Hey, do you remember this picture from the first days when we adopted Bosphore?!
Now, check these out:
Yeah… he’s having hell of a time!
Just a quick shout to all those who have been waiting for them to return – the new items in the shop now again feature stories. Short ones right now but i’m certain they will grow in length and smarts in no time. Make sure you don’t twist your brain tripping in the fuzzy logic of the little fuzzies.
Ha! Who would have thought a silence so long and changes so huge.
Don’t be alarmed, we are still all in place and the bears are still happily running around the house and everywhere. But what did happen is that we left Ireland for Latvia and I now have a new job.
The move was one we planned think starting October last year, and look – half a year is gone and we have finally settled down!
“But what with the dogs?” i hear you ask and this is what this story will be about.
Here’s us on the day we boarded the plane
The whole previous week had been spent sending away the last of the stuff, cleaning house and we ran into a blizzard while taking the rental from Galway to Dublin. A scary experience knowing that rarely you see proper tires on anything in Ireland. It was minus something outside and a very wet snow just all over the place. I remember everybody going 60 km/h on the higway (with speed limit of 130) – so those were the road conditions!
The crates on the left and right are Bosphore and Cedric – huge, aren’t they?! 36 inches high and what not wide and long.
Alas, the doors of the plane we were boarding were just 35 inches high and there was no way around it.
So we did not get anywhere and it was very, very scary. Imagine yourself with two dogs and two ginormous crates, not fitting in a standard nor large cab. It’s three in the night and you don’t have a clue where to go or where to stay.
But eventually one by one we sorted things out. Got the crate guy to get the crates away, and found us a very lovely money/quality conscious hostel. Travelodge in Swords (2km away from the airport) and it’s pet friendly too! Price wise it was EUR 40/d for the room plus EUR 20 for each animal for the whole stay, so quite manageable even on a moderate budget!
Now, to my excuse – the flight company did not warn me that we are very close to the maximum possible height, nor did the animal movers that sold us the crates check the plane we were boarding.
Still, the whole country moving was highly complicated and only thing that did go wrong was this single inch, so i’d say we were quite lucky, not to mention my excellent planning skills of course!
The crate got resized, new tickets ordered and a week later, with just 33.5” high crates we successfully got in:
Ah, for those with you thinking about travelling with pets – there was not a single competent person in either end, so getting the dogs across the border was the part I personally feared the most but that turned out be a non-issue. Of course we had all the papers in order and vaccinations, and even did for a re-check while staying in the hotel, but nobody even glimpsed in any of those.
It might have helped that we were moving from a rabies-free zone to rabies-something zone though.
And since then we have been settling in.
Not gonna show much more, but to give a taste – here’s the kitchen
Smell you soon and do drop us a mail if you have been thinking about it!
Hedgehog in the fog by Yuri Norstein – possibly one of the most charming animations ever (according to us of course)
During out yesterday’s walk Cedric caught a hedgehog and injured it. It was totally unexpected, but we quickly wrapped it up in my jacket and brought home and this morning took him to a vet who will hopefully patch the injury and soon we will be able to release the hedgy were we found him.
Will use this opportunity to tell you a little about hedgehogs.
If you see one during the day, then he certainly needs your help as hedgehogs are nocturnal (active at nights). Wrap him in a jacket and take to closest vet that does wildlife rescue (google up one in your area). The expenses shouldn’t be too big.
If it’s too late for a vet, put him in a box – he needs warmth, calm and dimmed light.
In other news, we are doing great and the 50 bear barrier was met somewhere in the last month. Right now the shop is proudly featuring sixty and one bear and some of them are meant specially for the Christmas tree.
Oh oh, and one other thing we can brag about – every month we now donate EUR 50 to kerry greyhound connection !
Update: the hedgehog is fine and at the end vet did not want to take any money at all. Hedgy got antibiotic shots and whatnot and they will keep him in the clinic for a week to keep an eye and after that release in the wild. Will give them a shout in a week 'cause i said we could release him where we found him as that’s his surroundings.
First things foremost, about three month after we adopted Cedric, our greyhound, we started to talk about getting another one. Math being quite simple – dog’s are nice, adopting is generally a good thing and two is a pack. Well I won’t pretend that “us talking” means that we actually talk. It’s one of these things you just wake up with and can’t remember whos idea was it again. Well, anyway, i think i digress, meet Bosphore:
Bosphore in his current camo – fine blue-grey fur mixing with the brownish kennel one
He will soon shed all of his brown, hopefully and then we will have a specimen as shiny as our other dog.
“What an unusual name?” you wonder. Oh, thank you – it seeks it’s roots in Bosphorus, the Istanbul Strait and a painting of our friend. Ignore the change in spelling. Let’s say it was half intentional.
Bosphore is just two years young, compared to Cedric’s five. He is a tad nervous and awfully afraid of children and balls. Sometimes he climbs into drawer but after a while he gets out. We allow him to sleep in drawer when he wants to. It also kind of feels comfy so.
After having him for almost three weeks now, we have not gained his full trust, but it is certainly going there.
He has a somewhat higher pitched voice when it comes to singing, and they occasionally do sing.
And, of course, he clicks with Cedric quite well.
In other news, humm, oh well, Bosphore’s the main news. So other news will have to wait!
Em’s homesick though and so I’ve started to chart out a viable return plan (originally from Latvia, currently, because of my fine job in the university, we live in Galway, Ireland). Want it to be as comfortable as possible, so will prioritize comfort over time. Most probably the move will happen some time in 2011.
It won’t change much to what and how we are, and if still, then only to the better. And I think we will see Em doing her best.
Oh oh, totally forgot – Emily now has a tumblr thing. There she collects all things she finds and loves – be sure to follow – http://em.karmatank.com/
Hey, we have some new animals in the crowd!
Meet the rabbit:
And the owl:
These both have found friends already, but there is a rabbit in the queue to photographer and I’m pretty sure some owls will show up as well in no time at all.
In other news, Emily has intended to go behind the larger calibre bears that belong to certain Teddy. And so she has ordered a teddy bear sewing kit for deconstruction. If her highness starts making those, we will have to buy a lots of shoes, as I see only one mean of transport, and that involves a shoebox.
And last but not least. The secret behinds Cedric’s shiny garment:
Ahh, well, we’ve missed out two updates and I gave up for not being able to comply to the strict requirements of the clock.
But there is upside to everything – and in this case it is that we have even more free time (yay!).
There are other good news – we found a walled park where we can let our prince loose.
Sometimes there are other dogs, and we (as in royal higness) are not sure if that is good
Apart from that – no news. The spring is loose though!
So what’s new?, you ask.
We have a new hobby – making photos of needles.
Here is one:
It is quite small actually:
Oh and on the bottom right – that is our little studio.
Cedric has started grunting like a human. He goes like “ooh” and “aah” while laying on his back and grinding his greyhound smile.
And that’s about all the news for this week.
In six days a friend is coming for a visit. He is my god-daughter’s father and thus a VIP – very interesting person. He is coming to celebrate our (as in Emily and me) anniversary, which can be expressed with something like “whoa, wait what, another year has passed already?” And we will do nothing for good five days. Which is when the Saint Patrick is on and we have not plans for that. Maybe will try to catch the parade!
Well I think there is no need to distinguish between me and Emily. This time i made the owl. Or did I… Humm, now I can’t remember but I think the owl looks good and quite smart too.
Allright, now i remember – I did this other thing below and the owl is actually by Emily.
In the meanwhile we have found out that Cedric is afraid of baloons and kites and cries like a little girl (just an expression, little girls are well known for their extreme endurance when compared to me) when doctor want to take a look inside his ears. Oh he is fine, we just went for a check-up!
What else, what else, ooh. Oh we have this facebook page thing we don’t know what to do with. Maybe you can help us figuring out!
I will go first as I have less pictures. This week boab get’s offered some dumplings which he politely refuses.
And Emily presents the rabbit dance. All rabbits are newcomers. And the numbers are good to play football (the soccer one) too, they will just have to decide, which rabbit will go for the referee stripes.
Click to see more
Life has been good and lazy. The daffodil sprouts have started to crawl out of ground like little sweet green zombies. Some of them even in my garden. The one’s that were planted by Emily are doing better, but mine are doing fine too.
It’s a good thing that we settled on the Hawaii timezone, as that is where the last minute of this very day will happen.
We do have results however, and here they are, all humble and shy.
Yesterday (Feb 4, 2010), unwitnessed by anyone (well, Cedric was there, so that counts) Emily challenged me to… umm, well… a challenge.
Starting next Monday, every Monday (Hawaii timezone) I have to present a 3-strip comic in any media i feel comfortable with, and she will come up with a new creature/thing/something interesting.
Results will be posted weekly right here, and it will go on for a year
Whish me luck. And Emily… I’LL CRUSH YOU!
Haaah!
Our army behind curtains on a sunny day
Heeeh, for the first time we got to feel Etsy during Christmas, and we can gladly report that you can hear an echo in the shop when shouting out loud (that is, it’s now all empty).
Will take a while to repopulate the ranks, and my prognosis that Emily will never be able to have 50 bears in shop at once, stands stronger than never. If i remember correctly, closest she has been to that magical number, is 43.
We also probably had the slowest holidays in ages. We had two friends over, baked three cakes (cheese, chocolate and a nut cake), watched 15 movies, and were working hard to do nothing but sleeping, eating, sitting at the fireplace, walking, talking and watching.
Cedric, the red nose reindeer, with his newest friend.
So the new year is here, the temperature has returned to “don’t need gloves, smells so nice like spring” level and we expect great things to happen!
And here is our hero with mittens she received from our friend rainbowmittens
A little girl just a second ago threatened to suck my blood out if I don’t give her something nice. Lucky for me, we have some candies. Her dad, observing the transaction seemed to be a little bit shy about his vampire daughter but thanked never the less.
But we have been busy, and thus the radio silence.
We went somewhere by car.
We thought that we will go just for one day, but it turned into a two day trip with stay in Killarney.
From Killarney we went to some place else. Some place, that switches on the rainbow, when visitors come.
Some place that allows you to take walks. Even encourages.
And sometimes it can get real tangly
But I’ll cut it short.
Are you ready?... Guess what?!.... Meet Cedric!
And this is me. On long trips it is good to excercise once in a while.
We had our first common dinner and Cedric is quick to pick up on table manners (no eating at table that is and waiting until we are finished for his own dinner) and he loves yoghurt too, which is great because that’s the best thing one can eat when there is lots of things going on.
Now, there will be many more photos in the days coming, in the flickr. But we will not flood you with them. You can follow the pool though.
But here is one last photo:
That’s Stewie and Kim. They are still in Kerry and waiting for someone. Maybe you!
Any way – drop an eye in their site, it’s http://kerrygreyhounds.ie/
“Tadah!” called the little rabbit and then it was time for the group photo.
Our little grey socks had turned into little grey happy socks.
“I told you, it’s just a few bruises!” said the bear but he also said a lots of thankyous because he hadn’t had such an exquisite massage for months (after his last struggle with the giants, that is).
“NO, YOU WON’T!” yelled bear furiously and followed the crystal into the abyssal throat of the monster.
A gigantic cat, a “Gicat” henceforth had been spotted a few days ago. Unlike the regular, half-bear sized ones – this one was a true giant, about ten bears high and lots of bears wide. Gicat had been coming and going and eating things he could find.
The bear had put the crystal egg on the table just for a second to grab the fishing rod and some marshmallows to practice for the fishing competition, when the gicat had appeared and eaten the egg.
The fishing competition for the curious in you, is a simple sport for bear and rabbits alike. One puts marshmallow on fly line and throws it at the rabbit from one’s team, latter is responsible for catching it. First team to successfully catch 10 marshmallows wins.
“NO, YOU WON’T” yelled the bear furiously… Oh wait, I already told you that…
So the bear managed to extract the egg and jump out of the cat’s mouth with a surprising dexterity. It’s not like bears wouldn’t be able to do that, but mostly you see them doing calm things, like reading or drinking tea. The Gicat did not seem to be satisfied with the proceedings, and bear had to put all his strength and agility to drive away the humongous monstrosity.
“Peh, it’s just a few bruises” bear shooed away the rabbits after the battle. But rabbits kept on insisting to take care of the bear. I had never seen rabbits so concerned. Their little faces were so wrinkled that they looked more like sad grey socks than rabbits.
Seeing rabbits so worried, bear allowed them to take care of him. He is now being combed and massaged. We will put up another picture when bear has been fixed!
The image in background is from Grey’s Anatomy’s episode 3 of the sixth season, titled I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watchin’ Me
The hint came in from Jacinta who shook us off our chairs like ripe apples and we went on investigating if that really could be one of ours.
The thing is that the one in the episode is about twice the size and could be described as slightly overgrown, but perfect for display (just like theatrical makeup). Also the bright pink bears just started to pop out only about a month ago when we got the new wool, so, eh, it certainly is not one of ours.
Similarity is stunning though!
Dropped a comment in the writers blog under that specific episode – oh I hope they will come back with some details!
So much for the news of today. Oh, and , pssssst, just don’t tell anyone yet… Tomorrow we are going to sign rent contract for the new place and if that goes well, then the dog then is just around the corner! Fingers crossed.
Emily said that I should note that the red rat i drew in the picture is indeed a dog.
Just like this one:
Photo by kptyson // flickr
But the first picture requires some explanation.
First, it is our secret bear counter where we track all the orders and it talks to etsy and knows when we are on the first page or have sold something and everything. One day I will make the application publicly available. It just needs some polish.
But on the right side you see the bear counter itself. The deal was quite simple – we want to get a dog (a greyhound, to be specific), but first we have to fix our budget so we would be prepared to throw any amounts of money in his direction in case if anything happens. The target was set somewhere in the March an now we are finally approaching the grand finale.
We won’t get a dog yet though because it is somewhat tricky to find a pet friendly apartment. We would go for renting a house but they are really really crappy compared to apartments in the same price range. But we are keeping the eyes peeled and you will be first to find out when we finally get it.
Ah, the linkage!
This is the place we keep returning to it’s the Irish greyhound adoption site.
And here is why greyhounds are wonderful pets. They don’t need lots of walking and are pretty much like oversized cats with only one bad habit – they will steal your underpants, and that’s a fact.
If you can get your hands on and are into this kind of thing, might have seen Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Panda Kopanda, or maybe Totoro, well, Ponyo will not let you down. The couch was all wet with my goo and tears after we watched it yesterday. What I appreciate most in Myazaki team’s work, is the love for detail and how most subtle things, that you might have caught in real life yourself, appear on the screen, where somebody actually had drawn the sequence for a good week or so. And then there is the carefreeness and the general Japanese anime upbeat mood, where everything is solved with “gambate!” (“i’ll try my best!”). But let’s not dwell on the topic for too long. I’ll just say that Ponyo is certainly recommended by us at karmatank.
We are slowly getting back into everyday life and it feels so safe and secure and so home-sweet-homish, that we certainly won’t be doing any major moving for a while now. Emily upgraded my winter hat with swan feathers and now it is the hat of the wisdom. She took it for a ride through the town while we were getting supplies for our first-time sushi cooking on saturday and the crowd was pleased.
Also, we brought back some good wool from Latvia and now bears can choose their fur from palette of 35(!) colours. Here they are:
Two of our new favourites are the bright pink and the raspberry pink. And butterscotch has been featured in a cat already.
Monday is just around the corner – have a great next week!
Yesterday we had helmet dinner
And today we found some active coal (it’s good for upset stomachs and when you want to scare your neighbour)
Your humble author and Emily know each other for a good three years or so.
But only about a year and a few months ago we started dating. Since I was in Ireland but Emily in Latvia, our date was a virtual one. It was just a chat first, but somehow turned into a light flirt and from expression of mutual admiration sparkled something that opened a whole new dimension in our relationship plane, bound to turn good and solid sooner than me, Em or anybody could anticipate.
Since buying plane tickets with short notice is a financial suicide, we soon set a date for our first real life date which should coincide with my vacation. And having the privilege of knowing computer code, I set up a counter that would show how many days are left.
First date was an embarrassing and shy one. Hearts skipping beats just how Alice was falling down the hole and hitting the shelves, thump, thump, thump. But we managed to get through that. And so, short story long, four month later we got engaged and six more month later we got married.
And today? Today the counter says “-365 days to go”.
And it goes just great!
I wonder what are the roots of word “hectic”.
Our neighbourhood has been quite active last weeks. And amidst all the seagulls Em has managed to domesticate a pigeon. Meet Helmut.
As pigeons often are, he is quite curious.
Helmut comes at least three times a day to eat the rice Em has prepared for him. When he comes, he politely bows down, then checks the surroundings – “Has anything changed” he wonders, and “is that a new painting on the wall”?
“No, no, Helmut, nothing has changed” we tell him.
Sometimes our friend also brings his girlfriend. She is a bit shy and after a quick chat excuses herself with “must feed the lama” and flies away.
Tonight we are going to Latvia for a month. We will be packing Em’s stuff in big and small boxes, and shipping over here. The trip will start tonight 3:30am and finish somewhere about 7pm. I bet it will be fun!
We will keep you posted!
Our little treasury has received new stuff from the goldmines abroad, for bears to pick. While Em was arranging them, one of the bears sneaked in, and already snatched and owl.
The latter got very excited when she found out that flash light, fame and Broadway is now carved in her future.
You should imagine that the mouse is squeakishly yelling.
We woke up at something like half five today, fell asleep something like half one. Seagulls seem to have election, every one of them is screaming to vote for her. Neighbour seagull chicks already have learned to fly. Ours still sit on the roof and pretend to not see those show-offs.
Sun has started to roll North for four days already. That means eventually we will run into Christmas when the cycle will go back again. But when lights go out, we turn them on.
We redid photos of almost everything in the shop, dropping the green-grey background and introducing white one. All because we tried to make a treasury yesterday and did notice that indeed brighter backgrounds are more appealing to feature things and everything else.
Now I feel somewhat nostalgic about loosing the wannabe woods of my hoodie’s inside, but it’s all for the greater good, heheh.
Emily was kind enough to grab some screens while I was in middle of the process, so please mouse over the picture to see the before (greyish) and after (white-ish).
Hello, hello, hello, what an exciting week has started!
I’ve been left all alone at work and so decided to not go there and do things from home.
So for the whole week we will be able to observe seagulls together, and also i can now listen music really loud (luckily, Em and me share the same taste in these matters).
But let’s talk about boxes, shall we?
I saw my first cubicle about two years ago, and since then i’ve been recording it’s evolution. Em had not seen a real cubicle until Saturday or when was it, when she made her own:
We have a color printer that we purchased from my ex neighbour, a Japanese girl who left Galway for her boyfriend in Netherlands, and it has been used to produce high fidelity ink jet prints in whopping 300DPI (or was it 75, hmmm).
So that’s box number one.
Today we also made the first postal box for a flying bear who will be going to France, out of cardboard from packaging of a bookshelf we bought.
It turned much more easier as anticipated and should resolve reported issues with rabbits that have sneaked in packages loosing hearing (ear-thing). Well, of course, a rabbit should know better that postmen love to sit on mail, but that’s hopefully sorted now.
Rabbits love to travel and whenever they go to North Pole they visit their good old friends narwhals.
News about what banksy did in Bristol inspired rabbits so much that they immediately started to organize a stunt of their own.
Bears where invited to enjoy the fine exhibition. There were drinks in little glasses with umbrellas and cheese to nibble on. Comers were having all kinds of discussions about where the world is going and how nice is the lamp and if looks of fridge have changed or not and other artsy chat.
No single rabbit would tell which one of them did the actual painting.
Em’s thinking about whales. Who knows, maybe one of them will end up in etsy!
In other news, blue bear after having watched Pirates of the Carribean (we went for a all-pirates night. Yarr.) dressed up as seaweed-bear.
He is now scuffing around and making strange noises. Rabbits do not seem to be frightened not even the slightest.
Here he is:
Hello and welcome to the great flying competition! While the sportsmen are heating up, we would like to express our gratitude to the rabbits in organizing this event. Without them this could not happen at all!
Will the balloons hold? Can a plush Pegasus bring luck? And is it enough to just have a cape to fly? This and more we will find out in following minutes!
Rabbit responsible for taking time has given signal to start to the judge bear who is now holding the flag upright. Judge is waiting for technician rabbits to clear the field.
Yellow bear who decided to go safe and ate the balloons, after a through-out check has been allowed to participate. His blue friend unfortunately has lost one of the baloons together with the rabbit holding it. Rabbits last words before lift-off were “Oh, look at me!”.
A rescue team has been dispatched and is now closely following the rabbit from the ground.
Bears have lined up at the starting line. Judge is performing last check that everyone is ready. Aaaannnd…... HE GIVES A GO!
Bears are running forward… Blue bear has caught wind and now is about half a body from ground. Yellow one has also caught wind and is now flying head down, legs up.
Wait, the black bear has not moved at all and is still smiling at the starting line!
The brown bear in cape is running around in circles and the white bear has taken off the mystery backpack. He has a cake in it!
Ladies and gentlemen, this competition is a mayhem!
Can there be a winner, how would you judge, and does not the cake deserve extra points!?
I think it will be alright to uff and huff for a minute or two, because the trip we took to finally arrive was quite a long one.
And now – first, let me say – welcome to karmatank and thanks for checking in!
This spot is The Central for the crafter behind http://ememem.etsy.com (also known as “the shop”), naming Emīlija Lielā (translates to Emily the Great in English) and will be your insider scoop, your behind the scenes and your weekly amusement, brought to you by your’s sincere Toms Bauģis.
This place will be spawning little stories, some drawings, spilling some secrets, maybe offering some specials, and most importantly, you will find out the story behind the bears.
And you can easily follow by subscribing to the RSS feed, or you can get updates in your inbox.
“Wait!”, you say – “Toms… whatsyourname?”
Exactly! But no worries, actually it is quite simple! Most probably we have already met. Your humble servant is behind the stories in Em’s shop and also self-pronounced and officially approved press attaché of Emily’s.
“So Em… just crafts?” you ask.
Oh she does much more than that! She not only crafts, but also draws, smiles, says 'let’s cook cookies!’, she does not catch sunburn as I do (her being more of the chocolate type, me – red as a herring right now) and she knows how the things happened for real, so I’m all ears when she talks about bears.
“And how do you add a comment?” you ask, because those two previous questions were exactly what you did not had in mind.
Ooh, you can send an email to hello@karmatank.com and we will be happy to read it!
And now to our first installment which coincides with banking holidays, the most terrific weather we have seen in months and a temperature spike of 22 degrees Celsius (not so common here, really).
Here is Em with a saucepan on her head, because I told her it is important:
We saw Red Arrows yesterday and they were going swoosh and swish and swash in all directions and at some times it seemed as they even might fall on our heads, but they did not.
After that we rode some good 10 miles out of town on our supreme bikes to see some big boats because of all the ocean race that is currently going on. And then I don’t remember and then this morning we had breakfast on balcony with fresh bread and tomatoes, cucumber, some coffee and lots of other stuff.
Now I will say you good bye and stay tuned, because I promised Em that she will be able to read the whole thing in ten minutes and that was an hour ago and she has been going on about that for last 20 minutes or so, so I really must go now.
