Costumes

When you're a parent of an elementary school aged child every so often you're going to be told something like, "I need an Alexander Graham Bell costume by Friday!"

If your kid is responsible (like mine), she will tell you this on Monday, instead of on Thursday night.

In the past I've been really good about this kind of thing, because I remember the terror of having to go to school in a costume, knowing that the costume is crummy. Mary has gone to school credibly costumed as George Washington, Annie Oakley, Malcolm X, and the state flag of Indiana. But this time I dropped the ball, because it's summer, for pete's sake, and it's just inventions camp, it's not like there's going to be a grade, and oh, well ... I just got lazy.

So on Thursday night Mary needs an Alexander Graham Bell costume, because she can never get a simple subject (sartorially speaking) like Gandhi or Socrates, it always has to be some 19th century guy in a suit.

We don't have anything that will work. For a while we consider trying to glue cotton balls to cardboard to make a fake beard, when Bill suddenly comes up with an idea so wonderful, so beautiful in its purity and simplicity, that I gasp.

Street clothes and this mask = pure genius!

Mary is horrified, of course. We keep trying to tell her that the mask is awesome (and hilarious) but she doesn't believe us. Sometimes the things Bill and I find hilarious are not things that she finds hilarious.

She ends up giving her presentation wearing a magician's hat and my brown corduroy jacket, looking much more like a Haight Ashbury hippy than Alexander Graham Bell. But it doesn't much matter, because only four out of the twelve kids in her class bother to wear any costume at all.

Lesson learned: invest in a boys' black suit from the thrift store and a fake white beard (also useful if she ever gives a presentation on Sigmund Freud).

The Slippery Slope, or How Elizabeth became "Bitsy"

The baby's progress from Elizabeth Carolina, to Lizzy, to "Bitsy," was tragic but perhaps inevitable.

Elizabeth Carolina was a name I'd held in reserve for eight years; it was almost Mary's name.  But Mary was so roly poly and pink, so clearly a Mary, that "Mary" edged out "Elizabeth" and "Elizabeth" was saved for the hypothetical second girl we might end up having one day.

Why Elizabeth?  For Elizabeth Bennet, of course.  And she would be called "Lizzy," of course.  Except that my husband doesn't like the name Lizzy.  He prefers "Betsy," which is okay, I guess, except that it's not the name of my favorite character in literature, ever.

So after the baby was born he called her Betsy, and I called her Lizzy, until one day we both started referring to her as "the itsy-bitsy baby," and that was pretty much the end of the whole thing.  

I keep saying, look, we have to stop calling her Bitsy.  It's undignified.  But habits are hard to break.  And at this point, if we called her anything else, I don't think she'd know to whom we were referring.

Two exciting things that happened

One:  Mary filled the waffle iron with mayonnaise, thinking it was leftover waffle mix.

Two:  I finally finished the bloomer/shorts from this Oliver and S. pattern.

This project took me about three weeks to finish.  I know.  I have a lot of excuses of varying legitimacy.  But I think the main reason is that I forced myself, at every step of the way, to read the instructions, to slow down, to think, to go back and correct my mistakes.  Whatever muscle it is that governs patience in me is horribly out of shape, and this was a real work out.

I used a linen very much like the fabric in the original pattern drawing because I liked the color, and a vintage cotton for the bias trim on the pockets.  The whole thing is kind of wonky, but it fits and it's cute and I'm happy to finally begin work on something else.

These were the best photos I could get.  My model refused to stand still for more than a second.

What I've learned:  I shouldn't try to sew after watching an episode of "The Wire," because then I find myself muttering things like "S***!  This fabric frays like a mother******."

Hello again!

When you put off blogging so long that the infant subject of your last post is old enough to have a favorite color (yellow) and a full set of very sharp teeth ... then you know you've put off blogging for too long.

I just want to add that Miss B has styled herself for this photo shoot.  

Elizabeth Riding Hood

I haven't been taking enough pictures of Elizabeth, which I suppose is pretty much standard for a third child. Here she is. Our friend Sylvia is holding her.

As the baby of the family, Lizzy wears lots of hand-me-downs, including her older brother's boy clothes (which is only fair, since James is often put to bed in his older sister's Barbie or Tinkerbell t-shirts). But this little red cape with a hood is all hers.

It's by a wonderful designer named Eliza Gran. I bought it at Girl Charlee, an equally wonderful website that carries clothing for children.

She has arrived!

Elizabeth was born last Wednesday! We were hoping for Tuesday ("full of grace") but circumstances way (and I mean waaaaay) beyond our control pushed the delivery back a day. So, full of woe. Except not really -- so far, she's as sweet as a rose.

More pictures of her here.

Books!

I got an e-mail from Amazon today saying that Claire Garland's new book will be shipping out later than expected. I'm extremely excited about this book, since I'm a big fan of both Knitted Babes and Embroidered Treasures for Children.



I have to admit -- I've been too unsure of my embroidery skills to try any of the projects in this book. I mostly just thumb through it and sigh. I think that a lot of my trouble with embroidery came from the fact that I was working with stretchy fabric, which isn't much fun, even if you use a stabilizer. But I recently finished a onesie for Pogo (using a Sublime Stitching pattern), and the work was much easier and more pleasant than I'd remembered (although it was distracting enough that I did miss some important plot points on Deadwood). Next embroidery project: one of Wee Wonderful's adorable Stitchettes.

Another book I'm looking forward to -- Knit 2 Together, by Tracey Ullman and Mel Clark, due out in a few weeks. I was actually at Wildfiber, Mel's store, on the day that she'd brought in an advance copy, and it looks amazing. Plus, I've loved Tracey Ullman from the moment I first saw the video for "They Don't Know" (from the album "You Broke My Heart in 17 Places" released in -- eek! -- 1983).

I've met Tracey Ullman twice -- the first time, when she visited my college humor magazine in the late '80s, was disastrous. She sat there, perfectly lovely and friendly and eager to talk to us, while we stood in a circle around her in absolute silence, shuffling our feet and staring at the ground. I'm sure we came across as snotty jerks (as we often did), but in reality we were just horribly awkward and embarrassed.

The second time we met was at Wildfiber. This time I actually spoke. I worked up the nerve to go up to her and tell her how much Mary and I enjoyed her performance in Once Upon a Mattress. She was -- again -- lovely and funny and gracious. So buy her book! Go on!

I promised the family that this year we could all have a nice beach vacation. No driving, minimal shopping, plenty of fried seafood. We chose Tybee Island, Georgia, because we’d driven through once on a road trip (August 2004) and were charmed by the warm water, gentle waves, and complete lack of golfers.

We rented an old ’20s beach cottage about a block away from the beach. Bill and the kids had a great time. My time -- not quite so great, since I was attacked by mosquitoes on a daily basis and the heat made my feet swell to the approximate size, shape, and heft of canned hams.

And yet … I did enjoy going into Savannah, which is about twenty minutes away. When I go to heaven, if I go to heaven, I imagine that it will be a lot like Savannah, without the bugs or the humidity. Beautifully maintained 19th century brick townhouses arranged around leafy green squares, oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, delicious Southern food at Mrs. Wilkes’ Boarding House, and boutiques like @home (7 West York Street, no web site as far as I can tell), an amazing store filled with new and vintage paper items, linens, ribbon, books, and all kinds of random, shiny, lovely things.

Okay, so maybe there was some shopping involved, but everyone else did get to go the beach.

When last we spoke ...

I had just discovered that we were going to have another baby. The baby's fine, she's a girl, she's due in five weeks. More about her later. Look at this cool thing I made!



I was thrilled when we returned from vacation and I found Hillary Lang's beautiful Put-Together Book in the mail. Actually, at first I was disappointed because she'd sold out of the first printing and I wasn't able to get one. But then I was glad because she ordered a second printing. Then, when I finally got the book in my hot little hands, I was concerned because I didn't think I had a large enough piece of wool felt to cut out the pattern, until I discovered a big piece of cream colored wool felt hidden away in a closet (glad). And then I was distraught because I thought that I'd lost the cord connecting my sewing machine to the foot pedal when I sent the machine out to be repaired, and I would have to order a new cord from Bernina, which could take forever. But then Bill pointed out that the cord was not lost at all, it was simply wrapped up inside the foot pedal. And then I felt like an idiot. And then I was happy again, and got to work.

The cream colored felt screamed out "bunny," so here she is. I'm very pleased that everything that went into making the bunny was stuff I actually had, especially since it's too hot to drag the family and my enormously pregnant behind to the fabric store. I even had the little daisy buttons that went on the shoes.


I got the dress fabric in a vintage fabric lot I won on eBay about a year ago -- I didn't love it, but I stashed it away thinking that I might find a use for it at some point. Isn't it weird how something overlooked can turn out to be the perfect thing?

If anyone still doesn't have this fabulous book, I strongly urge you to buy it. It's not only adorable, it's clearly written and easy to follow. You can buy it here.

If James Could Speak

He would say that the two worst words in the English language are "nasal aspirator."

He has a bad cold. When Mary gets sick she spends all day on the sofa wrapped in blankets, napping, watching TV, getting plenty of fluids and chicken soup. She's more quiet than usual, but she's game enough to give us a watery smile now and then through her cloud of used Kleenex.

James, on the other hand, is furious when he has a cold. I do feel bad for him; how would anyone feel held down to a changing table with a bulby blue thing stuck up their nose?

***

It's weird and novel sensation for me to go through the clothes that Mary and James have outgrown, and instead of saying "Oh, some day some hypothetical future baby can wear this," -- saying, "The baby can wear this NEXT WINTER."

I didn't mean to give the impression that we're not delighted by the arrival of Baby 3 (or Pogo, as he/she is known around here). It's true that I'm scared for all kinds of reasons*, but both Bill and I are very happy in a giddy, oh-boy, leap of faith kind of way.

(Mary, on the other hand, is incredulous. "But you just had a baby.")

Obviously it's going to be a rough couple of years for all of us, but at least we know from experience (Mary) that there's light at the end of the tunnel. And that light, when it comes, is very beautiful and very bright.


*A sampling:

1) How am I going to take care of two babies in diapers, when I'm notoriously selfish and short-tempered?
2) How unfair is it that Jamie only gets to be "the baby" for a short time?
3) How am I going to cope with the ordeal of another C-section delivery and recovery when the memory of the last one is so hellishly fresh in my mind?

Back After A Long Hiatus

But I have a pretty good excuse.

Last Monday I took Mary to a birthday party at a skating rink in Culver City. We almost didn't go because it was raining very hard. I'm a native Californian -- a heavy rain to us is like a blizzard to normal people.

On the drive over, I began to feel kind of crappy -- headachy and a little nauseated, as if I might be getting a migraine. The skating rink was ridiculously crowded and cold (lots of helpful strangers telling me that the baby should really be wearing a hat) and Mary was disconsolate because her father wasn't there to skate with her. I don't know how to ice skate, so we came to a compromise: she hugged the inside edges of the rink while I tried to maneuver the stroller through the crowds along the outside, saying encouraging things to her. After the skating was over, we had to locate her shoes, locate a place to change into her shoes, and then transport the baby, stroller, etc. up the stairs to the second floor party space.

I hustled everyone out right after the cake and made it home without barfing -- hurray! I put Jamie down for his evening nap, plopped Mary in front of the television (“Angry Beavers” and “Rocko’s Modern Life” are her favorite shows these days, along with -- I’m not kidding -- “My Name is Earl”) and then called Bill. “I’m taking a nap,” I told him. “Please come home early and pick up a pregnancy test on your way home.”

So ...

Yes. Pregnant. Due August 29, 2006. I'm unsure of how I'm going to handle two children under the age of two, but what the hell -- in for a penny, in for a pound, I always say, and since we've already started along this road to penury and chaos, we might as well do it up right. Right?

Oy.

Whew!

It's taken me this long to get over the horror that was the yard sale.

Actually, it wasn't that bad, except for the first hour, which was hellish. It all began at 7:45 am, when Bill told a lady, "We don't open until 9, but you're free to come in and look around." I gave him a look of death, because we weren't anywhere near ready and I had put "no early birds" in the ad, but by then it was too late. The floodgates had opened.

So we had the baby, way past naptime, screaming in my arms. Two women fighting over Mary's pink and purple LeapPad ($3). Little old lady trying to bargain me down from $3 to $1 on a pair of vintage embroidered pillowcases with the argument that "they're used." Cat trapped on the roof meowing piteously. One person berating me for opening the sale early, when SHE WAS THERE EARLY HERSELF! Mary in tears until we finally agreed to let her hold her own cashbox and make her own sales, even though it was horribly inconvenient for everyone, never mind that she's a seven-year old with inconsistent math skills and no calculator, not even a pencil and paper because there was no time to run into the house to get it. Plus some buyers who I think may have had borderline personality disorders, no kidding. Oh, and no change. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

We sold the sofa to friends. The baby didn't sell for some reason. So we packed him up and took him to Out of the Closet with everything else that didn't sell.

Kidding! If I were going to get rid of the baby, I'd sell him on eBay.

Anyway, it's over -- we made a nice pile of money, even selling things cheaply, and got rid of a lot of clutter. Hurray!

Yard Sale Tomorrow!

We're having a yard sale tomorrow morning and I've been a little grumpy about the additional work, because Bill has a script to finish and hasn't been as big a help as he might have been. But he sent this to me, so now I'm feeling a little more charitable.

Indiana Wants Me / But I Can't Go Back There

There comes a time in the life of every young American where you are required to do a report on one of the fifty states, and create some unwieldy prop to go along with it. I think it might even be in the Constitution.

Mary chose Indiana. I have no idea why. She said she liked the name (maybe because her middle name is India?). In the course of her research, we discovered that Indiana produces corn and soybeans, that it was the nineteenth state admitted to the union, and that the torch in the flag stands for enlightenment and something else that I don't remember. She cut out all the yellow parts herself and we glued it together last night. She was very proud of it, and I think her pride is entirely justified.

I loved the idea of a flag costume, mostly because I thought it would be funny, like Lisa Simpson's terrible Florida costume in that episode of the Simpsons where Marge develops a gambling problem. "I'm not a state! I'm a monster!"

Ayelet Waldman wrote an article on homework in Salon a couple of weeks ago where she recounted stories of "mind-numbing make-work" given to kids in even the youngest grades.

"But my favorite is Carlie Williams' nephew. Assigned to construct a relief map of one of the 50 states out of plaster of Paris, the boy chose Nebraska. He made a flat rectangle. As his aunt said, 'You've got to love a kid who puts into the assignment exactly the effort it's worth.'"

Baby + Standard Time = Misery

The time change has thrown us all for a loop. My brain is so frazzled that I can't even remember if I've lost an hour or gained an hour. All I know is that it's dark outside when the baby wakes up.

Gomez, our fourteen year old cat, has suffered from some kind of crazy feline anxiety disorder since he was a kitten. Last night he sprayed Mary's Halloween costume, which had to be ready for her school's Halloween parade today. Stella, the girl cat, sneaks bites of Gomez's food, which is filled with medications for his thyroid disease and upset stomach, and barfs it up later. She's very lurky; her favorite thing is to slink into the bedroom when no one is looking, wait until you've closed the door and fallen asleep, and then pound on the door to be let out.

Last night I suggested to Bill that we both run away and leave the children and animals to fend for themselves, but I didn't really mean it. I wouldn't mind a night in a nice hotel, though.

In other, craftier, news, I went to the Knit Cafe for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I'm usually a Wildfiber kind of girl, but I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop in. It's tiny but charming, with a friendly salesclerk and a small but good selection of yarn. I still think Wildfiber is the best yarn store in Los Angeles, though -- they have a whole wall of Koigu!

Anyway, I bought the new Knitted Babes book by Claire Garland. I'm completely obsessed.



We've named her Nessa. Her dress is made out of an Oilily hankie that I never thought I'd find a good use for.



You'd think she'd be more appreciative of the handknit undies, but all she does is complain that they're "mumsy."

Thank you, Carmen !!!

from Carmen to Rachel
Originally uploaded by Grouchy Muse.

I don't usually go in for multiple exclamation points, but I think this situation called for it. I finally opened my Vintage Swap package from Carmen, and I was thrilled to find so many wonderful things, all selected with obvious care. Check out the fabulous plastic baby hanger! The wonderful little glittered Halloween tags! The pretty strawberry pin cushion!

She also included vintage greeting cards, which I love, and some vintage buttons, ditto:

This last thing is my favorite. A wonderful little metal sewing kit with a drawing on the front. I'm going to have to hide it from Mary.



Thank you so much for everything, Carmen! I feel very fortunate to have had such a great swap partner -- fun, nice, and with excellent taste! What more could a person want?

a little white lie

Today I successfully deflected a solicitor who came to our door by pretending to be the maid.

I don't do that very often because I don't really like to lie, but I prefer lying to talking to strangers, especially the kind who come to my door with a determined glint in their eye and a cheery "hey, how you doing?" that tells me that there's no way they're leaving my house without a check in their hand. The fact is, I do look like most of the maids and nannies in this neighborhood; jeans and t-shirt with formula stains, messy ponytail, no makeup -- and, of course, the whole "being Mexican" thing.

The developer who bought Mr. Troxler's house next door told Bill on the phone that he'd been meaning to drop by and say hi, but he's never seen anyone at home but the housekeeper. Which -- duh -- is me, apparently the only Mexican in Brentwood who isn't actually getting paid for cleaning the house and taking care of the children.

I can never quite figure out whether or not I'm offended by this. I don't think I am. But I think a large part of why I'm not offended is because it works to my advantage so often. All I have to say is "I sorry, she no here right now" when someone asks to speak to the lady of the house, and I'm off the hook.

The person who came to the door today didn't even bother to say "Okay, thanks" or "Do you know when she'll be back in?" She turned on her heel and flounced away without a word. Which makes me feel entirely justified in lying to her, since she was clearly a bit of a jerk.

James and Me.

Oy! I'm a Bad Blogger

And also a bad Vintage Swap -per. But I've finally finished my projects and they're ready to be sent off as soon as the rain stops. Los Angeles natives are big weenies when it comes to rain.

I've been buying a lot of vintage fabric on eBay these days, which is great, except for the occasional piece that comes out of the package smelling like it's been in a smoky bar all weekend. The absolute worst: cigarette smell covered by Febreeze smell. The two smells together are just not -- not good.

I object to the smell of Febreeze or (just as bad) heavily scented dryer sheets more than the smell of smoke, actually. The smoke brings back good memories of college at least.

California Coolers and Virginia Slim Menthol Ultralights, 1985 - 1986
Beer or wine, clove cigarettes, 1986-1987
Scotch and Dunhills + cigarette holder (I know, I know), 1987-1988
Beer, scotch, Camel Lights, 1988-1989

I started smoking because I needed something to give me confidence while I stood around at parties with nobody to talk to. I stopped smoking because a friend of mine said, "I can't help noticing that you don't inhale. That's good. That's probably better for you." I knew then that I wasn't fooling anyone, except myself. I thought I was inhaling.