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Friday, September 28, 2012

And the winner is! / + some other stuff

Shelby, "pick me randomly, please." I did! How weird is that? Shelby email me your details, and I will forward them to Storey.

And wow. Thank you all so much for your enthusiastic feedback on the book. I know that Emily is totally thrilled. You really are the most generous people.

In other random news:

Photo taken by my beloved high-school friend (and the fantastic photographer) Ben Marks. Finally I have a picture of his that's not of me with some or other boyfriend of yore.
  • We've been having a total jacks renaissance around here. And let me just say [shrugs modestly]: I've still got it. I can get to tensies and back in one turn. Unless I've had more than two beers, and then it takes some unpredictable number of turns between one and a hundred.
  • Frankie turned two. Two! (For newer readers, Frankie and his mom Anni lived with us when he was a wee baby.) And I celebrated with a lunatic fit of obsessive crafting. I swear, I was just going to make two pieces of bread and a piece of cheese. But then, before I knew it, they were honking at me from the car, threatening to go to the party without me, and I was still in my pajamas, sewingly deranged.

Most of the patterns came via the apartment therapy master list of felt food tutorials.
The bag of chips, right?

  • Oh, but were you like, felt food, whatever, tell me about that pink velvet bench? This old thing? This old thing in perfect condition? That we got by the side of the road in Providence for $20? Score! Even the legs are upholstered. It is truly spectacular.


  • I got invited to be a California Raisin Ambassador! A title that must, apparently, make its own glory, since it turned out not to be an actual paying gig with payment and paidness. Sigh. But it is now my favorite thing to say around the house. "Is that how you talk to the Raisin Ambassador?" and "Sorry, but the Raisin Ambassador is too busy to cut your toenails." Even though I'm not actually the Raisin Ambassador. On account of how I didn't do it. Which is probably just as well.
  • I dreamed that I looked and looked for a bathroom, finally found one, and then realized that I was pooping in a pebbly Zen fountain in a doctor's waiting room.
  • I read two amazing and wildly different books. One is Song of Achilles, which I worry you might have to be a total classics geek to appreciate. Given that I was, like, the only person in my Latin VI class, while the rest of my classmates were busy wearing cool jeans and laughing and going to our senior prom and stuff, this was the novel of my dreams. It's strangely pulpy (the metallic-embossed cover makes it look like a gay, martial, ancient Greek Harlequin Romance) but it's also this incredibly moving and romantic story about the Trojan War, told from the point of view of Petroclus, the lover of Achilles. The fact that I just wrote that like it was a boring book report should not at all dissuade you from reading it. The other book was So Much Pretty, which is about girls and violence and is as inspiring and wonderful as it is horrifying and dreadful. That book has some of the best descriptions of friendship that I have ever read anywhere, and I loved it.
  • I googled "how to make an owl costume for a stuffed animal" (Birdy is going to be Harry Potter for Halloween, so that leaves Strawberry to figure out) and was shocked not to find what I was looking for. But there is a Hedwig costume for kids, which gave me such a pang. I love the child that wants to be not Harry, not Hermione, not even Ron Weasley or Malfoy, but Hedwig. Dying.
Have a wonderful weekend, my friends.

xo

33 comments:

  1. Oooh, Song of Achilles sounds like a grown-up Percy Jackson!

    Love the felt food and everything else my favorite Raisin Ambassador is up to.

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    1. Nowhey--that's just exactly what it is! I actually even meant to say it, but forgot. There are god characters and everything. . .

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  2. I swear you must be mightily amazing to catch the eye of the California Raisin Authority. You! So, so far from California. I can't believe you turned down that non-paying honor.

    Your poop dream? Cracked me up. I have dreams like that...where I'm in a place where people can see me, making it impossible to actually poop, because, you know...people watching me do it? Not happening. I'm sure that dream means something deep and important (crazy) psychologically speaking.

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  3. It's good that you didn't become a Raisin Ambassador. You would be drunk with the power that comes with being a Raisin Ambassador. Plus, then all your recipes might have to contain raisins from now on. No offense to raisins.

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  4. Robin2:23 PM

    I often have dreams about looking, looking, looking, and looking for something important (more than once it has been a bathroom, but it's usually a specific type of attire for a specific type of event, such as a party dress for a wedding or a swimsuit for, you know, swimming), and I wake up before I find the item or place. These dreams are so long and so very, very, very tedious and boring, and the clothing ones always involve looking endlessly through a suitcase or dresser that seems to include only children's clothes or shorts and T-shirts, while I'm wearing either just my underwear or pajamas. Your bathroom search dream has such a better punchline than mine, which have no resolution, even a mortifying one.

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  5. Oh, the felt food makes me so sad my kids are big and totally not interested in playing with felt food anymore. Maybe I can just make it for myself?

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  6. So did you have a Latin Camp weekend thing like what I went to at the 4H camp outside of Atlanta when I was a senior? Semper ubi sub ubi.

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  7. Usually when I have a dream that I'm looking, looking, looking for a bathroom, it's because I have to pee (and when I wake up, I'm always very glad I never actaully find the bathroom and, you know, use it). But once I had a dream I was looking all over this house for a place to go to sleep, but all the couches and beds were already occupied. What does it mean when you're so tired, you're even tired while you're asleep?

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  8. Anonymous5:02 PM

    Here's an owl costum: http://alphamom.com/family-fun/holidays/last-minute-kids-owl-costume/

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  9. The other night I dreamed I forgot to wear a bra to work, and then, of course, took my shirt off. If all goes well this year we will have Harry, Hermione, Professor McGonagall (me), and Dumbledore. The five year old is planning to be Dobby in last year's Yoda costume (we were the Skywalker family plus our Jedi master).

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    1. OH! Last year, my then-8 year old was Harry, my husband was Snape, and I was Bellatrix. My almost 2 year old was a cow. Because he has to wear hand-me-downs, and his brother was a cow when he was two.
      Man, it's going to be a bummer when he gets older and sees those pictures.....

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  10. Anonymous12:02 AM

    Am rereading HP for the nth time right now and am loving it as always. :) And, oh, that felt food is incredibly cute. Off to follow the link for that.

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  11. OK, but what, what, WHAT is the blue square thing up there by the felt sandwich??? It's driving me crazy that I can't figure it out.

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    1. Jelly! And the brown thing is peanut butter.

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    2. Jeanne12:35 PM

      Thanks, I was wondering the same thing!

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    3. Of course. I see it now. :)

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  12. Loving you all with your crazy dreams. xo

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  13. Good News of all of our fan's relocations and storage service are now more easy their before so being with us .......

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    1. My daughter was Hedwig last year and instead of using individual feathers, I used a feather boa and just tacked it with thread to a hoodie. It worked so well and otally saved the house from looking as though I blew up a chicken! Felt and googly eyes attached to the hood for the beak and face. Just in case you had the urge to dress the part : )
      Virginia

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  14. Shannon H.6:56 PM

    I love the felt food! It IS obsessively fun. I decided to make a cornucopia with all the veggies placed inside for a friend at Thanksgiving. I almost missed dinner because I needed just ONE MORE eggplant!

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  15. I can not believe Frankie is two. My own little one will be one in a couple of weeks and may be in need of some felt food. Thanks for the reminder that simpler is usually better. I walked all over Toys R Us today looking for something for her and wound up totally uninspired and also shocked at what obnoxious blinky things are going for these days.
    I have also been really wanting to play jacks lately. Our house was so slanted growing up that the ball got away from you pretty easily.
    Your dream is too funny. Not just any fountain, but one that's supposed to be soothing and tranquil. And then you crap in it. I wonder just what that means?
    Sorry to hear you passed on the raisin job because I really liked the 80's claymation commercials, but I'm also glad that we won't be faced with week after week of reconstituted raisin surprise or something in order for you to maintain your title.

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    1. Catherine, you have fans who say brilliant things like "reconstituted raisin surprise"!! You rock!! :-)

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  16. Allyson12:01 AM

    First of all, Frankie is simply not allowed to be two. That is just unacceptable. Second, I want to reassure you that I also took six years of Latin. Geeks rule. Finally, would you be willing to give some advice on what I should be looking for in a cheap used sewing machine? I am an absolute novice, and pretty broke, so I'm sure that narrows the options down a bit. Let me know if you're willing to help me, and I'll email you, ok?

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  17. The felt food is great! Now I know what to make for my nephew for Christmas. Glad someone else asked about the "purple slice" in the photo... You always have such great links and book recommendations. Thank you!

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  18. "busy laughing and going to our senior prom and stuff"..... okay, just when I think it would be impossible for me to adore you more, you belt out with this. Ah, yes, the bond of the high school uncool misfits, an eternal understanding. :-)
    And it just makes me smile, again and again, we, you writer and we readers, takin' this journey of life together, unseen, yet so very much seen, by each other.

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  19. Anonymous8:29 PM

    OMG before reading your review: I just finished Song of Achilles, picked up on a whim from the library. It was, as you've described, beautiful, sad, hard to follow up with a simple novel. Excellent book, agreed!

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  20. LOVE the felt food! Somehow I never got around to making this kind of stuff for my kids when they were little either.
    Also - check out the first costume here - kind of wish one of my kids wanted to be an owl! http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/2012/09/20-favorite-costume-tutorials/

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  21. Anonymous8:28 PM

    The bag of chips nearly left me begging my husband for just one more baby. Nearly.

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  22. hahahahahahahaahhhhaaaaah!
    thank you for the laugh. I'm so glad I found you again - after *all these years* - i think i told you once that i used to read when Birdy was a babe. And then I lost you - and now you're FOUND again! wahoo!
    that dream - still laughing - not because it's really that funny - but because you wrote about it - i have had that dream - or at least one startlingly similar - many times. good lord - how ridiculous!
    thanks again!
    breida

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  23. Anonymous3:00 AM

    Another owl:

    http://www.5orangepotatoes.com/blog/2010/10/25/how-to-make-an-owl-costume-from-a-pillowcase/

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  25. I just read Song of Achilles, too, and loved it although I dislike mythology and especially Greek myths. Go figure. It's just such a beautiful love story. You always give the best recommendations (State of Wonder!!) so I'm putting So Much Pretty on my library list right now. Thanks!

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