Let's make happy
Archive for May, 2007
Bodycraft
May 16th
Warning! A gross photo accompanies this post.
My husband John was just about to describe to me a moving piano piece that he had rediscovered among his old music books. But first, he decided to make a big sweeping gesture with his arm. His arm hit a drinking glass that was poised on the edge of the kitchen counter, and he tried to grab the glass before it fell to the floor and shattered, but it had already shattered on the counter. It proceeded to slice his index finger. Blood and sticky apple juice flew all over the kitchen.
The doctor at the emergency room first said that he may not need any stitches. Or maybe two would do. Two became four, then somehow just one more, and it would be perfect.
We were all rather impressed with the results. Gruesome, for sure, but undeniably artful. If tattoos are now as “mainstream” as the media say they are, then we might be onto an emerging trend in body modification. But then again, maybe not.
Boxish Fish
May 16th
Some fish are shaped like bread boxes. How silly!
A freshwater Puffer. Their little fins flap so quickly, they look like little bumblebees swarming around the tank. Boy do I want one of these!
An aptly named Boxfish.
A BABY Boxfish!
And the silliest of all is the Cowfish. He thinks he is a cow, but please don’t try to milk him.
Evolving Punk is Here!
May 15th
After a long, slow process of random genetic mutations, the Evolving Punk pattern has at last made it to the Mochimochi Shop!
Various species of Evolving Punk have already been spotted, such as these smart coordinating Punks from Tezzcan.
Thank you for the great test, Tezzcan!
Click here to buy the pattern as a downloadable pdf.
Scavenge of the Nerds
May 14th
I like to think of myself as a small-time nerd. Not any kind of specialized nerd, but a run-of-the-mill, uncoordinated socks-wearing, NPR-listening nerd.
One of my nerdier activities took place this past Saturday: the annual huge “Metropolitan Odyssey” scavenger hunt organized by the lab coat-wearing nerds at Metro Metro. Each year, 200 or so people gather somewhere in New York City to spend 6 1/2 hours counting the trash cans along a particular avenue, taking photos of themselves dancing with doormen, and looking for peculiar graffiti to copy on their answer sheet.
This year the big hunt took place all over the West Village, which is at once lovely and confusing and strange. Great fun for a scavenger hunt. Unfortunately, two members of our four-person team (my husband and I) set our alarm clock incorrectly and showed up late. Despite losing an hour of hunting, though, we felt we did fairly well.
My biggest personal triumph of the day was spotting a group of firefighters – they were just what I needed for task no. 13 (of 137 tasks): “Get a photo of a teammate defeating a uniformed firefighter in a game of rock-paper-scissors.”
An admittedly embarrassing picture, made worse by my closed eyes (and what’s with the bizarre palm-down rock, Mr. uniformed firefighter?), but I was beyond pleased with myself for being able to cross this one off the list.
Unfortunately, though we had brought a polaroid camera for quick photos, I was alone at that moment and I had to use my digital camera for this shot, even knowing that it would be nearly impossible to get this photo developed in the hour that we had left before our deadline. We ended up taking a very blurry polaroid of the screen of my digital camera. Who knows if they gave us the points for it or not – in any case, we didn’t win.
The real letdown, of course, is knowing that we have to wait another year to implement our new, uber-nerdy strategy for next year’s big hunt.
Update 5/21/07: We came in 9th! Not bad, considering our late start.
Pepto Has Arrived!
May 11th
I’m happy to announce that Pepto the Elephant has finally joined us in the Mochimochi Shop!
(For those of you who already bought Tums, check your email for a super-special rate on Pepto!)
Pepto had the good fortune to be test knit by some very clever crafters.
Joan always cracks me up with her photos. Here we have a Pepto that snuck into the medicine cabinet when no one was looking…
And I already shared some photos of the special RED Pepto knitted by Miki. Here’s another one:
Get the pattern to make your own Pepto here, or get both the Pepto and Tums patterns here.
