Fireworks!

Actually, I'm irritated in an old geezer you-kids-get-off-my-lawn way about blown-up-in-my-backyard fireworks right now.†

Huh. I've already digressed and I haven't even started talking yet.‡

There are three great things I saw this weekend that I wish to share, plus a bonus of two happy things that happened:

1. I landed home Saturday afternoon and flipped on the TiVi.§ There was a baseball game right in front of me, which I was just about to turn off, when I noticed the player up to bat was Angel Pagan.¶ I wish I could have kids so I could name one of them Angel Pagan.
2. Driving to Jerusalem Restaurant for a very patriotic Third of July dinner, I passed the giant convent/Catholic convalescence home in the 'hood. There was a Barbie-pink scooter waiting at the giant gate to make a left onto 29th. "Wish I had a camera," I thought. "This would be a great blog bit." Then the scooter pulled in behind me and it was a bearded guy in aviator sunglasses and that made it all the better.
3. On the same drive, I was at a red light and across from me were two of the whitest, yuppiest, Chanel sunglass-wearing, designer polo shirt-clad 30-something dinks# ever seen, playing a vuvuzela and waving a South African flag out of the sunroof on their BMW. I'm not saying they *couldn't* be South African, but if they are, they're on the wrong side of the popular political tracks and maybe shouldn't be displaying the equivalent of one of us wearing a loin cloth and a feathered headdress and doing the Tomahawk Chop out of the windows of our BMWs.

Then I got to Jerusalem and the ever-so-adorable chicklet who took my order asked what my shirt meant.

"Rock-paper-scissors... lizard-spock," I replied to a peal of delighted laughter.

Then she cooed and exclaimed over my emergency wallet.††

It was a good day.

And that was a totally elegant segue into a package% from my not-so-secret-pal Jo.‡‡ Because my emergency wallet looks like this:




And Jo, not knowing a thing about my emergency wallet,§§ sent me this soap:




Which was an adjunct to that month's subject prize, the washcloth¶¶:




And came with a bonus soap dish:




And totally bath-related pirate cupcake set##:




So thank you, Jo, both for your patience and for the lovely gifts.

Give me another two months and I should be caught up.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): But real fireworks, performed by professionals, are one of my favourite things.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): That may be a record. Lyda's going to be so proud when she sees.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): As one does.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I took Spanish, so I know it's pronounced "ON-hell pa-GONE," but he'll always be Angel Pagan to me. Plus? If you Google "Angel Pagan" (even without the quotation marks), you don't get a single religious reference for pages.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): And I mean both in terms of "Jebus Cats, what a couple of dinks" and "Double Income No Kids."

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): The wallet that goes in my pocket in which I keep my driver's license, debit card and a small chunk of cash to hold me over when I leave my purse somewhere three times out of ten. Usually home, mind you, but one should have the necessities with one. If that one has juvenile onset Alzheimer's like this one does.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): I'm smooth like peanut butter. Note how I not only tied it all together with the Cute as Hell theme, I managed to not let on that this package arrived two months ago and I'm just getting to it now.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Who just revealed herself to me per the terms of our year-long swap agreement, in which I was totally wishy-washy and said, "Oh, let's be secret for six months, then not-secret for six months." I am fair, if indecisive.

§§FOOTNOTE (sssupposedly): I think.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (two heads better than one): Which was hard to photograph adequately, but does, indeed, have a black skull motif rampant on a black background.

##FOOTNOTE (that's the symbol for shock): Why? Where do you eat your cupcakes?

We Interrupt Our Blog Schedule†...

I'm puttering‡ through a handful of blogposts, including:

• Pole dancing
  
• The many wonderful things my year-long now-not-so-secret pal§ has sent me
• The many wonderful things Nintendo has sent me
• Stupid sparkly handspun¶ and an executive tiara#

In the meantime, let me amuse myself by telling you - quickly - that Hans

[our Hans]

went to see

[brace yourself]

the latest STUPID SPARKLY VAMPIRE MOVIE

[in IMAX††]

on opening night.‡‡

Take a moment.§§


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): BWAHAHAHA! Because I'm sure you're setting your watch by my blog these days. Schedule... BWA!

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Because puttering is the order of the day here at Chez Barfly.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): All will be explained in due time. Perhaps now would be a good time for another "BWAHAHAHA!"

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Gods, I love my friends. How else would someone be browsing a wool festival and go, "Sparkly. Purple, grey. Foggy, atmospheric, sparkly... stupid sparkly... vampire. Marin"?

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): If you don't think executives should have tiaras, you're not familiar with the insecurity of executiveship. If I can confess right here, nothing in my life (not boys, not college, not spandex, not yearbook pictures) has made me more insecure than being an executive.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Possibly in 3D.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Bought the tickets *in advance*.

§§FOOTNOTE (turn it around): Because we love Hans, and in all fairness, he's the best of best boyfriends; his girlfriend is out of touch with her Twilight contingency, so Hans wanted her to see the movie. AND he decided that she spent a lot of time doing what he wanted to do, so maybe he should do something she wants. If more men were like Hans, there would be no sit-coms.

NOTE: It made me feel better, and may make you feel better, that Hans did not like stupid sparkly vampires.

ALSO NOTE: He told me. He didn't tell his girlfriend. In the land where sit-coms don't mean anything.

I am a Grateful Show-Off

LOOK! This is the last batch of stuff before I hid my camera cable from myself.

I love it! My swap pal is the BEST! She's so awfully clever - just look at the knitting pirates.

There's more! I've received a full complement of spiffy stuff from Swap Pal.

More will come, but until then, oooh and aaah at the pretty, pretty bounty.

Still-secret Swap Pal, I am truly grateful despite my callous ways.

















And this! Because The Moo loves me, she has contributed to my collection of Stupid Sparkly Sweethearts!

I'm going for eBay glory one of these days...




And a SKULL bag. For the grocery store. So the crunchy granola kids who check me out at Sunflower Market can tell me how rad I am.




Yep. Those are my friends: giving me the illusion of radosity for nearly 43 years now.

Can I Get Some Glitter?

Yes. Yes, I can.

Remember a hundred years ago when I was talking about the Glam Rock swap?

I completed my mystery project, received my package, went on to live my life, invented no-run pantyhose, revolutionised modern hair care, became a spokeswoman for the plight of bookstore customers worldwide and died at the age of 102† with a smile on my face.

[SUMMARY: Dreaming out loud.]

Seriously, it's been awhile. A couple of weeks at least. But, y'know... the camera, the uploading, the same old story.

Anyway, here's my package‡:




Let's get a close-up of those stitch markers:




I don't know how glam skulls are, but they're certainly *me* and I believe that's what counts.§

How cool is this?




It has a full Bowie bio between its shiny, shiny covers.

[SUMMARY: If it has David Bowie, it must be cool.¶]

Now for the tooting-my-own-horn portion of the program.#

Remember when I showed you the needle-felted Obama Brother made? And remember how I showed you a bag of fluff and said I was going to make something glam inspired by the needle-felted Obama?

[SUMMARY: If you don't remember, I'll remind you.]

Quick side trip to the back story††: You know how there are things that follow you? Like you have some sort of pre-destined meeting‡‡ with this... thing?

F'rinstance: a month or so ago, Juno asked how close I live to North Boulder because Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, a perfumer, has her shop there. I'd never heard of DSH, but within three days of Juno's inquiry, Chandler Burr reviewed her, I saw an ad for her, Nathan may have mentioned her... it was like she was haunting me.§§

Well, I had a similar series of events surrounding Klaus Nomi. A few years ago, I got my brother "The Nomi Song" for Christmas, part of a series of odd and/or interesting gifts we have exchanged. When I got it, I was only vaguely aware of Klaus Nomi, and then only as one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS.

Brother watched the film then passed it on to me. Turns out Nomi was an artist of some merit and a character worth filing in the brain, if for nothing else, for his glam¶¶ persona.

Then this glam swap came up and my recipient mentioned liking Klaus Nomi. Then Paris fashion week brought a Klaus Nomi reference. Then Nathan posted something that caused me to make a Klaus Nomi reference.## Then I decided to make a needle-felted Klaus Nomi, and when I explained this to the nice women at Fancy Tiger, one of them said, "That's so strange. I was just going through my iPod yesterday and re-discovered Klaus Nomi. I've been playing him a lot today."

[SUMMARY: KNMI: All Klaus Nomi, all the time.]

So, yeah. I needle-felted a Klaus Nomi.†††




[SUMMARY: Duh.]

This action appears to have exorcised Klaus Nomi's ghost. Who knew he was just hanging around waiting to be immortalised in wool so his soul could rest?


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Marin the Math Wizard would like to acknowledge that if she told you about the glam rock swap a hundred years ago, she was probably at *least* 141 when she died.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): The scarf is all glammy teal and fuschia and silver... but it looks like a Colorado Avalanche scarf to me. I'm pretty sure hockey isn't glam, so I'm pretty sure that's not what my upstream swap partner meant.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Being, as I am, the cente of my own universe.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Rule of Cool #9 (right below sunglasses and right above an Eames chair).

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I have not yet decided if I want to continue tooting my own horn because nobody gets the job done quite like I do, or if I'm sick and tired of tooting my own horn and want an experienced horn-tooter to toot my horn for me. Wait... what were we talking about?

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): What your people call "tangent," my people call "side story." I was just channelling the Land O' Lakes chick, in case that didn't come across.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I *really* wanted to reference the story where the wealthy Indian merchant hears that Death is coming to his house, so he gets on his horse and rides to [city in India] to cheat Death, only Death shows up at his house and when the servants tell him the merchant isn't there, Death says, "Oh, that's alright. I'll see him tomorrow. We have a meeting in [city in Inda], and the story's title is "Meeting in [city in India]," only I can't remember the name of the city and Google isn't much help in this case and if ANYBODY knows what the hell I'm talking about, please give me the title in the comments because it's driving me mad and I may not sleep until I get the answer.

§§FOOTNOTE (twisty tales): Unlike Klaus Nomi, who was always a little outside the box, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz was easy to appease -- a little VISA magic and some Mini bonding and her spirit rested.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (space age antennae?): I don't mean in the Vogue/W Magazine sense or in the 80s hair band sense. I mean in the David Bowie-Gary Giltter-Tommy Bolen sense.

##FOOTNOTE (that's me, pounding my head on the desk trying to dislodge clever thoughts): I honestly have no memory of what this footnote was going to be. Bet it was clever. And funny. ETA: GOT IT! I was going to say something about how commenting with slightly obscure references is why one files such bits away. The irony is not lost on me.

†††FOOTNOTE (hot cross Klaus): If I were a better photographer, you could see the prominent cheekbones and the sharp, slightly upturned nose.

Incoming!

You know another good way to get mail? Swap.

I suspect there's something in swapping that smacks of scrapbooking and tole painting -- something geeky in a just-so way -- but I love getting the mail.

My very own Dracula swap package came yesterday.




I kinda dig the Victoriana of brown paper packages tied up with string.† Seems Dracula-appropriate.‡

There were munchies too.




In all my travels this Halloween season, I never saw the Ghirardelli bat-black chocolates. Also? I forgot how much I love those barber pole hard candies of the many flavours.§ I must go add them to my Secret Pal list.

And I'm very excited about the idea of pomegranate green tea. I don't know why -- teas purporting to fruit are usually disappointing, but this is pomegranate! And green tea!¶

There's squishy sock yarn in classic Dracula colours#:




What I believe is a dumpling bag with -- get this -- bite marks. I think that's brilliant.




I got a set of stitch markers.




I think the bats in particular are wicked cool.†† Very detailed.




We're clearly into photo-sucking season, boys and girls. I get home too late to take advantage of natural light, but I'm too greedy and impatient to wait until daylight to open stuff.‡‡

I'm NEVER going to make it to saint at this rate.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I also dig knowing somewhere eBeth is wandering around singing that to herself.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I think we need more buzz-words like "Dracula-appropriate" and less "child-friendly" or "action item."

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Like old-school Jelly Bellies. Only without popcorn flavour.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): And with all those exclamation points, it *has* to be good!

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): In a colourway that used to be Yarrrrn, but has been dubbed by Kat (my upstream swap buddy) "Dracula's Lust." It has "lust" in it... it *has* to be good!

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I can't pull that off, can I?

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I tried. Really. But it was like a mosquito bite -- I could try to ignore it, try not to scratch it, but eventually I gave in. I can't lie... it felt good.