Uncategorized – Page 2

No Kings March 2.0

October 19, 2025

Dear Liza,

Yesterday was the second country-wide No Kings March here in the U.S. Auntie Bridgett and I got to participate while Grandpa Nelson stayed home with the kittens.

A lot of what made this demonstration special was the silly costumes! I didn’t have my phone where I could get at it easily, so I didn’t take any pictures. But they are all over the Internet if you want to see. Here is me in my bright yellow Lala the Teletubby suit. Happy shout out to Buffalo Exchange for the joy!

Once we were properly costumed, we took a Standing Room Only full #15 bus downtown. The route had been altered because of the march, which put us even closer to the Battleship Oregon Monument, where the crowd was gathering to hear speakers.

There were so many happy, dressed up, smiling people! The signs were wonderful, too. My favorite so far is, “If we don’t fix the timeline, Spock gets a beard!” Ask your Dad about that one.

Once the march started (and it takes a really long time to get thousands of people pointed in the same direction) we walked East on Pine to 3rd, then south to the Hawthorne Bridge, then to the East side, where we just kept on walking home.

The Unpresidented (yes, that’s right) marching band made us all dance as we went along, and some drones took pictures of the crowd. The one above shows about a one block area….

And in this one, zoomed in quite a bit, you can just spot me in my yellow suit with a big round head. See? Just to the right of center?

Crazy to see myself in that throng, but so happy to have been there!

Love,

Grandma Judy

PS. I am still trying to figure out how I changed fonts and how to go back. No worries.

Kittens in a Backpack

October 13, 2025

Dear Liza,

One of the things we were hoping to teach our new kittens, Moxie and Molly, was to ride outside in a cat backpack. That way they could see, hear, and smell the outside world without being in danger of traffic or other animals. When I mentioned this to our veterinarian, she said we should start as soon as possible.

We bought an Apollo Walker Cat Backpack online and set it down on the floor, waiting for them to explore it. But they didn’t, not for days.

Then this morning, I decided to let them see me put it on and walk around in it. NOW I had their attention. Both cats were very interested, and when I backed up to the cat tower, Molly hopped right in! This surprised me, because Molly has usually been the shyer of the two.

She sat quietly as I took a few steps, and hopped out when she had had enough.

Once I put it back on the floor, Molly continued her exploration, enjoying the treats we gave for her bravery. Moxie, after just a few nose-pokes, seemed to lose interest. Maybe she’s not a hiker.

But this is only the beginning of a long road, and we all have a lot to learn.

Life with kittens is just one new thing after another!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Yet Another Collage

October 10, 2025

Dear Liza,

You know me, I get on a tear and can’t let go… so this week, I made another door collage. I chose some strong pinks and blues from Gelli prints, art magazines, school fair tickets, and an old copy of The New Yorker

The first stage was pretty straight forward, laying the blocks of color down so they complemented each other. I found the ‘doormat’ as part of another cartoon.

Then, flipping through a new stack of magazines, I found this very informal portrait of Fredrick Nietzsche and decided that this would be the door to his new house.

I liked it a lot, but there was a lot left to do. I took a day off and got back to it.

The door needed definition, so I cut thin bits of a dark blue. The name needed something to make it stand out. And I wanted to acknowledge Mr. Nietzsche, so I hunted up some quotes. Many of them were heavy and philosophical, but I found one that fit perfectly. “Inside every man is a small boy who wants to play.”

But how to put it on the page?

I couldn’t find a playful, hidden way…. Until, in my head, I asked Ruthie Inman. “How would you hide words on a page?”

And I knew immediately. A flap, or a pocket, or some paper folded shenanigan! Can you see it in the upper right?

It took some figuring and hunting for the right flowers, but just before lunch, I got it assembled.

Then I added some more flowers inside, so it looks nice open or closed.

I am very pleased with it.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Television Kittens

October 2, 2025

Dear Liza,

Life with Molly and Moxie is so good! They are now ten weeks old and very capably dashing about like lunatics whenever they are not sleeping like angels.

They play “Queen of the Box” and “Kill the Ribbon” , as well as the old favorite, “Ambush Humans on the Stairs.” We are having to keep an eye out all the time.

Their latest fascination is the television. Molly discovered it last week during a Big Cats special on PBS, watching with concern as a male lion seemed to be stalking a small cub.

She kept a sharp eye out until the cub made its way to the safety of a high, thin branch and stayed put until the male went away.

It is very entertaining, like having two shows on at once! And now Moxie has gotten into the television habit, too. Last night they helped us watch David Suchet’s Poirot as he solved a murder,

and helped us celebrate 75 years of Peanuts with The Great Pumpkin.

I’m sure to have more kittens adventures to tell you about, as their skills and mischief evolve.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Haunted House… Done!

September 29, 2025

Dear Liza,

I finally got the finishing touches on the haunted house-lantern thingee!

The windows looked so much better once the paper was put in. I used the thin paper that comes as wrapping in IKEA kits, but any tissue or deli paper would work.

It helps to cut a piece a bit bigger than the window hole, brush glue around the edges and mullions on the inside, and lay the paper down.

To make the tower, I re-purposed a toilet paper roll and cut a little window in it. A few swipes of brown and white paint and a tiny bits of paper for the window got it ready.

The fiddly bit was gluing the tower onto the roof. I had cut a hole already, and used the glue-soaked yarn to give it more adhesion. It worked!

I put a flat roof on the tower and, as a final touch, put some tiny lights inside. Photographed in a dark room, it looks great!

The fun thing about this project was making it all from junk mail and bits of leftover paint and yarn. Even the lights are re-purposed from a glowing jellyfish costume.

If I was to do it again, I’d make it prettier… matching windows, window frames, more careful siding and painting, and maybe even a proper gabled roof.

But as a proof-of-concept, this was very satisfying.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Evolution of a Collage

September 30, 2025

Dear Liza,

I needed to make a cover for my new Journal, and I wanted a collage. It’s a good size, 9x 12, so I had plenty of room to play with. I found a heavy tag backing from an old watercolor tablet to use as my base.

First, I pulled tons of colors and images from my collage boxes and Jennifer Coile’s gift of museum calendars. I trimmed them and laid them down, seeing who played nicely and who didn’t.

This is always a long process with lots of internal dialogue. I will make a decision to include a piece… in this case, that impressionist woman, and it takes a long time before I admit that it’s just not working. She was both getting lost and cluttering up the picture.

So, in goes the Egyptian hippo. Better, clearer, more focused. Still too many images. Pull them out. But where do the flowers go? Up, down? More discussion.

Every piece is chosen, placed, stared at, accused, forgiven, moved and shifted.

The last bit to be decided was the sun ( or moon). I wanted the blue to balance the bright hippo, but it looked too heavy. The circle cut from a rejected paper worked well, and the blue triangle set it off.

When I had stared more, had lunch, looked again and still liked it, it was time to glue it down. I went in sections, the top stripes together first, but not to the base paper.

I glued the hippo and flowers together, but not down yet. This makes placing the focal points less nerve-wracking.

When I was finally willing to commit, it all went together quickly. UHU glue stick, tweezers (so my fingers don’t get so gluey) and voila! Done!

After dinner I came back to admire it, and realized it wasn’t done yet. It felt stagnant. I decided to sleep on it.

By morning, I realized it needed a bit of movement. Again reaching for papers that had been put aside, I punched small dots and used a piece of string to figure out the line I wanted, and glued them down.

Now it was done. A coat of Mod Podge for a top coat and all was ready! Once it was dry I used Mod Podge to give a good adhesion between the heavy tagboard and the original, floppy journal cover. Under heavy books for a few hours, then out to finish drying, and it will be ready by the time I need it.

And this concludes our tour of the creative process.

Love,

Grandma Judy

More Work on the Haunted House

September 23, 2025

Dear Liza,

When the exterior walls were dry, I realized there was too much space between the ‘stones’. I tried coloring the space black, but it looked terrible. I made more streaky-looking bits and glued them over the gaps.

It looks haphazard, and I’m okay with that.

The walls seemed strong enough, so I made some folded paper L- brackets and joined up all the walls. It’s certainly more house-like!

Then it was time to add the roof. I painted some postcards to match the house, and cut them a bit bigger than the house itself. Rather than use tabs, I turned the house upside down and laid down bits of glue-soaked yarn where the walls meet the roof, to give better adhesion. If you look closely, you can see the yarn right there.

I’m going to let it dry overnight and see how it’s holding together in the morning.

As Sister Corita Kent said, “everything is an experiment.”

Love,

Grandma Judy

Trying Some Three-D

September 22, 2025

Dear Liza,

Looking at all the Halloween decorations for sale in the markets, I got inspired to build an illuminated haunted house. I started with old postcards, junk mail, Mod Podge, and a UHU glue stick.

Using pieces of other projects for templates, I cut a door and windows with an Xacto blade.

When they were cut, I put mullions in the windows and joined four of the five sides together, I wanted to keep it flat to work on, so I didn’t close up the ‘house’. To make the walls stronger, I gave the interior walls a coat of white paper applied with Mod Podge.

I wanted the look of old stones for my exterior walls, so I gave some junk mail a streaky coat of acrylic, then cut them into irregular pieces. While you and I were on our ZOOM call, I used the UHU to apply the stones. They needed a brayer rolled over them to make them stick, because the postcard walls still had some flex.

There is still a lot to do. I will continue tomorrow and show you what I’ve got.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Working on Cohesion

September 19, 2025

Dear Liza,

Our project for Ruthie Inman’s ZOOM art group this week was a door. Not any old door, but a fine, majestic entryway to someplace special. Ruthie was putting hers on the first page of a new art journal.

Mine will be further into my Journal, but that’s okay. As we chatted, I started rifling through my collage box looking for appropriate DOOR bits.

My first harvest wasn’t promising, but as I dug some more, images started to fit together. The stairs from a New Yorker cover would lead to the door, a pair of painted screens could the pillars by the door, a playing card the actual door, and a ridiculously huge bluebird is a suitable decoration.

The thing I love about collage, besides it’s almost random nature, is that if you don’t like a bit, you can peel it off or cover it up. Bridgett pointed out that the bright red door felt out of place with the softer colors of the other bits. She was right.

I found some crinkly Gelli prints that were soft enough to use as the background… not quite sky, not quite landscape.

I found an image of an abalone shell and used it for a new door, and a bit of foil for the door knob. A few images from Jennifer Coile’s art calendar, trimmed and fitted, became the statue beside the door and a castle in the distance.

It doesn’t feel quite done yet, but that’s all the art energy I have for now.

What do you think it needs?

Love,

Grandma Judy

KITTENS!!

September 14, 2025

Dear Liza,

The kittens have arrived!!

Rescued by Northwest Animal Companions, reared by Enid Traisman, and introduced to us by Clody Cates at Gifty Kitty, Moxie ( the faded calico) and her sister Molly ( the grey tiger) have come to live with us!

As they got to know the house, Moxie lived up to her name by going everywhere all at once., stopping for just a moment to say hello to our resident stufftie, Harold.

On the other hand, Molly found the third floor first, passing Paris on the way.

And once we were all in the master bedroom (known for now as Kitten Central) Grandpa Nelson discovered the joys of Cat Fishing! It’s nice to see Mouse’s favorite toys being played with again.

And it wasn’t long before they wore themselves out, and us, too. Total cuteness overload as they fell asleep in an adorable kitten curlicue.

I will keep you posted on all the Kitten Adventures as they play out.

Love,

Grandma Judy