waaaay down deep in the delta southern blueZ

Recently rented on DVD:
'The Last of the Mississippi Jukes' (2003)

Southern blueZy jazzy soulful.
See it very very very soon.

Thoughts from director Robert Mugge on the making of the film - can be found here.

No. 1

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books.
For extra added excitement, the TV series ~ available now on HBO.

The books are a delight to read, and the new series - absolutely charming.

Thank you, Alexander McCall Smith - for the books.
Thank you, BBC - for the show.
Thank you, S. Africa - for red bush tea.

Because of Mma. Precious Ramotswe, I got started on drinking bush tea.
With a splash of milk, Rooibos has become my favourite.

b, b & b

Bewitched
Bothered
&
Bewildered

This afternoon, whilst sewing, I listened to a variety of music on my (ancient/ outdated/ going on the blink but still working if I press the right buttons) iPod.

Bluegrass, rock n' roll, alternative, classical, opera...
Then on comes Rosemary Clooney crooning 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered'. Besides having a catchy melody, the lyrics to this song never fail to crack me up:

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered   
-by Rodgers and Hart
from the musical 'Pal Joey'

VERSE

After one whole quart of brandy
Like a daisy I awake
With no Bromo Seltzer handy,
I don't even shake.

Men are not a new sensation;
I've done pretty well, I think.
But this half-pint imitation
Put me on the blink

REFRAIN

I'm wild again
Beguiled again
A simpering, whimpering child again
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I

Couldn't sleep
And wouldn't sleep
Until I could sleep where I shouldn't sleep
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I

Lost my heart but what of it?
My mistake I agree.
he's a laugh, but I like it
because the laugh's on me.

A pill he is
But still he is
All mine and I'll keep him until he is
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered
Like me.



Seen a lot
I mean I lot
But now I'm like sweet seventeen a lot
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I

I'll sing to him
Each spring to him
And worship the trousers that cling to him
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I

When he talks he is seeking
Words to get off his chest.
Horizontally speaking
He's at his very best.

Vexed again
Perplexed again
Thank God I can't be over-sexed again
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I



(Reprise at the end of the show)

Wise at last
My eyes at last
Are cutting you down to your size at last
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered no more

Burned a lot
But learned a lot
And now you are broke, though you earned a lot
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered no more

Couldn't eat
Was dyspeptic
Life was so hard to bear;
Now my heart's antiseptic
Since you moved out of there

Romance-Finis
Your chance-finis
Those ants that invaded my pants-finis
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered no more.

I do love Rosemary Clooney's rendition, but here it is done by Ella (albeit a 'cleaned up version' ...


P.S. My mommy loved this song.

So so sewing

Today I've set aside some time for: sewing.

My plan is to whip myself up some simple summer-ish tops, dresses and skirts on Ye Olde Sewing Machine. This is the machine I rarely touch anymore, save for an occasional mending job or to sew up straight seams for curtains or pillows.

Once upon a time I sewed all my clothes, all my mom's dresses, dress shirts for the husband, blouses and dresses for both my DollinkDaughters. I even tackled a very complicated pair of men's slacks designed by Calvin Klein for Vogue patterns. It turned out near-perfect. HubbyDear even wore it.
I made slipcovers for our sofas, pillows, curtains, tablecloths, placemats, napkins galore. Quilts. Dolls and dollclothes. Stuffed animals. Tote bags. Hats. Et cetera.

If it could be sewn, I sewed it. The more intricate the pattern, the better.

Then came a time when I had more disposable income and less leisure hours available for sewing. Storebought clothing was a quicker wardrobe fix and oftentimes cheaper (think Ross Stores) than sewing my own.

Years have passed.
Leisure time has returned to my lifestyle, and saving a few pence on clothes is again preferable to shopping readymade. Truth be known, I have also come to dread shopping for and trying on clothes in those cramped, brightly lit store dressing rooms - with the show-all the-flaws mirrors. Shades of the SaggyBaggyElephant. Ahem.

In the past, sewing was a fun activity for me. Then I reached the point when I tired of it, even got to hating it, to which a friend of mine once quipped, 'Hatin' every stitch'.

That was then and this is now.
I says to myself, I says - before my abilities as a seamstress falls completely by the wayside, why not get going again with the sewing by whipping up some quick n' easy garments for summer wear. A practical move - tap into my dormant sewing skills, use up some stashed fabric and utilize those sewing supplies. Or move them on to someone who is might be more keen on the craft.

In addtion, what with all the knitting completed in the last year or so, I have a plethora of knitted accessories with nothing in the closet to 'go with' - another sound reason to pull out the machine, give it a dusting off and start seaming again.

At this writing, I've chosen a pattern, and am now trying to determine my new pattern size (differs from readymade clothing size, it seems). Some yardage remains from my old fabric stash which will be used for the first test garments. If these first tries are successful, it MAY re-new my once upon a time passion for sewing. The operative word in that sentence is MAY.

At this time, it's looking like I MAY go back to 'Hatin' Every Stitch'.

For I am already NOT enjoying the steps it takes to set up a sewing project:
the laying out of the pattern and fabric, the pressing of same, the pinning, the cutting, the looking for matching thread, zipper, fasteners, elastic. The realization that I need to run out and buy more interfacing before proceeding. Setting up the machine, threading the bobbin, the constant bumping into the ironing board in the middle of the kitchen. Even with some preliminary measurements, the hope upon hope that the finished item will actually fit....and that I will wear it...

All this before the physical act of sitting down to the machine to make the first stitches...

Egads. I will keep you posted.

'mo classic motown - for your listening pleasure

Gefilte turtle

Gefilte fish > gefilte turtle > geh-fel-tah turtle > Go felt a turtle.

OK - so it's a dumb play on words. I enjoy playing with words. In that dumb way.

Another thing I have a good time with is felting.
If we're looking to use the correct term to describe the phenomenon of shrinking-animal-fiber-in-hot-water-and-with-agitation, let's say: fulling.

Fulling is the technique of taking a large piece of knitted fabric and manipulating the fiber in such a way that it condenses, tightens and SHRINKS. Think of what happens to your favourite expensive cashmere sweater after being inadvertently washed in hot water in the washing machine, and you'll understand fulling. A larger piece of knitted fabric gets made smaller. Sometimes much smaller.

Typically accomplished in a washer, fulling can also be done, manually, in the kitchen sink - so long as it is filled with the hottest water and you're willing to plunge your hands into it and agitate the fabric into shrinky submission (wearing dishwashing gloves helps to cut down on the burned hands factor). You can even 'full' in a rubber dishpan.

Felting with barbed needles is something else altogether.
The video is a bit long, but it does show that a cute 3-D object can be needle felted in just under 11 minutes. Pretty cooooool, but take care not to pokey da fingahs.

This weekend I finally finished a U.F.O. (UnFinishedObject) - a tote bag - which I began some months ago:

Here is the knitted tote before fulling.
The shoe is photographed alongside
to indicate the rather large size of the pre-fulled knitted bag.

With this project, I fulled and even managed to add a bit of needle felting.
Here is the finished tote:

The bag did shrink, yet it's still an ample sized tote.
The loosely knitted fabric is now wool felt - dense and thick. The green rectangle in first photo above was first fulled and then cut into pieces to become the turtle. A bit of needle felting technique was employed to attach legs and tail to the body and to add brighter green roving for the eyes.

Here's a closer look at the little guy, who sports embroidered french knot pupils.

Sorry the photos aren't clearer...
this is the best I could do whilst in something of a hurry to publish this post.
Translation: Haste Due to Haven't Posted in Quite a While Guilt.

Hmmmmmm. Gefilte = deboned fish, ground into a paste.
If you think about it (OK, this is a stretch...) 'to gefilte' isn't really so dissimilar 'to full' or 'to felt'. Deboned and paste-like maneuverable. Hmmmmmmm.

P.S. Turtles are considered lucky symbols.
Luck would have it that I actually completed another knitted project - rather than leave it around for years, hidden in the back of the closet, tossed in a plain brown paper bag.

FUN at the airport

I can remember when it was FUN to go to the airport.
Yes, FUN.

Spending time in any airport these days is more often a source of irritation and inconvenience rather than pleasure. That stated, 'fun' and 'airport' are a tad incongruous in the same sentence. Just about unimaginable, really, in the prevailing climate of fear and paranoia which defines the once-upon-a-time-friendlier-travel-via-the skies.

In what seems to have been simpler, more innocent days - fun could be had at the airport.

As a kid, with family-of-origin, then later as a young adult with friends - going to San Francisco International Airport to while away an hour or more was a form of - can you believe - entertainment.

Back then, the drive from North Beach/ Chinatown to South SF didn't take long. Airport parking was easy (and free?). Once parked, we 'airport party types' would slip inside to the bright lights and bustle of the terminals. There, the atmosphere was always palpably thick with the heady anticipation of people on the move.

There were no security checkpoints.
No areas restricted to ticketed passengers only.
No recorded admonishments over the public address system to 'stay with your personal belongings - or else'.

Visitors could roam the public areas of the airport at will. One was not made to feel like a criminal in an enormous holding cell.

Free to enjoy the sights and sounds of a huge international airport, the lot of us would first peruse the various eateries for a snack. Through the big picture windows, we could see planes land and pull up to the gates, watch people deplane and others board. We would buy magazines. Lounge around on airport chairs. Read. Do more people watching. Stroll. We'd take time to chat with each other. Use the (relatively) clean, modern toilet facilities. Enjoy the temperature controlled climate of the vast interior spaces. Nap.

Done with all of the above, we'd get back in the car and head for home.

When I was a kid, my family was strapped for cash and had no extra funds to fly off on vacations. Weekend car trips satisfied, for a day, any wanderlust built up in my parents from the grueling work week before. We kids just went along for the ride, wherever Dad ended up driving us. Sometimes, it was to the airport.

Going to the airport rarely meant there were there friends or family 'flying in for a visit' who needed to be picked up. There were few, if any, legit reasons for us to be at the airport - save for the sheer joy of hanging out there.

Back then, did we know what we were missing by not actually doing any airplane travel? You betcha. We watched travelogues on TV! We kids knew there were foreign lands with jungles and deserts, wild animals and small villages on high mountains populated by fascinating people...

An aside: Dad traveled the world for years as a seaman. He saw and experienced wild and crazy things on many continents. Perhaps his wanderlust was not so satisfied during those day trips in the car with the family. It might very well have been his pipe dream to get back on the international travel circuit that so often brought us to the airport...

No matter that we were never actual frequent fliers, for it was exciting enough to be in mental transport mode and pretend we were off on adventures to exotic destinations.

We took numerous flights of fantasy. Anywhere and everywhere.
When one is daydreaming, anything is possible.

As adults, we're now able to fly hither and yon 'for real'.
We've taken flight for both vacation and business. Some of us have traveled beyond the wildest dreams of our youth, and have actually spent waaaaaaay too much time in airports all over the world.

Another aside: At one time, I was gone so much that I got burned out on both domestic and international travel (particularly business trips) and just wanted to stay home. I haven't sworn off airports entirely though. It may soon be time again for me to fly off again to faraway places - 'desire and economy permitting'. Maybe I'll even try a tour - have never done that - always felt myself to be too cool for tour packages. However, now that I'm an older gal and don't feel like planning how to get from point A to B and then C, figuring out where to stay, schlepping or being laid bare to the elements...we shall see...

FUN at the airport is but a sweet memory from my youth and is another of life's simpler pleasures that is sadly, no more.

Sad too, is the reality that airports no longer offer much in the way of a good time. Even with the fancy designer shops, eateries, connections for internet access and thicker padding on the chairs, it just ain't the same.
Things really have changed.

Wanna know something else, though?
Staying home is rather nice too.

Image of PanAm jets circa 1960's from this website.