Brian and I waited patiently all morning for tickets to go on sale for the two local Ryan Adams concerts, and while we didn't get front row seats, we did get decent ones. I'm way psyched.
This is the series of emails between Brian and I after I finished ordering the tickets:
Heather Piper wrote:
Orchestra tickets, row K, 119 & 121! Not front row, but not bad!
Brian Piper wrote:
:)...GEEK!!! Bring lots of panties!!!
Heather Piper wrote:
Those big freakin' white cotton Granny undies ("Grundies")? Yeah, I'll be wildly popular!
Question to the audience: I thought that throwing panties at the stage went out of fashion with the declining popularity of David Cassidy, yes? Do women still throw their panties at the stage? If so, isn't that, well, kind of a health risk? I mean, I love being on stage as much as any theater geek does, but I'm not sure I want people pelting me in the head with thongs.
Not that it's ever happened (or ever will).
I'm just wonderin'.
PS: Glorious Ryan Adams' quote of the day: "AND DONT PUT ANY STICKERS ON IT ITS NOT A STATION WAGON ITS A VEHICLE OF ROCK"
For about 10 years I have wanted to make a very specific leather jerkin from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion. I've finally lifted my backside from the chair and ordered all the materials needed to make it.
This is the jerkin:
See those tiny holes? Those are little heart and star cut-outs. After a few emails back and forth with Churchill from Brettuns Village, I placed my order for two leather hides and two custom-made leather punches: a tiny, quarter-inch heart and a star or the same size.
Ryan Adams just announced new tour dates, and it seems that he will be performing in Syracuse AND Rochester.
*SWOON*
Man, I'm not a big fan of concerts, but I would, like, TOTALLY give you my puking cat for an opportunity to see him live. Any advice on how to score decent seats to a Ryan Adams concert?
For those readers who have followed along with the 'Letters from Phil' series a few years ago, my friend Geoff has been writing a research blog about Phil and the Company A, 24th Marines.
The other day Geoff received a package in the mail from Phil Wood's sister, Gretchen and inside were dozens of pictures that Phil had mailed to her while he was away at war. Many of them have captions written by Phil himself.
What a treat they are, and I would like to invite you all over to Geoff's research blog to take a peek at them. I hope you'll enjoy his entries as much as I do. And if you happen to know anything about the people he writes about, please write to him. He'd love any information you can share with him.
The cat tears through the kitchen and disappears. Heather scrambles around the corner, hopping on one foot. She swipes a paper towel as she passes the roll, grabs the broom and starts poking around under the cupboards, muttering words that sound like "flea-kin' bulimia!" On the fourth one-legged leap around the cabinets, she hop-lands on a ripped-out page of Barbie's Fabulous Coloring Extravaganza, which behaves much like a skateboard on a Crisco-covered mirror. Heather lands, quite hard, on her backside.
She is obviously insane.
Two minutes earlier:
I had just rolled out the one yard of silk brocade on my living room floor in preparation of cutting a brand new bodice design to my own exact measurements. This garment was going to be the first one I have made for myself in almost a decade. I left the room to get my tape measure, and when I returned I noticed the cat has vomited SMACK EFFIN' DAB in the center of my $60/yard length of silk. I would have throttled her, but at the very moment I realized what she had done, I also discovered that I had stepped in a second pile of vomit and warm cat food chunks were oozing up between my toes.
Two-freaking-thousand square feet of puking room, and she has to choose the ONE DAMN YARD OF SPACE I have chosen to work within.
I was obviously insane to adopt a bulimic cat.
PS: I only do MY OWN projects in the living room. The sewing studio, where I work, never comes in contact with animals, toddlers or husbands. This story is exactly the reason why.
We have new decorative fabrics! We got tired of the old supplier not telling us when they ran out of something, so we found a new supplier. We think the new fabrics are pretty spectacular. We hope you will too!
Over the last few weeks I've been looking over the website trying to figure out what I should tackle first. We've been asked to offer a line of Medieval circlets, and I finally put them online a few weeks ago.
We've been asked to add a true-to-the-original Ever After 'Just Breathe' gown, and it's almost finished. Expect it to be online in a few weeks. We've been working with a company to produce hand-beaded purl appliqués to match the movie version, and the trims arrived yesterday!
We've got a line of Pirate coats coming up, and thanks to the assistance of our newest model, Thane Floreth, we'll be adding a gorgeous series of historically-inspired coats to our list of offerings.
Today I am sewing up five new bodice designs. Here's the rundown:
1) The Cherise: A rounded-neckline front or back lacing bodice. It's similar to our basic bodice, but instead of having a squared neckline, it's romantically rounded.
2) The Morocco Bodice: This is a cropped bodice which will work well for either belly dancing or a maternity bodice. The back has a cute little point that we'll add either a tassel or a jingle bell for you.
3) The Dante: This design is one of two long-line bodices we're going to offer. All of the bodices we currently offer end at the natural waist. People have been asking for a longer Basque-waist length bodice, so we've added two design options. This bodice laces at the sides and makes the body look longer and leaner.
4) The Odette: This is the second long-line bodice. It comes in three pieces; the front, the back and the shoulder straps.
5) The Anise: We named it The Anise because it's spicy, and also because we like the way Jane DeRue says the word 'anise.' It's an Elizabethan design with sassy little tabs all along the waist line and shoulder straps.
Leather: I just ordered some to make an Elizabethan doublet from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion. Expect historical accuracy. Expect to be blown away.
I think that's about it for now. It's enough, wouldn't you say? Once we have it all ready for you, we'll send out a newsletter, so be sure to join our mailing list!
Over the weekend I was doing a bit of research for a freelance article I'm writing for a brand new Renaissance magazine that will be released toward the end of this year. While browsing through my historical painting books, I found this masterpiece, Adoration of the Magi, 1496, by Filippino Lippi:
Something in that painting caught my eye, and on further investigation, this is what I found:
See that? Right there on his neckline? Those things that look like BIG, HONKIN, SHINY, BRASS GROMMETS?
I know I rarely blog about Mr. Adampants, but the kid is just so darned agreeable and easy-going, that he rarely does anything unusual enough to write about. He spends his day snuggling, smiling and eating. He is just starting to say actual words, so I suspect that as the months pass, I'll have more things to tell you about.
Elizabeth, however, is a heaping bowl of cracker-jax and amusing stories right now. She is, after all, THREE, and with THREE comes certain blog-able conversations and performances. Last night's events were no exception.
Every night we have a bedtime ritual. I tuck her in and tell her a story, then I sing her a song. Sometimes she sings a song to me and tells me a story in return. However, I never tell more than one story, and I never sing more than one song. My sister-in-law Jane always says that parents must stick to their guns and never give in to demands from three-year-olds. If I do, "You can be guaranteed your kid will wind up on crack in 15 years."
Last night Elizabeth asked to wear my glasses and we reversed roles. I was Elizabeth and she was Mommy. I crow-barred my 5'8" body into her 3-foot long bed and begged:
"Mommy! Tell me a story!"
Elizabeth sat down on the bed next to me. When she wears my glasses on her tiny little nose it's comical enough, but she was pretending to be me and acting so grown-up and sophisticated, it was all I could do to keep from crying out from the overload of absurd cuteness. She even reached out her hand to brush the hair out of my eyes and caress my face (much like I do every night as I tell her a story), sighed and said (in a disturbingly grown-up voice) "No, no. It's bed time, honey. You have to go to sleep."
She continued to pet my face and rock her head from side to side, whispering to me to quiet down and sleep. As she typically does at bedtime, I began to whine.
"But, Mommmmmmeeeeeeee! I want you to tell me a story and sing a song!"
"No, no. It's time for bed, sweetheart. Hush. Sleep," and she patted my cheek gently.
I kicked it up a notch and fake cried.
"MOMMEEEEEEEEE I WANT A STORY AND A SONG PLEEEEEEEEEEEASE"
"No, honey. It's bedtime. And if I tell you a story and sing you a song. . . " She pondered a moment to determine the consequences and finished her sentence. "THE BEARS WILL EAT YOU."
Now, first of all, while she did a great job of mimicking my behaviors, she got a few things wrong. I ALWAYS tell a story. I ALWAYS sing a song to her. I have never told her that BEARS WILL EAT HER.
And I can already imaging Jane reading this story, shaking her head, whispering, "BEARS? Yep. 15 years from now: crack addict."
Brian and I bought season passes to a local amusement park a few weeks ago. The first time we went, The Soak Zone was closed. We were told that The Soak Zone is a little area for toddler-sized humans with lots of gentle fountains and spray. The wave pool and "Ariel's Ocean" as Elizabeth calls it, were both open. Adam loved the wave pool, and Elizabeth loved Ariel's Ocean, so Brian and I saw very little of each other that day.
Later we met up for food and had a chance to ride the dry rides. Elizabeth loved the swings, teacups, boats and cars. Adam loved the ride called 'LUNCH.' Actually, our little handsomepants is so easy going that he really doesn't care what we're doing as long as he's a part of it. He's happy to tag along no matter what we do.
It was a great day, and we were glad we bought passes. However, the rules for the passes state that we can visit the park 15 times during the season. I wish they didn't do that, because now it's a challenge. If they left the passes open-ended for number of visits, we'd go five times, we would have saved tons of cash, and I would have been perfectly okay with that. But now I feel as though I *have* to go 15 times or I won't get my money's worth.
We went back last Friday and The Soak Zone was open. You can't even imagine my excitement!
It terrified my children to the point of tears, foot-dragging, protest-skid marks from trying to coerce them into the water. So we tried the kiddie slide pool, where all the other two and three-year olds were having a great time.
Once my kids saw that MENACING, ACID-SPOUTING MUSHROOM FOUNTAIN OF DEATH all bets were off. We dealt with more tears and moved the the quiet side of the pool, FAR AWAY from the childypants-eating mushroom. This pool graduated to a depth of one foot, but more than 2 inches is too deep for my wee boy. He clung to me like a barnacle on a whale's armpit. Elizabeth, however, braved the depths, and as I followed, I noticed that the quiet corner of the mushroom pool appeared to be the gathering place for All Thing Dead and Bad Smelling. As we reached the deepest part of the stagnant water, Elizabeth looked up at me and said, "Mommy, this pool smells BAAAAAD."
Adding two and two and realizing we were wading into the briny bog of Pee and Terminal-Disease Microbes, I suggested we give up on the two new play areas and head over to Ariel's Ocean. The kids agreed, glad to leave the Killer mushroom behind them.
At Ariel's Ocean, both kids managed to wipe out on the slippery pool floor, so we dried off and wandered over to the dry rides. We hit the teacups, boats, swings, carousel and FOOD. Everyone was happy, except me.
Because now I'm faced with the disturbing realization that we have only 8 weekends of summer left, and already have events planned for every weekend of it. I have no idea how the hell am I going to cram 13 more visits to the waterpark, and SWEET POTATOES ON A STICK, I BETTER NOT MISS JANE DERUE'S PARTY!
Just kidding, Jane. However, if I don't use all fifteen visits to the park, the blame will rest *entirely* your shoulders. ;-)
So, I'm standing there in Borders, thumbing through the "M" CDs, when out of the corner of my eye, I recognize the person poking through the "K" artists. I sidle up to him, and without looking at him, I whisper.
"You're Ryan Adams"
He responds while flipping through the "Ls"
"No I am not him. You're wrong."
"I know it's you, Ryan. I recognize the nail polish."
We peck through more artists, moving to the right, one letter of the alphabet at a time.
"Heather?" he asks.
"Yes, Ryan?"
"Don't buy the pumpkins, okay? They're spoiled."
"I wondered. Actually, I suspected. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
We continue to avoid eye contact. He checks out the Stones, returns it to the empty place.
"Ryan Adams?" I whisper.
"Heather Piper?" he whispers back.
"I would very much like to make a coat just for you."
"I would like that very much. Let's go."
And then I woke up.
Yes, I dream in terrific detail, in color, have soundtracks and I dream from different camera angles. Cool, right?
Yes, I know my dreams are bizarre and make no sense. Does anyone have dreams that make sense?
I typically fall asleep each night listening to the music from Ryan Adams'Easy Tiger album, so it's no wonder I had that crazy dream about him (care to interpret, anyone?)
It would be impossible to narrow down the shortlist 'best of' to a most favorite. I have yet to hear a bad Ryan Adams song. If you've never listened, you're missing out.
Ryan Adams, in my opinion, is possibly one of, if not THE greatest artist of this decade. People complain that he has bad manners, but I have to ask: Are you payin' him to teach you etiquette, or are you payin' him to blow you away with his music? I'd rather have him turn his back to me and sing sweet songs than have him sit in silence showing off impeccable manners.
And I understand he's picky about his jackets, so the offer stands. Ryan, if you want a new coat, give me a shout. I won't even make you say please, babydoll.
Isn't it a lovely, delicate, quiet song? Now, listen again to the lyrics and be dazzled. That's just one of the millions of reasons Ryan Adams is a genius, my friends.
Yes, it's been nearly a year and I'm still bothered by it.
I've been trying to do my part, but it still doesn't feel like it's enough. I've cut back on the typical American consumerism and have stopped buying plasticrap that we simply don't need. I buy clothes at Goodwill and give them back the hangers (which they gladly keep). We buy things second-hand so we're not dealing with an abundance of plastic packaging. We've stopped buying plastic toys. We buy books second-hand.
I'm still having a hard time cutting back on plastic use when it comes to grocery shopping because plastic rejection is not always an option, although I have made some changes in how I shop: I no longer buy products that are packed with excessive and useless plastic packaging.
I never use plastic produce bags when I buy fruits and veggies. These produce bags are completely unnecessary, yet I see shoppers using one bag per item, voluntarily loading up on excessive plastic bags. Folks, please stop. You will wash these foods before they are consumed. The conveyor belt, while probably coated with all sorts of bacteria, is *nothing* compared to the wide array of nasties else that have come in contact with these foods between the time they were picked and the time they hit the bottom of your shopping cart. Seriously - ditch the plastic bags and do some extra washing.
Over the next few months we'll be able to buy lots of local fruits and veggies, but I still feel like we could be doing more.
Feel free to chime in with your thoughts and ideas. . . .
To all of our friends who are celebrating the fourth of July, have a safe, happy one! Sister seamstress Erin is in town this weekend, so we're taking off tonight to spend some time relaxing with her, and hopefully we'll put our heads together and come up with some new bodice designs! At least that's the plan!
Elizabeth is a chatty little girl. We're very fortunate that her speech skills have developed well. She knows what she wants, and she is capable of clearly and succinctly telling us. Or demanding.
The other day I completed a new waist and frock coat design and I put it on to snap some pictures for the website. Elizabeth saw me in full garb and gasped a tiny waif-like breath. She ran from the room and reappeared three minutes later wearing her finest pink dancing dress. She issued an ultimatum:
"Pirate, dance with me!"
As you all know, she repeats EVERYTHING she hears, and I am the only person in the house who ever says bad words (accidentally, of course), so anytime she spits something foul from her mouth, the blame rests on my shoulders. Fortunately, the only bad word she has heard me say is, "DAMMIT."
Every now and then she will stomp into the room grumbling, "dammit. dammit. dammit."
Yep. Totally my fault.
The last time she did it I tried to explain to her that Mommy was naughty to say that word and she shouldn't say it because it's a "grown-up" word.
"You mean like, 'The 6:00 News' is a grown-up word?"
Lately she has been experimenting with new words. She doesn't seem to fully understand their meaning, but does it matter? They're NEW words, and she's pronouncing them correctly. We'll get to the definitions later.
This week I have been re-tiling our kitchen floor. I'm putting down shiny new grey tile. Elizabeth walked in and burst with happiness.
"Ohhhhh, Mommy! I love this new dancing floor! It's so shiny and pretty and will get lots of pregnants!"
"Get lots of WHAT?"
"Lots of PREGNANTS!" and she clapped her hands together excitedly.
At dinner the other night:
"Daddy, will you be my enforce?"
"Be your WHAT?"
"Be my ENFORCE. You're suitable."
But the real keeper word was uttered yesterday morning when Adam threw Skye's bowl into the wall and covered my newly-tiled floor with a gallon of water. Elizabeth put her little hands on her hips, looked at me, shook her head and said, "Oh, GRAMMIT, Adam!"
I am forever thankful that not only is she capable of learning new words, she's also capable of forgetting the BAD ones.
Head on over to Dooce, everyone. She's giving away free stuff. Leave a comment on her blog and you'll have a chance to win a Wii Fit.
Hey, I'm always up for free stuff, so I left a comment. You should too.
Unfortunately, as I noted in my comment, I have no idea what a 'Wii Fit' is, unless it's what Elizabeth throws on the kitchen floor when I won't let her eat a whole box of Girl Scout cookies.
