Crafty crafts and crafts

This is the door to my craft room.

I went to yet another scrapbook convention, and all I got was this.

It's called a Scrapbox.

It folds up to a 3' x 3' x 6' armoire.

I doubt it will ever be closed.

The table folds up and is enclosed when the Scrapbox is shut.

It took one day to assemble the Scrapbox- thanks, Melinda and Rebecca.

One day to install the shelves and assemble the storage boxes- thanks Melinda and Marcia.

One day to get everything out of my diningroom and Dave's office and the hall and the kitchen and the livingroom into the Scrapbox- thanks, Dave.

One day to make labels for the boxes. Thanks, myself.

The rest of my life to play. Hurry back, Rita!

So much for crafty crafts. Now for crafts of another type.

Avast, me hearties, yo ho!

What is the link between pirates and crafts, you ask?

Don't ask.

But look at THIS!

Dad-ums

My dad, Loveable Bill, during WWII. I am the twinkle in his eye.

I am back from my Dad's, where I had a good time, and was actually useful for a change. My old man is now 83. A WWII veteran, he never believed he would live this long. In fact, his 40th birthday was such a shock that he disappeared for three days with a gang of his pals, certain his last days were upon him and wanting to go out with a bang. If anyone then had told him he'd be around for another 43 years, scoffing would have been the least of what he would have done.

Loveable Bill at 83, sitting in his diningroom.

Dad has survived a world war, polio, liver disease, pneumonia (multiple times), several car accidents and, in his 80th year, a shattered hip, so if he is looking a little frail right now, he is entitled. He's getting around pretty well with just a cane though, which is a huge improvement over the last time I saw him. As was the weather!

The weather, the last time I visited. It was in the 70s and 80s this time.

I hope I have as many loving friends and family as he has when I am his age, but I doubt it will happen that way. In my experience, men get taken care of by the women in the family, and the women end up in homes. Dad, being a man, is being well cared for in his own home. My baby sister sees him almost every day and is his right-hand gal. My brother Bill visits every couple of months (from Texas, no less) and is the indispensable man. This summer, he helped Dad paint the house and repair the decks. Dad bragged about what good kids they are every day I was there.

Dad and I always have a good time together. We could cohabitate very easily if the need ever arose. I had a great time cooking for him, and we enjoyed each other's company. I had hoped to get back to see him a lot sooner than I did, but life, mother and a broken arm intervened.

Turns out that the timing of my week stay was very timely because while I was there, Dad's washer died (early in the visit) and the sewer lines backed up (end of the visit). I am glad I was on hand to help. Sis and I pitched in to get him a new washer, but cleaning up after the sewage disaster was a solo act. (Mine, not my sister's. She handled the last disaster single-handed). It was kind of a shitty way to end the visit, and really pissed me off, but everything flushed out fine in the end, and I left his bathrooms sparkling and aseptic. I can still hear them thanking me.

We went out to eat several times and Dad took me to a casino, the first (and second) time I have ever been. I cleared $165 the first time we went, and lost almost all of it back to the casino the second. I had a really good time, though, and can see how gambling could become addictive. Casinos are exciting places.

Of course, I spent a week being alternately snubbed and attacked by his cat, Snoopy. Snoopy is a one-man cat. I am not that man. Here he is, deciding whether or not to pounce on me from a great height.

The only draw-back to visiting my dad is like it is like falling into a technological black hole. I keep forgetting how interminably and frustratingly SLOOOoowwwww dial up is. And trying to get my email was an exercise in futility. I did manage to RECEIVE a few, but was never able to reply to the ones I received. I came home to 131 messages. I was using Verizon's National Broadband Access, which is better than a sharp stick in the eye.... but only marginally.

Anyway, I am home now, and if you haven't heard from me in a week, now you know why.

If I can remember, I plan to rant about names in this blog

I don't know why this popped into my head... things are ALWAYS popping into my head, which makes it very noisy in there, and distracts me from sensible thought. But I digress.

As I do. I digress. All the time. I think it may be related to the things constantly popping into my head. I am easily distractable, and what with one thing and another popping into my head, it only stands to reason that other things pop out. Like why I came into this room. Wait a minute, I'm typing, so this must be my blog, in which case, I wanted to write about the most recent in-popping. Which was....????

Okay, I just looked at the title of this blog, and remember that I had been ruminating about names. It started when someone in this strange movie my husband is watching on the other side of the room said " They cremated her. Your Uncle Dick took her ashes back to....." and it suddenly popped into my head that every Dick I have ever known was one. Do NOT name your son Dick.

Or Les. I've only known a couple of guys named Les, but they most definitely were.

Another name to avoid is Peter, which in the long form (Peter) is the name of the male member (and why males feel compelled to name their members is beyond me) and in the short form is a smelly way to heat a cottage.

Willie ain't much of a name for a boy, since it, too, is an anatomical moniker.

I'm not fond of unisex names, like Chris or Pat, for example. There is this person who works in a store here whose gender was a mystery to me for a long time. There are no overt signs of female development, but neither are there any overtly masculine traits. There are no reliable clues to gender. This person has a short hair-cut (that could be worn by either sex), pierced ears (which used to be a female indicator and isn't anymore) and wears the uniform of youth- trainers, jeans, and shirt (in this case, a golf shirt with the workplace logo on it). I kept trying to get a glimpse of the name on the name-tag, and when I finally did, it was CHRIS! Do not give your children unisex names. Give them a gender-specific name so that even if nothing about their gender is immediately specific, folks having to deal with them will know what they are dealing with. This Chris, by the way, is female. I asked one of the people she works with.

I just ended that sentence with a preposition. I know better, but c'mon already, who really says "one of the people with whom she works". It may be grammatically correct but it is like writing a sentence from the middle toward both ends.

But I digress.

Never give your daughter a boy's name. It may seem cute to name them Michael but it is mean spirited and insensitive, and sets them up for a lifetime of explaining themselves to other people, most of whom will continue to think they are weird even after the explanation. GIVEN NAMES SHOULD BE GENDER SPECIFIC. If you really can't live without giving your daughter a boy's name, make it her middle name. Now THAT'S cool- I know, because I have a boy's middle name and I love it. And none of this changing the spelling to indicate girliness. A Sidney by any other spelling (Sydney) sounds the same.

Come to think of it, don't name your son Sidney, either. Or Walter. Or Alfred. But these are just personal prejudices on my part, and need not be considered one of the cardinal naming rules.

If you love funky names, own multitudes of pets and give them all funky names. Unless you are Frank Zappa, who is dead, so you probably aren't him, never name your child Moon Unit or Dweezil. Or Roxie Crimefighter. (That's the name with which Penn Gillette, of Penn and Teller infamy, saddled his baby daughter. As if it isn't awful enough having Penn Gillette for a father!)