Hmm.

The husb and I are having a fairly magical day, listening to "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and pausing it to discuss approximately every 30 seconds. However, we experienced this interesting development after making some orange-water and sharing a bit of orange with the dog:

ME: Man, he really liked that orange.

THE HUSB: Yeah.

ME: I wonder if oranges are bad for dogs?

(Fifteen minutes of iPhone Googling produces no results.)

ME: Well, I guess he's okay, since he... (pauses) ...Why is he licking the wall?

THE HUSB: I don't know.

ME: That orange was kind of squishy.

(I know from March that fruit that sits too long becomes alcoholic. I probably could have figured this out for myself but I didn't have to because I learned that the Cedar Waxwing, a migratory bird that looooooves to eat fruit, can sometimes eat fermented fruit and get drunk and -- ulp -- die. So it is not outside the boundaries of reason that a slightly softish orange could make an 18-pound dog tipsy. I am sure that a more science-oriented person could speak with authority on the subject. I mean, after all, the husb and I also drank the orange water, and I am not licking walls... that I remember.)

Here is a Cedar Waxwing, and let me tell you, these birds are cool. They stopped in our yard for a day during their migration from Canada back to Mexico, a whole bunch of them. If you click the picture, you can find a picture with more of them somewhere in my Flickr gallery. I am sorry to say I don't have the energy to look it up myself.



The moral is, did I get my dog drunk?

I don't know. We're going for a W-A-L-K to see if we can walk it off.

PS - Here is something that blew my mind from Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle": baby carrots are just shaved down big carrots. I felt like yelling, "SHUT. UP." at my iPod. I think I yelled it at the husb instead.

PPS - Here is another random and mildly interesting thing I found about oranges. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not going to change your life.

Things I couldn't do if I tried.

I'm sorely tempted by Wardrobe Refashion. Basically, you pledge for 2, 4, or 6 months not to buy clothes from a retail establishment. The idea is to work with what you have (dye, alter, etc.), to make clothes for yourself (buying fabric is okay), or to buy stuff in thrift stores and either wear it or make it into something.

You're allowed to buy ready-to-wear work clothes (but my work clothes are the same as all my other clothes), undergarments, shoes, and one item of clothing per month, but you have to post on the blog and confess.

I haven't been buying much lately in general, and I am definitely in favor of cutting back on (1) cheap items of clothing that everyone else in the world owns, and (2) items of clothing made in less-than-ideal conditions, say, by the fingers of tiny Chinese children. (No, I don't know who makes my fabric, but I'll look into it eventually.)

As for #1, one of the most surprising moments of my life was when I showed up to a wedding wearing the exact same dress as another girl. And it wasn't your basic black shift, either. I actually got really embarrassed and annoyed, a much stronger reaction than I would have thought I would feel. Erica B. blogged about this and proves that pictures are worth a thousand words. (Here at katiesews, we get the 1,000 words.)

We have a family wedding coming up. I don't want that to happen again.

I'm also trying to keep an eye on trends, since fashion is all of a sudden fascinating to me after having ignored it for, oh, 30 years of my life. And in doing this, I learned that for Fall 2007, purple is the new whatever-was-the-new-thing-last-year.

That is why I bought purple fabric to make the new and improved, smaller and all-around better pineapple dress (that's what it will always be called, no matter what fabric goes into it). I labored over this new dress with the help of my dress form, Katie Jr., adjusting pleats and pinning and basting and safety-pin sewing and trying my hardest to be worthy of wearing the season's hottest color.

When the husb got home, I tried it on for him, even though there's still no zipper because Sue made me promise not to do to this dress what I did to the last one, and that means I have to wait for her to come over and show me how to sew zippers.

He said, "Maybe you should wear that to the party."

"I want to wear it to the wedding. Purple is the new hip color, and I want to wear purple."

"You could wear that to the party, though..." (wait for it) "...and get something... nice for the wedding."

Grr!

Especially because I went to the website of the company where I bought a dress last year for a different wedding, and no lie -- out of six pages of dress options, two items are pantsuits, two are knee-length, and the rest must be stapled to the poor model's underpants. They are so. so. so. short. You can't show that much thigh at an outdoors Pacific Northwest wedding. I'm pretty sure it's just not done.

I do have another pattern and another fabric that I'm going to try to whip into a garment. This one doesn't have a zipper so it doesn't depend on Sue's whims and/or schedule. It's a really stretchy, heavy knit, though, so perhaps my next blog entry will be about my nervous breakdown caused by dealing with a stretchy, heavy knit.

Speaking of refashioning, here's an old picture of Winston wearing his tough-dog sweatshirt. It does have a heart, but it's still a tough-guy shirt because, cough, whoever appliqued the heart did a really terrible job. The actual shirt is the cut-off leg of a pair of sweatpants I cropped to be capris.

Clearly, he loves it.

Blogging about blogging.

This will be a random series with no discernible timeline.

Four Blogs I Read and Why I Read Them

Meg's Diary - stunningly prolific YA author (The Princess Diaries is just the tip of the iceberg) Meg Cabot blogs about life, writing, touring, her cat, and why high schools hate her favorite motto, and the whole time you feel like you're reading an email sent by your best friend. She's so engaging and thoughtful and so funny. And at the same time, she's not afraid to talk about more sensitive issues like Lyme disease, sexual assault and prevention, and why she doesn't want to read Twilight. Due to the vastness of her following, there are no comments, but readers reply using an email form and Meg's staff brings interesting replies to her attention, giving her the opportunity to respond to them in another blog. It's just funny. I always look forward to reading it.

Robin Brande is also funny and blogs about interesting things like taking her pants off in the wilderness. But in contrast to Meg, Robin is just about the most interactive blogger I know. Not since Miss Snark and the Snarklings have the comments on a blog had such a feeling of community. When you comment, you know two things: (1) Robin's going to reply to you (and in a timely manner, unlike me), and (2) the other commenters will read what you wrote with interest and you may even get comments from other people. Seriously, a simple joke about a potluck turned into a full-blown kidlit conference. (Incidentally, her book, Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature, comes out very soon!)

Resident Alien, Mary Witzl's blog, is chock full of fascinating accounts of Mary's life experiences, living in Japan and having two TV-free daughters with minds of their own. Coloring everything is Mary's thoughtful perspective and willingness to see (and admit to) things as they are. Just don't tell her you're learning! She hates that.

My Solid Best, by Christy. Christy is not a writer by trade (though I think she should be), she is one of my internet friends from years and years ago (wedding planning, so more than five years). She has, as she puts it, a calling to motherhood -- one that allows her to be hyper-observant of her two children and all of the forces acting around them -- funny, sweet, bittersweet, etc. She sometimes talks about serious issues, always with a humble kind of honesty that makes her experiences relatable. She also somehow makes children seem less terrifying to those of us who are not yet childful.

. . . . . .

So those are just four, in no particular order. I read a LOT of blogs, and I pretty much only read blogs I like, so I'm sure I'll get to all of you before long.

And for those of you with no blogs, for shame! I shall call you out in another post. Including you, Mom.

It's Saturday. I need to do laundry and think about finding a side table for our freakishly tall new reading chair.

Happy weekend! We will close with one of the funniest Winston pictures ever taken (this is a millisecond reprieve during a long sequence of outraged barking):

You know that feeling where...

...You're in a twilight sleep and then suddenly it's like you're falling and your whole body jerks?

That's what this:


(map of recent earthquakes)

...feels like, only it's your whole house.

Thanks to the US Geological Survey for that inspiring image.

These little quakes all centered in the same spot only 10-15 miles from my house are making me a little edgy! I guess I need to take a blog break and go get the rest of the earthquake supplies out of the garage-that-can't-be-opened-if-the-power-is-off.

*sigh*

Fall reading lists

I know it isn't fall yet, but a girl can dream!

In other news, I made a dress the other day and you can see it here. Now I need to get working on a dress for the wedding coming up in a few weeks.

So, as usual, I'm stockpiling book upon book and looking forward to reading them all. Wait, didn't I promise not to buy any more books until I'd read the ones I had? Oh well. Recent additions:

Lottery by Pat Wood
The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by AJ Jacobs (and just the preface had me laughing, so I have high hopes)
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Blue Angel by Francine Prose (whose non-fiction book Reading Like a Writer I'm listening to on audiobook)
a bunch of Meg Cabot books

One great thing I've learned is that barnesandnoble.com stocks bargain books the way the stores do -- so while it might depress the author of The Historian, I'm quite happy that I got a hardcover copy for $6. Also, they have the same free shipping on orders over $25 that Amazon does, but bn.com is "FAST and free", which beats "SLOW and free" any day (and no, I'm not getting paid to say so).

Yesterday I placed an order that won't ship until October, because I preordered this book: The Year of Living Biblically. I just think the concept sounds so hilarious and intriguing.

Plus I have a new download credit waiting at audible.com and I haven't finished the last one, what's a girl to do? I'll have to break my "nothing under 8 hours" rule and pick out something quick.



In writing news: I have a phone call today with the Delightful Editor to talk over the direction for this revision. I discussed the changes with the husb last night and it was pretty amazing to realize that a lot of what I'm doing is a bit of info-shuffling -- the structure of the book feels essentially unchanged. There are a few discoveries being moved for greater impact, but the bones of the story are still in place. Let's all cross our fingers that she likes it!

*** Back on topic... any good reads coming up on everybody's roster? I'm always looking for new books to buy... even though I said I wouldn't buy anymore.

A very balanced weekend.

No, not in the sense that I accomplished anything other than sewing. I mean balanced between myself and Mary Lou.

My part of it is McCalls 5315, constructed with my very finest pineapple fabric. Sue, my real-life Mary Lou, hates this fabric with the fieriest passion you can imagine. I ordered it online and took it to her desk when it arrived, and she stopped speaking to me for the rest of the day. Apparently the problem is not the concept of pineapples -- it is in the execution.

Sue would like to execute the pineapples, but I used the fabric to execute a dress. So there you go.

And here it is (you would think that someone with a basket of dirty laundry in the background would not look so smug):



So this dress was notable in many ways. Sewl Sista #1 down there on the blogroll made this as well, although I didn't realize that until I hit an impasse with the instructions and Googled the pattern number (more on that at the bottom of the post).

Notability justification #1:
Zipper. My first ever. And I did a pretty respectable job. I mean, it hasn't fallen off the dress yet, so I must have done something right.

Notability justification #2:
Based on the sizing chart, I made a 16. I ended up taking in seven inches from the top of the bodice piece and five from the bottom, then about two inches on either side of the skirt, plus straightening out the ginormous hip bubble they included. Mind you, I probably should have tried to keep the bodice pull-up at 6.5", but a little not-being-able-to-breathe never hurt anybody. When there are pineapples involved, we must suffer for our art.

Alas, I'm no good at alterations and I messed up the lining in that I sewed right through it as if it were just another seam. Therefore the pinked edges of that new seam are just the weensiest bit painful. I'm thinking about getting a packet of bias binding and encasing the whole shebang.

So that was my fun. I also sewed the straps on, when they were supposed to just tie behind my neck, but I'm starting to realize that I hate the feeling of anything pulling on that part of my body.

Now, as for Mary Lou:

While I sat upstairs drinking imaginary mimosas and wondering why the air conditioner had to break yesterday for only the length of time it took for the repairman to show up this morning, at which point it whirred into action...

Mary Lou took on the sewing room. And when I say took on, I mean took apart.

No, no, forget Mary Lou, I want credit for this.

Every single piece of fabric that wasn't stashed in the door organizer got refolded and put away. Including all the pain-in-the-neck leftover double-layer blocks of fabric I get when I make wrap skirts.

I even went through my scrap box, mainly because the scrap box had turned into a scrap heap and had infected everything around it with a horrible irredeemable messiness.

I also did something that I happen to think is a pretty good idea -- I made a stack of "fun" scraps -- a lot of fabric from I-Spy quilts, anything with an interesting shape or color or just something that caught my eye -- and made a "kids' scraps" box. This way, when friends bring their toddlers over, we can hand that box to the child and off they go.

I'm really happy with my new clean sewing room. Now I've decided that I want a magnetic bulletin board -- or maybe just a long magnetic strip -- so I can hang pattern pieces, instead of dropping them on the floor and standing on them.

This is getting long. I will leave with this parting thought:

"FINISH SKIRT BACK (7) self-facing at top and long edge" does NOT mean "Finish skirt back by self-facing at top and long edge." Thankfully I figured this out before self-facing the top edge of the piece. I did, however, finish the whole thing with a nice stitch on a quarter-inch seam allowance. Fortunately, most evidence of this is gone now due to the alterations.

Commas, who knew they were so useful?

Another reason not to be seen with me in public.

This mushroom-related post over at angry chicken has made me desperate to make myself an Amy Butler skull cap that looks like a mushroom, with red fabric and white spots:


It reminds me of the many beautiful mushrooms we saw last year in Ireland, as well as this helpful sign on the streets of Kinsale:


I'll have to do all of this behind Mary Lou's back.

Speaking of uncontrolled shopping urges, Joann Fabric is having a $1.99 sale on McCall's patterns. Suffice it to say I was there for like two hours. I did actually go through and cull them down after pulling like twenty. I think I ended up with twelve or so. One is currently being turned into a dress featuring a pineapple print that is sure to disappoint everyone with fashion sense.

The best thing about sewing clothes (as opposed to quilts) is how much fabric you use up, and how quickly. It might take four quilts to use up a yard and a half of something that is instantly decimated (uh... transformed) when devoted to clothing.

I went out of my comfort zone yesterday and bought some fabrics I'm not used to working with. I actually got a few prints that are quite cute and Mary Lou-worthy, but I balanced them out with five yards of an eye-bleeding black with white dots.

Speaking of clothing, I hear it's quite en vogue to show up to the office not only clothed but clean, so I should probably go make that happen for myself.

Winston is a real man now.

Note: Winston is completely unharmed.

Winston got in a FIGHT yesterday! A co-worker brought her Miniature Schnauzer, Peanut, to the office, and they ended up brawling over the idea of Charlee Bear treats, which are apparently made with doggie crack. When I say "the idea" of these things, I mean they got into it about three feet away from the counter on which the treats were sitting. No humans were making any gestures that even hinted at actually giving these treats.

I must say, I was shocked. Up until now, I've always said, "Winston is a lover, not a fighter." Mostly to explain his tendency to pursue romantic relations with anything made of fabric that comes within two feet of him.

But now what am I supposed to say?

So Peanut awoooo-woooed and snarled at him, and instead of rolling over and showing his belly, Winston decided that Some Things Are Worth Fighting For. So he kind of snarled back, and then both of them backed off for a millisecond like, "Are we going to do this for real? YES!" and then they were back at each other, snarling and slapping and pulling each other's hair and squealing, "John Tucker is MINE!"

They were separated without having the chance to injure one another, which is good for Peanut because she would have been laughed out of the vet's office for fighting with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, a breed which, on the scale of dog-to-wolf, ranks somewhere behind "Beanie Baby". I made Winston lie down on his side for a minute, and then I forgave him and had to hug and smooch on him for a while. The co-worker took Peanut back to her cubicle and demonstrated the following hilarious trick:

CO-WORKER: Baaaad girl, Peanut!
[Peanut's ginormous rabbit ears droop... pause... spring back up!]
CO-WORKER: That was very naughty, Peanut!
[Peanut's ginormous rabbit ears droop... pause... spring back up!]
And so on.

Here we are -- I look prouder than I ought to, don't I? (And strangely tan.)


In secondary news, we had an earthquake last night. It was enough to wake both the husb and myself, but not Winston.

Minor earthquakes are scary on many levels. The actual shaking happens rather quickly and then ends. We didn't have anything fall off of anything. (Although if anyone asks, the sewing room was immaculate until that durn quake hit! All my hard work organizing and keeping the place pristine, and one little quake just turns the whole place into a regular pigsty!)

The really scary part is that you suddenly realize all the common-sense preparations you blithely ignore on a regular basis. Such as finding a way to keep the glassware from dumping out of the kitchen cabinets. Getting the earthquake supplies out of the garage, into which you cannot currently go if the power is off in the house.

That kind of thing is what keeps you staring at the ceiling after the quake.

Then again, it could have been worse: Tornado Hits Brooklyn. Geez.

In writing news, the Delightful Editor's notes opened up a couple of really interesting doors in ye olde brain. I think I've found a way to make the story tighter. So hurray! This weekend, I'll be collecting all of those thoughts on paper. And next week... time to dig in!

Fellow blogger book release! Pat Wood's LOTTERY...

Congratulations to my sister blogger Patricia "Pat" Wood on the much-trumpeted and eagerly awaited release of her debut novel, LOTTERY.

Perry's IQ is only 76, but he's not stupid. His grandmother taught him everything he needs to know to survive: She taught him to write things down so he won't forget them. She taught him to play the lottery every week. And, most important, she taught him whom to trust. When Gram dies, Perry is left orphaned and bereft at the age of thirty-one. Then his weekly Washington State Lottery ticket wins him 12 million dollars, and he finds he has more family than he knows what to do with. Peopled with characters both wicked and heroic who leap off the pages, Lottery is a deeply satisfying, gorgeously rendered novel about trust, loyalty, and what distinguishes us as capable.

I pre-ordered mine and anticipate its arrival any minute now. If this book is written with anything approaching the humor, humility, and subtlety of Pat's blog, it's sure to be a bestseller. Although it's pretty much sure to be a bestseller anyway. Everyone and his brother is behind this book. Tremendous publisher support and lots of attention from the news media. Why, Pat even had to buy a phone to do radio interviews from the laundry room at her Oahu... uh... place where she parks her yacht. Like a trailer park for people with yachts, I suppose. And a crazy woman holed up in the laundry room doing radio interviews.

So order one (the picture above links to Amazon) or, better yet, go into your local bookstore and grab one before they're all snatched up. Or demand that they order one for you if they're already all snatched up.

The only other thing I have to say is, if you see one flea on your dog, that means there are approximately 4 million other fleas on your dog. And you should probably just make the appointment for the flea bath and then let him sleep in the bed anyway, because then the fleas will bite him, not hop inside your clothing and blanket you with flea bites.

I can't stop scratching myself. I look like a monkey.

Happy Thursday!

My husband the hero

Last night around 11 pm, I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. There's no ventilation to speak of in that room, so we always leave the window open in the summer. I'd gotten both contacts out when something caught my attention -- the sound of dogs barking.

The husb and Winston were already in bed, but, being the busybody I am, I rushed out of the house with a flashlight.

The barking came from across the street and a few houses down. The interior lights were all off. The backyard was lit up. I climbed up through another absent neighbor's labyrinthine steps -- we live on a hill, so you can't just look into the yard.

So what do I find back there? Two Yorkies, barking their heads off.

Now, these are rumored to be the meanest dogs in tarnation. Just the sight of Winston through their car window sends them into a raging tantrum. But immediately I knew that something had to be done -- our hills are well-stocked with coyotes, predatory birds, even bobcats. (And not just the odd coyote here and there -- they run in packs.)

People don't simply leave little dogs outside at night. For instance, if I were out and about and received a psychic premonition that Winston were somehow traipsing around the backyard at night, I would first have a heart attack and then call every single person I know and beg them to go collect him. We've known people who had cute little dogs who lost them to coyotes -- and fierce yapping, even being the meanest six-pound dogs in tarnation, will not help.

I came home and called every neighbor whose number I could find, waking them all up. Everyone understood -- no one expressed even the remotest annoyance that I'd called. But no one had a phone number for the missing pet owners.

Finally I heard a "shhhhhh" from the house on the other side of the dark house. I called up to the neighbor, who said they didn't have the necessary cell phone number. The wife came down and told us that there was a dogsitter watching the house and dogs (ha!), and that he usually came around 5 am. I was ready -- though not thrilled by the prospect -- to stay up all night, sitting by the gate, sending the dogs into spinning hissyfits, and somehow trying to defend them from coyotes.

I mean, come on. It's somebody's dogs.

Dogs are important.

So the husb got dressed and came outside lugging one of Winston's crates and a leash. There were rough wooden steps leading up to a gate on the side of the house, but you first had to climb up a ladder to get to the landing at the bottom of the steps. Our plan, should the gate open, was roughly to catch the dogs and keep them in a crate until someone came home. I ran home to get my contacts back in (nothing messes with depth perception like glasses) and to change out of my pajamas into something that would hopefully resist Yorkie teeth. (Oh, and to procure a pack of turkey dogs for bait.)

By the time I got back, the husb had climbed over the fence and taken stock. There was a doggie door that was propped open, and one of the dogs went right in. They did not, because he was not walking a Cavalier with a melting expression and an addiction to bellyrubs, attack him.

He spent another ten minutes trying to get the other dog inside, finally did, and then shut the doggie door.

The nice neighbor who had been outside with us offered to write a note to the dog walker.

That's probably good, because any note I would come up with would probably include a lot of four-letter words -- and I don't mean W-A-L-K, either.

The whole thing took about an hour. The husb had to be on set super-early this morning, so it was extra heroic of him to give up sleepytime (not to mention risking life and limb by scaling a six-foot chain link fence at the very crest of a steep hill).

It makes me realize -- if you're going out of town, blanket the neighborhood -- the people you trust -- with your phone numbers and contact info.

And it makes me realize that Winston will never, ever stay home with a dogsitter.