Heard Around the House

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for an Invisible Woman Costume

There is a phenomenon known to all teachers and parents.  You can be in the same room with students and children and as long as you don’t make eye-contact or ask them a question, you are pretty much invisible.  This has enabled me to learn much this holiday season.  Here are comments and  conversations overhead by the Invisible Woman.

“You guys leave your Christmas tree up all year huh?”

 

“So how many presents have you found in Mama’s  secrete hiding place in  the attic?”

 

“Why does he have more presents than me?”

“Well, the things you want are much more expensive than his.”

“Yeah, you should want cheap stuff like me.”

“Well I don’t think wrapping each Ugg boot separately should count as two separate gifts.”

 

“Do you think if I say “Call To Duty” would help my social studies grade, Mama would buy it?”

“The game or the con?”

 

“Why are we eating dinner in the dining room?”

“Mama cooked.”

“Real food?”

 

“If the temperature drops below 32, Mama takes us to school in the truck and you can sit on the heated seat.  But if the temperature is in the teens, we go in the car and I get to use the remote to start the car from inside the house.”

Yeah, because Mama doesn’t have a hot seat.”

 

“I know what Mama wants for Christmas.  Medicaid.”

“Merry Maids,  MERRY MAIDS! you idiot.”

 

The way this is going I will end up with a maid on Medicare, searching the attic for the left Ugg boot present, and dusting my Christmas tree in August.

Maybe if I wore a bell around my neck….  

 

 

When Did This Happen?

by Jody Worsham, co-author....wait for it....wait for it...."Kin We're Not Related To"
All rights reserved for  What Not to Wear Now

When did the clothes in my closet become costumes to be raided for Halloween and Red Ribbon Week?

Today was Dress Like a Decade.  The kids found a poodle skirt I had made for one of the first bunch of kids in the closet. 

"Let's dress up like they did in the fifties" said the thirteen-year-old.

“How do we know what that looks like" asked the nine-year-old.

"Easy, we'll ask Mama. She was there.  She probably has some of the same clothes she wore then still in her closet."

How dare that little twerp imply that I am old and I think I did save a couple of those 500 yard petticoats up in the attic.

Rigging up the boy's costume for the fifties was easy.  Roll up the cuffs of his Levi jeans, slap on a pair of white socks, hunt up a pair of tennis shoes, snatch the dog tags off the dog, bleach out a white tee shirt, roll a box of crayons up in the sleeve (fake pack of cigarettes) a little cooking oil on his hair and you have a an instant nine-year-old Fonze!

Now the thirteen-year-old was different mainly because I actually wore clothes from the 50's every day...in the fifties.  She would be totally accurate. 

I know; you want to know if there is a costume prize, certificate, recognition etc.  Well, not this time, at least not that I know of but there will be pictures in the annual of the best costumes...which we will have.

The skirt that she found was originally for one of the girls from our first family and judging from the size of the skirt, I had not realized we had, at one time a short, round fat midget of a girl.

Fortunately, I had a bolt of gray felt that a sorority in town had used for something and was throwing away, but I beat the trash truck to their street.  We folded the felt and laid it out on the floor.  Using a yard stick and chalk we marked out a semi-circle.  The good thing about felt is that you don't have to hem it. We salvaged the felt pink poodle from the other skirt and attached it at just the right spot to show at all times. The entire skirt was finished in less than an hour.

We tossed the two 500 yard petticoats into the dryer to fluff them even more.  She found a white blouse that I starched heavily so the collar would stand up in back. I cut my long pink silky scarf so she could have a tie around her neck and a longer piece for her pony tail.

"Put the pony tail up higher.  It has to show slightly above the crown of your head," I said.

"And you think I am particular about how I wear my messy bun!"

With her pony tail at just the right height, 1,000  yards of net petticoat beneath the gray poodle skirt, white Keds, cuffed white socks, starched collar turned up, and my, yes, my 1958 letter sweater, she looked like she had just stepped off the pages of my year book.

"Hey, this is pretty cool."

Pretty cool!  High praise and definitely deserving of several pictures in this year's annual.

No therapy required this time, well not for her,… maybe for me.

Doggie Do!

By Jody Worsham,and yes I co-authored "Kin We're Not Related To"

All rights reserved for Dog Whisperer

Yes, it was that time of year again...The Great Pet Costume Contest.  Still glowing after the Funniest Costume win with the nine-year-old, I wanted more, and this time there were actual prizes.

Last year, Pork Chop, son of Tia Mia, won First Place in the Lite Weight Division AND over all GRAND CHAMPION as "Taco Bill" wearing my original homemade Taco costume.  This year it was up to his mother to carry on the winning tradition.

Now to win, you have to be clever, stand out in the crowd, and be unique.  I had an idea but first I had to create a helmet for a dog.  Shih Tzu’s have a small head.  I thought about those green Styrofoam balls you stab artificial flowers into, but those were costly and they had to be hollowed out.  I searched the house for something round.  Cereal bowels were too heavy, no time to create a paper mâché helmet, tin foil would bend, and cardboard required many small cuts between the cardboard ribs and then it would only bend one way.  Like Thomas Edison, I discovered many ways not to make a Shih Tzu helmet. 

Then beneath the kitchen sink, I found the Cone of Shame Tia had once worn when she had a hurt paw. It fit, but it needed to be round.  I tried twisting Wal-Mart sacks (we have a lifetime supply) around the base of the cone to build it up.  It had the shape, but would need something to cover the sacks.  Felt was too stiff.  A white tee-shirt in the Not-Ever-Going-to-Wear-This-Again-but-Too-Good-to-Trash pile caught my eye.  It was soft, pliable, and it was white.  However, the twists in the Wal-Mart sacks showed through.  I settled on some batting left over from quilting.  All the helmet needed now was some gold duck tape around the edges, and a rounded visor I covered in gold duck tape.

With the helmet out of the way, it was time to tackle the air tanks.  I had bought two extra two liter bottles of root beer and Dr. Pepper for the previous Scuba Zombie costume.  I instructed the two kids to empty the contents, which they eagerly did.  Tossing me the empty plastic bottles, the hyper children ran outside to chase the squirrels.  I sprayed the bottles white then added pieces of red plastic and strips of orange construction paper to the opening of the bottles to represent flames.

I printed out two American Flags and glued those to the tanks.  All that was left was printing the name on the helmet and Astro-Mutt was ready for a win.  And WIN she did. 

First Place and Best of Show!  Whaoo!  Automatic Dog Feeder and $30 in dog food.

This doggie did do it, and yes, therapy will be required.