I've had a series of those days where you can't concentrate for shit because people (MY KID) keep interrupting me every five seconds, and it's not like my brain runs on all eight cylinders any more anyway, and... and... I'm mildly insane (insaner, okay?) and have nothing to blog about. So I shall comment on comments and like that.
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Apparently a lot of you know who Vivienne Westwood was/is, from the comments. And, well, no offense, but I consider my blog readers a bunch of fashion geeks for the most part, so... well. Of course YOU GUYS know who she is. It is interesting (but not surprising) that more English know of her than Americans.
Ask an everyday person off the street who invented the ripped clothes with safety pins look, though, and I STILL bet you most Americans at least wouldn't know.
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The Goober has been watching "Bully for Bugs" (the one in the bullfighting arena). Which is violent, but she seems to understand they're pretend, and, anyway. Just now she told me "You be the yak." and I'm sitting there thinking "Yak??!!?? Is my hair THAT bad?" She runs off, comes back with a blanket, waves it at me, and yells "TORO! TORO!" Rolled the R, and everything.
She's still not quite sure why I fell over laughing.
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In today's mail was a packet for the husbeast, containing all his official retirement certificates and letters and stuff. (Signed by Barack Obama, not "that other putz", to quote the husbeast.) Within the pack was a letter of appreciation to me. You know, the one I told them to not give me. Apparently the husbeast requested it anyway, stubborn, crafty old bastard that he is. He's refusing to give it to me, for fear I'll shred it up and use it for toilet paper and then light it on fire.
Having mellowed just a tad (a small tad) since getting the fuck out of Charleston, I've decided on another use for the letter. When we finally get this house we're shopping for, if I have anything like a studio or office (odds are high I will), I'm going to frame it and hang it upside down, just like Walt Disney did with his rejection letter from the US military.
I'd consider using it as rolling papers, but it's that heavy parchment-type paper and probably won't burn right.
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I had requests for more tales of smartassery, but most of the good stuff that's left is stuff I'm not publishing on the internet for God and everybody to see. But, hm, let's see.
In our first place in Hawaii, we lived 'out in town' and were thrown into the deep end of the multi-cultural thing. Mostly fun. Except we had these neighbors (Korean) who had this dog. The most evil, mean, nastyass dog I ever met. It would lunge at people with the 'I will kill you' body language and the idiot owners would hold the fucking dog back on his leash and say "oh, isn't he friendly?" I'd gotten into it with them more than once, and told them if I ever heard of the dog biting anyone, I would make it my crusade to get the dog put down because I considered it a danger.
One weekend morning the dog woke us up, as usual, at about six AM, yapping and snarling at something or other. I told the husbeast, "I wish they'd just eat that damn dog and be done with it." He started calling the dog Pot Roast. Our friends picked up on it and called the dog that - "Pot Roast growled at me, coming up the walk." The NEIGHBORS started calling the dog Pot Roast. It was never-ending. One freakin' stereotype and I never heard the end of it.
Months later, a game cock (fighting rooster? Cock fights? One of those) got loose from the farm down the hill from us and somehow wound up in the fenced back yard with Pot Roast. Pot Roast went in yapping and growling, and that bird kicked the ever-loving shit out of that dog. I didn't see anything, but it was one of the funniest things I've ever heard. "Yapyapyapyap. Bawk. BAWK. Yipeyipeyipewhine."
Knowing game cocks are big bucks, I was kind of worried for the bird, so I called down to the farm and told him his bird was loose. He came up and caught it, then came and knocked on my door to apologize and tell me the bird would never get loose again. (Imagine all this with a rabid chicken under his arm.) I told him it was quite all right, and if it was up to me, he could take his bird and throw it back over the fence and let it beat the shit out of the dog AGAIN.
We parted on good terms.
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Otherwise, I should be knitting, but instead, have begun spinning the alpaca. Intellectually, you know that different fibers need to be spun different ways, but this one was a kick in the ass for my technique. It's kind of a semi-worsted sort of thing and I think that's a long draw. I'm not sure. I'm improvising.
If you look closely, you can see my hair; it's the stuff that looks like it was cut with hedge trimmers. But the rest of the video impresses the hell out of me. It actually looks like I know what I'm doing. Huh.
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10 comments:
That looks very cool and very thin. Nice music too. I could hear the Goob humming in the background. I miss having a kid to play with.
You mean you're going to get a house and not live in the basement?
cool spinning! I vote for more spinning videos! :)
Back when you could ride clear around oahu for a quarter, I escaped from my family and di the trip, and over on the windward side of the island, a young fellow got on the bus with two big cardboard boxes. The bus went over a bump, and the boxes started crowing, then thumping and thrashing as the cocks inside tried to get out and kick each other's ass. Every time they'd start to settle down, the driver, laughing, would crow, and the birds would go insane with fury again. Grandmas and old Japanese gentlemen on the bus were laughing, and the poor bird owner was all fershummled. When he got off the bus, the boxes were the worse for wear, with holes torn in them, and one mad yellow eye peering out like a basilisk.
Ha! Interrupted every 5 minutes by the Goob? But that's normal! I've been wondering how you somehow didn't have that going on...
I did not know about Vivienne Westwood,not being remotely a fashion geek. Now I'm informed, thank you!
LOL--Roosters are TOUGH! My parents had a rooster that attacked a cousin... mom & dad killed the bird and served it to Dylan when he got back from the hospital with his stitches.
I love spinning alpaca. It feels different (duh) from merino and is so much fuzzier. Once it's plied, it's like a cloud pillow, soft and slightly fuzzy and just amazing.
I don't really have anything to add to the conversation but I couldn't resist letting you know that my word verification is: gunmint. Oh, and because I am so not a fashion geek I love your posts about clothes. If I gave it any thought at all I assumed ripped clothes and safety pins just happened.
Interesting technique. What are you doing with your left hand? (distributing twist to your satisfaction? protecting the upstream yarn from too much tension? something else?) I ask because when I've tried to spin alpaca, I end up with air yarn (no structural integrity) unless I put in way more twist than I arbitrarily want to.
With my chicken-photographing habit, I know what you are talking about when it comes to fighting cocks. A whole lot of people don't realize that "Leghorn" is a descriptive term: Leg. Horn. Spur!
I've used that song in cycling/spinning classes but it works for spinning-spinning as well.
As a western pennsylvanian in exile, if you are going to live anywhere close to Pittsburgh, expect lot of footfall and drinking. And don't miss out on Straub Beer from St. Mary's.
As for the roosters, my husband claims that the worst animals were geese (he spent summers reading meters for the power company) because - in his words - you can't Mace a goose. They have this nictitating membrane on their eyes that allow them to protect their eye while keeping their eyes open to rush you.
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