CreativeSpace

does this sweater vest make me look Minion of Misery?

"Remember, Tommy, this next serve is mine. Muss my tennis vest with your wild swing again, and I'll lock you in the basement. Now who's mommy's little minion?" 

(This is proof that exercising in sweaters will only lead to heatstroke and cheerful madness.)

 

Ah yes, who doesn't love a minion or need one? One could argue that children would make ideal minions, but no, as a responsible parent you must raise them to be independent and differentiated from you. Minions need to be subservient and useful, not filled with their own opinions and agenda. They need to be able to facilitate your plan for world domination without giving a second of consideration to whether it's a good plan or not. Minions are with you day and night, rain or shine, jail sentence or not. Frankly, I need twenty of 'em, but they're still on back-order. 

Although my minion dreams are still unatainable, I had a small ray of minion hope in my life recently. (let the excitement build...) I was awarded the prestigious Minions of Misery Award! The award is the brainchild of Anne Michaud and Angela Addams, two brilliant authors. The recipient of the award must do the following: recommend a dark book, suggest a dark movie and admit one dark secret to their blog readers. Then the MoMA must be passed on to three other deserving bloggers. Muahahahahaha!

Colin Barnes was the previous MoMA winner who tagged me. You can read his dark musings here and claim that I'm "secretly very dark behind all that baking and craft work." It's true, of course. All you have to do is read my stories to catch a glimpse of it. (Mom, close your eyes.) 

So without further ado, here are my dark recommendations:

Drood is based on the autobiographical events surrounding Charles Dickens in the final dark days of his life. I think I had a permanent case of goosebumps the entire time I was reading it. Imagine the thick fog clogging the twisting alleyways of Victorian London as we follow Dickens and his growing obsession with mystery of Edwin Drood. The reader can never see too far ahead to anticipate what awaits around the corner. I admit that I had to put the book down periodically so I could go take a walk outside in the sunshine to combat the haunting dread that overwhelmed me.

Drood is the name and nightmare that obsesses Charles Dickens for the last five years of his life. On June 9, 1865, Dickens and his mistress are secretly returning to London, when their express train hurtles over a gap in a trestle. All of the first-class carriages except the one carrying Dickens are smashed to bits in the valley below. When Dickens descends into the that valley to confront the dead and dying, his life will be changed forever. And at the core of that ensuing five-year nightmare is Drood.

Guillermo del Toro (writer and director of Pan's Labyrinth) summarized it best. "A dazzling journey through a crooked, gaslit labyrinth and a tenebrous portraiture of the tortured minotaurs that dwell within. Genius is the true mystery, and its edge - the abyss." It was this quote that sold me on the book. How could I resist a man who used the words tenebrous AND minotaur in the same sentence? (I have a soft spot for minotaurs.)

 

This movie scares the ever-living-snot out of me every time I see it. Yet I still want to watch it again. (By peeking through the cracks in my fingers as they cover my eyes.) I generally avoid scary movies, but this movie is so perfect in its balance of suspense and horror that I'm unable to resist. The Shining is a mind-bender full of ghosts, madness and an evil presence that haunts the Overlook Hotel. The novel by Stephen King is also damn spectacular, but it was Stanley Kubrick's cinematic vision that took this story to the heights of dark cinema. Plus, we can all relate to writer's block being slightly maddening. Right?  

 

And finally, there's my dark secret. I had to give this some thought, because my secret list is long. Too long for this entry, as a matter of fact. (Mom, close your eyes again.) I don't want to horrify anyone unduly, so I'll start of slowly.

My dark secret is that I enjoy fresh Cheetos straight out of the bag. AND I lick my fingers afterwards. Now, if you've read my blog, you know that I'm a bit of a food snob. So you'll understand just how hard it is for me to admit that. I LOVE Cheetos.

Sigh.

I really, really do. 

Crazy like a cake

The Baby Bear and I have been laid low by a cold these past two days. The only household chore I managed was folding laundry, and instead of being industrious, I opted for self-pity and a tragic Chinese movie. This week’s selection was Farewell, My Concubine. At least I already had the hankies at hand.

After copious amounts of peppermint tea liberally laced with honey, I roused myself enough to bake a cake. I had a hankering for chocolate but didn’t have the fortitude to embark on a cookie recipe. This recipe from Cousin Bonny is simple and vegan, much along the lines of the Mahaffey Cake but without the eggs. (Although the Mahaffey still reigns supreme in my heart and stomach.) They call it a crazy cake, I believe, because it’s a one-bowl-wonder. Try it and see.

Crazy Cake
3 cups flour
1 ½ cups sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
½ cup cocoa
¾ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 tbs vinegar
2 cups water

Mix well and pour into 9x13 pan. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes.

I was halfway into this recipe when I realized I didn’t have enough flour. I substituted whole wheat pastry flour, and I think it turned out just fine. Although there are plenty of recipes that allow for a substitution like that, I’m always hesitant to try it with cakes. Some cake recipes are too finicky for sturdier flour. Luckily this one is not.

Day Two

Daisies along the trail in Glacier National Park

Day 2: 30x30 Writing Challenge

9:00 p.m.

We live in an old house where everything creaks; the floorboards, the stairs, the doors…everything. You need to have serious ninja skills to walk quietly through our upstairs. This morning I was managing a pretty good job creeping about semi-silently (I’ve always admired ninjas. For their skills, not the assassinating part) but I couldn’t say the same for my dog. He went galumphing around behind me waking up the entire household, including the Baby Bear. My writing time was gone in an instant, and although I was irritated at first, I reminded myself that it’s showing up to do the work that’s important.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a mom, it’s to roll with the punches. I usually have a general schedule in mind for the day, but I try not to imagine anything set in stone, a great accomplishment for my normally Type-A way of doing things. So I shifted my thirty minutes to this evening and it worked out just fine.

Now I just need to find a school for training ninja dogs. Like the ninja school in You Only Live Twice, but for dogs of course. The best thing about that movie was that everyone was convinced by James Bond's campy disguise that he was a local Japanese fisherman. Surely the short shorts were authentic and no one noticed his badly dyed eyebrows. I am no spy, but it looked like caterpillars had been laid to rest on his forehead.

Now I know for certain that I have to get to bed. Writing about Sean Connery's eyebrows is never a good sign. Goodnight!

A Night to Myself

My mom and I had an interesting conversation this morning about taking care of oneself. Last night instead of going to her meditation circle, my mom chose to go home and rest. She recently recovered from a tenacious chest cold that knocked her low, and she felt like she needed a break from her schedule. She's on the mend, but her acupuncturist told her that she needs to listen carefully to herself and rest when she needs it. He said that our culture doesn't know when to be still, and his observation struck a chord with me.

Giving myself permission not to do anything is really difficult. I know I can't possibly be the only mom who feels this way, because when I look around me, all I can see are the things that need to be done. There's always laundry, dirty dishes, and some toddler mess to rectify. The dog needs to go out, a floor vacuumed, and a meal needs to be prepared. How can I possibly take a break? Besides, I love cooking and taking care of my family. Most days it doesn't feel like a chore, but I'm learning that staying at home has its own unique stresses.

Of course, I didn't realize that I needed a break until my patience had frayed to the point where I was ready to bite anyone who came close to me. Not the example you want to set for your child. So the Husband and I made an arrangement that two nights a week I "clock out" at 5:00 p.m. and go off to have an evening by myself. Sometimes I head to the coffee shop with my laptop or go lose myself in the library. My favorite 'night out' is taking a foreign film upstairs to watch in bed all by my lonesome.

I love Chinese and Japanese films, particularly if they're set in feudal times with a sword fight thrown in for good measure. The arrangement is perfect, because Charlie gets testy with subtitles and claims that there's no point in watching because your favorite character will end up dead at the end. True, in Chinese and Japanese cinema they're not afraid to kill off the hero. But the wonderful stories! I just watched Raise a Red Lantern which had no fighting, and the heroine didn't die. She went mad, but she didn't die. 

I close that bedroom door with a mug of tea and a bowl of popcorn, and I'm gone. Two and a half hours later I open the door and am refreshed and ready to face my world again. I'm learning that sometimes it's lovely to be alone.

The Great Felt Experiment

I had the oddest dream last night. I was standing in the kitchen with Juan Antonio (played by Javier Bardem) and Maria Elena (played by Penelope Cruz) in a house in Barcelona. I was in the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and I stood where Cristina (played by Scarlett Johansson) should have stood. I knew the scene. It was the breakup scene. The conversation grew heated, Spanish flying around me like arrows. Maria Elena smacked the counter then whirled to face me. She stabbed the air with an accusing finger, and I tensed, waiting to hear the awful things she was going to call me. (Because that's what happens in the movie.) Instead there's a pause, and she yells in heavily accented English, "And the felt!" I was so surprised that I sat up in bed.

Oh Maria Elena, I feel your pain. The felt. I shake an angry fist at the sky. THE FELT!

The felt story begins three weeks ago as I innocently paged through a cooking magazine. One of their featured products was a set of wool coasters. They came in canary yellow and key lime green and were made from reclaimed wool. This started my brain churning, because I've become mildly obsessed with reclaimed clothing recently. (Not outwardly obsessed yet. It's still percolating in my brain pan.) And I decided to make a version of my own quirky, wool coasters.

I began the process at The Funky Lamm, a store downtown selling gently used clothing. It has an eclectic inventory that's ever-changing, and I found two wool sweaters that fit the bill. I had hoped for some zany colors, but the really bright sweaters were acrylic and wouldn't felt at all. I needed them to be at least 70% wool. This is what I bought:

First I took them apart at the seams, and then I threw them in the washer for a very hot bath. They felted beautifully, and the pattern in the gray fisherman's sweater inspired me for a second project. I decided to use the blue sweater for the coasters.

I was attached to the idea of the coasters being stiff, so I cut circles of cardboard to insert between two layers of the felted wool.

(please forgive the overhead lighting--it was late)

I blanket stitched around the cardboard/felt sandwich and got this:

OK, I can hear the snickering now. It's quite all right. I've had a full 24 hours to ponder the results and dream about it. When I showed it to my husband for his opinion, he said, "I've never seen anything like it before in my life." Well...drat.

It's back to the drawing board today. When I was venting this morning to my (sainted) mother, sainted because she listens to me without bursting into laughter, she asked why I was determined to make the coasters stiff. Well, hmmmm. It was just a notion really, and one that I need to give up. Obviously. (They were stiff and perfect and lovely in the magazine.) 

So creative readers, any suggestions for the coasters? And I would love to hear ideas for the rest of the blue sweater felt. I only used one arm of it for the coasters, thankfully. All comments are heartily welcomed!