Underwear as headgear

Craft Corner DEATH MATCH

I died, I am ded.

The theme this week was "underwear as headgear" because, evidently, not everyone spends New Year's Eve asleep in front of bad western movies, waking up just in time to see a rerun of the ball dropping before crawling off to bed.

I can relate to the theme, however, because my head is the only place my underwear will fit now. Somehow, two weeks of baked goods, brandied eggnogs and fancy chocolates resulted in 6 lbs of horror getting packed onto my backside. Have purchased new athletic shoes, which I will use to... ah, massage away the cellulite while watching netflix.

The infink heard my mutterings as I mangled my 4th stuffed head at the sewing machine, and got into his "dyabba dyabba" undercrackers to console me.


That is his "I appear to have just dismantled my brother's toy and now face the options of either attempting to fix it, hiding the evidence, or throwing the pieces up in the air like confetti and dancing in them" face. Guess which one he chose?

Go see some shocking pantless stuffies over at craft corner death match.

ok, I'll play.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Had a hot toddy, saw a raccoon... I really didn't do anything remarkable, it appears.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Failed parlously. Making same resolutions for next year, but adding punitive measures - as yet undetermined or committed to.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Not close in a phone-call or email-announcement way, but it seemed like just about everyone with working equipment was producing babies this spring. I even got to stand awkwardly in the back of a baby shower, supervising the shrimp platter.

4. Did anyone close to you die? No, but my mother came unnervingly close. Giving myself full credit for nursing her through it by supervising medication and thai food intake.

5. What places did you visit? New York , Oahu, various snorkling and waterfall destinations, and a bbq joint next to a sex shop.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? A left breast.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Oh, the usual: regretable holidays, awkward visits with ex-in-laws, unexpected gropings. Honorable mention: the day Mike thought he would cheer me up after inviting overnight guests without telling me by sending a picture of himself with a new handlebar mustache - in which he forgot to put on a shirt or smile, popping up like a felon's OK Cupid profile pic in my email.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Having 3 books published and not reading any of the reviews.

9. What was your biggest failure? Didn't achieve dieting goals, through complete lack of effort or exercise and the use of "the ipod is too small to type on" as excuse for not tracking anything.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Flu, root canal, a fall down a set of stairs, most horrific blister ever, and two oven-rack burns on my forearm.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I didn't buy anything particularly awesome, but the dumbest thing was probably that jug of magic alkaline water.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Mike's.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Mike's.

14. Where did most of your money go? rent. This quiz is starting to make me sad.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Moving to a real house! With avocados! Where I can watch Dexter and Peepshow and get naked without someone staring in through the glass doors!

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?



17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? thinner
c) richer or poorer? richer. Ok, this quiz is redeeming itself.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? hobo-chasing. They are all scared of my co-worker because she knows all their moms.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? talking to people after drinking wine.

20. How did you spend Christmas last year? tip-toeing over rotten neighbors and eating lots of roast beef

21. Did you fall in love in 2010? only with tv shows and yarn.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Dexter. Peepshow. The Good Guys. Bones. Evidently I watch a lot of tv.

23. What did you do for your birthday in 2010? Knitted while my mom told stories, ate cake, got a few nice presents, bought boots and a cardigan which looks as if I knitted it but, in fact, I did not. Reputation to uphold at work.

24. What was the best book you read? Echo in the Bone, Diana Gabaldon. Hope you like writing paranormal and zombie fic, Gabaldon, because Jamie and Claire are not allowed to die, ever. The Hunger Games was also good. And a Dirty Job. Under the Dome was pretty great. Evidently I read a lot of books, too.

25. What did you want and get? to see Deathly Hallows with the kiddo, even though I knew he would cry over Hedwig and Dobby and be mad at me. Which he did, and was, but it was still fun.

26. What did you want and not get? I am sure whatever it is, it's under the tree at this very moment. RIGHT, MIKE?

27. What was your favorite film of this year? Deathly Hallows. Yeah, I know, shut up. Anyway, the only other movie I saw in the theater was Eclipse (with 10 year-old girl dragging my sleeve), and I'm waiting for the MST3K version.

28. Did you make some new friends this year? Yes! Really. I did. But the old ones are still invited to EMAIL ME SOMETIMES DAMMIT.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? A fist fight would have been nice. Also, I really wanted to kick in the men's room door and bust the guy who was spooging on the floor, but he learned to use tissue before I got the chance.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? breast-obscuring

31. What kept you sane? knitting and correspondance. I am an old lady.

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? My favorite picture on the Wall of Bang is of Rainn Wilson in a teddy bear codpiece. But in general, I don't fancy people anymore. All my fanciness has been distributed and is long gone.

33. What political issue stirred you the most? Politics, no, but there were a few deaths in the news that bothered me a lot. Toddlers and people on roadsides and the like.

34. Who did you miss? I miss more people than miss me in return. Thanks, quiz.

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. Don't bend over in cowl-neck shirts.

my viking boyfriend

I'm down to the button band and collar on the Viking cardigan.


(note: horrible cicada earrings!)


(further note: I do not actually have a penis)

It's too big. Which is why I have this taped to the wall of my office:



I'm wearing it anyway. My imaginary Viking boyfriend is huge about the shoulders. So there.

Christmas 2010 - too long posterity post

It didn't make sense to visit my mom for Christmas. We were broke; 4 tickets, 4 suitcases full of unopened presents, 4 tickets back with 4 suitcases full of opened presents. We couldn't do it.

We did it anyway, scraping flier miles and savings accounts. "No presents for grownups!" I warned. "It's the gift of family togetherness!" They cheered, and toasted to family togetherness. Somehow, everyone wanted presents anyway.

Merry Buffsmas

We flew in early on the day before Christmas Eve. We crammed into the VW and drove across the island to the Koa House, my favorite breakfast joint since the age of 14. I was sad to note that the restaurant seemed to have aged a bit in the past 17 years, and the potatoes appeared to have been fried up by a different cook. Traitorous progression of time.

I found myself at the mall with Leif, on a mission for last-minute gifts. Decided it would be a fantastic idea to buy a giant ice cream maker right away, and lug it around for miles with the plastic bag cutting into my arm and a toddler on my hip. Hours later, I collapsed in the overpriced toy shop, sitting in a mountain of bags while Leif drove trucks around on the floor display. When it was time to catch our ride, he gave a polite, "Aww," took my finger with a resigned glance back at the trucks, and led me staggering outside to a bench, where I handed him a cookie and waited for my mother. He swung his legs and ate the cookie, humming and bobbing his head. Smug toddlers, eating cookies and riding their mothers around. I eyed my mom as we got home, considering grappling up onto her back and riding her into the house. She probably could have taken it.

The $32 poo

The next day, I felt as if I had been beaten with a bag of rocks. The man and my mom hadn't seen Deathly Hallows, so I bought them two tickets and dropped them off at the theater, discovering myself standing by the coin-operated batmobile in the mall with both children and three hours to kill. I was determined not to exert myself, and sat around while the boys played in the fiberglass vehicles, watching a kiosk salesgirl shovel seasoned popcorn into bags while wearing thigh-high fuzzy pink boots with ruffly underpants peeking out above two inches of bare thigh. Wondered if she had come straight from her other job, then felt bad. After visiting toy stores, running under the fake-snow blower that showered bubbles every hour, and eating a few cups of frozen yogurt, we ended up in the children's section of the book store. The mall was overrun with military dads, chucked from the house with the kids while feast preparations were underway, and one sidled up to comment about how both our 2 year-olds had headfuls of curls. At this moment, Leif blew out his let's-be-on-the-safe-side diaper.

If you run out of diapers at the mall, you're fucked. You can buy anything in creation except diapers. I cleaned him up, tugged his pants on over his bare butt, and hauled the boys outside to make a run for the drug store across the street. It was raining. "What do you think, kid?" Gavin eyed the rain. "It's not too much." We ran for it, dashing through the whispy rain and splashing over puddles. "I'm dodging the drops! I'm not getting wet! AUGH!" a big droplet hit him in the eye. We burst into the drugstore, found some pull-ups, bought a few drinks, and sat outside to wait out the rain. Gavin stood as a human modesty curtain while I yanked a diaper onto Leif. The rain did not let up, and the swatch of blue sky we had been watching clouded over with thunderheads. "NOW NOW NOW!" I shrieked. We splashed out across the parking lot, infink laughing on my shoulder, and the storm broke in earnest halfway there. A few people waiting for the bus under the bench shelter stood up and cheered, waving us in out of the rain and offering their seats. An old woman scowled and tried to spread her bottom out, determined to be unmoved. When the lights were about the switch, we darted out into the torrential rain again, slapped the crossing button, and sprinted the last 200 yards to the mall, where we stood outside Macys and clutched out stomachs in hysterics, soaked to the skin and water dripping from our noses. I wiped Leif's face with a semi-dry spot under my arm. We squelched up the escalator, shivering in the cold store, and bought children's sweaters on holiday clearance, stripping off and pulling them on in the hallway outside. The boys did hugs and jumps of warmth-appreciation. Leif threw down a little breakdance. We met dad and grannie outside the theater, and Mike was so overcome by the movie and the sight of his drenched, freshly-spiffed offspring that he spun us around in a group hug and kissed us all.

And that is the heartwarming story of the $32 poo.

Christmas

I was quivering with mall-muscles by dinner on Christmas Eve, and considered it my duty to compensate by consuming my weight in chocolates and wine. We could tell it was time for Christmas when the presents started to take over the livingroom and lift the tree.

The elves (or a cat) clattered upstairs as we enjoyed our evening feast. They left jammies under our pillows, and we all went to bed in new flannel, groaning with roast beef and yorkshire pudding. Whether it was the footie pajamas or our being too engorged to roll over and disturb him, the infink slept the entire night without so much as twitching. I became alert to rustlings and the reflected light of the tree at about 5am, and crept downstairs to find the boy rolling in his stocking loot while my mom observed with a bleary smile from the couch. "2am," she said. "Twoo aaaye emmm." Keeping him in bed until 5 had been a herculean feat. I got her a huge cup of coffee and we waited for the remaining boys while Gavin shook with excitement over Santa's loot and cookie crumbs. Leif woke with an indignant scream, discovering me out of bed. I ran up and grabbed him, ran downstairs, and squealed exuberantly about his stocking while shaking him around - which everyone loves at 5am. He howled, tucked his head to hide from the light, pointed up at the ceiling, and screamed, "BED!!" So we went back up, laid in bed for a moment, and then came down again. He clapped and sat down to his presents. Sheesh.

Presents! Eggs and bacon! Mimosas! Brandy chocolates! Meat pie! The boy terrorized us for the next two days with his new spy watch, recording hours of conversation, shrieks over the flaming figgy pudding, and dinnertime reminiscing about Boozes I Have Known and Loved. I spent a lot of time petting my Anthropologie lamp and wearing earrings that look like cicada shells (the most wonderfully horrifying things EVER).

We left the boy to enjoy the rest of his vacation with his grandmother, and we flew back home. My mother's home is small and close, comfortably cluttered: book cases full of worn and loved cookbooks; small wooden and china boxes hiding tiny treasures; bronze sculptures and oil paintings. Our house looked naked and sparse when we stepped in. The cats had expressed their love by hosing the bathroom with pee, so I put the infink to bed and scrubbed the floor for a bit, muttering about calico sporrans and black fur hats.

Another Christmas, another year, another airport plague to knock me down for a few days at home to feel guilty about appearing to be one of those fakers who just want more vacation time. Tradition is key during the holidays.

Christmas 2010

The neighbors are laughing and drunk. The figgy pudding was set on fire, and the boy recorded it on his spy camera. A Christmas miracle occurred: the baby slept the night - the WHOLE night - for the first time since last Christmas. Am kind of spooked. If this is going to be a yearly thing, I'll take it.

The meat pie was great, the cherry wine was really nice. There were chestnuts and chocolates. We are fat. We are happy. We are watching Jeeves and Wooster.

Happy Christmas.

in which I think things

Having learned from last year's caffeine catastrophe, I skipped the coffee and applied myself to the bacon at the staff holiday breakfast. Tore open a Good Earth cocoa chai tea bag, flipped it over to read my fortune, written in 8pt text under the staple on the tag.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

Well, thanks for that morning dose of mortal terror, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The torrential rain did not wash out the bridges and collapse mountainsides to leave us in the quiet stillness of an empty library, reading books and doing jigsaw puzzles by the light of the Christmas tree. Instead, the storm drove hordes of drenched patrons in to wipe their shoes on the carpet and hide from the perilous roads, filling the book drop with soggy paperbacks and wet grocery bags. One of our regulars dropped off a present with my name on it, which turned out to be a nice big package of Twizzlers. "I heard you say you liked them once." This, I thought, was preferable to being overheard exclaiming, "Yay, serial killers!" (as I had been moments earlier) and being presented with one of those, wrapped in red paper.

My storytime crowd packed the whole room, and startled me with earnest applause after I finished reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas. "I love your reading voice," one of the mothers said. "Wow, that was really sweet of her," I later said to A., "She must be a fan of the Muppets, because I've been told I sound just like Miss Piggy." I really kind of do.

At lunch, I ran through the rain to the car with a plate of leftovers. I've been listening to Duma Key on CD, on my mother's recommendation, and going pink at every curse word, hearing it filtered through her ears. Stephen King has always been a favorite of mine, but he recently endeared himself to me very keenly in the Colorado Kid, when one of the characters couldn't remember if a song had been written by Cat Stevens or Al Stewart. At 25, my mother had records of both, and Al Stewart's Year of the Cat caused 5 year-old me to forever confuse the two. Feeling oddly validated.

One of the characters in Duma Key read aloud from a book of poetry as I was driving. Half listening, dodging rocks and fallen branches, I became aware of a stabbing pang in my chest, and rewound to hear the last passage again.

Have you forgotten what we were like then
When we were still first rate
And the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days

-Frank O'Hara

Who turns out to be this guy:

fwawr.

I am susceptible to poetry, which is why I avoid it. My brain is chewing on these things like a liverwurst sandwich; compulsive and lamentable. Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. I wouldn't want to be faster, or greener than now, if you were with me. O you were the best of all my days.

Fabio! Get back in here! What a completely crap spirit guide, probably off somewhere combing his hair and reading Jung.

It's the rain. It draws us out like snails. To be POKED by the cruel finger of ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY! Bah.

festivity! and doom.

I have been making my mother a cardigan for 10 months. It has become my albatross. Midway through, I ran out of yarn; tried to replace it, ordered the wrong color. Wrote down dye lot and color code, tried again. Wrong color arrived AGAIN. Tried a third time, from a different vendor. Screamed into an envelope full of mismatching yarn. Gave up, decided to rip it out and make mop pads and toilet paper cozies out of spite.

Fuck youuuuu, yarn!

Then my mother convinced me to give it one more go. Got the right yarn. Opened my sewing cabinet; found hidden balls of yarn that I had ordered originally, stowed for safe keeping. Screamed. Now have a drawer full of purple yarn in every effing shade available. With a week to go before Christmas, I started seaming with pigheaded determination. And flinging cats off every few minutes.

  The pieces came together this weekend and the sweater is suddenly done. DONE. I am free. And I have a mother who does not read my blog, so it can be paraded around on the internet before Christmas. 

Sleeves! Two months apiece. The back took only 4 days, luring me in with a sense of accomplishment - and yanking that feeling away when I ran out of yarn on the front sections (yarn which was, as I have noted, stuffed in my cupboard the ENTIRE TIME). 3 months apiece. 

The enthusiasm, it radiates. I have been tearing it up with a hat today, recovering from yesterday's birthday party. Children everywhere, pizza torn to pieces, cake sung over, glow-in-the-dark drinking straws wielded in an unsafe manner, and a piñata that met a grisly end. Successful, as my clumsy attempts at party planning go, but the fun ended in a funeral for a tiny crab which had been pinched up from the beach and presented as a gift in an old peanut tin. There were tears. And mini kitkat bars and silly bands! 

Craft Corner DEATH MATCH - fishwives

"Fishwife" isn't a term people use in our neck of the whatsit. Having no idea what a stuffed representation of the slang term should look like, I decided to start at the beginning, dig through history, leer at the "alluring" fishwives of Newhaven, and then try to make an old-timey doll without, oh, reading how to do it. Reinventing the wheel! Yay!

So she has a fimo head and arms (completely authentic), a soft body, and tiny infuriating clothes.











Go see the rest of the challengers at CRAFT CORNER DEATH MATCH!

Craft Corner DEATH MATCH - historical facial hair

[vaguely historical] Facial Hair:

Sometimes a bear just wants a pint. He finds his falsie, so as to look natural and not draw attention.



BEER. beerbeerbeer.



He has several alternate get-ups, so the bartender doesn't catch on.





Those dang limbs just come right off, don't they? Oh well.



See what the others are up to at CRAFT CORNER DEATH MATCH!

a good dunking

Knitting accomplished. The kiddo picked the yarn, and I tried to follow the pattern in Handknit Holidays, which is evidently designed for people with tiny pea heads. Adjustments were made. 

 

Rediscovered love affair with coffee pot necessitated holiday chocolate-spice biscotti. One of these in my cup and I will be considerably more cheerful in the mornings. 

 

In the spirit of the holiday, we thought we would deliver some home-baked goodies downstairs to the grinchy neighbors, but they have not stopped fighting long enough for us to make an appearance. Might take a page from the original St. Nicholas, who lobbed golden balls at people, and just throw cookies at them when they come outside.