This is one of the coolest tattoos I’ve ever seen. If I didn’t have such a short torso this is what I would get. But I do have a short torso and I think a short squat tree is kind of silly. But maybe if I get that spine extension I’ve been thinking of…
In case you doubted my sincerity when I said the pedestrian situation here in Biloxi was horrendous, I snapped a picture. This is the only cross walk on Pass Road between Keesler Air Force Base and Popps Ferry Road, a distance of three miles.
Now for those of you in the Midwest, you may not understand how dire this is. This isn’t like the Great Plains. We don’t have alternate routes of travel. There are two east-west roads on this part of the sand bar they named Biloxi. For about 5 to 8 miles, there are only two ways to travel east an west. Take Highway 90 (otherwise known as Beach Boulevard) or take Pass Road. As you can imagine, Pass road is fairly busy. There are no shoulders, there are not consistent sidewalks on both sides of the road, and there are few crosswalks.
Say you went shopping at Wal-Mart and you wanted to walk to the library before catching the bus back to base. You head east on Pass, walking on the sidewalk, enjoying the green canopy above you. The fence surrounding the abandoned golf course is overgrown and sagging but you don’t mind as it helps break up the scorching sun. You watch where you put your feet as the sidewalk has begun to heave and not much has been done about it that you can tell. You continue to walk, wishing they’d put the sidewalk a few feet from the street. The noise is distracting and the push and pull of wind preceding and following the passing cars is disconcerting to say the least.
Ahead of you, you see a bus stop. As you approach the bench, you realize with a start that the sidewalk on your side of the road ends. You do not spot a crosswalk button in the immediate vicinity of the bench. You glance across the street but see no crosswalk light. You glance down the road, thinking perhaps you can just walk in the road a bit. Seeing the lack of shoulder and the indifference the drivers show for you as you lean into traffic makes you think twice about that course of action. As you pull your head back out of the line of fire, you notice, about 10 feet away, a yellow crosswalk button.
“Good” you start to think and then you realize, “Wait…that’s…how…what…?” The sidewalk ends in front of the bench. Another six feet down the road is a utility pole, to which is attached the familiar button. You look to your left and wait for a gap in traffic. You dash to the button, press it a couple of times – to be on the safe side – and sprint back to the relative safety of the sidewalk.
After what seems an unreasonably long wait, the light finally changes, traffic stops and you are able to safely cross. You continue on your way and shortly reach the library…well, you are in line with the library but the library is on the other side of the street. The side you just crossed over from. And now, there is no light. No crosswalk. Nothing. You look both ways, trying to gauge your speed against the oncoming traffic. As you assess the risks involved in finding a couple of books to read during your lunch break, you realize, maybe it would be better to just walk back to base and skip this whole “library” thing.
You begin the trudge back to base, walking through parking lots and driveways as the sidewalks fades in and out of existence. You walk through someones front yard when the sidewalk mysteriously ends in a fallen tree branch. You weave between utility poles placed in the middle of the walkway and the privacy fence of military housing. You begin to relax and enjoy the walk.
Then you get to McDonnell street. Here the sidewalk doesn’t just fade out; it does a disappearing act without any real skill. That is, it can’t bring itself back. Thinking you will just cross the street at the light, you look for the cross walk button but, wait, it doesn’t exist. You look left and right, stepping off the curb to see around the trees and utility poles placed just behind the curb. Traffic doesn’t appear to be slowing or thinning.
You sigh and hitch your backpack higher on to your shoulder. Feeling guilty, you tramp across front yard after front yard, following in many other pedestrians’ footsteps down the dirt trail carved into the soil. You finally reach the gate and are able to cross quickly. You show your ID to the guard and thankfully step into a world where there are sidewalks, crosswalk, speed limit enforcement, and drivers who respect a pedestrian.
As much as you dislike the military sometimes, it’s good to be home.
And that’s life here in “anti-pedestrian-ville.”
First off, in case there are those who aren’t realy going to read all of this, I got bit by five fire ants yesterday. They really hurt. My toe is so swollen. There is a dent in it where the little bastard stung me and everything around it is hot and swollen and tight. The South sucks.
On to the costume.
So here we are on day two. I decided to make the sword out of foam core board. I think that’s what it’s called. It is white foam sandwiched between white paper/card stock. It’s about 1/4-inch thick. I bought two boards.
I laid out the pattern (after much ado getting the sides symmetrical) and traced it onto the foam board. Step one.
This is the sword all traced out.
I needed to glue the two pieces together in order to cut the sword out as one piece. I didn’t want to glue the two boards completely together as I plan on using the scraps for other parts of the costume. What I ended up doing was this: I took a push pin and poked holes all the way around the sword, about 1/4 – 1/2-inch outside the outline of my sword. When I flipped it over, I was able to place glue inside the dotted outline and then press the two pieces together. The end result: a securely lamenated sword and two large triangles of reusable board.
So, I’m all traced out. Luckily, when we bought the foam board we also bought an X-acto knife – possibly the best craft purchase we’ve ever made. So I just started cutting it out. Eeeeek!
And then it was all cut out. Okay, mostly all cut out.
That’s where we stand. I trimmed the “handle” thinner as it was too big for my hand. Now it feels a little weak so I am thinking of some ways to strengthen the handle (what is that called!?) I think I am going to carve out a groove on both sides of the “handle” and put two chopsticks in and then put another layer of foam to carve into a cylinder shape. So that’s where it stands.
Tomorrow I am going to finish up the rough draft of the sword and start on the head piece.
If anyone has a pair of 8 1/2 to 9 knee high gold boots with high heels that they would loan to me that would be awesome…or a pair of a different color that I could paint. Or a long blond wig-no bangs. Yeah, that’s about it.
I’ve decided to revisit my childhood and be She-Ra, Princess of Power, for Halloween. I am so excited, as you can see from my evenings work above. I made the headpiece (which will be a pattern for the real deal) in about 15 minutes. I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to make it all but I’m going to post pictures on Snapfish, MySpace, Shoutlife, and Facebook (why can’t all my friends and family use one networking service?).
I think for the headpiece, I am going to use a stiff plastic or cardboard, then paint metallic gold. I am really not sure how I’m going to mount it…I don’t think She-Ra had a visible headband…I’ll have to do some more research. So maybe a headband, maybe not.
I think I’m going to have to make the skirt and bodice. The boots…are a problem. I have never found a pair of knee high boots that would go over my calves. So, since I don’t want to paint an incredibly expensive pair of boots gold, I think I’m going to start with a pair of high heels (as comfy as possible). Then I am going to take some stretchy gold fabric and make boots out of it. I think I’ll end up hot gluing them to the edge of the shoes and then double sided carpet taping the tops to my calves…unless someone provides me with a better idea.
The gauntlets will be cardboard covered with either fabric or painted to match the headpiece. The belt, front emblem, and boots will be made out of the same fabric.
Oh, and the cape…I don’t know. It will be read and square. It will attach to the choker (also gold to match gauntlets and headpiece). Hopefully I can find the right color red. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
The sword is going to be sweet. We have this pole from Jael’s old bed. It’s a little wider than a crib mattress. I am going to use it as the base for the sword and build a cardboard or styrofoam body around it. Then I will add the jewel and paint it to match the other “metal” pieces of the costume, the headpiece, the gauntlets, and choker.
So that’s the plan. Israel and Jael haven’t decided what they are going to be yet though Jael is leaning towards an airplane.
So stay tuned for further developments.
We had a long weekend last weekend. As in, my husband got off work on Thursday and didn’t have to be back to work until Tuesday. YAY!! We so needed four days off.
On Friday, we dorked around and didn’t really do anything. I mean, we did, but nothing out of the ordinary enough to really remember. Oh, except we went to Applebee’s for supper, it being a mini-vacation and all. The Applebee’s we went to is a fairly new restaurant and it’s not run very well. Our server was a menopausal, hot flashing, somewhat spacey woman of, um, elder years, shall we say. She was pleasant enough, just not a very good waitress. Anyway, as this isn’t the interesting part of our vacation, I’ll cut to the chase…my chicken sandwich was only half cooked…isn’t that gross?! I cut into it in order to give some of it to our daughter and realized, hey, this only got cooked on one side…YUCK! So we sent it back and they replaced it (due to the fact that I had put the sandwich on a smaller plate to cut it, I ended up with two orders of fries…yummy). But no one got sick or anything so that’s really as much to that story as there is.
So on Saturday, we decided to go to New Orleans and see the World War II museum, or the D-Day museum as I think it’s called. We went and it was interesting. I wouldn’t say it was cool because it was a testimony to the pointlessness of the whole thing. I mean, it wasn’t pointless for us to get involved. It was so bloody pointless of Hitler to have started the whole stupid thing. I mean, so many people died and died so horribly. Why?
As we walked through, I found myself wanting to cover our daughter’s eyes, wanting to guard her against the realities of war and yet, if she is to become a responsible citizen and a reasonable adult, she must know what war means to the people in it. It is so easy to sit back here in America, sip a soda and watch the news and support the war. It’s something different to be in the trenches and smell the blood and touch the dying and still support a war because it’s the right thing to do. Somethings are worth war. Somethings are not. Unless you understand the cost, you cannot know if what you are seeking is worth it.
Oh, and to quote paraphrase a good friend of mine, “Who, when building a tower, does not first consider the cost, least when it is only half completed, runs out of money and is revealed to be a fool. The half tower will stand as a testament of his foolishness.” Hitler couldn’t have won. Maybe if he’d only taken the first two conquests and left the rest of Europe for a later generation. But once he started in on France and Britain had to take notice of him, it was all over but the dying. It might have even been a good thing Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because otherwise, we might have just sit back and let all of Europe self destruct instead of stepping in and helping to end it sooner.
So it was an interesting museum and I’m glad we went but we didn’t go to any of the other museums on our list. One ghastly memorial to man’s ability to destroy was enough for one vacation.
Instead we wandered around New Orleans for a bit. We were near the General Lee Memorial so we walked that way. It’s a statue on a big tall pedestal. But it got us interested in General Lee so we looked him up on the way home (we’d brought the “L” and “N” encyclopedias so we could read about Louisiana and New Orleans on the way down) and it turns out he was an incredible man.
As we were walking around the Lee Memorial, it started to drizzle. We were a couple of blocks from the car and we weren’t sure where we were headed next so we decided to go back to the car and check the map, etc. It began to sprinkle, then to rain. We walked faster. It began to rain harder. We sheltered under a tree as it began to pour and we waited for a light to change. The light changed and we dashed across the street. The rain continued to pour from the sky as my husband ran ahead to unlock the car (one of the two times we’ve locked it) and I carried the daughter. It was so wonderful. We had water running down our laughing faces. It soaked our clothes and made our shoes squishy. But we didn’t care. It was so alive. To feel the rain upon you face. To run through the city, splashing puddles and dodging gutters. It was exhilarating. We fell into the car, laughing and breathless. I had a handkerchief I keep in the car to cover my hair on windy days so we used that to mop our faces off and dry our arms and such.
Then, as it was raining to hard to walk around, we decided to burn up some non-renewable recourses and drive around the city. We drove to the French Quarter. What a cool place. The streets are all one way, one lane. There is a lane of parking (which switches sides randomly) and then the driving lane. The buildings are about 3 to 4 stories tall, but appear much taller because they are so close together and so close to the road. The buildings’ rain gutters were designed to empty onto the road, sparing pedestrians the onslaught, I am sure. So it was like driving through an intermittent car wash. But it was beautiful as well. There were people out and about. We saw lots of bikes, leaning against shop fronts as their riders shopped or perhaps sought refuge from the storm. Groups huddled under awnings (which there were a lot of them, it being a pedestrian area accustomed to such deluges). We saw a guy who had taken off his clothes, bundled them against the ran and was dashing down the street in his underwear…his black leather, fringed bikini-style underwear. I wish we could have snapped a picture. It was just so bizarre. But I guess that’s pretty normal in the French Quarter.
We drove around a bit more, our daughter fell asleep and we decided to head for home. We stopped for lunch at a Burger King and got back on the Interstate. We were tired and wet. Our heads hurt from museum-ing and driving and rubbernecking and dehydration.
But in spite of our headachey woes, our hearts were content for the first time in months. We felt as though a weight had been lifted off our shoulders. We realized that we loved the city. I remember when, as a young girl, I bemoaned the fates which had placed me in the city when in my heart, I knew I was a country girl. Now, as an adult, I’ve come to realize that, while I think I could enjoy living in the country, I am, in fact, a big city girl. Biloxi just doesn’t cut it. There is no down town. There is no old architecture. There is no soul.
We drove away from New Orleans, knowing a little better where we are headed post Air Force. To a city. Which city remains to be decided but we are most definitely going to live in a big city.
*sigh * Soon.
