Captains Courageous
This was a jolly good weekend, starting with Pirate Night at X-Mortis at tt the bears in Cambridge. Yes, a pirate goth night. Hee. It was a large crowd, and a big crowd of us that went - myself, Jim in his Captain Jack costume (natch), Judy, Jess, Shellie, and Jess and Brian, followed by Joe later that night. Jim drove over with Jess and Brian, and Shellie and Other Jess went in my car, and we had much gleeful chatter over Project Runway. They hadn't seen all of the latest episode, so when I described to them the complete awesomeness that is "Captain Save-a-Ho," it was universally endorsed.
Judy, Joe, Jess and Brian left early, but Shellie, Other Jess, Jim and I closed the place down, leaving at 2, and having to deal with Jim being.... very Captain Jack. I had trouble deciding how much was acting and how much was authentically booze-induced. I have already considered the fact that, as his seamstress, I am encouraging this. I AM AN ENABLER TO HIS ADDICTION. WOES. But I, on the other hand, get quite nicely monetarily recompensed for my work, so I can only figure that this must be how a crack dealer feels: I can cut it, for a cost, and few others can, so my clients don't have many other choices but to come to me. Plus, I sell to undercut the competition, inducing client loyalty to my particular market of drugs.
In the car on the way home, Jim knocked my page-a-day calendar page of Aragorn from the dashboard where he has been taped for the past 2 years, and had massive difficulty (again, some of this was due to channeling the more obnoxious personality traits of Captain Jack Sparrow) picking him back up, and absolutely no luck in sticking Aragorn back in his place of honor - probably because he was slapping at it with his whole hand rather than simply pressing the page in place. At any rate, I was starting to get annoyed that Jim kept palmheeling Professor X's dashboard. The ride home went something like this:
Me: Give me Aragorn. No, gimme!
Jim: I got it, love. *smack*
Aragorn: *flutters to the floor disconsolately*
Jim: Dammit! Where's the rum? *flounders to get Aragorn off the floor*
Me: I said GIVE ME ARAGORN, PLEASE. NOW. DAMMIT. NOW.
Jim: Ah, here is said lad -
Me: GIMME! *finally succeeds in snatching the page, while driving, and lays it across my knees*
Jim: Aw, but I had it!
Me: No, you didn't, and I wanted you to stop punching my car. Poor Aragorn.
Jim: Ahh, but yon lad pales beside Captain Jack! Right, wenches?
Jess: ...
Shellie: ...
Me: *smugly* Which would be why Aragorn is the one in my lap, whereas Captain Jack is not.
Jim: *wordless cry of anguished woe, buries face in knees*
Jess: THAT. Was. Awesome.
Shellie: Holy crap, that was fantastic.
Jess: Best ever!
Shellie: OMG YOU ARE CAPTAIN SAVE-A-HO. YOU GET THE TITLE.
Jess: Captain Save-a-ho!
Me: WHOOHOO! I rule! Ji- Captain Jack, right or left here? Hey, right or left?
Jim: I'm too busy being chagrinned.
Me: I think you mean dismayed.
Jim: That too.
The next day, Jim and I spent driving over most of the north greater Boston area, visiting fabric stores picked more or less at random from the phone book. We hit first the Joann's in Burlington, then Sew-fisticated in Cambridge, then Sew-low Discount Fabrics on Cambridge St. Then we headed into Boston and tried a couple places on Bedford and Chauncy streets, then out to Watertown to try another out on Coolidge. The best one by far was the Sew-low in Cambridge: a disorganized, low-cielinged shop stuffed to the gills with bolts upon bolts upon rolls of fabric. Everything a fabric store should be. We got the stuff necessary for Jim's second pirate coat and headed back to his place. I grabbed my stuff together and headed over to Joe's to deliver to him his new (and longer) tunic and to prep for the Roman party he was having: rugs and pillows on the ground outside beneath the pear trees, strung with colored lights and candles, surrounding a terra cotta fire pit. We lounged on these in our classical garb, eating grapes and cheeses and drinking I have no idea how many bottles of wine. It was a great time. I ended up crashing at Joe and Joanna's and the next morning we walked into Union Square to this neat breakfast/brunch place where all the seating is outdoors under a big grape arbor. It was a very popular place; it took over an hour before we could get in. I had 3 enormous blueberry/raspberry pancakes, a pile of hash browns, a slab of ham, 2 eggs over easy and a bowl of fruit, and after all of that, you can imagine I didn't eat again all the rest of the day. That was an insane amount of food for $10. Of course, not having had a proper dinner and being faintly hungover did help my appetite more than a little, I think.
Sunday afternoon, I headed back over to Jim's because he has enough floor space (at any rate, far more than my apartment does) to lay out yards and yards of fabric. I got nearly all the pieces for the coat and lining cut while watching reruns of (what else?) Project Runway, which nonetheless took me a bit longer than I thought it would - almost 4 hours of laying out the pattern, pinning, and cutting. I should have brought the cutting board and the rotary cutter, but I was too lazy. By this point, it was nearly 7:30, so I drove back to NH, having once again spent almost none of my weekend actually in my own apartment. I know, I should have been at work. I know, I know! Ugh. But I got paid, anyway - Joe is extraordinarily generous.
Then I called the 'rents back, as Mom had left a message for me, and told her about my weekend, more or less the above but with different details. What I didn't realize until the end of the conversation was that my father was also on the extension, and had I realized this, I might have been slightly more circumspect in my imparting of some of the information. I would not, for example, have said that someone at the Roman party had to visit the vomitorium and that I had had a moment of panic because I thought I had lost the money Joe had given me out of my bra but was relieved to find it had somehow just "slipped from one boob to the other... I'm not sure how that happened."
Which is true.
Really, it rather bugs me when my dad is on the extension and says absolutely nothing and I think it's just my mum and me on the phone. I definitely am not as familiar with him as I am with my mum, and my language and attitude certainly is very different between them. As another example, I would not have used, either, the word "goddamned" as an adjective - or at all - had I known Dad was listening in.
Oh well. So he learned his youngest daughter uses cuss words. Probably about time.
Ever since hearing this song in an opening vid to an old Japanese anime con last week, I've been mildly obsessed with it.
Judy, Joe, Jess and Brian left early, but Shellie, Other Jess, Jim and I closed the place down, leaving at 2, and having to deal with Jim being.... very Captain Jack. I had trouble deciding how much was acting and how much was authentically booze-induced. I have already considered the fact that, as his seamstress, I am encouraging this. I AM AN ENABLER TO HIS ADDICTION. WOES. But I, on the other hand, get quite nicely monetarily recompensed for my work, so I can only figure that this must be how a crack dealer feels: I can cut it, for a cost, and few others can, so my clients don't have many other choices but to come to me. Plus, I sell to undercut the competition, inducing client loyalty to my particular market of drugs.
In the car on the way home, Jim knocked my page-a-day calendar page of Aragorn from the dashboard where he has been taped for the past 2 years, and had massive difficulty (again, some of this was due to channeling the more obnoxious personality traits of Captain Jack Sparrow) picking him back up, and absolutely no luck in sticking Aragorn back in his place of honor - probably because he was slapping at it with his whole hand rather than simply pressing the page in place. At any rate, I was starting to get annoyed that Jim kept palmheeling Professor X's dashboard. The ride home went something like this:
Me: Give me Aragorn. No, gimme!
Jim: I got it, love. *smack*
Aragorn: *flutters to the floor disconsolately*
Jim: Dammit! Where's the rum? *flounders to get Aragorn off the floor*
Me: I said GIVE ME ARAGORN, PLEASE. NOW. DAMMIT. NOW.
Jim: Ah, here is said lad -
Me: GIMME! *finally succeeds in snatching the page, while driving, and lays it across my knees*
Jim: Aw, but I had it!
Me: No, you didn't, and I wanted you to stop punching my car. Poor Aragorn.
Jim: Ahh, but yon lad pales beside Captain Jack! Right, wenches?
Jess: ...
Shellie: ...
Me: *smugly* Which would be why Aragorn is the one in my lap, whereas Captain Jack is not.
Jim: *wordless cry of anguished woe, buries face in knees*
Jess: THAT. Was. Awesome.
Shellie: Holy crap, that was fantastic.
Jess: Best ever!
Shellie: OMG YOU ARE CAPTAIN SAVE-A-HO. YOU GET THE TITLE.
Jess: Captain Save-a-ho!
Me: WHOOHOO! I rule! Ji- Captain Jack, right or left here? Hey, right or left?
Jim: I'm too busy being chagrinned.
Me: I think you mean dismayed.
Jim: That too.
The next day, Jim and I spent driving over most of the north greater Boston area, visiting fabric stores picked more or less at random from the phone book. We hit first the Joann's in Burlington, then Sew-fisticated in Cambridge, then Sew-low Discount Fabrics on Cambridge St. Then we headed into Boston and tried a couple places on Bedford and Chauncy streets, then out to Watertown to try another out on Coolidge. The best one by far was the Sew-low in Cambridge: a disorganized, low-cielinged shop stuffed to the gills with bolts upon bolts upon rolls of fabric. Everything a fabric store should be. We got the stuff necessary for Jim's second pirate coat and headed back to his place. I grabbed my stuff together and headed over to Joe's to deliver to him his new (and longer) tunic and to prep for the Roman party he was having: rugs and pillows on the ground outside beneath the pear trees, strung with colored lights and candles, surrounding a terra cotta fire pit. We lounged on these in our classical garb, eating grapes and cheeses and drinking I have no idea how many bottles of wine. It was a great time. I ended up crashing at Joe and Joanna's and the next morning we walked into Union Square to this neat breakfast/brunch place where all the seating is outdoors under a big grape arbor. It was a very popular place; it took over an hour before we could get in. I had 3 enormous blueberry/raspberry pancakes, a pile of hash browns, a slab of ham, 2 eggs over easy and a bowl of fruit, and after all of that, you can imagine I didn't eat again all the rest of the day. That was an insane amount of food for $10. Of course, not having had a proper dinner and being faintly hungover did help my appetite more than a little, I think.
Sunday afternoon, I headed back over to Jim's because he has enough floor space (at any rate, far more than my apartment does) to lay out yards and yards of fabric. I got nearly all the pieces for the coat and lining cut while watching reruns of (what else?) Project Runway, which nonetheless took me a bit longer than I thought it would - almost 4 hours of laying out the pattern, pinning, and cutting. I should have brought the cutting board and the rotary cutter, but I was too lazy. By this point, it was nearly 7:30, so I drove back to NH, having once again spent almost none of my weekend actually in my own apartment. I know, I should have been at work. I know, I know! Ugh. But I got paid, anyway - Joe is extraordinarily generous.
Then I called the 'rents back, as Mom had left a message for me, and told her about my weekend, more or less the above but with different details. What I didn't realize until the end of the conversation was that my father was also on the extension, and had I realized this, I might have been slightly more circumspect in my imparting of some of the information. I would not, for example, have said that someone at the Roman party had to visit the vomitorium and that I had had a moment of panic because I thought I had lost the money Joe had given me out of my bra but was relieved to find it had somehow just "slipped from one boob to the other... I'm not sure how that happened."
Which is true.
Really, it rather bugs me when my dad is on the extension and says absolutely nothing and I think it's just my mum and me on the phone. I definitely am not as familiar with him as I am with my mum, and my language and attitude certainly is very different between them. As another example, I would not have used, either, the word "goddamned" as an adjective - or at all - had I known Dad was listening in.
Oh well. So he learned his youngest daughter uses cuss words. Probably about time.
Ever since hearing this song in an opening vid to an old Japanese anime con last week, I've been mildly obsessed with it.