Overheard...

Waiting at the bus stop. Two girls.

1ST GIRL: I only see him, like for two hours a day.

2ND GIRL: That's rough.

1ST GIRL: I know, but he says it's really difficult to find free time.

2ND GIRL: Hmm.....

1ST GIRL: It's not like we're having an affair. We just have sex. I mean yeah, his wife doesn't know but I don't know what's hard about finding time.

Overheard...

Small BOY shopping with his MOTHER. Aged around 4. Both are watching the animatronic Christmas display in the local shopping centre. The MOTHER looks bored and tired. The BOY is enjoying the show like no one has ever enjoyed anything in the history of the world ever.

Frenzy of jumping, whooping, attempts at dancing and singing along. Cries of 'Watch me Mum, watch me!' more dancing, more jumping, more singing. BOY tried to make MOTHER dance, fails. Dances more on his own. This continues for the entire 15 minute show.

The singing robots finish and MOTHER sits the boy on a bench to put his coat back on so they can go outside.

BOY: Wow. that was good Mum. I liked it.

MOTHER: I saw. You did some nice dancing.

BOY: Yeah. I was excited.

MOTHER struggles with the coat. The BOY gets quieter and quieter.

BOY: Mum. I think I was too excited.

BOY yawns and falls asleep. MOTHER picks him up and straps him into his stroller. They leave.

Overheard...

Standing in line at the Japanese take-away:

Woman 1: I'll have the teriyaki salmon, with noodles. Oooh - can  I have a bit of the chicken katsu curry too? With just a bit of extra curry sauce on the side.

(The Waitress puts this in a container for her. There is a lengthly discussion about the exact amount of extra curry sauce needed. It turns out to be the size of a pea.)

Woman 2: I'll have the exact same as her, but can I have the teriyaki chicken with rice instead? And I don't want the chicken curry.

The Waitress: So......the same but different?

Woman 2: Yeah.

Eleven Memories: Eleven

Because he was a driver, Papa spent a lot of time waiting around on bases. Early on, he was based in England.


None of the troops were allowed off the base without a signed pass. They certainly weren't allowed off just for fun and you can utterly forget about going down to London at any time of day signed pass or not.


So of course, that's what Papa and a friend decided they would do.


They were headed to Leicester Square. Maybe some dinner, maybe dancing, maybe a movie - Gone With the Wind had been playing for over a year, and everyone was always saying Papa looked like Clarke Gable. Somehow, they'd managed to convince their commander to sign a pass, but they still had to sneak out of the barracks in their hobnailed boots.


Papa would always pause the story here to make as much racket as possible drumming his fingernails against the table.


'And that was just standing still.'


(As a child I wondered why they couldn't simply remove the boots, but having some vague idea that hobnailed boots were nailed to your feet, I didn't ask. )


The two Canadians snuck out the front gate of the base and walked down the road to the train station. 


'But you can't just walk in those boots. There's no give. You gotta march. So we marched all the way to the station. It was a very small parade,' he'd say with a smile.


Servicemen weren't supposed to be on the trains any more than they were supposed to be off the base - so every time one of them saw a ticket inspector they had to move to the next car along. Luckily the train was busy and it took the inspector a long time to get from one car to the next. (These days I think he probably saw them, but as long as they stayed out of his way he didn't have to 'officially' notice them or kick them off the train).


They made it to London and got on the Underground to take them to Leicester Square. Arriving at their destination, they picked their way through the people filling the platforms, past dozens of Londoners ready to withstand another night of bombing, and headed up to street level.


'Those boots on the tiles! It was quite the racket,' again he would hammer his nails against the table top. Then the staccato beat would be cut off and he would look at us seriously. 


'We got to the top of the stairs and you know what? The warden standing outside said ; Sorry boys. Air Raid. You'll have to go back down.'


They'd scammed their way off the base, suck past the dorm guard in their noisy boots, marched all the way to the station, and evaded notice on the train into London, only to be beaten at the final hurdle. But only an idiot would ignore an Air Raid in those days. So they turned around, started back down the stairs.


'We got the the bottom and the bomb hit. I don't know what happened to the guy at the top of the stairs.'

_______________________________________________

My grandfather lived through the war unscathed. He came back to his family, which over the next 70 years grew to include another son (my father), five granddaughters and three great-grandchildren. 


While the past eleven days have been purposely scheduled to coincide with Armistice Day, this isn't the only time of year that I think about Papa and the things he did for me. I'm not talking about the war. I mean all the little stories and lies that are now a part of me and always will be. 


I'm so lucky to have had him.

http://www.poppy.org.uk/

http://www.poppyscotland.org.uk/index.php/homepage/show/home/poppyscotland

** if anyone has a link to Canadian or American Poppy appeal sites, please let me know. I can't find one that makes it easy to donate.

Eleven Memories: Ten

For his 90th birthday, my mother threw Papa a huge birthday party. 

Everyone was invited. Family, friends, neighbours. Even the checkout girls from the grocery store who Papa flirted with every time he went shopping.

Everyone said; 'Of course we'll come!' We said; 'Flights are so expensive in July.'

My Mother would phone with updates. 'We've hired the caterer.' 'It's going to be at the house because that's easier.' 'It's such a shame you can't make it. But we understand.'

Of course we were coming. It was going to be a surprise. And, not wanting to kill the man on his 90th birthday with a heart attack, we decided it would be best to let Papa in on the secret. A few days after Mum told us about the plans, when we  were sure we would be able to go, we phoned Papa. 'Guess what?'

'You're pregnant.' 

'Uh....no. We're coming for your party. But it's a secret. You can't tell anyone. Especially Mum and Dad.'

There was silence on the other end of the line. I wondered if he had heard me. Phone calls with Papa usually involved at least three or four increasingly loud repetitions of news items on my part. I was about to repeat myself when I heard him laughing.

'I'm good at secrets.'

He was great at secrets. 

For the next six months we updated him with our travel plans: when we would arrive, where we would stay the first night and how, one by one, we would reveal ourselves to the members of my family. We planned to stay with him for part of the visit and expected to arrive there on Wednesday at lunchtime. As we got closer to the date of the party, Papa began to toy with my parents, who were still under the impression we were not going to be there.

My mother began to worry.

'Papa says that he might be having visitors from Europe next week. Do you know anything about this?'

'Is it that Dutch couple that came to visit a few years ago? They were nice. Are they staying for the party?'

'I don't think so. He just says it's some nice people he met. He's offered them lunch.' She sounded tense. 'Your father thinks we should be there when they come. Just to make sure it isn't some kind of scam.'

I told her that sounded like a good idea and had to hang up before my laughter gave me away. I had packing to do.

The day we arrived, friends picked us up from the airport. The next day we drove out to Papa's as planned. Mum's car was in the drive. No 'strangers from Europe' were going to get one over on her father-in-law.

I could hear Papa whistling as he came to open the door. My mother hovered at the top of the stairs, a grim look on her face. It took a moment for it to sink in while the three of us grinned up at her.

'What are you doing here? Did you know about this?' She turned to Papa. 'You did! These are your visitors from Europe! How long have you known?'

'Oh since about January,' he chuckled. He looked at me and grinned. 'Shall we invite your father over for lunch?'

Eleven Memories: Nine

I've often wondered why adults lie to little kids. Not malicious lies, but lies about how the world works. Lies about the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny?  I think because when they do, they make the world magical for them as well as for their children. With a lie, they can make the boring and slightly tawdry, shiny and worthwhile. They can make it a story.

When you're a kid, everything adults tell you is true. It doesn't matter if they tell you that an ethereal woman obsessed with your teeth breaks in to your house at night to give you money, or that a fat man in a red lounge suit is capable of smashing the laws of physics to bits once a year, you're going to believe them. At least on some level. At least for a little while. 

So when Papa told me that he had used the sword above the fireplace in the First World War, I believed him.

I believed him so much, that I told all the kids at school about my Grandfather's awesome sword.  I built on the lie. I told them how he'd probably fought loads of battles with it in the war and about how he was probably secretly a knight but just didn't want to admit it. Because all knights have swords, right? 

To their credit, none of them believed me.

I explained to him, years later, how his lie had made me the laughing stock of my class (for all of two days, until one of the girls on the playground hung upside down on the monkey bars and revealed her underpants to the entire school -  the story of the sword couldn't compete with a scandal of that magnitude). 

He just shrugged and laughed, but it's something that I think about a lot.

The truth of the sword is that it's probably made of tin and can't cut through butter. But that's boring. Why would you hang a sword like that over your fireplace? Why would you spend money on it in the first place? The story Papa told me put that sword on a level with Excalibur. Made it worthy of being in the house, a focal point. At least for me. And maybe that was the point.

All stories are lies, especially the good ones.

Eleven Memories: Eight

'What? Your people don't like lemon?'

*sorry about this one. You kinda had to be there to see his face as he said it. 

Eleven Memories: Seven

One day I came for a visit to find that Bob and Ruth were already there. Uncle Bob and Aunt Ruth didn't visit very often. This was the first time I had seen them in ten years.

There were bits of blue ribbon by the front door, and more of them in the kitchen where I left Papa making cigarettes. I followed the trail into the living room where Nana, Bob and Ruth were. A grey pile, possibly the contents of the vacuum cleaner, was at Ruth's feet. The tangled grey mass shifted as I came into the room. It stared at me through matted grey curls, growling.

It was Ruth's dog.

For Auntie Ruth, clearly 'dog' equalled 'poodle' and genetics, breed standards and reality be damned, she was going to have a poodle. The animal at her feet was certainly poodle-like in the sense that it had four legs a head and a tail, but she'd had to do the rest of the work herself.

The grey fur had been left to grow long on head and ears and had been trimmed and combed to resemble the bouffant top-knot of a championship animal. Unable to achieve the pom-pom look of a poodle tail, Ruth had simply let the fur grow. The rest of the hair was clipped short. Mostly.

Two or three blue satin ribbons lay scattered around the 'dog' where they had failed in their duty to maintain the poodle illusion. More of their comrades bravely fought to keep ears and top-knot in check, but I could see that the battle was hopeless.

I stood frozen in the doorway as the animal continued to growl. I love dogs, and unless they are actively trying to bite me I have never held back from greeting them. I was holding back this time. Mostly because I wasn't entirely sure that Auntie Ruth hadn't found a rabid raccoon or a giant long-haired rat and decided to adopt it and partly because if I had to open my mouth, the first thing that came out was going to be a laugh.

I managed to squeak my hellos and excused myself to 'make a cup of tea' following the trail of abandoned ribbons back into the kitchen.

Papa had finished making up his cigarettes and was sitting at the kitchen table.  I wondered why he wasn't in the living room with everyone else. He prodded a fallen ribbon with his toe.

'Your Aunt Ruth's an odd one, but we love her anyway,' he said. 'And she sure does love that dog.' He grinned.

The two of us sat in the kitchen until we could control ourselves.

Eleven Memories: Six

After Nana died I started spending part of my Canadian Visits staying with Papa. There were subtle differences in the house 18 months after her death. It wasn't messy or untidy in any way, but the regimented tidiness she inflicted was no longer there and Mum and Dad had started quietly talking about the day when Papa might have to give up the house.

I liked staying there with him. It was quiet, he seemed to like having me there, but didn't feel the need to entertain me or hover and the two of us would orbit the kitchen like comets, only occasionally meeting up to have dinner, talk about his latest batch of wine, or watch Becker.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of tea and a game of solitaire in front of me when I saw the spider. It was, I'm not kidding, the biggest spider I have ever seen outside a zoo. The leg span was easily as big as my hand. It was over by the stove, but it was headed, one slow step at a time, directly for the table. So I did what any self respecting, 26 year old, abject coward would do:

I stood on my chair and squeaked.

Papa probably wouldn't have heard me if I'd shouted blue murder; he was almost Deaf by then, but he'd finished his cigarette and like Sir Galahad coming to my rescue, he shuffled into the kitchen at exactly the right moment.

'What are you doing up there?' he squinted at me, possibly wondering if I was trying to unhook the crystals from the chandelier to wear as earrings (a crime which I was forever plotting as an eight year old).

I pointed a shaking finger at the spider.

'Spider!'

He looked at the behemoth making slow progress towards the table. 'Oh dear. Where did you come from.' He scooped a mug off the counter, tipped it upside down and swiftly brought it down over the monster - who had to pull its legs in to avoid them being cut off!!


Papa slipped a piece of paper under the cup and from my perch on the chair I watched him shuffle out into the patio, where he released the spider onto the roof of the garage.

'Did you kill it?' I asked hopefully.

'Oh no,' he said. 'No, I can't squash him. A spider that big is pretty old. He's seen a lot. You have to let the old things get on with their lives. They know what they're doing.'

Eleven Memories: Five

The best piece of advice in the world:

'Drive like everyone else is crazy.'

Eleven Memories: Four

In 1984 or 85, Nana and Papa went to Europe. They came back armed with stories of a Scottish barmaid begging them on bended knee not to reveal her Campbell connections, the Filthiest Teaspoon in London and the amazing hospitality of the Dutch. It was because of the Dutch that I heard my first story about the war.

The way Papa told it to 9 year old me, when the Army arrived in Holland, they were greeted by a farmer. Since there were no Germans left to fight, the farmer asked if the soldiers might help him get his car out of the garage.

This, as it turned out, was no mean feat.

You see, upon learning that the Germans were finished with Poland and had their sights set on the Low Countries, the farmer had decided to draw a line: the Nazis could invade his country, but they were not going to invade his car. He dug up the floor of his garage, drove the car into the hole, removed the tyres, locked them in the trunk, wrapped the entire thing in sacking and buried it. The displaced dirt went onto the vegetables and the car lay under the floor of the now empty garage for the next five years, untouched by German hand. With the arrival of the Canadians, it was time to dig her up.

Digging up the car didn't take long with a few dozen servicemen to help, and soon they were pumping up the tyres and siphoning petrol out of the Jeep to get it running. As payment for allowing the men to use military petrol, their commanding office had the honour of being the first person the drive the car in a liberated Netherlands.

It was one of Papa's favourite stories. Unlike many of the others, this one never changed. He would always finish the same way.

'Beautiful car.' He'd take a lungful of cigarette smoke and blow it out slowly, looking up towards the ceiling and nod. 'Beautiful car.'

Eleven Memories: Three

My Great Nana and I  were the only lefties in our family. When I was really little, Papa used to look at me with his Serious Face and say:

'All horse thieves are left-handed, but not all left-handed people are horse thieves.' 

When he said it in front of his mother, she rolled her eyes at him and chuckled. I only ever scowled. It was awhile before I could work out what he meant. By then he'd moved on to 'Eat your crusts, they'll put hair on your chest' (quickly replaced with 'eat your crusts, they'll make your hair curly' when I shrieked in protest).

I never ate a crust and still wound up with curly hair. I've never met a horse thief, but considering the porridge drawer, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Eleven Memories: Two

It wasn't until after Nana died that Papa really started telling us stories. By then we were too old for Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and the rest, so he told us his stories. 

You could never tell if the stories Papa told you were true or not. He sat in Nana's old chair, one knee crossed over the other, middle finger caressing the ash from the ever burning cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Occasionally he’d pause to pinch a crumb of tobacco from his lip or run a smoothing finger over his Clarke Gable moustache. Even more rarely he’d actually put the smouldering tube to his lips.

Most of the stories Papa told were outrageous lies, designed to fool his credulous Granddaughters. (We of course were far too sophisticated to fall for any of them).  ‘That’s not true,’ we’d say. ‘That’s a porridge drawer story.’

According to Papa, in Scotland everyone ate porridge all the time. If you didn’t finish it, it went into the porridge drawer, to be sliced up and eaten cold between two slices of bread later. We didn’t believe a word of it. No one, we insisted, would eat porridge cold, and only a crazy person or a sadist would have invented cold porridge sandwiches.

Imagine how shocked we were to find out it was true? 

Eleven Memories: One

Papa had an eighth grade education, which just goes to show that sometimes capital 'E' Education isn't necessary. These days eighth grade won't even get you a job at the Golden arches.

When she was alive, my Nana did most of the talking. She'd sit with us at their kitchen table, dealing game after game of solitaire, telling us about the latest family gossip. Papa would sit quietly in the corner, carefully packing tobacco into the cigarette roller, straightening out any dents in the empty tube and making two neat cigarettes, always one for him and one for Nana, before carefully sweeping up any spilled tobacco and brushing it back into the can. Then he'd shuffle out of the kitchen to smoke, leaving the girls to continue their chat. Sometimes we hardly noticed him leave.

He always smelled like fresh tobacco, even after he smoked. It's one of my favourite smells.

Friday Finds: Funny, Fantastic and ummmmmmm Free!

Shelly Winters is my hero

I'm in love with Bad Machinery. I think you should be too. How could you not love an online comic about a group of mystery solving children in a fictional Yorkshire town - a town plagued by trolls, the devil, aliens and Demon Bears. (Demon Bears!! I love demon bears - I want my own cuddly one for Christmas! - If you're reading this John Allison, please make it happen!)

Once you finish Bad Machinery, go back and read through Allison's earlier comic, Scary Go Round, (this is where you meet the demon bears and Shelly Winters - due to make her return on November 12th!) 

Milky the Bunny Frightens Me

Have a read of the captions to The Toy Retailers Association Top Toys for 2011 list on the Guardian website. Methinks Rachel Holmes has had enough of toys.

It will take a while to adjust to the idea that scooping dog doo is considered educational and fun.....

Even More What Now?

That's right - Even more science. Science is an ingredient now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKt-9trgM4Y

My doctor told me I wasn't getting enough. 

WWPLD?

The current stable (and I use the term deliberately) of Disney Princesses have the following to be proud of:

Friends of mine lament that their daughter's greatest ambition is to be a Princess and 'Princessification' has become a hot button topic for all kinds of feminist ranting against pink, ruffles and 'girly' marketing .+


I’ve always wanted to be a Princess and I think I turned out just fine, so I really don't see Princessification as a problem. Not if you model yourself on the right kind of princess anyway - see since the age of four I have tried to live my life by one pretty simple guiding principle:

Generally, the answer is have great hair and kick some ass, but can also include any or all of the following:


 Withstand torture 

Cinderella may have had to get up with the sun, serve breakfast to her horrible step family, scrub floors all day and live out her dreams of producing high end couture by forcing her creations onto vermin, but she wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds against the IT-O Interrogator.

Seriously – go read the Wookiepedia entry on this thing . Leia not only withstands an hour of torture, she doesn't give away any useful information or put herself at risk of contracting Hantavirus just to make a few friends.

Fight the battles you can win

You're being held captive by a respectable percentage of the Imperial Army on a self-sustaining space station. You've just watched your home planet get blown up. Do you:

a.  Give in and tell them what they want to know as long as they let you live?

b.  Cry, scream and smash things in an attempt to take the Death Star down?

c.  Make a futile attempt to kill the man responsible while standing next to someone capable of killing you just by thinking about it?

d.  Get some sleep, plot revenge and have a snarky greeting ready for your idiot sibling.*

Rescue Yourself. Also known as ‘You came in here, didn't you have a plan for getting out?’

Some of you might insist that Leia is rescued by Luke and Han in episode 4.

She really isn’t.

Yes, they definitely get her out of the cell. They certainly give her a ride away from the Death Star, but they wouldn't have been around to give her a ride if Leia hadn’t come up with the plan for getting out.     

Two minutes into the 'rescue', when it becomes clear that Luke didn't think any further than getting into the detention block, Leia grabs a gun and creates an exit. Sure they wind up in the garbage. Yes they almost get squashed. 

I didn't say it was a good plan.

The point is, she doesn't just stand there and wait to be rescued. She takes an active role in her own security, something the Disney Princesses are pretty much incapable of.

It isn't just in A New Hope either. Return of the Jedi offers an even better example of her ability to get herself out of trouble.

When she's captured by Jabba the Hutt, she waits.

She gets chained to his throne and she waits.

She's made to wear what I have always thought of as 'the space bikini' and a hideous pair of boots** and she waits.

She’s not waiting as part of some greater plan. The greater plan was to sneak Han out at night. It didn’t involve the abootminations and concerns about metal chafing at all. So she waits. When the opportunity presents itself, she makes a weapon out of her chains and saves herself. 

One of Walt’s Princesses would have patiently waited for someone to fight their way over to where she was chained up. She would have screamed a little while the fight went on around her, cried the hero’s name out if he was in any danger and basically flailed around like a doily until everyone and everything else around her had been vanquished. Then she’d kiss whoever cut the chains and marry him.

Leia doesn't wait around for the boys to come to her rescue. She enthusiastically  takes matters into her own hands. Maybe a little too enthusiastically. Let's face it, she didn't need to kill Jabba.  She could have called R2 over, had him slice through the chain and legged it. How is Jabba supposed to stop her? He's a giant slug with arms like a T-Rex. He's not holding her at gun-point and all of his henchmen are too busy watching the drama outside to notice if she gets away.  

The Princess Leia solution to captivity is to choke the hell out of the bastard who put you in the ugly shoes yourself and get the hell out before anyone notices. Possibly this isn't the best behaviour for a role model, but it beats passive acceptance of your fate any day of the week.

Know when NOT to fight

Homicidal tendencies aside, Leia is good at getting along with people. Sure she's bossy. She's a Princess, a Senator and the de facto leader of the rebellion. She's ALWAYS giving orders, most of them involving killing large numbers of people or putting her friends and allies in harm's way. That's her job. But she doesn't try to tell the Ewoks what to do or threaten Wicket with a gun when he waves his spear at her, which is probably why she's the only person the Ewoks don't try to cook. 

For me though there is one major reason why Leia is the only Princess role model a girl needs:

Choose your own future

The major theme of all of the Disney films is that the Princess needs to get away from her current life, but doesn't have the power to do it on her own. Disney Princesses have no autonomy. Every single one of them is at some point betrothed to or pursued by or under the control of someone else, be it a handsome Prince, a wicked step-mother or a loving, but overbearing father. Even when they fall in love, it's usually based on nothing more than physical appearance:  Gaston is so determined to marry Belle (the most beautiful girl in town, and therefore, the best girl in town) that he's willing to lock her father in a mental institution if she says no. Cinderella danced with the Prince ONCE and is perfectly happy to accept a marriage proposal the next day. Snow White was DEAD, but she was such an attractive corpse, the Prince just had to kiss her.*** 

When we first meet Leia she's on her own ship engaged in a mission to help the Rebellion. A Rebellion she plays an active part in. She attempts to defend her ship and thwarts all attempts to get information from her. She likes her life. A good part of the first film is taken up with Leia getting back to her role within the Rebellion. She's captured not because she's beautiful or because her father has a nice Kingdom the Empire wants to annex without too much effort, but because she's a credible threat. Love has nothing to do with her grand life plans, it's an incidental bonus. It takes three years for Leia to admit that she loves Han and the trilogy doesn't end with the two of them married.

If Star Wars was re-done by Disney, Princess Leia would be held captive on the Death Star not because she is the Rebel Leader and has military value, but because Grand Moff Tarkin wants to marry her. Han and Luke would fight their way through 10,000 storm troopers without injury to themselves. Tarkin and Vader would die quickly and probably off screen. The marriage would still take place, Han being madly in love with the beautiful Princess after only twenty minutes acquaintance. He would then become the Prince of Aldaraan. 

Somehow I don't think that film would have quite the same following.

Look, I'm all for realistic expectations and role models. I know that it isn't realistic to model your life on a Princess from a Science Fiction franchise, but it is realistic to look up to women who think for themselves, make their own choices, fight for causes they believe in and who are capable of defending themselves, regardless of where they turn up.

Now, go and rent Star Wars for your daughter and let's see if we can't get a few more of them out in the real world. 

+ Please don't email and accuse me of being some kind of misogyny apologist. I'll stand beside anyone fighting for equal rights, fair pay, stronger penalties for domestic abuse, more funding for shelters for women and children and better maternity and nursery benefits for working mothers, but I'm not going to force a two year old to live by the dictates of Germaine Greer and forbid the colour pink from even crossing her retina. On the other hand, I could deny her the option of making a choice now so she gets used to the feeling early on...no? Okay then.

*Note that unlike Leia, I do not have idiot siblings. My sisters are awesome. 

** Seriously, let's talk about those boots. This has ALWAYS bothered me (and please feel free to skip what is essentially an endless rant from an admitted nit-picky fashion and costume obsessive) those boots are ugly. U.G.L.Y. They are so far beyond ugly I can't find a word for them. What on earth was Aggie Guerard Rodgers thinking? 

It's a desert planet. A desert planet with TWO SUNS. I'm going to guess that the pervading climate is pretty warm. Do you really want to go with boots as your footwear of choice? Really? Not concerned about foot odour at all? Overheating? No?

Okay Aggie, fine. How about this, the rest of the outfit looks delicate and floaty. The abootminations look heavy and 'clompy'. They look like the bootie slippers I had as a child, in fact, since 2003 all I can see when I look at Leia's feet are a pair of Uggs. That's what those boots look like. Ugh. Chalk and cheese go together better than those boots and the space bikini.

Right. I really am ranting now. Will stop.

***And what kind of kiss was it exactly. As far as I remember she was choking on that apple. At least Princess Aurora was 'magically asleep' and there aren't any aspersions of necrophilia on Prince Philip.

Overheard...

INTERIOR. DAY
TWO STUDENTS STANDING OUTSIDE A UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.


Student 1: What's that?


Student 2: Uh, I think it's the Library {reads sign outside} Yeah. It's the Library.


Student 1: {long pause} I never been in a library.


Student 2: {thinks} Me neither.


Student 1: I ain't goin in this one neither.


Student 2: It's got a cafe.




I really wish I made these up.

Hmmmm.........

Something about this sled bothers me. I can't quite put my finger on it....something...ominous. Something.....

Oh wait. I know what it is.

Yeah. I'm not climbing on that sled any time soon.


Credit to Adam Koford at http://apelad.blogspot.com/ for the Galactus image. Credit to S&T for having the most frightening sled in Europe.

Friday Finds - Giraffe

http://www.petitelapgiraffe.com/about.php

I do have a birthday coming up...

Collective Noun

Men in tuxedos look like penguins.




Henceforth they shall be known as MENguins.


The question is, what to call a group of them?


A Murder of Menguins – This sounds like the title of a cosy mystery set at a rural college where the dons are ruthlessly picked off one by one at various formal dinners. The murder would be solved by a young co-ed who has an obsession with grammar and alliteration.


A Munch of Menguins – Menguins on the march are usually on the way to a soiree of one kind or another where they will eat their way through half the world’s caviar supply and put several species of large mammal at risk of extinction. A ‘munch’ seems apt.


A Magnanimity of Menguins – A large number of soirees (see above) tend to be of the charitable kind.


Personally my vote is for a Munch of Menguins. What do you think? Other suggestions welcome!

Finds - Frank Herbert

My name is Alia. 

My sisters (lovingly?) refer to me as 'the Abomination'. 

I think that probably explains 90% of why I think this is cool.

http://goodnightdune.com/index.html

Oh Frabjous Day!

Left the office this afternoon to go to an appointment.

Something was wrong. I couldn't see very well and I was too hot. I felt a bit like I had a fever.

I had to take my scarf, coat and cardigan off. Actually off, I was that warm! All around me other people were stumbling around in similar states of distress, hands held over their faces. There was a strange glowing ball in the sky - the blue sky. Light. So much light.

My GOD! Could it be? Could it actually be the sun?! Could this horrible, long, dreary, cold, grey, wet, MISERABLE winter actually be over?

Today, for the first time this year, I'm wearing sunglasses. I have only one layer on and I am a very, very happy girl.

Finds - Flying Saucers?

I recently went away to Bath for a few days. We stayed in a lovely B&B that was just down the road from THE LARGEST ( unheated) SECOND-HAND BOOK BARN IN EUROPE.  And all the books are only £1! It was everything I dreamt of and more.

I bought less than you might have guessed. It was unheated and unsorted, except in the loosest sense, but I did find something fantastic!

He's looking for his cape



I'm not sure what's so strange about the visitor. It's clearly Batman.

Friday finds - Fabric

I will be broke by the end of next week. I love so much of the stuff here:

http://www.spoonflower.com/welcome

Right. Off to design my own perfect fabric!

Sewing Lessons - Lesson Two: The Shoulder-bag

Difficulty - Easy

Following up last week's book cover, this week we are making a simple shoulder bag.

For this project you will need:

A sewing machine
Some fabric**
Pins
Scissors
A measuring tape (not a ruler!)

** A note about fabric. You can use pretty much anything to make a bag, but the tougher the fabric the better. I recommend canvas, drill or cotton duck (all basically the same type/weave/weight).

In this lesson you will learn:

How to sew longer seams (well, to get more comfortable with long seams)
How to sew French seams
How to use the zig-zag stitch on your machine


Step One: Work out how big you want your bag to be

This bag is going to be a rectangle, with the short sides at the top and bottom. It will have two cloth straps. Those are the basics. you can decide how big you want to make it and how long you want the straps because all of the sewing is the same regardless of size.

I've cut two rectangles 40 cm x 30 cm for the body of the bag and two long strips 85 cm x 10 cm for the straps. This includes my seam allowances. 




Step Two: Long Seams


It's fairly easy to control the fabric and maintain a steady pace over a short distance. It takes more practice to sew accurately over longer distances. More practice, but not a lot more skill.

Lay out the strips you are going to use for the shoulder straps. Press a narrow strip along both of the long sides, wrong sides together. this narrow strip should be about .5 cm - your seam allowance.

Now fold the strap in half longways and press again.

Make sure that the two edges of the strap are even and sew all the way along the edge. To make sure that you catch the seam allowance, line up the edge of the fabric with the edge of the presser foot on the machine and use this edge as your guide rather than the printed lines. If you make sure to watch the fabric rather than the needle and go at a comfortable pace it will be easy to keep the stitches straight.

Take your time. Remember, you don't have to sew quickly to sew well.

Once you have sewn both straps, press them again and set them aside.

Step Three: The Body of the bag - French Seams

Last week we didn't worry about seam edges. This week we will.

Decide where the open edge of your bag will be. Press a very narrow hem along the top - about half the usual seam allowance.

Now fold that edge over and press the same amount again. You should have a neat edge.

If you unfold it, it looks like this:

Press the double folded edge down really well and sew along the top of your bag, using the edge of the presser foot as your guide again.

Unless you have an overlocker/serger, the problem of fraying seams and hanging threads is always going to be there.

After you cut your fabric, it doesn't take long for it to start to do this:

The edges fray and you get loose threads hanging everywhere.  Unless you use French seams.

To make a true French seam, lay out to two sides of your bag with the wrong sides together.

Sew along the sides and bottom. Again, you will want to use the edge of your presser foot to guide your seam width.

You should now have a rectangle, sewn on three sides, but with the ragged edges showing on the outside of the bag.

Cut the corners off at the bottom, careful not to cut through the stitches.

Now turn the bag inside-out. Your corners will be lumpy and hard to get out:

Use something with a slightly pointed end like a crocet hook or pen lid to push the point of the corner out. DON'T use something really sharp like your scissors or a knife. You could punch a hole in the fabric. the corner won't be perfectly square, but it will be pretty close.

Press everything.

Now, going just beyond the edge of the presser foot - I've used the first line marked on my machine, sew all around the sides and the bottom again. you need to move slightly beyond the edge of the presser foot to make sure that you are not sewing across the raw edges of the seam. You want to be sure that all of the raw edge ends before the needle.

In the picture below you can see the edge of the seam that traps the raw edges inside.

Turn the bag right side out and use your crochet hook or pen lid to press out the corners again - it will be a bit harder this time because you haven't cut them off, but you can do it. Make sure to press the bag when you are done.

Step Four: Sewing the straps on - The zig-zag stitch


Cut a bit off of each corner of the shoulder straps.

You will be hiding the raw edge at the end by folding it under and if you don't clip off those corners, they are going to have a tendency to stick out.  Now, mark where you want your shoulder straps to sit. I recommend that they sit three to four inches from the edge of the bag. the bigger your bag, the further from the edges they should be.

Line up the edge of the strap with the top edge of the bag (*for some reason the following pictures have all come out upside down - I'm not actually sewing these to the bottom of the bag.) you want the long part of the strap to be lying away from the opening of the bag.

Holding the end of the strap even with the top of the bag, fold the strap over so that it hides the raw edge. You should pin this in place, giving yourself three to four inches of overlap. Again - the bigger your bag, the bigger the overlap should be.

Now, look at your machine. Get the instructions out if you need them. You want to find the seam width and the seam length dials. Mine look like this:

Width

Length

For the zig-zag stitch you need to adjust your seam width. At the moment it should be set to 0 - allowing you to sew in a straight line. I've re-set mine to 2, which will give me a narrow zig-zag.

I've also re-set the seam length to 1.5 - very small. I want my stitches to be pretty close together.

Take some of your scrap fabric and try out your zig-zag. The needle seems to move faster on this stitch - it does to me anyway - because it not only moves up and down, but side to side as well. This can be a bit unerving at first, but if you look closely at the presser foot, you'll see that it can actually only move within a very narrow channel. As long as you keep your fingers clear of the presser foot, you'll be fine.

I'm using the zig-zag here because it provides additional strength at a spot that will be under the most strain - where the handles meet the bag. I'm going to make two seams - one at the bottom of my folded strap and one at the top, near the bag opening.

Once you have sewn on all for ends, your bag is done!

I'm not sure yet what to do for Lesson three, but am open to suggestions or requests. :)

Happy sewing.