Of mousies and skirts

With apologies to Steinbeck.


Some have been following this story for a while. My friend and fellow blogger Darlene has been doing (a rather passive and Bhuddist-like) battle with a mouse that has taken up residence in her apartment. For the complete story, read this, paying attention to the comments, then this, again reading the comments, and then this.

So we met last night at Clewly Farm Restaurant in Eddington, Maine for a volunteer-thank-you-dinner. Our host Bob was most awesome and the food was plentiful and superb! By all means, I encourage everyone who finds themselves on the airline (that's Route 9 for those of you from away) east of Bangor to stop in for a meal. They will be treated well (in a manner of speaking) and fed well (no question), they will support good people working hard and they will be better for the experience.

One of the highlights of the evening came when it was time for me to present a special gift to Darlene. Keep in mind, now, that Darlene is a very powerful woman in political circles. She's a big shot with Equality Maine and does important things all day. She is fearless. Well, almost.

For those who follow Darlene's blog, you are aware that she has had an unwelcome visitor in her home in the form of a mouse (for her sanity, we are using the singular here). Said unwelcome visitor prompted Darlene to leap shrieking onto the furniture in a very non-power-dyke kind of way. Enjoying this image immensely, I offered to sew her a skirt so that she could have a hem to clutch to her as she danced upon the sofa. I even offered to make it a lace hem so she could clutch it like a proper lady.

For all of my efforts and offers, I was heaped with abuse and refusals. Who could think she would be so ungrateful?

Undeterred, I went shopping and found some fabric. A nice, decent, fairly thin cotton fabric. With cute little mousies on it. And cats. Of course the cats are not catching the mice, much like it happens in Darlene's apartment. I also found some nice lace trim. White satin with some of that frilly lace stuff underneath. Heh. I'll fix her wagon! I said to myself.

I sent her a quiz, saying that Laura and I were arguing about how tall she was and could she settle the bet. From that I learned that she was 5'6" or thereabouts. She asked what the prize was for our bet. A hem that doesn't drag on the floor, I told her. She was not impressed.

I spent two days trying to find out an inseam measurement. She had stopped offering any kind of personal information by now, so I had to go to others who might have an idea. I got an estimate from someone and went with it. Inseam: 28 inches or thereabouts.

All this while I am getting angry refusals and denials and "don't you even think it" messages from Darlene.

So I sent her a picture of the lace, only to get a vulgar reply. Hmph.

Now what she did not know is that I have no desire to make something that will never be used. This process has been fun and is truly its own reward, but if I present her with a garment knowing she's going to chuck it as soon as she gets home, that's just no fun.

Besides, I did not have a pattern for a skirt (did she really think I might?!). So I went with a thing I call "lounge pants" which really translates into "men's pajama bottoms."

Mind you, I made them in the 2X size that I am currently wearing as I type, and these have extra room when I wear them, so they're plenty big for Darlene. Only she was thinking "skirt - oh shit" through this whole thing.

I finished them up Tuesday night, lace hem and all (I HATE lace, by the way!) and my beloved L washed and dried them on Wednesday to soften up the fabric. We wrapped them up so they looked like a bouquet of lace atop a roll of fabric and put them in a shimmery pink gift bag with lacy pink tissue. It is only by a sad twist of fate that we did not actually find a Victoria's Secret bag in time for the party. All our girly-girl friends had just cleaned out and had none to offer.

So, the buildup was tremendous. Four days of emphatic and sarcastic e-mail notes. Darlene alone had more messages in my folder than I got from all of my favorite list-serve in one day. That's a lot. She was positively terrified as I handed her the bag.

By then I had the whole place cheering for her to MODEL the garment (her believing it was a skirt, mind you). I had contacted several folks who were leaders of sorts to ask their cooperation in this thing, so they had primed their respective tables and were leading the cheers. Darlene was grim-faced as she unwrapped the cloth bundle. And then huge relief flooded her face as she realized that what she held was a pair of PANTS! OK, they still had the scary lace trim, but at least they were PANTS! Hurrahs all around!

And yes, she did try them on. And yes, they were huge. But they were also the perfect length (thanks to my spies) and nice and soft and ready to wear (thanks to L). And they have a nice lace hem that can be clutched and held up when next a mouse appears in her apartment.

And Darlene was really a sport through all of it.

Four days a year

Here on the coast of Maine, we don't get a lot of heat waves. Our waves tend to be of the ocean variety, and the water hovers around 50 degrees. In the winter it really gets cold. The cool breezes that come in off that chilly water tend to moderate things and it is not uncommon for it to be 20 degrees warmer just 50 miles away in Bangor, which is still, technically speaking, a seaport. It is on the Penobscot River and cargo ships can come and go. But it is buried upriver far enough that it does not have the benefit of our ocean air.

That said, we do get some heat now and then. Maybe four days a year it is actually brutally hot here, like up over 80 and humid as hell. Yesterday was one of those days. It was too hot to work and so hazy and humid that it was like trying to breathe through a wet wool blanket. My lungs ached. I checked the weather and it seems like we're in for a few more days of this before we're done, and we might get some more next week.

So I gave in and went out to the back hall and dragged out the air conditioners. We have two units, and once fits in the living room window and the other in the bedroom. A box fan then circulates the wonderful coolness around the house. It is heavenly.

But it ain't no delight putting the damned things into the windows, let me tell you. They each weigh as much as a typical 8-year-old, I would guess, only with more corners and sharper edges that really hurt if you drop one on your toes. I had to dig under a pile of winter jackets to get to them, drag them out, figure out which way the cords go and then place them gently in the window without dropping them out onto the ground (not usually good for them) or pinching my fingers in the closing window (not usually good for me).

By the time I was done this cooling-off exercise, I was red-faced and drenched in sweat. Somehow, it all seemed counter-productive. Then I turned the machines on and closed up all the other windows in the house. It was stifling for about an hour. I put the box fan in the bedroom doorway to move the air a bit, and it got a little better. By 8 p.m., I was able to bake pork chops without making the house a sauna, and by the time we went to bed, it was heavenly!

Note in the picture that the temperature is set to 64 degrees. Oh happy day! Not only does the ac unit cool the air, but they seem to remove some of the moisture as well, so the house is not as humid as outdoors. L complains that the ac is on her side of the bed and that the remote lives on my side of the bed with me and my hot flashes. I tell her to cuddle up with the cat if she wants. I want to be cool.

Oh how marvelous it was to sleep in a cool room last night! Oh, how glorious to wake up and be able to breathe! Oh, how I dread going outside!

In a side note, my friend and power-dyke extraordinaire Darlene over at the slant has been having mouse issues in her apartment and has been behaving in a decidedly un-butch kind of way (see of mice and dykes and be sure to read the comments). So in an effort to help D get in touch with her more feminine side, I have sewn her a delightful garment involving fabric with cute little mousies and a white lace hem. I will see her this evening at a semi-official function for her job as the Gay Agenda Coordinator, where I think I might make some kind of formal presentation. Then again, I might keep it semi-private and minimize the humiliation. Until I post the pictures, of course. Stay tuned. Here's a teaser picture of the lace before I attached it to the garment. Not only can butch girls cook, but this one can sew as well!