Disney’s so Magical, Even Twitter Comes to Life

More from the Schultzsters Adventure.  And what is an adventure without friends?  Anaheim happens to be the old stomping grounds of our fabulous friend, Tromboneforhire.  His new stomping grounds aren’t terribly far away, so we arranged an afternoon of adventures.

None of us had yet met Tromboneforhire in person, so it was very exciting.  “Does he know what he’s getting himself into?” Munchkinhead asked about his meeting the three of us at once.  I looked at her.  “Yes, he does,” we said together and laughed.  Twitter with our family is, if anything, a true representation of what it’s like to hang out with us.  “Was it weird meeting someone off Twitter?”  Mr. Trizzle asked later.  This is the fourth or fifth friend I’ve first met on Twitter and then hung out with, the first being Short Fabulous, so I had only excitement and extremely high expectations.  Tromboneforhire lived up to them.

Munchkinhead, Alfred and I were hanging out in the Lego store – the meeting point Tromboneforhire had designated – playing with the Lego people display.  I was digging through a tub of Legos when Munchkinhead looked at me and nodded behind me.  I turned around and there was Tromboneforhire, just chillin, watching us getting giddy over Legos.  I shrieked and threw my arms around him.  Sneaky man.

Greetings all around and we were off on our adventure around Downtown Disney.  We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant where Munchkinhead had a birthday margarita bigger than her head.  We did lots of window shopping and playing in the many toy stores and the ESPN store, including some dress up.  This may be my most favorite picture of Alfred, ever.

We wandered all over Downtown Disney and into one of the nearby resorts.  We finished off the afternoon at a Tiki bar where Munchkinhead drank brains out of a skull.  Alfred bought her the mug to take home with her, except they gave Munchkinhead the wrong, which wasn’t discovered until weeks after we were back home.  Sadness.  Or something.  That mug was incredibly scary so I’m not too sure it’s a bad thing she got the wrong one.

Alfred and I had fancy drinks, too, but we didn’t opt for keepsake mugs.  My drink set off a tidal wave or something in the bar.  The lights went dim, a boat in a glass display went all topsy turvy and the bartender sprayed patrons with a water gun.

It was a great afternoon spent strolling, chatting and being utterly silly.  What more could the Schultzsters want in an adventure?

The Four of Us Chillin with Lego Hulk

M-I-C. K-E-Y. M-O-U-S-

I’m sorry, you’re going to have to buy that last vowel.  That’s the standard impression of Disneyland anyway.  “How much did the mouse fleece you for?” was one of my friends’ first question when he learned we’d been there for the day.  Whatever the reputation, we still had fun.

Munchkinhead, Alfred and I were there for Munchkinhead’s 26th birthday.  Well, sort of .  I mean, we were at Disneyland for her birthday, but the being in Anaheim that facilitated going to Disneyland was the State Bar of California’s IP Institute.  If I just had to be in Anaheim the day after Munchkinhead’s birthday, we might as well go to Disneyland on her birthday, right?  Right.  So we took that train ride and went for a mouse-fleecing.

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Munchkinhead had gotten special birthday ears and we were each given a pin to show that we were celebrating her birthday.  We got all dolled up in our Disney paraphernalia, including Alfred in her “Hans Shot First” t-shirt and headed out for some Schultzsters adventure!

Our Super 8 was only a few blocks from the theme parks, so we walked over.  First stop, those funny pass things for Space Mountain, which Munchkinhead and Alfred both wanted to go on.  But before we went on any rides, we had a very special breakfast (2nd breakfast as Super 8 had breakfast included and we like to have about 2 of every meal.)  Breakfast with Minnie and friends!

We all got our pictures taken with a bunch of Disney characters.  Captain Hook tried to steal Alfred, who went rather willingly with a big smile on her face.  I was super excited to see that Minnie and I had on matching pantoloons.  And Munchkinhead got lots of autographs, which are still in my work notebook in my purse.  The Fairly Godmother was quite surprised that Munchkinhead’s Fairy Godmother doesn’t have a magic wand.

We had lots of great adventures throughout the day.  Almost everyone got to go on their favorite rides, except poor Munchkinhead.  And on her birthday!  It’s a Small World was closed.  Alfred took us on the Star Wars adventure ride, which my tummy wasn’t too happy about, even with medicine.  We hit my favorite, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride pretty early.  We also went on the Peter Pan ride and somehow I survived the Teacups.  We took turns riding solo on the 2-people rides.

Alfred and I made light sabers.  Hers was a Darth Vader replica for her husband.  Mine was me picking out the things I thought were pretty.  My lightsaber’s purple!  Like Samuel L. Jackson’s.  Oooh.  They guy helping us asked if we knew why is was purple.  Alfred started going on this long shpiel about Mace Windu and the dude’s like “cuz Samuel L. Jackson said he wanted it that way.”  Alfred was quite miffed, “I was answering in cannon.”  Shrug.  I like purple and Samuel L. Jackson, that was good enough for my light saber.

We went to the Tiki room, and Abraham Lincoln’s speech and watched a bit of Jedi training, and all sorts of fun stuff!  We also blew through the New Orleans section where Munchkinhead tried to knock over some lamp poles.  That’s pretty much on par with Captain Hook trying to steal Alfred.

All day long, everyone kept saying “Happy Birthday” to Munkchinhead.  Even the characters in the parade!  Tromboneforhire helped us out throughout the day, providing tips and tricks via Twitter and text.  He helped us get a great spot for the parade and navigate the park.  It was a very long and fun day.

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LA Should be Beautiful This Time of Year, All that Snow

We were standing next to the empty tracks shivering, Munchkinhead and me.  “Which sleeping car is it like?”  She asked me through chattering teeth.  “The second one,”  I replied bouncing up and down to stay warm.  We laughed.  No one had mentioned White Christmas, but I knew exactly what she was referencing, what she was asking about.  We’re sisters; we work like that.    At MKA Amtrak Station after Mommy dropped us off.

It was the start of our great #Schultzsters Adventure, a hashtag created for us by the darling Meg&Jack who rather adorably assumed we already called ourselves that.  We do now. 

The dates had been announced nearly a year ago.  The next California State Bar Intellectual Property Section Annual Intellectual Property Institute would be held on November 6th and 7th.  Our Executive Committee meeting would be held the day before that, on the 5th, exactly one day after Munchkinhead’s birthday.  When the location was announced, there was only one idea in my head.  The Orange County Hyatt at Disneyland.  “Hey Munchkinhead, wanna go to Disneyland for your birthday?”

Before long, we had a sleeper car room reserved on the Southwest Chief, going from Chicago through Kansas City to Los Angeles.  Through Kansas City?!  A little bit longer and lot bit prodding later, Alfred had a ticket to join us.  And we were off!

Munchkinhead and I started in Milwaukee on the Hiawatha and switched trains in Chicago.  Thanks to our sleeper car – and thanks to Amtrak’s fabulous reward miles program for that free sleeper! – we got to hang out in the fancy lounge where we giggled with anticipation as we ate peanut butter sandwiches out of a Victoria’s Secret bag.  Ah, lunch on the road.

We left Chicago just before 4pm and by 10ish, were in Kansas City, eagerly running around the platform looking for Alfred.  When she and Munchkinhead spotted each other on the platform, there was running from both directions and a giant group hug in the middle of the main walkway.  And chatter.  So much chatter.  Alfred slept in coach that first night and we traded the next night so she could have a bed, though I heard Munchkinhead made her climb into the upper berth.   Munchkinhead in our Sleeper Car, excited for the adventure.

 Schultzsters

We hung out together in our room and in the observation car, knitting, cross-stitching and watching the landscape run past.  At smoking breaks, where the train stops for longer amounts at a station and the passengers can detrain for a bit, we drank in fresh air, took pictures with the station signs and stood together singing “Snow. Snow. Snow. Snow. Snow!”  Apparently we were all trying to be Judy.

Me and Alfred in Albuquerque

Munchkinhead in San Bernadino

By the time we reached our final destination of Fullerton, CA, I think we were rather infamous among the train passengers.  Munchkinhead had been wearing her special Birthday Star plastic canvas crown around the train, especially to meals.  People not only wished her happy birthday when she had it on, they wished her happy birthday or asked if she was the birthday girl when she wasn’t wearing it.  The people near Alfred’s coach seat knew about our adventure and were very nice when I swapped places with her.  And then there was that thing with my phone.  It slid off the seat into a narrow crevice between the seat frame and the shelf/stairs for the upper bed.  It took two guys 20 minutes, a knife, a folded paper bag and a crowbar to retrieve it.  I’m still rather amazed they managed to do it.

We had a fabulous time riding the train together.  The trip seemed super short.  We’ll have to find somewhere to go together that takes longer to get to, and maybe to somewhere that actually has snow.

AMAZING!!!

When Alfred and I were little, we had a couple of cassette tapes that we absolutely loved.  Somehow, Mommy seems to now hate the one that was mine yet still enjoy the one that was Alfred’s, but I digress.

One of the fabulous songs from Wendy’s Little Brown Tape, which has made it into quite a few blog posts over the years, was “Mr. Computer Man.”  Mind you, this is on a cassette tape. This song was written, at the latest, sometime in the early 80s, when few people had computers in their homes.  It’s about how super smart computers are.

Alfred being a computer man.

There’s the computer, Mr. Computer Man, who probably would have talked like Stephen Hawking if Stephen Hawking had talked like that back then, and was a robotically clipped, stern male voice.  And then there were all the super impressed children who asked him questions.

“Mr. Computer Man, how much is two plus two?”
”Four.”
“AMAZING!!!” the kids would all yell.

Mr. Computer Man puts up with the kids’ questions for awhile, and then he starts getting smart-aleky.

“Mr. Computer Man, how do you spell Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?”
“With Letters.”
“AMAZING!!!!”

And of course, in a sort of Mr. Roboto fashion, a machine cannot be truly human and we must distinguish ourselves from the machines.  Human concepts cause overload.

“Hello, Mr. Computer Man, my name is Jenny.  I have a question for you.”
”Wait, Jenny does not compute.  What is your number please?”
”Number? I don’t have a number. I’m a person.”
”A person? A person?! AMAZING!!!!”

It’s difficult to spend more than a couple of days with any combination of me, Mommy, Alfred or Munchkinhead without hearing someone say “AMAZING!!!!”  not to mention answering questions with smart-aleky responses like “a heck of a lot.”

If I ever get one of those smart phones with a personality in it, I’m totally going to say “AMAZING!!!” to it every time it answers me.

Airplane Tetherball

My sister, Alfred, and I were very creative with the games we’d play growing up.  Often, we’d make our own version of some toy we wished we had or that our school or church had.  My post about our attempts to bungee jump is one example.  We even made our own tetherball, sort of.

Our shared bedroom had a little alcove in it with a lower-than-average ceiling.  - The alcove I wrote about in Don’t Shoot, I’m Not a Real Princess! – The ceiling was low enough that if I stood on my bed in the alcove, I could touch the ceiling.  The ceiling had a light fixture on it.  A round fixture with a round, bulbous frosted glass cover.  The frosted glass cover was held into the metal fixture by 3 screws.  The screws were evenly placed around the fixture and held the frosted glass cover in place by the pressure the bottom of the screw placed on the cover’s rim.  This meant the screws were not screwed in tight such that there was space between the screw head and the fixture rim.  This is relevant, just wait.

Alfred had a toy airplane.  A plastic, Fisher Price airplane that had little round-hole seats in it for passengers and a pilot.  The plane was rather large, probably about a foot long and a foot in wingspan.  It had wheels and coming off the nose was a long yellow plastic cord so that the plane could be pulled along.

For some reason, we decided this large, heavy, plastic airplane would make a great tetherball.  So we took that yellow pull-cord and tied it to one of the screws on the light fixture.  The cord fit perfectly in that little space between the screw head and the fixture rim.

Then, Alfred stood and I kneeled on my bed and we batted the plane back and forth at each other, ducking to dodge hard swings and smacking it back at the other person.  It was all great fun.

It was all great fun until the one time we were playing with it and the round, bulbous frosted glass fixture broke.  Broken frosted glass all over my bed.  Pooey.  The airplane didn’t hit the glass.   We didn’t really know why it broke.  Even looking back, I’m not sure.  Perhaps the screw with the plane on it was twisted just enough to put too much pressure on the cover’s rim, maybe it was tweaked at an angle that pierced the glass and caused it to shatter, maybe the screw came loose and the cover fell out and hit something on the way down.

I also don’t remember getting in trouble, but I’m sure we must have.  We certainly didn’t play airplane tetherball again.

The Road to being Stuck in Your Room is Paved with Good Intentions

It was June, the summer after 6th grade.  My sisters and I had some sort of fake slumber party on the hide-a-bed.  I don’t remember the details.  The middle of the day on Saturday, Mommy and Daddy had gone out for a walk.

My sisters and I wanted to make Daddy something for Father’s Day but we needed supplies.  There was a JoAnn’s not too far away; Alfred and I rode our bikes there frequently, just over a mile.  Munchkinhead was too          Us, a few months later
little to  ride that far; she was only about 3 years old.  We decided we’d walk.

We cleaned up our slumber party.  Sort of.  Figuring we’d want to play again later, instead of folding the hide-a-bed back into the couch, we made the bed up and tucked all our stuffed animals into it. 

We cleaned anything else we’d been playing with.  We left a message for Mommy and Daddy in the living room, checked that all the doors were locked, took our house key and set off for the store, pulling Munchkinhead in the little red wagon.  We took an umbrella with us in case it rained while we were away.

We were pleased with ourselves, feeling we had remembered to do everything we were supposed to do.  We were having fun together and excited about making something nice for Daddy.  How were we supposed to know Mommy and Daddy hadn’t taken a house key with them?

They couldn’t get in.  They couldn’t get our message.  They didn’t know where we were.  And, it had started raining.  Apparently, these circumstances make parents freak out.

Mommy and Daddy found us with the little red wagon, next to the McDonald’s, heading out of the Plaza parking lot.

I don’t remember what Daddy got for Father’s Day that year.  It couldn’t have been good because I remember we spent a lot of time looking at puffy paint supplies.  I know what I got though.  Grounded.  For being irresponsible by not anticipating the facts I didn’t know.  And for making my sisters go with me.  They didn’t get in trouble at all.  “They’re too young to know better.”  Harumph.  And yes, 20 years later I am still bitter.

But I’ll tell you this much, as a grown-up, I’m pretty darn good at anticipating a whole lot of “what-if” scenarios and preparing for most of them.

Guardrail, 10. Alfred, 0.

“Here, I’ll test it for you, ok?”  I leaned the guardrail against the wall.   My little sister, Alfred, and I were the kinds of kids who turned everything into a jungle gym, even our grandfather.  Our bunk beds  made a much better jungle gym without that pesky safety guardrail on the top bunk.

--  The beds had been my father’s growing up and so were quite sturdy.  The guardrail was a long piece of solid wood with thick grooves for sliding onto the head- and footboards. 

  When Alfred and I wanted to play on the bunk beds, I’d crawl up onto the top bunk or stand on the side-rail of the bottom bunk and carefully, and slowly, lift the heavy guardrail off the bed.  It was unwieldy and difficult to move, being so heavy and long.  I’d prop it against the bedroom wall, where it would lean, towering over us, twice the height of Alfred.

And then it would fall on Alfred.  No matter how carefully I leaned it.  Now matter the angle I put it at.  No matter what, it would topple over onto Alfred the minute she stepped near it.  I’d place  it on the wall and walk back and forth in front of it, testing it, seeing if any floor boards would creak and knock it off balance.  I’d stand in front of and jump up and down.  I’d go across the room and run past the guardrail.  It would stand still, perfectly still against the bright yellow wall.  --

With trepidation, Alfred took one step, two steps, nearing the guardrail.  She just had to pass it to get to the bunk beds.  Three steps.  Almost directly in front of it.  Four ste—CRASH!  The guardrail came tumbling down on her.  Poor Alfred; she couldn’t win.

My friend, Crystal, on the bunk beds without the guardrail.

Munchkinhead on the bunk beds with the guardrail up.

 

 

The only sliver of wall where I could lean the guardrail.  Facing this spot, the bunk beds are at 8 o’clock.

 

 

Picture up top: Alfred standing where the guardrail would fall, a little older than when it would fall on her.

Bungee Fun, or Not-So-Fun

There was a comic in the paper the other week that made me chuckle quite hard; one of those ones that’s super funny because you see your own experiences in it.  It was from Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott.  Mom and Dad are in their bedroom trying to figure out why their pajama and sweatpants  are missing the elastic from around the waist.  Hammie and Zoe, their son and daughter, are in the back yard.  Hammie is high atop a ladder with a string of elastic tied around his waist, wearing a football helmet and saying “I’ve always wanted to bungee jump.”

We tried that once, too.  Only instead of stealing the elastic out of our parents clothes – which as someone who sews, I can tell you would be a lot more trouble than it’s worth – we got a bunch of bungee cords from the garage.  We climbed onto the top of the large monkey bars in the back yard and hooked one of the bungee  cords’ metal ends through a hole for the swing’s S hook.  Then I held onto the other end and jumped.

Monkey bars and S hooks for swings.

It didn’t work.  The bungee cord hook came out of the S hook hole.  *Thud*  I hit the sand hard. 

Luckily, the swing set wasn’t that high, only about 8 feet or so, and we fell and jumped off it so often that it didn’t hurt.  Well, it hurt, falling 8 feet hurts, but we didn’t get injured.

Alfred jumping from the swing and missing the monkey bar grab

Next, we tried making bungee swings by putting bungee cords into the swing S-hook holes and hooking the other end of the bungee cord into the swing’s chain links.  That sort of worked but wasn’t nearly as much fun as it seemed it ought to be.  In the end, we decided the swing set was far more fun without bungee cords.  Now I only use them for moving furniture.

 

 

Long Live the Little Green Men!

You gotta watch out for people getting you back, especially the ones you didn’t even realize you “got” in the first place.

I’d left my dorm room unlocked.  I always left my dorm room unlocked.  There wasn’t anything valuable that could be taken with ease – my speakers were 5ft around – and my sorority-sisters neighbors were usually milling about that end of the hall.  But there was no denying that if I’d locked the door, I wouldn’t be dealing with this …. this what?  It wasn’t really a mess and was only slightly annoying.

Army men.  They were everywhere.  I opened my dresser drawer; army man.  I pulled down a shoe box; army man.  I put on a pair of pants and put my hand in the pocket; army man.  There was even one in the mini fridge’s freezer!  “He’s in Siberia,” my clearly guilty next door neighbor grinned.  I was finding those army men until well after I moved out of that dorm room.  Thanks Amanda.

But as I said, she was just “getting me back.”  Except, I hadn’t filled her room with army men.  No, the little green men first appeared elsewhere on campus, all over campus, thanks to another sorority sister, a trip to Leon’s and the dollar store that just happened to be on the way home. 

A tradition was born, and that tradition continues.

Mommy found one somewhere the other week.  Likely a remnant of   the attack of all attacks just before I left for Zambia.  There’s a lot of good hiding spots in a house with 3 floors.  They’re sneaked into the bottom of packages and carried along in suitcases on visits.  One of the original instigators’ daughter has her own toddler-appropriate army man.   Gummy army men were passed around for holidays and birthdays – I heard they were quite delicious.  One of my  sorority sisters even incorporated them into her wedding!

 

And this past Christmas, Alfred got me the most amazing and absolutely perfectly appropriate present.  A snowflake ornament made out of army men!  I love snow.  She found it on etsy.  It’s super cute and very ingenious.

Skulls for School: Sewing with Alfred

“When you come to visit, will you help me with a sewing project?” Alfred asked during one of our excited phone calls leading up to my visit.  “Of course.”  Alfred’s a pretty simple person, so I figured whatever she wanted couldn’t be too complicated.  I was sort of right.

Alfred explained that at her work – she works at a dental school – there’s a lot of old xrays that she’s helping to catalogue.  The school has a special scanner for digitizing these xrays, and dust was getting into the scanner. Dust in the scanner is not a good thing.  She heard of another group who had a cover for their xray machine and thought her school should have one, too. 

Mommy had just made a plethora of really cute sewing machine covers for her hoards of sewing machines.  “Ok,” I thought, “I can just modify Mommy’s sewing machine cover pattern a little bit.”  That general idea worked, but it turned out to be more than “just” and way more than “a little bit.”  The xray scanner is rather huge.

It’s deep; you can see here it’s as deep as the counter, which is deeper than the computer tall.  It’s tall, almost two-computer towers tall.  And it’s wide.  It’s also not as nicely rectangular as Mommy’s sewing machines.

Alfred and I went to her work and took measurements of the scanner, every dimension.  Then we headed off to her local JoAnn’s to find the perfect fabric.

And boy did we ever find the perfect fabric!  Luckily, JoAnn still had some old Halloween fabric on clearance.  It took us about a half hour and two sweeps of the whole store to find it, but once we did, Bingo!  Dancing skeletons for the main body and teethy skulls for the ruffle trim.  Perfect for the scanning dental xrays.

 

The machine cover pattern Mommy had used had a few odd errors in it, which were compounded when I multiplied fabric-piece measurements to match the behemoth machine.  I found myself trimming off extra inches on the main piece after it was assembled.  And somehow, I didn’t multiply enough for the trim fabric, so the ruffle couldn’t go all the way around and still be a ruffle.  That turned out to actually be a good think as there wasn’t enough room behind the machine for a ruffle anyway.

Alfred’s machine was not a fan of stitching on the heavy batting and I repeatedly had to pull tangled masses of thread out of the bobbin feeder.   Alfred shrugged; she had no idea how to make it work better and neither did I.  In a final fit of frustration, I called Mommy.  She waved her magic Mommy wand and the machine started behaving.  I don’t know how she does it, but that always seems to work.

By the time I finished sewing the lining into our giant, quilted box, I wanted to hide inside of it and scare Nathy-Boo.  It seemed the perfect size.  I was wrong; I’m bigger than I think.

When it was all done, we took the new machine cover to Alfred’s work and put it on the machine.  It fit nicely, yay!  I hope they have been getting good use out of it.

Pattern: Moda's Half Moon Modern Sewing Room: Sewing Machine Cover

Purple Peasant

Sometimes, I go for a little walk over the Plaza and wander through the aisles of JoAnn’s, looking at pretty fabrics and silly socks and fun trinkets.  On one of these little excursions, I happened to find this beautiful sheer purple fabric.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to make something for Alfred.

There wasn’t a lot left on the bolt, so I bought it all and added it to my stash.  As Christmas neared, I thought about what I could do with the fabric.  It was such a light and whispy fabric, it had to made into something that would allow it to flow.  I dug through my pattern boxes and found a cute peasant skirt pattern that I could alter a tad.

The purple fabric was extremely see-through, so I knew I needed a lining.  The pattern wasn’t lined, but I’ve gotten pretty good at lining un-lined patterns.  With a skirt like this, with a yoke top, it’s pretty easy to add lining layers to the bottom of the yoke facing rather than turning it under and sewing it to the yoke.

I had some gauze fabric left from pajamas I made for Mr. Trizzle a few years ago.  It wasn’t enough for the whole skirt, but it was a start.  Luckily, JoAnn’s still carried it and I was able to purchase the little bit more I needed.

I think it turned out pretty well.  I haven’t seen Alfred in it, so I don’t actually know if it fits or if she likes it, but then, it is more of a summer skirt and there’s a few more months to go until it’s summer in Ohio.

Pattern: McCalls M5108  

Football and all those Famous Folks

This past holiday season, I had the wonderful opportunity of going to visit Alfred and Nathy-Boo at their home in Cleveland.   My dearest sister put up with me let me stay for a whole week!  We had tons of fun.

Now, in case you haven’t noticed from previous posts (about skirts and socks and life), Alfred is a huge Packer fan.  And I’m pretty fond of football as well.  So I knew she’d at least think about it when I begged, “Can we go to the Football Hall of Fame? Please? Pretty please?”  And we did.

One snowy morning, we got in her car, fishtailed out the driveway and sludged down the freeway to Canton and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  It’s a drive that, to Alfred, is a bit of a roadtrip, but in Bay Area terms is just around the corner.  We had fun counting cars spun out in the ditches on our way there.

The museum – or whatever it is – is pretty neat.  I liked the exhibit on old football gear the best.  My top favorite was the old nose guard that was supposed to prevent broken noses.  Players stopped using it when it became apparent that the guard caused more broken noses than it prevented.  Reminds me a bit of discussions around a current piece of equipment…

The busts of all the inductees was pretty neat, too, especially since there’s so many Packers.  Sadly, there’s less Packers than Bears.  The video display of Ditka is also very cool, but Ditka’s such a part of American culture now that anything with him would be cool.  I didn’t know he used to be a player, so I learned something new!

Alfred didn’t take too kindly to one of the displays, which amused some of the other patrons.

The part of our visit that surprised me most was something that shouldn’t have been surprising; I’d just forgotten.  We were practically the only females in the place, and definitely the only females without male accompaniment, even though it was quite busy.  You see, where we come from, everyone’s a football fan.  There’s no such thing as football widows.  The loudest screamers and angriest yellers are always my aunts.  Mommy’s great-nieces have jerseys practically as soon as their born, same as her great-nephews.  But I guess the rest of the country isn’t quite the same.  Wisconsinites really are the luckiest people on earth.

And we got our picture taken with the Lombardi trophy!

Christmas Dresses

It’s almost Christmas and I’m soon headed back to the land of milk and cheese to celebrate with my wonderful family. In the spirit of Christmas and family and all that fabulous stuff, I wanted to share one of my favorite holiday traditions: new Christmas dresses.

New Christmas dresses are extra special.  Not only are the new and for Christmas Eve at Grandmas, they’re made with tender loving care.  Every year growing up, Mommy would take us to the fabric store a month or so before Christmas to pick out our patterns and fabrics.  Christmas always had the fanciest fabrics of the year, velvets and satins and rich colors. 

We’d sit at the pattern table pouring through books, me driving Mommy nuts with “could you change this to this and remove this and add this?”  And Alfred driving us all nuts complaining she didn’t like the color of the dress in the book.  (For those who don’t sew, you can make the dress whatever color you want.) 

After we finally picked our patterns, including Mommy picking out her own, we’d head into the fabric section to continue driving Mommy crazy by either picking out the most expensive or most difficult to sew fabrics, slippery fabrics that would slide off the machine, patterned fabrics that would need to be lined up and crazy fabrics that were not suited to the pattern we’d just picked out.  Mommy would talk us into something more reasonable or somehow make the fabric work.
My sisters and me in our slippery fabrics. (and the only time you’ll see Alfred in better shoes than me.)

Sometimes, Alfred and Munchkinhead and I would all match.  Sometimes, Mommy would match, too.  One year, Mommy made Munchkinhead and Alfred’s Barbies Christmas dresses to match their own.  I was Mommy’s Barbie because we had matching dresses, too.

And there was that year I wanted my dress to be just like one of my Holiday Barbies’.  Poor Mommy; that must have been an extra headache.  That particular Holiday Barbie wore a long, poofy, green velvet frock with detailed beading all up the bodice and sparkles from the hem up.  Mommy did a pretty good job coming up with something close.

Barbie is the one on the left.

The dresses didn’t always turn out perfect - there was that one year she put my skirt on Alfred’s bodice and vice versa.  Alfred had a very beautiful flowy gown, and I had a mini-dress. And my size in high school and college fluctuated so much dresses often barely fit by Christmas – but we always loved our Christmas dresses.

Now that I’m too big to live at home, I make my own Christmas dresses.  It doesn’t always go well and they’re never as pretty as Mommy’s, but it’s still fun.

Incidentally, that dress was from last Christmas and it no longer fits, but the dress Mommy made me in 1998 still does.

Packer Socks

They were supposed to be Alfred’s birthday present, but with a supply delay and my own busy schedule, they turned into Alfred’s one-month-after-birthday present.

I’d been wanting to make some cable-knit socks, and when I saw that green and gold Team Spirit yarn, I just knew I had to make something for Alfred.  I poured through pattern book after pattern book at knitting group.  I scoured the internet.  But I just couldn’t find a cable-knit sock pattern I liked.

Then I found this leg warmer pattern.  So I started knitting it, but Alfred’s not a leg warmer person.  I decided I’d try turning the leg warmer pattern into socks by referring to the pattern for my lace stockings.  It sort of worked, but the upper part was still very legwarmer-y and was far too large to be part of a sock.  So I started over.

I looked at the leg warmer pattern, and the stocking pattern, and the footed legwarmer I’d just made. I grabbed a pencil and some paper and started writing.  Two months later, Alfred had her new socks.

They aren’t perfect.  Alfred mentioned them to me on the phone one day, “one looks like it was made for Daddy and the other looks like it was made for Munchkinhead.”  (except she calls Munchkinhead by her real name.)  That’s my Alfred, never one to beat around the bush and always one too look a geschenkten gaul in the mouth.  “Hush, wash them and wear them and they’ll wind up the same size eventually.”

She confirmed that once she put them on, they both fit.

 

yarn: Red Heart Team Spirit in green/gold

Happy Anniversary Alfred and Nathy-Boo!

Today is Alfred and Nathy-Boo’s first anniversary. Since I didn’t post about their wedding a year ago, I figured this is a good occasion to do so.

The air was moist and warm, droplets of imagined rain clung to the ferns. Munchkinhead and I ducked under a banana tree leaf and giggled. Paradise. Nearly everywhere you turned there was lush green foliage or a burst of flowers. Hard to believe it was 40 and rainy outside. No, we weren’t in a jungle. Munchkinhead and I were just pretending we were in a jungle. Where we really were was the rehearsal for Alfred and Nathy-Boo’s wedding.

A truly exotic location, Des Moines, Iowa.

I’ve been to quite a number of weddings over the years and I have to say that this one was by far the best wedding I’ve attended.  It was well-organized, beautiful, economically, delightfully representative of the bride and groom, tons of fun and just over all amazing.  And I’m not just saying that because it was my sister’s.  Alfred knows I’d tell her if I thought she could have done better.
Alfred did pretty much all of the planning herself. The venue was delightful: the Des Moines Botanical Center.  A beautiful glass dome arcing high above succulent gardens with a small stream where colorful fish flipped their tales. Banana tree leaves and spindly flowers waved in the breezes created by people walking down the cobblestoned paths.  The moist, warm air inside hid any indication of the cold April gloom covering the outside world.  Why fill a church with expensive flowers when you can have the convenience of an indoor garden?

Alfred’s dress was, of course, absolutely beautiful.  A simple woman of logic and practicality, she is nothing of the diva that her two sisters are. Her dress showed this perfectly, classic, yet elegant, with just a touch of sparkle in the purple embroidered flowers at the bottom of the white satin.  Being as cold-blooded as the rest of her clan, she has had a matching bolero for the reception.
Her bridesmaids dresses also exemplified an important part of her nature, her consideration for others. Knowing that the fairer sex is prone to fluctuations in body size and shape, and having her bridesmaids coming from across the country, Alfred chose an adjustable option for the dresses. Purple satin corsets with matching long skirts.  Of course, Mommy made all the dresses, her own, the bridesmaids and Alfred’s.

Standing at the front of the garden with the other bridesmaids, I couldn’t help but tear up. Not only did Alfred look so beautiful and happy, but Daddy was tearing up next to her. How could anyone not get misty eyed seeing that?

The ceremony was short and sweet, presided over by the pastor from our home church in Milwaukee who came all the way to Iowa on Easter weekend just to marry Alfred and Nathy-Boo. And then the bride and groom walked together down the aisle to music from Star Wars. Geeks.

And then the real fun began, the reception. Every person had a gift to take home with them, lovely nameplates cross-stitched by the bride herself.  Alfred and Nathy-Boo also made all the centerpieces for the dinner tables, out of Legos! No one can tell me they’ve had better center pieces.  The small cake above the mountains of cupcakes was also Lego-themed, with a small corner of icing peeled back to revel bricks beneath  and a Lego bride and groom up top.
The cupcakes provided lots of amusement throughout the night as the cake part, and the fillings inside were quite delicious, but the frosting was a bit too much for anyone. Tables were covered with mounds of frosted peaks carefully removed from little cakes. Mugs overflowed with the pastel swirls, looking like fancy lattes.  One of our aunts had close to a dozen cupcakes and left a fine frosting display around her table place.

Alfred and Nathy-Boo’s music was perfect. All their favorites. I don’t think the dance floor was empty the entire night.  A ridiculous line formed across the middle for the “Time Warp”.  Munchkinhead and I waltzed to Metallica and danced with Daddy to the family theme song. Mommy and Daddy danced to their song. Alfred and I played air piano to “November Rain.” And we all polkaed.

It was a fabulous night. Wonderful to see so many family members and old friends and an absolute blessing to see Alfred and Nathy-Boo so happy. Congratulations on a fantastic wedding and on your anniversary!

Photo by Jill Brown

Adventures from Home: the Zoo

Way back when, now about 6 months ago, I was frolicking around Milwaukee with my delightful and adorable younger sisters.  We have a bit of a tradition amongst ourselves that whenever we are all home we go to a Milwaukee field trip or tourist destination.  Most often, since we are most often all home together around the Christmas holidays, we go to the Milwaukee Public Museum.  This time, however, we thought we’d take advantage of being home together in the middle of summer, and we head off to the Milwaukee County Zoo.

Like the museum, we’ve been going to the zoo pretty much our whole lives, on school field trips and random adventures with friends.  When I first started college at Carroll, the school had a day outing to the zoo where we could meet our future roommates.  Being long-familiar with the exhibits and offerings of the zoo, we all have our favorite spots.  My personal favorite is the petting zoo and, for some reason, the very steep valley that goes under the zoo-train tracks on one of the main walking paths.

At the museum, we like to imitate the exhibits.  We tried to do this at the zoo.  It did not work as well; the animals keep moving!

We found being the topiary, signs and statues a much easier task.

 

Since we don’t come to the zoo very often, we decided to have an extra special treat and take a ride on the zoo train!  We all remembered liking the zoo train.  We did not remember it being so small!  Even Munchkinhead’s knees were up to her chest.   We had excellent timing for as soon as we boarded the train, a light drizzle started.

Rain continued on and off the rest of the afternoon, culminating in a fierce thunderstorm that made us feel like we were in Jurassic Park, all the more so for the scary dinosaur topiary with beady yellow eyes.

Standing in the foyer of the conference room building watching the wind toss around heavy tree branches, lightening momentarily sending spooky shadows everywhere, we decided to make a run for it.  To the aviary building.  Our umbrellas protected us from things worse than rain.