This is the last of the weekly updates for the Attic Remodel Project. The heavy work and drywall is complete and I will start trimming and painting the space this week (nights and weekends as I have a real J-O-B) so that my wife will have a studio that is full of light and opportunity. The next and final installment of the attic build will show all the paint and trim steps, some tips & tricks, and will be a few weeks away.
Category: Costumes
My New Coffee Cup and Various Other Weekend Activities
Stamps-With-Foot and I packed our weekend full of activities. The SCA was holding their 12th Night Celebration here in Seattle this year and far be it from us to miss a costume do. My wife went in a deep burgundy Tudor gown that she made and had to be sewn into for the occasion. Her snood (hair piece) and jewelry matched the dress as well. I was dressed as her man-servant. We sort of matched, but she sparkled – Lots of compliments on her dress and attire.
In addition to some serious people watching and taking in the fencing tournament, I spent some serious time at the merchant faire and picked up a tarboosh (Fez hat) for another costume event, a viking bearded axe, and a skull cup. You read that correctly. There is nothing like having your morning cup of Joe with a little cream and sugar, sipped delicately from the cranium of your enemy. There was a potter at the event selling ceramic, anatomically correct, skull mugs and my wife bought me one for my desk at work. It is the little things in life that make me the most happy.
In addition to 12th Night, we also:
Took down the Christmas tree
Rolled up the lights outside
Cleaned up the living room
Played with the puppies
I washed/scrubbed the road salt off the jeep and put it in the garage
Washed and vacuumed out my wife’s Subaru
Helped out a guy with a dead battery
He stole my jumper cables accidentally, then brought them back
Made breakfast for my mom
Had coffee in my new mug 🙂
Wrote a couple of letters
Cleaned up in the shop a little
Finished reading a book about bees
Had a great warm, long lasting fire
Cuddled
Watched Sherlock
Played Battlefield 1 with Dr. Brown
Started a new book
All and all, a good weekend away from my J-O-B.
Home Again
I got home from another Toulouse trip (third in 3 months) on Friday and after my sweet wife picked me up at the airport, we headed to a local BBQ joint for Brisket. I had read in a cast off magazine I found in the Amsterdam Sky Lounge about the 10 best places to find BBQ in Texas that made my mouth water. Seriously, Pavlov-esq. It was all I could think about for 5400 miles.
We ordered a full pound, the sweet sauce and a square of cornbread to take home and go all caveman on. It was not slow-smoked Hill Country perfect, but it scratched an itch.
After dinner, there was puppy play time – rough housing and fetch, Stamps-With-Foot and I watched a little TV, there was singling and the I passed out for the best sleep in 6 nights. It was so good that I slept late and with the jet lag – it felt like I had been out for 20 hours. It was only 9, but it felt so good to be home and in my own bed with my own pillow, warm wife, and snoring puppy.
Went to C&P Coffee with wife for brunch
Stayed 4 hours – finished book
Halloween costume shopping at Goodwill & St. Vinson DePaul.
Wrote a couple of letters to family
Chinese for dinner
A little TV watching.
I heart Barnie Stenson.
Finished book I got for my B-day
Said “thank you” again to wife
Passed out
Special breakfast of coffee and Apple pie tarts Sunday morning
iPad decided to imitate a brick
Said curse words until I remembered I did a cloud backup Friday night
Not as unhappy
Cleaned and refilled hottub- Winter is coming
Top of cover was GRODY
Wife helped clean. Wore a bikini and a sweater.
Have learned the hard way not to ask questions…
Put most of garden to bed for winter – no hot houses this year.
Stamps-With-Foot had hair appointment
I remained calm and begged her not to shave it all off
I went over to my mothers for dinner
Chocolate chip cookies for an appetizer, Frito Pie as a main course, cranberry juice to drink, and chocolate cheesecake for desert
Like it was 8 again
Came home and fired up the hottub. A piping 59 degrees by 10 PM.
Might have to wait till tomorrow night to get in…
Wife came home… Hair looked great.
Sigh of relief.
Told her repeatedly how pretty it was and ‘thank you’ for not chopping it off
Watched 10-12 movie trailers – don’t judge me!!
Off to bed.
Camping in the Plague-free 14th Century
Stamps-With-Foot and I spent part of the recent holiday weekend camping in a south-western Washington hay field pretending with a wink and a smile that it was 1340.
We have some friends that are big into the SCA and asked us to come along. At the mention of playing dress up, my wife was all in. I spent most of my time cooking and washing dishes and I made it over to Merchant’s Row for a few purchases. I got way too involved in construction techniques of the different tents and campers (kind of want my own Gypsy Vardo) and camping accouterments and MAY have made a pest of myself at one booth deciphering the geometry of the tent fly. There are times when I am too nerdy for my own good.
Anyway, we had a nice time away from a house full of boxes and projects. It was great to see our friends and it made my wife happy to get to dress me up in pretend pleasant clothes.
12th Night in Portland – 2013
A few weeks ago we drove down to Portland so that I could to do some off-site work for my J-O-B and took an extra day (on or dime) to both visit friends and attend an evening of the SCA’s 12th Night celebration – Being married to a trained costume designer means that one goes to these sorts of evenings. Our friends have closets (yes, I meant to be plural – as in 4 closets) filled with period costumes and accessories. My wife dressed me in a couple of different outfits until she was certain that I looked the part and then I went and waited downstairs for a couple of hours while the ladies prepped and primped like a good little puppy.
I agreed to this foray for three reasons:
- Happy wife, happy life…
- There was booze promised to me.
- There was to be a “huge” vendor area where all sorts of cool stuff like swords, and bows, and armor, and axes and like items would be sold and traded.
Now, the mention/rumor of armor and swords takes be back to being a 9-year old at my very first Renaissance Faire (the REAL Penn and Teller performed that year). I wanted a “real” sword and a chain mail hood so bad that I would have licked the bottom of a Port-a-John seat for them at the time. My son is now enamored with the same period of history, I live vicariously through him and thought that he would get a real kick out of the pictures of armor and swords
I was a little disappointed: no swords, one real armor dealer and sales area was lined with stalls that catered to the ladies fabric, buttons, capes, cloaks, furry hats, jewelry, etc…), but I did end up getting a few good pictures to send to The Ruminator and we ended up watching the fencing melee/tournament. Helmets, steel swords, shields, daggers, very cool. He would have been all in!
The rest of the event was good and the detail of some of the costumes was amazing. Some of those folks put months and months of work hand sewing outfits just for that one night. Our evening ended with a game of Cards Against Humanity – I won – and we stumbled home just after 1:00AM.
I will end up muttering to myself.
I have come to both love and accept my wife’s little quirks. I don’t understand them all and from time to time I have to just shake my head and mutter after finding something odd in the recycling or noticing that kitchen silverware was used to dig in the flower beds for example. I have also discovered that it is best to work within the confines of these quirks instead of confronting them/her with what most people would call reason. That confrontation would lead to a two hour discussion that would, in turn, lead nowhere. I would have to apologize for even bringing it up and then I would have to buy her something shiny for my transgression. In the end, I would be right back where I started – muttering to myself and slowly shaking my head with my lips pursed in an expression of both frustration and amazement.
Stamps-With-Foot is very visual and she has to SEE something for it to be real for her. Visualization of a concept like arranging pictures on the wall, where flowers COULD go in the yard, or where to move a chair in the living room is an exercise in frustration. This normally means that after a week+ of debating where a piece of furniture should go, I will move it 4-9 times before she decides that the original decision was the correct one. This comes up for me because we have been talking about to swapping offices at home. Her sewing/estrogen room will go upstairs to the sunny well-lit wood-floored bedroom at the front of our house and I will move my faux-Edwardian office/man-cave into the basement so that it will be co-located to my tiny hobby machine shop, work bench, and our den: A win/win for us both of us as long as I don’t have to move crap up and down and around for two days.
In the spirit of working with her previously addressed/documented traits, I formulated a plan to have it all work in my favor. I measured and drew a scale model of the room upstairs, showing locations of the doors, windows, and air vents. Then, I made scale cutouts of all the furniture that she could possibly have in the room. I left her with the drawing and cutout so that she could torment and second guess herself in peace while I went into the basement and worked on my new machine shop bench. 24 hours later and after looking at every possible combination at least 6 times, she had determined a location for each and every twig for her sewing nest and taped her choices for furniture location down on the drawing. I have elicited a promise that her decision is a final one and that if there is a change in any of the locations it will be made before the very first piece is picked up and humped upstairs.
Now all that is left for me to do is to bribe/con some friends and neighbors into helping move all the crap, putting it in its designated place and then to disappear in to my basement to plot my plan for world domination…. Mwahahahaha….
Elementary…
Sherlock Holmes has become an everyday occurrence in my life. Last year my wife and I read a few of the Laurie King/Mary Russell books. She got The House of Silk and The Sherlockian for Christmas. I have started re-reading all the original Doyle stories and last, but not least… Sherlock Holmes is now a draftsman at my J-O-B. No really, I work with a man who’s actual real legal name, given at birth, is Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to hire the guy from the milli-second that I saw the heading of his resume, but he is actually a fantastic draftsman and a great asset.
Anyway, I have been and will be spending more than a little time in London and England in general this year and on my most recent trip I happened to find myself on Baker Street in London. Well, far be it from me to miss a weird travel opportunity. The wife and I walked down to the Sherlock Holmes “Museum” near the Baker Street tube stop and took the tour. We enjoyed the aside in our busy day and hammed it a photo-op. Stamps-With-Foot makes a pretty little Watson…
Steamcon III
Stamps-With-Foot and I went to the 3rd annual Steamcon this past weekend with our hearts open and expecting to be impressed. Last year we had a ball at their western/adventurer themed event: Great costumes, a cool retail section with memorable window shopping, and lots and lots of people having a great time. This year, the theme was a “20000 Leagues Under the Sea” affair. We had HUGE hopes for some very cool costumes/props and had been looking forward to going all year.
“Expectation is often better than realization…” I am not sure what it was, but this year’s show just didn’t have the same spark. Some of the costumes were terrific, but there seemed to be fewer original ones. Don’t get me wrong, we saw some classy dresses, finely tailored suits, mechanical hands, harpoons, gvns, hats, Leather roller derby gear, big wrenches, a pet shoulder dragon, and a goldfish tank on a leash. Some serious thought and skill went into these outfits. There were just fewer kinds of them this year than there were last year. It also seemed like the event goers this year were more subdued.
The convention was held at a larger and more spacious venue, which would normally be great, but it took away from some of the intimacy of the gathering as compared to last year. We were somewhat disappointed with the retail space/offerings. It seemed to be a rehash of last year, with each vendors efforts doubled at another booth. While I appreciate the entrepreneurial sprit, some of the items for sale were not made to withstand the test of time: if one uses hot-glue on an artistic/functional creation, shit will fall off and it will be neither the latter nor the former any longer. I will say that the art displays were terrific and we picked up a couple of small things for Le Maison du Talley.
I am holding out hope for Steamcon IV. I know some people that are discussing an awesome vendor booth and Victorian Monsters is the theme – rich material for the creative set. The Steampunk crowd has a high relative population of former Goths, so I am figuring that black capes & cloaks with high collars will be coming out of hope chests everywhere. Wooden crosses and silver bullets for the initiated. More lace, bite marks, wolf references, mad scientists, mummy’s, parasols, and meerschaum pipes will be seen. Vampire hunter kits will be produced, there should be some terrific League of Extraordinary Gentleman inspired regalia and maybe the show will find a home that is equal parts convenient for participants, has the perfect ambiance, and room for running amuck.
All Trans Air
My wife, one of her buddies, and I went to the Pride Parade this past Sunday in Seattle’s Capital Hill. We have some particularly flamboyant friends and as New York State just legalized same-sex marriage, it felt like an auspicious time see a parade and show some support.
Holy good googamooga! The people watching was AMAZING – participants and crowd alike. The leather-clad manly-ladies on Harley’s were interesting, the naked bicyclists were not, well except for the one guy who had his junk tucked in the slit of his bike seat – dangling strait down through the gap. While mildly disturbing, we couldn’t stop depating the outcome if he were to fall off his bike and if said junk would stay attached or not… There were a couple groups of leather-man, all wrapped in black leather and shinny studs with a guy in the back twirling and cracking twin studded whips. Scary on so many levels, but the papa-bear with the whips had amazing control. Some of the floats were very funny, but the best of the parade, for me, had a hysterical airplane theme. Since the aviation business puts food on our table, will send my kids to college, and I spend an inordinate amount of time working on and flying in aircraft, I have a natural affinity for related topics. Yep, the float of the day was: ALL TRANS AIR. The flight attendants were well quaffed, smiling, happy and came equipped with Adam’s apples.
The crowd gathered in Seattle Center was a site to see as well, lots of hot pants. Tiny purple hot pants. Tiny purple hot pants on a misshapen 60 year old man… There were bears and twinks, butches and lipsticks. Funny t-shirts and no shirts. The grass in front of the stage area was a sea of pink and rainbow flags. Some of the ladies from ALL TRANS AIR were on the main stage lip-syncing and I met what must be the biggest, toughest tranny on earth. There is a picture on her/him below sitting down, with his sparkly red Judy Garland shoes neatly tucked beneath the chair. While sitting, his/her head was at the same level as Stamp-With-Foot. This lady was probally 6’5″ and 280lbs+ before the pumps and lace added height and girth. I text messaged the same picture as below to my mom and added “Thinking of you”
Halloween – Past and Present
There are certain advantages to being married to a costume designer whose resume includes stage, TV, and film production… It takes the Halloween costume planning and execution to a whole different level. There are no half-ass Wal-Mart last-minute plastic ensembles allowed in the Talley house. Oh no! Outfits are tailored, accessories are found after hours of internet trolling, wigs are clipped and styled, and the fat suits are tubby perfection! Stamps-With-Foot took a small little ember of Halloween love in me and made it into a choreographed 3-alarm house fire. Below are some pictures of our costumes past and present.
The Sights of Steamcon 2010
“Steampunk is for Goths that have discovered brown.” – I love that quote and it makes me giggle every time I think about it. While I can really get into the Victorian Zeitgeist, making your own cool stuff, recycling old gears into art, bargain hunting at flea markets, and retro-fying 21st century gadgets – I think that it is the roll playing sub-set that has kept me away from embracing the movement. Well, that and I already have WAY too much crap going on and not enough time/money to do any of it that well. I can’t add another hobby, but like I said, I can appreciate some of the aspects of the movement/genre/fashion/cult/trend/??/….
Anyway, when I saw that the largest Steampunk show in the US was going to be held in Seattle this year, my interest was piqued. When I later read that Gail Carriger was going to be signing her books and meeting fans, well that sealed the deal. Don’t judge me! I picked up her first book, Soulless, at an airport bookstore on a trip and that tiny little woman’s writing is so God damn good that she hooked me (qwerky, well built characters and she uses English as an offensive weapon…). I will drink some beer later, burp and scratch while watching some football or hockey as my man-penitence.
Stamps-With-Foot and I got up early on Saturday, I proptly forgot the camera, and we headed off to the wilds of the SeaTac Airport Marriott for our chance to say hello and gush at Ms. Carriger. We did just that and found her to be very approachable, genuine, funny, and sincere – all that you could ever want an author that you meet to be. Buy her books! We then decided to take a walk and look at what and who there was to see. HOLY CRAP! we stepped into a mess of nerdy, techy, historically inaccurate stew! All ages, races and genders were present and I was shocked to see that the male/female ratio was 50/50ish. It may be profiling, but… at most tech, comic, or game conventions there are significantly more males of the species and the few ladies in attendance have their pick of which Spiderman loving, +2343 hit-point having, IT professional they will be going so be spending time with. Steamcon seemed to appeal to both sexes equally and there were some truly beautiful people walking around in costume, shopping, flirting, and having a great time. The costumes were interesting and for the most part very well done: Victorian fantasy accessories, sexy boots, tiny hats, spats, ray gvns, a steampunk Geisha jet packs, a saddle(?!), parasols, wings, accoutrements that looked like they took months to build, some really good art, pith helmets aplenty, monocles galore, and some characters of questionable lucidity. The people watching was A++. I would wager that more nerd-nooky was had this weekend at that hotel than the combined amount in all of the western US up to this point in 2010. I took a few pictures with the iPhone and below are the best of them. Sorry for the pixilization.
One bad-@ss little kid!
You know his dad was the videographer/director. It is a cute and slick short film that makes me want to bribe my kids into doing something half as cool: A Star Wars film short using our dog as Yoda (some CGI green will be needed), my son as Luke and daughter as Leia. Oh the sibling light-saber battles that we could have! Stamps-with-foot (my wife) and I will have a cameo: I will be Chewy and she can be one of those saucy blue dancing girls with a thing for wookies….
Weddings All Around
Was there a memo that I missed – a possible tax incentive for people to get married in 2010? Am I just getting to that age where all my friends are settling down to mow the lawn while holding a beer, shop for leisure suits, and go to bed by 9:00pm? Something must be up: we have seven weddings to attend this year including our own formal ceremony for family/re-commitment thing. It all started 10 days after Christmas with an elaborate affair (pictures published in a magazine and taxidermy mice as cake toppers…) in the Bay Area, then one for March in SoCal, one in Sedona in May that is scheduled in the middle of the week and is a 4 day event. There is a small intimate ceremony in NorCal in June, someone (my wife is the keeper of names and schedules) is getting hitched in July, There is a “Do” the first part of August in Germany and we are having our own gathering at the end of August in Seattle. That is a lot of flights, a lot of tie wearing, some serious gift coin, and lots of nights in hard, crappy hotel beds. I feel like I have a part-time start-up as a wedding attendee.
THIS is why pets eventually eat their owners:
Why do pets eat people? We have all heard the horror stories about someone found in their home after being missing for a few days, the authorities finding them in a ‘snacked upon’ state. Most people feel it happens because the animal is left alone, gets hungry, there is semi-fresh meat about, and nature takes its course… Well, I beg to differ!! Why do pets eat people… because people dress their pets up in sweaters, hats, booties, t-shirts, and fvckin’ Halloween costumes! I love my wife, God know that I love her with all my soul, but she is among this crazy sub-group of our species. She has been giddy for months about making Brodie a costume. I refused to let it happen, but using forms of torture, pressure, guilt, and persuasion that only women know, I sold my furry little buddy out and agreed to let her do her worst to our puppy. There was costume shopping, his humiliation at the pet store in front of the other dogs (the cats even laughed at him), alteration of the chosen outfit, and multiple test fittings. Front the look of helplessness he made every time she came at him it was like she neutered him a second time. As a precursor to the actual event, we went to a French Bulldog costume contest. The morning before said contest, she had her last fitting session. I will include a picture of his face, on which even a blind man could read his desperation and shame. There were crazier people there, but the guilt I carry over letting poor Brodie take part (he won 3rd place) will haunt me. It is a stain that I can’t wash off and I know that because of my lack of action and my cowardice in the face of tiny wife, I too am on the obscure ‘OK to eat list.’
puffy red nipples?!
Laurel always has the best costumes, no matter what occasion it is. She decided to have a costumed birthday party and went to great lengths to become the Corpse Bride. I was the groom, Victor. My costume was OK (spats are cool!) but, her’s was GREAT- visable rib bones and all. Brauning was the Sumo wrestler and the funniest part of it wasn’t his puffy red nipples – it was that his hair will look exactly like that in 20 years – exactly!