The current project

I got a call a few months ago from the owner of a small art gallery (store) in the town where Alex does most of his out of town work. He had dropped of one of my cards and she was calling to let me know that she had give my name to someone who was looking for a "tapestry."

I never heard from the client, but spoke with the owner of the shop for a while and she thought it would be a good idea for me to send some quilts down to see if they would sell. I stopped by to see the place when we went to visit Alex at the beach, and she again said she was interested.

At first I was thinking of something fairly typical - the sort of jungle scene you see on all the tourist stuff, with the lush foliage and the tropical birds.

But you know what? That's on all the tourist stuff. They might as well buy a painting or a poster. Or a tee shirt, for that matter.

Then one morning I thought of doing something a little different. An abstract collection of blocks in different sizes (I think of it as a Mondrian design), with a different image free-motion quilted into each space, probably with black thread, the way I did the quilting on the flower quilt.

It will still be Costa Rica-themed, so will work as a souvenir, but won't be so obviously touristy. Also, it's a technique that's not that common. I'm certainly not the only one in the world to have thought of it, but it's not a mainstream thing to do, so it should strike people as interesting and creative.

That's the plan, at any rate.

The first one I cut and assembled was 24 x 36 inches, and just seemed too big. I'll probably finish it eventually, but I made a smaller one (18 x 24) which seems more suitable. Yesterday I assembled and pinned it, and today I did the in-the-ditch quilting (that's sewing right along the seam line, which holds things together but isn't, in itself, decorative).

Now I have to decide what sorts of motifs to quilt into the various squares.

Just in Case

When the power flickers and then goes out, and then there's a distant rumble of thunder, it's hard to tell how long it's going to be out.

Fortunately, it just came back (after about two hours) so my visions of Internet cafes in order to avoid reneging on my NaBlo commitment the very first week have faded to "post something quick in case it goes out again!"

Time for my annual "I'm sick of the rainy season" post.

October is crazy rainy here, and October was. But then we got a week of sunshine and I thought we'd turned the corner.

I still think that, but it seems awfully soon for us to have a tropical depression (or whatever) sweeping through.

Everything is just so wet. There have been floods and mudslides, and you don't even want to know about the condition of the field for yesterday's big soccer game. They actually brought in a helicopter to hover over the field to try and dry it off in the afternoon. I guess nobody told them that water doesn't evaporate in 90% humidity, even if you blow on it really, really hard.

I approve

Something else I didn't expect to learn today. A new word.

That word is jentacular. It is a good word. It means "pertaining to breakfast."

This word was brought to my attention by The Circle of Jens, a subset of NaBloPoMo participants.

Lesson of the day

Well here's something I didn't expect to learn today.

Driving in funeral processions is (pardon the expression) hell on your clutch. I never thought about it before but it's true, at least on hilly roads.

Angela had lived with Alex's family - at times his parents and at times with his grandmother - for the past ten years at least. She wasn't a blood relative but was, as they say, part of the furniture. Her life was hard, and long, and fortunately the end was fairly quick.

She died on Halloween night, which I'm certain would have meant nothing to her, but was buried on All Saints' Day, which I'm sure would have.

Not being a churchgoer at all, and certainly not Catholic, I found the funeral mass to be interesting, and although I know a lot of the form is predetermined, I thought the priest did a nice job with the content. He didn't know Angela or, as far as I know, the 20 or so people who gathered, but he spoke words that I think many of them will find comforting.

We were the only ones to have come in a car, so Alex walked with his mother and I drove some of the older relatives (Betty and her sister), as well as the three young children in attendance (Henry and Paola's kids, along with Mercedes). Alex's grandmother (who, I noticed, was wearing a sweater that once belonged to my grandmother) rode in the funeral car.

Like I said, driving uphill at a steady senior citizen's walking pace is just not what clutches were made for. Driving normally, the cemetery would be about two minutes from the church, but we took...well, I didn't check my watch, but for sure well over half an hour. When I caught a whiff of clutch and realized what was happening, I tried stopping and letting the walkers and the funeral car get a little ahead, but even then I wouldn't have my foot all the way off the clutch before it was time to slow or stop again.

Anyway. That's what I learned today. Well, that and some not very nice things about the morgue at the public hospital in Heredia.

Just scroll down and play that Kinks video again

Only this time it's not because of Alex and his career illusions.

This time it's because tomorrow is November 1 and that can mean only one thing....



Yes, folks, it's that time of year again. Who's in? (Pidomon, I'm looking at you!)

Something for everyone

We rented Deck the Halls this week. And by "we" I mean "Alex" of course - not that I wouldn't have rented it myself, but I probably would have waited until at least November.

Now that is a movie that has really got it all.

It's a Christmas movie, and pretty standard in that respect. People losing track of the Christmas spirit, alienating their families, regaining the Spirit and reconciling with their families.

What stood out to me, though, was the fact that the writers of this film chose to insert almost every known stereotype into the movie, without any of them contributing in any material way to the plot.

The movie opens with a woman whose face we can't see, remarking that glasses would make her look old. The optometrist swings his instrument out of the way and OH MY GOODNESS, she is old! How funny is that??? C'mon, let's all laugh at an old lady who cares about how she looks! HA! HA HA!!

Then we have the local chief of police. Matthew Broderick's character, Steve, hears a rumor that the police officer is a cross dresser. Clever foreshadowing, it turns out, for the time when Steve drops by the station to file a complaint and catches a glimpse of some women's underwear under the uniform. Steve runs out the door as soon as the man's back is turned!! Because he is different!! And being scared of people who are different (friendly ones who are trying to help) is just a hoot! HA! HA HA!!

It's not only men in women's underwear that freak Steve out, though. Funny, funny Steve falls through the ice on a pond, and when he regains consciousness, he finds that his neighbor has stripped them both down and zipped them into a sleeping bag together to warm him on the way to the hospital. Does hilarity ensue? Indeed. The old camera-zooming-in-on-screaming-mouth shot is always a crowd pleaser. Because life-and-death situations need not detract from the hilarious homophobia! HA! HA HA!!

Let's see. Then there was the whole "dumb blond" thing. Twin dumb blonds, described on the movie's official website as Buddy's "sexy, dim-bulb twin daughters." Awesome. They are redeemed at the end when the smart and (I think intended to be) less attractive neighbor girl gives them a book of poetry which, one of them said, "doesn't even make my head hurt." HA! HA HA!!

Wow, I'm getting tired here, and we're nowhere near done.

Hey, you know what I found particularly hilarious? The non-Caucasians in the film! Here, I'll introduce you to every single one of them:

• We had a female Asian TV reporter - although she was playing herself, so I'm not sure if she was supposed to be funny or just authentic.



• Then there was the Indian (like from India) computer geek with no social life.



• And my personal favorite, the Latino selling illegal items out of the trunk of his car in a back alley. Now he was a scream.

I'm not sure it's even worth mentioning when Steve's family gets sick of his attitude and moves to a hotel for a few days, and Steve's reaction is, "But. What will I eat?"

There's more, but I'm done.

Anyway. Deck the Halls. A nice little Christmas movie with something for everyone. You know, unless you're one of those humorless types who tries not to be sexist, racist, ageist, homophobic, transphobic, and whatever the word is for judging people based on their intelligence and/or career choices.

I take requests, but I take no responsibility for the results.

Peter Fonda (62%)
Gerard Depardieu (59%)
Lance Bass (58%)
Jeb Bush (55%)
Diego Maradona (53%)
Kirk Hammett (51%)
Colin Mochrie (49%)
Eddie Cibrian (49%)
Anatoly Karpov (48%)
Rick Schroder (47%)



Harold Wilson (66%)
Josh Duhamel (63%)
Ricky Ullman (61%)
Pharrell Williams (60%)
Rowan Atkinson (57%)
Howie Dorough (57%)
Jim Carrey (57%)
Heath Ledger (57%)
Sarah Jessica Parker (54%)
Drew Barrymore (54%)



Kim Jong-il (52%)
Steven Spielberg (52%)
Alan Greenspan (51%)
Juan Antonio Samaranch (50%)
Wen Jiabao (49%)
John Pople (49%)
Jon Voight (48%)
Adrien Brody (48%)
Hu Jintao (48%)
John Williams (48%)

Updated to add, by popular (Dad's) demand:



Morten Harket (70%)
Nicky Hilton (59%)
Oded Fehr (56%)
Vytautas Landsbergis (56%)
Larry Flint (56%)
James Spader (54%)
Jean-Bertrand Aristide (50%)
Madeleine Stowe (49%)
Bae Yong-jun (47%)
Courtney Thorne-Smith (47%)

Let no one be left out

In an effort to make sure that Alex is not left out of the celebrity look-alike game, that Dad feels more included because he's bound to recognize a few more names, and that Phydeaux has some company in the "looking like dead people" department,* here are a few more.



Grigori Perelman (70%)
Edsger Dijkstra (68%)
Peter Weller (64%)
Kevin Kline (61%)
Billy Bob Thornton (61%)
Aristide Briand (60%)
Ernest Rutherford (60%)
Antonin Dvorak (58%)
Felix Klein (57%)
Vytautas Landsbergis (57%)



Howard Dean (66%)
Sharon Stone (62%)
Jesse L. Martin (62%)
William Shatner (62%)
Hayden Christensen (62%)
Carson Daly (51%)
Suzanne Vega (49%)
Brittany Murphy (49%)
Janeane Garofalo (48%)
Jean Seberg (47%)

That second one is from a portrait that Alex and I had taken about 10 or 12 years ago. The system automatically recognized both faces, so here's another one of me. (It didn't recognize the dog that was in the picture with us though.) This time neither Alexis Bledel nor Topher Grace showed up, but I did get a second Hayden Panettiere, for what it's worth.



Judy Garland (68%)
Hayden Panettiere (68%)
Mark Feehily (66%)
Courtney Thorne-Smith (66%)
Lindsay Lohan (63%)
Tea Leoni (62%)
Mandy Moore (61%)
Sophie Ellis-Bextor (61%)
Jodie Sweetin (60%)
Kate Bosworth (60%)

*Although Robin did get Anne Frank yesterday.

I'm just not seeing what it's seeing

Thanks to Phydeaux for getting me sidetracked over at myheritage.com.

Alexis Bledel and Topher Grace? Wouldn't they have to look like each other for that to make sense?



Alexis Bledel (64%)
John Edwards (64%)
George Galloway (62%)
Topher Grace (59%)
Rebecca Gayheart (57%)
Katherine Heigl (57%)
Shiri Appleby (57%)
Jericho Rosales (57%)
Jamie Bell (57%)
Lothar Matthaus (55%)

(Only eight celebrities fit in the collage, but it lists the top ten - hence the extras.)



Hayden Panettiere (75%)
Bebe Neuwirth (74%)
Alexis Bledel (74%)
Danii Minogue (72%)
Kristin Davis (72%)
Elijah Wood (71%)
Ronan Keating (68%)
Topher Grace (68%)
Eliza Dushku (67%)
Gerard Butler (66%)



Zoe Tay (72%)
Dakota Fanning (71%)
Rachel Stevens (70%)
Sammi Cheng (68%)
Kylie Minogue (68%)
Nick Lachey (67%)
Miriam Yeung (66%)
Daveigh Chase (66%)
Vivian Hsu (66%)
Aya Matsuura (64%)



Lisa Kudrow (60%)
Seiji Ozawa (58%)
Agam Rudberg (58%)
Kristine Hermosa (56%)
Siti Nurhaliza (56%)
Nancy Sinatra (56%)
Francois Truffaut (55%)
Anne Frank (54%)
Kate Winslet (52%)
Angus Young (51%)