domesticana

Briefly beachy

Ella and I snuck away for a jaunt on the beach yesterday afternoon. We didn't bring our bathing suits or towels or sand toys. Hell, we weren't even wearing shorts. But, it had sand and waves and crabs, and we had an hour of fun in the afternoon sun. Here are a few pictures.

Safer now

Everyone is recovering over here (thank god!), just in time for our red-eye flight tomorrow. Yippee. Nothing sounds quite as exciting as taking the red-eye with a four year-old by myself. That transfer in Honolulu and the two-hour airporter bus ride once we get to SFO are just icing, I tell you.

On each of my last three trips through airport security, at Oakland, Sea-Tac and SFO, I've been amused and not a little irritated with the rigamarole. My flight from Oakland to Seattle a few months back was only shortly after that "scare" that prompted TSA to ban liquids on airplanes, and I felt so much safer after they confiscated my $10 L'Occitane solid perfume. The woman ahead of me in line was in tears as they made her pitch what must have been $300 worth of make-up. It was all brand-new and very expensive, and she looked like a woman who didn't go anywhere without 'her face on.'

The second time through, TSA made me turn my computer on for them, briefly glanced at it and sent me on my way. And most recently in San Francisco, we waited for 30 minutes, despite there only being about ten people ahead of us, because they only had 4 people working with one scanner and some new-fangled gun powder detecting air chamber. One of the agents roamed the line reminding people to drink up any and all beverages and randomly selecting people (although I only saw her choose men) to go through the air chamber. 

As I put my shoes back on and helped Ella with hers, I watched them unceremoniously pitch all of the confiscated potentially hazardous liquids into a big, overflowing garbage bin. It occurred to me that they just dump that garbage in the airport waste. I'm sure they don't send it off to be analyzed. It's such a joke.

On each of those three trips through the scanners, I had a pair of large scissors in my carry-on. The first time I had simply forgotten to take them out of my knitting bag, but the second and third times I thought it would be interesting to see if they caught what is essentially a pair of very sharp, metal knives. I'll be sending them through again on Wednesday night, just for kicks.

Sick and 'Hair'ed

I knew it wasn't going to be my dream Hawaiian vacation, but I hadn't prepared myself for this. Matt was feeling a little run down when we arrived last week, and by the weekend, he was a disaster. We think he must have some sort of stomach bug, but after two doctors, a trip to the emergency room and a lot of trips to the bathroom later, we're heading back up to the ER this afternoon. On top of all that, Ella has been single-handedly keeping the entire Hawaiian insect population alive with her tasty flesh. The poor kid is covered with bug bites--big giant, itchy welts--and after being doped up on Benadryl for two days, her body rebelled last night. She threw it back up and up and up. Ugh, it's just awful. Poor kid even has bites on the bottom of her foot.

Needless to say, I'm aching for both of them in pain and nothing I can really do about it. It sucks. But, I'm also bored out of my mind and not a little tired of taking care of grumpy sick people. I've read about 600 pages of my book--being cramped in an ER cubicle did wonders for my reading time. I've made countless runs to the drug store for bug bite creams and various other drugs and sundries. It's a drag.

In a (literally) vain attempt to take my mind off of all this stuff, last night (when I should have been working) I found myself cllicking around here or there, and wound up on the Clairol website. I've been looking for a free service that lets you 'try on' hair for ages, and when I finally happened upon it I felt downright giddy.

   

What do you think? Should I go red? Blonde? It's just silliness, but I played with this thing for about two hours last night after everyone went to bed. Can you tell how bored I am? I actually took screen shots and then copy/pasted them all into one image. That is severe boredom for you.

At least it took my mind off this horrible trip for a little bit.

We're heading home on Wednesday, and it simultaneously feels like we've only just arrived and that it couldn't come soon enough. The fact that we've had ZERO quality time with Matt, that he's still sick and that he will likely be here until Christmas is more than I can even think about right now. It's just nuts.

Bye-Bye Kitty

Ella has a fascination with all things co-branded--what child doesn't, I suppose, and I she keeps telling me that this or that is her "Barbie" toy or her "Princess" t-shirt or her "Hello Kitty" jammies. It drives me nuts, and I'm sure that's one of the main reasons she persists. I could rant on this topic ad nauseum, but I don't have time right now.

Anyway, when asked what she wanted to be for Halloween, Ella immediately bellowed, "Hello Kitty!" So sick of the constant talk of popular girl brands, I blurted out, "What about if you're Bye-Bye Kitty instead?" Seeming perfectly satisfied with that little play on words, she took it a step further and said, "Okay, I'll be Bye-Bye Ricker." Ricker, aka Rickie Lee and Rick, was our siamese cat who died last year.

So off we went to the fabric store in search of something in the sealpoint variety, yeah right, and we ended up getting some black minky fur that had us both purring in the aisles of bolts. Little did I know...

Whatever you do, don't ever sew anything with fur fabric. It's a lint nightmare. I had it in my nose, my eyes, my mouth. The only good thing about this project, which I did entirely without a pattern (as is evidenced by the neckline), was that I learned a lot about my new sewing machine. (More on the sewing maching another time) Closed overlock, gathering, different trinkets and accessories galore. It was pretty fun. And all in all, she made a very cute kitty: