Category — Show and Tell

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

While I was rearranging things in the living room, I found our old mancala board.  Josh refuses to play with me anymore because he never wins.  And I’m not just saying this to make him feel better–he truly isn’t that bad a player.  It’s just that I am fucking awesome.

I am to mancala what Bobby Fischer was to chess.  I literally could make you sick with my mad mancala skillz.  People start weeping when I play.  Weeping with the enormity of watching the brilliance unfold.

I taught the twins how to play, just so I could have someone to play against.  The ChickieNob tires quickly of the game and needs to get up and dance in between each move.  But the Wolvog (pardon, Jancefer Birdie) has got the ‘cala (which is what we call that frenzy that overtakes the body when it gets too close to those beautiful flat marbles).

On his second day of playing mancala, he beat me.  Yes, I was paying attention.  Yes, I was trying hard.  No, I didn’t throw the game.  He really beat my ass across the mancala board and back.  I photographed him dancing around the hallway by the mancala board and emailed it to Josh.  It only took 36 hours for the student to become the master.

If you want to play mancala online, I’ve found a decent site.  Though I kick the computer’s ass almost every time, even on the advance level.  Because I’m just that good.  The proof is in the picture.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Returning to the idea of colour, I am absolutely in love with paint samples.  Not paint; just paint samples.  I mean, I like paint on my walls, but I love picking up paint samples and keeping them on my desk.  Paint samples for the sake of paint samples–as their own entity and not as a means to helping make a decision.

Am I the only one who makes an outing out of going to the paint store and bringing home samples just to make herself happy?

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

I was supposed to be Vashti for Purim, but once I put on the costume a few minutes before we were supposed to leave the house, I realized that I was going to be freezing for the rest of the day.  I debated this out for a moment with Josh and I finally admitted that the only other costume I could think of was a slacker a la Reality Bites.  In other words, our life in the 90s.

Josh said he would dress up too.  I ran upstairs and put on a pair of torn jeans, a t-shirt layered over long underwear, and a flannel wrapped around my waist.  A dug out an old pair of steel-toed Docs and slumped down on the sofa while Josh went to change, moaning to the ChickieNob, “I’m so bored.”  Josh came back in a t-shirt that read “wage slave,” a flannel, stained jeans and Chucks.  We went out to my parent’s house to get some help with the ChickieNob’s costume which had pretty much taken over our lives for several days.

As we were walking down the stairs, my mother looked at my scuffed shoes and said, “Melissa!  Polish your shoes.  You look like a slob.”

“But it’s my costume,” I told her, unsure how she could miss the brilliance of my slacker outfit.  “They’re not my normal shoes.”

“How am I supposed to know that’s your costume when you pretty much dress like that all the time?”

Good question.  I would like it stated for the record that I only utilize 80% of this costume on a daily basis.  My jeans are never ripped on a normal day.  I haven’t had a flannel touch this body since 1997.  And I usually wear faux-fur boots, not Docs.  See, it was a costume–not my normal clothes.

When we got to shul, our friend looked at us and said, “you guys didn’t come in costume?”

“We’re in costume!” I exclaimed.  “This is a costume.  We’re 90s slackers.”

“But you look like this every single freakin’ day.”

Perhaps we were not as clever as we thought.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

On Tuesday, I went into the post office to mail my first batch of mishloach manot and I brought the postal workers their annual basket of cookies and candies.  I asked if Joel was working because I knew he always looked forward to the hamantaschen and had asked back in January if it was getting close to Purim.  “He retired,” the postal worker admitted.  “Two weeks ago.”

She pointed out that even the retired still have to pick up their daily mail, so she put the hamantaschen in his mailbox.  But it really blew my mind that he wouldn’t be there anymore when I came in to pick up my mail or send a package.  I don’t have a picture of Joel, so this rendering in Microsoft Paint will have to suffice.

Just to let you know the sort of guy Joel is, when we did the March of Dimes walk and wore the Team Lennox and  Zoë t-shirts, I went to mail them (after I washed them, after I washed them; I want it noted that I did not send Allison skanky shirts) and told Joel how special and irreplaceable they were and he left his station to walk them through the whole mailing process in the backroom and place them directly on the mail truck so he could promise me that the package didn’t get lost on its way out of the facility.  How many people would do that?  He would tell me dirty Tiger Woods jokes when I came in to get my mail.  He would give me extra boxes to fill at home so I didn’t have to package things at the post office.  And he always gave me free tape from his stash of post office tape even though I was supposed to bring my own adhesive.

He was a great postal worker and I’m sorry that he won’t be there in the morning anymore when I go to pick up my mail, but I hope he enjoys retirement and does fantastic things and still gets to enjoy the hamantaschen when he comes to pick up his own letters.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Yesterday, I went to buy material for the ChickieNob and Wolvog’s Purim costumes.  Josh and I picked their costumes until they were two and we went with ideas that go together.  One year, they were Jif peanut butter and a Hershey bar.  The next year, they were fish aquariums that had the twin fin-fin fish from Lucy Cousin’s Hooray for Fish.  When they were two, they wanted to be Mordechai and Queen Esther.  And then the symmetry fell off the cliff.

The next year, the ChickieNob designed a gown with me, a two-toned pink number with a long train that could be bustled as she ran around the playground.  She announced that she would be Queen Esther until she was 100 years old and so far, she has been true to that vision.  The Wolvog said he wanted to be an iPhone.  I tried to see a way these two costumes could go together.  Was he the Queen’s iPhone, and was there a way to put that little boy in a holster and stick him to his sister’s hip?  No?  He was going to be a walking, talking iPhone.  So be it.

Last year, they wanted to wear those same costumes again, but this year, it was time to design new ones.  The ChickieNob and I sat down at the kitchen table and spent 45 minutes designing a turquoise, floor-length gown, a slip dress with enormous sleeves and paste diamonds sewn into the bodice.  A taffeta open overskirt with pleats to make it extend as far as possible from the body.  A headdress fit for a Middle Eastern princess.  And what do you want to be, Wolvog?

He barely looked up from whatever he was doing and grunted one word, “Yoda.”

I went to the store and bought yards of turquoise material, spent the better part of an hour feeling different taffetas and organzas.  The saleswoman delighted in debating out the pros and cons of each fabric, coveting with me the gorgeous turquoise beaded silk that sold for $129 a yard.  After she had painstakingly cut out the different exquisite fabrics that made up the ChickieNob’s costume, she asked, “anything else?”

Um…a yard and a half of the most Yoda-looking brown polar fleece please?

I swear we didn’t aim to raise gender stereotypes.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.