(no subject)
Hello.
The most important thing I did today was decide whether to use three or four strands of cotton when needlepointing a small rug for a dolls' house.
My younger sister Cara has finally gotten her dolls' house. It's a thing in our family. I got mine when I was ten. These are dollhouses from minaturists' kits, wooden, perfectly painted and in period. Mine is in the turn-of-the-century San Franciscan style. Cara's is a Vermont Farmhouse, according to the catalogue. Mine took four months for my father to put together. He let me help glue on the shingles, but he felt everything else required his own expertise. Floors were sanded and primered, the walls were spray-painted dark blue - only by spray-painting can you get an even coat - the shingles didn't need to be varnished, but if they had needed such treatment, my father would have varnished each one by hand.
It wasn't so much love for the daughter that brought him into this, although that was the root of it, and more of it than I think. I think I knew what he felt, how he could get caught up in the miniature perfection of that little house, with the ice-blue gingerbread trim and plexiglass windows painted in patterns of white lines to suggest cut-glass panes. The doors, with beveled frames, and the windows, every one of which opened and shut - more or less, some of them are still rather tight - satisfied. The stairs didn't, and he still, after five years, refuses to put them in until we can buy a kit for 'better-quality stairs.' He means stairs that have banisters, and steps that can be varnished, railings that are milled to a perfect Victorian flutedness. The details are of course important. The foundation of the house was first painted dark steel gray - paint colors suddenly became very important - and then covered with a long sticker that had holes in it, perforated to show bricks. (You painted a thick red mixture over this, ripped the tape away, and there were bricks, small, red, suspended in tiny expanses of gray paint. You were not pleased with the results. The squared-off beads of reddish whatever-it-was were occasionally brought out of place by taking away the tape, and you used a knife to push them back into place before they dried. For this reason, while most of the bricks have rounded edges, others, especially at one corner, are flattened on some sides, sharply squared off. A lot of swearing occurred during this operation.)
Cara's house - well, after putting together a "New England Lighthouse" for Leslie - who was, incidentally, almost thoroughly unappreciative and has allowed nearly all the top railings to break off - my father was not in for the Let's Make it From Near Scratch sort of thing. The box that the pieces for mine came in informed him that the whole thing could be put together in two hours. He knew it for a bitter lie, of course. Leslie's lighthouse was smaller, but actually had a light on top, and stairs worked in, and the box did not even dare suggest that the whole operation could be undertaken in less than a day.
Therefore he chose the 'QuickBuild' model of the Really Good Toys Company. (I could put in here, charmingly, a quick comment that this company bears no relation to Andrew Lloyd Webber, but no one would think it was funny. I don't even think it's funny, now that I think of it. I don't think this entire digression is funny at all, actually, now that I look at it.) 'QuickBuild' means, literally, that. It's perfectly honest. The whole thing is as nearly put together as it can be and still fit into a flat package.
The Thing arrived on Christmas Day. My father viewed it with a kind of longing fear. Something like Dr. Watson looking at coffee. He is aware that he wants coffee, needs coffee, that in fact at any given moment in time about 50% of the stuff swimming around in his bloodstream originated in Colombia and Brazil, thus explaining his constant hyperactiveness, but insists on believing that he is going to beat the habit. Nonsense. Herbal tea has no power in the face of Dr. Watson's coffee need. Dr. Watson simply is coffee at this point.
(I've written enough to fill the window now. See? Not so hard. Never mind that it's dreadful, unimportant, unimportantly dreadful, dreadfully unimportant, I should stop here, but it's the writing that's important, no? I haven't done this kind of thing in three weeks. I'll get rusty. I'll become drop-dead normal.)
At any rate, my father of course had no interest in ingesting the box. He made some comment indicating to the general family that he wasn't going to get into that much work without complaining about it.
Sometimes I wonder what's the most addictive - the gorgeous precision of the work, or the opportunity to complain about it. ("I have to hang every damn window myself, you know? And guess how many. Guess how many! Fifteen! Fifteen working windows! MY GOD!!!!!!!")
He finally broke down and opened up Cara's box a few days ago. He took out the parts. There were something like ten.
He stared at them. Laid them out on the table. He appeared stricken with a new form of sorrow.
He scrabbled through the box a few more times. Only ten parts? Ten? Half of which were not major components?
You could say he was just looking for the other one thousand two hundred and forty pieces he was certain he was missing. (True, I am counting shingles. Three hundred plus if we don't count shingles.)
He finally came to terms with the emptiness of the box, with the unused expanse of his work table. "This is so... pathetic," he muttered. He surveyed the situation again. Faced with a dollhouse that had
a) been wallpapered (we still haven't gotten around to that one on mine)
b) windows, already hung and painted
c) doors, same
e) milled walls representing clapboard, painted a stirring pure white that even Dad with his obsessive spray-painting would've been hard-put to accomplish
f) perfectly shingled roof
g) painted steps that could slide into the front
h) painted chimney
i) painted moldings
Literally, all you had to do was glue the walls to each other, like putting together a puzzle, then stick the roof on top, and finish it off by pasting up the chimney and the moldings.
My dad felt slightly insulted by the sight, as if a nearly pre-made dolls' house was a slight to his masculinity. He hmphed several times, then began working his usual magic with clamps and glue. My dad, and I say this with perfect honesty, handles his clamps like a true artist. As an engineer, he believes he knows exactly where all the pressure points are on a piece of wood. He believes he knows exactly where all the potential pressure points are too. He's convinced he knows the location of pressure points that haven't even thought about being points yet. With this art - rather like dowsing - in mind, he places his clamps where they'll do the least damage. He puts styrofoam or thin wood between them and the house so they won't scratch anything. The clamps are stout iron - the day they fall, the world comes down too. In spite of this, Dad still feels it's necessary, perhaps to create a better climate for the glue to dry, to shout, "DON'T TOUCH THAT!" in tones of distress when anyone so much as meditates upon the thing.
Oh yes. And the real reason of my annoyance - Dad, even though he says himself that the thing is so easily put together a monkey could do it, refuses to let me help. Again. I did the shingles on mine. I did the shingles on Leslie's. By the time you'd think I was ready to graduate to something better, let's say painting at least, does he let me help? No. The opinion stated - "Well, Kim, there's nothing for you to do."
Within three days, the house is upstairs. The damned thing already has wooden veneers on the floors, so it looks like boards. It's beautiful.
I intend to electrify my house. That'll show him.
The most important thing I did today was decide whether to use three or four strands of cotton when needlepointing a small rug for a dolls' house.
My younger sister Cara has finally gotten her dolls' house. It's a thing in our family. I got mine when I was ten. These are dollhouses from minaturists' kits, wooden, perfectly painted and in period. Mine is in the turn-of-the-century San Franciscan style. Cara's is a Vermont Farmhouse, according to the catalogue. Mine took four months for my father to put together. He let me help glue on the shingles, but he felt everything else required his own expertise. Floors were sanded and primered, the walls were spray-painted dark blue - only by spray-painting can you get an even coat - the shingles didn't need to be varnished, but if they had needed such treatment, my father would have varnished each one by hand.
It wasn't so much love for the daughter that brought him into this, although that was the root of it, and more of it than I think. I think I knew what he felt, how he could get caught up in the miniature perfection of that little house, with the ice-blue gingerbread trim and plexiglass windows painted in patterns of white lines to suggest cut-glass panes. The doors, with beveled frames, and the windows, every one of which opened and shut - more or less, some of them are still rather tight - satisfied. The stairs didn't, and he still, after five years, refuses to put them in until we can buy a kit for 'better-quality stairs.' He means stairs that have banisters, and steps that can be varnished, railings that are milled to a perfect Victorian flutedness. The details are of course important. The foundation of the house was first painted dark steel gray - paint colors suddenly became very important - and then covered with a long sticker that had holes in it, perforated to show bricks. (You painted a thick red mixture over this, ripped the tape away, and there were bricks, small, red, suspended in tiny expanses of gray paint. You were not pleased with the results. The squared-off beads of reddish whatever-it-was were occasionally brought out of place by taking away the tape, and you used a knife to push them back into place before they dried. For this reason, while most of the bricks have rounded edges, others, especially at one corner, are flattened on some sides, sharply squared off. A lot of swearing occurred during this operation.)
Cara's house - well, after putting together a "New England Lighthouse" for Leslie - who was, incidentally, almost thoroughly unappreciative and has allowed nearly all the top railings to break off - my father was not in for the Let's Make it From Near Scratch sort of thing. The box that the pieces for mine came in informed him that the whole thing could be put together in two hours. He knew it for a bitter lie, of course. Leslie's lighthouse was smaller, but actually had a light on top, and stairs worked in, and the box did not even dare suggest that the whole operation could be undertaken in less than a day.
Therefore he chose the 'QuickBuild' model of the Really Good Toys Company. (I could put in here, charmingly, a quick comment that this company bears no relation to Andrew Lloyd Webber, but no one would think it was funny. I don't even think it's funny, now that I think of it. I don't think this entire digression is funny at all, actually, now that I look at it.) 'QuickBuild' means, literally, that. It's perfectly honest. The whole thing is as nearly put together as it can be and still fit into a flat package.
The Thing arrived on Christmas Day. My father viewed it with a kind of longing fear. Something like Dr. Watson looking at coffee. He is aware that he wants coffee, needs coffee, that in fact at any given moment in time about 50% of the stuff swimming around in his bloodstream originated in Colombia and Brazil, thus explaining his constant hyperactiveness, but insists on believing that he is going to beat the habit. Nonsense. Herbal tea has no power in the face of Dr. Watson's coffee need. Dr. Watson simply is coffee at this point.
(I've written enough to fill the window now. See? Not so hard. Never mind that it's dreadful, unimportant, unimportantly dreadful, dreadfully unimportant, I should stop here, but it's the writing that's important, no? I haven't done this kind of thing in three weeks. I'll get rusty. I'll become drop-dead normal.)
At any rate, my father of course had no interest in ingesting the box. He made some comment indicating to the general family that he wasn't going to get into that much work without complaining about it.
Sometimes I wonder what's the most addictive - the gorgeous precision of the work, or the opportunity to complain about it. ("I have to hang every damn window myself, you know? And guess how many. Guess how many! Fifteen! Fifteen working windows! MY GOD!!!!!!!")
He finally broke down and opened up Cara's box a few days ago. He took out the parts. There were something like ten.
He stared at them. Laid them out on the table. He appeared stricken with a new form of sorrow.
He scrabbled through the box a few more times. Only ten parts? Ten? Half of which were not major components?
You could say he was just looking for the other one thousand two hundred and forty pieces he was certain he was missing. (True, I am counting shingles. Three hundred plus if we don't count shingles.)
He finally came to terms with the emptiness of the box, with the unused expanse of his work table. "This is so... pathetic," he muttered. He surveyed the situation again. Faced with a dollhouse that had
a) been wallpapered (we still haven't gotten around to that one on mine)
b) windows, already hung and painted
c) doors, same
e) milled walls representing clapboard, painted a stirring pure white that even Dad with his obsessive spray-painting would've been hard-put to accomplish
f) perfectly shingled roof
g) painted steps that could slide into the front
h) painted chimney
i) painted moldings
Literally, all you had to do was glue the walls to each other, like putting together a puzzle, then stick the roof on top, and finish it off by pasting up the chimney and the moldings.
My dad felt slightly insulted by the sight, as if a nearly pre-made dolls' house was a slight to his masculinity. He hmphed several times, then began working his usual magic with clamps and glue. My dad, and I say this with perfect honesty, handles his clamps like a true artist. As an engineer, he believes he knows exactly where all the pressure points are on a piece of wood. He believes he knows exactly where all the potential pressure points are too. He's convinced he knows the location of pressure points that haven't even thought about being points yet. With this art - rather like dowsing - in mind, he places his clamps where they'll do the least damage. He puts styrofoam or thin wood between them and the house so they won't scratch anything. The clamps are stout iron - the day they fall, the world comes down too. In spite of this, Dad still feels it's necessary, perhaps to create a better climate for the glue to dry, to shout, "DON'T TOUCH THAT!" in tones of distress when anyone so much as meditates upon the thing.
Oh yes. And the real reason of my annoyance - Dad, even though he says himself that the thing is so easily put together a monkey could do it, refuses to let me help. Again. I did the shingles on mine. I did the shingles on Leslie's. By the time you'd think I was ready to graduate to something better, let's say painting at least, does he let me help? No. The opinion stated - "Well, Kim, there's nothing for you to do."
Within three days, the house is upstairs. The damned thing already has wooden veneers on the floors, so it looks like boards. It's beautiful.
I intend to electrify my house. That'll show him.