Sinisters fail

... sort of. Goaded on by peer pressure, I made two sets of sinister mermaids.



The first I cut out and tried to make a softie. I made a banana. :(

sinister banana mermaid:





Don't trust her, Sookie.




Feeling dissatisfied with this, I got into the stash cupboard and made a pillow instead. Considered a mini-quilt, but no idea how I would display it in a way that showed both sides. Anyone can flip a pillow.

Success! If Spongebob can have a pineapple, so can my mermaid.








It's so satisfying to complete a whole project in one day.

Meanwhile, dxfh is on day 7 of his new 90-day workout regime, and making me feel like a doughy dough-type person. Even though I've lost 4 lbs this week just by being back on track with dietary stuffs. Might have to surreptitiously get into my shorts and try a few of his video thingies when nobody is around to see my bouncy bits.

Acceptable man-activity (Sunday is stretch day):

sinisters

When I was in high school, my mom nurtured my creative whimsy by purchasing a silkscreen kit. Last night, I finally opened it up. Does silkscreen ink last 12 years? Yes it does.



Enlarged doodle on copier by 250%, taped to freezer paper and cut out with exacto, ironed freezer paper to fabric, and stippled on silkscreen ink with a brush, ironed to set. Ta daaa! Now I just have to do the back.

Freezer paper and a jar of 12 year-old silkscreen ink - you can make anything, just let that sink in for a moment. I'm dizzy with the implications. (not wine)

lookit me rocking out, I'm on the video!

Guess who is going to be on TWO news stations tonight, gibbering like a gibbering thing that gibbers? Yes, it is ME! That person there hiding behind the couch with half a bottle of leftover wine. Goodgiddygods, they asked me to send them a picture to go with my voiceover, and I very nearly sent them the picture of me in the McGonagall hat. Because it was librarianly. And I apologized to the reporter man with ice-cream voice for being a squirrel. Yes I did.

But I have big plans. Big plans with photocopies, an exacto (and wine!), and freezer paper.

And this. It is two-sided, and it will be fantastic. Probably.





I find mermaids very sinister. Especially with cutlery.

RARARARARAR

Get your speakers ready: this was the scene at the library today - just replace "whiskey" and "tequila" with "internal memos" and "budget plan".

Big meeting, official notice, advice on dealing with media - the state wants to close our library, among others. Irate patrons. Irate Board of Education members. Phone call by State Librarian (awk!) to confirm or deny rumors that we were already packing. Which was reported to/by a senator (gah!). And I sound like a wookie on the phone. I forgot the name of the Friends of the Library. Which is called 'the Friends of the Library'. As in "No, we are not packing, we are having our summer Friends of the Library book sale." ("No, we're, like, having our book sale for... whatsit, you know, our library book sale. There are boxes and stuff, but *wookie call* that's about it.") Hurr.

Oh, and I made a chicken. Here, take it. The legs are too short to throttle myself with.



And here is the chicken with a beaker. BEAK-ER! HaaahahahahahahaaaahhhI'm going to bed.



Softie pattern by myrtleandeunice.

More progresses

Rabbit?

Went to post office for work this morning and stood behind a woman who's priority package suddenly began vibrating violently. Postmaster looked at her over his glasses, not again. Ooo-er.

Other stuff...

dxfh just handed me an enormous beaker of his new cream ale. I think he is on to something. I want all my food and beverages in giant beakers.

I've been slowly working on the Hungry Caterpillar blanket:






Zig-zags are ready for quilting. I think I'm going to do this one by hand, too:







Proof that I can smile:

Weekend progress

Another row added to the Anna Maria Horner quilt:




Finished baby blanket in the obligatory aloha prints:




And here is the infink, who was cutting a very bloody canine and bit me all over like a chewy bone:




In other news, the icky neighbors are gone! They said there's "no aloha" in this town, which I find people complain a lot about when they're thwarted from being complete assholes. My mom was once accused of having no aloha when she asked the neighbors to stop letting their kids throw balls at our car and hit the mailboxes with baseball bats.

Also dxfh, in a fit of "omg I'm turning 30!" is starting a 90-day intensive fitness program, for which I am preparing meals and facilitating workouts, so all junk foods have been evicted [eaten] and this will be the kick in the ass I've needed to get back on track and lose the last 15 pregnancy lbs! Yes it will be.

Want vs. Need

Very exciting gossips: the downstairs chain-smoking donkey-sex synthesizer-playing neighbors have been evicted! After being 3 months behind on rent and mooching food, smokes, and miscellaneous supplies from our epileptic surfer neighbor, the wife showed up at the landlord's house at midnight, drunk and high on oxycontin, and he called the cops because she was "slobbering all over and I didn't know what the fuck". He told them to be out by July 1st, and they promptly abandoned all their possessions and disappeared. They were discovered a week later, squatting in a bed & breakfast where the wife had been hired to change the sheets. And they had broken the B&B's generator. Cops were called again to throw them off of premises. They did not return here, and three days later the cops were called again to evict them from an illegal druggie communal living nest in Kipahulu. Then they lived in their car for a bit, reportedly leaving their kitten in the Buick during the days. Then, I guess when they ran out of floors to sleep on, they came back here and settled in like nothing had happened. The landlord marched over and asked them when they were getting their stuff out, to which they casually replied, "Oh, like, we have until next Wednesday, so we're cool." Landlord went into a dither and waved their eviction notice and said he was calling the cops if they weren't gone by Sunday. That is why I am letting the baby bang on the floor with cat food bowls at 6am. Very excited about dragging the patio chairs out to the front of the house to watch the cops haul them away tomorrow. Hoping they are high on oxycontin and a fight ensues. Ooo-er.

And gods help them if I ever see their car in town and find their kitten locked in it. I know they can't afford garbage bags to cover the resulting busted window.

Am feeling heartless and delighted today.

Laundry and materialism

One of dxfh's jobs as man-about-the-house is to do the laundry. So yesterday, after I determined that I would be wearing a cashmere sweater, jogging shorts, maternity panty hose, a leather thong, and a black lace water bra to work on Monday, we stuffed the car to the brim with garbage bags filled with 3-months' worth of dirty clothes and took over the entire front half of the laundromat to do them in one shot. I got to see a skinny old shirtless man with chest hair that grew in stripes, and a man walking around with his hand jammed down his pants to hold his penis. Amidst this excitement, we walked to the fabric store and discovered that they had set up a giant long-arm quilting machine for people to play with. OMFG. It was like driving a machine gun. It was probably the most satisfying nerd-moment of my life (well, except perhaps for the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). Even Mike had to be pried off it by the saleslady. "It has lasers," he whispered reverently as we were leaving.

"We need that machine," I told him as we folded laundry.
"Yeah, but it costs a fourth of what I earn in a year."
"Not if we quit our jobs and become world-famous quilters!"
"Yeah! Then it would cost more than what we'd earn in a year!"
Well poo.

Following all this, we went to Costco and I nearly wept over a Canon Rebel digital camera.



Have not felt such a tantrum-provoking surge of greed since I was refused the Optimus Prime action figure when I was 7. Must make it up to my childhood self by finding $900 and buying the camera. My sons need me to properly document their childhoods. And dxfh needs it to properly launch his beer-brewing blog and start his brewery. It is a selfless act, really. Even the Dalai Lama is behind it; his books asks, "Will this bring you pleasure, or will this bring you happiness?" Yes! There, it is really out of my hands now.

Lots of talk, little action.

shmoops

After Gavin cracked my tooth with his noggin, he went very still and wide-eyed while I thumped my head against the bed and made mmmph mmph noises into the blanket. When I had regained my senses, I looked up to see him trembling on the verge of tears. "Iths ok, sthweety," I said, stroking his hair back, "I'm ok". He clutched me and wailed, "I lost my penguin!" and went to pieces. What? My mom patted him and explained, "His penguin went down the drain after his bath." This was one of a dozen small plastic animals bought in a tube from the discount store. "He made a bid for freedom, he's swimming free!" I said. "No," he said between sobs, "He's all alone - and lost!" He buried his face and began sobbing against my chest. My heart made a bit of a wrenching noise. For all that he's bounding off into boyhood with Star Wars and computer games, he's still a small kid who believes in the souls of his toys. It's sweet enough to break your heart.

And if that weren't enough, Leif has realized what "bye bye" means. Today he ran his father ragged until I came home for lunch, then reverted from nazgul into a giggling puti while dxfh cast baleful glares at him over the back of the couch. When it was time to go, I picked him up, kissed him, and handed him over to his dad - at which point he realized what was happening and began wailing (Leif, not dad). I backed out the door, grabbed my keys, and waved sadly. dxfh asked "Can you wave bye-bye?" and the wee thing dutifully lifted a hand and waved, still sobbing. It took all my grit to turn and walk to the car instead of lunging across the room and snatching him back up.

le sigh.

In other news, the infamous Mr. HS made it all the way from San Francisco to the winding road of doom just to see me for dinner! Well, also for his sister's wedding, but I know that is really just an excuse to come by and try to break my spine. All those years locked in a dark computer lab grew him into some sort of mutantly strong mega-nerd. He's not a poop sock nerd, mind you, he's the real deal. The kind who makes stuff that I'm too stupid to recognize the names of, let alone use. I usually feel pretty smart, working in a library and reading thick books and whatnot, but Mr. HS has only to smile with that sad, indulgent look in his eyes - like someone looking at a dog with its own foot in its mouth - for me to realize where I am in the grand scheme of things. And that's just fine. Anyway he looks like a giant cupie doll.




Been thinking about boys, and luuurve. I dug out the box of my mom's old writing and doodles that I've been keeping squirrelled away like sacred piles of... acorns (squirrel?), and amidst the fantastically gruesome stories, mysterious drawings, and the odd college assignment, there were bits of poetry about feeling lost and alone and being unable to follow where he went. Who this "he" is, I'm not sure. I've come across musty photos of smiling teenage boys over the years, but exactly which one of them tucked my mother's heart in his pocket and walked away, I'm uncertain. And I thought of my own, lost so long ago. And why then? Those hazel eyes were not the first to plunge through me and make me hum like a pitch fork. From ages 8-12, I lived in the beaming gaze of one Gilbert Clay, and I remember him sitting beside my bed one night, holding my small white trembly hand in his large, dark one, looking at me intently with those deep black eyes and not saying anything. I didn't know what to do with him then, and have spent years looking for a time machine so I could go back, chuck my 11 year-old self out of that bed, and give Gilbert the snogging of his life. So far have not succeeded. He may be very alarmed some day in the distant past when an old hag leaps out of the closet and chases him out of the trailer. Maybe if he had plunged his hands into my hair and kissed me under the stars I would have not had a heart left to lose to someone else. If I had gotten it over with sooner, maybe it wouldn't still be all hurty. I should ask my mom.

My, I'm a mess today. In other news: we finally got all the cat pee out of the stove burners. Cats look properly chastened. Or smug. Hard to tell.

Fiberrific

The trip had artsy goodness, too.

I spent way too much money on yarn I have no purpose for other than to squeeze and whisper loving sentiments to:



The plundered cat-lady stash looks like brains. Am suspicious and wary of them. Am I typically a pink fluffy cardigan kind of librarian? Maybe not, but come October I just may channel my inner Dolores Umbridge. Mwah hahahaha.



We went into Starbucks and I stood brooding moodily at the couch where I sat and broke my own heart three years ago over a grande coffee, when suddenly my eye fell upon a knitted tea cup on the merchandise shelf. A KNITTED TEA CUP. My mother saw my eyes dilate into saucers and promptly bought the thing for me.

Delicious.



Also I found my old drafting pen, appropriated my cousin's sketchbook, and doodled a bit.



So all that, in addition to being mock-frisked by a cop with a french manicure and risking my mother's life in a battle against schnauzer-sized roaches, rounds out a pretty fun trip to Oahu. Shall begin hoarding vacation time again forthwith.

Moving on: today I pulled the strips I had cut before vacation and pieced the baby blanket for the new nephew-to-be. Not really my style, but folks on the mainland expect the Hawaiiana. Must find a way to work some personality into these things:

further notes from vacation

Am home. Highlights:

Mom found a bag of crystal meth on the sidewalk, called cops.
Police officer was ridiculously good-looking lady cop who looked like she took a wrong turn from the set of her tv drama.
Was used as prop by cop in hi-larious anecdote about junkie with a fanny pack full of meth and a blow-up doll [was junkie].
Made a pizza; opened oven to prepare for pizza and found forgotten mac and cheese casserole from previous week's party - and horrifying colony of several dozen B-52 cockroaches.
Watched mother make brave dash from oven to lanai with oven rack covered in dangling trapeze roaches.
Watched cousin turn the laptop into a light saber.
Gave kiddo a bedtime hug and was accidentally head-butted, broke front tooth.
Broke camera at the beach.

Brilliant vacation! Back on Maui. Cats have shredded kitchen tablecloth, broke out a window, pooped in the bathtub, and left dead things on bedroom floor. Bought ourselves a bottle of Baileys. Pictures upon location of camera cord and creative coaxing of broken camera.

In the meantime, here is dxfh trying to catch the house on fire with a tiki torch. While cousin snapped this picture, I was hanging off the plastic door of the fire extinguisher on the side of the building; fire gained momentum thereafter and was eventually smothered by the mormon-lady pot before I could get the emergency box open: