A VISIT AND DINNER

Dudette, CK and I went to visit Cop Car today.  It was a visit, and then out to dinner.  What could go wrong with that?

Well...glad you asked.  Of all the male members in the immediate family, I was the only representative present.   Hmmmmmm...can you say conspiracy, boys and girls?  The others left me as the sacrifice, seemed like anyways.

Not so.

Dudette and I got to Cop Cars place and we sat around chatting.  It was very nice actually.  We were having a great time.

Then CK showed and more talk happened.  It was great, to be honest with everyone.  We had a ball.

Then Cop Car said we had to hit the road if we were going to make it to the Quilting Shop before it closed.  Alright!! The Quilting Shop.  *YAWN*  Terrific.  I've been waiting my whole life for this moment.

I'm not much of an artsy-craftsy person.  So you can imagine the level of adrenaline coursing through my system at this revelation.  But I am a "visually" oriented person.  Walking into the shop was like walking into a fairy-tale set for a movie.

All the patterns and colors were amazing.  They had some really cool stuff hanging around.  And the manufacturing (putting stuff together) side of me was enthralled with the complexity of the patterns.  Actually not all that complex, but the manner of making them a repeating pattern that formed the total picture drew me in.  Like fractal patterns.  They held my interest.

And the bolts of fabric, with all these weird colors and patterns on them, were fantastic to look at without them being cut up and stitched to form the quilts hanging on the walls.  It was eye-candy for me.

My only problem with this is, I don't have the patience to do something like this.  Sorry, but I am admittedly lazy here.  WAY too much work involved for no more interest than what I have.  And, I am too cheap to buy some of the work made by someone else.  I can look at this stuff and KNOW the amount of labor that would go into it.  And I know what I think my time is worth.  I'm not paying, thankyouverymuch.

While I was in awe of the pieces of art I saw hanging around, I can honestly say "I" will never make one.  Nor can I see asking anyone else to make one for me.  I'm afraid I wouldn't appreciate it properly.

Really.  Some of what I saw deserved being framed and hung on a wall like a Picasso.

But I enjoyed the heck out of going to the Shop.  It was really cool.  And I'd do it again.  I do go back to museums and art galleries, you know.  I can appreciate classy stuff.

From there, the four of us hit up the local restaurant.  Dinner was very good and the conversation ran all over the place.  Bad jokes were even made, by everyone.  The food and the company was grand.

Returning back to Cop Cars place, we continued chatting and hanging out.  We were lucky enough to be there when HH called.  He is out of town taking care of some disaster relief.  (nice guy that he is, this is how he deals with retirement...disaster relief volunteer...wow, that calls for a whole separate post)

By now, we had been visiting for several hours.  CK and Dudette need to get up early in the morning and the long (25 - 30 minutes) drive home would be fun as it has been raining all day and the fair damsels were tired.  I only had to worry about getting one of them home alive.  The young one was on her own.

It was a fun day.

Surprises happen.

Comments

[Cop Car]

Nice posting, WD, and I'm really happy that you found it within yourself to appreciate our outing. To your readers who are quilters, I want you to know how much I lucked out: there was a Jenny Beyer-designed quilt hanging on a wall that just knocked us all out. And, it is available as a kit. The only reason we didn't drag a kit home with us was that the colors were blues, greens, and purples. Everyone in our crew loved the purples and blues; but we are, none of us, fans of greens.

Among the bolts were many fabrics that I hadn't previously seen, having been away from the store since just before Thanksgiving. CK (AKA Wonderful Granddaughter) and Dudette spotted a wonderful Hoffman screen-printed fabric in purples with butterflies and other flying critters (of the bug variety). We brought four yards of Flights of Fancy, C526 home with us.

I'll hand it to our local quilting shop (Sunflower Quilts in Derby KS): no other store that I've been within has the space to display so many quilts/quilt tops on their walls, nor do others have the high ratio of window area to floor area that this shop has. It's marvelous to shop in a place where I can easily move among the shelves of bolts and actually see the fabric when I pull it out.

[CK]

The guys (Chew and HH) set you up. I heard Chew talking to HH setting the whole thing up. Chew said he would help HH create a diseaster and Chew went out of town on work. They threw you under the bus. But the joke is on them. Had they been here that night they could have gone to the quilt shop with us. Now they have missed out on everything.

[CK]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the product of the Wichita public school system. Sorry for the misspelling. Disaster

[Wichi]

My tax dollars at "work". Hmmm, they must have been laid off during her education.

[bogie]

I always blame misspellings on my fingers being faster than my brains (which is not a reall ringing endorsement of my endocranial endowment!).

[Cop Car]

CK--Tell Chew (and I shall tell HH) to cut it out. We'll never know if they had the stuff in them to do as WD did--enjoy to the extent possible. BTW: I cannot spell, either--not "either", but "Jenny" should read "Jinny". Her parents were individualists--much as HH was when he spelled your mother's name for the beureau of vital statistics.

WD--Errr...education begins at home. (It's a wonder anyone in our family can spell...or speak...or....since our family line went through me!)

Bogie--Is "endocranial" related to my being uncoordinated? If so, I'll plead guilty--for myself and for passing it along to you! Think I got it from my dad; but, then, he's handy for me to blame things on having been dead for nearly 20 years, now. What I can't blame on Dad, I blame on Hunky Husband. Why else marry?

[bogie]

I've blamed WS for so many things he just now looks at me and says, "It's my fault, I don't know how, but it must be."

Takes all the fun out of it, he does!

[CK]

CC - Chew has always wondered where I got my "justification" gene from. Now I know. . .Grandma! See?!?! It is not my fault.
Bogie - Chew does that too. After less than 1 year of being married, he automatically knows it is his fault. He never knows HOW it is his fault but he knows.

[Cop Car]

Well, if 13 years of our being apart taught Hunky Husband anything, it was that everything is his fault! *snickering*