Tuesday, October 31, 2006

V Hatches the Egg

It is 3 pm Halloween afternoon. V's costume, which I spent one weekend making, has already been put on, worn to school, taken off, thrown up on, brought home, washed, dried and is ready to go for Trick-or-Treating tonight. That's a lot of excitement for a costume only worn one day. This year she chose to be a robin, as a follow-up to last year's egg costume:

Here's a summary of its production:

First, make your plan,

take measurements of your subject,

cut out the body,

try it on with the preliminary hood,

add the red-breast,

paint the beak and feet,

make the wings and tail feathers,

put it on.

We decided to abandon the idea of wearing the feet at the zero hour. The tail didn't last long, as it kept tapping the back of her heels as she walked. One person thought she was a penguin. No one else bothered to comment. Oh well. She looked great, and felt great, despite the upset tummy in the morning and having to come home from school for fear she was actually ill. I told her the costume might smell a bit funny since I couldn't very well put the cardboard wings and tail through the washing machine. I did the best I could by hand. Overall a successful Halloween, and we even carved the pumpkin and toasted the seeds.

Friday, October 13, 2006

My Slogan

In the shower last week I came up with a slogan I would put on a sticker or pin and wear proudly. I haven't actually typed/written it out so I don't know what it looks like in print, but in my head it sounded good, so here goes: Less Vanity More Planety It does make one think, doesn't it? Like a vanity license plate that you have to sound out in order to figure out what it says? I came up with it after contemplating people that spend extra money on posessions that say something about their position in life, rather than just buying a basic item that will accomplish the same thing. And then thinking what effect those types of purchases have on the earth and our ecosystems. Like Glade Plug-Ins. Must we use electricity to make our house smell...like a tropical rain forest (because soon that will be the only place you can actually smell one)? Or a specialized kitchen appliance that does something you can do with something you already own? Like those rotating ovens made just for cooking frozen pizza. What happens to those things after people realize they can do the same thing in their own oven? All of those pizza cookers end up at garage sales and Goodwill and eventually landfills. All that plastic and metal and wiring laying somewhere under the earth. I go to a lot of garage sales, so I see the stuff right before it hits the landfill. And Hummers? 'nuf said. I think that for every person out there that is willing to pay a little bit extra to support local farms or the mom-and-pop store on the corner, there is another person that is paying a lot extra to waste resources. How can we ever get ahead, much less keep up? We need to think more about the impression we leave on earth, rather than the impression we leave on other people. The former is more vital and long-lasting than the latter. Less vanity. More planety.