Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I spent all day on this skirt. eXXXXXhausted. I had so so SO much trouble getting it to hang right. I think it finally turned out okay, though. Or AO, as the Womackworld denizens would say. I was 99% convinced it would end up in the trash. Just shows remaking isn't always a breeze. I knew it would be a challenge, because it was much much too big and had a side zipper, so I couldn't just cheat and take in the sides. I had to remove the zipper, completely redraft the side seams, cut off a bunch from the waist to shorten it, sew the zipper back in, sew the new side seams (ten thousand times before I got them right), and redo the waist. Oh yeah, and darts. (The darts turned out really good.) I did not have to make a new bottom hem, but that's about all.

Darts are cool. I like darts. Thunder and thunder and thunder and dark and hardhard rain today. Listening to "Blood In My Eyes." Oh man. Winding round and round. And Richard. Lovelight and Please Please. I'm all whirlwinded to ALB past. Oh yeah--in Ambient last night: "Music resounded throughout the high room, music from the longaway: songs by Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, the Band, E himself." !! The Band in Womack!! My mind blew. I wonder which song? Probably "To Kingdom Come."

Posted at 8:07:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Real Nighthawks is playing a song from Fake Nighthawks: "Rainy Night in Soho." :-) And yes, he said, "God bless Shane MacGowan."

This is nice, but I have a gigantic headache tonight (I think I tilted my head back too far again) and I need to sleepaway. BTW, now I'm not sure afterall that I read Ambient, because it doesn't seem familiar anymore. Maybe I started to read it and couldn't take it and threw it across the room partway through. Entirely possible.

Posted at 2:38:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Wow. I was listening to Fake Nighthawks (both mine and Mary's) while doing a sewing project, and really missing real Nighthawks, so I randomly looked it up online and it was randomly playing right now. (Only, the new Maine version isn't called Nighthawks anymore.) And guess what's playing? A Dennis Wilson song that I don't know (obviously from the new Pacific Ocean Blue CD), but I immediately recognised it as Dennis. And now it's "Love and Mercy." :-) Oh wow oh wow... now Bob R. is talking. It's so weird to hear his voice again. ...Hour #2 = "our Dylan fix"! It's great. Lots of ship songs.

Posted at 12:53:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Ak. Suder blueberries are the best. I hope I can get more.

Posted at 12:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Monday, July 21, 2008

First Suder Store visit of the season! They had early tomatoes ("first of the season") but I didn't get any since they didn't look ready yet (did get some little plum tomatoes, though), and they also had sweet corn! I didn't know it was corn time this early in the summer. I got four ears. They were good, although not quite as good as that late summer corn last year. I also got Suder Store's own raspberries and blueberries! (!) They are both really really really good. The blueberries are totally different from South Glastonbury blueberries. They're smaller, and more tart. Very blue and intense. Nice. The raspberries are also different and extra good. Suder was there and smiled at me Suderishly and mumbled, "Nice seeing you again." :-) I said, "Nice seeing you again."

There's a new barista at Rocky that I actually like. I've only had him as a cashier so far, but three times in a row. He always listens to my drink order, and warms up my cup. His nickname is officially Fresh Faced Guy. I have been going to Rocky more often pretty much solely because Fresh Faced Guy is doing a good job.

I am super-excited about the Desert of Maine! Heeheehee. Not the Dessert of Maine.

Posted at 7:48:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

I think I read Ambient before and didn't remember doing so! It seems familiar...

So far, Ambient is much much better than Heathern. Also, I love my remade wrap skirt.

Posted at 9:43:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Finished Heathern. The Jake parts (every single one of them) were transcendent; the rest, fractured and senseless. Ambient arrived in the mail today!

[Edit, in the morning: Okay, so I didn't hate Heathern, and I'm glad I read it, but this is not a good book. I liked finding out more about Jake's background, and there were some good pieces of information that allowed me to reason out the timeline better (it's made clear that Heathern takes place in 1998, so Random Acts was 1996, but they were written in 1990 and 1993, so both dates were the future at the time), but none of the other characters, including Joanna, the narrator, were very interesting, and I couldn't suss out anything that I'd call a coherent plot.

It's like Womack had all these ideas in his head for background stuff that led up to the other books (this is a prequel to some of the others), so he wrote down what should have stayed as imagination or notes and tried to pass it off as a novel. There are some compelling scenes, but it's so fractured, and the characters so poorly fleshed out, that none of it has much impact. But Jake was great! I love how minimalist Jake is. He's razor-sharp. Jake just works. His relationship with Joanna was sweet, too.

It wasn't that Joanna was awful or anything; I liked her well enough, but, as Womack protagonists go, she was kind of eh. She was no Isabel or Lola, that's for sure. Macaffrey didn't make much of an impression as guest lead, either. Some good ideas here, but, as a whole, poorly executed.]

Posted at 3:44:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Hmm. Of the 600 US Starbucks stores that will be closing, only five are in Connecticut: East Windsor, Fairfield, Hartford (Wethersfield Ave.), South Windsor (Evergreen Walk), and Windsor Locks. (Sounds like cities with "Windsor" in the name are jinxed!) I've only ever been to the Evergreen Walk one (not often), plus the Wethersfield Avenue one (across the street from the FRIED CHICKEN place!) once or twice, since it's near the hangar. Evergreen Walk is super close to the original Manchester SBUX (not only that but it's usually empty), and the Wethersfield Ave. one doesn't fit in that part of town at all. If you're that close to Franklin Avenue, you should just go to Novaki's!

Here's the full list, in PDF format.

Posted at 12:43:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

- 97° @ home, cold here! It's nice.
- Hounded to Vail (snake trail); too hilly for a hot day, but handleable today.
- Foggy. We passed the South East lighthouse, and the top of it was all snuggled in fog. There was also fog in parts of the road and lots of fog in either direction disappearing the bluffs down the beach. The air feels so cool and damp and my hair's all soft.
- Picked up a big bony fishback + tail (no head) that was more than 2 feet long. It was orange. It was on the snake trial, but I carried it around with me (by the tail) until we settled in the rocks down on the leftward beach. It smelled kind of like tuna fish.
- Found a lobster claw that was blue on one side and orange on t'other! It's good for tapping someone on the shoulder if you don't like him and don't want to actually touch him directly.
- Collected seventeen starfish... they were all dried up, but I think most of them were still alive (?), so I climbed up on the bench mark rock (cool!) and threw 'em all back in the ocean.
- Found (!!!) a tiny uni shell with super short spines mostly gone! I've never seen a sea urchin in a non-tropical place before. It looked like the tiny uni shells at Ke-awa-iki.
- Ate a Harry's lobster roll again -- very very juicy!!
- Flying home, the moon was bright orange, and we saw finale fireworks at Groton! Overlapping, exploding, sparkling multicolored flowers.

[Edit: Cat Report: Total distance - 10.12 miles (but it seemed a lot longer because of the hills!); Average speed - 10.0 mph; Max speed - 30.5 mph (see, hills!); Total time - 1:00'32.]

Posted at 8:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Friday, July 18, 2008

I finished remaking the wrap skirt and I love it!! I cut almost five inches off the bottom and made it a lot shorter. It was super long originally, so now it's about mid knee-length. I did a really careful job cutting and folding and ironing and pinning and sewing the hem, and it looks nice and neat and non-rigged. When the skirt is all spread out, it's about nine feet of fabric, so it's totally fantastic that I found such a great skirt at the consignment store to remake. I am cheapo when it comes to buying lots of yards of fabric at a fabric store. (Plus, modding an existing garment is tons less work, natch!). The material is supersoft brown cotton with giant offwhite poppies on it. It's really comfortable. Slackyman's skirt tailoring is the greatest!

Posted at 9:16:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I made my first-ever buttonholes on my sewing machine! I used to make buttonholes all the time on my mom's machine when I was little, but she had a nifty buttonhole attachment, so it was really easy and fun. My cheap little machine doesn't have one, but I followed the instructions in the manual and it turned out pretty good! It seems kind of huge (I can't imagine making a tiny buttonhole for a shirt on here) but it's the right size for the object: a too-big wrap skirt from Uptown Consignment that I'm redoing. Now the waist fits perfectly! I'm think I'm going to shorten the length, too, though.

Posted at 3:43:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

What d'you think? New Description of Self for my home page?? (Actually, I used it as a return address on an envelope.)

South Glastonbury peaches + grogurt = amazing. Since the peaches are super sweet and the grogurt is unsweetened, the contast is pure happiness for the tongue.

So far, Heathern is my least favorite Womack book. (But that's okay, because I still want to read the whole series.) Way too much of the Drydens (I hate the Drydens) and way too little Ambientspeak. Even the narrator is pretty boring, and the whole book is like a similar but far inferior version of Elvissey. But it's easy to zoom through most of it, then screech to a halt and tripleread whenever Jake shows up. Jake is only fourteen (?!) in this book... if I've interpreted correctly (which I think I have), that makes him the same age as Lola, because, based on the reference to the Presidential assassinations that occured during Random, Heathern takes place about two years later. I read on usenet that Jake is supposed to make an appearance in every book in the series (!). If that's true, where does he appear in Random? The poster thinks he was the driver of the limo that picked up Iz and Jude during the riot, but that can't be right. He would've been too young, and not yet with DryCo.

Posted at 2:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Oh good!!!! I'm so relieved. Dear ol' hangar.

Local produce I got at farm stores in South Glastonbury yesterday:
blueberries (Rose's for Dean and Rusczyk for me)
raspberries (!!)
peaches (!? already!)
tomato (hothouse... not premium yet)
yellow squash
bag o' mixed lettuces

Hmm, the grass doesn't look like it's overfond of this hot weather, but the fruit sure does.

Started reading Heathern Monday night. Like most Womacks, it's hard to get into at first, but I'm plowing through the Dryco parts and then, all the sudden, JAKE!!!!! Jake (from Terraplane) is in it!! 40% mushy, unfocused, skimming, but whenever I get to a part with Jake it snaps clear and I read every sentence three times. I don't know what it is about Jake, exactly, but it was the same last time, and that's all I remember.

Posted at 2:09:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Monday, July 14, 2008

According to Dean, the self-portrait head I made at Pots & Kettles on Sunday "looks EXACTLY like" me. I'll have to admit, the hair's pretty good. It was the hair that inspired it in the first place.

It was super high tide at Pots--higher than I've ever seen there before. I thought it would wreck my combing, but actually it was great for walking because the sand was all smooth and wet, and I walked farther than I've ever walked at Pots, all the way up to the tip where things start to get all crumbly. There weren't as many washed up things to see since all the pots and kettles were underwater, but it was really fun walking and then gathering ingredients to make my head afterward.

It started to rain as we were biking back to town, and I kept thinking of Bertie. But it was a very light rain, so we didn't get too wet even though it was raining for almost the entire ride. It felt cool and refreshing on my face, although afterward I felt like a damp sheep in my sweater.

We attempted to try a new lobster roll at Payne's on the dock, but Payne's was a pain and was closed, so we pedalled on (in the rain) and I got one at Del's instead. It was GOOD. Two really good lob rolls in a row! The only flaw was that the New England style roll wasn't buttered and toasted--it was just soft and cold. But the lobster salad was premium and there was lots of it! I just looked up my review from last year. No tomato or lemon this time! And the lobster salad was a lot better than it looks in last year's picture. We shared a Del's and it was great too.

We also shared a slice of cheesequake at the new Cheesecake Castle and it was also good. So was the Castle's chai! Okay, everything was good, good, good. I like the name of the Cheesecake Castle, but they should have more sandcastle themed decor, like the Clam Castle.

It was 100% dark while we pedalled back to the airport. Hounding in the dark is cool. It's really peaceful. Our lights are so great! I love hounding on Block Island, period. It always seems so perfect. Top of the world.

Cat report: Distance - 11.05 miles; Average speed - 9.7 mph; Max speed - 30.3 (the big hill leaving the airport--fun!!); Time - 1:08'04.

Tango got to park right across from his old pal 26Zulu from MMK while we were hounding around, so I bet they got lots of catching up done. It was such a clear and beautiful flight on the way to Block Island, all intensely green and blue, with flocks of fluffy white sheep clouds. Just like Friday, and the opposite of hazy Saturday. Then on the way home we flew above dark clouds that were illuminated by the moon and looked amazing, like in a movie.

Posted at 8:39:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

We bought three Squamscot sodas Old Fashioned Beverages at Kimball Farm (in bottles, to bring home). It was established in 1863 and is made in Newfields, New Hampshire. We got Half & Half (half grapefruit/half lemon), Maple Cream, and Yup. Had to get Yup (although it should be "ayup") because of Uncle Willie, of course. The store lady said it tastes like "7Up with a kick," although the description on the website says "Lemon, yup, just lemon." Only tried Half & Half so far (at the hangar) and it tastes old fashioned. Jaffrey was great!

Posted at 9:57:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Wow, we're listening to the radio in Tango and they're playing "Learning to Fly"! Did Tang call in and make a request?

Posted at 6:07:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

The blimp is back!

Posted at 5:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Oh boy oh boy, we're going to Jaffrey!!

Posted at 4:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Last night at Nancy's Airfield Cafe, after reading a great e-mail from Jan:

Dean: Is the [LC] still in existence?
Laura: Sure--it was never disbanded! It's just not very active.
Dean: Wow... Like an inactive volcano?

Exactly like an inactive volcano.

Posted at 3:11:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Solstice sunglasses store has excellent customer service!! I thought I'd have to send my sunglasses in to Maui Jim to be repaired/replaced, but they gave me a brand new pair! When I walked by the Apple store, there was a GIANT lion line stretching past J. Crew and all the way into the Lord & Taylor wing. I guess they released the new iPhone today. The superlong line was still there (different people I hope/assume) [edit: wow, maybe not...] when I left, which was quite a bit later since I went to the sunglasses place then bought Dean ten thousand pairs of new pants since all the department stores were having crazy sales. I'm going to have to hem one of them (eek!) but it was really nice so I couldn't pass it up.

I did manage to take a decent photo of my new skirt, using the timer mode on my camera! It doesn't have my head, but you already know what that looks like.

Posted at 5:43:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I remade a skirt while Dean was at the hangar installing Tango's new LED wingtip lights, and I think it's going to be one of my favs! It's one I got at Uptown Consignment last year that was 1) way too big on me, and B) had a really weird thick tall white waistband that I didn't like because it showed through my shirts.

I really liked the fabric and length and cut though, so tonight I took in the sides and cut off the weird waistband and replaced it with elastic (the kind that can go right against your body and doesn't need a casing). I have no experience installing elastic, so I did a really sloppy job, but I followed the directions on the package about spacing and length and stuff, and it turned out perfect other than the stitches being incredibly messy looking (I even broke a needle!). I don't really care because I never tuck in my shirts, so it won't show anyway. I love my new skirt! It's green silk with abstract white leafy patterns and is really soft and flowy and fits perfectly now. It even has a built-in lining underneath so it isn't clingy. Love LOVE. I will try to take a picture tomorrow but I will probably fail.

Posted at 12:15:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

:-) :-) :-) The Gs just called on the phone and had me talk to Hunter so he could tell me what book he just finished reading. It was Ferdinand and the Frog-Jumping Contest (written by yours truly), and he really liked it! My dad said he read it straight through, all absorbed, without ever looking up. (It's pretty long, too...) I told Hunter I miss him because I don't have anyone to talk to about Lucard, and he said, "Aw." I do miss him. He was really fun to play with! He even made me be a lion. :-)

I was/am so proud of Duke for liking the Lucard Show. His favorite character is Max. :-) When the David family showed up at the Gs on Saturday, David said something like, "Laura, did you have to inflict that Alexander Lucard show on us?" and I was like, "Yes, I did!" :-) (And he did an impersonation of how there's an endless "Drac-drac-drac-Dracula!" repeating at their house.) Hunter has watched all the episodes twice already! I gave him the DVDs for his birthday about a month ago. Later when we were watching the fireworks Marilou said something about Lucard being a very handsome man. Hahahah. And Hunter said he was Max so Marilou had to be Sophie and David Chris. Ha hahah!! I said something like, "Poor David!" but David defended, "I like Chris!" Awesome!

On Sunday morning before Dean and I had to leave, Hunter and I lay back on my bed batting the breeze about all the cool parts from various episodes. I haven't watched the show in a long time, but everything he brought up, I remembered vividly, and I was like, "Oh yeah, and then such-and-such happened! Leaf of the philemon tree! Turned into a rabbit! Bowl of popcorn! 'Can I borrow your neck?' That was so funny/cool/weird! What did you think about blah blah blah?" It was great.

(Okay, I have never actually heard the expression "bat the breeze" before, but the dictionary says it means "to converse aimlessly; chat," so I just had to use it!)

Posted at 9:20:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Wow! Jack Womack is a fellow Intimist!

1) Start with yourself. All of my characters are ultimately autobiographical, unlikely as it may seem. Each of us has many parts. Sometimes the parts to which you don't admit (or are in fact unconscious of) are the most useful.

Posted at 6:55:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I'm feeling back to my rubber-chicken self (as Robert would say) today, even though my beloved irreplaceable wonkyeye-preventing wraparound bendy-armed magic sunglasses SNAPPED again when I was putting them on, and they're only eleven months old! Fortunately, I have (had) two pairs. Unfortunately, it's still a huge bummer because I use both pairs constantly. I hope they still sell the same style (even though this style is prone to snapping...).

[Edit: They do! And mine are still under warranty! And I am wildeyed over the color of this pluot! It's so summer.]

Posted at 5:12:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I still don't feel writeful. I made some notes regarding things I want to record about our 4th of July visit to N.C. and saved them as a draft but I can't finish it yet.

I've been feeling kind of unsettled and withdrawn and foggy and hungry this week (since back); not sure why, unless it's from re-reading Womack's Random Acts of Senseless Violence. It's such a good book but it sure isn't cheerful. But probably getting the urge to re-read it in the first place has to do with a state of mind that began before I even started.

I know it's silly to not just tell the barista immediately when they've screwed up my drink, but they think they made something I'll love and I don't want to hurt their feelings or be a pain. The other thing is, when I do go to Rocky these days it's not every day but mostly only when I'm especially feeling like wanting a nice comforting warm curl up and spoon it velvety cappuccino. I have an internalized idea of what that's like, from before. And when I'm in that mood, it's when I least want to have to confront someone about anything. I just want to be alone and wrap it around me. That's all. And since this is my anti-linear brain if I want to write about how I feel about Rocky, I will. If you're sick of it, then skip. I want to think about it and I want to record to remember.

I want to record G visits too but sometimes it seems like I can't. I never did write about last 4th of July properly, or the birthday bash either, even though I had every part of it memorized fresh in my brain for a month. I probably don't now. Reticence. Reticence.

I like getting submerged in reading sometimes but it doesn't combo well with articulating. Which one's chicken and which is egg?

Posted at 2:14:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.