Teacher Work Day=Makeovers

Today Alicia and Mary and I gave each other makeovers.  It's hard for me to imagine why a seven and ten year old think they want makeovers when their skin and hair are perfectly youthful, bright and shiny but these girls watch "What Not to Wear" often enough to know that the guests think they will have much better lives if  their physical appearances are altered.

I was first. The girls fashioned my short white hair into eight small pony tails and then they went to work on my face. They applied face powder onto my cheeks, chin, forehead and nose. Eyes were next. This was the scary part because the action took place with my closed eyes as the palettes for young, inexperienced hands. Then came the easy part - lip gloss. This was generously applied and included a lot of the area outside the actual space of my lips.  Then I was invited to the "reveal" in the bathroom.  I loved it and the girls were hysterical with delight. They laughed even harder when I asked if they'd do this for me when I go to my friends' holiday party.

Then the girls took turns making each other over. Mary's long, thick hair was given an odd part and the section slung over her right ear was held in place with several bobby pins. I leaned in way close when Alicia was doing Mary's eye makeup truly worried about her vision safety but her eyeliner turned out just fine if not well-placed.  I was invited to "do" Alicia's hair and so I twisted long strands and joined them together in the back.  Mary offered her approval so Alicia decided to like it too. Of course, their 'dos did not compare with my ponied up style but they were satisfied.

Next came an extended game of "Mexican Train." I've spent some time thinking about that title and wondering if it might be insulting in any way but played it anyway.  The reason it lasted so long was because the rules changed all time.  Finally I suggested to Mary that it would be better if we were surprised by our tile choices rather than looking at them and choosing one that worked best in our favors. She huffed off at that one so Alicia and I played for another half an hour until I just couldn't stand it and asked if she wanted to watch an episode of "Zooey 101."  I knew that would be a game ender so I was able to enjoy my new appearance and feel confident about my new look as do the guests on "What Not to Wear."

Too Much of a Good Thing

Have you ever watched those programs on cable channels about "hoarders"?  I happen on them from time to time but don't stick around long because the houses and the hoarders are too creepy and I feel as if I am intruding on their exaggerated sense of space and belongings so I surf through to other odd ball channels.  But I've been thinking about hoarding and what I'd save if I came down with this particular illness.  One thing I'd definitely overstock would be candles.  I love the shapes and scents of them.  I like them from the inexpensive Glade kind you can buy at Safeway to the elaborate wax sculptures that you can see at speciality boutiques.  I'd line them all around my window sills and place them on every flat surface in the house including the backs of the toilets.

I'd also cram every drawer in the house full of tee shirts.  I love the variety that is available; I can barely resist tee shirts with any sort of sparkle on them.  Another thing I'd love to own vast quantities of is Christmas tins.  I am drawn to these as if my fingers have magnets on them designed to lead me to them anywhere.  There are so many cute ones!  The artwork on them is so bright, clever, festive and charming.  I'd stack them in like colors all over my kitchen counters.  I'd fill 100 of them with homemade holiday treats and give them away so I could buy more.

And then there are paper napkins.  There is a little trend out there to collect these but I'm pretty sure I was first at it.  I have two friends who buy them as souvenirs wherever they travel.  I don't do that unless some really distinctive ones turn up as I roam shops away from home.  I do buy way more holiday napkins than I need and would buy enough to fill up at least half the attic if I could.   Yarn!  I have to carefully control myself in yarn shops lest I bring home garbage bags full to add to my modest stash.

Worst of all, I'd buy hundreds of books.  I'd stack them along all the walls of my house or, as my friend John in Stayton does, I'd have bookshelves in every room full of books so that both the shelves and their contents compliment the decor of the room.  What can be more inviting than a bookcase full of books for those of us who are book people?  To gaze and study the titles and think about which five I'd choose to read is one of the best ways to while away time that I know.

I no longer keep books, though, because my collection began to overpower me in an uneasy and uncomfortable way so I sold or gave them away.  Anytime I finish a book these days, I try to find a new reader for it right away and request that they pass it along so that its spirit can travel to other places. I sold my tins at a garage sale; I regularly pare down my tee shirt collection, and I'm trying to use up the napkins and burn the candles as often as I think to do so. And I try to keep control of my yarn stash. I don't think I really have any inclination to be a recognized hoarder, but there are certain things that I wouldn't mind overowning.

Extra Baggage

Why was I so surprised? I should have figured that after being folded in half then fitted tightly into a jet and barely able to move during a six hour flight from the East Coast home that I might arrive back in Oregon with something I didn't want.   During the flight I developed a persistent pain that felt as if angry elves were pounding relentlessly on both sides of my skull.  My eyeballs started to feel like poached eggs. And then the very next day my throat started itching.  Soon The Incredible Hulk arrived to body slam me several times and I began to feel chilled and then too hot as if he was also alternating the placement of heating pads and then ice packs all over my body.  Next=a woozy and blah feeling.  Here's what made me know absolutely that I was beyond all sense of good health--I lost my appetite. My thinking fuzzed out.  I had just enough energy to start coughing in a manner that would be appropriate sounds for Halloween zombies to make.

I began cancelling appointments and rearranging my schedule so that I could continue to lie back on the couch and think about how awful I felt. Nights were exercises in agony as I tried to arrange my sore body in some sort of comfortable sleeping pose.  I awoke nearly every hour to begin another round of the zombie howling cough.  I started watching junk cable TV during the daytime saving only my favorite trashy program "Duck Dynasty" for evening entertainment.  When you're as sick as I was, you begin to think the whole lifestyle of this bearded Louisiana clan has some sort of charm and meaning.

Still, I managed to babysit my grands and fill the refrigerator and pantry with fresh food.  Not much else went on, though. I continued to suffer, zombie cough and wonder what it must have been like to feel well.  When I was young, I just stuffed myself with Dayquil, told everyone I was fine and kept up my schedule of work and home as usual.  When asked how I was feeling, I would declare firmly, "I"m just fine." HA. The bottom line was that I sick then and I'm sick now.  Who cares if it's the flu or a cold?  My doctor even told me to ride it out with Tylenol, fluids and maybe some Claritin.  I'm still "riding it out" and it's been a week.

Far East

My recent trip to New England was an experience of stepping into post card scenery and walking onto what appeared to be movie sets of small towns.  The country roads were bordered in all six states with golden leaved trees and topped with deep blue skies all basking in spicy fresh autumn air. The houses and buildings along the tour route were of Cape Cod or colonial style and most of them featured pumpkins placed on steps, fence railings or along wooden roof gutters.  The display of unbelievable wealth at Martha's Vineyard and the 70 room palace at the Vanderbilt mansion in Newport, Rhode Island offered me little or no connection to the lifestyle of people with names like Kennedy or Bush or Bouvier.  But I easily enjoyed peeping into how their lives were dictated by their fortunes.  The Norman Rockwell Museum overwhelmed me with the art work of a painting genius whose studio looked out to the autumn beauty of the Berkshire Mountains. We saw the fascinating birthplace and village of President Calvin Coolidge, took a harbor cruise in Portland, Maine and enjoyed an authentic lobster dinner in Kennebunkport.  One of my favorite spots was Mystic, Connecticut where we wandered around a preserved whaling village which presented a sharp contrast to the wealthy vacation villages of the famous.  I recognized my own hard work ethic here and loved seeing the many examples of the practical mindset of our early colonists.  You can't swing a Halloween black cat in Boston without hitting a Paul Revere this or a Freedom Trail that or a church steeple where you can almost see "two if by sea" lights glowing in warning to the early freedom fighters.  I saw the history lessons of my early education in action on this wondrous trip and sensed a warm welcome everywhere we went.

111 XXX (disguised as directed by family members)

The numbers and letters in the title belong to the license plate of the driver of the white Jeep who taught me a driving lesson this morning.  Apparently, I needed to know that it is perfectly acceptable to drive through a yellow light even if I have been waiting for an emergency vehicle to clear the intersection.  It is also okay to use the rude finger gesture and an impatient wave to urge someone to move on.  What was really surprising to me is that a driver is allowed to speed up, turn in front of another car and then sit at a green light to prevent that driver from proceeding. I think that's supposed to teach me what it's like to slow up other drivers. Then you can speed up to a good ten miles an hour faster than the posted limit.  All these little lessons are, I suppose, handy driving hints for how to break the law. Sad to say, though, that even speeding did not allow an escape for the Jeep driver.  He quickly went to the back of the line again and I had plenty of time to write down his ODL number.  Should I report him????

DMV

I've been preparing for this day since my driver's license renewal notice arrived a few weeks ago.  I put it on the top of my "to do" pile and kept shuffling it to the top.  Then I realized that my birthday is coming up soon and it was time to really do something about that notice.  So I gathered up my passport, my marriage certificate, a check for $40 and placed them carefully within the pages of my newest paperback.  I felt ready.  I was even mentally prepared.

It was difficult to get a parking place so I was patient.  I got into the line to get a number.  Then I got into the line to tell the clerk why I was there. He gave me my application so I found a place to sit down midst all the rest of the customers who were sitting, standing, milling around, taking tests, and otherwise waiting.  It was noisy and growing warmer every minute.  I used my best printing until I had to pause at the question that was about four lines long and had something to do with did I ever have a license in another name/state/planet and did I ever use it to identify myself or as a means to rent a car and did I remember my mother's maiden name or something like that.  I was stumped.  I asked the people around me if they thought the application had trick questions on it.  They all laughed and seemed to know what question I was on.  They helped me.  After that, I just didn't answer the questions I couldn't understand.

Then the real line waiting part started.  I waited in line to get my eyes tested.  I waited to figure out if I should  sit down and wait for my number to be called.  Then someone told me to wait in what was laughingly called the "express line."  My turn in that line and the sound of my number being called occurred at almost the same time.  Then I breezed through the actual process of having my license renewed by handing over the check and my documents.  She entered stuff into her computer, handed my papers back and then told me to put my application in the blue box at the end of the counter.  It was really easy to find the box because it had a bold sign on it that said "Blue Box."  Then I waited in line to get my picture taken.  I'd carefully fixed my hair for this part, put on fresh lip gloss and practiced my smile in my rear view mirror on the drive over. This was sure to be the best driver's license photo I'd ever had.  Wrong.  I look like my brother Bill on a bad fishing day.

Of course I'd had to go to the bathroom since I was waiting in the first line.  The DMV doesn't make it very clear, and I really don't think they want to, that there is a perfectly clean and serviceable restroom within the building.  But I asked and then wound my way through the even bigger and noisier crowd that now consisted not only of applicants but their babies, grandparents and biker dude uncles as well.  It was hot. It was loud.  And it smelled funny in there.  The restroom, however, was cool, clean and empty.  I half thought about spending an hour or so in its quiet confines but I was getting really hungry.  So I took a deep breath and then had the endless joy of walking out of the DMV building and working my way through the crowd that was now spilling out onto the sidewalk of the building. Someone waited patiently for my parking spot which I was happy to relinquish.

Clare's New Dress

I used to sew a lot.  Amy wore lots of homemade clothes when she was little and I completed plenty of  my own outfits along with crafts of all kinds. I particularly remember a Spiderman (or was it Superman?) blanket that I stayed up way late into the night to get finished for a gift for Brian.

Sewing wasn't easy for me.  It took years before I figured out that reading the pattern carefully went a long way toward completing a project without tedious time spent in ripping out. When I finally broke down and started basting things together before putting in the final seams, I truly realized the worth of doing things the long way.

But I haven't taken on a sewing project for a really long time.  It just isn't as practical to sew anymore.  Patterns and material and notions cost a lot of money.  Sewing things at home isn't as cost efficient as it used to be.  Maybe that's why the dress I just finished for Clare (the new American Girl doll) cost around $20.00 and two trips to the fabric store to make.  The dress fits an 18" doll but it might as well have been a ball gown for a real live Cinderella for all the sweat that went into it.  The thread on the machine kept breaking because I didn't recall the correct way to load the bobbin.  I ran out of thread and had to fill the bobbin and rethread the machine at least three times.  That's a real challenge since I can  barely, just BARELY see the eye of the needle.  I had to rip out and replace one sleeve and, remember, this is a doll dress so the sleeve consisted of only three inches of material to work with.  Still, imagine how tricky it is to get that eased in sleeve properly placed on the machine for stitching.  And it's not easy to press tiny seams open.  Thank goodness the velcro fastening the back of the bodice together didn't give me any problems.  I had this horror that I'd have to rip stitches out of velcro and that, I'm sure, is a seamstress's nightmare.

But a new dress awaits Clare who will be here along with the family tomorrow for a Labor Day weekend barbecue.  Now I just keep my fingers crossed that the ultra picky Alicia will like it. And it only took an hour flat on my back on the couch to straighten out the kinks in my neck and shoulders from leaning over  a hot sewing machine.