And Then There Were Two

After yesterday, I decided it was perhaps best not to wander out today, so I started a project instead.

It's some kind of law of physics that a vacuum must be filled, and thus it is when I've cleared off a wee bit of space in which to work.

Using this basic pattern from http://mollychicken.blogs.com/my_weblog/ I modified it to be less of a giant capacious handbag that would store a three volume novel of more than revolting sentimentality, and more of a purse.

The first one took several hours, two hours of which were spent thinking.I love a messy creation station!

It looks more like an apron than a purse!

I always have to have twice the pockets that other people have.

Ta Da!

Mackie approves

******

I liked it so much I made a second one!

This one has shorter straps and is less wide.

Notice how Mackie has moved on over on TOP of the pink one.

Lip smackin' good!

Nut Magnet Collection Grows

I've added several new editions to my ever growing nut magnet collection. I know my readers are wondering why I don't take a picture of my fridge and show them to you.

It's because my fridge is full of magnetic notepads, the way God Intended, and also, these are not refrigerator nut magnets, these are the people kind.

Your tired, your poor, your unbalanced, unstable and unwashed all are drawn to me like bees to honey. I literally trip over them on my own doorstep.

Today as I headed out for some errands I saw that I had to have the insides of my windows washed. I could barely see out of the windshield in front or the sides.

Since I was on my way to the post office anyway I dug out a couple bucks to give to the guy who washes windows in the parking lot. He's a nice, decent man, obviously down on his luck, but willing to clean windows for change. He never bothers anybody or begs, but he is always there with newspapers and glass cleaner and a little stool he uses to stand on for the SUV's. I always have him clean my windows, he does a really good job.

So as not to make him feel he needed to hurry, I hung out in the lobby of the post office until I could see he was finished. It was here that I acquired my first Nut Magnet Experience of the Day.

A portly senior citizen man with slipping dentures approached me, already well into a conversation with me before I had made eye contact. He told me all about his pernicious anemia, his vitamin B12 shots, his high blood pressure pill, his daily diet of steak and baked potato, and how he would vomit every day; everything he ate he would upchuck. He told me how he liked to chew on women as well as steaks, and he gave me a leer. I almost asked him if he puked when he fed on women but refrained.

I thought I'd introduce him to the benefits of nutritional yeast but he didn't really have an input valve. Just output. He'd talk right over me no matter what I said. All the while I was trying to peer over his shoulder and around his fat gut to see the progress of my window washer.


It started back in the 70's" he said, apropos of nothing, "That was when they first got to our water. "


"Got to it, how, exactly?" I asked.

"You know, got to it. That was when they did it to all our water. Bio-engineered the DNA."

Now, I happen to know a bit about anemia because I was born with it and almost died from it several times, and I also happen to be a big fan of knowing stuff about DNA. After all, I've lost count of the times I've yelled at the back of a retreating boyfriend, "Get out and take your DNA with you!"


So I already knew that B12 shots are the treatment for pernicious anemia--although if he has a functioning terminal ileum, I don't know what all the fuss is about-- but I have not yet been acquainted with bio-engineered altered DNA in my water source. That just seems like a lot of work for Secret Ops to go to, and for what purpose? To make us a Stupider People?

I can hear them now in their secret labs in the underworld, "This dumbing down of America through Reality TV isn't working fast enough. People still show signs of resisting Twitter. Let's doctor up their Water!"


You know it's just not very likely. Wouldn't they doctor up our Starbucks instead?

I extricated myself from his presence by wishing him all the best of luck with his vomiting issues, and made a beeline for my car.

But Nut Magnet Adventure#2 had other plans. This man, bleary-eyed and somewhat shell-shocked in appearance, waylaid me with this stunner, "Ma'am! Please! That lady right there just farted on me!" I half looked at him and half at the retreating back of a well dressed woman whom, to my quick assessment, did not look like the back of a woman who would take deadly aim and let one rip in public.

What was I supposed to do about it? Run after her and demand she give him is clean air back? Confront her with her intentions? Demand repercussions? Ask her if she'd considered Vitamin B12 shots and introduce her to Nut Magnet #1 who might vomit on her and thus complete the cycle of Karma that I just somehow got snagged into?

I did nothing, alas, except express my deep felt sorrow and compassion for his horrific experience, and high-tailed it out of there with my clean windows as fast as my foot could hit the gas pedal. (ha-ha. Get it? Gas pedal?)

My next stop was the 98 cent store, where, as I was rounding the corner into the food aisle. I ran smack dab into a guy who was shoving a bag of chips in his pants.

This was starting to seem like a day for social torture rather than the joyous gad-about that I had intended.

It was a freeze-in-place moment. I really didn't know what to do. I looked around as if I had done the guilty deed, and wondered if store detectives would be descending in droves. I knew I had mere moments to formulate some kind of response. What would it be? Would I scream, "THIEF!" or "Drop that Bag of Chips, you are surrounded!" ? Or would I look the other way and pretend I'd seen nothing? After all, this was the 98 cent store, where everything costs one dollar. What difference did that dollar make to the store if this obviously homeless man was driven by hunger to steal his food?

Without even thinking I said, "I'll buy that for you, and anything else you want to eat."

But he didn't hear me. He was already moving fast and out the door, and I'll never know if my words had time to register before he was gone.

This morning as I left the house, a friend had told me I looked especially nice today, and that in my new pink blouse I was sure to attract an eligible man.

Fear of Commitment Affects My Functionality!

I loathe and detest that non-word 'functionality' by the way! It's so lazy! Is it so hard to say, "This will affect your ability to function!"? MUST it be converted to Kitch English?



Although these eggs were just fantastic and the salsa was the freshest, tastiest I've ever made...I had plating issues this morning. Yes, that's right, I had trouble committing to a piece of china. The Limoges? The Royal Crown Derby? The Belique? What would best showcase this perfect breakfast of eggs and salsa? The Spode? The Bell Hyacinth?

The eggs were starting to get cold, and the morning was growing long and I knew that the jig was up: I had to grab a paper plate and let it be.

These are the occasions when life reminds us not to get too lofty.

This morning Miss Evie told me just such a tale:

Her daughter had been chosen amongst dozens of candidates to be the Camellia Queen. That was a big deal back in the day. The entire family was honored beyond belief and Evie was just convinced, absolutely certain, that this would lead to big things for Greta.

"We thought this would lead to a bank opening, at least!"

As I was stifling my guffaws she went on with her story, "And to be certain, the phone rang the very next morning! They wanted her for a Grand Opening!"

She paused for dramatic affect, continuing on in a scandalized tone, "It was an opening for a SERVICE STATION!"

Food: It's What's For Dinner

It seemed like the perfect affair! Dinner at 6! Guests on their way! Food deliciously prepared! A quick text message to the the folks the door was unlocked and to make themselves at home until I could get there...Roast Beast with golden potatoes and organic carrots! Ribblees, otherwise known as spetzels, perfect, plump and glossy! And the grande finale: Banana's Foster!

Although it didn't exactly turn out that way.

For one thing, the auto-pilot mechanism in my brain over rode the 'leave door unlocked' command and thus with one turn of the key I locked my guests out in the cold and sleet! They had to trek mile after mile across the frozen tundra to another friends' house in order to keep from freezing to death on my doorstep until I got home!

Ribblee noodles, ready for the pot.

The right degree of texture and size

Into the pot a few at a time to keep them separate and give them room to breathe.

Broth simmering not boiling

Perfect Spetzels. I mean, really really perfect!

Except the guest of honor couldn't eat them because in the army they make them eat their own vomit and that's what these reminded him of.

Well, I wouldn't let him tell me the REAL reason he couldn't eat them, but that was what my mind conjured up when he said, 'it's because of something that happened to me in the army."

Ah! Fine Tri-tip steaks ready for the roasting pan!

Too bad I don't have any pics of this finished project because although some were taken, I believe my mouth was wide open in a scream and I refused to allow them to be published!

Crepes!

And here is where the story turns ugly! Because my Banana's Foster absolutely refused to flame! Not so much as a spark! Not even a small contained slow burn! Nothing! Nothing short of dowsing them in gasoline would have worked, and yet we tried and tried. The results were sugared bananas in burnt caramel tasting like a bottle of rot-gut Russian Vodka.

I was so traumatized I refused to allow the event to be photographed!

In my mind this post was going to end with a BANG! A lovely shot of my happy, full guests seated at my dining table grinning from ear to ear in sheer gustatorial bliss!

But instead, I will end with this shot so that I can issue a disclaimer!

I did it all while severely injured!

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! Bon Apetit!

No Bulls Would Die Today. (Hemingway)

My lady Miss Evie staged her own death today. I had heard about this performance but until now had not experienced it first hand. Here is how it went down:

I already knew she was awake because she had gotten up to use the bathroom a mere 15 minutes prior, and had given me a look. I went in to see if she was ready to get up.

Instead of the accustomed sight of her curled on her side lined in pillows, I saw her flat on her back with her hand thrown over her forehead in the universal sign of "Woe is Me!" In two years I've never seen her flat on her back so that was a big moment right there.

I said good morning and she didn't answer, she just lifted her hand a wee bit and fluttered her fingers at me.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I don't know!" came her tremulous voice.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Oh, the usual."

"What usual would that be?"

"My heart palpitations. I think I'm dying."

I'm pretty sure that my own heart palpitations started up right about then. But rather than lie down beside her and die on the spot, I decided to tough it out. I grabbed her wrist and checked her pulse.

Mind you, I haven't the faintest inkling how to check a pulse. I've just seen it on tv.

But I thought I should check and see if she had one anyway. All the while my mind is racing about what to do next. I was just sure there was nothing posted on the fridge about what to do in this situation. I already know she will flat out refuse to go to the hospital so I decided to delay the 911 call until I had further information.

I know the first order of the day is to get those pills in her, since one of them is a big fat Xanex that she takes for anxiety.

I ran and got her pills and water and asked her to sit up in bed a little bit so she didn't choke. She managed to drag herself semi-upright, but not without a lot of sighing and trembling.

I decided I'd better stick right by her so I pulled up a chair. When she saw I was preparing for a vigil, she demanded her coffee in bed.

This was when I knew that the worst was over. Who, on their deathbed, demands a cup of coffee--strong and black, no cream or sugar? I got her coffee and while I was at it, I got myself some too.

She took a sip and said, "It's too hot!" Normally, she just sets the cup down and waits a bit for it to cool, but apparently since she was moments from passing out of this earthly realm, she didn't have the time to wait. "Can't you put some water in it?" she asked peevishly.

I did one better and put some ice chips in it. I really wanted her to get some coffee in her! She looked at the rapidly melting ice like she was going to demand it's withdrawal henceforth, but then she relented and drank the coffee.

"Do you really think you are dying?" I asked her.

"Why NOT?" she said woefully. "Everybody's got to go sometime! I've had a full life."

I nodded wisely. I know this lady and I know she is a talker, so I knew it would just be a moment before it all came pouring out of her, and it did.

"Besides! I got a call from Dan last night and he's leaving for China this morning. You know I can't stand to have any of my family go on a trip! It's very upsetting for me. I can't help myself. I am sure I'm dying."

I let there be a pause for a moment and then I calmly stated, "If you die today, he'd have to cancel his trip."

She was completely taken aback. "I wouldn't want that! I wouldn't like that at all!"

"Well, you wouldn't really have any say in the matter if you were dead." I said reasonably. "He'd naturally cancel all his plans to stay home for the funeral of his beloved Grandma."

It took about two beats of her palpitating heart to sit up further in bed and demand her breakfast.

"I'll have my usual golden breakfast." she declared, "And don't ever put rice in my eggs again!"

No grain of rice has ever touched her breakfast eggs as far back as I can remember, so I knew that for today, at least, not only would she not be dying, she'd be up to her old tricks. Status Quo.

An Unnecessary Purchase

Unnecessary, but needed. One of my work pals surprised me with 4 tee-shirts for summer. She had ordered them from a catalog and they were way too large for her. Of course that means they are skin-tight on me but I thought I could make them work.

If I could get past the colors, that is. We are talking Leprechaun Green, Neon Red and Acid Blue. (The 4th one is white, so no problem there.)

So I got out the trusty bleach bottle and brought them up to pretty pastel colors more in keeping with my natural coloring tones.

See? Pretty Easter Egg Green! With a lavender undershirt!

With freshwater pearls of course.

Along with the New! Less Neon! tees, I bought a couple new tops at St. Vincent's Thrift store.

I love thrift store shopping! It's a good thing, too since it's the only way I'd get any 'new' clothes at all. I usually have a hard time finding anything in "super-size-me" sizes, but occasionally I get lucky. And very creative...

This was an ugly granny dress which I converted to a cute summer tunic top to be worn with Capri leggings.

This was another Bleach-Baby. What was once Pepto-Abysmal pink is now a soft, pretty petal pink.

This is much neater in person. It's got a very long skirt and this giant tunic top. I'm going to cut up the skirt to make some shirred draping around the waist of the t-shirt. It's part of my movement to support Michelle Obama in her campaign for Textured Dressing.

I got all these pieces for under 10 dollars along with a Johnson Brothers Regency cream pitcher (to be featured later.)

So there was really no reason to make any further clothing purchases. No reason whatsoever.

But tell me--if you can--how I, Miss Pink Ponsonby, Queen of All Things Tea, could see this and walk away?

(Object in picture has been folded to appear smaller than in real life.)

Bon Aire!

Today was a truly tired, brain-numb type of day. I spilled an entire glass of milk down the inside of the fridge door. Why does milk take longer to mop up and spread further than water?

I was chatting with my lady or rather she was chatting and my mind was far, far away trying to wake itself up, when I heard her say something about 'a very charming, suave man'. To show I was, indeed, hanging upon her lips like a metaphor of bees, I said, "Ah! Debonair!"

And then after a pause I said, "Of course I have no real idea what debonair actually means. One uses it all the time but one has never looked it up."

To which she replied, "It means a man with a small French mustache."

Hydrangeas

It's June! I don't know about y'all but here in Sacramento we had a long, heavenly springtime. Only a few days of brutal heat and lots of cool mornings and evenings. And therefore lots of blossoms, blooms and flowers.

Hydrangea. So pretty they look fake!

And yet another 'unfinished object project' These are some Civil War Reproduction fabrics and a Texas Star pattern. Easy to hand-piece but awful to cut out from a pattern. It's going to be a table runner or a tablecloth, depending on how many stars I make before I run out of energy for this particular pattern.

Happy June, Everyone!

Chickens Counted After Hatched

I'll just be hanging out with my peeps.

A Day in the Life

Yesterday was a day much like any other...if you live in a hell dimension.

The very first thing in the morning, I opened the door and saw THIS sight:

Yeah, that's a human body laying curled up on my stoop, wrapped up in a hoodie. Sorry about the calcium build-up on the screen so you can't see so well. I'll get around to scrubbing that off when I get a new batch of energy. I've got one ordered, it just hasn't arrived yet.

Anyway...I stood there to see if the body was breathing, and it was. So I spoke gently and woke the fella up and the body turned out to be an 18 year old runaway boy, now homeless.

I talked to him for quite a while; asking things like what was his drug of choice, was he hungover, and could I expect to see his face on the back of a milk carton? I also asked him if he was hungry and he said he was.

I fed him a couple plates of eggs (he ate all that I had on hand) and a chicken salad sandwich with some juice.

And I asked him if he'd like me to call his mom or someone else in his family. He said, yeah, he'd like that. So he gave me the number and I dialed it and left a message on an answering machine.

He's been on the street for more than 8 months so I would imagine someone out there is frantic for news of him.

Come to think of it, maybe not. I've had some experience with families leaving members to die in a ditch. I just hope that's not the case with his. He was a nice young man, lost, scared, and with no way out of his predicament without a serious helping hand.

I asked him where he'd be in case someone called back and he told me and then he left.

It was later in the day and many phone calls later that it dawned on me! I hadn't left a call-back number! I am so lazy and so used to caller ID that it never occurred to me that not everyone has that feature!

Now I am haunted by the vision of some poor people down in San Francisco having heard word that their son/brother/nephew is alive and homeless on the streets of Sacramento but with no way to find him or learn more! Arrggh!

Just to show that no good deed goes unpunished, I had to resort to buying a blender because none were available for cheap at the Salvation Army. Mine had met with an unfortunate spoon-in-the-blades accident earlier this week and had to be tossed out. I was really sweating the expenditure on a budget that has no room for such luxuries, but I went ahead and bought a cheap one at Walmart.

And when I got home I noticed a letter in the mailbox from my landlord stating that my rent had just increased by $100 a month.

I'm sure there's a bible verse to cover this second big event of the day: something about adversity and heaping coals upon my head and probably even boils, pestilence and locusts. What it could be doesn't come to mind, but I am for certain sure I know which one covers the first incident:

Matthew 25:35-40

Bye Bye Blender

Ah, the joys of simple summer things. Like drinking fruit smoothies all season long. It's one of my simple pleasures.


Until yesterday when I left a Reed and Barton stainless steel soup spoon in the blender and turned it on, sheering the motor drive in two and ruining the spoon as well.

I don't know if there is a lesson in there or not. There's no money for a new blender so I guess the lesson is to do without. Again.

In the meantime, I am working on the pile of unfinished quilts and have a great time. So is my seamstress assistant Mackie, seen here marking the quilt pattern in pencil:


hmmm, this looks like a good spot.

Just let me get a good grip on this thing...

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille

Cozy Up

I've been longing for some new tea cozies for over a year. But I never had the energy to make one!

It requires piecing and quilting an entire design. Or, if I was to make a one-fabric cozy, it would still need to be quilted. The task just seemed daunting and so it never got underway.

Until! My Pink Brain! kicked into 'AHA!' when I was at the thrift store this morning!




I spotted some very nice PILLOW SHAMS. For $1.99 each. Fully pieced and quilted and fully calling out to me to buy them and cut them up.


So I did.

A simple shape.

A quick whip around on the old machine.

And VIOLA!

I'm so happy! Aren't you?

While the Cat's Away

I thought I would be able to sandwich up another quilt this afternoon while Mackie was sound asleep in the other room.

Um, I guess not.

So I had to do it on the table instead.

Doing My Part

It's good to know that in these trying times of hamdemics, there are those who are out there fighting the good fight and trying not to spread the dreaded Swine Flu.

I like to think I'm doing my part. Keeping my hands washed. Keeping my finger out of my nose. Spraying anyone in the face with hand sanitizer who dares to sneeze in my direction.

Yesterday, however, I did a bad, bad thing. I may have single-handedly created my own disease vector. Here is what happened:

My co-worker had told me that Sheba Cat Food no longer comes in the little square plastic cans that I found so handy as soap molds. She said they are made of tin, now. I could hardly believe her and since getting a few 'cans' of cat food for Mackie (so I can use them as soap molds later after he rejects the contents because he doesn't like wet food) was on my shopping list, I found myself standing in front of the cat food at Safeway on Alhambra yesterday, pondering the display.

My last batch of soap had to be poured into a big plastic tub. And when it came time to cut it into bars, for some reason my mind switched off the mainline and into a derelict sidetrack, and I ended up cutting the soap into brownie sized into larger soap bars. And thus we have the 40,000 wee snack sized bars of soap in this picture:

Hey, you couldn't possibly be taking a photo without ME, could you?

Back at the Safeway, I could clearly see that Sheba had indeed changed it's cans. Instead of flat and square, they now resembled little round one-serving pudding cups. I could see that they appeared to be made of tin now, too, rather than plastic.

But just to make sure, I picked up a can and tapped it with my fingernail. Maybe it was still plastic that had been painted metallic to make it look more expensive.

But it was hard to tell. I tapped again. I know how these merchandisers like to mess with us consumers. It could still be plastic.

If the tap and scratch method doesn't work, there is always the tooth test. You can always tell what something is made of if you bite it. People have done that with gold coins since time immemorial. And the only sure fire way to tell a pearl from a plastic bead is to run it across your teeth to feel if it's grainy or not. So why not chomp down on a can of cat food standing in the middle of the aisle at Safeway in front of God and everybody?

It was then that I realized I was sucking on a can of cat food that had probably been touched by at least a dozen other people. Dirty, germy, disease bearing people. Including the grubby mitts of the entire third world, depending on where the stuff was made, canned and packaged. It's not like they sterilize them right before they put them on the shelves or anything.

Think about it! Manufactured in vats and poured into the cans in China where they regularly poison products just because it's amusing. Tossed into bins with rats and human body parts for storage. Transported to the coast in the back of filthy trucks that double as chicken carriers and not cleaned EVER. Loaded into the bowels of Merchant Ships where they mingle with the bilge water for months as they navigate past pirates. Sent to distribution warehouses, trucking centers, the back room of the local grocery store, the store shelf and finally coming to rest upon my lips.

I yanked that can out of my mouth and put it back on the shelf, looking surreptitiously around to see if anybody saw that. And then I fled the premises in embarrassment and disgust.

I am so much prettier than those old cards you make, admit it!

Yes, that's correct. I didn't buy the one I tasted. I was too traumatized and besides, it IS made of tin and therefore cannot be used as a soap mold.

It was when I was sitting in my car in the parking lot, after having washed my mouth out with hand sanitizer, scrubbed my hands and the steering wheel, my keys and my purse handles with an antibacterial wet wipe, that I realized I had just done a bad, bad thing.

I had possibly started the spread of an even deadlier virus than the Swine Flu.

I have single-mouthedly spawned the new pandemic that will wipe out the entire human world.

Beware the Idiot Flu!

Sunflower Blue

Just a few more glorious days of cool spring weather before the HEAT hits and I wilt like a tired dandelion until the autumn. When I turn into a pumpkin? I don't know!

After 4 years of non-quilting activity due to cataracts, I finally realized just the other day that I could probably see well enough to try my hand at it again! So I dug into the drawer marked 'ufo's' --that's quilter talk for "Un-Finished-Objects" and chose this bright sky blue and sunny yellow quilt top. I don't know what I was thinking when I chose this BRIGHT combo, but it's perfect for me now.

I had forgotten how amazingly peaceful it is to sit for an hour or two and quilt.

Card Trick

Word to the Wise: Don't download Internet Explorer 8 if you have an older computer: you will never see the internet alive again!!!! Bwaaahaaaaa haaaaa! What with a few computer problems and being so dull and too busy to be anything but dull, I've had no time and no inkling to post. But the other day, when it was rainy, I had time to do a little card trickery!

I had to make some cards for an ailing friend, and I did manage to send her some very nice ones, but these could not be parted with! They are pink! They have roses! They must be hoarded!

Rainy Day in May

Nothing to do! It's raining! Guess I'll pester my human for a while!

Hey, look at me!

I said, HEY! Look at ME!

Lusty Month of May

It's May, it's May!
The Lusty Month of May!
The lovely month when everyone goes
Blissfully Astray!

That darling month when ev'ryone throws
Self-control away.
It's time to do
A wretched thing or two,
And try to make each precious day
One you'll always rue!

It's May! It's May! It's May!