Here's Mickey (John's mom) with the pillows I made for her for Mother's Day. She really liked the Route 66 pillow I made for my mom and asked that I make something for her. Their living room is a yummy sherbet green color and she and Gus love to fish, so I made these fishy, green pillows.
My sister has been telling me I should make a bunch more and sell them. Each one took about 2-3 hours, not including shopping for fabric, so I could make several in a day. Plus, if I didn't make each one unique, I could save time cutting all the fabric at once, since the measurements would be the same. I don't know if I'll do it, but I'm thinking about it.
I just put up more pictures of Irish Day. These were taken my mother-in-law, Mickey. She's a great photographer in general, and her snapshots always seem to have more smiles in them than mine do.
I finally got to start using those awesome images from my last post. It took me nearly three days to get all my supplies in order and the pieces I did today took me all day. I was expecting a couple of hours, tops. Nope. I had to use John's computer, because my laptop isn't hooked up to the printer. Sooo, I had to use Photoshop...and I'm used to Fireworks...blah blah blah...it took forever.
Anyhoo, my mom helped me pick out all the supplies and came up with the idea that I should make something for our church choir director. Sunday is Easter and, as you can imagine, our director has been working like crazy. I made a brooch, but it didn't turn out exactly like I wanted. Here it is:
The pictures turned out really dark. I'm going to try to take a couple more in the morning, so there's some natural light. I got the image of the Easter lillies from a postcard that was sent to my great grandmother in 1910.
Here are the charms for the bracelet I made for myself. The little girl eating honey doesn't have a name in the ABC book I found her in, so I'm just referring to her as Honey. Here she is, not shrunk, surrounded by the charms that had already been baked:
Here's where it gets a little weird. I've been using these pictures of adorable children...but I have to put them in an oven. I felt like the witch in Hansel and Gretel.
By the way, they're made from Shrinky Dinks that you can use in your printer. The actual directions say to coat them in clear nail polish. This seemed weird to me, but it mostly worked. I connected everything with these teeny key-ring style hoops that were nearly impossible to get open. Here's how it turned out:
There are more pictures in the gallery and they're all bigger than these.
So, it's the second week of Spring Break for the local kiddies (and our teacher friend Chris). There's been a LOT going on. First of all, regardless of it being a vacation-y atmosphere of late, the weather has been completely insane. The wind has been crazy today and right now I can actually hear it howling. (By the way, our house is basically in a hole. Or, as it is so loverly called 'round these parts, a holler.) Here's a couple of pictures:
Daffodils lining our driveway, 3/6/08
About 4 inches of snow, covering the daffodils, the very next day, 3/7/08
In total we got 8.5 inches. 3/8/08
In other news, but following the same theme of being busy, the big local Irish celebration was this weekend. John has put together a video of the highlights:
There are more pictures of snow and Irish Day up in my gallery. Enjoy!
Here's a really big picture of a Christmas ornament I made today:
I had a really hard time taking pictures of this little guy. You can see further attempts here. The lighting just wasn't working. I thought putting it on the pink tree would be a plus, but I think it sort of washed it out.
Anyway, the idea is that I'll hang it on our tree, which we don't have yet, in front of a light and the picture will glow. In case you're wondering, yes, I just happen to have a pink tree on hand for this sort of occasion. I got the idea from a lovely wall hanging I saw in the Nov. 29th entry of a blog I discovered earlier this year called Everyday Is A Holiday. I combined the things I loved about the wall hanging and the translucent picture idea from my favorite ornament as a kid. The ornament had a picture of Santa flying in his sleigh on a piece of thin plastic, behind a sculpted scene of a little boy pointing out his window. I always tried to hang it in front of a blue light. So, that was basically the idea. I scanned a picture, printed it on vellum, framed it on both sides with paper-covered foam board, and trimmed it with pink balls, blue ribbon, and a snowflake sticker. I have plans of making three others with different photos and embellishments. Perhaps my photos will improve as I make more? Let's hope so.
Okay, Thanksgiving is over. I ate 4 different meals, one of which I cooked all by my lonesome (pictures may follow). I waited, respectfully, until yesterday before...Christmas music!
I do feel bad that all the other holidays get swallowed up by the Santa-candycane-tinsel maelstrom, but I have a shameless love of Christmas. I was shocked to hear my first carol of the season on the day after Halloween. I am a little disturbed by seeing twinkle lights while I still have leftover turkey. But. Burl Ives is like a sedative.
I was trying to explain to John the other day what Christmas was like for me as a kid. It reminded me of an episode of "The Golden Girls," where Rose is describing Christmas on the farm in St. Olaf and I think Dorothy asks something like, "Who was your father? Michael Landon?" Such were my idyllic childhood holidays.
I remember one year, I was probably 8 or 9, my mom's parents were visiting from LA. My dad's parents lived across the street from us, so all four grandparents were there. Because Grandpa Jack was just hanging out at our house, he always worked on little (and sometimes large) projects whenever they stayed with us. This particular visit, he made a large wooden star that he strung white lights on. We put colored lights along the porch railing and upstairs in my and Amy's windows. We opened our presents on Christmas day and it snowed. A beautiful snow. Deep and crisp. We all went outside that night to look at the lights in the snow. I wore my dad's size 14 shoes, so I practically skied down the hill. I think most of us made snow angels. I made snow angels with my grandparents, I remember that much. I can vividly remember, as we walked back to the house, my dad said it was the best Christmas he'd ever had.
I get teary-eyed every time I think about that. I also really miss my grandparents.
It's so trite to be stressed out in December. But I am. And I hate that I am. Partly because I feel like my job doesn't deserve to be stressful. (Of course, if ever there was a time for a retail manager to be stressed out, it would be now.)
I don't think I'm going to send Christmas cards this year. I was planning on making them. In fact, I started making them...and got rather far before deciding I didn't really like the way they were turning out. Plus, they were taking way too long. And now it's so late I don't think I'm even going to try store-bought ones. They'd just be late anyway. Maybe I could do a New Year's card? That's just lame, isn't it?
Today John and I spent a couple of hours at Boo at the Zoo, where we saw black bears batting pumpkins around like they weighed no more than styrofoam cups. John took a nice little video.
I also saw Superman screaming while being carried upside down by a man twice his size that, I'm sure, must have been wearing a kryptonite-lined sweater. We also overheard Captain Hook (whose hook, incidentally, was being worn by a Jedi standing next to him) incorrectly identify two large alligators as crocodiles, which seemed more than a little ironic.
This evening we carved our pumpkins. So our apartment smells funny. You can see pictures of our jack-o-lanterns here.
By the way, if you look at the pictures and don't know who Brak is by now, please learn. I love Brak.
I've had a cold this week. My throat felt weird on Easter and by Monday I was in a fog. When I get colds, I tend to think they'll never go away. Like my life has changed permanently. All the people I see, I feel sorry for, because I know they're doomed. They don't have it yet, I'll think. I hope they appreciate being able to breathe.
It is going away though. I just have some lingering stuffiness.
Last Saturday, John and I saw Jude at Largo. It was a great show. We had fantastic seats. Practically on the stage.
Then there was Easter. John gave me a basket/bag full of Bath and Body Works lotion, body wash, etc. The scent is Black Raspberry Vanilla. The bag he picked out is really cute, too. It's like a straw bag with pink handles with a floral lining that extends over the top of the straw with a drawstring. We spent the afternoon at my uncle's house eating cake.
Then, I got the cold. And my life hasn't been the same since.
If there's anyone reading this that was thinking about writing a song about me, you should listen to Jude. Because if someone were to write a song for me, I would want it to sound like one of his. If you're not a song writer, or if you just don't like me, and you won't be writing a song about me, you should just check him out anyway. It'll do you good.
Today and yesterday I worked until 8PM. Retail. Two of the three remaining days before Christmas. Tomorrow, the last day of the "shopping days left" countdown, aka Christmas Eve, I will work until 6PM.
Today I think I may very well have wrapped more presents for other people to give than I am actually giving. To my entire family. And close friends. I actually thought we might run out of tape.
There's something about it I don't really mind though. Even though there are a bunch of scary and, sometimes, disturbing changes going on at the store right now, I actually kind of enjoyed being there. I was busy. I was needed. I was wrapping books like a little lost North Pole elf.
We're leaving for our big trip home on Monday. There's no place like home for the holidays. So what if it's the day after Christmas? I'm really hoping that it snows, which is kind of a dangerous thing to wish for, I realize. This morning, half awake, I had a half-dream about making snow angels.
I have this memory (which may not really be true at all, but it's there, in my head) of making a snow man by myself. Only, by the time I got the bottom snowball (of the standard three-snowball snowman anatomy) completed, it was so heavy I couldn't pick it up. And I seriously did not want to build my snowman on the side of the hill, on the verge of collapse, at the precise location the tulips would bloom four months later.
The memory-narrative goes like this: Huge snowball. Too heavy. So I go, in my little snowclothes, out to my dad's shop, a place of business mind you, and try to find my father. Just the thought--the idea of remembering without actually having remembered yet--of being in that place, the loud sounds, the fiery cloud of a welder I had to look away from, me dripping little piles of snow in a trail along the cement floor...my mind is flooded and it brings tears to my eyes. My dad had to bend over really far to be able to hear me. He is 6'1". I was probably about 5 years old. It was really loud. From there, I remember his plaid jacket and work gloves. And that he picked up the snowball like he was picking up a beachball.
And that's all I remember. I have no idea if I even finished it. And where was my sister? When did I ever build a snowman alone? Will the world ever have the answers to these pressing questions?
My primary email account is with Hotmail. MSN is big on superfluous links. On everything. For every action, you're met with four links to various articles on various pages in the MSN neighborhood of websites. Send an email, get a "sent message" page with links to job interview tips, celebrity gossip, and, the most popular, 15 ways to "pop the question." Lately, my email account seems to constantly be asking me, after every move I make, if the holiday season is getting me down. (Example.)
And the truth is, yes, the holiday season is getting me down. But let's be fair: the end of a roll of paper towels gets me down. Setting out to depress me is an easy task. And embarking on a season embedded with idyllic childhood memories and half-memories mixed with bits and pieces of made-for-TV Christmas movies is sort of like riding Pirates of the Caribbean: a couple of swift plunges followed by a long, damp tunnel, at the end of which is a colorful good time, but I don't really snap out of it and get to participate until everything is over.
I've planned out the gifts for all but three people on our list and bought most of them already. We got our tree today and decorated it tonight...topped off by a garish homemade star--the product of a leftover box, some acrylic paint, and gold glitter gel. John called it "classy." He's used that word to describe at least three other things today. I'm inclined to disbelieve.
The tree is really pretty though. A cute little fir of some kind with multi-colored lights and silver garland. And I have been happy today.
But mostly, lately, I'm living with a constant dull anger. I'm not saying I'm not depressed. I am. But. I also work retail.
John and I carved our pumpkins tonight, as the picture may have suggested. My favorite part about carving jack-o-lanterns (and I really mean this) is the moment when you first have to stick your hand in pumpkin guts. It's weird. I know. That's the part most people want to skip completely. That's why the market for those fake pumpkins is so high. People hate pumpkin guts. That and actual pumpkins get moldy really easily. Which is really gross. But me, I like scooping out the seeds and other orange mess. I miss being young enough to get really dirty occasionally. You know, make mud pies or, well, I guess mud was pretty much always to blame. Anyway, it's satisfying to hack open a pumpkin and slop the guts out onto a trashbag.
You know the opening sequence of Amélie where the narrator introduces Amélie and her parents and says the things they like (such as cracking the top of a crème brulée or cleaning out a purse)? Cleaning out pumpkin guts would be on my list, if they (the they that makes movies about people of little consequence, unless you believe in the butterfly effect) were to make a movie about, or at least including, me.
I. Like. Pumpkin. Guts.
Last night John and I went out in warm sweaters and drove over to a haunted house I heard about at work. It was really neat. My favorite part, even though the effects were actually quite good, wasn't part of the house at all. It was that we were doing something that felt like participating in a community. The line was really long and we had to stand on the sidewalk on a residential street with people in costume, parents and kids wrapped in blankets, and just other people like us, living in LA and getting to see the elusive "breath cloud" (you know, "I can see my breath") because it was 10PM and cold enough for it to happen. I stood with my arm in John's and asked him questions about all the Halloween stuff he could remember from when he was a kid. Halloween to John's family was what Christmas was to mine. You know, minus the gifts. (Unless they did, in fact, find a truly sincere pumpkin patch.) It was a good time.
Also, you should go check out John's Special Halloween Comic starring Alien and Dinosaur, a set of characters that made their first appearance in a comic John did with his sister. If you're interested, you can also see them here, here, here, here, and here. These strips, in particular, would be rated PG, the rest of the site is not, just so you know. These are probably my favorite of all John's recently created characters. They're quite adorable. Especially on buttons.
Since I'm not dressing up this year, think of this as my "virtual" costume:
You are Kermit the Frog. You are reliable, responsible and caring. And you have a habit of waving your arms about maniacally. FAVORITE EXPRESSIONS: "Hi ho!" "Yaaay!" and "Sheesh!" FAVORITE MOVIE: "How Green Was My Mother" LAST BOOK READ: "Surfin' the Webfoot: A Frog's Guide to the Internet" HOBBIES: Sitting in the swamp playing banjo. QUOTE: "Hmm, my banjo is wet."
This is approximately the third entry I've started since my last post. This early in writing it, I'm not sure if it will, in fact, actually be published or if I'll fall asleep in the middle. If the second does occur, I envision it happening like I'm a cartoon character: my head will fall on the keyboard, filling the entire screen with indefinite repetitions of the letter "h."
So, yeah, there's been a lot happening. And by "a lot," I basically mean "normal for other people" or "still not much, but I'm used to 'nothing.'"
Easter. I wore the afore mentioned new clothes and hung out with family members all day after church. Good stuff.
Monday I hung out with two girls I work with. The plan was to go to the library in downtown LA. But it was closed. According to the homeless guy on the stairs, Caesar Chavez's birthday was the reason. So, coffee at the Coffee Bean near the Hilton instead.
Tuesday John and I got our taxes done. This is the first time I've done that. And I just had to pick this year to have seven W2's from four different states. Good. Gravy. As some would say.
Tuesday night my mother-in-law and her brand new husband (they got hitched in Reno, NV) drove up on their new Harley and stayed the night with us. Today, they came to the store where I work and took pictures of me. Then they left. I think they're in Arizona now.
I've felt pretty weird lately. Sort of like everything that's happening feels somehow...surreal.
John gave me an Elliot Smith CD for Christmas, which I've been listening to this morning and yesterday. He looks a little like Alan Rickman and sounds a little like Paul McCartney. John explained to me, sitting by the tree, emptied red stocking in my lap, that he'd heard about him on NPR. That the music sounded like something I'd listen to...and that the guy killed himself last year. In fact, this album didn't come out until after his death.
And John was right to get it. It does sound like something I'd listen to...though I feel barred from being a fan, per se. I've missed that boat. Like now his death is linked to his being in my brain, clouding the real view.
And there's something odd about having his music stuck in my head. Why is it different with music? I little birdie told me the new, restored version of Ariel is waiting for me to open on Wednesday (birthday). And yet, reading those poems of Sylvia Plath could there be something more personal? will not have the same feeling.
And. Of course. The question arises:
Why do I gravitate to people who killed themselves?
After all, I also got a book about Hemingway for Christmas. And we all know my weird fascination with him.
Is it their power? Their potency? Their utilization of choice?
Oh, probably not. The music is intoxicating. As are the personas of people who, for one reason or another, have become larger than life. Well, literarily speaking anyway. I'm not much interested in Kurt Cobain. Afraid I missed that boat, too.
Retail on Christmas Eve. And yet, still I like my job, which I've been told, has become permanent. This is good news. I like the idea of "free" insurance. Daily striving to make my life more Canadian.
I toot-tooted my French Horn (a.k.a. Freedom Horn, a.k.a. American Noisemaker: Another Way We Stick It To 'Em) at my uncle and aunt's Christmas Day dinner party. They served a delicious chicken fetticini. But it was no honey-baked ham. Or green bean casserole.
There were Santa hats, carols by the piano, everything but the snow. Which seems to have taken up residence in Tennessee.
On Christmas Eve, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights strung around palm trees. And I struggled with myself to imagine "the first Christmas" and how palm trees are actually much more Christmas-appropriate than store-bought, pre-shaped Douglas firs.
Every now and then I get a wanderin' urge to see Maybe California, maybe Tinsel Town's for me There's a parade there, we'd have it made there Bring home a tan for New Year's Eve
My sister-in-law got here tonight. John got a special "my sister's a minor" pass to go back to the gate to meet her. I had to wait out by baggage claim, which was okay, because I didn't have to go through security and take off my shoes. (Though, I must say, I do have on nice socks today.)
Standing there looking over the barrier by the luggage carrousels, watching people hug and lug around luggage, I started to wonder if the people waiting beside me were from Nashville, where Misty's plane came from. As people filtered in from the gates, I felt this weird affinity for them, having just come from "my home land." Probably the only time in my life I'll every feel an affinity for people from Providence, which is where the plane came from before it picked up Misty in Nashville.
So. Back to work today. Back to normal life, except that we have company and my birthday is Wednesday. The Christmas rush is over and the gift certificates have already started to resurface.
Disneyland or the beach tomorrow, depending on how cold it is.
On a typical Thanksgiving morning, I would've made cranberry sauce while watching the Macy's parade in my mom's kitchen. The cranberries would smell oddly like dirt, the kind of generic organic smell all fruits carry in one form or another. They would bob up and down in the water of my saucepan, popping one by one.
This year. I made banana pudding.
With, basically, none of the proper tools. Because my parents are coming to CA soon with all my pots and pans, I guess I just didn't think I needed to take my Grandmother's when we were emptying the house. And I think I missed an entire drawer of stuff, which included large spoons of any kind and the measuring cup.
So.
I found these bowls of my grandmother's that had probably never even been taken out of the box before (they still had plastic around them) that said they could "go from stove to refrigerator". I cooked what I hoped was at least close to six cups of milk and two packs of banana cream pudding in a metal bowl. On my new stove that I'd never used before. Cook on medium heat until mixture comes to a full boil. Are they kidding or did I just not use enough milk? Because this stuff turned into pudding right there on the burner. All while I was stirring constantly with a flipper/turner thing...which I'd really only used previously to take "break and bake" cookies off the cookie sheet. Aside from a strange condensation on the bottom of the bowl which ended up causing a strange hissing noise as it fizzled away, that part turned out okay.
But for future reference, I wouldn't reccommend transporting pudding from a hot bowl with no handle to anything else with a slotted flipper. I was actually considering using salad tongs, since, technically, half of the tongs was a spoon. Instead, though, I held two plastic spoons together and did this little hop dance from one bowl to the next.
This year, I'm thankful for bananas, the only fruit in the world that can be so easily cut with a plastic knife.
I'm thankful for many things. Life is looking up.
I hope you're reading this after your tummy is full and you've had a chance to count your blessings. Have wonderful Thanksgiving.
