Life, Interrupted

But then, isn’t interruption life’s constant?

This week has been the pits as far as getting any writing done. I think I got a page on Monday. Maybe two. It was a holiday for the fella, and he didn’t stay gone as long as I thought he would. Tuesday, he had a meeting in Austin, so I went to visit the aging parents, and shopped for fabric with Mom for my costume for the Victorian Christmas festival.

Mom is getting forgetful, and kept saying things like “Oh, that will be so hot.” Whereupon I had to remind her (several times) that no, the festival is at Christmas, and it won’t be hot, but might be warm, which is why I picked a pattern with a jacket, so I could take the jacket off, if it was warm. We looked at a bunch of stores and a bunch of possibilities–black, seafoam green, a pinkish lavender (really nice suiting wool), and even a gorgeous satin in royal blue with embroidered silver butterflies. I figured I needed to pick the jacket fabric first, then pick the fabric(s) to make the dress to go with the jacket. And there wasn’t enough of the only fabric that I really thought would go with the blue and silver to make the huge, hoop skirt. (Good grief, I’m probably going to have to make a hooped petticoat too, huh?)

So, my costume is going to be red. Not a bright red, more of a dark cranberry red. The jacket is a jacquard upholstery fabric–the kind with texture in a floral pattern. But it will work for jackets too. The skirt is a darker red, almost maroon–I kept having to explain to Mom that no, I didn’t want a white or cream skirt, even though that was what the pattern showed, because this festival is outdoors, and I didn’t want to be dragging a white skirt through the streets–and the bodice will be an old-fashioned pink rosebud stripe (pink stripes alternating with pink and green rosebuds on off-white), so I think it will look very mid-Victorian-ish. The construction is VERY complicated, which is why I’m starting now. I’ve got eleven months to finish it. I’ve got six weeks to cut it out, before I can go get my sewing machine. So this is my project for the year, even though I haven’t finished projects from previous years. I will probably be putting in the miles and miles of hem the Friday night before the event, knowing me.

Ah well. Now I’ll have to give a regular “costume report” too… (It’s lined, both jacket and bodice, and interfaced, and there’s supposed to be boning in the bodice, which I don’t know if I will put in, but we will see…) Seriously, y’all, wish me luck.

I did actually think about the writing while I was there. The aging parents are getting ready to move–even though they haven’t actually put their house on the market yet–and have been going through their books. They found a copy of my old Master’s thesis on China missions, and I read through most of it, checking on my research. A couple of things I thought I remembered, but couldn’t confirm, I found in there–like the city on the Yangtze usually referred to as Wuhan is actually made up of three cities on 3 sides of the river (it’s very river-y right there), Wuchang, Hanyang and Hankow–I don’t know how they’d be spelled in the current transliteration, though. Anyway–I could remember Hankow, but couldn’t remember what the other two cities were. And they had a huge world atlas where I looked up the maps of China to check on city names and geography of my story, etc. So I did think about it. Just didn’t do any. Also judged a contest.

Haven’t done any writing today either. Had a dentist appointment this a.m. and now have very clean teeth, and no need to go back for more work. (YAY!!) Other things are developing–but I’ll share when I know more.

Think I’m going to stay in out of the cold nasty wind and rain (mostly drizzle, but it rained hard on me when I ran into the post office) and coddle the cold I’m trying to get so I can sing Sunday a.m. Good thing I essentially sing bass. I have never (knock on wood) completely lost my voice, but it has been known to drop into the cellar. I used to scare my Girl Scouts when I got hoarse, because my voice got so deep and rough. And maybe I’ll try to get a newsletter out. I’ve owed one to my subscribers for a while now…