Hear ye, hear ye!

It's always a joy to discover a witty, interesting writer, and it's even more of a joy when the subject of that person's work is one dear my own heart: The dimensional bubble that surrounds Meijer, somehow rendering it a bizarre wonderland of strange sightings and experiences. For those of you non-Michigan dwellers, Meijer is a massive one-stop shopping "groceries to car parts" extravaganza the size of a city block. Seriously.

Imagine my joy when I stumbled across a blog entitled The Meijer Chronicles , composed of nothing but stories of wacky Meijer experiences! Traci's writing is hilarious and her stories make me snicker wickedly and nod knowingly. A visit to her site (linked above) is recommended.

This of course made me think of my own Meijer adventures, of which I offer this list:

• I was once at Meijer late at night, when the overhead PA came on, and a business-like man's voice announced, "Attention Meijer guests--I am not wearing any pants."

• When I was in college, a friend and I got locked out of our dorm in the middle of the night, so she and I catnapped in the back of the beanbag chair shelf in the housewares department until morning. I guess that makes me an accessory to Meijer weirdness.
  

• Once, in a Meijer bathroom, I found a cashier girl crying, and realized she was hemorrhaging. I ran to tell a brain-dead Mejier associate that one of her co-workers needed an ambulance, but she just stared at me, so I had to find a manager to make the call. Then I waited with the girl, helping her calm her breathing down, while her ineffectual coworkers fluttered annoyingly about until the ambulance arrived and whisked her away. Then I bought some wasabi.

• Once I overheard some teens talking conspiratorially about stealing a live lobster. I think their sheer stupidity made my brain stop, and I just sort of froze, contemplating their idiocy. When they noticed me and registered the look that must have been on my face, they scuttled away.

• Meijer occasionally announces via computer voice overhead, "Attention Meijer guests, there is no waiting in lane...twenty...one (or whatever lucky number)." Someone from my school once hijacked the PA to announce, "Attention Meijer guests, there is an orgy in lane...sixty...nine." Classy!

• I mustn't forget to mention my lights-out Meijer adventure.

Ah, the joys of Meijer.

I succeeded in holding!

I love that when the Japanese make a robot, they make it not only functional, but cute.

Get a load of Ri-Man, the only robot designed specifically "for holding up a human." There are video clips on the page that are pretty interesting.

In some ways, I always assume that we're further along in robotics than we actually are, thanks in part Hollywood, no doubt. When it's big news that a robot can carry over 100 pounds over rough terrain and not fall down, I'm a little surprised. But couldn't those droids on Tatooine...? Oh wait. Star Wars.

It may not seem like a huge accomplishment for a robot to pick up a doll, but it took years of time and effort. Way to go, robot makers! Just don't let them become sentient and crush our skulls! Yay!

Once Upon a Time

When the Boy was very young, they lived in a trailer park. Blanket statements aside, the Boy's family would have stood out a bit anywhere they lived, I'm sure. Understandably, people thought they were a bit strange. His father was into history, politics, and classical music, and his mother wrote poetry and sewed beautiful things. One neighbor told her everyone found it weird that she talked to the Boy while walking him in his stroller. "He can't even talk yet. What's the point?"

One day, a neighbor's wife knocked on the door and the Boy's father answered. The woman was all splendor in a muu-muu and curlers. "Jamie (her son) here?" she asked.

"No," the Boy's father replied. "Sorry."

"How 'bout yer son?" She asked.

"He's not here either."

"What about yer wife?"

"Sorry--she's running errands."

The woman glanced this way and that, then leaned forward, toying with a curler seductively.

The Boy's father was nonplussed.

Then she announced in a foxy voice,"And now... I'm gonna seduce ya."

"No you're not," he responded. And shut the door in her face.

_________________________

That story always makes me laugh. Perfect pick-up line.

One lumpy baby hat.

I've let Em know that if I can't manage to get it right before the baby's born, she's just going to have to have a baby with a weirdly shaped head.

Now to make a hat with ears. Everything's cuter with ears.

In Which My Nerdy Dreams Come True.

I've always been enamoured with stories that involve setting with so much character its almost alive--particularly deep, dark, hitherto unexplored and ancient buildings.

I wanted to be an archeologist when I was little. Maybe that's it. I love browsing around the Urban Exploration Ring to see what crumbling beauty of a building someone's found and photographed. I stumbled onto the ring while I was researching the vast and mysterious network of tunnels and catacombs under Paris.

Up until this point, the closest I'd found a few books which I love (among other reasons) for that mystery/exploration aspect: Garth Nix's Lirael contains an ancient library with levels and sublevels that go below where people remember anyone ever having been, and ultimately, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Castle is practically a character in the trilogy, with its unending corridors and turrets.

My favorite scene is in the first book, when Steerpike crosses the roofs. He escapes out a window, and edges his way onto the vast field of turrets and rooftops. It's days before he finds a way down again. Some of the things he sees:

• From a distant wall, a massive tree has grown horizontally out and up. Tiny figures of people can be seen taking their tea on its trunk.
• Far below, in a valley where several roofs meet, rainwater has collected into a pool. A white horse is swimming in it.
• At an open shutter, he meets an old poet, living in a room in an abandoned part of the castle.

Gormenghast is not magical, persay, but the trilogy is often lumped with fantasy books because it's filled with mysterious and bizzare charcters.

Which I just love.

Fare Thee Well, Eskimo-Disco Slippers

For Christmas, I was given an insanely fluffy pair of boot-slippers, which have essentially have merged with my feet since that point. Around the sole and rim are billows of white fake fur, which also composes the inside of the boot. My favorite part: The laces were long enough to wrap around a boot twice, and at their ends had sumptuous white puffs, the size of a golf ball. Those who know me will understand why ours was a secret love. I'm not a fluffy, lavender kind of girl.

Well, I still love and wear the boots, but the cats have taken away most of the Eskimo-disco appeal by carefully snipping off the white puffs with their teeth, one by one, and then bounding about the house with them, shaking and batting them endlessly. There was one left last night, but this morning I popped on the boots, and then noticed Boo sneaking up the stairs with the last lone lorn puff dangling from his mouth. When I tried to catch him, he flounced away with it.

Enjoy your new toys, Boo and Nihao!

Activate!

Come on, everyone! It's a neato thing that will go completely extinct unless we help! Gocco is a sweet little compact and efficient setup for screen printing that was wildly popular in Japan in the 1970s. As home computers and printers became more popular, the gocco fervor gradually declined to the point that production stopped.

This legendary craft-tacious goody is still useful and relevant for people doing home art prints, printing on fabric and handmade or otherwise non-printer ready paper, and a million other ideas that spring from the minds of the crafty. It's a shame to see it become relegated to Ebay and junk shops.

Like the LOMO (a keen but temporarily discontinued Russian camera), perhaps the company can be convinced to continue making goccos on a small-scale basis.

Let us cross our fingers and hope, 'cause I want one of these puppies. Bad.

Off to the Land of Maple Leaf...

When we were little, we thought that the special land where the trolly takes viewers in Mister Rogers Neighborhood was maybe somewhere in...Canada? It took a few years before we realized it was not the land of Maple Leaf, but the Land Of Make Believe.

Undoubtedly, one of my favorite parts of the program was the pan over the tiny model neighborhood at the ends of the show. I loved tiny replicas of things, and still do. I was reading about using photographs to create the illusion of small scale models, so I decided to try if for myself. The picture above is a photo of a real life street in Quebec, rendered teeny by the wonders of technology.

Stampity

Though not anywhere near as delicious as maple toffee, I've been poking at making some stamps to get used to the feel of things before I go all out and make some larger prints. I love this sort of thing, because I can suck at making the stuff, but as long as it's a simple form, the way the ink falls lends even crappy art some instant "cred."

As much as I'd like to claim that I carved these from hunk of rock or something, I'm going about this the wussy way - I bought a block of Speedy-cut, which is an eraser-like material that's really easy to deal with and keeps my wrists and hands from getting carpal tunnelly. Misterart.com has a good selection of printmaking supplies, and usually has some sort of sale going on.

Now to try to clean all these little rubber shavings off my desk and clothes, and off the cat (?!) and off the floor...

Mmm-Mmm.

It may look like poop, but I made maple toffeeeee. I love actual from-the-tree maple syrup, and this is made with all of 2 ingredients: maple syrup and a slice of butter to keep it from bubbling out of control when it's boiled. Just boil the stuff to 236 degrees F, take it off the heat and let it rest for a minute, then pour it into a cold dish, give it a couple hours to cool, then PULL it until it lightens up a bit with air. It's insane just how...pullable the stuff is. I was stretching it well above my head before folding it back down. What fun.