Clever Manka is dressed and undressed

Tonight, the Lord Mayor's Company and a few members of Madam Red's Brothel will visit Buddies in Kansas City for a KCRF promo. I'll be in belly dance mode to promote the Royal Cigar Society Smoker and will, if encouraged, perform. I am thrilled and terrified at the prospect of dancing for a drunken crowd of gay men. This could be a great time or it could end in tears. Oh, the suspense! We plan to descend upon the unsuspecting masses around 9:00 p.m.

Big news: On Wednesday, mckitterick and I drove to Salina to pick up a car. ( Cut for image )
Cute, no? It's a 1971 VW Type 3. Right now it's at Das Autohaus to get a mechanic's opinion on if the troubles we had driving it home are worth fixing or if we're gonna need to put the smack down on the seller. Hey, at least we made it to Topeka before the oil fire. I hope we get a thumbs-up on it because it's absolutely beautiful and once the major issues are ironed out (gearing it a little lower, fixing the idle) it'll be great fun to drive. Most of the people who passed us on the long drive home (we never went above 65mph) slowed down to get a good look at the little VW as they passed. I was driving the Crossfire behind, so I got to see all the reactions. It was fun--can't wait to drive it myself, but I'm waiting until it's better tuned. I killed it three times in the dealer parking lot before handing the keys over to mckitterick. A wise woman knows her limits.

While in Salina, mckitterick and I ate at a restaurant recommended by one of the car dealership guys. It was called The Hickory Hut and it was, possibly, some of the best BBQ I've ever had. The chicken bordered on divine. We talked about making the drive back out to Salina again sometime just to eat there. I despise road trips, so that should tell you just how amazingly good this food was. I think, though, that one meal provided my annual requirement for sodium. I was still bloated from it yesterday afternoon--to the point where my stomach drooped over the edge of my belly dance belt by a good inch or so. Even mckitterick, who is never critical of my physique (and also is used to the way I blow up like a balloon after restaurant meals) looked at me and said "You know, it's just water, right? Um, and it'll be gone by your performance tomorrow...won't it?"

Craziness.

It's mostly gone now. I took a Diurex pill last night and another one this morning, just to be safe. While I don't mind my little jelly roll belly, there is a point where jelly roll becomes a full dozen of cream cheese stuffed danish. And that, friends, is not sexy.

Despite adding an automobile to my list of belongings, I'm starting another purge, this time of the sewing room. *cue dramatic music*

I'm considering taking a huge step in my artistic development (details later), and that means less room for the secondary hobby pursuits. As I was telling roya_spirit, while there is nothing wrong with being a dilletante, I am tired of being one. I want to focus on one or two major things, and then have a couple occasional side projects to use as a breather/booster for my main areas of art.

One thing I am nixing is knitting. I just don't enjoy or do it enough to justify the time and space. I'm going to use the rest of my expensive wool to make a few more pairs of felted slippers because those are ridiculously easy and fast. But the rest of my yarn has gotta go. Contact me if you want to buy some of the recycled silk yarn. I have about six skeins left. My massive collection of patterns (free patterns, printed from the web) will be available to anyone who wants to come get them.

I'm going to try to organize regular alternative craft days for projects like portable altars, visual journaling, shrine building, etc. I think stuff like that is good for a shake-up and break-up of stale mental patterns. Maybe do it as a quarterly thing? bestill, if you'd like to be involved, that would be super-duper. Since it won't happen too often, perhaps everyone interested could scrape up enough cash to make it worth your while to host. Might be a nice way for you to make a little bit of money between workshops? We can talk about it later.

I don't think my doing this will have the same effect as my father would, but I'll give it a try.

*stern look at weather*

I am very, very disappointed in you.

Last night, mckitterick and I got to see just a bit over the first quarter of the eclipse. That is, we got to see it get a little bit over halfway dark, and just barely starting to turn orange, before clouds rolled in. By the time the moon was in full eclipse, we had total cloud cover and couldn't see anything at all. Very sad.

mckitterick did get out the telescope, though, so what we did see we saw right proper. By sheer luck, I happened to look into the eyepiece just as a small private plane flew in front of the moon. I happened so fast I barely registered what I'd seen, but wow! Very cool. I wound up doing jumping jacks and jogging in place to stay warm. Brrr.

And the continuing yuckiness *glares at weather* *weather remains unswayed* probably means that my lovely evening plans with bestill are cancelled, too.

I wore The Vest to work today and have already learned a valuable lesson. My office is Too Cold for anything with less coverage than a full sweater over a long-sleeved undershirt. I'm absolutely freezing. I had to put my cardigan on over the vest. Which totally ruins the effect. Alas. But I wore it! It's lovely. ( Cut for photo )

This means, however, that while I won't stop working on the vest I started last night, I'm definitely going to get started on that long-sleeved cardigan/jacket--pronto.

bestill has her online store up and running! There's more there than her Etsy store, and she doesn't have to pay listing fees! So go take a look if you want some yarn, spinning fiber, rubber stamps, mini-buttons...