Who Irons?

     I hardly ever iron.  Most of our clothing flops around in the dryer for fifteen minutes before I put it on a hanger to finish drying.  When something has to be ironed, I drag out the 1970's ironing board. The cover, also from the '70's, has seen better days.  I thought it might be time to get a new board, but the old one was nice and solid.  The cover was really the only part that had to be replaced, but I didn't like any of the replacement options I saw.
     I'm crafty, so I decided to make an ironing board cover.  Here's how it went:

I bought some quilted fabric - off white cotton on both sides, polyfill in the middle.  I traced around the edge of the ironing board.  Be sure to iron both sides of the quilted fabric before tracing.  If you don't iron, the fabric will stretch out and end up being too big.

I cut a piece of cardboard to 5/8" width and used this to add a seam allowance to the shape I had traced.

I laid the quilted piece on the 100% cotton print I selected for the cover.  I didn't use a poly-cotton blend because synthetics can melt at high ironing temperatures.  I cut around the quilted layer leaving a generous edge.

I pinned the layers together, then sewed them together 1/2" from the edge of the quilted layer.  Next I trimmed the cotton print to match the quilted layer.  The top of the cover is ready.    

Now I cut out two strips that will cover the sides of the ironing board.  I joined the strips and made a casing along one side.

I placed the seam where the two strips were joined at the center, front point of the cover.  With right sides of the printed fabric together, I pinned, then sewed.  I did not complete the back edge of the cover.  The side strips were extra long, so they required adjustment before finishing the side strip and casing.

I turned the edges back so that the two sides just met and finished the casing.  I covered the raw edges at the casing opening with a strip of extra fabric.  I didn't want to see any frayed edges at the casing opening. 

From the top, it's all neat and finished.

I strung a cord through the casing.  You could use elastic, or you could sew a tie using left over fabric to match the cover.  The cover is done, but I decided to do one more thing.  

I picked these up during the '70's.  The stretched out elastic has a suspender clip on each end.  Their purpose was to hold the sides of the cover snug.  I was going to throw them out until I saw that I could pry up the metal tabs that held the elastic in place.  I removed the old elastic and inserted some new pieces.

Good As New

The Underside

I'll have to iron something someday.

Lizards

     I've seen lizards sunning themselves on rocks in California and Mexico, but I've never seen a lizard in New Jersey.  Do we have lizards in New Jersey?  Yes, we do.  I found a colony of them living under the evergreen shrubs at the Mt. Laurel Community Center.   From time to time, I noticed fast moving critters dashing under the bushes when I walked into the center.  At first I thought they were chipmunks.  The other day, I saw several shapes on the sidewalk, so I approached very slowly.  There must have been a population explosion of lizards this year.  I saw at least eight of them in various sizes.  They must have become more comfortable around humans.  As I stood on the sidewalk, they ran back and forth, crossing my path.
     I'm not a fraidy cat when it comes to reptiles.  If it won't bite me, I'll handle a snake or a lizard. I thought the little guys dodging the humans were kind of cute.  I consulted the New Jersey Online Field Guide to learn more about them.
     There are three species of lizard native to New Jersey.  One species is the Northern Fence Lizard.  They prefer to stay on tree trunks, and are only occasionally found on the ground.

Northern Fence Lizard - Spiny and Arboreal 

Another species is the Five-Lined Skink.  They are usually black with a five line pattern running from head to tail.  They like to live in a damp habitat with lots of rotting debris like logs, rock piles, or piles of old boards.

Five-Lined Skink

    
There is another type of skink, the Ground Skink.  They prefer wooded areas and like to live in leaf litter.  They are brown to black in coloration and have a disproportionately long tail - that is, if they have a tail.  If you give them a fright, they might drop their tail.  They have a stripe running down their sides.  I'm pretty sure the Community Center lizards are Ground Skinks.

Ground Skink 

Lizards are active from May through September.  I hope I see them a few more times before they go into hibernation.

Bidding on Bad

       I just read an article about the house where Adolph Hitler was born.  Officials are in a quandary over what to do with it.  The structure, located in Braunau am Inn, Austria is vacant, and the owner is in the tricky situation of finding a use for a building with a notable past.  One camp wants to highlight this past by turning it into a "house of responsibility," a place where people could coordinate social projects.  The other camp wants to close the book on the Hitler connection, and turn the house into a private residence.
http://news.yahoo.com/austrians-debate-baby-hitlers-home-155322216.html
     The story about Hitler's house reminded me of another story about, of all things, Hitler's toilet.  This historic piece of porcelain is still in use at Greg's Auto Repair located in Florence, New Jersey.  http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/22714  Anything belonging to Hitler causes a stir. His golden gun and his Swastika ring were taken as souvenirs by an American soldier named Ray Bily.  Mr. Bily kept these treasures in a bank vault for years.  Eventually, he sold the gun to the Military Academy at West Point.    http://www.editinternational.com/read.php?id=47a882ad5592a  The Fuehrer's desk went up for sale in May 2012.  http://www.bornrich.com/adolf-hitlers-desk-set-sale-nazi-military-memorabilia.html  A place called Snyder's Treasures advertises Nazi collectibles that include some of the artwork painted by Hitler.  http://www.snyderstreasures.com/   Besides inanimate objects, the dastardly dictator might have left behind an illegitimate son.  Jean-Marie Loret was born in 1918 and he died in 1985.  He wrote a book in 1981 titled Your Father's Name Was Hitler.  Mr. Loret's children might be entitled to the royalties that still pour in today from sales of Hitler's Mein Kampf.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9088865/Hitler-had-son-with-French-teen.html
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/02/did-hitler-have-a-secret-son-evidence-supports-alleged-sons-claims/
     Many people object to collectors and auctioneers (and grandchildren) profiting on the sale of items belonging to a demon.  Let's face it.  The Devil's pitchfork would fetch at fine price at Sotheby's.  Whether the individual is famous or infamous, there is somebody out there who wants their stuff.  I wouldn't touch Hitler's handkerchief with a ten foot pole; but oh, what I wouldn't give for a set of George Washington's false teeth.        

Onesies®

     My friend's daughter is having her first baby.  That's all I needed to hear.  I decided to embellish some Onesies®.  The mom-to-be is a Pennsylvanian.  She and her husband live in the state of Washington now.  New Jersey is dear to the couple's hearts because they became engaged in Ocean City.  Onesies® come in a three pack, so I decided to applique each garment with the shape of one of these states.
     I bought white Onesies® since I don't know the baby's sex.  Next, I shopped for fabric to make the appliques.  These colors also had to be generic.  I got a blue print that looked like flowing water.  It represents the ocean at the shore.  I appliqued it with sand colored thread.  I found a yellow, black, and grey print that made me think of arches.  Pennsylvania is the Keystone State.  The third fabric was brick red with an apple design - Washington apples, of course.

Sand and Surf

Arches?

  

   

Apples

     I'm no artist, so I went to Google Images to find outlines of the states.  After adjusting the size, I printed the shapes and cut them out.  I pinned my paper patterns to the fabric and to some fusible webbing, Pellon Wonder-Web®.  The webbing is the glue that holds the applique to the Onesie®.  I layered the Onesie® on the bottom, the webbing in the middle, and the applique on top.  I covered it all with a damp white rag and pressed with a steam iron (wool setting) for ten seconds.  The Pellon product worked, but it would have been a little easier if I used a paper backed webbing.  This video demonstrates how to use the paper backed product:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1OahzmtM50

Here's how I did it:

These are the paper patterns

Place the fabric cut-out on top of the webbing, then place these two pieces on the front of the Onesie®.

I inserted a piece of white paper into the Onesie® just in case the glue penetrated the fabric.  The paper prevented the front and back of the garment from sticking together.

The last step was to sew around the edges of the applique.  If you don't have an applique stitch on your machine, a zig-zag stitch works just fine.  Be sure to  put some paper under your fabric.  You can use the same paper from the pressing step.  The paper ensures the knit fabric will go through the sewing machine without stretching or catching.  The paper pulls off easily when you are done.  Any little pieces remaining will dissolve in the wash.

These things are too stinking cute!

Lumberton Paddle

     Lumberton sponsored a nice event on Saturday, September 22nd.  It was the second annual Lumberton Paddle and Village Fair.  Mike and I went with our nephew Michael and his girlfriend Crissy.  We rented canoes for the very reasonal price of $15.00.  The fee included a bus ride to Ironwood Outdoor Club where we put in our canoes.  We paddled down the Rancocas Creek for about an hour, leaving the creek near the Florence L. Walther School.  The highlight of the voyage was meeting a nice lady who was kayaking with her pit bull terrier, Cassius Clay.  Cassius sat in the kayak patiently waiting until the end of the ride when he would be allowed to jump out and swim to shore - an hour of waiting for a 60 second swim.  You're a good boy, Cassius.
     After paddling, we had a look around the Lumberton Fire Company.  They let us climb on the trucks, and Chrissy got to blast the horn.  It's hard to beat that.  We also spent some time at the Gaun Community Center.  They have three rooms of antiques and memorabilia.
     What a great day - beautiful weather, a little exercise, a walk back in time - all good clean fun.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/row-your-boat/article_2dec2cb1-f968-568e-98dd-cc0c0a9d7e02.html

Chrissy and Michael took the lead.  Mike and I followed.  This photo was taken by Burlington County Times photographer,  Dennis McDonald.

    

I'd Like to Buy a Vowel

       Actually, I'd like to buy a whole bag of vowels.  I cooked up a craft project recently that required alphabet beads - those beads the hospital used for labeling newborns back in the 1950's. My plan was to buy a 97¢ wine glass from Walmart and add a wine charm that spelled out the name of each guest.  I studied up on wine charm construction  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqKwxwZVFIM, made a run to Joann for wire and beads, and got down to business.  It was all good until I ran out of vowels.
     In first grade we learned that the English language has a 26 letter alphabet.  There are five vowels and 21 consonants.  The five vowels are used 37.7% of the time - 19% of the alphabet is used almost 40% of the time.  Here are a couple of resources that explain letter frequency:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/what-is-the-frequency-of-the-letters-of-the-alphabet-in-english

     I bought Darice Alpha Beads.  Each bag contained 104 beads.  I thought I was playing it safe by purchasing 3 bags of beads - a total of 312 assorted beads.

     Here's what I got:                                      Here's what statistics say I should have gotten:                                                
          A - 7                                                               A - 26
          E - 8                                                               E - 34
          I - 8                                                                 I - 23
          O - 8                                                               O - 22
          U - 7                                                               U - 11

I got 12% vowels instead of 37% vowels.  I was spelling out names, not writing prose, but let's assume that the percentages remain the same for spelling names.  I would have had to buy lot's of extra beads to get the necessary vowels, and I would have had a plentitude of unusable letters. One bead containing the letter Q (a letter that occurs .19% of the time in English) would have been more than enough in 312 beads, but I got eight of them.  I could read a novel and not encounter eight Q's.
     The bead packaging contained the Darice company web address, so  I sent them an email suggesting that they sell bags of just the vowels.  Four days later, I got a response from a Darice representative which thanked me for my suggestion and assured me that my comments would be passed along to a buyer.  On top of that, they are sending me a couple of bags of beads.  I can remake my wine charms with full names.  Thank you to the Darice company for being responsive, and thanks a bunch for the beads!

http://www.darice.com/ecom/default.aspx

Kathleen had to settle for "Kath" and Rose had to settle for "Rosi."  Some people got only their initials.

                                                        
         

What If...

     I just read an article about the 1987 film "Fatal Attraction."  Originally the film ended with Glenn Close (Alex) killing herself with a knife from Michael Douglas' (Dan's) kitchen.  Dan gets carted off to jail since Alex successfully made her suicide look like murder.  Test audiences hated this ending.  They wanted Alex it "get hers," and they wanted more action.  The bathroom knife fight, near drowning, and shot to the heart became the ending in final version.
     Movie makers, TV producers, even hand cream formulators have test audiences and mall survey takers to help them get it right.  The rest of us just muddle along.  Even the most cautious human being - the one who uses common sense, does his research, consults an expert, and prays about the outcome - sometimes winds up disappointed.  Somewhere down the line we start reflecting and asking, "What if...."
     I might speculate about what would have happened if I had chosen the second of two alternatives. What if I had joined the Peace Corps instead of marrying Husband #1?  What if I had learned to play the drums in high school instead of accepting my mother's assertion - girls don't play drums? What if I majored in Spanish instead of English?  Y si....  Or I might come up with some off the wall stuff.  What if I had been born without thumbs?  What if I knew what you were going to say before you said it?  
     There is a whole world of "what if" out there.  The aforementioned movie industry has made a lot of what if films.  Have you seen "Sliding Doors," "The Family Man," or "Run Lola Run?" Have you heard Jason Derulo's song "What If... ?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qQCx9mxV9g
Marvel has a comic book series called "What If... ?"  What if Dagwood Bumstead woke up on Dick Tracy's couch?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_If_(comics)
From 2006 to 2008 a couple named David and Phoebe wrote a blog titled "What If ...."
http://whatiftheydid.blogspot.com/  Why did they stop, and what if they had continued?
     Pondering the alternative or engaging in completely fantastic thinking is mostly a waste of time. What's done is done, so live real, and live now.  Turn "what if" into "why not."  I'm not going to join the Peace Corp, but why not take up the drums?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykEd9YUsjgQ


  

Follow Up: A Girl Named Eva

     On March 21, 2012, I blogged about Eva Priestley's book, her memoir titled A Girl Named Eva.  The book is now for sale on Amazon for $2.99.  At the moment, only the Kindle edition is available, but a paper copy is in the works.  Don't fret if you don't have a Kindle.  You can download a free Kindle reader program from Amazon to your PC.
     I think Eva's book should be mandatory reading in high school history classes and women's literature classes.  It's also a book club must read.  Don't miss this insight into another segment of the "greatest generation."

http://www.amazon.com/GIRL-NAMED-EVA-MEMOIR-ebook/dp/B009368P7C/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1347633306&sr=1-2&keywords=a+girl+named+eva

    

Roadside Memorials

     I have what might be an unpopular opinion concerning roadside memorials.  I don't like them.  They can distract drivers.  As time passes, the silk flowers fade, and the display becomes choked with weeds.  Mainly though, I don't like seeing someone's grief set out on the side of the road.  Here is a memorial I noticed recently:

On Rt. 38 and Midlantic Drive

 
     I don't know of any local controversy surrounding these displays.  When I began researching the practice of setting up these shrines, I learned there is lots of controversy out there.

     In the Unites States, the practice of building the memorials could have had it's start in the 1940's and 1950's when the Arizona State Police used white crosses to mark the site of fatal car crashes.  The police probably borrowed the idea of white crosses from the Hispanic tradition of placing a cross at each stop in a funeral procession where the pall bearers halted to take a rest.  Arizona police no longer mark accident sites, but residents continue the practice.  Roadside memorials are common in other countries.  There is even a tradition called the ghost bike - an old bicycle is painted white and placed on the side of the road where a cyclist has died.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_memorial

     As the numbers of memorials have increased, and the tributes have become more elaborate, the government has gotten involved.  In one area of the United Kingdom, memorials are removed after three months.  Some states charge fees for memorials.  Colorado, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin have banned memorials.

     The message behind the monuments is, "Drive safely."  I like what the state of West Virginia has done.  They will post a sign containing a safety message and the name of the deceased.  The sign will remain in place for three years for a fee of $200.  For an additional $200, the sign will stay for another three year period.  After six years, it will be taken down.

http://www.transportation.wv.gov/highways/traffic/roadsidememorials/Pages/default.aspx

     I think this is the nicest sort of memorial.  It has permanence.  It is dignified.  Tattered artificial flowers and soggy teddy bears don't honor the deceased and get the message across the way this simple marker does.  This changes my opinion of roadside memorials, and I would like to see the Burlington County Highway Department offer something like this.       

       

San Diego Zoo

     No trip to southern California would be complete without a visit to the San Diego Zoo.  What started from a bunch of exotic animals abandoned after the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, has become possibly the best zoo in the United States.  The zoo pioneered cageless exhibits.  It started the Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species in 1975, and it is one of four zoos in this country that displays giant pandas.  The San Diego Zoo has been the most successful zoo in breeding giant pandas.  They have had five births, and all but one of these babies have been sent back to China to participate in breeding programs.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Zoo
     The first thing we did when we got to the zoo was take a bus tour to get the lay of the land.  When we entered the big cat area, our bus driver pointed out that cheetahs are paired with dogs from animal shelters.  Unlike big, hungry, man-eating tigers, cheetahs are fraidy cats.  They are more afraid of us than we are of them.  Dogs give cheetahs confidence by being their friends.  Check out this video of a zookeeper walking a dog and cheetah side-by-side.  http://shine.yahoo.com/animal-nation/dogs-cheetahs-unlikely-friends-185400115.html
    

She looked thirsty.

The Most Dangerous Animal of All

        The zoo is also an arboretum.  They grow 40 kinds of bamboo for feeding the pandas and 18 kinds of eucalyptus for feeding the koalas.  They also have a safari park, but we're saving that for another vacation.        

Hollywood

     A trip to California would not be complete without a stop in Hollywood.  We took a tour of Paramount Studios.  We chose Paramount over Universal because we weren't interested in the theme park that Universal offers.  Our tour lasted four hours and included lunch.  Our guide was a young lady who has aspirations of writing for television.

 Our badges proclaimed that we were VIP guests!

This bench is from the movie Forrest Gump.

This "New York City street" was used in the TV show "Castle."

Dr. Phil is produced at Paramount. 

We went into one film vault.  These days movies are stored on hard drives.  Besides the film vault, we toured the carpentry shop where we saw how they make film sets.  We also went to the print shop where they make posters, street signs - anything required to make you believe the setting is real.

Do you recognize this from the movie "The Ten Commandments?"  California skies rarely have clouds.  They use the clouds painted on the side of this building for a more realistic looking sky.  The parking lot you see is sunken four feet.  In order to film "TheTen Commandments," they set the Isrealites up in the parking lot, marched them out backwards, and started pumping in water.  When they had the footage the needed, they ran it backwards for the movie.  That's how they parted the Red Sea.  Low tech, but effective.

     My favorite part of the tour was visiting the set of the TV show "Community."  They were on a filming break during our visit.  We saw a bunch of extras hanging around waiting for filming to continue.  Our guide told us they earn minimum wage - not much of a living.  We'll be watching "Community" this fall to see if we recognize anyone.
     It was a whole new perspective on acting and the movie business.  Everyone knows movies aren't real.  Knowing it's not real is not the same as knowing how completely fake it is.  The sets are shabby and dirty.  Evidently, they don't vacuum the floors because the floors never show.  They can hang fabric screens to make day look like night and night look like day.  If you open the door of a shop on the New York Street set, you won't find a deli counter, just piles of lumber and trash strewn about.  That's entertainment. 

Lotusland

     You're stuck with a couple more days of our vacation pictures.  We also went to California.  We enjoyed a few days in Santa Barbara, where we went to a botanical garden named Lotusland.
Lotusland was designed by Ganna Walska.  She bought her home and property in 1941 and spent the next 43 years creating her gardens.  She collected interesting and rare species of plants from all over the world.  Though the complex is named Lotusland, there is only one pond containing lotus plants.  Our tour, led by a darling, little retired professor, was packed with information.  Here are just a few of the highlights:
     Madame Ganna Wlaska was a socialite and opera singer.  From all accounts, she was a lousy singer.  Her real talent was marrying rich men.  She had six husbands.  Numbers one, two, and five died.  She divorced numbers three and four.  Number six, her much younger yoga instructor, was probably her only bad choice.  She divorced him when he started frittering away her fortune.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganna_Walska
    

The garden contains rare species of cycads, plants that have been around since the days of the dinosaurs.  Ganna procured these plants from all over the world.  She would never be able to get them today because they are protected by internation treaties.
 

These little statues are called "Grotesques."  Ganna didn't have children, but she enjoyed nieces and nephews.  The statues were for their amusement.

The cacti in the cactus garden were donated to Lotusland in 1999.  The plants were moved 500 miles from their original home to Lotusland.  It took several years to acclimate them to their new environment.  Only a couple of plants did not survive the relocation.

The orchards contain lemons, oranges, and grapefruit.  They allow the fruit to drop and rot.  What a waste.

Our guide told us that most of the lotus plant is edible.  Is it served as an appetizer or dessert?

Grand Canyon

The South Rim of the Grand Canyon is a four and a half to five hour drive from Las Vegas.  That's a long haul, but we had unlimited mileage on the rental car and we didn't want to pass up the opportunity to see such a spectacular site.  And what a site it is.  It's so amazing, you might question if it's real.

Observation Area

 

Stay away from the edge!

 

The people are such tiny specs.

What a site.

Route 66

     Remember the TV show Route 66?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_66_(TV_series)  One episode was filmed at the site of the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona.  The dam was under construction at the time of filming.  Check out the full TV episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeUOozMQ2pg&feature=related

I can't believe how corny that show was - from the construction foreman inviting trouble making employees to pick up their check, to putting raw meat in fist fight injuries, to the wailing, hung over fashion model.
     There's not much left of Route 66 today.  We traveled on a short stretch of what remains of the road in Arizona.  The town of Ash Fork, AZ (they call the place the Flagstone Capital of the World) has a cute museum.  http://ashforkrt66museum.com/museum.html
We enjoyed the displays, chatted with the caretakers, and bought a baseball cap and some Zingers.  What are Zingers?  Check it out:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gRZraDJn64
     Ash Fork has Burma Shave signs.  I love those things.

 

    

     The only thing missing was the Corvette.