When I was a girl, the last day of school always fell on a Friday. Come Monday morning, after just two days of abbreviated revelry, momma would march our reluctantly sinful asses off to two weeks of Vacation Bible School.

Hateful.

The church we attended was high on the Bible Thumpery scale, as were most of its constituents. Our family, on the other hand, while regularly church-going, was not that Thumpy.

Not-That-Thumpy as we were, we still held the Lord in high regard. Therefore, year after year our mother had us over the barrel of fear, in her stated expectation that we attend VBS. I mean, to say that you're not that "into" Vacation Bible School was akin to saying "No thank-you, Baby Jesus." Saying "No Thank-you, Baby Jesus" was akin to sending out handwritten invitations to pestulence, disease, immaculate-conceptions- minus-the-celestial-beings-to-vouch-for-your-hymen* or a broken Etch-a-Sketch knob that limits you to right hand turns, for all eternity.

I know.

So off we'd go. If not for the impeccably imperfect timing, Vacation Bible School wasn't all that bad. For one thing, none of the snobby rich kids from regular Sunday School were there. I once asked one of those Sunday School girls why she didn't go to VBS.

"Vacation Bible School is for bringing The Lord to non-believers. It's for the Neighborhood kids.

"But I'm a neighborhood kid."

"I know."

Another good thing about VBS was the treats. At the end of every session, we were offered a tiny dixie cup of room temperature kool-aid and a handful of pink frosted animal crackers.

You're jealous, already.

The very best thing about VBS, however, was the missionaries.

The church I attended was very big on Bearing Witness or Giving Testimony. The most important personal Testimony was the story of how one came to accept Jesus Christ as one's Personal Savior. The more miracles in the story, the better.

The other type of Testimony was the sharing of specific incidents of bringing others to the Lord. ::i.e. keeping score.:: Because missionaries often went on hiatus during the summer months, there was aways a plentiful supply for Bearing Witness to the poor, apparently unsaved children of my neighborhood.

One regularly visiting missionary family was based in Applachia.While their stories were not very exotic, the father could play a saw as a musical instrument ::hand saw, not the powered kind.::. He was also a ventriloquist.

The missionaries from Africa and South America always had the best stories.I'm not sure if that is because of the vastness of the geographical and cultural differences or because there was little chance of anyone in the audience being able to challenge their accounts. They also dressed in the traditional garb of their host nation, grossed us out with stories of eating grubs, drinking tea seeped from dirt and pooping in a hole behind the hut. All in the Name of the Lord.

There was one missionary tale that I never tired of hearing. It was the one about the piranhas. I had never heard of a piranha until I went to Vacation Bible School. According to my very reliable VBS source, a school of piranha can clean the flesh from the bones of a live, full-size cow so quickly that, within minutes of an unfortunate plunge, the cow was nothing but a skeleton. And a heart. Still beating.

I know.

After that heartwarming warmup,the next piece of the story is the one that kept me up nights.It was about the little Peruvian boy. Yup.

Just one day after accepting Jesus Christ as his Personal Savior,this little boy fell off of the family raft, into the Amazon, which just happened to be teeming with ravenous piranhas.

The boy floundered in the water more than long enough to meet the Fate of the Cow. But he didn't. The Newly Born Again Child was pulled from the murky,deadly waters, fully fleshed. That's right. With not even a razor burn. It was a miracle.

The lesson: Through accepting Jesus Christ as Your Personal Savior, you will never die by the teeth of flesh-eating fish, which remains as the number one urban child's nightmare.

Needless to say, every time that story was shared, in that chapel filled with sticky, muggy neighborhood children, many Souls Were Saved.

That Being Said
This post was intended to be about a current frustration with my having wasted the first two weeks of a perfectly good summer, on a worthless endeavor. But apparently I digressed.

And the above segue to the real post had a surprise, happy ending...so where was I?

Oh Yeah.
Mondo. I spent the first two weeks of summer working on Mondo.

On Sunday afternoon, I was this far on the front. Just minutes from casting off.



But there was a problem. Notice the straps? One is thicker than the other.



After recounting both armhole and neckline cast-offs, I realized my problem ran deeper than that. Inherently deeper. And stupider.

Remember how I was all bragging and shit on how I was adjusting the pattern to be shapely instead of tently?

Yeah?
Well.

The adaptation included changes in the number of cast-on stitches. Easy Peasy?

Yeah?
Well.

To the Left. To the Left.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take that change into account while counting out stitches for the cable placement. In row fucking one. I needed to be four stitches to the left. In row fucking one.

A Dingo Ate My Baby
It was more like a swarm of steely-toothed piranhas.

In a flurry of ravenous mania, the ill beknittin piece was reduced, in minutes, to nothing but skeleton.

And heart balls. Still beating throbbing.



I know.

The Sure Skank Redemption
In retrospect, I guess Vacation Bible School wasn't all that bad. I now realize that it takes more than two weeks of mandated exposure to under-strengthened kool-aid, flannel boards or my own stupidity, to ruin a perfectly good summer.



Shirley Goodness.

*The story of the immaculate conception always scared me when I was young. What if it happened again? To me? And no one believed? Not that I thought I was anything special. I mostly thought I was everything unlucky.

Labels: Deep Shit, Knit In Progress, Yore

Today I'm home from work on a Snow Day. To be weatherly precise, we're calling it a Wind Chill Day. Currently it's 4 degrees below zero, with a windchill of 20 below; temperatures at which the unprotected faces and minds of children can crystallize and shatter into derma dust, in a matter of minutes.

What better time, then, to reminisce about friendlier, warmer climes?

This here is a picture of us returning from our last boat ride of the summer of 2006.



And let me tell you, it was a fabulous ride. The air was the perfect temperature. The water was like glass. The sunset, fabulous.

And maybe the best thing about this last boat ride of summer, was that I didn't know it was the last ride. I did know that the boat was coming out of the water the next day, to be put into storage. I also knew that there would be a chance for the For Reals last boat ride before that happened.

But I declined on that second last ride. It didn't sound like fun. There would be too much expectation for perfection. I would have been under self-imposed pressure to enjoy the ride to the fullest, but what if I couldn't? What if it was too bumpy or windy or a seagull crapped on my shoulder? It would ruin everything.

And then there would be the sorrow. Who wants to be sad on a boat ride?

Not me.

Nope. I'd already had my perfect last ride, with my perfect cuddle nesting on my lap. :Likely the last cuddle ride ever. She was almost too big then and I remember thinking about it at the time, but had to push the thought away.::

I've thought about this subject quite a bit since that picture was taken. I've wondered, do we really want to know when we're doing Something Wonderful for the last time? A Something we will never be able to reclaim or recreate? Am I a coward for wanting to avoid the tarnish of bittersweet, on a good thing?

In the summer of 1969, I had my very last boat ride with my daddy. Of course, I didn't know it at the time. It took place during my very last vacation with him.

As camping-in-a-tent-for-two-weeks-in-Northern-Michigan vacations go, that last time was perfection. Because we knew better, we always brought our winter coats camping, in July, and that year we never had cause to bring them out of the suitcase. In fact, that vacation was the only time in our family's history, that we had a vacation without rain. Ever.

And daddy had his best fishing year. Ever.

Also on that vacation, I wore bell bottom pants for the first time, to the skating rink. They were blue and white polka dot, in a cotton blend. My mom had made them for me, with a matching cropped jacket with a huge white zipper and ring pull. I thought I was the cat's ass.

What we didn't know at the time we were having the best camping-in-a-tent-for-two-weeks-in-Northern-Michgian ever, was that my father was dying of lung cancer.

Through the rest of that summer, it was mostly business as usual, except for my dad's increasing complaints of lower back pain. He was never much of a "hands on" kind of dad, but that summer, for the first and last time ever, he took my sister and me to the city pool a few evenings, for family swim. He said up front he was doing it to relieve back pain, but we didn't care.

I'll never forget his alarm and resulting chastisement, upon seeing that I plugged my nose when I went under water. ::I was 11 years-old and he didn't know this about me.::, so during the evening swims, he taught me first to hold my breath proper and then how to dive. And even though he wasn't doing all this for us, my sister and I lapped it up.

By the time school started in the fall, daddy had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance twice. Both times he had passed out from the pain in his back.

During one hospital stay, a doctor told him that even though the back pain was likely in his head, it might be good idea to lay off the 3-pack a day habit. Just a few weeks later, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, which had now spread to his back, and liver.

And on February 5, 1970, just a handful of months from our last boat ride together, my daddy died.

And just like the last boat ride of last summer, the memories of perfect weather and perfect fishing and the perfect feeling of a cat's-ass-in-bell-bottoms and the most perfect last boat ride of my family's life as we knew it, have all remained untarnished.

And 37 years later, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Labels: Deep Shit, Yore

Sunday night my husband grilled steak for dinner. And it went something like this:



Now compare to the real deal:


Okay, I did arrange the upper peninusla to appear thus. But I swear the mitten came on my plate looking like that. Of four pieces of steak, two made up the state of Michigan, one was a dead ringer for Minnesota and the fourth was the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus standing in line at Disney World.

I've lived in Michigan all my life.
How do I like it?
Medium well.

WT More F
A couple months ago,I bought myself an Electric Light Orchestra Greatest Hits CD. Over the years, whenever I heard an ELO song from back in the day, I'd get all warm and toasty and reminiscey. I kind of remember them as a little left of mainstream rock-n-roll. Maybe even a little artsy fartsy, what with the orchestra and all.

After I listened to the CD a few times, I realize I don't like them as much as I remembered. The only song I care to listen to on the entire CD is Telephone Line, doo-waw-dooby-dooby-waws notwithstanding. Remember the Jetsonian sound effects at the beginning of that tune? How embarrassing. But not nearly as embarrassing as their recording of Xanadu.*

WTF,ELO?
Xanadu?
Please Xayu didn't.

Knitting Knuggets
I've been doing some and there'll be updates soon.

*I later learned that ELO actually wrote the song.

Labels: WTF Wednesday, Yore

And sometimes you close your eyes and see the place where you used to live, when you were young.-The Killers

(Just sayin': The following post is kind of ramble-y and was not well thought through prior to publication. Twas also proofed sparingly.)

One of my walk routes takes me past a place that has a distinct smell. I'm not crazy, or at least I'm not crazy in a way that sounds or smells like what I'm about to type, but I swear that this place with a smell smells like mashed potatoes, with lots of butter and black pepper. Like my mom used to make. On Sundays.

And just for a minute, could you please indulge me by paying no mind to the fact that you are sure that a place outdoors, in a residential neighborhood, cannot smell like mashed potatoes with lots of butter and black pepper?* Because it does. Because I've smelled it. And do smell it. And whether or not I'm experiencing a localized olfactorial hallucination, which I'm not, is not the point. At least not today. So please play along.

The first time I smelled the smell, it made me cry, a little. It wasn't a sudden break down and blubber kind of thing but more of chokey-uppy-where'd-that-come?-from-gaspy kind of thing. During 5 o'clock traffic, no less.

While I haven't cried the mashed potato since that first time I smelled it, the scent does still make me feel kind of sad and nostalgic. I think it's about Sunday dinner with my family, when I was a kid. When my family was whole. Or as whole as it would ever be.

Before my brother went to Viet Nam.

Before my daddy got sick and died.

Before my brother came home from Viet Nam and cried a lot in the basement.

Before my big sister went off to college to save her soul.

Before my mom went crazy from grief and worry.

Before my little sister and I grew boobs and tempers and a keen appreciation for a swinging vacuum cleaner hose as a weapon of choice.

Before all that.

I make a pretty mean bowl of mashed potatoes with lots of butter and pepper. But no matter how many steamy bowls I prepare of the stuff, it never quite tastes the same as that haunting smell.

Lately I've been feeling kind of sad and nostalgic about my current tribe. Mostly my girl, but the boy too. I miss them.

Yeah, the boys at college and that makes some sense.

But The Cakers is here every day.
And yet I miss her.
Every day.

Because every day she comes home from school different than she was the day before.

And every day I am simply amazed at the new person she has become.

And every day I want to get to know this new person. But there's never enough time. And before you know it, it's time for bed.

So she goes to bed and gets up and goes to school and changes all over again.

And before I have a chance to miss the girl from the day before, another one has shown up at the door. So we do it all over again.

And I feel like I'm watching a movie of my life at hyper-speed. In this movie I play myself, watching the movie of my life at hyper-speed. And all I can say is that it's a good thing I don't have any lines because I find it hard to breathe at times.

Just point me the button to slow it down. I promise I'll use it sparingly. Otherwise I'm just going to have to grab hold and not let go until she's big enough to kick my ass. Which may be as early as next week.

The same week I turn 48.
The same age as Madonna, who, according to the host of a nightly entertainment show, is doing some amazing things for someone "pushing 50."

I don't want to be amazing for my age.

I just want to be.

eh.

I soon will post a knit updater.
But it must wait a few days later.

*I'm pretty sure it's a plant I'm smelling. Smell familiar?

Labels: Boobs and Pee and Poo, Deep Shit, Passages, Tree From Where I Fell, Yore

A Week in Review
It was WTF Wednesday, all week long.

A couple of weeks ago, when I was working a late night at school, Cabana Boy took Cakers shopping for a Halloween outfit.

The final choice ended up being a princess affair.
Again.
I cared not.

The final choice ended up being a kind of expensive affair.
Again.
I cared not.

Even though I had a bit of a pang of guilt over another Halloween passing without making my girl a costume from scratch, at this place in my life, in its relevant proximity to the nearest costume shop, an expensive, store bought costume is hella-bella-wella worth every penny spent and every second of Cabana Boy's precious time expended.

The night that the costume was modeled for me, I saw that it was kind of long but didn't think much about it at the time. Cabana Boy even mentioned it would need to be hemmed a bit so she wouldn't trip in the Halloween parade at school.

No biggie, I thought. I'll do it over the weekend.

I didn't think of it again until the Sunday before Halloween when I planned on getting to it some time before going to bed. But the day got away from me.

No biggie. I'll do it Monday night.

I started working on it Monday at 6:00.

Two layers of seven miles of meticulously measured and trimmed tule, one layer of four miles of hacked underslip, one layer of nine miles of meticulously measured, pinned, pressed and hand-hemmed satin skirt and five hours later, the princess gown was ready for the ball. That's right, five hours. Make that five hours minus the time it took to run to the store for wine.

As I worked and watched the clock I kept thinking that for a forty dollar children's costume, I should not have to put in five hours of work. Hell, for forty dollars this rag should scrub toilets, weave in yarn ends and perform private lapdances.

FAQs
Q: Why not machine hem?
A: Because my new sewing machine is still in the box and it still would've had to have been trimmed by about 2 inches before putting the machine to it and it would've been more work at that point.

Q: Why not use duct tape?
A: Cakers had to live a morning of kindergarten in the costume, including usual recess and a parade. I think a princess should not have to worry about humiliating garment malfunctions.

Q: Wouldn't it have been easier and more gratifying to just make one from scratch?
A: Shut. Up.

Here's a slice of a class shot my husband took at recess, along with all the other kindergarten parents:



Look at that beautiful hem.

Someday that picture may end up on a poster at the high school senior retreat or someone's graduation open house. Imagine instead of that lovely edge, a fallen hem with duct tape still attached, with maybe some cling-on wood chips or candy corns riding along.

Lapdance or not, it was worth it.

Fur Gawd's Sake, Woman.
This was going to be my WTF Wednesday post. However, since I had WTF Wednesday all week long, it's not getting a special designation.

I was digging around my work bag the other day and came across an envelope of old pictures. I don't know why they were there or for how long, but I'm thinking it was from back when we moved to this house, over five years ago.

Anyway, check out the beaver brows.



That picture was taken in the early 90's I think. I've always loved orange and red together. And I thought those brows were the cat's ass.

Well, I was half right.
Make that two cat's asses.

Big Butt-
on on a hat.

Isn't that the cutest? And it's free! I'm thinking that style might become my pea head to a T.

Did I mention it was free?

Thank you Nik.

Eye Candy WTF Week
This is the last of my fall leaves shots. I promise. The leaves are gone.



The rest of my WTF Week sampling is related to work and not fit for public consumption. I can say that it was a week of weirdness. This upcoming week will be a week of weirdness-follow-up, which will be much less interesting and much more work.

That being said, it will probably be another week before I post. But I still reserve the right to pop in at any time, Norma.

Labels: Knit Done, Now You're Whining, Pho-Ho', Yore

Sunday mornings seem to be the most bloggable for me these days. Even though Sunday is my weekend morning to get up at the crack of hell with The Cakers, she seems to be taking a momentary break from describing for me, stroke-by-stroke, every thing she knows how to draw, or spelling out the unusual Crayola names from the labels for me to pronounce, so she can argue with my pronunciation.

So I'm going for it.

My weekend review.

Spirits of '76
Last post I mentioned that last week was my 30 year high school class reunion. For two days after the party, I tried to put to font the amazing experience of this event, but finally gave up. It was too much work and boring to boot. But I'm still thinking about it. A lot. And those thoughts seems to be plugging up the system. So I need to say something about it, so I can move on.

Sorry.

I attended an urban school where most of the kids came from blue-collar or working-poor neighborhoods, myself included. Our school district did include a couple of what we called "R.B." or "Rich Bitch" neighorhoods, which were akin to the neighborhoods in Leave it to Beaver or The Wonder Years. ::I now know they weren't supposed to be rich. It's all about perspective. Back then, I thought anyone with an attached garage door was rich. As in, a garage with a door still attached.::

Anyway, we were always an unpretentious lot and I'm happy to say that after 30 years, aside from a few wrinkles and pounds and the one guy who had lost most of his teeth, none of us seemed to have changed.

Four out of my five bestest friends were there. Four of the five friends had gotten married almost immediately out of high school. Because we chose such different early adulthood tracts, our friendships all died a collectively slow and silently agreed upon deaths. Although I had run into a couple of these friends over the years, it had been at least 20 for a couple of them.

Initially I didn't recognize anybody right off the bat. But after about 10 minutes, my eyes got accustomed to the years and I spent the next 20 minutes crying and hugging and exclaiming "You look the same!" and meaning it, and hearing the same from them and thinking they meant it too.

And by the end of the night, everybody looked and felt and sounded like they ever had. ::Like on Cold Case when the perps/victims/witnesses fade back to the way they were...::

I think what had me floating for days after was the genuine affection we had for one another, for who we were and who we are and not at all for what we had or hadn't accomplished. I maybe told two people I had a master's degree and only because they asked specifically. Although I should add that people didn't hold back on their mocking astonishment at my having a five year-old daughter.

Anyway. It was all good stuff. And believe you me, this post is a world of improvement from the reminiscin' I almost presented last week, which included a personal observation on mandated busing between nearly identical neighborhoods and The ROTC Culture and the Viet Nam war and Nixon and the beauty of the perfect Afro and how we believed ::and still do:: that we invented the rolled-down-high-top-canvas-Converse look and the era of acceptable contraband and smoking cheerleaders and the beauty of the fire-retardant cheerleading sweater.

You're welcome.

WTF Wednesday
Wednesday I picked up The Cakers from daycare. I thought my husband was going to do it, so after work I had changed my clothes for a workout, washed my face and removed contact lenses. After my husband called to say he was running late, I immediately left "as is" to pick up the girl.

When I stepped into the classroom, Cakers said "Momma!" then started the usual complaint that she didn't want to leave yet, which prompted the usual discussion that starts off with lots of soshul-werky empathy and ends with lots of something akin to "Uno Shmuno. Get U-ass-a-moviN-O."

There was a girl about the same age as Cakers observing this interaction, with mouth agape. Finally, with that snotty, 5-year old churl I've grown to grab an alcohol beverage in response to, she blurted "You're not Ana's Mom!"

"I'm not?"

"No! You're her Grandma!"

Hardee Hah Hah, laughed all the pretty child care workers.

And I just joined in, all friendly and shit. And started muttering my new and seemingly oft-used personal mantra:

I am a professional.
I am a professional.
I am a professional.

FOAD Thursday
No, not that FOAD Thursday. It's Finish Off And Dance (a happy dance) Thursday!

I finished me Trudie.



I wore her to work on Thursday, over the black slinky dress which was the reason I wanted a cropped, lacey cardigan to start with ::remember back to the Cece debaucle?::

The sweater really looks great with the dress. Unfortunately, with Cabana boy now Cabanabizing out of the home, I had no one to take a picture of me in the outfit in question before I changed clothes for my second shift work assignment.

The best my self-portrait skills could pull off given the situation, was this picture in which you can at least see the context and form I was looking for, ghostliness notwithstanding:

Trudie Specs
Pattern: A bastardization of the Trudie Cardigan from Mission Falls Decade pattern book. I added a ruffle edge to body and sleeves. Shortened sleeve length from full to 3/4 and used only 3 buttons instead of 5 because of an Effin-O-Eff-Up.

Yarn: Cascade Sierra in a brownish color. It's Pima Cotton and wool.

Comments: Love the pattern, and it's a fast knit. I deepened the armholes a bit, but over widened the sleeves, so they're a little beefy around the pits, as though accomodating a localized glandular condition. I can take it in a bit, a la my new best friend, Mary Mattress Stitch.Oh yeah, the yarn stretches a bit by the end of the day.

I got lots of compliments on it at work.

Eye Candy Friday



::Blogger wouldn't upload the grass pic. Go figure.::

Saturday Sky



And for now, bye-bye.

P.S. Sorry for the multiple publishes. The post kept ending up in archives, for some reason.

Labels: Knit Done, Pho-Ho', Yore

I should soooo not be doing this. But here's the deal: I may be a bit hepped up on some prescription medication that I took at rather unfortunate intervals (i.e. I might have taken one but before it could kick in to help me remember that I already took it, I took another. Maybe. Hey. Things ain't been right up there for a coupla days...just sayin.)

Anyway, whenever I sit down to study, I can't. The words swim, my heart races and I end up plucking imaginary chin hairs with my bare fingernails and dreaming of better days, like all-day root canals and Vagnitis on a Hot August Night.

To distract myself, I thought I'd check my email and maybe a couple blogs. So I just happened over to Crazy (my ass) Aunt Purl's place, and read the cool story about a boyfriend she had when she was 19 years old. At first I happened to be jealous that she had such a cool boyfriend-at-19 story to tell.

But then I said "hey!" and then I happened to remember a boyfriend-at-19 story of my own. That's right.

When I was 19, my boyfriend peed on my mom's chest.

In the living room.

It was antique. The chest.

He was drunk. The boyfriend.

When I saw what he was doing, I screamed and ran to the kitchen and grabbed some Bounty. Then I screamed some more and ran back to the stream of the crime, and held the Bounty under the pee, like a safety net.

How did it work, you ask? Well, let's just say that there is a reason the marketing people over at Bounty have never used the image of a weeping, drunken 19 year old holding a sheet of their paper towel under a hot, beer-fed peefall. It did not go well.

Fortunately, beer pee doesn't smell much and my mom was never the wiser. I might tell her, someday.

My boyfriend's story was that he usually peed off the front porch, into the bushes. My mom had a dried flower arrangement on her chest. He thought he was on the porch.

Now I gotta go. If any of any of you of the psychic persuasion have any advice for my face to face with the big fat testie tomorrow, now is the time.

Otherwise, I'm good.

::No proofing on this one. As Is only.::

Labels: Boobs and Pee and Poo, BUI, Yore

I think I'm ahead.



I ran track in high school one year (And yes, I fell down); the 880 and 1 mile events. I wasn't too bad at the 880. I even earned a ribbon. But the mile? Bleh.

In one race, I fell so far back that I was eventually lapped by all the other runners. But just before that impending moment of humiliation, for about 400 meters, I was out in front. All alone. Looking like a winner.

The winner.

And as I trotted past the grandstands, grinning like a fool, I pretended I was just that. The winner.

Moments later, of course, I was overcome by the herd victorious and thereby doomed to trot the final lap of shame. Alone.

But trot I did. Still grinnin'. Just a little.

I have some knitting updates, and planned on posting them tonight. But I fell behind. Right now, it feels like the Sand Man cometh, and is about to lap me. So I'm just going to trot along to bed, and pretend it was my idea.

Maybe tomorrow will be another day.

p.s. Thanks for all the words of encouragement on my ass, and stuff. Be sure to read the comments on that last post. MamaCate knows exactly. And Ryan, boot cut are perfect for my middle age lumps. Waist high mom pants just squeeze my gut up my boobs.

pps I'm way behind in stuff. And stuff. I'd meant to respond to some comments. But for now, I'm squealing out of here.

Labels: Yore

I've been busier than a one-legged junkie at a habit kicking contest. And there will be no end to this life-sucking extravaganza, until late Friday evening, when we arrive at the cottage for a relaxing, pre-holiday escape and vacation celebration (Two weeks. Thank You, Baby Jesus.)

The First Cut is the Cheapest
Okay, right now, I have about two brain cells to rub together, so I need to make this brief.

The correct answers to the contest are 1983 and/or 1984 and FingerHut. And yes, Ann, I remember towels, and that they were ree-ree small.

For the sewing patterns, I had a hard time selecting which ones to highlight for the contest. For a couple of years, back then, I was, how you say...Sew Busy?

Here are a couple more favs from that era:


I made at least two copies of the Gawdawful dress pattern, and five of the top. I haven't touched a sewing machine in years. Maybe a good thing?

Enough of this triflin'. I have not been able to determine the final winner of the contest, but I do know she will be selected from the following list: Bron, Juno, Anne, Natalia, Sejal, Ingrid, Carole,
Kelle, Kelly O., Sandy, La and Janine.

I apologize for the delay in pronouncement, but I've been busy, and there have been unforeseen complications ::Is there such thing as a foreseen complication?::

On the topic of complications,Lisa, it wasn't a problem getting the names into the cat. However, the name stuffing process seemed to be a bit much for the ol' girl, and she done run off, before I could make my draw.

As soon as Bella returns home with the slips, the final winner will be determined. In the event of a foreseen uncircumstance, I'll figure something out. It's what I do. It's a gift.

The winner will be announced no later than Saturday night. Promise.

Have I mentioned that I'm having the The Week from Satan's Ass?

New Knibs on the Blog
Queer Joe is hosting a Knit Blog Award-a-thon. Looks kind of fun. Check it out here

Knew Knits on The Blog
I've been desperately seeking closure on my holiday gift knitting. Here is a shot of my current project.


It's a scarf, knit in the vertical gartercal, using what's almost left of the Mission Falls cache. I stole the pattern idea from Kerstin. The difference in my scarf is that the yarns are from the same source. (where the hell did she go?)

I really need to get to bed. So I hereby declare this a Clever Closing Free Zone. G'nite Gracie.

P.S. I'm hitting the publish button without consideration. i.e., I'm not proofing. Or Poofing. Or Proffing.....adiew

Labels: Contest, Yore

If you come to a fork in the road, take it. -Yogi Berra

What you see here is my new, current work in progress.

It's going to be a cardigan. Supposed to look something like this:

The yarn is from my Ebay Massacre Collection,'03.

It's called Scandia. It sounds like an STD. It looks like cinnamon-toast-and-raw-bluegill mélange .

What happened to Peaches?
A kegger happened to Peaches.
Thanksgiving weekend, 1975.

Disclaimer: Underage drinking is wrong. Not only is it against the law, but teenage alcohol consumption is the gateway activity to adult alcoholism. Yes, I drank while in high school. And it was wrong. Okay. Maybe I faked it a few times. Teenage-faking-drunk is wrong. It is also the gateway behavior to adult-faking-normal. The material contained within the remainder of this post, should not be taken as an endorsement of any illegal behavior or otherwise poor acting on the part of the youth of our nation.

In November of 1975, about one week after my 17th birthday and about three days before Thanksgiving, my boyfriend of 2 years dumped me.

On the Friday after that Thanksgiving, I attended a kegger. ::side note: In 1975, in my urban community, it was not uncommon for a group of high school students to pool money and rent a local Polish or Latvian hall, for an illicit aggregation of the barrel-o-beer variety. Which, of course, was wrong.::

When my recently detached boyfriend showed up at the party with a whore girl named Squeaker, I was devastated. So, I did what any self-respecting, drunk-faking, painter-panted (real ones, from the paint store), high school drama-queen would do. I crawled under a table, with an unlit Virginia Slim menthol, and had myself a cry.

Next thing I know, there's the face of a handsome stranger, peeking down at me.
Gotta light? I say.

Says the handsome stranger: Hey! There's a girl down here. She needs a light.

In three shakes of a jock strap, there were three more cutie pies peering under the table. One of them with a lighter.

Next thing I know, I’m out from under the table and being introduced to flock of jocks from the suburbs. One of whom was This Guy. The Guy who found me. We talked awhile, and I gave him my number.

He called me the next night, while I was in the emergency room, getting a thin wooden dowel (about a size 3 bamboo needle) carved out of my heel (hurt like a mofo). My grandmother, visiting for the holiday weekend, had answered the phone and taken a message, in our absence. He never called back. I later learned he thought my grandma was my mother, which scared him mightily.*

Fast forward to the spring of 1976. I’m in Washington D.C. on a Close-up trip. On the bus, I meet this really cute guy who attends high school with the guy who never called back. Of course,I ask if he knows him. And the cute guy says, Yeah, I know him. I was at that party. I had the lighter.

It was a match made in purgatory. His name was Al, and I dated him roughly four years, through college. (Emphasis on the roughly.) Al and that guy remained good friends and we all used to hang out on weekends. Al and I attended his wedding.

Big fuck-dee-doo. So what happened to Peaches?

I’ve never been a Surv*vor fan. But I had to watch this one. And it was so fun and so weird and so unsettling (‘cuz, dang, he looks the same, but old too. And I had a hard time wrapping my brain around how old we are. And it's not so much the looking old, as the years we spent getting there.), that I messed up big on my Peaches sleeve cap shaping. But I didn’t catch it until I was ready to cast-off, just before bed.

Because we were leaving for the cottage immediately after work, the next day, I had to come up with something quick and easy for the car ride. So I went bin diving, grabbed a 2004 Fall Vogue and voila, more Crap-on-a-needle.

Okay, so I’m easily impressed with stardom. But it’s not every day someone I used to know, is on one of the most popular TV shows of our time. Prior to this event, this guy was my only claim to fame, by association.

I went to grade school with him. And before the scrotum hit the fan**, my husband and I happened to catch the the late night peep show. Truthfully, I thought it was kind of funny. Totally in good face. I mean good taste. Of course, I didn't recognize the puppet as a member of my 6th grade graduating class, on account of the curtain, and all.

Speaking of curtains, I'm drawing 'em on this post. And this evening.

*My grandmother was a 4 foot 8 of all tough mutha. She was sharp-tongued and mean and scared of nothing. Except the telephone. When the phone rang, she would gasp in fear and clutch her breast, as though it was Barnacle Bill himself, knocking at the door. And then she would cry. If the phone kept ringing, she would eventually answer, say a few rude words, and hang up.

**It’s kind of an interesting case. The ACLU appealed it to the State Supreme Court. He’s become a local celebrity. For obvious reasons, I’m not saying his name, here. Read more here

It ain't the heat, it's the humility-Yogi Berra

Labels: Yore

Busier than a whore at a picnic...



I've been struggling to find some clever way to describe my current state of undress. The only thing that comes to mind is something I picked up at cheerleading in camp, from a *farm girl.

Oh, Fuck me.

::*The farmgirl and I established a close, long-distance friendship, which lasted through college and beyond. In high school, this friend personified Polly Purebread meets Mary Mattress. At 17, she taught me the importance of proper nipple hygiene. She believed that having a reputation for sleeping around was one thing. A reputation for passing around stanky-ass, hairy nipples, was quite another. And dammit if her momma didn't make the meanest Tuna Noodle Bake, complete with crushed potato chip topping.::

C'est Mimi
Okay. "Mimi."
Now what?



She's done except for the fringe.

For that Mimi photo, I was trying to be all artistic, and shit. However, considering the band of monkeys currently playing chinese jumprope with my last nerve, this may not have been the best approach.

It's time for bed. My tales of chagrin, will wait another day.

I'll wrap with a poem from The Cakers. She recited this to me today, as she waited for me to take her to the park. Her toes were basking in a sunbeam.

My feet are hot.
The warm Is shining.

And now,
It's time
To go.

Labels: Knit Done, My Daughter Scares Me, Now You're Whining, Yore

The Sweater Design class with Melissa Leapman was great. I seldom use this word to describe a grown woman, but Melissa is just adorable. She’s New- York- Fashion- Designer- Chic, with a Girl-Next-Door, down-home personality. And she’s smart and funny and confident. Most important, she has the courage to implore that all women measure their boobs, with integrity.

While I was excited about taking the class, I wasn't really expecting it to reveal the great mysteries of the design universe. In fact, I already own two books on simple sweater design, which I've never used. However, by the time class was over, I was believing that I could design a sweater, sans Barney Fife and his band of sniggling demons, from Mt. Pilot. Melissa just made it so sensible, so logical (so Supertramp), so,“Hell yeah, I can do that."

I did manage to snag a copy of her Hot Knits, and am now in Hot Pursuit of her A Close Knit Family. This woman gives great texture.

What God Hath Left Asunder…
My proudest moment of the day, was being the only (or maybe one of a few) to accurately measure my bosoms with a measuring tape. In the lesson of the psychology of boobage (You didn’t know there was a psychological piece to measuring the girls, did you?) she had us measure first, with the tape, then with a piece of non-stretchy yarn, cut exactly to our size. My string and initial tape measurement were exact! Woman, know thy boobs.

My least proud moment occurred during a brief algebra lesson. Math was always difficult for me, in school. After I was diagnosed with AD*HD, as an adult, I often wondered what I could have accomplished in high school and college, had I been diagnosed and treated earlier. While I did okay in school, I never set the bar high, because on some level, I believed I was stupid. Or less than. Any good grades or accolades were attributed,by me,to dumb luck.

Anyhoo. As we started down the math path, I was there, baby. I was up for it. After my initial gulp of terror, I said to myself, “You can do this. You’re not that girl anymore. You’re smart. You’re motivated. And dammit, you’re medicated.”

As I wrote down the first step of what would eventually progress to a real algebraic equation, I was replete with Concerta confidence. ::I don’t know what the first step of the math problem entailed, but I do remember an x and a y. Unfortunately, I left my notes and my course booklet, in the ladies bathroom at the MSU Student Union. Thank You Sarah, for picking it up and arranging to have it sent to my home. You didn’t happen to see a couple brain cells, asunder, maybe rolling around the lounge?::.

As we moved up the algebraic food chain, I followed along, nodding my head, even murmuring a correct answer, here and there. I was so doing algebra!

Next thing I know, it's MSU, 1979 and I'm gazing out the classroom window, at my beloved Beaumont tower, daydreaming about Boz Scaggs and Spartan Basketball and Kirk Gibson, with hair. (I’m an alum, in case any of you missed that).

Back to the Here and Now: The chalkboard is now filled with algebra stuff. It looks, to me, like something out of A Beautiful Mind. While my own sweet pretty is all a flustercuck. I'm too lost to even ask how lost I am

But I did learn something: Pharmacist Cannot Put in that Which God Left Out. I'll always suck at math. And I'm okay with that.

T Bear Tales
Of course, I had to stop in to see the Boys. And buy some stuff. But just a little.

The white/gold/blue is Lorna's Laces chunky, escorted by a mango Patons acrylic/wool blend and dedicated to a striped cardie for Me Cakers. All that's missing is the pattern. Which I left at the store.



Of course, Threadbears was amazing as ever. It's still safe to say, I've never been any place like it. And every time I leave there, I'm wishing I could stay all day. ::And a person really could, you know, stay all day. And I bet, sometimes, they do.::

This post felt like an eternity in the making, and like the monster in the classic horror flick, it just won't die! Pass the Silver Bullet.

Labels: Boobs and Pee and Poo, Yore

From the Midgina Dialogues File
A while back, I mentioned that a Barbie tale has been sitting in my draft bin since February, 2004. I have finally come to grips with the reality that that I will not be able to give this story the time and attention it needs, in order for it to be presented as I originally intended. Therefore, it's time to just do what I can and move on.

First, I gotta say this: One of the reasons I held back on posting this, was that I wanted to find my dolls, so I could hold them, and reflect. Actually, I really wanted to take pictures of them as evidence, in support of my tale. Thus ensued the search for my beloved Midge and Ken and Skipper and Francie and Casey and Gumby and Pokey (It was a weird tale. Surely. Of Love. And flexibility. And don't call me Surely.)

Anyway, I know that my mom had my dolls. I know this because I remember her asking me if I wanted them, or if she should keep them, or give them away. I asked her to keep them, because I was going through a divorce and would soon be moving out of my current home. Besides, I DISTINCTLY remember her saying that “the girls” liked playing with them when they came to visit. (“The Girls” = my nieces, of which there are four.)

Anyway, jump ahead 12 years and I’m looking for my dolls, because I want to tell this story and show their pictures and also because my daughter likes Barbies. ::Gasp. I know, Real Muthas don't let their babies play Barbies::

Anyway, I recently asked my mom if she still has my dolls. She doesn’t. She remembers having them. She remembers her GRANDAUGHTERS playing with them, but she doesn’t know where they are, today.

So, this past Christmas I asked my sisters about my Barbies. And by their responses, you’d think I was asking them if their kids, as young children, ever made or smoked crack.

The sisterly conversations went something like this:

Me to sister #1: Do you have my Barbies? (Read: Do you have my Easy Crack Oven?) Ana’s showing an interest in Barbies (Read: an interest in learning how to make Crack) and I thought it would be fun to let her play with my old stuff.

Sister: My daughters never, EVER, EVER played with Barbies/Easy Crack Ovens. In fact, I don’t think we ever, EVER had Barbies/Crack in our home. EVER.

Me: I'm pretty sure mom said that your girls used to...

Sister: NEVER, EVER…

Me: All Righty, then.

Me to sister #2: I’m looking for my old Barbies/Easy Crack Oven and mom thinks you might have them.

Sister: No way.

Me: Are you sure?

Sister: Are you kidding me? My daughter wouldn’t be caught dead with Barbie/Crack.

Me: Maybe she’s so ashamed of her filthy habit that she hides the dolls/kiddie crack pipe in her closet. Have you checked between her box spring and mattress? Kids with a Barbie/Crack problem, can be very, very deceitful. I mean, how well can you really know your own children???

Sister: I’m tellin’ ya, she’d rather drink bleach. Then throw it up. And drink it, again.

So, I'm sorry to say, I won't have my dolls to share with you today. But they are out there, somewhere. And yah, this is another long post. And getting longer. And yah, there's no knitting today. So either shut up and strap in or shut up and ship out.

Having dumped about 2/3 of my original story line from the Midgina Chronicles, it comes down to this, An open letter to Ken (with visual aids):

Dear Ken,
I'm sorry for all the times I popped your arms out of their arm holes and made you into Flipper Ken, (See Illustration 1 in Appendix) then had Francie and Midge lean you over my dog’s water dish and take turns spanking your bare, Mattel-embossed ass.

And Ken, I very much regret the time I was not careful enough, and let one of your arms fall into your body cavity. As you know, after hours and hours of poking your arm hole with tweezers, then an ink pen and finally trying to wittle a larger arm hole using my dad's rat tail file, we finally came to grips with your destiny in a world of one hand clapping. (See Illustration 2, in Appendage) And since spanking a one armed Flipper Ken just wasn’t the same, your sex life, as we knew it, was also over. Adding insult to injury, was my nicknaming you "Snake," on account of the rattling sound you now made, whenever you moved.

After you lost your arm, I felt terrible. Responsible. To make it up to you, I decided to give you some manjunk. Because I was only 10 years old, the only manjunk I had ever seen was on my baby cousin, Ricky. Because he was a baby, his stuff was better described as "babyjunk." Cousin Ricky’s babyjunk, to me, looked like two concentric circles of flesh. A button, if you will. That's what I saw, so that's what you got. A button, drawn on with a black permanent marker. But the manjunk button, somehow, ended up looking like a donut. Which was not at all the look we were going for. (See Illustration 3 in Appenddicks)

As you may recall, I instantly regretted the disfigurement and immediately tried undoing that which had been done. But instead of successfully taking back your manbutton man-donut, I learned a valuable lesson; the definition of Permanent. But Ken, you know I tried. In retrospect, I suppose the the x'ing of the manbutton (See Illustration 3 in Amendix) only made matters worse. But please remember, I was a merely a deranged babe.

My Darling Ken, the last time I saw you,(I'm pretty damn sure you were clutched in the loving arms of one of my nieces who never, EVER played with Barbies) you looked/sounded well enough.

I'm still plagued, however by the memory of trading all your clothes to Nee-Nee Tunning, just for a chance to watch her brother Dewey, take a piss on their sister Chi-Chi’s new training bra. Although the whole thought of piss-on-a-sister's-bra was intriguing, I had really hoped to catch a glimpse of some real boy junk. Unfortunately, Dewey had quite a grip, and all I saw was the golden shower, followed by Nee-Nee gingerly tucking your wardrobe into a black, shiney rollerskate case, from under her bed.

Because you no longer had any pants, I was forced to make you a pair out of a cabled knee-high sock. Red. Although I was pretty impressed with how the ribbing made the perfect waistband, I can't shake the thought of you, right now, Rattling around my sister's basement, for all eternity, in nothing but a red, cabled, knee high sock. And, of course, your eternal manshame.

So, my once-randy little one-armed wonder, please know that I think of you often, with both love, and regret.

Yours Truly,
Marcy.

P.S. A few months back, I came across this picture, somewhere on line. And I couldn't help but wonder if..well...maybe...nah.

Appendix
Illustration 1, Flipper Ken:


Illustration 2, One Hand Clappin' Ken:

Illustration 3, Manbutton:

Illustration 4, Amendicks:


And in defense of my seemingly corrupt moral aptitude, I'm not the only one who thought Ken needed a headier profile. Read about it here

Then have yourselves a Thursday.

Labels: Yore