h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Bon jour! Sounds as if everything is moving right along on your end. Do be careful that you don't strain your hand with the cutting, though. That would be hugely inconvenient.

I tried something new this morning, rolled out of bed at 6:30 and went directly to the gym. I've resisted it because I assumed it would be really busy in the mornings, and the idea of getting on the road so early didn't appeal to me. But since I've not been as consistent about going after work lately as I intended to be, I figured I'd jusy give it a shot and see what it was like. And I *liked* it! It was no busier than at night, got my cardio and weight stuff out of the way and am home with plenty of time to have my coffee and paint and get ready for work. It's actually a *nice* way to come awake, and when I get off work I can go back for a relaxing swim and jacuzzi, which is more like pleasure than obligation, and it'll make my feet and back happy when I do that. The nights I don't I won't feel guilty, either.

Have decided to give the soup diet a rest for a while, as it's getting a wee bit boring at the moment. I think I'll do coffee and raw fruits/veggies for a few days so I can guarantee entering Feb at planned weight. I'm going to try making veggie 'burritos' using red cabbage leaf for the wrap part. That'll be easy to carry in to work and I can make up a bunch of them at one time.

F19585?thread=2122383


az

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I've always preferred exercising in the morning - it really 'energizes' me for the rest of the day. I missed about three days on the bike this past week but I am back on track again. Also don't think I did so well with food&drink last week, but now that biz stuff seems to be working out I think I'll be able to focus more positively on that again. And depending how production/classes work out in February I might also be able to go back to yoga class

Meanwhile, got *three* calls yesterday from women who are interested in sewing! One of them is particularly interesting as she was recommended by Inma from the design school. Apparently she is working elsewhere but is looking for some extra part-time work. And as well as knowing how to sew she also does pattern drafting, which is something she may be able to help me out with now. So I am meeting with her tomorrow evening. And another person is coming for a trial on Wednesday morning. Ana Mari is coming for her 'trial' on Thursday morning, but as Toñi has told me AM sews as well if not better than she does it won't be so much a trial as just instructions on how I put certain things together.

Weird how things are working out. Toñi seems quite interested in doing a lot of sewing for me but there's no way she could have produced 250 garments one month, especiallly as she also has other work coming in. And then Ana Mari *just happened* to have time free in February (otherwise she is booked solid until May). And now possibly this sewer/pattern-maker might work out part-time.

To be honest, having a few reliable part-time people 'on call' might turn out much better (and cheaper) than my original idea of having a permanent full-time person. Also, having them work at their homes (after doing a first sample here for the more 'difficult' styles) frees up space here.

Of course the down-side of things finally working out with sewers is that you won't be getting any more painting smocks . . .

Meeting with Chris tomorrow - thanks again for all the help with the logo.


az

ps
going to see Cirque du Soleil tonight!


az

Oooooooooo I bet the Cirque de Soleil is going to be magical! They were here recently, some friends went to see it. You must tell me all about it! I didn't go as I'm currently being frugal to save for the Adventure.

Tonight I'll be seeing the Russian Philharmonic, which I've been looking forward to. They'll be doing a lot of music which I've not heard before, not just the standard classical 'greats'. Not the same as the circus, but the price was right. Now I've the urge to swoosh into my Performing Aerts Center website and see if they're bringing something circus-y this season. Maybe the Peking Acrobats will be here again and I can catch a matinee for super cheap. I always forget about the matinees, they're under $10.

Have a wonderful evening!

We bought our tickets for the Cirque de Soleil last November - yes, they were ridiculously expensive. But I missed seeing it last time they were here two years ago because 1) I was broke (as usual) and 2) I couldn't find anyone who wanted to go with me. And although I'm quite happy going to the cinema by myself, I just couldn't see going to the circus on my own.

And the thing about living in Seville is that almost NOTHING or NOBODY ever comes here . . . gotta take advantage when this sort of thing happens.

Have spent the afternoon cutting with Noggin. Have an interview with yet another possible sewer at 5pm. Then off to the circus at 7.30 (we're planning to walk there, which will take close to an hour . . .).

Enjoy the Russian Philharmonic!


az

You know, I've been wanting to see the Cirque du Soleil for almost twenty years now . . . and although tonight was fun I can't help but think that I would have enjoyed them better twenty years ago. I dunno, it was just too 'Vegas-y' and pretentious somehow.

The radish and mushroom tapas afterwards were great though!


az

Sorry to hear you weren't totally enthralled with the circus. Perhaps a smaller one would be more what you're looking for.

The Russians were fantabulous! All the music was vibrant and excellently done, and the baritone--Dmitri Hvorostovsky-- was incredible. I'm not very learned about vocalists, but damn, that man could sing! And he was also quite virile and handsome, we all agreed that he'd probably be quite entertaining in a private setting. The conductor was such a jolly Russian, his lighthearted attitude infected the whole performance, and I was fascinated with his hands. They were like birds the way he fluttered them. I was trying to do it, just can't. Probably the people who saw me trying it thought I'd not had my medication, though. They did a bunch of Russian war songs, so lovely. There was one that started like this:

It seems to me that sometimes soldiers
Who didn't come home from the blood-soaked battle fields,
Weren't laid to rest in the earth,
But turned into white cranes...
That ever since that time long ago
They have been flying, calling,
Maybe that's why we often, and sadly,
Fall silent, staring into the sky?

What an image that left in my mind! Wow. And now I'm tired, kinda stiff from working out, and it's starting to get cold again, so time to go crawl under some blankets and snooze.

No, I wasn't looking for something 'smaller', but I think I expected more substance, less fluff. This particular show - Dralion - also used a lot of Chinese acrobats and I'm not really into that stuff (human pyramids, parasol balancing, contortionists). But two of the acts were quite breathtaking and I also enjoyed the 'dralions'. Anyhow, it was a nice evening out and Noggin got to try a fab tapa bar afterwards that he'd never been to before.

Glad you enjoyed your evening too. Beautiful song.

Well, I have one interview this morning and another this evening - the person that came yesterday doesn't look too promising but one of these other two might work out. I also have one class this morning and another this evening. In between I'll be cutting-cutting-cutting.

But first . . . !


az

As long as you already have two excellent sewers you're already double what you were planning for, so it'll all be good. How'd the meeting with Chris go? Is he building the site yet? I want sneak-preview rights when he puts a test site up.

Had a funny thing happen last night, really blew my mind. This week I've been making a little painting in the mornings while listening to the Diane Rheem show on NPR. It's all been about Bush's State of the Union address, and naturally I've been seething, though not yelling back at the radio. So the painting I started is kinda a Mr. Potato-Head clown face with red and blue balls around it, and (though you can't tell right now, as I haven't painted in the pointed fangs or slitty eyeballs) it's an Evil Clown, and it's where I'm putting all my Bush-directed GAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa and frustration at the political parties for being so caught up in Politics that they're ignoring the fact that their principles are ass-upward. Anyway, I thought it was my little secret, what this thing was about. So, last night my friend Erin came over and we were discussing life and doom and plans and analyzing the shit out of everything, and she looks at the painting and asks me if it's Bush! You could have knocked me over with a feather. Kinda creepy (in a nice way) how someone who just *knows* you for so long can pick up on something like that.

Chris cancelled last minute . . . kind of feeling with him as he has a 600 euro deposit from us and has yet to show us anything, nor even stay in touch even though we told him in December that we wanted the page up and running by mid-January. Okay, he says he's been waiting for the logo, but meanwhile, where is he? What's he doing? Anyhoodle . . .

I'm not sure that I wouldn't have guessed Bush if I looked at that painting . . . think I might have.

Not two excellent sewers yet. Ana Mari got most of it right this morning but seriously f***ed up the neckline, so she has taken it home to fix (if possible) then add the skirt and try another bodice from scratch to see if she can get the neckline thing right on her own (she also took my sample with her). She'll bring it all back for me to check on Saturday evening. Funny . . . she said - 'well, how will I know if it's done well enough?' - and I said 'Um, because it will look like it, won't it? - don't you think you can tell as well as I can if it looks right?'. And then she kind of relaxed and laughed and agreed with me.

She doesn't seem as self-assured as Toñi, but I think she sews just as well. So she kept asking me to check every seam and stitch. She kept saying - 'you're the maestra, you tell me if it's okay'. And although I was keeping an eye on things I tried to leave her to do as much on her own as possible. Make her own decisions based on the basic instructions. And when the neckline got all f***ed up I told her first that I was really happy with the bodice and cotton lace inlays but the neckline needed a bit of extra care.

Anyhoodle . . . now drafting the sizes for the next dress for Toñi. She keeps saying - 'give me something easy next time! I want the elastic waist trousers!' - but I think this dress will be easier than the first one and anyhow I trust her to make it perfectly. I told her the other day that it's her own fault - that if she didn't sew so perfectly I'd happily give her all the easy stuff. But I actually need her to do the other stuff that needs extra care, though I will also give her some easy stuff here and there.

Back to work . . .


az

Uh oh. Sounds like it's time to be all *over* Chris' butt so he gets your stuff for you in a timely fashion. Has he even started on the site yet? Did you already give him the text and stuff he needs to work with, or has he not had the material to get going?

I'll take a photo of the painting before I work on it tonight and slip it onto fotki with some other updates this evening, you can tell me what you think.

Getting several items off my projects-to-complete list today, a productive morning so far and now I'll go do a few hours in the gym, get some errands done and then home to paint. I was talking to a friend who's lost 55 pounds over the last year and 1/2, she looks incredible, but told me she has all this skin floating around that's not going to go anywhere, and she *still* wants to drop another 25 pounds. I don't want to get all loose, had better re-define my mental image into Earth Goddess, still bulky but solid as hell. Anyway, I'm not interested in losing as much weight as she did, so it ought to be ok.

Consider myself vindicated! F1931512?thread=539422&post=25007295#p25007295

Eeewwwwwwwww, I also knew someone who lost sh*tloads of weight and at the beach it looked like she was wearing a floppy skin suit - really weird.

At the rate I'm going I'm just going to look like a fat BLOB forever. But at least I don't have wrinkles.

Well, except where my waist used to be . . . michelins!


az

Maybe you can get your money back for that counterfeit performance?

The paintings album is updated with all the new stuff. http://public.fotki.com/BrittaMoG/

I decided to be a slob this afternoon, will go the the gym tonight. It's kinda rainy, have been reading about string theory and dozing in between outbursts from the woman who lives in the apartment complex behind me. She's either on serious drugs or *needs* to be, has the habit of standing right behind my hedge and SCREAMING for extended periods, sometimes at her neighbors, sometimes at her cat, and sometimes she just goes on and on at nobody. It's really bad, this happens at all hours of the day or night and she's often awakened me, even with my windows closed. I'm about to start just calling the police, because she's kinda scary and abusive, don't need her to decide to target me in her rants, and she just won't shut up when asked politely. She has the ugliest, rawest voice I've ever heard on a woman. I guess she must spend several hours daily raving like that, in and outside her apartment. I don't know how her immediate neighbors can stand it.

Hmmm, doubt I would have guessed Bush as the evil clown after all . . . quite like orbs!

Yeah, the Cirque du Soleil dvd's are being sold with the Sunday local paper for 5 euros. Now feeling seriously ripped off to the tune of 55 euros . . .

Sounds like you should call *somebody* about your crazy screaming neighbour. You may even be doing her a favour, you know?

Just had a late night snack of scrambled eggs . . . getting hard to keep track of time with all this new stuff going on. Did I tell you I got a new student who is starting next week? As well as the one that started last week? So it looks like I am pretty much able to squeak by financially for the next couple of months and hopefully also squeeze in all the biz stuff. No yoga though. But my class schedule looks quite 'biz friendly' at the moment, and Noggin is still doing the hospital classes . . . ah well, will go back to thinking about all that tomorrow.

For now . . .

az

A rather frantic email to Chris produced this:

http://www.natural-clothing.com/

Apparently he's been doing a lot of 'behind the scenes' work and the logo was necessary before he could get going on the actual design of the page. Anyhow, he just wrote us a long comforting email letting us know everything he's been doing - we are supposed to be meeting with him on Monday or Tuesday.

The final webpage URL is going to be www.azahar-natural-clothing.com (I think). Not sure I like the hyphens but Chris went ahead and bought 'natural-clothing.com' before checking with us first. I think dots in between the words might have been better.


az

I'm glad to see that he's begun. natural-clothing is not as elegant as azahar.com would be, but that's already taken, anyway. I bet you'll get a lot more traffic directed your way with natural-clothing in the URL.

The woman behind me woke me up again this morning before the sun was even up. *sigh* I went and peeked through the hedge to see what exactly was going *on* back there, she was leaning out her door and yelling at nobody-- stuff about the police coming and lesbians and people pointing weapons at her--and she talks really fast and loud, non-stop, almost-but-not-quite making sense. When I asked her to go inside and do that without waking up the whole neighborhood she told me I was another cop and that she's been there 12 years (not true) and just kept on rattling on. Obviously there's something waaaaay not right about her, but this shit has *got* to stop. Very creepy, as you can't predict what someone like that will do, but 'normal' boundaries are meaningless to her.

I learned what's going on in the complex behind me. The woman is a bona fide ill person with paranoid schizophrenia and multiple personalities. Apparently the mental health center in whose care she is finds it cheaper to rent apartments for their patients than keep them institutionalized, so they let them go and act up until the neighbors Baker Act them or the police haul them away. Apparently they've got 3 of these sick people back there, the other two are so doped up they don't even know who they are half the time and the worst they do is wander around the streets in their nighties. All the sane people have moved out of that complex due to the disruptions now. What a mess. I can't *believe* what the mental health center is doing is legal.

Anyway, on the happy side, I got to see Julio Bocca on his final Boccatango tour last night. Wow. That man has incredible physical control, and is welcome to worship at my altar any time. It was an awesome show, had no idea that tango was originally a dance performed by men, and it was really neat. They had two women in the troupe who were amazing as well, some stellar singers and a good band, so it was all-around brilliant.

Slept in late this morning since I was awakened several times with the yelling last night and went to the gym but didn't make jazz brunch today. Will get some painting in this afternoon, and my neighbor has offered to help me (finally)fix the window on my truck that blew out during the hurricane. The plastic sheeting and duct tape *has* to go.

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I can't believe it is either. Presumably they must have some sort of license to do this. A friend/student of mine (a doctor in his late fifties) is having a similar problem with an 'old age home' company that has bought two flats in his building and are using them as residences. Meanwhile, from what Javier tells me, it doesn't sound like the rooms these poor souls are living in are adequate, nor is their care. His concern isn't so much about the 'old folks' being disruptive, more that they aren't receiving proper care.

Nice you got to see some proper tango. I also didn't know it was a dance originally performed by men. The bits of tango I have seen all include scantily clad women who drape themselves all over the men.

Anyhoodle, thanks for taking my in stride. Sometimes it just helps to *let it all out*, but I can also understand that it doesn't make for the most pleasant reading . . .

Things here are moving along with production. The third sewer is coming tomorrow morning for her 'trial'. I've decided to give her the more easy styles to work with. As she has to work here (she doesn't have a serger at home) it will mean organising stuff as I need both tables up to cut and will have to put one down for her to sew.

The two sewers I have now - sewing at their places - seem very capable of doing this without me having to oversee every stitch they make. In fact, Toñi brought back the first batch yesterday - the twelve fairy dresses. I have to say I wasn't totally pleased with some of the top-stitching - in fact, I may have to rip out and re-do some of it myself to suit my personal standards. But the poor woman spent over three hours on each dress and I was paying her at our previously agreed-upon two and a half hour rate per garment. We've now agreed that the next time she makes the fairy dress that I will sew in all the cotton lace inlay myself before giving them to her to make up. Well, trial and error . . .

The *very good thing* is that Toñi is still keen on making up the stuff. And tomorrow her friend Ana Mari will bring me a sample of the other lace inlay dress she finished at home. She actually did quite fine with the inlay, but the neckline went all wonky. So she said she would take it home, try to 'repair' the neckline and then make up another one from scratch to show me.

Meanwhile, I am working on the patterns - grading them into the various sizes that fit into my size chart. And trying not to kick myself TOO hard for not having done all this two months ago. But two months ago I hadn't met Inma, and it's one of her contacts who says she can help me make up some 'basic pattern blocks' for body, sleeve, pants (I can also use the pant block for skirts). This woman, Chabeli, says she can make up the basic blocks in each size following my measurement chart, so that for future patterns I will always have these blocks to follow.

The stupid thing is that - SOMEWHERE - I have basic blocks for a 'medium' body, sleeve and skirt/pants, which I made years ago with my friend and *pattern-maker extraordinaire* Patricia when I was taking pattern-making classes with her. But I have no idea where they are! Trust me, I've turned the whole flat upside down trying to find them! And Patricia is now living in Argentina. Anyhow, having the blocks graded into the four sizes will help a lot for future stuff so I think it's a good idea to hire Chabeli to do this.

In any case, we are going to end up with at least a dozen styles out of the 20-25 I have going to present come March 1st - when we will 'go live' on the internet. Meaning we will have the basic stock made up for those styles - twelve of each style: 2S, 4M, 4L, 2XL. And then we can add things as they get produced as well as work on getting the other styles 're-stocked' as they sell. Gaaaa - *if* they sell!

To wit, we've had to order in advance a second amount of production material to arrive here at the beginning of March. It takes them about six weeks to make up the linen for us. And - so far - they've always been late in delivering. But . . . one step at a time.

Anyhow, just a bit (?) of a ramble about WHAT IS GOING ON. Now I have to go and finish grading and cutting some stuff for the new person coming tomorrow.

Gaaaaaaaaaa!


az

Sounds like LOTS is going on! I wouldn't worry about not having all the styles out there right off the bat, either. In a way you could really work it to your advantage, too. Have Chris put in a click-though email button that'll auto send people's addys to you even if they don't place an order, and create an email account specifically for that. The offer to notify them of new styles ought to tempt them and you could ask for suggestions as to what they're looking for but can't find.

Are you planning to contact some smaller shops to see if they want to carry a limited selection from your line? I bet you could do some great niche selling that way, especially if you went for places that aren't specifically clothing shops.