i'll grant you three ships if you bring me back gold
Yesterday I made nineteen Spanish sailor hats out of black construction paper for my daughter's third grade Columbus Day play. I asked my sister if I could lend a most excellent queen costume she made a few years ago to the class for the part of Queen Isabella. She said fine, but when the costume box came out, the fur trim had been chewed off of her highness' royal cape by Peg's Jack Russell terrier.
"Oh, that's what Dottie chewed," she said. "I knew she got into something, but I didn't realize it was the exact costume we needed."
Let me tell you, Peg's costume box is the thing legends are made of; it is so wonderous and extensive. Peg is a sport, and so good at costume-making, that last night she went to Wal-Mart, purchased more fur, along with a glue gun and some big fake jewels and some styrofoam to make a scepter. This is all based on my casual off-hand comment to my daughter's classmate that I might have a very good queen costume she could borrow. No problem. Just a little errand at dinnertime with four kids in-tow. She makes it seem that that is exactly the way she was going to be spending her time anyhow, because it is "fun"...and "easy."...those being her words, not always mine.
Last year when my son told me he wanted to be an exploding volcano for Halloween, I gave it a try. "That's a great idea," said Peg when I mentioned it to her beforehand. "You know," she said, "Just make a mountain/cone-shaped kind of thingy from some paper and wire; wear it like a sandwich board sign; make a cone for a hat, make some flowing lava from some felt; glue it on; put some fiber-optic lights coming out the top. I like that idea so much I may do that one next year for one of my kids", she said. Okay. Away I went to give it my best shot. Now, remember, my name starts with "P" for "procrastinate," so it was October 30th by then. Well, about five hours later my son and I had made a mountain with an erupting top hat that was so heavy we had to attach it to his bike helmet for support underneath, and he couldn't wear it without leaning his head way to one side. Besides that, it wasn't looking so good overall, he couldn't move well or sit down in it, and I was getting "annoyitated," as my son says. It was a lesson for me to learn on how to cut my losses and move on and have fun anyway. I think the kids went trick-or-treating dressed as hobos with burnt-cork beards on their faces and some last-minute raggedy clothes. (This being a costume I remember from my own childhood, and now I understand a little better where mom and dad were coming from on that one).
... So this morning we attached the new fur to Queen Isabella's cape. Peg whipped out a crown made from a cardboard egg carton she spray painted silver, and I attached metalic lace trim and the jewels. We visited and had fun. At the same time we did a couple of loads of laundry, she took care of her 4 month old baby, and I got glue from the glue gun in places it didn't need to be while she razzed me on my technique and showed me how to whip that gun away real fast so I didn't trail little glue strings everywhere. Tonight I'll make twenty-one more sailor hats for the other third grade class in between dinner, helping with homework, and watching the presidential debate.
...."Hey honey, how was your day? What'd'ya do today?"....
I can't say enough times how cool my sister is, and how thankful I am for the time we spend together.
