Disaster house

First off, my cat is a lunatic. And she thinks she is a dog.

Secondly, brownie is not a proper material for [haunted] gingerbread house construction.

The costumes for the kids are bought and sewed. I gave up on the elf costume, so the man has been bending over the sewing machine while I drink booze. "I will go as all the members of OK Go, and wear a vest and break into dance when people ask what I am." "Nobody will know what you're talking about." "Well you could do it with me, and we could do slo-mo choreographed fighting." "I am an elf." "Elfs dance." "Not so much."

Well what is this, then? I win.

I felt moody at the library today. An elderly guy asked for something on writing nonprofit policy, so I walked him over to the legal books. He frowned at the first ones I handed him. "These are all written by women. I guess women are lawyers more and more nowadays. I don't think it's right. Women didn't used to try to work in men's fields. But it's ok," he said, "I don't have many years left. I don't have to see it much longer." I carefully shelved the heavy NOLO book I was holding, and did not use it to hurry him on his way to the afterlife.

Stomped upstairs in the dark after work, and stopped when I heard the strum of a guitar, feeling an unexpected surge of anger. Shook it off, confused by my reaction. Stomp stomp stomp up the stairs in my boots - strum. I stopped again, looked around, inexplicably pissed off. The moon was bright enough to cast shadows, the neighbor's windows were dark. Stomp stomp stomp across the lanai to the door - no guitar. But the house smelled like Krispy Kreme. Mike came out of the bedroom, having put the baby to bed, and pulled homemade bread from the oven. Ok.

This is why I keep him around.

The mystery of the phantom Guitar of Anger remains.

Disaster and Dr. Pepper

First off, a special thanks to Mo Willems, who livened up this week's storytime when I read "Pigs Make me Sneeze" and made all the parents in the room cover their faces in embarrassment while yelling "AAAAH - AAAAAAAH!" for four pages in a row.

Anyway. The missing hamcat:

Two nights ago: "Um, when was the last time you saw Po?" Quick mental inventory, realized with icy horror that I had not seen the hamcat for at least 2 days. 2 days! I'm a terrible cat owner! Quickly checked to make sure I had not misplaced the children.

A third day went by, raining. At work, I imagined that my fat kitty was croaking weakly in the woods, soaked and injured and dying of exposure. In the evening I searched everywhere, calling and listening for answering meows or ominous droning flies. Gave up at dusk and watched the man fix the car. Suddenly, I heard it! RrrrOOOwwwllll, from the dense jungle beside the house! I started yelling, and Mike shot out from beneath the Volkswagen, covered in car oil, and ran heroically into the foliage; dropping into a gorge and disappearing with a yelp. We all watched as the banana trees thrashed violently while he tried to climb out; Gavin and the bad cat and the mean cat watched from the lanai, and me and Leif and the hamcat watched from the - HAMCAT! Oh, hamcat hamcat hamcat!  She was following us around all along, helping to look for herself. We picked her up and cried and kissed her and gave her cat food. Very emotional night. We left Mike in the bushes.

And now the car is fixed. I drove to work, singing along with Brandi Carlile and then suddenly swerving the car all over the road as I beat a nest of red ants off my legs. 4 days off the road, and the tropics have tried to reclaim the vehicle. Heading out to pick up the library's mail this morning, I borrowed a pair of fancy white sunglasses from the lost and found bin. "Ok, let's see them on you," said my janitor. I tilted my head and he made a sad sound. Got the mail, chugged a soda, and sang along loudly to trashy songs as I pulled up at the library. Slammed the door shut, belched in response to the beep of the car alarm, and looked up to see a patron laughing at me from the car next to mine. Librarian disguise breached! Damn it, and I had on dress pants, too.

In other news, furloughs have been arranged for Wednesdays starting in December. It'll be a Bob Cratchit Christmas.

Finished objects

Project update post.

I made a mushroom house. I'm not really sure why, now that it's done. It doesn't do anything. On the other hand, I was always rooting for Gargamel, so maybe it will attract a little blue source of furlough income.



Also, the Robin Hoodie has been be-tassled and be-toggled. Natural cotton, wooden clasps. I grafted the hood instead of seaming, planning to add a zipper and maybe lining.



One of my patrons took up knitting, and as I stamped her stack of requested pattern books, I offered, "We have a copy of Stitch n' Bitch, it has some lovely beginner's cable projects." "Oh," said she, "I don't like cables and all that fancy stuff, it looks like the stuff you see in stores, you could just go out and buy that. If it doesn't look homemade, what's the point?"

So now you know: snarled acrylic yarn = heirloom quality. :)



Oh, and did I mention that my baby is WALKING?

Tasty gnomes

 

We caught one!  

Didn't know their hats were so disproportionately huge, did you? Acrylic felt with interfacing is a motherfucker to sew. I've bound (using the amazing lazy-ass pillow technique) and started adding gold quilting to the kiddo's star wars/batman quilt. 

 

 

And knocked out another box bag.

  

And then we put on loud music and danced.

   

Real subtle use of the auto timer. 

 Have not done any illustration yet, but have ambitious plans for after bedtime.