STTT — Spunk testing the twine

Spunk does the five F's — Finally Finished Fixing Frail Falling apart winnowing basket. Spunk had a sixth F in there, but since this is a family oriented blog, I'm only posting five F's.  

Positioning pliers.

Alignment looks good.

Najar checking out Spunk's handy paw and tooth work.

Sasha Approves.

"Hey Rosencrantz! What do you think of my F'ert For Fixing Frail Falling apart basket?"

"You did a wonderful job Spunk. Here's a lick For Finishing Fixing Frail Falling apart winnowing basket"

Since I threw all the paper sacks in the recycling bin, Spunk had to take a nap in the basket after he Finally Finished Fixing Frail Falling apart winnowing basket.

Laurie put the last of the top stitching around the edge after Spunk Finally Finished Fixing the no longer Frail Falling apart winnowing basket.

Spunk checking out the original sewing on the winnowing basket

I notice a lot of people do photo challenges on their blogs. I don't quite understand photo challenges, and I have never done a photo challenge. I started thinking if I did a photo challenge what would I do. After some thought, I decided the most challenging photo challenge I could do is to stop doing photos. So I thought maybe a good challenge for the new year would be to do a no photos photo challenge. But I was told that would be too much of a challenge for me and I couldn't do it.  So I guess I have to press on doing photos sin photo challenges.

While I don't do photo challenges, I seem to do the same thing the first of the year every year which is to help make black eyed peas, eat black eyed peas, and post photos of cats on January 1st (at least for the past three years: 2016 —  http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2016/1/more-spunk-in-the-new-year, 2015 — https://photoofthedayetc.wordpress.com/2015/01/01/2014-in-review/, 2014 — https://photoofthedayetc.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/new-year-nyuu-kitty/). Well 2017 isn't much different except for the process of making black eyed peas started with repairing the winnowing basket  we use to sort the peas. The basket has been coming apart for awhile, but it recently really started to come apart. We believe we got the basket as a wedding gift 34 1/2 years ago, and it has been really useful all those years for harvesting fruits and vegetables and sorting beans before washing them. After the stitching on the basket started coming apart, I started looking for a winnowing basket in a similar size and shape. While winnowing baskets are readily available, finding one as large as this one in any shape is almost impossible. All I have found that is similar are vintage winnowing baskets that are supposed to be displayed as fine art, and they are priced like fine art.  So Laurie found some hemp thread, soaked the basket in water, we clamped it back together, and Laurie and Spunk sewed it back together with the hemp thread.

Spunk then supervised as we filled a stock pot of black eyed peas with water, Spunk was outside the pot this time, to soak the black eyed peas before cooking them. Spunk was a really good help, and worked so hard that he hit the sack early.  Several people came over this afternoon and we all ate black eyed peas for good luck in 2017. Spunk was sacked out and didn't get up until after everyone had left.

Making sure the clamps are in place

Threading the needle

Pulling the thread tight

Pondering another spit in the basket

Watching the water level on the black eyed peas

Checking out some peas floating around on top

Testing the wetness

Tired after all the work on the winnowing basket and preparing the black eyed peas, Spunk hit the sack.

The year of our Lord two-thousand sixteen was a strange year with many celebrity deaths, increased violence all over the globe, politics turned on its head in most of the free world, and a lot of people struggling simply to survive.  Two-thousand sixteen is the only year in the 21st Century that has 36 positive divisors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 28, 32, 36, 42, 48, 56, 63, 72, 84, 96, 112, 126, 144, 168, 224, 252, 288, 336, 504, 672, 1008, 2016, and it didn’t seem that much good came out of a year with so many divisions. 

The average positive divisors for all the years in the 21st Century is 8.6, with the only year that will come close to 2016 will be 2040 with 32 positive divisors. The world will have to wait 83 years until the beginning of the 22nd Century before it sees another year with 36 positive divisors in 2100.

Fortunately, the year of our Lord two-thousand seventeen is prime, with only two odd divisors 1 and 2017. I’m looking forward to a year with no real divisions to be a positive and prosperous year for everyone.

Spunk stew is very easy. Just set out a large stock pot and wait for Spunk to jump in.

He WILL jump in (guaranteed) and act cute about it.

Poor Sasha has allergies. I'm having to stuff pills down her at great risk to life and limb. We are hoping she's not allergic to cats.

Spunk and Rosencrantz being an infestation of cats by my computer.

Najar thinking about what kind of mischief she can get up to.

Reception area before

One of the advantages to closing the office between Christmas and New Years is I can do things like have the office painted without disrupting and displacing staff.  The disadvantage is I don't get much of a Christmas break.  The last time the office was painted was 1995 when we remodeled and moved into the downstairs after the symphony moved out. To save money, Bob and I varnished all the oak, and Dolores, Bob, and few other staff members and I did the painting. Twenty years later, Bob is retired, and the rest of us are older and tired, so I hired professional painters.

Tristan and I were at the office at 7:00 am Tuesday morning and started boxing staff's stuff, moving computers and taking out built-in desktops. The painters arrived at 7:30 and started prepping for painting behind us as we emptied each space. We got everything taken down and the walls opened up so the painters could paint by around noon.  To add to the excitement, the plumbers came in to do a smoke test to see if any of the sewer or vent pipes in the building were cracked, causing the sewer smell in one of our offices. The smoke test took up the afternoon because they pulled the toilets and plugged all the drains. We didn't get smoke coming out of any strange places, but the building smelled like smoke from the breeze blowing the smoke they were blowing out the back door back inside. We believe the sewer smell is originating from the building next door, but we still need to do more testing on our sewer lines.

Wednesday, I worked on project work between answering the painters' questions and moving some things around for them. Since the painters didn't have to move much stuff, and had clear spaces close to the walls, they completed the painting in two days instead of three days they had originally estimated; therefore, Tristan and I spent Thursday cleaning up work areas, building the desks back in, setting up computers and monitors, moving staff's stuff back to their spaces, and putting the conference room back together. We left a lot of old equipment out so we can sort through it and see what we can recycle. We have lots and lots of old stuff in the office.

Since the painters finished a day early, at least I get to take Friday off so I will have a four day weekend before everyone is back at the office to start the new year.

Newly painted reception area.

Cubicles and hallway before.

Conference room, cubicles and hallway with new paint.

Cubicles waiting to be painted.

Cubicles with fresh paint, desktops rebuilt and computers back in place.

Cubicles, hall and outside walls of offices before.

Cubicles and offices with fresh paint on the outside walls.

Back area ready to paint.

Four color scheme seen all together in the back area.

Another view of the back area before.

The back area after.

I can't imagine a bumper sticker surviving 70 years in the New Mexico sun and being at all legible, but the faded and cracked "America Needs You Harry Truman" bumper sticker on a 1946 Ford pickup that was parked on 3rd Street in Downtown Albuquerque could be original.  On the other hand, and on the other side of the license plate, the bumper sticker for Walt Longmire, the Sheriff of the fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming in Craig Johnson's mystery novels, is quite contemporary and in great condition by contrast.  The truck is an interesting mosaic of old paint, rust and sanded edges sitting on a new set of tires mounted on bright green, spoked rims. It was truck number 407 in the Navajo Freight Line's fleet of vehicles sometime in the the past 70 years. The truck has only one bullet hole I could see in the rear window, which is quite remarkable for a 70 year old truck with a New Mexico license plate (we have a 40 year of VW Sun Bug that has several bullet holes in the hood). Just sitting on the street, this old truck tells you a lot about its early history, and has a rather colorful character in its minimally restored condition.

X marks the spot
Cold winter light
Trees, mountains, towers
Reflections 
Black and white
Thin clouds hang
Pull on the sky
Whites on grays
Winter cold and dry

We got Cat—Opoly for Christmas. Playing the game with six players was long and drawn out, going on past midnight.

Sasha's Christmas Card

Twas the night before Christmas... 

Spunk's Christmas card

Sasha: "Ahhh! It smells like Heaven."

Spunk: "Whoa! Look! I think I see Santa."

Sasha: "Did you see Santa?"  Najar: "I didn't see Santa!"  Sasha: "Is Spunk crazy?"   Najar: "Absolutely!"

Sasha: "Oh! Oh! Oh! My finch-n-mouse mocha macchiato!"

Sasha: "Grrrr... Get your filthy paws off my macchiato"

Najar: "To pounce or not to pounce? That is the ponderance."

The cat with no name (Lola) stares down the notorious "Black Pepper" — the fastest grind in the west.

Spunk: "You wanna wear that carne adovada, paparazzo?"

Rosencrantz: "Would you all quit jabbering and start serving?"

We hadn't put up any Christmas decorations this year, so Spunk made himself useful and decorated our gnarly bonsai.  I got him putting the finishing touches on the tree.