Various and sundry

I spent the evening yesterday in the green room at our local community theater. I was at the ready with needle and thread. It was fun. The play is Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Most of the cast are children. The energy was exciting though not over the top. Last night was the dress rehersal. This morning they are performing for the local schools. Tomorrow night is the first public performance. I plan to go over there shortly and see what sort of costuming assistance I can provide. This time I'm taking my thimble. I forgot it last night, and my finger is consequently suffering. 

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Manny is on the fritz again.

Superman thinks ist's the starter motor. It won't start. Duh. Instead it makes this strange grinding noise. I said to Superman this morning if it is the starter motor, we should be able to push start the thing, bypassing the starter motor. We (meaning him and the boys) can push it out of the driveway and point it down the street (a very gentle decline) and I can start it as it rolls down hill. He agreed that if it is the starter motor, that should work. However, if it isn't the starter motor, we'd have a dead truck at the bottom of the hill and he wasn't going to push the damn thing back up the hill. Hmmm.  Good point. For now Manny will just decorate the driveway. We'll decide what to do with him in a week or two, or whenever it gets unbearable having only one working vehicle. 

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Just a quick note about the washing machine. I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of the subject. Anyway, it is working, but seems to be having balance trouble. These front loading babies are supposed to spin beautifully without the typical out-of-balance shimmy that many top loading machines have. Well, something is screwy. Superman is talking about taking the back and top panels off to check the shock absorbers. I don't know how he'll check them, but I'm not going to fret about it now. My point, though, is that I don't know how much longer this machine will last. I paid a lot of money for the thing, and I expect to get more than 6 years out of it. Although I love the features, the recent performance is frustrating.

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You have met Sproing, right? He's my bouncing (you have no idea) baby boy, nearly 11 years old now. We adopted him as a newborn, brought him home from the hospital when he was 4 days old. If you compare the picture of me in the right sidebar to this blurry picture of him (he didn't hold still) you will notice that our skin tones don't match. 

The dear boy gets teased a lot in school because of his race and skin tone. He's very dark, and by some twisted standard within the black community (at least around here) the darker your skin, the lower your value as a person. I could go on and on about how wrong that is, but I'll resist. He also, of course, gets a lot of flack because he has white parents. People are always asking him if he's adopted. Frankly, he's sick of it. He said so this morning. According to him, this is what he now tells anyone who asks:

These people are not my parents. They are my limo drivers.

The entry I've been waiting to write

So last night I was in the living room cutting out the pattern for the dresses I'm sewing for this play at our community theater. Which opens Thursday. Yes, 2 days from now. And I just got the dresses cut out. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. 

Superman was at the computer, behind me as I was working. I've been thinking on these things the past couple of days, and I said to him "Superman. Do me a favor. Google 'Whirlpool Duet Repair.'" A few clicks later he said, "Oh look! Here's the repair manual! It's a PDF file!" Oh, for cryin' out loud. Why didn't he look this up earlier? Why didn't he find this when he was looking for the replacement part 5 weeks ago? I know Mimi has been wondering the same thing. 

Why didn't I look it up myself, or suggest it earlier? Well, part of my reason for not suggesting it was to wait and see what he would/could do. The dear man is very intelligent. Brilliant, one might say. But he doesn't think in broad strokes (or something like that). I was hoping he'd take the initiative. I got frustrated enough to break through my immobility and suggest a deeper search. Some of my hesitancy was intentional. Some of it was more laziness or fear or something deeply emotional. I'm not sure.

So he read the pertinent parts of the manual, looked at the pictures,  and went to tackle the machine. The thing requires a star head screw driver to disassemble the pieces. By show of hands, how many of you own your own set of star head screw drivers? I don't bitch too much when Superman buys himself stuff at the hardware store because frequently it is in my best interest. Yes, Superman owns a set of star head drivers. 

The part in question is the door latch mechanism, which is (not surprisingly) on the front of the machine at the door. I was so excited about him fixing my washing machine that I forgot to take any pictures of that process. It was really easy once he knew the trick to access the latch. There's a spring retainer ring that secures the gasket to the doorway... yada yada you aren't interested in that part. But he was so sexy and manly as he was repairing my machine! I nearly swooned. 

The machine has been vibrating wildly as it spins sometimes. That's what broke the latch this last time. I wondered if the springs holding the drum were the problem. Turns out there are 4 shock absorbers holding the drum in place at the four corners at the base, plus a couple of springs at the top of the drum. He took the back off the machine to check these. He looked. They looked like shock absorbers. Hmm. Then he replaced the back. Whatever. I got a picture of that. 

The back of the washer

The backside of Superman

Now I get to wash a load of clothes!!! Since the washer broke I've had the laundry lined up along the one long wall in my living room that spans the room from the kitchen to the hall. The kids have been dumping their dirty clothes anywhere along there. Last night I sat in that beige chair you see in this picture and sorted that laundry. There are now 6 full baskets waiting to be washed. 
There are probably at least 3 more basket's worth of dirty laundry in the kids' room and my room. Plus bed linens. And I need to sew up those dresses for the play. And cook supper. Yeah, I'm still on the computer. OK, I'll get this posted and move on with my day. Ta ta!

Monday mish-mash

As I sit in my nest I look out the window at the sunlight shining on the tree outside, just the top leaves are in the sunbeams now. There's a lovely gentle breeze, not too warm, not too cool, coming through the open window fluttering the edges of today's newspaper. It is early evening, 5:30 as I begin this post. This is just about my least favorite time of day, even on a gorgeous day like today. As the sun sinks lower in the western sky my heart seems to go with it, down, down, almost extinguished now. Once the night takes over and there is nothing left of sunlight except the faint traces of color on the western horizon, then I get a second wind and can work on into the night. But right now I am all sadness. It isn't a specific sadness, I can't tell you what I'm upset about, but I feel as though I'm about to cry. 

I had another interesting conversation with Twitch on the way home from school this afternoon. Almost every conversation with Twitch is at least interesting, quite often surreal. Nevertheless,we saw the school bus that comes through this neighborhood, the one he would ride if I wasn't such a softy to take him to and from school. He rode that bus once or twice when we first moved to this neighborhood. It was a negative experience. I waved to the driver as she went by (an acquaintance of mine, of course) and Twitch said "That's an awful bus." I asked if he refered to the bus itself or the students who ride the bus. As I suspected, it's the students. He said he didn't like them because they all thought he was gay.  HUH? I need more information about what you just said there, boy. He says there's nothing wrong with being gay (good, glad you agree). Is there something wrong with other people thinking you are gay? No, not if that's all there is to it. What he objects to is the way he is treated if they think he is gay. Ah, I begin to see the light. And he begins to feel the sting of homophobic bullying. Just a small taste, but I think it will help him to be more sympathetic to the plight of the repressed.  And it increases my general sadness.

On a somewhat lighter note, I thought I'd share with you the costume idea Superman has for this Halloween season. He did this to me Friday night. It was painful. Frightening. Shocking, as he rounded the corner and I was assaulted with THIS.

It's Dr. Plaid!

He defeats the evil foes (and everyone else within sight range) by blinding them with his offensive fashion sense.

His suspenders are red with little images of Christmas ornaments on them. He has a pair of rainbow suspenders that I think would be more (in)appropriate. We shall see. Though it is hard to tell from this picture, he is wearing argyle socks. He says he wants to find a plaid cap, something like these tam o'shanters. 

(when I was taking these pictures and groaning about how terrible he looks, Diva asked if I would delete the pictures, since he looks so bad. I told her "No, honey, I'm going to post them on the internet for the whole wide world to see.")

And while we are on the subject of frightening images, this is a picture Sproing took of me.

He wanted me to take off my glasses, so when I did I also shook my hair around. When I looked like this he exclaimed "Mom! You look just like a rock star!" and took my picture. Oh dear.

You may rest at ease now. I come to inform you that Sproing has new shoes. His wonderful daddy took him to get new shoes late last week, shortly after I told you the story of the poor boy being without shoes that fit. He is very proud of his new shoes.

When Sproing and I were goofing around with the camera the other day Superman was lying down like a tired man in the bed.

 

I took this picture because I like his feet. Doesn't he have nice feet? (To those of you who aren't averse to feet) I like the way there's a bit of hair on the top of his arch, and the feet are attenuated, alluding to a grace he does not possess. I like the way his legs flop when he's lying in bed like this. I like that it's cool enough for him to wear sweat pants. :-)

There is more news on the laundry/washing machine saga, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to post that. This post has gotten long and has too many elements to keep track of anyway.

Road Trip meme

It's about time for something more cheerful, don't you think? I was tagged for this meme by Rod at Kickin Tina.

This is a great meme for me, since I love to take road trips. Parties, not so much, but we’ll do what we must.
So … you’re about to embark on a road trip to a theme party. You’re only allowed 5 CD’s, 3 essential items and are prompted to take along one outrageous/stupid item of clothing that you have to wear at the theme party to make you stand out (you must currently be in possession of this item of clothing).
My 5 CDs

1. The Kingston Trio/ …from the "Hungry i"- Kingston Trio
2. Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3; Carnaval des animaux- Dutoit, Montreal Philharmonic
3. The Road and the Radio- Kenny Chesney
4. Life in Cartoon Motion- Mika
5. Greatest Hits- James Taylor
   

My 3 essential items

1. C-PAP
2. cell phone
3. laptop
   
   

My outrageous wardrobe item

My long hooded purple cape. This assumes the weather is cool, of course. I made this cape many years ago for a similar event. The fabric of the cap is a dark purple wool blend with flecks of gray and other colors woven into it. The hood is lined with deep purple velvet. It is quite striking.

For this meme I tag Indigo, since he'll be taking a road trip next week to come to South Carolina!! I also tag Sorted, since he hasn't done a meme for me in a little while, and Gregory, because I'm always fascinated by his eclectic music choices. I also want to know what sort of outrageous item of clothing Gregory has hiding in his closet. Three is the number of bloggers I tag, not 2. And 5 is right out.

As a matter for update: I am feeling much better today, even though I still don't have air conditioning. It's amazing what proper medication can do for a girl. J Hopefully we'll have cool air flowing through the ducts by evening. PLEASE!!!!!!!!