunately, Rose did not initially like the constant attention of minions. Jas saw it as her due.

Fortunately, Rose is getting used to being hauled about. She is realizing than the minions are trying, even if we get it wrong.

Unfortunately, she can be just mobile enough to get up and wobble off.

Fortunately, she’s coming to accept living in easily accessible spots, rather than hiding in corners as she prefers. She has discovered that the floor of the entry way is an excellent kitchen monitoring position.

Unfortunately, she has been know to bite off more than she can chew. Go running around the yard and be worn out the next day. Go up the hall to empty the cat dish and run out of steam partway back down the hall. Portable fencing has been deployed.

Fortunately, she is learning to go slowly when she is walking. She is learning to accept help. She is learning to ask for what she wants, i.e. Minion, more water. Minion, I require being taken outside.

Unfortunately, we hadn’t realized how much work a wobbly dog entailed because Jas eased us into it slowly.

Fortunately, Rose still does outside things outside.

Unfortunately, she is a 13-year-old Bassett Hound with spinal cord issues.

Fortunately, we are doing what we can with what we have, for now.

Dog posts [archive]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Small candle. In weaning self from Audible, I signed up for Hearts of Space, an ambient music site. My card was declined for being “out of character.” Apparently, the banking bots think I am unmusical. They are not wrong. The last time I spent money on music, it was probably a CD. I did get it sorted. I now listed to music instead of audio books to fall asleep.

~~~

Content warning. Medical miscellany. If that’s not your thing, you might want to come back tomorrow.

I don’t bruise. I get hurt, I have pain, but I never develop the technicolor, dramatic skin tones that garner sympathy. I’m more likely to be in the position of pointing at my pale, pasty skin and saying, “No, really, this hurts.”

Therefore, after getting landed on by well over half a ton of horse, all my poor foot had to show for it was a small scrape on the arch. As gravity worked its magic, a small bit of discoloration appeared and worked its way down to the toes. [Playing Footsie]

Saturday afternoon, day 3. I don’t recall what moved me to take a photo of my foot.

And then.

Heavy storms Saturday evening. Weather folks imploring people to take this seriously. 5 out of 5 on the sh*t hitting the fan scale. Spent most of Saturday afternoon watching local weather guru James Spann point at various parts of the state on his screen.

And then he pointed to our part of the state.

And there we were, in the polygon.

Kennel Up and move everyone to the basement. Multiple trips. Fortunately some of the cats are willing to cuddle puddle so it wasn’t even more trips up and down the stairs. Then going up and down to check the tv since there is no reception in the basement. Going up and down to check the YouTube channel when rain fade took out the broadcast. Pacing. Okay, clear.

And here we go again. It was a long night. We got to bed four hours later than usual.

My foot was not pleased.

Sunday, post storms.

Turns out, I do bruise. But it takes several tornado warnings to make it happen.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. “We know this is not a particularly satisfying answer in light of the many concerns that we have heard from you about our members who need to enter the United States and what they might encounter trying to cross the border.” Seattle2020: Statement From Worldcon Chair, Bond, March 20, 2025. This is who we are now. Although I am not a fan of panel discussions, I have signed up for a virtual membership to this year’s Worldcon in support of their efforts.

~~~

Last Tuesday, I posted about my foot getting stomped. I wrote and scheduled the post on the Friday before due to possible power outage over the weekend. [Playing Footsie, Morning Walk Stories, Or Lack Thereof]

I was mostly correct. It did take a few days. Now it’s taking a few more days. Recovery always takes longer than you want.

One good thing. As we have gotten older, we have accumulated a growing pile of wraps & braces. A quick survey turns up one or more therapeutic items for back, knee, ankle, finger, and as it turns out, foot. It’s basically an Ace bandage in sock form. It keeps my foot bones from spreading when I walk. Since Rodney’s weight hyper-spread them, the bones, tendons, and other foot mechanisms are happy to be held together. Makes a world of difference.

How are the horses handling it?

The incident curtailed our Wednesday walk. No walks thru Saturday. On Sunday, we did a short walk. Gradually built back to the standard five laps.

On the first day, I declined to lead Rodney at the start. Let someone else drag him out of the barn and get him going. I had to lead him for the rest of the walk, but I started with Milton.

Milton was fine with it.

Same on day 2.

Day 3, Milton was over it. ‘This is not how this is done.’ Hello Mr. Crankypants.

Day 4. We went back to status quo ante. Harmony reigned.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Forbes: Do Boycotts Work? As Target’s Traffic Declines, Tesla And Others See Consumer Shifts, Melville, Mar 17, 2025.

~~~

Last Thursday night was below freezing, once again.

Blankets. Drain the barn pipes and hoses. Hot water for drinks.

Standard freeze protocol. Truthfully we blanket and serve hot water on chilly nights anyway. Truthfully truthfully, they get silver tea every night, even in summer. They like it and we like to see them drink. But I digress.

Temps dipped below freezing for a few hours, so we did not have to break out the deep freeze protocol, i.e. completely draining the water system, wrapping the faucet, and double blanketing the horses. This was warmer, relatively, so less stress.

We’re all good and done with this for a while. Cross fingers.

One upside to cold weather is hot chocolate.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. “There was no such thing as ‘handwriting’, even – because there was no such thing as ‘writing that wasn’t done by hand’. There was just ‘writing’.” Calligraphy Skills: History of calligraphy (and ‘calligraphy’) in Europe.

~~~

Process Notes

We’ve all see fantastic, swoopy, swirly letter embellishments. Alas, these are not my forte. [Swashes 2016, Faith 2019, Anniversary 2022]

Hence, square flourishes. I apologize to any traditional calligraphers out there who are appalled. I do it out of love.

I tried to keep the flourish related to the structure of the letter. Some more successful that others. A few have squares that are part of the letter rather than flourishes, i.e. add-ons. Looking at you, F. Oh well, artistic license.

No attempt at a cohesive alphabet. Quite the opposite. Tried to do different things with each letter. The result is a bit of a visual mess, but I think there is something there. It’s still a WIP. Perhaps more small squares at the end of strokes, as with R? Endless possibilities.

Inspiration

What Is A Flourish? an online presentation by Nina Tran for the Washington Calligraphers Guild. All artistic errors mine.

WCG Posts. I have a tangential interest in calligraphy and live nowhere near DC. However, if you have the slightest interest in the field, I recommend joining Washington Calligraphers Guild for their outstanding zoom presentations.

[Genealogy Linkfest, Family On The Blog] from lettering Your Lineage with Holly Monroe.

[Shapes In Blue, Geometric Art] from a presentation by Aisha Changezi.

[Welcome Winter, Graphic Art] from Alphabets & Letters & Accordion Books, Oh My! by Julie Wildman.

WCG runs the Graceful Envelope Contest. [2024, 2023, 2022]

Onwards!
Katherine