Don’t Quit Your Day Job
So we’re moving. Down the street. Long, unpleasant story there, and I will spare you all the ugly details. Suffice it to say I did not have sufficient time to draw a proper comic this week, and next week I may not have sufficient internet capabilities.
So, uhh… yeah. Moving. See you in two weeks, maybe?
Don’t Quit Your Day job
That sheet in Karen’s hand? Actual spreadsheet mapping out all the bands she wants to see, and when and where they are playing. This thing exists. I cannot make up that level of fan girl madness.
What else exists? That blanket. Flannel quilt. Best. Thing. Ever.
And Karen, honey? If you see this, please put down the Giant Tube ‘O Margarita. You will thank me in the morning. ❤
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Once again, the magical pink unicorn hat is lovingly borrowed from D. Corsetto. The magical pink unicorn is voiced this week by the Boy. Everything else is a very unfortunate byproduct of my under-napped brain.
I spent last weekend chaperoning a group of girls from my old church at camp. Probably the worst part of moving was leaving behind that congregation, because they were there for the vast majority of my formative years and are therefore family. By that measure, the girls are effectively my little sisters, and what do you do when you’ve spent too much time away from favored young’uns? You bring them presents, of course!
In all honesty, this started out with a request from one of them last year to make this Pichu Plush, and I just wound up taking so long to finish it that I figured I’d wait and give it to her in person rather than shipping it around Christmas. But then I had to come up with something for the other two, because it wouldn’t be fair to have something for just one of them.
Shucks! I had to make more cute things for people I love.
I gave the Pichu project a little extra challenge: I did not allow myself to diverge from the pattern at all. It was shockingly difficult, given my propensity for ad-libbing more or less every project I touch, regardless of the quality of the original pattern.
Here is the finished Pichu, in all it’s adorable-ness:
You know you’ve done it right when you look at the unattached, unadorned head mid-assembly and have a sudden attack of Cute.
Now for the other two munchkins…
Munchkin #2 has had a long-standing love for all things Star Wars (I trained her well), and has yet to grow out of it. Several years ago I made her an amigurumi Yoda, so I thought she needed another beloved character:
Chewbacca!
Yes, I finally managed to crochet something with eyelash yarn. I don’t think that will ever be happening again.
The third and final munchkin and I have this ongoing joke about finger puppets that came in a book of crochet patterns she gave me a couple of years ago. There is a set of four patterns: a witch, a wizard, a white owl and… a baby walrus.
Yeah, one of these things is not like the others – unless it is a magical baby walrus, which… clearly, it must be.
Anyway, I made her the walrus for her birthday last year, so I figured he needed some other animal friends to keep him company:
I finished the finger puppets while I was in Houston with my sister-in-law and niece, and of course my niece took an instant shining to the bird, so I made one more before I left for camp:
She naturally came up with a fun new game for it immediately:
Watch [mommy, grandpa, grandma, auntie] wiggle the bird. Grab for the bird. Pull the bird off the wiggling finger. Drop the bird on the floor. Watch [mommy, grandpa, grandma, auntie] pick the bird up off the floor. Repeat.
It is a very good thing this child is so freakishly cute, because she is evil.
…and I am so proud.
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Seriously – the stuff gets all tangled on itself if you look at it wrong. But the doll is going to a very dear young friend of mine, so it has to be done.
I generally intentionally avoid current events or anything remotely political on this blog, because that’s not its purpose, but news of the passing of the last American World War I vet this week just kind of inspired me. I’d like to share some of those thoughts.
First off, just take a moment to read through Frank Buckles’ story. This 16-year-old kid sees the world go to war, and wants so badly to be in the fight that he keeps going to military recruiters until he can convince someone that he’s old enough to enlist. After surviving WWI, he finds himself in a Japanese POW camp for three years during WWII, and then lives to be one hundred and ten years old. Not only did he outlive the second-to-last American WWI vet by three years, but right up until the end he fought for a national war memorial in Washington. This man is not only the very embodiment of patriotism, but he is history. Just imagine what he witnessed in those 110 years. His passing marks the profound end of an era.
This then reminded me of my mother talking about her own memories of similar stories about the last Civil War veterans. It’s a very strange thought, to think that someone could fight in a war that now seems so far away, but live to see automobiles and airplanes.
Then I remembered my father’s story about watching Apollo 8. He and my mom, a year before they were married, were visiting his grandmother for Christmas. There was a television broadcast as man first orbited the moon, but it was relatively late at night. My parents, being the bright young science graduate students they were, would of course stay up to watch. My grandmother opted to sleep instead. My great-grandmother announced that she remembered when the Wright brothers made their first flight, and of course she would be staying up to watch Apollo 8.
As I shared these thoughts with Dear Roommie, I couldn’t help but wonder…
What will we witness as old ladies?
Think of the difference between the Civil War and the 1950s. Think of how we took a glorified kite in 1903 to the moon in 1968.
The sheer magnitude of the progress that Frank Buckles experienced from 1901 to 2011 is enough to make me jealous. It also creates a very strong desire to see the same levels of innovation and development in my own lifetime, and a drive to make it happen.
Generally, I create just because I can’t sit still; I feel a need for forward motion on a very small, local level. But occasionally it hits me at a wider scale, and I want to share that forward motion with the rest of the planet. I want a medical advance to rival Penicillin. I want a Gen-Y Apollo moment. I want a flying car. I want progress that makes me say, “OOOH!”
What will we witness as old ladies, Karen?
I don’t know, but whatever it’s going to be, we’d better get cracking.
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