Cool Shit In Katrina's House

First of all, the hub. This is where most of my life takes place. This giant, old desk is one I truly love. When Eric had his business, he ran it from here because the desktop was big enough to spread out blueprints and plans and such. This past weekend - broken back and all - I moved back in here after being at the family room desk for several months. This is in the utility room where the dogs and the laundry live. All of my essentials are here: computer, phones, water bottles, diet ginger ale, candles, etc.

If you look up slightly above my desk, you'll see this:

This is my litho of Jean-Luc Picard and Wil Riker. Shut up. I love it. Above The Boys are my pig pictures that Georgia gave to me and my "All Hail the Queen" heart that Delena bought for me. Yes, those blinds are that dirty. I finally just gave up on trying to keep them clean. Through the window to the left of the Star Trek picture is my front deck and out the window to the right is a view of my driveway, which is magnificent.

On top of my computer is my latest candle holder acquisition:

This is "The Monkey of Wisdom" tealight holder. Huzzah.

The picture below is to the immediate right of the desk. We're getting over into "overflow pantry area" that is best left unexplored. The flag was flown over McClellan Air Force Base right before it closed. The moon and sun is a mirror and one of my pretties. There is a story on the yellow-orange picture in a bit. That is a bag of lavender clipped to the light to permeate the room with relaxing joyfulness. The stack of books is waiting for me to review them.

I mentioned this yellow-orange picture a bit ago. For years, every thrift store I went into in a total of 3 different states had this picture in it. I ended up with 3 different copies of it. I love it. It's as though it was always waiting for me, no matter how many times I bought it. So here it stays. I have a whole story behind what happened to this tree. Ask me sometime when I'm drinking, which I almost never do. Below is a close up of the moon and sun mirror:

This is to the left of the desk. That is a small poster of The Boxer, Bruce Willis' character from one of my favorite movies, "Pulp Fiction." It was a gift from Sherry Mercurio, who knows me so well.

The mirror below it was also a gift and serves to feng sui away all of the negative vibes. To the left is a topographical map of Grizzly Flats, one of my 87,000 herb racks, an incense burner and two jars with fireflies in them that Delena made for me. Yes, I have that much incense (see below the map).

A lot of my life happens within this area, as I said, but there is actually a whole other house attached to this room. As you step out of my "office" (hahahaha) and turn completely around, there is the White Shelf. The White Shelf has my Maya Hill statues, plus a pig, a fairy and a Kwan Yin. You'll see a lot of Kwan Yin representations as we go through my weird stuff. I love her. She is the Goddess who refused to enter into Heaven until she knew that all of her children were safely inside. Since I have Mommy Issues and am always in search of a surrogate mommy for myself, she resonates with me.

Here are old photos of some of the Maya Hill statues:

(On the right - The one on the left is one of my Divas - more later - and the little ballerina in the middle is one someone brought to my mother's funeral and left.

The one on the right and the tiny one are both Maya Hill. The brown one is "The Protector" and is from a conference on Catholicism.

Maya Hill in the middle and a couple of Divas on each side. Below is my little Crone collection.

And back to the family room where we last left the White Shelf.

This is a shelf up high to the left of the entry to my office. On the left is a large (something like 18") statue of a woman engraved with all sorts of ocean symbols like star fish and such. I found her at Ross for something like $20. It's extremely heavy. I knew immediately that she was Punani, Queen of the Ocean. When I showed her to Georgia, she said., "Katrina, you could totally kill someone with your Punani." I said, "Mmm hmmm."

Below is what I call, "The Three Gentlemen." Yes, it's that dusty. Everything here is dusty. I'd have to wipe crap down every single day to keep it from looking like this. No sidewalks + far from the paved road = dirt is all over the place. The Gentlemen did not come with the fishing ball, but it works well. I think they are teak.

This is the Fairy Shelf below. These are four Amy Brown fairies: Air, Earth, Water & Fire, plus the most recent photos of the kids.

The doorway above leads into the living room. To the immediate left is a shelf of stuff:

The top shelf is the Diva shelf, my beautiful Divas dancing around their huge cauldron of change.

Second shelf is fun, including Kwan Yin's Pig Farm:

It always makes me smile. Kwan Yin loves her pigs. The next shelf is the farm house. It has Buddahs and Kwan Yins and somewhere around here is a JarJar Binks. Oh, there he is on his back in front of the amber crystal ball. Evil has been defeated by the love of the Buddahs and Kwan Yin. Mythos for the win.

This is the last shelf of delights on this particular unit. To the back is the Blue Green Man, who has a little lizard skittering across his face. The big dragon in the middle is actually a dagger (ooooh). The cards are a series that reflect the idea of having control of your own positive future.

Here's a close up of the Blue GreenMan:

To the left of this is another shelf:

This is Pan's Garden. Pan is there with his boudrin drum and the maiden is carefully hidden on the other side of the Big Rock Flowing Fountain. There is a jade monkey in the grapes and a cast iron lizard in those rocks somewhere. (Guitar Hero at the ready)

Next is The Long Wall over my beautiful TV David bought me for Christmas and my gigantic bookcase:

There are two GreenMen here. The first is a casting that I love. Nathan was a real jerk when he was a baby and one day climbed up on the couch, looked right at me and grabbed the GreenMan casting off the wall and flung it into the floor, breaking it into many pieces. I glued it back together, piece by piece. The feather and suede wand next to it was made by my wonderful, long-time friend, Karen Albeck. The little tambourine is also a GreenMan. The mule deer skull with antlers (and teeth!) still attached was a gift from Erick Wulf, a dear (deer?) friend who is an archeologist and finds the most amazingly cool things. Hanging from it is a pendulum that is a quartz crystal dangling from a string of chakra beads.

Close up from before it was broken.

To the right is The Humboldt GreenMan - a specialty art piece. The couple in the picture are friends of mine from long ago. A friend of ours, Myke Baker, painted that picture from a photo taken in my back yard at the time. To the left of that is a print called "Crystal Ball." To the left of that is a lovely female figure. Above it all is a spear made by (guess who?) Erick Wulf.

(Close up of the female figure)

This is the dart board where I routinely spank Eric at darts - you just don't mess with someone who has lived on a British Dart Team In England.

This turns the corner to some of my favorite pigs and yes, a Kwan Yin head.

And on to a couple more pigs, including Knuckles, the OG pig who started it all. (Left)

Above Eric's desk (formerly my desk) are a few things:

Eric's desk. Yes, astute readers, that is Carolyn next to the Hummel figure.

Eric has a thing for giraffes.

A cool vase I found at an antique shop. Each of the four sides is different and cool.

On the shelf behind Eric's desk is the beautiful harvest angel Georgia gave me for my birthday this year.

Next to that is the awesome Dapper Dan clock that was a gift from Sherry Mercurio ("I. DON'T. WANT. FOP! I'm a Dapper Dan man!") and my vintage 1970's oil rain lamp.

Other Weird Stuff