Also, a sheep

This is what I worked on at Sew-n-Snack this week––building a body for a flat, two-legged sheep [or, neckless llama?]. 


I cut up a colorful sock to construct a new underbelly. v

It was also filthy, stuffed with wadded pantyhose, and generally weird. Now laundered, with new poly stuffing--still weird.

I took this photo ^ on my computer on my way out of the house.

It's the first day I'm wearing my down coat because, after a freakily warm December, it's  finally cold out, 17^°F / -8ºC. 
It's supposed to warm up back into the 30s Christmas week though.

Everyone's been talking about two things--the crazy weather and Star Wars.

The conversations about the weather sound like the start of a environmental disaster movie.

Two women at a coffee shop

 

Woman 1: "Isn't this weird? Did you hear it thunder this morning? And then it rained, and then it sleeted, and then it snowed, and now the sun is out."

Woman 2: "I know, it doesn't feel like Christmastime at all!"

[I had this conversation 3 days ago]

Cue White House frozen pipes expanding and cracking open; cut to the two women from the coffee shop, now frozen dead in their homes (one huddled under stuffed animals);

 Tom Cruise or [depending on the budget] Liam Neeson or Nicholas Cage arrives in an all-weather hazmat suit...

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Word is, the Star Wars movie is good.

I don't care about Star Wars, but I'll probably go when it's at the $3 Riverview >>

a neighborhood theater from the 1950s that somehow never closed but never got renovated to be chic either--it's just genuinely shabby from decades of Saturday morning kid movies and It's a Wonderful Life at Christmastime. 

I've used up most of my tolerance for It's a Wonderful Life, so I'm  parceling out the few remaining viewings I have left in me, but I do love the movie:

I appreciate how bitter George Bailey is--how he snaps at the kids--how he's still the same guy at the end, trapped in his real life, but he's going to make it through OK.

Like Brief Encounter: 

 the main characters don't get their heart's desire.

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[Sorry, I can't get Blogger to align-left this text!]

I'm working the next few days to get my three edits in line for the publisher by Christmas, which they want even though probably nobody will work on them over the holidays.

I'm already done with the Lincoln ms--it's got its photos and captions and everything--and Jackson is almost there.

Jefferson, the problem child, still needs more work--the outside reader caught even more problems with it. 

She zeroed right in on sections I had treated with unwarranted optimism 

[the lazy editor's friend]:

"Surely this section on Aaron Burr, about whom I know nothing, is fine; I shall trust the author and not look closely."

But nope, the outside reader marked that section all up, basically with one big, "Huh?"

So, it's me and Burr this weekend. 

I don't mind--I know nothing about him, so it'll be interesting.

Maybe you've already seen this? Lin-Manuel Miranda as Burr performing his "Alexander Hamilton Rap" at the White House in 2009: