Drunken Santa

We went to the city this weekend.  The city, as in New York City.  For my daughter's birthday, she wanted to go to the American Girl store, walk around (and buy some 5.00 pashmina scarves) and see the Christmas tree.   We planned a nice day - it was the immediate family, grandma, and my daugher's friend and her family as well.  Lovely right?  I thought so.  And we did have a good time.  But there was something disturbing about Saturday.  It was Drunken Santa Day.  Apparently, someone had planned a meeting of people dressed in all manner of lewd Santa costumes.  A pub crawl in Santa suits. 

Now, I have nothing against pub crawls, although I've never crawled from pub to pub, but hey, to each his own.  What bothers me is lewd, drunken, pub-crawling Santas.  As soon as we arrived at the train station, we saw an unusual amount of policemen, and my husband asked them, "Aren't there a lot of you guys here?  What's going on today?" to which one of them responded, "some Santa thing going on."  Santa thing?  Is this a new thing?  If not, how did I get through my youth without ever once seeing hundreds of drunken santas parading around New York slurring Christmas greetings to everyone and singing bawdy Christmas songs? 

We saw Santas in skin tight union-suit-like onesies, like giant red babies with beer cans instead of bottles, leering Santas, Santas wearing short skirts, Santas with their cleavage hanging out, Santas hitting on elves...  I even heard a Santa cat-call as we were crossing Time's Square.  Santas should just not cat-call. I'm sorry, that's just my belief.

I was torn between finding this whole thing sort of funny, and being grossed out. Don't get me wrong, I was not disturbed about having my kids see these crazy Santas. 

(excuse my horribly grainy photos, folks)

They're old enough to know that people dressed up in Santa suits are still just people.  I was personally disturbed. It's like imagining Santa doing any number of things you just should not imagine Santa doing.  (ugh - my eyes, my eyes!!)  Respect the suit.

Santa shouldn't do things like pass out in Penn Station, is all I'm saying.

Sleep is SO overrated...

3:00 a.m.  

…suddenly… inexplicably… I’m wide awake.

Why can’t I ever be this awake at 5:15 on weekdays when the alarm goes off?

It’s 3 am.  What is it with me and 3 a.m.? 

I have to go to Wal-Mart tomorrow (or is that today?) and look for that Christmas snow blanket stuff so I can make that sample light-up planet for the play.

I should fold some laundry.

I should get up and wash another load of laundry right now – Lord knows I have so much of it.

Did I charge my phone last night?

I should wrap some presents.  I should have gotten those gift cards while we were out last night.  Damn.  I have so much to do tomorrow, how am I going to get it all done?

We need more guinea pig shavings – I should start a Wal-Mart list.

Would any other teachers besides Mr. S. even want to go to our class reunion? Let’s see… who else might still be alive?

It’s Rose’s birthday on 12/16.  Wonder how she’s doing…  Hope she doesn’t drop out of school when she turns 16.  Hope she doesn’t land herself in juvie… or get pregnant. 

Get Rose a birthday card.

Gotta go to Home Depot tomorrow for some chicken wire for the planets, and then Michael’s for the battery operated lights.

Christmas card pictures.  I have to take them tomorrow.  Where the heck am I going to take them?

3:45 a.m.

May as well get up and do that laundry.

Why am I putting the dirty laundry in the dryer? 

Wonder if Costco is going to get that cranberry white chocolate cookie dough again… yum.

My neck hurts – I should make more of those microwavable warmers – damn you, broken sewing machine!

I should put on some more moisturizer…  will I get added benefits from an additional application in the middle of  the night?

How many more paydays till Christmas?  I should have gotten those damn gift cards!

Oh, I still have to collect those pine cones for girl scouts next week…  where IS my glue gun?

Should I take the Christmas card picture in the field?

I should listen to my Playaway while I’m cleaning, but then, will I later fall asleep perseverating on The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest?   Better not.

I should practice some karate…  will I EVER learn uke waza?

What should I make for dinner?

6:10 a.m.  

 Oh, I think I’m getting tired… hallelujah!

Good thing it’s Sunday. 

Good night. Or is that good morning?

Finished Face Mask!

Here is the finished face mask.  In case you haven't noticed, I did change the pink color of the mouth - it was just waaaaaayy to pink so I toned it down a bit.  If you like the dotted design (try googling "Aboriginal designs"), I HIGHLY recommend you getting a round brush to do it with.  I used a small brush with a flat end, and I had to paint, rather than just dab each dot... too time consuming.  I went out and got myself a couple of round brushes this weekend.  I finished painting it last Saturday and then gave it a clear coat of Mod Podge during the week.  I gave it to my friend Gabby on Thursday and she LOVED it.  She said it was the best gift she ever got, and she hung it on the wall in her office.  She asked me, "How can you give this away?"  I really meant it when I said that the fun of it for me, was in the creation, and in her appreciation of it.  

Now, what next?

Painting the mask, otherwise known as - Uh Oh...

So, it's now time in the project where I take something that I think looks pretty good, and either make it better, or screw it up totally.  This is the painting step.

I googled some pictures of aboriginal art, mostly because I liked the dotted designs, and then I found a couple of pictures of African face masks.  I figured I'd try to incorporate the two designs together a bit.

I decided the other day that I am going to give this mask to someone I work with - I think she'll get a kick out of it, and maybe she can hang it on the wall in her office and get a laugh now and then.  If she hates it, maybe I'll hang it in my office - I can tell everyone it's my creative muse. 

I cut out a few basic shapes from a piece of scrap paper just so I could trace them and flip them over to get mirror images on each side of the face.  I cut an eye, two stripes for the side of Mr. Mask's face, and a teardrop shape for his forehead.

Next, I chose some colors from my stash...

I probably should have gone with more traditional earth tones (or is it Earth tones?), but I was trying to keep it peppy and match some of the colors in her office. Maybe that was a mistake?

I started painting and somewhere around the mouth I thought,

'uh oh...  looks like the Joker in Batman...'

...but then I thought it made a slight recovery when I added the green.  Much of the white space that's remaining is going to be black, and then I'm going to cover almost the whole thing with coordinating dots, which I think will tone down the bright colors quite a bit. 

Oh, and if my darling husband sees this, he'll know why there are still dishes in the sink. 

Paper mache face mask - reconstructive surgery

When I last showed you my paper mache mask, it was still pretty crooked here and there - larger cheek on one side, more sunken eye, no upper lip.... basically, his facial symmetry was a mess, so this weekend I did a little reconstructive surgery.  Last night in the kitchen, I applied scrunched up table napkins to the hollows of the face and then added my friend, Bounty paper towels, to smooth it all out.  While I was doing this, my huband passed through the kitchen on his way our of the garage.

"What are you doing?"  What was he getting at, exactly?  He's seen me up to my elbows in flour and water from before we even went on our first date.

"Making a mask."

"For what?"

"For the hell of it," I said.

"Ah, cause you've got to much free time to kill?"

"Yes, exactly, I have too much free time on my hands." 

When I was done, I put a load of laundry in the dryer, and put Mr. Mask on top.  In the winter, when it's dry enough in the house to crack your skin, this works really well, but in the fall, when it's raining like Noah is planning to take his ark out for another spin, it's not such an effective method. Mr. Mask was pretty much dry today, except for his rather large nose.  If you paint before your item is completely dry, you risk a cave in or worse, MOLD, so today I put him in the oven for a while on WARM with the door open.  I put the heat on for about 3 minutes, and then turned it off for about 10 to 15 minutes.  After about an hour there was much improvement.  I gave Mr. Mask a white base coat tonight, you know, with all the free time I have, and maybe tomorrow, after trick-or treating, I may begin his paint job. But you know, I don't like to fill up all my free time with too many activities, so it may have to wait till Tuesday night. 

Paper Mache Face Mask

In celebration of Halloween, I'm showing you a picture of a paper mache face mask I've been working on.  It looks a little flat from this angle, but it's not as flat as it looks. Looks a bit like a Stonehenge face, doesn't it? (It was not my intention.) It's been so damp outside I'm having a devil of a time getting it to dry. In this picture, it's still damp.  I last worked on this two days ago, and as of this morning, the cheeks were STILL not dry, so I put it on top of the dryer in the basement and dried a load of socks (I also have a dehumidifier down there, so I'm sure that helped.  Magically, this morning, it was dry.  I'm going to work some more on this over the weekend, and for the next one, I'm going to use a technique I saw on youtube - the guy covered a bunch of balloons of varying sizes and then after they were dry he cut them apart and had some very nicely rounded sections - even dupicates for opposing body parts, such as shoulders, or in this case, cheekbones. 

I'll keep you posted.   

Worry, Stress and a Crisis of Confidence

I don’t know for sure, but I’m betting I was a worrier from the day I was born… ‘When is my next meal coming? My diaper is wet!  Where’s mom?  Am I crying enough?  Am I crying too much?’  My worry and stress are circular things – each both causes and results in the other, and after the two of them do the dog-chasing-tail routine long enough, it almost invariable leads to a crisis of confidence.

Everyone has their moments of worry and stress but mine seem to be the creation clay of my personal nemesis, who aims her arrows with unfailing accuracy at my unique Achilles heels (yes, I have more than one) – no matter how miniscule.  I am, in short, my own harshest critic.  As a kid, I had looked forward to being because I thought I would finally have it all figured out.  Well, I am an adult, but I do NOT have it all figured out.  Still, I’m working on my nemesis.  We do battle at least a couple of times a week and I guess you could say I’m making slow, steady progress.   It’s just a fact, however, that there are those of us who punish ourselves for our failings more than society does, and then there are those of us you couldn’t beat the confidence out of with a big, wooden stick (…and there are those out there on whom I’d love to try out this theory).  I am convinced that strength of confidence is more nature than nurture. 

Why, if it’s not a huge chunk genetic, do I see my kids struggling through the same battles? Shouldn’t they at least have the advantage of starting with the confidence level that I’ve struggled so hard to achieve throughout my life?  I’ve been told by many people that I’m a calm, laid back sort of mom so I don’t think their struggles are a reaction to my demands.  They are so sensitive – their feelings are so easily hurt.  “Why didn’t I make the chorus, Mom?”  “Mom, I can’t spell in English, how am I going to spell in Italian?” I try to calm them down, and bolster them up.  I try to get them to see things as they really are, instead of how they look through in the harsh-critic mirror.  I'd prefer to don some armor and slash through armies for them like Joan of Arc, but all I can do is support their efforts and wait for their skins to toughen. 

It sure would make me feel better to beat one of those confident guys with a stick, though.