Sicko

I am, of course, referring to the documentary by Mike Moore, in which he compares the US's healthcare system very unfavourably with that of Canada and the UK.

Now, I know that Mr Moore has been known to be a little biased in his film-making, to push for his view even if it means excluding evidence to the contrary. But I don't know him to be a liar.

Even taking into account what I know about the man (and I'm still a fan), what I've learned about the American health system is truly shocking. My understanding of the system was that - if you could afford health insurance or had it as a job perk, you'd be fine. If you were old, you'd be covered by Medicare. If you didn't fall into either category, you'd be at the mercy of a small number of overcrowded public hospitals. And I thought Sicko was going to be a rant against the need for health insurance.

I really wasn't expecting it to be a rant against the health insurance companies themselves, that their goal is to deny any claim if they possibly can in order to save money - to the extent that the pay of doctors employed by these companies went up in direct proportion to the amount of money they saved.

In comparison, the residents of Canada, the UK and even Cuba, enjoy free medical care and cheap or  subsidised medicines (I know, in real life there are waiting lists - but it's better than being told you can't get it at all). Moore even took a group of Americans who'd been suffering health problems caused by their time doing voluntary rescue work at the 9/11 site - all of whom had been denied health insurance funding for medical treatment - and took them on a trip to Cuba, where they received free and un-rushed care in a hospital, really cheap medication and a hero's salute by the local fire brigade.

And the most shocking thing is that this film was released well before Obama became president. And it's STILL looking like America is not going to get universal healthcare.

It's made me extremely glad to be living in New Zealand where, although it's not free to see your GP and neither are medicines, both still affordable enough that most people who need help will get it before its too late.

Probably the umpteenth blog post about Avatar.

So last night the boy and I went out to the movies for the first time in probably a year. Avatar wouldn't have been my first choice (I would rather have gone to see Sherlock Holmes or Where the Wild Things Are - and then there're all the less mainstream movies that I don't bother to find out about any more), but I knew the boy wanted to see it.

I booked us for the 2D version, because I was sure the 3D version would give me a headache at the very least - feeling slightly nauseous after ten minutes of Coraline in 3D (on DVD) had been a useful clue.

As it turned out, even watching Avatar in 2D was enough to give me a headache. Though I would have to blame the fact that it was too long, kept me up well past my normal bed time, and had a cookie-cutter storyline (not to mention the oft-observed racial stereotypes portrayed here). Having said that, it was pretty much what I was expecting - including the excellent special effects.

My personal highlight of the movie was watching Sully's avatar wriggle uncomfortably in his new g-string (the standard uniform of Pandora's natives - of course). It was the one sign that maybe James Cameron wasn't taking himself too seriously.

Disguise yourself as nature

I think black suits my colouring, but the main reason I wear it is because it's supposed to go with any colour. And, unlike colours, you can wear it head to toe without looking like a giant child's toy or a funny-shaped cupcake.

But I've bought some fabric for a skirt, and its a chocolate brown with pink embroidery. Sounds pukey, but actually quite pretty (at least in my opinion).

And that got me wondering what on earth would I wear with it, because according to Trinny and Susannah I really should not wear browns.

I had an epiphany while walking from the bus stop to my house this afternoon. Why not take nature as my inspiration i.e. if two particular colours are found in nature, then they will probably look find in your outfit.

This means that:

• green goes with red, blue, yellow, white and orange (flower colours)
• blue goes with white, green and yellow (flower and sky colours)
• brown goes with green, black, yellow and orange (forest floor colours)
• white goes with white, blue and black (snow, sky and zebra colours)
• red goes with nude, green (bleeding person and flower colours)

and so on.

Of course, there is always the chance that you'll end up being mistaken for the landscape.

It's a summer...no, it's a winter!

The summer wedding that we went to yesterday, which  I'd especially bought a summer maxi dress to wear to, turned out to be more of a winter wedding. In fact, I wore the exact same dress that I wore to a mid-winter wedding 18 months ago (only this time the dress was a bit tight but the shoes weren't). Plus, I had on my new opaque tights and woolly coat which I'd had to take out of storage.

So my new summer dress hangs unused, as do most of my other summer clothes. And I read in this morning's paper that the rest of our summer is going to be just as disappointing. If only I'd known this back in spring, I could have saved myself lots of what-to-wear angst.

On the bright side, I won't feel like an odd-bod for lusting after the tweeds I see featured in Northern hemisphere magazines. I always prefer winter clothes anyway.

p.s. TLM came along to the wedding ceremony in her new Dora dress, which she insisted on wearing instead of the RTW dress I'd picked out for her (and looked adorable, of course). I'll take it as a complement.

Three times free

So, Gen-i was offering ice cream to its corporate customers as Christmas presents - well either that or a donation to charity. I'd like to say that we (that is, my work) went for the donation option, but greed won out. We'd requested that they deliver the yummy goods after Christmas, when more people would be back at work, you see. And it arrived today at midday.

There were 15 ice cream items for the 9 staff who were in today, delivered by a charming Oirish chappie who is in NZ for his working holiday. Fortunately, there was a range of goodies - ice blocks, vanilla tubs and those ice pops that come in that unnatural shade of blue (plus sprinkles, for extra artificial flavouring goodness). Otherwise, the chocolate-shy woman might have missed out, and the vegan definitely would have.

I wondered whether I could get myself sick on ice cream, like - how many would I need to eat to get sick to my stomach?

As it turns out, more than three.

The others waited for the sugar high to kick in, anticipating either high jinks or emotional chaos (like PMT, perhaps?). Well they were disappointed. Probably all I got was fatter (in my defense, all I had for lunch was 3 Krispie biscuits and an orange).

Selfless sewing

After the boy went and bought some off-cut Dora the Explorer fabric, I decided I should try and make a dress for The Little Madam. Although she is mad keen on the Disney Fairies and Disney Princesses, there is still room in her heart for Dora.

So I picked a few potential sewing patterns and asked TLM to rate them, and her favourite by far was McCall's 5033 - which requires a really large amount of fabric for the circle skirt.


My main obstacle was that the shop only had this pattern in Girls sizes 7-12, whereas I reckoned I needed a Childs size 4. So I did a bit of tucking here and there on the bodic pattern pieces, and quite a bit of tucking on the skirt pattern pieces (so they'd be less of a circle and require less fabric). I also bound all the raw edges with bias strips instead of lining the whole garment, and didn't bother with the inside ruffle. When I was just about to put the zip in, I realised that the binding added too much bulk to allow for zip insertion. So I hand sewed snap buttons instead. (The photos posted here are pre-fix, as described below).

TLM loved her dress right away, but one of the snap buttons kept unpopping, which to me meant that a) I needed to replace those buttons with a zip and b) I had got it slightly wrong when re-sizing the bodice pattern piece. I spent a couple of hours last night trying to fix this by inserting extra fabric at the back before putting in a zip. But now it's too big!! Maybe I should have just added more snap buttons instead...

If I had to do all this again, I would definitely line the dress instead of binding all the seams - it would have taken less time and added less bulk. Anyway, TLM still loves it so I should just let it go shouldn't I?

That went far too quickly

I think Summer happened maybe three times over the Christmas and New Year break, with plenty of rain and gustiness in between.

We finally got a perfectly gorgeous day today, the last day before I go back to work. We managed to fit in:

• a load of washing; 
• a playdate at the public swimming pool (where TLM pranced about and learned to steer clear of the squirty things that spray warm water in your face when you least expect it); a walk in the hills for me while the boy took TLM to the zoo; 
• sewing TLM's Dora dress (using pink Dora fabric which the boy bought pre-Xmas, plus some purple quilting fabric which I'd originally intended for a loud Sixties tunic for myself - I'll post a piccie when it's completed); 
• and many games of Snap.

So tomorrow it's back to normality - for me, anyway. For the boy, it's a week of being TLM's main playmate for another week before daycare starts up again. He's gonna be tired by Friday.

Well, that's one way to keep me up for the New Year...

Like most people who have young children with early bedtimes, and who are really anal about sticking to those early bedtimes, and have no one to babysit for free on New Year's Eve anyway...we had no plans to go out for NYE. The most I was hoping for was an uneventful evening followed by an early-ish night, to make up for waking up at 4am this morning and not being able to get back to sleep again.

But here I am, at 12.07am, having just kissed the boy. "How did you do it?" I hear you ask. Well...I ended up spending the whole evening in the hospital with my mum because she was suffering from really bad vertigo. That in itself doesn't sound bad enough to warrant emergency medical attention, but when you add type 2 diabetes, a recent change in medication and a steadfast refusal to follow a low-sugar diet - her light-headedness, dizziness and vomiting could have been a symptom of something really serious.

The silly woman didn't even bother to tell me that something was wrong, until I called her at 6pm.

The worst part for me was probably holding the almost-big-enough plastic cup under mum's chin as she threw up strange solids that didn't look anything like diced carrots. It almost made me bring up home made banana cake I'd chomped through an hour earlier. The next worst part was accepting a free surplus patient dinner (very nice of the staff, thank you very much) and realising that hospital food is every bit as bad as everyone says it is.

The best parts were being told that her affliction is not life-threatening - just scary, and that she could stay there overnight for observation (and someone else taking her to the toilet in the wee hours - oops, a pun!).

Happy New Year!

District 9 is really really good

District 9 is one of those rarities - a science fiction movie which has a good plot.
Set in Johannesburg, it's a story about a population of aliens who've ended up as refugees in this unfair city. If you know anything about South Africa's torrid history, then the apartheid theme will hit you in the face. It also reminded me of the news stories on tv that I've seen, about refugee camps and the treatment of the people who live there because there really is nowhere else for them to go.

But it's not all depressing. The man who's got the job of organising the removal of the alien population to somewhere 200 miles away, is quite a comical figure. He ends up being the hero (or anti-hero, perhaps).

I wonder if the timing of the remake of V was coincidental?

TLM and Christmas

This is the year that TLM remembers what happens at Christmas time. She started nagging about getting decorations up about two months ago, and has been counting down the sleeps for about two weeks now (literally).

She is also the one person in our household who is the subject of great present-giving splurging. I hope she likes the dolls house that could well become an heirloom - everyone else is getting a daycare calendar or something from the bong shop up the road from work (they sell toys too).

She knows the words to Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, We wish you a merry Christmas and Jingle Bells - well, the bastardised Kiwi versions anyway.

She remembers our holiday this time last year, up the coast at the beach. And she knows that we aren't going anywhere this year - but she'll be very happy to have girlie parties in the tent staked out in our back yard.

And I'm looking forward to receiving my first Christmas gift from her, which I spied drying on the top of the wardrobe (it's a painting).

Saved by Glassons*

I now have a dress for my cousin's wedding. It took me 3 shops and 50 minutes and cost me $40. I have definitely broken my own record for quick and cheap, and it's actually something I like - not a desperation buy.

I haven't taken a photo because it needs shortening. But it's a black maxi dress with a deep V neck at front and back, and shirring just under the boobies, in a cotton/viscose/lycra knit which drapes really well without clingy to anything dodgy. I'll have to be careful with the hemming because I have ruined knits in the past when the presser foot action has stretched the fabric out and I've ended up with a rippled and warp hem. So I may even do it by hand.

Funny, I always thought a long dress would just make me look like one of those Greek columns you see holding up banks (or perhaps a hot water cylinder with arms and head). I'm quite happy with this one, and the boy is too.

*Also known as the House of G - it is THE place for cheap 'n' cheerful women's clothing.

Nothing to wear

This happens every bluddy time.

I get an invite to a wedding...and I have nothing to wear.

The last wedding I went to was over a year ago in mid-winter. I managed to find a nice enough dress to wear, that looked nice with black shoes and black opaque tights.

But this one is in summer. Also, that dress is now too tight for me.

I have considered buying evening wear ahead of time, so that these last minute panics don't happen. But what's the point if I get too fat to wear it by the time I need it?

Can anyone recommend a shop that sells glamorous-looking tents?

A name change - and about time too!

I was never entirely happy with Short and sweet like me as the name of my blog. It's amazing that it's lasted about 4 years.

Never mind. I have thought up a new name, one which more accurately describes my posting personality.

I might even change the image in the header - but don't hold your breath.

Finally, the end to my shirt refashion

It started out as an attempt at clevergirl's "man's dress shirt transformed into woman's shirt dress". The boy had donated a lovely designer shirt with fine blue, black and white pin stripes and pale blue french cuffs. He said he'd stopped wearing it because of the ironing. And I felt that I really had to not stuff it up completely. I was really keen to keep the french cuffs, and also wanted to make a garment with longish sleeves so I could wear it in winter.

Unfortunately, although the shirt was an XL, I am not an XSML. There just wasn't enough fabric in the right places, for me to turn the shirt into a shirt dress - well not one that I could fit into, anyway.

Also, without a dress form (or willing slave to pin-fit it to my body), I wasn't able to properly fit the sleeves back onto the torso of the shirt without it looking like I was trying to wear a man's shirt.

Eventually I bought New Look 6808, intending to make the view represented by the pink top with the side-on bow, with long, french-cuffed sleeves.

And I did make it. But when I put the sleeves on, well...let's just say it was not a flattering look. It probably didn't help that, with my wide torso, I should not be wearing tops that stop at the top of my hips. Nor tops that are fitted at the waist. Nor pale blue fabrics.

Go on, chortle. You know you want to.

After a couple of sleepless nights trying to figure out how to save it, I decided to just get rid of the sleeves. My arms are probably the skinniest part of me, so showing them might overcome the lack of attractiveness everywhere else.

This is way better, especially if I can remain upright while wearing it. Because othewise I keep wanting to adjust it.

What I've learned from this tortuous experience - that I still have much to learn about what styles suit me.

Santa gets it wrong

We had two children's Christmas parties to attend, in the space of 3 days - both of which required the donation of a named, wrapped present so that Santa wouldn't have to turn up empty handed.

Now, TLM has been very vocal lately about what she want's for Christmas. She would like lots of love-heart jewellery.

This might be why she was slightly deflated when she opened up Santa's first present, the first Christmas party, to find that it was a pair of bracelets covered in a tiny cherry print. (Fortunately, she does like them now.)

I hoped that TLM would feel better about her second present from Santa, presented to her at the Chinese pre-school Christmas party. It was a green tartan handbag in the shape of a scary monster (it even had bloodshot eyes and sharp teeth). I'd bought it with my 6 year old niece in mind, but changed my mind after seeing the battery-operated voice-changer (3 different voices!). Well...I was very extremely wrong. TLM hated it. She even started getting teary-eyed and whiny - though that might have been also because she was a bit tired. Anyway I felt like a terrible failure as gift-selector.

Then my niece did something really kind and lovely. She offered TLM her present of Dora pens, declaring that she was too old for Dora. TLM was once again all smiles. And when I offered the niece the rejected monster handbag, she was all smiles too.

Body double

I'm thinking of getting a dress form, to help me with my sewing. I feel like I shouldn't 'cos they aren't cheap 'round this part of the world - around 350 bucks - but I did source one that's about 60 bucks cheaper (this is it here).

It would certainly make clothes-fitting way easier (unless I'm making trousers, because those things don't have crotches or legs), and I'd be able to learn how to design by draping.

But on the other hand, maybe it's still an extravagance. I've made do okay so far, and anyway fitted tops and dresses tend not to be very flattering on me. So maybe I don't need one.

The boy says I should get myself one and call it a Christmas present to myself. But my taste in prezzies doesn't normally run that expensive.

I dunno I dunno I dunno...

pirates

There is this shop I walk past on my way to work called Calico Jack's or some such name. Being where it is i.e. in the middle of boho-ville, I have never been inside. The shop window is always full of freaky spider-web patterned tights and tartan trousers a la Westwood, which I find highly amusing and sometimes even quite cool - but not anything I would wear. In other words, it is probably too young for me.

So I went in today and found that it is in fact a pirate shop (according to the chatty young man who charmingly called me darlin'.

Apart from the freaky tights and the tartan trou and the safety pin-trimmed corset mini dresses, are:

• little hand bags in the shape of almost-cute monsters
• tins of plasters decorated with fairies, monsters or skulls and crossbones
• books of pirate tattoos
• cigarette cases covered in voluptuous gypsy women sporting eye patches

I even found a few things that I would like to get as Christmas prezzies for the niece and nephew. But first I have to check out the bong shop up the road - they have fake-tattoo ink and invisible paints that glow in sunlight.

V

We watched the first half of the pilot episode of V last night. I don't remember much of the original series, though I do remember that the one time I attended a sci-fi convention party, there was a rather voluptuous woman in a painted-on vinyl suit with lacing down the legs - just like one of the V characters.

There was no such costuming last night - no-one dressed like they couldn't decide between Catwoman and Liz Hurley in that Versace dress and tried to do both at the same time. But the serenely gorgeous Morena Bacharin from Firefly is in it, (so is Alan Tudyk but he dies in the pilot) so I guess the overall affect on male viewers would have been similar.

I read in some reviews of the show that the original series was kind of a reference to Nazi-ism, while, with the timing, the current series could be read as anti-Obama scare-mongering (death by universal health care!). But from what I have seen of it so far, the Nazi references are still very strong (not that it's a bad thing).

I'll give it another few episodes I think.

Call it the Northern hemisphere influence, or a late start to summer

I've never had my colours done, but I'm pretty sure I'm a Winter. I also seem to be a Winter in my clothing preferences. Maybe it's because now I'm older I am no longer happy to walk around in shorts and tank tops (well not in public anyway). I dunno - but anyway I do find it hard to get really excited about summer fashion, but am always interested in looking at great boots, jackets and dresses that go with black opaque tights.

So, while I ought to be focusing my sewing energies on, say, some cool summer tunic tops or - heaven forbid - aprons and whatnot to give away as Christmas presents...I am thinking of making a jacket.

Those peter pan collared jackets really appeal to me, but I have to find one that doesn't go all the way up to one's chin, which is a sure way get that no-neck look.
So here are some patterns that I'm considering:

New Look 6852 (the pinky coloured one at the bottom)

















New Look 6736 (the shorter one)


Vogue 8300 (the green one)

Vogue 8623

Actually, Simplicity 4412 would be perfect - but the shop that sells Simplicity patterns is too far to get to in my lunch break, and anyway it's out of print :-(
(which is why this is the only image I could find for it in the five minutes I gave myself)

My wallet thanks me for dithering

It's supposed to be a Libran characteristic to swing from one extreme to another (thereby achieving balance overall), and I wonder whether this explains why I splash out on $360 boots one day, but will refrain from buying a beautiful bit of fabric at $12 per metre; why I spent a couple of hundred bucks on concert tickets to David Byrne for the boy last Christmas, but this year am thinking of just getting him a joke apron.

The boy often tut-tuts me if we are out shopping together and I can't decide whether I want something badly enough to actually buy it. But I reckon such indecisive behaviour has probably save us tons of money over the years (making up for when I have cost us tons of money...).

Anyway, we have started the ball rolling on the getting of Christmas gifts for TLM - I got her several tubes of acrylic paints so that she can colour her skin and clothes...and maybe make a few marks on paper while she's at it. I plan to decorate a box to put them in (she loves containers), so she will always have a nice container for her painting gear.

Does anyone know how to paint a fairy?