I want every day to include a rock concert where I get to watch my husband perform his own stuff, and he’s so awesome, and it’s so much fun, and I love his music so much, and he’s so awesome, and it’s so much fun…

Only a fraction of the people who said they’d turn out to his band’s performance tonight actually did. But that’s okay because I know people are busy and also, sadly some people seriously do not know the level of Fucking Awesome that Ralph and Flo bring.  The band got hosed via their scheduled slot (first band on Thursday night; obviously the later positions, especially Friday’s, are better for audience participation), but even given that I would not say they had the potential to be crowd favorites (although they certainly garnered lusty cheers from the smallish audience assembled).  I honestly think Aberdeen and Hoquiam are still more interested in the grunge snorefest of rather unoriginal, plodding guitar-lick laden stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of grunge.  Some of my best friends are… um, grunge?  No seriously. I can belt out the Pearl Jam like no one’s business.  Just ask all those poor victims at the Paylor’s summer barbecue event last year.

And I’m not saying the other bands that played were snore-inducing. Shit. I’m just talking myself into a corner here. What I am saying: Ralph’s group is hard-pressed to find their screaming fanbase in this locale. Good enough?

This was the second show with Flo and she and Ralph were amazing together. They used “hired gun” Geoff on drums (an old friend of Ralph’s; they were in a previous effort together). The three of them brought it.

The kids and I sat with a small group of vocal and awesome friends who cheered the group on with much gusto. I couldn’t stop aggressively tapping my foot and singing. I don’t know where we’re going to get the scratch to record another album but I know it must happen as it’s too good not to.

Sophie wore her new nightgown as she loved it very much. She wasn’t sure of the propriety of doing so; she worried she’d get it messy (I told her I would happily wash it – and she didn’t muss it anyway as it turned out) or that people would make fun of her (I validated this concern; she also knows what I think of such potential opinions). Gee, I am sensing a need to further help her deprogram from some absurd social concepts. She was a doll at the show, helping look after her younger friend E. and supporting her father as a loving daughter does.

Nels of course was dying to be involved stage-wise (Ralph schedules all-ages shows whenever possible so The Boy can stage-dance). He’s so suave he totally got past a “SECURITY” fellow standing at the stage curtain; a few minutes later when I went in to retrieve The Boy the same “SECURITY” fellow stopped me and wouldn’t let me pass. I gave it up, figuring it was his ass when my son Phantom of the Opera’d down from some rigging.

Ralph, Sophie, and neighbor-kid/friend Little P. stuck around a bit longer to support some of the other bands; Ralph came home early enough to deliver Little P. home to his family (school night and all).

Tonight was their last show as Redbird Fever, as the band has changed membership since that moniker was agreed upon. Their future shows and recordings will be as LiiGHTS.

I like it.

Sometimes these things happen. You sew something up and it doesn’t fit. Guess what, this rarely ever happens to me, but it’s happened three times in the last couple weeks. One item was the Insa skirt from the Farbenmix book which I’d intended for my daughter Sophie.

No matter. I not only know scores of little girls who’d likely enjoy a frilly skirt, I also have a smaller-scale model in-house who’s happy to pose so I can get pictures before I send it to its new home:

As I took pictures Nels reached for my scissors and began to snip at a stray thread on the skirt. This is something he’s seen me fuss over a million times. I’m touched he knows it’s part of the sewing process.

On to the pattern. As I discovered, it does run small; this is easy enough to forstall, but I was lazy and just sewed the same size I’d been sewing from the book. If you’d like to make sure you don’t make my mistake, simply measure the waistband and yoke circumference, take your sewing tape, and put it around your child’s hips at that same measurement. This circumference should have enough room from waist to mid-thigh your child can move comfortably. Remember, as it’s an elastic waist it’s easy to make a slightly large skirt fit just fine at the waist. Anyway, a too-large skirt is obviously a more desirable result than a too-small one as your child will grow into it in about five minutes.

The skirt’s lines are lovely. There is an easy and fabric showy feature on the underskirt that allows you to add volume to the skirt and show off more of the underlayer. This is accomplished by vertical lengths of 1/4″ elastic on the underside of the underskirt, midway through each gore. The elastic is cut to length and triple-stitched: a more “bubbly” effect is obtained the shorter the elastic strips you use, as I did:

The skirt is, like all the patterns in the book, made for using many different fabrics, scraps, and embellishments. You can add a contrast waistband (as I did) or use the upper edge of the yoke for the elastic facing. It’s the perfect skirt for twirling and lots of movement, and also to show off trims and topstitching:

And finally, I added my own label at the center back yoke, on the inside of the skirt. Who knows where it may end up and maybe they’ll come look me up and find my sewing and be inspired.

A day like today, even with a lack-of-sleep hangover and no car and a mild feeling of cabin fever and all that, the sun was shining and my son heckled me mercilessly to accompany him out on the bikes and so we did. And I’m not complaining about my day when I get to bike in the sun.

I had a skit running through my mind all morning and I’ve been laughing and laughing about it:

(I actually love it when something silly plays over and over in my head), AND THEN when Sophie and I biked to get our groceries, outside the shop there was a rather scruffy looking middle-aged fellow drinking a huge silver can of beer, so I was just super-pleased to see that. Before we went inside we browsed the posted flyers and the man shuffled over and offered to pay for a ride on the red quarter airplane (a mildly dilapitated kiddie ride). I thanked him but Sophie wasn’t interested.  So then he asked if when I was a kid I’d gone on the same airplane kiddie ride and I said Yes and smiled and he cackled and actually slapped at his thigh and took another pull on the beer. So that whole business was great because usually most all the time I love talking to strangers.  I always have.

While Nels visited with his Gram it was good to have a handful of minutes with my daughter, even if all we did was pick up groceries and go to the new local pizza eatery (a nice enough place with very sweet owners, huddled in a rather depressing stretch of highway and dilapidated neighborhood buildings and sidewalks).  When my daughter and I are alone sometimes we barely even talk to each other, but we do touch a lot and I hold her and she puts her hand on mine and her head on my shoulder.  When we got home today the schoolkids were walking along the sidewalk and she caught up with some friends, her smile wide and her freckles popping and her legs pedaling furiously.  She brought Little P over and helped train him in drawing dragons (Sophie is super-accomplished on this account) and then the kids played Legos for hours.  Nels came in and out, digging a hole in the sideyard to explore under the house, his lean little body wrapped in his father’s hoodie to keep spiders away.  After this adventure concluded he planted new seeds and took a bag of fertilizer out to apply in the garden (he tells me his pea shoots are already coming up) and chased the chickens.  Ralph and Nels are the gardeners in the family; I guess come summer I’ll see just what they’ve been up to but I hope pumpkins are involved at least.

We moved the chicks out to the garage as part of the “hardening” process.  I kind of miss their peeping and scratching and the occasional and inexplicable MASSIVE POULTRY THROWDOW bash-about.  I’m also looking forward to putting them out in the back – when they’re ready – for the two-flock action (think: West Side Story fruity and deadly dance-fighting).

Spring, it’s good times.

Oh good Lord. If more days were like this they’d make up for a baker’s dozen of bad ones. It wasn’t just that my head cold lifted and the sun came out, and I got to watch the kids swim in really awesome lessons at the Y, or that we spent most of the day outside and ran into all sorts of friends and neighbors, and had a wonderful late lunch at our little Chinese American diner including an illustrative discussion with the proprietess (who loves Nels, and this is reciprocated) and some old-timer schooling me on the “class of people” living in Grays Harbor (ugh!) – all of which were wonderful, wonderful parts of my day.

But no, early in the afternoon kind of as an afterthought I hauled out Nels’ “new” bike ($9 at Thrift City, $5 for tune-up and new seat from our bike shop) and asked him if he wanted to learn to ride. And he said yes. And what the hell happened if he didn’t get on the bike and just start pedaling, steering and balancing, perfectly. Yes, his very first time ever on his own two-wheeled bike. I thought Sophie learned fast but this was amazing. Also: no training wheels BTW, as the bike guy told us years ago to not bother, so we never have. I will point out instead of $10 training wheels they’ve been riding on the back of my longtail bike which had a considerably larger price tag.

Nels rode well and with joy and competence from the get-go. He asked for help at first (barely steadying him as he got started). He crashed several times. But he even crashed awesomely – quickly and efficiently and when necessary, swiftly disentangling himself from the bike so not to go down with it (yes, there was blood and bruise and he got right back to things every time). On Karr Avenue he hit a truck, sort of but not really, because he used his handbrake and feet to avert a bone-rattling crash then sprang off the bike elegantly as it slid under the vehicle while he gently placed his hand on the door as if soothing a riled-up stallion.

And of course I really do mean it about the longtail experience being hugely instrumental to his abilities, because he also displayed an incredible awareness of traffic, space cushions, lane position, and braking distance – besides the balance and steering bit. Trust me, I’ve ridden bikes with many children and a lot of them are never trained properly and it kind of makes my hair stand on end to bike with them as they jet across streets without looking and ride into oncoming traffic and weave back and forth wtihout shoulder-checking and crash into the rest of the bike party. My kids have learned to ride a bike by sitting on the back of mine for a couple years. Kind of an incredible bonus to cargo biking.

But, and I want to be very accurate here: while there was a part of me that was amazed (although I shouldn’t be) at just how effortless, natural, and inspiring my kids’ process of learning is (when it’s not forced, coerced, or prompted), the thing that most stuck with me was the joy inherent in the entire business. Nels radiated concentration, ability, success, and happiness; a vitality thrummed through his veins, not something my camera caught (I did grab a bit of video) or that’s even easy to explain. His eyes flashed at me when he felt he was getting into a tricky bit of terrain. His voice rung out assertive yet gracious enough when he asked me for help. He hurt himself a couple times, enough to bring tears. I held him and pet him and he was back on the bike with no regrets nor fears. I felt so fortunate, just amazingly happy, to be with someone learning something new in such a way, all the joy and ability and in-the-moment presence of this child. It’s not something I often see in adults.

It felt like we biked all day.

It’s dark by the time we stop at my mother’s; she’s not at home. Sophie wants to stay the night. She suggests she write a note to my mom. A few minutes later she hands it to me: “Hello Gram, My mother drooped [sic] me of [sic] to stay the night. I hope that’s OK, Love Sophie”. I laughed and laughed because I meant a note we left to ask my mother to get back to us, as opposed to a note that we tape on the window after the assumptive act of abandoning the child (which is, in fact, what we did; and yes, my mother upon her return did agree to the scheme). Sophie and her bike stayed at my mom’s and Ralph made reconnaissance with our daughter’s suitcase.

It was a really fucking great day.

Photo courtesy of Little P, a neighborhood boy who accompanies us on bike trips when his family lets him.