Once Upon a Manatee

It is Wednesday, Krispy is sick, and Alz had a harebrained notion she was leisurely pursuing, so as usual she decided to begin blogging by talking about herself in the third person, which she only just now noticed has become a habit.  Anyway, to celebrate Wednesday (and hopefully the beginning of Krispy's recovery, c'mon, Krispy, be a healthmonster!) I have for you today the first part of a magical photostory featuring a sparkly rainbow manatee and his writerly aspirations.  Enjoy!

~*~*~*~

Once upon a time, there was a very sparkly bejeweled manatee.

He decided one fine day that he was going to write a story.

He thought it would be dramatic to write in the darkness...

...but it was too dark, so he decided to write by the light of his favorite mushroom lamp.

However, this was still too dark (bejeweled manatees need good light to accomplish much of anything, he was just too stubborn to admit this), so he turned the lights back on and put pen to paper to begin his magnum opus.

~*~*~*~

To be continued!  What is in store for our bejeweled protagonist and the sudden appearance of this mysterious vile evil inferior competitor?  Only time will tell, and by time, I mean sometime next week maybe.  Also forthcoming is a post (per Krispy's request) about a string of unsolved bird murders involving serial killing quail to which my family has been gruesome witness.  Just in time for Halloween!

Happy Wednesday, folks!

Randomosity on Fridays: Star Trek Version

Greetings, all, and happy Friday! The following pictures summarize why Krispy and I don't have much of a blog for you tonight:

We saw. (Krispy giggled every time she saw Benedict Cumberbatch - "evil Sherlock".)  We enjoyed. (Krispy also again lamented the fact that had she been a few years older, she might have stalked looked for Chris FinePine in college before he graduated.) Got any movie plans this weekend, Trek-related or otherwise?

Randomosity on Fridays: A Manatee and Shiny Things

Hello, lovelies, another Friday is upon us and it's time for a well-deserved dose of randomosity!

Lately all I've done is various forms of creative slave-labor and now that things are over and done with and the pressure is off, I have the leisure to share gratuitous picspam.

1. I made a manatee for a classmate. In exchange, she is to make me a bronze tooth-and-tentacle ring, because teeth and tentacles are her thing.  I present to you now: Christinatee!

She wanted a manatee with a burger on its head.
Why?  I know not.  She said it'd be the cutest thing ever
and bought this burger bead at the ren faire.

Behold the appliqued and bead-embellished tentacle on one flank.

Lastly, there is an appliqued tooth on the chest.
I told you--teeth and tentacles.

2. I learned how to make my own prong settings this semester. Then on the last workday of class, I was looking at this glass stone I'd gotten a while ago, and I was like, "Hey, that looks like a rat."  Typical to have a brilliant idea at the last minute.  There ensued a great deal of cursing, angst, and regret, but five hours later I'd bamfed out this little guy:

Sterling silver prong-set glass stone ratty pendant.
The tail loop is the bail from which to hang it.

I explored the outer limits of my cursing lexicon
when trying to get those freaking ears soldered in place.

On the bottom/back are teeny rat-feet cutouts.
That mark between the forepaws is the .925 sterling stamp.

3. I also made this necklace inspired by the anime/manga Rurouni Kenshin:

Glass stone in oxidized copper prong-setting pendant.
I hoarded this stone for over a year, waiting for the right moment.
I mean, look at that cross-shape on the red stone!

The back hiragana says, "Oro?"
I sawed out each character with a 5/0 sawblade, which is practically hair-thin.
Around the edges, the oxidized black patina has been deliberately
worn away to give the pendant an aged appearance.

I then put the pendant on a black chain and,
in another last-minute fit of mad inspiration,
made a tiny sakabatou/reverse-edged sword pendant
to go on the extender chain in the back.
The sword turned out a tad short. Sigh.
You can't see it in the pic but the back of the blade is filed to give it an edge.
Sterling silver blade, bronze fittings, copper hilt.

So there's a sampling of my slavery.  I made a boatload of other things, but it is late and I am lazy tired.  I haven't been writing as much since it was end-of-the-semester crunchtime, but now that I have some more leisure, I'm looking forward to getting books read and stories written!

Q4U: What are your creative outlets? Should I try to make some kind of articulated or sterling silver manatee next semester?

Randomosity on Fridays

We will seriously have more interesting posts next week. But this week, have a dose of true randomness. February has been busy, busy for us!

Friday Five

1. On Super Bowl Sunday, the sister and I waited outside of a Target before it opened at 8AM with about 40 other girls. Why? We wanted a shot at the super adorable and coveted Jason Wu for Target line. We can say our excursion was a resounding success as we now own a number of these pieces.

2. Also on Super Bowl Sunday, one of my fave bands premiered their new music video. You might have seen a preview for it as a Chevy Sonic commercial. The real thing is wildly creative as only videos by OK Go can be. If you liked the Rube Goldberg machinery of "This Too Shall Pass," you'll totally dig the vid for "Needing/Getting."




3. Wednesday night, the sister and I and our cousin went to see THE WANTED. They're a British boy band that has recently gotten quite a bit of press, making them quite a bit more popular than they were when my sister first stumbled upon them sometime last year. We went for kicks (because we think they're kinda hilarious / and they've got some catchy tunes), and it was pretty fun. I am WAY TOO OLD to be around that many teenaged fangirls though. Don't have the energy needed to keep up. SCHNEIZELEFFORT.

That aside, the show was originally supposed to be at another theater, but due to overwhelming demand + sold out-ness, it was moved to THE EL REY - also known as the THEATER WHERE THE SISTER WORKS. So, it was sweet for my schneizeleffort self because I didn't have to wait in line. It was sweet for the Sister because she was working there during sound check and got to see gorgeous DAVID BECKHAM in REAL LIFE.

She also took this picture (aka met these guys):

The El Rey takes a mugshot of all the artists that play there.

So yeah. Good times. I was half-deaf at the end of that show. Brought back memories of my own boy band, teenybopper days.

4. (This is now Alz sneak-blogging under Krispy's name) I made this manatee recently:

And then I listened to my inner 5-year-old and attacked him with appropriate embellishments:

5. I recently started (re-)watching Samurai Jack since I acquired the first two seasons on DVD.  I remember being largely unimpressed when I watched the first episode premiere, and the following episodes were meh.  So I didn't bother to watch the show except for the time I randomly tuned in to an episode where Jack was chained to a Scotsman with bad teeth and a machine gun for a peg leg.  That episode was awesome.

This was, of course, over a decade ago (omg ten years), and when I caught a couple of random episodes last year when Cartoon Network started airing the show again, I was like, Hey, that was actually pretty good.  And it does seem that the later seasons are much better than the first since I've now watched the first eight episodes of season one and my opinion stands: the episodes are very artistic, but the stylized action scenes frequently go on for too long and the episodes are often very short on plot and/or story.

But the episodes do pick up.  And the Scotsman returns in later seasons.  That's what I'm really looking forward to.

Shopping, fashion, music, TV, manatees!  My, a randomosity post that doesn't mention books or writing at all.  We will try to remedy that next week.  In the meantime, how's your fashion/TV/music taste lately?

Randomosity on Fridays: Manatee Takeover Edition

So!  January's practically over and Krispy and I had nothing planned for today's post and I had Thai tea with boba tonight and am blogging this late past midnight but never you mind. I thought I'd just show you in pictures what I was up to over the past couple of weeks.

1. Watched Ides of March with Krispy and her sister.  It was generally depressing but I did make this manatee while we were watching, so at least something fuzzy came out of it.

This is Fuzzy Leopardatee. He is Krispy's new love.
But her love is doomed.
Because she is tofu and I am spicy hot and the manatee is MINE.

(I neglected to mention in yesterday's post that I made all those manatees. Each individually handsewn and stuffed with love, polyfil, and the desire to overthrow the human race.)


2. The other week, Krispy and her sister found something at Target that they knew was meant for me.  When they gave this thing to me, I knew that my life had been but a meaningless span of clockwork measured only by the mundanity of timepieces chopping time into seconds, minutes, hours upon hours of empty bare existence and now, only now did I truly comprehend that my life was just beginning.


Stuffed with valentines and unicorn stickers!

It also makes a very good home for a very special someone who is dear to us.

3. I went to a beadshow earlier in the month and picked up some beads for $1 or $2 a strand.  Krispy can testify that I have a magpie/crowlike nature magnified a thousandfold when it comes to shinies.




4. Yesterday I read A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce.  It was all right.  There are a few good re-imaginings and interpretations of things, but the slow and steady pace combined with the fact that it is a fairly straightforward retelling made it kind of boring after a while since I knew exactly what was going to happen.  The mystery was also not very mysterious.  The writing was nice though and the author clearly did her research.  If you like fairytale retellings, you might want to check it out.




5. I did some writing, working on a couple of short stories and kicking around some ideas to see if they hold up to abuse.  So far they have, so it may be time to give them a break and let them recover and grow before having at them again.

The story contains no manatees.  For now.

So that's what I've been up to: Sewing, beading, reading, writing, and unicorns.  Not entirely in that order, but close enough.

And because I uploaded this picture with the intention of using it and got sidetracked, I'm-a just stick it here.

This is Sherlockatee.

And so January draws to a close! What have you accomplished this month?

Wordless Wednesday: Be Prepared

Bet you thought I was joking about conquering the world with manatees...

Go ahead and laugh.

P.S. A while ago, Krispy asked Lydia for suggestions on slow-attacking diseases. Lydia had some great ideas, the gist of which she shared this week in her Medical Mondays post. Check out Prions from Outer Space. It'll make you grateful your proteins are normal!

And if you have a medical-related question yourself, be sure to check her Medical Mondays archive or drop her an email!