Picture Postcards

I did go to the beach this year and I took about 1000 pictures.  I am not posting them here because the internet at the hotel is problematic and it would probably take me about a month to load them all onto my blog.

I really love these though because they remind me of vintage postcards or travel posters.

Tomales Bay from the road to Limantour

and the road itself is just as picturesque.

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Because I said so

My parents used to have a car that talked.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  It would give a heads up when important things were about to go wrong with the car like if the engine was going to explode.  It was both reassuring and technologically up to date.

Then there was the reality.  An annoying disembodied voice droning on endlessly about not having enough windshield wiper fluid.  Reminding you that you had, yet again, not lived up to someone’s expectations- namely your car’s.

No one minded when it broke.  I think, in fact, my stepmother did a dance of joy.

I am not a fan of complicated mechanical things.  If  my car talked back to me I would probably murder it.  (Would that be vehicular autocide?)  And, I don’t want a computerized sewing machine.  My experience has been that there is just that much more that can go wrong.

I can imagine what my sewing machine would say it did talk, though.

I’m not happy.

Excuse me?  You’re what?

I’m not happy.

What?  You don’t need to be happy.  I need you to work now, OK?  Just sew this seam.

I can’t.  I’m depressed.

Do you need oil?

Oil?  Oil is always good.  There’s no such thing as too much oil.

Oh yes there is.  When you leave greasy spots all over my fabric that’s too much.  Did you realize this is $30 a yard silk?

Sigh.  It’s just that I do the same things over and over again.  There’s no variety.  I need some excitement.

Is that why you’re stuck on zigzag?  Is that why It’s so hard to wind a bobbin all of a sudden?  You could loosen up a little.

All you ever want from me is a basic straight stitch.  How about if you use the little embroidered ducks in row stitch?  Or maybe the one that looks like pyramids strung together?  That would be fun and different.

Oh, come on, last week we made buttonholes.

They make all my parts shake and rattle.   That’s not different, it’s abusive.  I feel violated.

Really?  I bought you specifically because you would make buttonholes and now you tell me you hate doing them?

Is that what all this stalling and thread tangling is about?

I wanted to be loved for my even stitches and my other great features- elastic stitch, embroidery, roll hemming.   I have so many flavors to offer and all you ever want is vanilla.

Please, do you have to tangle up the bobbin thread?  I’m sure I threaded everything correctly.

So you say.  I think it’s the needle.  You could put in a new one once in a while.

I know what you’re up to when you’re not here- you are off with that  industrial in the costume shop.  The fast floozy.  I’ll bet you’re eying one of those fancy sergers that sews and overlocks at the same time too.

Can we just get through this project?  You can have all the oil you want afterward and there’s no buttonholes in this dress, I promise.   Just let me go back to straight stitch now.  Please.

Do I have a choice?

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and now for a brief interlude…

It has become tradition.  Now time honored and obligatory- the annual false alarm at the circus.

I had nothing to do with this one.  Someone was steaming costumes too close to a particle sensor and set it off.  We  think.  There are always a few usual suspects even if they do have alibis.

We had to evacuate.  The noise the alarm makes would drown out a 747.  It doesn’t hurt that there’s a Starbucks across the street.

Of course some people have to treat it like a holiday and get the very obliging firemen to pose for pictures:

For others It’s a real emergency- necessitating the rescue of one’s most important possessions:

In this case a pair of red platform shoes.  What would you save in a fire?

Location:  Waiting on the curb for help to arrive

The Music in my Head: Fire, Bruce Springsteen

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Fairing Well

It seems like it’s been forever since I was last here.

Get real, it has been forever since you were here last.

Since then I have:

Opened another show- it was somewhat rough going and I’m glad to be moving on to the next one.

I confess I have a little bit of  Schadenfreude about the show up next- that team is where I was last week while I get to take a breather.

The week before the madness started I went to the state fair.  The last time I went to the California State Fair would have been sometime around 1968.  I didn’t take my camera so, alas, there are no pictures.  I meant to take it, I did, but when I started thinking about having to hang on to it while I did stuff… well, this is why you go to the fair with Mom.  So she can hold things for you.

I didn’t go on any rides or win any stuffed animals.  I listed to some great local blues groups, had some yummy but really bad for you food, and checked out the animals.  The sheep were soooo clean looking.  No mats, no tangles, newly sheered, and the color of a brand new flotaki rug.  They could have been in a commercial for laundry detergent.  I wanted to lie down on one and take a nap.  I also saw a kind I had heard of but never seen:  Jacob’s- they have 4 horns, 2 that grow out to the side like water buffalo and 2 that grow up and back.  They  were all brown and wooly  with hay in their fleece like sheep are supposed to be.  Not quite so clean and sparkly.  I guess the judges don’t rate that kind on grooming.

This fair has a farm animal nursery with newborn calves, piglets, kids, and lambs.  I have some mixed feeling about this.  I would not have wanted to be on display with my newborn minutes after delivery.  I watched a kid climb all over it’s mother’s tummy- she was lying on her side having what I’m sure was a much needed nap-  and I thought:  at least mine didn’t have those sharp little hooves.

Even though there are no pictures from the fair, Sacramento has lots of other amusing and unique sights:

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