Crafts

Battle of the Build; Cover Reveal for Charybdis

As you may remember, last week I completed a miniature book nook, and I enjoyed it so much that I ordered another. It was a gothic-style library, and I was super-excited when it arrived. That excitement quickly faded to perplexity when I realized it was from a different company with VERY different expectations. Instead of stickers, it was just paper that I was supposed to glue to the little pieces of wood. Okay, I thought. I can buy some glue. Because the kit didn’t COME with glue. I went out the next day and bought white glue and a glue stick, just to be on the safe side. After I got home, I took everything else out of the box, and looked at the instructions more closely, and they were very weird. It was like if you asked a Roman General to create directions for assembly based on his life experience. Here’s the first example, on the cover page:

“The actual object will PREVAIL”? Am I in a battle to the death with this thing?!

The next set of instructions on the inside page was equally ominous:

 Bad enough that this thing might STAB me, if I fight back, I lose my rights and interests? Do I need a lawyer watching me put it together, just in case? My brother, who has a PhD., is a lawyer—perhaps I should invite him over for wine and a quick skirmish

I finally started to assemble everything, beginning with several stacks of tiny books. It was starting to get minorly enjoyable, because they DID look like tiny books even if the covers were photocopies of bizarre books that made no sense in the context; for example, a cover with an electric guitar on it. But just as my stacks were almost complete, I was forced to get violent as per this instruction:

“Make it open”? You’re god*amn right Imma make it OPEN! I was really getting into the spirit of things now. The build progressed and things got infinitely more difficult as I had to glue tiny pieces of wood onto other tiny pieces of wood and then let them dry. And I’m not the most patient person in the world so I learned about letting things DRY COMPLETELY the hard way. But letting things dry completely was a double-edged sword, as I discovered:

Ken: *snickers*
Me: What are you laughing at?
Ken: Nothing. *snickers again*
Me: Seriously, what’s so funny?!
Ken: No, really…haha!
Me: WHAT?!!
Ken: See the world map that you glued to the wall?
Me: So?
Ken: You glued it on upside down.
Me: WHAT? Oh no! And it’s completely dry! Why did you have to tell me, dammit?
Ken: YOU MADE ME.

Okay, so we all know that geography isn’t my strong suit and you have to look REALLY hard to see the map. Finally though, I was nearing the end, covered in glue, clamps and elastic bands everywhere, and all I had to do was attach the lights to the ceiling and close it all up. Except that the instructions were wrong and it took me two tries, getting the light attached twice and realizing twice that they were the wrong way. And then:

I DID, you aggressive Praetorian. See, this is why the Roman Empire fell. Terrible instructions.

In other news, my new novel Charybdis will be coming out soon, thanks to my wonderful publisher Jane Cornwell and JC Studio Press. Here’s the cover reveal, and it’s amazing!

Synopsis: When Greta Randall stumbles across a rare volume of Victorian poetry in a local antique market, she could never have imagined that it would take her on a  journey through time. The secrets she discovers along the way may shed light on the book’s mysterious young author, Louisa Duberger, but at what peril?

On The Rocks

When my brother and I were kids, we had a rock tumbler. It was a messy, noisy contraption and I don’t remember if we ever got any decent rocks from it—I just remember dirty water spilling everywhere, and then I never saw it again, which was fine by me. When Kate was little, she, like most small children, loved shiny rocks and would pick up ‘special’ ones from beaches, driveways, gravel pathways, literally anywhere rocks could be found (and when I say ‘most children’ I also mean adults because I’ve been known over the course of decades to randomly slip a pretty stone in my pocket). By the time she was in middle school, Kate had amassed quite a collection and we even had a special shelf for her to display her treasures on. So I bought another rock tumbler. It wasn’t a very expensive one and that soon became obvious, as it created a stunning wall of sound that could be heard all over the house. You may or may not know that I suffer from misophonia (another fun offshoot of OCD), and the racket and my anxiety were so bad that at the end of the first cycle, I gave up. “We’ll get a better rock tumbler,” I said, my ears still ringing.

I didn’t bother for a long time, almost as long as it takes a rock tumbler to actually create smooth, shiny gemstones, then a couple of years ago, I saw a very expensive National Geographic model on Facebook Marketplace but the person selling it was asking a very cheap price (I wonder why?) It came with all the rocks, extra grit, and all kind of accessories, and it promised that the rubberized barrel made it “very quiet”. That was a LIE. We set it up in our back family room, and while it wasn’t as loud as the previous model, I could still hear it rumbling and grumbling all day from anywhere on the main floor. I persevered though (mostly because Ken put a sound-dampening cardboard box over it), and eventually got some very nice rocks that I made into necklaces, and I gave them to people while quoting Jean Jaques Rousseau: The sacrifice which costs us nothing is worth nothing. And the people who received the necklaces looked at me the way you can imagine they looked when I said that, but I think they appreciated the gift.

At any rate, I put the rock tumbler away for a bit. Then Ken, who gets that I have a real issue with loud noises, promised that in the spring, we could put it outside in the new workshop he built for me where I wouldn’t have to listen to it, and that was a great plan except because the rock tumbler was in storage in his workshop, I forgot about it. Until 6 weeks ago, when I was going through my stuff outside and I found it in a corner. And I haven’t told you about this for over 6 weeks, because that’s almost the amount of time it takes to polish a bunch of damn rocks in the tumbler, and there’s only one more week left before I have pretty, shiny jewels! I’m on the last grit now, and they keep looking smoother and smoother, and the best part is that because it’s outside, I can only faintly hear the tumbler if I’m in the back yard, and it’s just background noise along with the birds and wind and whatnot. Everything’s going so well that I spent half an hour on Saturday browsing Amazon for more rock kits, and come Christmas time, everyone’s getting a necklace, and this time, all I have to say is, “I made this for you.”

In other news, I still suck at math. Last week at work, I rang through a customer’s purchases, entered the amount of cash he gave me, then proceeded to start gathering up his change:

Customer (holds out more money): Would it help if I gave you $1.10?
Me: (stares blankly, frozen in horror)
Customer: I said, would it help if I gave you $1.10?
Me: It won’t NOW!
My 27-Year-Old Boss: Suzanne, do you need me to do some math for you?
Me (whispers sadly): Yes.

I’m lucky I’m surrounded by people who understand me so well.

And 2 huge thank yous: First to D. Wallace Peach at Myths Of The Mirror for her terrific review of my humour book What Any Normal Person Would Do and second to Paul Brookes at The Wombwell Rainbow for his lovely review of my newest short story collection At The End Of It All!

A Senior Moment

As you may recall, Ken and I recently set up a booth in the antique shop where I currently work part-time. The space I have now is twice as large as the booth I used to have, which means I have to do a lot more buying if I want to keep up with sales. Not that it’s a problem—I love to shop. But where do I buy things cheap enough that I can resell them? Thrift stores, of course (or what some of you would call charity shops). It’s amazing how many cool things you can find at second-hand places that can be refinished, refreshed, or refurbished. So I’ve been regularly haunting Goodwill, Value Village and a couple of other places where I’ve found some great stuff—well, great if you’re willing to put in a little elbow grease. For example, the other day, I got a couple of old sewing machine drawers for 6 bucks each—a little chalk paint and new knobs, and they’re ready for resale. Or check out below the coatrack that I made out of a single footboard, a couple of old shoe forms, and some fancy hooks.

But I have to keep my overhead low, which is why the other day, I had an experience that was both amazing and troubling.

I’d been at my hairdresser’s and she mentioned a thrift store in another town called Talize, which I’d never heard of, but apparently they have a ton of locations in Ontario. I needed to visit my Lancôme lady anyway, and this Talize store was just down the street. I had been astonished to discover that my tiny, perfect, and young-looking Lancôme lady Rosina had a twenty-seven-year-old son, since she looks about twenty-seven herself, but then I remembered that we’d known each other for over fifteen years, so she must be older than I thought. At any rate, she told ME that I didn’t look old enough to have a twenty-four-year-old daughter, and I know that’s just to keep me buying serum, but still, I walked away with a bit of a glow.

The glow continued on into Talize, where I discovered a fancy plate stand, a wicker suitcase, an old washboard, and a couple of wine goblets. Then I got to the cash register. “That’ll be 18.35,” the cashier said. “Unless you qualify for one of our discounts.”

“Which discount?” I asked.

“Well, we have a senior’s discount. You’d qualify for that.”

The glow faded. And even though their seniors’ discount was for 55 and up, I still felt a little betrayed by Rosina, who had assured me, prior to my purchase, that I didn’t look a day over 45, and the cashier had immediately clocked me as being at least my own goddamn age. But then, the cashier recalculated the sale. “16.50. You saved 10%.”  

And I was so excited that I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken. “I’m a senior!” I said. “Do you know what that means?”

“That when you crouch down, it hurts to stand back up?”

“Also that. But it means that I get a discount at Talize. Ooh, I wonder what age you have to be to qualify for a discount at Chez VV? Let me look…what the hell? SIXTY? The nerve. How does Value Village expect us poor pensioners to afford their sh*t? Oh well, three more years to go.”

And I can’t wait.

I made this too! It’s our company name!

Villainous Notions

Last week, I bought a footstool. It was dark cheap wood and had dark tapestry fabric on the top, but the lid lifted for storage and it was only 5 bucks, so I got to thinking that I would paint the wood grey and re-upholster the top. Which I did, and the paint looked lovely (aside from the transfer I may or may not have put on slightly off-centre—see picture at the end). The problem was that the fabric on the underside looked choppy and unprofessional no matter how much I tried to trim it, but then I had an idea. I rummaged through my basket of sewing notions—well, it’s not so much a basket as an empty tin of Quality Street—and found something that just might resolve the issue:

Notice the manufacturer? It’s Kismet.

Me: Do you think this would work?
Ken: What is it?
Me: According to the packet, it’s Rick Rack.
Ken: Maybe…
Me: No, you’re right. The colour is all wrong. However, RickRack would make a great name for a James Bond villain.

Cue naughty fantasy sequence (and if you’re a little prudish, you might want to skip this one)…

M: Double-Oh-Seven, we need you. Apparently, RickRack has abducted Pussy Galore!
Bond: Pussy Galore? Again?! Well, Pussy is delightful. I can see why he keeps coming back for more.
M: Intercept RickRack before he gets to the Upper Holstery Islands and deliver Pussy to us, James.
Bond: I’m shaken, not stirred by this turn of events.

Some time later, on a cargo ship off the coast of the Upper Holstery Islands…

RickRack: Ah, Mr. Bond, I’ve been expecting you.
Bond: Release Pussy Galore, RickRack! There’s nowhere you can run.
RickRack: I’m never gonna give her up. I’m never gonna let her down.
Bond: Did—did you just Rickroll me?
RickRack: No, I RickRACKED you, Mr. Bond. But you can have her. To be honest, I’m not particularly fond of Pussy. I only kidnapped her to lure you to the Upper Holsteries.
Bond: But why, RickRack?
RickRack: Because…because I’m in love with you, James. Is there a chance for us?
Bond: Have you actually SEEN any of my movies?
RickRack: Sigh. I’m never gonna give you up—
Bond: Just stop. Come on, Pussy.
Pussy Galore: Oh James, thank you for saving me!
Bond: Enough of the small talk. We need to hurry—I have a date with Holly Goodhead later and no one misses a date with Goodhead!

And all I can do at this point is apologize for my giggly thirteen-year-old imagination, but in my defense:
a) I was going to include a scene with Bond and Q discussing a missile launcher that was extremely euphemistic but even I know when enough is enough and b) I’m not the one who named the Bond girls things like Miss Goodthighs, Chew Me, Xenia Onatopp, Holly Goodhead, Plenty O’Toole, and Pussy Galore. That was a DIFFERENT giggly thirteen-year-old. Happy Boxing Day.

Isn’t It Ironic, Don’tcha Think?

On Friday afternoon, Ken went to get the mail and then retired to his office to open any envelopes addressed exclusively to him, because I have dibs on everything else—his mail is mostly bills, so all other mail has that ‘potential of excitement’ aura about it, like “Ooh, postage PAID? Someone wants to connect with me really badly!” Of course, it’s usually just home decorating magazines begging me to re-subscribe, but sometimes it can be quite unexpected and lovely, like the retirement card that Cyranny of Cyranny’s Cove and our Skypy Fridays group sent me (and if you ever want to join us for a chat on Friday night, just go to her blog and ask for the link—it’s a fun group from the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.).

Anyway, suddenly Ken reappeared, irate and waving a piece of paper at me:

Ken: Look at this! Every month when I get my new cheques, this is the first page of the chequebook and it drives me CRAZY!
Me: You get cheques every month? How many cheques do you write?!
Ken: A LOT. Not the point. Look at this thing!

He handed me a piece of paper that he had taken out of the chequebook, and which was causing such a strong reaction in a man who rarely gets upset about anything. The piece of paper said, “This page is intentionally left blank.”

Me: But…
Ken: I know, right?!
Me: I…
Ken: Because it’s NOT BLANK. Every. Single. Month.
Me: I really need to introduce you to online banking.

But we both agreed that if the bank really wanted to be accurate instead of extremely ironic (and definitely more ironic than rain on your wedding day), there would be TWO pieces of paper. One of them would be blank, and the next one would say, “The previous page has been intentionally left blank.” And I don’t even want to get into the grammatical issue of placing the adverb BEFORE the verb—suffice it to say that banks make enough money to hire their own damn grammaticians.

But it was a trying day overall, in the first place, so this was no surprise. Earlier, I had decided to go into town to get some fabric at the fabric store, and to exchange the large foam cushion I had purchased the week before for a slightly smaller one, as I’m currently restoring a Mission oak rocking chair for our neighbours, and, not being as good at math as I like to think, I mismeasured the seat.

Step One: Lug large 24×24” foam cushion into store.
Step Two: Stand in line at counter.
Step Three: Get told that I need to go to the cash register line for refunds and exchanges.
Step Four: Stand in very long line at cash register. Realize that I should have the cushion I want to exchange mine for to expedite matters.
Step Five: Get second 20X20” cushion and lug it and my original cushion back to long line-up.
Step Six: Finally reach the front of the line and see a sign taped to the cash register that says, “All foam sales are final”.
Step Seven: Entreat cashier to let me exchange cushions, a request she refuses.
Step Eight: Go to find fabric, whilst cashier holds both cushions at the front so I don’t have to lug them around the store.
Step Nine: Find fabric. Realize the roll it’s on is WAY too heavy to carry.
Step Ten: Get back in line at the counter to ask about fabric.
Step Eleven: Take the advice of the woman in front of me in line who suggests loading the roll into a shopping cart and bringing it to the counter.
Step Twelve: Go off to find a shopping cart.
Step Thirteen: Load fabric into cart and wheel it back into line at the counter.
Step Fourteen: Watch for fifteen minutes as every quilter in town ahead of me wants half a f*cking yard of 15 different fabrics and “Hallowe’en themed buttons”.
Step Fifteen: Finally get to counter. Get told that my fabric roll is too large to cut at THAT counter, and I need to go to a different counter at the back, exactly three feet away from where I originally got the fabric. Tell the clerk that I would have done that but there are only two people working in the entire store and none of them were at the back counter, which is hidden by bolts of quilt batting.
Step Sixteen: Line up at the back counter.
Step Seventeen: Get fabric cut. Take fabric, as instructed, back to the cash register line to pay for it.
Step Eighteen: Present fabric to different cashier and ask for my foam. Cashier hands me the 20×20” foam cushion and says “Is this the one?” I reply, “Do you need to see my receipt?”
Step Nineteen: Show cashier receipt for foam. Pay for fabric.
Step Twenty: Leave store with fabric, and the foam cushion in the size that I want. Isn’t it ironic, don’tcha think?

But then I felt terrible so I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken.

Me: They wouldn’t let me exchange the foam cushion but then when I went to pay, they gave me the wrong one and I didn’t tell them.
Ken: Did you lie about it?
Me: No. When he asked if it was the right one, I didn’t say yes or no—I just showed him the receipt. I didn’t even SEE the other one. Maybe they reshelved it by accident.
Ken: Well, their foam exchange policy is stupid anyway. You touched both pieces of foam, which seems like the only criteria, so it’s fair.
Me: Yes, and the first piece of foam was more expensive than the one I just got, so I’m the one taking the loss here, especially considering the hour I spent in the store that I’m never getting back.
Ken: See? You’re a good person.

And just to prove that the universe agreed with Ken, right after I hung up, I saw a huge red and gold fox walking across the road up ahead, and it was beautiful. And even though I was alone in the car, I was so excited that I said out loud, “A fox! A fox!” and then I whispered, “A fox.” And the irony here is that this blog post was intentionally left unironic at the end.

Schrodinger’s Pants

On Friday morning, I was having a bit of a sleep in, because I’d taken the day off. Ken still had to work, but he’s retiring at the end of June and likes lording it over me a little with his plans to spend the summer building sheds while I’m slaving at the computer. He came out of our walk-in closet wearing a shirt and boxer shorts.

Ken: Should I wear light or dark coloured pants with this shirt?
Me: You work from home. Why are you even wearing pants?
Ken: I always do. But on my last day of work, I won’t. I’ll have my retirement party, then at the end, I’ll get up, diminish into the West and everyone will say, “Hey, he’s not wearing any pants.”
Me: That’s the best retirement gift you can give THEM— Schrodinger’s Pants. All they know is that at any given moment over the last year of your career, you were simultaneously half-dressed and fully-dressed.
Ken: I’m an enigma.

And speaking of enigmas, I saw this online on Friday afternoon.

The first three words I saw were Ranch Dressing, Poison, and Crabs and now I’m a little freaked out because a) I made Ken go to the corner store on Wednesday TO GET ME RANCH DRESSING so what’s next—I have a severe shellfish allergy so is anaphylaxis on the menu this weekend? Also b) if you look at all the words carefully, the majority of them are quite violent and the whole exercise just went from fun to mildly threatening:

Chainsaw
Danger
Sword
Clown
Shim
Poison
Nordebeaste
Crush
Pills
Secret
Quicksand
Demon
Rat
Apologies (which I assume is sarcastic)

The post was introduced with the sentence “It’s that time again” and the following emojis: a laughing face, a face gritting its teeth, a skull, and a demon. So did a serial killer design this list? And then there was this comment below the word jumble: “Chainsaw, unicorn, and music…a perfect trio!” and I will leave you to picture that person’s week all on your own.

In other news, I haven’t provided a quilt update for a couple of weeks because I’ve temporarily given up. I was halfway through row 9 when my 1936 Singer machine literally fell apart, so I borrowed my mother-in-law’s sewing machine and apparently it was built by NASA and I need to learn astrophysics to use it. “Why don’t you read the User Manual?” I hear you ask. Because it’s a generic User Manual for several different models and not a single instruction or picture is for the model I have. So now all I can do is wait for Ken to retire and learn to use it so he can sew more clothes for his marionette, and then he can make Youtube videos that I can follow. And when he does, he may or may not be wearing pants.

It’s Golden

So I was recently nominated for the Golden Bloggerz award (created by Chris Kosto) by my blogger pal Mark Bierman (thanks, Mark!), a great writer and supporter of other bloggers. Now, I know a lot of you don’t like the whole award thing, but I do, mostly because I always do it in my own way and it gives me something to write about in a week when all I did was work and get the AZ vaccine. The vaccine didn’t turn me into a zombie, nor did I sprout the coveted forklift arms I often fantasize about, but it did make me super-tired for a whole day and my arm still hurts like someone punched me several times. When I told people at work that I got it, someone joked, “Oh, they’re tracking you with that microchip now!” and I was like, “If Bill Gates wanted to track me, he could have been doing it for years through a little something called Windows. And if he really thought I was even interesting enough to track, I’d be incredibly flattered.” It’s honestly the most bizarre conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard. If you’re posting on social media about microchips and vaccines, the reason you’re getting ADS about microchips and vaccines is because social media already knows EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE DOING, BOB. I’d be more worried about Zuckerberg than Gates, frankly. Oh, and Bob? 99.9% of us aren’t even worth bothering about, so put your ego back in your pocket.

Anyway, on to the award. First I’m supposed to tell you three things about myself. This is tough because I’ve been writing this blog for almost 7 years and what is there that I HAVEN’T told you? You know about my obsession with forklifts, my relationship with the elusive Shane, the fact that I aspire to have the nickname Player One—heck, I even told you about my hysterectomy…OK, here are three things you might not know:

1) I refer to every bird larger than a crow but smaller than a vulture as an owl. It saves time, although it drives Ken nuts.

Me: Look at the huge owl!
Ken: For the last time, that’s a hawk! Owls are nocturnal!

2) I have never seen the movie E.T. and I have no intention of doing so. I’ve managed to live almost 56 years without seeing it, and I’m okay with that.

3) I am very superstitious. I have a pair of lucky underwear (you all know THAT) but what you don’t know is that I wore them on Wednesday when I went for my vaccine so I wouldn’t get a blood clot. And I didn’t. Because the underwear is lucky. Also, I knock on wood and I believe that it works. Fight me.

Okay, now I have to answer Mark’s questions and they’re really hard.

Question 1: If you could speak to one person from history, who would that be?

Mark didn’t specify past or future history, so I’m going to say ‘a dude from the year 2121 so I can find out if we ever get flying cars, transporters, or robot butlers.’ Hopefully, the pandemic is over by then so I don’t have to wear a mask while I’m time traveling. And don’t @ me with “The future isn’t history, Player One.” The future isn’t history YET, but it will be, so it counts.

Question 2: Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

Sunsets because that means it’s almost time for bed, and as you all know, I enjoy being horizontal much more than I like being vertical.

Question 3: Have you ever done anything for the adrenaline rush?

Rollercoasters, I guess? That’s pretty much it, I mean, I have no interest in doing anything where I could easily die just for adrenaline. As the Queen of Worst Case Scenarios, I’ve literally spent my life actively AVOIDING things like falling out of a plane, being attacked by a bear, or drowning. I WAS almost bitten by a shark once, but it was a little one and very cute, and I was just trying to get a picture of it. I didn’t know it was dangerous.

Question 4: What’s your go-to comfort food?

White wine. It’s made from grapes and that’s a food.

Question 5: Do you have any pets?

Do I have any pets? Here’s a picture. Note that Atlas is wearing a cute little onesie because he just got neutered. He’s not impressed, but as I keep telling him, “It’s better than a cone.” As he keeps telling me, “If you hadn’t stolen my balls, the subject would be moot.”

And there you go. I don’t know about who to nominate because I’m aware that many of my followers don’t like awards, so I’m nominating these bloggers, since I have no idea how they feel about awards:

The 59 Club
Eastelmhurst.a.go.go
Scribblans
James Proclaims
Texas Writer
…and my good friend at Cyranny’s Cove

There are a bunch of rules as well, but I’ve provided a link to Mark’s blog at the top and he has them there.

Here are my five questions:

What’s your favourite photograph?

How long can you go without blinking?

On a scale of 1 to 5, how superstitious are YOU?

Flowers or chocolate?

Where’s the first place you’ll go once the pandemic is over?

I look forward to your responses. I hope that many of them are in the form of haikus.

Quilt Update: I have sewn the first two rows. 19 rows to go.

It’s Toxic

I’m currently being plagued by toxicity. No, I don’t mean I’m surrounded by toxic people—in fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’m particularly fortunate to have many incredible people in both my life and work. No, when I say toxic, I’m referring to the song. Yes, Toxic by Britney Spears. I’ve had that f*cking song in my head now for several days and it’s evolved from an ear worm into a serpent. At first it was amusing. “What’s that song playing in my head?” I asked myself last week. “Oh, Britney. Fun.”  A couple of days later, I was like, “Toxic? Still? What the hell?” as it became more persistent and annoying. Yesterday, it ramped up to the point where I started getting worried. Every time I stop actively thinking, I realize it’s there, playing in the background, over and over again. And the worst part is that I don’t even know all the goddamn words so it’s mostly just Britney mumbling and then belting out the chorus. I actually woke up at 3 am yesterday and the first thing I heard was “With the taste of a sip I’m drinking rye/It’s toxic, I’m hearing thunder…” and it’s even more worrisome that my brain is filling in the lyrics like THAT.

Now, I’m no stranger to the ear worm. I get them pretty regularly, thanks to good old OCD, usually based on something I’ve just listened to, but after a couple of hours or a couple of glasses of wine, they disappear. And because I have a semi-eidetic memory, I usually know the lyrics and can sing along. The week before I began my battle with the Britney Army (slight tangent: I just googled ‘what are Britney Spears’ fans called?’ but first I misspelled ‘what’ and it autofilled ‘what are hemorrhoids?’. Then I misspelled ‘Britney’ and again it autofilled with ‘what are hemorrhoids?’ To be clear, I have never done any research on that topic and thus far in my life I haven’t needed to, but it concerns me that Google associates Britney Spears with butt ailments, so I investigated further and went down a rather terrifying hemorrhoidal rabbit hole and now I know more about the topic than I ever wanted to, and I still don’t know why I can’t get Toxic out of my head.), I had Shame by Foo Fighters playing on a loop, but that was okay because a) I love Foo Fighters and b) it’s an awesome song and c) I knew all the words so I just started merrily singing along.

But now? Is it an omen? Is it a warning? Is the universe trying to tell me something? Could it be related to the sudden upswing in my OCD due to all the adhesive rug grippers I bought suddenly letting go due to several rather vigorous games of boogedy boogedy with Atlas, resulting in my carefully symmetrized rugs being askew once again (I should have known there might be issues with the product when I saw the instruction that read “For renew the sticky, wipe with cloth”)? OR…hear me out: Is Britney in danger and needs my help to free her? Well, if that’s the case, she’s sh*t out of luck, because we’re under yet another stay at home order. Sorry, Brit. At this point, I’m just resigned to having the damn song in my head forever. And you know what they say—the next step after resignation is acceptance, so hit me baby, one more time.

Quilt Update: All patches are cut, and the design has been laid out. Ken figured out how to use the sewing machine because he made a wooden marionette out of some scrap wood and decided to sew it a little shirt and pair of pants. I’ve named the marionette Marty, and he’s adorable in a kind of grotesque way and definitely has Ken’s fashion sense, but at least now Ken can teach me how to sew. Also, just in case you think I haven’t been busy, I also made this cool bookcase out of a 1970s grandfather clock shell.

Patching Things Up

A little while ago, I decided to make a quilt. Let me state upfront that I have never made a quilt before, have no idea how to make a quilt, and I don’t know how to sew. Yet, there I was, wide awake at 3 am one morning, considering the numerous pairs of old jeans currently in my closet, as one does, and wondering what to do with them. “I could make a patchwork quilt,” I decided, with the confidence of someone who has never made a patchwork quilt. But I am nothing if not determined, so here are the steps I’m following.

First, I had to decide how many squares I would need. I lay there at 3 am, doing math, and if that doesn’t tell you about my level of determination and/or boredom, I don’t know what will. So, a king-size bed is 72” wide and probably the same in length. No, I didn’t bother to actually MEASURE it at any point during this process and have yet to do so, and that’s just fine. Anyway, I need a 6 “ drop on either side, so this quilt will be 84” square. And if the patches of denim are each 4” and I have to cut them at 4 ½ so I have a hem around each one, that’s…well, I don’t know, but it’s a lot of f*cking squares. After some painful mental gymnastics, I finally resorted to using a calculator and discovered, to my horror, that I will need approximately 441 squares of denim. At first, I didn’t believe it, then I counted the number of squares on the patchwork quilt my mother-in-law made us and it was just about the same. How many pairs of jeans IS that? Am I actually going to have to buy more jeans just to make a damn quilt? Luckily, I have 14 pairs as well as a few of Kate’s old jeans, so I might be OK. Otherwise, they sell them cheap at the thrift store.

Next, I had to decide how to cut the squares. Note that at the time of this writing, I have not yet cut the squares. But when I DO, I’m going to make a cardboard template that I can trace around. Or maybe two. I need the squares to be 4” but as I said before, I need a border or something that I can sew, and it should probably be like a standard width or whatnot, because I don’t want people to think my quilt was made by an amateur.

Me: So when I make my template, should I make a big one and a small one, or a big one with holes at certain spots?
Ken: What are the holes for?
Me: So I can take a Sharpie and mark the places where the pins need to go. Ooh, I have to buy pins!
Ken: Can’t you just fold the fabric over the smaller piece of cardboard and mark it that way?
Me (scoffing): You obviously know nothing about quilting, Ken.

Now that the squares are hypothetically cut, I have to sew them together. Normally, I just use a staple gun when I work with fabric—in fact, I recovered all of our breakfast room chairs a couple of weeks ago and all I needed was a pair of scissors and a staple gun. At first, I figured I could just hand-sew the squares, like the way I sewed up a rip in Kate’s leggings the other day. But when I considered the sad state of my sewing basket (it’s actually a Quality Street tin with a hotel sewing kit in it) and the time it took me to thread the needle, let alone the ten minutes to stitch up a 1 inch rip, I decided against that. So I needed to buy a sewing machine. And wow, those f*ckers are expensive! Luckily, I was on Facebook Marketplace and saw an ad for an old Singer that some woman was selling for thirty-five bucks, which seemed like a good deal. And in the ad, to prove it worked, she was demonstrating sewing a piece of denim! Talk about kismet.

On Thursday after work, Ken and I went to pick it up. What should have been a quick trip took a little longer than I expected because, even though I had already e-transferred her the $35, she hadn’t accepted it yet, and insisted that I wait while she booted up her Commodore 64. Then she got the answer to the security question wrong, even though I had messaged it to her and then told it to her AGAIN while standing in her kitchen, causing the transfer to fail which meant I had to resend it. Finally, she tried to print me off a receipt, even though I kept telling her I didn’t need one. Was she lonely? Maybe. Did she talk about making horse blankets and barn coats the entire time I was there? Yes, she did. Was that helpful to my quilt-making endeavours? No, it was not.

Sewing Lady: I have so many machines, it’s time to get rid of a few.
Me: What do you use them all for?
SL: Well, I use some of them to sew barn coats and horse blankets, but some of them are just for display. I really like sewing machines. I’ve been collecting them for years.
Me: Well, lucky for me you’re selling this one.
SL: I’ve taken off the plate and oiled it and set up the bobbin for you.
Me: Those are all English words, yet…
SL: It’s easy to use. See?
Me: That needle looks very sharp.

At any rate, the sewing machine is now sitting by the door where we left it. Today, I’m going to buy some pins and cardboard, and I will be giving regular updates on the quilt. Hopefully by this time next year, my mother-in-law will have taken pity on me and made the quilt for me. And that, my friends, is how you make a patchwork quilt.

Update: I have not yet purchased either pins or cardboard. Maybe tomorrow…

Personal Achievements

I’ve accomplished quite a bit this week despite being locked down. No, I didn’t win a damned Oscar, but I’m pretty sure if there WAS one for Best Use Of Hosiery By A Middle-Aged Woman, I would definitely be a contender.

1) Learning New Skills

Last week, I had to finish my Performance Plan which, if you’ve never done one, is where you have to tell someone at the start of the year what you’re planning to do, and then at the end of the year, you tell them what you did, and you hope the two things match well enough that your boss says, “Shantay, you stay.” And while my real boss is very cool, wouldn’t it be amazing if my boss was actually a big, fabulous drag queen who also said, “No tea, no shade! You’re serving up Performance Plan realness—now sissy that walk!”

Anyway, I was putting the finishing touches on my Performance Plan, looking at the ‘courses taken’ section to make sure I’d completed the mandatory accessibility and hazardous materials training (and here’s a long detour: The only hazardous material in my workplace might potentially be the photocopier ink cartridge, and we are under strict instructions to NEVER touch the photocopiers in our office even if they jam, because we are NOT QUALIFIED to unjam a photocopier, even though I spent most of my tenure as an International Languages Principal doing EXACTLY THAT and every Saturday, I was invariably called at least three times to the photocopy room by a distressed staff member who was an excellent teacher of Vietnamese or whatnot, but who couldn’t read English well enough to understand what the digital display on the photocopier was telling them to do, and had managed to completely f*ck up a very expensive machine that it was now MY JOB to repair. So I AM QUALIFIED, FRANK. But I digress. Back to the topic at hand.) and I discovered that there was a section I hadn’t notice before called “Personal Achievements”. Ooh, I thought to myself, now this is exciting. Because the day before, I had made a face mask, and it wasn’t half bad, even if Ken refused to wear it:

Me: Look! I made you a face mask!
Ken: Is that one of your socks?
Me: It may or may not be. See—it goes on like this.
Ken: Is it clean?
Me: Of course I’m pretty sure it’s clean! You can wear it when you go grocery shopping.
Ken: That’s OK. I’ll just stay away from people.

And I was sad, because saving Ken’s life would have been a really good Personal Achievement. But then I went to the tab and opened it, and it was a series of courses that you could take, and some of them were AMAZING. The first thing that caught my eye was ‘Chainsaw Operators Certification” and that would be so handy since we have this chestnut tree on our property that is essentially dead but Ken refuses to cut down because it “still gets a few leaves every year” as more and more of the branches fall off. I could just picture myself wearing a cute flannel shirt tied at the waist, booty shorts, and workboots, firing up that bad boy and yelling whatever it is that lumberjacks yell LIKE A BOSS, as the tree explodes in an orgy of fireworks, and reading this back, I think it’s very apparent that I have no idea what being a lumberjack is really like. But I’m OK.

Then something strange caught my eye. CHEMICAL IMMOBILIZATION OF WILDLIFE. What the hell is this?! So I clicked on it to read the description, which said, “Learn how to chemically immobilize nuisance wildlife” which shone no further light on how, and more importantly WHY one would want to do this, and all I could picture was forests full of animals standing completely still like weird fluffy statues, and I DIDN’T LIKE IT AT ALL.

So I comforted myself by considering taking the Harvard Manager Mentor courses, specifically “Difficult Interactions”, “Persuading Others”, and “Time Management” because Ken is so damn stubborn, but I think I might already have those skills:

Me: Put the sock mask on.
Ken: No.
Me: You’re being difficult. Put the damn mask on or I won’t make homemade pizza for dinner. You have 5 seconds.
Ken (sighs): OK.

See? I dealt with a difficult interactions using persuasion and time management.

There was also the Joint Health and Safety Committee, which I’m assuming has something to do with the legalization of marijuana, Pleasure Craft Operators Card (which I might need now that Ken and I have kayaks), Snow Mobile Operator, and Search Warrant Training. Almost every course you could take sounded completely badass, and all I need is my boss’s approval. Hopefully, she says, “Okurrrr!”

2) A while ago, I was complaining that I couldn’t change my wifi name to something more fun, but I DID figure out how to do this on my computer screensaver:

I’m pretty pleased with myself for being able to capture this moment, since it swirls around really fast, kind of like my brain.

3) Last week, our neighbour across the street moved out, and new neighbours moved in. They seemed like regular people with regular furniture, but later in the afternoon, Ken came downstairs:

Ken: I think the new neighbours have a really big dog, but it’s just standing in the middle of their lawn not moving.
Me: Maybe it’s been chemically immobilized.
Ken: Seriously, come and see.

So we looked out the window and realized that in the middle of our new neighbours’ lawn, they had placed a giant, plastic wolf statue. It wasn’t by their front door, or in the middle of a flower bed where you’d EXPECT to see a lawn ornament. It was just standing there staring at our house. And it had these really weird, bright blue eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and later on, I went out for a few groceries and took a surreptitious picture of it from my driveway. I was intending to sneak back at some point and get a close-up of its eyes, but when we got up the next morning, IT WAS GONE. I’m already having trouble sleeping because I hurt my shoulder, and the only way to be comfortable is to let my arm dangle straight down off the mattress, but I CAN’T DO THAT BECAUSE OF THE DEMONS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT LIVE UNDER THE BED. And now, I have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night to find a giant, plastic wolf scratching at my door. So I did what any normal person would do—I made Ken put on the sock and go to the store to get the new neighbours a gift basket. At least one of my personal achievements came in handy this week.

(I just got nominated for Publication of the Month at Spillwords Press for a flash piece I posted a few weeks ago called “Resurrection”. If you’d like to vote for me, you might have to register but it’s free, there’s no obligation for anything further, and if you do, I’ll write a story with your name in it. Also, they’re a terrific and very responsive publication to submit to in case you’re looking for somewhere—anyway, here’s the link: Vote