I start back to work on Tuesday and tomorrow we're waking The Cakers early to surprise her with a trip to the local amusement park. She's been begging to go for two summers now and we thought it would be a fun end-of-the-summer-topper.

Then, at the end of the week, we're going north for the holiday. What this means for the purpose of this one-sided conversation is that blog posts will be few and far between this week. It also means that I'll be topic hopping in this here post, so lace up those Red Ball Jets, and hang on. ::Spring sprong. Spring sprong. Remember that one, you late boomers?::

Kindergarten Krackers
I don't know who has it worse, me or her, but I do know this particular affliction has it all over ASS, with less attitude and more goofy. I swear, this past week has been like living with a pin ball in a pin ball machine. I get her subdued and focused for three seconds, turn my back and ping, ping, ping, she's bouncing off another wall, ding, ding, ding.

I'm kind of settling a bit into the notion of The Cakers in Kindergarten. I think I've been troubled the most by the thought that she's entering a whole new world of people and influences and adventures and starting friendships she very well may carry into adulthood.

My boy went to kindergarten once. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but I now realize that kindergarten was the insidious beginning of the end of our life together as we knew it. Kindergarten is the gateway drug to college and/or otherwise growing up and leaving home. Which means that next week my baby girl will start the process of leaving her mother. And she's only four years old.

But she's ready for school. And really, I am too.

Are they ready for her is the real question.

Yesterday she wrote a story and made it into a book. Here's one of the pages.



Yes, it reads "I LOVE YOU ANA MOM ON CRACK BABY"

Now, before you go calling protective services, there really is a good explanation. See the heart with the crack in it, in this picture? Yeah, the pink one.



According to the author and illustrator, that crack represents a baby hatching out of a heart, just like The Cakers hatched out of her momma's heart. I'm just telling it as it was told to me, k?

According to the author, in that first page she was trying to say, from the third person perspective, "I LOVE YOU ANA, MOM AND CRACK BABY. The Crack Baby is the soon-to-be-born hatchling and, if I got the story straight, Cakers' imaginary baby brother or sister.

Crack Baby. Heh. Something tells me, once again, I got me a long, albeit interesting row to hoe.

Sew, What Now?
You may have noticed that there's been a sewing issue skirting knitblogland this summer. After weeks of oohing and ahhing and pining for some fresh shuttlecockin' of my own, I ordered this pattern.***

I first saw this pattern when Mariko modeled it earlier in the summer Mariko earlier in the summer ::It's kind of hard to keep up with the complexities of her proliferatin' ways*, I tell ya.::, and it was most recently referenced at Brainylady place.

The pattern came in the mail two days ago and I was very happy to see that the skirts look even cuter up close and personal. It also looks like an easy sew. I haven't sewn in years but the one thing I always liked about sewing, over knitting, was the immediate gratification quotient.

That quotient sounds particularly appealing after I recently decided that I need Trudie to be about 2 inches longer. One inch in the body, and another in sleeve depth. I decided this after completing the back and left front. It's really nont that demoralizing, since it's such a quick knit. But one thing I have learned about frogging is that it helps emotionally if I step away from the deed for a couple of days after. I guess it goes to that old adage "Absence makes the frog less harder." Or whatever...

So, while resting on my post-frog-knitting heels, my bigger ass plan for the weekend was to dig up and dust off the White boy from the basement, and whip me up a skirt. Or two. Even.

So a diggin' I did go, and came up with this:



Except this wasn't exactly how I found it. When I found it, the side door was open. You know, the door that covers the parts that make the other parts go up and down and shit. The inside of the machine was coated with it.

Now, I may not be the greatest housekeeper in the world, but people, this is not your common household dust. It's dryer lint. Icky, sticky, putridly mildewy dryer lint.

The storage room also houses the dryer vent tubing. The same dryer vent tubing that somehow disconnected itself from some vital, anti-lint-puke connection some time last winter. Unfortunately, because it occurred behind closed doors, the disconnect was not caught for about two full laundry rotations. That translates into about two full rounds of lint droppings upon my faithful White model 1477, who had the unfortunate circumstance of having his barn door open at that very time, just a foot away from the break in the tube.

After a futile, two-hour search for the operating manual, I took the machine out into better light and tried to clean it up a bit. It did not go well. This stuff is like lint gum on hot pavement. The outside surface is not my concern. But this shit is all over the inside too. Stuck like glue. If it is salvageable, the machine is probably not worth the price of getting it cleaned and tuned up. Especially since I'll have to fork over an extra 20 bucks for an operating manual, per my online resources. And I can't find the little box of sewing machine doohickies.

It's a pretty cheap model. For the total cost of getting it cleaned and tuned, replacing the manual and box of doohickies, I can buy a new one. Maybe it would have to be the next model down, but all I really need is a straight seam, buttonholin' ops and a zipper foot. Problem is, there's not much room in the budget right now, to supportyet another hobby,what with kindergarten start-up costs and college tuition. I guess you could say I'm up skirt creek.**

Needles to say, I am disappointed. Especially after my traipse through the carnage lead me to this piece of long forgotten fabric, which would be perfect for that skirt with the little flounce:



Pretty, huh? It's a rayon, I think. Washable, I hope. I've had it for 12 years, I'm thinking. Upon closer examination, you can see it has some unusual features to its personality. This looks like a gnarly claw, reaching for a spider.



And here's a depiction of Abe Lincoln riding a moose without antlers through the mountains of Arizona. Or maybe Osama Bin Laden on a donkey? Interesting, nonetheless.



Interesting as it is, it still looks like no new skirt for me, at least for awhile.

And you know what that means. I'm giving up sewing for lint.

*speaking of...Have you seen her new online Japanese fabric store? It's called Superbuzzy. Fun stuff. Go give her a click.

**A Sew Cool Update: Husband just said we can get me a new one. This probably means we can get him a new guitar. Care. Not.

***I had the wrong link for a bit. Sorry for the confusion.

Author's Note: I am temporarily showing only two posts at a time, until the margin- offending little fuck of a post gets bumped down a few. Is it any coincidence that it's the WTF Wednesday post? Hmmm? Exactly.

Labels: My Daughter Scares Me