Um, right?
And what with our family's inability to do away with any record that isn't completely scratched into oblivion (in heavy rotation on our current playlist--a scratchy record consisting solely of wolf calls), and the fact that I need a whole new batch of record bowls for my farmer's market craft fair every month, AND the fact that I'm doing Strange Folk again this fall (yay!) and will need a whole new big batch of bowls for that, I'm already starting to freak out that I don't have enough vinyl to get me through to October and free day at the Red Cross Book Fair.
That being said, since I'm skipping out on the August farmer's market craft fair, I've got a little extra time this month to make some undies for the girls, applique them some shirts, alter a couple of dresses for myself, sew buttons back on Matt's pants (what is it with that man and buttons?), and update my pumpkinbear etsy shop with some of these record bowls I've been slaving over. Along with, you know, making spin art and very large maps with the girls and eating lots of tomato-bread salad and visiting the library every single wet day and Bryan Park pool every single dry day. I'm busy, you know?
I generally only make record bowls out of albums that are not only too scratched to play but that are also albums that I, personally, think are awesome--awesome awesome or awful awesome, doesn't matter, but it has to be something that I really dig. So when you visit my booth you get a lot of eighties stuff, soundtracks, children's music, esoteric junk, heavy metal--basically a soundtrack of my life as I know it to this point. Here are some of my very favorite favorites that I put on my pumpkinbear etsy shop today:
The best thing about this record, all Santa songs, is that I recognize, oh, ONE of them. Seriously, how many Santa songs are there in the world? Although, some of these do look pretty forgettable--The Weatherman's Christmas Prayer? Ech.
Sweet Caroline. 'Nuff said. Okay, but have you ever heard the Langley Schools Music Project cover of Sweet Caroline? Also awesome. And their cover of Space Oddity.
The album says it's the Flintstones, but it doesn't include the theme song or anything as a track, and unfortunately the vinyl was too damaged for me to play at all to figure out what's going on here, so I just have in my head this idea that for this album, they got together all the voices of the Flintstones characters, and made them sing all these random songs in character? Like the Brady Bunch? Or in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, when the guy gets up to do his song from Dracula the Musical, and he does it in a Transylvanian accent? Which made me laugh so hard I woke the babies.
I'm a sucker for soundtracks in general, although Annie Get Your Gun isn't one of my favorites. Whenever I see it, however, I always flash back to watching Soleil Moon Frye on Carson or something as a kid, promo-ing Punky Brewster, which I LOVED (the episode when one kid got trapped in a refrigerator and Punky had to do CPR? Priceless), and Carson asks her how she got her name, and she's all, "It's from Annie Get Your Gun--'I've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.'"
In other news, the girlies have been rocking themselves some British Soccer Camp this week--these guys who play professional soccer in England for some reason spend part of their summer here in Bloomington, and they teach soccer to the baby townies. I already mentioned this on my Facebook, but my absolute favorite thing about British soccer camp is the athletic young men with British accents playfully and nurturingly interacting with small children. Swoon?
Swoon. Not the best photo, mind you, but my Syd, she's not too team-oriented, and this is about the billionth time that one of the coaches loped over to where Sydney had wandered off and jollied her back to the group--lots of "Come on, love," etc.
My least favorite thing about soccer camp is my introduction to Soccer Mom. Soccer Mom sits next to me when my mom friend doesn't show up one day. We're sitting against the gym wall in the REALLY crowded gym because it's storming outside, so with the noise of the storm on the metal roof, the noise of four soccer teams all playing different games on basketball court, the noise of the YMCA day camps over on the other court, and the generic noise of the random people working out in the Y to begin with, it's deafening in there. And yet, for the entire hour, Soccer Mom sideline coaches her kid. The WHOLE hour. I read the same sentence in my book about one thousand times.
But the weirdest thing is, there's no way her soccer kid could have heard a thing she said. She was talking in a loud conversational tone, I guess--the kid could have heard her from that distance if we'd been in the library, but the crowded gym? Not a chance. Nor, of course, did he acknowledge or respond to any of her admonitions--he couldn't hear her, you know. But still she kept it up, this constant patter, and even though he couldn't hear her, it was really loud in MY ear--everything from "That's great, buddy, run! Oops, you lost your ball, go get it, now run! Yay, good job!" to "Sit up, buddy! Keep your hands to yourself! No, no, get away from the orange cone! Hurry, find your spot!"
W. T. F?
Fortunately, Willow went from resolutely sitting on her soccer ball and picking clover for the whole hour on Monday to being all soccer, all the time by the end of the hour on Tuesday:
She is particularly good at a little tracking game they play called Cats and Dogs. And there's none of this American everybody did just as well as the other person because we're all special crap at British soccer camp. At British soccer camp, if your name is Willow and you are REALLY good at Cats and Dogs, you get to hear a coach shout "Willow is the winner!" and then everybody gives you a high five.
I tell you, this living vicariously through your kids business might have something going for it.
4 comments:
I remember that episode of Punky Brewster! I loved that show, too.
Oh, and when you were describing that soccer mom who sat next to you, I remembered an experience I had at Cold Stone over by the mall. A mom came in with her little boy, and I noticed that she was talking to him as they walked in the shop. She continued to talk to him without ceasing until they left the shop, after looking at cakes and getting ice cream cones. He said nothing the entire time! It was all in a very conversational tone, but incessant. I thought, maybe she just doesn't have anyone else to talk to and that poor boy has learned it's best just to let mommy ramble? It was funny and sad at the same time.
So, maybe Soccer Mom and Cold Stone Mom are the same?
i find both of the soccer photos to be exquisite.
"i read the same sentence in my book about one thousand times."
crack me up. i totally know what you're talking about. i want to start a blog called "other people's children...and their parents" where we can share appalling stories of parenting trainwrecks...anonymously.
tomato bread salad sounds yummy.
on an unrelated note, i have to find you today, to get some tadpole food. we knocked on your door twice yesterday evening. must have been at the pool. or the library. or soccer camp. we WILL find you today! our numbers are dwindling over here in the tadpole bowl...
hot august night. a classic. i had the RECORD. actually, my dad had it - and i took it.
soccer moms. ugh. british soccer men. purr.
Cake, come by! We're in and out like idiots over here, but we'll leave the tadpole food on the back deck by the tadpole tank, so pretend they're our mulberries and help yourself! Ooh, and did you see my Facebook that we're down to 4 from 36 ourselves? Left the top cover off one night...suspect a raccoon for the 32 MIAs.
I would totally be all OVER a bad parenting observed blog. Rubbernecking appalling parenting in public is, like, my most favorite hobby. Except when it gets in the way of book-reading.
Tommorow is the last day of British soccer camp, alas. Think I can score an end-of-season fanny tap?
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