Day 46 of our Captivity: Delicious duck

Not much to report today, other than we just finished consuming delicious duck, aka "Duck with Twenty Cloves of Garlic" out of the Julia Child Menu cookbook.  I had ordered a duck to show up with our vegetable box; this recipe is one that I've used for dinner parties in the past.  Special occasion food on a weeknight.  The kid waxed ecstatic about the good smells in the kitchen all afternoon, we all enjoyed the duck with homemade sourdough for dinner, and I enjoyed finishing up my wine after dinner while logged in on a Zoom call with people I sing with.  Plus now I have extra duck stock and rendered duck fat to take advantage of over the next couple of weeks :)

Day 45 of our captivity: Metric century

Chad and I got out for a delightful bike ride this afternoon across to the hills east of San Jose and then down to Morgan Hill and back.  It was a total of about 65 miles — or just over 100 km, making it a metric century.  It is good to be finally getting back into shape.
The best part:  apparently we looked pathetic enough  on returning home that it only took a minor hint to incite the kid into making delicious chocolate chip cookies!

Day 44 of our captivity: More pictures from yesterday

Here are a few more pictures from yesterday’s excursion, in no particular order:

The ubiquitous California poppy, here set off against purple vetch.

Owl’s clover

View from the top, looking out toward the ocean, which is hidden under a fog bank.

View on the way back down, looking down towards the hangars at Moffett.

Another view on the was down, looking East.  You can see the large quarry that is largely invisible from any other angle, and if you look closely in the background to the left of it, you can pick out the absolutely gigantic circular new Apple building (zoom in and look at the end of the prominent squiggly road).

Zoomed in so you can see the Apple building better.

A wild iris in a shady spot on the way down.  Given that it was almost 90 out, I enjoyed the brief patches of shade!

Day 43 of our captivity: April’s notion complete

Near the beginning of the month when I started hiking more, but didn’t really want to be driving unnecessarily, I had a notion.  Notions are dangerous, particularly when one has pent-up urges to plan adventures.  In this case, I realized when looking at a map that the top of Black Mountain is just about exactly 10 miles from our house.  And there was a reasonably direct route that didn’t seem like it would be too horrible on foot.  4 miles over to Rancho, then 6 miles through the park and up to the top.

On foot.  20 miles round trip.  Naturally, working up to this became the month’s oddball goal.  You may have noticed some walks of escalating length; those were preparation.

I set out this morning with the intention of doing a 16 mile loop, the next step in the progression, but it was so nice out that the call of the peak was inescapable.  So I did the whole out-and back to the summit.  Normally, it would have never occurred to me to walk to the summit from home.  Times now are decidedly not normal.

More pictures tomorrow, probably, while I contemplate what the next notion will be, as it was announced today that the local shelter-in-place has been extended through the end of May...

Day 42 of our captivity: Hardware store

It was gorgeous out this weekend, which meant that there were likely too many people out recreating in all the usual places...so we stayed home, aside from walks around the neighborhood and trips to Lowes to pick up supplies.  First, some soil was needed to plant the little tomato plants that we got from a neighbor.  I got those in the ground yesterday, though still have some other plants to put in the front.  Today, music distracted me while Chad was out in the yard welding; he eventually made it out to the store to get more welding wire after using up what he had.  Skill building at this point, maybe pictures of creations later.

Day 40 of our captivity: Another small victory

Not much to report for the day other than it was 86 degrees this afternoon and very pleasant on the patio.  My minor victory of the day:  Upon hearing Chad remark "I should read Boccaccio's Decameron and wonder if it is on Project Gutenberg",  I was able to respond "We own a paper copy" and promptly pull it off the shelf for him.  My propensity for odd acquisitions at used bookstores pays off...

Day 39 of our captivity: Masks

I forgot yesterday — sorry.  Chad and I went for a bike ride.  It’s 75 and sunny.  And it was pizza night.

Today’s amusement was noting that the friendly neighborhood yarn-bomber has made tiny masks for the bird statues near the bike bridge over by the high school.

Notice that even the hawk in the background has one.

If that isn’t enough to amuse you, ponder this tiny shrine I ran across in someone’s yard on the way home.

Or just enjoy our pathetic feline trying to be an intrepid hunter.

Day 37 of our captivity: Seasons

So we’ve all noticed that it is currently hard to keep track of days lately, but it occurred to me this morning that, looking around our yard, it may be confusing to figure out not just what day it is, but also what *season*.

Is is late winter?  There are ripe lemons on the tree.

Or maybe early spring, as evidenced by the tulip.

 Spring also seems likely given the rogue Easter egg in the neighborhood.  Come to think of it, maybe that lemon above was actually as Easter egg.

 Nascent grapes indicate early summer,

but a ripe strawberry suggests midsummer,

as do the bountiful roses.

But wait — the pumpkin is fall!

 And the poinsettia? Well, right back to winter.  I’m so confused.

The only thing one can do is declare “Cake Season”.  Chocolate solves everything.

Day 36 of our captivity: Bobber

Mom forgot the blog post today. Here are some pictures of the cat in compensation.

Day 35 of our captivity: Levees

Despite somewhat tired legs, I dragged Chad out for a short ride today out onto the levees near Alviso.  It was a nice day, with lots of water chickens (aka birds) about, and our route was mostly clear of others.  The kiddo wanted to come, but is still supposed to be recovering from wisdom tooth extraction, so stayed home to play on the internet instead.

Day 34 of our captivity: A new hobby

Hey, y'all! It's Kean here for today's post. I've observed Mom diligently posting here every day and realized that I hadn't posted on this blog in literal years, and since I finally did something interesting today, I thought I might let her have a day off and actually post something myself.

Like the other members of my family I have a tendency to fall down art/maker/crafting rabbit holes hard, fast, and frequently. When I first fall down one, I always think that I'm just going to observe others' work from a distance, until I end up giving in to temptation and trying it for myself. This pattern has happened to me with digital art, comics, cosplay.... and most recently, doll customization. My parents are as baffled as I am enthusiastic.

Doll customization is a fairly niche art form that generally consists of taking some sort of pre-produced doll base, often one that is or was mass-produced as a toy line (Barbies and Monster High dolls are especially popular), and turning it into a new "art doll" character. Common techniques for this include repainting the face/body, replacing/restyling the hair, creating new outfits and accessories, and even modifying the body of the doll itself. It sounds a little bit silly at first, but with skill these dolls turn out absolutely gorgeous. I find that like cosplay, it's a really cool way to bring a character that would otherwise only exist on paper to life.

I have been wanting to try customizing a doll for several months now, but college applications meant that I didn't really have time to sit down and learn a new hobby. With the last of everything finally submitted last week (hooray!) I finally was able to take a stab at it! Reader beware: I will now proceed to document my process working with her in far too much detail because I am very excited, and also I will want it for reference when I inevitably want to do it again.

I ordered a Monster High Draculaura doll off of a used doll seller a few days ago, and let her process through the mail system while I was incapacitated by wisdom tooth removal post-op. In an extremely lucky twist of fate she showed up today, the first day I had bandwidth to work on her. The past few days I have been very regimented with my ice/heat pack schedule to control swelling, which kept me from doing much of anything and has been driving me crazy. Today, my schedule was less strict, so I finally had bandwidth to actually make something!

Here she is, straight out of the sleeve she was mailed in (I immediately wiped her down with Clorox wipes to disinfect her. The seller also took precautions to keep her clean, but there is no such thing as being too careful in the current "Plague World," as Mom as been calling it):

Since I'm creating a new outfit for her anyway, I didn't see any reason to spend extra on any clothes for her, so she came nude. She'll get some cool clothing later, but it's rather awkward for now. Oh well.

I chose this particular model of doll for a number of reasons. Monster High dolls, at least these older ones, are fairly high quality for their relatively cheap price, and are well articulated, making them very posable. They've got anime-like proportions that I find appealing, and are a good size - not so small as to be tedious to work on, but not so large as to be hard to store. Most importantly, most of the doll custom tutorials I like use these dolls, so I am much more familiar with the tools and techniques that work well for them than other dolls. Draculaura in particular is a fairly common character and therefore relatively cheap and easy to find, and has a pale, warm skin tone that is similar to the character I am planning to create. I'm not familiar enough with the original production lines of MH dolls to be able to tell you which line she's from, but the copyright date I found on her implies she was originally produced in 2008. Haha, she would be in middle school!

Many doll customizers create new, original characters with their dolls, but for my first doll at least I wanted to create a pre-existing one. I watched Avatar: The Last Airbender (the animated TV show, not to be confused with James Cameron's live-action film Avatar) a few months ago and thought it was great, so I wanted to create a character from it. I decided on making the character Suki in her Kyoshi warrior armor, mostly because I think that Suki is a cool character and that that particular design for her would translate well to a doll.  For someone more experienced, this design wouldn't probably be too difficult, but as a total newbie I'm expecting to find it fairly challenging (though not as challenging as some of the other designs I was considering...). In any case, it'll great opportunity to learn new skills. Heck yeah!

First things first, though, I had to "prep" the doll. I'll be completely painting over her face when I do her makeup later, but since the majority of the makeup will be white, I still wanted to remove her original paint to keep it from showing through. I tried doing this with nail polish remover at first, but I didn't have very much and it wasn't going very quickly. I had avoided using pure acetone right out the gate because I was afraid of using the nastier chemicals, but I ran out of nail polish remover pretty quickly so had to switch to it anyway. Turns out that it went way faster with the pure acetone, so next time, I'll use it from the start.

Here she is with her face removed (that's a very fun sentence out of context):

Next up, I had to remove her hair. Suki's hair is brown, not black, and even if it was black, this doll's hair was in terrible condition and had to be replaced anyway. I started by cutting it off close to the scalp, incidentally giving her a classic "Dad haircut."

Next, I had to do something to remove all those little plugs that were left. She needs to be truly bald, not just buzzed. I opted to do this via the traditional method: beheading!

(The Pyrex in the photo on the left is full of hot water, which softens up the vinyl head to make it easier to remove from that janky teal neck peg).

Beheading seems extreme, but it's for a good reason. All those little plugs of hair are attached to the inside of her head with glue. If I want to get them out, I have to do it by removing that glue from the inside. I could cut her head open with a knife or something if I didn't want to remove her head, but given that I have no reason to give her a lobotomy, going through the neck hole is the best option.

Fortunately, the hot water I used to behead her also softened up all that glue, making the job of removing it easier. I just had to stick something in there and rub it around until it removed it all, and found that a pair of needle-nosed pliers worked just fine. 

The amount of hair glue in MH dolls is quite variable for whatever reason. I was hoping to have a relatively "clean" doll, but was out of luck. Instead, I got an especially gluey one :)

Eww, old doll hair glue looks like earwax.

After forty minutes of haphazardly pushing my pliers around, she has finally reached her pure, bald state!

But oops, now she's covered in glue residue and little bits of hair. Guess it's as good a time as any to wash her. Warm water and a bit of dish soap cleaned her right up.

You might have also noticed that part of her head was painted black, revealed after her hair was removed. MH dolls' scalps are typically painted with a similar color to their hair to hide any gaps in the rooting and make the hair look fuller. Again, Suki's hair is brown, so I had to remove this paint to keep it from showing through her new hair and looking weird. A second cleaning with the acetone does the trick.

What a beautiful, clean, factory default head!

After a second washing with warm water, she's been fully prepped. In total, this process took me around two and a half hours, but I can imagine it being much faster with practice. This is where I decided to declare victory for the day, since it seemed like a good stopping point.

She doesn't look like much yet, but she will soon, I swear! Prepping is super important, and I'm glad I was able to finish it in a single session without any major complications. In the coming days, I'm planning on giving her new hair, repainting her face, and making her new outfit, and I'm really looking forward to it. If I'm not a total fool, I'll continue to post about it, too.

Day 33 of our captivity: 55 minutes

I goofed off yesterday.  Yay!  Today I had to procure food.  Ugh.  At least the line at Trader Joe’s, despite looking as long as it did few weeks ago when it took 90 minutes to get into the store, was rather a mere 55 minutes today. People are clearly spacing themselves further apart while waiting.  I went armed with earbuds and  podcasts to listen to while I was waiting.
One could go to Safeway and not have to wait as long, but at Safeway, many shelves are still bare.  Ditto with a couple of my other standby stores.  Trader Joe’s seems to have their supply chain figured out better, so it is worth the wait.  My only mishap was accidentally buying weird gluten-free crackers that were nefariously placed where the normal crackers go...  The major victory was scoring some baking powder, which we were running dangerously low of.  And I should be set for another week and a half before having to venture back.

Day 32 of our captivity: Riding east

Chad and I escaped for a ride this morning/early afternoon and rode toward the foothills on the east side of San Jose.  58 miles later with 4000 feet of mostly steep climbing, our collective legs are tired.  Nice ride, nice day after the clouds burned off.  We saw a herd of goats shuffled with a herd of sheep, a herd of running llamas (they lead with their heads down -- most odd-looking!), a second herd of goats -- with horns instead of sheep friends, a flock of turkeys, a herd of cows, a couple of horses, and an egret that swooped out in front of us.  These hills east of town can feel surprisingly rural.

Chad's penance is that he is still finishing up the workday, having gotten a later-than-usual start...

Day 31 of our captivity: The oldest house in town

We’ve been taking a lot of morning walks lately.  One side effect of this is that we notice things we haven’t seen before.  Today, it was this interesting tower.

Chad decided it must be a former water tower.  Since it looked old, I looked around for a historic plaque, and sure enough there was one.  Apparently the tower goes with the old house next to it, which turns out to be the oldest still-standing house in town.  A jolly find.

Day 30 of out captivity: Teeth

Kiddo had wisdom teeth removed today, as one of them was growing alarmingly sideways into the jawbone and the dentist felt there was some urgency.  So far I have heard a complaint that it is unfair to have a tongue that is both numb and itchy, but I don’t think the drugs have fully worn off yet...

Day 29 of our captivity: 13 miles

It looked like it was going to be a glorious day here today, 75 degrees and sunny, so I decided to walk over to Rancho San Antonio to take a hike.

Mule Ears were blooming

and the turkeys were out.

Though fall is my favorite season around here, a spring day like today makes me question that preference :)

After my hike, I walked back home.  4 miles over, 5 miles of hiking, 4 miles back = 13 miles of on-foot locomotion.  And even after I left the park, there were still poppies blooming everywhere!

Day 28 of our captivity: Social events

We had two social events today — what a novelty!  First, our standing Sunday virtual happy hour with Kathleen and Robert, then a break for dinner, then a virtual Easter dessert with Todd and Sarah and kids.  Zoom usage is high around here...  Now we are all talked out.
Happy Easter all.

Day 27 of our captivity: Choices

Banana waffles were on the menu this morning, with a variety of toppings from which to choose.

I couldn’t decide what topping I wanted, so opted for this:

The kid, being a kid, started with this:

and then moved on to a checkerboard pattern.

Chad, wise man that he is, just went straight for the blueberries.