yarnage

alot has happened twixt then and now. too much to recount in the respite i have while bébé is snuggled on my bosom in a sling dreaming of bú (sometimes i can hear her little lips smacking away, other times i have to towel off the drool from my clavicle).

i am planning to blog about her birth by and by. elevator version is: all natural drug-free homebirth; 24 hours in labor; just over an hour of pushing; her hand was right alongside her face (gave me a 2nd degree tear which i chose not to get stitched. healed up nicely. thank the goddess! your yoni is never the same tho); she opened her eyes and started mewling as soon as her mouth emerged, even before her body was even born! she was lifting her head from the get-go, no small feat for a creature whose head practically weighed more than her body. the girl is feisty, headstrong and determined. hmm, wonder who she gets that from? yes, there are birth photos & video, and no, i don't plan on posting them to the blog. my yoni would rather be un-notorious. as i said to the boys hurling beads at me while hollering "show us your tits" in new orleans during mardi gras while T scavenged for lagniappes, "my mama raised me better than that!"

for now, i have found my cosmic yarnage twin--except i am infinitely less skilled at yarn craftage. if you don't have a yarn stash in the eaves, nooks and crannies of your house and if you don't have a profile on ravelry.com, you will not get this. seriously. stop reading.

the morning i went into labor, i bought an "amish" washing machine (bought from that company but hey, it wasn't just a punchline, the online amish store does indeed exist, and has a cool wringer, and who would have guessed that i have an affinity for the pennsylvania deutsch? it's the apocalyptic survivalist-cum-granddaughter of my grandparents in me. what can i say, this may make me white, but i love kitchen gadgets nd household sundries even/especially non-electric ones. i just got a foley food mill earlier this week. now, what can i mill?), 8 skeins of ooh so pretty felting wool (in twins) and two hanks of organic cotton yarn. on sale natch. now my yarn treasure box is overfilling. since it was online, i wasn't able to employ the basic techniques of a Yarn Collector however, i did admire the ooh so pretty felting yarn for months & months, would make rationalizations, put it in my online shopping basket, would be rational, delete it, and would come up with more rationalizations, replace it, and so on and so forth, before succumbing to imminent-labor-onset-major-project hormones and decisively purchased them for forthcoming, small but IMPORTANT projects beyond my skill level which i will diligently and heuristically plunge into. sometime. in the future. when i magically have more free time. projects to be added to my lifetime to-do list which i keep misplacing. now what did i buy them for? it's the post-birth hormones and sleep deprivation that make me forget.

my beloved T-sten doesn't understand why i keep buying more yarn (in singles and duos) or rather how the yarn mysteriously multiplies (duh, it's with the dust bunnies. everyone knows how fecund they are) but we've made a tacit agreement about each other's creative hobbies that he won't ask about the yarnage and i won't ask about the photog accoutrements.

let's chalk it up to another stupid power, my hoarding of nifty household gadgets & yarn. if only i could put this on my resume.

silly games to whilst away

when i was just a little girl, my sis, cousines & i would make up satirical skits and perform them for the phamily or just for ourselves, especially the ones with foul language. A-S-S. oh and "slut makeup." think judy blume meets wierd al yankovic meets saturday night live.

this propensity to parody manifested in my successful, albeit brief moonlight run as a playwright in high school. my one act, tongue-in-cheek comedy "on the side" was a hit at the high school variety show and made it as far as the citywide performances. it had a lifespan briefer than my thespianism (i have a Best Actress "Oscar" to show for that though. actually my mom does. along with all my diplomas and report cards.)

last night, wakeful from one on my wee hour weez, i thought up a fun parody for a PSA and thought it'd be just the thing to fill up space. see if you can guess which commercial i plagiarized. the first person to guess wins a Sock Blocker(TM)--a draft preventing sock filled with that awful dry-supposedly-jasmine-but-really-long-grain-brown-rice-that-i-didn't-like-the-taste-of-but-have-20-lbs-of mixed with lavender. mmm.

SCENE 1
A pregnant woman late in her third trimester sits on the pottery barn couch next to her dude. They are the picture of suburban domestic bliss. She is watching a TV offscreen.

PREGNANT LADY: (pensively) hmmm... i want something... savory...

At this, DUDE promptly gets up and dons a baseball cap. He is a man on a quest. He pauses as she adds additional descriptors of her whimsical cravings.

PREGGO: and salty... and juicy.

He pauses on cue and waits for her tone of finality before valiantly heading off into the night.

Cut to DUDE getting behind the wheel of his car when his cell phone rings. He answers.

PREGGO: and meaty.

DUDE groans perplexed. Cut to DUDE happily getting his card back from the worker at a counter and carrying away a bag of goodies.

Cut to PREGGO opening the bag and pulling out a stack of bestseller books--mystery, thrillers, literature.

Cut to title

Think Inside the Book

life lessons... with a breakbeat

have you ever had to sing "the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.. (from the top)" or "we just got a letter, we just got a letter, we just got a letter, wonder who its from?" or "hot dog hot dog hot diggety dog hot dog hot dog hot diggety dog!" or "We're gonna do the monkey (oh oh ah ah oh oh ah ah), Do the monkey (oh oh ah ah oh oh ah ah), Monkey, Monkey (oh oh ah ah oh oh ah ah), That's alright" or heaven forbid, the barney song?

you ever notice the only way to dance to those folksy songs is to rock from side to side or do the knee bend squats and maybe, if the kid is coordinated enough, clap in unison. odd pre-eminem white people dances that don't involve the hips, the shoulders, fluidity, sensuality (in its least erotic sense). without a rump-shaking bassline, how's a kid sposed to get any sense of rhythm and learn to dance? i've wondered. in white bread SD north county-burbia, i've seen the product of those breakbeat-less songs--i had to sit though Ms. Jamie's dance studio recital in may just to see Lily boss the other girls and yell-sing doing their little butterfly ballet performance for three minutes, and i witnessed Ms. Jamie's teen kids breakdance and weo,... they have timing, but they ain't got rhythm. the other product of those bassline-less songs is the noodle dance (no relation to the chicken noodle soup dance) usually performed by a barefoot white girl with fake-dreadlocks, multiple piercings, midriff baring halter top, and a gypsy skirt (african or indian), which involves pseudo-tribal writhing hips shoulders arms and a lack of sense about personal space. give wide berth to the flailing body parts. it really is an under-studied phenomenon; they congregate at Burning Man.

then i meandered across this new kids show with a breakbeat, Yo Gabba Gabba! clearly it was created by someone who grew up in the 80s. (click on Foofa, the pink flower bubble to check out the videos). okay so the characters cant breakdance worth shit (or even do a credible version of the cabbage patch or the running man or the snake--and why cant Plex the robot actually do The Robot?--but then they are wearing bulky fuzzy costumes that render subtlety a moot exercise in futility. i'm not sure what DJ Lance's excuse is), but then neither can a 2 year old. i guess it's a good thing they aren't introducing downrock, headspinning, butterfly kicks or other power moves to your toddler b-boy/b-girl -in-training. now, the lyrics are still silly kid-friendly with a moral, but at least the beats are fresh & tight.

check out biz's beat of the day. learn to beatbox kids!

i am a big fan of saving money over proprietary licensed merchandise because paying over $25 for a onesie is outrageous (though i do secretly want a Baron Davis baby jersey) so i like that they have DIY YGG! iron-ons.

i like free even better than bootleg.

DIY baby hammock

who invented hammocks? no one knows for sure, but it was folks in the tropics, caribbean, latin america. all i know is that it is ingenious.

in VN, there is just about a hammock for every adult. every household has at least 4 steel screw hooks bolted into the studs for an instant midday siesta. even government offices close down to beat the tropical heat for lunch & a siesta. though i wonder if they too have hammock hooks tucked in the back. socialist bureaucrats need to snooze off the heat too. indeed the modern vinamese american household has an ancestral altar, a large flat screen TV, karaoke, and a made-in-vietnam steel-framed hammock (and usually some elder firmly ensconced while watchin the newest Pa-Ri Bai Nai|Paris By Night variety show spectacle or phim chưởng|chinese period serial martial art soap opera or cải lương|southern vinamese melodic storytelling). growing up in honolulu, i was lulled to sleep in hammocks from the time i was born. and i was so glad when my mom *finally* found the hammock she got for me in VN in 2001 buried in the depths of the garage which the two older kids use as free storage. (and before you siblings protest the unfairness of that generalization, all i know is that all my stuff was in the shed that exploded and burned down in dad's "shed incident." the only stuff i have in the garage is what mom has been stockpiling for years in the anticipation of another grandchild.) we lugged that hammock shit up from SanD posthaste. and believe me, it wasn't easy.

now that t&i are at that procreating time, we're trying to evade the consumer mentality manufactured by the billion dollar baby product industry, and society at large. looking to expand its market and profit margin and led by multi-culty parents, the baby product industry is beginning to embrace and commodify the "natural" ways the rest of the non-industrial world has raised billions of babies. co-sleeping, baby carriers/slings, attachment parenting, elimination communication, practices & crafts/artifacts the world over are are making their way in the mainstream, being trademarked, branded and packaged as a westernized consumer product.

i'm predicting that hammocks are the next big baby thing. there is one american brand complete with a frame and padded hammock. aussie & kiwi's are getting in it too. why? because hammocks mimic the natural rhythm of in utero, they ergonomically conform to the baby's shape (unlike stiff flat mattresses), they are self-propelled (amazingly, a baby soothing product that doesn't require batteries. yet.) and, most importantly, unlike cribs they don't cost an arm and a leg. in the global context, it's important to remember that hammocks are safe to use because the baby is never left alone. there is always a caretaker whether parent, grandparent, extended family within ear's reach and unlike america, no one anywhere else in the world ignores a baby's cry believing that promotes independence rather than abandonment issues and SIDS.

when i was a kid i used to sit and draw blueprints for playhouses. really detailed blueprint of a playhouse with sunroof, down to the lumber sizes, number of nails, reinforcing beams, crossbeam supported foundation, weather-proofing, etc. i get this from ông ngoại|maternal grandfather who as a self-sufficient peasant could grow rice & produce, raise & train waterbuffalo, make bánh tết & banh chưng|new years sticky rice, pork & mung bean cake and kẹo mè|sesame candy from scratch, build a house from scrap lumber & palm tree fronds, and invent a flapping angel-wing harness for the christmas pageant. nowadays they call a person like him a "renaissance man"--though i'm fairly certain self-sufficiency pre-exists the renaissance & capitalism--i just call him ông ngoại.

so rather than pay $200 for some bourgie plastic & polyester version manufactured in some sweatshop in China that will offgas neural disrupters horribly and break apart or be recalled due to shoddy workmanship, i decide to DIY and make my own. who knows maybe i will make a business plan out of this. may as well make some money off of this. maybe i can market it as phong thuỷ|feng shui hammocks. no one has niche marketed oriental metaphysicism and baby products yet.

disclaimer: this is still under product development, so experiment at your own risk.

PORTABLE BABY HAMMOCK
can be installed anywhere there is a door frame or lintel

• begin with 2 iron industrial C-clamps (6-8 in width) these have a carrying load of 1200 lbs+ each so it can handle a baby no worries.

• circular rubber or silicon pads (glue to the clamp faces to prevent damage to the surface)

• 2.5-3 yards of heavy cotton, 8mm+ habotai silk (also called parachute silk because it is used for parachutes and also for portable hammocks. load of up to 400 lbs.) or sling suitable fabric (36-48 width). the bonus with using natural materials is that they wick away moisture and regulate temperature.
  

• folded up baby blanket or towel approx the size of the baby.
  

on both ends of the fabric, hem the fabric with a double or triple seam (can also interlock) leaving about 1-1.5" hem loop. thread each end of the looped hem over each of the C-clamps.

clamp the padded C-clamps above the door frame about 1.5' - 2' apart. this will give you a loose parabola.

place the folded baby blanket parallel to the 48" width of the fabric at the vertex of the parabola. this is very important! the baby will lay on top of the blanket. babies should not be placed in this hammock the way an adult would lay for this particular hammock. the legs of the parabola (which are around 48" wide) will prevent the baby from rolling out of the hammock.

lay a bunch of pillows & padding underneath the hammock just in case and test it with some phonebooks (or cats as the case may be) before putting your baby in.

as in all things, use common sense.

PERMANENT INSTALLATION (under construction)

1 steel heavy duty eye screw or screw hook (carrying load of 400+ lbs each)
2' dowel
whipping rope technique
carbiner or quick link
2.5-3 yards

..to be continued...

i started this on 7.5.07 but waited to post so i wouldn't let the cat out of the bag. will finish at some other date.

p.s. the C-Clamps don't work over the lintel. Back to the drawing board. Am considering the Miyo clamp but it's $50 and I'd have to import it from NZ...