Family & Friends

Well it’s about time, isn’t it?

/ lintqueen / Leave a comment

I’ve been over busy of late, which is no excuse for the sporadic updates, but I’ve also not felt like typing.  (I actually HATE typing and would much prefer to dictate things… I can TALK for hours!)

Anyway, with my birthday having been last week there’s been a flurry of taking me out to dinners and lunches (work folks, Meghan, Jeff, and Mike [though that wasn’t technically a birthday dinner, it was a fund raiser that he’d won tickets for, but I gave him birthday credit anyway]), which is, of course, all to the good.  In addition, I’ve:

  • Gone to a wedding — my first Quaker service.  Much to my relief, the “quiet-unless-moved-to-speak” part lasted only about an hour and was partially filled by other non-me people.  I’ve had several folks trying to explain to me the concept behind “being moved to speak”; however, what they don’t seem to understand is that (for me) about 22 seconds of silence is enough to move me to speak.  At any rate, I enjoyed the service, which seemed not to trigger as much wedding anxiety as I usually have.  The fact that there was a pig-pickin’ and a GREAT cake afterwards increased my joy.
  • Attended a Baby Shower — not for me (duh), for a woman with whom I work
  • A Photo Shoot with Sarah — That sounds much more impressive than it was, which was mostly us walking around Franklin Street with me attempting to make helpful noises like “erm…when the thingie’s too much to the left, you need more light, so you could make the shutter speed bigger.  I mean faster…. I mean…”
  • Seen Laser Floyd — Yep, laser shows are back at the Morehead Planetarium.  I luuuurve me some laser shows.  Laser Beatles is starting next — who wants to go with me?
  • Done another Secret Shopping Expedition — to Big Bowl with Al (not my ex-boss Al, the Al I know through Larry’s roommate Greg)
  • Seen Peter Tork at the Six String Cafe — yep.  A Monkee.  Live and In Person.  He was actually quite fun (and not bad musically), though there was one completely surrealistic moment when he played a Bach piece on piano (think it was Brandenburg no.5 in D, but I won’t swear to that).  Monkee.  Bach.  Freaky.
  • Visited Centerfest — Mostly to look at display options in prep for the show I’m doing…

Oh, I haven’t mentioned that yet, have I?  Well, that’s been the other Big Thing that’s been eating my time.  I’m doing my first “craft show” this December.  It’s a fund raiser for Cary Academy (I got randomly lucky — is that tautologically redundant?? — and a friend of a friend [Inez] was looking for exhibitors and my name got thrown in.  I’m planning on having the following:

  • purses
  • scarves (knitted and polar fleece)
  • hats (knitted and polar fleece)
  • jewelry
  • keyrings
  • punk baby bibs
  • iPod/cellphone cozies

And perhaps I’ll put out a photograph or Polaroid emulsion transfer or two (it’s a “craft” show, so I don’t know what the market will be like for them, but what the heck?).

Needless to say, this raises all sorts of logistical issues — display?!  tags?!  pricing…  :|    It also requires *stuff*…lots of stuff… stuff I make.  So I’m making.  Part of my problem is that I really don’t care for “production work”…once I’ve made something once, I get bored with it. So (on the “thinking positively” side) that means everything I make is unique, but on the (depressingly realistic side) there are no “economies of scale” in production.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and how I feel about the things I make and have decided I’m OK (for now, when this is a hobby/side adventure, not anything like a Real Job) with this, and, from a marketing standpoint, can turn it to my advantage.

That being said, my *stuff* will continue to take a while to make.  Must Make More Stuff.

Quick update

/ lintqueen / 2 Comments

I have been much slack in updating of late. Oops.

As an excuse I offer: busyness! (surprise! ;-)

Ok, so last weekend I:

  • Met Heather and Debra at Carrburritos (I think I might’ve put too many “rrrrrr”s in there) for Burritos as Big as Our Heads (BaBaOH) tm followed by Tift Merritt‘s album release party at the Cat’s Cradle. The Super Double Bonus was that Gary Louris (of The Jayhawks), who sings backup for some of the songs on this album, played as well. In fact, he sang one of my Most Favorite songs — All the Right Reasons — solo accousitc. Mmmmmm! I gushed at him a bit afterwards…
  • Saturday was the Day of Organization. Jeff & I went to several stores with multiple sets of measurements in hand in order to find a storage solution for my fabric and yarn. This is not an insubstantial problem.Some sewers/knitters, you see, find a pattern they like, then buy the fabric/yarn to complete it, then make the thing. Not me. Nope. I find fabric/yarn I like, then visit it on a regular basis, so as to be able to hear it when it tells me what it wants to be when it grows up. This means I have *lots* of fabric and *lots* of yarn. The sad thing was that my storage capacity was so limited that the materials were all squashed up, so some of them weren’t being heard properly (I mean, really, how could a nice little piece of quilting cotton in yellow expect to be heard over lime green polarfleece?).

    So now I have four little Target cabinets (with doors! on sale! $23.99/ea.!) that all the fabric can safely live in and two little shoe cabinets with 25 compartments each where all my yarn can live. Needless to say, the fabric and yarn are quite happy to be grouped by weight and color. And it makes me really happy to be able to go upstairs (the shelves line the catwalk that connects the stairs with the loft area of my house) and see all my pretties all nice and neat!

  • Saturday night, Jeff and I met ferociousbcycad, one of my significant ex-others (ex-significant others?) for dinner at Babymoon Cafe. Potentially awkward, yet decidedly not in reality (yah!). We had a blast (they actually have quite a bit in common… INTP’s [I’m listening to you all gape in surprise at that one! ;-)] who ride motorcycles, etc.) and ended up talking until nearly ten.
  • Sunday I decided that if I could finish a big (and very long-in-the-making project), I could clear off one of the tables upstairs, which would give me space to cut fabric (which would be far more ergonomically correct and far less backache-inducing than the current system of cutting it on the floor). So I spent Sunday afternoon (and evening and part of Monday night) reacquainting myself with how to do this craft that I’d not done in, oh, I dunno, 7 years? (geep). Only minor injuries were sustained and The Project (which is not being detailed here for a pretty good reason) is completed!
  • Tuesday night I met Greta for dinner at Rocky Mountain Firebird Grill Thing at my mall. Greta is one amazing person, and this time, just like last time, we managed not to do a stitch of knitting, but instead gabbed for three hours. :)
  • Wednesday night, thebroomecloset (surprisingly, another significant ex-other or ex-significant other, take your pick) and I met for dinner at Rockfish (and also gabbed for going on four hours*). Pretty amazing … I’ve known him for eighteen years (I think we figured out?…) and he’s still one of my favorite people on the planet.

Whew.
* OK. That’s not all that amazing. I talk. A lot. I get it. ;-)

Who has been commenting in my journal…

/ lintqueen / 2 Comments

Who’s been commenting in your journal?

1 lintqueen 118 comments 33.62% of total
2 shemaiah 62 comments 17.66% of total
3 Anonymous 45 comments 12.82% of total
4 jason0x21 17 comments 4.84% of total
5 sarah_ovenall 16 comments 4.56% of total
6 thebroomecloset 13 comments 3.7% of total
7 xaviermusketeer 11 comments 3.13% of total
8 meep 11 comments 3.13% of total
9 jklgoduke 8 comments 2.28% of total
10 mckenzee 7 comments 1.99% of total
11 pbmath 5 comments 1.42% of total
12 bdot 4 comments 1.14% of total
13 darthsunshine 4 comments 1.14% of total
14 humblepie 3 comments 0.85% of total
15 thetimebetween 3 comments 0.85% of total
16 bellicaneko 3 comments 0.85% of total
17 ovrclokd 3 comments 0.85% of total
18 karenbynight 2 comments 0.57% of total
19 tekaytalks 2 comments 0.57% of total
20 franklyvulgar 2 comments 0.57% of total
21 loosetooth 2 comments 0.57% of total
22 ferociousbcycad 2 comments 0.57% of total
23 shipofools999 1 comments 0.28% of total
24 luwenth 1 comments 0.28% of total
25 quislibet 1 comments 0.28% of total
26 jinlundi 1 comments 0.28% of total
27 blush10ac 1 comments 0.28% of total
28 eneref 1 comments 0.28% of total
29 librarian 1 comments 0.28% of total
30 elementxero 1 comments 0.28% of total

These statistics were generated using the LJ Stats Web Interface by mpnolan. Original idea from scrapdog‘s LJ Comment Stats Wizard.

Things I’m thankful for

/ lintqueen / 9 Comments

1) Friends and family who make sure I have crutches and food
2) a very good GP
3) Vioxx
4) My little red makeup stool with wheels, which, it turns out, is perfect for scooting around house
5) a first floor master bedroom (and bath)
6) a shower with a seat in it
7) a boss who understands why I can’t work sitting up for long stretches
8) insurance
9) a boyfriend who is coming home tonight

The fuzzlets that have nested at my house

/ lintqueen / 7 Comments

birdieThese are the baby birdies (finchlets) that have nested in the glass Chinese latern (thanks, Pottery Barn — you are useful after all) that’s hanging on my porch.

Iron Chef!

/ lintqueen / 8 Comments

The big thing this past weekend (gads, I’m slow.  big project launching this week, though, so I have a semi-excuse) was that Sunday Jeff & I had a few friends over to his house* for sushi-rolling goodness and Iron Chef!

Saturday morning, I crafted (more on this later) and that afternoon we went to the little Asian market in Chapel Hill for supplies …Silver Wok Gourmet, I believe it’s called — it’s right near where Mariakakis restaurant was (gads, I miss that place.. the huge cheesy white pizza with the “ziki-ziki” sauce. Yes, I know it’s tzatziki sauce, but I called it “ziki-ziki” sauce).  Anyway, the SWG is run by a little Japanese woman who reminded us of Jeff’s mom and who was very sweet in making recommendations to us about which sort of miso to buy, etc.  (Though she reminded me of Jeff’s mom immediately, I didn’t say anything to Jeff while we were in the store because I was afraid that it would come off as some sort of “all older Japanese ladies look alike” thing, and it wasn’t.  But then in the car on the way to Wellspring (sorry, Whole Foods) Jeff said she’s reminded him of his mom, so I fessed up too.).

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Anyway, post-shopping we had dinner at Rockfish (I do <3 Rockfish), followed by more craftiness for me… I made a pocketbook and chopsticks for the party (more on those later).

I took those cheap snap-apart chopsticks (I had to snap about 20 pairs of them to get 10 even-enough pairs to pass muster — good thing I’m a packrat!), sanded them with 00 and 000 grade sandpaper, wrapped masking tape about an inch down from the top and painted each one with two different colors of paint.  Finally, I sealed them with clear nail polish (which is almost like lacquer, right?) and set them to dry.

Sunday afternoon we did all the prep work for the sushi…made rice, made it sushi rice, slivered cukes and carrots, boiled shrimp, tried to slice the cream cheese but gave that up as hopeless, and considered slicing the tuna, but decided to wait until the last possible moment for that.  We also made the miso soup (ok, Jeff did), and cut up all the bits for the tempura (sweet potatoes, broccoli, onions, shrimp, and green beans) and cleaned up.
MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAThen I got a little obsessive-compulsive (me? no way!) and decided that I needed to add beads to one chopstick from each pair (the Japanese aesthetic values asymmetry, right?).  Here’s the result

I also made voting sheets for everyone so that they could rate each chef.  On the real program, each chef is judged on:

  1. originality,
  2. expression of the theme ingredient,
  3. presentation, and
  4. taste;

however, given that we couldn’t taste (sadly), we judged on:

  1. originality,
  2. chef’s “style”,
  3. appearance, and
  4. would I eat it?

We favored Morimoto over Flay (heck, we would’ve favored Bob Saget over Flay, I think!), and were quite disappointed when he was *robbed*!  It was a blast, and not nearly as stressful as I feared (I know I’ve mentioned my hostess-stress before — doesn’t that look like it should be hostessstress? — mostly because it was a very small group of people *and* people were kind enough to bring goodies (like sake! mmmmm).

* a double-whammy of a shocker!  As may have been mentioned before, Jeff’s (a) Introverted (notice capital “I”) and (b) doesn’t much care for parties (that was an understatement, actually, as he pretty much doesn’t like them except under some very specific circumstances), so it amazed me that he agreed to it and agreed to have it at his house.  I think the biggest thing that helped make this OK was the fact that he got to (for the first part of the party) be involved in cooking (which meant not a whole lot of having to interact with people) and then (for the second half of the party) be involved in the watching (ditto).  In addition, this was “comfortable” territory… he is at home with making tempura, etc.  Plus he had all the cool little bits like pretty soy sauce dishes and sake warmers!

Oh, while I’m thinking of it, don’t buy the little Japanese “jelly” candies that look like jello in those little creamer cups (only clear).  They are, I have determined, NOT food.

Weekend in review

/ lintqueen / 9 Comments

Friday morning I went with a crown (ok, a smallish crowd) of folks from work to raise walls on the Habitat for Humanity house that Nortel is sponsoring. This was, much to my great surprise, fun (tho it was a bit on the warm side and I “glowed” more than I’m accustomed to). I have pictures, which will get posted soon, I hope (don’t you love the way I phrased that “which will get posted soon,” as if *I* am not the one who needs to get off her rear and post them. I was more competent at the nailing thing than I’d thought I’d be, and was thwoping the big (that’d be $.16 to use the technical term) nails in seven thwacks or fewer. Yah me! That being said, Steve could do it in three, so I’m not sure I’ve got a lot to brag on.

Friday night, I met up with Heather and Liz for some shopping action (at Total Wine — who thought up that name?!), then dinner at the Angus Barn. Mmmmmmmmm….beef! I’d not eaten there since my birthday (September, for anyone keeping track) and had not had dinner with Liz and Heather in eons either (though Heather was co-host of the girl’s fondue thing, and Liz was there), so that was thoroughly enjoyable.

Saturday, oh Saturday, Jeff and I took the bike to Winston and ordered my MINI!! More on that later (do I always say that?), but for now I need help with the critical decision of chrome mirrors (another view) or white mirrors.

I did end up opting for the chrome bumper inserts, much to my surprise.

What color mirror covers should Gina get on her MINI?
Chrome (adv.: shiny, bugs not as obvious, matches bumper inserts)
White (adv: cheaper, matches roof)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

On family

/ lintqueen / 2 Comments

darthsunshine posted a question that got me thinking about my relationship with my brother and how it has undergone a transformation.

Growing up, Drew, my younger brother, and I fought.  Not fought like the bickering that all siblings do, but real, not-very-nice arguing and disrespecting each other.  In my mind, I was the older (somewhat more “responsible”…note, I did say this was in my mind) sister, and he was the crybaby, gets-everything-he-wants baby brother (we’re only 4.5 years apart, actually).  More than anything, though, we just had very very little in common.  I was bookish/academically oriented (ok, geeky), extroverted (yeah, that made me popular alright.. a geek who wants to hang out with everyone
else), and not at all interested in being outdoors or sports or cars. Drew, OTOH, was introverted, athletic, “outdoorsy”, not much interested in reading or books, and loved cars.

I am my daddy’s girl, and we’re frighteningly similar at times, while Drew is just like Mom, of course.  Mom and Dad split when we were 14 and 10, and given the disparity of their personalities, it wasn’t (in retrospect, at any rate) all that surprising.

As I got older, I “loosened up” a bit, and Drew grew up and got a job and had many of the same responsibilities as I did.  We still didn’t connect, though.  We’d see each other, exchange notes on who saw which parent last and what they’d done/said, and then sit, staring at one another, with nothing else much to say until we made some excuse to be somewhere else.  The acrimony of our childhood had been replaced by indifference.  I loved him (I will always love him, no matter what, ’cause he’s my brother), but we had no structure for our relationship other than the bonds of kinship.

What’s weird in our case is that there was one evening that was a turning point; a distinct fulcrum around which our relationship rotated.  It was 1998ish, and I was very close friends with a guy named Dave, who was, in many ways, between us on the spectrum.  He was a “car guy” and was a mechanic for a while, yet was also a computer geek.  He was a little obsessive and “stressy” like me about details; yet was “coooooooool” and laid back (like Drew) in conversations and one-on-one.

One of the few things that Drew and I had discovered we both liked was the Beatles, and when the Beatles Yellow Submarine was released to theaters again, I asked Dave and Meghan (another close friend) to get pizza and see it with me.  On a whim I called Drew and invited him too, not knowing if he’d consider hanging out with his “not-cool” sister or if he did, what we’d say to each other.

To make a long (sorry) story a lot shorter, that evening everything changed.  Drew showed up and we did our “So have you talked to Mom recently” thing and ….

well…

I told Dave that Drew was restoring an old car (a big American Boatmobile, I think I called it). Conversation!!!  Then Dave made a joke about about a movie that we’d all seen — more conversation!!!

And that night I saw my brother as someone other than “my baby brother.”  He became a real 3-D person, whom I could relate to outside of the family relationship, even if we still didn’t have a lot in common.  During the course of one evening of conversation, he figured out that I wasn’t nearly as “geeky” as he thought (hey! I have cool friends who restore cars too!), while and I realized that he wasn’t the little tattletale who always got his way (not, mind you, that he ever really was… it was
just my perception).

We’ve talked about it since and I think we’re both more than a little amazed that somehow we got past 30 years of attitude/indifference.  I know my mom is perplexed by it.  Maybe it was the beer or maybe it was the “bridgers” (Dave and Meghan), but since that night, we’ve been friends.  He is a different person now (as am I), and it just took that one night for me to really “see” it.