28
Jul, 2008

so that’s why they call it that!

hooray for restaurant week!  we experienced our first restaurant week last winter, and apparently there’s also a summer week.  after drooling over all of the menus offered, we finally chose quivey’s grove stone house restaurant.  maybe not the most glamorous of all the options, but the one menu that made both of us equally hungry.  and it was delicious!  i started with a spinach and mushroom salad (surprisingly bright and fresh!), enjoyed the duck schnitzel entree (very delicious and about twice as much food as i could conceivably eat at one sitting) and had the door county cherry turnover for dessert.  mr. happy stuff enjoyed the smoked whitefish cakes (they came with a green salad),  the trio of medallions  (quite tasty),  and ended his meal with the key lime martini (tart and smooth at the same time).  the restaurant itself is in an old stone farmhouse complete with tiny nooks and crannies of rooms, a labyrinth of staircases, and decorated with quilts and other antique memorabilia.  the room we ate in had fabulous floor-to-ceiling windows with wooden shutters that could open and close for privacy and light.  i wisely chose to save half of my entree for lunch tomorrow (i’m still stuffed after only the first half!) and when the waitress wrapped it up, she brought it back in a most curious package.  picture a paper tray (the kind that french fries and hot dogs sometimes come in?  white with a red lined plaid pattern?) wrapped up in a small white plastic baggie.  on the bottom side of the baggie, i found this:

it reads “since my meal has been replete/i’ll conserve what i couldn’t eat/to serve myself another time/or feed that dog or cat of mine.”  i finally understand the term doggie bag!  how quaint!

Posted in yum | 1 Comment
27
Jul, 2008

another weekend of productive domesticity and photography

my weekend sort of started on friday this week (i say “sort of” because i had to work a few hours on saturday) and i spent the friday morning taking pictures of a friend’s children.  it was a new experience for me to try to photograph three mobile children.  usually, at least one of them is new enough to not really move a lot and the others can all sort of orbit around the stationary center of an infant, but in this case, all three are very active and i was happy to take on a new photography challenge in exchange for a loaf of the mom’s fantastic homemade bread.  here’s my favorites:

the photo below is the only picture i got of all three of them actually looking at the camera and nobody making a weird face.  normally, i’m a fan of “weird face” pictures, but that wasn’t quite what i was going for.*  i ran this photo through some strange color filters in photoshop elements, but i think i need to learn more about photoshop actions.  hey all you photo-buffs out there–what would you do to this photo to improve it?  i like the more relaxed and genuine smileyness of the photo above, but the girl’s head is sort of hiding and i’m not sure what to do about that.  any ideas?

segue to saturday:

my farmer’s market is a-ma-zing.  we hadn’t been able to go last week (and maybe not the week before that either?) so i was on a stock-up trip.  i bought:

zucchini (regular and “italian”)

potatoes

tomatoes

onions

corn

bell peppers–green, red and yellow

parsley, dill, mint (both a bunch to make tea and some little “starts” to plant) and garlic

5 of the pollen-free sunflowers like you see above

golden beets

haricots verts

blueberries, raspberries and “black cap” raspberries

carrots

shelled peas

broccoli

bacon

usually, mr. happy stuff and i go together, but he was busy doing something else on saturday morning, so i was on my own and boy were my arms tired by the time i got back to the car!  i had to be at work by noon, but i wanted to get some of those veggies processed ASAP, so between the market and work, i pickled a batch of beets; washed, blanched and froze the peas; froze half of the raspberries, made a batch of granola and another batch of rhubarb sauce (from the rhubarb that was a gift from the owners of last weekend’s cabin–thanks!)

today’s (sunday’s) domesticity project was sewing!  (finally!)  i finished the totebag from my long-ago blogiversary giveaway, but i haven’t properly photographed that yet, so you’ll just have to wait.  i wanted short, easily finished projects today, so i also did my common threads block.  liz wanted straight (or at least not diagonal or curved) lines in her block and had some lovely inspiration quilts so i combined two of the designs to create this block:

it was a bit scrimp and pinch on the fabric (i think i had less than 4 square inches of fabric leftover at the end) so that took some creative piecing on my part, but i enjoyed the challenge.  i didn’t enjoy realizing that i needed to rip off seven strips and re-do them when i slightly altered my design plan, but i do think i like the final result better for changing it.  i am a huge fan of the “red cross quilt” that was the inspiration for one of the inspiration quilts and maybe someday i’ll make one of my own.  i hope you like this block, lady harvatine!

*although this photo did crack me up:

Posted in crafty stuff, photography, summer, yum | 2 Comments
25
Jul, 2008

i love wisconsin summers

i rode my bike to work again today. i’ve been averaging twice a week bicycle commuting and since i only work four days a week, i think that’s pretty good! anyway, this morning, when i left the house, it was cool enough that i wanted to put on my sleeves (tubes of fabric that i wear on my arms but can remove more easily than a long-sleeved top). by the time i got to a stopping point, i was warmed up enough that i decided not to wear them after all, but it was practically chilly this morning! in july!

at lunchtime, i took my magazine and a throw pillow outside to the big grassy playground/soccer field that ‘s behind my library and laid on the grass in the shade of a tree and soaked up some sunshine. delicious. and i didn’t burn to a crisp in the half hour i was out there.

before i moved to wisconsin, i couldn’t comprehend the need for a “summer sweater.” now, my favorite weather is slightly cool summer nights with fireflies and cicadas and light-weight long sleeves to keep away the shivers.

Posted in summer | 2 Comments
22
Jul, 2008

minnesota, por favor*

i just got back from a very relaxing weekend at a cabin that belongs to the parents of some very good friends. we went there two years ago for the first time and i had such great memories that i was very much looking forward to this trip and it did not disappoint. we drove up on thursday night after work, speeding our way to osseo for pie where i spotted this fun restaurant sign:

we barely made it to the restaurant (not moe’s, see link above) before they closed, but we got there just in time to buy a banana creme pie, a dutch apple pie, and a blueberry pie (the pie of the month!). it was worth the speeding! anyway, we pulled into the cabin late that night and sleepily rolled into our beds.

the next morning, we woke up, ate some yummy homemade granola (my recipe, but made by another friend) then made a master meal plan for the weekend. after some epic grocery shopping, we came back and made a large pasta salad for lunch and then had pie for dessert (actually, i think we had pie for dessert for almost every meal while we were there.). after that had had some time to settle, it was time to swim across the lake. if you read my post two years ago, you remember that after one false start across this 1/2 mile stretch of lake, i discovered the trick to overcoming my fears of deep open water–a pool noodle. so, once again, i grabbed my trusty noodle and this time swam all the way to the point and back! the noodle is mostly there as a “security blanket” and to give me something to hang onto if i need to adjust my goggles or just want to rest for a minute. when i’m swimming, i pretty much just push it ahead of me with my fingertips on each stroke or sometimes with the top of my head.

i realize that i will likely never get into the ironman competition with this technique, but it works for me for now. as you can see in the photo above, i am not the only one who uses a noodle to get across the lake. i was just thrilled that not only did i swim both there and back, but i wasn’t even exhausted at the end of the swim and i did it on both friday and again on sunday! on saturday, i paddled the paddleboat across (along with mr. happy stuff) while other friends swam. (you need a boat escort for safety so that other boats on the lake can see you.) they had a little too much fun during their trip across the lake:

after their “somewhat synchronized” swimming show, they also did some hand puppets. we were in stitches!

our friends’ dog also enjoyed her time at the lake. she was in the water pretty much the whole weekend. by the last day, she was finally slowing down (she’s getting up there in years) and moving rather stiffly, but i love this series of shots of a boy and his dog:

she refused to jump off of the dock and would run back to an easier spot to jump from and then…

run down the beach and into the water!

she was one happy dog!

but then again, we were all pretty happy dogs. at one point, i asked mr. happy stuff why i liked this cabin and this lake so much and he said, “it’s because there’s nothing that we have to do.” and i added, “and yet so many fun options of things we can do if we want to.” there’s no sight-seeing, no rushing around to try to cram a whole lot of stuff in, there’s just the lake and the cabin and nice places to nap or play cards or read or just sit and chat with friends. oh, and one other awesome thing:

the sauna. what could be better than a deep, drippy, sweaty warmth produced by a wood-burning stove in a small wooden hut and a glass of ice water, followed by

a plunge into the cold lake? many, many thanks to you, dear friends, for inviting us up for a most relaxing weekend.

p.s. i also had a lot of fun cooking while i was there. we made homemade tortillas and grill pizza among other things. so much yummy food!

*this blog post title refers to a misunderstood lyric from the car ride up to the cabin. we were listening to the refreshments and i just heard a snippet from one of the songs and i said, “did he say ‘minnesota, por favor’?” and mr. happy stuff drily replied, “no, he said, ‘i can’t drink cervezas anymore, una soda, por favor.” but then i couldn’t stop giggling.

Posted in sporty stuff, stuff that sparks a glow in my soul, summer, yum | 2 Comments
11
Jul, 2008

quilty

thanks for all of the quilt love!  it is a different (and bigger) sense of accomplishment to finish a long-term project like this one instead of the ones that that i usually finish in a week or so.  but i love both kinds of projects for different reasons and will probably continue to do a mix of the two.

i promised to show you the quilt fabric that i’d bought on our recent trip, so here it is:

i don’t often buy this much yardage without a very specific project in mind (although my stash may have something different to say about that) but this fabric store was having a sale and all cut fabric was 25% off and they had some designer fabrics i’d been specifically looking for (the wee play pieces on the bottom of the stack above).  the birds are a robert kaufmann print and i just love their kooky, collage-y feel.  some of these prints may find their way into my common threads quilt, but i don’t quite think i can put all of them together.  too busy, no?  i bought enough of the birds that they could be a quilt back someday.  now, i just have to decide on a front.  i’ve got some ideas cooking up in my head….

in other quilty news, i decided to work on my common threads block-o’-the-month today.  i wanted a quick project that i could finish in one day and since everyone’s been posting such fabulous blocks, i decided i needed to make mine before someone else had the same idea!  here’s how it turned out:

i loved the leafy ribbon melissa used to tie the bundle together, so i decided to incorporate it into my block (hmmm…. hope it’s washable!)

and lotta’s printing book has been inspiring me lately, so i wanted to do some printing/painting on this block.  i traced the bird pattern onto freezer paper and then used that to stencil the bird onto the dark gray fabric.  the tail kind of blends into the gray and his head might be a little too close to the seam, but…. other than that i’m pretty happy with the way this block turned out.  maybe next time i try printing, i’ll do something a bit less literal….  i do like the way the scattering of “birdseed” turned out on the white fabric.

(oh, and i also got the selvedge dots on my cut of the bird fabric and couldn’t resist incorporating them into the design!)

thanks for the fun fabric, melissa!

Posted in crafty stuff | 2 Comments
09
Jul, 2008

i *heart* animation!

this evening, mr. happy stuff and i went to the local (fancypants) sundance theater to see animation show #4. we both loved animation show #1 and seem to have missed #’s 2 & 3 (soon to be remedied via dvd) so we were very excited to be able to watch this on the big screen. as we entered the theater, we were treated to a much more pleasant diversion than the commercials shown before wall-e last week (so very tired of being bombarded by ads!). instead of ads, this theater had a delightful little animation (similar in style to the wondermark cartoons) that showed a theater full of stadium style seating, populated by interesting characters (a fish-headed woman who took a diving helmet off and on, a couple making out in the back aisle, a group of penguins, anachronistically–napoleon dynamite and his brother….) there was no sound and only minimal movement, but it was a great intro the movie.

then the film began (after 2 previews and no annoying mini film with lasers reminding us to turn off our cell phones and please buy giant popcorn) and … loved it! for me, a good collection of short films generally has some that i love and some that are meh and some that are not favorites, but leans more heavily towards delight and smiles than disgust or confusion. this was a good collection. i was especially charmed by a stop action film called western spaghetti (click to see the film in its entirety on youtube) and two shorts by matthew walker–one called “operator” in which a guy calls 411 and asks for god’s phone number and the other called “john and karen” where a giant polar bear apologizes to his very tiny penguin girlfriend. (you can see a small clip here–click on “work”

a lot of the films in this compilation were extremely short (a few minutes or less) and encompassed a wide variety of animation styles and it was just visually delicious. we may have to purchase this one….

Posted in fun stuff, stuff that makes me smile | 1 Comment
08
Jul, 2008

a gift for a friend.

so, sometime back in february, i had this e-mail conversation with a friend:

me: “which of these do you like best?

http://www.seymour.k12.wi.us/rle/art/images/artists/Jasper-Johns.jpg

http://www.hencethe.com/images/art/big/JasperJohnsGrey.jpg

http://home.att.net/~jamestata/johns_green_target.jpg

http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Jasper-Johns/Target-1974-Print-C10071319.jpeg

http://www.masterworksfineart.com/inventory/johns/1web.jpg

no reason, just curious. la, la, la….

a: It would definitely be between the first two… (in my opinion, of course…).. probably the second one I like the best. The green target is pretty rad too…

me: okay, one more question–what aspect of the first two do you like? colors? the boxes with things inside? the texture?

a: on the first one, the compliment of the turquiose and deep burnt red color are intitially what stand out and make me like it. along with that, the way that it is not a high contrast piece, – the color values and design is consistent throughout- but it still has a three dimensional feel to it. then of course, what i like about all of these types of jasper johns works, the graphic/mass produced nature of typeset letters/numbers, contrasted against the painterly nature of the pigments and brushtrokes.

with the second, again, i like that it is overall almost monotonous, but when you look closely it has so many colors, textures, etc coming together to form that overall grey. and the colors are so gorgeous, rich golds and sea blues, not muddy at all. and again, the contrast of the smooshy paints coming together to form these repetetive manmade typeset letters/numbers.

me: did you go to art school or something? can you describe wine and music that descriptively too? :)

a: ha ha…actually, i SUCK at the usual artsy fartsy critique babble. i think i still have a book around here somewhere about how to talk that way… honestly though, its probably just a learned/acquired “dialect” just like the mumbo jumbo jargon/dialect of any arena.

what i’d really like to say about jasper johns early works is that they remind me of frosting and when i look at them i just want to simultaneously take a bite and roll around in them.

me: THAT sounds more like you! plus, it makes me hungry and isn’t a bad description of his artwork either.
Did you see that there was a Jasper John’s print exhibit in Madison until the middle of April?”

(okay, back to the post and not e-mail quotes anymore)

that last line was my sneaky way of explaining away why i would have brought up a conversation about her favorite artist out of thin air, but the real reason was that the exhibit had inspired me. i saw his works and thought to myself… hmm…. rows of square-like-shapes…. quilt-y! and i was on a mission to see if i could replicate one of his paintings for her in a quilt. so, with the feedback above, i took computer print-outs of the first two paintings (the numbers one and the letters one) to the fabric store and began searching through the batiks. if one of the main characteristics of these paintings was the “painterly nature of the pigments and brushstrokes” then i couldn’t just work with solids or regular prints. batiks fit the bill perfectly. i had less trouble finding fabrics that seemed to reflect the colors in the alphabet painting than the number painting, so i decided to go with that one and i purchased these prints (and a few more):

then i did lots of squishy math and decided to use 4″x5″ blocks and do 16 rows of 13 blocks each row (in the end, i actually changed it to 15 x 13 because it looked too long).

after cutting them out, the first task was to lay out the blocks in the least jarring pattern–making them look almost as though they are variations of the same fabric (i seem to have misplaced all of those “in-process” photos, but you’ll see the effects later, don’t worry). then came the hard part. the letters. there’s probably an easier way to do this, but please don’t tell me now as i’m not planning to repeat this quilt any time soon and knowing just how much time i could have saved will just fill me with useless regret. here’s the process i used:

1. find a font i liked for this project and figure out what size it needed to be to be in scale.

2. print out 8 copies of every letter, in mirror image.

3. roughly cut out each letter (there was too much white space and waste around each letter otherwise).

4. glue each letter onto the paper part of some iron-on stuff (can’t remember the brand name).

5. roughly cut out each letter again, this time with iron-on stuff on one side.

6. lightly iron the letters onto batik fabrics.

7. carefully cut out each letter (i especially began to hate the letter “g” during this process. i also bought a new pair of scissors and had to use sandpaper to alter the plastic handles which had a very sharp ridge where the mold came together and had rubbed a sore on my thumb. a surprising oversight in gingher scissors!)

8. strategically placed the letters onto the squares (and tried to discourage my cat from rolling around on this precarious arrangement).

9. ironed the letters firmly onto the fabric squares, stacking them in careful order as i went along.

10. the fun part. applique! i zig-zag stitched around each letter. this part took awhile (a bit of an understatement). i listened to two different looooong audiobooks during this process.

when the letters were finally all done, the rest came together rather quickly. i stitched the blocks into rows, and the rows into a quilt top. but i needed a back. what sort of back should i use? i waffled between several different options, and finally decided to use a solid color with a pieced strip in the middle. after trying a few things, i remembered that i still had one row of batik blocks cut out (remember reducing the quilt length from 16 to 15 rows?) that i hadn’t used yet. i also wanted to somewhere on the quilt give some sort of credit to the artist who inspired this whole crazy design, so i went to research the title of the painting. various sites listed the title as “gray alphabet” “grey alphabet” “gray alphabets” etc. and when i went back to the quilt, i realized that i had just enough blocks to spell out the title. oh dear. this also meant making more letters! sigh. i really wanted to make sure i had the title right, and after some research (including calling the menil collection in houston where the painting is currently housed) i determined that “gray alphabets” was the most correct variation. i cranked out the last 13 letters for this quilt and soon the back was ready to go. i pin-basted the whole thing together with the batting and stitched-in-the-ditch around each block (to emphasize the grid). i then made my own binding (first time i’ve tried that for a quilt!) and stitched it on by machine. i get so impatient near the end of a quilt. i just want to be done and i can’t be bothered to hand stitch anything as interminably long as the binding. luckily, i kept reminding myself, jasper johns’ paintings aren’t neat and tidy, so if there are some rough edges and imperfections, that just adds to the homage, right?

finally, it was finished. i washed it to get some good quilty wrinkles going on, then took it to a friend’s light-filled art studio to photograph it. wanna see?

i almost forgot to photograph the back until my artist friend asked to see it!

here’s mr. happy stuff’s long-suffering feet (and two fingers) holding the quilt up so we didn’t have to thumbtack it to the wall again.

and here is the quilt beside the inspiration painting:

when i got done, i realized that my print out of the painting had been quite a lot darker than the on-screen version, but i figure that’s also probably rather different than the in-person colors, so i’ve decided not to care too much about that. i love the overall effect of the quilt. i love how most of the letters are very subtle against the background and i love the way the batiks blend into each other and i do love the shape of the letters themselves (i always love words, type, and letters in art) and i also love that my version can be cuddled up with on the couch and tossed into the washing machine whenever necessary.

i didn’t even take the time to wrap the quilt. i just bundled it into the only box in my house that fit and taped it up (i had some fancy packing tape that made it sort of look like gift wrap) and shipped it off to my friend with a note to call me immediately upon receipt. she graciously complied and even though i’d just given her a quilt in the middle of the dog days of summer, she did not complain about my poor timing (including the fact that it was late even for her half birthday), she just told me how much she loved it. and that’s really all the thanks i need. i’m so glad she likes it. (and if she had any suspicions about my “secret project” all this time, she didn’t let on. what a great friend.)

i think it’s maybe my next quilt will have lots of really large blocks. and no applique.

Posted in crafty stuff | 15 Comments
08
Jul, 2008

we’re not in kansas anymore…

but we were last weekend!  we had a fun time visiting mr. h-s’s family (although i very much regret that i seem to have forgotten to photograph any people–only other random stuff.  what was i thinking?!) and chatting about quilting and family news and going to a local farmer’s market and shopping for fabric (i’ll show you a picture of my loot later).

of course, we played our traditional marathon-length games of hand and foot (some of the rules in that link look familiar, others do not, but you get the general idea).  i think i came in last place for all of the different rounds we played, but i still managed to enjoy myself.*

our ride home last night saw some very interesting and exciting weather.  as we pulled into dubuque, my weather-watching husband noted on his iphone that a storm was on the way.  we decided to go ahead and stop for some dinner to see how the storm would develop.  have i told you how much i love the fact that my husband is a weather-watching fiend?  my whole life, i’ve been terrified of tornadoes.  i used to cry during tornado drills in elementary school because i always thought there really was a tornado and that it was going to blow my house away and i’d never see my family again.  how reassuring that i now live with a man who has lived through at least one really bad tornado and his memory of the event is that he and his classmates were on their way home from a high school band competition and the bus pulled off to the side of the road and everyone had to get out and lie in the ditch and while some of his classmates wisely went low and responsibly covered their heads, my husband (and likely some of his buddies) lay on the edge of the ditch, chins propped on hands, watching the storm unfold on the horizon.  now, i trust that he knows when a tornado is likely to come and when it’s “just” a thunderstorm or hail or whatever.  i find that very reassuring.  anyway, back to my story.  after our dinner was consumed, the storm hadn’t really moved all that much and it wasn’t even raining yet, so we decided to head out and try to make it home.  check out these funky clouds:

(yes, that’s clouds, not mountains)

the color was amazing (all of these photos are straight out of the camera)

how ominous!

then the rain hit:

and the lightning flashed:

we did pull over into a dairy queen parking lot for a few minutes at one point when it looked like large hail might develop, but when it remained just heavy rain, we headed back out into the storm.  we made it home safely, no mishaps.  and even though there was this fantastic storm going on, there were still tons of flickering fireflies all over the fields.  (i think you can maybe even see some in that ominous picture three photos up from the bottom.)  that was probably one of my favorite parts of the driving on this trip.  in rural wisconsin/iowa, around twilight, the fields are just popping with tiny lightning bugs.  quintessential summer.  lightning and lightning bugs.

*for one thing, in the very first hand of the very first game, i managed to go out right before my father-in-law was able to play his foot.  he’d just picked it up the turn before (he’d had to discard to get into it, so he had to wait until the next turn to play the cards down) and after looking through the cards had waggled his finger at me and told me, “you’d better not go out this turn!”  now, if you knew my father-in-law, you would understand the sweet poetic justice of me doing exactly that and sticking him with a boatload of points.  he has done the same thing to me multitudinous times and this was the first time i’d ever been able to turn the tables on him.  wheeeee!

p.s. for another, completely unrelated (and very cute) series of photos by me, see this blog post.  i love it!

Posted in stuff that makes me smile, summer, trip down memory lane | Comments Off on we’re not in kansas anymore…
05
Jul, 2008

badaboom!

this year, we’re spending fourth of july weekend with my parents-in-law.  they live in small town america that’s too small to have their own big fireworks display, so instead, lots of local families shoot off their own fireworks.  we took a walk around the neighborhood last night (which was, at times, slightly terrifying) and were surrounded by booms and crackles and clouds of gunpowder smoke.  we eventually were walking through a newer development that had less people living there yet and no trees, so i took the opportunity, to turn around and look back over the town.  fireworks bloomed over the treetops from all over the several block area.  we’re also in a very flat part of the country, so we could see fireworks across the horizon as well from several miles away.  it gave a very different feel than other fireworks displays i’ve seen.  once i got past my fear of being hit in the head with a firework, it was fun!

most of the evidence had been cleaned up by the next morning, but i found a few little colorful pieces this morning during my run.

Posted in stuff that makes me smile, summer | Comments Off on badaboom!
01
Jul, 2008

worm racing. yep. real worms.

this morning on my way to work, i stopped and bought this:

it’s a package of 50 (who counts these? and why did they have to ship them from tennessee?) racing red worms. well, actually, they didn’t know they were headed for the races, but i’ll bet they prefer that fate to the one on the front of their package.

i heard about worm racing for the first time a few years back. a fellow librarian was telling me that worm racing was so popular at her library that they do it every year. “real worms?” i asked, “of course!” she replied. and there began my education into the fascinating concept of worm racing. this librarian suggested i use red worms, but when i stopped at the bait shop this morning, i thought i’d get the shop clerk’s opinion. he suggested that night crawlers would probably be faster and stronger and when he showed me the worms, i agreed that they did indeed look bigger, stronger and faster, but since this was my first worm race (and since the shop clerk had never raced worms himself) i decided to go with the standard red worms.* aren’t they cute?

if you’re curious about the mechanics of a worm race, here are a few illustrative photos:

a damp surface helps them to move, but be careful not to drown your worm.

feel free to cheer your worm on as he/she journeys from the small circle towards the outer ring, but do not touch your worm! (that’s cheating.)

after the races were over (there were table champions and then a final championship, but no prizes were awarded to the winners) kids also had the opportunity to race paper worms (the ingredients are a strip of heavy paper, two pennies and a drinking straw. if you want more details, e-mail me.) and everyone received a “certificate of worm ownership” (unless they decided not to keep their worm and instead have me return it to the wild. i hope tennessee worms can survive a wisconsin winter….) which was my favorite part of the whole program because i got to hear what they’d named their worms. names ran the gamut from the expected “willie” “william” “wiggles” “squiggly” and “jiggly” to the pop reference “larry boy” and finally the surprisingly ordinary, including “bob” “emma” and “tim.” oh, and one worm named “long boy” which i mis-heard as “lawn boy.” the worm owner’s mother corrected my spelling, but admitted that she liked “lawn boy” better. despite the large crowd for this type of program (over 50 in our not-too-large meeting room) everyone seemed to have a wonderful time (despite one girl’s tears when her worm lost a race). and one parent thought it would be a brilliant birthday party activity for, say, 4 year old boys. me? i enjoyed the event enough that i’ll probably do it again whenever the summer library program theme lends itself to worms. maybe in 2010.

*i’m glad i did. turns out, for this type of program, you don’t really want a super fast worm. you need a worm that is somewhat motivated to move, but isn’t strong enough to escape a dixie cup or the timid grasp of a squeamish child.

*update 5/13:  there are now paper worm racing instruction here!*

Posted in fun stuff, library stuff | 12 Comments