christopher575: Photo by Ed Cook (Default)
christopher575 ([personal profile] christopher575) wrote2025-06-24 03:52 pm

Dream acquisition

I was at my regular piercing shop (Foundation Body Arts) on Friday the 13th to get a couple of flash tattoos. If you didn't know, most tattoo shops do special events every Friday the 13th where the artists draw up new sheets of designs, often with a Friday the 13th theme, and offer them at a discount. Some shops make a bigger event out of it than others. For example, my regular tattoo shop (Lion's Paw) will end up having artists tattoo well into the night.

I'd gotten one tattoo at Foundation before, but it wasn't until Friday the 13th that I was laying on a table in the right direction to notice something amazing hanging high up on the wall. An absolutely pristine print of the famous Duran Duran Rio album cover by Patrick Nagel! You know, the one that's incorporated into my back tattoo.



Finished back tattoo

I told my piercer Ben, jokingly, that if that print should ever go missing, that it wasn't me. He said I could have it! I suggested a trade and sent him some photos of some of my old orange artwork that doesn't really go well in the new orange bathroom. He liked it so I took it over there today on my way to teach a class. I can hardly believe I have this incredible print in my collection now.

Patrick Nagel's famous Duran Duran Rio album cover

It's in perfect shape, unlike my others which have all seen better days. It'll be hard to decide where to put it. There's plenty of space in my room, but I want people to see it!
christopher575: Photo by Ed Cook (Default)
christopher575 ([personal profile] christopher575) wrote2025-06-15 10:21 am

Take a sad song and make it better

About 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave for Seattle on Wednesday, I was heading back in from the back yard and made a horrible discovery. There was a bat stuck to the flypaper we had hanging next to the door. Somehow flies always end up hanging around the back door as well as the one upstairs leading to the deck, and a strip of flypaper hanging next to each always seemed like a smart solution. But it's one I should have stopped using even sooner afer finding a few feathers stuck in the same one that then had a bat writhing around on it. I wasn't confident it could be unstuck without major injuries even if we could find a place that would try it in a timely manner, so I did what felt like the next best thing and took it out of its misery rather than let it starve in place.

I felt horrible about it and still do. But now that I know there are bats around here I decided to welcome them with a safe place for them to roost. A very cool goth-looking bat box is on its way and will go up somewhere on our property soon. I hope the box ends up being a popular spot for them, and if that happens, I'm guessing they'll provide even better insect control than fly paper ever could. In the meantime, I've thrown away the box of fly papers we had and the product is banned from my home forever.