I emerge from the sewing table to report

My marathon sewing weekend has lasted all week. So far, I've finished that red dress (yes!), made a skirt, hemmed a pair of Jonathan's pants, made a fuzzy bright blue elf coat for Meg that only needs about 5 more inches of pompoms sewn on, started revamping a clearance sequined shirt*, and boldly attempted a nightgown. The nightie failed pretty epically, like one of those legendary Pinterest fails, but one's artistic vision must be allowed to bloom, to range freely! The true chef must be willing to try things that do not work. Anyone can cook - only the fearless can become great!

Ahem. I fell into Ratatouille there for a minute. It's been a pretty productive week, sartorially speaking, except for the nightie. I have also schemed up about four more projects that I may or may not get to before I have to put the sewing machine away. We might decide we want that table for eating or something ridiculous like that.



*This shirt is a really darling turquoise with silver sequins in a chevron pattern (trend alert: check, check, check, and check), but it's one of those cropped swing tops that are enormously wide. It would cover about two of me... call it one and a half. Me and Meg.

Meg quotes

Meg was describing the picture on the card to me. Jonathan was halfway across the room on the computer. "And I believe that is an ostrich. He's turning the light on and off! He's using his nose since he doesn't have no hands."

Reflexively and in unison, despite the fact he wasn't even paying attention, Jonathan and I both said, "Doesn't have any hands." Some corrections are so deep-rooted we don't even need to rehearse. :-) Incidentally, DRAT that Mr. Lunt. I don't care what VeggieTales thought they were doing: they are teaching my daughter lousy grammar.


Then tonight I was putting Meg to bed. She yelped, "No! Not yet! I need--" and looked wildly around the room for inspiration! I enjoy these iconic parenting moments.

I was noticing Black Widow

On Saturday we got to go on a date and see The Avengers again. This time I noticed that Black Widow's character was subtler than I'd realized. She's actually quite feminine, especially considering she's a spy and assassin who beats people up regularly. I think you could say she has weaponized her femininity.

She always conducts her interrogations from a posture of vulnerability, making her target think he's in control, and finding out exactly what she wants before regaining control of the conversation. She did it to the Russian arms dealer in her first scene (so funny), and she did it again to Loki, leaving him gaping like a fish. "Thank you for your cooperation."

Do you remember in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, how Mrs. Smith always seemed so insecure? She just couldn't bear to let Mr. Smith have a bigger gun. She couldn't let anyone else be or even feel in control. She refused to follow anyone's orders. She had to prove that she was just as good and better than any man, at any cost, and to the point that anything traditionally feminine was a very serious threat. I feel like a lot of female superheros have a similar problem.

Black Widow has a very similar "specific skill set" to Mrs. Smith, but she really didn't have those issues. I wonder if it has anything to do with her Russian background? She usually carried a small gun. She didn't make a fuss about it, but she tended to cooperate with other people's battle plans, even when the other person was male. She made peace within the group. She persuaded whenever possible, instead of starting with violence. She was willing to hostess people around the airship and perform secretary-ish jobs that could have been considered beneath her dignity. She let other people do their thing, and she accomplished her thing very well, very creatively, and not remotely the way a man would do it. Also, she was a lot of fun to watch on-screen. I think Joss Whedon did a great job with her.

The white ice skates of happiness

Of all things, the thrift store had a pair of little ice skates this morning! They're white with red edging and a double blade and are about two sizes too big for Meg, which in my opinion is just about perfect: she might get to wear them for two winters. I already have a pair of white ice skates which I haven't used since Meg came along. Now we can both go.

There's a rink in Ashburn which has free admission for the three-and-under crowd. Skate rentals are usually $4. According to my calculations, since we've both got skates now, we can both get in for $8. I think her 20%-off-$7.50 skates are going to earn their keep very quickly.

I love finding treasures.

Green means go!

Meg has been paying close attention to traffic lights, and always tells us whether it's time to stop or go. But tonight she was very disappointed. The light turned green instead of pink.

Weekend doings

This weekend we went adventure camping on Assateague, almost looked at a half-a-duplex that sold in about 24 hours of coming on the market, and (just now) discovered that the line between a fancy French cream sauce and a not fancy at all Western white gravy is really, really thin. It's good, whichever it is. I put sage in it. I hope someday to have a house of our own to make it in. Or, of course, I could take the fixings and make it over a Sterno stove while camping, but that doesn't sound very probable.

Also today I was brave and got back up on a horse. Charlie's a good horse, but he doesn't believe in "slow" and he's not as smooth and short and, well, slow as Navarre. But all went well.

Munch, munch, said the black hole

As a star gets sucked into a black hole, it sends out an oscillation or "quasiperiodic wobble" that we can pick up on earth.

"You can think of it as hearing the star scream as it gets devoured, if you like," says the astronomer who co-authored the paper. The scream was an ultra-low D sharp.

The illustrated Dante

Someone has gone to the trouble of illustrating Dante's Divine Comedy as a manga. You too can now read it as a comic strip with the dialogue of Cary's and Longfellow's translations. It's kind of... helpful, actually. Also odd.

Meg meets the LOTR characters

"That's Sauron. He looks upset. He must be out of coffee." Jonathan

"No, Uruk-Hai, not Mordecai. Trust me, they're different." Jonathan

"A man with a sword... an elf with a shield... and three brave hobbits." Jonathan
"Let's count them! One, two, three!" Meg

However, I am slightly heartbroken, because after seeing Lord of the Rings pictures she started singing songs from the VeggieTales "Lord of the Beans." We have failed her.

The eggs

Also today, I was amused at the difference between my and Meg's approaches to putting the Easter eggs away in their carton.

I arrange them in rainbow order in matched pairs and then go hunting around the house for the missing yellow one.

Meg comes behind me and fixes them so they're all turned right side up. Then she moves them around, puts smaller toys inside them, and might add in an egg from another set (heresy!). She also makes sure that the stuffed animals watching are in straight lines.

Then I come behind her and put them back in color order.

We deserve each other.