Stuff - N - Things, part the seventy-hundredth.

There was a weekend.  In that weekend there was errand-running, kid-napping, kid-painting (she did the painting, not us painting her), playing, a VERY wet MoD Family Teams picnic, working, sewing, watching of football and tennis (I was up late last night not only because I had a caffeinated beverage at 9:30 pm but also because my Tennis Girlfriend was about to win her 3rd U.S. Open).

During naptimes Saturday & Sunday I got the bolero for TRex's birthday dress done and the bodice mostly put together.  I might rip out and re-do the zipper, though, because it doesn't look as nice as I would like it to.  I remembered why I do 13th century stuff in the SCA... sewing curves makes me CRAZY!  But I popped the mostly-done bodice over her head yesterday afternoon, and it's going to fit just fine.  I am the queen of pattern-tetris - I had bought the quantity of fabric that Simplicity said I needed to make a 3 but I managed to cut a 4 out of it, so she should be able to wear it next summer, too.

And then there's the fashion..  I'm looking for any excuse I can come up with to wear my fun red flats, so today it's a chocolate-brown shirt, glen plaid pants and red-and-brown accessories.

This whole week promises to be insane.  Tomorrow we have to go vote in the local primaries (there are hot primary races for DA and Family Court Judge; I don't know if our state senator is opposed in the primary but I haven't seen any evidence that he is) and then TRex has a swimming lesson after school and it's open house night at school which we both want to go to.  So we'll see how all that shakes out in terms of dinner and transportation and so on.  Then we have dinner guests on Thursday and Friday (Friday is the P family; they're low-maintenance and I think I'm going to make tacos) and Summer's End is on Saturday.  Hrm, I had hoped to have an award medallion done for the A&S on Saturday; we'll have to see if I can make that happen.  If not, oh well!  I'll show the embroidery as it stands right now - it's only been displayed at Pennsic, not locally yet.

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In which Grandma misses the point entirely...

So lately a topic of discussion amongst the maternal family has been that my 87-year-old grandmother lives by herself in an extremely ramshackle house with no close family (kids or grandkids) ANYWHERE nearby. greydora and our cousin L are closest and that's just because they're both on the left coast. Recently Uncle R. (Mom's older brother) managed to convince Grandma that it would be OK for somebody to call and check on her every evening - as he put it, "that way we know by 10 pm if something's wrong."  Up to this point, he has been doing all the calling but now he is traveling and not able to make the calls, so a number of the rest of us (greydora, mom, me, I don't know if the cousins or any of the family in Israel are going to join in this endeavor) are taking turns.  Tonight was my turn so I gave her a buzz and we chatted for a bit about work, TRex's starting pre-k and her upcoming birthday, the fact that her school no longer uses actual photographs for their staff IDs (she's an elementary school teacher's aide - bonus points for speaking, at last count, six languages*), etc.  Towards the end of the conversation I commented that maybe we'll continue the taking turns calling even after R is back in touch.  She said, "Well, unless something is wrong, I don't really see the necessity of it."  I said that I wasn't getting involved in that debate - she would have to take the issue up with her children, I was going to do as I was instructed.

*Her native German as well as English, Spanish (the one that she uses the most at work), French, Italian, and Hebrew.  She may know some Russian, too.  It might be said that I come by my facility with languages a bit naturally.