October, 2014

You're Never Too Old To Learn Something Stupid

"Ballerina?"
"No."
"Witch?"
"No."
"Puppy?"
"No."
"Cat?"
"No."
"Washing machine?"

(I remember reading a YA book titled "Claudia." One of the characters made a Halloween costume that was a washing machine; the front door opened and you stuffed the candy inside. I thought it was ingenious. I still do.)

"No."
"Hermione?"
"No."
"Professor McGonigle?"
"No."
"Professor Dumbledore?"
"Mom-my!"
"Sorry…"

"I want to be different. I want to be original."

Different. Original. Hmm. When she was one, she went as 1/3 of the Andrews Sisters. Two was Zazu, the smart mouthed bird from The Lion King. Three? Violet Parr from The Incredibles (with Mom as Helen/Mom/Elastigirl). Four was Astrid from How to TrainYour Dragon (complete with a remote control dragon that spouted lines from the movie, courtesy her Uncle Tim). Kindergarten was two costumes—one for school (following school rules) and one for trick or treat. School was Wednesday Addams, complete with headless doll (I'm still amazed I didn't get a call from the school shrink on that one); for trick or treat, the dragon from a Chinese New Year's parade.

This year she wanted something that could cover both bases—plus the Brownie party. School rules: no masks, no weapons (not even a phaser—except maybe the old Star Trek ones that looked like a TV remote control), nothing vulgar ("Vulgar?" Ducky questioned. "Nice that they can be so specific." "Eye of he beholder," I said drily.). Scouts rules: nothing vulgar (still nice and undefined), no flames or fireworks (how did the school miss that one?), no obstructive masks and no realistic guns or knives.

"Cheerleader?"
"No."
"Monkey?"
"No."
"Hockey player?"
She didn't bother saying "no," just gave me 'a look.'
"Sports car?" I suggested desperately.

She sighed heavily and left the kitchen. Obviously I was no help. Some five minutes later Ducky wandered in. "Good. I need input."

He shuddered expressively. "Please. Not Halloween costumes."

"You, too? No, I need dinner ideas."

"Almond lemon chicken?" he said hopefully.

I nodded. "Fine by me," I said amiably. "We haven't had it in a while."

He gave me his most winsome smile. "I'll make fried rice…"

"You're on."

We joked back and forth while we cooked, the comfortable give-and-take you get after several years together. Married seven years as of this next December and it feels like forever. ('In a good way,' she hastily adds to anyone listening.)

"I've got it!"

Ducky flinched and almost dropped the cutting board he was carrying to the stove. "Good heavens, Alexandra! Inside voice, please!'

"Look! Look!" She plopped onto the middle of the kitchen floor.

I almost tripped over her. "Hey, traffic cone, move it to the table or you're going to get a bath of lemon juice."

She scrambled up and dashed to the breakfast table. "Look!"

She had brought in one of Ducky's numerous photo albums, this one from our trip to California the summer before she entered kindergarten. We spent time with family and friends, Victoria got a chance to see the few people she'd known from years ago who were still on the flower side of the daisies—and we all got a chance to meet Desiree, Fran and Cal's little girl. (I was so accustomed to Lexi, who was leapfrogging through the growth charts so fast I couldn't keep her in clothes, that I forgot babies start off tiny.) It was also an opportunity to see Mary in action as she painted the walls of her granddaughter's room.

Lexi was pointing to a shot of the north wall. About a third of the way over from the left stood a beautiful, elegant woman in a long, flowing, delicate gown that swirled about like mist. She looked up toward the pale morning sky, one arm gracefully arched above and in front, fingers gently curved as though she were casting the gentlest of spells or had just tossed coins into a fountain. Far away, starting at the end of the north wall and continuing onto the east wall was a pale, pastel sparkling rainbow. The beginning was a high point of the arc, a perfect continuation of the path to the woman's fingers.

"I want to be Aunt Mary's rainbow fairy!"

Hmm. It wouldn't be as hard as, say, turning an Erté drawing into reality. But is was probably beyond my sewing and arts and crafts skills.

But not beyond the abilities of some of her doting Aunties in D.C….

We spent all the next day shopping. Charlie found a full bolt of sparkle organza knocked down to a buck a yard because one edge was horribly damaged for a good six inches deep. It was the selvage edge, so that still left us with 36 inches or so down the middle. Workable. Ev sweet-talked them down to ten bucks for the whole bolt; we were buying yards and yards of chiffon (even with the weekend coupon, not cheap), fabric dye, fabric paint, glittery stuff and a whole carload of other crap (including silk thermal long johns that we would dye lavender—it's cold around Halloween!) so I'm sure the owner chalked up the organza to "goodwill."

Lily and Ev put their years of ECS and SCA to good use, spending a week creating frames for the wings that had to be 1) lightweight (she'd be wearing these pretty much from dawn 'til late at night), 2) sturdy (she already knew playing at recess would be out—but she is in the first grade; sturdy is a must) and 3) easy to put on and take off, even if adult assistance is needed (sitting at her desk was one thing; wearing those wings would not fly (no pun intended) in the girls' potty).

While Lily and Ev were pulling off what I considered an impossible task, Lexi and I spent every afternoon in her art room experimenting with everything from magic markers and finger-paint all the way to fabric dye and food coloring. After a number of trials (and errors), we finally decided on acrylic paints diluted and shot through spray bottles set on fine mist.

Ev managed to get 3 full sets of wings made. Since they couldn't be hemmed and sealed unless they were actually on the wing frames, we had one set to work on and two for "Oh, ~*+#^ ! I really +#%{ed up!" backup. Even still, I was a nervous wreck over painting them and +#%{ing up.

Lily and I were upstairs in the bathroom, painting, while Lexi stood on the coffee table downstairs, turning by inches while Charlie pinned up miles of hem and Ducky and Ev worked on a wand with multi-colored fibre optic strands and super-thin ribbons. Mother supervised us all.

"If we get the wings wet and paste them against the wall of the shower, we can make sure they're totally even and have the rainbows match," I suggested.

"A most excellent idea," Lily agreed.

Shower? Bathroom? Why the bathroom? Well, it has more room than Lexi's "loft"—Lily and I could work on them almost side-by-side. It also has running water—with a sprayer attachment. It beats working outside—no breeze. And, though I love her to bits, Mother wouldn't be able to "help" if we worked upstairs. (Though we made sure to scurry up and down with regular reports for our boss.)

There are only eight colors in the rainbow, but Mary has some lovely blends and variations in hers so we loaded up twenty-two spray bottles with diluted paint and set to work. True, it would have been easier to use a pressure sprayer, but this way we had all the colors ready to use. It took quite a while to finish; we'd spray a line on each wing, step back, check the balance, then go back and tweak as necessary. Color by color they grew until we were satisfied with the result, then we added a layer of shimmer dust to bring back the sparkle and we waited until it was tacky but not dry and very carefully peeled them from the wall.

They were pretty damned nifty, if I do say so myself.

I carefully marched them downstairs while Lily set to scrubbing the still damp paint from the bathroom tile. Lexi squealed as I walked past and Charlie had to remind her not to wiggle around. "Mommy! They're beautiful!"

"Fantabulous," Charlie agreed.

Mother reached out a hand. "They're still wet," I cautioned and she stopped.

"Are they real?" she whispered.

"No, they're just part of Lexi's costume."

"They look real…"

Ducky always looks admiringly on anything I do (the man is good for a girl's ego) but even he was astonished. "Oh, Cassandra, they're amazing. Marvelous. Lexi will look like Mary's painting come to life!"

(The fact that Mary had based the rainbow fairy on Lexi didn't hurt.)

But every artist likes praise, even if we're copying someone else's work. "Thanks, sweetie. I'm going to hang these in Lexi's Loft to dry for the night."

"I'll get the door for you," Ev said, springing up from the floor.

"Thanks."

"You guys did a great job. How did you get them so even? Measure the stripes?"

"Nope. Mirror image, sort of." I described how we spread the wings on the tile wall and painted them. "Makes cleanup a snap."

"Yeah, it's a good thing you have that new bathroom," she laughed, opening the kitchen door.

I stopped on the back porch. "What?"

"The bathroom. The one you guys added when you expanded the master suite?" she said, leading the way to Lexi's art room.

"Does it matter which bathroom we used?"

"Well, sure, the other bathrooms are old—excellent shape, but old. The tile doesn't have any glaze, the grouting is ancient; you put paint on that and it would be like a sponge…"

By the time we joined Lily it was a lost cause. Oh, some of the paint came off, but a lot had seeped into the blank slate of cream tile that had been there for decades. (The grout really soaked it up.)

Fortunately, Ducky thought it was funny as hell. Mother insisted on being helped upstairs for a firsthand look and said it was actually quite pretty and we should just keep going and paint the whole thing on purpose. We did—and it ended up the most popular bathroom for any party we threw from there on out.