Mom and I were joking about this the other day. The old jokes are sometimes the best…
Archives for 2009
Potentially interesting post for my textile fan readers
March 24, 2009 by
I could swear I used to know how to do this
March 22, 2009 by
I recently scored a nice, inexpensive, refurbished sewing machine. I hemmed a pair of pajama pants that were about four inches too long for John, then thought, “Hey – pajama pants would be a nice, easy project in general.” Cheap, cheerful – great weekend project. I even found this Instructables article on using your own favorite pants as templates for making your own. Cool. We kind of live in pajama pants around here, so this makes all kinds of sense. John is especially in need of a few new pairs, so he was to get the first fruits of my labor.
John and I had an errand-running day, and we fit in a trip to the biggest local fabric emporium while we were out. I said, “So what were you thinking about for fabric?” Poor John looked like realized he was an inadvertent contestant on “Who Wants to be Asked Questions They Never Considered” – a new game show we apparently have in development at our house.
“Um… I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Well, look around. See anything you like?”
John almost immediately gravitated towards azure fabric with sharks on it. “I kind of like the sharks,” he said, fingering the fabric uncertainly.
“Okay, you want the sharks?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he replied. At this point, I realize that the woman helming the cutting table in this department is trying hard not to laugh.
“Do you want Wookies, maybe? Tie-fighters?” I glance over again. The clerk is doing a fair impression of stoicism, but there’s some quivering of the lip going on. Her eye is twitching. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “Everybody laughs at us – go ahead.” She dissolves.
We got the sharks.
Upon arriving home, I throw the fabric in the wash and grab John’s favorite pajama pants to trace out a template on craft paper. A few hours later, when John comes back from a bike ride, I have him try them on before I do the final hems and install the elastic.
They don’t fit.
They don’t fit HIM anyway.
I’m going back later this week for more shark chintz and a proper pattern.
Groan…
March 17, 2009 by
I just realized today is St. Patrick’s Day: a day that, for me, manages to ruin beer and the color green all in one fell swoop. (I had thought my shuddering distaste for green beer had been documented before, but a quick Google search shows me I am wrong. Let me just go on the record then as saying that Bud Lite is an abomination, and Bud Lite with green food coloring in it? Um… there are no words.)
The Metro should be VERY interesting this evening. I’m expecting hordes of college students in sparkly green wigs, having started getting their drunk on at noon. Let’s just hope that I’m wrong.
A short statement with which I heartily agree
March 13, 2009 by
Today’s musings on more or less random thoughts come courtesy of John Scalzi:
It’s not hard to apologize, incidentally. I have a big fat ego, but I like to believe that ego isn’t invested in having to win, which big egos often are; it’s invested in being correct. The correct thing to do here was to say I was wrong and to say I had thoughtlessly offended people, for which I apologize. Because I was, and I had, so I did.
The tendency to sometimes conflate the need to be correct with the need to win is one that runs through my family’s DNA as surely as broad shoulders and a love of songs written in minor keys. This is a cogent reminder of the not-so-subtle difference.
Thanks, John.
A real-life Ann Eliot? Well…
March 10, 2009 by
Persuasion is my favorite Jane Austen novel. Which makes it my favorite novel, since I could take Austen's complete works with me to a desert island and never count myself bored.
I have identified with various Austen heroines in various ways over the years, but only in pieces. Recently, I have been re-reading Persuasion and realized that despite differences in temperament, Ann Eliot and I have the most in common.
While the Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth miniseries of Pride and Prejudice is probably the best and most faithful adaptation of Austen's novels for my money, if you want something of a normal film length, the movie of Persuasion starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds is a beautiful adaptation.
Ann and I both found our love early, but had to let him go until a later date. We differ in that Ann yielded to the titular persuasion of family and friends: her loved ones did not approve of the match. In my case, I knew that it was the wrong time: John and I were in different places in our lives, and trying to make the pieces fit would probably have resulted in a broken puzzle.
As it is, both Ann and I had our happily ever after – but not in the grand Disney fashion. More in the quiet, real-life kind of manner.
…and now, the weather. Over to you, Bob.
March 3, 2009 by
It is very fashionable to freak out about the weather in DC. An inch or two of snow never fails to make the local news people completely lose their bananas, and school is often canceled the night before a prospective storm, without ever seeing so much as a flake (other than the aforementioned news people, that is).
However, it is unwise to ignore the peril that is the DC local driving in snow. Rich lobbyists from Georgia in massive SUVs seem to think that four-wheel drive and ABS cancel out the effect of snow and ice. Other people in more plebian vehicles drive in a manner that would be considered dangerously stupid on dry roads, rendering them criminally insane when there is ice present.
And don’t get me started on the “plowing” that is done around here. On some roads, you will see three giant snowplows in a single-file line, the first doing some work, the other two… I don’t know what they are for. Backup, in the event of possible gang warfare? On other roads, the plow may trundle through, with the blade held delicately aloft – about an inch or two from the road’s surface, thus ensuring that passing traffic creates a nicely packed layer of ice all the more rapidly. Or they may never come at all, leaving your local street a lunar landscape of icy potholes.
John and I saw all of this yesterday as we went in for a half day. We had somewhere in the neighborhood of eight inches fall on our house (we have learned that we live in a funny pocket weather-wise: there were probably only three inches just a few miles to the southeast of us), and we decided to wait out the morning snow and see what happened rather than hurling our bodies into the scrum. He gave me a ride to the Metro in his four-wheel-drive wagon, and what fun we had. Who needs a gym when you can have the adrenaline rush of someone in an Infiniti sedan diving in front of you at 40 mph with a half-carlength to spare? And why go to the ballet, when you can watch four enormous snowplows weaving complicated patterns in front of you on a local multi-lane road?
And people think that politics are our great amusement around here.
Adorable
February 24, 2009 by
My friend Lianne introduced me to this artist:
(Shall we all gang up on Lianne to get her blogging again?)
Overheard at our house, evening edition
February 24, 2009 by
“I shall go upstairs and change, and then I shall be returned.”
“You will be returned? Do I get a refund?”
“Minus a 15% restocking fee.”