GIRL AND CHICKEN

Before we go any further down this road, it would probably serve the process to begin with some background of my beginning years, way back in the last century.  I've read somewhere that the formative years are those before the age of seven.  The die is cast, and the rest will follow whatever path has been mapped out by things that happen in those first critical seven years.  Here's a picture of me six years into the process.

“Girl And Chicken” … a mid-twentieth century early black-and-white photograph, circa. 1948, probably taken with a commonly used “Brownie”.  Cost a buck-ninety eight, film was what, 35 cents or something … 

Anyway, here I am with my first pet … a rooster, one of those Woolworth’s Easter peeps that refused to die.  He was tame, I kid you not.  He knew his name, which is way more than I am prepared to say about his owner at that same time.  Can you imagine?  A CHICKEN???  His name was Wacky.  Don’t ask.  He used to ride on the handlebars of my bicycle.  There we'd go, up and down the sidewalk on my street.  He never even pooped on me, unlike a number of seagulls I have known over the years.  Which are, come to think of it, not unlike a lot of the men I’ve known.  But I digress.  Another story for another time.

A chicken.  Jeezuz.  What kind of a mother gets her kid a chicken??  I mean, a hamster, goldfish, even a rabbit … but a CHICKEN?  I was fucked from the get-go.

Okay, so I got this chicken.  He was dyed pink, which means someone really screwed up, but whatever, I don’t think his sexuality was threatened in the least, considering he crowed like a sonofabitch every morning between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m.  See, my Grandpa, who was a farmer at heart, built him a wonderful chicken cage right beside our house in the side yard.  Wacky grew up into a big honking white leghorn, and became the neighborhood nuisance.  I believe someone blew the whistle on poor Wacky.

I came home from school one fateful day, only to discover that my beloved pet had been taken “out in the country, to a farm, where he’ll be happy.”  Uh-huh.  Okey-dokey.  And we’re having WHAT for dinner??  Don’t think so, check, please. 

So:  Upon careful consideration of the facts as set forth above, I’ve decided that this little episode on the bumpy road of life is exactly what is meant by the saying, “Bought the farm.”  Wacky went to a farm.  Nope.  Wacky bought the farm. 

Requiescat in pacem, Wacky.  You were a good chicken.

Still Crazy After All These Years

For those of you who have followed me on Crone Henge, thank you and welcome to my very own blog.  Actually, I used to have a blog here (Geriatric Anarchist Blues) but due to a move here and an e-mail change there, I can no longer access it.  Who remembers old e-mail addresses?  At this stage of the game, I struggle to remember lunch.  Today.  

So, having spent the best part of the last hour fighting technology and Google+, here I am.  I think.  Or.  I think.  Therefore I am.  Argh, as Snoopy used to say.  

Now I've re-dipped my oar into these waters, I find I have nothing much to say tonight.  Having made it into the boat and pushed away from the dock is its own reward for now.

As introduction (or reminder to those who know me), I am Orb Weaver, follower of Arachne, consummate lover of all things fiber.  It has been a lifetime obsession, this love of warp and weft, of silk and wool and fine cottons, honing my skills, paying attention to details such as matching plaids or stripes, insuring a drape on the bias falls gracefully, naturally.  Think of old movie stars in luxury gowns ... Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth ... then think of designers ... Edith Head, Orry-Kelly, Travis Banton.  

When other little girls were dressing Barbie, I was drawing dresses.  When my peers raided the local department store for the latest Bobbie Brooks sweaters or Pendleton wool skirts, I was cutting into my newest piece of fabric, making something I was sure no one else would have.  When I entered the working world, I could wear a different outfit every day for a month or more, every piece a product of late nights and a smokin' hot Singer.  The money I saved on off-the-rack went into shoes and bags.  There is nothing ... repeat, nothing ... like the smell of new leather.  Unless it's the feel of uncut silk and wool, surrendering to my pinking shears and pins, reborn from bolt to boutique.

Now I'm retired, and have no use for a wardrobe.  I still subscribe to Vogue to get my monthly fix of fashion.  I lust after Lauren, drool over Dior, and wish fervently I could still wear pencil skirts and silk shirts without looking like something out of a Sondheim musical.  

The need to create never quite goes away, so these past years I have turned my thimble to quilting.  Yes, that thing your grandmother did.  The ridiculous process of taking a perfectly good, large piece of material, cutting it up into small pieces, and then putting the pieces together (with those from other perfectly good, large pieces of material, cut up into small pieces) and ending up with a perfectly good, large piece of material called a quilt.  Go figure.

This is, I believe, what life is: the cutting up of big things into smaller, more manageable pieces, shuffling them around and creating something better, or at least, something beautiful.  We are constantly shifting, matching, choosing, discarding, and ultimately choosing what makes us happy.  It is the bed our mothers warned us about, in which we are forced to lie, for better or for worse.  Or not.

And in the meantime, I'll be haunting fabric stores, cruising web sites in the dark of night, dreaming my dreams, weaving my tales.  Join me.  We'll have fun.