Let's Blog About Fabric, part two

Last week, I did my Block Lotto linky on the theme About Fabric.  You can go there or I can give you the highlights:  I like NOVELTIES, the more off beat the better & I like to use them where plenty of other people would use a nice traditional whatever.

I was in the fabric store earlier this week...yes, an actual quilt shop.  I went because I have not been in a long time & I wanted a nice outing.  Also, their café makes a lovely lemon crème cake.  People who know me in real life will understand just how sick I have been:  by the time I was done shopping I just wanted to go home; I didn't even get the lemon crème cake to take-away because I just didn't want it.

But that is not what this post is about, it really is about fabric & it really is about my love of novelties.  It is also about my never-ending, often unfulfilled quest for....

Let me back-up.  I don't make many baby quilts, but when I do I rarely stick to baby fabrics & I almost never use anything with an actual baby on it.  & the reason is most of the babies in my world are not the blonde blue-eyed bundles that seem to dominate baby fabric.  It is true that I myself was a blonde, blue-eyed bundle....I still am actually.  I am, to be frank, the whitest person plenty of people have ever met, including many many white people.  I am white.  The babies I am sewing for are more often than not not. 

The bulk of my baby quilts go to grad students who have babies currently (at the time of the birth) in my husband's research group.  The number of his white grad students who have had a baby while under his watch:  exactly none.  This is mostly because his grad students are mostly not American, never mind not white.  They are Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Indian, & more & that's just right now.  Until very recently, the white students that even dated another white student were almost unknown.  You want to see the great American melting pot?  Cruise the graduate student lounge of a physics department.

Then there is my own social life.  More & more of my friends (who once upon a time WERE mostly white- you will probably not see the great American melting pot in an undergraduate English lit. & poetry program) have married people who are not.   & their kids are marrying people who are not.  & so it goes.  I have long exhausted almost all (I think all actually, but you never know what might be buried in there) my white-kids-only fabric.  I am trying to replace I with kids-of-all-colors fabric & this is the challenge:  there is not much out there.

For years I relied on the people at UNICEF; they used to have a line of fabric featuring lines of children in many different traditional costumes.  I used the last of it here.  For a long time I hoarded some ordinary yellow fabric with ordinary babies in diapers crawling around on it; what was extraordinary was that they were very clearly white, African/African-American & Asian babies.  I doled it out in the tiniest squares & still have some squirreled away.  I will happily share much more expensive fabric, discontinued, whatever...even my beloved hotdogs but you will have to pry that yellow baby fabric from me one quarter yard at a time.

Still, there absolutely is more than there used to be.  Last year I discovered some Russian nesting dolls fabric with all kinds of kids...girls.  It was a strange choice to go multi-racial (yes, yes that part of the world has been mixing a while, just nesting dolls?  They are so not multi-ethnic) & bought as much as I could carry way.  Which brings me up to my recent trip to the quilt shop. 

They had this (they don't anymore):  many ethnic mermaids.  I wish some of them had afros, but otherwise this is perfect-o as I have a mermaid obsessed white friend who will someday have a baby with a latino father & a black godmother & my only wish is I don't end up giving this quilt to a little boy!  & yes I would do that, his mother is the mermaid freak after all, but it would be nice to have some choices.

So here is my request: Dear fabric company president designer person.  Could you please think about mixing it up a bit when it comes to skin & hair in your juvenile novelties.  Anthropomorphized animals are all well & good, but ordinary people doing ordinary things would be most welcome.

//in an interesting side note, my husband has been trying to get an American student he worked with in a summer intern-type thing to come here for grad school.  The student is as American as he can be--that's right Native American.  Still not white. 

Today in cow

Dear M******:

It as been awhile since I wrote one of these!

Today was the day for our Cowgirl romantic encounter to begin.  Until this afternoon, I had not thought much past getting her in the trailer.  To that end, we moved the trailer to the side pasture weeks ago.  I never did see her get into it, but she got so she could be within charging distance of the thing.  Yesterday, of course that all came to an end. 

A went out to pump up the tires & refasten the license plate (we never put it on because I was worried the donkey would rip it off).  Slowly everyone moseyed in to see what we were up to.  Everyone except herself.  Even the world's dorkiest thoroughbred came over to bump the door, but she stood as close as she could while still keeping the fence between us. 

This morning, I did a whole rigmarole so it would just be the two of us (me & Cowgirl) & I could get the rope back around her horns for the first time since last April (inoculation time).  She wasn't wonderful, but she wasn't horrible.  I shut all the gates to keep her out of the pasture the trailer was in & then did a few chores.  I was hoping she would be curious, I didn't count on how curious.  As soon as we tried to load her, she took off.  Of course

But in the end it happened & she had the usual panic attack she has when she found herself in an enclosed space:

The drive was uneventful, we helped with some rearranging & then pulled the trailer into the pasture. I looked in to check on her & see if I could get the rope off before we released her (I couldn't).  I was pretty sure once I opened the side door to the trailer she would be out, but A had doubts (it is narrower than the width of her horns, high up & at a funny angle).  I am glad the one of us who thought she could do it was paying attention & got out of the way; she sailed by my head a few moments after I jumped off the bumper.


A few minutes to get the rope off & then she took off.  A few moments later the bull took off after her.  Funny little sidebar:  you know those testicles things rednecks like to put on their truck hitches?  Well both me & A observed that Nick's were roughly the same size.  Which, when you consider he is a smallish Dexter bull, & scale being what it is, they are advertising to the world how very small-balled they are. 

As for today, I don't think I have ever worked so hard to make an animal happier in my life.  At least, not all at once.  & I do believe she will be happy, however briefly.  Until this moment, I had not thought ahead 6 weeks to when we need to bring her back.  Shit.

To the person who dumped a litter of kittens at the top of our dirt road, just off a four lane highway

Dear Asshat:

Not sure when you did it, but when I went for my daily run on Friday the 13th we (me & the friend I was running with) found five (5) kittens.  Actually, they kind of found us; two of them ran into the street yowling & they all looked emaciated.  It took a while but we managed to catch 2 of them,  Actually at one point we had 4 of them but a car went by & spooked them; we all have scratches to prove just how spooked they were.

Those 2 kittens came home with me & spent most of the weekend hiding in the dense underbrush around my house.  They were frantic to rejoin the others but being over a mile away they could not hear them yowling back & also there was food at my house.  I saw 2 of the 3 kittens when I went back later that Friday & again when I ran on Saturday, but by Sunday they seemed to have disappeared.

On Sunday evening the kittens at my house moved into a tree at the front door & kept poor A awake for a good part of the night.  Monday morning A***** came by to run again; the kittens hanging in the tree crying for their siblings were hard to miss.  We went for our run & on the return trip, we heard them.  Just like before 2 of them came out to us but the last kitten hung back.  I didn't talk about this with A**** at the time but I knew we could not take the other 2 & leave just 1; it wouldn't survive the night.

I ran for the truck & the pet carrier & cat food while A***** managed to get all 3 of them to follow her almost 1/4 mile back towards my house & away from the highway.  By the time we caught all of them I was bleeding COPIOUSLY from several wounds on my right hand & I'm sure A***** had scratches too (I can also tell you she didn't smell all that good in the closed cab of the truck for the ride home; a 2 1/2 mile run + cat food being smeared all over her took a toll).  At the house, the 3 were reunited with the 2 & there has hardly been any noise since.  What they have been doing for the past 4 days is making up for lost time in the eating & sleeping department.  They also made a visit to a vet (very likely the step that made you decide they had to go because it costs money).  They were nice & calm & purred through most of the exam.

At this point, I realize you might be thinking this played out just fine for everyone: you didn't have to deal with them & still they are headed for good homes.  Think again.  Generally cats that draw blood & have no medical record are euthanized.  Immediately.  & the person who gets bit gets to go through the whole rabies vaccination thing.  It hurts.  Also it isn't free & even if it is covered by insurance there is a $120 co-pay (guess how I know this).  For $45, you could have had their mother spayed.

The euthanizing is merciful compared to the usual end for dumped animals; our vet calls them coyote snack packs.  Because ours is a neighborhood of family farms, it is a magnet for heartless slacker pet owners like you.  & because so many unwanted animals get dumped here, we have a higher than average coyote population harassing our livestock, killing chickens, turkeys, ducks, etc.

Believe it or not the story I related is the short version.  I did not tell you about the family that pulled over with their full horse trailer & tried to help to catch the kittens the first time, or the farmer that saw me when I went back Friday evening & left his work to make sure someone hadn't broken down, or the woman at the house we finally caught the kittens who is caring for her daughter-in-law's 3 dogs each of which was also dumped in their turn at the same intersection. 

As revolting as we all find you to be, it is nothing compared to our disgust at how stoopid you are.  We all presume you were just too cheap to deal with the kittens ethically.  As it happens, you unloaded them in a county with MULTIPLE agencies that would have inoculated them & placed them in foster homes at no charge to you. 

So you put a neighborhood to inconvenience & expense for quite literally no reason at all.  It is my fondest wish that some day, maybe when you are old & cannot care for yourself, that the people you always thought would help you instead heave you out of the back of a pick-up to die in a ditch by the side of the road.  I am only sorry it can only happen once.

This week in cow

Dear M******,

I know I usually send a "this week in cow" update by e-mail.  Also it is usually about the week.  All I can think about right now is This Morning in Cow.  What a bad cow!  She knocked a board out (breaking it: bad bad cow) & made her way inot the main pasture.  After that, she chased the horses, donkey, goats around..

OKay, maybe she was not chasing them.  Maybe she just wanted to go where they were going...at top speed.  Fortunately Ira, in all his goofiness was in his stall, & Becca-Pony as well, so everyone mostly just did laps around the barn.  I finally got her in the milk stand an hour late & got a WHOPPING 2 cups from her.

Once she was off the milk stand, I let her back into the big pasture (what the hell, right?) & she jumped, JUMPED the back fence (a top plank was down & I did not see, shame on me).  Once in the alley between our place & next door she trampled the old barbed wire barrier & spent a frolicking hour with at the neighbors (not the red neck who goes hunting drunk & never manages to shoot himself but the other on the other side which is a guy my brother would describe as Most Likely to Kill Buckwheat).

In the end I took down more boards, hauled her thru & put them back up.  It is pouring rain now & she is quite pissed to be out in the big pasture now that she has seen ALL the others are eating every morsel of grass from her pasture.  So, I am thinking of getting hay sometime later today. 

Not that any of this is anything you need to worry about, but I do have some actual info for you: I am almost out of jars (there was one big one left I thought I would use this morning).  Also I made 24 hour yogurt & put it in the fridge this afternoon & last of all I have some yogurt spread, also fermented extra long.  Are you still thinking of borrowing some books & bread forms?  Any interest in coming by Saturday afternoon (or later if you want to milk)?  The kitchen cabinets arrive Tuesday so I am packing the kitchen starting then. 

I know you want to test-drive the yogurt maker; I want to hang onto it until the last possible moment but then I will deliver with whatever starter I have left & I will write up the recipes (I have more than one, go me!).

mb.

PS:  this is the absolute best, most favorite granola recipe ever!  Thank you!  Apparently I do like apricots.

Dear Mom

Bonjour!

Just got back from the shipping out a package(did you ever find that Stockard Channing reading Why I Live at the PO?).  It contains:

1. The promised quilt for the new daughter of your ex-son-in-law.  If you could trim the edges & sew up the binding (thank you!) & give it to your grandaughter to give as a gift to her new 1/2-sister that would be lovely.  I cannot for the life of me remember Rhymes-with-Schmuck's current wife's real name & I cannot very well address a note to her as Biological-Clock-Ticking so if you could somehow communicate "machine washable gentle, tumble dry briefly & then lie flat" I would be grateful.
   
   
2. A bright yellow railroad-looking spike made of plastic.  Remember Crazy R*****, the one who was so obsessed with her doorknobs being thoroughly cleaned, but cheated on her husband in the back seats of strangers' cars?  Well, her dogs were just peeing ANYWHERE in the yard & she got one of these & then they just started peeing there & she was able to keep them out of her roses.  Yes, the dogs would lift a leg on the only thing in the yard with thorns; they were as crazy as she was.  I thought if you put this in a spot along the sidewalk the walked-dogs might use it instead of your hosta (I always want to say Hofstra). 
   
   
3. Your quilt block swap swap blocks from JUNE.  Yes, I am a lousy swap-keeper. 
   
   
4. A collection of work-force motivational posters from just before WWI thru to just after WWII.  The Harn has an exhibit & I had been wanting to go for a while, but now that C****** is a grown-up with a job, she only has enough time for me to take her to lunch & more recently buy her a crock pot.  So I had to wait for a rainy Sunday when A could not work on the greenhouse & then we went.    His favorite was the long winded way of saying "keep it brief", but I would not want to pick a favorite for you so we got you the flip-book.  We both could picture it in your house, although we could not agree where.  I would have gotten another for L***** van A***** but they only had one more & it was mangled.
   
5. Two (2) Lopi sweaters.  One you made me in college.  It still fits (although the sleeves were always short) but it occurred to me it would also fit one of your grandaughters.  Tell A****** it is supposed to have 3/4- length sleeves.  The other you made for M****** U***** when we were dating & I think it might fit D***.
   
6. Gator grocery bags for yourself or that rabid Gator fan G***** hangs out with.
   
7. A scarf that needs blocking, but the color is one you like.  Way-back-when I was showing C****** how to choose increases & decreases for better shaping & made it up quick & put it aside.  Do you want it?

No other news, except Becca is out of EPM paste, so now we wait & see if her trouble swallowing comes back.  & oh, I used the Balti Seasoning you got me at Penzey's to stir fry tofu cubes & A cannot get enough of it!  Seriously.  I used the leftovers in a layered vegetarian shepherd's pie type thing (à la Horn of the Moon) & he had that for dinner every night until it was gone, except last Thursday because I insisted we stop for a slice on the way home from campus.  V** was here when I was making it & she could not believe how good it smelled (her words, not mine; she is not usually a tofu-woman).

That really is it.  Please let me know when the package arrives.

Je m'appelle M*******

Dear Mr. Iwata

Here's the thing.  You have never heard of me & I had to google to find out who you were.  It is safe to say we don't have much overlap & I think we are both fine with that.  Except recently I bought a Wii.

A few things you should know about me:  I don't have kids.  I don't like kids, much.  Actually kids are OKay I guess, it's their parents that make me want to...well enough about that.  All you need to know is I did not get the Wii for the kids, I got it for me.  Ditto the Wii Fit.  Then my husband got me a "game"  EA Active as an anniversary gift.  It is a bit lunge-heavy for my taste & I did lose my balance once already & have a really vivid bruise to show for it.  I fell down mostly because I cracked my kneecap in a freak dog walking incident several years ago &...well, never mind about that.

Sidebar here-does EA Active seem like a strange gift?  Well, he once got me a Nordic Track for our anniversary & I fell off it & hurt my shoulder then too, so apparently he is working a list of seemingly benign gifts that I can hurt myself with.  As it happens, the dog of the dog walking incident was also an anniversary gift.  I had not put that together until just now.

After EA Active turned out to be not-so-much a game, my husband got me Tetris.  He was disgusted with the really really bad navigation design.  The keys were all scrambled (push the up key to go down, seriously?), but they made me nostalgic.  I remember the very first Tetris with Red Square in the background & those oh-so-poorly translated directions.  The whole thing reminded me of my favorite NewsRadio episode when Mr. James's memoir is not such a big seller in the States but hugely popular in Japan, so he decides to have the Japanese translation translated back to English & re-release it.  After all, it worked for VCR instructions.  That was a great show.

All of this leads me to my first request:  Frogger.  We would like a Frogger for the Wii.  & by "we" I mean everyone I have mentioned this to & double for A*****. 

Next, we would like a celebrity workout game.  & by "we" I mean me.  I know there are dime-a-dozen celebrity workout videos out there, but "we" actually want something a little different.  For example, you know that hula-hoop thing in Wii Fit?  We were hoping Kirstie Alley could do that.  & for the rhythm Kung Fu, maybe James Gandolfini.  They don't all need to be as out of shape as I am, of course.  I mean WE are.  Valerie Bertinelli is looking good these days.  So is Betty White, for that matter.   I admit Hot In Cleveland has been a huge hit in my house.  Did you see last week when Betty White broke off her engagement to Carl Reiner because he wouldn't go downtown?  I'm still laughing.

Other celebrities we would like to see in this workout game: John Stewart, Stephen Colbert & what the hell Rush Limbaugh, since we have Betty White already on the list throw in Mary Tyler Moore & Cloris Leachman, I know for a fact the rehab unit at the place my in-laws live is looking into getting a Wii Fit & Dick van Dyke would make them very happy.

I hope I have given you some food for thought Mr. Iwata.  & I hope you won't look a gift demographic in the mouth.

Dear Geico Representative

If you read your own e-mail (which the auto-responses to my messages rather imply that you do not), you already know that our household of Geico customers is leaving your company after 20+ years because of Geico's continued support of the Philadelphia Eagles following their decision to sign Michale Vick.

The e-mail response I did receive stated clearly that the potential new customer is worth more to your organization than the existing customer. I find it hard to believe that anyone would stay in business for as long as Geico has if that were true so you should know: if it was a bluff hoping the anti-Michael Vick sentiments would fade away, it failed. Several of your competitors were delighted to scoop up our business & all gave us reasonable quotes & better customer service.

I hope whatever Geico staffer actually opens this letter takes a good look in the mirror. After the furor over this very poor marketing decision has died down, even if people like us represent only a fraction of Geico's overall customer base, the exodus of long-term, on-time bill paying, non-claim making (we have not had so much as a moving violation for more than ten years) customers means there will be less money in the pot for payroll. The job that gets cut will not be the suit that thought this would blow over; that person will be enjoying Philadelphia Eagles skybox service while you are waiting in the unemployment line.

Happy Labor Day.

Dear Humane Society of the United States

I was sorry when I learned that HSUS had agreed to endorse Michael Vick's return to the NFL before any measure of his rehabilitation could be made. Now that Vick has made clear that he has no plans to attempt sobriety (to refresh your memory, his addictions were the excuse he gave for his actions), I hope that you are reconsidering your support of what was clearly a quick&dirty clean-up so that someone could make some money.

As of right now, any support (financial, volunteer, etc.) that I gave to HSUS has already stopped. I know enough people in the animal rescue world to know that I am one of thousands who have made this decision. I am also business savvy enough to understand that the donation the NFL made to get the support of the HSUS in this debacle must have been substantial. It may even be enough to offset the loss of revenue from small household donors such as myself.

There is no doubt that the decision to take what was offered & prop up Michael Vick for as long as HSUS has will be the decision that defines HSUS well into the future. What is still at stake is whether HSUS is an organization that can admit a mistake was made. Was HSUS a naive but well-intentioned organization that was temporarily distracted by dollar signs & has realized this error OR is HSUS just another corporate entity designed primarily to make money to feed its coffers? Or is it even worse: is the HSUS employee that brokered this deal & received a sizable bonus for his "fund raising" the same person who makes the decision on whether or not to "stay the course"?

When Michael Vick does finally crash&burn (& there is every reason to believe it will be sooner rather than later), the press will have a field day with if HSUS is still the organization that was more interested in rescuing animal abusers than helping the animals themselves.

It seems clear that HSUS is at a crossroads. Is it better to stay in bed with the symbol of everything the HSUS claims to be against because the money is good or get out with some shreds of credibility intact & hope that action generates some goodwill? At this point, these are the only choices left.

Dear Mr. Goodell

It was with no surprise what-so-ever that I read you had reinstated Michael Vick to the NFL, with full reinstatement by week 6 of the upcoming season. I have never heard of a professional sports administrator that did not put $$ above every other standard & no one expected you would be any different. Also, I am sure it is handy for future offenders in the NFL to know "indefinitely" means less than three years.

Living in a Football Is King community, I have heard many arguments for Vick's reinstatement. I think my favorites are: they are just dogs & other players have beaten their wives/girlfriends & not drawn this much attention. I am sure both of these were factors in your decision. Whether we like it or not, there is a perception of complicity when a victim capable of speech elects not to speak.

On the other hand, if Michael Vick had rounded up his exes, put them in cages & forced them to fight to the death, the outcome would probably be somewhat different. In short, it would be out of your hands.

The world of football is plenty big enough that I am confident you will have a full & rich life without being much inconvenienced wondering what the rest of us think of you. Which is lucky because it is not much. As disgusted as I am by an ignorant animal that has never been taught to live in a civilized manner, is in fact rewarded for the damage it does, there is nothing more craven than the human being that profits from that animal's base nature.