I have discovered the Devil’s playground, and it is called “Full-Version Zuma”.
Thank you Princess of Yarn Kristin for the hook up.
I also FINALLY got my new sewing machine out of the box last night & fixed a pair of JWo’s pants. Stunning. Having never sewed on a machine that cost more than $75, I thought all sewing machines made humming semi-grinding noises and didn’t really work all that smoothly. Wows. It is like a hot knife through buttah. I can’t wait to really dig in & play with all the decorative stitches! And, according to www.fabric.om and UPS, I will have my dog bed fabric here by tomorrow, so I’ll have my projects to work on this weekend! I can only imagine how awesome say, $6,000 machines are. They probably dispense perfectly frothed cappuccino and lightly toasted macaroons for snack breaks, all without getting a crumb or drop on your fabric.
I am ready for the weekend. Loverboy, you never knew how prophetic & long-lasting those lyrics would be….. I hear them every time I say that!
Month: September 2004 (Page 2 of 2)
Right now, I’m fat & happy. I have a belly full of Vanilla Cinnamon “Oatmeal for Women” and red raspberry yogurt. Now I’m sippin’ on home brewed coffee flavored with Torani vanilla & International Delights French Vanilla creamer. You’d think for so much vanilla, I’d be boring.
I am a bit frightened that the older (and fatter) I get, the more absolutely eccentric I’m becoming, not to mention my interesting wardrobe. I have visions that in ten years, I will be wearing hats I’ve created myself, with piles of fruit and birds and other various items from Hobby Lobby.
James will certainly not go out with me in public, but Polly Precious Purebred will. :)
A Girl and her Dawg. Polly was the absolute cutest this morning with her Kong, I tried to get pictures, but none captured the first moment where she just eyeballed me, motionless, for over a minute, daring me to try to take her Kong and simultaneously pleading with me for admiration of said Kong. She’s a goooooood giiiiiiirl!
It will be fun to share her with Dad when they come to visit a week from Sunday. I’m looking forward to that, but not so much to all the housework that must get done before they arrive!
As for everything else, it’s a John Prine song. Right now, I am waiting. I am waiting to see what happens. There are so many things that could happen. But there’s really only one right solution. I am hoping that good triumphs over evil, sooner rather than later. The Karma Train has its route, and I had the honor of seeing it a couple months ago screech by and deliver some long-overdue righteousness. My ears are straining for its whistle, to hear the hum of the wheels on metal, as it churns forward, bringing with it the hope for a new tomorrow.
Oh my Lordy. Yesterday I said, “I’m leaving work at 5!” So, then I left at 6:30. Skipped the grocery store, went straight home & took care of the dogs & started processing tomatoes. That took some time! So finally, around 8:15, I decided I had to have dinner, and I’d drive down to China King & do their drive-up window. Put Polly in the back seat, because if left in the house on her own, I’d be sure to come home to pee, poop, and her sitting on the dining room table, eating green tomatoes.
So we pull up at China King. I’m trying to decide what to get. What to get? I love so many things. Hmmmm. I pull forward past the giant menu to the open window. A tall skinny Asian man heads over to take my order.
“Hi, may I ”
BURF! BURF! BURF!
We both laugh.
BURF! BURF!BURF!BURF!BURF!BURF!BURF!
I feel compelled to explain that I couldn’t leave her behind in the house, and then I interrupt myself when I see his uncomprehending stare.
I’ll have sesame
BURF! BURF!
chicken
BURF! BURF! BURF!
and a quart of
BURF ! BURFBURFBURFBURFBURF!
hot & sour soup
“a
BURF!
quart?”
BURF!
Yes.
I never order sesame chicken. When we go to chinese buffets, I get three pieces. Now I’ve gone and ordered a whole entree of it? My only explanation was that my little Burfinator threw me off and I ordered as fast as I could, with the first item that flew into my head.
So we waited, about five minutes. Every 15 seconds for the first two minutes, softer “Burf!”s came out of Polly. She wasn’t going to let that crazy Asian man think he’d gotten out of her sights by just going away from the window.
We imagine every “BURF” session begins with a “Hey, MISTER”, followed by whatever’s appropriate for the situation. I laughed to myself in the car, imagining Polly’s true message, decoded.
HEY, Mister! I know about you people! My Lady told me you EAT my kind, that I’m an APPETIZER in your country! I don’t like that ONE BIT! You stay away from me & my Lady! You hear? Hey, Mister, I’m talking to YOU! This is MY Honda car and MY LADY and I am NOT to be EATEN!
I got myself riled up last night, in the middle of the night, about doing an art installation in my office to commemorate the 1,000 soldiers who have died in this war. It probably was stuck in my brain because of my snippity-snap jaw-setting conversation with James earlier that evening, because he thinks we’re fighting the Good Fight, and those soldiers’ families are proud of the service they gave to their country. This is from my conservative husband, who has a huge admiration for the military because he wanted so badly to join it out of high school, but wasn’t able to. Still. It’s pretty hard to trump my argument, which is, Yes, I don’t deny they’re proud, but they’d trade it for another chance to hold their father/uncle/wife/child in their arms again. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they wouldn’t. I just don’t think love can come second to anything.
I hate this war. Death is upon us too easily and quickly, without putting bombs and automatic weaponry into the mix.
My first thought was to cut 1,000 rectangles of black plastic, to represent the body bags, and have them suspended from the acoustical tile ceiling. Then I thought I should knit something, maybe put each person’s name on the knitted rectangle.
James is right, one thousand is not a lot of death given how long we’ve been there, and oh yes, Saddam Hussein was/is a bad man, no longer in power.
But.
We went there because of ….. wasn’t it Osama? and wasn’t it for the WMD – and how insane is it that we have evolved to that acronym? – WMD’s that weren’t there?? And when there are other heinous, horrible dictators who are allowed to continue oppressing, continue slaughtering, continue their denial of human rights, but because they don’t sit on oil fields or represent a history of fighting with the U.S., we just let them be? You can’t tell me this was all for the Greater Good.
I was reminded of George Bush Sr.’s “Thousand Points of Light” speech. The utter absurdity of it then, the weighty symbolism to me, now.
One Thousand.
Points of Light.
One Thousand.
Dead Soldiers.
One Thousand Points.
Shimmering Light.
Become Stars over Stripes.
Shine as Stars in the Sky.
May their Grace and Light forgive us.
If it is true, “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”, then I am satisfied. Nobody should sleep well, and you can bet 1,000 U.S. families do not tonight. Uneasy Sleep, Dubya.
Well, well, well.
Camping can be awesome. Let me list some things I love about camping. I love the cooking & eating & playing with dogs. The slow pace that seems to set in, and the comfortableness of being yourself among friends you love. I love the quietness and not-so-quietness of a 1,000 cicadas & crickets. I love watching the sun rise & set, and the smallness of my universe as I throw my head back and look into an inverted bowl of cerulean blue, liberally strewn with stars.
And then, there’s the whole sleeping-in-a-tent thing, where it’s a good 20-degrees warmer than outside. Bleah. One nap marred by being woken up by my own sweat, running into my ear. Eesh. Then, a clear night, with some wind. The storms traveled off to the north. Let’s try to make it a ten-degree difference with the night air, and take that rain shield off. Oh lord. Troubles so hard, to quote Moby. I have no idea what time it was. But when the raindrops hitting the tent sounded like the JiffyPop popcorn consumed earlier that night, I finally woke up. Apparently it had been raining for a while, and poorPolly was in her crate whimpering, girl, you shoulda BARKED so I would have gotten up sooner, and it was mad-dash-oh-lord-wow-my-back-is-really-wet-how-long-was-I-sleeping-in-the-rain? and then James was there & we got the rain guard up but it was too late, there was water everywhere, and so I made two trips in the rain & pitch blackness to take in my yarn (that went before my clothes! ha!) and books, and then our bags of clothes. (James was sleeping in the house when the rain hit, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened.) I have become a very defensively sound sleeper, and that has been illustrated more than one time with some of the major storms we’ve had this summer. Wha’ storms? So then I was trying to sleep on a sofabed thingy, very unhappy, jaw clenched, and James came to check on me & startled me so much I sat up fast & at an angle & folded the bed up on myself. That was the least happy moment of the weekend, I’d say. I am covered in mosquito bites, I didn’t knit or read a thing, because I was afraid of getting things dirty, and I can say we had fun. And S’mores. They were really awesome. And breakfast yesterday was incredible. And the stars, and the sky, and the moon & the sun. Big big world. And I am so excited to sleep in my bed tonight.
Well, it’s been Catalog Week at our house, with a whole great big bunch of yarn catalogs rolling in – always fun, always inspiring! I was leafing through one of two Herrschner’s catalogs (they have a Yarn Shoppe one, and a general crafts one, this was the general crafts), and I saw this:
the verbage said, “your guests might think they’re dining in Italy”…. or a crazy person’s house! If I had guests over, I sure as hell wouldn’t be putting a big-ass fake bird on the table to distract them from all the hard work I spent embroidering a table runner! It was definitely a “what-the-hell” moment.
Knitting Update: I am running out of yarn for the felted door mitten so I’m getting another skein tonight. I also realized (DUH!) that I can take in the one I made LAST year to the Yarn Shop for display, and I don’t need to cramp my hands trying to speed knit this thing done. My hot pink Fizz mittens are drying as I type; they are SO FUN. I want to make two more pairs, one bright red, one bright yellow, and then have two pairs of one-red-one-yellow for Chiefs games, and I know I’d be able to sell the other pair, or make somebody reeeally overwhelmed by the gift! I say this like I’m going to so many games. I only luck into going, but still. The games are so fun, and who knows, maybe we’ll just go out and tailgate. I look like a lunatic at those games with my enormous faux fur bright red coat, people think I bought it just for the game? Nope, that’s all me folks, spot the bright red chick. I think it’s better than the women who spend BIG money on those Alaskan fur coats that are Chiefs colors, sheared & shaped & have football numbers on the back – ay yi yi, if you have that much money to be ridiculous with, throw some at me, I’ll dance for ya, or even make you some stunning mittens!
Can’t wait for the weekend. A three-day weekend, filled with camping with my best gay friends and my husband, this should be hilarious. Hubby is already shaking his head at our elaborate menu. Whatever Mister, you’ll be happy eating homemade pancakes!