Point #44-A match made in Disney…

The amount of time that has passed since I last posted is downright embarrassing, but I have semi-good reason: I got married! Now don’t worry…all the groovy crafty things I have been talking about for the wedding were used or will still be used for the upcoming more public nuptials. However, my husband (almost six months on, I am still enjoying saying that) and I decided to take the plunge in a private (sort of) ceremony at (drumroll) Disney World. Furthermore, we decided to make it (descending scale slidewhistle) on the downlow upon Disney’s magnificent (clown horn)…monorail? Yup. You read that correctly, my dear readers: monorail.

I will explain.

We have been planning this wedding in one form or another for ages, seemingly no closer to our goal than when we started. One obstacle or another cropped up, leaving us frustrated and just wanting to get it done. But a trip to City Hall seemed no more appealing. One night, I was having a bad time of things with various drama with family and friends, and was clinging to Josh, knowing that whatever else was going wrong in my life, that I felt secure and complete with him. I looked at him and said, “Can we please just get married soon? We’ll do the big wedding later, let’s just run off and get married.” Without hesitation, he said “When?” “Soon…just…soon.” “Do you want to run away to Disney and get married there?” Now it was my turn to show no hesitation: “Absolutely.”

We decided on a few weeks, just about six, hence so as to be able to plan a tiny honeymoon, or “Minni-moon”-I’m so funny- for the same weekend. We resolved to tell no one save for the extremely few people we were inviting, our families, and a select number of others. Those select others were really for practical purposes, so in essence, no one knew leading up to the big day. We teased what was to come in the form of an ambiguous countdown that wasn’t really a countdown and the occasional monorail reference. This included a clip of The Simpsons singing the Monorail Song…this song remains embedded in my brain to this day when I go on the monorail.

Oh yes…the monorail.

The discussion naturally came up as to where this lovely event would take place. I won’t lie. This was not an “authorised” happening. Look, weddings at the Diz are wonderful and magical and awesome and can easily cost more than a house. Even the little getaway type weddings start at five large and that was for about the number of guests we were looking at…so a thousand dollars a guest. I don’t like anyone, including myself, that much. Given the whole point of the venture was to save money, I couldn’t see it. And here is the plain truth: I drop a lot of money at the House of Mouse and the annual pass we ended up getting (more on that later), I think made it worthwhile to them. They didn’t have to do anything, and we dropped cash the whole weekend. Win/win. So with our need to be covert in mind, where to have the very short, non-intrusive ceremony? The beach at the Polynesian was discussed and was pretty much the plan initially. Beautiful, romantic, bar nearby, and of course the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom. Perfect. We would just need to find a sufficiently secluded spot so as not to be marched to Disney jail in the process. We would never escape.

**Edit for the benefit of some of the people who have commented on other forums about this *coughDISBoardscough* This is a humour blog and I exaggerate for the sake of comedic effect. I did not think we would be thrown into any pokey, Disney or otherwise. We actually got the lay of the land before doing this, and given that we selected a place that was not where official Disney weddings would take place, there was no problem with us doing this. **

We planned and planned and still my worries about doing this on the beach persisted. I truly didn’t want to disturb anyone or cause a fuss; I just wanted to get married discreetly. I was on the verge of saying, let’s just get married in the room of our off-site hotel and then enjoy the Minni-moon at the parks the next two days. Then Josh had a brainstorm. He fully expected to be shut down and me utterly poo-poo the idea, but he greatly underestimated my desire to be weird.

What if we just got all dolled up and sidled onto the monorail to Epcot? Do it early enough and we could still hit the bar at the Poly for a drink and the fireworks, and then head to Atlantic Dancehall for our “reception”? Not only was this idea a) less intrusive for hotel guests and b) less likely to cause the aforementioned toss into the Disney pokey, but also c) wicked freakin’cool! Who gets married on the monorail? We do, suckas.

The day arrived and after the flurry of getting ready and making our way to the Polynesian to park (ssh, don’t tell) to walk to the TTC (during which my bozo friends and soon-to-be-husband kept singing the Monorail Song), we assembled at the monorail station to wait for our mobile chapel to arrive. We JUST missed the infamous “TRONorail” (one monorail adwrapped to advertise the new TRON movie), but that was ok. Monorail Yellow rolled up about five or ten minutes later; I could tell the wait was a little nervewracking for Josh, who, unlike me, has never been married before. We got a few congratulations from monorail cast members at the platform seeing our very obviously celebratory clothing. I wore a purple Renaissance festival type dress, my hair in twin buns, each adorned with a tiny tiara, ribbons trailing behind, and held a handmade bouquet made of sheet music. Josh wore a purple button down shirt, with a matching boutonniere. We accepted the congratulations without further commentary, not mentioning that we were about to do the deed on their monorail.

All prettied up!

Getting ready together and a jump start on the smooch.

We all scrambled into a car, and our friends, including our friend Joy, who is both a ULC minister, as well as a minister of the Church of the Latter-Day Dude (I swear I am not making this up), all got places on the bench seat while we took places standing in front of them, holding onto the poles so our married life did not begin with us tumbled in an undignified fashion on the floor. We had been concerned about the sound in the car, and I had planned to do the deed during a stretch where the “monorail spiel” goes quiet for about 4-5 minutes. We were pleasantly surprised to hear that the speaker was uncharacteristically out and so the volume was low enough that we could be heard over it.

The ceremony itself was the most basic, straightforward one I could find…with a few additions. We vowed to love, honour, and cherish each other, taking each other’s hands and standing clear of the doors as long as we both lived. After Joy pronounced us husband and wife, by the power vested in her by the state of Florida and Mickey Mouse, we had the traditional kiss…to the enormous cheers of the other monorail riders. I foolishly thought we were still managing to be discreet, but apparently even in a loud, crowded monorail, the words “Dearly beloved” and the presence of a bouquet is enough to make ears perk up and heads swivel. The rest of the ride was spent giggling and hugging, and trying to remember every little detail as we zipped along the track. We circled Epcot and then got off at the station. Amid congratulations and smiles, we wandered around the monorail station, taking the opportunity to change our Facebook status on our phones (beginning a flurry of “WHAT THE….??????”s on our Walls. After travelling back to the TTC, it was a quick restroom break, a photo op or two, and then back to the Polynesian where we signed the marriage certificate, had a drink, and settled in to watch the fireworks. Those fireworks will forever be associated with that day for me. My new husband made a beautiful toast to the four friends who were with us, and we headed over to Disney’s Boardwalk to grab some food and party at the Atlantic Dancehall. Josh went over to the bakery and grabbed a tiny cheesecake to serve as the world’s most wee wedding cake. We even sliced it bridal style and flicked a little icing at each other. The drinks at the Dancehall were relatively cheap and strong (like me!) and the music was awesome, which is too say “bad”, but in the best possible way (“OMG! It’s Ke$ha! WOOOOOO!”). I made the huge mistake of telling Josh to pick our first song; he asked the DJ to pick the cheesiest 80s song he could find, so our official first song was “Girl, You Know It’s True”. This was not ok. 🙂 Thank God we had already unofficially danced to “Say Hey (I Love You)”.

Exchanging vows on the highway in the sky.

Cutting the cake.

We partied for a few hours before returning to our cheapie hotel and getting some rest before our wonderful Minni-moon that weekend. The adventure was just beginning…

For more pictures, go here.

Point #40- That’s Just, Like, Your Opinion, Man

Ah, New Year’s Eve. The chance to tie one on and look like an utter ass with little to no consequences, provided you steer clear of making out with your boss’ wife or urinating on anyone. The festive night usually finds my fiance’ and me at the home of some dear friends who hold this party every year. This year held a twist. After dressing as The Dude for Halloween, Shelley was inspired to hold a Big Lebowski themed party complete with costumes, with a prize to the best one. Which is how I ended up on the mean streets of Tampa Bay on New Year’s Eve, dressed as a rug.

For Josh, it was easy, he knew he wanted to dress as Marty the weirdo dancing landlord. He had a very brief thought towards the standards: Walter, the Dude-but he kept coming back to a costume that no matter what, was going to require me to wrap him in leaves. I found it more difficult, having only seen the film once and remembering very little about its female characters, the vapid and little seen Bunnie and the marginally more interesting, but not remotely like me Maude. Just to be a smart ass, I said, “Heh, I will go as the rug.” Note to Me: never say smartassed things in front of my fiance’, for he will happily run with said idea like a switched mustang. I was all for this idea, but had no idea how to really make it happen.

I should probably let the pictures do the talking. I haven’t done a whole lot of pictures of myself here, but I will make an exception for this, I think.

First Josh:

With the bottle of Kahlua he, spoiler alert, won for best costume. He even did the interpretive dance.

And then there was me:

I particularly like the Death Ray Eye Cat in the background readying his lasorz.

My costume consisted of interpreting broadly the concept of an Oriental rug. I wore a Chinese style cut dress, with my hair up and tied with some fringe (like a rug, natch) and then a bathmat cut into two pieces that I then wore like some fuzzy pink horrible loincloth. Jessie Fuzzbutt of the Martha Stewart At Home tribe, just call me. I guess I looked like a rug personified. Or I just looked like a terribly non-politically correct mess, especially given my quasi-Geisha girl makeup. In any case, it was well received, particularly the final touch, in order to, as the rug did in the film, “tie the room together”, I carried a roll of bondage tape.

Heh heh…f***in’ A.

Point #25-Yard Work, or How I Fought Off Zombies and Lived to Tell About It

Continuing off of my most recent post regarding home repair, it must be stated that certain things one must do to maintain a pleasant home are less than appealing. I live in an apartment and this is so; I cannot imagine the drudgery involved in owning an actual house. The late, great Mitch Hedberg said it best when he said “I shop at The Apartment Depot…just a bunch of people wandering around a warehouse saying ‘I don’t gotta fix shit!’ ” How very true this is. However, there are some things that cannot be avoided.

I am lucky enough, even in the renting of a modest apartment, to have a small backyard, fenced in and with enough expanses of dirt in which to plant to make me happy. I was happy. Then summer hit. I don’t get it. I moved in last summer and the yard was fine, even with rain and sun and all those things that make Florida that sort of place where produce spontaneously appears in your laundry. I can only assume shade from the now absent tree created a less welcoming environment for huge weeds and determined vines to wend their cunning way through my neatly tended beds, because this summer, Viet Nam. Every time I go back there I expect to find Alan Alda weeping over a chicken. Ok, mixing up of our hilarious Asian land wars aside, it’s gotten a bit…lush out there. So I did what any reasonable person would do. I ignored it like mad and hoped like hell the rats didn’t move back in.

I shall digress a moment. Months ago, for quite an extended period of time, I had a rat problem in the back yard. I had seen them occasionally and honestly they were sort of cute and didn’t bother me. Then I started noticing my plants being eaten, especially the flowers. When they were finished with the flowers, they started in on the plants themselves. I had to draw the line when they ate a soy wax candle I had left on the windowsill. I will spare all of the ways I attempted to humanely rid myself of them, save one, because it’s kind of hilarious. I was told they hate Irish Spring soap. I found some small bars at the dollar store and figured what the hell, I’ll give it a try. Shortly before dusk, I laid out pieces of soap amongst my plants and sat where I could quietly observe. What I observed was a rat jump down off of the fence, pick up a chunk of this allegedly hated soap the size of his head, and scurry off with it determinedly clutched in his mouth. The next morning, the apparently delicious soap was all gone. Bastards. Ultimately, the neighbour did what I refused to do and set out poison. No more rats.

So anyway, now I have a jungle growing back there and no clue what is lurking there. Rats? Snakes? Viet Cong? Who the hell knows. But I don’t have any napalm and the patio itself is being overrun. So I borrowed a weed eater from my good friend and set to work.

Last time I wielded a large power tool of some kind was my sister’s pressure washer. If you have never used one, I highly recommend it. It is fun to the point of illegality. At least the way I was using it, for while to the outside observer I was merely washing a SWEET rug I scored by the trash in my alley one day (seriously! An Oriental rug whose only issue is that some kid had gotten gum on it, which pressure washed right out) in my mind, I was blowing away aliens with my ENORMOUS ray gun, merrily shouting “Yippie ki-yi-yay, motherfuckers!” again mixing my movies metaphors. I was locked in a battle royale with unseen enemies of our planet, especially that little pink blobby one…down there…in the cornerrrrr, GOTCHA! HA! Take that, Gum Clingons!

It should come as no surprise then that when I took that weed eater to my own tiny corner of the Congo that I was not slaying weeds with a “Grass Hog” brand trimmer. I was mowing down zombies with a chainsaw. Next up: obtaining a chainsaw.

Point #24-Sometimes You Just Have to Use the Shoe…

…or the phone handset, or the handle of a screwdriver, or any number of inappropriate things. I am speaking, of course, of things one would use to drive in nails. What did you think I meant? Perv. I was staring balefully at the perennially busted hinges on my bedroom door (more on that in a moment) and thinking of the various creative approaches to home repair that I have taken over the years, hoping like hell that I am not the only one, and then remembering fondly that most of my friends, at their houses growing up, ALSO had a butter knife by the tv to tighten the cable box screws. You couldn’t find the screwdriver, that was wherever the last picture hung on the wall was, the hammer having been lost when your little brother took it outside to pound rocks with playing jailbreak with his friends. Ah yes, the great circle of “where the shiny shit did my right tool for the right job go?”. In short, sometimes you just have to make do and use what you have near to hand.

I must confess, one of my less marketable, but still managing to be awesome skills is that I can pretty much MacGyver what I have lying around to get the job done. Notice I do not say I do this well. That would be very much pushing it. Usually the results fall apart before long, but I can fake it for a little bit. Take the bedroom door. The hinges occasionally get all loose and make the door hang funny, the result of which is that the door doesn’t close properly and cats come in and express their love for me by taking a whiz on my bed. So I tighten the hinge screws (with my trusty butter knife) and all is well. For about a day. So I went in and looked and sure enough, the screw holes (heh heh heh) are too loose to hold the screws (heh heh heh) and that was the problem.

Now someone who actually cared about doing the job “right” would remove the hinges, take down the door, fill the holes with wood filler or putty, let it dry, sand it down, drill new pilot holes, rehang the door, and there you go. This sounded suspiciously like work. Those of you that follow my blog know that I avoid several things like the plague. People who don’t like Muppets, clowns, and work. Especially work. Well, and clowns. And stories about dying dogs. But mostly work. So I did whatever any sane woman with a butter knife and a dream would do. I stuffed the holes with toilet paper.

This is not as weird as it sounds. This is actually a trick that, you know, capable people who know what socket to use for what project and what winches actually are use. Paper is made of trees which are made of wood. Wood is made of trees, which are also made of wood. Hence paper and wood are both made of wood. Astounding! It’s SCIENCE! If you stuff little bits of paper into a wood hole (heh heh heh), you actually can compress it into a wood like substance. This works especially well if you are screwing in a screw after ward because the threads engage the paper fibers and hold them in place. Voila. A fixed door. The hinges work, the door closes, the cats remain firmly outside the bedroom, and I didn’t even have to break out the cheese ball spreader.

Point #20-Sometimes Germs Create Martian Death Flu

Wow. I was sick from January 2nd to January 30th. And then I was trying to catch up with a lot of stuff. So I have been gone. And now I am back.

Trying to rehash the life of me in that month and a half long span of time will take too long, but here’s the basic gist:

I got engaged.
There were some holidays in there.
I really love soup.
I like to plan things in fits and starts.
I have some bad habits.
My backyard had a tree, and now it doesn’t.
I have developed an obsession with lo-fi photography.
As a result of which, at this moment, as I write this, my house smells like burning plastic.

Ok, so that last one is funny and disheartening all at once. I have been finding some odd little gems in the big bin o’ cameras at various thrift stores and today found an odd little piece of junk called a Vista KX-500. It is made in China with a Japanese lens…or something…and it was never used, but is obviously a slightly older model. Can’t find a lot of info on this guy…looks like an SLR, but is a viewfinder model with four f stops. It has a hot shoe, but also a built in flash. I installed some batteries, and hit the flash. Big beautiful flash. Then a big, beautiful smell. Followed by big beautiful plumes of smoke emerging from inside the camera and now the battery compartment appears to be shorted out. No matter. I can still use this guy, which I have dubbed Doob, because he smokes…ha ha ha, for outdoor shots and see what he can do. I still long for a Holga or a Diana, but until I know if I will even like this, I can live with what I got.

The world has also been a cold place lately. I have felt like doing little more than curling into tight little balls like my cats and sleeping for days at a time. I have been terribly unmotivated to get anything done of late, but that changes now. After all, if I can set small fires at the touch of a button, surely I can light a decent one under my own ass.

Point # 12-Read slooowwwer

I post a fair amount of projects over at Craftster. The stuff I have posted is fairly basic stuff, nothing too amazing or different, but I get decent view and comment numbers. I should read those comments more slowly. I should revel in my knowledge of, you know, language. It tends to lead to less of this lookin’ like a jackass thing.

I posted a set of pictures of my awesome lampshade. This is a floor lamp with attached little round table that my sister tells me is from the forties. Vintage or not, it’s a pretty lamp. The shade needed work (read: “was ugly as goat fuck”) and so one night with just a bottle of glue, some fabric scraps, and a dream, I got this:

Later I added fringe to create this:

Trust me, much improved upon the original porridge-like “greige” of before.

Someone responded to the pictures by asking if I was going to post a picture “of it on”. Eh? I was puzzled. On what? On my head? I literally had no clue what she was saying. The plain, clear, straighforward English, which last I checked was my first, last, and tragically only, language was before me, and my brain shut down like large wafts of meth had just hit it. I swear for a minute or two I saw only colours. I could actually taste fuschia. Then the brain cloud cleared and I realised she of course meant “with the LAMP on.” You know, performing that function the gods created all the good little lamps to do. I am not even kidding, I am a believer in giving the people what they want; I was mentally halfway to putting the bloody thing on my head and clicking away. I was saved by the resumption of the firing of the synapses of my stupid, stupid brain and eventually posted the pictures. Honestly though, I think I may post some with the lampshade on my head. Every village idiot needs a cunning headdress.

Point #6-Blogs Are More Interesting With Pictures

And before too long, I will remedy the sad, sad lack. I have quite a few pictures of various projects, but I wanted to get a few posts under my belt before working on pictures and explanations and tutorials and apologies and recriminations and a good rationale for why exactly I asked the sheep to do that.

Point #4-I Hope Cleanliness is Not Close to Anything but “Not Smelliness”

Otherwise, I am in troooouuuuble.

I have noticed something in my months of, shall we call it, “self” employment: namely that showering is something that happens considerably less when one does not leave the house. Before I am lambasted for my smelly hippytude, let me preface all of this by saying that I do not stink horribly, I am not going anywhere of importance, and I know enough to bathe myself regularly when I venture out into the big wide world.

But I was amused to realise that unlike the regular routine of nightly (or morning..er, ly) shower and washing of hair, I must motivate myself in some fashion. I have managed to justify purchases of new and exciting bath products in this way. Soap and Glory is clearing out their Peaches and Cream shower scrub at Target? To the shower, Jeeves and damn the lights! Ah, now I smell like peaches…

And NO baths. Yuck. They are fine when one is having a glass of wine and a book by candlelight moment, but if I am dirty, a bath is just soaking in Me Tea and that is full of fail.

I guess the bottom line is this: if you have to wonder how long it has been since you showered, it’s been too long.

Point #1: In which I appear fully formed upon the web!

Greetings. I could write a long winded introduction and explain what I am about, or I could hit a few main points and let you get on with your day.

This is a blog about craft. Not just “crafts” as in “arts and”, but the act of craft, of crafting, the meaning behind it, the wonder of popsicle sticks and the joy of pipecleaners, art vs. craft, crafting spirituality…any number of things that have to do with why crafting is something I don’t just want to do, but rather need to do. Three things to remember and that will be recurring themes in this blog:

1. I like to make stuff out of shit. And shit out of stuff. In other words, I am a trashionista and like to reuse, recycle, upcycle, etc.  I am as likely to make a pendant out of a bread tag as beads or other jewelry making implements. Seeing the next step of usefulness in an object destined for the bin is not only green and cost conscious, but fun as hell.

2. I don’t do it by the book. I don’t think I have ever taped off a damn thing in my life, and if I measure once, cut once, and it turns out to be too short, I find a different way to use it. Which is not to say that I don’t admire folks that are technically precise and skilled- I do. But this is what works for me, and I know I always wished I could find someone with the same fly by night approach.

3. I am Pagan. The craft world used to be dominated by folks that didn’t think, act, or craft like me. This is not wrong or right, it is just the way it was. It was frustrating, though, to never be able to find a cross stitch pattern with a Green Man or Moon Goddess featured, or scrapbook supplies for a big ol’ heathen like me. Nowadays that has changed, and it is fantastic. I think it helps bring people closer, too, that may not have had much in common otherwise. I don’t say any of this to alienate Christians or people of other religions here; rather I want people to know right off that is something that makes me who I am, and that I have always thought that crafting is something that can take you closer to God, whatever form you believe Him/Her/Them to take.

So that’s me. Other stuff about me will make itself known, like mice sneaking out when the lights go out, as time goes on. I look forward to shocking, awe-ing, and occasionally horrifying you.

Jessica

The Accidental Artisan