Random Information, Part… uh… Three?

Peppermint Penguin (who has no links, sorry) recently said, "Ok, so I'm supposed to be here for the sewing talk, but I find myself caught up in the pop culture".  Which I’m going to assume is a compliment, although it could quite possibly be a chastisement.  Yes.  Definitely a compliment. 

And of course makes me feel very guilty.  Yes.  My pathological guilt?  It's all PP's fault.  Good.  I finally have someone to blame.

Really, I do intend to write about sewing.  Honest.  But May is a Bad Month and I haven't made much of anything lately.  I'm hoping the holiday weekend will give me some time to work on something.  Really.  I will sew something.  I will.

No, I am not whining and defensive.   Shut up.

But I feel compelled to make at least a pretense of discussing sewing. So here is a piece of random information:

These (in a really shameless attempt to pretend this blog post has anything to do with sewing at all and not just me blatantly bragging about my children) are some photos of two of the kids' garments "in action".  Yeah, that's it.  ACTION SHOTS!  Just in case you were wondering how these garments I make look out in the field.    Literally.   A field.

TLo is wearing her butterfly tunic, another version of the one seen in this post. 

And The Big One is wearing her school uniform blouse as seen in this post.

These are from their riding lesson this week.  The Big One is, apparently, a natural.  After just four lessons she's already learning how to do the clover-leaf at a trot on Captain, The World's Tiniest Horse.  I swear that child will become a barrel racing queen.   If for no other reason than to totally annoy her father with her cowgirl ways.

Yee haw!!

 

Seriously?  Why did you even read this?  You didn’t, did you?  I knew it.  Next time: CLOTHES!  Honest.

In Which I Ruminate On The Cruel Vagaries Of Invitational Events

Mrs. Little Hunting Creek has recently been posting about a topic that's close to my (tiny, hardened, cynical) heart: Are We Dressing Too Casually These Days?  At the end of one of her last posts she states:

"If you want to make a grown woman cry, just tell her she is invited to a daytime wedding and put semi-formal on the invite and then drop the news that it's outside. Or a beach wedding - what on earth would you wear to that?"

I can one-up her on that.  What's worse than an invitation to a semi-formal garden beach wedding? An invitation that tells you nothing about what to wear.

At this very moment sitting on my desk is a wedding invitation with NO indication of what type of clothes we should wear. It says, "Ceremony at xx in the afternoon, reception at such-and-such location to follow".

An afternoon wedding with a reception.  This is what we’re told.

Ack.

I guarantee you, if I wear something "semi-formal", everyone else will be in jeans.  If a wear a nice-but-casual summer dress, everyone else will be in tuxedos and cocktail dresses.   Situations like this always remind me of an episode of "Bewitched" that is permanently lodged in my synapses.

No, seriously.  "Bewitched".  Starring the disgustingly cute Elizabeth Montgomery (and I believe the Second Darrin).

Aha.  Due to the wonders of Google, I now know it's Episode 126. In this episode, Samantha is tormented by Darrin's one-upping ex-fiancé, who in the past has caught out our poor heroine by inviting them to a dinner party.  The problem?  When the casually dressed Stephens arrive at the party, they discover that everyone else is in evening clothes.

Not to be outdone the next time, the Stephens wear their best dress-up clothes. Only to find that everyone else is dressed for a barbeque.

This is clearly a visceral piece of social indoctrination, as this particular episode has stuck with me, burned into the brain as it were, since I was about 7 years old.  The horror of wearing the Wrong Thing.

That's exactly what would happen at this wedding (were I to bother attending).   Minus the satisfaction of bewitching the obnoxious hostess and causing her wig to run off with the dog, unfortunately.

You can watch Episode 126 on YouTube (of course).

Stand Up And Shout It

This comment was left on my Voile! post (in which, you will recall, I showed not one thing I made or even attempted to make).

Of course, my initial reaction was to delete that post, since it's blatant advertisement... but on second thought, I kind of like the weirdly surreal nature of that comment.  I mean, what a great concept.

You can DO it!  You just need to WORK on it a little more!  Who cares if you haven't actually attempted to do anything?  You can STILL do it!   You just need to give it some time.

Awesomeness.

And of course because of the title of that post, I have now had the song "War!" stuck in my head for the past three days.  Which frankly is a whole lot better than Guns N Roses or The Grateful Dead or the band War, with that highly annoying song "Spill The Wine".

I was going to post a totally entertaining clip from 1969, but I'm 99.9% sure he's lip-syncing in that one.  Which, while typical of TV shows, is something to which I must cry "Foul!"  (Making a talented singer lip-sync when they’re not hopping around like a showgirl on meth—I’m looking at  you, Madonna—is ridiculous.)

The new clip is good, even if it doesn't feature an afro or the patented 1968 funky-groove-dance-with-your-feet-on-the-floor thing.  Well hell, it’s Jools Holland, it pretty much has to be good.

 

Crap.  Now I have "Spill The Wine" stuck in my head.  No wait.  That's "Low Rider".  da-da da-da da-da-DA da-da da-da da.

 

Well, all my friends do know the Low Rider.  Which doesn't say much for my choice in friends.