Cob pedestal meets the Buddha on our Special Day

Cob pedestal meets the Buddha
Originally uploaded by Robbi Baba.

Today was India's 17th birthday and our 21st wedding anniversary.

For her birthday we gave India her own laptop. I got a used one from a fellow in the neighborhood. Since she's just begun a photoshop class and her own blog and flickr page, it's perfect timing. She was pretty happy with it! It also came loaded with an enormous amount of music, which should keep her busy exploring.

I gave Krista a card. She gave me a haircut. She also gave me the pair of cargo shorts she bought when we were in Bangkok. I was feeling sad that mine were falling apart (literally). I rarely buy clothes for myself and had gotten those the day before we left on our big trip. I'd worn those shorts all across Thailand and Bali and Moorea (New Zealand was way too cold for shorts), and OCF and cobbing.
So getting her shorts was a wonderful present. Especially since I remember her trying them on in a tiny crowded little shop off Khao San Road.

In other news: we finally brought in our little cob project and set up the Buddha on it. And after almost a month on the front porch, I have to say I'm thrilled to see it there.
I know I posted photos of the pedestal some time ago, but truth to tell there were some problems...we used way too much clay in the plaster and not enough sand and the whole thing was pretty crackly (especially the top, which I actually had to scrape off).
Luckily I had saved the left over plaster in a couple yogurt tubs and had some sand and straw to add, to make it right.
Unluckily that leftover plaster was about 4 weeks old and smelled pretty ripe. At first I thought it stunk like old compost. Then I decided it smelled more like shit. Pretty soon the 'smells like shit' decision was unanimous. Little Zephyr bent down to sniff it and pronounced "cat poop!"

But really, it was only the flour and straw decomposing. So I went ahead and replastered with it anyway. And yes, it was disgusting.
When it was done the pedestal looked alot better. And smelled like shit. Great. Everyone should have a beautiful one hundred pound piece of shit on their front porch.

My family was appalled. But I said, hey, we'll just let it dry out and it'll stop smelling. Sure enough it did. It just took a lot longer then I ever imagined.
So yesterday I dragged it out to the end of our walkway, where it would get hot sun all day long. Let the sun bake it. After two days we deemed it good enough to bring in. To sort of celebrate this special day.

It was a nice evening. Jerry and Joyce, Jon, Lux and Zephyr, and Danny came over to help us celebrate. I made a wicked batch of enchiladas and Joyce made her margharita salad. Krista made peach cobbler from our last peaches of the year.
India worked all day on her new photoshop skills, making cool psychedelic portraits of everyone to print out as party favors. We never did quite get to printing them, but we had a fun slide show.