-the happier we'll be
Sissy is home for the weekend to househunt and we’re all sitting at the table, eating tacos and chips and guac, passing the baby around:
“So, did ya’ll see Marie Antoinette?”
“Yeah, I fell asleep three times.”
“I know- and I’m a horrible person but the only thing that kept me watching was the thought that the French Revolution was coming up soon. And then, they just ended it- “I’m saying good-bye now”. I was so pissed. But- you’ve got to watch the Special Features. They have Jason Schwartzman as Louis XVI doing “Cribbin’” at Versailles. He‘s in the Portrait Hall: “This is the painting room. Those are real paintings. And that chandelier? Those are real crystals. And sometimes I like to look at my real paintings through the real crystals. These here? These are my boys.” And they’re the busts of the kings of France.”
“Does he go in their bedroom and say “This is where the magic happens”?
“Of course!”
‘When we were watching the movie, I kept telling Jake “See that hall of mirrors? I’ve been there. And her little playhouse? I’ve been there, too.”
“I didn’t see the little playhouse.”
“Why not? Where were you?”
“On the bus, eating a gelato. I’d been traumatized by those five French guys who surrounded me.
They were all like forty-five and they were going “Hawrh, hawrh, hawrh, American girl.” It was like “Look, she’s away from her group! Cut her off from the herd!”
“I cried every day we were in Paris.”
‘But in Italy it was “Ciao, bella princessa!” They made you feel beautiful.”
“Yeah, it was "Ciao, bella princessa!"- here, let me feel your ass, even though you’re only fifteen.”
Rachel chimes in: “ Let me check to see if it is ripe.”
“And then we went to Switzerland. And the first bus stop- the bathrooms!! They were blinding white and all the stalls were little 10’ rooms with a real hat rack and an ashtray! We were like
(doing the arm raising, heavenly choir singing gesture) AHHHHHHHHH!
“I know- I was like “just go on without me, I’m spending the rest of the trip here.”
“You could flush the toilets with your feet!”
Brother: “Ya‘ll must have looked like the biggest yokels in the world. “Golllleeee! Flush it with yer feet! Lookie there, Ma! You kin flush this toilet with your feet!’ “
“Shut up. At least I didn’t have to sit there and hold my bag over my head with both hands like in France ‘cause it was too filthy to set it down. OR have to pay.”
“Yeah, what was it with those little old ladies in the restrooms? They didn’t do anything, just sat there in their black babushkas and gave you the Mal de Ojo if you didn’t tip them.”
“And the rooms at the inn in Switzerland! They had featherbeds and down comforters-”
“How terrible did we feel when we saw where the tour guide slept? It was a closet.”
‘I know! We had some trivial complaint about something and he said ‘Wait, let me put my suitcase in my room” and (Sissy jumps up and pace off half my narrow kitchen) it was about this big! The sink was over the toilet!”
Brother: “Oh- I’m so sorry the mint on your pillow was a little bit smished.”
“We felt like the biggest brats. We worried about that all through the rest of the trip.”
Auntie Marge, with MJ asleep on her chest, has scrunched down to accommodate her until she’s teetering on the edge of my office chair.
“Do you want me to take the baby? You’re about to fall off that chair.”
“Yes, please. She’s kind of breaking my back.’

These people have waaay
too much time on their hands. But do you even need to ask if I am going to make several of these?
Just for stash deletion, of course.
I'm puzzled that these folks seem to think that they've stumbled upon something unknown to generations of crocheters-have they never seen a ruffled doily before?- but find their mathematical enthusiasm endearing, except for the Global Warming hoo-hah.

I blame Living Crafts magazine, which introduced me to this. I just finished mine, and I must say that once I felted it in the washer, it was cute as puddin' pie in an organic fiber Waldorf kind of way. Just exactly the spot for these figures to play. I even improvised a forest floor for the woodland creatures.

And then I thought: why not a whole forest? Oh, I don't mean it would be as large as the farm, maybe two feet square after felting. Many greens and browns mixed, with a lighter leafy glad in the center of moss and gold. There might be a stream in one corner (the pond was the worst of the blocks for the farm, as I am allergic to color stranding, so it will be a little stream). And a cave of grey/green Koigu, left over from the rocks for the sheep pasture. And more rocks. And a hollow log, large enough for hedgehogs and rabbits. Shrubs, ferns, embroidered forest flowers and needle-felted mushrooms. But that's enough detail- have to leave something to the imagination.

It was obvious to me that this could get entirely out of hand- see the Coral Reef people- so I enlisted Marge as my accountability person. "Once I get the forest done- that's it, okay? No swamps, no rainforests, no beaches- understand?"
"Rainforest?"
"Oh, they have a wonderful set of animals- a snake and a crocodile and a parrot and palm trees..."
"Okay- stop."
"- and a monkey-"
"Mom."

It's good to have a kid around who speaks your language and understands the Siren Song of Fibre. At least she won't be crocheting- knitting? could you knit them?- corals, as acrylics do not sully her hand. Ever.
We spent an hour in the Cascade section, laying out different color combos of skeins on the floor for her own blanket, completely engrossed, happy as only afficianados of something can be.