The Peg used to smile as she watched me work, and call me picayunish. I took it as a compliment, which is how it seemed she meant it at the time. Having outgrown the desire to get something done in a hurry, by the time I was out of grammar school I just wanted to do things right. I make functional things, and if they aren’t done right I don’t want to use them. That means I just have to look at my goof-ups over and over again, and I don’t really care to do that. Therefore, since it’s silly to swap my time for something useless, it only made sense to slow down and, you know, be picayunish.
“You’re picayunish,” The Peg would smile in my direction, and I’d beam with pride.
In junior high we had picayune as a vocabulary word. It means “of little value or importance; petty.” I still took it as a compliment, because (in my mind) I didn’t think many people would tend to the smallest of details, nor would many be aware that a whole project could become spoiled with just a few misplaced stitches or a crooked line. Besides, The Peg was always smiling when she called me picayunish. That made it a good thing.
In high school, when I heard there was a newspaper published in New Orleans called The Times-Picayune, I took it to mean that their reporters would ferret out the most integral details of a story so that the reader would be able to form his or her own opinion. As it turns out, they named it after a low-value Spanish coin once used in the South, only one of which was required to purchase a copy of the newspaper.
None of this clarifying information makes any difference to me. I stick with my first impression of just about anything, a condition I call Preconceived Notion Sickness. I proudly point out the “smallest of picayune details” in my work, giving each my full review as every project progresses. I love being picayunish.
A Preconceived Notion Sickness event took place when I was running a bath at The Dot’s this summer. It seemed to take forever to get the water to warm up, so I was forced to wake The Dot and asked if I had to run the “hot” for a long time before it complied. She mumbled something angry that sounded like a cross between “I’m sleeping!” and “Yes!”, so I returned to the bathroom. That water never did get warm, and I had to take a cold bath. I washed my hair, too, which made a mighty uncomfy start to the day.
When she became fully conscious, The Dot told me I had the handle pointed to “cold”. Oh. I was pointing the rounded top of the handle/dial to “hot” instead of the handle itself. I thought that was the way it worked. It never occurred to me that I could have been wrong, opting instead for the only logical explanation: “We’re out of hot water.” As I said, I took a cold bath. And washed my hair. In cold water.You trying being me for awhile. It’s not as easy as I make it look.
I can hold on for years, accepting erroneous “truths”. I still hem “backwards”, because that’s the way it looked to me when I watched The Peg do it. The garment gets hemmed, and since that was the starting goal, it works for me.
I have rewritten countless song lyrics from my youth. You probably remember the popular, Hey, Say Louise! by the Beatles. It goes, “Hey, say Louise! I luh-uh-uh-uh-uhve you! Hey, say Louise, is not enough to show I care!” I’m told some people call it Eight Days a Week. Whatever.
In time, Webster will see it my way, and I have no doubt we’ll see the amended definitions for “picayune” and “picayunish”. They will read:
Pic·a·yune (pĭk'ee-yūn') adj. Precisely and proficiently done. Something made with skill and expertise.
Picayunish (pĭk ee ·yūn'ish) adj. Taking great care and concern to see that something is done just right, and of a quality to endure and be admired for generations.
Time for me to go now. I have to pull the shades up. It’s cloudy today, and I want my houseplants to get some indirect sunlight…
Copyright © Kari E.O. Burns August 2006
KEOB
I bet I get twenty-five fill-out-this-survey-and-pass-it-on e-mails every year. I haven’t filled one out since 1997, when the first one hit my inbox, because, frankly, who the heck cares about all this stuff, anyway?
One came in today, and I decided to fill it out and send it on. The accompanying directions say that each person who receives this e-mail must send it on, and send it back to the person who sent it to them. I decided to comply. I wonder who, if anyone, will even read the dang thing, let alone fill it out and send it back to me. In case you’re wondering, here’s what I said:
1. First name? Kari.
2. Were you named after anyone? Kari Solem, a little old Norwegian-born lady who pronounced it “carry”.
3. When did you last cry? It’s hard to keep track – I’m a BIG crybaby.
4. Do you like your handwriting? Yes, when I take my time.
5. What is your favorite lunchmeat? Mesquite-roasted turkey, deli-style, but right now I’m on a hummus-and-pita-bread kick.
6. Kids? 2 – 3 if you count the baby, Hubba.
7. If you were another person, would you be friends with you? Absolutely! I’d be tempted to form a fan club of my admirers!
8. Do you have a journal? No, but I blog. I’m so 21st Century.
9. Do you use sarcasm a lot? I suppose what you really mean is, “Are you a snotty person?” Well, yeah. I suggest you put on the daddy pants and take it like an adult!
10. Do you still have your tonsils? No.
11. Would you bungee jump? I cannot think of a single scenario that would make me think bungee jumping is a good idea. (My sincere apologies to all of those who, before reading this, thought I would die for them.)
12. What is your favorite cereal? Raspberry granola from the Co-op.
13. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Not always. Sometimes I have the servants do it for me.
15. What is your favorite ice cream? Peanut butter and dark chocolate.
16. Shoe size: 6-7.
17. What is your favorite color? Although I’m not consciously aware of it, it must be all shades of purple. My dang house is painted purple, for crying out loud.
18. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? When I don’t have enough energy to do all the things I want to do.
19. Who do you miss the most? Morgan & Tad (living), and my mommy (The Peg).
20. Do you want everyone to send this back to you? I’ll be amazed if anyone even reads this.
21. What color pants and shoes are you wearing right now? Very light tan shorts, black spangley flip-flops.
23. What are you listening to right now? The grandfather clock my dad (The Barn) made me, ticking away.
24. If you were a crayon, what color would you be pink/green? Pink – hot pink – with glitter.
25. Favorite smells? Cake baking.
26. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Hubba.
27. First thing you notice about people you are attracted to? Simultaneously, their senses of dignity and humor.
28. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes!
29. Favorite drink? Lately, it’s been fresh-squeezed limeade.
30. Favorite sport? Quilting.
31. Hair color? White/gray, hidden beneath a lovely blend of light, medium, and dark blonde.
32. Eye color? Hazel.
33. Do you wear contacts? I just started wearing them again more often, but not all the time.
34. Favorite food? Cake Buzz.
35. Last movie you watched? I have no idea, but it could have been ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou” with the Ormords. The Tootsie Chicks are having a film festival, though, so I'll be watching something!
36. What color of shirt are you wearing? Black.
37. Summer or winter? Summer, with the long daylight hours.
38. Hugs or Kisses? Hugs, because you can exchange those with everybody.
39. Favorite dessert? Same as #34.
40. Who is most likely to respond? I’m amazed I’M responding!
41. Least likely to respond? No pressure, gang. Don’t worry about it…
42. What books are you reading? An Ava Gardner biography and a book called What Jesus Meant (which sounds terribly presumptuous, but it turns out it isn’t – in fact, it seems to be exactly what I thought Jesus was saying, which was, among other things, love each other and stop thinking some of our sins make us unsuitable to be preachers and believers – dang hypocrites!).
43. What's on your mouse pad? I don't need to use one, but if I did, I have a nifty one my brother Neil made up for us with all our family’s names on it for our family reunion this summer!
44. What did you watch last night on TV? Court TV, “Power, Privilege, and Justice”. I know. I’m sick.
45. Favorite sounds? The ocean, party/restaurant noises, reggae/R & B/jazz/indie music, and the one I am waiting to hear, “You have just won $1,000,000,000!”
46. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Beatles, but really Ricky Nelson, who died before he had the chance to marry me. (Hubba is cool with this. He's had to live with it for 30 years.)
47. The furthest you have been from home? I don’t know, but I’ve never been off this continent.
48. Do you have a special talent? I make the world's most awesome cakes and quilts, and yet still bear the remarkably uncanny ability to be completely humble about doing both of them.
49. When and where were you born? December 27, 19-none-of-your-dang-business, at St. Joseph Hospital in Ottumwa, Iowa.
50. If you won a round trip ticket to anywhere in the world, where would you go? I don’t care, as long as Hubba can go with me. He is my favorite companion, and it’s never as much fun when he isn't with me.
I can be so wordy.
Copyright © Kari E.O.Burns, August 2006
One came in today, and I decided to fill it out and send it on. The accompanying directions say that each person who receives this e-mail must send it on, and send it back to the person who sent it to them. I decided to comply. I wonder who, if anyone, will even read the dang thing, let alone fill it out and send it back to me. In case you’re wondering, here’s what I said:
1. First name? Kari.
2. Were you named after anyone? Kari Solem, a little old Norwegian-born lady who pronounced it “carry”.
3. When did you last cry? It’s hard to keep track – I’m a BIG crybaby.
4. Do you like your handwriting? Yes, when I take my time.
5. What is your favorite lunchmeat? Mesquite-roasted turkey, deli-style, but right now I’m on a hummus-and-pita-bread kick.
6. Kids? 2 – 3 if you count the baby, Hubba.
7. If you were another person, would you be friends with you? Absolutely! I’d be tempted to form a fan club of my admirers!
8. Do you have a journal? No, but I blog. I’m so 21st Century.
9. Do you use sarcasm a lot? I suppose what you really mean is, “Are you a snotty person?” Well, yeah. I suggest you put on the daddy pants and take it like an adult!
10. Do you still have your tonsils? No.
11. Would you bungee jump? I cannot think of a single scenario that would make me think bungee jumping is a good idea. (My sincere apologies to all of those who, before reading this, thought I would die for them.)
12. What is your favorite cereal? Raspberry granola from the Co-op.
13. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Not always. Sometimes I have the servants do it for me.
15. What is your favorite ice cream? Peanut butter and dark chocolate.
16. Shoe size: 6-7.
17. What is your favorite color? Although I’m not consciously aware of it, it must be all shades of purple. My dang house is painted purple, for crying out loud.
18. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? When I don’t have enough energy to do all the things I want to do.
19. Who do you miss the most? Morgan & Tad (living), and my mommy (The Peg).
20. Do you want everyone to send this back to you? I’ll be amazed if anyone even reads this.
21. What color pants and shoes are you wearing right now? Very light tan shorts, black spangley flip-flops.
23. What are you listening to right now? The grandfather clock my dad (The Barn) made me, ticking away.
24. If you were a crayon, what color would you be pink/green? Pink – hot pink – with glitter.
25. Favorite smells? Cake baking.
26. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Hubba.
27. First thing you notice about people you are attracted to? Simultaneously, their senses of dignity and humor.
28. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes!
29. Favorite drink? Lately, it’s been fresh-squeezed limeade.
30. Favorite sport? Quilting.
31. Hair color? White/gray, hidden beneath a lovely blend of light, medium, and dark blonde.
32. Eye color? Hazel.
33. Do you wear contacts? I just started wearing them again more often, but not all the time.
34. Favorite food? Cake Buzz.
35. Last movie you watched? I have no idea, but it could have been ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou” with the Ormords. The Tootsie Chicks are having a film festival, though, so I'll be watching something!
36. What color of shirt are you wearing? Black.
37. Summer or winter? Summer, with the long daylight hours.
38. Hugs or Kisses? Hugs, because you can exchange those with everybody.
39. Favorite dessert? Same as #34.
40. Who is most likely to respond? I’m amazed I’M responding!
41. Least likely to respond? No pressure, gang. Don’t worry about it…
42. What books are you reading? An Ava Gardner biography and a book called What Jesus Meant (which sounds terribly presumptuous, but it turns out it isn’t – in fact, it seems to be exactly what I thought Jesus was saying, which was, among other things, love each other and stop thinking some of our sins make us unsuitable to be preachers and believers – dang hypocrites!).
43. What's on your mouse pad? I don't need to use one, but if I did, I have a nifty one my brother Neil made up for us with all our family’s names on it for our family reunion this summer!
44. What did you watch last night on TV? Court TV, “Power, Privilege, and Justice”. I know. I’m sick.
45. Favorite sounds? The ocean, party/restaurant noises, reggae/R & B/jazz/indie music, and the one I am waiting to hear, “You have just won $1,000,000,000!”
46. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Beatles, but really Ricky Nelson, who died before he had the chance to marry me. (Hubba is cool with this. He's had to live with it for 30 years.)
47. The furthest you have been from home? I don’t know, but I’ve never been off this continent.
48. Do you have a special talent? I make the world's most awesome cakes and quilts, and yet still bear the remarkably uncanny ability to be completely humble about doing both of them.
49. When and where were you born? December 27, 19-none-of-your-dang-business, at St. Joseph Hospital in Ottumwa, Iowa.
50. If you won a round trip ticket to anywhere in the world, where would you go? I don’t care, as long as Hubba can go with me. He is my favorite companion, and it’s never as much fun when he isn't with me.
I can be so wordy.
Copyright © Kari E.O.Burns, August 2006
Project Visionaries
I fancy myself a project visionary. Sounds grand, doesn’t it?
Project visionaries are people who have more ideas inside their heads, bumping into each other, than they have time to finish them. Being a project visionary requires tools. Being a project visionary means you are never bored or without something to do. Being a project visionary means you have to find ways to separate each project from the other, so that when you stumble upon an unfinished one, you will have enough clues from what’s stored with it to remember the great vision that got it started. Being a project visionary requires dozens of bags and boxes.
My penchant for notions is legendary, but organizing the space around me brings even greater acclaim. I can find something where I left it when my workspace is messy, but I prefer to keep things tucked away in their proper places – notions and threads in little drawers, fabric by color in bigger drawers, stencils in low flat Rubbermaids®, acrylic rulers along a bookcase, and so forth.
When I get one project going, however, I like to keep that all together. If I buy fabric for a quilt, I will prepare it, and then store it in an appropriately-sized box, usually with clear sides, so I will know at a glance what is there. Once the project is started, it will stay in the box, in its various stages of completion, ready for the whim that brings me back to it.
Projects that are on my current to-do radar screen get special treatment. I will look through my assortment of little bags and big bags, and select those that fit the need. It’s fun! Notions go in one little bag, some threads in another, and the larger fabric pieces nestle together with them in the larger, project bag. I usually have three or four project bags sitting in a large basket in my dining room. If I’m on the run, I can grab one and have it along, ready for any free moment during the day.
Hubba has observed this over the years, and he gets it. He appears to have picked up my thready needs by osmosis. What could be interpreted as my quilt-thinking rubbing off on him means, I’ve discovered, that he’s just being thoughtful. He does thoughtful things, devoid of the need to pump up his ego by calling attention to them. If I never notice, he never mentions it, and when I do notice and mention it, he shrugs. I wish I could do that.
For instance, Hubba reads – voraciously. I don’t know how many book clubs he belongs to, but they often send book bags because he’s a member. He donates to the craziest things, too, like Colonial Williamsburg, and he’ll get a bag. Once he ordered some stuff from a website, and he got a bag. These, and other, bags haven’t all come at once, but rather, have appeared over the period of years I’ve been quilting. Funny. We didn’t get so many bags before that.
“I got this in Des Moines. It came with some cologne I got T-Man for Christmas. Can you use it?”
“Yeah! Thanks! It’s perfect!”
We were downtown once, at Ridiculous Days, and Hubba spotted a darling little set of three mesh bags, brightly colored, with zippers. “Could you use these?”
I looked his direction. “Uh, yeah! Are there any more?”
Another time, we were passing a stack of Rubbermaid® boxes. Pointing out a set of typical project-sized container, he asked, “Do these look handy to you?”
“Ohmygosh! I LOVE these!” He put several in the cart, as I speculated on what project would go inside.
Little bags, little boxes. Big bags, big boxes. Notions. Threads. Chatelaines. Knitting needles. Thimbles. Fabric. Clever fabrics, and beads, and buttons, and yarns. Project visionaries need an unlimited supply of places to put their tools, their motivations, their inspirations, their projects, their visions.
Project visionaries can get very full of themselves.
But Hubba is the real visionary, and I know one self-proclaimed project visionary who should recognize that it is love and support freeing up her vision. I wonder, Can I catch that by osmosis?
Thanks for making me your project for thirty years, Hubba. Happy Anniversary, you visionary, you!
Copyright © July 31, 2006 Kari E.O. Burns
Project visionaries are people who have more ideas inside their heads, bumping into each other, than they have time to finish them. Being a project visionary requires tools. Being a project visionary means you are never bored or without something to do. Being a project visionary means you have to find ways to separate each project from the other, so that when you stumble upon an unfinished one, you will have enough clues from what’s stored with it to remember the great vision that got it started. Being a project visionary requires dozens of bags and boxes.
My penchant for notions is legendary, but organizing the space around me brings even greater acclaim. I can find something where I left it when my workspace is messy, but I prefer to keep things tucked away in their proper places – notions and threads in little drawers, fabric by color in bigger drawers, stencils in low flat Rubbermaids®, acrylic rulers along a bookcase, and so forth.
When I get one project going, however, I like to keep that all together. If I buy fabric for a quilt, I will prepare it, and then store it in an appropriately-sized box, usually with clear sides, so I will know at a glance what is there. Once the project is started, it will stay in the box, in its various stages of completion, ready for the whim that brings me back to it.
Projects that are on my current to-do radar screen get special treatment. I will look through my assortment of little bags and big bags, and select those that fit the need. It’s fun! Notions go in one little bag, some threads in another, and the larger fabric pieces nestle together with them in the larger, project bag. I usually have three or four project bags sitting in a large basket in my dining room. If I’m on the run, I can grab one and have it along, ready for any free moment during the day.
Hubba has observed this over the years, and he gets it. He appears to have picked up my thready needs by osmosis. What could be interpreted as my quilt-thinking rubbing off on him means, I’ve discovered, that he’s just being thoughtful. He does thoughtful things, devoid of the need to pump up his ego by calling attention to them. If I never notice, he never mentions it, and when I do notice and mention it, he shrugs. I wish I could do that.
For instance, Hubba reads – voraciously. I don’t know how many book clubs he belongs to, but they often send book bags because he’s a member. He donates to the craziest things, too, like Colonial Williamsburg, and he’ll get a bag. Once he ordered some stuff from a website, and he got a bag. These, and other, bags haven’t all come at once, but rather, have appeared over the period of years I’ve been quilting. Funny. We didn’t get so many bags before that.
“I got this in Des Moines. It came with some cologne I got T-Man for Christmas. Can you use it?”
“Yeah! Thanks! It’s perfect!”
We were downtown once, at Ridiculous Days, and Hubba spotted a darling little set of three mesh bags, brightly colored, with zippers. “Could you use these?”
I looked his direction. “Uh, yeah! Are there any more?”
Another time, we were passing a stack of Rubbermaid® boxes. Pointing out a set of typical project-sized container, he asked, “Do these look handy to you?”
“Ohmygosh! I LOVE these!” He put several in the cart, as I speculated on what project would go inside.
Little bags, little boxes. Big bags, big boxes. Notions. Threads. Chatelaines. Knitting needles. Thimbles. Fabric. Clever fabrics, and beads, and buttons, and yarns. Project visionaries need an unlimited supply of places to put their tools, their motivations, their inspirations, their projects, their visions.
Project visionaries can get very full of themselves.
But Hubba is the real visionary, and I know one self-proclaimed project visionary who should recognize that it is love and support freeing up her vision. I wonder, Can I catch that by osmosis?
Thanks for making me your project for thirty years, Hubba. Happy Anniversary, you visionary, you!
Copyright © July 31, 2006 Kari E.O. Burns
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