Yes I went to the mall today. First my mother and I helped Naomi pin baste a quilt for machine quilting. THEN it was off to the mall. First to the apple store of course. Then to Macy's. Then a few other places. I got a few doodads. Ack. Crossing the road that runs around the mall to get to my car was taking my life into my own hands. yikes!
Now I'm home. OK. I did buy a few things for myself. A second pair of jeans for work. And while I was there, a bright chartreusey sort of green jacket/shirt/sweater. Double breasted no less. I think wearing black every day at work is starting to get to me!
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Written at:
1:27:25 AM
For those who still are looking at photos of 9-11-01 and wondering what it was all about, here's a wonderfully handled montage of photos. Painful, hard to look at, astonishing, horrifying, not for the weak of heart. Requires shockwave plug-in.
I'm not sure how you're doing, gentle reader, but I'm still processing all this. Sometimes I don't want to think about it at all. Sometimes it rises within me like a power I can't control. I reassure myself that all these things, including my fatigue are normal.
Yesterday my 9-11 quilt returned from Houston where it was part of the special exhibit at the big quilt show there. I'm hoping we'll be able to arrange for a showing of a group of these quilts at NYQuilts! in June 2002. [Quick aside about NYQ! - tonight I launched the newly-redone and still developing site. Still pretty simple but easy to navigate.]
If I were a work of art, I would be Edgar Degas' Dance Class. I appear soft and gentle, but hide a core of rigid structure and discipline. I work hard and follow orders, because I am determined to succeed, but remain attached to displays of frivolity and maintaining my appearance.
if you have any young teen age girls - the members of O-town were in the Crossgates Apple store today. They looked like they must be "someone" mainly because they had handlers/managers with them. And because they were really interested in dropping money. I talked to one at great length - the one with dreadlocks - about digital cameras and he bought a good camera and an ipod etc etc.
The second guy I rang up also had a strange zipcode, so I asked where that zip was from. Florida. Hmmmm. OK, you're all from Tampa and you seem to be in a band, so what band? Oh, O-Town - I know about that one. They looked relieved that SOMEone there knew about them. This is the boyband that was put together by Lou Pearlman and was the subject of the somewhat strange reality show "The Making of the Band."
I left for lunch and they were still in the store. I figured a run on the store wouldn't be a bad thing, but do you think I could find a stinking adolescent girl? nope - all safely in school. One of my fav co-workers later told me I was totally lame to know about the band AND the TV show. But he was just jealous, I'm sure, LOL. I couldn't believe we didn't take a single photo or get an autograph. Geesh.
I guess the boy band was opening for britney tonight in Albany. whoooohooooo.
Then we had a quasi-anthrax scare where two folks decided that some white powdery stuff by the mp3 players was anthrax. uh huh. Someone else (gratefully not me) asked wasn't it more likely to be powdered sugar, since people are always coming in with cookies, donuts etc? Nope. They finally had to call "the authorities" and as I'm standing there thinking this is pretty silly to close a store over powdered sugar...... a mall security guard appears. He walks in, all decked out in his wanna-be-a-state-trooper uniform, walks over to the infected area, and is back out of the store in literally 30 seconds! Guess those wanna-be cops really know their powdered donuts, I mean SUGAR!
So very silly. Not to make light of the anthrax deal but really. Like ANY cop could tell what it was by looking at it.
Fine. Just fine.
Then I came home and popped an eggplant in the oven to bake. And went upstairs to sew the block of the month that's due tomorrow night. It's a nice block but lots of things to cut and sew. I keep getting whiffs of something cooking and wondered what it was. Well folks, if you leave an eggplant in the oven for 2 plus hours, there's nothing left but the skin. Luckily it didn't explode.
More luckily, I had back up plans. So I made a cheddar cheese spread - equal parts shredded cheddar and cottage cheese mixed with some finely minced fresh parsley and celery. Little pepper and paprika. Takes very parsley and celery-ish, which is nice I think. You can either spread this cold or put it on melbas and broil it a bit.
Spread number two was cream cheese with olives. I really enjoy this as a treat. I minced the olives rather finely for this since it will be easier to spread, and put some more olives sliced on top. So that's it for that. I'll bring an assortment of crackers and a plate.
I'm also bringing a dozen rather simply made christmas stockings which we'll be donating to a thrift store that distributes a lot of stuff for families for the holidays. Apparently they need about 700 and their annual source dried up. I know my mom made 20, and I made 12 and another woman made about 50. People were talking about doing pieced and quilted stockings, but you know - in this case more is better! I cut out 12 layers of one fabric that I had more of, a black background with a "plaid" of lines of holly or something red, and then 12 layers total of a bunch of other green/red/holiday-ish fabrics. I had some short lengths of green and red grosgrain ribbon from doing pot holders and that was that. They turned out very nice. They're a nice size too - not too big and none too small.
If Em from "Hope Without Pay V.2" is reading this -- I know you got knocked off the air with the closedown of @home -- let me know your new address so we can start getting the word out about where you can be found!
In the category of doing small acts of good in the world:
I'm taking a break from other quilting-related work tonight and tomorrow to prepare for Tuesday's holiday party at East Side Quilters. We make quilts during the year to give away to organizations, usually shelters and other social service groups in need of either quilts for their clients or for fundraising. But this time of year we do something smaller. For a few years it was making placemats for meals on wheels. This year, a member brought to our attention a need for empty christmas stockings. Somehow, this local thrift shop/pantry had in the past come up annually with about 700 stockings, but this year there was no supplier. We're a small group so 700 isn't likely to happen but we can do our best and supply some.
I have a dozen stockings that are at the last stage of sewing and then need pressing. They're simple - printed green and red fabrics, with a green or red loop to hang from. Front and back fabrics are different. I think they look quite ok actually. And they're big enough to hold more than an orange! The assorted fabrics are holiday colors but no santas etc.
[Here I have to say that our own childhood christmas stockings were pretty big. And they were made, by my mother of an interesting early 60's fabric - pale blue background with white and touches of pink puppies and kitties. The edges were finished in blue or pink bias binding. Mine is the pink one. Yes we still use them! They have carefully crafted loops at each side so they hang very nicely from my folks' coffee table handles. Hey - what can I say - at our house, Santa used the front door!]
Getting back to my quilt guild, we also collect hats and mittens for this same place to distribute, so I hope that some folks will have some nice things in their stockings this year.
Written at:
11:26:09 PM
Given the Mid-East events of the last couple days, perhaps we all need to meditate on the words below for awhile:
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction... The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the darkness of annihilation. - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
