Möbius

This is sort of how my daily internal life goes.  I know.  You're totally interested.

1) Did I ever mention that my husband is a rugby nut? 

I mean, he's certainly nuts in lots of other ways, but he's very specifically nuts when it comes to rugby.  Well, to be even more specific, when it comes to Rugby League.  (Because of course we all know that Rugby Union is just so many prissy southern prats fannying about on the pitch.  We all knew that, right?  Ok, well for those of you who are sane and didn't know that, this is sort of the sporting equivalent of Sunni and Shia Muslims... to the outsider the differences seem bogged down in minutiae.  To the participants?  Not so much.  And probably you'd be wise not to suggest it.)

As you may know, the United States of America is not so big on rugby.  Which, besides meaning that my husband suffers greatly, also means that we don't spend as much time watching rugby as we used to.  And by "we" I mean my husband.  Which leads me to:

2)  So my husband and I get these DVD lecture series from "The Teaching Company". 

These are totally awesome lectures on just about any topic your heart could desire.  We tend to delve pretty deeply into the ancient history section, with minor forays into modern history.  Last week my husband ordered "The Rise and Fall of the British Empire".  I'm pretty sure this was some sort of passive-aggressive response to the "American Identity" series that I bought him for Christmas last year.  Although, had he asked, I would have pointed out that having the words "Rise and Fall" in the title isn't necessarily the best "in your face" that you could hope for.  Actually I'm going to point that out anyway, whether he asked or not.   (Note to self: harass husband.)

In any case, last night we watched the introductory lecture and in it the very English lecturer happened to say "...and Canada, where the hinterlands of the plains provided a bounty of wheat".  This made me giggle.   Based on my husband's reaction (i.e. he looked at me like I was a lunatic), you folks aren't going to find it very funny.  But having grown up in the (only slightly more southern than Canadian) hinterlands, it just cracked me up.

The thing is, I'm feeling a little hinterland homesick lately which is in part what made me giggle.  I know that my husband, for one, thinks we live in the middle of nowhere here in Texas and it's as flat as can be.  He is wrong.  He has never been to the northern hinterlands and so he just doesn't get it.  Right now we live less than two hours from a major metropolitan area.  And I mean, you can only see about four miles in any direction here.  Psssht.  That's not what I call flat.

photo copyrighted by Dusty Davis

This is what I call flat.  Imagine this picture continuing on for, oh, let's say two hundred miles.  That's flat.

And while surfing for a nice photo of the hinterlandishness of it all, I happened to come across this photo. 

Which leads me to:

3) Did you know that the official geographic center of the North American Continent is Rugby, North Dakota?

Look. There's a plaque and a nifty marker and everything.   I mean, it couldn’t be Lacrosse or Cricket or Bowling, North Dakota right?  Nope.  Rugby.  I've never been there.  Maybe Big in Japan has?  Let's ask her. Yo, Big.  Rugby? 

 

Next I could tell you about how the local college rugby team here (there actually is one, but it is Rugby UNION- gasp) is managed by this Irish bar owner who is from the town in Ireland where I met this girl from the hinterlands of Canada and her brother wanted to go to an Ivy League school to play... hockey.  Sorry.  "Rugby" would have been awesome.  But no, it was hockey and I'm pretty sure they don't play hockey at Ivy League schools.

And the whole thing just goes on like that all day.  Of course, I have a really boring job and a lot of time on my hands to ruminate (have I mentioned that the construction industry is, in fact, dead?  Yeah.  It is.  Dead dead dead.  Slap a shroud on that sucker and dance it to it's grave. Dead.)

And so, patient Gentle Readers, I make you this promise: I will be sewing something soon, I will write about it and this will all seem like a bad distant dream.  In the meantime, you get to suffer through these little walks through my inner life.  Although you really only have yourself to blame.  Well, you’re the one reading this after all.  And I’m in a sewing slump this week.

Puckhead

I have “O Canada” stuck in my head.

Help me.





(edit: of course now, thanks to the evil genius of Big In Japan, I have "A Horse With No Name" stuck in my head... but oh no, not just ANY version.  Remember that gay barkeeper in "Good Morning, Vietnam"?  Oh yes.  That one.  "Ra rah rah  ra ra-ra-ra".  Good. Grief.)

Baby, It's Moderate With Wind From The S-SW Outside

(We’ll just assume from this point forward that you are ignoring the horrid photos of moi, right?  Right.  Because if I find out you’re not ignoring my really bad hair and horribly unflattering jeans… )

I hate sewing for myself.  Have I mentioned this before?  There are several ramifications to this, but the one most relevant to today's post is that I have suffered for five long ugly years with this atrocity of a winter coat.

 

It's from Target.  It’s hot pink.  It’s shapeless.  I hate it.

I hated this coat when I bought the stupid thing, but at the time I A) didn't sew clothing and B) really really needed a winter coat which C) were not plentiful on the ground - or in the stores- and this is what I ended up with.  Yuck.

The sad thing is that I have continued to wear this hideous nightmare for so long.  But every winter I think "Well, I guess I should make myself a new winter coat... something simple... go ahead and make it in fleece so it's easy to sew and warm to wear... it would be nice to have a coat that fits properly, think how much better you would feel in one that did... blah blah blah..."  But the fact is, by the time I actually get around to pulling out the coat patterns and contemplating what fitting adjustments I'll have to make, our short coat-wearing season is almost over.  And then since there are only four or five weeks left of coat weather, I just decide to make do with the World's Most Shapeless Coat and resolve to think about it next year.

So this year, even though coat-wearing season is still almost over, I made myself finish a coat.  Any coat.  In particular, Vogue 8460.  Remember that one?  And of course because I was rushing to get the stupid thing done before the temperature reaches 85, I didn't really pay so much attention to fitting it.

Ok, I'll admit it.  I didn't totally know how to do an FBA on this particular pattern.  Or rather, I did know I just didn't like what I knew so I pretended that I didn't.  Know, that is.  And I didn't do it.  Big mistake.  I also decided that because when I was fitting the tissue the pattern didn't meet my center back, I would just add four inches to the width.  At the hip.   That’s sort of like deciding that because there’s a crack in the plaster of your living room, you need to tear down the house. Yes.  I am flippin' brilliant sometimes.

So now I have a sort of ugly winter coat that fits sort of ok but not really.   But I finished a project that I’ve said I would finish for the past five years.  So there.

I’m not sure the photos really do it justice, but this is still way better than the Hideous Coat Of Shapelessness, so I guess I should be happy.  But I won't.  That is not how I roll, baby.

(You’ve completely ignored these photos of The Amazing Closed-Eyes-Double-Chin-And-Flat-Hair Girl, right?  I thought so.)