Tools of the trade

You know how people say things that just stick out in your memory? I work with characters, each "unique" in her own way. Once a week, I assemble them all in a large conference room to get my story straight on where publications are, where they're going, and how soon we expect impact. This is where projects that you will someday come to know and love are named with their own individual nicknames like "Frankensweater" for a sweater that was assembled by a whole team of pattern testers in the effort to make a deadline...not the premium plan for model-making but we do what we must. We usually only do this for extreme cases...the team-stitch approach and the nickname.

This week we had a bunch (passel, flock, herd, murder...what's a big group of afghans called?) of afghans coming in that had to be turned right around to get to photography because they were behind schedule (it's kind of a theme around here, but not our doing this time). Quilts are easy to rush to photography. Basically, we pick the stack up and move it (after we trim some loose ends sometimes). Afghans...not so much. They must be pinned to within an inch of their lived to a blocking board (because the suckers start out a little rumpled), steamed, and then cooled, and then unpinned, tagged, folded, and stacked. Then we pick up the stack and move it to photography. Oh, well, and if there's fringe, we have to fork the fringe. "Forking the fringe" is one of my new favorite phrases. It's not as exciting as it sounds...you take a plastic fork and comb out the fringe and then trim it. "Forking the fringe" sounds so much more exciting, right? And now I'm reminded of a movie quote..."You know what's a weird word? Fork. Someone ate my whole pie. I don't know how that happened!" I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who's seen this movie enough to have it memorized. Pop culture strikes again.

LA's Rock Stars

And the photos you've all been waiting for (I have a kazillion photos so I figured 2 posts would be better than one and that means I'm posting Friday early. It's never too early to celebrate Friday, right? As I am an equal opportunity offender, I thought I'd post all the rock star photos today. I usually have to chase down people to get shots of them, but I am a diabolical genius and now I have photos of several dressed for the par-tay. I'm sure the captions are going to get away from the photos. Maybe this will be like a game!

Our guest of honor: Sandra and some super famous rock star that dropped in for the day with her orange guitar. She's a total rock genius and actually painted her rock like an orange (see yesterday).


Design girls: Lori and Kim with Becky looking on. How did I miss Anne?


The Artists formerly known as Art; Rhonda, the shy one with the guitar, is in charge of that bunch. And she sings too.


Mundane Jane: Here she is with her little turtle friend.


The management: Here we are. We also go to meetings.


The Beach Boys...or Girls: OK so here we have quilters Jean and Frances, artist Lora (see Picasso's rock yesterday) and MJ. They were just looking for an excuse to wear shorts and flip flops to work. I admire that about them.


They're Crafty: Christina, Laura, and Kathy pose in the lunch line. They got some ink just for the party. Rock on.


Yes, the letters are sticking: And this is the reason I feel justified in posting these photos. If I'll put one up of me, looking like this, then I feel OK about putting up nice pictures of everyone else. I'm not sure what to think about the fact that I got so many compliments while I was dressed this way. It must be all the makeup. Maybe I should actually put some on when I come in to work. I think I look more like Bad Sandy (Tell me about it, stud) without the cigarette.

Party Like A Rock Star

I've decided to add a little "pop" to my blog so that when I say something like "Now I have that song 'Party Like a Rock Star' running around in my head...", maybe I won't get are-you-an-alien looks from my friends. Thus the video post. It actually accomplishes other "pop" things...Family Guy cartoon, Shop Boyz, and Brian (the dog) and Stewie (the baby) references should all be covered if I can find a way to work it into conversation. That escapes me right now, but I'm involved in some strange conversations sometimes.




So...the real reason for the post. A rockin' retirement party for Sandra Case, our VP/Editor-in-Chief. After 23 years, she's retiring and we're going to miss her! So I've previously shown how Lesiure Arts parties...this time, there's a rock theme...rocks for her garden, rock star dress, rock music playing. Apparently it takes only 2 things to get me to wear a costume to work...1. the possibility of incorporating jeans into my costume and 2. a friend who'll dress up, too. As I had both this time, I am "Rock Royalty" until the letters fall off of my shirt. I just know it's going to happen. So, for your enjoyment, here are some rock pictures.

Thank you, MTV

This post is the result of a lunch conversation on Monday. My quilt posse was there, Mundane Jane, and Mary (who needs a better blog handle Mary2Lemons, or Dos Limones for international flair? I'm not sure.) And as the conversation goes, somehow, the Sir Mixalot song "Baby Got Back" comes up. And I am disturbed. Not because of the conversation, but because I immediately know who, what, when and how about the song while others wonder what MJ is talking about. Well, that and because now that stupid song won't leave my head. I think that wondering what MJ is talking about is fairly common, but I'm either a whole generation away or I'm a total pop culture idiot savant (definition: person who is mentally retarded in general but who displays remarkable aptitude in some limited field (usually involving memory).
There are probably a couple of extenuating circumstances that make it slightly better, a little more OK that I know these things...
1. In 1992, MTV was still a big part of my life. Sir Mixalot's life too.
2. I have a low entertainment threshold. I'm not to the point where I actually spend my Sunday afternoons surfing YouTube looking for dancing cats or anything like that. Cute Overload is my cute animal site of choice. But all it takes to entertain me is to turn on the 100 Greatest Songs of the 80s. And I know that if I work "Living On A Prayer" into conversation that I'm likely to get only a slightly better response than "Baby Got Back." Although when we illustrated Sir Mixalot's song, my more high-brow friends told me that if "Baby Got Back" had started playing in their house, they would have turned it off. I can still sing it 15 years later (as well as nearly 100% of the remaining 99 songs). So instead of risking the offense of others, I'm posting this Bon Jovi classic, ranked the #1 song of the 80s.