Bag-Ception

So here's the skinny. I like crafts. I craft all the time. I'm not so secretly crafty. And thus is my life while I am home. I have been attempting to work on my scrapbook from Rome (you know, the reason why I started the blog thing in the first place) and it's been an adventure. But there's a point when I can't do no mo pictures. So I decided to pick up something a little more mindless, albeit conscious.  Let me explain.

Michelle (you know that girl) said that she was going to knit some plastic bags together to make a super bag. And I'm thinking, "Huh? I couldn't have heard that right." But then she just looked at me like, "Did I stutter? I'm knitting plastic bags to make a super bag."

Wait for it... Wait for it. Yup. Mind blown.

The goal is to take all of the grocery bags that you annoyingly stuff into corners and then plan to reuse, but usually forget because no one looks in corners for bags every time you decide to go to the store. So you just end up having these mounds of should be reused, sculpted, or donated bags that look lonely and unloved and dingy in the corners.

The process works like this. You cut these unloved crinkle-wads into long strips of super thin plastic and then ball them up as you would yarn. Then once you amass enough of a ball (and/or clean out those corners) (That's where I put that!) (Yum, Halloween candy), you knit. That simple. You know, except for that part where you spend awkward mindless hours cutting apart bags to the strange looks of your friends (or those friends you would have if you didn't spend your Friday nights cutting apart plastic bags).

But here's what I've learned: This could be really cool. So far (and I only have a portion of the base of the bag) it looks sort of legit, and could end up the envy of every Environment conscious pseudo hippie I pass on the street (see, I told you that would make sense later).  I'll be sure to post pictures here when I do finish it, but I'm pleasantly pleased with the reactions I've heard so far (I knit a lot in public.... Hence my single, only child status).

Resounding Message: Go green! Knit more!

Mischief Managed

Hello to all of you ghouls, goblins, sparkly vampires, and generally strange persons!

Halloween in Italy. A strange event indeed. My first thought was that it was going to be something along the lines of-completely shunned. But then, the closer we got to this Hallowed date, little things in random stores began cropping up. Things like, pumpkins, and witch figurines, and general oranginality (just embrace it). Then, as I began noticing other things, like whole stores suddenly converted/swapped into Halloween stores. Now, I'm not sure if that is strictly for all of the tourists that are floating around who would be more than thrilled to find their costume in an Italian store, or if there is a legitimate native demand for such things, but I throughly enjoyed it.

Then today, though I didn't notice anything much different than say, what goes on in Rome on the 30th of October, by about 4 this afternoon, there were some interesting characters seeping up through the cobblestone cracks. As Molly and I sat drinking our coffee at a local cafe, there were all kinds of costumed persons walking about. Granted, most of them were under the age of 10, but they're real people too!  And none of them were in the detailed, specific kinds of costumes that we tend to see wandering around cul-de-sacs during the witching hour with their hollow pumpkin bags bruising their shins.  These were more of the, it's Halloween so I should wear something fun kind of thing. For instance, instead of a witch wearing a black cloak, green face paint, a hat, and potentially walking with a staff, the Italian version would be something like, a little girl wearing a witches hat. Call it short order creativity, cultural standards, or just the fact that it was about 4, I still felt under dressed.

That's right. In an chickened out attempt to not upset the natives, I thought it best to not wear a costume. Especially after the splash last year of dressing up as Kate. That was a good time. But don't you worry! I'm already brainstorming for next year. And thus far those plans are top secret. I will tell you that I had considered being the Leaning Tower of Pisa for Halloween this year, but just walking around tilted to one side didn't seem like the most obvious choice, and far too subtle for language barriers. That's ok, Erica and I got a good laugh.

Oh! Other Halloween-esq things that happen in Rome. Birds! They are everywhere!  If you are terrified of anything that flies (I know some of you), then you would have been huddled in a dark room, rocking back and forth, and possibly hyperventilating. I'm not even joking. You've seen videos of ash floating in the air after a huge volcanic eruption? It was like that. Except those black specks that seem to cover the entire sky were birds and not scorched pieces of earth. Not even kidding. They were everywhere. There was not a visible piece of sky that didn't have a giant flock of birds swarming and swooping. To those of you this last paragraph just resigned you to nightmares, I'm sorry. I'll write about pretty ponies and rainbows some other time.

And the last delicious piece of news, Erica is a star!  She managed to make an entire homemade pumpkin pie just for a fall surprise. What a wonderful culinary elf. It was delicious!  Even with homemade whip cream too. Beautiful.

So that leaves me to the last dregs of this post, and you to the rest of your haunted night!  Have Happy Halloween you mischievous masked mongrels!