#winsh 15. Create a set of artsy magnets for your fridge.   almost magnets. 

truly. i shouldn’t say a word this evening.  so i won’t.

I was listening in on a small meeting for an individual kid the other day and I was taken aback by something that was said.  Not judgmentally.  Either by me or the person who said it.   It just surprised me and got me thinking.  Someone said that it would be easier for a certain kid if you could tell by looking at him- that he looks like a normal kid and that makes it harder in situations. 

Let me ‘splain.  There are three kids in my class who have special needs and special one-on-one helpers in addition to varying degrees of pull-out instruction.  One of them has Down Syndrome.  Pretty obvious.  You know that she’s not going to have the same abilities as a “normal” first grader.  What you don’t know is that she has a very naughty sense of humor.  One of the kids has Asberger’s Syndrome.  Is it obvious when you first meet him?  I don’t remember.  I do know he makes me smile when he says “right you are, Mrs. Sunshine”.  I know that he can read anything and that he loves to write.  Even though he went through a phase when in his stories he flushed his mother down the toilet.  We’ve worked through that.  And he’s always talking about Becky from “Roseanne” and he’s decided his last name is Connor now.  I suppose you notice when you talk to him that something is a little sideways.  Then there’s the 3rd kid.  He looks like a regular kid and I think when you talk to him he seems like a regular kid too.  The only word he can write independently is his name (and it has a preschool feel to it.)  There was talk of him being the lowest skilled child that the Autistic Support teacher has ever seen.  That’s where the comment came in.  That if it was obvious, we wouldn’t have unreasonable expectations for him.  The general public (or whoever) would know how to treat him.  (Which is actually an incredibly unrealistic thought, since the trained professionals in the school haven’t figured out how to get the best out of this kid. It seems to take a long time to figure out what’s up with a kid- since it’s so often a process of elimination.)

But none of us come with care instructions printed on our labels.  No sign that says, “I may look like I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t.”  No sign that says, “I didn’t get enough sleep last night, use gentle cycle.”  No sign that says, “Don’t single me out, it makes me nervous.” No sign that says, “I need a hug.” “I need a smile.” “Please tell me it’s going to be ok.” 

I really like this video.  I like the idea of a thought bubble that could give everyone a clue.  Life would be so much easier if my daughters had thought bubbles.  Although sometimes it seems like they don’t even know what’s bothering them. 

But we don’t have thought bubbles either.  So I guess we’re stuck with paying attention.  Can we figure out every secret just by paying attention?  Probably not.  But surely some of them, some of the time.  And maybe that’s good enough.

For something completely different.  My “altar”, so to speak.

Family isn’t always the people on the family tree.

On Valentine’s Day, I got a gift I didn’t expect.  Wouldn’t expect.  Never imagined it even to expect it.  It wasn’t a Valentine’s gift at all, that just was the day of delivery.  I know a wonderful woman, an interesting woman, an astoundingly brave and generous woman.  I first met her, actually I have no idea how I first met her, but I think it had to do with sewing.  I’ve been doing alterations for her for years.  There are times when I think she shops just to get me things to hem.  Over these years, she has ended up hearing stuff, because she works some wiles on me to get me to talk.  She’s heard my gripes about church stuff, family stuff, school stuff.  I’ve had a lot of gripes over the years.  I swear that she opened that gate for me (probably shopped just so I could release emotions).  For a long while it seemed pretty one-sided, but I think maybe it really isn’t any more.  I know her daughter very well and have done things for her grandchildren and have occasionally sat with her as she recovered from one of her bazillion back surgeries.  However, I completely feel like she has done much more for me than I have done for her.

She was very supportive of my grad school thing.  And I knew she wanted to give me a graduation gift.  I figured I had no choice- it was going to happen.  The last time she mentioned it, when we were fitting her dress for her son’s wedding, the talk was of a Barnes and Noble gift card.  I was groovy with that.  If I had to get an unnecessary gift, I could accept a gift card for books (and coffee).

Well, Thursday she asked me to stop by if I was out and about.  I was, so I did.  She walked with me out to her car, opened the trunk, and said the box in the trunk was for me.  Chin hit pavement.  Because this is what was in the box.

The mothership of all mixers.  She gave me a freaking Kitchenaid mixer.  The Enterprise. (Don’t you think it looks a little like Star Trek?  maybe Bake Trek? nevermind)  I just looked at her.  With my mouth hanging open.  And I cried, boys and girls.  Cried like a baby.  I’m crying again.  Because what do you say to a person who cares enough about you to buy you something so fine. 

Yes, I’ve wanted one. For years.  But couldn’t justify the expense.  Other priorities and all.

To celebrate my new domesticity, I have become one with bread.  Yesterday I made bricks.    Well, not bricks but very short bread, because yesterday I had trouble reading recipes.  Today I made this beautiful thing.  It’s Kale bread.  And everyone likes it.  Also I made butter.  Homemade butter and warm kale bread was the closest thing to heaven.

Tomorrow I must make cookies for small people.  Then I need to figure out something to do with The Enterprise that isn’t baking. And I need to figure out how to say thank you.

I was watching my current obsession tonight.  Torchwood.  Anyway, it’s about aliens and good stuff like that.  In this episode, one of the characters was talking about a woman who, after finding out that aliens really exist, couldn’t deal with being in the world because she felt so small.  For some reason this struck me as strange.  Perhaps I’m wrong.  Perhaps this is why people leave this world- because they feel they are insignificant.  But I heard this line and thought that we are small.  And that’s the best part. 

Because I find a world that is small to be far more terrifying.  The worst times of my life were when my world was just my little people.  Love them, but woah it was hard for me to be the sun, moon, and stars to needy creatures.  Or even worse, when my world was my head.  And that’s just my egocentric thoughts on smallness.  Once you open up smallness to the whole world, we pull in bigotry and politics and religious zealots.  And what do I need to say about that.

Except  take a giant step outside your mind.

And then there’s the small world of connection.  I started (again) reading a book today. And inside this book were treasures of the smallness of my world.  The main character was chitchatting in his head about a tv show I used to watch and that a friend had just mentioned that she’s currently watching with her SO.  There were other connections like states and blue laws and nationalities.  I had a conversation with someone about something (and now I forget what it is, because I’m living that kind of life right now) and someone completely different mentioned the same topic.  And I’m getting so that I don’t think “woah” anymore- I just think “cool”.

Speaking of cool.  Well, not really cool in either sense of the word.  More like geeky and kinda scratchy (because it’s wool).  I finished.  Unfortunately, it’s a manageable length and I messed up the colors a bit, but still, I like it.

That’s my theme for the weekend.

Last night I went out with a friend, with the specific plan of being petty.  Honest and true, we did.  And it was perfect.  Because of all the restaurants in this town, of course we’d make a plan to go to the same place that other people I used to hang with were going out to dinner too.  And of course they were also going to see the same show that we were, because the person my friend and I were being petty about is the same person they were going to see in the show and the reason I don’t hang with them is because the petty inspiration made it so that I can’t.  The last time I went to something that I knew she was going to, she made a point of looking through me and saying things that were deliberately aimed at me (and need I say negative?)  Which makes her a petty witch with a b, right?  And makes me a sad little excuse for a person for being upset by this.

Let us contemplate why I allow people to step on my cape.  Perhaps because I am a doormat.

On the other hand, I had a wonderful time with my friend.  We talked about a great deal more than complete pettiness (as the witch cannot keep our attention for that long.) And then we went to the show.  Egads.  What an extravaganza of “ohmigod” and pink and high heels and blondness.  Legally Blonde the Musical.  My friend and I just looked at each other and quietly hurled.  This was community theater and the audience was definitely into it.  Perhaps on another day or with another friend, I would have enjoyed it.  Because I like tacky stuff as much as the next person and I do like community theater. 

Speaking of tacky.  Ohmigod.

But the best part, and here is where I go back to petty, my good old ex-friend, the diva. The one who tells directors that she is too talented for small parts.  The one who is so obnoxious to work with that people have dropped out of shows that she is cast in.  The one who went to college for music or some such, but sings like a cat in heat.  The one who always plays herself in every show I’ve ever seen her in. (And when we were friends I went to all of them, because I am a good friend, thank you very much.)  That one.  Well. She had no lines. No solo (thank God).  And she had the most hideous costumes I have ever seen.  And was on stage for maybe 10 minutes for the whole show.  And, that was worth the price of admission.

I have some evolving to do.  Perhaps this afternoon. Or maybe tomorrow. 

@vexations posted a bicycle story this morning that inspired me to take a trip down memory lane. 

Training wheels are standard equipment on kids’ bikes. My younger daughter, LLO, a little stubborn shall we say, wasn’t all that excited to ride a bike to begin with and wouldn’t try without the bonus wheels. I watched her as she rode. Saw how dependence on the training wheels trained her to lean to the left. Saw how turns were taken at weird angles. It was probably one of those turns that caused the training wheels to break off. She needed a bigger bike anyhow. She was somewhere around 10 (I did mention that she was stubborn?) and getting too tall for the little bike. It was certainly in her mind and our ears that she wanted a new bike with training wheels. If we’d been inclined to put training wheels on her new bike, which we weren’t, the bigger sizes didn’t have them anyhow. So the new bike sat in the garage for at least an entire summer. Then a neighbor girl rode her bike to our house to play with my girl. Within a week, LLO had figured out exactly how to ride the bike.

A little reminiscing.  I found this in my computer.  It makes me smile.  LLO (who you will discover is actually named Katie) in all her cuteness of several years ago, riding a bike and picking a wedgie.  The redhead is the neighbor up the street who inspired the learning.  The incredibly loud voice at the end (I warned you!) is Spawn, who was manning the camera. 

HERE

In other wheels news.  Spawn turned 16 a few weeks ago.  No progress whatsoever on the driver’s permit.  But she did express an interest in contact lenses which I have tied in with driving.  So I’m certain that I will never hear mention of contact lenses again.  It’s all good.

hold my hand and we can fly together
otherwise, get off my cape.

This is my new motto.  Last week I had a whole collection of people trying to bring me down, which I permitted.  Stupidly.  I hope I’m smarter next time.  I wouldn’t count on it.  But I do have the motto now. 

Now I shall regale you with exciting adventures- in sewing.    Two weekends ago, LLO, Spawn and Spouseman went to this comic book thing.  They are really into manga and anime and that kind of stuff.  Anyhow. Spawn designed a costume.  It was pretty cool, in fact.  I don’t have the photo. I was too busy wondering why the heck I was awake at 7:30 on a Saturday morning to think about the camera.  In any case, she needed a cape.  Which I made.  It was pretty awesome sauce if I say so myself. And she needed a long skirt turned into a short pleated skirt.  LLO needed ears and a tail.  I was rocking awesome mom for a couple days with these contributions.  I was also pretty happy mom too because the people were gone most of the weekend.  It was lovely and quiet.  What else.  Oh, a friend’s brother got married on Saturday.  She needed her dress altered, which I finished a whopping two days before the wedding.  Her mom’s dress needed all kinds of stuff, including a lining in the skirt- which was way more difficult than it should have been- and hemming and what have you.  And that was finalized about 12 hours before they left to get down to the wedding location.  Thank goodness these people know me well or they might have been panicking a bit.  As it was, they didn’t let me know they were panicking, if they were.  Let’s see. Before Christmas I ran into a guy who’s the SO of the mom of some girls my girls used to go to school with.  They don’t hang anymore.  Which is fine. Knew them when Spawn was in Girl Scouts, which was hell.  Not that these people are- they are quite nice.  But anyhow.  The guy has a something business doing something.  Oh, graphic design.  He needed a bag for these panels.  I had no idea what he was talking about at the time.  But now I’ve made a really super cool quilted bag with pockets for these printed woodenish panel things.  And I am just impressed with my own self for figuring out just how to do that.  Please pay me now.  And Saturday I went over to the nice old man’s house.  Spouseman came with me because I made him.  Anyhow, the purpose of this was kinda groovy. My church does this auction thing and many, many years ago, when I was sewing for some decorators, I submitted an item giving away sewing service.  I never heard a thing about it, except that someone I was working for at the time said she had intended to bid for it but she went home sick.  So I assumed that I wasn’t bought and put it out of my mind.  Well, this man’s wife, who just recently passed away, bought it and he discovered the paper for it in her papers as he cleaned up her affairs.  He was getting some blinds put in and wanted to repurpose the drapes.  So I was picking up the drapes.  They are actually kinda disgustingly dusty and such, but I’m not working on them today so I don’t care.  Anyhow.  Spouseman somehow offered to take down the hardware, which I thought was very kind of him.  I was quite pleased with him.  So I have these things in my basement awaiting my joyful repurposing.  Last night I replaced a zipper in my kid’s fencing jacket, fixed a zipper in a pair of pants, and replaced elastic in a skirt I made almost 20 years ago.  Apparently elastic doesn’t last forever.  Should have replaced the elastic in the neckline of the top too, but safety pins can be handy too. 

The kids at school really liked my old outfit.  (As do I, but I don’t wear it much.) I thought it was very appropriate for our day (if not current fashion. ha ha.)  We made butter and colored paper quilts.  We all enjoyed the butter on bread with my (to die for sugar bomb) preserves.  I took in the quilt I made for Spawn when she was little.  The kids thought that was pretty awesome.  And the teacher brought in the baby quilt the class and I made for her when her littlest was born.  Two of the kids in the current class had older siblings who helped make the quilt.  It was very cool to see how special the quilt is to her and to see how much the kids enjoyed seeing the quilts.  And they really liked the jam too.  Pretty fun day for a Monday.

You can see it ain’t all that.  But it was the first one I did and it was well used, once upon a time.

Fascinating.