… when you’re traveling abroad.

It takes a certain amount of bravado / innumeracy / cranial-rectal inversion [choose as many as necessary] to come up with a definition of “recorded human history” that lies entirely within my lifetime. — here

So in closing, don’t ask for an opinion if you don’t really want it. Just save everyone the trouble and be honest and say you want everyone to tell you that you are right/awesome/etc. Now, wasn’t that just so much easier for everyone? — there

We’re calling the weather menopausal since it’s going from hot to cold to hot again. — here (BWAAHAHAHAHA! Strangely, she’s in California, not Oklahoma.)

We are, I think, by and large, a community who distrusts answers, at least answers that are vehemently held. We are made uncomfortable by stridency. By dogma. By the desire to proselytize. We wear our truths lightly, gaily, as a song bird wears its feathers. — there

eQuilter has Star Trek fabric!!! There are several more but that one is my favorite. I love that it’s Original Series. Of course I could put them all together in a quilt since it is quilting fabric but it’s the thought of wearing it that’s tempting me. But I don’t know… Give me time; I’m still thinking.

I saw this at Male Pattern Boldness, on a post about men’s pants length…

… and it started me thinking. What if the songwriter and the singer and the people who listened to this song back in the day, could have seen into the future to our day, when truly anything goes? But then I thought, what will people fifty or a hundred years from now think of our times? What “rules” do we have now that will be considered silly in the future? Or will we, at some point, start going in the other direction, toward more rules, a return to modesty and propriety? Or will things just be… different?

Just a quick observation: There are few things in life more annoying than having someone tell you to do the things you were going to do anyway, one second before you do them.

Abandonedography is a Tumblr site devoted to abandoned places photography. There’s something strangely fascinating about this sort of thing. I look at the pictures and it makes me wish I could explore the places but when I think about it, I wonder if maybe the photographs are more compelling than the actual places. If I had the chance to explore an abandoned building would I? Maybe, depending on what kind of place it was.

To self: Look away! Look away! Don’t… Oh! Too late.

How the Senate Works (and the House too) Yep. That sounds about right.

I sort of like to see nature taking over. It was a very nice bench though.

Puppy update: Wow is she ever growing! She is bigger than the cats now. The cats are dealing with the situation pretty much the way you would expect. Sometimes they actually play with her for a minute or two but they mostly try to avoid the puppy. As puppies go, Kiki really isn’t bad at all. Still requires a lot of attention but she’s not terribly destructive, probably because we watch her constantly when she’s in the house. She obeys us sometimes but she has a short attention span. I’m still not a dog person but I think I’m gonna live through this.

My irises are doing well this year, after two very poor years. A couple of my favorites are still missing but this year I’m really liking these pure white ones. It’s one of the few that I remember the name of: Immortality.

Sometimes irises do not stay true from year to year. Generally that’s not a good thing but sometimes I like the surprises. This one is completely different from anything I’ve planted. (It’s not the same as the other burgundy ones in the background.)

I’m pretty sure that this “new” iris was originally this: (photo taken in 2010)

Well… I really liked that one too but I think the new one is very pretty and interesting.

And so I am grateful to have mail order. I may use the Internet to request things, rather than a stamp and an envelope, but in some ways it’s really not all that different from my grandmothers’ day. — here

“Dear incompetent ninny…” No. “Dear complete imbecile…” I suppose not. “Dear feeble-minded simpleton…” I’d better not. Well, fine, then. “Dear State Representative…” — there (From an image and that’s almost the whole thing but I just had to. I can think of several different ways to end that… Congressman… Senator… etc.)

Is that what future generations will mostly see of the way we now live? — here

I don’t feel all that Jurassic, but archaeologists are already digging up relics from after I was born… — there [sigh]

I finished the top for the baby quilt. I saw this shadow pattern online (I forget where) and had to try it.

The squares are all from scraps that I had on hand. The two greens are from Wal-mart and the brown/multi polka dot is from eQuilter.com. The finished size will be about 36 – 38 inches.

My current garment sewing project is one of the most boring things I can think of – gray slacks. But I need them. I have a pair of gray slacks that I made several years ago. I was never happy with them and they have already been relegated to wear for dirty work (gardening, etc.) and just puttering around the house. The new ones are coming along nicely and I could finish them today but I might do something else instead and finish them tomorrow.

Rothko Toast – Heh.

Watching you – Yeah. That’s pretty much how it is.

Clouds – Neat photo

TypeToy – Type faces and graphics

Shoe – A neat, surreal image. But wait. That shoe looks familiar.

Moonlight – Beautiful! Hmmmm… maybe I should rename this post, “Random Images”.

Pets Impersonating Humans – Not really related but for some reason that reminded me of this.

I’m not a Philip Glass fan but this is cool.

This is a very brief review of Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale. There are no major spoilers but maybe a hint so if you don’t want any hints you might want to stop reading this now.

I don’t read “graphic novels” (I think I might have more respect for them if they would just call them comic books.) but when I found out that there was a “graphic novel” By Joss and Zack Whedon that reveals the secrets of Shepherd Book’s past I had to get it.

I am a little bit disappointed. It all makes sense. It’s perfectly logical. There’s no, “Oh wow! So that’s who he really is!” It’s more like, “Oh. Okay. That makes sense.” This was really just a brief overview of the pivotal moments in Book’s life and I’m not entirely satisfied that everything has been explained. If Firefly had lasted a few seasons and this had all been revealed bit by bit throughout the course of those seasons I’m sure it would have been more interesting. But still, I’m not sorry I bought the book.

Okay, I need to stop talking about the weather and the puppy but I will just say that it looks like today is going to be a nice day. The sun is shining and it’s supposed to warm up later. And the puppy? Yes, she is still alive and so am I.

A lot of the sewing bloggers are doing this Me Made May thing. The idea is that, if you sew, every day you are supposed to wear something you made and post a picture of it on your blog. I guess that would be a challenge to some people but it seems kind of funny to me. I sew so of course I wear something I made every day. Well, almost. There are some days that I don’t make it out of sweatpants and a t-shirt. But I own two pairs of sweatpants that I made so even on sweatpants days… For me the challenge would be taking a photo and posting it every day.

I’m wondering if some of you are getting tired of the sewing posts. Visits to this blog have dropped way down in the past few months. I have actually thought about starting a separate sewing blog but then I probably wouldn’t post there regularly enough to get any kind of following. I just have to face it; I am boring and I’m getting more boring every year. (No, I’m not fishing. It’s just the truth.)

One more clothing thing. The other day I found The Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor, for anyone who is interested in seeing how royalty dresses. The tiara post reminded me of The Big Bang Theory.

Oh, and speaking of boyfriends. That isn’t creepy at all. [cough cough]

I like this: Celebrate the Small Things. It’s a weekly blog thing. I will look at some more to get a good feel for the kind of things they post and I might jump on that bandwagon because celebrating small things is definitely something I’m all about.

Here’s a small thing I could start with if I had taken a picture. Yesterday as I was walking back from the mailbox I spotted a tiny green turtle in the driveway. It looked like the kind they used to sell in pet stores many years ago. It was about the size of a quarter, maybe a little larger. I picked up and put it down in the grass way away from the driveway.

Another school cheating story. Give people a system by which they must be measured and this is what happens. There must be a better way to have better schools but it seems like every time one thing doesn’t work they just come up with another measuring system and the same thing happens again.

Some unusual vending machines. The book machines are pretty cool. On the other hand, it’s one more thing to take business away from real bookstores.

Cats are infamous for being curious but if you spend a few hours with a dog, especially a young one, it is clear that they are curious too. They’re just curious about different things. Cats are curious about their environment. Dogs are curious about people and the things people do.

By the way, I wonder if introverts are more likely to be cat people and extroverts are more likely to be dog people. It makes sense to me because cats spend much of the time doing their own thing and are usually happy to leave you alone, while dogs are naturally pack animals and want to be with you all the time.

I think all this cold, gloomy weather is making me… well, not really depressed. You can’t use that word anymore for just plain, ordinary “feeling down and out of sorts.” But, you know… I’m getting really, seriously tired of it. I thought today was supposed to be a nicer day but it is very dark and gloomy so far this morning.

I had a weird dream this morning. I dreamed about work but what was weird was that I mixed up two jobs I had at different times years ago. For a few years I had a job where it was either crazy busy and there were 12 things (each one of which would normally be expected to require all day) that absolutely positively must be done “today” and every single one of them was a “top priority”, or there was nothing to do at all but you were expected to look as busy as you were on the crazy busy days. Well, in my dream it was one of the nothing-to-do times and, funny thing, I realized it was only a dream but I thought I was dreaming about something that was happening in my life right now and I decided that I was going to ask to transfer to another department and I was so happy that I had dreamed a solution to my problem. But it turned out, I realized when I woke up, that the “other department” was actually at a completely different job – even in a completely different state.

These were jobs that I worked at over 10 years ago and over 15 years ago. So why would I dream about stress that I had over 15 years ago? Is it the weather? Is it the puppy? Is it all the things around the house that I need to do that I’m not getting done? All of the above, probably.

Anyway, rain is always to be appreciated because in most years, in a couple of months from now they would be talking about drought and threatening a burn ban. So rain is good but I need at least three days in a row of sunshine and I need it to be warmer and I need it now.

I haven’t had time this week to read blogs and find nifty quotes so just a few links…

Triple Gear – Interesting. I wonder what you could use that thing for.

Bad Kids’ Jokes – Really bad. You can imagine a four or five year old proudly telling these, expecting everyone to laugh.

The Hickory Head Hermit – A blog I want to look at some more some time. Found here. (Go read the “here”. Really.)

The Vatican Library Online – 82,000 manuscripts. Article

Sun Day – Humph! I should have spent my birthday in Bellingham, Washington.

I was originally planning to title this post, “The First Dress of Summer” but seeing as how the temperature is in the mid 40s F today I thought it should somehow refer to the fact that we are merely hoping that there will be a summer this year.

Fortunately though, we did get a couple of days of nice 80 degree weather so I got a chance to model this outside yesterday.

I used Vogue 8789 for the bodice with the skirt from a different pattern because I didn’t have enough fabric for the very full skirt on the Vogue pattern, as I mentioned before.

Soon after I got this fabric I decided that it really needed some white rick-rack and I came up with a plan that involved using a pattern that I have already used five times. Then I got this Vogue pattern and thought this fabric would be perfect for it and for a while I was torn between my original plan and the new pattern. As you can see I finally decided on the new. The belt is one I’ve had for about 20 years. I’ll probably wear the dress without the belt most of the time, even though it looks better with the belt, simply because it will be cooler that way.

This is the first dress I’ve ever had that has a side zipper. I think I like it but, since I’m not used to it, it feels a little awkward when I’m putting in on. I have a bit of trouble finding the armholes, which seems sort of strange to me. Why should it be that different from a loose dress with no zipper? But anyway, mostly I like it.

The checks are matched better in the back than in the front, which seriously annoys me. The darts were not only too high, they were also weirdly close together. I guess it was designed for the pointier bras of the 50s but you would think that they would have modernized it just a little for the re-issue. So I had to take the darts out and re-do them. They still aren’t quite right but I’m going to call it good enough. In fact, in spite of these little flaws, I love this dress.

(This post is a week overdue.)

Last week I finished reading the second book in the Hellhole trilogy and discovered that, apparently, the third book isn’t out yet. Darn.

So I started something I have been wanting to read for at least three-quarters of my life, the quintessential Really Long Book, War and Peace. I have never been put off by the length. I’ve read lots of long books. I like long books. It was just one of those things that I hadn’t got around to yet.

All I can say at this point is that I’m not bored yet. The Kindle status line shows that I am 14% of the way through the book, which means that I’m averaging 2% per day. The first part was about vapid aristocrats. Now I’m into the war part of the book. The vapid aristocrats were more entertaining. I’m generally not attracted to books about war unless there are spaceships involved. But I’m hanging in there. I’m thinking we might eventually get back to the vapid aristocrats.

By the way, here’s a list of longest novels. It shows that War and Peace in paperback is 1440 pages. I have read novels by James Michener that were over 1500 pages.

I feel like my life is consumed by puppy watching right now. I don’t have time for anything else. She follows me constantly and if I walk away from her and she can’t follow she cries like someone is beating her. But if she walks away from me it usually means she’s going to go somewhere and potty on the floor where she thinks I won’t notice. And I can’t just put her outside to go potty. I have to actually walk with her to her potty area. So I’m always on watch. I can sit outside with her and read so I have been doing a lot of reading. When I try to read inside or to to sew or get on the computer that’s when she wants to go get into trouble. (I haven’t mentioned the furniture and electrical cord chewing yet.) So I’m kinda frustrated and bored out of my mind. Right now she’s on the back porch putting on her somebody-is-killing-me performance. I had several things I wanted to post but it might be a while.

I was thinking about this yesterday and I realized that I didn’t become “not a dog person” until I was an adult. We always had a dog when I was a kid (as well as several cats) but back then a dog was a big friendly creature that lived in the back yard. You would go out and pet her and play with her then walk away and do something else. But now a dog, even large dogs, have to be “a member of the family” and you have to let them live in the house with you and take them with you everywhere and let them be with you 24/7 or you’re “being cruel”. Well, in our case it would be cruel to make her stay outside. We have a coyote problem here so a puppy wouldn’t last one night outside alone. Not to mention the ridiculous weather we have here.

After I got married and after we bought our first house we decided that we wanted a dog. We got a Siberian Husky puppy with one blue eye and one brown eye. Training went well and he was turning out to be a nice dog, not too unpleasant to be around. But he disappeared while we were at my mother-in-law’s house when he was only five months old. We got another Siberian Husky (brown eyed) that was less trainable and so he was banished from the house and lived in the yard. Then we moved and didn’t know what our situation would be so there were no pets at all for several years until we found a tiny, yellow lost kitten the summer our oldest son turned 11.

There have been individual dogs that I have liked (and those seemed to be more cat-like in some ways, like not always hovering around wanting attention) but in general, dogs as a species… I really just can’t develop any warm feelings for them. But what I dislike more than dogs are some dog people – like those people who insist that their dogs are like their children and yet they refuse to teach them even the most basic manners because “it would be cruel to impose our will on a member of another species.” If you don’t want to impose your will on another species get a cat. Or better yet a fish. Cats potty train themselves (well, except for my retarded cat Dax who is very dog-like in some other ways too) and they usually run away and hide when anyone from outside the household comes around so your human friends don’t have to deal with your pets jumping up on them and licking their faces.

Oh well… I guess I’ve bitched and moaned more than enough. I have to go back to puppy sitting. It’s only been four days. Hopefully things will improve when she grows up a little.

… but sometimes you just can’t get out of a thing. This is our new friend Kiki. She is a border collie.

She is very unhappy in this picture because I’m staying just out of her reach so I can get the picture. Most of the pictures of her came out blurry because of her frantic efforts to get to me. She’s on a long leash that runs along a 50 foot line stretched between the back porch and a tree. Lots of room to run around but she would rather be in here sitting under my chair.

Here’s an action shot:

A puppy is way more work than a human baby. You can put a human baby in a crib and he or she will stay there and probably sleep for several hours. And you can put a diaper on a human baby. You know what I’m talking about. A puppy is there with you ALL THE TIME. It does take naps once in a while but as soon as you move it wakes up and follows you.

My idyllic life is over. And the cats are REALLY unhappy about the situation.

Classical music — at least in the United States — is one of those areas that tend to be something of a hole in a lot of people’s education. I’ve been continually surprised by the number of extremely intelligent people I know who can discuss politics, visual art, film, philosophy and popular music in detail who, nevertheless, don’t know very much about classical music… — here (via)

Our mothers burned their bras and girdles in the 60′s and 70′s, so our daughters could wear laced corsets in the new millennium. — there

Best Headline Ever? – I resist declaring anything the “best ever” because there is a lot out there that I haven’t seen, but this headline is awesome!

Remember When – I actually do not remember quite that far back, which should make me feel just a wee bit better about my upcoming birthday. (but I don’t think it really helps all that much)

Painting and poem – Nice

Dolly Clackett – A nice wordy blog from the UK. A sewing blog not entirely about sewing.

My Baffling Brain – A lovely, artsy blog. She’s doing the April alphabet challenge right now.

The Top 10 Strangest Things in Space – Pretty interesting

Polka Polish – Another (mostly) sewing blog. I like her style – a bit retro.

22 Creative Aquariums – I’ve seen a couple of these before. I like the sink, the coffee table, the desk, and the labyrinth.

Shakespearean Insult Generator – I think I’ve come across this before, or another like it, but it’s still fun and maybe even useful. My favorite so far: “[May] the worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.

“Was that you?” – This guy really needs to work on his pick-up lines.

Women and Cats – A great art and photo blog! And that might be the best Heinlein quote ever.

Grilled Cheese – Oh yeah! Now that’s a grilled cheese sandwich!

And there’s this via Nag on the Lake:

The recent two minute stock market crash, due to a hoax Tweet, has to be one of the top ten idiotic news events of all time. Seriously? Now our economy is controlled by Twitter? I hope everyone involved feels properly embarrassed. It’s true I don’t know anything about the stock market but I’m not stupid. I understand that people who are responsible for huge amounts of money need to do what is necessary to protect that money but it is obvious that panic causes exactly what they are afraid of.

I know how to fix the stock market. It needs to run like an older version of Windows. Every time someone buys or sells, after a 30 second delay they are asked, “Are you sure?” Then, if they choose “Yes”, there’s another 30 second delay before anything happens. And any time the stock market drops more than 100 points it blue screens. But, lacking that, if you’re in the financial industry, STOP READING TWITTER AT WORK!

Beautiful and very interesting.

I have noticed on some of the sewing blogs that a lot of younger women do not seem to know what the word “dowdy” means. Now I know I probably should say, “I do not like the way the meaning of the word “dowdy” has changed,” but I have decided that I’m going to be a stubborn old fart about this. Because I can.

First, let’s get an official definition. Here are the first two that came up on Google:

(of a person, typically a woman, or their clothes) Unfashionable and without style in appearance.

Lacking stylishness or neatness; shabby: a dowdy gray outfit. 2. Old-fashioned; antiquated.

I’ve seen some women refer to perfectly nice, attractive, classic styled clothing as “dowdy”. And apparently wearing skirts below the knee is “dowdy” too. (Yes, I’m going to keep on using sneer quotes. Deal with it.) I suppose, going by the definitions above, which are quite broad, practically anything that is not cutting edge fashion could be called “dowdy” but I like to think that there are some things that never go out of style. I don’t see how an outfit that is neat and well put together can be considered “dowdy”. If it’s not your style, fine, but that doesn’t mean that it’s “dowdy”.

I suppose it would be helpful if I linked to a couple of examples of non-dowdy outfits that people have called dowdy but I really don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or start a fight. But really! There’s a difference between classic and dowdy and today’s young women don’t appear to understand that difference. What is dowdy? The first example that comes to mind is Amy on The Big Bang Theory. It’s frumpy, ill-fitting clothing, in dull, unattractive or uncoordinated colors. It does not mean simply something you consider out of style.

Addendum: This is probably why none of the sewing bloggers ever comment on my sewing posts.

I’m still watching Orphan Black. The story is interesting enough to overcome the fact that I don’t particularly like the main character. The clones all have different personalities and of them all, the one that you might think I would identify with the most is the one I like the least – the “soccer mom” or as she was once called by Sarah, the main character, “soccer bitch”. My favorite of the clones is the science nerd. I hope they will start showing more of her. The show is getting quite interesting, with a number of intriguing questions and it’s moving along nicely. I rather enjoy the relationship between Sarah and her brother, who is gay. He’s a fun character. This is an adult show and there is occasional swearing and nudity, though, fortunately, nothing like the scene in the first episode that nearly made me stop watching.

I’ve seen a couple of advertisements for Copper, another BBC series. It will be returning in June. The thing I really hate about cable/satellite series is the long, long hiatus between very short seasons. Maybe half a dozen episodes then you have to wait a year for the new season, by which time I’ve mostly forgotten what happened at the end of the last season.

Warehouse 13 (SyFy) will be back on soon. For some reason it always sort of surprises when this show comes back. I keep thinking each season will be the last one. It’s a fun show. I’m not sure I would call it a good show but it’s fun and that’s what matters.

NBC’s Grimm continues to entertain but I’m starting to wish that the long term story arc would move along a little faster.

I’m still enjoying Elementary. I resisted this show at first because I did not like the idea of a modern version of Sherlock Holmes but it’s really a very interesting and fun show. I just think of the characters as completely different people who, coincidentally, just happen to be named Holmes and Watson.

The Following has only a very few episodes left – two or three? I forget. It’s been a wild ride and I’ve enjoyed it but I like that they told everyone up front that it is a limited series so I know they’re not going to keep dragging the story out endlessly.