Gives "Sicker Than a Damn Dog" a Whole New Meaning!

Ramses was sick this weekend.

I mean really sick.

I mean, "Oh, God! Please don't die" sick.

I have no idea what he got into. If I didn't know better, it was almost like poison. Certainly, it was something he ate. But, since he doesn't have access to anything not given to him by my own hand, it's a mystery.

It started on Friday night / Saturday morning in the middle of the night. I've heard horror stories from friends about their dog having to go out several times during the night. That's not Ramses. He's all about going to bed when I do and getting up when I do unless I get up early in which case, he opens one eye, groans, rolls on his back and goes back to sleep. I guess he's hoping it's just a bad dream and I'll be back in bed soon.

By mid-morning on Saturday, he was throwing up ~ a lot! Every time he ate anything he pitched it right back up. He was keeping nothing down. Oh, uck! He was unsteady on his feet. He had no energy. His clown spirit was broken. The worst part was he kept looking at me like, "I feel like hell. Do something."

By Saturday night, he was keeping water down. But, he looked like hell. His hair was all askew; a rumpled mess. A nauseous, disheveled mess. It was hideous.

On Sunday, I was in tears with worry. And, then it hit me. Chicken soup!

I made fresh chicken rice soup for Ramses on Sunday morning. I gave it to him in one cup servings. By Monday night, he was on the mend. He was still a little unsteady on his feet yesterday, but this morning, he semi-bounded up the stairs.

His clown spirit is back. His eyes are sparkly. And, his grin in working order and back where it belongs.

A girl and her dog! All is right with the world!

Chicken soup! Miracle cure, par excellence. Three thousand years of mothers can't be wrong.

Day 61 Everyday Grateful ~

Cool this morning.

Ramses is better.

All is right with the world!

It's Flora, Fauna and Merryweather 24 Hours a Day Around Here!

So, I've been working on a couple of projects all day and have been out of the studio. Usually Ramses goes in the car with me since he thinks we have a collegial relationship and not an owner/property one, but I left him home to read the Great Books or whatever dogs do when you aren't around.

I had taken him out to potty just before I left for my 10:00am meeting. When I got back about 3:00pm, I took him out again. Well, he was very interested in a spot of ivy. So much so that I decided to have him leave whatever he was interested in alone. As I grabbed him collar, the something he was interested in moved the ivy leaves.

Upon closer inspection ~ bunnies!

Another nest of baby bunnies in a new place in the garden.When my friend Zen likened my backyard to Northwest Trek, I scoffed. But, now, it feels a little like Flora, Fauna and Merryweather are leading tour groups through my yard! Very alive, alive oh!

Yes, I know bunnies are nothing but dinner for something larger and in some places are considered vermin, B*U*T, I love having bunnies in the garden. There is something kindah tender and sweet about them.

Day 42 Everyday Grateful ~

Drizzly in the morning,

Bright in the afternoon!

Worked on lots of small projects

Bunnies in the garden!

Lovely.

The Old Tree

It's a blustery day.

The sun is out. The shadows are long.

The wind pushes the branches around.

The branches sigh.

The tall grass in the field bends to the ground.

The dandelions nod.

The clouds race across the sky.

The sun is behind the clouds.

The shadows disappear.

The old maple outside my studio window stands silently.

It's seen seventy-five years of blustery springs.

Sunny summers.

Warm falls and rainy wet Seattle winters.

It's old limbs are clad in thick Pacific Northwest moss.

When the sun is out, the moss glows with shannon green.

Now . . . a mysterious deep olive drab.

The old maple doesn't care.

Ramses doesn't care. This summer he will lie in the cool grass under the shade of the old tree.

All's right with the world . . .

Day 22 Everyday Grateful ~ Quiet day. Snoring dog.

Bunny hopping off to bunny-work. Thankful.

Ramses' First Book ~ I Wish I Were a Wolf

Day 16 Everyday Grateful ~ Sunny!
Cleaning off the conference
table in my studio;
French doors open;
music from the speakers in the courtyard.

Really? Talk about Caught in the Act . . .

I promise you . . . Ramses is not allowed on the sofa.

Update: I just got this from my friend Barb ~

I am SO reminded of Sasha.

As we know dogs do all kinds of things when we are not around . . . ordering Pizza, sampling cuisine from cupboards, wiggling open the refrigerator . . . sending intimidating emails to cats in the neighborhood.

I think this better go up on The Ramalator's facebook page immediately!

xoxoxo

B

And, from my friend, Zen ~

well I gotta show the family that one.....classic.....I'm sure he's thinking if you'd just get rid of the pillows he could be more comfortable & wouldn't have to let a foot hang over like Kareem Abdul Jabar in a twin bed......

Z

 

Day 8 Everyday Grateful ~ the air smelled of beeswax this morning. Lovely.

In Praise of Brandy in the Library

It's raining in Seattle today. Fancy that! I just got back from taking Ramses out for a walk so he could "leave his card" around the neighborhood. He likes showing the other dogs who the "Big Dog" is. It makes him chuckle. I think it has to do with how high up the tree trunk or fence post he can reach or something.

Walking back to the house, the rain has let up and the sunset sky is the loveliest honey/wheat colour along the horizon. So beautiful.

The perfect weather and time of day to sit in the library, put my feet up and read a book.

I love reading. My mother was an antiquarian bookseller. I learned all the book rules from her: never bend the pages to mark your place (that's what bookmarks are for), never lay it open face down (it breaks its back), never remove the illustrations (100% barbarian action). In general, treat books as the treasures they are. Having been raised by a book zealot, I've never understood books as decoration. I also don't understand when I go to someone's home and there are no books. I think it's kindah weird.

When I was a young designer, I was chatting with a friend about a meeting I had with an iconic Seattle interior designer at a reception for Jack Lenor Larsen. Everything about the reception was breath-taking. The meeting with the Iconic Seattle Interior Designer? Not so much.

I waxed poetic about how important it is for established designers to be cordial to new designers. I guess my friend could tell my feelings got hurt. To cheer me up, he started telling me stories about her. I laughed at the industry tales about the aforementioned I*S*I*D; how she terrorized clients, vendors and architects, alike. My friend said his favourite was the time the I*S*I*D designed utterly beautiful bookcases that cost the earth for a very affluent client. The I*S*I*D was famous for bowling people over; sort of like "the light switch stays, everything else goes" with a sweep of the hand. Anyway, the very expensive custom cabinet maker had just finished the installation when the aforementioned I*S*I*D swanned into the room.

"How do you like it," she asked (not really caring about the answer.)

"Ehem, well," they stammered. "They really are beautiful, but . . . ah, well, Jean, we, ah, well, we really don't read."

"Stay right there. I'll be right back," she said. Never one to be deterred, the I*S*I*D immediately got into her car and drove directly to Goodwill and bought enough books by the pound to fill a library. In fact, that library . . .  

God, we laughed our hair off!

Every time I go into a person's real library, I'm reminded of the glory of books, the importance of useless knowledge, the usefulness of important knowledge, and, the importance of the written word. Every day we see the truth of the old adage ~ "The pen is mightier than the sword." Even in the age of twitter and linkedin, when we read about what is happening around the world in real time, we see how the strength of ideas binds people together.

I'm going to celebrate. Hot cocoa and brandy in the library tonight. Like shining the silver and ironing the linen napkins, one of the other things that keeps civilization together.

Oh! Baby Bunnies in the Garden.

It's raining in Seattle this morning.

When I was little, we lived on the Mojave Desert. Nearly every day, I'd go stand on the playground tarmac during recess, tilt my head looking up at the cloudless blue sky and say, "When I grow up, I'm going to live some place it rains every day."

I love Seattle.

I love the way it smells when the air is misty with rain. I love the way it feels when the rain falls in big fat drops. I love the way it sounds on the wooden ceiling of my mid-century house. I love my moss-coated garden art. I love the gentle climate that allows even a garden innocent like me to jette and pirouette around the beds.

Spring is a heady time when the 80# of King Alfred daffodils I planted last fall are optimistically peeking out from their winter slumber. When my husband died in 1996, I really needed to do hopeful things. I found that in planting bulbs. Now, going to the nursery is my hopeful fall ritual. Planting bulbs in the fall shows faith in the future. And, when they come up in spring starting with crocus, I feel profoundly happy. It's a simple thing really ~ but utterly lovely. It gives me a glimpse of what it must feel like to be Vita Sackville-West ~ with a lot less experience, fewer staff and smaller grounds. I live in paradise.

This morning when I took my dog, Ramses, out to potty, he was very interested in something close to the base of a large fir tree. He thrust his nose into the ivy and started to paw around. In all the excitement, he dislodged what looked like a bird's nest. On closer inspection ~ a nest of baby bunnies! They looked to be just hours old. Certainly no more than a couple of days ~ naked, eyes tight shut. They didn't appear to be injured though he messed up the nest a bit in his excitement. I found the three that came out when he lifted their upside down cashmere-lined dome, tucked them back in and dragged Ramses away.

I love knowing I have bunnies in my garden.

Sweet.

Spring must be just around the corner.

Design for the Smallest Bathroom in the World

Let's chat about my design philosophy. I believe in saving my clients' money. I believe in using what we have. I believe in using architectural salvage. I believe in creative design solutions. I believe beautiful design saves money. I believe wonderful design is life-affirming and life-changing.

This past fall I had an opportunity to design a small bathroom in the Ballard. A long-time client of mine called to tell me the tile was falling off the walls in her shower and she didn't have a single second to deal with it because her daughter was at Children's fighting for her life. And, she said, "Keep in mind, I'm on a very tight budget."

Here are the "befores" ~ not terribly inviting:

     

When I went in to see the bathroom, I knew we needed to find a beautiful solution for the lack of storage and the very deep window that had turned into an unfortunate catch-all. Custom storage was out of the question. It was not in our budget.

However, without the "problem" window, the storage and the bathroom wouldn't have been nearly as beautiful. Finding a beautiful solution turned a "difficult, problem" window" into a star! Using a couple of sink bases from IKEA, I effectively doubled the storage space and put it all behind doors. Nothing like zapping the clutter of a very small room for a feeling of deep satisfaction. A beautiful solution! 

Every decision was a constant reminder that money was tight; the budget was the major issue. While the contractors gutted the space and restudded the walls, I started looking for a very small, very pretty vanity. I tried all my favorite salvage haunts ~ 2nd Use, Earthwise, the ReStore, etc. and Craigslist. At the first three, I didn't find a thing. On Craigslist, I scored. I found the fabulous marble vanity and sink for $50.










So, we have a lovely vanity and we have solved the storage. Toilet? The existing one was very plain vanilla. I found a darling one with double flush capabilities on Craigslist for $50. Done.

So, what about the tile, the floor, the shower? Well, one of the most wonderful bathrooms I've ever experienced is in a very small boutique hotel in Florence. I mean the room was tiny by anyone's standards, but, it was glorious. It was all crema marfil marble. Certainly, there was no way to do a marble bathroom on our budget but there were things we could do. What we needed was another beautiful solution. I found some very well-priced honed (not slippery) 6x6 crema marfil marble tiles for the shower floor at Home Depot (who knew?) and around the corner from that there was a pile of large scale porcelain tile that exactly matched it ($2.00 sf) Done! And, beautiful.


I did a quick sketch of the tile layout for the installer. For the walls, I decided on what is called in the trade "French Sanitary White" ~ clean white tile in different sizes with matching trim from Home Depot. A beautiful solution! The final effect is elegant and luxurious. Using the chair rail and braid trim pieces along the formerly difficult window sill established a nice line that allowed the deep window sill to really be the star. Following that line into and around the shower effectively expanded the space visually. Done. And, beautiful.

I matched the wall paint to the crema marfil (a wonderful chamois Sherwin Williams color called "Interactive Cream"), added a band of small 2x2 colored feature tiles in a checkerboard pattern around the bottom of the wall in my client's desire to celebrate the family's Hispanic heritage, bought the glass towel bar on Craigslist, found the wonderful Waterworks faucet (our biggest splurge), added a couple of alcoves and a shelf in the shower, new down lighting, a new fan, and hung my client's Scotty dog art and, voila, beautiful bathroom.

Using a combination of architectural salvage, vintage items and an eye to finding a beautiful solution at every opportunity, I was able to create a luxurious jewel box of a bathroom at a staggeringly low price. All good things when we still face recession worries. And, best of all? I turned problems into challenges and challenges into beautiful solutions.