family / friends Archives | Page 14 of 27

Category: family / friends Page 14 of 27

Rock Wit It, Roll Wit It

On January 12, 2009

I am working through the very long process of making over one room in our house. (I’ll be posting pictures soon.) The room is maybe 7 or 8 months in the works and has taken forever. Hold ups include my own laziness, me being distracted by too many projects, my own inability to pull the trigger and buy pricier items even though I want them and can afford them and me trying to find the right pieces to put in the room. But the thing is, some of the problems aren’t simply my fault… it’s just the way doing projects goes. Some examples:

Wonder Boy and I painted some shelves and as I had the piece finally assembled I saw that the paint was starting to peel. A simple scratch a sheets of paint just pulled away. So I disassembled the bookcase and we sanded, primed and repainted them. They look great now!
We have some old school lockers that Wonder Boy acquired pre-me. They are very industrial chic but needed a little work if they were going to continue to function as our linen closet. The plan: white paint and some shelves. The shelves turned out to be easy. The painting? Not so much. First we create a tent around the lockers so that they were completely locked into a bubble of plastic. Then we spray painted inside the bubble. In addition that this essentially created a gas chamber for me to die in, it also had no airflow and the spray paint settled creating a very bumpy finished piece. It was a mess. In the end we sanded and painted the lockers with sponge brushes and they turned out pretty awesome.

The Spray Booth, otherwise known as the Very Bad Idea

I had a mirror I wasn’t using and I wanted to spray paint it white so it would match the rest of the room. I tried and it was going great until I saw the paint starting to orange peel on the third coat. Yikes! The mirror is being junked and I am in the market for a new one.

All of these examples illustrate what is for me the hardest part about creating something. I have a vision in my head, always, of the end result. This is nice in some ways because I have something to work towards. It can be awful, though, when reality doesn’t quite match up to my vision. And it rarely does.

I take this discrepancy as my own person challenge. I have to learn to roll with the punches. This has created some challenges for Wonder Boy and I. He likes to talk through everything but I need to process things for a while before talking about them. And when I am in the midst of watching a vision fail, all (nice) communication fails me. I am trying to push myself to stay quiet and remain calm. I am also trying to approach projects the way I would any emergency at work: assess the situation and try and come up with the best alternative.

It’s a work in progress. Like my room!

Jobama

By Kate

On December 28, 2008

In family / friends

Delicious and Vermont sent Wonder Boy and I some coffee for Christmas. Wonderful, liberal, political coffee.

I love the packaging, the name and the thought.

First there was sweatergate

By Kate

On July 23, 2007

In family / friends, travel

Wonder Boy and I are still churning our way through Six Feet Under (christened Six Feet Down Under, or simply, The Aussies, after a verbal blunder I made a while back). I love the show and find myself relating to a little too much of it. Last, during an episode of season 5, we watched as one character named Claire got a job through a temp agency in a very corporate office. A departure from her normal days as an artist, she feels stifled by the corporate ridiculousness and her character has some fabulous lines. My favorites are repeated comparisons if pantyhose sausage casings.

I love most deriding comments made about workplace dress codes. They are 100% ridiculous you know. I am watching this little rebellion taking place at my own place of employment as people slowly and quietly disrespect the “no open-toes shoes” portion of our dress policy. As a few people have proven this bending of rules to be okay with peep-toed shoes, the girls have flocked to shoe boutiques and warehouses, showing up at work with their feet beautiful and their toes peeking out.

The mere fact that so many smart women are excited about showing off a third of their big toe and maybe of their index toe (if that’s what you call the second toe) is incredibly sad. It’s not even a very attractive part of the human form! (Some fetishists may disagree.)

This weekend I read the newest issue of Time Magazine, which featured an article about the newest fashion item to be hitting the Muslim fashion scene –The Burquina, by Ahiida® and Splashgear^TM. It’s a two-piece burqa for women to wear at the beach and in the water. I find the swimsuits goofy and an odd way to get around religious stipulations about female dress. The women wearing the suits are THRILLED. And I guess they should be. After all, a girl could drown trying to go in the ocean in her burqa. Seriously.

Several years ago my friend Delicious and I visited Tangier, Morocco. Near the end of a trip that challenged just about every social norm I knew, we sat on the beach waiting for our ship back into Spain. Men and boys were in the water and playing soccer all along the beach. A few mothers sat quietly while their young children played. There were always a good distance back from any of the men and they were always fully covered. One woman dared to go into the water with her children, both of whom were much too small to have gone into the ocean unaccompanied. Delicious and I both noticed her, in her modest black American lifeguard style swimsuit. While we noted her bare arms and legs as something of a novelty in the conservative country, we didn’t think much of it. We were the only ones. Every man and boy on the beach quickly exited the water and lines up along the shore to gawk at the woman. They way they were looking was not sexual – it was condemning. What she was doing, exposing herself in that way, was sinful to them.

I find the idea of a Burqini so repulsive and offensive. But I find the idea of a mother not being able to get into the water with her young children worse. And the religious ban on showing skin is SO, SO, SO much different than the stupid workplace dress codes I laugh at. But, if I am to offer understanding for the woman I work with and their excitement for the trivial accomplishment of showing their toes, then certainly I can try to understand the woman who writes in on the SplashgearTM web site with ” It isn’t just a swim suit–it is freedom, exercise, and a lesson for my kids and everyone else that hijab isn’t limiting, it is liberating. JazakAllah!” And on the Ahiida® site: “After 7 years of not being able to get into the water – I was in there on Sunday! It was great – alhumduallah!”

This Place Your Return to is Home

By Kate

On July 16, 2007

In family / friends

I used to write book review for a variety of publications. It appealed to some academic need I had to analyze the words I read. All of my reviews lurk around the internet, some on Amazon and others on the publications’ sites I was writing for. Many years ago I wrote a review of Kirsty Gunn’s 2000 novel This Place Your Return to is Home. I liked the book. (I gave it 5 stars when I posted the review on Amazon.) Over the years, what has stuck with me is not the story, whose plot I have long forgotten, but the title. It’s a complete, beautifully phrased thought.

This morning in the shower, while letting the water run over me and stalling getting out to get ready for work, I was reflecting on this weekend, spent in Athens. I think about my college town a lot and why it is that I like it so much. The reality is that my time spent in college was not all pleasant. I had hard times and difficulties like everyone else must have. And yet, when I return to Athens, when I get to the end of the exit ramp and see the Ohio University sign in front of the football stadium, I feel immediately at peace.

I wonder what they return will be like after my brother is no longer there – when all that ties me to Athens are memories. But for now I go into town and begin a ritual of places to visit, eat, shop and drink. I walk through the town like you might through your bedroom at night in the pitch black. I know it by feel.

In the past I have always reflected on going back to school as a sort of reliving that period of my life, minus the drah-ma. I thought that maybe I was missing some time in my life when the biggest concerns were that my friend and I were crushing on the same guy, when I could play euchre and spades for about 29 hours straight. When getting drunk before newspaper meetings was acceptable and where my days had the fun built in them with the same aspect of routine that brushing my teeth had.

This morning it hit me. I go back to OU frequently. Maybe I roll into town 2 – 3 times a year? Usually I am “visiting my siblings” or partaking in Mom’s weekend or Dad’s weekend, but really, I am heading to this place I have not let go of. My home, if you asked me, is the Big Blue House full of Wonder Boy and too many felines. But if I stop and think about it, the place I return to, over and over again, is home.

Athens, Boy Style

By Kate

On July 16, 2007

In family / friends

I spent this weekend in Athens visiting my brother. Wonder Boy and I stayed with him in his house. Points of interest about his house which will be the home of 6 boys this school year:

There is a mirror *inside* the shower
A warning from Jake when we got there went as follows, “You can take your shoes off but I don’t recommend it. Your feet will turn black.”
Downstairs there were *at least* 6 couches. And that doesn’t count the one on the front porch. In its state of decomposition, I am not sure it can count.
Six boys are sharing 1 and 1/2 bathrooms. My not-that-clean brother explained that when he moved in (he’s the only one staying there for the summer) that he had to clean the sole bathtub / shower with “industrial shit” because it was black. BLACK.
Upon leaving Jake asked for a hug. This was weird and I should have been suspicious but I hugged him and as I squeezed him, he let out a tremendous, juicy fart. (That’s not really about the house, but ah well.)