On Vacation

We're on vacation. First we spent a few days in Manhattan, and then we drove through the Berkshires, up through Vermont, and into New Hampshire, where a friend's parents have kindly given us the use of their lake house for a week. Bill and I were married here in 1991. It's also the place where I'd forced him to propose to me in 1990. I was twenty-three, he was twenty-four, and we had been dating for about eight months.

For years I've wondered, what the hell was I thinking? I couldn't, for the life of me, recreate the thought process that sent me rushing pell-mell into marriage, pulling poor helpless Bill along with me, when we were barely out of college. I had an epiphany on the way up here. It wasn't so much that I wanted to get married. I knew that we were too young, that getting married was crazy, but the craziness of the idea was part of its allure. Specifically, I wanted Bill to be crazy. He's one of the most rational, clear-headed people I know, and I wanted him to be so in love with me that he was willing to do something uncharacteristically rash and stupid.

In retrospect, that's maybe not the best reason to get married. But it all worked out. I'd like to think that it was due to an unusual amount of perspicacity on my part. But it was really just dumb luck.

Tonight we all went to a drive-in in Fairlee, Vermont, and saw "The Island."

Up Late

Today James and I went in to record commentary for the seventh season Simpsons DVD. I think everyone was surprised and (mostly) amused to see a baby at the record, but he was quite good, and I like to think that some day he'll get some mileage out of it.

We recorded the commentary for "22 Short Films About Springfield," which I still think is one of the best episodes ever. (I also love "Bart the Lover," "Lisa's Substitute," "Krusty Gets Kancelled," the Treehouse of Horror episode where Nixon says "I'm not dead yet! I just published an article in 'Redbook'!" and the controversial George Bush episode. And the baseball episode. I love that one.) I wrote the bit with Bumblebee Man. When that part came up I explained how I hadn't known the Spanish word for "woodpecker," so I called my mom, who also did not know the Spanish word for "woodpecker." But Bill said it was okay, because there was never any intention of using real Spanish anyway -- it had to sound Spanish, but be easily understandable for non-Spanish speakers. We ended up calling it a "woodpequero."

(I also said that the design for Bumblebee Man's wife was based on an old boss of mine, a woman who terrified me so much that some mornings I barfed before going in to work.)

That episode was written in 1995. Back then I was still in my twenties, with no gray hair, no children, and no immediate plans to have either. This is how much my life has changed: after the record, I put James in his carseat, tried to eat some of the delicious (free, and not cooked by me!) food they'd set out, ended up spilling mozarella caprese all over the front of my favorite new shirt from Target, wrapped up a sandwich in a paper napkin and snuck it into my bag to eat in the car later, realized I was late for picking up Mary at day camp, realized I'd lost my car keys, and then realized I'd left the car keys in the car.

I have not become the writer I had hoped to be. I'm not even really the mother I had hoped to be. But. But. It felt good to remember who I was for a while. It felt even better to do it with a beautiful boy on my lap, and a beautiful girl waiting for me to pick her up, and my sweet husband next to me.

Much to Do

It finally struck me that we're going on vacation next week and that I can't possibly finish all the things I'd been hoping to do before then.

Before we leave, I hope to make a sock monkey for the son of a friend who is letting us stay with him in Boston during our visit. We're also going to New York City for a few days and spending a week in a friends' parents' house on a lake near the New Hampshire/Vermont border. Ben & Jerry's Factory, here we come!

I also want to do a quick paint and decoupage job to this table before we leave. I found it at the Long Beach flea market last month. I wanted something cheap and small to put next to the glider. I didn't want anything too elaborate, or too nice to decoupage, and I didn't want to pay extra for the layer of chalky white paint that flea market types always add to their old furniture to make it "shabby chic." This little table was $15. Perfect.



James had a check-up yesterday. He's gone up to the 85th percentile in head size. We're pleased, because his head size was initially in the 50th percentile, which is perfectly normal anywhere but in this family. We all have huge heads. Heads of Pufnstuffian proportions. So we were all a little surprised to find out that James' head was merely average. I joked to Bill that James was going to be like Marilyn on "The Munsters" -- normal to everyone except his freakish family. But now he's one of us. Gooble gobble.

Addendum

Today's original post was too grouchy, even for me. If I have a pet peeve, it's people who don't know how good they have it.

I leave you with these words of wisdom:

Rachel Pulido
October 5, 1981
Old Testament
Block E
Sister Mary Patrick

It seems that the more people win, the more people think we're incapable of losing. Instead of being thankful, we think it's all because we're great. We rarely give God the credit, and so we lose our humility. And when a person loses their humility, they're usually in for a big disappointment. Suzanne Somers, for instance, thought she was so great she was worth an enormous raise in salary. She found out she was wrong and now she's all upset because they fired her.

Bib

This is what I made this weekend. I based it on a pattern in a Japanese craft book that I got a few weeks ago at the Asahiya Bookstore on Sawtelle. I had to tinker with the shape of the bib a little so that it would fit around my baby's fat American neck.

I really just wanted to find a use for the little patchwork thingy I'd made. Making tiny little patchwork thingys is fun! Maybe instead of quilts, I should make coasters.



I had a pretty blue vintage button that I wanted to put on the bib, but I've never made a buttonhole, of course. So I was forced ... to read the manual for my sewing machine. The sewing machine and I have have a distant but cordial relationship. I am reminded of a Janeane Garofalo routine: "I still have the 'don't ask don't tell' policy with my vagina. I don't bother it. It -- she. She minds her own beeswax, I stay up here. She doesn't sass me. You know, no back talk. None of that. She's not flippant at all with me."

I have a similar relationship with my sewing machine. I can sew a simple seam, refill the bobbin, change a needle, but any action that requires reading the manual is generally the type of action I avoid, and I like to think that the sewing machine ("Bernina" is her name) appreciates my not screwing around with her. My negligence allows her to pass her life in serene contemplation, dreaming about her childhood in the Alps.

There's a good reason why I avoid reading manuals. The older I get, the more I realize that my brain's capacity is finite. I remember my kids' birthdays, the phone number of the house where I grew up, the first stanza of Byron's "She Walks in Beauty," the names of a lot of crappy '70s TV actors (Bernie Kopel!), the circumstances surrounding my first kiss with my husband (spring, 1988, post-party snog), the circumstances surrounding my first big fight with my husband (he was reading "The Silence of the Lambs" and ignoring me), and many other things, some useful, some not. I don't seem to have any control over what gets saved and what gets lost. For example, I remember the middle name of every friend I've had since grade school, but I left the Japanese craft book in the Xerox machine at FedEx/Kinko's when I went to make copies. If I learn how to use a zipper foot, some other bit of knowledge might be obliterated forever, and who knows what it might be? I might forget Shaun Cassidy's birthday (September 27, 1958). Or the way my father's hand looked -- strong and brown, with big ropy veins -- or the way he would rub the ball of his thumb over the edge of my thumbnail when he was holding my hand. There's only so much room up there, and there are some things I don't want to lose.

Anyway. I dug out the manual and learned how to make a buttonhole. Turns out there's a lot of stuff Bernina could do, if properly coaxed. I believe it's time to move our relationship to a new level.

James can't believe I put this much effort into something he's just going to drool on anyway!

Household Tip of the Day

If you put off doing the laundry for long enough, your family will be forced to wear everything in their closet at least once, creating some interesting fashion combinations and maybe sparking off some trends!

I'm looking forward to the day that Bill is forced to wear his purple velvet suit to the office.

Pink Lemonade

I stayed up until three in the morning last night embroidering the words on this apron (and watching a documentary on the Patty Hearst kidnapping -- we finally got desperate and commandeered the tiny TV set that Mary uses to watch DVDs in the playroom). It's a significant personal accomplishment for me, having begun and finished two projects in one month ... I have a wee bit of a problem focusing my energy on anything long enough to finish it.

It's more of a pathology, really.

Anyway, I chose a different pink fabric for the apron because my original choice didn't seem gutsy enough to stand up to the yellow fabric. It came from an old feedsack. The pattern was very easy to follow, except for the application of the bias tape, which I had never used before.

Here's my first try ... clearly something wrong with this one.



And here's my second try! Much better ... but applied to the wrong edge.



I finally figured out that you have to baste one side of the tape to the fabric first, fold the rest of it over while stretching it and pinning it in place, and then sew the other side on. It's not a perfect job, but it's good enough for government work. As I said, the pattern itself is easy, but I don't understand why it's so short. According to information on the back of the pattern envelope, size 8 is intended for children up to 52 inches tall, but Mary is just shy of 50 inches and the apron looks more like a blouse on her. I think it may have been designed for hobbits.



I had originally planned to embroider a glass of lemonade on a white fabric panel and apply it to the front, but I figured it would look too busy. I embroidered words around the neck edge and near the pocket instead. My embroidery ... er ... leaves something to be desired. But that's part of the charm of something like this, isn't it? The wonkiness of the embroidery just makes it seem more "home made" and endearing, right? Right?





The marking pen is supposed to fade eventually. I firmly believe that it will.