SABTC: Update #8

We saw some interesting outdoor sculptures in Washington DC. For your viewing pleasure, I shall sprinkle them amongst the bullet points.

• It is nearly the end of the summer and the penultimate week of updates for the Second Annual Boxtopapalooza. Here at chez trek, we have accumulated 104 Box Tops to date.



• I raided all of the unopened packages on the pantry shelves last night.



• The lovely April sent me a little card last week with some Box Tops enclosed. Thanks, April!



• This sculpture lives right next to the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. I'm not sure what the artist intended, but I think it resembles the early space capsules.
  
  
  Only a heck of a lot bigger.


• Seriously, the first astronauts went into space in aluminum containers I could fit into the back of our minivan. How did they ever pass their psych evaluations? They were obviously certifiably insane.



• On the other hand, perhaps that was the point of the psychological analysis: not to determine their likelihood of retaining their sanity under extreme conditions but to ensure that there was no sanity to lose in the first place.



• I baked a fresh loaf of oatmeal bread yesterday morning. We have a mini loaf pan, so I tried halving the recipe. It worked beautifully: oh, that heavenly aroma!



• This sculpture was in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, as were the following two pieces. I don't know how Roy Lichtenstein did it, but this is a three-dimensional trompe-l'oeil piece: it seems to move, perfectly changing its perspective in relationship to your eye as you walk by it.
  
  
  Number Guy said the illusion made him a little nauseated.


• Here in our house, there are merely three ultra-short days until Neatnik begins the second grade. We are in the process of adjusting back to School Time. Gah.



• Speaking of school, I ran into one of my former students in the mall the other day. He was at work and Neatnik and I were taking a walk. He said, "Hey, professor trek! I bet you don't remember me." I took one look at his nametag and identified him as having been in my Friday morning class. Yeah, he was pretty stunned.



• While I am not at all ready for back to school, I must admit that getting in my daily constitutional will be simpler once Neatnik is safely at school.



• This sheet metal number is also a Lichtenstein creation. He named it Red Horse.
  
  
  I know from horses and this is not horse-shaped.


• Sol LeWitt called this number Four Sided Pyramid, but it reminds me of Q*bert.
  
  
  Tell me this doesn't remind you of the arcade game.
  I suppose that the quilters out there would think
  it looks like Tumbling Blocks, though.

Lest anyone think that the knitting has ceased completely, let us end this Monday Morning Bullet Post with a finished object: a dishcloth. This one I'm calling Waff-ooz! with Butter.

Waffle Knit Dishcloth

Typos

Since yesterday we had clever signs, I thought we should follow up today with a couple of typos from Washington, DC.

This one came from an interactive exhibit in the National Air and Space Moosuem Museum. (The contrast on the touch screen monitor wasn't great, so clicky to embiggen to read more easily.)

Making science majors look bad.

This was posted on the fence of the carousel on the National Mall.

Carousel monarchy?!

In which trek sees capital signs

We all know that I like me my funny signs. It wouldn't be a vacation trip without some amusing signage...

Saturday morning at the Springfield Metro station, this one made me have to think for a moment.

So much more caring than "Drop and Run"

Number Guy saw this t-shirt on a real live person on Sunday morning near the Washington Monument, but I couldn't get a picture of it.

Luckily, a street vendor had some displayed.
No, you don't know me, really.

Sunday afternoon near the Ellipse, we pondered the efficacy of this gate's sign.

Restricted access through an unlocked gate?!

We didn't get to witness this event on Monday morning, but the sign was too good to pass up. Totally lost it when I read this sign on the fishing cat enclosure.

"Swimming treats"

As we walked north on 7th on Tuesday morning, Number Guy saw this sign and commented, "What's up with that? Orville's seriously getting dissed."

My reply was, "Oh, I'm sure he's got himself
a building somewhere else in the city."

Later, we walked south on 7th and saw this sign on the opposite corner.

I'm just so clever sometimes.

Tuesday night in Old Town Alexandra.

I'm wondering just what is on
the doggie menu, aren't you?

Wednesday evening at a Mexican restaurant on E Street NW, we saw a humorous way to disguise your plumbing.

Bet it looks very realistic
after a few margaritas!

Ka-ching!

What with all of the walking and the eating of the oatmeal bread due to the cholesterol numbers, there is a bit less of me to go around. While this is a good thing in the long run, it wasn't so good for my wardrobe. I am not exaggerating when I state that there are shorts in my dresser which fit in May and which literally slip off my hips now.

This isn't meant to be bragging, because I am not a bragging sort of blogger.

Truly, though, something needed to be done for it would not do to show up to teach on the first day of class wearing clown pants. I would lose all professorial respect from my students before opening my mouth and heaven forbid that a suit from the administrative department were to pass by the glass door of my classroom. Given that we just had a few unusual expenses in the past month, both expected and unexpected, I felt kind of guilty about going to the mall to shop. Besides, it isn't like my old clothes were worn out in any way. They just don't fit anymore.

What was the solution to this conundrum? I made the rounds of the local thrift shops this week.

On Monday, Neatnik and I visited three thrift shops. At the first one, I purchased a pair of slacks for $4.80. The belt I saw by the cash register was $3.00. At the second shop, I did not make a purchase. At the third shop, I found a pair of never-been-worn tan jeans and a pair of stone colored khakis for $4.20 each. I thought I was doing really well - three pairs of pants that fit for only $13.20. And a belt to help hold up any salvageable items from the current closet contents.

Little did I know...

Yesterday, Neantik and I visited two more thrift shops: one was the place where we scored the two dresses for her before vacation; the other one was a brand-new find and did I ever do well there!

This little shop is only open Thursday through Saturday. It is staffed entirely by volunteers from a not-so-local parish. It is clean, neat, and positively well organized. Did I mention the big, huge sign out front saying 50% off everything during August???

Yeah.

Four pairs of jeans, two pairs of slacks, two pairs of shorts, and a belt all came home with me. We also picked up a toy horse and a pair of shorts for Neatnik. I spent all of $29.00.

Every piece of clothing I bought is in excellent shape. Most items look like they have never made acquaintance with human anatomy. Almost all of the items are from internationally-known, high-end lines. I am not brand-conscious in the sense that I will only buy fancy designer-name clothing, but I do recognize that some of those pricey pants are made from longer-lasting, higher-quality materials. I'm telling you, this thrift shop is well-stocked by women with good taste in clothing.

In total, my new fall wardrobe cost about the price of a new pair of jeans - just $42.20.

Psych!

Of socks and sanctity

I mentioned the other day that I knit a set of dishcloths for TazzMom while we were on vacation. What I did not mention is that (a) that was the only knitting I did on vacation, despite having brought sock yarn with me, and (b) I did not visit a single yarn shop while we were in the Washington DC area.

When you are quite finished hyperventilating...

Part of the reason for the lack of sock knitting was the extreme heat: a main dish of 95 Fahrenheits which came with a side serving of high humidity. Not really what one might call Wool Working Weather. Another part of the equation was the fact that although I was trying to work a pair of socks together on a two circular needles, the yarn I am using is very tightly spun and it was a pain to try to untwist it when the working yarn got too kinked.

Now that we are back from vacation, I have remedied the situation and moved one sock over to a temporary home and shall work each sock individually on the circular needles. I could work the pair together on the same circular needles but it was annoying and why should I set myself up for that level of frustration during the dog days of summer?

To distract you from the lack of current sock knitting pictures, I shall instead provide you with a series of photographs I call A Day in the Vacation of Some Catholic Tourists.

Basilica of the National Shrine
of the Immaculate Conception
(dome)

Basilica of the National Shrine
of the Immaculate Conception
(facade)

The Little Flower

Formerly part of the Archdiocese Of New York

Franciscan Monastery

Lovely grounds

BVM's side altar at monastery

St Christopher

Hi, Mom, welcome home!*

* I must admit that I am trusting in the Good Lord's sense of humor on this one.

In which there were pandas

We spent almost a full day at the National Zoo. (Or National Zoological Park, if you want to be terribly precise.) Neatnik and I had discovered their Giant Panda cams back in June and we were eager to see them live and in person.

On the walk from the Metro to the zoo, we saw a statue of a panda bear at the entrance to a hotel.

Very colorful, if not at all realistic.

Inside the zoo, we saw three giant pandas. We did not, however, see them move at all.




Number Guy is convinced that they do not have any live panda bears; rather, they have three stuffed panda bears which the zoo volunteers arrange in a variety of interesting and artistic poses throughout the day.

Even the ones we brought home need
some artistic arranging assistance.

PS - Have I ever mentioned that my very first teddy bear was a panda? I still have him. His name is "Panda" and his ears and limbs were surgically reattached several times.

Yellow line

At some point in everyone's grammar school career, they will be or already have been subjected to a teacher punishing the whole class for an infraction committed by a single student. There are two conditions under which this punishment is deemed appropriate.

Case the First: The teacher does not know who is at fault but is certain that someone in the class does. The students, knowing who is at fault, singly and collective band together to protect the guilty party and nobody admits anything. Usually, the culprit is the class bully; the other students do not want to protect him, but they do because they are more afraid of him than they are of the teacher's punishment.

Case the Second: The teacher knows perfectly well who is at fault but decides to punish the entire class in the hope that the culprit's peers will make his/her life so miserable for getting them all in trouble that he/she will never repeat their actions. This method works best in schools where the faculty and administration have a "look the other way" policy when students are bullied and/or harassed on the playground or in the dormitories.

Neatnik, Number Guy, and I were recently subjected to an experience very much reminiscent of the first case scenario...

Elevator doors are not like monorail train doors. Sure, they both have sliding pocket-style portals but that is about where the similarities end. The most glaring difference between elevator doors and monorail train doors is that elevator doors have a safety mechanism built in to prevent a person from being trapped between the doors. Monorail train doors do not have this safety feature. If you get stuck between the doors, you are just that: stuck.

There is a bit of a safety feature involved, though. The train operator will know that someone is stuck in the doors because his instrument panel will tell him that, somwhere along the train, a door isn't properly closed.

How do I know all of this? Well, I am so glad that you asked. Allow me to elaborate.

We had decided before leaving on vacation that we would invest in 7-day Metrorail fast passes so that we could park the car at the hotel and then use the Metrorail system to move in and around Washington. This really was an economical choice since (a) there is no parking in DC; (b) it costs the equivalent of a small Caribbean country's gross national product to park your car for the day in any place where you can find parking; (c) it was free to park our car at the hotel; and (d) Neatnik loves trains.

There we were, late on Tuesday afternoon, at the very beginning of the evening rush hour. We were seated on a yellow line train, patiently awaiting our departure. For the record, we did not get on the train at this particular station; it was just a stop along our route to the end of the line. The doors closed. The operator made an announcement that anyone near a door should stop leaning on it and get themselves and their stuff away from the door. He then opened the doors all along the train to release whatever it was that was stuck. Several people sneaked into our already overloaded car.

The doors closed again. The operator repeated his announcement with an addendum that if the doors didn't close properly again, this train would be classified Out of Service and everyone would have to disembark. Please note that our train was very full at the time as this was right smack in the middle of rush hour.

The doors opened and then closed but not before a few more people forced their way into the train, including one very stupid chick unfortunate young woman whose timing just sucked was badly off: her tote bag got stuck between the doors. A nice young man helped her to pull it free, but, alas, it was too late.

The operator, in a rather irritable voice, boomed over the public address system that this train was now Out of Service and that everyone had to disembark. Once out on the platform, I wondered aloud what would happen next. A veteran rail rider next to me assured us that once the train was empty, they would re-open the doors and allow us to return to our cars.

This is not what happened. As soon as the train was free from passengers, the conductor triggered the door mechanisms and that train shot from the station like a bat out of hell.

Empty. Totally devoid of passengers. In the middle of the afternoon rush hour.

We watched two more trains, stuffed to capacity and beyond, arrive and depart.

Finally, the third yellow line train to arrive had some semblance of room on it and we continued on our way.

That train operator would've made a very good English boarding school teacher back in the 1800s.

SABTC: Update #7

I'll post some pictures from our vacation in the Washington, DC area later in the week. This morning is slotted for a Monday Morning Bullet Post.

• We are drawing near to the end here on the Second Annual Box Topapalooza. Our count only increased by one Box Top, putting us at 95.



• That's Lightning McQueen's number.



• Cars is Neatnik's favorite movie.



A washcloth for the Neatnik.
She requested the triangular shape.


• You don't accumulate a whole lot of Box Tops while on vacation.



• We did rack up some serious foot-mileage, though. I reached nearly 45 miles from Saturday to Saturday. Number Guy came in somewhere over 32 miles. Neatnik needed a few piggyback rides, so her total was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 miles.



• She likes to walk and, yeah, she's got some major stamina.



Also for the Neatnik.
Mommy picked the basic square shape.


• Before anyone gets all worried about her, she didn't walk more than two miles at any given time and we counted all of the walking between museums and Metro stations.



• And we fed her chocolate after each hike.



• And when she didn't feel up to the walk between the hotel and the Metro station, she and Number Guy took the hotel's shuttle.



Still another for the Neatnik.
The yarn supply dictated the shape.
Reminds me of Superman's chest emblem.


• That accounts for the mileage differences: I didn't take the shuttle.



• I lost six pounds.



• Now I really need to buy some new shorts and long pants, too.



Neatnik's new washcloths:
The Patriot Collection
Fitting given where we vacationed.


• My wardrobe is seriously embarrassing at the moment. Literally nothing fits properly.



• I am not complaining, nor am I bragging; just making a truthful observation. The trick now is to keep it off, yeah?



• A circuit of the local thrift shops is in order this week.

Hope your week starts out really well. Please post your Box Top counts in the comments and also let me know if you need the snail mail address to send them to me. Make sure that I have an email address for you so that I can email you the snail mail, okay?

A set of eight

We spent a week on vacation. While we traveled on the Metro, walked to and from the Metro, and even while we visited some museums, I knit some dishcloths for TazzMom. She watched the hamster, watered the marigolds, and took in our mail. (Thanks, TazzMom!) All went well with the knitting until...

A dishcloth in crisis!

O noes!

Not to worry: I had a bit of solid white in my project bag. Simple tink back a row, work in new yarn, and bind off.

One for each day of the week
plus a spare - just in case

No one will ever know - unless you tell.

# # #

Lots of vacation pictures and some stories in the posts ahead.

Shoe shots

When we purchased Number Guy's hiking boots, they came with plain, solid, dark grey laces. After almost a year of faithful service, one of his laces finally frayed to the breaking point. The outer casing was worn right on through and the integrity of the lace was holding by merely the inner core. Clearly, it was time to go to the store.

He didn't find any plain, solid, dark grey laces. Instead, he found ones which were black on one side and bright red on the other.

I think they look perfect!

As long as I was taking a picture of Number Guy's shoes, I thought that I would take a picture of Neatnik's current foot gear. These are her last year's gym shoes which are reaching the end of their lifespan. We'll be buying new ones in a week or so.

Aren't the bead-trimmed socks the cutest?

My own shoes these days are mostly the new sneakers I bought this summer for walking. These puppies have over 250 miles on them but they are also just about perfectly broken-in now.

No, not yarn socks, but good for getting sweaty.

What are your favorite footwear these days?

PS - Chris? You have to say which Keens!

Of cows and culture

A joke from the Neatnik...

Neatnik: What do you get when you cross a cow with a museum?

Mommy: I don't know. What do you get?

Neatnik: A moo-seum!

In which trek scores

I recently took Neatnik to one of the local thrift shops. We had a small bag of outgrown little girl clothes to donate and I need some new shorts.

Do you know how hard it is to buy shorts in August from a regular retailer? If they have anything left, it is on the clearance rack in the back of the store, where it has been picked over by eight million previous shoppers and they don't have your size anyway, so why bother?

The stores do have a plethora of wool slacks and coordinating winter blazers in stock now. Applying my amazingly powerful skills of deductive reasoning, I came to the logical conclusion that the stores used to have shorts. Back in March, I would guess.

If I had purchased shorts back in March, however, they would not fit me now and I would still be shopping for shorts in August. And I would have already blown my shorts budget.

The thrift store didn't have any shorts for me, either, but they did have a few things to seriously interest the Neatnik.

"Round" spoon: 25¢

Reading material: 50¢

Fancy dress for school Christmas
concert in early December: $3.00

Fancy white dress for Neatnik's
First Holy Communion in May: $7.50

Not having to complete my pilgrimage round the bend dress shopping in November and April: priceless!

SABTC: Update #6

I'm so sorry for forgetting to update the Box Tops count. I know that I should be more responsible about these sorts of things and usually I am. It was just that that non-taglesss-tagless shirt thing really annoyed me yesterday and drove all thoughts of the Second Annual Box Topapalooza right out of my head.

Our total count at the moment is 94. It is just one more than last week, but we continue to creep up on one hundred Box Tops.

One hundred. This is somewhat of a largish number. At least if you are speaking of Box Tops. Or books. And I am. Neatnik just finished her 100th new book of 2009.

Let's all congratulate her, shall we?

PS - Part of Number Guy and I congratulating her includes taking her out to breakfast one day next week.

Taglessness

In the beginning, there were no undergarments. In fact, there were no garments at all. First came the fig leaf loin cloth. While Adam and Eve thought that they were creating the very latest in fashion for the fallen human, God, in His infinite wisdom, foresaw that fig leaf couture wouldn't stand up well against the vagaries of the elements and so He provided them with loincloths and coordinating tunics of animal skin.

Some centuries later, humans in the Near East began the cultivation of flax. The flax was harvested, retted, and dressed, prior to spinning fine threads and yarns and weaving them into linen cloth. In India, the fiber of choice was cotton, while in China it was silk.

This was the status quo of clothing for quite a few centuries, until about a thousand years ago when some clever person created a knitted fabric by creating loop after interlocking loop with a single strand of yarn. All hail that unknown innovator! This brilliant human being created a fabric that had stretch - and stretch is essential for socks and other more modern undergarments such as panties, tighty whities, and t-shirts.

T-shirts first appeared on the scene in the early part of the twentieth century. The concept came home from the war with American soldiers who took note of the lightweight knitted undershirts of European military personnel. The cotton undershirts were quite an improvement over the woolen skivvies sported by the Yankee troops.

While the cotton t-shirt was significantly more comfortable and cooler than woolen undershirts, consumers eventually complained that the tags in their t-shirts were itchy. Like the little widow woman petitioning the unjust judge, they continued to speak their minds until the manufacturers came to market with a solution: the "tagless" t-shirt.

What an innovation! No itchy tag to irritate the sensitive skin on the back of your neck! The idea spread like wildfire. Soon clothing manufacturers branched out, producing millions of "tagless" tank tops and polo shirts as well as t-shirts.

Now all we need to do is to get the t-shirt manufacturers to stop sewing the itchy tags to the side seam where they irritate the living daylights out of the tender skin of our waists and we'll be all set.

Where are my scissors??

# # #

While trying to find information on the history of the t-shirt, I posed the question "Who created the tagless t-shirt?" on Answers.com. I am pretty sure that it was the Hanes company, but I was trying to locate confirmation. Imagine my surprise when I saw this listed as a "related" search question.

In which trek hacks in order not to hack

One day back in July, I was at Sunday mass and started having a bit of a breathing difficulty. Despite Dr PreciousMetal's advice to keep a rescue inhaler with me at all times, I did not have one on my person. Didn't even have one in my car. Number Guy suggested that I clip one to my keyring. I reminded him that inhaler mouthpieces are smooth cylindrical devices and that they have no holes to which to attach anything. His comment got me thinking, though...

We own clamps.

We own a few spare split rings.

We own a drill and a set of drill bits of varying diameters.

We have something of a tool bench in the basement.

MacGyver all the way

Suitable for attaching to one's keyring or, if one were to clip a D-ring to this puppy, one could clip it to one's belt loop, purse strap, backpack zipper pull...

Oh, the possibilities!

Pool

April allowed as how she's been on this dishcloth binge lately. I don't know exactly how this translated to my joining a Ravelry group or casting on some dishcloth cotton, but it did.

Knit in the car and poolside
Fitting for a yarn called "Pool"

Of haircuts and philosophy

Among my other occupations, I am also a part-time hair stylist. You didn't know that, did you?

Actually, I'm not really a stylist. More like a barber. With only one customer. Who doesn't tip. At all.

He does compliment the work and say thank you, though, which is more than most barbers can say, I'd bet.

My one and only customer is Number Guy. I give him a 4/2 clipper cut and he's good. No scissors required. Or owned, for that matter.

I suppose you could call this a "thrifty" behavior but the real reason I cut his hair is because he's never gotten decent cuts from the "professionals". The last time he decided to try a "professional" haircut, I had to whip out the clippers and repair the damage. By executing his usual 4/2 clipper job.

We prefer to attend to the hair trimming outside. Tidier.

Last night, while I was giving Number Guy his clip, Neatnik entertained herself with the sidewalk chalk. There's now a picture of me giving Number Guy a haircut on the driveway. Also on the driveway is a self-portrait of Neatnik drawing on the driveway with sidewalk chalk. "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Lady" maybe?

A little farther down the driveway, there is a picture of a crucifix. It is captioned Happy Ending.

This kid really impresses me, you know?

In which trek reviews Fablehaven

I just finished the fourth installment of Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary.My earlier review of Brandon's work was on his The Candy Shop War,which seemed to me to be somewhat inappropriate for the intended demographic. In contrast, I loved all four volumes of the Fablehaven series. Without giving away too much on the series plot, I'd like to share some thoughts with you.

Although the series is categorized as juvenile fiction, I would further refine this classification to juvenile (sub)urban fantasy as the action takes place "today", in the modern world. The two protagonists, Kendra and Seth Sorenson, are teen siblings whose grandparents are caretakers of the Fablehaven Sanctuary. In this alternate reality, fantasy creatures such as fairies, satyrs, naiads and the like are real creatures who, for the most part, live on sanctuaries scattered throughout the world. Each preserve has a human caretaker responsible for its protection.

The first volumebegins with Seth and Kendra having their eyes opened to the reality of Fablehaven. From that point, brother and sister become increasingly involved in the protection of the sanctuary. Their grandparents diligently attempt to shield the pair from harm, but each one has unique talents which cause them to be the right people for certain dangerous missions.

Kendra is the elder sibling. She tends to be more cautious and reflective than her younger brother. Kendra is an excellent researcher and each decision she makes is carefully weighed and logically made. Don't make the mistake of thinking that she is less courageous than her little brother because that she certainly is not!

Seth is two years younger than Kendra. He makes rash decisions, often disobeys rules which are intended to protect him from harm, and is usually looking out for a way to turn a quick profit. Despite this, Seth is a very likable character, unfailingly brave, always willing to jump right in to the thick of the action regardless of the potential for personal injury.

Kendra and Seth are an enjoyable pair of protagonists. Their personalities balance one another in many ways. In fact, towards the end of volume four, the reader begins to see a synergy between their skills: together they are far more capable and powerful than anyone around them would predict.

With respect to the pace of the books, I'd have to say that they move along just right. Unlike some other books where I have found myself wanting to skim the slow parts, these books have no slow parts. This is not to say that every page has a dragon flaming a peasant village or a demon prince about to unleash a deathly plague, however, those sections where the characters stop to regroup and to discuss their strategies are still loaded with interest.

Go on, pick up Fablehaven.You'll be glad you did.

I was. All four times.

PS - Book five, Keys to the Demon Prison,completes the series and is due on the shelves in 2010. Can't wait.