Saturday, November 06, 2010

Stuff At My Grandparents House: Zombie Big Bird

My family has established the routine of driving the whole eight blocks to my grandparents house every Friday night for dinner.
When we teens/ young adults were little kids, our grandparents had to have toys around to keep us entertained.
Most of those toys are still there. You never know when they will come in handy.
One of these toys was recently unearthed by my youngest sister, who was bored. Clearly those old toys are still needed to entertain us.

This toy was an old and scary-looking Big Bird.


See how scary he is? When my sister first brought him back out, he had masking tape over his eyes and around his beak. Some horrible catastrophe must have occurred many years ago, that required us to restrain him and bury him deep within the bowels of the back room. Something so awful none of us remember it.
I DO remember parents and grandparents chasing us around with this thing. Back then, we were young and innocent, and did not see him for the horrible monster he truly is.



How we could have been so blind, I will never know. We passed him around, and were told the history of how we came to own such a monstrosity. Many many years ago, when we, the youngest generation, were babies, a friend of my mom's picked it up at a yard sale. I really, really hope that ol' Big Bird was better looking in his younger days, for who would willingly purchase such a freakish thing, bargain or not? I do not question the taste of my mom's friend, as she got me a lovely card for graduation. If Big Bird was this horrible looking back when she brought him to us, I imagine he just followed her away from the sale, and back to our home. (Oh, jeez. Clearly I've been hanging around Evan {of Tales of Harumph } too much. His style is starting to creep into my blog. I think he's trying to assimilate me or something... I'll try to say "freakin'" more often. Sorry.)
I don't know.
It's freakin' scary to think about. (There.)

We passed the Big Ugly Bird around the room, laughing at him and hanging him by his broken pull string (Lord only knows what hellish sounds he made before that thing broke). If we had known what would happen next, we totally would have chucked that Big Bird out into the street and hoped he had been distracted by some tasty-looking neighbor kids, and would never be seen or heard from again.

After enough rude comments and a lot of laughter (Maybe even a few hysterical tears) Big Bird snapped.


My Grandpa's nose will never be the same.

Of course, as soon as we all realized Grandpa was in fact being attacked, and not just goofing around with random objects as he is known to do (a lot) we all leaped up to rescue him and his nose.
My brother restrained Big Bird for a short time.But as you can see from the next picture, my brother isn't the most reliable-looking psychotic bird restrainer ever....


Clearly my mom and my sister (Not the one who unearthed Big Bird in the first place though. This is my younger sister who looks older than me. My youngest sister is the one who brought this all upon us) are still very distraught over the whole situation.

After a while of talking about other things, we realize my brother is no longer holding Big Bird.

WHERE DID HE GO???
Oh. My. Freaking. GOSH.


.....I think I found him. This giant freakish cross between a canary and emu ain't gettin' the best of ME. HELL NO.

Never mind. He got away. I'm sort of thinking maybe his escape and probable ensuing zombie rampage had something to do with this sticker  we came across downtown...


....Ya think?

(Stuff At My Grandparents House may become a somewhat regular installment, mostly of weird pictures in magazines and catalogs. You never know. I already have another one, of a fairly disturbing advertisement. But if it doesn't...well, you all lived without it BEFORE. You'll get over it.)

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

iSew

Companies that make ballet shoes generally do not sew the straps on.
You get to do it. All by your lonesome.
I will attempt to sew the straps onto my ballet shoes. Two straps per shoe, criss-crossed like an X.

I will also give you people the play-by-play (Or stitch-by-stitch).

First I lock the cats out, because cats think needles and thread are delicious. Blitzen (Previously know as Baby/Itteh Bitteh Kitteh) hates this. He neeeds meee. He neeeeds his roooom. It's safe in there.

I have located a sewing needle. It his hiding in a pincushion, amongst the pins.
I think the eye needs to be much, much bigger.
I have successfully threaded the needle. Third time's the charm. The thread does not match the shoe. It is hot pink. This way, I can tell it's my shoe. :D

Ow. Sorta stabbed myself. Am I the only one here who can stab themselves the the supposedly "not-sharp" end of the sewing needle?? Fortunately, I did not break the skin. Otherwise, I would probably faint. I did last time I sewed stuff. Stabbed myself and promptly fainted.
This would be so, so much easier if sewing didn't scare me. My hands get all scared and sweaty. And they get the shivers. Nope, I don't have a fear of needles. I have sheer terror of needles.

Small stitches? All close together? Who does THAT?  No. Not me. I don't even TRY to go in a straight line. The stitches are everywhere.
It's artistic.

Oops. Sewed the strap a little too far back. But you know what? I DON'T CARE THAT MUCH.
Symmetry is overrated.

There's leather. IN THE BINDING. THERE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LEATHER THERE, DAMMIT.
AHA. I have found the magical very very narrow place between the leather and the elastic. YAY ME, I WIN.

Can I get maybe...ten thimbles? kthx.
One hour. One strap sewed on. OUT. OF. FOUR. The rest should go faster though. Took me FOREVER to figure out where to sew it.
I will probably do the other shoe tomorrow...

Stabbed myself again. Not on the needle. Not on a pin. On the basket all the sewing stuff is kept in.

I finally got the straps sewed on to one shoe. YAY ME. Then it was time for class, So I went to class with one strapless shoe.
Ooh. Strapless. How sexy of me.


LOOKIT. I haz skillz. Okay, not quite. But close enough. Yes, I am white. As a sheet. But not MY sheets. My sheets are purple. See them purple?


 LOOK, NEAT LITTLE STITCHES! Oh, wait....nope. Those are ARTISTIC stitches.

Tomorrow...I attempt shoe number two.
 Which will hopefully be easier, since I have already done one, and did not die. Now I know sort of where and kind of how to sew it.
I will probably not be any more coordinated though. I am actually unnaturally uncoordinated (For me) for about half an hour after I finish.
Yes, I know. I'm weird.