It's A Hot Day...For A White Wedding

I made calls to five friends this morning, and everyone is dragging.  Voices sound ragged, drained, spent...it's August, all right...or Monday weekend hangovers.

One friend told me about a wedding she attended over the weekend.  It was #2 for the Bride, and she hasn't even hit age 30 yet. She wore the full white rig and had the blown out wedding...again. The Bride's mother was telling my friend how much she hates Husband #2, and my friend said, "That's okay, maybe you'll like #3 better." When I expressed surprise at the Bride wearing a formal wedding dress for a second wedding, my friend said, "...and I'm sure she'll wear white again for her third go round." Her father didn't show for this wedding either, and since he's a famous local news personality I won't drop his rotten name here, but shame on you, Dad.

 
           

 

                

Go for something different next time, Toots.  Anything but white.

 

I've become a connoisseur of ice cubes this month. I buy my favorites at the 7-11, and they are made in Easton, Maryland. In my mind, they are the perfect size and texture for drinks. When you're sitting around thinking about what makes "good" ice, it is too hot.

Looking outside at the haze, I started thinking about glacier ice and it's properties. Wondering if anyone could sell ice to Eskimos, I checked to see if I could find an ice plant in Alaska. There is one: Quinntex Ice Alaska. It's located on the Kanai Peninsula, which has a strong fishing industry, and the ice plant provides packing ice for the fish plants to keep the catch fresh. Who knew?

D.C. used to have an ice packing plant over on Arkansas Avenue called Beverly Ice. It was housed in this stucco structure with a red tiled roof that looked like a Spanish Mission. A friend reminded me that they had the reputation of not having cloudy ice, because of their process. I used to drive by there as a child and think it was all very mysterious looking and dreaming up weird child stuff about monks making ice.

• Presently, 10% of the world's land area is covered with glaciers.
• Glaciers store about 75% of the world's freshwater.
• Antarctic ice is over 4,2000 meters thick in some areas.
• If all land ice melted, the sea level would rise approximately 70 meters worldwide.
• Glacier ice crystals can grow to be as large as baseballs.
• North America's longest glacier is the the Bering Sea in Alaska.
• From the 17th century to the late 19th century, the world experience a "little Ice Age," when temperatures were consistently cool enough for significant glacier advances.

Glacial ice often appears blue when it has become very dense. When extremely dense, the ice absorbs all other colors in the spectrum and reflects back to the viewer as primarily blue, which is what we see. When glacier ice is white, that usually means that there are many tiny air bubbles still in the ice.

Air bubbles are trapped under hundreds of feets of pressure, so if you put a glacial ice cube in your drink, as the ice melts, the cube begins to make loud musical "ping" sounds. I want "pinging" cocktails.

Blame It On The Heat

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Million Dollar Baby

 I've been watching the baby panda on the National Zoo's web site, and it's addictive. He's grown so much since his "stick of butter" birth. A friend of mine said "What a world we live in where you can watch a beheading on live feed, or watch a baby panda being cradled and fed." I said, "Uh...I'll take the panda every time."

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/

Some are lobbying to name the baby "Butterstick" (his appearance at birth), but I think they should name him "Worth His Weight In Gold," since we pay the Chinese government a million a year for the privilege of having the pandas around. My friend and I were watching Mommy, Mei Xiang, eat bamboo late last night, and we were talking about how we would never allow bamboo in our yards due to it's invasive properties. I was talking to a shrub specialist at a local nursery once, and he told me if you ever grow bamboo in your yard, be prepared to hire a backhoe to prune it or remove it. Ornamental bamboo shrubs in the Nandina family, however, can be a wonderful addition and add great color in the autumn.

I made a card for my friend to mark our conversation. The entire time I was drawing and painting, I heard the baby's grunts, snuffles and squeals going off from the web cam. Enough. This entry is turning into one huge AWWWWW moment...

Eternal Sunday In San Francisco

I was talking to a friend in San Francisco today, and he was telling me about a ball game that he attended, and other things, then he said, "Oh.  I was taking a shower at the gym, and I noticed a small bottle of shampoo or something, so I picked it up to move it out of the way (I would never use it), and I looked at the label, and it said, "Nancy Boy Shampoo.!"  "Well," he added, "You could have knocked me over with a feather."  For those who don't know, "nancy boy" is British slang for "gay man."  At first I thought he was teasing me, but I googled it and sure enough, there is such a product and a whole line of hair care by that name.  The owners originally sold exclusively online, but later they opened a store on Market Street in San Francisco:

    Nancy Boy Homepage             http://store.yahoo.com/nancyboysf/

 

Then he said, "Seems like Jackie is going to sleep all day...and the cat lays there like a guarding lion, or a Fu temple dog...daring me to bother her."  He has an Asian-American wife, and he said, "I want temple dogs on my grave.  I want to be buried in the Chinese graveyard, so they can kiss my white ass for eternity."  I was laughing and asking him if I could use this conversation in my blog.  At first he refused saying, "Please no.  I'm embarassed already," but then he said "Well.  Who am I to stand in the way of the press?  What you have to do, do it quickly."

           

                         Honorable Ancestors?    Fu You!!!

Elder Dreams

An elderly person I know called to tell me how upset she was over a dream she had last night.  She's 94, and she dreamed that God was beckoning to her with a crooked finger and said "I'm ready for you now."  Last week, however, she dreamed that she was God, and she was telling Condoleeza Rice to "go to hell," so I told her the way I saw it, her dreams balanced out and she shouldn't worry about it.

                              

                        "Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner!"

 

                         

                                                  "Time's Up!"

Designing Cards: Miss Thi's Corset Card

A corset card designed for my friend Loralee in Massachusetts.  Made of black vinyl paper with red rosettes, red heart-shaped gem stones as the garter snaps, and red satin ribbon, the card's laces can be undone in the back and the card opens upon unlacing.

                         

 

                      

 

Lee adores corsets, and there is a whole culture around the wearing of them:             

            Long Island Staylace Association-Laced Corsetry & Stays Site

        How to properly lace a corset

There are several different ways to lace your corset. Some entail one, two, three, even four separate laces. Below are steps on our preferred way to lace your corset. This method uses just one very long lace (Our longer model corsets use two or more) and also creates less friction and stress on the corset by transferring the pull of the laces to the eyelets and not the fabric. There are several advantages to this method of lacing.

The biggest benefit of this type of lacing is that the corset can be laced fully closed without the laces getting in the way. If the corset is not completely closed, and if a lacing protector is not used, the tender skin of your back will get pinched and this can get pretty painful. If the corset is laced the way tennis shoes are generally laced, then the laces get in the way of closure of the back (depending on the bulk of the laces). This method can leave as much as a one-inch gap in the back of the corset. Closing the corset completely in the back is easier on the garment and your body not to mention the satisfaction of finally being able to close a corset knowing that your waist is some 4" smaller now! In addition it is easier to close the corset, this is especially helpful for those of us that do not have much upper-body strength or do not have someone to help us get dressed. Having help getting dressed is by far the preferred method for several reasons that should be very clear to you .

Now it may seem a little obsessive but this is the preferred way to lace our corsets.

Now, on with the lacing!

First, study one side of the back of the corset. Count the number of eyelets from the top to the center-waist. If the number of eyelets is odd, start the lace from the underside. If the number is even, start from the outside. The steps below show lacing of odd number of eyelets. (If your corset has an even number, begin at step 1, do step 3, then step 2.) This may be a bit confusing, but we hope this helps.

These diagrams are drawn as if you are looking at the outside of the corset.

Step 1. Place the corset flat on a table. On this corset, we have an odd number of eyelets, so we will start the lace from the inside. Slip it through the top eyelets of the corset. Pull the lace through so that the horizontal lace is on the inside of the corset. Also, please make sure the two ends of the lace are even.

Step 2. Next, take the lace on the left side and cross it over to the right. Slip it into the eyelet. Make sure that the lace that crosses over forms a line that stays outside of the corset. Repeat this on the right lace. Notice that the strings are now on the inside of the corset. The secret is to form an "X" with the laces on the same side that the lace originated from.         Step 3. Now the laces are on the inside of the corset. Take the lace on the right side and cross it over to the left side. Pull the lace through the eyelet. Repeat on the left lace. This will form an "X" on the inside. Notice that the laces are on the outside now.

Step 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you reach the waistline of the corset. This is where the puller-loop is created. The puller-loop is the loop of lace that you pull on to draw in the corset. Please note that the puller-loop MUST be on the outside.         Step 5. Take the left lace and slip it through the next eyelet down on the left side. This creates a loop on the outside of the corset. The remaining lace should now be on the inside. Now for the right side, take the right lace and slip it through the next eyelet down on the right side. The remaining lace should be on the inside.

Step 6. Now slip the left lace through the next eyelet on the right side. (Just like you did in step 3). Take the right lace and cross it over to the left side. This will form an "X" on the inside of the corset. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you reach the bottom. Adjust the slack in the laces so that you have around four to five inches of slack between the two sides.         Step 7. Tie off the bottom lace like you would your shoe. If you pull on the puller loops, the back of the corset should resemble the drawing on the right. See the "X's"? Notice that the corset is completely closed with no gaps between the sides. Now your corset laces are ready for tight lacing! Just make sure that there is about four to five inches of slack between the laces before you try it on to make it easier to get in.

Incorrect Method To the left is a drawing of what we called the "tennis shoe" method. Notice that the laces prevent the corset from completely closing. Also it takes much more strength to pull in the laces. That is because of the friction caused by the overlapping of laces. It does look pretty though.

 

Guest Blogger: Lori - Rants On Pants

I am writing to you today to tell you that I am through caring about who ends up as a justice of the Supreme Court. I could give a flying fart about whether or not Rafael Palmeiro did or did not purposefully do steroids. These issues, and many others like them, are now small potatoes to me. I have finally found my calling in life, and I am writing today to urge you to climb aboard my bandwagon, to join my quest to make positive changes on a subject that certainly affects all Americans, if not all the people of the world.  Get on your computers, fire up your fax machines and tell your Congressmen that it’s time to do something about an issue that affects us all: women’s clothing sizes.

 

I honestly don’t know why we’ve let this problem go on for as long as we have without doing anything about it. I did some checking today at the library hoping to figure out where it all started and still I am completely baffled.  I decided to start at the beginning. I already knew that over the milllennia many religious sects have required women to wear dresses, so I dug up a copy of the Bible and checked to see what other requirements might be in there. You know what I found? I read through the whole Adam and Eve debacle and while God does guarantee Eve that she’ll have pain in childbirth for the original sin, nowhere in the book of Genesis does he state that she won’t be able to find a consistent clothing size. Go ahead and check.  It’s not in there, I swear.  Personally I’ve never had a child but I’m willing to bet that most women would tell you that the YEARS of pain and aggravation generated by irresponsible clothing manufacturers is far worse than the few HOURS of pain associated with childbirth.

 

For the men in the audience who truly don’t understand what I’m talking about, nor why women have to try on “every piece of clothing in every damn store,” let me explain: (If you’re a woman, go ahead and skip ahead. You already understand perfectly don’t you?)  You go into a store, lets say The Gap, and you try on a pair of jeans, size 8. They fit perfectly. You buy them. Happiness ensues.  A little later that same day you’re in another store, lets say The Limited, and you try on a pair of jeans, size 8. You can’t get into those bastards to save your life. This is because The Gap’s size 8 is not now nor ever will be The Limited’s size 8.  The problem isn’t restricted to just different store sizes either. You are in Hecht’s and you try on a pair of Dockers twill pants in khaki size 8. They fit fine. You then try on a pair of Dockers denim pants size 8. Nope. They’re too big. Same brand mind you, but two different sizes. However, that’s not the worst.  The worst one is: you try on a pair of Dockers twill pants in a khaki color size 8 and they fit. You buy not only the khaki color, but the black as well so that you have more than one pair of pants that fit at your disposal. You get these pairs of pants home and decide that you need to see how the black pair looks with the sweater you bought just last week. But here’s where the fun comes in: the black pair doesn’t fit you. They’re the SAME EXACT PAIR of pants as the khaki ones you just tried on less than an hour ago, but for some reason they just won’t fit. This, my male friends, is what women go through every day.

 

It’s enough to make a person crazy. A good friend of mine assures me that her husband can go into any store, walk to the men’s department, pick up a pair of 36’s, buy them without ever having to try them on and they’ll fit, no sweat. After all, a 36 measurement is a 36 measurement no matter where you go.  My father however assures me that men have similar problems. He promises me that he’s got two pair of size 34 jeans and one can be buttoned while the other can’t.   I can’t speak for either of them. All I can say is that no matter what size female you are be it 8 or be it 58 (if you’re smaller than an 8 go out and eat a “Happy Meal” toothpick!) the size you wear is not the size you wear. You’ve got 3 different sizes hanging up in that closet of yours, don’t you? I know I do. Most of them don’t fit either.

 

So my point, ladies and gentleman is that we need to get on our phones, computers and faxes and tell our legislators that something needs to be done. Stop worrying about the next Supreme Court Justice most of us won’t end up before him or her anyway.  If men want to pump themselves full of steroids and hit a thousand home runs... great. (It just means we’ll all get more sex! [At least until things start falling off!]) Just say, "Rafael Who???"  We need to stand up for regulated clothing sizes not only from store to store, but within each and every clothing line. Doing so will guarantee the sanity and happiness of all women everywhere and, surreptitiously, all men too. (Just think how little time you’ll have to spend waiting while your woman tries on clothes!!) Oh who am I kidding? We’ll still want to try on the whole store…  Thank you in advance for your support and Good Night.

 

             The Hep Hop Generation

 

 

 

not written by washington cube