My to-do list tells me that I’ve got quite a bit of paperwork and computer stuff to do today, because tomorrow is the last day that anything—banks, post offices, libraries, printers—will be open. I really should try and get things sorted here, before I head to town tomorrow morning and dispatch everything.

Of course I put all those jobs off, because I bought a pack of origami paper from work last Saturday, and wanted to make something. Heh. It’s still paperwork, no?

Beginner’s origami never did interest me (though, let’s face it, I am nothing if not a beginner!) I don’t think I have ever made a boat, frog, cup, or any of those simple designs. Even as a kid, they didn’t excite me. I’m too impatient to do all that preparatory work for results that are less than spectacular, LOL. I was the same with piano lessons. After a few months of scales, I told my teacher that I didn’t want to progress slowly through the exercise books, playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (and I don’t care that Mozart composed it,) I didn’t have much time left on the planet, there were other things to do, so would she please cut the crap and just teach me  the three pieces that made me want to learn piano in the first place? Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor “Quasi una fantasia”, Op. 27, No. 2, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Song of India, and Debussy’s Reverie, in case you were wondering. And then we could be done with piano lessons. She did. And so we were. They’re still the only pieces I can play, although I can read notes…slowly, like a snail crawling around on a keyboard.

In the same vein, the only origami worth learning to do, I have always believed, is Super-Cute-and-Awesome Origami. The origami black cat, pictured here, fits into that category, as far as I’m concerned. The yellow one, not so much, I made him first because the drawing on the website looked promising…but it’s not expressive enough, and not as 3-dimensional as the black one, whom I’ve named Footsie.

Instructions for making Footsie came from this wonderful origami resource site.

This is the second cool origami cat I’ve ever made, and the third piece of origami I’ve done in my life (I don’t count the 500 fabric origami cranes I made for a project two years ago…that was like folding boxes at the Acme Box Factory: boooooring!). The first origami piece I tackled was a snail, with one of those puffy blow-open shells. With no previous experience, and no knowledge of the basics, it nearly did my head in. But I got it, eventually.

And that confirmed something I’ve secretly believed since childhood…with brute force, stubborn determination, and an almost heaven-annointed ignorance, you can sprint past all the foundational boring stuff, and never have to do anything but the really cool shit. This is why I won’t ever have kids…I would end up raising mercenaries.

By the way, included in this photograph are two Christmas presents I’ve recently received. Even though we do not do Christmas, my friends celebrate it, and I give them stuff around this time of the year, because they give me stuff. The New Year means a lot to me, anyway, and so I celebrate that: “Begin. Keep on beginning.” I must say I am really loving both these presents to bits! On the left, a skull matryoshka doll illustration, in a glorious gold frame, from She-Who-Never-Ceases-To-Amaze-Me, Emily Hearn. And the quantity of fabric just right of that (also, below, sorry it’s such a small photo from the Ikea website) is a great big piece of Tidny fabric from Miss Bean…

It’s like a coloring book, but on good, heavy fabric instead of paper. She said to me, “I want to see what you’ll do with it.” Well. Okay, put like that…prepare to be amazed, Christine, because I am a show-off.

What would YOU do with it? Looks like I’ll be stitching over the holiday break…whee! Fun!

Hey, a very Happy Festivus-for-the-rest-of-us, and a Glorious New Year, you guys.