Thank heavens. I solved the moving mouth issue on the monkey puppets without needing to run the control to the rod. I took photos, but left the cable to upload them, so you’ll have to continue waiting for illustrations.

After installing the mechs in all three of the boys, I screwed their tails on and then it was time to consider their heads. Emily had selected these neat wicker balls for their heads, but once I installed the mechs, there really wasn’t a way to use the wicker balls without cutting them, which would make them fall apart.

So, I called upon a skill set that I acquired when I was maybe nine or ten. See, one summer my mom and a couple of other moms had some sort of arrangement where we’d go to a different house and have a lesson. So, a group of other girls my age would come to our house and Mom taught us to sew. Another mother taught us to bake a cake. And one mother taught us basket-weaving. At least, I think the basketry classes were part of that collection of lessons.

Today it came in handy. I wove a little basket which fits neatly around the controls. It took three tries to come up with a look that worked, but we’re happy with the final one. Now I just have to weave four more. I think they’ll each take about an hour. Expect me to complain about my hands hurting tomorrow. I’m not using wicker, I’m using wire with grapevine skin wrapped around it. It looks like wicker, but is capable of piercing the flesh in one’s hand more efficiently.

Oh. And I finally had my birthday massage today. Ah. Bliss.

Carol Pinchefsky is a writer that I know through various circles. She talented and nice. She also has an article in todays New York Times’s Modern Love column, called, ‘La Bohème’ Is Romantic, as Long as I’m Not the Star. This is a column that is regularly illustrated by our friend David Chelsea, you might have noticed his wife -e- hanging out here. I feel like these folks should know each other, but they don’t. It is only random coincidence that I’m sitting here as link between them.

I DIDN’T marry my husband for his money, I swear. I married him because he is brilliant, funny, compassionate and handsome. He is also unlike any man I had ever dated. You see, he has a job.

A man with a job wasn’t a situation I had much experience with. I was raised by a mostly single mother; my father, who lived with us intermittently, could not pay child support. We lived on welfare, food stamps and the charity of relatives. Our telephone connection was a fair-weather friend.

Look what was in today’s NY Times.

Except for the muscles rippling under his form-fitting dress shirt, Magnus Scheving at first glance bears little resemblance to Sportacus, the hyperactive, health-promoting hero he plays in the international hit children’s television program “LazyTown.”

Unlike Sportacus, Mr. Scheving does not have a thin black mustache that juts out as if he had recently been electrocuted. He does not reside in a dirigible in the sky. He does not have a ski hat-cum-nightcap permanently affixed to his head.

But both he and his alter ego are devoted to a single, impassioned cause: getting couch potato-prone children to exercise, eat good food and generally lead healthier lives. And somehow Mr. Scheving, the creator and chief executive of the vast entertainment and licensing company known as LazyTown Entertainment, has become one of Iceland’s best-known figures and biggest exports, a sui generis hybrid of Jack LaLanne and Richard Branson.

This is who I worked for in Iceland. You can read the rest of the article about Magnus at the NY Times website.

Need another reason to submit to the Shimmer pirate issue? I’ll give you two.

1. James A. Owen, of Here, There be Dragons, has agreed to illustrate the entire issue. This will look hot.
2. We’re doing a limited edition hard-cover version of the Pirate issue. This will look hotter

The submission window closes on February 28th. Have you sent your story in?