Slang

I was listening to a new-to-me knitting podcast the other day- Lime & Violet. If you don't listen to them already, do check them out. These women are hilarious, and I love to live vicariously through their yarn binges, since I don't gots the $$ to do the same.

Anyway, whilst listening to one of their episodes (sorry- don't remember which- I listened to the 1st 4 in a row and they got all mixed up), I believe it was Violet who mentioned that she had "horked" Lime's printout of a pattern. Horked. It was a term I once used regularly, but I honestly haven't heard since I moved to NY. The lovely ladies mentioned being in the midwest several times, and I believe they podcast from Omaha. It just got me thinking... is horking something we only do in the midwest?

I looked it up on Urban Dictionary. The link to the various definitions is here. Be warned... there is a sexual definition to the word that I had never heard of before. But then again, isn't there always a sexual slang meaning? But I digress. One of the more commonly accepted definitions was to steal something of small value. I guess you don't hork a car, you hork a pencil.

Speaking of slang I'd never head before, the sleepy-voiced husband and I watched an Anime movie the other night that had an expression that was new to me. Yes, it's geek time. But you don't know the extent of the geekiness yet. The movie was called Appleseed. We had watched the Appleseed that came out in 2004 the week before. It was based on the Manga/comic/whatever, which is geeky, but not that bad yet. Then the husband noticed that there was an Appleseed that came out in 1988. So we watched the earlier version, too. Remakes of cartoons based on comics, people! ACK!

But I got off track. Previously unknown slang. Right. This 1988 Appleseed had an excessive amount of swearing, and it sounded comical rather than natural. At one point, the main female character expressed her anger by saying, "That really gets my tits up!"

What? What the hell does that even mean? Do they rise up in dismay? I have this vision of her breasts leaping up and barking. Has anyone ever heard this phrase used? Or used it themselves? Do tell. Especially if it was back in 1988, when it was a cool phrase that I missed because I was busy listening to my horked headphones.

Work is boring....

It's good to be caught up on everything at work. Really, it is. But because we're all caught up, there's little to do right now. And the busy work I can think up? The greenhouse is too damn hot for busy work.

So I've been sitting in my air conditioned cubicle and blog stalking. Catching up on my faves, checking out the latest celebrity clothing disaster at Go Fug Yourself, and reading some new ones. I kid you not, I read Faith's entire archives today! SUCH a bad employee. But you know what? Nothing to do, and no vacation or sick time to spare. At least I'm not looking at porn.

HEY! I haven't talked about knitting in ages! I haven't done much, because I was so busy with the The-ah-tah, and it's been hot. I'm about half-way done with the decrease rows in the Clap. It's just not such a priority because it's wool and it's BLOODY HOT! But I do want to move on to other things, like a sock to match my poor homely one, and other fun projects I have in mind.

OK. Gratuitious Cat Photo-

Space Aliens

So I've been a bit slow with the vacation photos and stories. But I know I promised a story about the restaurant called "Space Aliens" where we had my nieces' birthday party. Here's a picture of the front. You know you're in trouble when you're about to enter a building that looks like that.

I don't know about all of you, but I liked me a trip to Showbiz Pizza Place or Chuck E Cheese when I was a kid. We only went about once every two years, which kept the novelty up and didn't cause my parents to explode. I wouldn't have understood that as a kid, but now, I most assuredly do. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for living with the creepy robot show and letting us play stupid games like Skee Ball, Whack-a-mole and Pole Position for tickets. I'm pretty sure I got a plastic necklace and comb with my winnings.

The thing is, those were actual games, amusing in and of themselves. You could get tickets for certain score levels while playing a video game like PacMan or DigDug, but the emphasis wasn't completely on winning tickets. You'd play the game at an arcade without the chance to win tickets. At Space Aliens, the games were thinly-disguised intro-to-gambling games. There was one where you put in a token, you picked a color and a ball started spinning in a sort of tub that was spinning in the opposite direction. If the ball landed on the color you chose, you won tickets. I can't remember what it was called- but it should have been called Roulette Jr. Other than the ubiquitous Skee Ball, the games were pretty much casino games.

And my nieces and nephew were right in the thick of it. The kids raked in tickets by the hundreds! My 7-year-old niece traded in 800 tickets! There were these machines that sucked the tickets up and counted them for you. Gabby stood in front of it, shoveling in her tickets like a pro. I think the worst part was that you could trade in tickets for MORE TOKENS. So the more you won, the longer you could keep playing. These seem like they're not the best habits to instill in the young.

There was also the loud music, the flashing lights, all sorts of old sci fi movie posters and, if you were there for a birthday party like we were, you got alien antennae. I'm modeling them below. Sexy, eh?

I should stop being so critical of the place. We had a good time, the kids loved it, and it was all on my very generous sister- and brother-in-law. The food was good! And the air conditioning was divine.

I may be able to go back... in 2 years.

Sprawling

Wanna see how my cat deals with the heat?


He sprawls out on the hardwood floor so nothing touches anything else. I don't have a picture, but I was doing the same thing. I'm so glad the heat finally broke!

The Pirates of Penzance closure

The Pirates of Penzance is done, and the sets have all been dismantled and put away. It's amazing the amount of work that goes in for a 3 day event. Still, it went so damn well! I couldn't be happier!

We had an adjudicator from the Theatre Association of New York State
(TANYS) come and review the show, and he gave us an Outstanding for Set Design and Artistry! TANYS serves community and educational theatre, and is an excellent resource in the state.

One thing that irked me about this award is it only goes to the people with the right title. Since I was the scenic artist, my name is on it, but I had a crew of 4 other people who put in a hell of a lot of work. It certainly wasn't just me with the paintbrush. The dazzling cliffs were painted by the gentleman with whom I had my communication problems. In the end we worked everything out and I learned a lot about being adaptable in how I give my instructions, and also in making room for other people's style. I'm incredibly thankful for his work. The spectacular rocky raised stage and the ruins were mostly painted by a fabulous art teacher in the area who not only did great work but was so much fun to work with! She brought with her a high school student who was fearless about getting up on ladders to really ruin the ruins and who was an absolute joy to work with. The fourth member of my crew was someone who was much more comfortable painting larges sections with a roller, which was exactly what we needed! We covered a number of very large flat expanses. They were all indispensible, and it feels wrong that only my name appears on the award.

It was such a terrific show- we were given 8 awards in all. I realize they're a bit arbitrary, because it's a single reviewer on a single night, but I still feel really good about how we did. I was extremely proud to have been associated with this show and it's amazingly talented cast, musicians and technical crew.

All in all, I'm glad it's done, but it was a wonderful, rewarding experience. It gives me hope that I won't always have to have a science job, you know?

Ain't She Sweet?

Here's a sneak peak of some of the work I've done for the Pirates of Penzance sets. Queen Victoria plays a major role in the play without actually appearing in person. In our show, she appears as a 4'x6' portrait in a gigantic gold frame. Here she is right after I finished painting her. I projected a picture of her 66th birthday portrait (I can't remember where I got it) onto the board to get the outline and then I just painted the rest from the portrait. She's a looker, eh?

I'm pretty proud of her, although I did have my typical issues withe the jawline. She's actually less jowly than she is in the picture. Yeah, she got a chin tuck for free.

The show opens tomorrow. Right now, I'm off to do the final painting on the set. No wet paint opening night this year! Hooray!

Still here... still tired

4 days and counting until opening night. I've been completely exhausted. So none of those pictures I've been promising. Yet. I feel worse that I haven't downloaded and sent copies of pictures to my grandparents who couldn't make it to the wedding because Grandpa has been too sick. I told them I'd send them out right away. So tired.

So I'm including something else. This is a picture of another painting. It's a portrait of a guy named Steve. He has a very unique face, so he was fun to paint. I'm not so good with the neck and jawline. His neck is not that long. That's an area I need to work on. Once I have some time again (after my month of sitting on the futon every night and watching movies- which is exactly what I plan to do once the play is over) I'll do some more portrait work. I am doing a giant copy of a portrait of Queen Victoria for the show. I'm hoping to finish it today. I'll take pictures.

Crack and the clap

You've often heard of carpenter's crack, right? Ditto for plumber's crack, yes? Today, I saw pharmacist's crack. Scary.

So I'm back and I haven't yet downloaded pictures of the blessed event on Saturday, although it was awesome! I've been to few weddings where the bride was that excited. There was much jumping up and down and dancing. My family does throw a good party. The clap didn't get completed in time, but that's ok, because I must have had rocks in my head, knitting something wool for a July 1st wedding.

I'm a very tired girl, so I think I'm going to sign off for now. I'll post some pics soon. And tell some neice and nephew stories. And tell you about how my Kouros has been the most affectionate kitty in the world now that we've returned. And catch up on my blogstalking, too!