Quilting Fever and the Zombie Apocalypse

It’s a sickness really.  What started out as acquiring a skill turned into a hobby turned into an obsession.  Let's face it, I can't help myself.  I’m never, ever without at least one quilt in some stage of development.  So even though I’m in the end stages of this queen-sized monster, I still picked up the cutest panel for a baby quilt when we were visiting my sister in Florida. 

I always look for fabric when I'm out of town because we have a dearth of quilting stores in town. There has long been one quilting store, but they prefer to serve people who take their classes, otherwise you may as well be chopped liver.  On top of that, they use only fluorescent lighting so it is almost impossible to select fabrics.  After the last time I was snubbed there, I vowed never return.  That left only the chain store where the fabric quality ranges from so-so to fall-apart. Recently a new quilting store opened up.  Hooray!  

Three days ago, my friend and I decided to check it out.  I was looking for fabric to coordinate with the baby panel, and she was in the planning stages of a quilt for her son.  After my choices had been cut and written up, the clerk mentioned something about zombie fabric.

My ears perked to attention.  When one’s daughter is a neuroscientist, the concept of something that eats brains is pretty darn exciting.  [Although if you read a previous blog post, you may recall that my Perfect Grandson Alan has informed us that, “Zombies don’t eat your brains; they just punch you in the nose.  (All Good Zombies Go to Devon, July 20, 2013.)]  I was revved:  zombie fabric! 

Unfortunately I’d used my turn with the stupid baby fabric, and I had to be nice to my friend as she began her design.  I tried to focus, but, hey, zombie fabric!  Once we’d finished with her pattern, my turn again!  There they were, bolts of the most adorable zombies you ever saw.  Since my friend is nicer than I am (hi, Deborah), she coached and coordinated to my heart’s content. 

Home I came.  The queen quilt lurked over my shoulder so I made a pact with it.  I’ll quilt on pink and green in the evenings, but my days are reserved for zombies! 

Now, what pattern?  In the store I was thinking squares and sashing, but when I got home, I remembered several years ago seeing on TV an off-kilter quilt block. What could be better for zombies?  Onto the internet I went.  I found a couple of examples of the finished blocks, but the actual pattern does not seem to exist.  That means each block will be a lurching experiment which is fine because that is absolutely right for zombies.. 

Brainsssss 
(While the outside of the block is square, 
I felt the zombie block needed to be askew.)

Once I decided on the pattern, I realized I was short on one of the fabrics, so yesterday I ran back to the store and bought more of it.  Yesterday evening while I was dutifully quilting the flower garden (Flowers?  Who cares about flowers?), I obsessed over the zombie pattern and decided to have the blocks sashed by a sort of green cabbage fabric and surrounded by walking zombies.  I panicked realizing I might be short on another two fabrics and could use a bit more security on a third.  That's a lot of pressure because you never know when hundreds of people will converge on the quilt shop and buy up all the fabric you want.  Noooo!

The thought of driving yet again to the quilt store again was a bit daunting, but still, a quilter’s gotta do what a quilter’s gotta do. 

The zombie apocalypse has begun.

All Good Zombies Go To Devon

Our daughter taught a course in Portugal for three weeks after which our son-in-law flew off to meet her in Rome.  We babysat.  I’m sure there’s something wrong with this picture, but I can’t quite put my finger on what.  Nah, we were happy to have the Perfect Grandchildren to ourselves for so long, and, truthfully, they behaved very well.  I will tell you, however, that we agreed to baby sit only if Stephanie signed them up for those most beautiful of words in the English language:  “day” and “camp.”

On the way to camp one morning, we were talking about books.  I had given Suzie The Light Princess by George MacDonald and told her that he also wrote one of my favorite books when I was her age, At The Back of the North Wind and how it ends up being sad but not sad.  Suzie asked for further explanation.

 

 “Do you remember what a metaphor is, Suzannah?  It’s when one thing stands for something else.  The boy in the story, Diamond, is happy, but they are poor, and he has a hard life, just like the North Wind blows hard and cold in the winter.  When Diamond visits the country at the back of the North Wind, it is warm and beautiful and nice.  He has enough to eat.  At the end of the book, he goes there to stay: the metaphor is that he has gone to heaven.  It's odd for the main character a children's book to die, but even though it's sad, you’re also kind of happy for Diamond.

And then Alan led us off on a philosophical trajectory.

Alan:  What's heaven? 

Me:  A lot of people believe you go to heaven after you die.  It’s a beautiful place, and everyone is happy.  I personally do not believe in heaven, but a lot of people do.” 

Suzannah: I believe in heaven. 

Alan:  I don’t believe in heaven.  I believe in . . . Devon.  Devon is a place where monsters live.  (He happily informed us) I am a monster.  When you and Suzie die, you will go to heaven, but (with no small amount of satisfaction) I will go to Devon.

Our next profound conversation took place while Suzie was off at the big camp 4^th grade sleepover.  Not wanting Alan, a rising first-grader, to feel he was missing anything, we let him choose a special restaurant for dinner.  His preference?  Dairy Queen.  While we ordered, he flipped through their cake book (yes, we have to look at EVERY cake.)

His little fingers paused at a cake showing the Grim Reaper standing by an open grave.  It was embossed with large black letters R.I.P   (I don’t know about you, but I wonder what might be the occasion for such a cake.)

Alan:  What’s R.I.P.?

Yeah, you try to explain that to a five-year-old.

I will say that I am often amazed at the amount of trivia Steve and I have amassed between us.  I explained what R.I.P meant and why it’s on tombstones.  Alan was also interested in the figure in the black robe. 

Steve told him that the Grim Reaper originated in the Middle Ages (no, I’m sure Alan has no idea what the Middle Ages are.  Thank goodness he didn’t ask.) during the Bubonic Plague which was a sickness that made a lot of people die back then.  (Since his other grandfather died, it has been well established that Papa and I are NEVER going to die.)  We talked about how back then a farmer used a scythe to reap, that is cut down, grain, so the Grim Reaper uses a scythe to reap souls when people die.  Yeah, you try explaining what and where a soul is to a five-year-old.  That was the first thing he wanted to know.  Next question?

Yes, after the Grim Reaper comes, people can still turn into zombies.  (What the heck, follow the logic, and you'll come to that conclusion, too.)  Alan has an abiding interest in zombies and is well informed about them.  He told us that zombies do NOT east people’s brains.  No, they punch you in the nose.  That is what zombies do, in case you didn’t know.

Steve talked about how the Asian rats carried the fleas that carried the plague bacteria came with goods along the Silk Route. By the time he explained what the Silk Route as and I added the information that the plague died out partly because the Asian rats were overrun by the big Norwegian rats, on which the fleas didn’t thrive, well by then, we were talking to each other.  Alan was pretty much enthralled contemplating zombies, as you do while eating your ice cream at DQ.  While he was deep in thought, a lovely lady stopped by the table and said, “What a good little boy you are, sitting here eating your dinner.  You were so quiet, we hardly knew you were here.” 

Thank you, Grim Reaper and your zombies. 

I was pretty sure, however, that this topic would come back after lights out to bite me.  Sure enough, at 8:30, a little voice called from the top of the stairs, “Nana, I want to talk about something.  It’s about the Gwim Weaper.”

In the end, he decided the Grim Reaper was not a monster.  (Alas, I thought, when he dies, he will not go to Devon.)  He is really just a boy in a Halloween costume.  Alan saw a Halloween costume once that was a scary ghost with bones all over its face that really frightened him.  The Grim Reaper is the like that. 

Next came the what-else-can-I-milk-this-for portion of the evening.  “Nana, will you sing me another song?”

Of course I will.  Of course I’ll sing my Perfect Grandson another song.  How about arousing lullaby of “Nobody loves me/Everybody hates me/I’m gonna eat some worms”? 

I left him to giggle himself to sleep.

The New Zombies

Once vampires were all the rage.  Now it’s zombies. But what about poltergeists? Poltergeists are going to be the new zombies. Where are all the poltergeists, you ask?  Well, one is hanging out at my house, and I can prove it.

A few weeks ago, I moved the White Out from the kitchen peninsula drawer to one near the calendar. I have used it since I moved it, but last time I dug for it, it was not there. “Obviously, Ann,” you say, “after you used it, you put it somewhere else and forgot where.”  Fair enough, but it’s not in the old drawer or the new. It’s not in my desk drawer, and it’s not out on the porch, either. Why would it be on the porch? I don’t know; that’s not the point. The point is, it’s not anywhere!

Next:  my favorite Christmas CD is the one where John Denver sings with the Muppets. (Were you under the impression I was a sophisticated, worldly-wise woman? Yeah, that’ll show you.) Every Christmas, I take the Muppets out and listen to them. I especially love Carol for a Christmas Tree. I have no idea why it’s called that; it’s not about a Christmas tree. There’s no tree mentioned in it at all. The song is not even about Christmas. It’s more Zen Philosophy Carol. It has a lovely, soft melody, and the words are:

It’s in every one of us to be wise,
Find your heart, open up both your eyes,
We can all know everything without ever knowing why
It’s in every one of us, by and by (by and by).

“Open up both your eyes,” that’s my very favorite line. It’s literal and metaphorical and lyrical all in one. I keep the CD on the bookcase with the other Christmas CDs, but this year, it was not there. I opened up both my eyes and really looked, but it wasn’t anywhere. Furthermore, I do not believe someone walked into my house, looked behind the easy chair on the bottom bookcase shelf and boosted the Muppets. The only logical explanation is a poltergeist.

Okay, at first I was kidding about the poltergeist. Like you, I figured that I misplaced things or loaned them to someone or did something with them.. Then, just before we left to visit my sister, I checked my address book for her cell phone number. I have a ring-bound address book so the open pages will sit flat on a table while you read the numbers and dial. I swear when I looked up a number earlier that morning, I had absolutely no issues. Now the Bs were not there. No, wait, the pages were rearranged. First was IJ/KL/MN/OP/QR/ST, then AB/CD/EF/GH and then, UV/WX/YZ. Wha?

Whatever you thought about the White Out and the CD, you can’t explain the alphabet mix-up, can you? No one can, and so I posit the following.

IF I put the white out and the CD away, but they disappeared,
And
IF I was not the one to rearrange the address book pages,
THEN there is a poltergeist in my house.

I call him Pookie, and he is the first of the new zombies.

Zombie Turning

Dear Followers,
     I know, I know I promised Squirrel Splat next, and I have it all written, but then I got notification of a scary story contest from Fantasy Island Book Publishing (https://www.facebook.com/questions/282275231793975/?qa_ref=qd), and I couldn't resist.  I've never written a scary story before, at least not that I remember (which means not before last month), so this is my maiden voyage.  I hope you enjoy it!  Oh, and please go to the address above and vote for the one you think is the best story (mine, mine, mine! for Pete's sake).  Voting runs Oct 23 - 30.
     Oh, and don't worry:   porch season is over.

Zombie Turning

I was reading the newspaper on the quiet of the screened-in porch. The day was calm, the sky that silky blue before the first cold snap of fall. A blur flashed in the corner of my vision, and a something, no, a person darted in through the screen door. I startled up, barely able to take in much of his -- her? -- appearance. Filthy jeans and a blood-stained shirt made me instinctively pull back. Pasty flesh, bruised eyes, a look of incomprehension on a slack mouth. It spring at me, teeth barred, of all things.

Buster, my black lab, ran from the house through the open, sliding glass door, growling and barking. When I came to consciousness, Buster had chased it off, I assume as both were gone. The attack itself was a blank in my mind.

Obviously the creature had knocked me to the ground. I couldn’t collect my thoughts. I put a hand to my head, and it came away bloody. It had either whacked me on the head with a rock or something, or thrown me to the ground because I had a nasty bump. My arm ached, too, and I saw the marks of a good-sized jaw incised on my upper arm. I’d been out long enough for the rivulets of blood down to my hand to have caked. The damned thing bit me! But why? Why, why, why?

I live in a quiet neighborhood. We have manicured yards. We have old trees. What we don’t have is a weird crime problem.

I blanked out again. When my mind cleared, or semi-cleared really, I was still on the floor. I must be concussed. There’d been a lot about concussions in the news lately; all I had to do was stay awake but quiet. Jay would come home from work in a bit, not more than a few hours, whatever time it was now. He would take me to the emergency room if I needed to go.

I pushed myself up cautiously to sit in the Adirondack chair and rested a moment. Buster came back, up to the screen door. My stomach growled. For a bleary second, I thought about taking a bite out of Buster. Okay, my head was worse than I thought; that was just sick. I leaned over to push open the door. Instead of rushing eagerly through, he dropped his to his forepaws, his tail low and still. He growled.
“Good dog,” I croaked, but he yowled and fled. I must really be a mess.

My scratchy throat emphasized that I was thirsty. I thought I could make it inside to the kitchen for some water. I should stave off dehydration no matter how difficult getting to the sink might be. I edged through the sliding glass door and along the wall. I was feeling pretty dizzy, and if I had to, I could simply slide down the wall without risking hitting my head again. I made it all right, though, and turned on the tap, the water streaming. I looked at it puddled in my cupped hand. Then I didn’t feel like drinking after all.

My stomach growled again. I turned slowly, trying to keep the slight equilibrium I had, and opened the refrigerator door to survey the contents. I thought maybe some yogurt, something that would slide down easily. No, that wasn’t appealing. I had some hamburger in there. I pulled the package and stuck a fingernail into the plastic wrapping, poking at it, but it didn’t look very appetizing, either, its snake-like curls red and dead.

My head was worse now, and I felt my concentration zooming in and out of focus. I thought I’d go wash my face and rest until Jay got home.

The head injury must have done something to my coordination. I was having trouble with my balance as I lurched down the hall and into the bathroom. I held myself up by pushing on the counter, and glanced into the mirror.

For the flicker of an eye, I thought it was the creature staring back, the creature that bit me. My eyes were bruised and blank, my skin ashen. My stomach growled again. My head seemed buzzier but my needs clearer. Why was I standing here? I was confused. I was so hungry. Jay would be home soon. I smiled; the image in the mirror grimaced back.