Raoul Sucks

Should you so desire, you can watch the stage production of The Phantom of the Opera on Netflix.  I absolutely adore it.  The costumes, the sets--the music!--are all gorgeous.

I've seen it a few times now, and I've realized something.

Raoul is kind of a douche.

Sure, he functions as Christine's white knight/Twu Wuv, and he's cute, but beyond that he behaves in ways that make me cranky.  He bosses Christine around with no thought to ask about her needs and desires- the first time they meet he says 'to supper!' and Christine says no, and he won't hear it.  He just assumes she is available to him.  He's very proprietary about her.

Later, during "All I Ask of You," he pretty much dismisses he experiences with the Phantom as imaginary and infantilizes her.  To be fair, Christine seems ok with being wrapped in cotton wool, but still.

Later, he refuses to listen to Christine's objections to their (frankly ridiculous) plan for apprehending the Phantom.  Raoul also dismisses her fear of the Phantom.

It's never explicitly said, but you can assume he's only treating Christine like this because she is female.

Ths show was written in the 1980s.  Does the main love interest really need to behave like a misogynist jachole?  I don't think so.  I will continue to love this show, but my word does Raoul make me cranky.

clothed

I am kind of obsessed with clothes right now.  No idea why.  I want to look like a cute fashionista, and keep running into some really annoying barriers.

1. I'm broke.
2. I could sew some cute stuff with what I've got, but my fabric stash is puny.  See #1.
3. Current fashion trends dictate showing ALL THE SKIN which, for various reasons, I will not do.
4.  Trying to find ideas for stuff to suit my figure is really hard!

I'm not skinny, I'm not plus-size, I'm the just right sort of shape/size to fall in the style advice gap.  It's really quite annoying.

So here I am.  I made myself a dress a couple weeks ago, and it's gorgeous, but I'm a beginning seamstress and didn't take into account that I am not the same dress size all over.  I'm having to take the entire bodice apart to take it in, which is really quite unfun, especially since the actual sewing was done so beautifully the first time around.  It's silly to have to alter something I made. I guess this is what they call a learning curve?

Also, our swamp cooler is busted and it's 84 degrees in my house.  I may not survive the summer.

Project Sewn: A New Project.

Project Sewn: A New Project.: Elizabeth and I are so excited to unofficially launch Project Sewn today! (We will "officially" launch the site next week with ...

patterns... ugh...

I need to give Simplicity Patterns a really good finger-wag of disapproval.

My son has this problem, where he's huge.  He's a little chubby, but mostly he's just square.  He inherited my bum, too, poor kid.  Which means that getting off-the-shelf pants that fit him is IMPOSSIBLE. So I've been making them myself, because I'm awesome like that.  I made my own patterns, but they were a bit frumpy, so I bought a commercial pattern.

This particular pattern claimed to be for kids with a 23" waist.  My son is 27" inches around from top to bottom, so I enlarged it a little and went to town.  Then, when I tried it on him, it was HUGE!!  The smallest pattern size would've worked. 

Basically, the numbers lied to me, and I'm a little annoyed that I had to do a bunch of extra work (fitting and unpicking seams and stuff) that I shouldn't have had to.

Also?  This pattern is only a very slight improvement over the ones I've produced myself, in that I think I've figured out through it how to accommodate my son's spacious derriere  The fly makes no sense, the waistband and button hole are just silly.... yeah.

Basically, unless they are Super Fancy, I'm never buying a pattern for kid pants again. Ever.

Snowmageddon

Today has been utterly absurd.

Up until 4pm, everything was pretty much normal.  I took Darius to preschool, did homework/housework, snuggled December.  At 4:15, I packed up and headed out to my night class up at WSU.

Today a huge winter storm blew in- the weather people named it 'Gandolf,' of all things.  I wasn't really worried, but I did leave a few minutes early to account for the slower speeds everyone would be driving at.

It took me 2 hours to get to school. Not only was there a nasty storm, but it was rush hour, and it seemed like EVERYONE was on Riverdale Road. I got stuck in ice 3 different times, and one particularly bad stretch of 40th had every single car getting stuck in the same spot in turn.  I've never smelled burning rubber in a snowstorm before.

I finally got to school at 6:30, a whole hour late for my 3D Design class.  Thankfully my professor didn't hold it against me (what sane person would?) and the rest of class went pretty well.  

At 8, class broke up.  Being sensible, I checked the traffic and weather reports before getting in my car.

Problem was, my car wouldn't move.  It was very, very stuck in the parking stall.  I got in touch with campus police, turned on my emergency lights, and sat reading a  book waiting to be saved.

A Suburban pulled up, and the very nice woman driving it--Sara--and her sister, Rachel, set about trying to help dig me out.  The campus police showed up in the middle, and he helped us hook my car to the SUV.

Sadly, it didn't help.  My tires were/are so painfully bald that there was no way I was going anywhere in that weather.  So we stuffed the car back in the stall, and Sara very graciously offered me a ride home.  The officer seemed quite pleased with this, really- he didn't want me driving those on those bald tires and ending up in a ditch in the middle of a blizzard.

So Sara and Rachel drove me home, and even helped me pick up the kids from my mother-in-law's.  They were both lovely, and I am SO grateful that they went out of their way like that.  I was up a creek, and they arrived to offer me a paddle.  Faith in humanity restored!!!!

It was 10pm before we got home, but we got home safe and sound, thanks to the kindness of strangers.  Now I just have to figure out how to dig my car out of the WSU parking lot.

winter

When December's nose runs, she comes up and says "My nose fall out!"  Not sure where she came up with that one, but it's pretty darn adorable.  I hear this phrase several times a day, lately.

It's getting colder, though still generally warm enough during the day to only require a sweater.  I'm going to be sad when we get to the point that there is permanent snow cover.  Not my favorite form of precipitation, not even a little bit.  It makes my socks all soggy, and it's sneaky about it.

Also winter involves dry air.  December and I are both slowly mummifying.  Someone remind to pick up some more linen strips....

I get static electricity shocks on an hourly basis. My computer, my car, my couch- all of them are determined to turn me into a walking Leiden jar.  I suspect my hair as a co-conspirator.

On the upside, I have 2 weeks left until Christmas break.  I can't wait for finals to be over already- I'm up to my eyeballs in essays.

Happy holidays....

baby piercings?

My daughter, who is all of 2 1/2, has recently started noticing things.  Like what kind of clothing she wears.  And the fact that Mommy gets to wear jewelry and she doesn't.

The other day, I was putting on some earrings, and I told December she can't wear them because she doesn't have holes in her ears like I do.  She said 'oh' and went on her toddler way.  My husband, however, asked "why not?"  Apparently he is on board with the whole piercing your little kid's ears thing.

1. I firmly believe that no one should get piercings unless they can care for it themselves.  I had my ears done at age 10 and still got a raging infection because I didn't take proper care of them. 

2. There are locking earrings for babies.  My niece swallowed hers anyway. 'Nuff said.

3. Honestly, piercings on little girls (or boys) distress me a little.  It's very grown up.  And I think they are too young to know if they are okay with someone poking a hole in their ears. 

I'm not saying parents who do this are bad at all.  I just have some reservations about it, personally, and figure if my husband wants to pierce December's ears he'd better have some really good counter-arguments.